Easy A

I've grown up in a world where teen culture has consistently ruled. It started with the baby boomers, my mom's generation, the first generation to prove that teenagers were a worthy market to pander to, so, as a result, books, television, music and movies have been created specifically for this group but consumed by all the rest of us.

I've been consuming teen media since I was around six and my babysitter would watch "Square Pegs." From there, it was the John Hughes oeuvre, "Saved by the Bell," teen magazines, NKOTB, "Clueless" and on and on. As I've gotten older, my appreciation for teen culture hasn't waned. Well into my twenties I was watching all that The N (now Teen Nick) and the pre-Miley Cyrus Disney Channel had to offer. I will stop to watch "A Cinderella Story," "John Tucker Must Die" and other better-quality teen movies whenever they're on TV.

Like I wrote a few months ago when I got the "Daria" DVD set, I think all these teen stories still appeal to me, and to so many other people ("Gossip Girl" wouldn't be as popular as it is if only teenagers watched), because, even as adults, we don't have it figured out and we don't always fit in.

That struggle is what "Easy A" is all about. The clever premise and fantastic cast piqued my interest earlier this year when I first saw the trailers and pop-ups at the movie theater, and I was happy that I finally got to see it tonight. The movie is so smart and funny and ultimately honest, but still romantic and fantastic and hopeful. It shows how terrible girls can be to one another, how human teachers and parents are, and how hard it is to be different, but then it does have the well-deserved justice that rarely seems to come in real life, and the perfect guy coming at the perfect time and saying the perfect thing in the most-perfect way imaginable.

In case you've missed it, here's the preview:



Emma Stone carries the movie effortlessly as Olive, too smart for her own good and too awkward to catch a break. Patricia Clarkson, Stanley Tucci, Thomas Haden Church and Lisa Kudrow are fantastic as the mostly well-meaning adults. The friends and foes at Olive's school are equally great; particularly Amanda Bynes as the self-important leader of the school Christian club and Penn Badgley as Olive's perfect guy, and maybe mine, too.

After seeing the also-great "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World" on its opening weekend in a nearly empty theater, I was so glad to see "Easy A," now two weeks old, in a theater that was more than half-full. It not only does my heart good to see people flocking to a movie as smart as "Easy A," this kind of success can only lead to more teen movies being made that are just like it, clever, funny, sweet and worth seeing again and again.

Off the subject, but OMG, tonight's "Simpsons" may be the best yet with appearances by the cast of "Glee," Flight of the Conchords and Ira Glass.

Please

OK, taking another entry from John Mayer because what he's writing has once again clicked with me. I think we all get into the habit of talking ourselves out of doing things before we even try. Why? Of course things could go all pear-shaped, but they could also go completely right.

Whether it's something as relatively minor as cutting your hair or something potentially life-changing like going for a new job, give it a go! You could end up having an experience so great it becomes one of your best stories. You could learn a fantastic lesson that sends you on a better course. You could meet someone who sets your world on its head for a bit.

Whatever the outcome, it's worth it to try. What's the alternative? If you constantly talk yourself out of doing or trying or being anything, you're left with nothing.

I went to my last concert of the summer last night and do promise that very, very soon I will be summing up my summer with Carole King & James Taylor, Ringo & His All-Starr Band, Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes, John Mayer, and Green Day. Until then, John Mayer's latest journal entry:

Please

I’m not out to please everybody - I’ve actually been out to try not to displease anybody, and that’s even harder work. It’s like Prozac for creativity - cutting off the highs and lows and the risks and the rewards so that nobody walks away from a show or listens to an album with a passionate enough take on what they didn’t like. Maybe I’ll take ten minutes each show for the rest of this tour and just play shit I love but think might turn people off. Then when the tour is done I’m going to take a good long nap and work on becoming irrelevant. I think that’s what’s bugged me so much about the last few weeks of stupid media speculation. I’ve been hard at work since spring trying to become irrelevant in all the places where being relevant gave me a headache and made me rock my right leg back and forth and made me ask my therapist if my heroes’ ghosts would hate me and basically take a match to the bottom of any moment with half a shot of being a proud one. I think I owe it to my fans to disregard them during the making of an album. Writing music while also writing a future negative review of the music is a really great way to make slop. Of course, then I’d still be aware that I was trying to be unaware, so right there I’ve got the makings of a head-shaped hole in my own ass. Do you see what I’m saying here? If I don’t risk it all on tape soon I’m going to be in trouble. I need to be loud. Slightly out of tune. Stick around in a solo a little too long. Maybe not know exactly what I’m doing and let that be the document.

See? I almost did it again. I just told myself that I shouldn’t post this because maybe people would think I didn’t enjoy the tour I was on, which I absolutely love. I just considered the consideration, which is what I said I wouldn’t do. So now I’m definitely posting this. I’m excited. I keep talking about how I’m going to disappear on a ranch somewhere when really I’m going to go straight into a studio. But when I do I’m going to waste lots of time. Which really isn’t wasting time, it’s giving myself some room to play and jam and experiment. But I have to call it wasting time because my preset is to walk out of the studio on day two and have a “big” song with only a missing line in the bridge. I should call it what it is - being a musician and experimenting and not caring about anything else but what’s hiding inside and what I need to get out, no matter how long that takes. I need to make what I think is shit, which will be nothing close to shit. It’ll just be free.

This is how I talk when I get excited for the future but still have to live through the present. Oh, well. I’m gonna go track down a sandwich.