Monthly Archives: January 2008

Down In The Park

1 Reply

Tuesday, still no snow, though it certainly is cold enough right now. A few flakes appear from time to time, but not enough to do much of anything except to melt. Last night I watched a documentary on Val Lewton, a producer who basically changed the way horror movies were made in the 1940’s. I got sucked into it hearing Martin Scorsese narrate, letting me know that this was no run of the mill documentary. It was pretty good and it was followed by Cat People, which certainly was haunting and atmospheric.

They mentioned a few times that so many things fly by the camera yet the images leave an impression, and watching Cat People I was in agreement. I never saw Cat People before, at least not the 1940’s version. Saw photographs in a few horror movie books that I had growing up and it was a thrill to see the still photographs come to life on screen. A similar effect happened on Saturday when I went to the Andy Warhol show. The shoe drawings were photos that I had previously seen in various Warhol books that I have, and to see them just a few inches from me was quite a thrill.

The same thing happens when I see newsreels of the Beatles, when I had only seen photographs of whatever event the Fabs were present at. Regarding Cat People I did see the remake by Paul Schrader in the 1980’s and it was ok. Saw it because Bowie sang the title track, and Natassia Kinski was in it. She was hot then and quite exotic even for a 20 year old gay boy from Lodi.

During the Val Lewton documentary, Bill called. Needed a comforting voice and that was me. He is once again overwhelmed, though the situation had changed now that his father was released from the VA hospital. Both his mom and dad are under one roof and both of them have problems which isn’t making the scene any better. A home care attendant is now there as well from the Visiting Nurse service courtesy of Medicare making for a cramped apartment.

I was glad to be able to listen and even though I had no magic words to say to make it all better, I think Bill appreciated the opportunity to vent and I appreciated the fact that I was able to pause the broadcast while Bill poured his heart out over the phone. I swear I sounded like a therapist talking to him on the phone, calm measured tones, asking the right questions and being supportive when Bill needed support. Perhaps in a previous life I was a therapist.

This morning I got out of bed after hitting the snooze button only once, and that was because I had a headache from being dehydrated. Once again I was out of the apartment and headed to 5th and Washington in about 45 minutes. I read the New Yorker about Scientology, which is always a favorite topic to read about. A totally crazy 20th century religion with just a hint of fascism. I have a thing called a death line with Harpy. Usually when someone famous, or a bold face name passes away, one of us calls the other. With other friends, it turns into, ‘Guess who’s a Scientologist?’ and that usually ends up with the other end of the phone line say, ‘Oh really? Damn, I liked him/her’ and we never look at that person we called about the same way again. Such is the disdain for the Scientologist.

This is a pretty cool link. The link is working. Do it! Click it! NOW!

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_byrne?currentPage=all

Rip Off

Leave a reply

Oh yeah, It’s Monday again. Yesterday I had two laugh out loud moments. One was because I was wearing a sweater that I really like and it made me laugh. I think someone from my family got it for Bill as a present last year, 2006. He never wears it, I found it and I love it. Nice gray Old Navy sweater, very comfortable with a zipper to zip up. It really is a fun sweater and if you wore it, I think you would laugh too out of happiness.

The other laugh out loud moment was when I was watching 60 Minutes, not usually known for it’s comedy, and they were interviewing the 23 year old inventor of Facebook. The commentator was talking to someone else who mentioned how the generation born in the 80’s see things totally different from the boomers and the X’ers. X’ers sounds like Excer my friend from back in the day and I laughed because it was so odd to hear Excer’s name on TV, even though it wasn’t what they meant.

Yes, yesterday was just a silly day for me. Plus the anticipation of the massive snowstorm we were expecting made me giddy. It really didn’t take much to make me laugh, and though it was two small inconsequential things, totally unrelated I took the laugh wholeheartedly. Last night I watched some clips from the Golden Globes since it wasn’t officially on. I had hoped the Simpsons would be on, but the Terminator show was on instead and I tried watching that for a little while but I really wasn’t that interested in it.

I killed time until The Wire came on. Good acting all around, great writing. I tried several times to get into watching it, but something would come up and I would miss an episode and it became harder each time to get back into the plot. Since this is the final season, I’m giving it the old college try and digging what I’ve seen so far. There are ties to previous seasons that pop up and occasionally I see a character that I never saw before, or an incident that happened previously but it’s not insurmountable to get back into the swing of things.

After that I just read and listen to the rain fall on my window pane, waiting for it to turn into snow. And with those hopeful thoughts I went to sleep after waxing my Flexible Flier sled. Fell into a deep sleep and woke up after hitting the snooze button twice. I looked out the window, expecting to see cars buried in the snow, whiteness everywhere, and my heart sank. I saw asphalt and the cars parked the way they were last night.

So much hype about the big snow storm and I believed all of it. I felt like a kid again, a Sunday night, snow expected, another day off, a three day weekend. Perhaps sledding down Gunther Avenue, carefully wiping out before the corner of Main Street. Nope, none of that. Tough sledding, like my mother used to say.

Though I woke up late, I was surprised that I can still get it together and catch the bus to the city in about 45 minutes, not really hustling, just the routine is so easy to fall into, it’s like jumping on a conveyor belt, going through the motions and winding up at the bus stop at 5th and Washington Street. Bleary eyed, one cup of coffee and I’m gone. Thats about all for now, hope you like the photos yesterday.