Breaking Away, and six more movies

200 Motels (1971)

This is Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, touring and hallucinating. It's not a concert film, not a documentary, but also not very narrative, and never less than weird.

Dr Zappa was brilliant, of course, and this is (a sanitized version of) what it was like to be on tour with Zappa and the Mothers. Lots of drugs must've been consumed, and a good time was had by all, including me.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Breaking Away (1979)

This is about four boys, best buddies and fresh from high school. None of them are going on to college, though they live in Bloomington, Indiana, home of Indiana University. They hate the college kids, and the feeling is mutual, and both sides are probably right.

In a role so famous and a performance so perfect it probably hurt his career, Dennis Christopher stars as Dave Shohler. His family is very not-Italian, but Dave is a bicycling fanatic, and idolizes the Italian national cycling team, so he's taught himself about fifty words of the language, and plays Italian music on his record player, and sings Italian opera, badly but charmingly.

His mom is played by Barbara Barrie, sympathetic to the boy's Italiano dreams — she starts cooking Italian meals, and renames the family's cat Felini. The boy's dad is played by Paul Dooley, who's grumpy and getting grumpier as his son keeps calling him 'Papa' instead of Dad. 

"I won't have any 'ini' in this house!"

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Film Festival
#71

There are very few movies that are exactly right all the way through — no flat notes, no moments that don't shine, nothing you'd ever fast-forward past no matter how many times you've seen it. This is one of those movies. I can watch over and over again, and have, and never found a moment of it tiresome or boring.

The kid keeping pace with a Cinzano truck at 60 mph, set to music from The Barber of Seville, is simply thrilling. And the serenade. And Dave's race against the Italian team. The bike repair montage. And the Little 500. And the last few minutes always get me.

Dave's buddies are Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern, and Jackie Earle Haley, and I always want to hug 'em all.

I watched Breaking Away twenty times when it first came out. Saw it again a week ago, and damn if it ain't still a simply excellent buddy movie, coming-of-age movie, father-son movie, and a pretty good sports movie, too. I'm watching it again as I type this.

Steve Tesich wrote Breaking Away, but never much else, and I wonder why. Peter Yates (Bullitt, The Dresser, and inexplicably Krull) directed and produced. 

Verdict: BIG YES.

♦ ♦ ♦  

It's Alive (1973)

A happy suburban couple are having their second child. Mom's in labor, and Dad's in the waiting room having oblivious man-chat with the other expectant dads.

In the delivery room, things aren't going smoothly. Mom keeps saying that this hasn't felt like her previous pregnancy, but nobody in the hospital takes her seriously until the baby is born, and it's monstrously disfigured, and it kills the doctors and nurses, then escapes to begin terrorizing the city.

Seems to me Mom would be the natural focus of the story, but instead the movie is mostly interested in the dilemma Dad (John P Ryan) faces — he's suddenly famous, and fired, and having spawned this thing is an insult to his manhood, so he refuses to think of himself as his child's father. While the 'baby' is still alive, Dad signs over rights to its corpse to mad scientist Andrew Duggan, and he joins the ridiculous, sometimes comical police dragnet to corner and kill the damned thing.

Of course it's crazy, but this is Larry Cohen teaching a class on how to make an enjoyable scary movie without wasting too many millions of dollars. Instead of relentless gore, he gives us relentless tension. Smartly, we only see the movie's central horror in glimpses, and yet, your imagination will vividly fill in the blanks. It's exhausting and exquisite and great entertainment.

Verdict: YES.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

It's Alive 2 (1978)

And this is Larry Cohen getting everything completely wrong.

Several more of these mosterbabies have been born, so I guess every expectant mom in America is being tested by the government. The cops know that a particular woman in Arizona will probably be the next to bear a monster, so a dozen cops are waiting in the delivery room to kill it as soon as it's birthed.

The movie's biggest mistake is bringing back John P Ryan as the dad from the first movie, and making the sequel mostly about him. He was fine in the first movie, but here he's just a reminder how much better the original was.

He's heading some paramilitary organization, all about killing these monsterbabies, but inexplicably he kidnaps the expectant mother from the hospital — where, remember, an entire police precinct is waiting to kill the newborn if it's a monster — and instead forces her to give birth in a truck — where there's nobody to kill the monsterbaby. This makes no sense.

Why did the dad from this second movie (Frederick Forest) abandon his wife (Kathleen Lloyd)?

Why is no-one worried about the mad scientist (Andrew Duggan) who wants to raise a tribe of these monsterbabies and breed them?

I dunno, I dunno, and I dunno, but even a preposterous monster movie needs to play by some ground rules of storytelling.

Verdict: NO.

♦ ♦ ♦  

It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)

This third installment wastes no time making amends for the shitty second movie. Before the opening credits, there's an emergency childbirth in a cab, with a cop delivering, and the baby comes out huge and terrifying, and the cop screams, "It's one of them!" and then the monsterbaby kills the cop, the cabbie, and the mother, and wow, this installment is underway with a scream.

"They're being born faster than we can kill 'em!"

The world is seeing more and more of these monsterfreak babies, and a court decides that we the people are too civilized to kill the monsterbabies, so instead they're exiled to an otherwise deserted island. And then five years later, some foolhardy fools charter an expedition to that island, just to check up on the kiddies.

Michael Moriarty stars, and he's the perfect muse for Cohen. Like in Q: The Winged Serpent, he's a little bit bonkers and he ought to be unsympathetic, but he's likable even when he's unlikable. He's also a much better father than John P Ryan from the first two movies — he actually cares about his terrifying murderous son.

3/4 of It's Alive III is a pleasing recovery for the franchise, but toward the end there's a woman who's gang-raped for no plot-related purpose, and another woman in peril, and the movie never recovers. It sputters on to a depressingly so-so ending.

Karen Black and Macdonald Carey have smallish parts. Music by Laurie Johnson, who scored Dr Strangelove and TV's The Avengers (no superheroes, please).

Verdict: MAYBE.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Nightmare at Noon (1987)

This is a lousy movie about… fuck all, I have no idea. Space alien Brion James is poisoning a town's water supply, and paramilitary troops arrive in black vans, and there's a redneck maniac with a knife, a dangerous hitchhiker (Bo Hopkins), and a pretty cop and a cop who's not (George Kennedy). I made it through about 25 minutes, and should've quit quicker.

Verdict: BIG NO.

♦ ♦ ♦  

Thunderpants (2004)

Patrick Smash (Bruce Cook) was born flatulent, and farted so chronically and stinkily that his father couldn't stand it and soon moved out. His childhood was farty and lonely, until he met Alan (Rupert Grint), a classmate who's a genius but has no sense of smell. They'll be best buddies for life.

The whole movie is an extended fart joke, but it's surprisingly sweet and innocent, and since it's British even the farts seem to have an accent and an aura of class.

Cook is fine as the little stinker, but Grint, looking about ten years old, steals the movie. He's a walking sight gag, and delivers every line funny, even lines that wouldn't be funny if anyone else said them. He's amazingly adorable, and should've been a bigger child star than Harry Potter allowed.

Simon Callow plays an opera singer, Stephen Fry plays a Brit lawyer with the puffy white wig, Paul Giamatti plays some kind of secret agent, and Ned Beatty is a loony Christian NASA director.

Beatty bugged me; his character is in charge of NASA but seems to know nothing about science, and keeps saying things like, "Praise the Lord!" After a few frowns from me, I decided he's a satire of too many too-Christian American officials, and after that realization I started laughing again.

If you haven't guessed, Thunderpants is a kiddie movie, but I smiled for an hour and a half, and laughed several times. It's as funny as a fart, and that's pretty funny.

"You have that revolutionary new engine, right there in your shorts, Patrick."

Verdict: YES.

— — —

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8/6/2022 

 

Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. No talking once the lights dim. Real butter, not that fake crap, on the popcorn. Piracy is not a victimless crime. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.  

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Trouble on my right,trouble on my left

The very moment I'd finished setting up the fish-stand and sat myself down, the vendor to my right waved this morning's New York Times in my face and threw a long rant at me, about how the American military should intervene in Bosnia, preferably before lunch.

Meanwhile, setting up her table to my left was a vendor I already knew, and knew she was nuts. At the morning lottery a few days ago, some poor guy had politely dared to have a different opinion than hers about one of the city's hundreds of rules and regulations for street vendors, and she'd started hollering at him. She was still hollering at him as I'd rolled my cart so far up the street the hollering faded into the distance.

So when that same woman started unpacking her wares and setting up shop next to my table, I inwardly sighed but outwardly said "Good morning."

Manners, damn it. Always manners.

Meanwhile, my right neighbor's anything-but-brief briefing on Bosnia continued, and I stiffed a yawn. If he'd simply said his warlike piece and then shut up, I would've worked quietly beside him all day, but he didn't shut up. He went on longer than the Times report, sometimes pounding the paper on his table, telling me how quick & easily American troops could disarm every Serb and every Croat, and how grand and glorious a US invasion would be for everyone involved.

And I still would've kept quiet, if he hadn't explicitly asked my opinion on all his war talk. "Don't you agree?" he asked at the end of several minutes I didn't agree with at all.

"No, I don't agree. America does nothing but war, and I'm tired of it. The world is tired of it."

"Oh," he said, frowning and sighing, "you're one of those idiot peace-niks."

"And you're one of those idiot war-nicks."

"No, man, peace is what we'd be fighting for!"

"That's not how it works," I said. "Never has, never will." He sighed again and sat down, but it wasn't over. Whenever there was a lull in foot traffic, he'd say something else, and I'd answer, and we'd argue for a bit and then shut up for a bit and then argue for a bit again.

This worked in my favor, actually. In a hurried argument I'll always say something I regret, but in a slow argument, with more time to think, I don't sound quite so stupid, at least not to me.

"Never has, never will?" he asked after a few minutes. "That's just wrong. We beat the Nazis and we beat Japan—"

"Japan attacked America, and the Nazis declared war on America. That's different. Like if you and me were fighting, and the US Army comes along and blows up all of Berkeley to establish 'peace' — that's what you're proposing."

"That's not what I'm proposing," he said, and then we sat there and said nothing for a while, until he said, "We can't just sit here and do nothing. There's a slaughter going on over there, and we're the most powerful country in the world. We ought to put that power to good use and stop the bloodshed."

"By bombing them off the face of the earth," I said, which to me is a logical extension of what he was saying.

"No, we don't bomb 'em off the face of the earth. C'mon, man. We send in our military, best fighting men there are, and we end it." He then explained exactly what the American troops would do in his fantasy, speaking too fast for me to remember much, but the details don't matter. Every US intervention is the same — a flurry of death until the Americans walk away from the rubble, and in the end it's better for nobody except the American companies making money from all the death.

After a few customers, I said something like, "We could send the Army and the Marines into every country that ever goes to war, and the USA could kill a lot of people. That's what always happens, and Americans die too, and then when the US or UN troops pull out, the wars begin again."

"It's like what the police have to do sometimes," he said. "They break up fights, to preserve the peace, and sometimes people get hurt. Send in the military, and some people would die, sure, but not as many as if we just let the genocide continue. Are you for genocide?"

"No, I'm not for genocide," I said, and also I'm opposed to police, and opposed to America pretending it's the world's policeman, but I said nothing more, hoping that silence would lead to an extended truce.

Not much later, though, he picked up where we'd left off. "If you're opposed to genocide, this is how we stop it," he said again. "We send in the US military."

"Another invasion. How come the answer is always sending the US military? Did it work in Vietnam?"

And I regretted it as soon as I'd said it. Say 'Vietnam' to the wrong person and you'll get an earful of tired bullshit about how America could've won but our hands were tied by the politicians. Yup, that was this guy's response. It went on and on and ended with, "The way to win renewed respect for America is to use our military might to prevent senseless bloodshed," and jeez, my mind reeled.

I don't give a damn about earning respect for America. I don't think America's is respected for all the wars and bombs and invasions launch by the USA, and it never prevents senseless bloodshed, it simply is senseless bloodshed.

But I sat quiet. Wanted the conversation to end. I always want all conversations to end, but this one, especially. I hate politics. Anybody's politics but mine is stupid and frustrating, and I don't want to talk about it and don't want to hear it, but I heard it all day.

Eventually he stopped talking, too, and maybe the day would've gone better if I'd stayed quiet. That would've been smart, though, and I'm never that. I wanted to say something more, wanted to win the argument, and this is what I came up with:

"'Senseless bloodshed', man... Maybe other countries should've sent their troops to stop America's 'senseless bloodshed' in 1776. We'd all be drinking tea and watching Upstairs, Downstairs!"

He looked at me and said, "It's not funny, Doug," and I wondered how he knew my name. I didn't know his name, and still don't. We've never shaken hands and we don't wear nametags on Telegraph. "They're raping women and killing children!" he said next.

"You think the Serbs and Croats invented raping women and killing children? That's what war is," I answered my own question. "Senseless bloodshed and raping women and killing children. Send in the US Army, and you'll get more of all that, not less."

"It's genocide, damn it," he said, and started telling me about the atrocities. 

The atrocities sounded awful, and I'm against genocide, against atrocities, against war, and against raping women and killing children. I don't have a solution that'll end all that, but sending America's army to fight against other armies is war, not a path toward happily ever after.

I may have said that, doubtless more clumsily than I wrote it, or I may have said nothing for a while. It's hard to remember every line of loud dialogue all day, harder to distinguish the shouting in my head from the shouting in my ears and outta my mouth.

At one point the man's eyes started to bulge out, and he said, "There are death camps! Mass graves!"

"And there will be again, come the next war," I said. "If you're against that, then you ought to be against war in general."

"I am against war in general," he said, "but just this once..."

Always it's just this once.

On and on it went on between us, but I'll let the argument end there, on paper. It went longer, on the Avenue.

And I don't know whether I'm right or he's right. I don't know what the Serbs and Croats are fighting over, and barely know what Serbs and Croats are. The man to my right was probably better informed about it than me. He reads those articles in the New York Times, but after a few years of the same war and the same atrocities, I only skim those articles, or skip them entirely.

I'll just say, we fought "the war to end all wars" 80 years ago, but the wars keep coming. America is not the moral force that's going to end war. It's the opposite: War is America's past, present, and future, war is America's habit, and I'm against it. Against using the US military for more bombings, more invasions, and more endless war.

Anyway, me and the vendor to my right kept arguing every ten or twenty minutes, and after several hours I'd almost forgotten about the vendor to my left. At first I thought she was a customer, and I almost said 'Good morning' again. She was standing at my table and holding Jay's booklet, What Lesbians Do (but not opening it).

Great, I thought, here comes another argument — it was written on her face.

"The book is supposed to be funny," I said, trying to forestall whatever anger was waiting behind her dull eyes.

She looked at me and said, "All of us working the Avenue try to be professional about what we do, and when someone sells something like this, it makes all of us look bad."

Her lecture didn't stop there, but my listening took a break, because I was instantly furious. Since two censorious vendor biddies tried to have What Lesbians Do removed from my table last weekend, it's been a constantly simmering controversy among some of the vendors, and I'm tired of it, but it's given me time to plan how to respond, so I was kinda ready.

I interrupted her. "You don't like the book?"

"I certainly do not like the book," she answered harshly.

"Then don't read it! Don't buy it! But put it down, unless you're brave enough to actually open it."

"You don't have to yell!" she yelled, and she was right about that. I'd been the first to yell.

"No, I don't have to yell," I said, not quite yelling, "just like I don't have to sell poetry, but it's my right to. There's this annoying concept called freedom of speech—" and she interrupted me, to say something stupid about the difference between free speech and filthy pornography, waving the book at me.

I took a long slow swig of water from my jug, more for time than for thirst, wanting to compose myself and come up with a good zinger. Swallowed some of the water, and spat the rest on the ground between us, but a little closer to her than to me.

That of course set her off again, but she weirdly shut up when I said not at all loudly, "I've heard enough. It's time for you to either put the book back and get out of my face or—" and I don't know where that ultimatum was leading, but I (wisely) swerved in a different direction and finished, "—or just open it, take a look inside, so you'll know what you're so angry about."

To my surprise, she opened the book. She expected to find something disgusting, so she flipped through some pages, looking for disgusting but never finding it because it isn't there. Then she started reading, and a new maybe-customer approached my table, while this lady read a little more, turned another page. I'd sold a fish before she spoke again.

"It's poetry," she said, and very briefly, she smiled. It was not a good look on her, but at least she was trying, maybe comprehending that despite the title, What Lesbians Do is not a how-to manual aimed at converting girls and women into queers. "I still don't like the book," she said, but she put it back on my table.

"That's OK," I said, and gave her a smile that was probably as uncomfortable as hers. "You don't have to like everything anyone writes."

And that was the wrong thing to say, in retrospect. Before I said it she'd been on a calming trajectory, but after I said it she said something else, a long something else, and clearly she was still (or again?) pissed off.

Another customer appeared, so I shot the vendor a glare and she shut up — a courtesy that's almost universal among vendors. My customer bought something, and then started browsing through that lady's t-shirts, so she left my table to tend to her own. When that customer walked away, we said nothing more to each other, which was lovely for a few hours.

On both sides of me, though, the right- and left-vendors were talking now and again and again, not to each other, but with friends and with passers-by, and mostly about politics.

The lady to my left, I should add, was politically of the left, too — very "Democratic Party." With one friend, she made an impassioned anti-Gingrich speech, and with another, she spoke of restoring the safety net of social welfare programs, and griped about the "fucking fascists" in Congress. These are generally my opinions too, only more so, but please, I'm not on Telegraph to talk politics.

Usually there's a lull in foot traffic in the mid-afternoon, and with no-one to talk to both my neighbor-vendors were finally quiet for a while. I was reading my right-vendor's New York Times, since he'd put it down where our tables touched.

When someone's shadow fell over the pages, I looked up, expecting to see a customer, or maybe the vendor from my right, annoyed that I'd swiped his newspaper. Nope, it was the vendor from my left, and again she was holding a copy of What Lesbians Do.

I smiled at her, because of good manners again, dang it. My mom taught me manners.

"I still find this book offensive," she said.

"The book that made you smile a few hours ago?"

"The poetry is all right," she said, quietly, not as angry as earlier, "but the title is unacceptable."

"Unacceptable to you." I said, "but why should I care?"

"I've been talking to some other vendors, and the consensus is that we all find the book offensive."

"Lady, if you talk to every vendor, talk to every man woman and child in the state of California, and it's unanimous that they're all offended, I'm still selling the book. So give it up and go back to your tie-dyed t-shirts."

She raged on for a while, and I was quiet for a while, cuz the concept of free speech is beyond a Berkeley Democrat's intellectual grasp. Why keep trying to explain it? I gave her the raspberries — pthth — ignored her, and started reading the Times again.

And then a second shadow fell over my table and The Times. It was my right vendor, the guy who wants to send American troops to the Bosnian Peninsula. He'd been hearing about Jay's chapbook, and now he wanted to look at it, so both left- and right-vendors had a copy and were looking through it, standing in front of my table.

Left-vendor started telling right-vendor why he ought to be offended by it, but he shook his head no, and said to her, "Adrian, you're wrong about everything you ever say" — guess they know each other — "and if you hate the book, it can't be all bad."

I do dearly wish I could report that the vendor to my right and the vendor to my left came to blows, or at least argued for a long time, or my favorite fiction would be that the right-vendor loved the book so much he bought two copies. None of that happened, though.

My right-vendor just stood there, flipping through the book for a minute, and then he said, "Poetry, huh. I was hoping for pictures of what lesbians do."

From Pathetic Life #15
Saturday, August 5, 1995

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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An apology, and several complaints

or, How to drive a bus (part 3)

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5 

Part 6     Part 7     Part 8     Part 9     Part 10

 Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15

#173
Friday,
August 5, 2022

I've been sitting through bus driver classes all week. Monday and Tuesday was very slow and boring, and I thought I could ace everything. Wednesday and Thursday, though, were hurricanes of information and acronyms, with lots of "seven things to do in this very-likely situation" lists, presented just as quickly as the list of eleven things to do in a very unlikely situation.

Our big test is today. Student drivers who pass will get two weeks of hand-on training inside and around the buses. I've found the class occasionally confusing, and there's a chance I could fail the test today.

The teacher urged us to take the books home yesterday and study, but Doug doesn't do unpaid homework, and that's an absolute.

Friday's test-flunkers will have one last chance to take the same test on Monday, and I figure, even if I fail the test the first time, if you tell me what I got wrong, I'll probably pass it the second time. So that's my strategy.

And if I fail both times, well, I was out of work when I found this job.

In my rant a few weeks ago about slow bus drivers, I wrote this:

Slow bus drivers are often allergic to yellow lights, so that driver slowed the bus a bit more when approaching green lights, for fear the light might turn yellow.  

Sorry, I was wrong to complain about that.

In the class, we're taught that slowing down for green lights is what you're supposed to do, when driving a bus. It's about safety and passenger comfort — safety, because you don't want the big long bus to be stuck in the intersection, and passenger comfort, because you don't want to slam on the brakes and jostle everyone.

When approaching a green light, best driver practice is to take your foot off the accelerator and hold it over the brake. The bus slows a little, but if the light changes to yellow you're prepared to ease the bus to a smooth stop.

So, oops.

And something else — as a passenger, it often seems like we're waiting at a red light even after it turns green, and that's something else I've muttered about, but guess what? That's policy, too.

We're supposed to wait three seconds after the light turns green before accelerating. It's an extra layer of safety, in case a pedestrian is still crossing the street, or a vehicle on the cross street tries running the yellow or red.

And now I'm wondering... of the millions of things I'm always complaining about, how many are like that — things that would make sense if only I knew jack crap.

Next: No bus to the bus barn
or, How to drive a bus (part 4)

Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5

Part 6     Part 7     Part 8     Part 9     Part 10

 Part 11     Part 12     Part 13     Part 14     Part 15

I have another complaint, though:

There's a local (I think) chain of espresso huts called Bikini Barista, and they're only little wooden shacks, probably with no air conditioning. It was a hot day so the shack's door was open as I was walking past, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Boobies inside the shack, but no bikini.

The woman inside was wearing a yellow one-piece swimsuit, but the name of the place is Bikini Barista, and a one-piece is not a bikini. If I was buying an espresso there, I wouldn't be buying it for the espresso, and I'd feel cheated.

 
My next complaint is long and complicated, sorry:

The #120 is one of Metro's busiest bus routes, so it's getting promoted to the transit system's top tier as a "RapidRide" route, bus rapid transit (BRT). When the #120 goes RapidRide in a few months, it'll be on the same streets but running more often and making fewer stops, with a new RapidRide designation (it'll be #H instead of #120), and with snazzy new RapidRide bus stops.

Unlike normal bus stops (just a 'bus stop' sign with maybe a bench or, if you're lucky, a shelter), a RapidRide stop is much bigger, all with benches and shelters, and bright red so they visually 'pop out' at passengers to announce that a fast bus stops here.

As part of rejiggering the #120 into the RapidRide #H, the old bus stops gotta go, and nifty new RapidRide stops need to be built. It's work that's been underway for several months now. For every new RapidRide stop, a bus-length patch of the street is dug up, and the asphalt is replaced with reinforced concrete to handle the heavier buses with more passengers.

There's no coordination on these tasks, though. The team that digs holes in the road leaves those holes, sometimes for weeks, sometimes for months, before the team that pours the concrete moseys along. So the length of a busy road like Ambaum Boulevard, two lanes in each direction, has been reduced to one lane in each direction, for at least five months now — since before I moved to Seattle. It slows all the traffic, including the bus, and it's just stupid. Why the long wait between digging the hole and filling the hole?

On the sidewalk side of the new RapidRide shelters, most are now mostly completed, so they look like bus stops, but they're not open for passengers yet. At a typical intersection, the old and new stops aren't at the same location, so there's an old-style bus stop (just the sign), and perhaps a block away there's a new RapidRide stop that looks like it's open, but it's not.

Many times I've seen would-be passengers waiting at the new RapidRide shelters, as the bus whizzes right past them. Instead it stops at the old stop a block away, but only if there's someone waiting there or someone getting off. If not, it doesn't stop at all. Either way, if you were standing at the new RapidRide shelter, you're screwed and stranded.

Either the new stops should be clearly marked as 'closed', or the old stops should be dismantled, or the drivers should treat both sets of bus stops as bus stops.

I sent a shorter, nicer version of the above to Metro's comment line two weeks ago. There's been no response, and both problems are still problems, and I doubt there's anything I don't know that would suddenly make it smart to drive past passengers and leave them stranded at the bus stop.

One more complaint, and I'll be done complaining for today:

We have creepy crawling larvae in the kitchen at my rooming house. Every morning, I see a dozen of them crawling across the kitchen floor. Haven't ascertained where they're coming from, or what species they're gonna be when the mature into icky bugs, but whatever they are they're unwelcome. I keep killing all of them, every morning, but the next morning, there are more larvae.

I mentioned it to my flatmates Robert and Dean, and Robert's grossed out, says he'll buy a can of Raid. Dean, who's worked in upscale professional kitchens for 40 years, and whose cooking is endlessly complimented, or so he says, literally shrugged" Bugs in the kitchen is a landlord problem," he said, and he's not worried about it.

And now, the news you need, whether you know it or now…

♦ ♦ ♦ 

14,000th US strike in Afghanistan kills 29th al-Qaida leader

♦ ♦ ♦ 

New York will censor a book about the Attica uprising in its state prisons 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Polio may be spreading in New York’s Hudson Valley 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

AT&T gets yet another pathetic wrist slap after making millions from shitty fees 

♦ ♦ ♦  

An underground mall from the 1890s 

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Alex Jones' damning texts ACCIDENTALLY sent to Sandy Hook lawyer 

♦ ♦ ♦

List of incidents at Disneyland 

♦ ♦ ♦  

List of common misconceptions 

♦ ♦ ♦  

One-word newscast, because it's the same news every time...
• climate • climate • climate
• cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops • cops• cops • cops • cops • cops• cops• cops• cops • cops • cops • cops
• Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans • Republicans 

♦ ♦ ♦

The End
• Taurean Blacque
• Michael Henderson
• Archie Roach
• Vin Scully
• David Trimble
• Albert Woodfox

8/5/2022 

 

Cranky Old Fart is annoyed and complains and very occasionally offers a kindness, along with anything off the internet that's made me smile or snarl. All opinions fresh from my ass. Top illustration by Jeff Meyer. Click any image to enlarge. Comments & conversations invited.

 

Tip 'o the hat to Linden Arden, ye olde AVA, BoingBoing, Breakfast at Ralf's, Captain Hampockets, CaptCreate's Log, John the Basket, LiarTownUSA, Meme City, National Zero, Ran Prieur, Voenix Rising, and anyone else whose work I've stolen without saying thanks.

 

Extra special thanks to Becky Jo, Name Withheld, Dave S, Wynn Bruce, and always Stephanie...

Cranky Old Fart
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itsdougholland.com
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Roaches and schmucks

Most days selling fish on Telegraph, someone comes by the table to check that our street vendor's license is in order. It's a waste of time and it's an annoyance. If my vendor's license was in order yesterday, the day before, and all five days I worked last week, how could it not be in order today and tomorrow as well? The damn thing is supposed to be good for all of 1995.

It's only a slight exaggeration to say it's like passing through Checkpoint Charlie every dang day, and when the daily schmuck comes by demanding my papers, I usually say nothing, just point at the license. Yup, there it is, same as yesterday.

Today's city schmuck looked at the license, and then looked at the display of Jay's poetry chapbook, What Lesbians Do. "So this is the book that has everyone up in arms," he said casually, leafing through the pages.

"That's the book," I said. "Have those narrow-minded old biddies filed a formal complaint?" One of those old biddies was working three tables down the street from me, so I said it so loud she couldn't not hear it.

"Yeah," he said, "but I was at the meeting months ago, where the book was approved. They have no grounds for a complaint."

He smiled as he said it, so I nodded, and maybe, maybe I slightly smiled back, but I hate the whole idea of schmucks carrying clipboards. It's nice that the city has decided it's legal for Jay to sell her poetry, but the concept of the city deciding what's art, what's poetry, and what's not, is simply wrong.

♦ ♦ ♦

Maybe I feel more strongly about it because today I had a long conversation with Umberto the anarchist, one of too few "free speech" vendors on the Ave — people who sell their stuff without a license, without any hoop-jumping or approval process or fees for licenses. Umberto simply refuses, says it's his right to sell his bumper stickers on Telegraph, and the city no longer hassles him.

You might remember, I hated Umberto when we first met, but I'm coming around, slowly starting to like the man. Selling anarchist bumper stickers isn't just a job for him. He's an activist. While he's selling the stickers, he's all day talking about very left politics, the importance of liberty and justice for all as more than a mere slogan, and reminding his customers and anyone passing by about upcoming marches and rallies.

It's his life. When he's not on Telegraph, I've seen him carrying a picket against police brutality, and when we talked today he mentioned a march he's attended a few days ago, hoping to restore Affirmative Action. Umberto is that rare old hippie who hasn't forgotten his ideals, and I have serious respect for that.

We seem to believe most of the same things, Umberto and me, but I've mostly given up on working for the cause, any cause. I'll buy the Ⓐ sticker and slap it on the back of my jacket, but from many years of marching and picketing, I've come to believe that the protests accomplish nothing.

My turning point was the nationwide series of giant protests against the Gulf War, George Bush's 1990 boondoggle/slaughter. Neither Bush nor anyone in power gave a damn about the protests, or the subsequent deaths of so many for so little. The protests didn't even slow the stupidity. The powers that be paid no attention whatsoever.

The world is an awful place ruled by rotten bastards, and there's more to protest than I could possibly list in this zine's 26 pages, but if nothing's accomplished, fuck it, I'd rather sit at home and eat a sandwich.

♦ ♦ ♦ 

Tonight Judith told me she's seen two roaches in her bathroom, which is on the other side of my bedroom wall. Damn it, a few of the pesky pests must've come with me when I moved from San Francisco last month.

I've seen three roaches in my room — two live ones that I squished, and a dead one, stuck to an inch of exposed wrapping tape, but that third roach was dead and dry, so I think he was dead before the move.

Really really really I don't want to be the guy who got this place infested with roaches, so I went in halvsies with Judith on the purchase of a three-pack of fogger-type insecticide. Before I leave for work tomorrow, we'll bug-bomb my bedroom and Jay's bathroom and kill every damn roach. I sure hope.

From Pathetic Life #15
Friday, August 4, 1995

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.

Pathetic Life
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itsdougholland.com
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Retirement home solutions

by Paul Modic

I was wondering recently if there are senior sex services for horny elderly people in old folks homes in enlightened countries like Denmark, for example, and how that would work?

"Mr G, we're here for your weekly hand job," the nurse says. "This is J who will be assisting you today."

"I can't tell if it's a man or woman behind that gown, mask, and splashguard," Mr G responds.

"Does it really matter, Mr G?" the nurse asks.

"Ah, I guess not," Mr G says. "I'm glad you came early in the morning, this is the only one I get these days."

"Yes, first thing is our best shot for you, but we also have Viagra for other times of the day," the nurse says.

"Oh I'm a little scared of that, my heart condition you know," he says.

"Oh come on, you're practically a vegetable anyway and what a way to go!"

"Yeah I guess. If I can't tell who that is it may as well be a robot."

"We can arrange that."

"Okay, you were a little late and I was concerned and thinking 'Who ya gotta blow to get a hand job these days?'"

"Would you like a blowjob Mr G?"

"Sure! So do you diddle the little old ladies here too?"

"Some of our elderly female clients are also in the program, they paid for the premium package as did you."

"So it all comes down to money?"

"I'm afraid so Mr G."

"What about our famous socialized medicine?"

"Everyone gets as much lube as they want."

"Do you think I could have a little hands-on fun with one of those old biddies?"

"Yes, you can upgrade to our match-making package if you'd like."

"When would you send her over?"

"Oh Mr G, first you meet for coffee."

"Of course!"

"Would you like to sign up for our Ultimate Sexual Experience Package?"

"Yes!"

"Very well. J, please bring in the strap-on."

— — —

The other day I was driving around this small town looking for someone I knew who liked my stories so I could hand them one, getting this guest post on Doug's site will be a step up in publication!

I do get stories in the Anderson Valley Advertiser from time to time where I first spotted Doug's stuff and thoroughly enjoyed it. However the editor there is a decent guy who doesn't like my indecent pieces hence here I am to inflict one on YOU!

I write 99% non-fiction and like Doug make a story out of just about anything, which I call my non-stories, or stories about nothing. (Possibly they are stories about EVERYTHING?)

It's fun to play around with fiction but I usually abuse it and take it too far, as you can see: real life is just real life but fiction can be ANYTHING.

Please comment, I'm so needy. (I know, that's a turnoff, so be it!)

—Paul Modic 

8/4/2022  

itsdougholland.com
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