The No Touching Party in My Head

Scott Woods was in my dream. We were talking about monster Australian Chardonnay. Someone, Joe The Poet, or Jory, was drinking one the week before. It was called Mer-Soo, an Aussie version of the French Meursault. Then Scott asked me how much the Mer-Soo cost. I said it should be about $20-25. The actual price was $39. When he told me, he sounded disappointed.

Then we went to Bonotogo Pizza and there was cartoon art on the wall. The Lockhorns were drawn up as the Righthorns, and Ziggy was using his non-dominant hand. The owner, Bill, was drawing up the strips in the opposite of how they are.

And, no, I do not know what this means.

Back in the real world, Bonotogo is back. We went last night. It's taking up part of a carry out on Northwest and Chambers and all is well. I wrote an acrostic about it.

Pieacrostic

Bill wears two hats, inside a cowboy
Outside, he dons a captain's hat
Now, the sound of a breaking plate
on the floor in the kitchen,
takes the breath out of the six
of us waiting for our pizza
Gasping, Bill yells
out he's doing the server a favor while she's on
parole
In jest, of course. Bill is
Zooming to and fro', finally our
zesty pies arrive
Always hot from the wood fired oven

Before the pizza we went to see An Education. A film that is getting a lot of attention due to its breakout star, actress Carey Mulligan.



The attention is well founded. Mulligan is outstanding in portraying an intelligent sixteen year old who wants more to life than being sheltered in Twickenham. The film is a well detailed period piece of pre-Beatles England. My wife was impressed by the attention to detail, and the car Peter Sarsgaard drives is bitching!



A Bristol 405, in maroon.

Back to the film. It's a very sensitive coming of age movie, as the two leads have a significant age difference. She's 16, he's about twice that. Emma Thompson has about five minutes of screen time and blows Mulligan out of the water. Olivia Williams has a poignant role as a schoolteacher. As always, there are secret lives, betrayals and the film moves to an ending that is worthy of the Nick Hornby screenplay, which is based on a memoir from Lynn Barber.

Worn out by energy

Found myself watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall yesterday. Rooted for Russell Brand's character. I do not see films the way most people do. None of the main characters deserved a relationship. With anyone. Heck, I even mistook Paul Rudd for Dane Cook.

It's weird seeing a comment thread on Facebook with one of your friends and someone who has blocked you from seeing them. Yes, one sided.

My son seems to think six hours of sleep is enough. Yesterday he was up at 6:30 and babbled and bounced his way around for about nine hours before he needed a nap, which was two hours later than mine.

Nothing Against Sean Penn in Milk

Called my Mother last night. "Congratulations," she said. "How did you hear?" I asked. "You sent me an email."

I was so tired I did not remember.

Zombied out in the chair we watched The Wrestler. I read that Nick Cage bowed out of the picture because the director preferred Mickey Rourke. This was a wise move. I really respected this film. It has a masterpiece of a performance by Rourke, who is Ram, a professional wrestler from the eighties well past his prime. I was not expecting it to be a remake of Au Hasard Balthazar, with Rourke as the donkey. Ok, maybe I'm stretching it a bit, but the film carries that much emotional depth. I was quivering during a scene on the beach where Ram is trying to reconnect to his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood) by calling himself "A broken down piece of meat." He should have won the oscar for this one.

Marisa Tomei plays Cassidy/Pam, a stripper Ram is infatuated with.



My wife thought she was a bit too well scrubbed for her role, and maybe she's right. Perhaps Courtney Love would have been well cast in this role, if they could have afforded to insure her for the shoot.

Again, I'm late to the party, but this was a very good film. I also liked the soundtrack, a fine compilation of eighties metal. While I was no fan of that music, it was an excellent fit to the theme of the film, which made the inclusion of a Bruce Springsteen song over the closing credits quite pandering to fame and unnecessary.

Vampires do not make out

I'm waiting for the Arsenal Soccer team to come over from London, play the Crew, and beat them. Then, to increase my sports discomfort due to constant loss, they could play the Blue Jackets, and beat them. Then the Bills. I'd say The Mets, but everyone's been beating them lately.

Arsene Wenger has the Gunners playing well out of the gate.



They trounced Everton on Saturday and dealt a brutal loss to Celtic in the Champions League qualifier. I do not dislike Arsenal. May have become a supporter, but that was too easy with the Nick Hornby connection. So I chose Everton, the red headed stepchild of Liverpool. The team of the street.

I've been writing, for slam and myself. Slam's been going well. I'm competing and slowly putting it together. Been working on the IWPS slam qualifying and I'm on the bubble for the slam on next Wednesday. I may get in, may not. I've been having fun with it this year ever since the incident earlier this year.

Watched Twilight earlier. It was not a horrible mess but very poorly acted. I have not read the book but I'm not impressed with what the author did with the vampire canon. Vampires are not pretty. The thirst for human blood does not involve glittery skin in the sunlight. But it's safe for the kids I guess. You can market safe vampires these days. It makes Edward as scary as Elmo, because that heinous muppet is a monster too.

Gary Cooper did not get his chow

The CAPA Summer Movie Series is one of the things that makes Columbus a cool place to live. Thursday night we went to the Ohio Theater to see Wings on the big screen. Wings is a silent. Made in 1927, it's the first film to win an Oscar for best picture. It's also still not available on DVD.

It's set during World War One and director William Wellman put together some great fighter plane sequences. It's also a love story starring the mad hot Clara Bow.



The guy next to her is Buddy Rogers. It also stars Richard Arlen. I did not notice until the opening credits that Jobyna Ralston was also in Wings, in a small but important role. She was in many films with Harold Lloyd.



Gary Cooper also had a small role in this film, he was having an affair with Clara Bow at the time.

I was not expecting to like Wings as much as I did. The acting was sub par but the pacing of the film and the flying scenes made the film thrilling to watch. And, Clark Wilson on the Mighty Morton Organ, playing a score taken from many sources, is always a treat.

A president, activist and a cop walk into a bar...

Been listening to Serge Gainsborg and finding that I don't like him. Tom Jones has an amazing voice, the last Levon Helm (not the new one) does not do it for me and Let It Bleed sounds really good. Also, the Divine Comedy, can't find much of that in Columbus though.

Been thinking that in addition to the year end compilation I've been doing for the past five years, it may be a cool idea to put one together celebrating the best of the decade. It's certainly an ambitious project and I'm not sure what to do about 2000-2003 since I do not have much on record about those years.



Also watched a swift piece of film noir called Detour. Guy hitches from New York to L.A. to get together with his girl. Gets picked up by a man who dies while they're on the road. He ends up with the car and picks up another hitchhiker, a woman with issues, bad things happen. Ann Savage, who was the mother in Guy Maddin's My Winnipeg plays the hitcher with issues. It was made in six days, has some scary bad rear projection but an above average script, which the actors tear through with gusto.

Ran all over the city yesterday in some rather foul weather. Frustrating at time, did not find anything I was looking for but we did pick up a new addition to the family who will be introduced to you all soon.

Now we have sandwiches and tents

Have seen a few interesting movies over the past couple of days.

First was a documentary called Stranded, which is about the Uruguayan rugby team and their plane crash in the Andes Mountains in 1972. It's told by the survivors of the crash, some of whom go to the crash site with their family, and the film makers handle the cannibalism with much respect and sensitivity. It's a bit lengthy at just over two hours and the pacing can be a bit slow but it's worth viewing.

My one big gripe is the handling of the subtitling. I do not mind subtitles. At all. In fact, I prefer them to dubbing. In this case though the subtitles were white, and on a snowy background they were at times impossible to view. It was shown in letterbox format, why can't they put the damn subtitles in the black on the bottom of the screen?

After that intense experience, on TCM was M. Hulot's Holiday. I have only seen parts of Mon Oncle before, and was not overly impressed.



I admired Tati's visuals and amazing use of sound in this film. He also had a very strong screen presence, using his height with good gentle humor in several scenes. The story though, to me was not fluid and contained a lazy series of vignettes, which is fine if it had an overall form.

Last night, also on TCM, was Manhattan, which is one of my favorites. In hindsight, it's easy to be harsh on Woody Allen for the 42 year old dating the 17 year old and hard to overlook it. But Diane Keaton absolutely rocks in this film and New York City has never looked finer in glorious black and white.



I still believe that Allen based the final scene on Chaplin's City Lights. The way we see Allen approach Tracy is so like the Tramp seeing the blind girl now owning the flower shop, and his facial expressions after Tracy tells him 'not everyone gets corrupted, you have to have a little faith in people.'

It's spot on writing, acting and direction.

In Unforgiven, He Was Totally Mean

Finally watched The French Connection last night. A fine cop drama that won Gene Hackman an Oscar.



Roy Scheider was also nominated for an Oscar, but lost out, this does not diminish his excellent performance either.

It's a great film that exposes all the grit and foulness of New York City and Brooklyn in the late sixties/early seventies. In one shot, you can see the World Trade Center being built. I liked all the old storefront signs, which always give me a sense of childhood nostalgia. Naturally Sal and Angie's diner is no longer there.



That's not my Volvo in the picture!

Thirty eight years later, the movie holds up - and my already high esteem for Gene Hackman went up a notch.

Hey Hey in the Hayloft

News is breaking that Christiano Ronaldo has been transferred from Manchester United to Real Madrid for the record sum of eighty million pounds. I think that gives Real Madrid the right to replace AIG as Man. U's sponsor.

Made reservations in the city of bridges a couple weeks from now. Never really been there, and she certainly has not so we're looking forward to inclines.

Got some expected bad news regarding our central air unit. Kaput.



TCM was having a Preston Sturges marathon last night. Caught the last half of the Lady Eve and all of Sullivan's Travels, which she had not seen. Such wonderful dialogue and McCrea and Lake were wonderful together.

Breezy, noisy Sunday

Werner Herzog's narration style could make Goodnight Moon sound like the book of revelations. I can only guess why he hates penguins so much.

My son has been bouncing off the walls all weekend, sometimes at 5AM. We got into the backyard for a bit. He's not as bothered by the noise from the people next door putting up a roof, which causes all the dogs in the area to start barking and whining, as I am. He was not even disturbed much when I broke out the weed whacker.

Play is a bit different with an autistic child. Expectations change. The act of throwing and catching a ball with your son is altered, being it rolling a rubber ball or Nerf football down the stairs, or a large play ball off the side of a Radio Flyer.



He's been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and identifying the drawings. He's pretty good at it. He takes my hand and uses my finger to point at a picture he doesn't know. I tell him what it is, and he repeats it back to me. He thinks the word salami is the funniest thing he's ever heard.

Speaking of funny, I was looking at a professor rating website and the line, "no wonder her husband left her," really made me laugh. Over ten years later, she's still bringing it up in her classes. Sad and revisionist at the same time.

Did some shopping for the event yesterday, picked up plates, cups, etc. Still need one of the major parties to be allowed into the country. Maybe we'll hear something tomorrow. Maybe this week.

Oh it's May

I've been making lists, asking for lists, receiving lists.



It's Lisztomania!

The weather tonight has been miserable. Tornado sirens went off. Local weather people wet their pants in joy. They could use all their toys. Their dual titan doppler telestrater green screen radars, and still get it wrong!

Worked my way through another of the Ealing set. Last night it was The Maggie. Fun little film about a salty Scottish captain of a decrepit ship who cons his way into taking some cargo from a wealthy American businessman. It has a witty scene involving a pier, a ship, and some highland cows. I had never seen one until we got lost in Pollock Park.



Deftly directed by Alexander Mackendrick, it takes a few good shots at impaitient Americans, and contains some roots found in one of my favorite films, Local Hero. You know Bill Forsyth had to see that one for inspiration. They'd make a good double feature.

I was feeling sad, bored and did not want to go to bed so I ended up watching Rachel Getting Married. It is a very uneven film filled with some deliberate and some not deliberate uncomfortable moments. A lengthy monologue by Anne Hathaway at her sister's rehearsal dinner left me squirming at some very bad writing and the minutia of the wedding reception went on for about ten minutes too long. For the most part the acting was sound, with high marks to Bill Irwin and Debra Winger. Even Robyn Hitchcock has a cameo, so it's not all bad.

Also had my interview about Arts Fest. It went well I guess, tried to not sound too much like an idiot. Lots of nervous laughter. Not sure on the air date, but will let the two or three of you who read this know when I find out.

Now, to continue waiting, and to hope there's a window of dry weather so I can mow the lawn sometime tomorrow or Sunday.

The Panther Crawl

The comedies of Ealing Studios have a real charm and wit. They also have a soul. I got a box set from the library of their earlier, little shown films that I'm sure will enthrall me over the next few days.

First up, I watched Whisky Galore, the first film directed by Alexander Mackendrick, the director of one of my favorite films, The Ladykillers.

It's 1943 and a remote Scottish island has run out of whisky. Then, a cargo ship containing 50,000 cases of the nectar runs aground. Before it sinks, the residents of the island snatch a few cases for themselves.



The excise taxmen are brought in to investigate. There are a couple of sweet romances, an awesome scene in which the residents sing as they're getting drunk for the first time in a long while. It's a very funny movie. I'm not very familiar with the cast, but I did recognize Joan Greenwood. Can't wait to watch this again with my girl so she can translate some of it as the accents can be a bit thick which, combined with 1948 sound, can be a bit tough for me to pick out.

A few years ago, there was an attempt to remake this beloved film, it did not go over very well.

There are four more films to watch. Maybe over the weekend, or I'll wait a bit longer to savor these wonderful comedies.

As winter returns to Ohio

All weekend I've been out of synch. Been flying all over the place, eating junk, not sleeping near enough. There's too much on my mind and it's not settling well inside me. Did manage to clean out a bunch of junk and garbage, there's still a long way to go.

In better news Scott Woods successfully completed his fourth consecutive 24 hour poetry marathon. Well done!



Managed to watch one film. Bottle Shock is based on a true story. A now famous wine tasting in 1976 that pitted the best that France had to offer vs. the best of the United States. The tasting was done blind and the American wines placed ahead of the French counterparts. This event put U.S. wine on the world map.

Alan Rickman was wonderful as Steven Spurrier, the British wine shop owner who sponsored the tasting.



It also starred Bill Pullman and Eliza Dushku, who was not in the film near enough, for many reasons.



While walking down the parking lot to work last week I heard the sound of geese honking. Not unusual, but I did not see any flying overhead. I'm not sure I've ever seen geese on a roof before, but there they were.



I also think they were taunting me.

While You Were Reading

Received word a couple of days ago that I came in a second place tie in the Columbus Arts Festival poetry audition.

What does this mean?

I get to read for half an hour (instead of fifteen minutes) at the festival on Saturday, June 6th at 6PM. I think I also get a short bio in the program.



Two years ago I was stunned to get a slot. I suspected I did well in this year's audition, but not that good. I am humbled to be on the podium, as it were, with a couple of Columbus' finest poets in Mikelle Hickman-Romaine and Louise Robertson.

Taking off on a mini road trip tomorrow. I have a real itch to get out of the city now that the weather is getting better. There is some paperwork that has to get done this weekend. Tonight and Sunday should take care of at least half of that. Must get cracking on the poetry. Big slam on Wednesday night, along with pre=preparation for June.

Also booked a flight for my son and I to head to Long Island and see my parents next month.



The still is from the film Hunger. It's one of the most brutal and profound films I've seen in a long time. It tells the story of IRA terrorist Bobby Sands and the hunger strike that killed him in 1981. Director Steve McQueen makes his feature director/writer debut with this and knocks it out of the building with brilliant visuals such as snow falling on the bloody knuckles of a prison guard. I may be projecting this but I believe some of this film was influenced by the work of Bresson and Truffaut. The politics are kept neutral through some brutal scenes of violence and grotesque artistry. There is one breathtaking long shot of Sands discussing his hunger strike with a priest that was done in a single take of 17 minutes. Michael Fassbender goes through a physical transformation not unlike Christian Bale's in The Machinist. It's not a film for the faint of heart, but if you want to see a bleak transformation of a character it's a stunning piece of film making.



Image from brooklynvegan.com

Been tracking down the latest record from Elvis Perkins and what I've heard is amazing. It's a bit more upbeat musically that Ash Wednesday, but the content of the songs is just as bittersweet.

Out and About

Got out of the house a bit to keep away from the media. Was getting more annoyed at cheney's sore loser fear mongering comments and the nerve of AIG to give out bonuses after receiving 170 billion dollars in bailout money.

At least it was a decent day to get outside with my son and go for a walk. We went down to Little Darby Creek. He liked walking down, and then wanted to go into the creek. I tried to convince him that it was not a good idea, he did not believe me then did not want to walk back up so I ended up carrying him on my shoulders.



His sleep has been erratic. I'm waking up at two in the morning to hear him having conversations with who knows who in the dark. He does fall back asleep after less than an hour, I think.

This was taken yesterday at the Wexner Center after picking up tickets for Hunger.



The film is by artist Steve McQueen and it's about Bobby Sands, interesting timing considering the nonsense happening in Northern Ireland. The film is this Wednesday and the director is doing a Q&A after the screening.

Time to get dinner started. Celtic beat rangers today! Blue Jackets vs. Detroit in an hour.

In the city there's a thousand things I want to say to you

The temperature warmed up to about 70 degrees yesterday. Spring may not be here, but you could feel it coming.

After a phone call from my gal in Scotland and watching my son swim I headed downtown to take a look at Huntington Park, the new home of the Columbus Clippers. It opens next month and is looking better than I thought.



It seats 10,000 and there's not a bad seat in the house. My one nit pick is that there does not appear to be a lot of covered seating.

Headed up to Half Price Books and sold a few things for lunch money then headed to Hayden Run Falls. Last summer we went and it was dry.



Not so yesterday.



No one was swimming in the pit though. Was not that warm!

I was doing a good job killing time before auditioning for a spot at the poetry tent of this year's Columbus Arts Festival. I got to the location early. There were no shows so I read early. Did well. Made someone cry, in a good way.

After all that it was time to get some food and relax a bit. I went down to the Short North Gallery Hop and got myself some pizza. It hit the spot. I was headed down to Jeni's on High Street and coming toward me was Ric Ocasek. He was tall, dressed in black with a white cloth wrapped loosely around his neck. It was 1983 all over again. The Cars were the first band I saw live and their music made high school suck less. I did not want to be a gawking dick so I said nothing. Really wanted to thank him though.

He was walking in front of his family, that included his wife Paulina Poritzkova, who looked natural and fabulous, and their teenage son, who looks a lot like his father. Ocasek was here to promote an exhibit of his work at a local art gallery. All I'll say is that his work is better than Mellencamp's.

There was a line out the door at Jeni's so I talked to a fellow poet, who was selling her jewelry in front of a wine shop. Ended up going inside and finding a decent bottle of kabinett. Went home, watched the Blue Jackets beat the crap out of the Red Wings. Rick Nash had the first unassisted hat trick since Rocket Richard in 1948. Steve Mason was awesome in net.

Then watched Vicky Christina Barcelona, which would have been a good film had it not had lazy voice over narration than continually brought the movie's momentum to a crashing halt.

Now it's a lazy Sunday of laundry, FA Cup soccer (go Everton!) and dinner out later.