jelliebeers

Last week, I was sick and confined to my parents couch so I watched a bunch of movies on HBO.  Mostly partial movies and most of them tear jerkers.  In one sitting, I watched most of Pearl Harbor (because Josh Hartnett is in it), The Fault In Our Stars and the second half of Titanic.  I think I started watching when the ship started to sinking.  I cried the most watching The Fault In Our Stars.  It wasn’t a good film but I blame the crying partly on PMS.  

I don’t think that Titanic has held up over time.  It’s pretty corny but the gushing water is still pretty cool. The saddest part of the movie isn’t when Jack dies, but the part where the remaining passengers stuck on the ship are submitting to their fate.  There is a mother tucking her children in and an old couple spooning in bed.  I also think the ending is pretty fucked up.  Rose presumably dies and joins Jack in heaven.  Didn’t she have a husband and children in the meantime?  Where the hell are they? She’s going back to a man she knew for only a couple of days?  Maybe I don’t believer in romance or whatever that was.

Anyway, the most important part of the 1997 James Cameron film is obviously the score.  I’m talking about Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”.  Immediately after the film ended, I crept into the basement with my brand new microphone. I had an amplifier that I had bought when I thought I wanted to learn the guitar.  The Marshall amp was extremely excessive for my skill level and it has been sitting in the basement for about… 12 years or so…  It cost about $500 and I’m extremely ashamed that I had my parents buy it for me (along with a low range Fender).  I eventually sold the guitar but no one seemed to want the amp.  My parents wanted to throw it out but I forced them to keep it.  I was finally using it!

I played around with the feedback as if I were some kind of “noise musician”.  Some things sounded sort of cool but it was mostly random, uncontrolled noise and at times I nearly blew out my eardrums.  I stuffed the microphone in my mouth and said things like “This sounds bad” with tons of reverb.  Then I youtubed Titanic’s trademark song.  I tingled and thought, “Wow, I love this song.”  After an hour of fucking around I figured it was time to go back to watching TV (and figured I should stop before someone caught me).  I purchased the song on ITunes for $1.29.  

I paid my dues Celine.