Post twitching...

Well, I'm back after an interesting week. The head twitches and tourettes-like outbursts have subsided without medication. I'm not making this up, I think.*

I'm going to pick up where I left off with a story about a lunch that took place about a month ago. Why? Do you ask...because I can dammit. Also the story involves brown raincoats and rubber boots, nothing to sneeze at. I was just going into the movies (This is post-sushi lunch {just so you can catch up [I know, like you care**]})

I've been pretty much going to movies alone since I lost the nerve to lie about my age to the lady taking tickets for "Serpent and the Rainbow" (There is much more to say here about this movie and most of it is about Bill Pullman. The world needs more Bill Pullman.)

Hey, this was the Golden Age of the Mall. Those people who worked there could get away with anything. I was scared. I ended up seeing "Three O'Clock High"

And that sums up puberty. My friends, several of whom still bring the whole thing up every oh, five years or so, saw the cool movie and I did not. As a matter of fact, I still haven't seen that damn movie (I imagine if it happened now, there would be some sort of massive emotional release, some intense healing, relieving moment much like when the dentist scrapes and scrapes at a single tooth for like five minutes then suddenly announces: "Well, you're good, no fillings today." {There is a filling, he just remembered that he's got a tee time in 20 minutes})



Now, I relish my lone movie-going and have accepted the fact that I'll be that guy, that kind of creepy old guy that sits in the front row all by himself during the show (right in the fucking middle) on just about any matinee day.

This habit was kind of solidified during my years in restaurants where I'd get like a half-day on Monday off during the entire week and go see a noon flick. It'd be me and like 14 other creepy guys sitting as far away from each other as humanly possible (Not Pee-Wee Herman style, mind you)



One day I looked in the mirror and saw the old guys I used to feel sorry for when they showed up all by themselves. Now, I am a brown raincoat away from having families go into crisis mode when I sit near them. I have the rubber boots, so now you can relax and enjoy the mental imagery.

I do try to not go to children's movies. There are lines you can't cross, and everybody pretty much has a gun or taser these days. The whole not going to family movies bums me out sometimes, because, hey, I dig 'em. I'm actually debating renting kids so I can see "Ice Age 2: The Meltdown" (I just watched the trailer five times in a row. Prehistoric squirrel=funny Modern squirrel=scary. {How is it possible "Lawrence of Arabia" is one of my favorite movies of all time? [And another thing...watch Battlestar Galactica or I will show up raincoat, boots and all at a theater near you]})



Thank you, Sci-Fi channel. This show is so well written. Don't be turned off by the pretty girls. Besides, not my type...



Thank you, "V for Vendetta" Bottom line. Saw "The Matador" extremely well-acted. Phenomenal soundtrack, too. What's not to like about a grizzled Pierce Brosnan in a dark, dark comedy? Well, then, I packed up my boots, raincoat and poof...I was gone.






*Just so you know, I am an unreliable narrator.

**HBL= Had Brackets Left. You're not tangenting if you haven't done it with me, baby***

***I suspect my whole life is a tangent. Or that I am a ball on a pool table (thanks to angry young women everywhere for posting lyrics)

in the back room there's a lamp
that hangs over the pool table
and when the fan is on it swings
gently side to side
there's a changing constellation
of balls as we are playing
i see orion and say nothing

-Ani DiFranco reference. In which, searching for the song, I came across "Hazy Shade of Winter" (what a great moment in time, time, time, that was) by the Bangles. Let's have a moment of silence for the Bangles and the memories of my budding sexuality.



I was not a huge Susanna Hoffs fan. I dug the bassist (top left), whose name is MICHAEL STEELE, I've just found out. I'm really hoping she isn't a man right now. Why couldn't we have gotten cable like the other kids in the neighborhood? Figures. I should have just gone for the hot chick that everybody loved. As usual, I didn't. Now, I run the very real risk that in my adoloescence I had a crush on a guy in a skirt. Just fucking great.

From now on...I date models. Or obnoxious funny. However, in this instance there is nothing funny about a guy in a skirt playing bass and walking like an Egyptian. It was the two-tone hair that did it for me, btw.

****For fun...google "untouchable face." So young, so angry. Damn that rap music!

Pepito is a pet name for Joseph in Spanish, so you know. Now, for a little Steve Zahn, and if you've followed me this far, well...wow!