The Harland Highway - 384:PILL POPPING, STANLY KUBRICK TRICKS, HARLAND LIVE STAND UP

Episode Date: March 29, 2012

Harland's live stand up, Director Stanley Kubrick pulls a fast one on us, tooth aches, popping pills, and Harland learns a new language. Marvelous muffin meats!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bing, bang, boom, baby. Welcome to the Harlan Highway, everybody. This is Harlem Williams, your host, your concierge, your dressmaker. I don't know why I'm saying all these things, but it's all 100% true. Welcome to the show. What a show. We're going to be talking about a Stanley Kubrick film. I'm going to rag on a very famous Stanley Kubrick film,

and I'm hauling him out on the carpet for some bad moves he made as a primo director in one of his famous movies. Also, new language. I've learned a new language at night school I'm going to share with you. Do you pop pills? Are you a pill popper? We're going to talk about the phenomenon of modern. and day pill popping and then how about your teeth you ever have a toothache yuck uh they hurt i had one

and i'm going to talk about that and then uh somewhere in the mix today i'm going to play a cut from one of my CDs it's called harlarious and you're going to hear me doing some stand-up comedy live it's a CD that's available at the harlem williams dot com store it's called harlarious we're going to play a clip right for you today on the Harland Highway Welcome to the Harland Highway Relax, get ready to have fun

What we've got here is failure to communicate One cheeseburger with everything coming up You just made a wrong turn onto the Harland Highway Look at me, Damien It's all for you

This is Harland Williams I'm a human being. God damn it's Harland Williams here at your service on the Harland Highway. I enrolled in a night school course. Yeah, I wanted to get a little more learnings in me, and I went back to night school. I'm learning a second language, though. No, not French, nothing romantic. Oh, bono me, vexie soire, eh?

Not learning Italian. Hey, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that was Italian. No, I'm going for something way more exotic, man. Not Russian, not German. I'm learning Bushman. Yeah, that's probably the toughest language of all. You know the Bushman language from Africa?

Or they just click? Yeah, guess what I just did? That was the Lord's Prayer, people. Okay? Give me an amen. United States Constitution. Constitution? Oh, look at me, man.

Bilingual. I am happening. You should see me at the singles bars, man. I walk up to a chick. Get ripped by her ear. And I'm like, hey, baby. Slap. How did she know what I was saying?

Just my luck. It's the hot chick from my night school class who sits in the back row with her hair combed over her face like the girl from the ring. Busted. You know who else is busted? And I hate to bust this guy because I think he's a great filmmaker. I think he's done some incredible work, groundbreaking work, provocative work, technically skillful. film work he's a famous director from the UK Stanley Kubrick and you know he might be as might not be as well known to some of the younger folks listening but certainly to you know

everyone else he's well known and if you are younger and you haven't seen his body of work he's got some incredible movies like space odyssey uh clockwork orange the shining Spartacus, you know, some really good movies and some really bad movies. He did that movie Eyes Wide Shut with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. But there's one in particular that's always bothered me, and I remember this bothered me when it came out. I think this movie came out in the 80s, and it was called Full Metal Jacket.

And it was like a Vietnam War, based movie and full metal jacket is a term used for when a soldier loads his clip for his weapon and let's say a clip holds 15 rounds 15 bullets when you cap it off when you hit 15 that's called a full metal jacket okay and uh what kubrick did is and this this bugged the hell out of me this ruined the movie. And I watched the movie again this week. You know, I've noticed I've been finding myself going back and rewatching movies that I'd only seen once when they came out.

I watched Boogie Nights again a couple of weeks ago for the first time since it came out. And it was really good. It really stood up and it really captured the time. But here's what irks me about Stanley Kubik's full metal jacket. okay here's what he did he made the mistake of saying yeah i'm going to shoot a vietnam movie okay i'm going to shoot a movie with soldiers running around in vietnam shooting each other and blowing stuff up but you know what i don't want to go anywhere tropical you know i live in the u k i want to shoot it right here in the u k so he does he shoots his vietnam movie in the uk

and it's just crawling with inaccuracies and clues, and it's almost a joke. It's like amateur filmmaking to me. And you got to remember, here's a guy who is a, you know, revered director, writer. This was a guy that probably had the golden ticket in Hollywood where he could write and direct and cast and edit his own movies. These very few directors are afforded that privilege. You know, Woody Allen, Scorsese, a few others. And Kubrick was one of those guys who probably could have gone anywhere in the world to shoot. And he decides he wants to do it in England.

So here's a few of the mistakes he made. First of all, he didn't bring in military equipment that was accurate to Vietnam. Okay? instead of having like the American helicopters, the American tanks, the American vehicles, he literally borrowed like, you know, used old British helicopters or, you know, who knows where he got them. And he just painted them up and slapped like the U.S. Marines on the side of it. And if you watch the movie, you can see it, everything from the wheels to the shape of the helicopter,

to the exhaust pipes, to the, I mean, everything about it's wrong okay and then the other thing is there's scenes where they're all training in a base you know they're all at the base training before they go to vietnam and you see the soldiers walking down the roadways on the military base and they're doing their marching drills and the you know their serge's like hey one two here we go and one two three right right left left right and as they're walking along if you look on the pavement you can see these weird little like road signs painted on the asphalt

they're little triangles white triangles they're symbols that we don't even use in this country but they're very British and so here's these guys marching over there and then the other thing is if you've never been to the UK it's going to sound weird but I think if you think about this everywhere you go in the world, clouds are different. Now, I know that sounds odd, but clouds tend to be different wherever you go. Like, if you go to California, you'll find that clouds are traditionally kind of spread out and flat and cover a large territory.

Whereas if you go to Florida, clouds are big and billowy and huge and like giant cotton balls floating in the air. and I lived over in Germany for a while. I spent some time in the U.K. And one thing you notice in the U.K. It's weird. There's almost like two layers of clouds. It's like a strata there because it's always so damp and crazy. But the clouds kind of have a different shape.

They have kind of a different color. And they have kind of a different layering system. So even looking at the clouds, I was like, wait a minute that's not vietnam that's that's not no way that's that's like bloody chesics england right now and then here's the real killer here's where this is all going and you're probably going to have to watch the movie again to pick up on this i don't know if you will i don't know if you want to waste your time because at the end of the day i don't think it was a great movie there's some great scenes some great moments but not a great movie but when they finally get to vietnam

Okay, the first part of the movie all takes place where they're learning their drills and they're being crafted into soldiers. And then the second half of the movie takes place in, air quote, Vietnam. It's all shot in England. And what Kubrick did is instead of going to a tropical location, he had flown in or trucked in or submarine in or whatever, like 122 palm trees. okay and if you're looking at the movie and you're just thinking out oh it's a movie about vietnam you'll notice there's like these palm trees in just about every shot and what they do is they trick the mind because it's like oh you see a palm tree they're telling you it's vietnam okay it's vietnam okay it's kind of like um it's kind of like uh you know you tell

someone it's in a desert you put up a few cactus you're in a desert And by the way, if you watch Forrest Gump, there's a scene in Forrest Gump where Forest is running across the country back and forth, right? And there's one scene where Forrest Gump is running through the desert, and in the foreground, there's these big, bright cactuses. And take it from me from a guy who's in the movies, those cactuses are prop cactuses. They're fake. If you look at the color of them, they're almost like.

neon green and you know if you get the chance pause your your movie and take a look and you'll see that those cactus are fake and they're the only ones in the shot and if you look out across the rest of the desert there's no other cactus it's very rare that just two cactus will grow out of the desert randomly by themselves they kind of cluster together but i'm off topic back to full metal jacket so if you look at full metal jacket every single shot just about, whether it's a close-up or a long shot or whatever, Kubrick got some guy with a crane to plant these palm trees in the ground. And as you can see, because they've been transported, half of them are dying,

and he probably had them there for the length of the shoot, and some of them were probably there too long and kept getting uprooted and moved to accommodate the shot and half of them have like dead branches on them and stuff but what's funny is he didn't use any other tropical plants he didn't use anything like down by the feet or up by the thigh or up by the waistline it's these full-grown mature palm trees

that all stand about you know 30 feet high 25 feet high they're very round fully mature or mature as they say And where they go in Vietnam, you see these damn palm trees. You'll see them up sneaking up behind every building. You'll see, oh, there's six of them in a row. You'll see them marching through palm trees. But none of the plants match.

Okay, none of the other plants. If you look at the grasses or the bushes, there's like some shots where there's little wildflowers growing. Like, little British wildflowers. It's like, and I'm like, what a conjo. man like why would you go to all this trouble and do a full-blown vietnam movie and then just like try to trick us with the stupid palm trees man and it's funny because nothing else is growing everything else is grass like you ever see a real vietnam movie you ever see uh real footage of vietnam you ever see platoon where these guys are walking through the middle of a jungle

and in this thing, the worst thing these guys walked through is a stand of palm trees. There's no swamps. There's not even grass growing higher than their ankles. It's hilarious. So you got that. You got the phony helicopters. And then Kubrick, he shot all the footage

at these old worn-out warehouses somewhere in the U.K. and it's not your traditional Vietnam where you see guys slugging it out in the jungle or in a thatched hut. It's like for some reason they're having all these shootouts. All the Vietnam footage takes place

in these old concrete warehouses where if you look at the way they're built architecturally, you know, these things are solid concrete. They look like they've adhered to a strict building code. There's all kinds of rebar. And the infrastructure of the concrete buildings. And you're like, wait a minute. They don't build buildings like that out in the outback of, like, Vietnam, man.

I mean, these guys made buildings out of clay and camel manure and mud and bamboo. There's not like one bamboo building or anything. And even the buildings look wrong. And then the other thing you'll notice he did in the movie, like you're all going to go watch it. But, you know, I'm just saying it's kind of fun to pick up on these things. If you look at the scenes where they're doing all the shootouts, it's scene after scene where they're, you know,

running around in all these warehouse districts. And if you look, Kubrick lit fires everywhere. Everywhere you look in the background, there's fires and black billowy smoke. And, you know, you can tell that some of these fires are just raging and some of them are set. You know, what they do in the movies is they hide gas lines under the rubble, and most of these fires are very controlled. But I think what Kubrick did to create distractions for your eyes

and take your mind off of the fact that it's really not Vietnam, he filled the air with smoke and flames. And I don't know, man. I just thought either he was being lazy or he just didn't feel like traveling or he was phoning it in, but, you know, I'm not even to get into how lame I thought some of the acting was and some of the dialogue and even some of the shooting.

And even the story, the way the story ends and it just doesn't lead anywhere. But more importantly, if you're ever watching it again, just watch those dancing palm trees, man. Just watch the way they move all around. And, you know, just picture someone moving them with a crane and replanting them and then covering them up at the base with, like, grass and stuff.

Unfortunately, Kubrick's dead, so he can't take the time to listen to this podcast and have a rebuttal, but there it is. My elongated movie critique of a film that came out 20 years ago. Way to be hip, Harlan. Way to be up on your films. Real sweet. I don't know.

You want to review it. It's a wonderful life next time? It's not really a view. I'm just telling you, you know, something that caught my eye. And, you know, that's what I do here. I tell you what's on my mind. Hey, everybody, who wants to have better sex? No, yes, yes.

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specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping code Harlan. have fun don't throw your back out and it's a bit drawn out and it's not that funny so let's move on how about I tell you some other stuff that's on my mind but it's funnier how about an excerpt from me doing live stand-up and this is a cut from my CD called Harlarious Have a listen

Please give a nice welcome to Harlan Williams How are you going? How are you guys? Somebody got a thing, should give us her today. How you doing, folks? You all right? Good to see you.

What a treat it is to be here. God, what a treat, man. Do I look a little tired to you, folks, huh? I didn't get much sleep last night. last night. You ever have one of those nights where you can't sleep? I was laying in bed for hours just staring at the roof. So finally this is what I did. I went over to Krispy Kreme Donuts. I got a couple of honey glazed donuts. Stuck them on my eyes. Climmed up in a pine tree and pretended I was an owl for 45 minutes. Just up there hooing for 45 minutes. Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!

Got tired, fell out of the tree, hit my head on the cement, went right to sleep. What a week I had. Man, I had a fly in my house earlier this week. You ever get a fly in your house, huh? Man, a fly swirling around in your house? Like a crazy kamikaze coconut cream pie? God, I had this fly flying all around.

So this is what I did. I caught him. Pulled all his legs off. A little bad. master can't land he's been airborne for five days I went out on the sidewalk got a loaf of rottweiler poo and threw it on my living room floor just to tease him it's going crazy that's like dangling a fat guy over and all you can eat buffet he sees the yummy treat but he can't get to the yummy treat God you got to love the fat

food ah go through the drive-through how you ever go through the drive-thru backwards you lean over the pass in your seat and say hey ass face when you turn the building around you ever notice at the drive-thru they always got that little sign-up right no vehicle no service so this is what I did I yeah I went out and bought myself a Wonder Woman cost you know Now I throw it on, I walk right up to the window. The lady says, where's your vehicle? I say, I'm in my invisible jet, asshole.

I give me my goddamn curly fries. I've been cleared for a lift-off. God, you gotta love curly fries, huh? You like curly fries, buddy? You ever get some curly fries, run out in the forest, find a couple of little elves, their feet and throw them in your freezer and make them skate all around have you buddy oh yeah you got to eat right you got to the tanning salon i bet you go to the tanning salon don't you my love why not my dear

i just don't i prefer the sun pardon me i prefer the sun you prefer the sun you prefer the sun my god you're Lucky to even be here. I went to the tanning salon, man, for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I'd never been. You ever go to the tanning salon, my dear? Which one do you go to, ma'am? You just go. All right, take it easy.

I don't know the name of it. I just fucking go. You're sitting there so nice, and then right at the end, fuck. You ever go to anger management classes? Fucking friendly little question, and she snaps on me. I went to a couple of weeks ago. I'm over at this place, Tantastic. Have you heard of this one?

I go in, I'd never been in my life. The stupid girl that works there didn't tell me where those little goggles go. I accidentally put them on my nutsack I got home that night got naked in front of my lady friend she kicked me right between the legs thought a giant dragonfly was loose in the room that's right I said giant dragonfly

And then the ultimate insult, dig this earlier this week, the ultimate insult, she complains about my stamina in the old saccharoni. So this is what I did. I popped six Viagra, and I drank a case of Red Bull. Her funeral's this Tuesday. Hey, thanks a lot, folks. Oh, yeah. Wow.

He's good. Hilarious. Who is that guy? Oh, okay. That guy, yeah. Okay. Love him. Beautiful.

Huh? So there you go. You know, and I decided, you know, maybe, you know, I got my start and stand up. And that's where I started. That's where everything came from. That's where all this led to. My movies, my TV, my TV. podcast, everything.

And I thought, you know, maybe I should let the folks hear a little more because I'm always writing new stuff and I'm always improvising stuff. And, you know, I think what I'm going to try and do is try and record more of that and lay it in here for you folks on the podcast. So even though you're not with me out on the road, you're not able to get to a show. You can still hear the fun. I don't know about you, but I still get a charge out of hearing, you know, myself up there with that live audience. It's just exciting. It feels good. It gets my energy going when I hear that crowd whistling and yelling and booing and laughing and cheering and heckling.

It really gives it a good ambiance. So there you go, folks. Hope you enjoyed that. And let's just keep going. Man, this is a fun show. We're getting all kinds of crazy stuff. Viaprint is an all-natural libido-enhancing. Kido-San fiber to reduce...

Ferroflu. Pharmaceutical grade in one easy-to-swallow capsule. I guess they pretty much got a pill for everything if you're not feeling healthy, right? Oh, yeah, anything you got, there's a pill out there. It's red, it's purple, it's orange, it's green, it's plaid. There's something. So let's say you got back pain. Okay, they got a pill for that, or let's say you,

you've got arthritis. They got a pill for that, or you get headaches now, and then they get a pill for that, or you're a little depressed, they got a pill for that. And do they work? Oh, yeah, they get rid of those ailments. Except did you catch that part at the end of the commercial? You know that little disclaimer that they kind of throw away at the end?

Side effects may include brain tumors, broken fingers, runny stool, blood in your vomit, your eyes may start leaking, your hips will fall off, and you may give birth, whether you're a male or female. What the hell, man? Since when do you take one pill and cure something, and in doing that one cure, you gain six new bad things? Hey, Margaret, have your headaches gone away?

Oh, yeah, I feel so great. So they're working, huh? Yeah, but now if I could only find something to get rid of my stomach cramps and my broken back and my polio and my scoliosis and my gingivitis. Oh boy, people. I pray for you if you get a headache

because your headache's going to turn into diarrhea and just keep going and going and going. What's that? I got a cramp. Oh, brain tumor, brain tumor. a caesarean section ah what how about a toothache you ever get that kind of pain oh god that's weird when you just get a toothache just all of a sudden your tooth hurts and you can feel it you can feel the pain coming up from the in the middle of your tooth you can feel it's connected into your jawbone and it's like there's a little metal rod going from your jawbone right up into your tooth

tooth just to the very, just under the surface of the top of the molar. Oh, and it's just, you can feel it throbbing. It's like your tooth has a heartbeat, but it's nestled in between the other teeth so it can't contract and expand. It's just like, but it's, it's being contained so that heart, that throbbing, that heartbeat is just like crunching in pain in your mouth. Oh! And it's just, and then the top.

of it if you put any pressure down on the top of the molar it just it feels like the dentist is drilling on a raw nerve oh yeah i got a toothache the other weekend man and it was just like oh and every now and then it happens you know you don't know why ask my dentist he goes you know sometimes your nerves you just hit it wrong or it gets banged around or something happens to your nerve and it just kind of it gets sensitive it gets sensitive for a few days or even a few weeks possibly. And I'm like, why does my nerve have to be so sensitive? What's going on with you?

Can we sit down and talk? Why are you so sensitive? What's going on? What's going on in that little molar? What's going on down there? Do you not like what I'm eating? Do you not like what? Are you having problems with my tongue?

Is my tongue harassing you? Why are you so sensitive? oh i wish it was that easy wish it was and i'm probably giving you a headache doing that little voice why why why you're getting a headache why aren't you so sensitive why talk to me meow meow meow pussy wants some milk huh pussy wants some milk meow meow pussy wants some milk All right, this is just getting awkward and weird, okay? I went from, like, pills to tooth problems to pussy want some milk. Meow.

Shut up. Meow. Stop it. Up yours. All right, I got to end the show there. It's just getting weird. This is almost starting to feel like a Stanley Kubrick movie. All right?

Bring in the palm trees. Let's get weird. Um, and speaking of weird, holy God, uh, don't forget, if you want to see me be weird, ladies and gentlemen, uh, don't forget, you can catch me in Pittsburgh at the improv in Pittsburgh PA. Uh, we're talking April 27, 28th and 29th, man. That is going to be a blast, baby. That is going to be a blast. We're going to, we're going to have some fun out there. so hopefully you can make it

don't forget to pick us up on stitcher radio stitcher.com it's a free app for your phone you can download the harland highway there and uh what else man what else don't forget to write me at harlorewilms.com if you have any comments and you can call me at our new number 323 739 43330

and you might just hear yourself on the podcast So there you go. And check out our store, harlough williams.com. We have a great store full of merchandise for you. And that's it. That's all I'm going to say. Well, there is one more thing I can say, right? You know what it is.

Uh-huh. That's right. Chicken. Chalmay, baby. I am Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, your senior drill instructor. From now on, you will speak only one spoken to. And the first and last words out of your filter. these sewers will be served. Do you maggots understand that?

Sir, yes, sir. Bullshit, I can't hear you. Sound off like you got a fair. Sir, yes, sir! If you ladies leave my island, if you survive, recruit training, you will be a weapon, you will be a minister of death, praying for war. But until that day, you are putes. You are the lowest form of life on earth. You are not even human fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized, gravastic pieces of amphibian shit. Because I am hard, you will not like me, but the more you hate me, the more you will learn.

I am hard, but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, chikes, whops, or greasers. Here you are all equally worthless. And my orders are to weed out all non-hackers who do not pack the gear to serve in my beloved car. Hey, your maggots understand that. Sir, yes, sir.

Bullshit, I can't hear you. Sir, yes, sir! Your little piece of shit you look like a fucking worm. How tall are you, private? Sir, five foot nine, sir! Five foot nine, I didn't know they stacked shit that high. You trying to squeeze an inch in on me somewhere? Huh?

Sir, no, sir! Bullshit, it looks to me like the best part of you ran down to crack to your mama's ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress.