Tonight another blockbuster opened at midnight it’s happening with such frequency these summers that it’s a cliché by now. This used to be special or different. The kind of time for films to be strange and different with crowds that reflected that but I guess times change.
I used to watch Elvira and went to Rocky on occasion but was never that big in it. Now in Seattle I see the listings at the Egyptian and find myself down there on occasion and that feels right. When I lined up for the ‘Two Towers’ or ‘Attack of the Clones’ it wasn’t the same, there was no edge or subversion in that experience. We were there for the movie instead of movie being secondary to the experience that has grown around it.
In college dragging a friend to ‘Rocky’ on the green behind Corbett, midnight sometime in October my Freshman Sophmore year, my friend was the Don Quixote to my Sancho Panza but he knew next to nothing of ‘Rocky’ beside the lingerie clad girls that night around campus. Back at my room I explained some of it to him and told him about the fun it could be.
Nothing better to do and sitting around Regents without a goal for the Friday he agreed. My roommate stayed. Pouring Jim Beam into coke bottles and in trench coats we headed off to Corbett.
We hung to the back since Don was a bit nervous of the crowd. Outside of his element he didn’t know how to deal. This wasn’t the dark streets with us just wandering but a crowd dressed in a sexy but not really seen way at our college. Not wanting to miss out I dragged him closer. Around the outskirts we’d pass people. Seeing a group with a guy from my dorm in a prom dress I pulled D. Quixote closer. Flamboyantly gay princess welcomed us into the circle.
It was random conversations with them but they knew ‘Rocky’ as I offered some of my coke and we talked about times we’d been, they offered a joint. Them in lingerie and drag looking more the part and Q and me in coats against the slight New Mexico chill. More Columbine than Fredicks but it was still a ‘Rocky’ so it worked. One, a vocal laughing blonde, suggested the Don should have gone as a tranny and we laughed at him in make up and a teddy. He was embarrassed, wandered off for more coke. They all said I should have been Eddy being a bit over weight with large hair but one said ‘Riff’ looked at my eyes and the way I kind of followed but was in charge. She was burnette and smiled infrequently in her leather maid and fishenet get up. Taking a long drag she passed it to me smiling.
Taking my turn I said, ‘Then I’d get a dance with you’ and passed it on.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Winter
I think it was Jon that said it standing in front of the Lickety Splitz in Bellflower. Pair of girls walked into a liquor store, near our age but classier in the starting winter chill of Southern California. Warm day turned into cool night so the long coats over mini skirts more fashion than function.
‘I like girls that swish’ he said as they piled into the car and drove into the night. Both of us left to wait and wonder. Nothing for us but to stand around with no plan or goal for the evening, give up and head our separate ways to repeat the night a few more times before I left. Stellar end to a stellar week.
Hurrying to my bus in Seattle I’m reminded of that saying. Almost midnight on a Friday near Downtown, a long day at two jobs, covered in glitter, grim and grief. Waiting to get home and put the last 14 hours of various bosses, double standards and box pushing behind me. Drink a beer, watch some cable and try to make a weekend out of it. Ignore the cabs dropping off well dressed sophistos, hipsters and the past 30 set trying to hold onto the illusion of youth. Dressed to the nines in either too much or too little, stumbling down uneven streets to some poorly lit bar that traded in more ambiance than alcohol. Dark but never dank which is what I wanted at that moment a place to lose the past day.
Past a young man too gone with exhaustion to care wanting to be home, peel off his workman blacks and get to bed.
I envied them. But had that vague feeling I couldn’t go into their world. Something kept me out of it.
Maybe it was the faded blacks, the tool bag or the glitter that looked like I lost a fight with an elf. Either way they passed by with only dirty looks as I waited for my bus.
‘Does this bus go to Ballard?’ it was soft and sweet breaking me out of the funk that was brewing. I looked over. She was even less prepared for the winter than me. Wearing shorts and chucks, shivering under a long crocheted (or knitted) sweater, ‘Yeah should be here soon I think… not sure really’ she asks if I had a long day and I laugh admitting it didn’t seem that way at first. She smiles looking somehow out of place from the Friday crowd just a little detail betraying the whole. I ask what brought her to Seattle and she tells me about her friends and family. Mentioned a brief description of places far away as I waver between awake and asleep nearly forgetting her name as the 15 pulls up.
She climbs up, hesitates, pays and sits down. The bus is half a block away before I realize it was yet another chance I missed.
‘I like girls that swish’ he said as they piled into the car and drove into the night. Both of us left to wait and wonder. Nothing for us but to stand around with no plan or goal for the evening, give up and head our separate ways to repeat the night a few more times before I left. Stellar end to a stellar week.
Hurrying to my bus in Seattle I’m reminded of that saying. Almost midnight on a Friday near Downtown, a long day at two jobs, covered in glitter, grim and grief. Waiting to get home and put the last 14 hours of various bosses, double standards and box pushing behind me. Drink a beer, watch some cable and try to make a weekend out of it. Ignore the cabs dropping off well dressed sophistos, hipsters and the past 30 set trying to hold onto the illusion of youth. Dressed to the nines in either too much or too little, stumbling down uneven streets to some poorly lit bar that traded in more ambiance than alcohol. Dark but never dank which is what I wanted at that moment a place to lose the past day.
Past a young man too gone with exhaustion to care wanting to be home, peel off his workman blacks and get to bed.
I envied them. But had that vague feeling I couldn’t go into their world. Something kept me out of it.
Maybe it was the faded blacks, the tool bag or the glitter that looked like I lost a fight with an elf. Either way they passed by with only dirty looks as I waited for my bus.
‘Does this bus go to Ballard?’ it was soft and sweet breaking me out of the funk that was brewing. I looked over. She was even less prepared for the winter than me. Wearing shorts and chucks, shivering under a long crocheted (or knitted) sweater, ‘Yeah should be here soon I think… not sure really’ she asks if I had a long day and I laugh admitting it didn’t seem that way at first. She smiles looking somehow out of place from the Friday crowd just a little detail betraying the whole. I ask what brought her to Seattle and she tells me about her friends and family. Mentioned a brief description of places far away as I waver between awake and asleep nearly forgetting her name as the 15 pulls up.
She climbs up, hesitates, pays and sits down. The bus is half a block away before I realize it was yet another chance I missed.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
The Doppelganger on the 91
It was July, boiling and no relief came from the cool breeze of the Pacific. Half awake sprawled on the double sideways seat near the rear doors of the number 91. My fedora mostly covering my eyes, my back pack as a pillow and a Hawaiian shirt toping off the outfit in a kind of mocking cool, I didn’t believe I looked good just different. After all that’s what mattered more. Not being some cookie cutter clone of a carbon image but trying for something individual.
In other words I had the look and feel of a classic dweed trying to be cool but nonchalant about it.
Didn’t really matter because at summer school. We couldn’t really be cool because there was no one to impress, just a handful of facts to be memorized and part of our freedom taken away.
That ride was my meditation. Through the kids going to the beach, or the adults going to and from work and all the rejects of other schools riding home I’d lay there listening to the road. Putting the few facts I stumbled on that day into order. Forgetting the host of people having a better time than me. The others that weren’t shackled to the bus but rather librated to go or come as they please.
In whatever form that came I’d wait out the ride and eventually get home. Disappear or hang out. It didn’t matter this was my last summer before adulthood and I tried to take some kind of advantage of it. If nothing else there was that MUD I had just found.
Then I came in.
I stopped and looked down at myself.
Electricity was in the air as I looked into my own eyes thick glasses in front of the same black brown eyes, mouths agape each of us looking for the words.
Here I way laying there I, or he, was staring down at me. We were the same but different. A different set of choices put him in a t-shirt and jeans and me in my poser cool garb. Both uncaring but for different reasons neither really confident or I don’t think he was as confident as I tried to be. I wanted to know what made him him and me me. What was the major difference but I got scared and couldn’t ask.
The bus jerked forward and he walked the couple steps to sit in the back.
I felt his eyes for the next few stops until I couldn’t take it and had to get off. I knew I fucked up but I couldn’t phrase the words right.
Couldn’t think the right way to say I knew it was me but also no me. Knew we were alike but different and that’s what haunted me. Was it just superficial or was there something more there?
Wandering over to Clark I tried to figure how the conversation would have gone. Did he have any better idea what was going on than I did or was he too trying to find that balance that I hoped existed. Did he have high hopes for the future or was it just me.
Did he have a girlfriend?
A part of me figured he must have known the answer because I didn’t.
Today over a decade after that event I still feel his wake. Coming from people who swear they know me but I figure they know him. Claiming I worked on shows that I wasn’t around for or couldn’t have done in places I’ve never heard of. Maybe if I try hard enough and go enough places I will run into him again. This time I’d like to be the cool one and him the dweeb.
In other words I had the look and feel of a classic dweed trying to be cool but nonchalant about it.
Didn’t really matter because at summer school. We couldn’t really be cool because there was no one to impress, just a handful of facts to be memorized and part of our freedom taken away.
That ride was my meditation. Through the kids going to the beach, or the adults going to and from work and all the rejects of other schools riding home I’d lay there listening to the road. Putting the few facts I stumbled on that day into order. Forgetting the host of people having a better time than me. The others that weren’t shackled to the bus but rather librated to go or come as they please.
In whatever form that came I’d wait out the ride and eventually get home. Disappear or hang out. It didn’t matter this was my last summer before adulthood and I tried to take some kind of advantage of it. If nothing else there was that MUD I had just found.
Then I came in.
I stopped and looked down at myself.
Electricity was in the air as I looked into my own eyes thick glasses in front of the same black brown eyes, mouths agape each of us looking for the words.
Here I way laying there I, or he, was staring down at me. We were the same but different. A different set of choices put him in a t-shirt and jeans and me in my poser cool garb. Both uncaring but for different reasons neither really confident or I don’t think he was as confident as I tried to be. I wanted to know what made him him and me me. What was the major difference but I got scared and couldn’t ask.
The bus jerked forward and he walked the couple steps to sit in the back.
I felt his eyes for the next few stops until I couldn’t take it and had to get off. I knew I fucked up but I couldn’t phrase the words right.
Couldn’t think the right way to say I knew it was me but also no me. Knew we were alike but different and that’s what haunted me. Was it just superficial or was there something more there?
Wandering over to Clark I tried to figure how the conversation would have gone. Did he have any better idea what was going on than I did or was he too trying to find that balance that I hoped existed. Did he have high hopes for the future or was it just me.
Did he have a girlfriend?
A part of me figured he must have known the answer because I didn’t.
Today over a decade after that event I still feel his wake. Coming from people who swear they know me but I figure they know him. Claiming I worked on shows that I wasn’t around for or couldn’t have done in places I’ve never heard of. Maybe if I try hard enough and go enough places I will run into him again. This time I’d like to be the cool one and him the dweeb.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
25 things or how I learned to stop worrying and make a contribution to a (facebook) meme.
If everyone jumped off a bridge I wouldn’t be one of the first to jump. Rather hang around for a bit, see how it’s going and weigh my chances for survival.
Wonder how good they are?
Here’s my contribution to this 25 Facebook meme.
1. I am near blind without glasses or contacts. Perhaps not meeting the legal definition of the condition but enough to make me feel like Velma when I wake and knock my glasses off the night stand. My relationship with nearsightedness began in 4th grade, when I also had braces.
2. I’m a middle child, pisces and a bit introverted. It’s good to make excuses for lapses in my personality and social awkwardness even if I don’t really believe it.
3. Yes I was the archetypal nerd for quite some time. In fact there is a picture of me in math club wearing a florescent green shirt, my thick glasses and wild hair. Where that kid went I have no idea but I do catch glimpses of him once in a while.
4. Probably the worst show I was ever a part of was ‘Romeo and Juliet’ during college. It was a waste of time and wish I hadn’t lit it.
5. My two best friends are a 56 year old ex DJ, sorry I mean on air personality, and I girl I dated for nearly 2 years. They are people I’m very close to and feel I can tell nearly anything to without overly harsh judgment.
6. I’m not a night or morning person. In fact if I had to classify myself I’d say I was some sort of late morning or afternoon person.
7. In Seattle people think I’m Italian or Greek. In Los Angeles it was Mexican. In Las Cruces New Mexico it was white. My mixed blood makes me passable as a lot of things.
8. You know that joke about 7 Eating 9? It’s still pretty lame.
9. Despite that fact I only own 2 black overcoats (a single breasted wool car coat and a trench coat) people tend to remember the black trench coat.
10. My freshman year of college I didn’t own a tv and watched the same three movies over and over again. (A Clockwork Orange, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
11. I haven’t had a nickname that stuck but I did have a song about how I could drink a bowl of rum during one of the shows I worked.
a. I do have a familial name which is Chava which is apparently a shortened form of Salvador. I’ve met a couple Chavas or Salvadors that also had this experience it’s not just my crazy parents.
12. There are some words/phrases I enjoy because I like the way they sound as well as marking my speech/ writing with a touch of… class, eloquence, confusion?
13. I’m lucky. Not in a win the lottery or I always come out on top way but in a things turn out for the best for me and I can trust that things will work out for me.
14. There are jobs I would like just to have the uniform or some part of the uniform. Lately I’ve noticed the valets and door men at many of the nice hotels in Downtown Seattle have rather nice winter overcoats and I contemplate a temporary winter time career change.
15. I refer to people that work 9-5 weekday jobs as ‘Normals’ but there is a hint of jealousy in my voice. It’s a life I don’t like and feel like an outsider doing but there’s something more comfortable about it.
16. Over thinking things is a somewhat a hobby of mine. I could easily stop this if I were wrong all the time but, alas, I’m occasionally right and in ways that take strange leaps of logic or just overcomplicate things. (like this stupid meme)
17. I blog but it’s short stories that based on life, lists, and other random things. For more personal information I write it in the journal, diary, log I’ve kept for the past 2 or 3 years.
18. When I work with someone long enough I can start to figure out how they think and begin to anticipate their thoughts/ needs. Kind of makes me feel like Radar from MASH.
19. College seems like a long time ago. High School feels like another life and everything before that I’m not entirely sure happened. Memory is such a fickle thing that I’m not 100 percent about somethings.
20. I’m more curious than people would expect at first. In fact I tend to learn about people and places I come into contact with because I want to know more about them. Some of these (in the case of people) is through overt questioning and others is through study, observation (in the case of places) research.
21. I like using parentheses in my writing to throw in comments about what I’m writing. These tend to be a bit self deprecating but still humorous.
22. There’s this painting by Norman Rockwell of a dapper older man staring at a Pollack style modern art painting (The Connoisseur)My first reaction is that that guy doesn’t see the art as art but merely paint thrown on canvas. Then I wonder if he in fact sees something in that painting that I’m missing. Then I start to wonder about post modern thought. Just sharing.
23. I used to spend 6 months of the year hanging out, talking to people and maybe running a show or two. If the pay was higher and the people cooler I’d still be there. But am still glad I left that job.
24. I own a lot of pin back buttons and penguin plushes but didn’t buy that many of them
25. I have this knack for finding things. It’s probably related to the curiosity but I can usually locate something that is lost. It’s not clairvoyance but the ability to spot something. Probably related to luck.
Wonder how good they are?
Here’s my contribution to this 25 Facebook meme.
1. I am near blind without glasses or contacts. Perhaps not meeting the legal definition of the condition but enough to make me feel like Velma when I wake and knock my glasses off the night stand. My relationship with nearsightedness began in 4th grade, when I also had braces.
2. I’m a middle child, pisces and a bit introverted. It’s good to make excuses for lapses in my personality and social awkwardness even if I don’t really believe it.
3. Yes I was the archetypal nerd for quite some time. In fact there is a picture of me in math club wearing a florescent green shirt, my thick glasses and wild hair. Where that kid went I have no idea but I do catch glimpses of him once in a while.
4. Probably the worst show I was ever a part of was ‘Romeo and Juliet’ during college. It was a waste of time and wish I hadn’t lit it.
5. My two best friends are a 56 year old ex DJ, sorry I mean on air personality, and I girl I dated for nearly 2 years. They are people I’m very close to and feel I can tell nearly anything to without overly harsh judgment.
6. I’m not a night or morning person. In fact if I had to classify myself I’d say I was some sort of late morning or afternoon person.
7. In Seattle people think I’m Italian or Greek. In Los Angeles it was Mexican. In Las Cruces New Mexico it was white. My mixed blood makes me passable as a lot of things.
8. You know that joke about 7 Eating 9? It’s still pretty lame.
9. Despite that fact I only own 2 black overcoats (a single breasted wool car coat and a trench coat) people tend to remember the black trench coat.
10. My freshman year of college I didn’t own a tv and watched the same three movies over and over again. (A Clockwork Orange, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas)
11. I haven’t had a nickname that stuck but I did have a song about how I could drink a bowl of rum during one of the shows I worked.
a. I do have a familial name which is Chava which is apparently a shortened form of Salvador. I’ve met a couple Chavas or Salvadors that also had this experience it’s not just my crazy parents.
12. There are some words/phrases I enjoy because I like the way they sound as well as marking my speech/ writing with a touch of… class, eloquence, confusion?
13. I’m lucky. Not in a win the lottery or I always come out on top way but in a things turn out for the best for me and I can trust that things will work out for me.
14. There are jobs I would like just to have the uniform or some part of the uniform. Lately I’ve noticed the valets and door men at many of the nice hotels in Downtown Seattle have rather nice winter overcoats and I contemplate a temporary winter time career change.
15. I refer to people that work 9-5 weekday jobs as ‘Normals’ but there is a hint of jealousy in my voice. It’s a life I don’t like and feel like an outsider doing but there’s something more comfortable about it.
16. Over thinking things is a somewhat a hobby of mine. I could easily stop this if I were wrong all the time but, alas, I’m occasionally right and in ways that take strange leaps of logic or just overcomplicate things. (like this stupid meme)
17. I blog but it’s short stories that based on life, lists, and other random things. For more personal information I write it in the journal, diary, log I’ve kept for the past 2 or 3 years.
18. When I work with someone long enough I can start to figure out how they think and begin to anticipate their thoughts/ needs. Kind of makes me feel like Radar from MASH.
19. College seems like a long time ago. High School feels like another life and everything before that I’m not entirely sure happened. Memory is such a fickle thing that I’m not 100 percent about somethings.
20. I’m more curious than people would expect at first. In fact I tend to learn about people and places I come into contact with because I want to know more about them. Some of these (in the case of people) is through overt questioning and others is through study, observation (in the case of places) research.
21. I like using parentheses in my writing to throw in comments about what I’m writing. These tend to be a bit self deprecating but still humorous.
22. There’s this painting by Norman Rockwell of a dapper older man staring at a Pollack style modern art painting (The Connoisseur)My first reaction is that that guy doesn’t see the art as art but merely paint thrown on canvas. Then I wonder if he in fact sees something in that painting that I’m missing. Then I start to wonder about post modern thought. Just sharing.
23. I used to spend 6 months of the year hanging out, talking to people and maybe running a show or two. If the pay was higher and the people cooler I’d still be there. But am still glad I left that job.
24. I own a lot of pin back buttons and penguin plushes but didn’t buy that many of them
25. I have this knack for finding things. It’s probably related to the curiosity but I can usually locate something that is lost. It’s not clairvoyance but the ability to spot something. Probably related to luck.
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