It's the little things in life which make us happy, make us miserable, or sometime kill us outright. Those extra details break us out of our funks and/or help smash our pity parties with their simple genius. I am usually stunned into silence by a twist of written prose or a piece of visual splendor which won't leave my brain. Whoever made this design decision caught my eye as I was cruising by on my motorcycle. This building has been up for a while near where I live, but through some act of disinterest, I've never noticed it until today.
I have been meaning to read this author's best known work, Trout Fishing in America, for some time. After going to three different bookstore in San Diego and striking out, I found a copy at the amazing Book Soup in Los Angeles. If you get a chance to go there, you will not be let down. As for Brautigan's writing, if Captain Beefheart was born on the West Coast and ended up living in Northern California, this is the book he would have written. The entire plot is more like a set of riffs without any kind of linear plot line of any sort, but you never feel lost. You don't so much read his prose as you wade through it. Trout Fishing in America has the whimsical feel of the 60s (it was published in 1967). However, Brautigan's life came to the same awkwardly tragic end as Hemingway. He shot himself in the head in 1984. Most writers with easy access to booze and guns don't seem to fare too well.
There was a girl who lived in my building on the 9th floor who fell off her balcony one evening. She was 21 years old and years later there is still a mark on the sidewalk where friends and family left candles burning and piles of flowers. I walk past this spot on a regular basis with my dog and there is not a day my thoughts don't drift to this young woman.
People still go to the movies, but in our age of home theaters, streamed movies on our laptops and the outrageous cost for a ticket (not to mention the profit machine called the concession stand), people are not rushing out to see films.
When I go myself, it's for either a film which should be experienced on the big screen or to support and view something at the smaller art cinemas. The smallest, but best art theater in San Diego is the Ken Cinema. It is intimate, they have midnight movies and show new prints of old classics along with lots of new independent films. They are showing Ran in May with a new 35mm print to celebrate its 25th Anniversary.
I now realize how spoiled I was when I lived in Chicago and regularly went to the Music Box. It is a amazing vintage art theater with a great program. They have a working organ which is put to creepy use during Halloween, usually during a showing of Nosferatu. My grandmother use to work there as a teenager too. My mother worked at another Chicago theater, the Pickwick Theater, when she was growing up in Park Ridge so my appetite for film may be genetic.
Recently, I found out an old friend of mine is making a documentary on the history of the great movie houses in San Francisco. I'm looking forward to seeing Strand: A Natural History of Cinema when it's released. Hopefully, on the big screen.
This is by far my favorite dispensary I've been to so far. They are located @ 4852 Voltaire Street, Ocean Beach, California. The medication (a.k.a. weed, boo, maryjane, dope, kif, pot, herb, grass) is high quality, the employees are nice and receptive to questions and often enough, you get smoked up by someone behind the counter while shopping. They have a impressive variety of inventory which includes edibles, hash and smoking implements. If you are not fortunate enough to live in a state which is embracing the new marijuana laws, you should fight for your rights.
All couples have disagreements and fight. It's the nature of things, but often enough those scraps get blown out of proportion and your bed, regardless of the size, is going to be for one only. So how many pillows do I need when I'm sequestered to the couch? Zero. I head on down to the Bachelors' Flat. This Shangri-La is near the railroad tracks, close to the dirty bay, near the Coronado Bridge. Rooms are available.
Author Mike Davis will slowly, page by gloriously researched page, make me hate my city. I hope my own anger will lead me to some action, rather then the usual apathy which infects San Diegoians as consistently as the sunny, blue sky days and temperate climate.
I have asthma and it really sucks. Like an idiot, I smoked cigarettes in high school, college, when I was getting divorced, and I love, love, loved them. I didn't smoke all the time, but I did enough to feel their slithering need when I was drinking or super stressed out. OK, I still sneak an occasional butt and for my sins, when I do, my lungs feel like leather and the planet seems to be running out of air.
When my old friend Todd and me were drinking, talk would turn to the future utopia or dystopian world we and our children would live in. What we dreamed of most was the cyber-liver we'd get installed when our busted ones were dating cirrosis. And I would get cyber-lungs, immune to carcinogens. I could smoke and go running all at the same time if I wanted. And since I could, I would. And I am sure there would be other great advances. Maybe cure my damned asthma too. But we didn't get the New Flesh. We got the internet: a vast inner-space of crap larger then the planet. You can still dream though. Death to the Internet! Long live the New Flesh!
I remember watching roller derby on channel 9, Saturday afternoons, some time between old Kung Fu movies, Dance Fever and Star Trek re-runs. Granted I was eight years old, but the women were scary, their hair was humongous, their breasts equally so and they moved like slingshotted rocks, smashing into each other hard. Well, much like I have based my concept of masculinity on the adventures of one Captain Kirk, I've never give up on that nervous, testosterone-heightening thrill of watching roller derby. The hair is a little more under control and their are a hell of a lot more tattoos, but man, it doesn't get any more fun. Take the party bus, drink cheap beer and Jell-o shots with the true believers and some of the Dolls themselves.
She's in high school. She speaks Japanese. She wacky and has huge boobs. What's not to love. Be sure the check her out on youtube. She has regular postings on issues such as manga, high school, wasabi peas and chips she may or may not want to eat that day.
The premier of anything is scary. Will it be any good? Is it worth it? Was this just another big, fat waste of my time and cash? And at the beginning, the answer is always a definitive set of maybes. Think back though your little life. Remember that first time day of school. When you moved out of your parent's place. Finding your first crappy apartment to match your shitty job. That first important, game changing, life changing relationship. Your first divorce. The time you inhaled for the first time. Your first drug deal. Yes, I think anyone still in touch with their humanity can relate to a few if not most of these. So I write these words with a little bit of trepidation before I post this into the cold, hard world...wide web. They say it all gets easier after the first time. Hmm, I guess, maybe.
What is Marijuana Movie Night? I originally wanted to do a monthly get together with some good friends, good weed, good food and a great movie. It was going to be during the week which would, in theory, keep the night from spiraling into a smoky binge laden late night. I was excited to play projectionist at home and turning people on to some amazing films which do not get shown or even talked about regularly enough. We'd have some blockbusters too along with art house, noir, new wave and the list in my head went on. So what happened? Man, it all started to sound like a hassle. All those people at my place. My dope all smoked up. It was so perfect in my mind, it was bound to get ruined. But the name was too good to let go of and so I thought, why not a blog. I can still be at home, nothing will be fucked and I can change the rules anytime I want. And that's how this blog will be: a little bit lawless. It may be made up of anything, but at the very least I will try to keep it interesting. OK, my blog foreword is done. Come back again soon to Marijuana Movie Night.
I originally wanted to do a monthly get together with some good friends, good weed, good food and a great movie. I was excited to play projectionist at home & turning people on to some amazing films. So what happened? It all started to sound like a hassle. All those people at my place. My dope all smoked up. It was so perfect in my mind, it was bound to get ruined. But the name was too good to let go of, so I thought, why not a blog? Welcome to Marijuana Movie Night.
