9 posts from April 2008

So I've been more than a little obsessed with the news last week about how the thing MOST responsible for the Titanic's sinking so fast and so furiously was--get this--faulty rivets.  Rivets.  Substandard rivets, of which about three million were needed for the ship, coupled with oversights in trying to get the ship done in time (read: hasty, messy work).  Rivets.  Now don't tell me this isn't, like, a metaphor for life and history and the pursuit of happiness.  Rivets.  The most heralded/modern/impressive ship of the century literally sunk because of rivets.  Mind if I say it again?  Rivets.  http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/science/15titanic.html?_r=1&oref=slogin .  Read it yourself.

Life is in the details?  I've got the best, most expensive ingredients from freakin' Whole Foods and my casserole comes down to, "not enough salt."  Rivets.

Great-fitting running shoes, the perfect blend in a home-made smoothie, cake and ice-cream on a school night, a friend bearing an iced latte or a hand-made chocolate, a newly discovered micro brew at 5pm on a 102 degree day, water at just the right temperature, making someone laugh.  Moments.  Rivets. 

I'm stewing because I've done a shitload of work for something, above and beyond, up the yingyang, more than the other parent/worker/mother/friend, then all it takes is a heartfelt 'thanks for that' and I'm done...stewing...on to the next insurmountable MUNDANE thing.  Rivets.

My kid is angry/complaining/hurt and I've got a mouthful of multisyllabic words of advice just waiting to spew which I know will only result in both of us speaking in tongues, so instead I choke on my wondrous wisdom and say "Boy, that must've really bugged you." and the steam is let out of yet another hot-air balloon.  Rivets.

Have a good weekend.  --K

I realized as I was about to pull into the grocery store that I had Turned into that guy.  You know that guy you used to stare at when you were with your mom standing in line.  You know the guy.  That guy.  The guy in a floppy hat, ripped shorts, wearing his slippers.  You'd stare at him and wonder how it happened.  Didn't he have a Mom and a Dad somewhere that cared about him?  Didn't he have a wife or kids who could take care of him somehow?  To be honest it snuck up on me.  Like all things, one day life just changes.  Changes forever.  No going back, and I guess it happened for me last night.  It was very innocent really.  My son wanted popcorn.   It was late.  It was his Birthday and so I had to run and get it for him.  But it wasn't till I got to the store and was standing in line holding my Orville Redenbacher that I realized what I was wearing.  A little Asian girl stood staring at me and then quickly looked away.  And that's when I knew-I was-that guy.  I looked down at my slippers still on.  In my rush I forgot shoes.  I had ripped shorts with paint on them, a stupid floppy hat for the beach, and sunglasses.  I was unshaven and I probably smelled.  Well I might have I don't know.  Can you smell and not know it?  I think it's possible.  I left the store and a women asked me to sign her petition for world peace on the way out.  I took the clip board from her and signed it.  I never stop for those petitions, but for some reason tonight I knew It would make a difference.  My signature would be the tipping point.  That's all it would take.  One more, and the whole globe would roll over one last time, sigh, and give up the fight.  All the wars would stop.  And guys like me could finally get on with their lives.  Get home and get the corn in the popper.  Tomorrow would be different because of me.  I'm not one to toot my own horn, but if tomorrow you notice the world seems like it's a little kinder place to be....well what can I say.  J.

Yesterday I had a whole different idea of what I was going to write about at today's end.  Because today is my son's tenth birthday and instead of waking up in the delirious excitement that he went to sleep in, he woke in the early morning hours puking.  It's evening and he's finally stopped puking and is finally asleep.  But I was reminded in such a more visceral way than I'd expected to be of that day ten years ago.  Because when you're sick, you're a baby.  And today for his birthday he was sick and I remembered his red scrunched, screaming face then and the magic of 'then there was one more' in an instant, and suddenly everything else came rushing on in like intraveneous tubes letting loose in my elbows. 

This morning when it was apparent that D wasn't going to school, his sister got an immediate sympathetic stomach ache.  I mean, the minute she found out he was sick, she went limp and started complaining of a stomach ache.   It was as if she didn't quite have the words or ability to comfort him so the least she could do was join his plight.  I humored her for about an hour, then told her she had to go to school.  Jim told me that her stomache ache miraculously disappeared in the car. 

Today when D got bored of me, he only wanted to know when his sister would be home.  When?  And when she got home and he was asleep, she only wanted to know when he would be awake so that she could hug him.  It took longer than usual for the two of them to abruptly decide that each was mistaken/crazy/a baby/stupid and even when it happened, it was much more subdued than usual.  It was like we were all out on this little dingy together and everyone was trying real hard not to tip it over.  And the night felt strange because of it.  And still does.  Happy birthday.  --K

A) Don't drink Patron all night long the night before and suddenly decide it was a stupid idea to quite smoking, where upon you make up for lost time by inhaling three packs of Camel's.

B) Don't forget your co-stars last names. 

C) After forgetting all your co-stars last names don't look off camera and pretend someone is going to give you the names.  It's not a dress rehearsal for a play.  There is no one offstage ready to read you your lines.

D) Don't wear trendy boots  with white socks that look absolutely retarded when you cross your legs, so you're forced to sit with your knees frozen together like you're flying in coach, stuck in the middle seat.

E) Ask to be told ahead of time if you are expected to do any press interviews, instead of finding out fifteen minutes before hand at  Hooters--where you've just asked the waitress how spicy spicy is when they say spicy wings, and do they have to buy those cute little shorts or do they get them for free.
 
F) And finally, please do not laugh like a mad scientist for no reason what-so-ever.  You always come off looking like a mad scientist and nobody really wants that ,do they?
 
To see the interview and learn what not to do click  J. here

Jim and I finally relented and rented "I Am Legend" to watch with D (after the girl went to bed).  What can I say?  It was what I thought it would be, well done, well acted, so freakin' heavy-handed as to be distracting, and depressing as hell.  So, yeah, I couldn't really care less (except of course when Legend had to kill his dog).  My son liked it, but he was clearly fixated less on narrative and more on things like how few actors were employed, how strong and animal-like zombies could be, and how realistic the computer-generated streets of abandoned Manhattan seemed.  Where was Charlton Heston when I needed him?  Man, I longed for Charlie in "The Omega Man" (because, let's face it, "...Legend" is the remake, right?).  I wondered what music Charlie Heston would have substituted for the Bob Marley tune that Legend plays.  As a kid, about D's age, I was riveted and scared shitless by "Omega Man."  Without voice-over or flashbacks, you knew exactly what "Omega Man" was all about.  And I knew, heathen child that I was, that Charlie was Jesus Christ in the end, arms outstretched in the fountain, having sacrificed himself for the good of mankind.  I remember thinking, 'Wow, he looks like those pictures of Jesus I've seen in other movies. Wow, I wonder if anyone else sees that!'  What a coincidence...what a discovery for a kid!

     I went to my little indie video store.  They always highlight a couple shelves of the movies of recently deceased stars, actors, film makers and such.  I searched.  "Where's Charlton?"  I demanded.

They laughed.

"Seriously," I said to the serious filmheads behind the counter.  ""Omega Man," "Planet of the Apes," "Soylent Green," tell me you didn't see those?  Tell me those movies didn't make the biggest fucking impression of your young lives?"  I could tell they were reaching back into the recesses of their memories, then,

"Yeah.  Wow."  Silence.  "We'll see what we can do.  Next time you're here..."

Politics aside, Heston was a class act.  I watched him in black and white and color.  He really was to this nine year- old, Moses, Jesus, cowboy, soldier, Mount Rushmore, object of one of my intense, early, man-crushes, and the last person on Earth.

Eco-lecturers would do well to show "Soylent Green" to elementary school kids.  Those images of the last teaspoon of the last strawberry...Edward G. Robinson looking at movies of vanished fields of green...Charlton Heston discovering that Soylent green is---(I won't spoil it for those of you who haven't seen the movie).

C.H....R.I.P.  --K 

By: Ophelia Payne

Gotta love the local dog park.  We're all characters with dogs, granted.  You talk to people you would never even meet during the course of your usual daily routine.  Your dog likes my dog, so hey, how are ya?  How old is she?  Boy, that's some mix...he got beagle in him?  You come here often?  Here's the poop scooper...

My kids and I are there with Sakari and this very big guy that looks like he could be cast as The Indian in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" is there with his three equally big and lumbering dogs.  But, hell, my dog likes his dogs and we exchange pleasantries.  Then he proceeds to ignore all the unspoken etiquette of dog parks, starting with, "Never Assume that A Fellow Dog Owner is Stupid" and "Never Assume a Greater Degree of Personal Intimacy Than You Would Over the Fish Sticks at Von's".  

"You have insurance?"  He says.  "You have to get insurance for him [Sakari].  He's young, get it tomorrow.  Call Progressive or 1-800 whatever.  Gotta have it.  You get it tomorrow.  You do it.  Your dog runs out into traffic, gets hit, and you're slammed with the bills.  He gets into a fight with an unisured dog, the owner doesn't give a shit, you're bleedin' money.  That guy there (he points to one of his dogs), he was too old to insure when I got him.  Got into a fight, starts bleeding from his ass, and boom, I'm in for over three hundred bucks."

My kids are like stone, just staring at him.  "Thank you,"  I say.

"And you better train him."

"I am."

"I mean really train him.  You know the "Dog Whisperer?"  Well, you get all his tapes and watch them.  Really important.  You gotta show him who's the alpha otherwise he'll take advantage of you.  And you NEVER call him by his name when you're angry at him.  It's a bad association.  You yell HEY or NO!  You got a choker?  You gotta walk him with a choker.  Only way to train him."

"I know."

"Here, I'll show you."

"You don't have to show me."

The guy puts a choker on one of his dogs and walks him around.  "I do that," I say.  Then he stops and puts the choker on Sakari and walks him.  Sakari is on his best behavior as the kids and I look on.  I shake my head and say loudly, "I do that.  That's why he's so good."

D says, "Mom, he's not listening to you."

Dog guy ignores me and says, "Now I'm gonna have you do it."

"I do it!"  I say too loudly. "I have to go.  We're leaving now." 

"Good to meet you," he says.  "Hope to see you again."

The kids and I walk to the car.  What's the lesson, what's the lesson, I'm thinking as the kids walk with me, watching me.  "Mom, that guy thought you didn't know anything about dogs."

Yeah, I want to yell, some fucking guy thinking that a women needs a fucking teacher....  Instead I say, "Yeah, well, I guess he just needed someone to listen to him, you know?  Maybe he just needed someone to listen."

"But he didn't listen."

"Maybe that's because no one listens to him."

"Didn't it bother you, Mom?  You can tell me."

Pissed the shit out of me.  "Yeah, honey, it really did.  Next time I'll just yell HEY or NO!"  

The kids giggle.  I don't.  HEY!  NO!  --K 

Read a piece about the death of idle (spacing out) time.  How we don't have idle time because we fill every moment with cell calls or texting, how we don't stand on bank lines or sit over coffee just staring into space anymore because we're always electronically connected to something, always distracted.  Kids/Teens especially don't ever have to be idle...or, more to the point, bored.  And what a problem that is because boredom is the sort of 'waiting room' to creative and inspired thoughts.  I'm totally paraphrasing, but that's what was implied.  And I couldn't help but remember how freakin' bored I could get waiting for my parents (they worked full time and on weekends in their own business).  My brother and I waiting for them at their tiny store so that they could drop us off somewhere or do something with us or bring us to buy those new Converse sneakers that they'd promised us the month before.  And boy, did we spend a shitload of time staring out windows, alone with our own thoughts and plans of escape.  But maybe that's why I can be deliriously happy in a car for hours at a time with my attention lost only on the road and the clouds (not that that happens too often with kids), why I sit by windows in coffee shops and stare out (or eavesdrop on nearby conversations), why I often don't hear my screaming cell phone and am surprised to read 'you have five unheard messages...want to check your mailbox now?'  No.  It also may be why I can't do two things at once.  I can't shop and talk.  Not only because I can't freakin' read labels and talk on the cell at once, but because people who do that look and sound as though they're in their own private bubbles.  It makes me want to poke a finger in their faces and stand back for the big 'pop'.  Most Saturdays I get to lay in bed for an extra half an hour and all I do is stare at the ceiling.  It's the big joke around here.  "What's mom doing?" 
     "Oh, you know, she's just spacing.  Don't bug her yet."
    This embrace of the idle extends to my kids as well.  When they whine, "I'm bored"  I say "Good."  Which usually sets off a chain reaction of more whines, then, eventually, some good old fashioned staring off into space for at least a few minutes.
    Perhaps the rumors of the death of staring idly are greatly exaggerated for some of us. 

A little over a year ago I piled into my car and drove to Dallas to make a little indie film called Fissure with first time director Russ Pond.  I remember thinking what have I got myself into as I rolled past tiny Texas towns straight out of "The Last Picture Show".  I would be away from my family for a month and I had but a scant week to prepare for the role of a detective who thinks he may be losing his mind.  The losing his mind part I could relate to, and I had played detectives many times before, but I had never been in every scene of a picture.  I like saying picture now instead of film after hearing Mickey Rooney say it about a thousand times when he got his award for living longer than any other actor at AFI.  He talked and talked and rambled on saying things like  "Lets put on a show!" or " We were so poor when I was little I ate my shoe"...or something like that.  His wife finally had to come up on stage and drag him off after about a half hour.  All kidding aside it was pretty groovy hearing him talk and seeing the montage of clips of all the things he's done since being in the womb.
   So flash forward to a year later and there I am fielding questions at AFI Dallas after the screening of the world premiere of Fissure.  I had a blast making the film and AFI was just so much more icing on the cake.  J.

Afi 2