So I had this dream last night, about which I mostly recall nothing, except that I repeatedly found myself in the lobby of a somewhat rundown theater. For some reason, I would suddenly have to leave, and instead of going out the front door, as any normal person would, I'd head down a narrow hallway with a dim EXIT sign at the end. Along the way, I'd pass a young woman talking on a pay phone. As I'd get to the door, she'd turn to me with some unintelligible words of advice. "What?" I'd ask, just as I stepped out the door--right into a puddle. Or snow bank. Or passing garbage truck.
Hilarity! Because the same thing keeps happening, you see, with slight variation, and, uh...
Okay, look, I know it's not that interesting. I wouldn't even bring it up, except for the fact that I've always maintained that the running gag is one of the lamest bits in the comedy repertoire, and yet here I am dreaming of one. But the point is, it's not funny in the least. So that's, you know...something?
Sigh.
Fine. Here's some actual entertainment: Marshall Crenshaw performing one of the songs I know I want played at my funeral.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
TELEVISION LIGHT
2:30 in the morning, and I'm walking dogs. Isabella, of course, and Brody, who's staying here temporarily. A beagle and a rat terrier. She's spayed, he's neutered, but if they weren't they'd have the most adorable offspring.
Not that I'd have the energy to deal with puppies. Sometimes I even wonder if I'll always be able to deal with the dog I've got. The fact is, Bella's only two years old. Beagles have an average life span of fifteen years. She'll still be around when I'm sixty.
Which seems not as old as it once did, really. And not as far away. There was a time when I couldn't imagine being in my forties. For that matter, I could never have imagined a lot of things that have happened in my life.
Brody pulls hard on his leash, Bella yanks in the opposite direction. I try to assert my balance, and in the process stomp my foot. Hard. Pain shoots through me, I moan in agony. The dogs stop and look at me with "You okay, man?" expressions. Even when they're annoying, they mean well.
I stomped too hard on my bad foot, the one with a steel plate instead of a heel, the one that I broke in a suicide attempt when I realized my marriage was irrevocably broken. That would be another thing that I would never have been able to imagine happening to me.
Not the suicide attempt or the divorce, but the marriage itself. I drifted through my twenties filled with profound self-loathing, and the notion that anybody would want to be with me seemed...well, inconceivable. I literally couldn't imagine such a thing happening.
Somehow, it did. That it didn't last almost doesn't matter. (Except for, you know, the physical and emotional scars that took forever to heal.) Because eventually, having discovered that someone could stand to live with me, that maybe I wasn't so terrible (and despite the divorce, Sue Ellen and I remained friends), I somehow had the courage to wade out into the world again, to actually live.
Then things got weird, and good and bad. A life was lived, almost without me realizing it. I discovered that I could be a good guy, or an asshole, or sometimes utterly indifferent. And I fell in love again, and got my heart broken again, but that's how it goes, I guess.
Still. Things get better. Janie's in my life, and everything's different. She's my age, and we've both had eventful lives. We've both lost our parents, for one thing, so we've had that defining moment of it-can't-get-any-worse. Things still hurt, but not as deeply. But we can still feel, and still love.
Brody's ears pop up and down as he looks around, all his sense firing. Bella is onto some scent, her nose low to the ground. I gently tug their leashes and they turn, following my lead. "Come on, guys," I say. "Let's go home."
Not that I'd have the energy to deal with puppies. Sometimes I even wonder if I'll always be able to deal with the dog I've got. The fact is, Bella's only two years old. Beagles have an average life span of fifteen years. She'll still be around when I'm sixty.
Which seems not as old as it once did, really. And not as far away. There was a time when I couldn't imagine being in my forties. For that matter, I could never have imagined a lot of things that have happened in my life.
Brody pulls hard on his leash, Bella yanks in the opposite direction. I try to assert my balance, and in the process stomp my foot. Hard. Pain shoots through me, I moan in agony. The dogs stop and look at me with "You okay, man?" expressions. Even when they're annoying, they mean well.
I stomped too hard on my bad foot, the one with a steel plate instead of a heel, the one that I broke in a suicide attempt when I realized my marriage was irrevocably broken. That would be another thing that I would never have been able to imagine happening to me.
Not the suicide attempt or the divorce, but the marriage itself. I drifted through my twenties filled with profound self-loathing, and the notion that anybody would want to be with me seemed...well, inconceivable. I literally couldn't imagine such a thing happening.
Somehow, it did. That it didn't last almost doesn't matter. (Except for, you know, the physical and emotional scars that took forever to heal.) Because eventually, having discovered that someone could stand to live with me, that maybe I wasn't so terrible (and despite the divorce, Sue Ellen and I remained friends), I somehow had the courage to wade out into the world again, to actually live.
Then things got weird, and good and bad. A life was lived, almost without me realizing it. I discovered that I could be a good guy, or an asshole, or sometimes utterly indifferent. And I fell in love again, and got my heart broken again, but that's how it goes, I guess.
Still. Things get better. Janie's in my life, and everything's different. She's my age, and we've both had eventful lives. We've both lost our parents, for one thing, so we've had that defining moment of it-can't-get-any-worse. Things still hurt, but not as deeply. But we can still feel, and still love.
Brody's ears pop up and down as he looks around, all his sense firing. Bella is onto some scent, her nose low to the ground. I gently tug their leashes and they turn, following my lead. "Come on, guys," I say. "Let's go home."
Saturday, August 20, 2011
CLIMB, BABY, CLIMB!
I had absolutely no idea what I was doing on the evening of April 22nd, 1978, until I stumbled across this clip on YouTube.
Then the evening started reconstructing itself. Dad and I were home alone that night. Mom and Julie were presumably doing something together--possibly school related?--but were was John? Odd that he would have been off somewhere without me.
But, regardless, that was the case. Dad, me and Saturday Night At The Movies. The weird thing is, watching this was my idea. I remember that, but I have no recollection as to why I would have wanted to watch. It wasn't to make fun--Dad wouldn't have been the proper viewing partner for that. But I remember actively reading Dad the TV Guide listings for everything else that night and making a strong case for Airport '75. I guess...I was in the mood to watch Chuck Heston in shades?
Anyway, it started, and Dad and I were enjoying--he laughed at some of the corny humor involving George Kennedy, and he actively watched, instead of leafing through a magazine as he sometimes did during evening TV hours. Maybe he sensed this was a rare opportunity for the two of us to bond over something, however unlikely?
Maybe forty minutes in, conveniently during a commercial break, we heard a car coming down the lane. Not Mom, not John, too early for them to be home--though I have no memory of where they were, they must have told us when they'd be back--so it must be...company? Sure enough, it was my brother Keith and his family, which meant visiting, which meant not seeing the rest of the movie.
"OK if I finish watching this upstairs?" I asked Dad without waiting for the response and headed to my room, swinging through the kitchen and scooping beloved cat Farrah off the kitchen counter on the way. (TV is always better with a viewing companion, even one that's furry, multi-colored and barely senient.) I pulled my door shut, plopped the cat on the bed and watched the rest of the movie on a small black-and-white screen. It wasn't as good as the Quasar in the living room, but then again, Airport '75 isn't exactly noted for its bold use of color. I had a good time watching it, although it failed to keep Farrah awake.
Why do I remember this evening? Or more to the point, why had I forgotten it completely until stumbling across this promo? What other memories reside perfectly-formed in my head, waiting only for the proper trigger to release them?
Then the evening started reconstructing itself. Dad and I were home alone that night. Mom and Julie were presumably doing something together--possibly school related?--but were was John? Odd that he would have been off somewhere without me.
But, regardless, that was the case. Dad, me and Saturday Night At The Movies. The weird thing is, watching this was my idea. I remember that, but I have no recollection as to why I would have wanted to watch. It wasn't to make fun--Dad wouldn't have been the proper viewing partner for that. But I remember actively reading Dad the TV Guide listings for everything else that night and making a strong case for Airport '75. I guess...I was in the mood to watch Chuck Heston in shades?
Anyway, it started, and Dad and I were enjoying--he laughed at some of the corny humor involving George Kennedy, and he actively watched, instead of leafing through a magazine as he sometimes did during evening TV hours. Maybe he sensed this was a rare opportunity for the two of us to bond over something, however unlikely?
Maybe forty minutes in, conveniently during a commercial break, we heard a car coming down the lane. Not Mom, not John, too early for them to be home--though I have no memory of where they were, they must have told us when they'd be back--so it must be...company? Sure enough, it was my brother Keith and his family, which meant visiting, which meant not seeing the rest of the movie.
"OK if I finish watching this upstairs?" I asked Dad without waiting for the response and headed to my room, swinging through the kitchen and scooping beloved cat Farrah off the kitchen counter on the way. (TV is always better with a viewing companion, even one that's furry, multi-colored and barely senient.) I pulled my door shut, plopped the cat on the bed and watched the rest of the movie on a small black-and-white screen. It wasn't as good as the Quasar in the living room, but then again, Airport '75 isn't exactly noted for its bold use of color. I had a good time watching it, although it failed to keep Farrah awake.
Why do I remember this evening? Or more to the point, why had I forgotten it completely until stumbling across this promo? What other memories reside perfectly-formed in my head, waiting only for the proper trigger to release them?
Tuesday, August 09, 2011
THE POWER AND THE GLORY
Last Sunday, a church in my neighborhood hosted what its signage referred to as "A Michelle Bachman Event". Since the event took place on a Sunday, in conjunction with regular services, would that not mean the church was offering a tacit endorsement of Bachman for president? And if so, shouldn't that immediately cause the church to lose its sweet, sweet tax-exempt status?
The law is pretty clear on that, but the Republican party increasingly believes itself to be above the law. And not just the laws of man; clearly, it has no use for the laws of God, or at least for the intent of the man all Republicans loudly proclaim as their savior, Jesus Christ.
Consider Michelle Bachman. She was absolutely, fanatically opposed to raising the debt ceiling, whatever the consequences may have been. Her oft-stated mantra is, we don't need to borrow and spend more, we need to cut and save.
Oh, but what would Michelle cut? The same thing all the other Republicans would cut: "Entitlement" programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Head Start. Programs, obviously, designed to help the neediest among us, the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged. No Republican is quite brazen enough to come right out and say "Fuck the poor" but they don't really need to: Deeds speak so much louder than words.
These people, again, stridently proclaim their Christianity. But how do they balance their tireless advocacy for the wealthy, their blatant disregard for the poor, with the actual words of Jesus, as found in Matthew 25: 31-46. We'll use the King James version, for the sake of tradition:
31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
I mean, that's not the least bit ambiguous, is it? The meaning is clear, right? So if you claim to live your life according to the teachings of someone, and blatantly ignore everything he stood for just to further your own personal agenda...
I guess what I'm saying is, enjoy your everlasting fire, Michelle.
The law is pretty clear on that, but the Republican party increasingly believes itself to be above the law. And not just the laws of man; clearly, it has no use for the laws of God, or at least for the intent of the man all Republicans loudly proclaim as their savior, Jesus Christ.
Consider Michelle Bachman. She was absolutely, fanatically opposed to raising the debt ceiling, whatever the consequences may have been. Her oft-stated mantra is, we don't need to borrow and spend more, we need to cut and save.
Oh, but what would Michelle cut? The same thing all the other Republicans would cut: "Entitlement" programs such as Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, Head Start. Programs, obviously, designed to help the neediest among us, the poor, the elderly, the disadvantaged. No Republican is quite brazen enough to come right out and say "Fuck the poor" but they don't really need to: Deeds speak so much louder than words.
These people, again, stridently proclaim their Christianity. But how do they balance their tireless advocacy for the wealthy, their blatant disregard for the poor, with the actual words of Jesus, as found in Matthew 25: 31-46. We'll use the King James version, for the sake of tradition:
31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
I mean, that's not the least bit ambiguous, is it? The meaning is clear, right? So if you claim to live your life according to the teachings of someone, and blatantly ignore everything he stood for just to further your own personal agenda...
I guess what I'm saying is, enjoy your everlasting fire, Michelle.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
NEW CONTENT, OF A SORT
Oh, I've meant to post stuff. It's not like there's nothing to talk about. But whenever I felt like discussing, say, the whole debt-ceiling debacle, I'd find myself getting more and more depressed and...well, who needs that? Not you, faithful reader. And certainly not me.
Still, as a way of generating some sort of new content here, we turn--as we haven't for awhile--to out old friend YouTube. This interstitial from the first season of Sesame Street handily displays everything that made that show such a watershed for developing young minds--it has a dreamy, free associative quality that allows a viewer's mind to wander where it will, and (thanks mostly to the music) a somewhat melancholy feel as well. Nothing made for kids these days is like this anymore--certainly not the current incarnation of Sesame Street--and we're all poorer for that.
All well and good, but let's face it: I'm including this mostly because it has a beagle.
Still, as a way of generating some sort of new content here, we turn--as we haven't for awhile--to out old friend YouTube. This interstitial from the first season of Sesame Street handily displays everything that made that show such a watershed for developing young minds--it has a dreamy, free associative quality that allows a viewer's mind to wander where it will, and (thanks mostly to the music) a somewhat melancholy feel as well. Nothing made for kids these days is like this anymore--certainly not the current incarnation of Sesame Street--and we're all poorer for that.
All well and good, but let's face it: I'm including this mostly because it has a beagle.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
BUT HEY, AT LEAST HE DIDN'T COMPARE ANYONE TO EVA BRAUN
So Jerry Lewis was at some TV critic's confab or other, there to promote a cable TV documentary about his career, and, as usually happens when he makes a public appearance, he took the opportunity to reveal his essential Jerry Lewis-ness, his uncanny ability to deliver a few observations that are undeniably cogent and wise, but mixed with a noxious egotism and a profound inability to understand when too much is way more than enough.
He railed against reality TV: "The medium is busy knocking its brand out to display the fat lady at 375 pounds who in two months is gonna be 240. Who gives a shit?"
He railed against the movie industry, technology and pretty much anything that popped into his mind: "The industry has destroyed themselves. It's no longer relevant because it puts all its product on a stupid phone. You're going to put Lawrence Of Arabia on that goddamned stupid sonofabitch? [Social media] are wonderful technical advances, but once people see how much its cluttering up their life, they'll figure it out for themselves. We're not going to have human beings in twenty years. People won't be talking to other human beings."
All well and good, and pretty much dead-on (although, hey Jerry, why do you have to work blue?), but the problem is, who the hell is Jerry Fucking Lewis to complain about people not talking to other human beings? This guy's whole life has been spent holding grudges against people who dared to contradict him, or told him something he didn't want to hear, or simply asked him a question. (My favorite part of the DVD commentary tracks of Lewis' Paramount titles were his muttered passive-aggressive asides about journeyman cinematographer Wallace Kelley, who shot most of Lewis' films. I gather Kelley once may have made the mistake of actually taking credit for a lighting effect or something, thus giving the impression that they weren't personally crafted by The Total Filmmaker himself.)
As happened, for instance, at this very same event, when someone asked him about his self-announced plans to retire after this year's Muscular Dystrophy telethon. "Who told you that? I never read it. Anything you read, read it twice."
Lest you think Jerry was just being coy, making with the funny and the ha-ha, when another reporter asked him what his exact role would be on this year's telethon, he responded, "It is none of your business."
Geez, Jerry. "I didn't mean to sound rude, but on September 5th, the day after that program, I will have an international press conference, and I will have plenty to say about what I think is important, and that is the future, not the past."
Now see, this is where this almost gets poignant, or would if it weren't kind of creepy, like a Krusty The Clown remake of Sunset Boulevard. Here's Jerry Lewis at 85, faced with the prospect that his annual 24-hour telethon, once a beloved national institution, has been cut down to six hours, a sure sign that the world has moved on, but he can't quite deal with reality. No, he'll hold an "international press conference" to clarify his role in this thing that nobody cares about. Clearly, in Lewis' mind, the world still revolves around him. He's still as big as ever, it's the telethon that got small.
He railed against reality TV: "The medium is busy knocking its brand out to display the fat lady at 375 pounds who in two months is gonna be 240. Who gives a shit?"
He railed against the movie industry, technology and pretty much anything that popped into his mind: "The industry has destroyed themselves. It's no longer relevant because it puts all its product on a stupid phone. You're going to put Lawrence Of Arabia on that goddamned stupid sonofabitch? [Social media] are wonderful technical advances, but once people see how much its cluttering up their life, they'll figure it out for themselves. We're not going to have human beings in twenty years. People won't be talking to other human beings."
All well and good, and pretty much dead-on (although, hey Jerry, why do you have to work blue?), but the problem is, who the hell is Jerry Fucking Lewis to complain about people not talking to other human beings? This guy's whole life has been spent holding grudges against people who dared to contradict him, or told him something he didn't want to hear, or simply asked him a question. (My favorite part of the DVD commentary tracks of Lewis' Paramount titles were his muttered passive-aggressive asides about journeyman cinematographer Wallace Kelley, who shot most of Lewis' films. I gather Kelley once may have made the mistake of actually taking credit for a lighting effect or something, thus giving the impression that they weren't personally crafted by The Total Filmmaker himself.)
As happened, for instance, at this very same event, when someone asked him about his self-announced plans to retire after this year's Muscular Dystrophy telethon. "Who told you that? I never read it. Anything you read, read it twice."
Lest you think Jerry was just being coy, making with the funny and the ha-ha, when another reporter asked him what his exact role would be on this year's telethon, he responded, "It is none of your business."
Geez, Jerry. "I didn't mean to sound rude, but on September 5th, the day after that program, I will have an international press conference, and I will have plenty to say about what I think is important, and that is the future, not the past."
Now see, this is where this almost gets poignant, or would if it weren't kind of creepy, like a Krusty The Clown remake of Sunset Boulevard. Here's Jerry Lewis at 85, faced with the prospect that his annual 24-hour telethon, once a beloved national institution, has been cut down to six hours, a sure sign that the world has moved on, but he can't quite deal with reality. No, he'll hold an "international press conference" to clarify his role in this thing that nobody cares about. Clearly, in Lewis' mind, the world still revolves around him. He's still as big as ever, it's the telethon that got small.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
IF YOU MUST RETURN IT, YOU CAN SEND IT HERE
Every Friday, I picked Sue up from her van pool. We'd never go home; we'd go out to eat somewhere, usually someplace quick and cheap, a KFC or a Subway. It might have been nice to go someplace better, to linger over fine food, to laugh and share our thoughts.
No time for that, though. She saw her therapist on Friday evenings. She liked to get there a little early, to sit in solitude and gather her thoughts. Me, I had my own ritual: I'd keep driving up the Rockville Pike to the Borders bookstore in Germantown.
It was an unnecessary drive in a way, since we had a Borders in our own neighborhood. The one in Germantown had a different vibe, though. The cafe area dominated the entire front section, and on weekends it featured live acoustic music. I'd linger in the magazine section--every Borders seemed to stock a different lineup of magazines--listening, reading, relaxing. It was, in a way, my own form of therapy: with that weekly ritual, I purged whatever demons I may have been wrestling at the time. I began to relax, to be still.
During those waning months of my marriage, I had any number of Borders stores I haunted with some frequency. The one in Northern D.C. had the best selection of DVDs and graphic novels, the one at White Sands had the most eclectic lineup of fiction and media studies. Still, I wondered, why so many stores? Why not have one huge location combining all the best features of every store?
Indeed, the seemingly insatiable need for expansion, to place an outlet in every conceivable market, was one of the factors cited in the decision of Borders' corporate overlords to shutter the entire chain. There were other reasons--the tanking economy, the rise of e-books--but expansion overkill was almost certainly the last straw.
For consumers, however, the signs of the end had come in the form of the chain's reaction to slowing sales of recorded music and movies: the once substantial (if overpriced) music and movie sections were reduced by half or more, if not eliminated entirely, and replaced by a bizarre assortment of pop-culture gewgaws. The Borders here in the Des Moines suburbs carried so many Nightmare Before Christmas-themed figurines and board games, it felt more like Hot Topic, albeit a brightly-lit Hot Topic that sold a metric ton of Tom Clancy novels.
That particular location closed a few months ago, and though I had spent many, many happy hours there over the years, in the end, I wasn't sorry to see it go. It had turned into nothing more than a delivery system for the latest best-sellers, and the author most likely to stop by for a book signing was Sarah Palin. It was no longer a place for me, or anyone who cares about books, and it never would be again.
No time for that, though. She saw her therapist on Friday evenings. She liked to get there a little early, to sit in solitude and gather her thoughts. Me, I had my own ritual: I'd keep driving up the Rockville Pike to the Borders bookstore in Germantown.
It was an unnecessary drive in a way, since we had a Borders in our own neighborhood. The one in Germantown had a different vibe, though. The cafe area dominated the entire front section, and on weekends it featured live acoustic music. I'd linger in the magazine section--every Borders seemed to stock a different lineup of magazines--listening, reading, relaxing. It was, in a way, my own form of therapy: with that weekly ritual, I purged whatever demons I may have been wrestling at the time. I began to relax, to be still.
During those waning months of my marriage, I had any number of Borders stores I haunted with some frequency. The one in Northern D.C. had the best selection of DVDs and graphic novels, the one at White Sands had the most eclectic lineup of fiction and media studies. Still, I wondered, why so many stores? Why not have one huge location combining all the best features of every store?
Indeed, the seemingly insatiable need for expansion, to place an outlet in every conceivable market, was one of the factors cited in the decision of Borders' corporate overlords to shutter the entire chain. There were other reasons--the tanking economy, the rise of e-books--but expansion overkill was almost certainly the last straw.
For consumers, however, the signs of the end had come in the form of the chain's reaction to slowing sales of recorded music and movies: the once substantial (if overpriced) music and movie sections were reduced by half or more, if not eliminated entirely, and replaced by a bizarre assortment of pop-culture gewgaws. The Borders here in the Des Moines suburbs carried so many Nightmare Before Christmas-themed figurines and board games, it felt more like Hot Topic, albeit a brightly-lit Hot Topic that sold a metric ton of Tom Clancy novels.
That particular location closed a few months ago, and though I had spent many, many happy hours there over the years, in the end, I wasn't sorry to see it go. It had turned into nothing more than a delivery system for the latest best-sellers, and the author most likely to stop by for a book signing was Sarah Palin. It was no longer a place for me, or anyone who cares about books, and it never would be again.
Friday, July 15, 2011
ALL THESE PLACES HAD THEIR MOMENTS
I sit on top of the passenger car, surveying the nocturnal landscape. The outskirts of a small town--a meatpacking plant, a filling station, a river snaking through the night. Just as I'm figuring out my surroundings, I hear noise at the end of the train.
I climb down. A family--an old woman, two distracted adults and several small children--of indeterminate ethnicity insists that I participate in their ritual. Glowing rings appear in their hands, are tossed in the air, and all family members catch them, expertly. One ring is flipped to me. I catch it, barely, but it tries to pull from my hand. I let it go, and it flutters briefly, then clatters to the ground. Only now it is no longer a ring, its hollow center is full, like a bottle cap. All other rings, their centers also full, fall to the earth, their magical glow extinguished.
The old woman regards me with great sadness. "Death," she says. "Death will follow you."
"Follow me where?" I ask, climbing without much enthusiasm into one of the elegantly-appointed cars of the train.
"Everywhere." She pulls the door shut.
Cats and dogs, some remembered, some unknown, crawl through the car. I ignore them, drawn to the rickety steps with the railing around them, illuminated by a single bulb. A shelf runs along one side of the stairs, filled with old board games--Clue and Monopoly, sure, but also Dark Shadows and Mr. Ree! and Planet Of The Apes. That last one was mine, of course, and I want to stop and linger over it, but I continue down the stairs. There should be a little dresser at the bottom, with the bathroom on the other side, and the familiar clutter of the dining room all around--this is the house I grew up in right? Something long dead and all that?
But no. I get to the bottom of the stairs and it's just another car in the train. The club car, and really? This is the death following me? Skeletons and cheesy-looking zombies dressed in old-timey suits? This is supposed to represent what?
I slide open the door of the club car and continue on to the front of the train--or possibly the back, since I have no idea which direction I'm going. There's a car full of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and kind of like the cats and dogs, some are more familiar than others, but I focus on a screened-in area beside this car, filled with diffuse, unearthly sunlight. I enter, making awkward conversation with more people I barely know.
But I recognize them. They're musicians who worked briefly with my ex-wife. Some of them are perfectly cordial, some are pissy and bitter, holding inexplicable grudges against me. One is particularly vocal, and I cut him off by saying, "Hey, I just wanted her to make a halfway decent album, and you couldn't deliver."
"Yeah," he says, "but what about what she wanted?"
Death. Yeah, I get it. My marriage. Ha. Very symbolic, like that stupid MASH episode where we see everyone's dreams. Next thing you know I'll be floating in a river of severed limbs, just like Hawkeye, and please, God, can I never think of that again, or any episode of MASH from the BJ-with-a-moustache era?
The train stops.
Or simply ceases to exist, since I don't actually disembark. I stand at some sort of crossroad--ooh! symbolism!--deciding which way to go. The landscape looks vaguely familiar--kind of like the bottom of Cemetery Hill, but not really--so I just pick a direction at random and start walking.
Soon enough, I'm joined by Paul, who greets me with his usual, "Hey."
"Hey. How was the new Harry Potter?" I ask.
"Do you want me to tell you? I'll be seeing it again with you..."
"Yeah, I know, and that's why I'm thinking this whole 'death will follow you' thing just isn't making much sense. I mean, yeah, I dated your Mom, and that didn't work out, so sure, another failed relationship, another 'death'"--I make sure to deploy ironic air quotes--"but you and I still hang out."
"Yeah, we're hanging out right now."
I stop walking. "But you're not actually here."
And indeed he's not. The road has stopped at a large white house, with a neatly-trimmed lawn and a river running beside it. People sit on the steps, people I should know, dressed like cast members from The Waltons in their Sunday-go-to-meetin'-time clothes. They're portrayed by ex-cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000 because why the hell not, but they're passing around old photos and mementos and things I should know. They're talking about Mom, but they're getting the details wrong.
"You can't know," I say. "You weren't there. I wasn't there, either, I wasn't there, even though she asked me. She wanted me to come up that Monday night, to crash at her place before I took her to the doctor the next day, but I begged off because I was tired, and so she fell and when I got there Tuesday she had that horrible bruise on her head and she was hallucinating and...Maybe if I'd been there, maybe if I'd been there..."
My tear-filled eyes make the sun-dappled water in the river shimmer more than usual, then it twinkles, and I realize there is no river, it's just an elaborate video display, and the image changes to a wall of ads for nineties hip-hop albums. There are shelves all around, books and DVDs and old LPs. Mom sits beside me in a plush leather chair.
"I'm afraid I could spend some money here," I say.
"Do you have money to spend?" Mom asks.
"Some, yeah."
She smiles. "If you see something you want, you should get it. If you wait, it may not be there when you come back." Her words hang in the air, fading. I realize I'm coming back into the waking world.
There's a cat on my pillow and a cat at the foot of the bed. Janie is in my arms. I pull her a little closer as she sleeps, feeling her breathing. The fan gently blows the cord of the window blinds, and I listen as it bounces against the wall, clack, clack, clack.
I climb down. A family--an old woman, two distracted adults and several small children--of indeterminate ethnicity insists that I participate in their ritual. Glowing rings appear in their hands, are tossed in the air, and all family members catch them, expertly. One ring is flipped to me. I catch it, barely, but it tries to pull from my hand. I let it go, and it flutters briefly, then clatters to the ground. Only now it is no longer a ring, its hollow center is full, like a bottle cap. All other rings, their centers also full, fall to the earth, their magical glow extinguished.
The old woman regards me with great sadness. "Death," she says. "Death will follow you."
"Follow me where?" I ask, climbing without much enthusiasm into one of the elegantly-appointed cars of the train.
"Everywhere." She pulls the door shut.
Cats and dogs, some remembered, some unknown, crawl through the car. I ignore them, drawn to the rickety steps with the railing around them, illuminated by a single bulb. A shelf runs along one side of the stairs, filled with old board games--Clue and Monopoly, sure, but also Dark Shadows and Mr. Ree! and Planet Of The Apes. That last one was mine, of course, and I want to stop and linger over it, but I continue down the stairs. There should be a little dresser at the bottom, with the bathroom on the other side, and the familiar clutter of the dining room all around--this is the house I grew up in right? Something long dead and all that?
But no. I get to the bottom of the stairs and it's just another car in the train. The club car, and really? This is the death following me? Skeletons and cheesy-looking zombies dressed in old-timey suits? This is supposed to represent what?
I slide open the door of the club car and continue on to the front of the train--or possibly the back, since I have no idea which direction I'm going. There's a car full of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews, and kind of like the cats and dogs, some are more familiar than others, but I focus on a screened-in area beside this car, filled with diffuse, unearthly sunlight. I enter, making awkward conversation with more people I barely know.
But I recognize them. They're musicians who worked briefly with my ex-wife. Some of them are perfectly cordial, some are pissy and bitter, holding inexplicable grudges against me. One is particularly vocal, and I cut him off by saying, "Hey, I just wanted her to make a halfway decent album, and you couldn't deliver."
"Yeah," he says, "but what about what she wanted?"
Death. Yeah, I get it. My marriage. Ha. Very symbolic, like that stupid MASH episode where we see everyone's dreams. Next thing you know I'll be floating in a river of severed limbs, just like Hawkeye, and please, God, can I never think of that again, or any episode of MASH from the BJ-with-a-moustache era?
The train stops.
Or simply ceases to exist, since I don't actually disembark. I stand at some sort of crossroad--ooh! symbolism!--deciding which way to go. The landscape looks vaguely familiar--kind of like the bottom of Cemetery Hill, but not really--so I just pick a direction at random and start walking.
Soon enough, I'm joined by Paul, who greets me with his usual, "Hey."
"Hey. How was the new Harry Potter?" I ask.
"Do you want me to tell you? I'll be seeing it again with you..."
"Yeah, I know, and that's why I'm thinking this whole 'death will follow you' thing just isn't making much sense. I mean, yeah, I dated your Mom, and that didn't work out, so sure, another failed relationship, another 'death'"--I make sure to deploy ironic air quotes--"but you and I still hang out."
"Yeah, we're hanging out right now."
I stop walking. "But you're not actually here."
And indeed he's not. The road has stopped at a large white house, with a neatly-trimmed lawn and a river running beside it. People sit on the steps, people I should know, dressed like cast members from The Waltons in their Sunday-go-to-meetin'-time clothes. They're portrayed by ex-cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000 because why the hell not, but they're passing around old photos and mementos and things I should know. They're talking about Mom, but they're getting the details wrong.
"You can't know," I say. "You weren't there. I wasn't there, either, I wasn't there, even though she asked me. She wanted me to come up that Monday night, to crash at her place before I took her to the doctor the next day, but I begged off because I was tired, and so she fell and when I got there Tuesday she had that horrible bruise on her head and she was hallucinating and...Maybe if I'd been there, maybe if I'd been there..."
My tear-filled eyes make the sun-dappled water in the river shimmer more than usual, then it twinkles, and I realize there is no river, it's just an elaborate video display, and the image changes to a wall of ads for nineties hip-hop albums. There are shelves all around, books and DVDs and old LPs. Mom sits beside me in a plush leather chair.
"I'm afraid I could spend some money here," I say.
"Do you have money to spend?" Mom asks.
"Some, yeah."
She smiles. "If you see something you want, you should get it. If you wait, it may not be there when you come back." Her words hang in the air, fading. I realize I'm coming back into the waking world.
There's a cat on my pillow and a cat at the foot of the bed. Janie is in my arms. I pull her a little closer as she sleeps, feeling her breathing. The fan gently blows the cord of the window blinds, and I listen as it bounces against the wall, clack, clack, clack.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
KINDA LONELY HERE, ISN'T IT?
Wow. It seems as if new posts here, already decreasing in frequency, are becoming as rare as Bigfoot sightings. I haven't died, and I haven't officially decided to vacate this space.
I just...don't have much of an urge to write anymore. This could very well pass, but it could take some time, and whatever readership I may have actually built up here (Ha!) will likely grow bored and move on. And who could blame them? There's nothing here to read!
But you're still here, aren't you, Theoretical Person Reading This? You decided to show up, and for your effort, you deserve some kind of entertainment. Since I'm not capable of providing that myself, here's a typically lurid TV spot from a late seventies slasher classic. They really don't make 'em like this anymore.
I just...don't have much of an urge to write anymore. This could very well pass, but it could take some time, and whatever readership I may have actually built up here (Ha!) will likely grow bored and move on. And who could blame them? There's nothing here to read!
But you're still here, aren't you, Theoretical Person Reading This? You decided to show up, and for your effort, you deserve some kind of entertainment. Since I'm not capable of providing that myself, here's a typically lurid TV spot from a late seventies slasher classic. They really don't make 'em like this anymore.
Friday, July 01, 2011
A STEADY HAND TO PULL THAT LOAD BEHIND
Flipping the channels yesterday, I unexpectedly came across an episode of this.
I hadn't thought of this show for...geez, decades, I suppose. It ran for a season and a half back in the mid-seventies, and it never really lived on in syndication. Like most TV, it was there briefly, then gone forever.
But seeing it again, with that montage-heavy opening, so typical of its era, and Merle Haggard's theme song, and Claude Akins' craggy face and Frank Converse's epic moustache, I was suddenly transported back in time, to a very specific and vivid memory.
I'm sitting on one end of the couch with comic books scattered on the floor around me, and my oldest brother Keith sits on the other end, a paperback in his hand, though he's watching more than reading. Dad is in his recliner, his ever-present can of Grain Belt beside him, and Mom in her chair. My brother John, sipping an iced tea in his rocking chair, watches as well, though perhaps ironically. My sister Julie sits at the old school desk beside the couch, a textbook and paper in front of her.
The TV is tuned to Movin' On, of course, and it's still the old black-and-white Philco, not the Quasar color set we'd acquire by the time this show reached its second season, when we could see Akins' Kenworth rig in all its green glory. Dad and Keith keep a running commentary going about that Kenworth, about how they show it doing things it simply wasn't capable of, and Keith uses the phrase "Hollywood jive" to describe the show more than once.
Mom watches intermittently, looking up whenever Converse is onscreen, returning to her cozy British mystery novel whenever the focus shifts back to Akins. Julie is completely disengaged from the whole thing, scribbling furiously at her homework.
Me, I'm just sort of there, zoning in and out, happy just to have a moment with so many of us together. My brother Mike is already married, my sister Ann off to college, but here the rest of us sit, gathered around the cathode-ray fireplace, everything else in the world miles away, and I am content.
I hadn't thought of this show for...geez, decades, I suppose. It ran for a season and a half back in the mid-seventies, and it never really lived on in syndication. Like most TV, it was there briefly, then gone forever.
But seeing it again, with that montage-heavy opening, so typical of its era, and Merle Haggard's theme song, and Claude Akins' craggy face and Frank Converse's epic moustache, I was suddenly transported back in time, to a very specific and vivid memory.
I'm sitting on one end of the couch with comic books scattered on the floor around me, and my oldest brother Keith sits on the other end, a paperback in his hand, though he's watching more than reading. Dad is in his recliner, his ever-present can of Grain Belt beside him, and Mom in her chair. My brother John, sipping an iced tea in his rocking chair, watches as well, though perhaps ironically. My sister Julie sits at the old school desk beside the couch, a textbook and paper in front of her.
The TV is tuned to Movin' On, of course, and it's still the old black-and-white Philco, not the Quasar color set we'd acquire by the time this show reached its second season, when we could see Akins' Kenworth rig in all its green glory. Dad and Keith keep a running commentary going about that Kenworth, about how they show it doing things it simply wasn't capable of, and Keith uses the phrase "Hollywood jive" to describe the show more than once.
Mom watches intermittently, looking up whenever Converse is onscreen, returning to her cozy British mystery novel whenever the focus shifts back to Akins. Julie is completely disengaged from the whole thing, scribbling furiously at her homework.
Me, I'm just sort of there, zoning in and out, happy just to have a moment with so many of us together. My brother Mike is already married, my sister Ann off to college, but here the rest of us sit, gathered around the cathode-ray fireplace, everything else in the world miles away, and I am content.
Monday, June 20, 2011
SERIOUSLY, HONESTLY, NO SHIT, REALLY...THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'LL WRITE ABOUT THIS THING
Despite my ongoing obsession with the astonishingly misconceived musical Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark, I didn't bother writing anything about the official opening of the show last week. Since the ousting of its formerly "visionary" director/co-writer/co-designer Julie Taymor, the show, according to most critics, turned out exactly as anyone could have predicted: Instead of Taymor's batshit insane down-in-flames grab for glory, the show instead became dully respectable, a competent salvage job of something that shouldn't have been salvaged.
So okay, we saw that coming, nothing more to say...except Taymor, who should have shut up and moved on a long time ago, felt moved this weekend to talk about what became of her baby.
Speaking to a conference of theatrical types, she proclaimed her disgust with her Spider-man producers, who, in a desperation move as Taymor's show missed numerous opening dates, used focus groups to try to salvage something from the show. "It's very scary if people are going to move towards that, to have audiences tell you how to make a show. Shakespeare would have been appalled. Forget about it.It would be impossible to have these works come out because there's always something that people don't like."
Sure, Julie. Except Shakespeare cannily tailored his plays to the audience of the time, mixing his deeper themes with low comedy specifically designed to appeal to the groundlings. Also, he could write--once the script was set, it was rehearsed and performed. There was no "process" to "discover" the show, no endless reworkings of crazy theatrical concepts at the expense of coherent storytelling.
Besides, Taymor's producers only turned to the focus groups after she was fired from the show. She was given months and months and months and months to "find" her show, and she never did. She wasted seventy million dollars of investors' money on her ridiculous notions--Spider-man as a supporting character in a show about the power of myth, or some fucking thing--and she would have been perfectly happy to keep spending, with no regard for what her producers needed (that is, a profitable show) or an audience might have wanted (some kind of entertainment).
Of course, those pesky audiences were part of the problem, according to Taymor: "Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you. It's very hard to create. It's incredibly difficult to be under a shot glass and microscope like that."
Well, granted, it would be hard to be under both a shot glass and a microscope, but inexplicable metaphors are nothing new for Taymor. But again, much of the online chatter about the show's astounding non-quality came once previews started. Once you're asking audiences to pay for tickets--at full prices, mind you; there were no discounts during the preview period--they're going to respond. That's how the process works. And if the audience is overwhelmingly telling you that your show has problems, you fix them. If you can't do that, your producers have every right to fire your ass.
Sure, I'm usually all about the artist here, but Taymor was working on a Broadway musical, where the rules have always been in place. And the first rule has always been: It's all about the show. Directors, songwriters, authors, even big-money stars have all been replaced when shows are in trouble. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but Taymor acts as though it's all brand new.
The biggest mistake the producers of Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark made was not dumping Taymor much earlier in the process. Like, for instance, when she submitted an incoherent script that had very little to do with the title character. Or after the first, say, ten million bucks were spent with nothing to show for it. After sixty million more was spent, firing Taymor was a mercy killing.
Now if they'd just close the show altogether, we could all pretend this never happened, and I'd finally shut up about it.
So okay, we saw that coming, nothing more to say...except Taymor, who should have shut up and moved on a long time ago, felt moved this weekend to talk about what became of her baby.
Speaking to a conference of theatrical types, she proclaimed her disgust with her Spider-man producers, who, in a desperation move as Taymor's show missed numerous opening dates, used focus groups to try to salvage something from the show. "It's very scary if people are going to move towards that, to have audiences tell you how to make a show. Shakespeare would have been appalled. Forget about it.It would be impossible to have these works come out because there's always something that people don't like."
Sure, Julie. Except Shakespeare cannily tailored his plays to the audience of the time, mixing his deeper themes with low comedy specifically designed to appeal to the groundlings. Also, he could write--once the script was set, it was rehearsed and performed. There was no "process" to "discover" the show, no endless reworkings of crazy theatrical concepts at the expense of coherent storytelling.
Besides, Taymor's producers only turned to the focus groups after she was fired from the show. She was given months and months and months and months to "find" her show, and she never did. She wasted seventy million dollars of investors' money on her ridiculous notions--Spider-man as a supporting character in a show about the power of myth, or some fucking thing--and she would have been perfectly happy to keep spending, with no regard for what her producers needed (that is, a profitable show) or an audience might have wanted (some kind of entertainment).
Of course, those pesky audiences were part of the problem, according to Taymor: "Twitter and Facebook and blogging just trump you. It's very hard to create. It's incredibly difficult to be under a shot glass and microscope like that."
Well, granted, it would be hard to be under both a shot glass and a microscope, but inexplicable metaphors are nothing new for Taymor. But again, much of the online chatter about the show's astounding non-quality came once previews started. Once you're asking audiences to pay for tickets--at full prices, mind you; there were no discounts during the preview period--they're going to respond. That's how the process works. And if the audience is overwhelmingly telling you that your show has problems, you fix them. If you can't do that, your producers have every right to fire your ass.
Sure, I'm usually all about the artist here, but Taymor was working on a Broadway musical, where the rules have always been in place. And the first rule has always been: It's all about the show. Directors, songwriters, authors, even big-money stars have all been replaced when shows are in trouble. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but Taymor acts as though it's all brand new.
The biggest mistake the producers of Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark made was not dumping Taymor much earlier in the process. Like, for instance, when she submitted an incoherent script that had very little to do with the title character. Or after the first, say, ten million bucks were spent with nothing to show for it. After sixty million more was spent, firing Taymor was a mercy killing.
Now if they'd just close the show altogether, we could all pretend this never happened, and I'd finally shut up about it.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
KILL ME NOW
When you see the headline Arizona Town Cashes In On Rock Song, there is no need to click on the story because OF COURSE it will be about the citizens of Winslow taking advantage of the town's fleeting mention in that stupid, stupid Eagles song.
And sure enough, Winslow has installed a bronze statue of a "floppy-haired man with a guitar" (this description, like the story itself, comes from The New York Times, the Arts & Entertainment section of which has clearly seen better days)on a corner near--sigh--Standin' On The Corner Park, which is odd because unless I'm mistaken the actual lyrics of the song are, "standin' on A corner in Winslow Arizona" but why split (floppy) hairs? Once you've decided to name a park after a line in an overplayed country-rock groaner from the seventies, you've already taken leave of your senses. Oh, and hey, there's an annual Standin' On The Corner Festival that draws "thousands" (according to the Times, which I suspect didn't do a lot of fact-checking on this particular story), so...dear God, I can't go on.
The notion of thousands--or even dozens--of people reorganizing their lives just so they'll have time to attend something called the Standin' On The Corner Festival fills me with a sense of overpowering despair. Everybody is entitled to their own obsessions, and it's not like I, with my Jerry Lewis obsession, have any room to question anybody's taste. But still, people making a pilgrimage to a town just because of its mention in a fucking Glenn Frey song...
Seriously. Kill me now.
And sure enough, Winslow has installed a bronze statue of a "floppy-haired man with a guitar" (this description, like the story itself, comes from The New York Times, the Arts & Entertainment section of which has clearly seen better days)on a corner near--sigh--Standin' On The Corner Park, which is odd because unless I'm mistaken the actual lyrics of the song are, "standin' on A corner in Winslow Arizona" but why split (floppy) hairs? Once you've decided to name a park after a line in an overplayed country-rock groaner from the seventies, you've already taken leave of your senses. Oh, and hey, there's an annual Standin' On The Corner Festival that draws "thousands" (according to the Times, which I suspect didn't do a lot of fact-checking on this particular story), so...dear God, I can't go on.
The notion of thousands--or even dozens--of people reorganizing their lives just so they'll have time to attend something called the Standin' On The Corner Festival fills me with a sense of overpowering despair. Everybody is entitled to their own obsessions, and it's not like I, with my Jerry Lewis obsession, have any room to question anybody's taste. But still, people making a pilgrimage to a town just because of its mention in a fucking Glenn Frey song...
Seriously. Kill me now.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
WHEN ALL HOPE SEEMS LOST, WHEN DESPAIR BECOMES OVERPOWERING, THERE WILL BE A BLAND, BLAND LIGHT
This headline from the Associated Press says it all: Pretty In Pink's Andrew McCarthy Writing Memoir. And by "says it all," I mean the AP used the headline to remind us who McCarthy is, or more accurately, was--a guy who was in a semi-loved movie, though he's not the reason anyone liked it. They could also have said Weekend At Bernie's Star Andrew McCarthy Writing Memoir, but then readers would be scratching their heads trying to remember which of the two remarkably uninteresting leads from Bernie's was McCarthy and which was the other guy.
Anyway, the point is--Andrew McCarthy is writing a memoir? Seriously? According to the AP story, which reads suspiciously like a slightly-reworked press release, it will reveal how McCarthy's "journeys helped him defeat his fear of love and commitment." All well and good, but hopefully there will be room for discussions of his distinguished film career, including, um, Pretty In Pink. And Weekend At Bernie's. Plus that all-time box-office smash Fresh Horses, and of course that awful Gertrude Stein/Alice B. Toklas thing he was in. And Weekend At Bernie's 2!
When a megastar of McCarthy's magnitude decides to sit down and spill the beans, it behooves us all to pick up a copy. And take a nice, refreshing nap.
Anyway, the point is--Andrew McCarthy is writing a memoir? Seriously? According to the AP story, which reads suspiciously like a slightly-reworked press release, it will reveal how McCarthy's "journeys helped him defeat his fear of love and commitment." All well and good, but hopefully there will be room for discussions of his distinguished film career, including, um, Pretty In Pink. And Weekend At Bernie's. Plus that all-time box-office smash Fresh Horses, and of course that awful Gertrude Stein/Alice B. Toklas thing he was in. And Weekend At Bernie's 2!
When a megastar of McCarthy's magnitude decides to sit down and spill the beans, it behooves us all to pick up a copy. And take a nice, refreshing nap.
Monday, June 13, 2011
WE WERE ONLY HERE FOR AWHILE
It wasn't so much that I made a point of avoiding a family reunion this past weekend as...oh, okay, I did avoid it.
In fairness, I had things to do. Paul had a baseball game, then we had to see Super 8 (which we both enjoyed) and, for about a minute during the day, it did occur to me that the two of us could drive to Dawson and take part in this big family whoop-de-doo, but it occurred to me also that I'd have to keep explaining to everyone who Paul is, because aside from my brother John and my sister Ann, nobody would have any idea.
Which is kind of odd, because he is of course mentioned here quite a bit, and in status updates of Facebook, and various other places where I hang out online. Paul, Janie, the dog and cats, assorted exes and various friends--there's a regular cast here (even though some of them are kinda like Jeff Conaway on Taxi and disappear once it becomes obvious they're not working out), and regular readers of this site are presumably as familiar with them as viewers of MASH were familiar with Hawkeye, Colonel Potter and that guitar-wielding guy Loudon Wainwright played in three episodes.
But--well, look, I was going to go off on a pissy little tangent about how nobody in my family reads my blog, but that's not really the point. The reason I avoided this thing is, I hate--HATE--family reunions. I'm five years younger than my closest sibling, and my cousins are older still, and whenever I'd get dragged to one of these things as a kid, I felt profoundly alone and abandoned because there was nobody for me to talk to, nobody paying attention to me, nobody comforting me as my sense of isolation overwhelmed me and sent me off to cry alone. Also, even though I was only five or six or seven, I still sensed the weird stifled emotions that were always present when everyone tried to play nice. (I couldn't really give you all the details, but my oldest brothers hated each other--I recall one epic Quiet Man-style donnybrook that raged down the stairs, through the dining room and living room and out the front door--but at family get-togethers, they always smiled and talked to each other. Knowing what they were like at home, and being too young to understand the protocol of events like this, the disconnect fried my tiny brain. It was like they'd been replaced with pod duplicates.)
It sounds facetious, or like a too-pat TV-movie style explanation, but the family reunions I was forced to attend as a kid probably had a lot to do with the fact that I wound up in therapy by the time I was in seventh grade. That is, they took the feelings of isolation and despair I already had as part of my day-to-day existence (again, five years younger than my closest sibling, plus parents who were already into middle age by the time I started school, plus an isolated rural home surrounded by abandoned, rusting farm equipment, the type of heavy-handed symbolism that would cause any rational viewer to roll their eyes if they saw such nonsense in some shitty indie picture) and ramped it up to unbearable extremes. I remember kicking and screaming, begging Mom and Dad to let me stay home, I hated family reunions so much. I dreaded them for weeks in advance, my heart pounding, unable to sleep. And nobody seemed to realize just how profound that dread was, any more than they noticed me at the actual functions, sitting in a corner glassy-eyed, sinking in a Bergman-esque well of despair.
So, yeah, I'm an adult now, and presumably better-equipped to deal with these things, but you know, the last time the tribe gathered en masse was at Mom's funeral, so it just seems that these things are destined to have depressing subtexts for me. In other words, I could have sucked it up and gone to this thing, or I could have spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon hanging out with an eleven-year-old who makes me laugh and gets all my John Williams references.
I'll stand by my choice.
In fairness, I had things to do. Paul had a baseball game, then we had to see Super 8 (which we both enjoyed) and, for about a minute during the day, it did occur to me that the two of us could drive to Dawson and take part in this big family whoop-de-doo, but it occurred to me also that I'd have to keep explaining to everyone who Paul is, because aside from my brother John and my sister Ann, nobody would have any idea.
Which is kind of odd, because he is of course mentioned here quite a bit, and in status updates of Facebook, and various other places where I hang out online. Paul, Janie, the dog and cats, assorted exes and various friends--there's a regular cast here (even though some of them are kinda like Jeff Conaway on Taxi and disappear once it becomes obvious they're not working out), and regular readers of this site are presumably as familiar with them as viewers of MASH were familiar with Hawkeye, Colonel Potter and that guitar-wielding guy Loudon Wainwright played in three episodes.
But--well, look, I was going to go off on a pissy little tangent about how nobody in my family reads my blog, but that's not really the point. The reason I avoided this thing is, I hate--HATE--family reunions. I'm five years younger than my closest sibling, and my cousins are older still, and whenever I'd get dragged to one of these things as a kid, I felt profoundly alone and abandoned because there was nobody for me to talk to, nobody paying attention to me, nobody comforting me as my sense of isolation overwhelmed me and sent me off to cry alone. Also, even though I was only five or six or seven, I still sensed the weird stifled emotions that were always present when everyone tried to play nice. (I couldn't really give you all the details, but my oldest brothers hated each other--I recall one epic Quiet Man-style donnybrook that raged down the stairs, through the dining room and living room and out the front door--but at family get-togethers, they always smiled and talked to each other. Knowing what they were like at home, and being too young to understand the protocol of events like this, the disconnect fried my tiny brain. It was like they'd been replaced with pod duplicates.)
It sounds facetious, or like a too-pat TV-movie style explanation, but the family reunions I was forced to attend as a kid probably had a lot to do with the fact that I wound up in therapy by the time I was in seventh grade. That is, they took the feelings of isolation and despair I already had as part of my day-to-day existence (again, five years younger than my closest sibling, plus parents who were already into middle age by the time I started school, plus an isolated rural home surrounded by abandoned, rusting farm equipment, the type of heavy-handed symbolism that would cause any rational viewer to roll their eyes if they saw such nonsense in some shitty indie picture) and ramped it up to unbearable extremes. I remember kicking and screaming, begging Mom and Dad to let me stay home, I hated family reunions so much. I dreaded them for weeks in advance, my heart pounding, unable to sleep. And nobody seemed to realize just how profound that dread was, any more than they noticed me at the actual functions, sitting in a corner glassy-eyed, sinking in a Bergman-esque well of despair.
So, yeah, I'm an adult now, and presumably better-equipped to deal with these things, but you know, the last time the tribe gathered en masse was at Mom's funeral, so it just seems that these things are destined to have depressing subtexts for me. In other words, I could have sucked it up and gone to this thing, or I could have spent a beautiful Saturday afternoon hanging out with an eleven-year-old who makes me laugh and gets all my John Williams references.
I'll stand by my choice.
Friday, June 10, 2011
IF I FELL
The dog barks at car tires hissing on the rainy streets. The cats mostly sleep, waking occasionally to acknowledge my presence. I've got some Warren Zevon playing, milk and donuts ready to be consumed, and a weekend on the way. Everything is exactly as it should be, except for one thing.
Janie's not here.
No, no, it's okay. She's just visiting her sister for the week. We've talked everyday since she's been gone, and she can't wait to get back. To her recliner, her bed, her cats. And me, presumably.
I can't wait for her to get back, either. She belongs here. Her voice, her laughter, her everything. When I bought this place, I thought...well, honestly, I'm not sure what I thought. I wanted a place of my own, someplace to call home. But it turned out to be just another place to live, no different from the anonymous apartments that had come to define my existence.
But now, when I walk through the front door after a brutal day at work and Janie is here, and we kiss and we laugh and we love, I finally feel like I'm coming home.
Janie's not here.
No, no, it's okay. She's just visiting her sister for the week. We've talked everyday since she's been gone, and she can't wait to get back. To her recliner, her bed, her cats. And me, presumably.
I can't wait for her to get back, either. She belongs here. Her voice, her laughter, her everything. When I bought this place, I thought...well, honestly, I'm not sure what I thought. I wanted a place of my own, someplace to call home. But it turned out to be just another place to live, no different from the anonymous apartments that had come to define my existence.
But now, when I walk through the front door after a brutal day at work and Janie is here, and we kiss and we laugh and we love, I finally feel like I'm coming home.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
WARMTH
I've got a co-worker who still has a rotary phone, who has no idea what a debit card is, who grumbles whenever the radio in the stockroom is tuned to a station that plays a lot of eighties stuff like Bon Jovi or The Thompson Twins because he can't stand that "new" music. He'd probably be happy to have any of the items advertised in this commercial.
But really, who wouldn't want that couch? And it comes with a free portable TV! There's no technology you have to master with these things--with that TV, you could take it anywhere. You'd plug it in, flip the on switch and there it was. Maybe you had to play around with the rabbit ears to get reception, but you didn't need a decoder box, your house didn't need to be wired, you didn't need a router or a wifi card or a minutes plan or anything back in those days. Life was good.
Even the pitchman in this ad is straightforward: Here's the merchandise, here's what it does, this is how you get it. No irony, no flashy graphics, just a simple, effective spiel. You'd never see such a thing these days. But why not? It works. (Again, I really want that couch, hideous seventies burnt-umber color and all.)
Obviously, we'll never go back to a pre-digital world. But I've noticed that some of the people most likely to mock how we looked and acted back in those days are people who were around then. Have they forgotten their own past? Have they forgotten how much better-built merchandise was, and how well it all worked? Have they forgotten how happy we were with what we once had?
But really, who wouldn't want that couch? And it comes with a free portable TV! There's no technology you have to master with these things--with that TV, you could take it anywhere. You'd plug it in, flip the on switch and there it was. Maybe you had to play around with the rabbit ears to get reception, but you didn't need a decoder box, your house didn't need to be wired, you didn't need a router or a wifi card or a minutes plan or anything back in those days. Life was good.
Even the pitchman in this ad is straightforward: Here's the merchandise, here's what it does, this is how you get it. No irony, no flashy graphics, just a simple, effective spiel. You'd never see such a thing these days. But why not? It works. (Again, I really want that couch, hideous seventies burnt-umber color and all.)
Obviously, we'll never go back to a pre-digital world. But I've noticed that some of the people most likely to mock how we looked and acted back in those days are people who were around then. Have they forgotten their own past? Have they forgotten how much better-built merchandise was, and how well it all worked? Have they forgotten how happy we were with what we once had?
Monday, May 23, 2011
IT CAN'T BE WRONG WHEN IT FEELS SO RIGHT
Pop cultural history seemed already to have forgotten Joseph Brooks. His most famous achievement, the lugubrious pop song You Light Up My Life, was a massive hit back in 1977, winning an Oscar and a Grammy, but it quickly became a thing to be mocked, then, soon enough, ignored--even radio stations that regularly program "the biggest hits of the seventies" usually leave it off their playlists, though it was the top-charting song of its year.
The odd thing about Brooks, though, was that he kept doing things, whether anyone wanted him to or not. He'd become a millionaire cranking out commercial jingles, and he used his money to fund a number of vanity projects. He wrote and directed the movie You Light Up My Life, designed as a showcase for his songwriting, and it was a modest hit, largely due to the popularity of the title song. But it was enough to convince him he was an auteur--he followed it with If Ever I See You Again, a drippy romance about a successful pop songwriter forcing his way back into the life of his ex--Brooks starred, despite having zero screen presence and a vaguely reptilian appearance--and Headin' For Broadway, about a group of hopeful kids willing to do whatever it takes to find stardom.
These were movies nobody could possibly want to see, and predictably, they flopped. Somehow, Brooks kept working. A few years ago, he became something of a laughing stock with his Broadway musical In My Life, a misguided semi-romantic trifle which he wrote, scored, produced and directed. Stage musicals are usually collaborative affairs, but Brooks refused any kind of assistance for his terrible show--he would do exactly what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let anyone tell him no.
Not that he would have listened. The word "no" clearly meant nothing to Brooks, who was due to stand trial for sexual assault on over a dozen women he had lured to his Upper West Side apartment with promises of some kind of work in some unspecified project. He posted ads online and held private auditions. When the naive young hopefuls appeared at his door, he offered to show them his Oscar, he poured them wine, asked them to perform a scene he'd devised. Then he raped them.
Even in the New York tabloids, Brooks' unfolding legal saga was never front page news. He just wasn't big enough, famous enough. No matter how hard he tried, how much money he made, he was always a show-biz also-ran. He killed himself over the weekend, a miserable end to a worthless existence, and The Post and The Daily News both buried the story in the back pages. Nobody cared about his fucking Oscar.
The odd thing about Brooks, though, was that he kept doing things, whether anyone wanted him to or not. He'd become a millionaire cranking out commercial jingles, and he used his money to fund a number of vanity projects. He wrote and directed the movie You Light Up My Life, designed as a showcase for his songwriting, and it was a modest hit, largely due to the popularity of the title song. But it was enough to convince him he was an auteur--he followed it with If Ever I See You Again, a drippy romance about a successful pop songwriter forcing his way back into the life of his ex--Brooks starred, despite having zero screen presence and a vaguely reptilian appearance--and Headin' For Broadway, about a group of hopeful kids willing to do whatever it takes to find stardom.
These were movies nobody could possibly want to see, and predictably, they flopped. Somehow, Brooks kept working. A few years ago, he became something of a laughing stock with his Broadway musical In My Life, a misguided semi-romantic trifle which he wrote, scored, produced and directed. Stage musicals are usually collaborative affairs, but Brooks refused any kind of assistance for his terrible show--he would do exactly what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let anyone tell him no.
Not that he would have listened. The word "no" clearly meant nothing to Brooks, who was due to stand trial for sexual assault on over a dozen women he had lured to his Upper West Side apartment with promises of some kind of work in some unspecified project. He posted ads online and held private auditions. When the naive young hopefuls appeared at his door, he offered to show them his Oscar, he poured them wine, asked them to perform a scene he'd devised. Then he raped them.
Even in the New York tabloids, Brooks' unfolding legal saga was never front page news. He just wasn't big enough, famous enough. No matter how hard he tried, how much money he made, he was always a show-biz also-ran. He killed himself over the weekend, a miserable end to a worthless existence, and The Post and The Daily News both buried the story in the back pages. Nobody cared about his fucking Oscar.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
THOUGH YOUR DREAMS BE TOSSED AND BLOWN
What are you going to do, get all weepy about Louis Prima and Keely Smith? Or Buddy Hackett, or Johnny Carson, or even The Beatles, for God's sake? It was just a place where people did some stuff, a piece of a past that can never be recovered.
It's not like it's real history we're talking about here, only show-biz history. But it's long been part of the peculiar nature of Las Vegas that it preserves its past in amber, or at least an amber-colored (but heavily watered-down) drink. How else to explain the continued existence of The Sahara Hotel & Casino, which still sat at the north end of the strip like an aging madame, full of stories about the nearly-forgotten greats she used to escort? (And she'll always refer to her gentlemen friends as escorts, not johns. What the hell do you think she was, some two-bit hooker?) The former "Jewel Of The Desert" shut down yesterday, but it had been closing bit by bit through the years, serving as some sort of reminder of the past in a town that barely has a present.
For the pleasures offered by Las Vegas are, by design, fleeting. Times change, people move on, no one remembers. Really, why should they? Oh, so the Sahara was for many years the home base for Jerry Lewis' Labor Day telethon? That's nice, but so what?
After all, Lewis himself is retiring from that institution after this year. Though he has yet to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy, there is no question that Lewis' time in the spotlight is due to end. He was once as big as anyone, and he and Dean Martin could pack 'em in like nobody's business, but to watch him continue year after year, unwilling and unable to change with the times, diminishing his own reputation every time he referred to the likes of Jann Carl as a "marvelous" talent, abandoned by the few relevant celebrity friends he still has...well, it was a sad, sad spectacle, like watching the suckers being chased out of the Sahara on its closing day, all of them wanting one more chance to play their lousy dollar slots.
It's not like it's real history we're talking about here, only show-biz history. But it's long been part of the peculiar nature of Las Vegas that it preserves its past in amber, or at least an amber-colored (but heavily watered-down) drink. How else to explain the continued existence of The Sahara Hotel & Casino, which still sat at the north end of the strip like an aging madame, full of stories about the nearly-forgotten greats she used to escort? (And she'll always refer to her gentlemen friends as escorts, not johns. What the hell do you think she was, some two-bit hooker?) The former "Jewel Of The Desert" shut down yesterday, but it had been closing bit by bit through the years, serving as some sort of reminder of the past in a town that barely has a present.
For the pleasures offered by Las Vegas are, by design, fleeting. Times change, people move on, no one remembers. Really, why should they? Oh, so the Sahara was for many years the home base for Jerry Lewis' Labor Day telethon? That's nice, but so what?
After all, Lewis himself is retiring from that institution after this year. Though he has yet to find a cure for Muscular Dystrophy, there is no question that Lewis' time in the spotlight is due to end. He was once as big as anyone, and he and Dean Martin could pack 'em in like nobody's business, but to watch him continue year after year, unwilling and unable to change with the times, diminishing his own reputation every time he referred to the likes of Jann Carl as a "marvelous" talent, abandoned by the few relevant celebrity friends he still has...well, it was a sad, sad spectacle, like watching the suckers being chased out of the Sahara on its closing day, all of them wanting one more chance to play their lousy dollar slots.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
I GROW OLD, I GROW OLD
1. This title, of course, comes from T.S. Eliot. That is, it originated with Eliot, but for me, it comes from the old National Lampoon parody The Love Song Of J. Edgar Hoover, which served as my dramatic reading in a freshman speech class. After I finished, the teacher asked me if I'd even heard of Eliot. Since all I really knew were the few lines from The Hollow Men referenced in Apocalypse Now--sadly, I had no idea what the Lampoon piece was parodying--I said no. My teacher was disappointed.
It was at that moment that I came to believe, as I still believe to this day, that I'm not nearly as smart as I want to be.
2. The two paragraphs above repeatedly featured the words "I" or "me"--twelve, counting variations. One of the reasons posting around here has become less frequent is because I'm trying to make this space less relentlessly self-centered. Many posts in the past were devoted to painfully detailed retellings of awful (and, far less often, joyous) occurrences in my life. All well and good when there is some larger point to be drawn, some fondly-recalled universal moment we've all shared, or even when there's some catharsis to be had by exorcising old demons. Sometimes, though, I resorted to just offering tediously detailed descriptions of bad dates, things that weren't even interesting as I experienced them.
So, you know, sorry about that.
3. All well and good, but hey, today's my birthday, so I get to be a little self-indulgent, right? Problem is, I've got nothing to say. I'm forty-six today, well past the halfway mark--presumably, at least; yeah, you never know how long you'll live, but neither of my parents lived to see eighty, so the odds aren't exactly in my favor--and past the point of taking stock but not to the point of looking back.
My life is still unfolding, in other words. I was in my forties when I decided to become a homeowner, and in the last year alone I've acquired an actual, permanent girlfriend and a small flock of critters. I still have no idea how to do basic things around the house--thank God Janie knows how to set a mousetrap!--but there's time to learn.
But not all the time in the world. There is a definite sense that, even as it unfolds, life is still winding down. I'm aware that my body can no longer do certain things I used to take for granted, and I'm more aware than ever that everything I see and know could be gone tomorrow. These aren't bad things, really--they just make me appreciate what I've got.
4. Obligatory Moment Of Delmar: I love all my cats very much, and will go to my grave insisting the late and much-missed Scotchie was the best cat ever, but there's no question that my beloved little ball of rage Del is my favorite cat in this world or any other. He's been by to rub against me repeatedly as I've been writing, and at one point reared up on his hind legs to begin chewing on my elbow. Sure, he has dozens of psychoses, but more than anything else, he's fiercely devoted to me. Plus, he's adorable!
Though not, it must be said, as adorable as the beagle, who has also been over to say hi repeatedly as I've been writing. Four-legged creatures love me!
5. The first time I wrote a birthday post it was a fairly dismal day, spent buying tires or some such. The pattern repeated from then on, assuming I took note of the day at all. This year...I dunno. Why bother complaining? I'm alive, I'm happy. Life is good.
It was at that moment that I came to believe, as I still believe to this day, that I'm not nearly as smart as I want to be.
2. The two paragraphs above repeatedly featured the words "I" or "me"--twelve, counting variations. One of the reasons posting around here has become less frequent is because I'm trying to make this space less relentlessly self-centered. Many posts in the past were devoted to painfully detailed retellings of awful (and, far less often, joyous) occurrences in my life. All well and good when there is some larger point to be drawn, some fondly-recalled universal moment we've all shared, or even when there's some catharsis to be had by exorcising old demons. Sometimes, though, I resorted to just offering tediously detailed descriptions of bad dates, things that weren't even interesting as I experienced them.
So, you know, sorry about that.
3. All well and good, but hey, today's my birthday, so I get to be a little self-indulgent, right? Problem is, I've got nothing to say. I'm forty-six today, well past the halfway mark--presumably, at least; yeah, you never know how long you'll live, but neither of my parents lived to see eighty, so the odds aren't exactly in my favor--and past the point of taking stock but not to the point of looking back.
My life is still unfolding, in other words. I was in my forties when I decided to become a homeowner, and in the last year alone I've acquired an actual, permanent girlfriend and a small flock of critters. I still have no idea how to do basic things around the house--thank God Janie knows how to set a mousetrap!--but there's time to learn.
But not all the time in the world. There is a definite sense that, even as it unfolds, life is still winding down. I'm aware that my body can no longer do certain things I used to take for granted, and I'm more aware than ever that everything I see and know could be gone tomorrow. These aren't bad things, really--they just make me appreciate what I've got.
4. Obligatory Moment Of Delmar: I love all my cats very much, and will go to my grave insisting the late and much-missed Scotchie was the best cat ever, but there's no question that my beloved little ball of rage Del is my favorite cat in this world or any other. He's been by to rub against me repeatedly as I've been writing, and at one point reared up on his hind legs to begin chewing on my elbow. Sure, he has dozens of psychoses, but more than anything else, he's fiercely devoted to me. Plus, he's adorable!
Though not, it must be said, as adorable as the beagle, who has also been over to say hi repeatedly as I've been writing. Four-legged creatures love me!
5. The first time I wrote a birthday post it was a fairly dismal day, spent buying tires or some such. The pattern repeated from then on, assuming I took note of the day at all. This year...I dunno. Why bother complaining? I'm alive, I'm happy. Life is good.
Saturday, May 07, 2011
SOME THAT YOU RECOGNIZE, SOME THAT YOU'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF
There's no point in arguing that Yvette Vickers was an underrated actress, that she deserved better than Attack Of The 5o Foot Woman and the similar Z pictures associated with her name. Sadly, there's not even any use in commenting on her achingly carnal beauty.
Because now, when she's remembered, it will be as that ancient pin-up queen whose mummified remains were found by a neighbor. So she's officially a freak now, a has-been who never quite was, and the ghoulish circumstances of her death are all anyone will ever talk or care about. The fascinating life she led--she was discovered by Billy Wilder, Russ Meyer shot her Playboy spread, she was a fringe player on the Hollywood scene for years--will be forgotten.
Still. At her peak, studio execs treated her as just another blonde in a town full of them, and audiences failed to make her the star she should have been. But now, at last, people will remember her. As befits a mummy, she has become immortal.
Because now, when she's remembered, it will be as that ancient pin-up queen whose mummified remains were found by a neighbor. So she's officially a freak now, a has-been who never quite was, and the ghoulish circumstances of her death are all anyone will ever talk or care about. The fascinating life she led--she was discovered by Billy Wilder, Russ Meyer shot her Playboy spread, she was a fringe player on the Hollywood scene for years--will be forgotten.
Still. At her peak, studio execs treated her as just another blonde in a town full of them, and audiences failed to make her the star she should have been. But now, at last, people will remember her. As befits a mummy, she has become immortal.
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