Hey gang it’s been awhile. I’ve been working and traveling up and down and around our fair beautiful state. A quick run down will illustrate my curious summer.
That’s me btw
Most recently, I got a dream gig on a show in the bay area. It’s got me back at home with my folks, but in the proudest way. I’m working most nights, so my social life is nonexistent, but I don’t care too much because my ego makes up for it.
Serious the ego is at all time levels. Which is weird because a couple months ago
I almost od’ed turning 23, on a cocktail of self-hate and ridiculous expectations.
But soon after that I got a great gig and made new friends. And after that this new gig. So why the change in luck?
Maybe I hit a peak self-doubt, flipping the fortune dial. Or one of the gods made a mistake, thinking I had suffered the requisite amount. Or more ridiculous, that I worked hard enough.
I’ve read that feeling like a fake/cheater is par for the course, but let’s be honest. I’m what Gawker writes about as what’s wrong with the country (I read Gawker though).
But guilty happiness is not without it’s perks. I’ve speculated that my romantic hangups and preoccupations coincide with creative/career downturns, now I’ve got proof. Because of my lack of freetime (at peak hours that is) I’m not so worried about being social. I am only here for a couple months anyway, so there’s not much use in making new friends.
A simplified life might just be what the doctor ordered. At the moment, my day starts with swimming/sauna at the Y, coffee at Java Beach, sparkling water in the backyard, and then work.
In general I’ve been romanticizing the solo dolo life. In the Pacheco Pass, I imagined having a small shack atop a large golden hill looking across the reservoir. In the dream I was living in a dingy room, with a small blanket and a table. Maybe it’s because I’ve always lived for my most immediate pleasure that this way seems most appealing.
Perhaps I need the time to get to know myself (for whatever that means). I started reading The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker and it occurred to me that I would never know anything as much as he knew birds. How could I tell a story if didn’t know anything? It’d just be speaking to hear the sound of my own voice?
So that’s where my heads at. Here are some things.
If you like early 70s Stones, the Faces, the first five Rod Stewart records. Basically if you’re from Le Wrong Generation. Down in Heaven is an earnest and fun rock album.
It’s so odd coming back to this one. Maybe the best last fifteen minutes all time. David Lean is my favorite director (probably). This time he has me sympathize with the sadistic Colonel Saito (a self-hating Anglophile forced into a war by a domineering family). Kwai has got a SERIOUS ensemble to boot.
Little Political Thought
So I hope everybody is voting and paying attention to politics this summer. There’s certain to be an influx of graphs to our Facebook Timelines.It just seems like folks are set in what they think. They search for an auto-play video to demonstrate what they already think with facts. I don’t want to come off as anti-science or anti-stats, but I feel like I got’s to say a little something.
Don’t ignore the moral question.
(But don’t shun all the graphs)
You don’t need to avoid the facts to be concerned about doing the right thing.
Seems there’s always a San Francisco housing crisis. We left Astoria on account of my grandma’s sickness. My folks of rushed the move. For whatever reason, we didn’t have anywhere else to stay besides my mom’s friend Liz’s Western Addition basement. In the summertime, there wasn’t really a school or place for me to go to. My parents worked weird shifts and needed some degrees of freedom to Quikrete a new life in their old home. I was young. I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t walk around like I did in Oregon. I had a sleeping bag, a small tv/ on the concrete floor, and a special treat every week.
To keep me happy, every week my dad took me to Le Video, the biggest and coolest rental store in the bay area. They had everything you could think of. They had the craziest imports. I could have dived into any genre, actor, or series. I saw a poster and I didn’t have any other options.
Joe grew up on a strict media diet of Hammer movies, so this thing looked fucking insane. We got every Godzilla movie again and again. It was Godzilla-mania. I wanted to grow up to be Godzilla. He was, for a period, the most influential person in my life. A good chunk of that sticks with me today.
Example time
Here’s an excerpt from the soundtrack of my personal favorite Godzilla movie.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah(the Smog Monster)
It’s exactly the kind of music I fell into in junior high and never fell out of.
This movie, looking back on it, is bonkers. It’s for sure a kids oriented (this is a shot in the movie) Godzilla movie, but one complete with
People getting skeleton-ized by an incredibly dangerous monster
It’s a psychedelic exploitation movie. It’s basically right up my alley.
In honor of Earth Day, check it out
The power of Godzilla, I think, is his ability to mean so many wildly different things to different people. To a lonely kid, he was a sort of older brother. He was the older brother of humanity. He took a beating, but he eventually took care of business. If a character was giving their all, Godzilla would match that effort. Helluva role model.
On my way out of Amoeba Records on Haight, I spied a flyer advertising an advance screening of the thriller Green Room at the Alamo Drafthouse. I invited a friend, but when she fell through I called up my old pal Andre at the last minute for the show. The film was plenty fun. It even included a couple shots of Franklin St. Astoria, where I grew up. We chatted with the director after the Q&A, where we discussed the history of the racial politics of the region and his background in corporate video. During my stay in SF, I thought about this conversation with Mr. Saulnier every day. For those who don’t know, I’ve been on the precipice of dipping into corporate video for the past two months. I found great comfort in Jeremy’s success, but also a greater responsibility.
With an accepted position in downtown Oakland, I’m going to be spending a lot more time up north. I might move there full time. It’s not hard to think of it as a defeat, especially for someone who takes himself too seriously. In this business, you’ve got to roll with the punches. I think about Jeremy Saulnier and I think “Why not go for it? The path doesn’t exist. Nothing is set in stone.” My journey was always going to be a weird one.
I might be one of the few folks to leave Los Angeles really liking it. There’s an excitement here. I’m confidant in my swift return. (Part of me thinks that I just get antsy after nine months in a place but fingers crossed that’s not true.)
There’s an appeal to accomplishing things to most difficult way possible. I’ll describe it when I get there.
I can hear Scarlett’s tail whack all the plants in the back quarter of my sister’s garden. She’s looking for something. It can be anything, but this time this thing is a squarish rock. I threw it into the greens maybe twenty minutes ago and am reveling in my success. Frustrated, she keeps looking back at me. I show her my empty hands to show that I’m not tricking her. Games are most important to Scarlett. She has the strange ability to find any speck a toy that needs to be thrown. She’ll cock her head to the side and become instantly and impossibly anxious. All nerves, Scarlett will quickly shuffle back and forth ready to sprint in any direction.
Now she’s climbing into a rose bush. More stubborn and determined, she’s bringing down the rose bush. I’m letting this happen. Lizzy will not be happy with us. Since the new paragraph, she’s jumped into the elevated bed. That’s a three and a half foot jump up for a mini dachshund. Relentless in play, the competitive element becomes my ability to avoid a constantly back-and-forth. I need to put the thing in play fairly, but in a fashion where Scarlett playtime doesn’t become the sole function of my afternoon and life.
Rocky is not like this. If he has a thing, the Rock is content to lay with it in the sun, give it the occasional chew, and rub his chest into it. He is not relentless. It takes a certain effort on my part for Rocky to get anything at all. He’s the kid in middle school basketball who never wants to shoot sharing the rock with Kobe Bryant. And if, by the grace of God, he happens upon a thing, he will be stalked. Scarlett follows him and waits for the smallest slip up. If Rocky leaves it aside, she snatches it right up.
Brother and sister, Rocky and Scarlett seem like completely different animals. They have clearly different priorities that they carry out every waking moment. Scarlett’s entire world, whole purpose, could be the procurement of the smallest thing. She brings me string, stamps, beads from a rosary, leaves, twigs, tin foil, chunks of random plastics, and anything that could be held in a roughly four inch mouth.
Demented fetch. There might be more profound or interesting things to say about this. I might be eager to learn from my friend’s focus. Andre and I went to an advance screening of the awesome new thriller Green Room where we met this rising star director Jeremy Saulnier, who is putting out his new effort at a ripe age after a career in the not super sexy corporate video world. Perhaps the take home is NEVER GIVE UP FIND THAT TWIG even in a ridiculous and ridiculously competitive industry. I’m not a great lesson learner though.
*Disclaimer: I should note that I actually am happy about all of this. It will be easy to forget this.
Hollywood seems like a million person bracket, with only one or handful of winners and all moderate successes losses. I got a long term gig, which might translate into a tournament win.
So I might actually be heading back up to San Francisco. FOR WORK of all things. It’s not totally clear what the job is going to be like, but I’ll be headed up the ninth to find out with training in Oak-town. It’s a bit odd really. To be quite honest, I don’t know what I’d be going back to. Or leaving. I think the past month has been my first to be really socially adventurous. With regular attendance at the Hi Hat, it really feels like I’m in the ground floor of an thing.
So there have been a lot of jump starts so far. They have been close calls, and mistakes and regrets. I’d like to think that the holes you climb out of make you a stronger person, but I do doubt it. Maybe you just get better at finding holes.
Sometimes there’s nothing scarier than getting on base. And getting a solid job back in the Bay Area is a definite base hit. But to continue the obvious baseball metaphor, I’d worry if I reach any other bases. How much value is there in continuing to fan in Los Angeles? Is it giving up on the friendships that I’ve made? Am I missing out on someone I seem to jive with?
I’ve tried to be a person proud of their mistakes and failures. I know I’d be happy generally in San Francisco, but the city so full of memory also brings an apprehension and pain. It’s hard not to feel like I’d be vomited back into the Sunset. There really isn’t a way I come back to the city anything but a sick dog.
LA has taught me a lot. I’ve probably changed more in the past year than any in my life. Smaller and humbled, it doesn’t feel finished for me down here. Growing up Catholic, you can get the understanding that the pain and doubts are central to growth, but the virtues of running into doors might just be forehead bruises.
William Stoner, of the novel Stoner, asks himself, reassessing his life’s trials at its tail end. He had been a failure in marriage, in parentage, and in professorship by most standards, and yet where we could find sadness, we find the calm of a principled life. The book’s lessons of tempered expectations, as well as other things, have stuck well with me in 2016.
It’s a quietly revolutionary book that gets my highest recommendation.
As a kind of movie dude, people are always asking what I think/thought of the Oscars. both the controversies and the winners. I’ve always seen the value of the awards. When I was a kid, the Oscars winners list was a valuable roadmap of cinema. In fact, besides the AFI top 100, there probably isn’t a more utilized list. So when the awards roll around, I take it as a chance to demonstrate certain values I hold in modern movies.
All that said, I’ve been burned out by the controversy. I’m frayed so far that my gut reaction to common “What do you think of the lack of diversity in the Oscars this and last year?” rejects my old high school dreams.
Why would you want to win an Oscar?
When did we think that the Academy/Hollywood was anything more than a den of the rich? Do people think it’s an institution of good? It’s not a just industry or even a sensible one? Making films is somewhat a fool’s gambit, and one that should be rigorously questioned. Films are a luxury item of the very wealthy pale ruling class.
I don’t want to push aside very valuable concerns, I just think that maybe filmmaking isn’t something to be 100% proud of.
Sometimes you don’t know if you’ve moved forward or permanently screwed up your life. The short little novel about a young Texas writer coming to California demonstrates why the prettiest girls don’t make good wives and the best pancakes are always back home.
I went to this very cool show at the Largo. Five men in Elizabethan garb performing Shakespeare sort of. Pretty spicy stuff. Only it’s all made up, conceived on the spot, an extrapolation of a title suggested from the audience. It was the most I’d laughed since the wake. Contrary to Max’s opinion, performing made up Shakespeare in front of hundreds of people is something I would never in a million years of practice be able to do.
Ti West made my personal favorite horror movie, The House of the Devil, so I’m for sure gonna see all his movies. For someone who knows a solid amount about the Jonestown Massacre, this film left me very uncomfortable in its specificity.
Growing up, I was super into the Giant Squid. I read books. I took classes at the academy of sciences. I was into it.
On my family’s trip to Ireland, my dad and I took boat out into the Dingle Bay. Early in the morning, I peered into the green water and saw a white mass of flesh. Scared, I ordered my dad back to shore. At a museum later that day, my parents took a photo of me with a model squid with much glee.
In eighth grade, Japanese scientists took the first photo of the Giant Squid, which had pretty much been my life’s goal until that point. I cried that day.
In high school, I discovered that Dingle Bay had an Architeuthis sighting two hundred years ago.
It’s a part of my life I revisit every four years or so.
The new EP grew on me. Aside from the very cool “Can’t Stop Fightin'” it felt full of deep cuts. Nonetheless, the songs on III are whisky-soaked joys.
What We Do in the Shadows
This is the funniest movie I’ve seen all year.
Emotional Mugger
This album has an absolute ripper of a song, but it needs to be earned through listening some of the most bizarre pop west of the Mississippi. This album is noisey and dirty and super nuts. Have a go at it.
If there was a laboratory that concocted films perfectly suited to thrill a certain test subject, that lab would spit out something like The Witch. It isn’t a surprise to my friends when they notice my sometimes superstitious behavior flare up. Some of these are common (knock on wood) and some are less so (no hats on a bed or couch). Such practices are obviously beyond reason.
Any appearance of the occult frightens me and fascinates me. Being from San Francisco has its quirks, one of them coming to terms with an enormous history of cults and alternative communities. Only a small percentage of these are creepy I should note. Cults were, I thought, a healthy way of reexamining my own rituals, religious or otherwise. Satanism in particular used to stir the pot.
SPOILER ALERT
How strangely rare the being of Satan is in fiction? I count nine appearances of our favorite angel in film outside of schlock or comedy(depending on what you think of The Devil and Daniel Webster). Well, I don’t care if this sounds silly or obvious. I gotta say it.
And damn does he work in this movie. There’s a line that just breathes the elegance of evil. Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
The evil in this film is….demonstrative.
This is the first time I’ve seen Satan as a leader, whose fealty is by choice. He preys upon the downtrodden, offering a pill of comfort to a girl who’s only known confused piety and despair. This Satan makes The Witch not a thriller of survival as much as a battle of a soul (and it sure seems like the other team ended up at the wrong soccer field).
All Hail Black Philip
So should you see The Witch? How about a rundown?
It’s gorgeous. The muted tones, the natural light, the beauty New England(Ontario really) hills…Robert Eggers brings us to a place we know, but have really never been before.
I saw the film with Danny, who normally uses his hoodie to block out the movie. He still got a bit freaked.
The language might peeve a few off, but I found the period dialogue brings us to place place of great discomfort, where we clearly understand the somewhat bizarre.
On that note, the acting surprises (in particular Anya Taylor-Joy and the seriously well-named, Harvey Scrimshaw)
Thing to note: Pay attention to characters feet(whether or not you see them in the frame). Seriously. Some of these full shots do wonders to demonstrate the very empathy Eggers feels towards the characters.
The Witch has a dogged authenticity that gives it an almost dreamlike state. It evokes a memories we’ve never had (because of the detail and because of these great characters). It shows evil, ultimately, is the choice of the powerless. More than anything I think, it proves a flighty cinematic truth. If you record things honestly enough and in enough detail, even in situations that seem un-dramatic, there will be the ability to move people and show what is going on behind the surfaces.
I personally have found listening to Sheer Mag a hearty tonic for evil.
I am fiercely proud of my blackberry cobbler. Having not consumed it in almost a year, I get my kicks on smelling it and other folks enjoying it. There’s another way of putting it: it’s super. Today I will be giving the recipe, as I (have just now started to figure out) can’t be everywhere at once. So let’s roll up our very metaphorical sleeves and get to it.
WHAT YOU NEED
-Three Quarter Cup Flour
-Three Quarter Cup Sugar
-Three Quarter Cup O’Milk
-One Teaspoon of Baking Powder
-Quarter Teaspoon Salt
-Six Tablespoons of Butter (look at the butter wrapper if you need help figuring that out)
-BLACKBERRIES. Half a pint. Yes they come in pints.
Set the oven for 350 degrees. Put the butter in the dish to melt.
Wash your hands.Please.
Grab a mixing bowl for your dry ingredients. Whisk Whisk.
Pour in that milk. Whisk until everything is wet. I hope that makes sense.
Turn on the light in the kitchen.
Check on the butter. If it’s all melted, carefully bring it to the stovetop, and start placing the berries in the batter. I like to fit as much berry as possible. I especially like blackberries because up in Astoria I used to go blackberry picking with my dad (a memory that has lost some of its sheen, as blackberries grow like weeds).
Place the dish in the oven and set your timer for forty minutes. It should take forty to fifty minutes for the batter to brown, depending on your zodialogical sign.
Head into your living room and watch a travel show or two. Or, if you’re like me and can’t leave an oven alone, read some short stories on a new Amazon Fire HD 8. Fire HD 8 features a widescreen 1280 x 800 high-definition display with over a million pixels (189 ppi) and a bright, vivid picture. Enjoy a great viewing experience with wide viewing angles, less glare, blacker blacks and a better brightness level thanks to a fully laminated IPS (in-plane switching) LCD display. Choose from millions of e-book and magazine titles. Connect with the largest online community of book lovers on Goodreads. Discover over a million titles with a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Also, listen to your favorite books with Audible.
When you can cleanly prod the cobbler with a butter knife, sprinkle some sugar on top.
Serve with some real deal vanilla ice cream. Or by itself. But hopefully in a bowl.
But before you put spoon to mouth, make sure to take that Snap you’ve worked hard for. If it’s worth doing, it’s worth showing everyone you know (as in life).
Please share with hungry roommates, emotionally distant siblings, grumpy teachers, comatose crushes and everyone in between.
While preparing this tasty treat, you may want to listen to the still relevant Delaney & Bonnie album, Home.
This is a hefty post complete with movie ratings, album recs, life updates, rants, product shilling, and more utter nonsense.
2015 has been the year for Joe. My 22nd year has brought me up and down the coast, onto movie sets, in and out of my mind, and more change than I thought I’d be able to handle. It can’t be stressed enough; I was an utter mess at the end of 2014. I was out of school. I was lonely at Peet’s. I didn’t have any real plans. I didn’t have any growth or output. My weekend highlights were driving around the richmond looking for fast food. I was probably 260lbs, which isn’t terrible given the height. It wasn’t so egregious that I felt I needed to take immediate action. Someone already plagued with boughts of self-conscientiousness wasn’t to be seen dead in a gym.
Fast forward to August, where I find my greatest fuel, spite. See, in some ass-backwards way, I needed to feel rejected on my terms. More clearly, I needed to be rejected on the basis on something besides my appearance/weight. This isn’t to say DT said anything negative about my weight (in fact she was skeptical of the necessity of the weight loss). THE PLAN(1000 calories of kale, turkey, and oats) was a way of literally de-shelling myself, burning of this hurt and ugly person. Andre calls me a shell of my former self, and in many ways he’s not wrong.
So a year later, do I find myself a million times better?
Maybe?
Movie Time
2015 was a great time at the movies. Here some future classics and some not so future classics.
Sicario
Sicario is a monster of a movie. It’s the perfect tonic to a year of armchair activism. Denis Villeneuve takes a pulpy thriller and turns it into Touch of Evil-esque turn into the banality of evil. It’s an aggressively masculine movie, filled with sweeping helicopter shots, long takes, and determined violence. It’s a film where everything runs to theme ( a shootout seen through thermal imaging does a funny thing and detaches the humanity from a human form eh?). Also check out this very sharp article on BMD on rape in Sicario.
Mad Max: Fury Road
There is so much said about Fury Road already. I don’t really know what else I could possibly add EXCEPT that ain’t those War Boys something? Really, there is something so cartoonishly lovable about them. Their worldview is so clear. Their humanity is so clearly understood. And their lives are so valuable. What separates Fury Road from so many action films is that. The audience feels the pain (and the glory) of Warboys’ deaths.
Diary of a Teenage Girl
Of course I was going to like this. It’s a quirky dramedy of a teenage girl in San Francisco in 1976 (my mom was 17 at the time). If you think you’ve seen this movie before, you haven’t. It’s rare to see this type of character, a teenage girl with such agency and curiosity. Minnie’s journey is presented,while often from her hilarious perspective, judgement free. Diary is a fantastic story chock full of likeable characters, cozy photography, and dynamite wit.
Life of Joe
Couple things happened over the past weeks.
I got hooked on, and finished, the very good British sitcom Black Books. I found the main character, Bernard Black, an amalgamation of Kirwan men. He is an Irish alcoholic bookshop owner, stand-offish but charming. If anyone’s cooked with me, this might be familiar.
I took a half tab of acid with Andre. We walked around Pasadena and “partied” at an Ultimate Frisbee party in Santa Monica. It was a night that could’ve gone quite sour. (Late in the night I went searching for my tasty Columbia jacket. I found it under the leg of an occupied stool. When I tapped on the shoulder of the lad whose stool i needed to move but one inch, I became entrenched in a discussion of the rules of pool, a game I am no expert in. Quickly, both my shoulders found small men looking to sway me either way, like I was King Solomon. After four minutes I had had enough. My base functions kicked back in and I asked the guy to scoot a bit. I turned and made my exit.Also there was a bit where a drunk bastard hopped into our Lyft)
I got a gig for Ford in Sacramento. Should be very active.
Had a comfy time in SF. Didn’t get to hang out with DT, but it’s whatever I guess.
The Villainous thing blew up. Max and Kent got into a huge argument. The trailer is up but it’s not mine. I haven’t heard back from anyone in a awhile. That doesn’t feel to great.
For the time being, I’m applying to new things everyday. The Ford thing should keep me afloat for awhile, but again, I’m not above doing something different and wild(and stupid).
Albums of 2015
Here are the modern albums I keep coming back to (released in 2015)
Currents-Tame Impala
At the risk of sounding like a total boner, I think this is the best Tame Impala album. It came at an interesting time in my life, when I was in between cities driving up and down the coast for all kinds of reasons. No album captured the excitement, the pain, the worry, of new love and a new town. (Especially Love triangle stuff ugh)
Natalie Prass-Natalie Prass
No album had me singing in the Vo as loudly and as passionately as the former Jenny Lewis backup singer’s debut. As a huge MASSIVE Dusty Springfield fan, the album felt like a reassurance that the classic Memphis sound could still be conjured, like it was sitting on the shelf for whenever we needed it. This album brings quivers of the heart. Try not to fall in love with Natalie Prass.
Beach House-Thank Your Lucky Stars
So Depression Cherry had been out for a bit, still a very new and fresh Beach House album, when BAM, Thank Your Lucky Stars comes out. And what an album. It gets a lot of Twin Peaks comparisons (synth, haunting female vocals, lots of reasons) and I totally buy that. Can an album be both warm and deliciously chilly?
Juan Wauters-Who Me?
There were a lot of great singer-songwriter dude albums this year, but Who Me? struck me as the warmest and most genuine. The songs are clever and catchy. Wauters comes off as a modern day Jim Croce, all quiet confidence and honesty. I love it.
Toro Y Moi-What For?
Holy shit. This album is plain fun. Like a serious instant classic. That’s all there is to it. Put it on at a party.
SHORT FORM-EPs and Mini LPs
Sheer Mag-II
Anyone that knows me has heard this before, but for the billions who haven’t heard me say it, here ya go. Sheer Mag is absolutely the best thing about rock and roll music today. Clearly they are the best band on the planet. The love child of T. Rex and Thin Lizzy has released two fantastic EPs so far (Joe has both on cassette). These songs have serious energy, craftsmanship, and a SHEER ATTITUDE. This is angry music. This is life-loving music. I used to listen to Sheer Mag every morning, five days a week at 4:45am to get my out of my five hour comas. Blast this EP. Thank Joe later.
Wavves x Cloud Nothings-No Life For Me
A cool collaboration brought us some very interesting songs this summer. Definitely like “Come Down” and the last couple of tracks the most.
Ty Segall-Mr. Face
This record came with some cool 3D glasses fyi. It’s fantastic driving record. Joe likes psych alright. “Circles” is the bomb.
Mac Demarco-Another One
This album actually came out the night of a weird freak out of mine in Irvine. Kind of a catalyst for leaving actually. I was in a swamp of self doubt. I very suddenly hadn’t heard from DT. I didn’t know if Max and I were gonna get the apartment. I definitely felt I had made a mistake in leaving, like I had broken something and couldn’t fix it. Not only had I done something wrong, but I was just sort of broken and doomed to loneliness. Then Mac (my April 30th buddy) releases a song called “No Other Heart” about falling for someone who loves someone else, about trying to cheer her up. Joe was floored. He sweated all over Danny’s pleather couch until tearfully saying goodbye, but promising to return. Big song for Joe.
Movie Time-Stinkers
The Revenant
I don’t think I’ve ever looked at my watch more during a movie. The mainstream appeal to this movie gives me very serious doubts about people in general (it’s an election year of course). Never before have I seen such obvious grasps at profoundness. Not unlike The Holy Mountain, which this film recklessly steals imagery from, it shows striking images with little context. Iñárritu crafted a film, while interesting to look at for brief moments, isn’t nearly as engrossing as it should be. I believe, to truly get it, Iñárritu would need to be sitting cozied up next to me, explaining every metaphor.
Crimson Peak
My dad and I are huge Hammer movie fans. We’ve gone to Boris Karloff festivals. We watch Hound of the Baskervilles yearly. We love the Cush and Christopher Lee. So when I heard Del Toro was working on a haunted house Hammer riff, excited isn’t strong enough a word. Maybe my hype level started too high, but I slowly grew into disliking this by the midway point. It is dressed up as a Hammer for sure. The costumes, the house, and everyTHING is fine, but it has none of the confidence, swagger, or danger of those Hammer flicks. I plain forget the plot of this movie (and my memory for these things is notorious). Please skip this and watch literally any other gothic British movie (Rebecca,Baskervilles).
Mini Rant
I had a funky experience the other day, where I was immediately chastised for buying boots that, for the price, didn’t have the very best Amazon reviews. Not bad reviews, the tippy top reviews. I’m wondering where this whole schtick ends. When Yelp and Amazon stars reach their zenith of importance, we’ll be waiting in line at the same restaurants and wearing the same damn shoes.
Product Shilling
Obviously drinking lemonade
Not only is Paul Newman maybe my favorite person to have lived, but his company makes God’s lemonade. Additional deliciousness comes from a special ingredient, good karma. The Newman’s Own foundation does a ton of good shit for needy kids all over the world. Best drink up.
Movie Time-A Thinker
Brooklyn
I saw Brooklyn with my mom and sister and, for the most part, enjoyed myself. It has a young woman leave postwar Ireland and pick up a life in Brooklyn. After anticipated struggles,Eilis earns both an accounting degree and the love of a charming Italian plumber. She marries this plumber after hearing some disheartening news. The death of her older sister brings her temporarily back to the Emerald Isle, and Eilis finds her Irish life fulfilling in a way it wasn’t before. (Having recently moved, this is when my interest peaked.)She finds the fancy of a recently single bartender and ignores the letters of the barely literate plumber. Soon, we presume, she should make a choice as to which man she likes more, or something like that.
SPOILERS!
I hate that bastard
Eilis doesn’t really pick at all. Invited for tea, she is trapped by her former terrible boss, who tells Eilis that her secret marriage is no longer secret. Motivated by spite, this old lady threatens Eilis to back off the bartender.
Eilis then gets up, chastises the old woman, and decides to get back with mini-Frank Sinatra. She leaves the bartender a letter and hits the road back to America.
I feel like a crazy person, but am I the only one who doesn’t really see her choosing Sinatra as much as getting backed into him. It’s realistic in an “Irish people are always getting in each others business” kind of way, but in reviews, it reads more like a decision (which I think I have illustrated, it is less so).
“Being this fucked up addict”
There’s this line in a monologue from Villainous that just got implanted into my skull. I can’t recall the rest of the line. It could be anything really. It’s just so funny to me. It’s a line a character with seriously keen self-awareness would say. I don’t know. Anyway, on the half tab this line twisted and contorted around me. “Being this ugly dude. Being this weirdo loser” It was an upsetting line now, full of self doubt and fear. “Being this broken person.”
In response to Dylan’s question, “Am I happier than before.” I’d say that I’m way more up and down, and that might not be such a bad thing. I think feeling that I’m going to be alone forever is much more ridiculous. That maybe isn’t such a bad thing.
It was a year of change. The challenge now comes to being ok with the parts of Joe that are stuck. After all that of course I’ll just be myself in the end.
A ghostly night. Something important was on my mind, but the details I can’t place. For peace of mind, Sean Andy and I took to the Oakwood Cemetery, singing Dylan and The Band (standards). When there’s talking to do, I’m of the opinion that walking fuels progression of ideas towards a possible solution. We needed to talk so we took to walk.
Single-filed we marched down from The Mount through gravestones and rubble. His eyes catching the dark sky, Andy misstepped onto a flat monument, gaining instant bad vibes. We shouted at the shadows and pissed on the clean white snow and clean white trees. Eventually we found satisfaction or exhaustion and trekked back to the Mount and down to the street. Tired and cold, something was figured out. Then we met Max and Buster.
Two dogs relationship unknown. Best friends I imagine. I’m not the best with breeds, but I recall Max as a terrier of some kind. Buster was big and dumb. I took to him. Sean, a dog whisperer of sorts, calmed them down. Soon, we were able to get them to join us in the vestibule of the Toilet Bowl. Naturally the dogs couldn’t be let inside, so we elected to wait with the dogs until a shelter or better option became available. We sat tight, and when six o clock rolled up Andy hopped to Bruegger’s for tasty bagels. Him gone, a slight door confusion gave Buster an opportunity to take flight. I dropped my bags and bolted out the door.
I chased this dog over the green of campus. I ran up the hill at Crouse. I ran across both the Syracuse and ESF quads. I ran around the Dome and adjacent parking lot. Buster was giving me a tour of campus before my flight home, as if he was worried I could forget. He stayed constantly a quarter mile ahead, close enough to show me his stupid grin waiting for me to catch up. Panting and blistering, my running became sudden sprints, but Buster would not be fooled by my lazy trickiness. I wasn’t sure if he was playing with me or punishing me, dictating me, and driving me to a breaking point.
He was trapped. A stone wall enclosed him. From the jaws of victory, Buster escaped by final sprint by scaling the stone wall. Defeated and downtrodden, I walked around and climbed the fence back into Oakwood.
Karmic justice. The ghosts of the night had snaked me back. The dog ran off into the impossible vastness of this ancient frosty court. My face now Canadian bacon, I accepted my fate and eventual death, walking through the hills ready to fall down and never have to get up again.
The pace of my life cracked still. There nothing else but white snow. No cold, no wind, no thoughts, no love. I picked a point and walked through those rolling hills for what could have been years. The snowy desert bloomed a mirage in the distance. I ran and found a great pyramid, which made me think of The Cage and brought me back to Earth momentarily.
Eventually I came to my last lonely hill. Buster played with a new friend distance far ahead. I summoned my reserves and fell forward to him. I met a professor, who was walking her lab and paying respects. She had us in her pickup and dropped us back to Haven. I don’t remember her much.
A van came and took Max and Buster away. Nothing was heard or thought of it again.
The Life of Joe 
