Author: Brian

I wonder

General

I realized late in the day that six years ago today my mother died. Lung cancer.

Closing comments because I’m not asking for sympathy. Just noting it in case anyone wonders why I’m out of sorts.

It’s just a low-level, back of the mind kind of nagging sorrow. I really think I’m over it, and yet, here I am, still reminded of it and worrying if it’s causing me to be slightly more depressed than usual.

I mean, I already feel depressed; there’s very little that brings me joy lately, and I rarely have the energy to undertake any new project, and the projects I do work on (like my diet) just grind on and on and show no sign of improvement or gain, and most often I just want to sit in my house and surf or watch mindless teevee. But then, on top of my normal sadness, which is probably caused by the cold rainy weather this whole entire year, is layered a seasonal feeling of loss that I am apparently fated to feel in every June for the rest of my life.

Cary Tennis, an advice columnist to whom I grant the status of genius, often says that “it will take longer than you think, always.” It will take longer than you think to complete the grieving process, to learn to move on after a divorce or bad breakup, to heal your mental wounds from abuse or mental illness. Always, he says.

I understand that, but, c’mon. Six years? Really?

OK. I just know I’m feeling stressed, and sad, and in more of a mind to hide, lately. Where by “lately” I mean “for the past year or so”. I’ll keep on keepin’ on, but, y’know. Fuck this shit.

Man

General

I’m kinda out of words lately.

Sorry. They’ll come back.

You can’t force the muse, after all.

No charge

Movies

“Kung Fu Panda” is a cute movie. The CGI perfectly captured the expressiveness and body language of star Jack Black, the story is a great synopsis and homage to the basic tropes of chop-socky movies in general, and it helped seeing it with Kevin and his two young sons, in an old-time-y theater in my neighborhood, rather than a concrete movie warehouse out in the ‘burbs.

Chosen

General

Eastbank Esplanade

The above picture was apparently selected to be included in an online guidebook called Schmap. I received an email about it earlier in the week. I was suspicious at first (I’m such a skeptic) but realized it’s a good thing and approved their use. If and when it finally gets approved I’ll post a link to that page. Pretty cool.

President (nominee) Barack Obama

General

I was watching “Jeopardy” on KATU when ABC News cut in to show Sen. Barrack Obama’s victory speech.

ABC carried it without interruption… up until Sen. Obama started talking about his policy differences with Sen. John McCain. Then Charlie Gibson started talking over Sen. Obama. Gibson made damned sure that ABC viewers would not hear bad things about Sen. John McCain.

Shameful.

I fumed in anger for a second or two, then flipped over and finished watching on KGW. Gave me goose bumps. After Sen. Obama becomes the President, I’m going to finally enjoy watching Presidential speeches again.

This is the moment, indeed.

Loss of love

Movies, reviews

On the surface, “Annie Hall” (which I saw tonight as part of the Independent Film Revival group’s series on Directing Dysfunction) and another movie I saw this weekend, “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, are about the same basic thing: love and breaking up.

They both feature men who are still at heart boys, and they are both comedies. Both films make use of improvisational dialogue, and both films were written by their male leads. And while I don’t know this for certain about the more recent film, I think they both have been created with a great deal of autobiography.

But what a difference 30 years have made. In 1977, Woody Allen’s take on male insecurity was a nervous energy. He was constantly touching and grabbing Diane Keaton. He paced, he stuttered, he mocked himself and others. Alvy Singer had an aggressive “come here/go away” dynamic with every woman in the movie; his male friendship, however, with Rob was more uni-directional – Rob was constantly trying to convince Alvy to do something against his nature; move to California and avoid death.

Jason Segel’s Peter, on the other hand, plays a more mellow and unaware insecurity. In fact, to my eyes (and this may say more about me than Peter) doesn’t seem insecure at all in the beginning of the movie. It’s not until later, when he’s in the depths of his depression and he encounters the sympathetic, welcoming, and yet tough force of Mila Kunis’ Rachel that I began to see how uncertain he was. I will always hear Rachel’s encouraging shout of “Whoo! Dracula musical! Yeah!” into an otherwise silent bar whenever I’m afraid of taking a step through the next metaphorical door I encounter. And look how it turned out for Peter.

As far as the comedy goes, the jokes in “Annie Hall” are vaudevillian and fall mostly flat to my ears now. “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” has some rather broad and rather coarse humor, too, but it’s also capable of much more subtle laughs.

I don’t want to turn this into a thesis, though. Just seeing these two movies back to back gave me an opportunity to compare. In the end, I related to the more recent movie far more.

I can’t believe “Annie Hall” won an Oscar. Over “Star Wars”? C’mon.

I’m sad

Movies

I’m very sad that a movie like “The Visitor”, which is a wonderful and melancholy movie about immigration and deportation, could even be made. It’s one thing thinking about repressive countries in far-off lands like Syria, or Saudi Arabia, or North Korea, or many others I barely even know about… but to think that a story could be told about small simple people wanting to play their music and live their lives being flattened by a monolithic government just for the crime of jumping a turnstile in the subway… to think that such a story could be told and set in the United States of America staggers me.

I know the movie is fiction, and I know that the filmmakers had a viewpoint and an opinion to express. But I have to admit, uncomfortably, that the story is at least plausible. Probably similar stories play out daily.

The intersection of the hope expressed by an image of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, and the anger and fear expressed by images of the World Trade Center… at the center is a fear of brown-skinned people, people who “don’t even have an American name”.

I refuse to fear. In its place I feel sad, however.

Wake up, sleeping democracy. The world needs hope again.

At least WE liked it

Movies

As Tracy and I left the theater after thoroughly enjoying “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”, I looked around at the predominantly older, retirement age crowd that still remained and were leaving (we stayed to the very end of the credits) and asked her, “Did it seem like we were the only ones laughing?”

Part of my wonderment was that we had watched the movie in Tigard, which for those of you reading me from far away, is a predmoninantly-white suburb of Portland. Ninety percent of the movies I see, I see in theaters downtown, with a younger (though, this being Portland, still predominantly, but not entirely, white) audience and I expect a more rambunctious response to a movie, especially a comedy like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”.

If I had to choose between Kristen Bell and Mila Kunis, I think my brain asplode.

Phew

General

In the grand scale of things this may seem a small one, but it has an effect far out of proportion to my peace of mind.

Today is one of the few paydays this year when I haven’t overdrafted my checking account.

Man, those fees add up fast. Not this time, though!