2 Rants 1 Column

By Adam Quesnell
Contributing Writer

DISCLAIMER: I am sunburnt. I am angry about this. And to be honest, I am being a huge baby about it…the burns are most severe under my arms and whenever I move in a t-shirt it feels like a thousand demons molesting my pores. These feelings may factor into the ragey/rantey/terribly researched bit of writing that is to follow. Also, remember folks, this is a humor column…so if you want me to read any negative e-mail you send, you will have to use the words, “Great Column Adam, You’re the Best” in the subject line as a means of tricking me into reading it. I promise that once I am tricked I will read the entire e-mail and more than likely respond with a flippant hilarious gibe about how you have too much free time on your hands if you are defending the people I am railing against in this column.

Also, these are my opinions and the High Plains Reader or the good people who work there do not support them.

Rant The First: To the people who voted for Fryn’ Pan as “Best Breakfast” in the Best Bets awards this year…HOW COULD YOU? Clearly you hate breakfast. Why do you hate breakfast so much? Quite frankly, I feel bad for your stomach because it probably desires something other than garbage for breakfast, yet you refuse. Rather, if you hate breakfast so much, why would you feel qualified to vote on the category at all? I never get my hair styled by professionals, so when I filled out my best bets ballot, I skipped over the sections regarding hairstylists, and I guess I expected other voters to do the same. Have I typed, “Shame on you” yet? No? Well then, shame on you. Do you work at Fryn’ Pan? Is that it? You must all work at Fryn’ Pan or have stock in the company. Maybe you just like bland scrambled eggs, omelets with limp tasteless peppers, yesterday’s bacon and pancakes so forgettable that…what was I typing about? Exactly.

So sure, I can trash talk people with bad taste for comedic effect until the cows come home, but it would be completely unfair of me to do so without mentioning the breakfast alternative that CLEARLY takes the award for best Breakfast: Cajun Café. Now, I know why Fryn’ Pan actually won, because there is a location downtown. Cajun Café is probably a bit of a jaunt for the average best bets voter who is no doubt riding on a fixed gear bicycle with a PBR hangover and a fresh tattoo of a vintage Nintendo controller drying on their back. Considering these factors, it makes sense that many of you who voted for Fryn’ Pan probably didn’t even know Cajun Café had breakfast because it is out of your limited downtown periphery. Cajun Café’s breakfast absolutely pops. Cajun Café delivers the following and then some: delicious fresh peppers for omelets, light fluffy eggs, bacon that opens up new areas of savory that were heretofore unknown to an unsuspecting diner, crepes covered in fruit so sweet you’d swear it was made of freshly pinched baby cheeks and the crowning achievement—sweet potato biscuits and pancakes. SWEET POTATO PANCAKES. I don’t know if they have sweet potato pancakes at Fryn’ Pan, but if they do they are probably mediocre but close to downtown.

Rant the Second: As for the people who enjoyed Transformers: Dark of the Moon [even children], how dare you? I saw this movie because I like to keep tabs on how little big budget Hollywood producers think of their audience. I am working on a screenplay right now entitled, “You’re all Idiots, Pay to See This,” and I think viewing Transformers: Dark of the Moon really gave me some insight into my target market (I refuse to call it Transformers 3, you must behold the subtitle in all of it’s bloated glory).

The first thing I learned about dumb audience members when watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon was that they respond best to women on screen when said women are posed as though they are washing cars in a cheap catalog hanging in an auto-shop or on a convict’s wall. Director Michael Bay does everything he can to illustrate that actress Rosie Huntington-Whitley has long beautiful legs, which of course we all remember from the Transformers toys which were women with long beautiful legs and fast talking kids who can’t seem to shut up. Oh wait, I just made myself sad by reminding myself that this movie was based on a toy/cartoon show that I loved as a child. Which brings me to my next point…

Dumb audiences don’t care if a film is based on something they loved as a child, especially if that film completely perverts and destroys what made the childhood source material awesome. Now, don’t get me wrong, I understand that these movies aren’t REALLY for adults who loved Transformers as a child; these Transformers movies are made for people who don’t care that their kids don’t have any idea of what is good in the world of toys or movies. I looked at the Transformers toys that are licensed for this film and they look AWFUL. All of the snappy energetic colors and crisp sharp lines of detail from the original toys have been replaced with the pathetic grey mish-mash of overly complicated robotics design, which in my opinion sucks all of the life and fun out of the toys.

Oh yeah, also, the editing of the film makes NO SENSE. Film teachers should use this film as an example in editing classes when they are teaching lessons on, “How You Can Have Zero Respect for Your Audience, Do Very Little Thinking about Editing, and Still Edit a 200 Million Dollar Movie.”

I can safely say that if I saw Transformers: Dark of the Moon when I was 8, I would have asked my dad, “why are they ruining the things I care about, Dad?” To which my father would answer: “because they think we are stupid; wake me up when this is over.”

Adam Quesnell is a stand-up comedian and writer working out of Moorhead, MN. Send feedback to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), follow him on twitter at twitter.com/adamquesnell or visit http://www.adamquesnell.com.