... stopping from digging and starting to climb

HAVING THE QUALITY OF RAIN …

… from the movie, ‘Solaris’, the remake with George Clooney. I never saw the original, so I won’t even claim it. But it was a good movie … surprised I didn’t say anything about it, as I watched it a 2nd time only recently.

I used to work in ‘A squared’, which is a pretentious university town, very much unlike East Lansing, and more in tune with Chapel Hill. Snooty and aspirational, which is the attitude of many college towns, I guess.

Just something about ‘A squared’ though … anyway, that is where I saw ‘Solaris’ for the first time, working at the Madstone Theatre, a chain of movie houses that catered to the ‘film goers’ of the view population, you know, art house movies. Don’t know if it still exists out there, but I liked the concept.

Uh, anyone else here see it?

That is my point exactly. No, I am not self-pitying here, just trying to hopefully reach a point. At the time I saw it, I was alone in that theatre. When I worked there, it was a good day if five or six people went in … ALL DAY.

It was one of those kung fu super reflective moments … is there anyone that I could find to be with?

… might have been, and that is prolly why she says she hates me.

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

No, I didn’t grow ill when she called me a ‘drama queen’. That was how we poked fun at each other. Don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I am self-effacing, and that is where most of my confidence comes from … I like to think that if I don’t know who I am, I do have a good idea. All the responsibility for my ‘effeminization’ is in part because of the ‘black matriarchal complex’ and that is for another day.

I can’t quite catch the name of the band that made the song with that title, but it spurred me to see the movie … AGAIN! I had seen it when I was younger, but I had found someone to share it with this time … Pecan Sandie.

Before we had Lexxie and after a pregnant Nixxie had had enough of me, Sandie and I started to hang. She is a super creative girl, and I would tell you her field, if it wouldn’t narrow things down too much, and someone find her and know her business. She took a look at me, and figured, ‘what the hey, why not … if nothing else, he’ll come to the rummage sales in Raleigh and carry the stuff back for me!’

We’d go to movies, andshe would ride with me to fights, sometimes she would take the time off, and we’d have her as part of my ‘camp’ and fly her with us. She was a good, good girl and I flat out done her wrong. She did visit ‘Day - trios’ a couple of times, meeting my fam and more importantly, meeting me and my brother and seeing how we interacted, and how we interacted with her.

I guess she felt, ‘That explains EVERYTHING.’ So she went on and fell in love with me.

That scared me. I was not used to someone really trying to understand ME, and seeing what made me tick and still trying to get closer and more involved. Didn’t help that at that time, my boxing career began to spin out of control, so I was really using my head for a personal ‘anal probe’ of my own rear.

No doubt, I messed that one up.

Anyway, what spurred her in my thoughts isn’t her recent visit, but a comment from Russ …

… she watched ‘High Fidelity’ with me.

FROM THERE, THE BETA BAND

I remember Jack Black. I remember John and Joan Cusack. I am going to have to see if the local movie stores have it in stock, so I can call some more of the characters out. But from that movie, one defining line, and I think it went something to the effect of, ‘you are like a monkey leaping from tree to tree, until one day there won’t be any branches left.’

Maybe I won’t see it. Maybe I won’t try to find ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ or the song of the same title. Maybe I will just serve out my sentence, go home to my Dad’s and just sit down. Looking at what I JUST WROTE, I could no more do that than I could not want to eat chocolate chip cookies (ESPECIALLY from the Astoria Bakery!), or go down to Southwest and sit and eat at Xochimilco’s off of Fort and Bagley.

Perhaps I will get a job at the Fisher Theatre, cleaning up. That or the Fox. Hang out, see free shows, and walk around downtown (since I can’t drive!) … dag! Can’t even do ‘sad’ right!

I had meant to speak to the bittersweet emotions Toonguy’s comment brought up … but even as I do, I keep seeing what is still possible, what I can accurately hope for …

GOING BACK TO THE BETA BAND

I can ‘see’ the scene, if not remember it. John Cusack says to no one in particular, ‘I will now sell ‘X’ copies of The Beta Band!’ I liked the name of the group, and for a while, they were my super kung fu mega favorites. Y’all may know them from their ‘Hot Shots’ LP, that is the one with the song ‘Squares’, which was used on ‘Queer As Folk’ or either the Show time show, with all the dead people (c’mon, work with me!!) …

The movie reminds me of when I saw the ‘nexus of all realities’ open before me … and I could look down a path as far as I could … and choose. I didn’t choose Sandie, and I think that she resents me for it. Perhaps she was right, that I am too flawed for the average ‘sister girl’, and that they wouldn’t be able to understand … but that she alone, out of the millions would be there for me, the way someone should be.

Since I didn’t, she hates me. For real. Yeah, I know, often ‘hate’ is just the flip side of something else, because I came to that realization with my first wife. I had to stop ‘hating’ because in the brain, the separation between ‘loving and hating’ really IS thisclose, so if you keep trying ‘hate’, a part of you may want to start loving …

GUESS I CAN’T DO ‘SELF-PITY’

Been given too much and wasted it to do that. I really believe that I could have been someone of note and great acclaim. ‘Could have’? On my REGULAR DAYS, I still think that I can … on my GOOD DAYS, I expect to tap out something, or influence someone, into riding a huge wave with me in tow. My BEST DAYS … oh, come on now, you don’t need me to tell you what I think on my best days, do you?

That is, if I could remember it!

So at once, the decision to keep this out here was proven to be beneficial to me, and I hope beneficial to someone who reads this. I will go shopping, get me and lil’ Mook something to eat, and chill until her Mom gets back. Then watch Carolina win, as they get ready to win yet another national championship!

Thanks for reminding me about ‘High Fidelity’ Russ! Enjoy The Flaming Lips!