Queen of Something

Went on the annual pilgrimage to see a movie with LG.  For the past few summers, she and I have gone to see a flick.  The years before were Fright Night, Inception, etc.  Usually, we see summer blockbusters or summer fades.  Today we decided to see The Queen of Versailles.  Tough, tough movie to stomach.  I'm going to leave the rotten tomatoes site to fill you in on the breakdown of it.  Essentially, it is a film about too much.

It is about a small company that did everything wrong, but could.  The guy in the film says he supported Bush through Florida, says he did everything he could to support him, yet denies the legality of it.  Nary a soul is there to truly like in the film.  They are all privileged.  They are used to things we will never have and when they have to work a bit, things simply die.  It is quite sad to see a dead lizard, cold eyes and cold blooded as they may be, simply die because someone lets it happen.  The sadness grows in this film.  It is sad because people just acquire shit as they become more wealthy.  The bikes grow.  The pets grow.  The egos do not.  

That s what makes the film worthy of watching.....barely.  Jackie went to RIT.  She worked at IBM.  She is not stupid, yet she inflates her tits to a point that is impossible to ignore looking at.  She is/was so humble and now she is a facade.  She blames her loss on her husband.  He supported Bush, photos of him and Palin, and all you wish for in the back of your mind is the worst.  The film makes them human, yet it makes you hate them.  I guess the bottom line is they are shits.  They are these people who borrowed, consistently, beyond their means. They are the people who were smart enough to borrow and then buy back.  They are the people who made millions suffer.  

Frankly, it was a hard film to watch.  I saw family members getting bullshit laser surgery for vanity while they were running out of money.  It hit close to home.  It just made me realize, as fat as I am, as bad as I may look in a Seersucker suit in a few weeks, I will never be as ugly as they are.  My excess is books.  Not bikes, not cats, not snakes.  I, we, pretty soon, will never have a dead pet.  

The difference is we give a shit.  It isn't about who takes care of me.  We take care of each other and we don't make it too large to simply disobey that law of life.  The Queen of Versailles is sad because the people don't know that.  They consume to consume.  That is Jackie's existence.  She is smart, yet so stupid.  Looking at her early photos shows you how dumb she really is.

3:15, Amityville Style

One of the first scary movies I had ever seen was The Amityville Horror.  After I saw the film, I went ballistic.  I read everything about the place.  I even read High Hopes, which is a pretty rare book to find these days.  Anyway, Lutz woke up every night at 3:15.  He heard voices inside of his head to kill his kids, chop wood, go to the basement and find the red room.  He heard the devil.

Since quitting smoking, I don't see Josie, the red-eyed pig.  I wake up and head to the fridge.  In the fridge is cheese.  Fucking-A, I bought alot of cheese at the last trip to the market.  Cheese from Italy, France and even Cali, I think.  The devil tobacco forces me to look in the damn fridge at about 3:15 every night.  It has turned into my red room in the basement.   The red room grows in my stomach.  There is no escape.

Awake?

Today was one of those days.  I woke up late, at 10:30 or so, eager to face the world and then opened up the web to the NY Times, as usual.  Today wasn't usual.  12 Dead.  38 Wounded.  The Dar Knight Rises.  I had this crazy project to work on....freelance.  All I could do was stare at the screen.  Nope.  Most of that work wouldn't get done today.  It would have to wait.

Why?  How many of these fucking shootings have to happen in the US until we have to face guns?

God, I was asking earlier today, how much worse it could have been if the guy had stood at the exit of the theater.  How much worse it could have been.

Why is that even a thought I had?

4:21  Awake with that.

Love

I've written about that hate shit for the past two posts and feel like it is time to turn the tables back to the other extreme in a way. Back to love. In a month from now I am going to be a married man. I'll wake up next to FL and just look into her eyes and I'm guessing, I'll just smile.

The oddity of meeting here again and the dating her, the actually marrying her is something I think no soul in the world could have ever predicted. I sure as hell couldn't have.

She makes me better. She reels me in. For chrissake, she pulled cacti out of my toes once. I guess, this passing storm truly has allowed me to take some inventory. Not bitch about the weather and just look at FL, her quirks, her solid genes, her beauty and just ask myself, "why me?"

I'm kinda fat. I'm surly and moody. Well, she is surly and moody, too. But, she has that young shit going on. She could've done way better than me. So, I will take this time to simply gaze out onto truly ugly and worn down Coney Island Avenue and bask in my luck. My found love, which I return as best I can.

Hate Cont'd

I was out with my friend named Big B tonight and we were talking about Mark Maron and how courageous he was for just putting it out there in his beginning podcasts.  How ballsy it was for him to just say exactly what was on his mind.  To just say I fucking hurt and heres is why.....blah, blah, blah.

So, I guess this is my first copycat edition of why Jon Pauley hurts.  I would say it begins with......And this is a story I have only told a few close friends, or possibly only FL.  It begins with a flea market and my mom's manipulation of a scenario I was comfortable with and was used to, but then was twisted upside down.

Often times, on Sundays, my mom and I used to go to flea markets together.  Rarely, would she give me more than a dollar or two to spend on total bullshit.  A comic book here, garbage pail kids, etc.  That day she splurged.  To this day, I can't remember what I brought home.

We returned to our childhood house, but stuff was missing.  Immediately, I was suspicious.  (Or at least in this adult telling I was).  Things were not in the house.  Things were missing.  All of my dad's stuff was gone.

I begged for him to tuck me in that night.  My mom, god bless her soul, allowed me to buy all of this useless shit at the flea market to dull the pain.  Yet, it didn't matter if I had the entire collection of series 1 of the Garbage Pail Kids.  It didn't matter if I had a cool new hot wheel that was made of true die-cast steel.  What mattered was my dad saying good night to me.

So, that may be where the hate begins.  There are old Catholic school stories to tell of horrible things nuns had done to me.  Yet, I think this defines the moment where hate, doubt and skepticism of those you are not supposed to feel those things towards had begun.