Picture Shows

Been a bit under the weather of late, I guess hanging out at Kelly's waiting for nobody to show up for the Post Modern Pentathlon might have exposed me to a bug, then the stress of getting ready for the thing and dragging that trailer full of goodies to Westport and back might have lowered my defenses. Or maybe it was just coincidence. But yeah, I've felt better than I have the first half of this week.



I'm not a big one for calling in sick. I only missed a week for a heart attack. I know, I probably shouldn't go to work some of the times I do because I potentially make my coworkers sick, but I'm a one man department, the only person who can cover my desk is my boss and I generally hate the way he does things—when someone comes looking to reorder something, I know where to find stuff in editable form as long as I did it.

Plus, a lot of times getting busy at work is enough to distract me from my misery. But it wasn't that busy today and by 2:00 I had my desk caught up and still felt like death warmed over. So I went to the movies. I like movies generally, and they tend to distract one from misery, and when you're at a low energy level what's better than sitting in the dark receiving a story?

Suicide Squad was, well, it was DC. A lot like Bat-meh vs. Super-meh, Suicide Squad takes great characters from great comic books and makes a mediocre hash of a movie out of it. The last DC movie that really impressed me was Heath Ledger's Dark Knight. And folks, that's been a day or two. Marvel adaptations aren't always super awesome, but they are generally solid (X-Men Apocalypse, Captain America Civil War) and often divine (Deadpool, the Iron Man franchise, etc.)



But anyway, in my zombie state I decided to make it a double feature. And the second movie I saw, Sausage Party, is fucking awesome. Like the best of science fiction, Sausage Party asks the important questions. And while it definitely goes a bit blue, it's also hilarious.

And unlike Suicide Squad, Sausage Party actually made me forget I was sick for quite a while. Hopefully I'm on the mend, not sure I plan to bike to work tomorrow but hopefully Friday anyway. Call it the healing power of seeing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved by animated food products while the Meaning of Life is probed by a hot dog and a wheelchair bound piece of gum.

Independence Day (Regurgitation)

Me and Mo did a double feature this weekend. I generally take her to the movies once a weekend when I have her (three weekends a month). But the way the show times were stacking up, and there were a few movies I wanted to see, I opted for the binge.

Which is fine with Mo. She loves going to the movies. So we hit Independence Day Resurgence, then the Big Friendly Giant.

The first movie, meh. I know a sequel to Independence Day is a dodgy proposition. I enjoyed the original well enough, though having some British assheads quote President Whitmore in the process of swindling voters into the whole Brexit silliness makes it seem a little less charming. Of course, access to a half-billion-person market and free travel to 26 countries isn't really the same thing as aliens who blow up cities and want to exterminate the human race. And as John Oliver brilliantly pointed out, the U.K. was already independent, it's the country a lot of countries celebrate their independence from.


But the Independence Day sequel is, if this is possible, dumber than the Brexit.

Spoiler Alert

For a start, it takes the aliens exactly 20 years to come back. Because they wanted to time out their re-invasion with our celebrations? Then there's the whole going-for-the-molten-core thing. Supposedly any old boat with shipwreck searching bounty hunters can probe just how fast the aliens are getting to the core with their big coring machine, but worse, if the aliens are just after the molten cores of planets, why the fuck do they start with the only inhabited planet in the solar system? I know they have superior technology and all that, but really, they skipped how many soft targets to re-attack the only planet that's ever given them any resistance?

There's more. I'm all for a good stupid movie (loved the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles flick, for example), but if you're going stupid you have to be entertaining, and Resurgence falls short at every turn. So anyway, BFG is a much, much better movie. It's more believable for a start (and if you're familiar with Roald Dahl's work, that's saying something). I'm pretty sure Mo dug the BFG more, too.

There's plenty of logical faults to the storyline of BFG, but of course you have Spielberg's magic, a charming giant, an adorable kid, I can forgive Roald Dahl for making the Queen actually matter. I mean, really, even if giants are eating children, calling the Queen of England is about as useful as calling Mick Jagger. Famous? Sure. Priviliged? Obscenely. British? Definitely, but not really someone who can solve your problem.

Anyway, then I didn't have Mo on the Fourth itself this year. Me and Corinna headed out to see the fireworks. Well, that's not quite it. We headed out, but she could give a shit about fireworks, and she had another mission to accomplish. Which we did, as we navigated neighborhoods where fireworks are legally sold to people who probably can't afford to make such a big noisy stink, but they do it anyway. I like the big, professional pyro well enough, and I grew up shooting the small stuff but I really have no use for the street level stuff these days. It's expensive, not impressive, messy, noisy, traumatizes our dog, it's likely to end in an ER visit, there is no upside to strings of firecrackers, Roman candles, buzz bombs and whatnot.

And don't even get me started on the idiots who shoot guns in the air as if those bullets don't have to come down somewhere. I want to drive through the neighborhood taking pot-shots at those assholes, they're too stupidly dangerous to be allowed to live.

But I like the big public displays. Leave it to the pros, they do it so much better.

Anyway, Corinna's mission ended up making us a bit late for the start. We'd talked about watching from the Heart of America bridge bike lane but we were lucky to make the Town of Kansas overlook. Which turned out to be, probably, a better place to watch from. A few years ago we watched from the Cheauteu Bridge but that's way too far east to get good shots (though we had fun meeting Ryan Hefron and making margaritas on the bridge). And the past few years I've headed to the IBEW building which is a pretty good view from above. I think I'll try to make it down to River Market again next year but earlier, with time to get down to the trail and get over under the ASB bridge, it appears they were launching from right past it.

Say Peas!

So left to her own devices, Mo might spend the entire weekend playing the same YouTube video over and over. Or she might get bored with that and just sit staring at the wall. Don't judge, this behavior is more common than reported because unlike our house, most homes have a TV and if you stare at the wall the TV is on, nobody knows.

With prompts, there's painting, stickers, coloring (she loves the 'adult' coloring books, I think specifically because it specifies that it's 'adult' on the cover). And she does like to go to the movies, though she rarely suggests it. And it turns out, while garden chores are generally a loss, she likes peas well enough that she's actually a pretty good gleaner when you put her on the last of the pea vines.

We were giving her a hard time for lack of progress based on her tendency to freeze a lot, and the lack of peas getting in the bin. That's because for every pea that went into the Rubbermaid, three or four went in her mouth. When I went to show her how many she'd missed on the vine, I could only find one.

I've stumbled on the movies as a weekend outing for us. I don't have a TV but I really enjoy the big screen experience. I think it's the focus that intentionality brings, along with the full immersion environment. The audiophile claim that records sound better than CDs depends largely on the quality of your turntable and cartridge, and the quality off the DAC hooked to your CD transport. But when you drop a needle on a record and there's only maybe fifteen minutes of music coming up, you actually listen to it.

So basically every pay day, I slot two $20 bills into the movie fund. That allows a once a week trip to a matinee with sodas for the two of us. Two tix, nine bucks even, a large Sprite for her, large Coke Zero for me, $10.20 (I know, that's obscenely expensive soda, the way I rationalize it is it's actually part of the ticket price—we could share but I don't like Sprite and that's her favorite). Occasionally there's a small popcorn in the mix because CineMark's phone app sends me coupons for a free small popcorn with purchase of a fountain drink when I use their 'CineMode.' Which is basically just an app for silencing your phone during the movie that's built into the app I use to look up showtimes.

Mo will sit well through pretty much any movie but I've learned a few things about how to select what I take her to. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, for instance, she was fine while it was action. War in the Middle East, that's some action. But the later parts of the movie are mostly office politics and romance two concepts she really doesn't connect with. Star Wars, comic book adaptations, The Revenant, horror flicks, it's really no that hard to find something I can enjoy watching with my kiddo.

She's actually expanded my horizons some. I've always liked the comic book films, and we saw Deadpool three times in the theater. Batmeh vs. Supermeh, Captain America Civil War, that sort of thing. Alice Through the Looking Glass is fun (not truly a Lewis Carroll story, just his characters), and I doubt I'd have seen that on my own. Jungle Book, never would have picked that if I didn't have Mo in mind. And most surprising to me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.

I never would have seen the turtles without Mo's influence on my show selection. When it came around the first time (when I wasn't much younger that Mo), I dismissed it: that looks stupid. Fair enough, but so are the Three Stooges, see also the Beverly Hillbillies, etc. But like those examples, Turtle Power turns out to be hilarious. And I know Mo enjoyed it because she laughed out loud and clapped through most of it

Most recently we took in Warcraft. Comic book adaptations have no excuse for mediocrity: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, etc., you have a gazillion storyboards right there in the comics you already sold. And you can tell from sales and fan feedback which ones resonated most with audiences. But a movie based on a video game, you're starting from scratch on your story. Mo loved Warcraft, but I'd say it was more than a little predictable, and a bit frustrating because every chance to resolve conflict was bypassed in the end in an obvious play to extend to sequels the first movie really doesn't call for. Angry Birds, honest to goodness, did better on that front (speaking of stupid movies my daughter and I laughed our heads off at).

But stupid is not always a good thing: look at the Trump candidacy, which would be funny if it was just a movie. It's kind of Springtime for Hitler except it's actually happening.

Les Misérables / Bright Pizzas

So Em's birthday plans got rearranged because we all got sick a couple weeks ago. She finally got to have her sleepover party part tonight. Awake over, really, I can here them as I write this, well past my own bedtime, and I doubt they're going to sleep any time soon.

So part of the birthday deal, I took Em to Les Misérables. She kind of got me hooked the other day with a concert presentation of the music from it she has on DVD.

We were early for the movie, and there was a Trader Joe's right there. I still needed toppings for the pizza I planned to make when we got home, so I went in to get them and Em and her friend stayed in the car. They said they were going to hijack my camera while I was in there, and I guess they kind of did.

Going into the movie, I grabbed a heavy stack of napkins, over an inch thick. Buttered popcorn inspires me to take quite a few, but I'm also getting over a bit of a cold so I figured I might need a few extras for nose-blowing. I had no idea.

The first time I found myself actively crying was when Anne Hathaway is singing after being reduced to selling hair, teeth and her body to save her kid. I was really surprised at my reaction, I kind of knew the story going in, after all. Then Em's friend was asking me if I could spare one of these napkins and I realized that not only was she crying, too, the man sitting next to me was also sniffling.

It's not so much the deaths that worked me over, it's the lives of the characters, the way they surprise me. The bishop who gives Valjean the stolen silver plus more, Valjean's willingness to sacrifice for Cosette, Gavroche's foolish bravado, these are all compelling characters.

But the reconciliation of Valjean to his true identity in the end, I couldn't maintain through that at all. Let alone the barricades in the end. I should probably resent having my emotions manipulated so wildly, but in the end I needed more napkins.

They should wait longer to bring up the houselights after a movie like this, some of us aren't tough enough to pull it together in a couple of minutes.

After, we came home and I made nukular green prosciutto, black olive, alfredo pizza and a purple pepperoni.

I'm still not sure what I think of Les Miz. Is it entertaining to sit in the dark and cry?

RAAM / Oh Rocky!

After judging beer on Saturday, Corinna had texted me saying she'd bought us tickets to a documentary about Race Across America, aka RAAM.

Everything I ever knew about RAAM I heard from Corinna. And it all sounded vaguely impossible. As in, the Tour de France must be the consolation ride for pussies who can't hack RAAM. I've ridden as much as 108.5 miles in one day, and while these guys aren't carrying fifty pounds of kit on a thirty-five pound bike, that century and change was all I could do. And I didn't do anything close to a century the day after.

RAAM riders cover three to four hundred miles a day, most of it at a clip I can't sustain even briefly. They ride coast to coast in less than two weeks.

This is, of course, impossible. You'd have to not only average twenty plus miles per hour but also sleep no more than an hour or so a day. This would mean psychotic breaks, hallucinations, and the possibility of death.

Which is to say, if you're willing to sign up for psychosis and death, sure it's possible.

The funny thing was, I recognized some of the distressed thinking pattern competitors were coping with from my own riding, especially the Memorial Day three-state tour. Small beer by comparison, a bit over 200 miles in three days.

Near home, Corinna led me on a shortcut I thought we'd agreed not to take, then not only did way take it, but I realized it wasn't actually a shortcut at all. I thought she should be charged with war crimes. How far gone was I? I actually had the though that I might never want to ride bicycles with her again.

Laughable, I know.

I won't spoil the film for you, you ought to see it. To give you an idea how tough this trek is, over 4,000 Americans have been to the Olympics, but only 169 people in the world have ever finished RAAM.

Two of that 169 were on hand for a Q&A after, and I asked what might have been an insensitive question: What about doping?

I tend to believe that Lance probably blood-doped on the Tour de France. I don't think it takes away from his record because if U.S. Postal was doing it, so was at least half the field. But RAAM's extreme sleep deprivation, I'm thinking these guys must eat amphetamines by the fistful.

One of the veterans said he was clean and he thinks most if not all the riders who do it are clean. He said you reach a point where it hurts so bad to get off the bike you might as well keep riding. I don't doubt him on that, but anyone who wants something bad enough to compete that hard is a candidate for doping if it can be gotten away with.

I looked at RAAM's website, and I haven't finished reading the rules, but the FAQ doesn't even address doping, so I'm not sure if they test at all. I'm engaged to an Olympian, and her take on it is if they don't test for it (the IOC doesn't even allow caffeine or asthma inhalers—things they show RAAM participants using in the documentary), it's the same as allowing doping.

Anyway, we enjoyed the film. One rider had to drop out because he had pneumonia completely infecting both his lungs. I think they described it as 'double pneumonia in both lungs.'

I whispered to Corinna, "I wonder how many people they get in a the E.R. with that who rode their bicycles to the hospital." In Kansas. Riding from California. Yeah.

It turned out to be a double feature: Screenland was doing Rocky Horror that night. I hadn't been to RHPS since I was in high school.

I made a Rocky Horror reference the other day to Corinna, and it went right by her. When I tried to explain, you know, Rocky Horror, she was like, That boxing movie?

Different Rocky. Really different.

If you think you've seen Rocky Horror because you got it on DVD from Red Box, allow me to disabuse you of the notion you've seen the film. This is an audience participation movie and you can't experience in the privacy of your own home. It's marvelous, but you actually have to go out and be in the same room with perverts, sluts and depraved degenerates to really see the movie.

That's it's selling point.

Screenland doesn't let you throw rice at the wedding scene (we blew bubbles like Michael Jackson instead) or toast when Frankie makes his toast to absent friends and bad B-movies, but they have a full troupe of actors with fishnets and tuxedos and whatnot, prop bags for sale (complete with cards for sorrow and pain).

Instead of every Friday at midnight, it's one Saturday a month at ten. I'll be there in March, with my oldest daughter if things work out right.

Yeah, I know. I'm a bad influence.

Salt On My Wound

Last time I had a bit of an injury from riding, when my iliotibial band was acting up after I set a personal speed record at the airport, 'active recovery' seemed to really work. I did an easy Trek recovery ride, followed by a Brewery Ride I took it easy on. Dr. Jill worked her voodoo on my leg in the Brewery after, I iced it down when I got home and I was right as rain the next day.

So when my left leg was feeling gimpy after Sunday's 102.2 miler, I figured no reason to skip the Trek ride. The problem was, I think, an inflamed hamstring tendon, inflamed by the cramps I got in my left hamstring at around mile 60 on Sunday.

Once I got warmed up on the Trek ride, it felt great. I didn't have any reserves, and the muscles were sore, but I didn't feel particularly injured. I planned to do the Brewery Ride and maybe even add on a leg to it on Tuesday evening.

Then I got up on Tuesday morning and as soon as I sat up I knew I'd made a Mistake. It was tender when I extended my leg. It was tender when I went from sitting to standing or the other way around. And despite my efforts to eat a hole in my stomach with ibuprofen all day, it only got worse.

I called Dr. Jill for advice after finding contradictory and varied advice on the internet, and she encouraged me to take the day off. And I know first hand that she knows her way around the human body too well for me to easily dismiss her advice. (I didn't mean it that way, get your minds out of the gutter, people!)

So fighting my Y Chromosome which wanted to at least make an effort to ride, see how it felt once the muscles were warm, I ignored the taunting of my inner cave man (who was telling me to quit being a pussy and ride) and went to see Salt for five bucks, went home and iced the heck out of my leg.

As gimpy as I was yesterday, I was astonished to awaken this morning and realize, as surely as I knew the Trek ride was a mistake, that I had done the right thing watching Angelina Jolie kill more people than an Ebola outbreak. I saw someone wrote up Salt as if this was a departure for her, but really, it's not that different from Wanted. And that wasn't really her first femme fatale role, either, was it?

Thing about Jolie, all her features are so extremely beautiful they threaten to cross the line into ugly. Those lips, they're huge, and I want to kiss them. But another micro-gram of collagen injected into them and the effect would be...Mick Jagger. Ditto those enormous eyes and high cheekbones. That girl has a bit of Roswell in her blood, I'm pretty sure.

But Angelina has gotten me to plunk down my hard earned money for more than one only pretty-good film and I never seem to feel cheated. Liv Tyler has the same effect on me. Amanda Peet probably would, too, if they'd put her in a leading role. I bet Amanda would look great with a gun or trying to escape some mysterious evil.

And, after all, I had handed my Y chromosome one defeat already by not riding, so I had to let it pick Salt over The Other Guys.

Anyway, between the rest, the ice, the Advil and imagining scenarios that would make Brad Pitt want to go all Fight Club on me seems to have healed my left leg. I should be able to ride at least the 20 Lockton is doing tomorrow evening. I don't care if it s 101ºF, I'm invincible. Or maybe just loony.

That Dweam Within a Dweam...

I was going to ride this evening, maybe 30 miles or so. Then, right about time to change into my Pearl Izumis...



It got dark and then it rained buckets. It was a violent storm, high winds, knocked out power in places, all that. But according to weather.com, it was going to be short and then the chance of rain would go down to 10% until 10:00 p.m.



So I went ahead and changed, brought my bike in from the rack (just in time, the skies opened as soon as I got it in the shop).

To kill an hour, after which I'd surely get to enjoy a slightly cooler if wet road, I made a few more decals for my bike.



It wasn't the original aim, but I'm kind of digging the NASCAR effect I'm getting by plastering the bike with stickers. The Chicken of Happiness and other Tomatotown classics, that's just art, but when you have beer labels and Diet Dew on there, it starts to look like a sponsored bike.



I should find a way to get paid by the people whose trademarks I'm infringing on here.




Anyway, the heavy weather passed but it continued to rain, and when I went back to weather.com, they'd upped the chances of rain across the board. So I went to a movie.

I haven't been to a show since Iron Man 2. I'd been in the habit of going once or twice a month when AMC had their five dollar weeknight ticket and I could freely and opening bring Mug* in with me. They still have the five dollar tickets, but they've gone full on Gestapo on outside refreshments while seemingly raising the already obscene prices of their own concessions.



Then, to compound it, between the IMAX, the Fork & Screen and the Cinema Suites, they've found ways to make a movie even more expensive, and more than once the only screen a movie I wanted to see was on was one of these inexcusable $15 or $20 deals. I don't know what makes the assheads who run AMC think we have more money to spend on entertainment in the middle of an epic recession, but five bucks is borderline on more than I can justify spending on two hours of amusement. If you have idiots lined up to spend $20 for a ticket (with the justification that they get a partial credit out of that back toward overpriced bar food and drinks), fine. But don't put a movie only on that screen, I'm not paying that much to see a movie unless I'm starring in it.

Anyway, I went to Inception. Which lived up to its hype. Best documentary I've seen since The Matrix. I don't want to include any spoilers here, but it's very clever. And it avoids the pitfall of a movie like 2012 or the Matrix sequels: when all things are possible, nothing is amazing. If the fantasy structure doesn't have any 'real' risks and repercussions, then the audience can't care about a close call.

Inception not only lets you share in the risks the characters are taking, it allows more than one interpretation of what the underlying reality is.

Five bucks worth, for sure.


*Mug is my 52 ounce QT insulated soda delivery system. I can fill it with Rooster Booster Lite or Diet Dew at QT for a dollar-eight, about 20% of what AMC charges for one of their sodas.

Found a Txpo!

I peeled of on the way home from work and saw Iron Man 2. Haven't seen a movie on the big screen in months.

My habit of watching the credits, I noticed that 'Shoot to Thrill' was credited to 'Angus Young, Malcom Young and Brian Johnson.' So was 'Highway to Hell.'

But 'Highway to Hell' was Bon Scott, the singer for most of my favorite AC/DC material. Brian Young wasn't in the band until after Bon Scott drank himself to death.

But anyway, the whole Marvel Comics thread is spooling out and giving rise to multiple potential movies. It's great, here's this catalog of awesome stories, stories people have paid to read over the course of decades and they've already been story-boarded by the original authors/publishers!

Godspeed Todd / The Road

My step-brother, Todd, was finally released from six and a half years of suffering. He rolled an SUV and was ejected; managed to break everything there was to break and still stay technically alive.

His mother has tirelessly tended to him, done everything and more to try and rehabilitate him, maintain hope, and ultimately, when his brain started to atrophy and it became clear that there was nothing to be done, keep him comfortable.

I'm not comfortable with the Kevorkian crowd of euthanasia advocates, I see big dangers to creating a market that, the slippery slope don't ya know? But I came to the conclusion years ago that Todd was truly suffering a fate worse than death. How much he could understand, I don't know. I know he'd do things for his mother and his wife he wouldn't do for others, but he was trapped.

I often wondered how much pain he might be in: being mostly paralyzed, I figured it was possible a lot of him was numb. But I also figured being busted up that badly, there's bound to be pain, and he wasn't in any position to ask for anything for it.

For that matter, when I visited him at the nursing home near my house when he was there, I wondered if the TV blaring into the room over him and his equally broken roommate was comfort or torture. Neither could change the channel or do anything to meaningfully alter that aspect of their environment.

I'm not trying to be funny, there are shows on TV I hate so much they would amount to torture if they were blasted at me and I could do nothing about it but lie there and wonder why.

There's the cliché about how 'he went to a better place,' but for real, it'd take some real imagination to come up with a worse one. For six and a half years.

Maybe it's horrible of me to think such things, but I find myself thinking, 'We don't let animals suffer like that.' And I also find myself thinking, 'If I'm ever that far beyond the point of no return, end it. I don't care if it's an overdose of morphine, a bullet, a pillow over my face.'

And I also find myself hoping that for Todd it wasn't that bleak.

Speaking of bleak...I went to see The Road on the way home. It fit my mood, thinking about all this.

Spoiler alert, if you don't know the general outline of the story and want it to be totally fresh to you, read no further. I doubt I'm really spoiling it here, but I want to be fair.

Would I think it was a great movie in another context? I can't say for sure. I've tried to read the novel and couldn't do it. I tried to listen to the audiobook of the novel twice and couldn't stick with it.

Cormac McCarthy isn't exactly your feel-good author. You might remember some of his other stories, No Country For Old Men, Blood Meridian (a story about scalp-hunters in 1848-49 Mexico). But really, The Road is dark even for Cormac McCarthy.

There is the lack of explanation: there was a flash of light and a series of concussions. That is all that is to explain the apocalypse. Nuclear war? Probably, that's how it struck me on film. But then, what is to explain a world with not even bugs? Not nukes. No animals at all?

The cannibalism aspect is pretty rough, too. Most (not all) the times you see any sort of plenty, it turns out the people who are getting enough have gone the Alive route. Or maybe it's the Silence of the Lambs route, they don't necessarily wait for others to die on their own.

Incidentally, it was a little jarring to me when I noticed they were using a map of the Eastern seaboard: I thought for sure they were on the West Coast. Watching the credits (ridiculous habit of mine), I noticed the on location shoots were bi-coastal, including Pennsylvania but also Mount St. Helens and Oregon.

The adventures of the father and son, the moral tests they must endure, are strangely compelling. Odd because I found myself thinking (not unlike more than one person in the movie who were apparent suicides) surviving to what purpose?

Which made the hopeful note the film ends on, for me, turn sour. That was when I started to cry a bit, as the credits rolled. And it wasn't for how sweet the ending was, it was for the thought, Who are these people kidding? They'd all be better off to wade out into gray-brown ocean and drown. They're only going to get robbed, raped and eaten by cannibals in another hour or two at the rate things are going. If they don't freeze or starve to death.

Like I say, I guess the movie fit my mood thinking about Todd. At least he's got nothing left to worry about.

A Serious Man

This isn't going to resonate with everyone, but this is classic Coen Bros. I've heard some people say the Jewish humor in this film made them squeamish, but allow me to share part of why I think it's spot on.

I remember talking to a Jewish customer in a former job, a customer who was in the part of New York City that's technically in New Jersey. He was telling me about how a kosher butcher in his area had been playing fast and loose, selling un-kosher meat as kosher and pocketing the difference, how the community had suffered from this. People threw away their wedding china, remodeled kitchens, etc., (and in a pretty upscale neighborhood; these weren't cheap remodels, he was telling me about Wolf and Sub-Zero stuff being put out the curb as if it were garbage).

Granite counter tops had to be replaced, rituals had to be performed, etc. Even though the people didn't know the meat was un-kosher, the things they had possibly contaminated had to be cast off. Personally, I'd like advance notice next time a bunch of rich Jews who take their religion too seriously are throwing away high dollar kitchen appliances, but I found the story fascinating.

I remember thinking, 'Is this what they mean by unassimilated?' But the same guy another time told me he keeps kosher, but his secretary was a goy, and at lunch he'd bought a sandwich from the kosher deli, and she'd bought one from someplace else. And he said their sandwiches appeared to be identical. They were both pastrami, the bread looked the same, they had the same condiments and veggies. As in, might have come from the same place, but didn't.

He said, 'Her sandwich was less than five bucks, mine cost twelve. Was my sandwich better? I hope it wasn't worse.'

Okay, dude, that is just unAmerican. You're her boss. Swap her half of your sandwich for half of hers and find out if they're the same or not. That's what an American would do because an American has choices. We value them. We make a fetish of choice.

Back to the movie: this poor professor who's life is going into the shitter at every turn, I can see why some Americans would balk, he's not that trapped. He could do what I'd do in his place...

The guy isn't all that unassimilated, really, but he's observant enough to put his son in Hebrew School (great place to buy grass, apparently), and to seek advice from rabbis.

And as much has he might try to be a mensch, a 'serious man,' nobody takes him seriously for one second. Not his baleful neighbor, his kids, his estranged wife, not her boyfriend. And definitely not the rabbi who doesn't seem to understand why a guy would be unwilling to pay for his wife's boyfriend's funeral. In the end, in fact, he even lacks a bit of integrity, which would also be a thing implied by the title of the film, but maybe he's realizing that the world isn't going to treat him as a mensch, maybe he doesn't have to be one when they're not looking...

I'd tell you the hilarious story of the goy's teeth, but it'd be a spoiler, and I doubt I could write it in a way that would be anywhere near as funny as watching it.

Law Abiding Citizen

This wasn't another 2012, I was able to get into it most of the time and just enjoy the pure escapism, the fantasy of the film. But I seem to get distracted by the implausible details of movies these days.

Don't worry, no spoilers here, but you've got a murder suspect in custody, and you need to question him. There's a bird cage looking (very imposing) structure that has one table in it, and the shackled prisoner is in there while the DA comes in to question him. There are no other prisoners, apparently, who have any visitors. There is no glass partition, a reasonably violent man, even shackled, might be able to grab Jamie Foxx by his goatee or something.

Then there's the prison warden accompanying the guards to the cell of the accused, escorting him to solitary, etc. A prison warden with hundreds, maybe thousands of prisoners in his charge personally sees to an individual one?

For that matter, the initial violent deed that sets up the movie (a home invasion that takes the lives of Clyde's daughter and wife with rape implied at least in the latter death) is never explained. Clyde is connected, but I never saw that his connections to the world of covert ops were why two thugs come to his door in the opening minutes. It's a weird combination, they were apparently sent specifically to subdue him, and then murdered his family as a crime of opportunity, perhaps to avoid witnesses, but subdue him to what end? On behalf of what interests? And if they'll kill a little girl to avoid a witness, why leave Clyde alive?

Like I say, as an escapist thriller, it was diverting, but I found myself walking out of the theater more diverted by the plot holes and improbabilities. I know, you shouldn't look to Hollywood for accuracy any more than you should look to the Op Ed page of a newspaper for wisdom or the Waffle House for a high fiber, low fat meal.

Wrong Way

I was thinking about taking in a movie this evening. Coco Before Chanel was showing at 7:35, but even if I felt up to reading a movie (and I didn't), I'd have had to kill an hour in that end of town, eat out for dinner and then buy an $8.50 ticket on top of that. Too much money, no matter how cute Audrey Tautou is.

I've wanted to see A Serious Man, the Coen Bros. latest, because in my not really humble at all opinion, you can't go wrong with the Coen Bros. Though some of their stuff (The Man Who Wasn't There comes to mind) can lack pace. In fact, that movie was so noir it made me feel like I was a character in a noir film watching a noir film.

I had the same problem trying to read Jim Crace's novel Being Dead, which made me feel like I might be.

Anyway, last time I had a window of opportunity to see A Serious Man, the only showing I could find was a Fork & Screen.

For the uninitiated, this is basically a scheme where they charge you more than twice as much for admission, pretend they're giving you some of the money back to buy overpriced bar and grill food, and act like they've added value to the movie.

Dude: going to the movies was already too expensive. That's why I go on weeknights when AMC has the $5 deal. $5 for admission, and if you want concessions, they have a $5 popcorn/soda combo (tiny portions but they'll refill it for you if you want to leave the theater to ask). Ten bucks for movie and concession, that's more like it. I can get my mind around that if the movie is halfway decent.

I'm definitely not paying $12.50 to see a movie and eat overpriced buffalo wings.

They have something even worse, the Cinema Suites, where they charge even more and give you an even bigger seat to put your obese carcass in while they fetch you yet more bar and grill grub and booze. They give a bigger portion of the even more overpriced ticket back there, but I'm pretty sure they adjust the menu to make sure you suffer for it.

In a recession, they find a way to make going to the pictures more expensive. With logic like that, the execs at AMC could make a serious bid to run the Federal Reserve.

There was a theater near my work showing A Serious Man at 8:10, and again, I'd have to kill a lot of time, buy a dinner and then pay too much for the ticket, so no dice.

But The Road, that's showing at the AMC in Olathe, so I can get in for five bucks, right? Nope, they put it on the Fuck and Screen, so only if I want to pay $12.50, just like they did to my Coen Bros. movie a few weeks back. Ugh!

Look, this is Johnson County, and people have more money than sense around here (even me, I'm not that long on sense). Fine, build an overpriced bullshit theater that combines a trip to the movies with Applebees, if you can get customers power to you. But at least put the movie on a regular screen, too. It's a Cormac McCarthy adaptation you cretins, let people come and see it for a realistic price.

Screw it, I think I'm gonna head out and see A Law Abiding Citizen. I can see it for a fiver, though I should probably withhold that bill from AMC as punishment for hijacking The Road.

A Tale of Two Diversions

Was up at the crack of dawn this morning, uncharacteristic for me on a Saturday. And it was to, get this: skip a chance to go eat biscuits & gravy and shoot skeet at Powder Creek. What on earth would possess me to skip that?



I'd already RSVP'd for a small group bike ride when I was reminded the skeet shoot, or it might have gone the other way, actually, but we met at 8:00 a.m. at the Starbucks, 119th and Renner, and proceeded to ride to the River Market and back.



I've ridden pieces of the route, but this took us on some stretches of road I'd have avoided on a solo flight. Not realizing that it's a half block down Quivira, then maybe a hundred yards on 87th until you've connected with Marshall Drive, when I'd come to the Santa Fe Trail's ramp up to Quivira in the past, I just decided turn in another direction.

Might be different at rush hour, but not so bad on a Saturday morning.

Same thing with Southwest Boulevard. I've ridden Merriam Lane, but had never even considered going down to where it becomes Southwest Boulevard and riding on. But again, on the weekend, not so much traffic.



The biggest thing I'd never have come up with one my own though, was we climbed 12th Street from down by Kemper up into Downtown. It's something like a 20% grade, if I've done my homework correctly (where 0% is flat and 100% is a 45º angle), for something like three quarters of a mile. Riding alone, I come to the foot of that, I'd find another way to go.



As it happens, I can actually climb that sucker. Not fast, mind you, but not in my granny gear (I might have shifted to that, but it's been weeks since I got the front shifter to go down to the smallest sprocket, so I was essentially in the bike's 8th gear the whole way up).



The River Market was fun, too. Even the farmers are still showing up, though they're now in the refrigerated section if they set up outdoors. Had a Romano sandwich from the Italian deli, which couldn't be beat.






And we went into Baby Cakes, where I got a couple of the famous cupcakes (a red velvet & a caramel with dulce de leche frosting) and a Shatto chocolate milk.





Then it was time to ride all the way back. I was cold before we left, and before we left the River Market, but once we were underway, it was actually quite pleasant riding weather, temperature-wise. I had a thermal top on under my Hawaiian shirt, something I picked up at Wal-Mart last night (before I knew I was doing this ride), and it did the job of arm warmers at a third the price of Pearl Izumi. It was around 50ºF for the whole ride, and I think I might have to do something about the space between my socks and my shorts if I ride in much cooler weather.



40.9 miles, in a little over three hours of riding time, averaged 12.9 mph, top speed of 26.9 mph. The only hill really deserving of the name was that climb up 12th street, and since we came back a different way, we didn't get to fly down it to make up the deficit that caused in average speed. Before we got to that, we were averaging just under 14 mph, which is fast for me.



My second three hour diversion today was not so hot. I went to a matinee of 2012, the new John Cusack end-times flick. To many corny speeches, to many under-sold concepts, and the same cliff-hanger gimick used in multiple places. Thing is, computer animation has gotten too good and too available: if everything is possible, nothing is incredible.



Perversely, without spoiling it, the very last few minutes of the movie posit something that would actually make for a good sequel if they hired some writers and vetted ideas a little better. That'd be a new and novel thing, a sequel that works, but don't bother with the first film...



So here we have two ways to burn three hours: ride in the cool, misty November weather from Olathe to Downtown and back, or go sit in a theater and watch improbabilities and corny Hollywood bullshit pile up. I can only recommend the ride.

The Soloist

I treated myself to a matinee this afternoon. Haven't in awhile, what with participating in the recession and all. But this movie looked really good, I didn't have anything else I absolutely had to do, and I did have over five dollars in cash on me.

I may get kicked out of the Guy Club for admitting this, but I teared up a couple of times. Partly for the obvious things, the scenes where this broken street dweller has his moments. Partly for the all-too-believable portrayal of LA's skid row.

Before the ACLU won the right of people who can't really make it in the world on their own to live like this, almost everyone depicted in these scenes would have been institutionalized whether they liked it or not. You can say that would be bad and I could agree with you up to a point.

I hate the idea of basically incarcerating people who are no harm to anyone but themselves. Where do you draw the line? Dysfunction is a continuum. I could probably find the place where I'd draw the line, and it would not be where it's presently drawn (imminent danger).

Because while I'm big on freedom in a real way (even when that freedom is squandered), I wouldn't wish that kind of squalor and mayhem on an enemy.

Sleepover Pizza Party

I took Em to the theater with her BFF so they could see the Hannah Montana movie. I had decided I'd pop for Mo and me to go to it as well, but Mo was more into the Monsters vs. Aliens and honestly so was I.



We went to a matinee because I'd pointed out to Em that while she could blow her whole gift card in one shot, she could also stretch this card into two movies even bringing a friend and getting some concessions.



Monsters vs. Aliens was fun, and it let out about a half hour before the Hannah thing. Me and Mo wandered around and took the 'tour' of the Fork & Screen/Cinema Suites part of the theater.



The whole idea here is upscale. It costs $5 more for Fork & Screen, and you get a seat with a table in front of it and a touch-screen menu where you can order food brought to your table. The extra $5 is rebated on the food, though the food is overpriced even by theater standards so they come out in the end.



Cinema Suites is even more upscale, in case you are the one person who didn't think it was already expensive to go to the movies. But they'll booze you up in a big comfy chair at drink prices you'd normally find in Westport or at the Power & Light District.



So after the show we came home and finished dying eggs and I made three pizzas. One prosciutto/black olive with alfredo sauce for Em's taste, one half pepperoni / half supreme (pepperoni, green peppers, baby bellas) and one half veggie (green peppers, baby bellas and black olives) / half pineapple (our guest's fave).

The Uninitiated

I went to The Uninvited on the way home from work tonight. It's a formula thriller, but a good one. It won't win any Oscars, but it was diverting.

It also gave me an idea for my next failed attempt at writing a novel. I had a notion, which I am still mulling around, and this gave me another notion for a decent twist.

Don't wait under water, I still haven't even come up with characters, it's more a scenario than anything at this point. And last time I started to write a book I ended up with almost 200,000 words of pure drivel I can't even imagine salvaging through rewrites.

Maybe it's the price you pay for going to a teenie film, and this is definitely that, but the giggling girls in the row in front of me and behind me were a distraction. They weren't totally obnoxious, but they were definitely too young to sit still for a whole movie.

Bolt

Took the girls to see Bolt today. Good movie, about what you'd expect with a Pixar release. If you're expecting a story line that departs from the Toy Story formula, you'll be disappointed, but it's a really good formula.

I think method acting is the secret. Miley Cyrus does the voice of someone she isn't, which I suppose fits. And John Travolta does the voice of someone who believes in something almost as bizarre and improbable as Scientology, which is to say he believes he's a dog with special powers who rescues his person every day. Like I say, it's not far from Scientology.

We weren't the only people who decided to check out a matinee, though. The theater was pretty crowded and we barely made it to the show time, so we ended up sitting in the front row, only place I could see three adjacent empty seats. We weren't even alone in the front row.

In my not particularly humble opinion, they shouldn't even install seats that close to the screen. The girls didn't seem to mind, though.

Milk

It took me an hour and a half to get to work this morning thanks to the weather.

Em's choir concert was cancelled, and so was my chiropractor appointment (no way I'd have made it on time).

It took me another hour and a half to get about half way home, at which point I was by the exit for an AMC theater. A $5 weeknight movie. And I had the money that was supposed to pay for dinner the night before, money that turned out to be no good for that.

I worried that I wouldn't find a movie I wanted to see. Last chance I got to sneak one in I honestly couldn't find a listing I'd spend the time on, let alone a ticket price.



Today there were a couple. Wouldn't have minded seeing the earth stand still or Rachel going out of rehab and into the fire. But there was Milk.


Okay, I know I'm at odds with the people I go to church with when I say this, but really, gay isn't a choice. There is nothing you could do or offer that would make me lustfully take a penis into my mouth. In fact, the men kissing men in this movie honestly grossed me out.

And that's why 'gay' is a civil rights issue. You can't choose to be gay any more than I can choose to be black. Your religion says it's an abomination? Good for you, go sit with the Muslims who won't let women drive in Saudi Arabia for the same reason. From a government standpoint, a marriage license is just a contract for a domestic relationship. Your religion, no matter how true, doesn't enter into it. Am I grossed out by public displays of homosexual affection? Sure, but who hasn't seen a straight couple that needs to just get a room?

Anyway, good movie. A bit long, and a bit preachie, but a good movie.

Family Movie Night

You know that awesome cheese popcorn in the Topsy's barrels, the stuff that goes first?

You can make as good or better at home, and believe it or not, it's not as suicidal as you'd think. I'm not saying it's health food, but dig:

Pop your popcorn as usual, I use peanut oil when I have it. I keep my popcorn in the freezer because I believe I get fewer old maids that way.

Then butter it, or in my case Smart Balance it. Don't go crazy, about the equivalent of half to three quarters of a stick of butter for a batch.

Then sprinkle about half the cheese powder from a Kraft mac & cheese box kit,* tossing the popcorn to distribute evenly.

Reading the nutrition info on the mac & cheese box, and taking into account the trans-fat free Smart Balance, I bet this is at least not as bad for you as the stuff in the Topsy's bucket. Plus, I don't add any additional salt, though I'm sure there's some in the cheese sauce packet.

Then pop a nice John Hughes movie in the DVD player, in this case Uncle Buck, and you have yourself a family movie night. Awesome.

* Don't toss the sauceless elbows. Save the macaroni for your next casserole. You have 59¢ invested in that box, and there's a depression starting if you hadn't been paying attention.

Bueller? Bueller?

Lest it appear I'm stressed out by parenthood, I've actually had a lot of fun with the honyocks lately.

In an effort to break Em's obsession with Sweeney Todd, I've borrowed several John Hughes movies from the library. Last night, we watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and even Mo seemed to dig it.

Also in the arsenal, Mr. Mom, Breakfast Club and Uncle Buck. Still waiting on Planes, Trains & Automobiles, The Great Outdoors and Weird Science.

Damn, but Hughes has done a lot of great movies.