Sunday morning
The bright arrival of the new day brought me a fare to pick up at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights. A heavy-set woman got in the back seat, and I said, “Good morning! How are you today?”
“Not very good,” replied the woman. I figured, since she was coming out of the hospital, that maybe she had just been in for some kind of care. “I think I’m having a miscarriage.”
Oh, jeez!
She asked me to take her to Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, about a 20-minute ride from Arlington Heights. She was visiting her mother at NCH when she had started experiencing severe cramps and bleeding, and when she went to the ER at NCH, they told her that, since her doctor wasn’t on staff there, she needed to go to Lutheran General, where her doctor is on staff. My guess is that, since the woman’s condition wasn’t threatening her life, then there was no need for emergency transport to the other hospital.
So, I sped only as much as I dared while the woman spoke on her mobile phone with her doctor — or, at least I think she spoke to her doctor — telling of all the things she had felt going on inside her body for the prior two hours.
We arrived at Lutheran General, and the woman handed me her debit card to pay the 23 dollar fare. The credit card system declined the card. She threw a small fit, which is pointless because I didn’t decline it, technology did. I can’t make the system un-decline it. She said she didn’t have any other way to pay.
So I let her go. “Just go,” I said.
“Really? It’s okay?”
“No, it’s not okay,” I said, “but I’m not gonna be the guy who strong-arms a woman who might be having a miscarriage!”
A short while later, a little pissed off about the situation because I felt that I may have been played like a little tin flute by the miscarrying woman, I mentioned it to one of the waitresses at Mac’s, the restaurant with the best corned beef hash breakfast in America. When I got to the part about feeling I may have been hoodwinked, she said, “No. You did a good thing. It’ll come back to you.”
I rolled my eyes at her.
Monday morning
3:00 am. I had worked through the night, and I was sleepy. I still had several hours to go, and it was the dead hour, so I pulled into my favorite dark parking lot intent on taking a 30 to 40 minute nap… not to mention the nuisance fare I wanted to avoid that fires off every weekday morning at 3:30! I had just shifted the car into “PARK” when the dispatch computer sounded off, indicating I was being offered a fare. I resisted the temptation to ignore it, and I accepted it. Though it was rather early for such a fare, it was to bring someone to O’Hare, a ride worth 28 dollars, minimum. Good call, Tony!
The young man was waiting and eager to get started on his trip to Florida. I could tell by his enthusiastic greeting that he had been up all night packing and/or lying awake in excited anticipation for this trip. We chatted about travel, the weather in Florida, his mother, whom he was headed down to visit. I mentioned the trip to Las Vegas I’m taking in two weeks for a reunion with some of the guys I was stationed with in Germany back in the mid-1980s. My passenger seemed quite thrilled for me, and then equally thrilled and inquisitive about my military service. He asked, and I told him about the job I did in Germany.
We pulled up to the doors at Spirit Airways, and I said, “Twenty-eight dollars.”
I heard the rustle of paper in the relative darkness behind me, a good sign that he was counting out cash with which to pay me.
“Here you go,” he said, and at the side of my vision I could see his extended arm. “That’s for your Vegas trip.”
I took the bill and looked down. In my hand I clutched a 100-dollar bill!
“WHOA!” I sputtered. He was already stepping out of the car. “Sir,” I called, thinking he had in the darkness inside the car pulled out the wrong bill, “this is a hundred-dollar bill!”
“I know!” he called back! “Enjoy!”
“You’re CRAZY!” I shouted back.
He slammed the door. He didn’t look back at me. He entered the terminal. Tampa bound.
Karma. Fewer than 24 hours later. I hope her baby is okay.
°
Monday, May 13, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Obstinate Arrogance
Imagine this wildy ridiculous plot line for a film: a single mother's nine-year-old son mysteriously disappears when she has to leave him home alone for a day. Her life goes on pause for two weeks while she deals with the search, and then with the sad realization that the police can't find him. While continuing at her job, she never stops searching for her son...until she receives word from the police — five months after his disappearance — that they've found him!
She rushes to greet him, but when the police present the boy to her, she is stunned to discover that the boy is not her son. Despite her insistence that the boy is not hers, the police captain in charge of the case insists the boy is hers, suggests that he has changed so much in the time he was missing that she just doesn't recognize him, and intimidates her into taking the boy.
She continues to insist that the boy isn't hers, and the police captain, fed up with her tenacity and fearful of the negative publicity she could bring down on the police department, has her apprehended and committed to an insane asylum.
In Changeling (2008), directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie, that is exactly the far-fetched and unbelievable plot.
In a minor departure from the usual Eastwood auto-fellatio, the director seems to have managed to resist the urge to also star in this film. However, the musical score in this Depression-era period piece, a woefully ill-fitting smooth-jazz theme (music by Clint Eastwood), occasionally displaces the film from its era. The rest of it, however, appears properly in place. Set in Los Angeles, there are still locations in the City of Angels left over from the late 1920s and early '30s that, with a little adjustment, could be rendered believably back into the period. The costumes were superb; the hairstyles never jarred me back into the 21st century.
Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, the mother of Walter Collins, the boy abducted while Christine is away. Admittedly, I am not an Angelina Jolie fan. Before viewing Changeling, I can't recall ever seeing a Jolie film which has required her to act, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised with her turn here. Aside from a few clearly admiring close-ups of Jolie's face, the film does a good job reminding itself that it isn't about her bombshell beauty, but about a regular, work-a-day woman and the search for her boy.
Also well executed is the feeling of horrific absurdity at the police department's refusal to listen to Christine Collins as she insists they've brought her the wrong boy, as well as the uncertainty the film plants in the viewer's mind over whether this boy is or is not Walter. After he goes missing, we never see Walter's face again to compare with the boy that is presented to Collins, so we are left with the decision either to side with Collins — who has on her side only a mother's intuition — or to doubt her.
In what seems a nod to a cliché of the more recent turn of the century, the film paints a dark picture of the Los Angeles Police Department as a deeply corrupt organization that operates more for its own benefit than that of the public, outfitting as many thugs in its uniform as there are out running the streets, and terrorizing as many citizens as criminals. When Christine Collins's story reaches the ears and the radio airwaves of anti-LAPD corruption crusader Rev. Gustav Briegleb, portrayed by John Malkovich, she finally has an ally who brings her an army of supporters and additional heat on the LAPD.
The LAPD's response — individually by Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) — rather than reexamine their procedures in finding this boy, is to apprehend Christine and commit her to an insane asylum under a "code 12," a blanket tactic for getting rid of problem cases without arrest or trial. On the outside, an LAPD detective working on an otherwise unrelated immigration case stumbles upon some evidence that, along with Rev. Briegleb's army, throws the whole case out into the light of day.
The film works its way to its end with several climaxes, some satisfying and others not so.
Ultimately this far-fetched film is just sad. With its unbelievable plot and its impossibly arrogant police department executives refusing to listen to a woman desperate to find her son, the film is so terribly sad because all of it is true. It really happened.
The story of Christine Collins and her missing son, Walter, was a big story in Los Angeles when the boy went missing in 1928. The police department, suffering a public relations nightmare for its corrupt activities, seized on an opportunity for positive press when they found a homeless boy matching the description of Walter in DeKalb, Illinois. They sincerely believed he was Walter, as the boy they found somehow knew of the story of Walter Collins, and claimed to be him. When Christine Collins told the police that the boy was not her son, rather than admit their mistake, the police intimidated Collins and tried to shame her into admitting the boy was her son, and eventually committed her to an asylum because of her refusal.
Despite the case working itself out in the newspapers and city council hearings, it likely fell into obscurity with the fall of the stock markets in 1929. Changeling's screen writer, J. Michael Straczynski, was made aware of the case by a Los Angeles city worker tasked with examining ancient city files slated for destruction. It becomes apparent that the corruption apparently rampant in today's Los Angeles Police Department is part of a long, shameful legacy reaching further back than anyone realized.
The lengths some people will go — at the expense of the innocent and of those truly in need — to preserve their fragile egos or positions of title... it boggles the mind.
Changeling (2008) A Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 7.5* At Clint Eastwood's helm the film has an almost lackadaisical pace, more of what I would expect of a Depression-era film set in New Orleans...or perhaps that is the influence of the Eastwood-penned smooth-jazz soundtrack. Over all, it's a very moving film, with a solid performance by star Angelina Jolie, and the realization that, not only could this happen in the United States, it did happen.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
She rushes to greet him, but when the police present the boy to her, she is stunned to discover that the boy is not her son. Despite her insistence that the boy is not hers, the police captain in charge of the case insists the boy is hers, suggests that he has changed so much in the time he was missing that she just doesn't recognize him, and intimidates her into taking the boy.
She continues to insist that the boy isn't hers, and the police captain, fed up with her tenacity and fearful of the negative publicity she could bring down on the police department, has her apprehended and committed to an insane asylum.
In Changeling (2008), directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie, that is exactly the far-fetched and unbelievable plot.
In a minor departure from the usual Eastwood auto-fellatio, the director seems to have managed to resist the urge to also star in this film. However, the musical score in this Depression-era period piece, a woefully ill-fitting smooth-jazz theme (music by Clint Eastwood), occasionally displaces the film from its era. The rest of it, however, appears properly in place. Set in Los Angeles, there are still locations in the City of Angels left over from the late 1920s and early '30s that, with a little adjustment, could be rendered believably back into the period. The costumes were superb; the hairstyles never jarred me back into the 21st century.
Angelina Jolie plays Christine Collins, the mother of Walter Collins, the boy abducted while Christine is away. Admittedly, I am not an Angelina Jolie fan. Before viewing Changeling, I can't recall ever seeing a Jolie film which has required her to act, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised with her turn here. Aside from a few clearly admiring close-ups of Jolie's face, the film does a good job reminding itself that it isn't about her bombshell beauty, but about a regular, work-a-day woman and the search for her boy.
Also well executed is the feeling of horrific absurdity at the police department's refusal to listen to Christine Collins as she insists they've brought her the wrong boy, as well as the uncertainty the film plants in the viewer's mind over whether this boy is or is not Walter. After he goes missing, we never see Walter's face again to compare with the boy that is presented to Collins, so we are left with the decision either to side with Collins — who has on her side only a mother's intuition — or to doubt her.
In what seems a nod to a cliché of the more recent turn of the century, the film paints a dark picture of the Los Angeles Police Department as a deeply corrupt organization that operates more for its own benefit than that of the public, outfitting as many thugs in its uniform as there are out running the streets, and terrorizing as many citizens as criminals. When Christine Collins's story reaches the ears and the radio airwaves of anti-LAPD corruption crusader Rev. Gustav Briegleb, portrayed by John Malkovich, she finally has an ally who brings her an army of supporters and additional heat on the LAPD.
The LAPD's response — individually by Captain J. J. Jones (Jeffrey Donovan) — rather than reexamine their procedures in finding this boy, is to apprehend Christine and commit her to an insane asylum under a "code 12," a blanket tactic for getting rid of problem cases without arrest or trial. On the outside, an LAPD detective working on an otherwise unrelated immigration case stumbles upon some evidence that, along with Rev. Briegleb's army, throws the whole case out into the light of day.
The film works its way to its end with several climaxes, some satisfying and others not so.
Ultimately this far-fetched film is just sad. With its unbelievable plot and its impossibly arrogant police department executives refusing to listen to a woman desperate to find her son, the film is so terribly sad because all of it is true. It really happened.
The story of Christine Collins and her missing son, Walter, was a big story in Los Angeles when the boy went missing in 1928. The police department, suffering a public relations nightmare for its corrupt activities, seized on an opportunity for positive press when they found a homeless boy matching the description of Walter in DeKalb, Illinois. They sincerely believed he was Walter, as the boy they found somehow knew of the story of Walter Collins, and claimed to be him. When Christine Collins told the police that the boy was not her son, rather than admit their mistake, the police intimidated Collins and tried to shame her into admitting the boy was her son, and eventually committed her to an asylum because of her refusal.
Despite the case working itself out in the newspapers and city council hearings, it likely fell into obscurity with the fall of the stock markets in 1929. Changeling's screen writer, J. Michael Straczynski, was made aware of the case by a Los Angeles city worker tasked with examining ancient city files slated for destruction. It becomes apparent that the corruption apparently rampant in today's Los Angeles Police Department is part of a long, shameful legacy reaching further back than anyone realized.
The lengths some people will go — at the expense of the innocent and of those truly in need — to preserve their fragile egos or positions of title... it boggles the mind.
Changeling (2008) A Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 7.5* At Clint Eastwood's helm the film has an almost lackadaisical pace, more of what I would expect of a Depression-era film set in New Orleans...or perhaps that is the influence of the Eastwood-penned smooth-jazz soundtrack. Over all, it's a very moving film, with a solid performance by star Angelina Jolie, and the realization that, not only could this happen in the United States, it did happen.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Karma Is a Sweet, Sweet Old Lady
Sometime back in January or February I related a story on my Facebook page about an elderly female passenger who had lost a cherished family heirloom ring in my taxi. She wasn't absolutely certain she had lost it there, but had asked the Lost and Found department at 303 Taxi to help her find it. Since the lady — Pat is her name — had scheduled her pickup through the reservation service, the Lost and Found department was able to determine that I was the taxi who had transported her from the WalMart store in Rolling Meadows to her home at the senior living center just down the road.
Lost and Found contacted me, telling me that a passenger had lost "an engagement ring" in my car. I pulled the back seat out and found a ring — as well as a man's driver's license and a child's toy car/Transformer character. Though it didn't look like a typical engagement ring — it had the image of a flower engraved and painted into the metal, covered by what looked like glass — it certainly looked very well made. I called Lost and Found and described the ring, and a few hours later they called me back and said that it was indeed the ring Pat was looking for. They forwarded her phone number to me, and I called her right away.
I brought the ring to Pat at the senior home, and she shunted me off to a corner where there was some sort of lectern or high table of some sort, and she asked me my full name. She pulled out a checkbook and leaned on the lectern to write, and I told her that she did not have to give me any money. Pat explained that the ring had been her great-great grandmother's engagement ring, made in 1868! Pat had cried all through the night before because she thought it was lost forever. There was nothing I could say to stop her writing the check. She made it out for 100 dollars.
Through my Facebook page I shared my agonizing over whether I should cash the check or just forget about it. The majority of my friends encouraged me to accept Pat's generosity and cash the check...and so I did. ...never mind the fact that I really, really needed the money!
=================================
Early on the Monday morning of March 25th — some would consider it Sunday night — I accepted a fare in Palatine, the Chicago northwest suburb adjacent and to the northwest of Arlington Heights, where I usually work. By the zone displayed on my in-car computer, the fare was waiting in the north end of Palatine, but the GPS led me to downtown Palatine. The zone displayed on the computer was incorrect. Had it displayed the correct zone for the downtown area, I would not have accepted the fare, as I do not possess the required chauffeur and taxicab business licenses for Palatine, and picking up fares downtown is an extremely risky business. Also, it has been my experience in the past that, when a fare is offered at 2:30am for a customer waiting in downtown Palatine, it's almost always at a huge bar there called Durty Nellie's, and by the time I get there, it's almost always a no-show, meaning the customer has found another taxi standing by, and gotten into it.
Hoodwinked by a dispatcher's error, I found myself waiting outside the front door of — you guessed it — Durty Nellie's. And sure enough, from behind me rolled up one of Palatine's Finest who briefly quizzed me as to why I was there, and why I was trying to pick up a passenger even though I don't have the required Palatine licenses. Unable to provide him a satisfactory answer, I then had to cancel the fare and wait for him to issue me two tickets — one for each missing license — each carrying a fine of 200 dollars.
I looked up the ordinances, and this morning I consulted the lawyer on staff at 303 Taxi, and he told me that the wording of the ordinances is pretty broad, and I will likely be unable to escape having to pay the fines.
=================================
This afternoon I accepted a fare to pick up at the Meijer store in Rolling Meadows. The name on the order: Pat!
She got in the car and I could tell pretty quickly that she didn't recognize me. I didn't let it bother me, and we cruised on toward the senior living community she calls home. On the way our brief conversation landed on a local news story I had not heard about in which a gas station/convenience store in nearby Streamwood had been robbed one late night a few weeks ago, and the lone clerk there had been stabbed to death. I was shocked because, for a time, I had frequented that particular gas station, and I had probably transacted business with the victim.
Then Pat told me about her son-in-law who is a police detective, and who has been burning the candle at both ends on this murder case. Is her son-in-law in the police department in Streamwood? No.
PALATINE.
Despite the sad reality of the murder in Streamwood, I laughed and told Pat the story of my Palatine ticket woes, and asked her if her son-in-law might be able to make my Palatine tickets disappear.
"Oh, I don't know," she hemmed and hawed. "I suppose I could ask him. He's busy with this awful murder..."
I turned to face her. "I am the guy who found your ring..."
"OH MY GOSH!" Pat blurted. "It is you!"
She then told me again about how much she had cried that night thinking the ring was lost, and how happy she was when she heard I had found it, and how sorry she was that she couldn't write the check for "ten times more" than she had. She also mentioned that she was worried when she saw that I hadn't cashed it right away, confirming the fears I had expressed were I not to have cashed it.
Pat asked me my name and phone number again, and the date the tickets were issued. I wrote them down for her.
"I will definitely talk to my son-in-law about this!"
I have no doubt Pat will talk to her son-in-law about my tickets. I have little confidence, however, that anything can or will be done about them.
But isn't this a phenomenal coincidence!
Lost and Found contacted me, telling me that a passenger had lost "an engagement ring" in my car. I pulled the back seat out and found a ring — as well as a man's driver's license and a child's toy car/Transformer character. Though it didn't look like a typical engagement ring — it had the image of a flower engraved and painted into the metal, covered by what looked like glass — it certainly looked very well made. I called Lost and Found and described the ring, and a few hours later they called me back and said that it was indeed the ring Pat was looking for. They forwarded her phone number to me, and I called her right away.
I brought the ring to Pat at the senior home, and she shunted me off to a corner where there was some sort of lectern or high table of some sort, and she asked me my full name. She pulled out a checkbook and leaned on the lectern to write, and I told her that she did not have to give me any money. Pat explained that the ring had been her great-great grandmother's engagement ring, made in 1868! Pat had cried all through the night before because she thought it was lost forever. There was nothing I could say to stop her writing the check. She made it out for 100 dollars.
Through my Facebook page I shared my agonizing over whether I should cash the check or just forget about it. The majority of my friends encouraged me to accept Pat's generosity and cash the check...and so I did. ...never mind the fact that I really, really needed the money!
=================================
Early on the Monday morning of March 25th — some would consider it Sunday night — I accepted a fare in Palatine, the Chicago northwest suburb adjacent and to the northwest of Arlington Heights, where I usually work. By the zone displayed on my in-car computer, the fare was waiting in the north end of Palatine, but the GPS led me to downtown Palatine. The zone displayed on the computer was incorrect. Had it displayed the correct zone for the downtown area, I would not have accepted the fare, as I do not possess the required chauffeur and taxicab business licenses for Palatine, and picking up fares downtown is an extremely risky business. Also, it has been my experience in the past that, when a fare is offered at 2:30am for a customer waiting in downtown Palatine, it's almost always at a huge bar there called Durty Nellie's, and by the time I get there, it's almost always a no-show, meaning the customer has found another taxi standing by, and gotten into it.
Hoodwinked by a dispatcher's error, I found myself waiting outside the front door of — you guessed it — Durty Nellie's. And sure enough, from behind me rolled up one of Palatine's Finest who briefly quizzed me as to why I was there, and why I was trying to pick up a passenger even though I don't have the required Palatine licenses. Unable to provide him a satisfactory answer, I then had to cancel the fare and wait for him to issue me two tickets — one for each missing license — each carrying a fine of 200 dollars.
I looked up the ordinances, and this morning I consulted the lawyer on staff at 303 Taxi, and he told me that the wording of the ordinances is pretty broad, and I will likely be unable to escape having to pay the fines.
=================================
This afternoon I accepted a fare to pick up at the Meijer store in Rolling Meadows. The name on the order: Pat!
She got in the car and I could tell pretty quickly that she didn't recognize me. I didn't let it bother me, and we cruised on toward the senior living community she calls home. On the way our brief conversation landed on a local news story I had not heard about in which a gas station/convenience store in nearby Streamwood had been robbed one late night a few weeks ago, and the lone clerk there had been stabbed to death. I was shocked because, for a time, I had frequented that particular gas station, and I had probably transacted business with the victim.
Then Pat told me about her son-in-law who is a police detective, and who has been burning the candle at both ends on this murder case. Is her son-in-law in the police department in Streamwood? No.
PALATINE.
Despite the sad reality of the murder in Streamwood, I laughed and told Pat the story of my Palatine ticket woes, and asked her if her son-in-law might be able to make my Palatine tickets disappear.
"Oh, I don't know," she hemmed and hawed. "I suppose I could ask him. He's busy with this awful murder..."
I turned to face her. "I am the guy who found your ring..."
"OH MY GOSH!" Pat blurted. "It is you!"
She then told me again about how much she had cried that night thinking the ring was lost, and how happy she was when she heard I had found it, and how sorry she was that she couldn't write the check for "ten times more" than she had. She also mentioned that she was worried when she saw that I hadn't cashed it right away, confirming the fears I had expressed were I not to have cashed it.
Pat asked me my name and phone number again, and the date the tickets were issued. I wrote them down for her.
"I will definitely talk to my son-in-law about this!"
I have no doubt Pat will talk to her son-in-law about my tickets. I have little confidence, however, that anything can or will be done about them.
But isn't this a phenomenal coincidence!
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
The Changing Landscape
Tuesday afternoon I had a passenger in my taxi — a young, very beautiful Indian woman — for a longish ride from Schaumburg to Rosemont, and we engaged in easy conversation most of the way.
As anyone who knows me is already aware, I often make lame jokes in just about any situation. It’s not that I aim to make lame jokes, but rather that I aim to make people laugh. I like to make people laugh. I always have.
Tuesday’s opportunity was no exception. Fear not, for I didn’t harangue her with incessant jokes or absurdities; I don’t work that way. We talked mostly about her time living in the United States: she first moved to California where she lived for two years, and then she moved to Chicago about a year ago. She’s a consultant at a Chicago firm with a client in Schaumburg. She’s from a city the name of which I don’t remember about two hours from Mumbai.
As we neared the Rosemont Blue Line CTA train station, I asked, “Do you have a husband? Children?”
“No...to both,” she replied.
I paused for a few extra seconds, and then I said, “Neither do I.”
She laughed tentatively, catching the incongruity of my equal but opposite comment. It was intentional on my part, but her hesitant laugh seemed to say to me that she wasn’t sure if I had made a joke or if I had really overlooked my wording.
I gave her permission to laugh. “I don’t have a husband and children, either.”
She laughed.
But then it occurred to me: my made-up scenario isn’t a joke any more. As things progress, as things have progressed in several states of our union, the scenario of a man stating that he has or doesn’t have a husband — or a woman a wife — is no longer absurd. It is becoming a statement of plain fact.
The landscape is forever changing, forever evolving. We’re moving toward acceptance and away from resistance.
But damn if marriage equality isn’t taking away some good lame joke fodder!
As anyone who knows me is already aware, I often make lame jokes in just about any situation. It’s not that I aim to make lame jokes, but rather that I aim to make people laugh. I like to make people laugh. I always have.
Tuesday’s opportunity was no exception. Fear not, for I didn’t harangue her with incessant jokes or absurdities; I don’t work that way. We talked mostly about her time living in the United States: she first moved to California where she lived for two years, and then she moved to Chicago about a year ago. She’s a consultant at a Chicago firm with a client in Schaumburg. She’s from a city the name of which I don’t remember about two hours from Mumbai.
As we neared the Rosemont Blue Line CTA train station, I asked, “Do you have a husband? Children?”
“No...to both,” she replied.
I paused for a few extra seconds, and then I said, “Neither do I.”
She laughed tentatively, catching the incongruity of my equal but opposite comment. It was intentional on my part, but her hesitant laugh seemed to say to me that she wasn’t sure if I had made a joke or if I had really overlooked my wording.
I gave her permission to laugh. “I don’t have a husband and children, either.”
She laughed.
But then it occurred to me: my made-up scenario isn’t a joke any more. As things progress, as things have progressed in several states of our union, the scenario of a man stating that he has or doesn’t have a husband — or a woman a wife — is no longer absurd. It is becoming a statement of plain fact.
The landscape is forever changing, forever evolving. We’re moving toward acceptance and away from resistance.
But damn if marriage equality isn’t taking away some good lame joke fodder!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
When Compassion Isn't Enough
In the three and a half years that I've now been driving a taxi, I have never once refused a customer, other than when I was already waiting for someone with a reservation. I never had any reason to refuse someone, nor have I ever set any criteria for such a reason. Until last Sunday night.
It's not that he's of any racial, ethnic, or religious persuasion; anyone who knows me well knows I don't carry those cards in my deck to play. It's not that he's homeless; a reader can peruse the annals of far·ra·go and the account of an instance of taxi charity to a homeless person...who was probably carrying more cash that day than I was. It's not anything about who or what he is or about his circumstances.
I had driven him once before. He has strapped to a small luggage dolly such a load of personal belongings that would collapse a pack mule: a backpack or two, a couple of soft cases, what I assume is a sleeping bag in a plastic drawstring bag, and two foam bed rolls. It's bulky and heavy, and it does not fit in my trunk without having to force the lid shut, squeezing the whole mess down. That first time he had me drop him off at a trendy little breakfast restaurant in a newly remodeled and refreshed shopping mall. I don't recall anything unpleasant then, other than his attitude and his difficulty getting in and out of my car.
He's a big fella, maybe six foot two or four or so. And he's not skinny. And he's pretty old, with white hair and a beard. He moves with extreme difficulty...and a walker. But all I can remember from that ride was fearing that he wouldn't have any money to pay the fare. And that pack.
This most recent Sunday evening I rolled up to the front of the Subway restaurant and saw him sitting on a bench outside, waving me over. He wore many layers of clothing and shoes or boots wrapped in duct tape. I remembered him immediately, and I groaned at the prospect of wrestling his obnoxious load of personal belongings into my trunk. As I parked the car, an employee of the Subway restaurant timidly approached me.
"I don't want to bother you, but another taxi was here earlier, and the driver wouldn't take him. 'I won't take him. I don't care if he has money.'"
How rude, I thought. "Did you get his car number?" I asked, pointing to my car number as an example of where to find the car number on a taxi from my company.
"No."
"Well," I said, "you can call the company and tell them you had called earlier, and they'll be able to tell which car was sent." I just thought it unacceptable to refuse this customer just because he's homeless. Or slightly difficult.
I had inadvertently parked the car with the rear passenger door impossibly close to a snowbank, so while the intended passenger approached, aided by his walker, I repositioned the car. During those few moments I heard the homeless man begin trying to hack something up. Not from his lungs; he seemed to be working out a loogie from the depths of Hades, his Godzillian snorts and coughs resonating against the windshield of my car. The poor young man from Subway who was being so nice and helpful stood mortified mere feet from the man as he hacked and coughed and spat out his demon phlegm. His face registering incredulous shock, the poor young Subway employee remained in place, but leaned so far to one side, away from the hacking, spitting giant that I was reminded of Buster Keaton's old silent movie lean-shoe sight gag. I was amused by the momentary slapstick as I moved to assist my customer.
And then I was assaulted by his stench.
I'm not being unfairly prejudiced here. I have driven some of the homeless people of this area on several occasions and, yes, some of them have been a little on the side of unclean. I realize a shower or bath is probably a luxury difficult to come by for the down and out. But, somehow, they find a way.
I don't think this guy has found the way.
Since 2008.
I do not exaggerate. I can't even find appropriate words to describe the stench. It wasn't musky-armpit body odor; it wasn't stale crotch-rot. It was the hell-reek of pure, unrestrained bodily filth. I must repeat that I do not exaggerate. The smell didn't merely reach my nose, but rather flung itself at me and wrapped itself around my head and forced itself into my throat. I literally gagged! I fought the stench and abbreviated my breaths, as I know for certain had I inhaled fully, I would have exhaled my lunch.
The young man from Subway diverted me, to my momentary gratitude, with a request to help him load the old man's material existence into the trunk. The thought hadn't bothered me before I stepped through my customer's miasma, but now I didn't care to touch any of his belongings! But it had to be done. The load lay thick across the width of the vehicle, but taller than the depth of the trunk. "Uh oh," said Mr. Subway. "It won't fit."
Shuddering at the thought of having to yet again touch the filthy personal effects of Mr. 'Mephitis' to rearrange the load, I said with conviction, "I'll make it fit." I pulled down the trunk lid until it rested on top of the bundle. With nearly a foot remaining between lid and latch, I heaved my weight onto the trunk lid and smashed it closed. Mr Subway graciously excused himself, and then sprinted to the door of his store, likely for fear that Sir Stink might change his mind and decide to dine there after all.
Standing outside in the fresh air, I couldn't get within four feet of this guy without his atmosphere reaching my nostrils, and now he was wedged into the back seat of my car. Much to my relief, he asked me to open his window. I thought perhaps even he couldn't stand his own rank essence. I sent his window down only to learn that he needed to continue his barrage of coughing, hocking and spitting out the semisolid contents of his lungs.
"I wanna go to some sort of chicken place. You know of anything?"
I desperately racked my brain to think of the nearest chicken ANYTHING just to get him out of my car. A new Chick-fil-A just opened about a mile from where we were, but no, he wanted a real chicken place, like KFC or Popeye's.
"There's a Popeye's not too far from here," I said. My next breath brought me a face full of his effluvium and I felt my diaphragm convulse. I struggled to find a way to only exhale for the coming eternity of 10 minutes but, failing that, I opened my window and tried to hang my head out without appearing to hang my head out.
I drove in abject fear of catching another lungful and tossing my cookies all over my steering wheel, but the cross breeze created by his open sputum portal and my fresh air lifeline kept his cloud flowing out in his direction.
In a classic case of I-would-punch-you-in-the-throat-if-your-force-field-of-fumes-didn't-stop-me, I was already in the right hand lane and committing to a right turn when he said, "Hey there's a Culver's [restaurant] around here, isn't there?"
"Yes," I indicated with a finger pointed in the general direction of left.
"Oh, I would much rather go there."
So, having waited for the light to turn green before he changed his mind, I now had to turn right, and then turn around, only to wait through another red light, all the while wondering how much longer I could breathe without actually inhaling.
I pulled into the Culver's lot and parked in the disabled access slots. Without Mr. Subway to help, I had to deal with the Pack From Hell on my own...and I couldn't lift it from the trunk.
"You want me to help you?" Mr. Malodor asked. I had no choice. He helped me lift his belongings out of the trunk, and then he asked me to grab his filthy jackets from the rear seat.
I helped him into the restaurant where a slightly dazed young female employee asked if we needed any help.
"I'm just dropping him off," I said, quickly trying to deflect any suspicion that Señor Smell and I were together.
He turned past the door frame and headed for the nearest table, in a small nook where two women and several children appeared to be celebrating a birthday. No sooner had the olfactory offender sat down than the birthday party was suddenly packing up to leave! I was handed a 20-dollar bill for which I had to run back to the car to make change. I made the trip there and back, and lied when he asked if I could "come back in 90 minutes or so," or if he would have to call the company.
"No, you'll have to call the company. I have no idea where I'll be in 90 minutes." It was a Sunday night; not much going on. I knew as I said it that — wherever I was — I was going to be nowhere near Mt. Prospect, or in any zone close enough to where Dispatch might send me his fare when he called!
It came to me as I drove away that the next time I see this poor man I will not serve him. I can't. I just can't.
It's strange what can test the limits of one's charity. For me, apparently, my limit is my nose.
°
It's not that he's of any racial, ethnic, or religious persuasion; anyone who knows me well knows I don't carry those cards in my deck to play. It's not that he's homeless; a reader can peruse the annals of far·ra·go and the account of an instance of taxi charity to a homeless person...who was probably carrying more cash that day than I was. It's not anything about who or what he is or about his circumstances.
I had driven him once before. He has strapped to a small luggage dolly such a load of personal belongings that would collapse a pack mule: a backpack or two, a couple of soft cases, what I assume is a sleeping bag in a plastic drawstring bag, and two foam bed rolls. It's bulky and heavy, and it does not fit in my trunk without having to force the lid shut, squeezing the whole mess down. That first time he had me drop him off at a trendy little breakfast restaurant in a newly remodeled and refreshed shopping mall. I don't recall anything unpleasant then, other than his attitude and his difficulty getting in and out of my car.
He's a big fella, maybe six foot two or four or so. And he's not skinny. And he's pretty old, with white hair and a beard. He moves with extreme difficulty...and a walker. But all I can remember from that ride was fearing that he wouldn't have any money to pay the fare. And that pack.
This most recent Sunday evening I rolled up to the front of the Subway restaurant and saw him sitting on a bench outside, waving me over. He wore many layers of clothing and shoes or boots wrapped in duct tape. I remembered him immediately, and I groaned at the prospect of wrestling his obnoxious load of personal belongings into my trunk. As I parked the car, an employee of the Subway restaurant timidly approached me.
"I don't want to bother you, but another taxi was here earlier, and the driver wouldn't take him. 'I won't take him. I don't care if he has money.'"
How rude, I thought. "Did you get his car number?" I asked, pointing to my car number as an example of where to find the car number on a taxi from my company.
"No."
"Well," I said, "you can call the company and tell them you had called earlier, and they'll be able to tell which car was sent." I just thought it unacceptable to refuse this customer just because he's homeless. Or slightly difficult.
I had inadvertently parked the car with the rear passenger door impossibly close to a snowbank, so while the intended passenger approached, aided by his walker, I repositioned the car. During those few moments I heard the homeless man begin trying to hack something up. Not from his lungs; he seemed to be working out a loogie from the depths of Hades, his Godzillian snorts and coughs resonating against the windshield of my car. The poor young man from Subway who was being so nice and helpful stood mortified mere feet from the man as he hacked and coughed and spat out his demon phlegm. His face registering incredulous shock, the poor young Subway employee remained in place, but leaned so far to one side, away from the hacking, spitting giant that I was reminded of Buster Keaton's old silent movie lean-shoe sight gag. I was amused by the momentary slapstick as I moved to assist my customer.
And then I was assaulted by his stench.
I'm not being unfairly prejudiced here. I have driven some of the homeless people of this area on several occasions and, yes, some of them have been a little on the side of unclean. I realize a shower or bath is probably a luxury difficult to come by for the down and out. But, somehow, they find a way.
I don't think this guy has found the way.
Since 2008.
I do not exaggerate. I can't even find appropriate words to describe the stench. It wasn't musky-armpit body odor; it wasn't stale crotch-rot. It was the hell-reek of pure, unrestrained bodily filth. I must repeat that I do not exaggerate. The smell didn't merely reach my nose, but rather flung itself at me and wrapped itself around my head and forced itself into my throat. I literally gagged! I fought the stench and abbreviated my breaths, as I know for certain had I inhaled fully, I would have exhaled my lunch.
The young man from Subway diverted me, to my momentary gratitude, with a request to help him load the old man's material existence into the trunk. The thought hadn't bothered me before I stepped through my customer's miasma, but now I didn't care to touch any of his belongings! But it had to be done. The load lay thick across the width of the vehicle, but taller than the depth of the trunk. "Uh oh," said Mr. Subway. "It won't fit."
Shuddering at the thought of having to yet again touch the filthy personal effects of Mr. 'Mephitis' to rearrange the load, I said with conviction, "I'll make it fit." I pulled down the trunk lid until it rested on top of the bundle. With nearly a foot remaining between lid and latch, I heaved my weight onto the trunk lid and smashed it closed. Mr Subway graciously excused himself, and then sprinted to the door of his store, likely for fear that Sir Stink might change his mind and decide to dine there after all.
Standing outside in the fresh air, I couldn't get within four feet of this guy without his atmosphere reaching my nostrils, and now he was wedged into the back seat of my car. Much to my relief, he asked me to open his window. I thought perhaps even he couldn't stand his own rank essence. I sent his window down only to learn that he needed to continue his barrage of coughing, hocking and spitting out the semisolid contents of his lungs.
"I wanna go to some sort of chicken place. You know of anything?"
I desperately racked my brain to think of the nearest chicken ANYTHING just to get him out of my car. A new Chick-fil-A just opened about a mile from where we were, but no, he wanted a real chicken place, like KFC or Popeye's.
"There's a Popeye's not too far from here," I said. My next breath brought me a face full of his effluvium and I felt my diaphragm convulse. I struggled to find a way to only exhale for the coming eternity of 10 minutes but, failing that, I opened my window and tried to hang my head out without appearing to hang my head out.
I drove in abject fear of catching another lungful and tossing my cookies all over my steering wheel, but the cross breeze created by his open sputum portal and my fresh air lifeline kept his cloud flowing out in his direction.
In a classic case of I-would-punch-you-in-the-throat-if-your-force-field-of-fumes-didn't-stop-me, I was already in the right hand lane and committing to a right turn when he said, "Hey there's a Culver's [restaurant] around here, isn't there?"
"Yes," I indicated with a finger pointed in the general direction of left.
"Oh, I would much rather go there."
So, having waited for the light to turn green before he changed his mind, I now had to turn right, and then turn around, only to wait through another red light, all the while wondering how much longer I could breathe without actually inhaling.
I pulled into the Culver's lot and parked in the disabled access slots. Without Mr. Subway to help, I had to deal with the Pack From Hell on my own...and I couldn't lift it from the trunk.
"You want me to help you?" Mr. Malodor asked. I had no choice. He helped me lift his belongings out of the trunk, and then he asked me to grab his filthy jackets from the rear seat.
I helped him into the restaurant where a slightly dazed young female employee asked if we needed any help.
"I'm just dropping him off," I said, quickly trying to deflect any suspicion that Señor Smell and I were together.
He turned past the door frame and headed for the nearest table, in a small nook where two women and several children appeared to be celebrating a birthday. No sooner had the olfactory offender sat down than the birthday party was suddenly packing up to leave! I was handed a 20-dollar bill for which I had to run back to the car to make change. I made the trip there and back, and lied when he asked if I could "come back in 90 minutes or so," or if he would have to call the company.
"No, you'll have to call the company. I have no idea where I'll be in 90 minutes." It was a Sunday night; not much going on. I knew as I said it that — wherever I was — I was going to be nowhere near Mt. Prospect, or in any zone close enough to where Dispatch might send me his fare when he called!
It came to me as I drove away that the next time I see this poor man I will not serve him. I can't. I just can't.
It's strange what can test the limits of one's charity. For me, apparently, my limit is my nose.
°
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Ocular Physician
Eye doctor.
Eyed doctor.
I doctor.
I, Doctor.
I'd doctor.
iDoctor
Aye, doctor.
I docked her.
Eyed doctor.
I doctor.
I, Doctor.
I'd doctor.
iDoctor
Aye, doctor.
I docked her.
Hollywood's Guilt Trip
I realize he has made a few good, Oscar-worthy, Oscar-winning films, but, really, someone needs to tell Clint Eastwood to give it a rest. I was appalled at Grand Theft Auto and its cheap-feeling message and its lame backdrop of the Hmong immigrants’ struggles with gang infiltration in their Detroit neighborhood.
Million Dollar Baby was a great film. I don’t mean to say that Eastwood can’t direct a film. I just mean that he should either stick to one side of the camera or the other, or pick and choose better projects.
I’m way behind in my movie viewing, so it was only this week that I was able to get to Blood Work, an Eastwood-starring and directed, 2002 screen adaptation of the 1998 Michael Connelly novel by the same title.
Blood Work, which directly preceded Eastwood's 2004 star/director turn in Million Dollar Baby, tells the tale of Terrell McCaleb, an aging FBI superstar investigator followed by a fan who murders people solely for the enjoyment he gets from having McCaleb investigate his crimes. McCaleb suffers a heart attack while chasing the murderer, and his career ends. Two years later McCaleb is recovering from a heart transplant and is confronted by a young woman who wants McCaleb to investigate the murder of her sister whose heart McCaleb received for his transplant.
Enter gravel-voiced Eastwood and witness as he stiffens up every scene he’s in. I realize his style worked for the Rawhide TV show that launched his career, but some time after 1973 it stopped convincing me.
I’m sorry, but — as with Roger Moore’s 1980s James Bond before him (Moore was 58 when he last played Bond) — the septuagenarian Eastwood does not make a convincing action hero. Kudos to him in this go-round, as he played convincingly someone who would most likely have a heart attack after chasing down a suspect (and further kudos to Eastwood who clearly did some pretty hard charging on camera for this scene in the film), but all his tough-guy lines and tough-guy machismo fall short on the feeble, gravel-voiced delivery. I have even less desire to see 72-year-old (at the time) Eastwood in a love scene with a 30-something woman!
I don’t know if it was for comic relief (from the non-existent suspense?) or for a real sense of the fear of repercussion, but the choice of actor-comedian Paul Rodriguez as a hot-headed, McCaleb-hating, LAPD homicide detective was the wrong one. I don’t know when Rodriguez stopped being funny, but I suspect it was sometime just before he began filming for this role, in which he was neither funny nor menacing.
As suspense films go (I can’t speak for the novel, as I haven’t read it...though its treatment here doesn’t promise better), it couldn’t be more obvious if they placed a neon sign in every scene pointing to the head of the serial killer who lures McCaleb out from retirement. I guessed it about ⅓ of the way through the film.
I watched Eastwood’s first Oscar-winning directorial effort, Unforgiven (1992), twice — once when it first came out and again about 20 years later — and, each time, I failed to see its supposed greatness. As a film with a purported meta-message about the awfulness of violence in film, it was an awfully violent film. I don’t understand how it won an Academy Award other than for the suspicion that the Academy got together and said, “Gee, this guy has made a lot of movies and never won a thing! This one looks pretty and kinda makes sense. Let’s give it to him!”
Million Dollar Baby is — in my humble opinion — Eastwood’s magnum opus. It grabs you, gives you someone to root for, and then rips your heart out with a twist so unexpected you’ll spend a week in a cervical collar...and then it’s followed by yet another, equally unexpected twist.
Perhaps as his preparation for Million Dollar Baby Eastwood studied the completed Blood Work as everything not to do in a film.
Blood Work. A Numb Butt-Cheeks® rating* of 5.0. Miss it if you can. You’ll probably get a better rush from reading the book one page a day.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important (or a desire to return!); a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
Blood Work, which directly preceded Eastwood's 2004 star/director turn in Million Dollar Baby, tells the tale of Terrell McCaleb, an aging FBI superstar investigator followed by a fan who murders people solely for the enjoyment he gets from having McCaleb investigate his crimes. McCaleb suffers a heart attack while chasing the murderer, and his career ends. Two years later McCaleb is recovering from a heart transplant and is confronted by a young woman who wants McCaleb to investigate the murder of her sister whose heart McCaleb received for his transplant.
Enter gravel-voiced Eastwood and witness as he stiffens up every scene he’s in. I realize his style worked for the Rawhide TV show that launched his career, but some time after 1973 it stopped convincing me.
I’m sorry, but — as with Roger Moore’s 1980s James Bond before him (Moore was 58 when he last played Bond) — the septuagenarian Eastwood does not make a convincing action hero. Kudos to him in this go-round, as he played convincingly someone who would most likely have a heart attack after chasing down a suspect (and further kudos to Eastwood who clearly did some pretty hard charging on camera for this scene in the film), but all his tough-guy lines and tough-guy machismo fall short on the feeble, gravel-voiced delivery. I have even less desire to see 72-year-old (at the time) Eastwood in a love scene with a 30-something woman!
I don’t know if it was for comic relief (from the non-existent suspense?) or for a real sense of the fear of repercussion, but the choice of actor-comedian Paul Rodriguez as a hot-headed, McCaleb-hating, LAPD homicide detective was the wrong one. I don’t know when Rodriguez stopped being funny, but I suspect it was sometime just before he began filming for this role, in which he was neither funny nor menacing.
As suspense films go (I can’t speak for the novel, as I haven’t read it...though its treatment here doesn’t promise better), it couldn’t be more obvious if they placed a neon sign in every scene pointing to the head of the serial killer who lures McCaleb out from retirement. I guessed it about ⅓ of the way through the film.
I watched Eastwood’s first Oscar-winning directorial effort, Unforgiven (1992), twice — once when it first came out and again about 20 years later — and, each time, I failed to see its supposed greatness. As a film with a purported meta-message about the awfulness of violence in film, it was an awfully violent film. I don’t understand how it won an Academy Award other than for the suspicion that the Academy got together and said, “Gee, this guy has made a lot of movies and never won a thing! This one looks pretty and kinda makes sense. Let’s give it to him!”
Million Dollar Baby is — in my humble opinion — Eastwood’s magnum opus. It grabs you, gives you someone to root for, and then rips your heart out with a twist so unexpected you’ll spend a week in a cervical collar...and then it’s followed by yet another, equally unexpected twist.
Perhaps as his preparation for Million Dollar Baby Eastwood studied the completed Blood Work as everything not to do in a film.
Blood Work. A Numb Butt-Cheeks® rating* of 5.0. Miss it if you can. You’ll probably get a better rush from reading the book one page a day.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important (or a desire to return!); a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
Friday, February 15, 2013
On 90 Wasted Minutes
Have motion pictures improved over our lifetime, or do our tastes in films mature?
A discussion on Facebook with a friend sparked a challenge and rekindled an idea I had years ago for a blog entry that I never posted.
But first, a little background: my friend Sarah was house-sitting for a friend of hers and mentioned one evening about her friend's awful taste in movies, evidenced by the selection of films from Netflix that were present in the home. Sarah mentioned specifically a film released in 1987 titled Real Men, starring James Belushi and the late John Ritter. She told me that the first time she tried to watch, it was so bad she turned it off after a few minutes. She thought later that maybe it deserved a second chance, so she tried again, but fell asleep in the first half-hour. I said that it couldn't be that bad.
Sarah challenged me to watch it, and she encouraged me to blog about it.
But first, a little more background: around 2000 or 2001 — not long after I had moved in with the now-ex Mrs. Farrago — she revealed to me that she had never seen the 1986 film Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert. I was dumbstruck. "You never saw it? Not even on TV?!" She hadn't.
It then became my mission to familiarize her, indoctrinate her, and win her over to a film I felt was one of the most amazing, ground-breaking, awe-inspiring films that had ever been made. I went to Blockbuster, found the director's cut(!) on VHS, rushed it home, made popcorn, propped up the pillows on the bed, and prepared to watch her face as she watched the incredible spectacle I told her she had been missing out on for the past 15 years, and see the wonder fill her eyes as the film's awesomeness washed over her.
I pressed "PLAY" on the remote. The film started.
And it sucked.
What the hell?! Nothing was different; the "director's cut" consisted of a bonus feature in which the director talked about — and showed — a couple of segments that had been cut from the script and never filmed for the release, but which he and a couple of the crew had filmed anyway — at his personal expense — in the event that he ever had the chance to re-cut the film.
No, the film was the same. The dialog seemed clunky and immature. Suddenly, Scotsman Sean Connery's cameo appearance as a Spaniard seemed absolutely absurd. Star Christopher Lambert's performance suddenly seemed slightly less riveting than watching a two-by-four propped against a wall.
Had I changed?! Well, obviously I had; 15 years had passed since I had last seen the film, but had I changed that much?!
So I was faced with questions: Had Highlander always been this bad? Was I just too testosterone-soaked a young man in my 20s when I first experienced this fantasy-action-adventure to be able to see past the broad strokes to notice that the finer details were actually missing?
Or was it that Highlander was a superb action film in its time, but filmmaking advances in the intervening 15 years had spoiled me for older, less technologically sophisticated films?
The answer lies in there somewhere, as Highlander was only the first of several iconic — or so I thought — 1980s films whose dazzle had seemed to pale in the years between my first viewing and introducing them to my wife in the new millennium.
I suppose there's a third possibility: sensing that my wife was unimpressed could have caused me uneasiness and insecurity. "If she thinks this movie blows, what, then, must she think of me?" and so every movie I revered then seemed horrendously flawed. Could that be it?
Real Lame
And so it was with this sense that I slipped Real Men into the DVD player. Having never seen the film, and having only the Netflix description — as well as Sarah's — to go by, I had low expectations.
The premise: James Belushi stars as suave, super cool Nick Pirandello, a top US spy, and John Ritter as Bob Wilson, a timid insurance man who just happens to look exactly like another US spy who was assassinated while practicing for a rendezvous with space aliens to make an exchange for "the good package," which would save Earth from toxic chemicals that had been dumped into the ocean. Since the aliens will deal with no one except the special agent — now deceased — whom Wilson resembles, Pirandello "recruits" the unwilling Wilson to complete the mission as planned. At every turn, Wilson tries to escape, thinking Pirandello is an insane kidnapper, but Pirandello is always two steps ahead of him, and brings him back to heel. Through Pirandello's encouragement — and a few white lies — timid Wilson becomes convinced that the constant exposure to danger has made him into a formidable warrior, and his attitude and demeanor change with the new-found confidence. When all is over, Wilson returns home a new man, and he sets a few things to rights with neighborhood bullies and a would-be Lothario with designs on Wilson's wife.
I probably don't have to continue, but I promised Sarah I would blog about it.
If I didn't know better — and hadn't watched the whole thing — I would have guessed, based on the slapstick, that this film had been made for children. It is definitely intended to be a screwball comedy, but with one scene which includes a glimpse of a woman's bare breasts, and another, actually creepy-funny scene in which an attractive, but definitely much older woman sets her sights — as well as her hands and lips — on Wilson, but turns out to be Pirandello's father who has just returned home from his sex-change operation in Sweden, the film clearly is not intended for kids.
The film fairly flies through some ridiculous shoot-em-up scenes, in which Russian spies who apparently have impossibly good detection and tracking skills, but absolutely no weapons skills couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their fully automatic weapons blazing, and Pirandello can't miss them with his sidearm while shooting from the hip with his eyes closed.
Wilson's migration from mild-mannered, cowardly insurance guy to dashing, fearless special agent is hardly seamless; all it takes is one tall tale from Pirandello that Wilson single-handedly took out an entire crew of rogue American agents (all of them dressed in clown garb, no less), thus saving Pirandello's life — when it was Pirandello himself who knocked them all out — to turn Wilson from lamb to lion.
Maybe it's just me; maybe I feel spy characters are supposed to appear to take things more seriously. Maybe Jim Belushi just doesn't come across in any construct of my imagination as a top-shelf secret agent, even in a screwball comedy. John Ritter doesn't convince as either the mealy-mouthed insurance man or the fearless convert.
Come to think of it, for a buddy-film duo, Belushi and Ritter never seem to click at all. I never got a sense of chemistry between them. They're a mismatched pair.
The only certain thing about this film is that it is trying to be a comedy. It misses as an action-adventure comedy. It misses as a spy-movie spoof. Just like its hapless Russian gunmen, it just plain misses.
But who am I to say anything about comedy? Not having seen this when it came out in 1987 — back when I was 24 and still in the grip of daily testosterone overdoses — I can't be sure if Real Men suffers in my possibly matured movie-going sensibility, a matured movie-making industry, or if it's just a really bad film.
But in 2013 I'm going to go with "bad film."
Real Men (1987) Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 2*. Very forgettable.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
A discussion on Facebook with a friend sparked a challenge and rekindled an idea I had years ago for a blog entry that I never posted.
But first, a little background: my friend Sarah was house-sitting for a friend of hers and mentioned one evening about her friend's awful taste in movies, evidenced by the selection of films from Netflix that were present in the home. Sarah mentioned specifically a film released in 1987 titled Real Men, starring James Belushi and the late John Ritter. She told me that the first time she tried to watch, it was so bad she turned it off after a few minutes. She thought later that maybe it deserved a second chance, so she tried again, but fell asleep in the first half-hour. I said that it couldn't be that bad.
Sarah challenged me to watch it, and she encouraged me to blog about it.
But first, a little more background: around 2000 or 2001 — not long after I had moved in with the now-ex Mrs. Farrago — she revealed to me that she had never seen the 1986 film Highlander, starring Christopher Lambert. I was dumbstruck. "You never saw it? Not even on TV?!" She hadn't.
It then became my mission to familiarize her, indoctrinate her, and win her over to a film I felt was one of the most amazing, ground-breaking, awe-inspiring films that had ever been made. I went to Blockbuster, found the director's cut(!) on VHS, rushed it home, made popcorn, propped up the pillows on the bed, and prepared to watch her face as she watched the incredible spectacle I told her she had been missing out on for the past 15 years, and see the wonder fill her eyes as the film's awesomeness washed over her.
I pressed "PLAY" on the remote. The film started.
And it sucked.
What the hell?! Nothing was different; the "director's cut" consisted of a bonus feature in which the director talked about — and showed — a couple of segments that had been cut from the script and never filmed for the release, but which he and a couple of the crew had filmed anyway — at his personal expense — in the event that he ever had the chance to re-cut the film.
No, the film was the same. The dialog seemed clunky and immature. Suddenly, Scotsman Sean Connery's cameo appearance as a Spaniard seemed absolutely absurd. Star Christopher Lambert's performance suddenly seemed slightly less riveting than watching a two-by-four propped against a wall.
Had I changed?! Well, obviously I had; 15 years had passed since I had last seen the film, but had I changed that much?!
So I was faced with questions: Had Highlander always been this bad? Was I just too testosterone-soaked a young man in my 20s when I first experienced this fantasy-action-adventure to be able to see past the broad strokes to notice that the finer details were actually missing?
Or was it that Highlander was a superb action film in its time, but filmmaking advances in the intervening 15 years had spoiled me for older, less technologically sophisticated films?
The answer lies in there somewhere, as Highlander was only the first of several iconic — or so I thought — 1980s films whose dazzle had seemed to pale in the years between my first viewing and introducing them to my wife in the new millennium.
I suppose there's a third possibility: sensing that my wife was unimpressed could have caused me uneasiness and insecurity. "If she thinks this movie blows, what, then, must she think of me?" and so every movie I revered then seemed horrendously flawed. Could that be it?
Real Lame
And so it was with this sense that I slipped Real Men into the DVD player. Having never seen the film, and having only the Netflix description — as well as Sarah's — to go by, I had low expectations.
The premise: James Belushi stars as suave, super cool Nick Pirandello, a top US spy, and John Ritter as Bob Wilson, a timid insurance man who just happens to look exactly like another US spy who was assassinated while practicing for a rendezvous with space aliens to make an exchange for "the good package," which would save Earth from toxic chemicals that had been dumped into the ocean. Since the aliens will deal with no one except the special agent — now deceased — whom Wilson resembles, Pirandello "recruits" the unwilling Wilson to complete the mission as planned. At every turn, Wilson tries to escape, thinking Pirandello is an insane kidnapper, but Pirandello is always two steps ahead of him, and brings him back to heel. Through Pirandello's encouragement — and a few white lies — timid Wilson becomes convinced that the constant exposure to danger has made him into a formidable warrior, and his attitude and demeanor change with the new-found confidence. When all is over, Wilson returns home a new man, and he sets a few things to rights with neighborhood bullies and a would-be Lothario with designs on Wilson's wife.
I probably don't have to continue, but I promised Sarah I would blog about it.
If I didn't know better — and hadn't watched the whole thing — I would have guessed, based on the slapstick, that this film had been made for children. It is definitely intended to be a screwball comedy, but with one scene which includes a glimpse of a woman's bare breasts, and another, actually creepy-funny scene in which an attractive, but definitely much older woman sets her sights — as well as her hands and lips — on Wilson, but turns out to be Pirandello's father who has just returned home from his sex-change operation in Sweden, the film clearly is not intended for kids.
The film fairly flies through some ridiculous shoot-em-up scenes, in which Russian spies who apparently have impossibly good detection and tracking skills, but absolutely no weapons skills couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with their fully automatic weapons blazing, and Pirandello can't miss them with his sidearm while shooting from the hip with his eyes closed.
Wilson's migration from mild-mannered, cowardly insurance guy to dashing, fearless special agent is hardly seamless; all it takes is one tall tale from Pirandello that Wilson single-handedly took out an entire crew of rogue American agents (all of them dressed in clown garb, no less), thus saving Pirandello's life — when it was Pirandello himself who knocked them all out — to turn Wilson from lamb to lion.
Maybe it's just me; maybe I feel spy characters are supposed to appear to take things more seriously. Maybe Jim Belushi just doesn't come across in any construct of my imagination as a top-shelf secret agent, even in a screwball comedy. John Ritter doesn't convince as either the mealy-mouthed insurance man or the fearless convert.
Come to think of it, for a buddy-film duo, Belushi and Ritter never seem to click at all. I never got a sense of chemistry between them. They're a mismatched pair.
The only certain thing about this film is that it is trying to be a comedy. It misses as an action-adventure comedy. It misses as a spy-movie spoof. Just like its hapless Russian gunmen, it just plain misses.
But who am I to say anything about comedy? Not having seen this when it came out in 1987 — back when I was 24 and still in the grip of daily testosterone overdoses — I can't be sure if Real Men suffers in my possibly matured movie-going sensibility, a matured movie-making industry, or if it's just a really bad film.
But in 2013 I'm going to go with "bad film."
Real Men (1987) Numb Butt Cheeks® rating of 2*. Very forgettable.
*The Numb Butt-Cheeks® scale of zero to ten: a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of zero indicates such a disregard for the film that one could get up to go to the bathroom at any point without worry of missing anything exciting or important; a Numb Butt-Cheeks rating of ten indicates there is no way one would get up and leave, save for a distinct tearing of bladder tissue.
°
Monday, January 14, 2013
Instant Mobile Writing Den
Ingredients:
1 iPad
1 Bluetooth Keyboard
1 Automobile Cockpit
Instructions:
Turn automobile steering wheel 180-degrees from "straight."
Tilt steering wheel to desired angle (if so equipped)
Nestle iPad against center of wheel, resting on the inner circumference of wheel.
Place Bluetooth Keyboard on lap or clipboard.
Commence writing.
°
1 iPad
1 Bluetooth Keyboard
1 Automobile Cockpit
Instructions:
Turn automobile steering wheel 180-degrees from "straight."
Tilt steering wheel to desired angle (if so equipped)
Nestle iPad against center of wheel, resting on the inner circumference of wheel.
Place Bluetooth Keyboard on lap or clipboard.
Commence writing.
°
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Vibes
We often refer to animals and their instinctual drives. How does a dog know to steer her newborn pups to her teats? How does a bear know when it's time to hibernate?
These are rhetorical questions. Please don't send in your answers...
But we less often refer to our own instincts as human beings. Our world has been so dismantled in regard to how things work and why; the basic necessities of our lives have been so institutionalized, so simplified, that we have no clue how we would ever survive if all the niceties disappeared tomorrow.
But — somehow — we probably would.
We have so modernized and simplified our world and our lives that we rarely rely on our instincts. But they still crop up at times, even when our power of reason in the civilized world would rather they didn't.
Most of us deal every day with a wide assortment of people. I drive a taxi, so I probably spend time with more than my fair share. What is it with certain people — or us — that at mere sight or sound of them, we react the way we do? Positive or negative, we sometimes have a strong feeling about someone. Intuition. A "vibe." Something triggers it, but what? There are the more obvious signs. If someone is just bat-shit crazy, we tend to get out of their way...and out of their sight. But others...
The night before this writing I picked up a passenger near the local commuter train station. Within seconds of getting in the car, she was on a rant about the police a couple towns down the tracks who wouldn't give her a ride to a particular spot because she's "not from around here," and was lost. I wanted to tell her that the police aren't in the habit of giving people rides unless it's to the police station, but something told me I was better off grunting in a way that sounded like I sympathized with her, if not in total agreement. Not quite bat-shit, but still on the crazy end of the spectrum. A few more minutes into the ride and I learned that her destination was a homeless shelter at a church, and suddenly I was worried that I might not get paid for the ride. A 50/50 vibe: I was half-right. She was a bit off her rocker, but she had enough money to pay for the ride.
This afternoon another woman called for a taxi from the hotel where I often sit and wait for dispatched fares. I pulled up to the door and out came a hardy looking woman in a camouflage military field jacket and carrying a stuffed backpack. She said, merely, "I saw you comin' from across the way," and I instantly disliked her. Why? A vibe. Something in the delivery, something in the timbre of her voice... something. And then she went off on a rant about the taxi driver who brought her to the hotel who had tried to run up the fare on her. Maybe she had a vibe about taxi drivers in general, and her suspicion spoke to me on some subconscious level?
I'm no expert on the subject ...or on any subject... but I think I wouldn't be far off the mark to surmise that the vibes we get from other people harken back to the days when our species used rocks and sticks to kill for their food, and roamed about the planet in search of a better place to live. When the people of one clan encountered the people of another, their instincts told them whether or not to trust the other. I think today modern humans still feel those instincts — sometimes in true fight or flight moments of danger — but more often in those instantaneous thoughts of "This guy's a loser," or "This woman is bat-shit crazy!" I suppose it's the same for those "love at first sight" moments, too. Just as you may know someone is an example of Darwinian bottom-rung advancement, some of us also know when we see the right person for us...we just sometimes never get the opportunity to express that...Jennifer Aniston, I'm referring to you!
These are rhetorical questions. Please don't send in your answers...
But we less often refer to our own instincts as human beings. Our world has been so dismantled in regard to how things work and why; the basic necessities of our lives have been so institutionalized, so simplified, that we have no clue how we would ever survive if all the niceties disappeared tomorrow.
But — somehow — we probably would.
We have so modernized and simplified our world and our lives that we rarely rely on our instincts. But they still crop up at times, even when our power of reason in the civilized world would rather they didn't.
Most of us deal every day with a wide assortment of people. I drive a taxi, so I probably spend time with more than my fair share. What is it with certain people — or us — that at mere sight or sound of them, we react the way we do? Positive or negative, we sometimes have a strong feeling about someone. Intuition. A "vibe." Something triggers it, but what? There are the more obvious signs. If someone is just bat-shit crazy, we tend to get out of their way...and out of their sight. But others...
The night before this writing I picked up a passenger near the local commuter train station. Within seconds of getting in the car, she was on a rant about the police a couple towns down the tracks who wouldn't give her a ride to a particular spot because she's "not from around here," and was lost. I wanted to tell her that the police aren't in the habit of giving people rides unless it's to the police station, but something told me I was better off grunting in a way that sounded like I sympathized with her, if not in total agreement. Not quite bat-shit, but still on the crazy end of the spectrum. A few more minutes into the ride and I learned that her destination was a homeless shelter at a church, and suddenly I was worried that I might not get paid for the ride. A 50/50 vibe: I was half-right. She was a bit off her rocker, but she had enough money to pay for the ride.
This afternoon another woman called for a taxi from the hotel where I often sit and wait for dispatched fares. I pulled up to the door and out came a hardy looking woman in a camouflage military field jacket and carrying a stuffed backpack. She said, merely, "I saw you comin' from across the way," and I instantly disliked her. Why? A vibe. Something in the delivery, something in the timbre of her voice... something. And then she went off on a rant about the taxi driver who brought her to the hotel who had tried to run up the fare on her. Maybe she had a vibe about taxi drivers in general, and her suspicion spoke to me on some subconscious level?
I'm no expert on the subject ...or on any subject... but I think I wouldn't be far off the mark to surmise that the vibes we get from other people harken back to the days when our species used rocks and sticks to kill for their food, and roamed about the planet in search of a better place to live. When the people of one clan encountered the people of another, their instincts told them whether or not to trust the other. I think today modern humans still feel those instincts — sometimes in true fight or flight moments of danger — but more often in those instantaneous thoughts of "This guy's a loser," or "This woman is bat-shit crazy!" I suppose it's the same for those "love at first sight" moments, too. Just as you may know someone is an example of Darwinian bottom-rung advancement, some of us also know when we see the right person for us...we just sometimes never get the opportunity to express that...Jennifer Aniston, I'm referring to you!
Saturday, January 12, 2013
"I'm Somebody, Now!"
Several months back, during the heat of the summer, I responded to a dispatch of a fare in Arlington Heights, the town in which I spend most of my time at work. It was a little old lady whom I had picked up before, and she usually goes only a few blocks, so I knew it was going to be a small fare.
My job is pretty boring; not in the "I want to kill myself I'm so bored" way — I mean, I do get to meet some interesting people — but there's not a great deal of excitement in my typical day.
However, on this particular day, as I was heading to pick up the boring fare, a peculiar sight crossed my view. It happened too quickly for me to take a photo, and my sense of duty to some boring old lady waiting for her boring taxi ride in the heat of the boring day wouldn't allow me to follow it so I could take a photo, as this was certainly something worth blogging or Facebooking about. And after I dropped off the fare I tried to find it again, tried to guess what route it might have taken, but I failed. I never saw the Google Maps StreetView car again.
But then a thought occurred to me. I may not have gotten a photo of the Google Maps StreetView car (it was clearly marked as such!), but he may have gotten a photo of me!
Then I meant to at least mention it on Facebook, but a day got past me, and then another. And another. And soon I had forgotten all about it.
But tonight, as I was chatting online with a friend who lives in Italy, I took to Google Maps to check out her town...and I remembered the incident from last summer! I feverishly checked StreetView in Arlington Heights...
(Edit 12/13/15: As Google Maps updates its Street View annually, the original link I had posted here no longer shows my taxi in the image — if it loads at all. In its place is this screen grab I made at the time it was current. ATG)
THAT'S ME!! I'm Google Famous! Sorta. They blurred out my license plate and cab numbers. However, if you click on the "+" at the upper left corner of the image above, and then click and hold on the image to move it around, you can see two things: you can just barely make out my cab number — 573 — on the green oval on the driver's side rear passenger door; and you can just barely see the shocked and excited look on my face as I saw the Google Maps StreetView car driving past! You can find this image on your own if you Google Maps Arlington Heights, Illinois, zoom to the corner of Sigwalt and Evergreen streets, drag the StreetView guy to the south point of the intersection and rotate the view to see my taxi.
I'll bask in this sudden fame for, oh... about a minute or so. I have other blog posts to get to....
°
My job is pretty boring; not in the "I want to kill myself I'm so bored" way — I mean, I do get to meet some interesting people — but there's not a great deal of excitement in my typical day.
However, on this particular day, as I was heading to pick up the boring fare, a peculiar sight crossed my view. It happened too quickly for me to take a photo, and my sense of duty to some boring old lady waiting for her boring taxi ride in the heat of the boring day wouldn't allow me to follow it so I could take a photo, as this was certainly something worth blogging or Facebooking about. And after I dropped off the fare I tried to find it again, tried to guess what route it might have taken, but I failed. I never saw the Google Maps StreetView car again.
But then a thought occurred to me. I may not have gotten a photo of the Google Maps StreetView car (it was clearly marked as such!), but he may have gotten a photo of me!
Then I meant to at least mention it on Facebook, but a day got past me, and then another. And another. And soon I had forgotten all about it.
But tonight, as I was chatting online with a friend who lives in Italy, I took to Google Maps to check out her town...and I remembered the incident from last summer! I feverishly checked StreetView in Arlington Heights...
THAT'S ME!! I'm Google Famous! Sorta. They blurred out my license plate and cab numbers. However, if you click on the "+" at the upper left corner of the image above, and then click and hold on the image to move it around, you can see two things: you can just barely make out my cab number — 573 — on the green oval on the driver's side rear passenger door; and you can just barely see the shocked and excited look on my face as I saw the Google Maps StreetView car driving past! You can find this image on your own if you Google Maps Arlington Heights, Illinois, zoom to the corner of Sigwalt and Evergreen streets, drag the StreetView guy to the south point of the intersection and rotate the view to see my taxi.
I'll bask in this sudden fame for, oh... about a minute or so. I have other blog posts to get to....
°
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
The Birth of Stuff
SCHAUMBURG, IL - It started with an awkward-seeming proposition 33 years ago in Chicago Heights, Illinois. A tentative friendship had begun in an English class at Bloom High School between sophomores Sam Lapin and Tony Gasbarro, until Lapin leaned across the aisle and asked Gasbarro, "You want to make a movie with me this weekend?"
Uncertain if the engaging, quirky-humored Lapin didn't have an ulterior motive, Gasbarro shrugged off the nagging suspicion Lapin might be a serial killer and accepted the offer, and waited to see what was in store.
That weekend the boys together finished what Lapin had started, a short, stop-action animated film, "Battle on Planet 9," shot, and later edited by Lapin, on the venerable Super8 film format. It was the first of many films involving the two.
"It was all Sam's equipment," recalls Gasbarro today. "The camera, the lights, the markers, the paper, the Legos!" The popular building toy — of which Lapin was then and is still today a devotee — made up many of the miniature sets and even some characters of "Planet 9" and later films the pair were part of.
"The Legos were mine," says Lapin, "but the camera was an old Bell & Howell from the sixties or early seventies handed down from my brothers. It was great because it had a shutter release capability for taking one frame at a time" which made stop-motion animation possible. Adds Lapin, "I had a movieola-type viewer for editing I think I got at a flea market. It worked great until Tony broke it."
Gasbarro changes the subject and adds that even Lapin's family cats were frequently employed as stars, extras and props. "Cookie, Bunny and Little Bit," recalls Lapin. "They were great cats...but temperamental film stars."
For their first collaboration, Gasbarro and Lapin felt their partnership needed a name, and after deliberating for several long seconds, they came up with Cheap Productions, Inc., and an equally hastily designed logo of a grimacing sun with one of its corona flopped over. Or was it a flower with a wilted petal? Gasbarro says he does not remember.
"Tony designed and drew it," says Lapin. "He was the artist." Lapin's comment draws a self-effacing guffaw from Gasbarro, who then shakes his head. "Well," Lapin adds, "he was absolutely useless with the Legos. I certainly wasn't going to let him build the sets or the space ships!"
Lapin and Gasbarro soon got their other friends, the bulk of Bloom High School's theatre department, involved in the filmmaking effort, which continued as a film consisting of random, mostly original, silent, sight-gag sketches, inspired largely by the British "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Benny Hill" television comedy programs in local syndication at the time.
The film was made up of "just plotless, improvised scenes," says Gasbarro. "It was just stuff, hence the title. 'Stuff.'"
Consisting mainly of gags created with in-camera edits and general teenage boy silliness, the film was a hit with their audience - which was mainly the group of filmmakers themselves. Encouraged by the film's success and the fun they had making it, the group endeavored to make another, and a genre was born: the Stuff Film.
While Lapin and Gasbarro continued to work on more plot-oriented film ideas, which were usually conceived by Lapin before collaboration shaped them into stories, the Stuff films seemed - in their minds - to take on a life of their own, and they saw a need to separate them from the Cheap Productions label. A few more moments of deep thought bore the conception of Stuff Enterprises, a subsidiary of Cheap Productions, Inc.
"Stuff 2" quickly followed the first Stuff film, and then both companies, recently separated and each run by... well, everyone ...then collaborated for their first mixed live-action/animation - not to mention title-melding - film, "Stuff 3: The Stuff From Outter [sic] Space," in which some kind of stuff from - you guessed it - outer space lands on earth and commences to eating everyone and everything in rapid, blob-like fashion, growing with each thing it consumes until it climbs a tall building and fends off several flying machines which appear to merely be flying at it for the sole purpose of drama and of being swatted out of the sky or eaten. The blob is finally defeated by a super laser which reduces the blob to the size of a gum ball, at which point it rolls off the edge of the building and falls into the hands of a young man, played by Lucio Martinez, who mistakes it for - what else - a gum ball and pops it into his mouth. Sequel, anyone?
"Stuff 3" was soon followed by "Stuff 4: Close Encounters of the Lowest Budget Kind," in which a space alien arrives to earth in a vehicle incredibly similar to the one that delivered the stuff from outter [sic] space and then turns all the young men and one lone woman - in what appears to be some sort of communal flop house - into fresh produce.
A laughing Gasbarro recalls, "Alice [Petrongelli, who portrayed the woman] neutralizes the alien with a food processor and then tearfully collects all of us who had been turned into vegetables. Even though her boyfriend [now husband, Rich Wolff] was cast as the stalk of celery, she lovingly kisses me, portrayed by an eggplant, before placing us all into the crisper in the refrigerator! And then she places only half of Kevin [Uliassi], who was turned into two grapefruit, into the drawer!" Gasbarro's laughter trails off, and then he sighs, his face withdrawing back to an expressionless gaze, and he says, "I guess you had to be there."
The fifth - and what turned out to be the final - Stuff film was titled, "Stuff 5: Slash Gorgon in the 23rd Century," an obvious take off of the earlier, major motion picture, "Flash Gordon in the 25th Century." "To give the impression," Gasbarro chuckles, "that ours was first."
But the sun soon set on Cheap Productions, Inc., and Stuff Enterprises as the older members of the company completed their senior year at Bloom and matriculated, and then Lapin, Gasbarro and Martinez followed the next year.
The Cheap Productions/Stuff Enterprises film library still exists in a box stored in Gasbarro's leased storage space in Schaumburg, and he and Lapin have continued to dream of once again making films together.
After Lapin finished his graduate studies, his path led him into education. Gasbarro followed the path into broadcasting and video production, in his own right continuing as a filmmaker, albeit for advertisers and corporate entities.
But a run of hard luck in the economic crash of the first decade of this century and the eventual lay-off from his job as a videographer led Gasbarro into an unlikely secondary career as a taxi driver.
"It certainly wasn't what I ever wanted to do with my life, but I had to pay bills," says Gasbarro. "I always liked to drive. I saw it as a thing to do until I got back on my feet."
Three years later Gasbarro is still behind the wheel of his taxi, which he now owns. Says Gasbarro, "It is incredibly liberating to be your own boss, and this allows me to be very flexible" as he still chases freelance video production work.
Though he doesn't own the taxi dispatch company, he does own the company that operates the taxi. And its name? "I thought a lot about the hopes and dreams I had to put on a shelf as my career led me more and more into TV and video production, and of how Sam and I have often mentioned collaborating again," Gasbarro muses. "So I thought, what better way to keep that dream alive than to pay homage to what we created as goofy, stupid teenagers?"
He named his company Stuff Enterprises, LLC, with Lapin's blessing.
"Even though it was originally the other way around," says Gasbarro, "I thought 'Enterprises' lent itself better to the prospect of launching other companies under its umbrella, so anything else would be subsidiary."
Is Cheap Productions one of those companies under that umbrella? Well, no. At least not yet. But Gasbarro has some ideas.
"Right now I operate the taxi as Stuff Enterprises," Gasbarro says, "but I hope to eventually operate it as another name under Stuff. And I still get the occasional video gig, and hope to get more. So I eventually hope to possibly name the video company Cheap Productions as a Stuff Enterprises enterprise," he chuckles at his own nerdy humor, and then he adds, "with Sam's permission, of course!"
But Gasbarro's nascent business sense surfaces at the idea. "That wouldn't be such a great name for a serious video production company, though, would it?"
°
Uncertain if the engaging, quirky-humored Lapin didn't have an ulterior motive, Gasbarro shrugged off the nagging suspicion Lapin might be a serial killer and accepted the offer, and waited to see what was in store.
That weekend the boys together finished what Lapin had started, a short, stop-action animated film, "Battle on Planet 9," shot, and later edited by Lapin, on the venerable Super8 film format. It was the first of many films involving the two.
"It was all Sam's equipment," recalls Gasbarro today. "The camera, the lights, the markers, the paper, the Legos!" The popular building toy — of which Lapin was then and is still today a devotee — made up many of the miniature sets and even some characters of "Planet 9" and later films the pair were part of.
"The Legos were mine," says Lapin, "but the camera was an old Bell & Howell from the sixties or early seventies handed down from my brothers. It was great because it had a shutter release capability for taking one frame at a time" which made stop-motion animation possible. Adds Lapin, "I had a movieola-type viewer for editing I think I got at a flea market. It worked great until Tony broke it."
Gasbarro changes the subject and adds that even Lapin's family cats were frequently employed as stars, extras and props. "Cookie, Bunny and Little Bit," recalls Lapin. "They were great cats...but temperamental film stars."
For their first collaboration, Gasbarro and Lapin felt their partnership needed a name, and after deliberating for several long seconds, they came up with Cheap Productions, Inc., and an equally hastily designed logo of a grimacing sun with one of its corona flopped over. Or was it a flower with a wilted petal? Gasbarro says he does not remember.
"Tony designed and drew it," says Lapin. "He was the artist." Lapin's comment draws a self-effacing guffaw from Gasbarro, who then shakes his head. "Well," Lapin adds, "he was absolutely useless with the Legos. I certainly wasn't going to let him build the sets or the space ships!"
Lapin and Gasbarro soon got their other friends, the bulk of Bloom High School's theatre department, involved in the filmmaking effort, which continued as a film consisting of random, mostly original, silent, sight-gag sketches, inspired largely by the British "Monty Python's Flying Circus" and "Benny Hill" television comedy programs in local syndication at the time.
The film was made up of "just plotless, improvised scenes," says Gasbarro. "It was just stuff, hence the title. 'Stuff.'"
Consisting mainly of gags created with in-camera edits and general teenage boy silliness, the film was a hit with their audience - which was mainly the group of filmmakers themselves. Encouraged by the film's success and the fun they had making it, the group endeavored to make another, and a genre was born: the Stuff Film.
While Lapin and Gasbarro continued to work on more plot-oriented film ideas, which were usually conceived by Lapin before collaboration shaped them into stories, the Stuff films seemed - in their minds - to take on a life of their own, and they saw a need to separate them from the Cheap Productions label. A few more moments of deep thought bore the conception of Stuff Enterprises, a subsidiary of Cheap Productions, Inc.
"Stuff 2" quickly followed the first Stuff film, and then both companies, recently separated and each run by... well, everyone ...then collaborated for their first mixed live-action/animation - not to mention title-melding - film, "Stuff 3: The Stuff From Outter [sic] Space," in which some kind of stuff from - you guessed it - outer space lands on earth and commences to eating everyone and everything in rapid, blob-like fashion, growing with each thing it consumes until it climbs a tall building and fends off several flying machines which appear to merely be flying at it for the sole purpose of drama and of being swatted out of the sky or eaten. The blob is finally defeated by a super laser which reduces the blob to the size of a gum ball, at which point it rolls off the edge of the building and falls into the hands of a young man, played by Lucio Martinez, who mistakes it for - what else - a gum ball and pops it into his mouth. Sequel, anyone?
"Stuff 3" was soon followed by "Stuff 4: Close Encounters of the Lowest Budget Kind," in which a space alien arrives to earth in a vehicle incredibly similar to the one that delivered the stuff from outter [sic] space and then turns all the young men and one lone woman - in what appears to be some sort of communal flop house - into fresh produce.
A laughing Gasbarro recalls, "Alice [Petrongelli, who portrayed the woman] neutralizes the alien with a food processor and then tearfully collects all of us who had been turned into vegetables. Even though her boyfriend [now husband, Rich Wolff] was cast as the stalk of celery, she lovingly kisses me, portrayed by an eggplant, before placing us all into the crisper in the refrigerator! And then she places only half of Kevin [Uliassi], who was turned into two grapefruit, into the drawer!" Gasbarro's laughter trails off, and then he sighs, his face withdrawing back to an expressionless gaze, and he says, "I guess you had to be there."
The fifth - and what turned out to be the final - Stuff film was titled, "Stuff 5: Slash Gorgon in the 23rd Century," an obvious take off of the earlier, major motion picture, "Flash Gordon in the 25th Century." "To give the impression," Gasbarro chuckles, "that ours was first."
But the sun soon set on Cheap Productions, Inc., and Stuff Enterprises as the older members of the company completed their senior year at Bloom and matriculated, and then Lapin, Gasbarro and Martinez followed the next year.
The Cheap Productions/Stuff Enterprises film library still exists in a box stored in Gasbarro's leased storage space in Schaumburg, and he and Lapin have continued to dream of once again making films together.
After Lapin finished his graduate studies, his path led him into education. Gasbarro followed the path into broadcasting and video production, in his own right continuing as a filmmaker, albeit for advertisers and corporate entities.
But a run of hard luck in the economic crash of the first decade of this century and the eventual lay-off from his job as a videographer led Gasbarro into an unlikely secondary career as a taxi driver.
"It certainly wasn't what I ever wanted to do with my life, but I had to pay bills," says Gasbarro. "I always liked to drive. I saw it as a thing to do until I got back on my feet."
Three years later Gasbarro is still behind the wheel of his taxi, which he now owns. Says Gasbarro, "It is incredibly liberating to be your own boss, and this allows me to be very flexible" as he still chases freelance video production work.
Though he doesn't own the taxi dispatch company, he does own the company that operates the taxi. And its name? "I thought a lot about the hopes and dreams I had to put on a shelf as my career led me more and more into TV and video production, and of how Sam and I have often mentioned collaborating again," Gasbarro muses. "So I thought, what better way to keep that dream alive than to pay homage to what we created as goofy, stupid teenagers?"
He named his company Stuff Enterprises, LLC, with Lapin's blessing.
"Even though it was originally the other way around," says Gasbarro, "I thought 'Enterprises' lent itself better to the prospect of launching other companies under its umbrella, so anything else would be subsidiary."
Is Cheap Productions one of those companies under that umbrella? Well, no. At least not yet. But Gasbarro has some ideas.
"Right now I operate the taxi as Stuff Enterprises," Gasbarro says, "but I hope to eventually operate it as another name under Stuff. And I still get the occasional video gig, and hope to get more. So I eventually hope to possibly name the video company Cheap Productions as a Stuff Enterprises enterprise," he chuckles at his own nerdy humor, and then he adds, "with Sam's permission, of course!"
But Gasbarro's nascent business sense surfaces at the idea. "That wouldn't be such a great name for a serious video production company, though, would it?"
°
Friday, January 04, 2013
A Boat Missed
I wish I knew how to write music. So much of it I hear on the radio these days speaks to me, and I wish I could express myself in the medium. To convey a thought with such an economy of words, constrained to rhythm and meter, and in a string of notes and note blends that appeal to the ear is a talent that eludes my grasp. I have played with a musical keyboard and dabbled with a few notes, and found an appealing blend, but only in a very few instances, and never in a complete song structure. Never have I been able to put words to the music I've made.
When I was a kid, my family couldn't afford lessons for even one kid, let alone seven. My oldest brother, Jim, back when he had only two or three siblings (all sisters at that point), had accordion lessons, which he ...yes, accordion lessons. He recalls hating the lessons. Not long after that my parents were no longer able to continue paying for the lessons, and Jim reached the point of independence where he decided he didn't want to continue with them, either. Today he states that he wishes he had continued with the lessons, not for any latent passion for the accordion, but for the understanding of music that he has lost since quitting.
It seems to be a theme with many people I have known: "tedious" instrument and music lessons in childhood, to the point of a demonstrated lack of interest, or an out and out refusal to continue, and a consequent regret later in life of letting go of the lessons.
But I have my parents to thank for their acquisition of accordion lessons for my big brother because long after Jim had ventured off into his life, his accordion remained in our home. Brother #2, Dan, occasionally hauled out the accordion and played a few notes, pecking out the melody of a song here and there. His exploration of music piqued my interest, but I was still too small to heave the thing up onto my chest, and the straps over my shoulders to play with it. Fortunately, though, my parents had also one Christmas bought a cheapo Magnus chord organ, a plastic encased chamber with a feeble plastic fan inside that blew air across plastic reeds, resulting in a plastic tone. The organ allowed for unlimited polyphonics from the black and white keys as well as ten-button bank of preset chords in major and minor, but the more keys you pressed at one time, the less volume you got from the organ, as the pathetic fan couldn't blow enough air across all the open reeds, resulting in a sound not much unlike that from an emphysemic harmonica player.
The organ had come with a complement of music books that, despite bars of treble clef with the appropriate notes present, led this music novice through the songs via numbered notes corresponding to numbered keys, along with chord tabs in the pertinent places. Brother #2 inspired me here also, as he would tinker on it as well as with the accordion, which challenged me to imitate and reproduce the sounds he made. And as I had easy access to it, with none of the heavy lifting that the accordion required, I could at a pretty early age indulge my curiosity freely.
My parents — for reasons of their sanity, I think — made a permanent place for the organ in our basement, where anyone's tinkering with it wouldn't disturb anyone else in the house trying to do homework, watch TV or sleep. Yes, the organ at its loudest was so feeble that its sound carried not much further than the next room.
Eventually my frame grew big and strong enough that I could handle the weight and girth of the accordion. But since I couldn't read music, the accordion required me to use my imagination. I was never quite able to figure out the maze of the left-hand side chord pad, but the melodies I recalled from the Magnus Chord Organ books kept me occupied trying to find those damn chords, and, losing interest there, I experimented with chords and melodies with my right hand.
Thus began my love for keyboards. From that time forward no piano or electronic keyboard left unattended escaped my attention. If I could get away with tinkering on it, I would. That still lasts to this day as when I run across a keyboard in a department store electronics department, or I find myself in the home of someone who owns a piano, I quite seriously itch to play with it.
As an adult I find myself wishing my parents had "subjected" me to music lessons. I wonder how differently the few brief musical expressions I have created in my tinkering would have come out, how much more I may have been able to develop them had I some real depth to my musical knowledge.
When I was a kid, my family couldn't afford lessons for even one kid, let alone seven. My oldest brother, Jim, back when he had only two or three siblings (all sisters at that point), had accordion lessons, which he ...yes, accordion lessons. He recalls hating the lessons. Not long after that my parents were no longer able to continue paying for the lessons, and Jim reached the point of independence where he decided he didn't want to continue with them, either. Today he states that he wishes he had continued with the lessons, not for any latent passion for the accordion, but for the understanding of music that he has lost since quitting.
It seems to be a theme with many people I have known: "tedious" instrument and music lessons in childhood, to the point of a demonstrated lack of interest, or an out and out refusal to continue, and a consequent regret later in life of letting go of the lessons.
But I have my parents to thank for their acquisition of accordion lessons for my big brother because long after Jim had ventured off into his life, his accordion remained in our home. Brother #2, Dan, occasionally hauled out the accordion and played a few notes, pecking out the melody of a song here and there. His exploration of music piqued my interest, but I was still too small to heave the thing up onto my chest, and the straps over my shoulders to play with it. Fortunately, though, my parents had also one Christmas bought a cheapo Magnus chord organ, a plastic encased chamber with a feeble plastic fan inside that blew air across plastic reeds, resulting in a plastic tone. The organ allowed for unlimited polyphonics from the black and white keys as well as ten-button bank of preset chords in major and minor, but the more keys you pressed at one time, the less volume you got from the organ, as the pathetic fan couldn't blow enough air across all the open reeds, resulting in a sound not much unlike that from an emphysemic harmonica player.
The organ had come with a complement of music books that, despite bars of treble clef with the appropriate notes present, led this music novice through the songs via numbered notes corresponding to numbered keys, along with chord tabs in the pertinent places. Brother #2 inspired me here also, as he would tinker on it as well as with the accordion, which challenged me to imitate and reproduce the sounds he made. And as I had easy access to it, with none of the heavy lifting that the accordion required, I could at a pretty early age indulge my curiosity freely.
My parents — for reasons of their sanity, I think — made a permanent place for the organ in our basement, where anyone's tinkering with it wouldn't disturb anyone else in the house trying to do homework, watch TV or sleep. Yes, the organ at its loudest was so feeble that its sound carried not much further than the next room.
Eventually my frame grew big and strong enough that I could handle the weight and girth of the accordion. But since I couldn't read music, the accordion required me to use my imagination. I was never quite able to figure out the maze of the left-hand side chord pad, but the melodies I recalled from the Magnus Chord Organ books kept me occupied trying to find those damn chords, and, losing interest there, I experimented with chords and melodies with my right hand.
Thus began my love for keyboards. From that time forward no piano or electronic keyboard left unattended escaped my attention. If I could get away with tinkering on it, I would. That still lasts to this day as when I run across a keyboard in a department store electronics department, or I find myself in the home of someone who owns a piano, I quite seriously itch to play with it.
As an adult I find myself wishing my parents had "subjected" me to music lessons. I wonder how differently the few brief musical expressions I have created in my tinkering would have come out, how much more I may have been able to develop them had I some real depth to my musical knowledge.
The Comeback Tour
I rarely make New Year's resolutions. However, in 2012 I began to feel a slave to Facebook. It's certainly a fun pastime, but when I found myself passing all of my time just trying to catch up with everything my friends had been up to in the prior 24 hours, 16 hours, 12 hours, four hours, 15 minutes — however frequently I could get back to check — when I spent irretrievable hours, often past midnight, composing rebuttals to the posts of friends whose political opinions run counter to mine, I knew I had to change something.
I look back at this blog and see the span of time since I last posted something here, at the increasing intervals between posts up to that point.
Facebook did that.
Granted, in my blogging I had pretty much indulged just about every last random thought I had in my head — well... there are some I would do well to keep wrapped in the moist folds of my brain — but I have also fallen out of the practice of harnessing the energy of contemplation, of snatching a thought from the murky depths of my rambling mind and pinning it down for further rumination, of expressing myself in written form. I claim to be a writer, for crap's sake, and I had relegated myself to conjuring puns — clever puns, if I may say so myself — that nevertheless garnered groans and tepid applause from my stable of loyal — if not entirely supportive — friends.
So, to the best of my ability, I resolve to set Facebook on a higher shelf to make myself less likely to take it down to play with, yet keep it within reach, and to return Farrago to the easy-reach spot it occupied once long ago.
Wish me luck.
I look back at this blog and see the span of time since I last posted something here, at the increasing intervals between posts up to that point.
Facebook did that.
Granted, in my blogging I had pretty much indulged just about every last random thought I had in my head — well... there are some I would do well to keep wrapped in the moist folds of my brain — but I have also fallen out of the practice of harnessing the energy of contemplation, of snatching a thought from the murky depths of my rambling mind and pinning it down for further rumination, of expressing myself in written form. I claim to be a writer, for crap's sake, and I had relegated myself to conjuring puns — clever puns, if I may say so myself — that nevertheless garnered groans and tepid applause from my stable of loyal — if not entirely supportive — friends.
So, to the best of my ability, I resolve to set Facebook on a higher shelf to make myself less likely to take it down to play with, yet keep it within reach, and to return Farrago to the easy-reach spot it occupied once long ago.
Wish me luck.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)