Baby, Can You Dig These Memes?

Today I’m super happy to bring you a guest post by the always fabulous Susie of Insatiable Booksluts. This is the last post about The Stand you’ll see here for a while now, I promise.  - sj

~o~

So, I ended up missing the drinkalong for The Stand. I know. I was the most sad. I was all set to drink and watch it when my husband was all, “Hey, let’s have a romantic date weekend.”

And I was all, “But, The Stand.“

And he was all, “Italian food and a hotel room with a king-sized bed.”

And then we were both nomming carbonara, drinking pink champagne, and watching LOTR: The Two Towers on cable in a giant bed. And having maybe the best . . . uh . . . . carbonara I’ve ever had. (That’s code. I’m not really talking about the carbonara, although it was pretty good.)

What can I say? I love you guys a lot, but my husband knows all of my weaknesses. Like mountains of pasta.

So, that’s what came up in my world while you guys were watching The Stand. But see, here’s the thing–a couple of days before the drinkalong, I got Photoshop-happy and made a whole bunch of memes that I planned to post during the drinkalong. And because I wasn’t there, I didn’t get to post them. So, I asked sj–”Please,” I said, “please can you post my memes even though I skipped out for Italian food and nooky movies on cable?” And sj was like, “Geez, I guess I could post them for you even though you totally skipped out on the drinkalong like a jerk. But only because they’re funny. Kinda.”*

*This conversation may or may not have actually happened this way. Okay, it didn’t. POETIC LICENSE or something.

So, here they are, only a little over a week late.

GEEZ WAY TO GO FAMILY MAN

You mean we’re both totally immune to the superflu? AWESOME

BUT WE’LL HANDLE IT, THAT’S COOL

Of course, many of them focus on everyone’s favorite character of all time, Randall “Redneck Fabio” Flagg.

This is totally appropriate considering the next drinkalong that is happening. In related news, I AM PSYCHIC.

Also, I’m pretty sure “demon Flagg” was crafted with leftover Ferengi parts:

He’s an ALIEN. That explains EVERYTHING.

And of course, how could I let that ending slide without poking just a little fun?

God always did want to play Vegas.

Sidenote: The sexiest part of this movie was a young(ish) Ed Harris quoting Yeats. I could watch that all day.

Giant Belts, Shirtless Chests and Strange Euphemisms

Thank you to everyone that came out for night one of our groupwatch/drinkalong of The Stand miniseries!  It was lots of fun and I’m equal parts looking forward to/dreading finishing watching it tonight.

You can find the storify of the whole thing here.

Countdown clock for tonight here.

Rules are on the previous post.

More awesome giant belts like this to look forward to tonight!

I should probably write more, but I’m still slightly hungover and need to eat something.  Hope to see you all tonight!

 

The Drinkalong Returneth

I hope you guys are all as excited for the return of the DRINKALONG as I am.  I had some spectacularly shitty news today (well, um, yesterday technically) and Susie even suggested that maybe I should put this off, but I think the Drinkalong is EXACTLY what I need right now.

SO!  Because I’m too lazy to come up with something clever, we’re totally just going to use #TheStand as a hashtag (and take it over from some weird Christian concert thingy?).  You can find the tweetchat for that here.

Oh, what?  YOU WANT RULES?  Jesus, do I have to do everydamnthing for you?

ACTUALLY, Susie did that graphic for us, so you can thank her.  Isn’t it lovely?  We love Flagg’s herp-derp face in this screencap beyond all reason.  No, seriously.  We hate movie!Flagg, so go ahead and make fun of him all you want.

What else am I forgetting?

OH!  The countdown clock.  Click here, my sweets.  You’ll be able to find out when we’re starting far more easily than I’d be able to tell you.

YAY, DRINKALONG!

End of the world? Might as well get ‘faced.

YAY, IT’S THE (for really real this time) RETURN OF THE DRINKALONG!

We will all be gathering on twitter/tweetchat/whatever twitter client you prefer to watch the first 2 episodes of The Stand miniseries (currently streaming on Netflix, yay!) this Friday (March 1) at 10:15 pm EST.  Countdown clock?  Gotcha covered.

The current plan is to finish with the last two episodes of the miniseries on the following night, Saturday the 2nd.  I (and a few others) can’t do it next week and trying to split this up any other way just doesn’t make sense/is too inconvenient.

I hope most of you can make it for part or all!

More information with group hashtag and drinking game rules to come on Friday.

“My name is Harold Emery Lauder. I do this of my own free will.”

I’ve always been a bit fascinated with the end of the world. I think it goes back to watching (seemingly) endless episodes of The Twilight Zone with my dad when I was little. I thought Henry Bemis had the right idea, and every time I saw his glasses break, a tiny part of wee sj died inside. Even before I wore glasses (first pair in second grade, yo), I just KNEW my luck would be like his, and that I’d not be able to while away my post-apocalypse reading because my lenses would shatter, or I’d go blind or something else equally horrifying.

Enter the original version of The Stand when I was ~10 or 11. I already knew that amazing badass Randall Flagg from Eyes of the Dragon (see more on my near-life-long-love-affair with the Walkin’ Dude here). Then a few years later, I got my hands on the “uncut” version (which I still think sounds dirty, why do we call it that?) and fell even further.

My goodreads buddy Chris wrote a pretty fantastic review of this book that says most of what I feel, but he also said something in the comments that made me shout “YES! THAT!”

“[it's] the standard against which all end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it-and-I’m-not-feeling-that-fine-thanks-for-asking stories are measured. Flagg is absolutely my favorite King villain of all time—They definitely did not habla fucking español—”

No other post-apocalyptic tale measures up to The Stand, probably not just because no one else quite has his finger on the pulse of the everyman like Stephen King does, but also because none of those other books have a villain like Randall Flagg.

None of those other books have a Stu Redman for you to fall for along with Frannie; none of those other books have a Harold Lauder for you to shake your fist at in frustration; none of those other books have a Larry Underwood you’re HOPING will fulfill his nice-guy-after-all potential; none of those books have a Lloyd Henreid or a Trash Can Man with whom you can not only sympathize, but EMPATHIZE as well.

They may try, but they just don’t cut it.

(Justin Cronin, I’m looking at you.)

I especially love that we’re allowed to think evil was truly defeated until the last few pages.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker for a not-so-happy ending.

Part of the fun of re-reading all of Unky Steve’s work this year is reading them with Heather (because she’s a first timer to a lot of ‘em), and seeing her reaction to scenes and characters that haven’t been new to me in ages.

Watching her progress with The Stand was just as entertaining as I had hoped it would be. I knew before we even started who she’d love, who she’d hate, and which parts would make her exclaim.

It’s fun knowing a book inside and out like this, but I’m a little wistful I’ll never get to read it again for the first time.

Sidenote:  I’ve read this book while sick before, but this week – for the first time – everyone around me was sneezing and coughing, while I stayed healthy.  It added a completely surreal element to my reading, that I hope to not experience again.