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Drove to Maine five days ago. Going through the usual cycle.
Two days of collapse and, as always, depression and regret. Everything I've done wrong in my life comes to circle me and alternately whisper and yell at me. I try to avoid by watching television. There's nothing of the slightest interest on. Berit and I are reminded why we don't have TV at home (we have a TV, a big one, but no antenna or cable -- plenty of TV shows we like, not snobby that way at least, but we'd rather watch them in full seasons on DVD and not get sucked into keeping the box on through all the junk in between).
I reread the 2/3rds of my novel I have done. I can't tell if it's any damn good or not.
A day of growing optimism. Beginnings of plans to fix what's wrong in my life.
A day of thought. Theorizing. Maybe I should write some of this down this time. Abstract ideas for a moment have sense in concrete words. Maybe capture them before they float away as they always do.
Transitional day today. Maybe more than a day (weekend?). Towards action. Fix things. Make concrete plans. Begin to act on them. Voice-over demo. Dentistry. Finances. October show (Havel's Temptation). February show (redo of That's What We're Here For)? Show for next Summer (Assembly? What is that?)? What about NECROPOLIS 4: Green River or NECROPOLIS 5: ARTisTS? Where do they fit in?
I will return to NYC refreshed and ready to fix things and do things. I will get many of them done and fixed (three steps forward). I will not get other things done and fixed (one step back). I will have more problems come up (one more step back). I will come up here again when I need to (pause on the landing for breath).
Something's wrong with Time-Warner here, which has knocked out the digital phone, the cable (except the box in Berit's and my "apartment"), and the internet (except one computer getting wi-fi from a neighbor). Isolated. Good. Don't want to talk to anyone right now. Supposed to call Time-Warner to fix it today. Wait a minute . . . how am I supposed to call them to fix it when I don't have a working phone here? My cel phone is on a "pay-for-credit" plan-thing now, and I have enough credit on it for about 15 seconds. Ah. Have to do that on Monday I guess.
Caught a terrific movie on TV yesterday. Rogue Cop. A noir I'd never seen and barely heard of. Wow, great one -- unfortunately never available on video (luckily, I taped it). If you see it listed, check it out. It's very similar, in plot, structure, and drive, to Lang's The Big Heat, and an IMDb check shows it was written by the same screenwriter, Sydney Boehm, a year after Heat. Well, if it worked the first time, why not do it again, huh? Good example of mid-1950s noir: dark, nasty, hysterical, and amoral. Wish I'd seen this before compiling World Gone Wrong -- lots, LOTS of appropriate dialogue I coulda copped.
Berit and I have been wanting to go see Superman Returns at one of the local drive-ins (local being relative, the one we went to twice last Summer is an hour away). It was playing at three different drive-ins, but in double bills with movies that, respectively, I had little interest in seeing, no interest in seeing, or would actively go out of my way to avoid. This is always why, having spent part of a number of Summers in Maine, I'd never gone before last Summer -- a movie I wanted to see always played with one I wanted to avoid.
But last Summer, B&I got to see a bill of Batman Begins with Revenge of the Sith (with an electrical storm brewing in the dark clouds behind the drive-in screen for all of both movies!) and another bill of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with War of the Worlds. Four movies we had a vague interest in seeing, but would never have paid full New York prices for. $7 for each of us at a drive-in? Oh, ABSOLUTELY worth it.
On the second bill last Summer, they also ran a 1981-vintage reel of trailers (American Pop!) and local ads between the films. And that particular drive-in (in Bridgton, ME) also makes great cheeseburgers and fries. Real Mom-and Pop operation (actually, Mom, Pop, Son and Daughter, it seemed).
But as the best option we had for a double-bill this time was Poseidon, I decided to wait until the films changed today, and see if we got lucky and Superman got billed with Pirates of the Caribbean II or something we might actually want to see. Shoulda gone with the boat flick. Now we can see Superman with Nacho Libre or Click, or Pirates with Cars.
Damn.
Well, at least there's the Moxie Festival to look forward to tomorrow, if I can get my carcass in gear enough to drive on up to Lisbon Falls in the morning . . .
Wish me luck.
Two days of collapse and, as always, depression and regret. Everything I've done wrong in my life comes to circle me and alternately whisper and yell at me. I try to avoid by watching television. There's nothing of the slightest interest on. Berit and I are reminded why we don't have TV at home (we have a TV, a big one, but no antenna or cable -- plenty of TV shows we like, not snobby that way at least, but we'd rather watch them in full seasons on DVD and not get sucked into keeping the box on through all the junk in between).
I reread the 2/3rds of my novel I have done. I can't tell if it's any damn good or not.
A day of growing optimism. Beginnings of plans to fix what's wrong in my life.
A day of thought. Theorizing. Maybe I should write some of this down this time. Abstract ideas for a moment have sense in concrete words. Maybe capture them before they float away as they always do.
Transitional day today. Maybe more than a day (weekend?). Towards action. Fix things. Make concrete plans. Begin to act on them. Voice-over demo. Dentistry. Finances. October show (Havel's Temptation). February show (redo of That's What We're Here For)? Show for next Summer (Assembly? What is that?)? What about NECROPOLIS 4: Green River or NECROPOLIS 5: ARTisTS? Where do they fit in?
I will return to NYC refreshed and ready to fix things and do things. I will get many of them done and fixed (three steps forward). I will not get other things done and fixed (one step back). I will have more problems come up (one more step back). I will come up here again when I need to (pause on the landing for breath).
Something's wrong with Time-Warner here, which has knocked out the digital phone, the cable (except the box in Berit's and my "apartment"), and the internet (except one computer getting wi-fi from a neighbor). Isolated. Good. Don't want to talk to anyone right now. Supposed to call Time-Warner to fix it today. Wait a minute . . . how am I supposed to call them to fix it when I don't have a working phone here? My cel phone is on a "pay-for-credit" plan-thing now, and I have enough credit on it for about 15 seconds. Ah. Have to do that on Monday I guess.
Caught a terrific movie on TV yesterday. Rogue Cop. A noir I'd never seen and barely heard of. Wow, great one -- unfortunately never available on video (luckily, I taped it). If you see it listed, check it out. It's very similar, in plot, structure, and drive, to Lang's The Big Heat, and an IMDb check shows it was written by the same screenwriter, Sydney Boehm, a year after Heat. Well, if it worked the first time, why not do it again, huh? Good example of mid-1950s noir: dark, nasty, hysterical, and amoral. Wish I'd seen this before compiling World Gone Wrong -- lots, LOTS of appropriate dialogue I coulda copped.
Berit and I have been wanting to go see Superman Returns at one of the local drive-ins (local being relative, the one we went to twice last Summer is an hour away). It was playing at three different drive-ins, but in double bills with movies that, respectively, I had little interest in seeing, no interest in seeing, or would actively go out of my way to avoid. This is always why, having spent part of a number of Summers in Maine, I'd never gone before last Summer -- a movie I wanted to see always played with one I wanted to avoid.
But last Summer, B&I got to see a bill of Batman Begins with Revenge of the Sith (with an electrical storm brewing in the dark clouds behind the drive-in screen for all of both movies!) and another bill of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with War of the Worlds. Four movies we had a vague interest in seeing, but would never have paid full New York prices for. $7 for each of us at a drive-in? Oh, ABSOLUTELY worth it.
On the second bill last Summer, they also ran a 1981-vintage reel of trailers (American Pop!) and local ads between the films. And that particular drive-in (in Bridgton, ME) also makes great cheeseburgers and fries. Real Mom-and Pop operation (actually, Mom, Pop, Son and Daughter, it seemed).
But as the best option we had for a double-bill this time was Poseidon, I decided to wait until the films changed today, and see if we got lucky and Superman got billed with Pirates of the Caribbean II or something we might actually want to see. Shoulda gone with the boat flick. Now we can see Superman with Nacho Libre or Click, or Pirates with Cars.
Damn.
Well, at least there's the Moxie Festival to look forward to tomorrow, if I can get my carcass in gear enough to drive on up to Lisbon Falls in the morning . . .
Wish me luck.
