Interesting Things as of Late | johnozed

Well it’s Wednesday and I am so over Wednesday. A lot of hype and what have you got to show for it? Just a hump in the middle of a 5 day work week. True it’s a steep enough hump to get to Friday going downhill. I’m cool with it. Last night, watched TV, Scrubs, Daily Show, Colbert Report and it was all good. Come 9:00 I had no idea what to watch. I do love TV, it has been my erstwhile companion for most of my life. A perfect companion that gives and gives. The babysitter I couldn’t shake, nor did I want to.

I scanned to see what was on and decided to give The History Boys a chance. I did rent it last summer, but I couldn’t get into it. Maybe it was the season, maybe it was me. In any event, I was enraptured by the movie. Totally captivated. It really is a great movie. Great script by Alan Bennett. Great directing by Nicholas Hytner and great acting all around. I loved it. The soundtrack had instrumentals by New Order, The Clash, The Smiths, The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen and Pigbag, with the final song, Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered sung by (who Julio and Stine call the whiner), Rufus Wainwright.

I can’t recommend this film enough and I regret not seeing it on Broadway. Man was I stupid or what two years ago? Ok maybe stupid is too harsh. Then again I was working with a bunch of snobby Brits and the idea of seeing more Brits on stage was something I would go out of my way to avoid, which I did. And I am developing a crush on Frances de la Tour. Just something about her. I was fascinated by her in Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire, and she’s great in the History Boys, where she actually has lines. Richard Griffiths is touching and the boys are all handsome and endearing. It really made my night which carried over to good feelings for today.

My sister Annemarie had a successful Laughter Yoga group which was a good thing to hear. Spoke with my brother Brian. His son is back in school which is a hopeful thing. Brian and his daughter Cassie are going to our cousin Neil’s wedding party on Friday night. Bill and I canceled due to expenses and the fact that Bill’s not really up for that sort of thing right now. I asked in January if they were going to the wedding party and I had no response which lead me to believe that they weren’t invited. Obviously it turned out that they had been invited. It would be nice to go but then again, after arranging to take the day off, I rearranged it so I would be in anyway. Got to put in a full week of work sometime.

I have a wedding card which I’ll send off, once again apologizing for not being able to go and see that wing of the family all together again. One was missing when Bill and I went to Neil’s house for Thanksgiving in 2005. There is still most of the year ahead, so who knows? Perhaps if Annemarie and the Arcata contingent we can make a day trip down there and say hello. Beats saying hello with a corpse in the room, wouldn’t you think? A reunion of sorts. Works for me. Go rent The History Boys. I don’t think you’ll regret it. And if you do, I’d love to hear what you think of it. Scripps is fine, you’ll see.

Here’s something from YouTube regarding The History Boys.

Actually on 11.9.08 I’ve noticed that the videos are no longer available via YouTube. Bah!

Sunday, back to work. Ho hum, hum drum. Not such a bad day, things weren’t messy this morning. I guess most of the party goers last night, refrained from vomiting or smashing bottles on the sidewalk. Don’t know how bad it was in various parts of town but where I walked it was merely a plastic green bowler hat crumpled in the gutter. Didn’t hear much of a racket as I went to bed around 1:30. Bill came home last night and that was good. He didn’t drive me crazy, and hopefully I didn’t drive him crazy either. I doubt that I ever do, except for being a pain in the tuckus every now and then.

Before Bill came home last night I watched Night At The Museum and I couldn’t believe how bad it was. It got ok towards the end but man what a stinker. Much better was Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire. Finally saw the last half and it was pretty good. I do enjoy the Harry Potter movies, ever since seeing the first one in 2001 with Annemarie, Rex and Earl in Eureka. Haven’t read the books yet, not sure if I will. Maybe if someone lends them to me, maybe if I’ve read everything else I have to read.

What I’m reading now, courtesy of the Hoboken Library is Hotel California by Barney Hoskyns, a British writer who has written for Q, Mojo and Uncut among others. I’ve always enjoyed his writing, and met him once when he was interviewing Metallica at Right Track Recording in the 90’s. It was good having Bill home last night, it enabled him to let his walls down. He’s doing his best to be strong for his mother, but here he was able to cry like he hadn’t for a few days. I was able to give him a hug and make him feel better.

No Grimaldi’s Pizza though since all restaurants were packed with revelers and deliveries were slow going. We watched George Carlin on his latest HBO special last night. George, now 70, is a humorous curmudgeon. He doesn’t try to be funny, he just rants on stage and there’s usually something funny in the truth that he says. He also riffed a lot about death which Bill was able to laugh about much to my relief. We watched Saturday Night Live after that and that was ok. Not rip roaring, but generally funny. They still have to figure out how to end a sketch though, they do run too long. Sometimes they’re just stretched a bit too thin.

I went to bed after watching the last half of Bill Maher. Bill hadn’t seen that in a while. After that I went to bed, Bill falling asleep next to me about a half hour later. Woke up, shuffled about, Bill out cold in bed, looking like a big mocha angel bear. I ran out and got some bagels, and the papers, Bill woke up a few hours later as I was watching The Namesake. He joined me as I watched that and he got somethings out of that, which I won’t get into in case you haven’t seen that movie yet. Bill headed back into the city to tend to his mother, his weekend visitation coming to an end.

Julio called after that and needed my help moving some Ikea things from his truck to his and Stine’s apartment. Hung out with them for a while, Stine has gotten bigger than last week when I last saw them at the bistro in midtown after Bill’s father’s wake. Then I walked around Hoboken, noticing the lack of people on the street compared to yesterday’s festivities.

Here’s some more pics.

Soup Man