From Pathetic Life #22
Wednesday, March 6, 1996
I’m still feeling lousy, but always up for film noir, and the movies I want to see are playing tonight only at the UC, so I met Josh for dinner and a double feature. The food was good at Hong Kong Villa, but I didn’t have enough appetite to finish it. Been a long time since that’s happened.
The first feature was 5 Against the House (1955), based on a novel by Jack Finney. I love Finney — he’s maybe my favorite author — but I haven’t read the book. The movie is half a wise-ass college comedy, half a bloated melodrama about a casino caper the frat boys are planning to pull during spring break. None of it’s very believable or interesting, the elaborate can’t-miss plan for the heist is more quaint than clever, and the whole story screeches to a halt while Kim Novak sings a few nightclub numbers. The finale, set in a hydraulic-lift parking garage, is overwrought enough to be fun, and the garage is cool.
The second feature, Murder by Contract (1958), is a minor masterpiece, following a hit man through his career, starting the day he applies for the job. Vince Edwards (later Dr Kildare) is outstanding as the ice cold but earnest young man whose calling is to kill, and his internal tension makes the audience an accomplice to the crimes. A simple but snappy six-string guitar is the soundtrack, and the cinematography is shady and angular. The script is deliciously viscous, and your mind won’t wander.
After the movies, Josh drove us home, and he mentioned something about the January issue. “All those people who’ve read your zine and come up to you on Telegraph Avenue when you’d rather be left alone — for what it’s worth, I say, why not just say hello and give ’em a chance?”
“Nah,” said I. “I hate meeting people, hate being sociable, making small talk, and it’s worst when it’s unexpected.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but the people who come up to you on Telegraph aren’t ordinary people. They’ve read your zine, and liked it. Maybe that makes ’em worth talking to.”
“Maybe,” I said after twenty seconds or so, and thinking it over the next day, I still think… maybe.
Some people have wandered into my life only because of the zine — Josh, for example, and Jay, and Judith, and Sarah-Katherine. Josh’s point is that when someone’s read the zine, and liked it, maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to reject them. And… well, maybe.
So as an experiment, as a maybe, maybe the next time someone approaches me on the Ave and says “Are you Pathetic Doug?” maybe I won’t deny it. We’ll see.
That said, if someone’s read the zine and liked it and wants to meet me, I’d still much, much, much rather that they contact me by mail or voice mail.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
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