Lies

I saw "After Hours" back when I was a kid, 15, too young to even drive myself to see it.

The only place it was playing was in that old twin cinema that used to sit behind Crossroads Mall and I rode down from Radford to Roanoke with my mom one late (fall?) Saturday afternoon. She was doing some shopping and dropped me off.

The Crossroads theater at that time was a dive -- you didn't want the popcorn -- and it was raining hard enough to hear through the ceiling, and there weren't a whole lot of people in the theater, which was very dimly lit even before the movie started. I remember they showed several "red band" trailers first before the movie for films that didn't exactly seem to be aimed at the "After Hours" audience.

In other words, it was the perfect atmosphere in which to see that particular movie, which is a 90-minute jack-in-the-box wound up by anxiety and guilt, lust and selfishness, self-loathing and paranoia. With a fair amount of dubious plotting and awkward comedy thrown in.

Which all leads up to the fact that I was surprised to read recently that the screenwriter, Joe Minion, was accused of stealing elements of his script from an NPR monologue by Joe Frank.

I don't know the facts, just the details, which are here, but it's pretty clear that one inspired the other in some form or fashion.

I mean, somebody didn't even bother to change the sculptures from "plaster-of-Paris bagels and cream cheese." He couldn't just make 'em croissants?

Anyway, the original monologue, called "Lies," is here and while it's not great, it's evocative and atmospheric and worth checking out. And I can easily see someone listening to it in a car on a radio while driving at night and getting to the end and wanting to know more and then just, well, making up the rest.

Doomsday relief

"In a doomsday scenario, dollars and cents don't really matter anymore, and I think that's really appealing to people. Who cares about mortgages anymore if the world's going to blow up?"

-- Box office analyst Paul Dergarabedian, explaining in the New York Times why the loopy Nic Cage disaster movie "Knowing" (with a 25% rating on Rotten Tomatoes) was the number one movie in theaters this weekend.

Open Door

I just found this picture of Thelonious Monk performing at the Open Door in New York.

Everything about the photograph -- the spartan set-up, the not-quite-grand piano, Monk's slender build -- made me think it was shot very early in his career, during the 40's. But it was actually taken in the fall of 1953.

This means it happened a couple of years after he lost his cabaret card for refusing to rat out his friend, Bud Powell. They'd been caught sitting in a car that had (Powell's) drugs in it and when Monk wouldn't testify against Powell, he lost certification to perform in any club that served liquor -- basically any place people went to hear jazz. Against that restriction, a musician might as well have quit but Monk performed anywhere he could and spent the rest of his time at a piano in his kitchen, composing and practicing and practicing and practicing (supported, it's well worth noting, entirely by his wife).

But one year after this photograph was taken, in 1954, everything changed. He went to Europe, where he could perform freely and where race wasn't as much of a hindrance. He became friends with the influential jazz patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter (hostess to Charlie Parker the night he died; inspiration for the tune "Pannonica" off Brilliant Corners). And, for less than $110, his contract was bought by Riverside Records, the company that respected his talent and marketed him properly and finally launched him into the major leagues. One year he was a problem child, the next year he was a complicated genius.

Looking at that picture makes me wonder if he was aware, by that point, that things were about to change, or if he was still just muddling along, waiting for something to happen. Using a saucer for an ashtray. Playing a grimy-looking upright piano with no sheet music. Speaking into a microphone that didn't even sit in a stand.

The Curmudgeon

It's St. Patrick's Day weekend (extended to three glorious days by the furlough) but I'm home sick with a cold that's been around since Tuesday night and which mysteriously increased its force last night.

Fortunately all my friends, and lots of people I just sort of know, are keeping me abreast of their merriment and happy times out there, via the internets.

In honor of my sour mood, here's a list of things that people really seem to like but which I just can't really get into:

-- LinkedIn
-- Contact lenses
-- Mexican food
-- Pickles
-- Theme parties involving fake mustaches
-- Twitter
-- Bands that use movie titles for their names
-- Movie titles that use a number to substitute for a letter ("The Thre3")
-- Flight of the Concords (total rip-off of Tenacious D, but not nearly as funny)
-- Jack Bauer
-- Talking on the phone while driving (I coined the phrase "hang up and drive!")
-- Football (and I'm probably straighter than you)
-- The Arcade Fire (which sounds like Amish rock to me; fortunately this has ceased to be much of an issue)
-- Hand sanitizer (cleaning without water is not cleaning)
-- Facebook bulletins disguised as messages ("Oh, hey, I got a message! Oh, it's just a thing about an art gallery ....")
-- Potluck
-- An interest in "American Idol," even if you claim it's "ironic."
-- GPS
-- Unconvincing special effects (seriously, watching "Spider Man" is like watching a cartoon)
-- Coffee
-- Camping
-- "ER" (fortunately this has ceased to be much of an issue)
-- chewing gum
-- dessert menus
-- Any U2, post-"Achtung Baby"
-- For that matter, any Springsteen that isn't off the "Born to Run" album
-- Suddenly getting fanatical about soccer, but only when the World Cup is on
-- Butter on your popcorn ("And could you layer it throughout ... oh, yes, thank you!")
-- Blogs

Here is a cat ....

Here is a cat who would really like his roommate to kick his cold and stop spending so much time at home.

March 12

Smart Economy

I'm home sick today, but during a wane of the chills I stepped down the street to return some movies and pick up some fresh ones.

The clerk was a familiar kid whom I've quietly disliked ever since I asked if the store if they carried "In Bruges" and he made a face and replied, "I haven't even heard of that."

Now, granted, "In Bruges" is kind of an awkward, unwieldy title but a) it's a freakin' Colin Farrell movie, not exactly some obscure French New Wave bootleg and b) they ended up having it after all, although it was filed away from the I's and c) I don't go around asking video store clerks for movies that don't exist. But back to today ....

"You wanna make a small donation for muscular distrophy?" he asked as I was paying for "Happy-Go-Lucky."

"I dunno," I said, then asked the question I always ask when a cashier asks me to throw in a buck. "Does [the company] match donations?"

"Eh? What does that mean?" he asked.

"Y'know, like ... for every dollar a customer donates to a charity, some companies match it with a dollar of their own," I said.

I would say he snorted at that notion, but that would sound subjective.

"With the economy like it is, a company would be stupid to do something like that," he exclaimed, shaking his head, and once I realized he was not being ironic, I decided to be ironic myself.

"Yeah, I guess they're doing enough just by hitting customers up for the dollar," I said.

"All the money that gets collected does go to the charity, though, I know that," he assured me. "[The company] doesn't keep any of it."

"Nice," I replied, and then I recalled that just yesterday [the company] had basically made their (and my) online rental plan more expensive by getting rid of the in-store return bonus. "They'll be keeping some money, though, now that they've lowered the number of free rentals for online customers."

It was clear he knew what I was talking about. Even though it was early, I got the impression from his face he'd already handled a few complaints about the change.

"That's just the economy getting smarter," he declared, in what I think he thought was the tone of a newscaster, offering wisdom and without the slightest twinge of malice.

"Yeah, I guess so," I nodded and we said goodbye.

March 10

One week later

I had to roll down my windows an hour before I went to work today so that the heat in my car could escape. Even so I burned myself on the hot plastic seats.

This time last week there was a quilt of snow on the back porch.

It's a strange experience to drive in sunlight and 77-degree weather when the interstate is still stained white from rock salt.

Strange day

This is a strange day. Something feels askew deep within the gears of things.

I've gone to a fire at a Burger King.

I've seen a telephone pole splintered right in the middle of a sunny afternoon by an SUV.

Maybe it's me ... or maybe it's the axis.

But I parked at work tonight after dinner and was walking across the lot when I spotted a library card lying on the ground.

I wondered, smiling, whose it could be and when I picked it up I discovered it was mine. I recognized my signature even before I touched it.

This is particularly odd not just because I haven't used my library card in years but mostly because I don't even carry it anymore. Had I been asked beforehand, I couldn't even have said where I even keep it these days.

Maybe my dresser?

Maybe my glovebox?

Apparently the parking lot.

Who's watching the Watchmen? I am watching the Watchmen

This will brand me even further as a total geek but this week I am watching -- and very much enjoying -- the "Watchmen." Not the movie (of which I'm still rather dubious ... jeez, those costumes ...) but rather this new motion comic thing that just came out on DVD.

Basically it's a panel-by-panel reconstruction of Alan Moore's graphic novel, accentuated with an orchestral score and mild-but-fluid animation.

I tried to read the damn thing on paper a couple different times, but it just didn't hook me.

The motion comic, however, is extremely cool -- maybe even better than the version on the page.

I always predicted that once I got into the novel, it (like "The Wire" and "The Corrections" and a couple other pop culture icons I've yet to get around to) would strike me fascinating and it does. I can't believe this thing is nearly 25 years old. It's a little overwrought, a little doom-and-gloom, and the female characters, who get the weakest dialogue, are largely cast as shrill, shallow and selfish. Still, it could've been written last year and feels like it was.

I also now totally understand why critics have found parallels between "Watchmen" and "Lost."

Chapter IV (called "Watchmaker") is incredible, even for someone who generally hates sci-fi, like me. And as I was watching it I was thinking I should find it ridiculous -- I mean, c'mon, it's about a character, who happens to be naked and blue, who travels to Mars to muse over the nature and physics of time -- and yet it's poetic, haunting, depressing and also strangely reassuring at the same time.

Silent TV at work

I work at a desk that sits beside a bank of scanners, beneath a TV whose volume is usually turned all the way down.

Night after night, I catch glimpses of television shows I've never watched and can't hear -- which is a little like dreaming when you've got the flu. Who are these people? What are they saying? Narrative without sound or context makes time stretch.

It's odd to watch unfamiliar sitcoms and dramas in bits and pieces as silent movies -- "The Ghost Whisperer," "Shark," "Black in America," "The Biggest Loser," "Jericho," varieties of CSI's and "Law & Order"s, they all float by.

For the longest time "Cold Case" really confused me because I would look up and it would look like a cop show centered around a blonde detective with carefully mussed-up hair ... but then suddenly I would glance up and catch the show wandering through the 1950s or during the Depression-era or once, I'm fairly certain (but can't be sure) set in and around Atlanta circa the 1850s. Only later did I learn how a contemporary police procedural could wind up in Antebellum South.

The only show that's ever actually gotten a reaction out of me is, oddly enough, "The Office," which is much more verbal than visual but which, admittedly, I'm more familiar with than 90-percent of the other stuff that floats by during a shift.

I've sat near the quiet television for literally hundreds of hours, but the only sight that ever prompted me to laugh was this:

Snowy day rituals

OK, yeah, awesome, we're finally getting some snow this year. Looks like about three inches so far and word is the temperature is gonna drop hard tonight and freeze all that stuff solid, especially the slush in the streets.

And although it's a rare occasion that the snow finds us here in Roanoke, I have a little ritual I tend to follow when it does: Once the sun sets and the driveway is shoveled, I usually kick back in the basement screening room with a little bourbon, sometimes a little cigar and always my favorite inclement weather double-feature: "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" and "The Fearless Vampire Killers."


Both films are snow-centric movies that are fun to watch on a cold winter's night, especially when the heat pump is working properly, the robe is freshly washed and there's a little Early Times on ice in a glass.

The sun has set but the driveway isn't scraped. I need to do that, especially if it's going to freeze, but I think I'll take a walk first and listen to the snow settle on the branches.

I'm mentally composing a list of future replacement snowy day movies: "Jeremiah Johnson," "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," John Carpenter's "The Thing," "Gremlins," "Slap Shot," "Nobody's Fool," maybe "Diner" ....

The more you know ....

It's way too complicated to go into the reasons why, but early this morning I was reading the Wikipedia page for Savage Steve Holland, the writer-director of the cheap-and-bizarre-but-charming-and-amusing mid-80's John Cusack comedy, "Better Off Dead. "



First of all on that page, there's a long, impassively written Cliff Notes synopsis of the movie that's pretty hilarious. I have to wonder what someone who has never seen "Dead" would make of it.

Secondly, though, is the factoid that during the three years before he shot "Dead," Holland also designed and animated the Whammies. The Whammies were the 'Noid-like cartoon creatures that magically descended and made off with the money of losing contestants on the (almost certainly rigged) game show, "Press Your Luck."

This is something I did not know.