the jingle i am waking up to this morning is a happy sound. maybe i wasn’t ready to get up, but it’s not a sound i want to go away.
it is the sound of truck scratching behind his ear. his new registration tag (now with local number!) glancing off his older one. can’t be too careful, you know.
all the dogs have new tags now. i spent an hour at petsmart trying to think of just the right thing to say on each of their tags.
“walter – true playa.”
“coyote – can u dig it?”
“truck – down 4 whatever”
“dingo – i don’t eat babies”
now no one can resort to the old “i saw the tag, but the number wasn’t local and i don’t have long distance [and i didn't think of calling collect]” excuse for taking three days to find a flyer and call us on our home phone.
yes indeedy, tears were shed. i hugged a complete stranger, a woman whose name i had not yet asked.
the fence is repaired. the vet is putting in microchips later roday. this can never happen again.
but most important thing of all–
truck is home. where he belongs.
no, it’s not a thing i would ordinarily say. in fact, if you had asked me three days ago what the likelihood was of me ever saying the above sentence, i would have given you pretty long odds.
but things have changed.
two days ago, a very bad thing happened. li’l truck was taken. stolen right our from under our very noses. and so far, all our looking has come to naught.
flyers are everywhere. vets are all notified. paper has an ad. every website in town has a picture. the police know. there is literally not one more thing i can think to do.
except wait.
and waiting is very, very hard.
the first day was a killer. the guilt (of leaving a hole in the fence uncovered), the anger (at some druggy/hoodlum for stealing him), the sadness (at seeing his little food bowl, missing him), the worry (that he was in some scary situation or hurt), the paranoia (what was that sound? it sounded like his bark!)–my mind was awash in negativity. i was hurting. and so was b.
all that night was spent worrying, and all the next day was spent asking people and dropping off flyers. there is nothing left to do.
but i have made a decision.
i have decided that everything is ok. truck is ok. and we will be ok. everything. will. be. ok. no matter what. it’s amazing what your mind can do if you really try. i have peace now.
but it’s still hard to think of anything else. hard to distract ones mind from the most pressing issue in ones life.
monkey came over with her beau to cheer us up. there was food and drink. there was even a little laughter. but behind it all was a very somber mood. and when the company left, it was quiet again. tv was reluctantly turned on. we tried to think about something other than the crisis in which we are enmeshed.
fortunately, babaghanoush makes b. pretty damn gassy. amazingly gassy, in fact.
and as childish as it was, it made us smile. it made us laugh.
make no mistake; we have not given up. i will be at the animal shelter every day. we will not give up. we miss him. and we will find him.
but it felt good to make a horrible face and hold my nose and tell her what died in there.
before retiring to bed and dreaming of him.
this whole “snakes on a plane” thing has gotten a bit out of hand. right?
it was funny. it was weird. a horrible title. i read stuff about renaming all movies like that (i.e. “die hard”=”terrorist on a skyscraper,” “raiders of the lost ark”=”nazis in the desert,” or something) and it was amusing. the idea that people were excited about something that was obviously so irredeemably bad was funny.
but it didn’t stop.
the hype got bigger. and bigger. i thought it would go right to “rocky horror” status with a select few seeing it a million times over and over, and the rest of us rolling our eyes at them. but here it came, and samuel l. jackson would call your friends to invite them for you. he was on every talk show. it seemed like it might be mistaken for a real live movie. which was weird.
but then b. started talking about it. she was excited. she wanted to see it. somehow her good movie radar was not going nuts. she wanted to buy tickets in advance for opening night. and this was not just for the beer (suddenly the tables were turned, and the beer was my motivation not to say no).
before we knew it, we had invited ten people, and it was a thing. a real social engagement. a good metaphor for the movie itself: ten people, nine of which didn’t care about this movie one way or the other, and one who was excited enough for all of us.
so i saw it. opening night. and here’s what i have to say about it:
remember quentin tarantino?
remember in “kill bill” when that yakuza dude got his arm cut off, and blood spurted and spurted way longer than was appropriate, and you were just like, “wow, that’s a little much,” but you loved it and laughed and smiled cause q was pushing that envelope and loving every minute of it? and you were too? cause bad is good, sometimes? remember?
well, he can smile all the way through :snakes on a plane,” knowing that this is what he hath wrought. and he can stop trying too. cause i think maybe this is the worst (in the best way) b-movie ever. and the fact that it was done on purpose just makes it even better.
apparently, the studio didn’t know for a while what it had on its hands, trying to make a more “serious” movie, like “anaconda.” no one had any idea that the more exploitation-y they made it, the more the irony-soaked brains of the young masses would eat it up. only one man knew: samuel l. “muthafuckin’ snakes on a muthafuckin’ plane” jackson. who told them they couldn’t change the name. who insisted on more swears.
and when the camera lingered on the naked boobies of a girl that you just knew was about to die; when the good guys tried to check on a certain passenger, and a snake emerged from his throat; when the fat lady in teh muumuu slept as the snake crept up her leg and then moaned erotically; then you KNEW they had gotten it right.
seriously, think of the most outlandish thing, and its in there. try to make up a bad movie cliche that isn’t in it. it’s in there. try to imagine something no movie would do. and they did it. if it was ever in a bad movie, it’s in this movie too. gloriously.
now, i have to admit, that here in austin, apparently there is no problem with bringing in a snake wrangler and letting him put a cobra on a table and kiss its hood. he even admitted that in east texas you don’t need a license to own poisonous snakes. and when b. asked him if had a license for this (more out of concern for our safety), and he responded, “no you don’t need a license if you want to try this (more out of the assumption that she was interested in becoming a snake wrangler like him), then it was really clear that this was clearly a nutso stunt. so that does tend to make a move better.
(as does the beer they always have, which i may have mentioned before…)
but this movie is as bad as can be, in all the good ways. tarantino can rest easy that the mantle has been picked up, except for some washed up exploitation actor being the star, and some crazy kung fu sequence (which i have to admit, i was sure was coming at the end, and didn’t), there’s really nothing missing from this gem.
i may need to sit down and watch “the godfather” again to clear my movie pallete, but as guilty pleasures go, this is sure hard to beat.
on the side of the road a man held a sign. i don’t usually even bother to read them. they all say the same. “will work for food.” “homeless vet.” “need help. god bless you.” etc.
this guys’ said, “just smile or wave. it helps.”
only in austin.
Filed under: reviews
they say this is the time of summer when we the moviegoing public get tired of sequels, blockbusters, and mega movie stars laughing all the way to the bank as we sit there in the dark wondering what ever happened to the good movies we remember growing up with. they say this is the time of the summer where the moviegoing public is craving something new and different, that doesn’t smell like something every screenwriter in hollywood has written.
well friends, i say that they’re right. and that movie is here. i’m talking about a little movie called “little miss sunshine.”
backstory: b. doesn’t like bad movies, and won’t go with me to see them (unless they have beer, see previous posts), and usually, when i tell her i want to see “mission impossible” or “x-men” or whatever, she says, “hm, well, better call someone to go with you.” cause she ain’t in. so when we first saw the trailer for this movie before “thank you for smoking” and she leaned over to me and said, “i’ll see that with you,” it meant something. and now, three months later, we had to go all the way back to l.a. to see it, but we saw it.
and she was right. it was worth it.
admission: ok, it was a little bit over the top at times, a little sitcom-y, and things maybe worked out just a leeeeetle bit too perfectly for everybody, but if you can handle that little bit of saccharine, you will be rewarded. there is enough to these characters to make you feel like you haven’t been here…well, i won’t say never before, but a lot less than a million times.
steve carrell, who’s fame has pretty much swallowed this movie and spit it into the mainstream with one mighty blow, gets to go against type and be the sarcastic ass that you always knew he could be. alan arkin could write a book on playing grumpy old men without being walter matthau, but hell, he makes it look easy and original every time, so who’s complaining? toni collette wins me over just by doing a perfect american accent, and the new guy, the silent, rebellious teenager does a solid job. greg kinnear is the butthead we all know he probably really is in real life, so i don’t know if i would call it acting, but…anyway, a great ensemble cast.
all built around a little nine-year-old girl that makes listening to an answering machine message seem so real that you wonder if it was. (cause kids are bad at faking stuff like that. i know from experience. they can be cute, and they can say lines, but they can rarely actually act like they thought of the words coming out of their mouths [watch your back, haley joe. is all i'm saying...].) i swear twice in this movie tears almost fell, and i am not ashamed to say it was that damn little girl that broke this heart.
finally. a movie you don’t even need beer to enjoy. (not that it would hurt…
anyway.
go see this movie and let bruckheimer know you’re not his lapdog.
Filed under: austin
heard our first gunshots two nights ago. which is always fun.
but wait–lest you think we live in this austin ghetto, let me tell you a little bit about the neighborhood.
we live in what the newspaper calls “north austin,” though it’s not more than ten minutes from downtown. it’s not the heart of the sity by any stretch, but it’s not the boondocks either. no houses on an acre of land with horses, or cows, or whatever. and it’s not super urban. sure, there’s areas that look like compton in austin (well, compton-light, maybe. [now with splenda!]), but we ain’t in ‘em. no, our neighborhood is a reasonably normal one. not too suburban, with a hundred identical brick houses built five years ago and a suv in every driveway, either. the people living in our neighborhood are mostly hispanic or black middle class. no big deal. normal.
but the neighbors…
their driveway always has about six cars in it, but never the same six. they don’t get up till after lunch. that is when they come sit outside on the front porch, a couple of young guys in tank tops and baseball hats. they don’t have jobs, cause they never leave. around two or three, their phones start to chirp. they start walkie-talkie-ing everyone. scruffy, unkempt (and often shirtless) guys walk into their house and walk back out abouot five minutes later. they pass our house both ways. no one evers stays long. and those phones do that chirping thing till way past when we go to bed. and we stay up pretty darn late.
our conclusion: our neighbors are drug dealers.
yep. we happen to have bought the house next to the one bad apple in the barrel. hooray.
so sunday night, at 2:30 in the morning, when we heard seven or eight pops next door, my first reaction was, “that couldn’t have been a gun, right? it would be louder. it was so close!” but we both knew the reality. i had to phone it in.
i have not called 911 a lot in my life (though i have been involved in another shooting), but i have heard that you get put on hold sometimes. must be anla thing. not the case here. it was quick, efficient (the operator wanted to know exactly how many shots i had heard, but very little else), and i was done about a minute later. she even told me that someone else had already called it in.
late last night, i could hear them on their porch again, laughing and talking. as if no one had been shot at all. hm.
i am calm. i am confident. i am safe. i don’t get freaked out by these things. they can do their thing, and i will do mine. they just happen to live next door.
but i certainly look forward to the day some developer buys that house to fix it up into something other than a crack den.
