Buddy Flix

A genre not universally appreciated.  "Pulp Fiction" perhaps the culmination of the craft, yet several peeps I know, wimmens mostly, revile and detest this masterpiece.  "Beautiful Girls" is another special example.  I know's these guises.  I've been out in the winter, plowing snow with them, arguing, tossing back shots.

Latest addition to the list of faves is "Sideways."  More subtle than PF, less purile than BG's, and a perfect vehicle for Paul Giamatti who was most recently terrific in American Splendor. Two guys, past their prime (a pox on anyone who's thinking, Look who's talking), on a wine tasting road trip before a wedding.  One believes himself to be a conasewer of wines, the other is just real happy to be there, hoping beyond hope to get his niblick polished. ("Tastes pretty good to me?"), but the way they step up for each other is what's what about that.

Like with my buddies, it's "If it can find a way to embarrass you, I'll do anything to make that happen."  (If you've already been humiliated, I'll point that out for you, and help you remember any details you may have conveniently forgotten.") ((Ooh, an opportunity for the rare double parenthetical comment!)(a nod toward SB) 

See, it's like, if you can do something to make a buddy feel good, that would be, mmmmmmmmm, verboten. But if said buddy axes you to do something really really stupid - I'm talking crazy stupid - then that becomes an obligation, a noblesse oblige.  (When I complained in a bar late one night to a particular friend about monies I am long owed, he said, "You want me to hurt him?  I'll hurt him for you!" And that was about a nine-year past-due commission payment.)

What's the point? The point is, it's not about the golf.  It's not about the putt pot, or who has The Claw.  It's about the getting together, the arguing over the bet, the braying like donkeys when Larry, usually, scuffs a shot.  It's about the meanest guys in the state being your best friends, and it's knowing you could call them up at two in the morning from Anchorage for bail money and they'd hand-deliver it.  That's what buds and buddy flix are about.

 "Invocation," by Maurya Simon, from Ghost Orchid (Red Hen Press).

O God--who art dust mote and fern spore,
salt crystal and dog-star, who art refinery smoke,
cumulus, leaf-rot, dishwater and spindrift--

how can I know thy invisible movements
through this world, when thou inhabit even
the debris of lives, the perforations of years?

God, who wears the green mask of death,
who visits the world in wisps of prayer,
how can I divine thy face through my tears?

Give me some sign--a thumbprint, a fragrance
of hyacinth, stigmata of coal on my brow--
that I may steep my silence in faith;

show me thy secret handshake welcoming
the weeds, thy luminous smile, thy mind
that spins the world wildly on its axis--

consecrate me as thou would the tiger's yawn,
offering itself like the poor man's bowl,
to the terrified fawn, to the wayward dove--

and I will do thy bidding, polishing words
so they gleam like ice, abandoning my rage
to kneel before thee, swallowing my doubt.

But there is no answer when I call out,
and my longing darkens my throat, my mouth.
How can I lift my eyes to a gutted sky?

O God, who art neither father nor son, nor
holy ghost, who art haloed by radium clouds,
beloved by millions of sparkplugs and ants,

thou who nestles in war's lap, in the breasts
of desire, who conspires with the darkest joys,
who art as amorphous as a map of stillness--

I cry out to thee again and again, over
and over, and only the wilderness answers,
and the dangerous world's laughter--

Long Weekend

Another nice long weekend with Larry and Donna, this time to Tubac, about twenty miles north of Nogales on the 19.  Real pretty golf resort set along both sides of the Santa Cruz river, which is barely a trickle.  Suspected all would be well when, as we checked in, I noticed that the complimentary newspaper pile was New York Timeseses. 

This is where some or most of the movie "Tin Cup" with Kevin Costner and Rene Russo was filmed in 1995.  In honor of the film, I put quite a few balls into the "lakes" as Mr. C's character had.  Charming, competent , mostly non-English speaking service personnel, a surprisingly well manicured course, and very good food.  That, and I kicked Larry's ass despite four-putting - yes - the ninth and the eighteenth greens yesterday.  The previous day I ended the round with four one-putts in a row.  Stupid game.

Sweet, funny little town, Tubac.  Prolly what Sedona was like thirty years ago.  Lots of artsy cool stuff in small shops run by people with lots of hair.  I bought a very nice glass sculpture, a wind chime guaranteed for life, and a refrigerator magnet for SugarBeth.

Today, before leaving the area, we drove a few miles farther south to Tumacacori (too-ma-cock-ree), one of Father Kino's missions dating back to 1691.  The Jesuits did a lot of work in this area before being recalled by order of King, uh, King . . ., the King of Spain at that time.  Hot on the heels of the Jesuits came the Franciscans. Lucky Mexicans.  A charming ancient woman held a tortilla-making demonstration in the courtyard.  Yummy.

Double Nickels!

Or, as my beloved youngest, and CasinoRat in Training, likes to shout, "Ten the hard way!" 

Law's a mighty, Miss Esther.  I'm pretty sure that a person's brain gets to, like, 35 or so, and then refuses to think any older.  There are reminders, of course.  I used to remember virtually everything, and now, after a second glass of a late harvest gewurtztraminer I have to look up my own phone number.  Doon good though, doon good.  Playing the best golf of my life, have access to some of the best, most creative music since the mid-sixties, I have the best, most dependable and loyal friends, and man o man, having grandchildren is the true reward for having had to put up with two "how sharper than a serpent's tooth" daughters, who eventually turned out pretty ok, too. 

And their mother.  For her it's been a thirty-five year walk in the park on a spring day.  For me it's been day after day after day of relentless enthusiasm, good cheer, laughter, friendship and a love that, seemingly impossibly, continues to grow stronger.  I am one happy geezer-to-be.  Jeez, just realized that, as of about 7:30 tonight, Central Standard Time, I'll be closer to sixty than to fifty.  OK then.

Freecell Update

 Total hours playing: 879.85

8 x 4

current streak: 0 best streak: 134 plays: 13657 wins: 12955 win percent: 94.86% average time: 3:51 minutes daily streak: 0 best today: 20 best daily: 56

The Future Of Fantasy Cinema

SB phoned, excited "That movie, Polar Express, it's at the IMAX!!!!!!!!!!!  In 3D!!!!!  I'm getting tickets!!!!!  You and Ma are in, right?!!!!!!!!"  "Uh, yeah, sure!"

I'd read maybe three lukewarm reviews. And in the not too distant past, kiddie movies, - G rated kiddie movies, have induced a deep, involuntary unconciousness, for which I again apologize profusely.

Anyhow, at the appointed time on the appointed date, Nana and Boppie dutifully showed up at the Mills IMAX.  SB had gotten terrific seats squarely in the middle of the theater (Row F, seats 18-22 (Bella's still a LappChile)) and the movie began.

Now, I can see how this movie got fair-to-middling reviews in 2D, but in 3D it is utterly amazing.  The details in the characters' eyeballs, the camera swooshing under the train, then out through the wheels, then up and over, then back under - it was heady, astonishing, yea, even unto vertiginous. 

I love this movie.  The audience was made up of congregants mostly like us, and we were rapt, all of us.  We're definitely going again.  I urge all of you (even those curmudgeons amongst you, and your name is Legion), if Polar Express is showing in 3D near you, get thee to the cinema.  The tix are 'spensive, but it's absolutely worth it.

Arithmetic

Don't know why it's taken so long, but I only lately realized that I am the product of my father's Birthday Boink lo those almost two score and fifteen years ago.

My boitday is nine months less a day after his boitday. 

"Probably all she gave him" intones Herself.

You Know Who You Are

"Banking Rules" by James Tate, from Return to the City of White Donkeys © Harper Collins, 2004.

Banking Rules

I was standing in line at the bank and
the fellow in front of me was humming. The
line was long and slow, and after a while
the humming began to irritate me. I said to
the fellow, "Excuse me, would you mind not
humming." And he said, "Was I humming?
I'm sorry I didn't realize it." And he went
right on humming. I said, "Sir, you're
humming again." "Me, humming?" he said.
"I don't think so." And then he went on
humming. I was about to blow my lid. Instead,
I went to find the manager. I said, "See
that man over there in the blue suit?" "Yes,"
he said, "what about him?" "He won't stop
humming," I said, "I've asked him politely
several times, but he won't stop." "There's
no crime in humming," he said. I went back
and took my place in line. I listened, but
there was nothing coming out of him. I said,
"Are you okay, pal?" He looked mildly peeved,
and gave me no reply. I felt myself shrinking.
The manager of the bank walked briskly up
to me and said, "Sir, are you aware of the
fact that you're shrinking?" I said I was.
And he said, "I'm afraid we don't allow that
kind of behavior in this bank. I have to ask
you to leave." The air was whistling out
of me, I was almost gone.

Tattoo Whom?

Quash your hopes.  That's not me.

 

Now This Is Incredible

Some guy whose hobby is chasing tornados around the plains states shot these photos the other night from a little town not far from where we lived in Nebraska.

Typically, the aurora borealis don't show so far south, but a massive solar storm last week really piled on the electrons.  And they were oppositely charged from the spin of the earth so it made it all the better.  In my early yoot in Dakota I remember lying in the back seat of my dad's car as he drove on the highway at night in the winter, watching the lights in the sky , like enormous curtains of shape-shifting flourescence.  I remember them a lot like these photos.

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Not So Incredible

Having seen the trailers that made me laugh out loud, with Mr. Incredible struggling to get into his outfit, his belt bursting, I was really looking forward to this Pixar production, but neither of those scenes even made it into the movie.  A lot of the animation was fantastic, the waves in the ocean, Violet's hair, the smoke from all the explosions so finely rendered.  But the movie was really only a garish feature-length cartoon.  It had no heart, no sweetness.  Much too violent, startling and aggressive to bring the grandkids to.  Glad we previewed it first.

Post 11/2 Blues

What's the difference between the Iraq war and the Vietnam war?  George Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam war.

I haven't been this disappointed in the country's voters since Nixon was re-elected.  I guess we all remember what happend in Milhouse's second term, so maybe there is something to look forward to.

A chart I read in the Times showed Arizona with the lowest percentage of eligible voters showing up at the polls, and that the youth of America hardly showed up at all.  You young whippersnappers will be footing the bill for George II's war and his tax cuts for a long time to come.  The country is in debt more than three hundred grand per family right now, and that ain't gonna get any lower for the forseeable future.

Decision Day

George Bernard Shaw said, "Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."

W.C. Fields said, "I never vote for anyone. I always vote against."

Gore Vidal said, "Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President. One hopes it is the same half."

Ambrose Bierce said, "[A] vote [is] the instrument and symbol of a freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."

Mark Twain said, "If there is any valuable difference between a monarchist and an American, it lies in the theory that the American can decide for himself what is patriotic and what isn't. I claim that difference. I am the only person in the sixty millions that is privileged to dictate my patriotism."

Where Our Tax Dollars Should Be Going

Recent Psychiatric Research

A study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that
the kind of male a woman finds attractive can differ depending on where
she is in her menstrual cycle. For instance, if she is ovulating, she's
attracted to men with rugged and masculine features. However, if she is
menstruating or menopausal, she's more prone to be attracted to a man
with scissors lodged in his temple and a bat jammed up his ass while
he's on fire.  Further studies are expected.

The same cross-eyed gap-toothed mouth-breathing former neighbor golf buddy (not to be too specific about his identity) questioned my logic, driving south to the Pecos/Santan to get to my grandchildren's home.  I guess their parents live there, too.  Anyway, if'n I goes (speaking so he can unnerstan me now) north to Ray, then to the 10, then to the 60, I have two stop signs and ten traffic lights in the 29.8 mile trek.  My way is one and one half stop signs (a sign with a right turn counts as half a sign) and five lights and 32.6 miles.  Is the extra 2.8 freeway miles preferable to five more lights?  Put down your beer, get off'n your step-daughter and drive it yourself if you don't believe me.