I was out at a laundromat yesterday afternoon and I had bought a paper to kill the time while waiting for the machines to work their magic. So, I'm sitting there reading the front section (which I always read 2nd - I read the sports 1st) and I have the rest of the paper sitting like directly to my left. And all of a sudden an around 5 year old Mexican girl comes walking over and grabs the next section (arts) and walks about 5 feet away and hands it to her mother. And I kinda did a double take, looking around like - what the fuck just happened? And the Mexican mother says "Is these yous?" And I said "Yep. I did pay for it." And so I walked over there and took it back from her. I was tempted to ask her the parenting strategy at work, because that's a helluva lesson to teach your daughter - walk up and steal some dude's newspaper. Instead I just walked back over to where I was. I did notice that the second I left to get the clothes out of the dryer, that daughter raced back over to scoop the whole paper up. Maybe they raise kids differently in Mexico. I have no idea. But this laundromat is in a really nice section of town and I have no idea why there were barely able to speak English Mexicans in there in the first place. They whole thing was pretty off putting.
Got a real bad phone call last night - and I'm not gonna go into any detail on it, but after the call ended (rather abruptly as the person I was speaking to said "I don't want to talk to you anymore." and hung up). Anyway, I raced into the nearest bar after that (luckily one was within walking distance, something called Panning For Platinum Grille). And I started to hoist a few pretty quickly. And I got to thinking about what led up to the phone call ending so abruptly. And then I got really depressed. And I kept hoisting them back for another couple hours. Well, the hoops game was on (and the under did hit - even with the overtime) and I wasn't in the best frame of mind and it got to be after 11. Then I noticed a booth where a guy was sitting with his around 10 year old son. I noticed them because this kid was clapping any time something good happened for the Lakers. Well, that's cool - nothing wrong with pulling for the Lakers or whoever. But I noticed the kid was wearing a #24 Laker jersey. And I said to this kid's father "Why would let a 10 year old kid parade around a bunch of drunks at a bar at 11 o'clock at night sporting the jersey of an alleged rapist?" And I was pretty far in the bag, I admit that. And this father wasn't real thrilled with what I said to him. He said "Let me worry about how to raise my son. Asshole." And I guess he had a point about that. Lesson there being something I'm sure - but I don't know what it is. I never seem to learn anything.
I think I've discovered that it's just a matter of time until everything ends badly. Like anything remotely good I've had going on at any point in my life, has eventually ended badly. It could be because, as I've stated on here before, I'm a terrible person and complete narcissist. And when you're dealing with someone like me, just know that it will probably end badly. The past keeps repeating itself. And it's getting old, but I keep doing it anyway. OK - I'm getting depressed again. I'll stop on this train of thought now.
I was out at the Bananabees on Friday and this category comes up about famous Arthurs. And before the kid running the game reads the question, I said something like "Schlichter?" And Mary said "Moore?" Now, I've never heard of Art Moore myself. But a few seconds passed. Then Mary said "Oh wait, that's Dudley Moore - he only played Arthur." We got it right anyway - the Arthur the kid running the game was actually asking about turned out to be Linkletter. We did terrible though. They asked two questions where the answer they were looking for was incorrect. I won't bore anyone with the details. But, I learned that going up and arguing with the hosts of the games is mostly pointless. The hosts rarely write the questions and almost never research the answers to see if they are correct. It wouldn't take but like 15 or 20 minutes on Google to do it, but they don't (although to be fair, a few of the hosts do check - Paul Chrismer and Keith do anyway).
I did see 2 of the Jacobys Friday and Luke explained a little more about the stoneware auctioning business to me. And it sounds really boring. I asked if they ever get the bidders liquored up at the auctions -and Luke said they've looked into it but haven't tried it (something about insurance costs). And if they hold one of these awesome stoneware auctions with liquor provided I guarantee you I'd show up and drive up the bidding for the crappy stoneware. Instead of $3 for some old jug, I bet I'd push the bids up to $3.50 or so. And that would be a 1/6 increase per crappy old jug - so that's something at least.
The 2 Jacobys and I went to that place called O Put In Dill after the trivia Friday. And it was a scene unlike the 2 of them have ever witnessed before. They'd never seen cougars on the prowl before. And if you're not used to it, it can be disorienting. I thought Mark was gonna pass out from the carnal debauchery he was seeing. We stayed about an hour. And in that time, we saw at least a dozen women throw themselves all over guys (I mean heaving their breasts out on chins and shoving their tongues down throats) and about 40 dudes over 50 hit on the same dozen or so awful women. And get shot down. The thing about a place like O Put In Dill is that out of the hundred guys in the place, the ladies are actually after about 10% of them. The rest of the guys just get drunk and shot down for the most part. Until they get tired of the rejection and they slink out of the bar utterly humiliated. Although you do have to admire their persistence on one level, because I'm sure those same guys were back in there the next night trying again. The dating scene - it's pitiful. At least it's funny to observe. And as always, I was dodging these horrendous women left and right. Although at least with Luke and Mark there I had a couple guys to make my not so nice comments about the whole O Put In Dill Friday night scene to. I bet we might stop in again. You never know - maybe some dream cougar will be in there next time and one of the Jacobys will be lovestruck.
We met up with Geilfuss around 1 or so at the Moo Lotto. And Jamal was out. And Jamal was dead drunk. He was wearing his US flag regailia as always and gave the Jacobys a lecture an patriotism. I'd heard it before. So I was talking to Geilfuss about something or other - probably a shoe sale that he'd stopped into. Who knows? Jamal kept ordering shots of crown for everyone. And I gotta hand it to the Jacobys, they hung in there with both me and Geilfuss on the shots - which is not easy, unless you happen to be Andy, Ross, Mike Hupp, or most of the bartenders at Get Bent Lounge.
Saturday - I'll have to cover at another time. It involved me, Geilfuss, Dundalk, and Canton Square. And it was insane.
I was flipping around the old tube Friday evening for a bit and came across this thing about Steven Spielberg where he's talking about the various pieces of propaganda he's directed over the years. And when he started talking about ET being a spiritual film, I had to turn it off. I remember seeing ET in the theaters when I was 11. And I remember crying when I thought ET was dying. Then a few years later I figured out that I wasn't crying because I really gave a crap whether a fake alien character in a movie was dying or not - I was crying because Spielberg was manipulating my emotions. He's done the same thing in other films as well - two glaring examples are almost all of The Color Purple and the scene in Schindler's List where the people go into what they think is a crematorium (and their certain death), only to be given an actual shower. There are other examples of this manipulation of the audience's emotions in other Spielberg films as well (notably in Shaving Ryan's Privates). And I don't think it's right to manipulate an audience's emotions with the kind of tricks that Spielberg uses. If you're gonna get emotional during a movie, it should be because you feel some real connection with whatever the character(s) is/are going through. It should be organic - not manufactured. Although, Spielberg does use Goldie Hawn in that one movie - so that's something at least.
Cigaterettes & Alcohol
No comments:
Post a Comment