My Father’s Gun

It’s Monday, not dreary. Weather nice. Just got back about an hour ago from Manhattan. It was an interesting couple of days these past few. Last night, sitting with Julio and Stine in a midtown Bistro, I was feeling so guilty about leaving Bill and his family. They were fine, nothing that being there would do for anyone, but I just felt so bad. It was ok on their end, but on my end I just felt terrible. Speaking with Annemarie later on, she correctly identified that the cause of guilt (which was more like depression) was due to the fact that I was at a wake most of the day.

Identifying the source of the problem made a difference and I was able to wonder why Josh Brolin looks like he has a dwarf’s head. Annemarie disagreed but I thought he looks freakish. Funny that he didn’t look that freakish in No Country for Old Men, he looked great in that, but last night during the Academy Awards, in that tuxedo he looked weird. Yes I did watch the Academy Awards last night. I enjoyed it. I thought that since Joel and Ethan Coen won the award for Best Adapted Screenplay the Best Director award would be up for grabs. I was pulling for Paul Thomas Anderson or Julian Schnabel but the award went to the Coen brothers.

There Will Be Blood won Best Cinematography, and Best Actor justifiably went to Daniel Day Lewis. He was great in that movie. Sweeney Todd won for Best Art Direction. This year I saw two of the five nominations for Best Picture, No Country and …Blood. Another happy note so to speak was the fact that the song from that charming little Irish film, Once won Best Original Song and the girl half of the duo was able to come back after being cut off by the orchestra and give an inspiring acceptance speech about following your dreams. I’m fairly certain that Alicia Keys made a similar speech years ago on some other awards program, but I guess it’s all in the delivery, or in this case, accent.

Both Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová have accents, but Glen Hansard has a brogue, Markéta Irglová has a winsome Czech accent and Alicia Keys sounds straight out of Hell’s Kitchen. Which is fine, but doesn’t inspire me to do much of anything except look up diction classes online. And their song, Falling Slowly is really a sweet song. I was surprised my sister hadn’t seen it, considering it’s right up her alley. Jon Stewart was mainly funny and there were lot’s of montages which could be hold overs from the plans to broadcast from the writer’s strike.

The funeral for Bill’s dad was today. It was a nice service. Once again, Bill showed to me that he communicates his emotions when playing the piano. He played a little piece midway through a eulogy he was doing and his playing got his point across perfectly. It was a good day for a funeral, beautiful day, sunshine, not windy. An honor guard played Taps and the flag was presented to Bill’s mom. Bill’s friend, and mine, Margaret flew up from Atlanta and also had a few words at the church. Margaret is a Reverend Doctor in Theology and her words were touching. She had been speaking to Bill over the weekend, and she told Bill and myself, separately that we’re family, meaning that I am part of Bill’s family and he’s part of mine. It’s true and I never realized it before.

Sometimes things are so obvious, so right in front of your face and you can’t see it.

Leave a Reply