rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

god damn, I need to shave.

tonite’s feature:
3 Days of the Condor

starring: Robert Redford, as just another Joe six pack working for the CIA; Faye Dunaway, as unnecessary; and Max Von Sydow, as indomitable and ageless.
I picked up “3 Days of the Condor” in the classics section at the video store. and according to a few reviews I found online, the critics agree that it should be there. according to rottentomatoes.com, not one negative review.
not one!
I think that’s a nod towards how much film has changed over the past few decades. “Condor” came out in 75. that’s 30 years. most people wouldn’t call the late 90s and the millenium the golden age of film making, but I can tell you this: “3 Days of the fucking Condor” wouldn’t be as well recieved now as it was back in the day.
Redford plays some swinging civilian anaylst working for a CIA station house in New York. you know, he’s the guy who works a desk job for a super cool spy agency full of stiffs, but still rides his motorcyle to work, wears jeans that prominently display his package, and needs a haircut.
anyway, Redford’s character, whose only assignment is to read everything currently published in the western world and feed it into a computer, looking for codes that might betray CIA secrets, discovers an actual code. one that betrays a super secret ultra-CIA inside the larger CIA. yeah.
so the ultra-CIA puts a hit out on the office, and by dumb luck misses Redford and his tight jeans, who then has to go on the run and doesn’t know who to trust.
luckily, he happens upon Faye Dunaway, whose aparent purpose in this film is to look distraught, develop Stockholm syndrome for no apparent reason and to film a sex scene with Redford. then they go off solving the mystery, and they both become experts in interrogation and gun play, and even kidnapping techniques.
in short, they actors suck, their characters are unbelievable, and the plot is fucking ridiculous.
but never fear, bitches. Max Von Sydow is here!
he plays this freelance hitman, formerly of the CIA, now working for “any side” in the intelligence community who kicks him some ass. but he’s cool. he doesn’t display his package. he’s not unbelievable, and he shows Robert Redford what’s up.
now, I’m coming across as anti-Redford, which I should address. I’m not anti-Redford. I liked “The Sting,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid.” shit, even “Spy Game” was okay (and I stress just okay). this movie, however, will not get that same nod. you spend 40 minutes setting up the main character as an untrained CIA analyst running scared in NY, he had better remain that way for the rest of the film. you can’t have him turn into some resourceful operative when the plot requires it just to further the film. I won’t buy that shit. maybe the rest of the critics will, but I’ll be bored, and instead just watch reruns of The World’s Strongest Man competition on ESPN 2 at 3 am. we don’t want that.
oh. and I lost count, but I’m not even sure if the movie spanned three days. you know, if you’re gonna title it something as intriguing as “3 Days of the Condor,” maybe you should put some special emphasis the fact that it’s three days, cause your title sure does. this movie just lets the days blend together. time wasn’t even fucking important. what the fuck??

okay, I got more movies. here’s the list for this week:

1. Deathwish
2. Hombre (Paul Newman’s an indian!)
3. On Deadly Ground (Steven Seagal acts and directs)
4. Zombie Island Massacre
5. 3 Days of the Condor

I promised myself I’d type at least something about every video I rent, and I didn’t get around to finishing up with the last five. so here goes.

thursday nite’s feature:
21 Grams

Naomi Watts is a bitch who needs to step the fuck off.
Sean Penn is a dick who needs to back the fuck up. but in the end, he’s not that bad.
Benicio Del Toro is just trying to do his own thing, so lay off him. seriously.

last nite’s feature:
Zombie Island Massacre

something about voodoo, drug smuggling, the complete absence of zombies (what the fuck?!?!), and the most intense boobs I’ve ever seen – courtesy of Rita Jenrette, the former wife of former SC Rep. John Jenrette, who had to resign his seat after he was convicted of accepting bribes from FBI agents posing as middle eatern businessmen in the early 80s. way to go, asshole.
no, but seriously, her boobs were fucking nuts. they held my attention more than the film did (which sucked hard, I might add), and not in an erotic way. I was more like, “wait, what the hell is… are they supposed to do that?”

here, I even found a picture of them. her expression says it all.
http://www.robbscelebs.co.uk/noops337/rita_jenrette0009.jpg

now get the hell off the computer and go outside. it’s a beautfiul day today.
I need a taco.

tonite’s feature:
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

an art film.
seriously, it is. albeit a hyperviolent and bloody one. it’s 1) one of the defining films of its genre, and 2) it’s got a message. there’s a message. really.
this movie really gets you going. alright, before I even say anything else, I just want to say that grave robbing is a great way to start any movie.
it looks great. really grainy. looks like summer, almost makes you want to start sweating. and it immediately identifies the five teenagers in the van as what they’re to become: meat. “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” makes one hell of a case for vegetarianism. I mean, throughout the movie, domesticated animals; their sounds, slaughterhouse imager, likekilling techniques; all of that’s mirrored to the killing of the kids.
and you’re more than welcome to like the movie for that. however, I’d assume that most don’t come to that conclusion after seeing the film for the first time. most probably have nightmares, or throw up a little in their mouths while watching it. I watched it with Alisha. she kept on glaring at me, cause I had suggested we watch it.
hey, you’re an adult, you punk. if you can’t hang, stay on the porch.
I’ve read reviews were people tie in the imagery and events of the film to the Vietnam war. I’m not going to pretend to touch that shit. all I’ll say is that the film is capable of working on a few different levels. it could be a critique of post-Vietnam America. it could be an indictment of the meat industry. it could a perverse nod of respect to the working class (Leatherface’s family are all laid off stockyard workers, who assumedly go batshit insane and start killing people). or, it could be simply what it is to most people, a pretty fucking tense movie about a couple of stacked chicks who don’t wear bras who run into a family of cannibalistic retards.
or you could hate it, and say that it either offers nothing at all to the viewer – it’s halfassed in its attempts at social commentary, and there isn’t even enough gore, for fuck’s sake.
but, chances are if you feel that way, you’re devoid of taste. and probably a Republican. (where’s your God now, white boy? he’s not on dudeokay.blogspot.com.)
and it runs under 1 1/2 hours. damn, it gets a lot done in that time period.
oh, and I’d also like to give a shout out to the ending. that motherfucker is just so abrupt. I mean, my main man in the Black Maria shows up, and then everything goes nuts, and then Finis. it’s money. I’m not giving a good description, I know, but it’s kind of hard to be succinct when I’m trying not to ruin it for anyone who may not have seen it already.
on that note, if you haven’t seen it, well… I give you a 50/50 chance on hating its guts. but hey. I liked it. and I don’t think my taste can reasonably be questioned. it’s just too rock solid.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Marine-Iraq-Death.html?hp

from the article:

The two Iraqis were killed during an April 2004 search outside a suspected terrorist hideout in Mahmudiyah, Iraq. Pantano, 33, contended he shot them in self-defense after the men disobeyed his instructions and made a menacing move toward him.
Prosecutors alleged Pantano intended to make an example of the men by shooting them 60 times and hanging a sign over their bodies — ”No better friend, no worse enemy,” a Marine slogan. While citing self-defense as his motive, Pantano did not deny hanging the sign or shooting the men repeatedly.


Jesus Christ.

later, on the second page of this, a story about dirty stinkin’ border jumpers coming over to take our American jobs.
and to think, that some faggit liberal hippies actually give em water!
www.humaneborders.org

I got a mohawk last night. and the Spurs won twice on the road. fuck you, Josh and Mike.

last nite’s feature:
The Guns of Navarone

this movie, from what I’ve read, came in a string of big budget WW2 action films. you had “The Longest Day” (which has this scene with John Wayne where he’s kicking it in this empty hangar, then an aide comes up to him and tells him that the invasion of France is on and he takes his cup of coffee and just throws the motherfucker down on the floor and starts running) and “The Great Escape.” little known fact: “The Great Escape” was actually called “Steve McQueen is Awesome” in Europe.

this movie stars Gregory Peck, David Niven, and Anthony Quinn as a man so hard that he doesn’t even have to act it.
Gregory Peck is, well, Gregory Peck. the dude was a film icon. he plays the action film star of the 60s to a hilt – stiff pants riding almost up to his belly button, barrel chested, just a hint of stubble and a good tan – and manages to not only scale a rock wall, kill him some kraut scum, and be dazzling, but he gets to make out with a hot chick at the same time.
Anthony Quinn’s character is way too real for you. the guy is a conflicted man (who smokes an awesome looking pipe), whose hatred for that smarmy asshole Peck is only overcome by his seething hatred for those evil nazi bastards. he also doesn’t mind kicking a woman’s ass, or beating up janitors who don’t habla englais. both of these things take place during the film.

as far as the actual movie goes, it’s okay. it follows a British commando team that is charged with blowing up two big ass German radar targeting guns that totally own an important passage in the Aegean sea, so ships can pass by them and rescue a regiment of stranded British soldiers.
the team’s got the regular assortment of idiots: the conflicted one, the young guy, the comic relief, the Gregory Peck (played by Gregory Peck), the inevitable love interest, the physically scarred ex-con who does some soul searching and finds god, the minority, and the Judas.
I made a lot of those up. try and guess which ones!

it’s not a bad film by it’s time period’s standards. it’s the kind of film my dad would recommend we watch on some saturday on Turner Classic Movies. but, it is jingoistic, simplistic, unbelievable, hard to follow, and shot in technicolor.
so in other words, not to be missed!
besides, if you miss it, Anthony Quinn (who is among the hardest of the hard) will rise from his grave and beat your bitch ass. he’s the man in this movie.

“is this something you can share with the rest of us, Amazing Larry?”

just think about that.

I had to wipe out my bank account for car repairs today.
you’ll get yours, Midas…

okay, anyway. tonite’s feature:
Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

it’s hard for me to tell sometimes how much I’m into a films I loved as a child.
I can recite almost every line of this flm. I know the cues. I know the angles. I know the timing. I’ve seen it at least three dozen times. at least.
my friend Pat Condon, when I was a kid, loved this movie just as much as I did. he even aped Pee Wee, he had his laugh down to a science.
but the reasons I loved the movie back then are obviously different than the reasons I like it so much now.
the movie operates on two different levels – one for children, obviously, due to its surface content (Pee Wee making dumb but clean jokes, the cartoonish nature of the film), and the other for those more mature, what with the killer one liners and references that only those older than twelve might recognize.
wait. did I just claim that “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” has a mature audience?
anyway, this movie obviously isn’t for everyone. chances are, if you saw it when you were a kid, you’ll stil love it now, and if not, then it’s a crap shoot; you either find the motorcycle bar scene where Pee Wee saves himself to the tune of “Tequila” utter fucking comedic genius, or you’re a clod. it’s one or the other.
either way, as I’m typing this, I’m realizing two different things. one, I’m not much of a film reviewer. the more bullshit I type, the more evident this becomes. and secondly, I’m tired. so I’m going to drop some sick quotes from the movie, and recommend you go rent “Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure.” because I think it’s piss-your-pants funny.

suck on it.

Pee Wee: the mind plays tricks on you. you play tricks back! it’s like you’re unraveling a big cable-knit sweater that someone keeps knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting…

Pee Wee: I’m here to see Francis!
Butler: Francis is busy.
Pee Wee: busy doing what?
Butler: he’s having his bath.
Pee Wee: oh, really? WHERE ARE THEY HOSING HIM DOWN?

[Pee Wee looks at Mickey's hand as he is wearing one handcuff]
Pee Wee: what’d you do?
Mickey: well, I lost my temper and I took a knife and I uh… do you know those “Do Not Remove Under the Penalty of Law” labels they put on mattresses?
Pee Wee: yeah.
Mickey: well, I CUT one of them off!
Pee Wee: jeeze.
Mickey: yeah, I have a real bad temper.
Pee Wee: boy, I always thought that was the dumbest law.

Francis: oh, shut up, Pee Wee!
Pee Wee: why don’t you make me?
Francis: why don’t you make me!
Pee Wee: because! I don’t make monkeys, I just train ‘em!

so I walked over to Top Ten to rent a movie.
I picked two.
then, I realized that if you get three, you get two more for free. shit, you know I’m game.

so I got
1. Pee Wee’s Big Adventure
2. John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’
3. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper edition)
4. 21 Grams
5. The Guns of Navarone

so what I’m going to do is do a rough hewn “review” of each movie I watch. I’ve got them ’til friday, so that’s a movie a night. chances are, I won’t get through all of them, but it won’t be from a lack of trying.

tonite’s feature:
The Thing

alright, first things first. I’ll be honest with myself. the only reason I rented this was because a couple of days ago I bought a video game called (you guessed it) “The Thing.” it was in a bargain bin at a video game store in the mall. it’s not very well made, story doesn’t make much sense, but that’s neither here nor there. supposedly, the events of the game immediately followed those of the movie – the 80s Carpenter version with Kurt Russell and the master of disaster, Wilford motherfucking Brimley, and not the original made in the 50s. I was interested enough that I decided to pitch 2 bucks to rent it.
so John Carpenter directed this. currently, that’s a cue for anyone to run from any theatre featuring his movies until their lungs burn. he fucking sucks sometimes. “Ghosts of Mars” was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen – and I’ve seen some shitty movies. “Vampires” bit ass, too, and so did “Escape from LA.” that last one was sad; it was like trying to wring the last drop of liquid from a damp rag. let it go, man…
but when the man is on, he’s on. he did “Halloween.” awesome. he did “Escape from New York.” killer. and I’ll go out on a limb (because I’ve seen neither but have heard great things about both) and mention that he also did “They Live” and the original “Assault on Precinct 13.” oh, and he also did “Big Trouble in Little China,” yet another Kurt Russell vehicle. so he’s like 70/30 on his shit, roughly.
I’m not going to pretend to be able to reference his entire back catalog, so the first thing I thought of when I saw Carpenter’s name across the box was “Ghosts of Mars.” should have thought of Michael Myers, but instead thought of Ice Cube embarrassing himself. of that blonde chick not showing any titty. I was expecting to be disappointed.
I wasn’t. this movie was pretty solid, straight through. it’s a straight up horror flick. the special effects were pretty good. plenty of fake blood, goo oozing off of shit. and the premise of the film (alien being among a dozen people stuck at an Antartic science station that consumes and then imitates its victims) makes for some really interesting power struggles, and builds the tension to quite a pitch.
see, there’s an alien among the population at all times. it could just lay low, as the fucking base is on a continent with a human population no larger than 200. at least, that’s what I would do if I were an alien.
but this is where the questions arise. is the thing trying to run up on everyone because it feels that if it doesn’t, everyone else’ll be a threat to its existence? that doesn’t make sense, if no one can tell it apart. or, is it just a dick that likes killing people?
and another question: once it consumes someone, how does it understand the person’s backstory? how does it know to call Kurt Russell’s character by a nickname? how does it understand human social interaction?
one more question. Fuchs found some of McReady’s clothing all ripped up out in the snow, which means the monster ripped through his clothes (the characters establish this). then the scene cut away. couple of minutes later, someone finds Fuchs’ charred corpse outside. someone burned him. and the movie goes on to have us believe it wasn’t McReady, cause McReady is played by Russell, and Russell is the hero… so what the fuck?
I want fucking answers!
oh well. beyond that, it was totally gross, it had a sense of doom, and Wilford Brimley showed some young punks how it was. any movie that can do all that should come with some antacids, as it’s so awesome that your heart might actually explode.
that’s a thumbs up if I’ve ever seen one.

tomorrow night: who knows! maybe psychosexual kid show fun, or maybe a war movie starring the guy from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” if I was you, I’d check in and read another totally fucking awesome review.

I have some fucked up dreams. I was out late last night, and I just woke up, and I dreamt a lot. I normally don’t, and I want to try and record as much of it as I can. this one is long. if you get through all of it, you deserve a gold star.
I haven’t read back over it, haven’t proofread it, so it’s probably not easy to handle. but, then again, fuck you. this is more about me than it is about you.
lots of people I know and admire were either in or referenced in the dreams. so I put their names in bold. (you should consider yourself so lucky to get dropped!)
––––

okay, first I had a dream that society had broken down, and there was a plague of vampire zombies, and the only serious resemblance of stability in the world was the existence of house parties. seriously. I went to one, and if I recall correctly, it was being hosted by these guys I work with at Dagwood’s, and Neil was there, and the party was really hostile.
either way, I only went in to talk to Neil, and make him leave with me; vampire zombies were afoot, and we needed to jet. but all of the sudden, one of the guys from Dagwood’s wanted to borrow my car from me to go and pick up supplies – which could mean anything for more beer cause the keg had gone dry to massive amounts of ammo to fight off the undead hordes. I didn’t trust him, so I went with him. we had to sneak out the back, cause the party was giving off a really sinister vibe.
that early part of the dream had nothing to do with the rest of them, if I recall correctly.

THEN. all of the sudden, I’m in some storefront in downtown Pittsburgh – at a family reunion, of sorts. I never really visit my dad’s side of the family, and that’s when I’m conscious. so I was out for a cousin’s wedding (which is an event that’s coming up in real life). but it wasn’t my 30something yr old cousin Bridget getting married. it was Brigid’s. Brigid is also a cousin of mine. and Brigid is still in high school. the fuck?
so all of my cousins start arriving to this store, which I guess the extended family owns, and there’s all these faces I don’t recognize. it’s because my aunts and uncles, who already have like nine kids between two families as it is, have started adopting children from underdeveloped asian nations! holy fuck!
okay. so I’m kicking it, saying hi to everyone and being pleasant, and then my real cousins come in, (Maura, Courtney, Caitlin) and they’re talking about some long lost cousins we have. like “3rd cousins, twice removed” kind of cousins.
guess who’s my cousin? fuckin’ Alisha. that’s fucked up.

THEN. all of the sudden I’m at a swim meet. it’s like set up in tourney mode, double elimination style. only everybody competing really sucks at swimming. they’re either really out of shape, or they don’t know the different the strokes.
Alisha is my swimming coach, cause I’m in the tournament. how I got here, I’ll never remember.
races are only 50 meters, two lengths of the pool. first race I get worked like a punk in the back stroke. see, I’m kind of in shape, but I’m not a great swimmer, and my attention is somewhere else. I don’t even touch the far wall before coming back, and it really pissed off the judges and refs and the crowd watching. so they warn me.
second race is up, and its freestyle, and I get worked again. don’t touch the wall. a ref warns me again; he’s really pissed. he looks like Dave Mira, the BMX guy. he’s got a shaved head, and he’s built. his neck is surging out of his polo shirt. he’s scaring me.
for some reason, they give me one more chance to swim a complete race, though I’ve been doubly eliminated already.
so the third race is up. but nobody tells me what stroke I’m supposed to be swimming. they just say “the paddle,” and I’ve got no idea what the fuckin’ “paddle” is, so I assume it’s the breast stroke, and bust it out. I demolish the guy I’m racing. I touch the wall. I get back, and the crowd is silent at one moment, loud and vicious at the next. it reminded me of Thunderdome, only without Tina Turner.
I guess it wasn’t the breast stroke after all. I have to jet out of there, cause it’s turning ugly.

THEN. I had a dream that I had somehow acquired a vast sum of money (either from the Neil zombie episode or from cheating at the swimming tournament, I guess) and I was in Las Vegas. Mar was there with her friend – this guy named Eric – and so was Josh. Smith was there, obviously. Smith will always be in Vegas in my dreams. heh.
Galia’s friend, Gretchen, she made a brief appearance. no Galia though, oddly. I don’t know why, but Josh and Eric were the casino managers. I’m just newly wealthy, like in the multi-millionaire range, but I haven’t spent any of it. I don’t really want to spend it in a casino, cause I don’t really like casinos. I think that’s evidenced in a lot of my posts from my trip out west.
okay, so anyway, Josh and Eric have put me up in a pretty nice room up in the casino hotel. Smith, however, has been telling them I’m cheap. and that I need to spend more money. and that its ridiculous that I don’t spend the money that they all know I have (it’s no secret I have it).
finally, after a day or two, I’m like “fuck it.” I’ll start throwing around money. I go up to the room, and this is where Gretchen comes in – I bump into her on the casino floor and I want to show her this really cool hotel suite my friends have been letting me stay in – and we go upstairs to the room, and it’s not there. it’s suppoed to be room 08 on the 8th floor, but it’s gone. I ask the custodian where the room is, cause I’m less mad than confused, but he’s latino, doesn’t speak english, so we go back downstairs. Gretchen walked off somewhere.
I go to Josh and I’m like, “Josh, where’d the room go?”
and he’s like, “it’s up there. it’s between room 09 and room ‘take a hint and get the hell off my property.’”
seriously! I was told to leave by Josh. fuck you, Josh! the Spurs are gonna beat the Suns. in six.
so I’m walking out, going back to the trusty ol’ Saturn, and I run into Mar. Mar’s like “fuck these punks; let’s roll out,” so I think we roll out. it gets a little hazy here, cause we jump to another…

THEN. I had like a subdream, which was a dream that stemmed from the fact that my mind was on Las Vegas. for some reason, I just imagined this prison train running from Texas to Nevada: I know prisons don’t have trains, but this one was specifically a train full of inmates who had taken it over, like in Von Ryan’s Express. only, there was no Sinatra, and the prisoners on this one weren’t captured American GIs and pilots but violent, hardened criminals.
the train is packed. people are hanging out the sides, riding on top. everyone is wearing grey, like jumpsuits that identify them. I’m seeing all this through the third person, sticking with a central character who isn’t me. it’s a guy who looks exactly like Robert Shaw did in “Jaws.” awesome. that’s the guy up in the right hand corner of my blog.
he’s kind of simple. he doesn’t realize where the train is going, and he acts like a savant among these hardened people. he’s watching the scenery go by, sitting on top of a car with his legs hanging over the side. and they’re traveling by night, and it’s a cold world he’s looking out on. I’m sympathizing with him.
the train keeps moving faster and faster, probably cause they have an idiot instead of a conductor, and its passing over dams, bridges, checkpoints full of men who are looking for a fugitive train full of convicts. everyone is holding their breath when they pass these men by, who look down on the train from platforms that crowd the track for a hundred yards every hundred miles, but everyone on board keeps quiet, and for some reason, they aren’t identified.
finally, they’re moving too fast, and they’re moving too fucking fast, and as they come to an unsteady bridge, the velocity of the train manages to topple it, collapsing the span (these are the scary moments of the dream; when you feel like you’re falling, but you’re not? you feel like your heart will stop). the train plunges.
the bridge collapses. everyone falls, everyone’s screaming into this dark canyon. everybody but the Robert Shaw simpleton. he’s hanging onto some remnant of the bridge that hasn’t given way. and he’s about to slip, there’s nothing left to hold on to, when…
someone with the likeness of Neil-motherfucking-Patrick Harris holds something out for him to grab. he played Doogie Howser. the prisoner is reeled in, and its realized Doogie is the man. he’s a screw. he’s law enforcement. he knows everything about Robert Shaw. and I’m treated to a flashback, to what exactly got him incarcerated in the first place…
(this is graphic)
this girl, young girl in a red, knee-length dress is kneeling by a fence, smiling at a dog on the other side. dog is an airedale. she’s petting it through the fence, it’s a chainlink.
dog starts going batshit, barking. out of nowhere, this rough hewn rope is looped around her neck, and it’s pulled so tight, and she’s gasping and kicking, and these two huge forearms are holding the rope behind her. holding it tight in two fists, all you see are these big forearms with a blue workshirt rolled up to the elbows.
and it wrenches the rope so hard that the girl’s fucking head just rips off. it’s the simpleton. the dog’s still barking at him, well after she’s dead, and he doesn’t pay it any attention, he’s just got this wide toothed grin, he grins the whole time, even when he picks up her head and gives a huge lick to the bloody stump that used to be her neck…
flashback to Doogie pulling Captain Quinn back onto a platform, and a bunch of prison guards chain him up. I no longer care for the guy after that. it’s funny how your opinion changes of someone when you learn something new about them, like they brutally murdered something like a 14 yr old girl. and what’s even more fucked up is that this was all in my head in the first place, so I never really learned anything. I always knew.
I woke up after that. it was like 8 am. I went back to sleep.

THEN. after I fell asleep, I dreamt of my brother’s wedding. it was no longer on that plantation lawn on the Charles river back in Virginia, but at Ogden Gardens around the corner from my mom’s house. Ogden Gardens, it appeared, had sold out – while it used to be a community project, lots of nice foilage and flowers, now there were massive neon signs, just above and behind where the bride and groom would assumedly take their nuptuals. I didn’t like it. I watched as people flocked down the streets, held up traffic in the intersection, poured into seats in the park (Ogden gardens sits at a corner). watched this bizarro string of groomsmen, all dressed the same as me, walking, spaced well apart, like they were inconspicuously trying to walk separately. what the fuck?
I was there. my brother’s friend Chris Neal was there. so was my cousin Matt (on my dad’s side).

THEN… I’m trying to piece together this giant 3D puzzle, the kind my aunt used to get me for Christmas that I’d never get around to actually building, only I’m doing it in the empty storespace where Karma used to be, right next to Dagwood’s. I shouldn’t be in there, but it’s dark, it’s real late, and I don’t think anyone minds that I’m squatting in this vast empty store in downtown Bloomington. then, I remember that someone told me that there’s a silent alarm hooked up to the employee entrance, the one they share with Dagwood’s, which is how I got in. I worried about that for a bit, then went back to work on the puzzle. I woke up before the cops arrived.

––––
that’s all the dreams I had last night. as best as I remember them. make sense of them if you dare. I’d rather you didn’t, though. we’re all psychoanalysts after Freud, and everyone’ll think I’m a sociopath.

I love Maury.
and I hate his ass at the same time.
I mean, the era of the daytime talkshow is starting to pass. you used to have my homegirl Sally sending punks to boot camp every weekday at 3:30. you used to have Ricky Lake talking to fat chicks about their horrible dilemmas.

now you’ve just got Maury.
I was watching his show today (of course I was), and right before breaks, they have their pitch for future guests, which is always something like,
“is your five year old over 200 lbs., but you can’t stop feeding it because you don’t know how to say no? do you think your common law wife is humping the guy who rents out your basement who also happens to be your double amputee cousin, and you want to find out the truth? if so, call the Maury Show!“

but not today.
today, it was “are you or someone you know in an physically abusive relationship with a loved one, and do you need help? if so, call the Maury Show!“

okay, I like the Maury Show. I’m not going to lie. I like watching rabble with bad dental hygeine trying to beat the lie detector tests. I love the shocking secrets. I love the paternity test shows. that shit is downright hysterical.
(I once saw this guy categorically deny ever cheating on his girlfriend and the mother of his kids. she was claiming he had slept with over 20 different women. he was like, “you crazy. you crazy. I ain’t never slept with no other women. show the results, show the results, Maury, cause she goan owe me an apology.” he’s dressed fly as hell, grinning.
Maury busted out the results, and he failed the test completely, and the audience was going apeshit, and the woman was screaming, about to slap him, and he got up like he’s about to say something, and then he just went and brushed his shoulders off. it was awesome.)
but back to the point.
but what the fuck is Maury going to do for someone who’s small-dicked ex-con husband is beating on them? I mean, beyond putting them on display for all of us to gaze at, with their rat tails laid out over one shoulder, double chins quivering, tears blotting out the cheap dye on the newly bought blouses they picked up at their hometown Marshall’s? these people don’t need daytime televsion with low production value – they need actual counseling and restraining orders.

the worst thing, I think, about Maury, is he never seemed to get the hint. all the other hosts pretended to give a shit about the human freakshows they parade onto their sets each day. Maury keeps up the facade, still putting on the faux air of doing these people some good.
seriously. at least Jerry Springer doesn’t even try on his show, he just lets the animals go at it. there’s beauty in that honesty.
Maury, on the other hand, needs to stick to the babydaddy and the cheating stories. the lie detector is his best friend. domestic violence, on the other hand, is going way too far.
YOU’RE OUT OF YOUR LEAGUE, MAURY, YOU GAUNT MOTHERFUCKER. GO HOME TO CONNIE CHUNG, AND DON’T MAKE REAL PROBLEMS PART OF YOUR CARNIVAL.

and to end on a completely different note:
Confucius said, “wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
with that in mind, I’m going to Taco Bell.

I don’t consider myself cold.

I don’t get too upset at the passing of old relatives. that would change if it were my brother or my sister. or a friend of equitable age. or if it’s an accident that causes the death.
dying of old age isn’t something to lament, I don’t think.

my Great Uncle Steve, my grandmother’s younger brother, is dying.
he’s got kidney failure. heart failure. he’s got fluid in his chest. body’s shutting down. this is what happens when you’re 80 yrs old. your body taps out.

Uncle Steve never married. my mother seems to think he’s a bit slow. to be crass – he’s not full-blown retarded, but he’s probably what would have been called “learning disabled” if he had been born to middle class parents in the 1980s the way I was. instead, he was the last of seven born to immigrant parents in a steel town who were already dirt fucking poor when the depression hit. needless to say, the schools back then didn’t “identify” his special needs.
so yeah, he never married. when he was 16 or so, he started work as common labor in the mills, and was never the kind to go out and look for wimmin. he’s (as in, he still is, cause he’s not dead yet) deeply religious, like all the old people in my family are, so I think that tided him over. when my great grandmother died in the 50s, he stayed in the house they’d lived in together along with his older sister (my great aunt) Nettie.

those two old crabby bastards lived together for fifty years. I’d probably be pretty cranky all the time if I were them, too.
so anyways, Uncle Steve has led a long life. always really involved with the church. likes to garden. traveled a little – more than most people in his shoes; my Aunt Lynn took him and Aunt Nettie to Italy, Greece, fuckin’ China. I’ve never been to China. so it’s not like he’s sat on his hands.
they just recently were moved out of the old house (the one they’ve been in for half a century) on Jefferson in Glen Park by, chiefly, my mom. Aunt Nettie is pretty hard of hearing, she’s got Alzheimer’s. Steve did the cooking, but his health had been failing, and since both of them weren’t able to keep their eyes on one another, they’re moved out. Nettie’s living with my mom and grandmother back home, Steve has been to the hospital to a nursing home, now back to a hospital on account of his health.

yeah, but either way, he’s on the ropes now. I guess the doctors aren’t giving him a whole lot of time.
Mom’s obviously upset. Uncle Steve’s obviously a little scared, cause he kind of knows. I’m stuck down here, 250 miles away, basically waiting for the phone to ring to tell me it’s all over, that I should come back for the wake and funeral. I’ll probably be a pall bearer.
I feel like shit because I keep on thinking about how I hope he doesn’t pass for a day or two, so I won’t be fucked concerning work. I’ve got to be at the paper all day wednesday.
no getting around that. I’m an asshole for still coming back to that.

but, at the same time, I don’t really feel sad.
I’ll miss Uncle Steve. I went in and said hello last weekend when I was up, shook his hand, bullshitted in the hospital room for a half an hour. in all probability, that was the last time I’ll see him.
what keeps me from weeping, I guess, is knowing that if I live to be that old, my kidneys and my heart will stop working too.
facts of life.
sometimes I look at the elderly – and I’ve seen plenty of elderly, been to plenty of nursing homes, spent plenty of time at my church where the median age is 65 – and I wonder that maybe we weren’t meant to live that long. weren’t meant to age to that degree.
he’s 80 years old. if he were healthy, it’d be one thing. and I’m not advocating pulling the plug – but after a while, the quality of life reduces, your vital signs begin to bottom out, you need a machine to help you stay alive, and it just might be God’s way of saying your time on the Earth is up, so don’t go kicking and screaming. you were there for 80 years. you didn’t get fucked, it’s just over.

I’m not sweating Uncle Steve. I’ll go home for the funeral, I’ll say my goodbyes in that traditional way. but it’s not something to cry for. he didn’t get fucked. it’s just over.