WILL YOU STILL HAVE A SONG TO SING WHEN THE RAZOR BOY COMES AND TAKES YOUR FANCY THINGS AWAY?

If you're not from the Des Moines area, you're almost certainly unaware of the local rag known as Juice, a free weekly put out by the junior minions of the Gannett corporation, current owners of the once-esteemed, now-reviled Des Moines Register. Juice aims to be a stylish guide to all that is hip and happening in the metro area, and falls as laughably short as you'd expect. (Hey, a local bar is having something called Tacky Sweater Night! What a perfect excuse to run photos of the staff wearing--get ready for it!--tacky sweaters! Isn't that wacky? Isn't it? For God's sake, say it is!)

Anyway, this thing has inexplicably stayed afloat for a few years now--Gannett is bleeding The Register dry, but for some reason, they keep pumping money into Juice--and I pick it up maybe twice a year to see if it's gotten any better or worse. (It always gets worse.) And in the latest issue I found a profile of--well, no use singling her out by name, but she's president of a local Young Professionals group. At first I misunderstood, and assumed Young Professionals was the name of a conservative rock band, but no, it's a social networking thing, or something. Honestly, I'd rather be living my life than "networking," but, fine, different strokes and all.

The thing that pissed me off about the profile of this woman was her description of her job. To quote: "I work in group event management for [insert goofy company name here], a performance marketing company in West Des Moines that helps clients motivate, engage and empower their employees to perform better. My department assists their clients with planning and executing their business meetings, product launches and sales incentive trips to places all over the world. I travel on some of the larger programs to assist our clients and travel team."

OK, based on this description, I have no idea what the fuck this woman does for a living, and I suspect that's the point. A performance marketing company? That helps clients plan business meetings? And sales incentive trips? Sounds like the kind of bullshit obfuscation you pull in a bar when you're trying to disguise just how soul-deadening your job really is, but you hope you can make it sound impressive enough to at least get you laid.

But her job is almost certainly not soul-deadening, because that implies you have a soul in the first place. And once you've made the leap to using the word "empower" in relationship to your job without putting it in ironic quote marks, you've pretty much kissed any trace of a soul goodbye. This is the type of person who probably voted for Obama--because hey, that's what the young people agreed they were doing, what with their social networking and all--without realizing she's already a perfect little Republican tool.

If I sound unusually bitter, well, I find it infuriating that this person even has a job--sorry, is empowered to have a job--when so many good people are out of work, and when necessary, worthwhile positions are being eliminated left and right. The more interesting story about life in Des Moines that Juice wouldn't dream of examining is that our libraries and municipal offices are forced to shut down for several days as the city simply can't afford to pay its employees. Culture is sidelined, and even the most basic functions of government screech to a halt, but there's always room to pay somebody to do something that isn't worth doing in the first place.

And the good folks at Gannett will be there to celebrate their every non-achievement.

I WAS GOING TO GET BACK TO MY RUN OF STEELY DAN-BASED POST TITLES, BUT I DIDN'T EVEN HAVE THE AMBITION TO GO TO THEIR LYRICS SITE

See, the thing is, I haven't been at work for the last two days. Yesterday was my regularly-scheduled day off (I work this weekend), but today was a day I'd somewhat capriciously chosen, mostly because several of my co-workers have had days off and I figured, hey, I was entitled. And one of the things I specifically wanted to do with all that time was sit down and write.

Well, yesterday turned out to be unexpectedly busy--I had chores to run and a visit to the doctor's office. (Parenthetical aside about that last one: I had to cram several potential health concerns into one visit because my already lousy benefits package at work will become even lousier after the first of the year, as our insurance providers have blessed us with a plan designed to discourage regular doctor visits by making us pay more for them. The HR guy actually phrased it that way when he presented us with the plan. Anyway, good news from the doc: I'm in better shape than I have any right to be.) Hell, I barely got home in time to pop open a Sam Adams Winter Lager (a shocking admission for me, as I've long maintained nothing good has ever come out of Boston, excepting of course the novels of George V. Higgins) and enjoy NBC's exemplary Thursday night comedy lineup.

But today was wide open, just made for me to sit down and offer some pithy insights into...whatever the hell I might've written about. (I actually had some ideas, which I won't go into in case I ever, you know, get around to writing again.) But, well, I had some meds to pick up, and then lunch at a grungy-but-inexpensive Chinese restaurant, and there were all these DVDs unearthed during my recent move, so I figured, why not watch some movies? (The Seven Faces Of Dr. Lao and my umpteenth viewing of The Pirate were on the menu today.) And then it was time for dinner, and hey, better start thinking about bed, because I work tomorrow, and...

So I'm sorry, is what I'm saying. But hey...no Shatner, at least.

GOING WITH THE CHANGING OF THE SEASON

My coat still hanging in the closet, an old bar of soap and a nearly-empty bottle of Barbasol on the rim of the tub, a flier for a local restaurant still stuck on the fridge--these were the only things left for me to grab out of my apartment, the only reminders that I had lived here at all.

I grabbed all these things quickly and hurriedly before I headed for work, early in the morning, nobody around, no neighbors, nobody who knew me. After grabbing what I needed, I knocked on the door of the lady who lived next to me, to say goodbye and give her my new address, in case we wanted to stay in touch. She didn't answer. I shrugged, headed down the same old stairway one last time, and walked out the door. After dropping my keys in the slot in the landlord's office next door, I drove away. Simple as that.

That was Monday. This is Thursday. I haven't thought about the place since, not until just now, when I inexplicably started wondering whether the maintenance guy had set out the sad little Christmas tree that decorated the lobby every year. Every year I lived there...Good Lord...How many years could that be? Longer than the duration of my marriage-- How did that happen?

It's not like I sat there passively the whole time I lived there. I did try, and occasionally succeed, to reengage with the world. But it became so easy to stay there, even as my thirties slipped away, even as love slipped through my fingers, even as the anchor of my family was taken away.

So I must have had some affection for the place. So why, then, when I finally decided to move, was it so easy? Why are there no regrets, no sad-eyed glances backwards, no tears, not even fleeting moments of...something?

Still, there was that fleeting thought about the Christmas tree, and how my mom would chuckle over it every time she'd come to visit ("Did Charlie Brown do the decorating here?"), and how those visits dwindled later on because it was difficult for her even to climb up the front stoop, and--oh, here they come: All those memories I'd kept hidden away. Time to let them wash over me, to lead me where they will, and, hopefully, gain some wisdom from them.

And then emerge, clear-eyed, in the here and now.

IN WHICH I DO NOT BUST OUT THE STAR WARS ANALOGY I'M DYING TO USE

Fortunately I overslept, or I would've had a much longer post discussing Obama's speech to the nation last night, in which he half-heartedly attempted to justify a prolonged, pointless war. His rhetoric became downright Bushian at times, when he assured us our allies would join the fight (a Coalition Of The Willing, you might say) or when he promised there'd be a definite though hazily-defined drawdown date (in other words, we'll step down when the Afghanis step up).

But that would have been depressing, and who needs that? Espedcially when we have a trailer for an Angie Dickinson movie to look at!



Incidentally, that's Joe Dante mainstay Dick Miller narrating, and for those of you who care about such things, this movie offers a glimpse of Shatner's naked backside. And yes, even his butt overacts.

SHARE IN A MEMORY OF GRAY

Some time ago I tried to describe how my beloved cat Monika seemed disturbed by Mom's failing health, which she seemed to sense before even Mom herself did. It was as though she had some sort of sixth sense, or at least an acutely-tuned awareness of an inevitability already in the air. But this, this one seemed to sneak up on her: Monika has died.

Her health had been failing, or maybe it was just time catching up with her. She was sixteen, after all, the oldest cat I've ever had in my life, and her natural exuberance was bound to dim with age. Yet she continued, even this morning, to do all the things she's always done, bumming food off of me and rubbing against me, and curling up at my feet.

Still, it had been apparent that her time was winding down. And when I came home from work tonight, she laid motionless in front of the recliner in the living room, the very chair she had claimed as her own from the moment we moved into the new house. I thought she was already gone, but her silvery fur twitched from breathing. I put a blanket in a box and made a little bed for her. I carefully set her inside--she yowled desperately as I picked her up, the only evidence I've seen that she's felt any pain--and sat beside her.

I talked to her. She knows my voice, of course, and I thought the sound of it might provide some comfort to her in her final moments. I said her name over and over, and stroked her between the ears, and reminded her once again that she's the most beautiful cat in the world.

Then she stopped breathing. Simple as that.

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot to be thankful for right now, but I'm trying to remember this: Monika was a wonderful cat, and I gave her the best home I could, and I loved her with all my heart.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A SQUONK'S TEARS? WELL, LOOK AT MINE

Been in the new house a couple of weeks now, and I've been feeling pretty fine and mellow. So good, in fact, that a fall was inevitable. Now here it is.

Not quite my old unwanted companion depression, but still a familiar acquaintance: melancholy. But it's a gray, rainy day, and the coming of Thanksgiving reminds me that I really don't have any family to share it with. A sense of being alone has returned, the only company I'll have this holiday.

Surprisingly, though, I'm spending less time on the well-traveled boulevards. I'm not dwelling on the failure of my marriage to Sue Ellen, or the family I might have had with Tabbatha and Paul, or even my more recent assignations with Katie and Jessica. (So many names--it's kind of nice to know I have a past. How much better, though, to have a present.)

I'm thinking instead of the things that slipped by completely, the things that could have happened but didn't. Like the girl whose name I don't even remember that I spent some time with at a writer's conference I attended. She was maybe eighteen, I was only twenty-one, and we were much younger than most of the other attendees. She said she liked the story of mine that had been discussed in a group the day before, and I tried to play it cool, saying it wasn't even one of my better efforts, and I had plenty more, maybe she'd like to read them sometime. She said she'd like that, but no definite plans were made, and we saw each other only occasionally throughout the day's activities. At the end of the day, I found myself talking to some of the other attendees, one of whom I saw as a possible path to publication. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the girl lingering by the doorway, looking in my direction. I continued talking. Finally, she left. The conference was over.

There were others, some of whom I knew better, more intimately, but who somehow failed to gain traction on my heart. (I'm busting out the overwrought metaphors like crazy today, aren't I? Must be the weather...) They all mattered a great deal to me once, but ultimately they were filed away into memories and mostly forgotten. Today, for some reason, they have chosen to visit, to pay homage to my own haplessness.

I thank them for stopping by, and I don't wish to be a bad host, but I can't wait for them to leave.

THE CAVES OF ALTAMIRA

Maybe it's because the kids today are so busy wasting their literary tendencies on texting (a popular fad, I understand, along with wearing dungarees, listening to that infernal bebop and cavorting on my lawn), but it's getting really really difficult to find a good graffiti-covered stall in a public restroom. Even the men's rooms at Southridge Mall, the most notoriously down-market shopping destination in the Des Moines area, are remarkably pristine.

Fortunately, I've started regularly frequenting a Chinese restaurant in which the bathroom walls are as gloriously profane and pre-adolescent as anyone could wish. It even has a straightforward transcription of the old "Here I sit, broken hearted" chestnut, which...Really? You go through all the trouble of bringing a marker to the bathroom, and that's the best you've got?

Much more entertaining are the scrawled redundancies. One comment suggests that someone named Tracy (or possibly Terry--the name has been smudged for some reason) is "a hore and a slut." Assuming Tracy/Terry does not, in fact, make her living as a prostitute, I'm forced to assume that this disgruntled acquaintance is merely using the term "hore" to describe a woman (again, assuming Tracy/Terry is female) of loose morals. In which case, it goes without saying that she's a slut.

Similarly, another message assures us that the writer likes to "HAVE SEX AND EAT PUSSY." Well, maybe this is getting too technical, but I must assume that "eating pussy" is a description of oral sex, not a feline-based delicacy. In which case, I'd pretty much go ahead and classify it under the rubric of "having sex." Perhaps what this person meant to say was "I LIKE PUTTING MY PENIS IN VAGINAS AND EATING PUSSY." It's always good to be precise.

But my favorite of all the comments on the wall would be this: "Come to New York, get blow jobs." This is one of the most cryptic things I've ever read. If I come to New York, do I automatically get a blow job? (I've been there several times, and found that to be only occasionally true.) Or, alternately, is this meant to suggest that blow jobs somehow aren't available locally? That doesn't seem possible, not while Tracy/Terry is still plying her trade.

The sad thing is, I've been to this restaurant several times, and every time I fall under the spell of the New York blow job comment. It's like a Zen koan, a riddle without an answer, an enigma eternally casting a spell. I think we can all agree, if you can't have a little mystery while taking a dump, life just isn't worth living.

Oh, and yes, I'm well aware: This is the silliest, most tossed-off post I've ever written.

WELL, THE DANGER ON THE ROCKS HAS SURELY PASSED

I just called to shut off the power at my apartment. The rent is still paid through the end of the month, and I have a few things left there to be brought to the house, but basically my life there is over.

Yesterday morning I stopped by to grab a few more things, and as I climbed the steps to the third floor, the steps I climbed every day to what was once my home, I was amazed by how much I didn't care, by my complete lack of nostalgia or sentimentality, or feelings of any kind.

How unlike me. I lived in this place for years. Shouldn't I be lost in some hazy reverie? I can't say I ever loved it there, but at least initially, so much about it--the clunky old Otis elevator, the authentic Murphy bed--appealed to me. It was a perfect temporary place. But time passed, and I stayed, inertia my dominant state. It suited me there, or so I wanted to believe. Besides, I wasn't going to live in Des Moines forever. No sense putting down roots when that gypsy highway would be calling me. Eventually.

But that call never came, and I stayed, nested, or perhaps entombed. Nothing really challenged me, inspired me to leave until I met Tabbatha. We looked for places together, and suddenly my eyes were opened. Even though she tore out my heart and threw it on the ground, I still have to give her credit: Through her, I realized that I likely wasn't going anywhere, that I was here, and this was likely where I was meant to be. She made the idea of being rooted sound appealing. Of course, that realization came out of a desire to be rooted with her, to start a family and have a life I'd never imagined. Some kind of normalcy, which for me would be an unimaginably exotic adventure.

Well, the happy family thing may not have happened, but the whole experience led me here, to my own house, a place to finally call my own. And a weird sense of domesticity has enveloped me. My neighbor told me I could borrow her snow blower, which means a) I'm thinking of snow blowers, and, more shockingly, b) I'm talking to my neighbor. Which is no big deal for most people, but I have no experience doing this sort of thing, I might as well be flying the Millenium Falcon or something, and though I have no clue what I'm doing, it's kind of fun.

HE CAN DO MOST ANYTHING!

I'll be computer-free for awhile, so there'll be even less activity around here than usual, but I figured I should toss one final dart before departing, so here it is: A nearly unwatchable late seventies Burger King commercial. I remember this ad campaign, and sadly, I remember the jingle (which will be going through my head all day), but I didn't remember just how long this thing was. Just when you think they've finally gotten to the tagline, they go on to another verse. That, and production values on the level of Bill Osco's Alice In Wonderland, make sitting through this a singularly unpleasant experience. In other words: You're welcome!

ALL THESE PLACES HAVE THEIR MOMENTS

I pull the heavy wooden outer door shut, then the cage door, then punch the button. The elevator descends. I've enacted this ritual countless times, but the feeling now is different. I'm constantly aware that this is one of the last times I will ride this elevator, walk these halls, descend these stairs. This has been my home, and soon it won't be.

I'm moving. I've bought a house, and if all goes according to schedule, all the major items will find their way to the new dwelling by the end of this weekend. The rent at this apartment has been paid until the end of the month, so there is still plenty of time to move the smaller stuff, the books and CDs and silverware, all the bits and pieces that I will need in time. And there will be time to linger.

This apartment was never meant to be a permanent home. It was the first place I could call my own after I split with my wife, after months and months of living with family members. I moved in here mostly because it was cheap, I liked the neighborhood and the landlord allowed cats. I refused to sign a twelve month lease, because I assumed I wouldn't be here that long. This was just a place for me to clear my head, get my bearings, figure out my next step. There was no intention of making this apartment, or this city, my regular address.

But momentum slowed. I intended to put money away for my eventual move to someplace, anyplace else. But I started dating again, and that can be terribly spendy, and there were car issues, and an expensive DVD habit. I was never out of money, but I never had enough to comfortably strike out to a new location, to have something in reserve.

So I stayed. And this apartment became the sight of some mild debauchery--I'll spare you the details--and my home base as I eased my way back into the land of the living. It's also where I lived when my divorce became final, where I heard my mom had died, and where I realized I was still capable of falling in love. I've cried here, and I've laughed here.

But it's just a place, right? I know that, intellectually, but...I get too attached to things, graft sentimental meaning onto inanimate objects and empty rooms. As I pack, it becomes impossible to decide what to toss and what to keep. Familiar shadows haunt every corner. In a kitchen drawer I found a ticket stub for Talladega Nights, the first movie Tabbatha and I saw together. I have no idea why I kept it, but there it was, a tactile reminder of something that almost was. Is there any meaning to this? Does it matter that I fell in love with her? Does it matter that it ended? Is the memory more important or...or...Crap.

See, this is what I mean. The intention was to keep this little essay a little more focused, but I've wandered into the cul-de-sac of wistful memory. It's the same way with the move. I know what needs to be done, I need to stay focused, but there's a part of me that just wants to stay awhile, surrounded by these walls I know so well.

THE MOST PATHETICALLY UNINTERESTING STORY EVER TOLD

Could be writing about the results of various elections around the country--Republicans won some key races but lost the one they tried most desperately to win, and a gay marriage initiative was soundly defeated by the placidly homophobic residents of Maine--but the story that I kept rereading this morning was a brief item from Reuters detailing the sentencing of a man accused of stalking Ryan Seacrest.

I kept rereading it because it seems frankly impossible. Why the hell would anybody stalk Ryan Seacrest?

Sure, most stalkers are victims of extreme mental illness, and are driven by their demons to do things that seem incomprehensible. But their targets, at least, usually make sense: They want to bask in the aura of icons like John Lennon or Barbra Streisand, or they see TV actresses like Stephanie Zimbalist or Rebecca Schaeffer, who are pretty in blandly unthreatening ways, and they think they can get close to them, make them their own.

But Ryan Seacrest? Seriously? I mean, sure, the guy's ubiquitous, and has an annoyingly gladhanding manner, and...Actually, I'm having a hard time saying anything about him. He's as substantial as heavily-moussed cotton candy, and it's hard to imagine him inspiring any sort of passionate feelings in anyone one way or another. Maybe the alleged stalker, an Army Reservist named Chidi Uzomah, is a hardcore Casey Kasem partisan who is pissed about Seacrest hijacking that sweet, sweet America's Top Forty gig.

Otherwise, the question isn't so much Why? as Why Bother?

PUSSY CATS IS THE CRAZIEST PEOPLES

In honor of Halloween--and also because I've been watching a lot of Chuck Jones pictures lately--here's one of the best horror-themed cartoons ever made. I've always loved this, but in recent years, it's become even more meaningful to me. I mean: Has there ever been a better depiction of what it's like to live with an easily-frightened black-and-white cat?

THE MEMORY OF HIS FUNERAL REMAINS ATTACHED IN MY BRAIN

1) You know the drill: A pointless Larry King quote, another Random Thoughts post. And if you don't know the drill, you must be new here. Welcome! And also, how the hell did you get here? It's not like I've been doing anything to increase traffic around these parts. Are you sure you're in the right place? Would you like something to eat? I've got some potato chip crumbs around here somewhere...

2) Hey, anybody remember the bright, shiny promise of Obama's presidency? How it was going to be so, you know, different and all? How he was going to close Gitmo, get us the hell out of Iraq and by God make sure the health care system in this country was overhauled?

Yeah. I'm sorry, but fuzzy words and half-hearted efforts really won't cut it. Particularly galling is his pitiful efforts to make some sort of dent in the insurance industry's death grip on American health care. He waffled on support for a public option--presumably he was checking to see what way the wind blew--and let a band of right-wing lunatics set the terms of the debate. At no point did he lead forcefully, or even act like he particularly gave a rat's ass. With the economy still tanking and more and more people realizing the limits of their insurance coverage, there has never been a better time to pass real, significant reform. And Obama is just kind of letting the moment pass.

Not that any of this is unexpected, but still...sad.

3) Joel and Ethan Coen's A Serious Man has yet to open in my personal neck of the woods, and I'm still waiting. It's easily one of my most anticipated films of the year, and yet, I don't necessarily expect it to be my favorite. Last year's offering from the Coens, Burn After Reading, was one of the year's best, but almost by default: How much competition did it have, really? Movie-wise, pickins have been mighty slim lately.

But this year...holy crap! Just off the top of my head, Coraline, Up, In The Loop, Moon, Inglourious Basterds, Ponyo, Lorna's Silence, The Informant! and Where The Wild Things Are--a fine list by any standards. Quite honestly, A Serious Man would have a long way to go to match any of those.

Then again, with the Coens, I've learned never to trust my initial reaction. It took me three viewings to finally appreciate The Big Lebowski.

4) Rapacious, money-grubbing rock manager Dee Anthony has died at the age of 83. Every single obit IDs him as the guy who broke Peter Frampton in the United States, but presumably not wishing to speak ill of the dead, they tiptoe around what he actually did to Frampton's career.

Yes, the record-breaking success of Frampton Comes Alive was engineered by Anthony, but that very success led him to view Frampton as he viewed all the artists in his stable: as commodities. Anthony didn't care about Frampton as an artist or human being, he only cared about how much money his pretty boy Trilby could generate. So there was a rushed follow-up to Frampton Comes Alive, the laughable I'm In You, an album so dismal Frampton himself hated it. (It did, however, inspire the title of Frank Zappa's I Have Been In You, so there's that.)

Even more notoriously, Anthony teamed up with another noted seventies schlockmeister, Robert Stigwood, and together they teamed their biggest clients, Frampton and The Bee Gees, in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a movie so bad I'm surprised I haven't spent more time writing about it here. More than just a terrible, terrible piece of celluloid, it was also a notorious flop, damaging the careers of pretty much everyone involved with it: Director Michael Schultz would never again get an A-list gig, Stigwood never achieved the moguldom he clearly desired, the Bee Gees' incredible Saturday Night Fever success was revealed as a mere fluke.

But the worst fallout came down on Frampton. He was never more than a journeyman rocker, but the massive, and somewhat questionably achieved, success of Frampton Comes Alive made him suspect in the eyes of most critics, and with his commercial prospects crumbling, he had no support system. Anthony put him back on the road, playing to smaller and smaller crowds, a former Sun God revealed as nothing more than a man. And when money stopped rolling in, Anthony dumped Frampton without a second thought, having used him for all he could get.

But none of the obits quite explain all that.

5) I meant to post this yesterday, but this was my actual reaction to the Yankees heading for the World Series:



Sadly, this is pretty much my reaction to any good news.

6) Finally, the cats: Monika's been an ongoing source of concern lately. She's sixteen, and had been going strong, but all of a sudden she became scrawny, slow-moving and very, very frail, as if finally showing her age. She has, at this point, lived longer than any cat I've ever known, so I prepared myself for the inevitable, as she just kind of sat around and looked out of it.

Delmar apparently sensed that, too, since he's been strutting around like King Shit, acting about as assertive as a furry little bundle of neuroses possibly can. He's been downright confident lately, secure about his place in the world.

Well, watch out, Del: Instant Karma's gonna get you. As he walked through the living room this morning, Monika, perched on a chair, reached down and bitch-slapped him. He looked from side to side, as if he couldn't figure out what just happened. Monika hopped down from the chair, sat in front of him and just stared. Del backed away slowly at first, then beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

So, in other words, it's business as usual around here.

YES, KIDS, THIS WAS ONCE CONSIDERED ENTERTAINMENT

True, even in this day and age dessicated, dead-eyed Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester inexplicably considers herself a singer, and there are always the various Disney Channel/Nickelodeon tweener stars, who release singles and albums at a furious rate, whether they have any musical talent or not. For the most part, though, these ill-advised attempts at a second career don't actually interrupt the shows themselves.

As opposed to the seventies, when a broad-based audience might unsuspectingly tune into an action/adventure show, only to be confronted with the terrifying spectacle of its lead character breaking out into song. It happened on Wonder Woman, Starsky And Hutch, The Dukes Of Hazard...and okay, it never actually happened on Buck Rogers, but we did have to watch Gil Gerard dancing, which was arguably worse. Oh, and it occurred repeatedly on The Bionic Woman, and my poor twelve-year-old psyche was permanently shattered by enduring such horror:



OK, "permanently shattered" may be a bit of an overstatement. In fact, I have no memory of even seeing this, even though I was a regular watched The Bionic Woman. I can only assume I chose to block it out so the pain couldn't hurt me. In any event, I stumbled across this while looking for something else (Joey Heatherton clips, if you must know), and it made me laugh. Think they made that flag big enough?

BREATHE, STUPID, BREATHE! YA FORGOT TO BREATHE AGAIN!

Again, it's been quiet around here all week posting-wise, but that's partly because the only things that kinda made me feel like writing were the passings of famous people (producer Daniel Melnick, composer Vic Mizzy, actor Joseph Wiseman--Dr No his own bad self!--and, now, Soupy Sales), and it tends to seem sometimes like this entire site is devoted to death and sadness, so I just kind of left it all alone.

Instead, a semi-amusing observation: this morning, while preparing turkey sandwiches to take to work, I noticed my box o' sandwich bags actually had a diagram on the back explaining how to seal the bag. Now these are just cheapo, generic bags, lacking even the complexity of your advanced Ziploc technology. These are the kind of bags that have a flap you fold under and, uh...that's it, really. I'm not the most technologically advanced guy, and I tend to have to be shown how something works repeatedly before I understand it, but still: There's a flap, you fold it, you're done. Anybody could figure that out. It's instinctual, like a cat using a litter box. But someone at Hy-Vee corporate HQ decided we needed to be shown how to work it.

For some reason, that makes me happy.

I'LL EAT YOU UP, I LOVE YOU SO

Believe me, I cried repeatedly during Spike Jonez's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's beloved children's classic Where The Wild Things Are, so often I couldn't even count the number of times. But I can pinpoint exactly when I knew it was going to be a rough ride, emotionally: At the very beginning, when I realized Jonez had given the story's young protagonist, Max, a sister, who looked to be about five years older than him. A sister that age increases your feeling of isolation when you're a kid, the sense that you have no peers in your own family. I know this, of course, from experience. At that point I knew this movie, which is a journey into the emotional landscape of a little boy, was inevitably going to be a journey into my own head as well.

So it may be a little difficult to offer any kind of objective assessment of this film. It gets so much right, emotionally and otherwise, that any flaws it may possess fall away. (If flaws it has. Honestly, it seemed pretty much pitch-perfect to me.) But clearly Where The Wild Things Are deserves a spot at or near the top of any list of the greatest films ever made about childhood. It is being marketed (at least to some extent) as a kid's movie, and that's true, but it's a movie for all the kids who don't quite fit in, who spend most of their time living in their own worlds. It explores those worlds, what they are like and how they came to be. It remembers exactly what it was like to be eight or nine and feel like the only person in the world who has ever been so insanely happy or miserably sad, how the world is full of mysteries that must be explored, how scary it can be to feel things when all of your emotions are as raw as your skin.

Oh, and it has monsters, because little boys instinctively love monsters, and any fantasy world they conjured when inevitably include some. And these monsters all reflect some part of Max, including the parts he can't quite understand. They are loving and warm and angry and ignored and terrifying and mysterious and sweet and kind. They make him their king, then later admit he was never really a king, at just the same time Max realizes it as well. So he must leave them and return to his own world, where he isn't a king, but a little boy with a mother who loves him very much.

And I'm crying right now because I'm thinking of the final scene, but also an earlier sequence where Max comes across his mother, fearful of losing her job, and tries his best to cheer her up. She ask him to tell a story, and he does, and she dutifully transcribes it, preserving this moment in his life, in their lives, in a scene that is as perfect a depiction of love as the movies have ever given us, and which of course inevitably reminded me of my mom, who gave me endless reams of Big Chief tablets, encouraging me to fill them with whatever I might imagine, who appreciated me for what I was no matter what and holy crap, see what I mean? I can't evaluate this movie because it intersects too closely with everything I've ever been.

I can't even discuss the beautifully understated visual style Jonez brings to the film, because its enchanting images of a forest playland reminded me so much of the row of evergreens I used to run and hide in whenever my emotions got out of hand, and I'll just start rambling about my past again, or how the only other movie that so perfectly captures the outsized emotions of childhood is Meet Me In St. Louis, because then I'll go off on another Vincente Minnelli tangent.

So let me just say this: See this movie.

SORRY FOR ALL THE DOWNTIME LATELY, FOLKS

Oh, I've been meaning to write. I've had things to say about the Roman Polanski affair, about my favorite non-animated film of the year so far (The Informant!), about NBC's inexplicable decision to name Jon Bon Jovi as "Artist In Residence," whatever the hell that means. And the cats have been seriously messing with my mind lately, and I thought I could use this space to try to figure out why.

But I haven't done any of that, and in fact my presence here has been increasingly sporadic. Eh, what can I say? The usual mix of anxiety and depression, plus a lot of other stuff that I just don't want to get into. (Two words: Bad dates.)

So by way of entertainment, here's a Spike Jonez-directed Beastie Boys video, three minutes and change of pure genius. (Have I mentioned that period in the nineties when Ill Communication was pretty much the soundtrack of my life as I wrote in a white-hot fury I'd never known before? Have I mentioned I really miss those days?) Jonez's film of Where The Wild Things Are opens today, of course, and I can't wait. Hell, maybe it'll even inspire me to write something.

ALL THE PRETTY HORSES

It comes out of nowhere, as it always does.

This time it happened while clicking on an entry at The New York Times website. When it appeared, it carried a banner ad for a performance by the Lipazzaner Stallions at Madison Square Garden. And I fell back.

I can't even remember how old I was, but let's say I was in high school. The Lipizzan Stallions were a regular attraction on the local stadium circuit, showing up at least once a year at Vet's Auditorium in Des Moines or Hilton in Ames. The commercials heralding these appearances were ubiquitous, and rather cheesy, as corny and easily-mocked as ads for Holiday On Ice or some such. Once, while the whole family sat around the TV, I made some snotty comment, something along the lines of, "Who would ever want to see that?"

"Oh, but they're so beautiful," Mom replied. "I remember reading about them when I was little, and I've always wanted to see them in person."

I didn't respond. I couldn't respond. What could be said? The commercial ended, the program resumed. It was never discussed again.

Just a moment in time, lost, forgotten. Except I could never quite forget it. It stayed, it lingered, all the rest of my life. For one moment, my mother had shown a part of herself I had never sen before, a part I could never have guessed existed. It made her more complicated, more human. And I had mocked it, unintentionally, sure, but still, I had hurt her on some level, and I could never bring myself to apologize.

Instead, I did what most people do: I hid it away and pretended it never happened. It worked at the time, and it still does, mostly. After all, how often in the course of my day-to-day existence am I going to encounter a reference to the Lipizzan Stallions? It almost never happens. Almost.

Then when it does, it's always unexpected, and I can never prepare. But really, what could I do to shield myself from a thirty-year-old memory, something most people would have long forgotten? But I can't forget, and I shouldn't: Sometimes I feel my memory of Mom is slipping away, but then this or something like it pops into my head, a chance to recall how human she was, a small, defining trait that seemed so unlike her, a reminder of how much I will always miss her.

I...I HAVE NO EXCUSE

Swear to God, I have no intention of turning this space into an endless, tedious recitation of the previous night's dreams. But...

So I dreamed I was watching Jay Leno's new show (which right away suggests this is something more closely resembling a nightmare), and he had a whole panel-ful of guests. There was some anonymous black guy who never said anything and received no camera time, Billy Bob Thornton and Dan Aykroyd. Thornton rambled on and on, making some psuedo-philosophical point in a rather belligerent manner, then kind of ran out of steam, and sat in awkward silence. Aykroyd brought up a bullet-ridden death scene Thornton had in a recent movie, and asked what gauge wire he used to set off the squibs. Thornton started raving incoherently, and as he did so, began frothing at the mouth, great waterfalls of some chalky white substance cascading from his mouth with every word spoken.

Aykroyd tried to stifle his laughter, but Leno, Anonymous Black Guy and the studio audience roared with laughter. Finally, as Thornton realized what was going on, he smiled, reached into his jacket and produced the bottle of Mylanta he kept gulping during commercial breaks. Aykroyd announced, for viewers at home "and the olfactorily-challenged here in the studio," that one of tonights guests reeked of cheap booze, "but decorum prevents me from saying which one." Thornton began laughing so hard he pissed his pants, and Aykroyd and Anonymous Black Guy dragged him off stage.

At which point, sadly, Leno was left with nothing to do but mug for the camera and launch into a pretaped comedy bit. Such a prospect was so horrifying, I had no choice but to wake up.

Is this what my life has come to? My dreams involve Billy Bob Thornton peeing his pants in front of Jay Leno? What the hell is wrong with me?

BABY, THAT'S THE WAY IT'S GOTTA BE

Wow, posting has been even more sporadic than expected. Apologies, and I'll try to do better, but honestly, things are kind of wacky around here, and it's going to be awhile before any kind of normalcy settles in, so wait and see, I guess. Not that it matters, since a helpful article in a recent Des Moines Register article explained some easy tips for blogging--keep it short, and never write about personal matters--that I violate routinely, so maybe I'm doing this wrong. (But probably not. Don't all authors, web-based or otherwise, mostly write about themselves? Then again, if you've ever read The Register, you'll quickly realize no one on staff knows jack about writing.)

Anyway, the point is...well, there is no point, I just wanted to put up some new content. And for me, that usually involves a clip job, and when resorting to such things, who better to showcase than Noted Cult Rocker Marshall Crenshaw, from back when he still had a full set of hair. So here's everyone's favorite erstwhile Beatlemania star with a cover of Soldier Of Love. Oh, and Fun Fact about this song: If you use selected lines from this--"surrender to me," for instance--while arguing with your wife and/or girlfriend, you will only make the situation worse. It's true!