"You Can Wake Up Now, the Universe Has Ended."

So, yeah, I have a job now. It's at the Roosevelt Field mall--which I'll have you know is the largest mall in New York. Which should be saying something. How large is this mall, you ask? Well, the first time I saw it in the distance, I thought it was an airport. It has valet parking ($5 per...park). It has every store that I could ever want, or need, really. I will more than likely spend all of my money there. And I'm working at a store I've enjoyed for a long, long time, so everything seems to be coming up roses, at the moment. Of course, I don't start until Monday, so I could well end up hating it. In which case, I'll come here to vent/dish out radical manifestos.

And I finally gave in to my urges and got a subscription to Netflix. Just to show that I'm somewhat responsible with my money, however, I got the 1 DVD plan. Which I'm finding to be kind of paltry, although I probably won't have time to watch more than one movie anyway. The first movie I got was Rebel Without a Cause, with James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo. All three did great jobs with effectively projecting the teen angst which seems to have originated in the fifties. You go into the film knowing that it's going to be James Dean's Movie, and it really is--even if he hadn't died one or two years later (and cemented his role as the eponymous Icon Who Died Too Young) it'd still be considered a wildly impressive performance. Just listening to him yell "You're tearing me apart!" at his parents--it's like an electrical current running through you.

It's a good example of Method Gone Good--I'd probably say that I'm a bigger fan of classical training than Method training when it comes to acting, maybe because the a bad Method Actor is exponentially more annoying to me than a bad Classically Trained Actor. But a good performance from a method actor is usually mind blowing--look at Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront (or Last Tango in Paris--great performance in a mediocre movie) or Robert De Niro in Raging Bull (or Taxi Driver or The Deer Hunter or...) In Rebel Without a Cause, James Dean takes teen angst and almost makes it poetic, or at least makes it more resounding than Something That Every Kid Goes Through. Watching his performance is like listening to a John Lennon song--you love it, it's amazing, but afterwards you have to shake your head at all the amazing things he could have done if he'd just lived a little bit longer.

That being said, Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo are nearly just as good. All three characters are teenagers in transition, and although Mineo and Dean's families could probably be considered dysfunctional (Mineo more than Dean's, but Dean's too, I guess), Wood's seems more like your typical Girl Behaving Badly--or a girl who wants to piss her father off by wearing bright red lipstick. And I thought she played it well. And if you look between the lines of Sal Mineo's performance (the fact that he's pretty much playing a homosexual with father issues), his character seems much more interesting than the rather over-dramatizing geek that he appears to be.

After that I rented The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (I'm trying to get into this trilogy, because I actually do like the books, but Peter Jackson isn't making it easy for me...Viggo Mortensen is, however) and next up is Memoirs of a Geisha (my aunt's pick). Also been watching movies from my own cache--She Done Him Wrong (or We're Going to Put Mae West on Screen for an Hour and Whatever She Says is Going to Be Gold...Oh Yeah, and Here's Cary Grant Too) and tonight we'll probably watch Woman of the Year (or You're Going to Ignore the Kinda Sexist Storyline and Enjoy Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn On Screen Together, and Like It). And then it's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (or God Smiled Down From Heaven and Made This Movie For You, Mariana).

So my week is pretty much set. Job and Movies. Pretty much it. The life.

I'm Right Here.

So, I have broadband internet access now. I got one of those Sprint Air Card doohickies (and, despite the fact that they're called "Air Cards"--you can't use them on planes. I might be the only person in the world who finds that ironic) and now can access the interweb relatively quickly. So that's nice. Hey, did you know that the Olympics are going on in China right now? Neither did I. Not until I got my Sprint Air Card thingie, that is.

I spent tonight looking for a copy of The Mad Miss Manton on either DVD or VHS. It's this little thing I like to do--search for super-obscure movies that I really want, and then punch my computer in frustration when I can't find them. It's not that this film (a murder mystery/comedy starring Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda) is unavailable. There are a few VHS copies for sale at Amazon...if you want to pay $40+ for them, which I don't. I also found that you can buy it as a Spanish DVD (titled Ocho Mujeres y un Crimen)...as long as you have either a Region 2 PAL or a Region Free DVD player. Which I don't. So I won't be getting it any time soon.

Which is unfortunate, really, because I'm usually pretty good at sniffing out hard-to-find films. They're usually burned DVDs, but that doesn't mean they're not watchable. Want to watch the Sophia Loren-Omar Sharif fairy tale fantasy C'era Una Volta... or Toshiro Mifune's Cyrano de Bergerac adaptation Samurai Saga? I've got it. Or the first Brazilian copy of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus (with its delightful Portuguese menu)? I've got that too. I've got the 1940 spy movie Night Train to Munich, which shared much of its cast (and its screenwriters) with Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, but throws Paul Henreid, Rex Harrison, and director Sir Carol Reed into the mix for good measure. It was one of those films I used to love when I was a teenager, which could well explain the daily beatings in high school. I've been looking for A Day in the Death of Joe Egg as well, but it seems to be just as expensive as The Mad Miss Manton. Which sucks, but hey, what're ya' gonna do.

I'm also looking for jobs as well. But writing about movies is less depressing to write about, so I'll stick to that.

Eliza, Where Are My Slippers?

There’s no greater shame for me, at this moment, than knowing that I only watched six movies last month. It feels weird, along with every other thing that comes along with moving to another state, away from my family and into the house of someone I’ve never lived with before. I don’t want to blame my great-aunt for not watching, like, twenty movies a month (that’s about the tally that my parents and I made back home…god bless Netflix. The rest were watched solely by me…god bless TiVo). But she just doesn’t have the movie-watching stamina that I do, I guess. The evening television-watching schedule centers mainly around “Jeopardy” and “Wheel of Fortune”, with episodes of “Good Eats”, “The Next Food Network Star”, and occasionally “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “MASH” added for good measure (full disclosure: I got her hooked on the Food Network shows. I also watch a strange amount of “Ace of Cakes” now). Movies generally aren’t watched, although she does enjoy them.

This month, however, is going to be different. I might never watch the amount of movies I did during my glory days (in the thirties…maybe even forties…those were the days, my friend. I thought they’d never end), but I’m hoping to at least break fifteen this month. I have two factors going for me: firstly, it’s been a pretty boffo summer movie season, as far as I can tell. This month might just be the apex of the summer, with Wall-E and The Dark Knight being released. I also want to see Hellboy 2, Pineapple Express, and Mamma Mia. So that’s two movies that I’ll probably see in the theaters this month, one that I’ve already seen, and two that I’ll definitely see (I’ve already made plans to see The Dark Knight on Friday with my cousin, and my aunt wants to see Mamma Mia even more than I do). Which is pretty damned good. I’ve also set out to show my aunt good films from the sixties onward (she stopped seeing movies in the early sixties, and thus has never known the joy of Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, Robert Altman, Robert Redford, or Martin Scorsese…although I might never have the guts to show her Taxi Driver anytime soon…maybe she'll go for The Age of Innocence). Taking it carefully, as she has a strict taste in film (no violence, no sex, no car chases, etcetera, although she does enjoy mysteries and suspense), I’ve gone pretty light. I’ve made a list of films she might like, and am picking and choosing what I can get:

1. Frantic
2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
3. The Sting
4. The Princess Bride
5. Chinatown
6. Young Frankenstein
7. Oliver!
8. War of the Buttons
9. Heaven Can Wait
10. The Fugitive
11. Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
12. Sleepless in Seattle
13. Chicken Run
14. Apollo 13
15. Cat Ballou
16. The Conversation
17. MASH

We watched Sleepless in Seattle a few nights ago; she thought it was cute, and laughed at a couple of spots, but I don't think she was overall impressed. She seemed to like The Princess Bride, however (although she remarked that “it wasn’t as good as Casablanca”, which is…obvious…). She laughed at certain parts of Young Frankenstein, but I seemed to have forgotten about all the scenes featuring Mel Brooks’ ribald sense of humor, and she ended up saying that it was too “silly” for her (“silly” in this case meaning “bawdy”). We watched The Sting last night, and I think she might have enjoyed it the most so far—I figured it was light on the sex and violence and heavy on twists and turns, which, as a fan of mysteries, she would probably enjoy. And, of course, The Sting is just an awesome, fun movie. So she liked it. And now I figure she might be more susceptible to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, not only because it also stars Newman and Redford and was directed by George Roy Hill, but because it has a snappier script than The Sting. What’s more, when we watched one of the AFI specials which featured scenes from Butch Cassidy… (notably the cliff jumping scene and the fight scene between Newman and the member of his gang), she laughed at nearly all of them. So I have good feelings about it. I’m not entirely confident about Frantic, Chinatown, The Fugitive, The Conversation, or MASH—the first three are good suspense films, but deal with topics she might not be keen on, and she’s a fan of the TV show “MASH”…although the sitcom isn’t at all like the movie, really…) And she may have already seen Oliver! I just don’t know.

And that’s it. That’s how I’m spending my time. Job hunting, you ask? Networking? Of course not. You silly goose. I’m doing exactly what I did in Columbia—that is, nothing at all. The only difference is that I’m now doing it in New York.

She Works Hard for the Money

Well, I finally made some money. Fifteen bucks. And it only cost… my soul.

I’ve been here for a month (well, a month and a week, now) and so far I’ve gone into the city only once—and I don’t know if you can really consider going to the Museum of Natural History as venturing into the city, since the subway from Penn Station stops right underneath it…let’s just say that I’ve gone underneath the city only once)—and, until today, haven’t gone to Jones Beach at all. Which is kind of crazy, really, since we almost always go to Jones Beach, no matter how short the trip up here may be. Jones Beach is known for its Fourth of July fireworks, so we probably should have gone yesterday. But I would have been the one to drive, and the idea of getting there at 9 and dealing with traffic, waiting for the fireworks to start at 9:30, getting back to the car at 10:30 or so, and then dealing with the traffic leaving the beach, along with all the assholes on the road…well, I’m too lazy for that. Let’s just say. So we did what many of the Freeport-ians did: we drove over to the Nautical Mile and watched the Jones Beach fireworks from there. Freeport is only about a mile away from Jones Beach, and they were indeed visible, but not very impressive from a distance. When it started raining, we went home and watched the Boston Pops. From the bottom of my soul, this sort of felt like a bad idea—like…walking into an Abercrombie & Fitch store when you work at American Eagle, I guess—but we watched it all the same. The previous hours of the day were spent watching “The Revolution” on the History Channel and battling other procrastinator-shoppers at Waldbaum’s. Happy Fourth of July, boys and girls.

The next day was muggy and cloudy, so we thought that it would be a better time to visit the Beach. And there were indeed fewer people there—although, when we arrived, the little teenagers manning the parking lot ticket office told us that the beach was closed due to a “bomb threat”. They were barely keeping straight faces, so I gave them the ol’ ah-ha-ha-ha-fuck-you and parked our car. Other cars were parking as well, although some were turning around and leaving. On the way to the boardwalk I told my aunt that they were just being asshole kids, and were obviously joking. However, we were stopped by some beachgoers who told us that the beach had indeed shut down, because of “toxins from the fireworks in the water or something.” But the boardwalk was still open, and we weren’t going onto the beach anyway. So we resumed walking.

By the time we got to the boardwalk, cops were putting yellow tape around the main steps down to the beach and telling people that the beach was closed because of unexploded fireworks. Which was the first logical excuse I’d heard so far. So, when you’re faced with the threat of a rogue firework going off a mile or so away from you, what do you do? Well, my aunt and I played some mini-golf, conveniently located in the games area of the Jones Beach boardwalk. We both got holes-in-one on the first hole, while my aunt got another hole-in-one on the second, and I only took two swings on the same hole. By the end we were both getting three’s and four’s, in some cases playing entire holes over because we were going over par by, like, six strokes. The heat and the humidity was getting to us. Afterward we got drinks and talked to a cop about the fireworks. Apparently one or two of the really big professional fireworks had failed to go off last night. And not only had they gotten soaked with rain and then subsequently dried (making them “very volatile”), but some of the fuses were still attached, which meant that some stupid kid/adult who decided to light one could take out as many as twenty people. “It would have the effect of, like, two grenades,” the cop explained.

On our way to the car we happened upon a promotional stunt VH1 was doing for its new show, “I Love Money”. They had one of those tents with an air blower attached to it. Inside was a pile of fake million-dollar bills, although real money (allegedly up to $200, including one $100 bill) was sprinkled throughout it. People would step into the tent, which was subsequently zipped up, the air blower would be turned on, and for about thirty seconds the person would try to catch as much money as they could. They couldn’t pick the money off of the ground, and after their thirty seconds were up, they came out of the tent. They got to keep any real bills they caught. If they caught anything, they’d give their name to a VH1 Promotion Kiddie and could have their photo taken (for whatever reason—you don’t get the photo back…I can only guess they use them on their website). Usually I would just watch other people do it and then go along my merry way, but for some reason I thought, you know, what the hell. Maybe it was because I’d yet to find a job, and although my checking account isn’t in dire straits, I couldn’t help but fear the pinch.

So I got in line and watched as the people before me went into the tent and came out with various degrees of success. Most people had adopted one strategy—holding their t-shirt out, kicking at the pile of money, and letting all the money float into the bowl they’d made for themselves. I saw no real reason to stray from this strategy; sadly enough, I was actually getting a little nervous about it, and though about just stepping out of the line entirely and just going home. Not because I was afraid of not getting any money, but because I was afraid of embarrassing myself in front of the very audible crowd that had assembled. An old woman was bellowing something at all the people who came out of the tent—nothing that I could understand (it was all in Spanish), but she had a heckling tone. But, again, hey, what the hell? It was a chance to win some money. I watched as the two people in front of me (the first a plump teenaged girl and the second a tall, thin Hispanic guy) won five dollars and eleven dollars, respectively. Now I felt some pressure to win something, after that string of hauls. As I waited for the guy’s winnings to be sifted through and counted, I eyed two ten-dollar bills lying on top of the clump of fake money. There were also a few one-dollar bills sticking out here and there, but who cared about them? I was going for at least five bucks. That might buy me something useful.

I got into the tent and waited for the air blower to turn on. Suddenly trickles of fake bills were rising up and fluttering down, and I, with my t-shirt stretched before me, kicked at the pile of money, waiting for the money to fly. And after a few seconds they began to. I watched as a ten-dollar bill floated into my shirt, along with countless fake bills, which were plastered with photos of a woman in a bikini where the face of a dead president should have been. When the blower turned off and the tent door was unzipped, the VH1 Promotion Kiddies beckoned me out, smiling. They were infectious smiles, and as they sifted through my bundle they said that they’d seen me catch a ten, and a five. I grinned along with them.

So I walked out of the tent with fifteen bucks—a ten and a five—and it could have been a million, the way the crowd cheered. “You can buy a gallon of gas with that!” my aunt cried, and someone replied, “Yeah, it could get you all the way out of the parking lot!” I gave them my name and got my photo taken with the fifteen dollars, and that pretty much made my day. I felt just about as victorious as I had after a winning soccer game (few as they were) or an aced exam. And I could finally say that I made some money in New York. Only fifteen dollars, to be sure, but dammit, I earned it.

I didn’t even know what “I Love Money” was about until I went online and looked it up on VH1’s website. Judging from the title I could only assume that it was a spin-off of those celebrity dating shows that VH1’s so fond of, and it turns out that I’m not too far off. Apparently they took “the most famous contestants” from their celebrity dating shows like “I Love New York” and “Rock of Love” and…make them compete for money. So the title “I Love Money” is apt—in so, so many ways. For a second I found myself not really wanting to appear as though I was condoning this sort of program and wishing that I hadn’t let them take my photo. I could imagine their web site displaying a banner saying, “THESE PEOPLE LOVE MONEY!!!”, flagged on either side by a midget with a torch and a scantily-clad blonde, and below, the photo of me smiling and awkwardly holding my paltry earnings. As if to say, “Yes, I love money. See, I’m holding these ten- and five-dollar bills as though they were a pair of trout I’d just caught. I bought this heather-colored t-shirt for fifteen bucks. It wasn’t even the style I wanted—I thought it was a V-neck, but it wasn’t. And it’s a size too large. But hey, it helped me win fifteen dollars! With my earnings, I can buy the shirt I originally intended to get! Not including tax, of course.”

So, unexploded fireworks and cash prizes. That was my weekend. And let me say that, when I phoned my family and excitedly told them what had happened to me that day, they were ecstatic. To them, it was as though I’d won the Nobel Peace Prize. They were very proud of me. Which is kind of sad…in a sweet way. I miss my family. And my pets. They wouldn’t have been able to fully recognize the miraculousness of my feat even if they had been told, but I still miss them. And I bet they really miss me too.

Manhattan Melodrama

And now we discuss William Powell and Myrna Loy. So let's start at the very beginning (it's a very good place to start)...

Their first movie together was Manhattan Melodrama in 1934 (yep, that’s right, made in the same year as The Thin Man and Evelyn Prentice—movies rarely took years to make back then), wherein two boyhood friends, Jim and Blackie (Powell and Clark Gable, respectively) lose their parents when the showboat they’re on catches fire. They’re taken in by a Jewish immigrant (who lost his son in the accident), who doesn’t have the fool sense to not spout anti-Communist rhetoric at a Communist rally, and is ultimately trampled to death by a policeman’s horse. Jim, ever the studious and levelheaded boy, grows up to be DA of New York City, and wants to become governor of New York. Blackie, ever fascinated by dice and gambling, becomes one of New York’s many gangsters. Blackie has quite the man-crush on Jim, it seems, and doesn’t really mind when Jim has to prosecute Blackie in the murder of Jim’s ADA…which (unbeknownst to Jim) Blackie did as a favor for Jim and his wife Eleanor (Myrna Loy), who used to be Blackie’s girl (he won her a yacht and everything). Got it? Good. Now that that’s settled…

Manhattan Melodrama is pretty much what it says it is—a melodrama set in Manhattan. I might've mentioned before that I prefer the similar Angels With Dirty Faces (although I think Manhattan Melodrama was the first to use the two-friends-end-up-on-opposing-sides-of-the-track formula). It’s slightly hard to take a film seriously when you have not one but two back-to-back scenes in which the same pair of kids (one of them Mickey Rooney) lose three sets of parents, with tinny music playing all the while. Clark Gable doesn’t really project much emotion when his character starts to lose all his characteristic luck (although you’ve got to wonder how much luck a fellow has been born with when he loses two sets of parents in a space of two or three years). Blackie seems more upset when he gets word that Jim is going to marry Eleanor, than when Jim rages against him in the courtroom and sends him to the electric chair.

All this being said, one of the few times Gable does allow his feelings to break through—and one of the best scenes in the film—is when Jim, in his closing argument against Blackie, says, “A long time ago I childishly tried to save Edward Gallagher’s life. Now I ask you to send him to his death.” Now that’s just cold, Jim. Gable shows a good amount of sadness and heartbreak in that one moment—then, grinning, draws a cartoon of himself burning in the electric chair. He jokes with Jim and the priest (who happened to be on the showboat as well) just before he’s taken to the electrocution chamber. This flippancy would make sense if Blackie was callous and cold-hearted, but he’s actually a nice guy. What the movie was going for, I think, was the idea that he would do anything—kill, or be killed—to make sure that Jim is safe and can live a happy, prosperous life. But for some reason it doesn’t really ring true for me.

I’m sure I’m making William Powell’s Jim Wade out to be the biggest asshole on film, a guy who rails against his lifelong friend against the stand, hands him a death sentence, and for a time refuses to commute the term to life in prison. But Jim is as nice a guy as—if not nicer than—Blackie; he stands up for what he believes in, which (unfortunately for Blackie) is the justice system, and he often pays the price for it. Powell shows more than enough of the emotional torture that Jim should feel in that situation—he looks more hurt by the aforementioned closing argument than Blackie—and you can see how hard it is for him to stand by the system while he loses his best friend and his wife. This is why Powell steals the film, although I’m starting to think that William Powell steals every film he’s in. The best scene in the film (and probably the only scene in which I liked the musical score) is after Jim has come to speak to Blackie before his execution. He’s discovered that Blackie killed his ADA to protect him, as his ADA was going to tell the papers that Jim’s wife was once a gangster’s moll. In a moment of weakness, Jim offers to commute Blackie’s sentence, but Blackie refuses to let him do it. Blackie is taken to the chair, and Jim leaves, walking through the long hall of cells, with his back towards the camera. Halfway down the hallway, the lights dim. “There he goes!” one prisoner yells. “They’re givin’ it to him!” When the lights return, Jim’s head is hanging down, and he proceeds the rest of the way. Coupled with the music (and the sad knowledge that, since the lights dim a second time, it’s most likely that Blackie wasn’t killed with the first charge), this is, in my opinion, the greatest scene in the movie. Although it could contend with Powell’s later speech, in which he resigns from his job as governor, because of that moment of weakness, and the fact that he was indirectly involved in the murder.

That leaves, of course, the matter of William Powell and Myrna Loy. Loy plays the sort of intelligent woman that she’d later be known for. Eleanor wants more than the luxuries that come with being a gangster’s girlfriend, and after being paired up with Jim by Blackie on Election Night (wherein Jim wins the vote for District Attorney), she realizes that, as life with Blackie is never going to slow down, she has more of a future with Jim. Eleanor is more of the catalyst between the two men (the film hints that Blackie has hardened up after Eleanor leaves him, which might have propelled him to commit an earlier murder, of a hood who owed him money), but she’s both intelligent and funny, as when she meets Jim for the first time. She doesn’t stop caring for Blackie after she breaks up with him, and—after having a genuinely intelligent argument with Jim about it—leaves Jim when he won’t commute Blackie’s sentence. The chemistry between Powell and Loy is palpable, even though Myrna Loy wrote that they only met each other during the filming of their first scene together (literally, she ran into the car and into Powell’s lap. Powell said, “Mrs. Loy, I presume?”, she said “Mr. Powell?” and that was the beginning of it). You get a good glimpse of the repartee between the two in the taxicab scene (“Well, I was born at home, because I wanted to be near Mother at the time.”) Before the filming of Manhattan Melodrama was even finished, MGM clamored to make The Thin Man, which actually keeps some of Manhattan Melodrama’s principal cast—Powell, Loy, Nat Pendleton—as well as its director, W.S. Van Dyke (in fact, George Cukor, director of Pat and Mike, My Fair Lady, and The Philadelphia Story, among many others, was hired to direct additional scenes for Manhattan Melodrama, as Van Dyke had already started filming The Thin Man).

Along with the fact that it was the first pairing of Myrna Loy and William Powell, Manhattan Melodrama is also known as the film John Dillinger saw right before he was gunned down outside of Chicago’s Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934. Myrna Loy was said to have been Dillinger’s favorite actress. You can also hear Shirley Ross (in black face and wig, as the singer at the Cotton Club) sing “The Bad In Every Man”, which eventually became “Blue Moon” (I’m starting to prefer “The Bad in Every Man” to “Blue Moon”, really).

So the movie wasn’t bad, really. It’s a soapy melodrama, sure, but there’s actually a good amount of depth to it overall. Jim, Blackie, and Eleanor are all intelligent people who ultimately mean well, but their stances on life and their morals veer them off in different directions before convening once again—and, in Jim and Blackie’s cases, crashing into each other head on. Yeah.

So I'll get on with the other films when I have the time. I'll see you in a couple of years.

Where Art Thou, Boo Berry and Count Chocula?

Wow, Cheerios really suck. I never noticed until now just how terrible they are. Maybe because I don’t often eat Cheerios. I mean, I like Honey Nut Cheerios and Frosted Cheerios, but then I try a fun-size box of plain Cheerios and…there’s no flavor whatsoever. It’s like eating little pieces of cardboard, or bark. How can people eat this stuff day in, day out? Is that why the box always shows two lone strawberries floating in the cereal bowl? Why should I have to add my own flavor when there are cereals like Trix and Cookie Crisp, which may just have too much flavor than is healthy? Is this why adults generally Hate Their Lives? Try some Lucky Charms, you guys! Or better yet—for those of you who have dreaded cubicle jobs—try Lucky Charms mixed with Cinnamon Toast Crunch! It’s illegal in five states, but it’s worth it.

Then again, you can have Golden Grahams, Coco Puffs, or—oh shit—Coco and/or Fruity Pebbles. Man. In the winters, my mother would make our cereal, then microwave it for a few seconds, so it was warm. And then sometimes, when we were out of regular milk, she would use chocolate milk. And once I think she used orange juice as a substitute, but I think it was shortly thereafter she got help. (Just kidding, Mom.) There’s also a weird brand of cereals used more as promotional material for kids’ movies. Shrek’s Swamp Squares and Mickey Mouse Mush and Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull Bites. They never last, in any case, if they were even supposed to.

Then there’s Cap’n Crunch With Crunch Berries. Holy crap, I could always go for some Cap’n Crunch. I never really liked the peanut butter Cap’n Crunch, but With Crunch Berries—sweet. There was a (short) period where they made a Berries Only cereal (apparently, Cap’n Crunch fucked up at the factory or somethin’). Those were good times. A time of overindulgence—like reliving the eighties all over again, except you’re not left with a cocaine addiction and a broken Hall & Oates tape.

I miss kid cereals in general. It’s not that I’m not allowed to have them for anything. It’s just a waste, for 3 reasons: 1) I don't eat breakfast because I usually never wake up in the morning, and when I do wake up I usually never have time to eat cereal in the morning; 2) almost everywhere I've ever lived, milk tends not to be used much, and quickly goes bad; and 3) back in Charleston, the roaches would chew through electric wire to get at food—ordinary cardboard boxes and thin plastic bags have no affect on them. For this reason, I kept my Ritz crackers in the fridge (I wish I was joking).

So I've kind of been just hanging out for the past two days,--it was raining and ugly all day yesterday, and last night and part of this morning I had a pretty bad stomach ache. But I feel better now, thanks for asking. God knows I didn’t do anything to help it except just sit on my ass and watch TV, but there you go. Of course, I hesitated to write about this because I know that, as soon as I do, my appendix will burst or I’ll go to the doctor, who will tell me that I have some form of cancer, and will die in half a year. I swear, the idea scares the living fuck out of me. But that’s not what you want to hear, is it? You want to hear more zany stories and droll reflections on life. So I’ll just roll my fears up into a little ball and shove it deep down into my mind, where it will ultimately manifest itself in the form of utter, uncontrollable rage. So have fun, you bastards, and laugh. You’ll get yours.

Who Is the Tall Dark Stranger There? Maverick is the Name...

So what have I been doing with myself? Well, I just spent an afternoon watching "Gunsmoke"--most notable was an episode with Jodie Foster, all of six or seven years old, I guess, running around in a really bad red wig. So that's how I've been spending my leisure time, between looking for jobs and hanging out with various relatives.

You’re probably wondering why I was watching “Gunsmoke”. Was it just a slow day, or what? Well, yeah, it was a slow television day—Sundays always are—but it’s also because I have an affinity for TV westerns, believe it or not. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with “Maverick” for a summer or two. I liked the ones with Brett Maverick—as opposed to Bert Maverick—although early on I noticed a recurring theme: Maverick meets girl, Maverick falls for Girl, Girl fucks over Maverick somehow. I really wanted Maverick to fall in love at some point, maybe because I had a slight crush on James Garner. There was also a point where Brett and Bert Maverick teamed up together, and then there was another point where it was just Bert, and then by the end both of them had left, to be replaced by Beau Maverick, their British cousin (played by, I think, Roger Moore). TV Land doesn’t show “Maverick” much anymore, and the few episodes they do show I’ve seen a dozen times. But I still know all the words to the theme song, and can sing them off-key for you, if you wish it.

I actually hadn’t seen “Gunsmoke” until recently. I admit at one point I TiVo’ed a couple of them because Harrison Ford was a guest star (before he made it big, of course). There’s a very subtle but dry humor permeating through “Gunsmoke”, and maybe that’s why I like it enough to watch episodes that were Harrison Ford-less. Consider a scene where Doc is walking past two kids playing in a water trough, and tells them, “Yep, that’s the way to kill those leeches.” He walks away grinning as the two kids look at him, horrified. Of course, this being 1960’s television, there are some unintentionally funny scenes as well, such as the following (taking place in the middle of a showdown):

Good Guy: Underwood, stop firing! Let’s talk!
Underwood: NOOOOO!! [shoots at him]

Maybe I’m crazy, but that made me laugh to no end. A really good episode has Dodge City taken over by a gang of outlaws (including Harrison Ford) looking to sack the town and kill Matt Dillon (who, funnily enough, is out of town. He’s always out of town. He’s the George W. Bush of sheriffs). They all end up in Miss Kitty’s saloon, playing poker against her. When only Miss Kitty and the leader are left in the game, they agree that, if she wins, he has to leave town and not kill Matt Dillon. When he loses, and refuses to honor the bet, his posse leaves. Why does the gang of killers leave? Because they have conviction, that’s why. And not the law kind either. So they all leave, and Matt Dillon shoots the leader. Because he’s quick on the draw. There was also a two-part episode with Shani Wallis, who played Nancy in Oliver! You never see her around anymore, but apparently she’s, well, around. Harrison Ford went onto bigger and brighter things, and I’m sure he learned something from “Gunsmoke”, like not to wear pink if you’re going to a shoot-out, because come on, no man wants to die wearing a pink shirt. And he also got a couple of teeth knocked out, apparently, so he hopefully learned something from that.