Mah Trip to West Virginney

OK, so Cathy was sad, because she had a hankering to kill Bambi.

And her boyfriend John couldn’t go on this Thanksgiving hunting trip, so I volunteered. I know Cathy and her family don’t disrespect animals. They actually eat them, so it’s not for blood-lust that they enjoy shooting these literally doe-eyed creatures.

(As a side note: why is the funniest thing to say almost always also the meanest? I want to say John couldn’t go because of his pizza-delivery salary and his sick [chain-smoking, emphysema-riddled, but in-denial] mom. Plus John – being somewhat slow to warm up to Cathy’s relatives - drank quite a bit last year and apparently twisted his ankle in the driveway. Which is kinda funny and explains why he isn’t going this year. But here’s the thing: John is saving up for a Christmas trip with Cathy to Germany. And John also took care of our cat all week this week and he was sweet and he called and let our cat meow to us over the phone. And he even cleaned the litter box. So, even the meanest things I could think to say about John don’t seem fair, especially when our Schweetie Peets – a.k.a the cat – loves him so much. But Cathy and John don’t really read my blog, I would say this stuff to his face, and I am really warming up to John, so in the interest of being honest, I’ll leave this here. Unless he asks me to remove it, because really I am starting to like him.)

So before we got on the road…

I made a few pies. Sarah French helped. Made a pecan pie and a three-cherry pie with homemade crust. Also, made a pumpkin cheesecake. We also made Sarah a pecan pie for her family. Then Cathy and I packed up the car and headed out at midnight Tuesday night.

Then there was a snow storm and we ended up in Tennessee, but that’s all in part 2, or “Part Doe.” Hehe.

The Road to Hell-ville

Cathy called me on her way to work. We knew Interstate 4 was backed up around John Young Parkway. She called to tell me that the backup stretched all the way up past her exit to 436! I had to drive 14 miles out of my way. It took almost 1 hour to get to work.

The part that makes me sad and angry is that there was this car in front of me not paying any attention whatsoever to the road. I could tell she was fiddling with her hair or talking to her kid or chatting on the cell phone. So, every stop we had, she’d delay until someone honked their horns to tell her that “Yes, lady, the Gah Damned light had indeed changed.” Which the delay would mean we wouldn’t make the next green light, of course. And every right turn we could take, she missed the opportunity of a gap between cars because something else inside of her damn car was distracting her from driving. And I drove behind her for miles and miles just fuming and trying to find a way out of it.

So, I finally got fed up and went to whip around her. I thought I had a clear shot. Instead, I almost got myself killed. By a big black monolith of a monster fucking truck who was happily whizzing by at a gazillion miles an hour with no impediments whatsoever…The fucking truck driver was probably whistling and thinking that he could easily run over anything that got in his way. And in fact, he could.

It’s like Fate is telling me that if I try to escape the injustice that is going 7 miles an hour in front of me, blocking my road to Happiness – if I try to find a way around it - I am going to be smashed to death by a big fucking monster truck!

I half expected the truck to have a Grim Reaper painted on its side or a bumper sticker that says “BWAHAHAHA – Your Karma Sucks!!!” Or both.

Book Report - the Travel Version

The City of Falling Angels by John Berendt

Do not fret for John Berendt.

Now that he’s famous, he’s stepped up his digs from the American South (Savanah in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil). He’s in Venice this time, but his modus operandi is basically the same. Berendt gets a fat advance, moves to an interesting place, meets weird and interesting (mostly rich) people, and reports it all back to us.

He always tries to organize everything around one central story; in Venice, a 1997 fire laid waste to La Fenice, one of Europe’s premiere opera houses.

OK, this is where I must digress. In college, I spent a few months in Venice, working for La Fenice, pawning tickets to tourists as part of an “internship.” The opera building, like the entire city, was a sumptuous, smelly, and crumbling firetrap.

And corrupt! In order to get a phone line, my roommate and I had to find the man who hooked up the phones, get him purposefully drunk, and then dare him to connect us in the middle of the night. And it worked! And we never once saw a phone bill!

Berendt’s colorful reporting only lightly skims this corruption. I kept wondering if he was secretly hired by the Italian tourist board. In fact, the whole book is really just a charming travelogue, with lots of side-tracking (to the point that the fire investigation is completely forgotten for whole chapters).

In the end, I wondered if Berendt just refused to alienate any future rich people he may write about in any possible future books. That hedging approach does not make for a fascinating expose.


The Rum Diaries by Hunter S. Thompson

Ah, Hunter… This is his very first novel, the one he said would elevate San Juan the way that Hemmingway’s The Old Man and The Sea did for Key West. And in fact, the Puerto Rico of the 1950s is described in filthy, loving detail. Well, The Rum Diaries didn’t quite elevate San Juan, but it is a very strong, coherent start from one of America’s most revered writers (May he rest in peace.)

In fact, the narrator of TRD is a lot like a young Hunter S. Thompson. In his early 20s, Thompson landed in tropical San Juan to write for several months at a shoddy English-speaking paper. And, like the protagonist, Hunter drank incessantly, landed in jail, and was attacked several times by a vicious mob of locals (most likely his own fault; he can’t remember.) It’s very hard to tell where the diary ends and the supposed non-fiction begins.

The book is stylistically fascinating. Thompson’s youthful prose is quite a bit more lyrical and less staccato than in later books like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. However, right from the start, Thompson was never as enamored with coherent plot as he was with character and place. Moreover, his people are never very admirable or heroic. Mostly, they get drunk and/or high, do stupid and selfish and reckless things, and then get punished beyond their wildest imaginations.

Should you read this? Well, it depends on what you want. Do you want a plot-driven story full of pretty images, or do you want a bit of aimless self-destruction and moral degradation?

Cinema Sugar Toast

I saw two films recently I want to write about so...

Good Night and Good Luck – There are so many good things about this movie – many already said and printed - that I’ve decided to address some of the middling bad press it’s been getting.

True, director and actor and co-writer (and notorious liberal) George Clooney has set out to attack one of the worst times in American Republican history (and there are many) by illuminating the 1950s McCarthy hearings on communist activity. True, he also recruited David Straithain to take on the role of legendary newsman Edward R. Murrow in a performance that should not be ignored during Oscar nom time. And, yes, this concise little 93-minute film is in beautiful, sharp black and white – like a crisply restored D.A. Pennebaker documentary.

The criticism is that Clooney’s film is unfair. Straithairn envelops a grounded, gravely and bigger-than-life Murrow. But McCarthy is left to represent himself in shoddy, tinny old news reels. Murrow is intellectual, a well-spoken performer. McCarthy was a Wisconsin nitwit, a bumbler and a bully who doesn’t have the benefit of a good actor to make him look more human in this film. Murrow raked McCarthy over the coals and was instrumental in bringing the commie witch-hunts to and end. But here, McCarthy – lacking a realistic actors’ performance to flesh him out - isn’t given a fighting chance. So the critics say.

What they may not have noticed is that Clooney purposefully framed this movie to be solely about the world of television. The action almost entirely takes place in the CBS studio. It’s shot in black and white for a reason; that’s what TV had to work with in the 50s. The film begins and ends with Murrow (Straithairn) giving a press speech about what television can achieve.

Instead, he frets, of bringing intelligent discourse to every American living room, TV peddles the shallow, the vapid, the easy answer and the cheap laugh. This movie isn’t so much about the evil Republicans – or for that matter, any media or political bully - as it is about the intelligent people with the power but without the backbone to stand up to them. Television news – then and now – falls directly under that criticism.

Notice a specific choice Clooney makes in the film. Murrow, every single night of his broadcast, is seen with a lit cigarette in clear view; its smoke curling around his hand. Following one news segment is a sponsor commercial for the very same cigarette, touting itself as a “healthy” choice for smokers. We laugh, and Clooney shows us that even television can have its historical missteps.

However, that doesn’t exclude television news from doing what is truly right and good, fair and balanced. Murrow knew that then. Good Night and Good Luck seems to dream of a few newscasters today who would exemplify some of Murrow’s more noble values, his eloquence and his courage.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – This film reminds me of an Andre Gide quote – “We are always rediscovering the past, bending it to our own will to make it new again.”

Shane Black wrote the first two Lethal Weapon movies. Although, he didn’t invent the buddy flick, his scripts certainly gave it a much-needed shot in the arm. Black also wrote and directed this one, borrowing from several more current films to create a new amalgam of the old buddy formula. KKBB has culled itself stylistically from Guy Ritchie and David Fincher films (Snatch and The Fight Club respectively), Charlie Kaufman’s goofy narration (specifically Adaptation), and the amoral characters of Tarantino’s films.

This rape, pillage and plunder technique really works. Even with this borrowing, if Black gets passed up for a Best Original Screenplay nomination, he will have been robbed.

If I give away too much of the wonderfully ridiculous plot, I would essentially rob you of the act of discovery, so I’ll keep it pretty brief. New York petty thief Robert Downy, Jr. gets mistaken for an actor, flown out to LA for a screen test in a crime film, and teamed up with a stalwart gay detective brilliantly played by Val Kilmer. Sexy women enter the picture, ugly murders occur, our boys get implicated, and all hell breaks loose.

KKBB is a hilarious, far-fetched modern version of the 1950s pulp detective novel. Director/writer Black knows this; he even inserts plot-points from a fictitious pulp writer, Johnny Gossamer, bloodying them up with silly noir-ish narrative (by Downey, Jr.) and a darkly comic glee.

Besides the impossibly complicated plot, this film has two of Hollywood’s legendary bad boys riffing off each other and giving the best performance they’ve had in years. Kilmer’s gay detective is, ironically, the straight man, typically cool and collected. He deflects any jibes of his homosexuality by getting to the punch line first, delivering it in a dry, jaded monotone. Downey, Jr. is a well-meaning and strangely moral village idiot. It seems impossible he was ever a competent petty thief, but he makes an even worse detective. Rounding them out is a slightly whorish Michelle Monaghan, who is a lot smarter and more resourceful than almost anyone gives her credit for.

All of KKBB is morose and violent and extremely amusing. The camera work is gritty and schitzy, even in the most glamorous LA location. The dialogue is gloriously sharp and intelligent. And incidentally, I believe its worthy of the same sort of four-picture franchise Lethal Weapon had. In fact, KKBB deserves it more.

BOOk report

Last night, I had a lovely time with Mrs. Carrot, David, Cathy and Toddie at the Fascist Queer Mall. We had a small nosh @ Panera’s and then a walk around the mall. Mostly we harassed the sales people in Dillards…

After I asked Mrs. C what she was reading, I came to the distinct understanding that reading – picking a book and committing to it – is a very personal act. If you are a true bibliophile, you have your own personal reasons for picking the books you read.

That being said, here are my two most recent reviews:

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

OK, honestly, I reread it because I am just stoked for the new movie and I was having trouble waiting. Dead honest truth!

Up until this newest Potter book (Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), I always thought Goblet of Fire (GOF) was my favorite Potter book. But both of these books are so good, I would have a hard time picking one over the other.

And, honestly, people, I should hate this sort of magical gobbledygook. But Harry Potter has great characters and fun, imaginative plots.

GOF concerns Harry’s 4th year at Hogwarts, where the school is sponsoring an international magic contest called the Triwizard Tournament Though the contestants are supposed to be 17 to compete; 14-year-old Harry has his name pop out of the fiery Goblet of the Aforementioned Title. Because this piece of dishware is magic, Harry is mystically bound and required to compete. There are three different, very dangerous contests Harry has to slog through.

And that’s probably the main reason this book is more interesting to me than the first three. It seemed for the first few books, everything in the plot seemed to “Potter” along, introducing a point or event at random, until the end of the school year, where everything would culminate in something requisitely dramatic. In GOF, the three contest events – spread through out the school year – tend to drive the plot more. Also, Harry is starting to date girls, which is fun to read about all the angst teenagers have to go through (as we thank God we got past it). Finally, GOF finally starts to realize and show the incredible darkness and creepiness the other stories have only hinted to.

The Dark by James Herbert

For several years, Herbert was the Stephen King of England. This book scared the bloody Hell out of me as an 11-year –old; I found it for 25 cents recently at a yard sale, so I thought I’d give it another spin.

I should have “put away childish things”, as The Diary of My Personal Lord and Savior Jesus Christ says.

Herbert wrote The Fog also. The Dark is just a redux of the same plot. Except this one has a Jim Jones-like cult (it was written in 1980) and a shadowy darkness that causes the same bloodshed, insanity, and mayhem that the Fog does. And instead of a small island in Maine, the whole of London goes crazy and kills each other. There is the same granola-nut-crunch ending. There are the same pages and pages of physical battle for life and death with very little dialogue thrown in to break up the ridiculously dense paragraphs. There are the same crushingly dull characters. There are the same bad clichéd lines.

These books are terribly dated now. The writing seems utilitarian at best, and the mysticism was just not engaging. Most of all, it wasn’t scary. There’s nothing there in the dark that isn’t there in the daylight, except in The Dark, you’re more likely to be bored to death…

Alphabet Stupe

[A is for age:]
Mentally, 4

[B is for booze of choice:]
Rubbing alcohol that’s been pre-used by some anonymous medical establishment.

[C is for career:]
Just below my caback and above my calegs

[D is for your dog's name:]
Phlebitis

[E is for essential items to bring to a party:]
An end, or we’d never stop partying, and then we’d get bored with parties, and then we’d have nothing like parties in our lives to lift our low spirits…

[F is for favorite song at the moment:]
The one that creepy minister sings in Poltergeist II – damn, that song is catchy!

[G is for favorite game:]
Computer-based Identity Theft

[H is for hometown:]
Shitbox, Iowa

[I is for instruments you play:]
Skinflute

[J is for jam or jelly you like:]
KY

[K is for kids?]
It’s also “K for kill”

[L is for last kiss]
I kissed God in my dreams last night...

[M is for mother's job:]
THIS IS A GROSS QUESTION!!! HOW WOULD I KNOW???? ASK MY DAD!?!?! Ewww. I mean, he never complained…

[N is for name of your crush:]
I have this thing for the Grim Reaper right now…

[O is for overnight hospital stays:]
I keep trying, but they have a restraining order against me now…

[P is for phobias:]
No, thanks, I have enough as it is…

[Q is for quotes you like:]
“True insanity is like public drunkenness – if you’re really far gone, you don’t really bother yourself as much as you do other people.” Joe Orton

[R is for relationship that lasted the longest]:
Well, until he moved on to better people, my invisible friend and I were together for years.

[S is for songs you like to sing at the holidays]:
“Uncle Fucker.”

[T is for time you wake up:]
ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[U is for underwear:]
Captain Kangaroo Underoos

[V is for vegetable you love:]
I thought that guy on Life Goes On was good, but I’d have to say Christopher Reeves was my absolute favorite.

[W is for worst habit:]
Internet quizzes.

[X is for x-rays you've had:]
Currently, I am having my entire skin replaced with a plastic polymer, so I can forego them in the future.

[Y is for yummy food you make:]
Dinner reservations

[Z is for zodiac sign:]
The one for assholes.