Weblog 64
April 29, 2007~ 12:15am
I just watched the first episode of the last season of the Sopranos, and Tony still has the ability to hypnotize me the way a snake would if I chose to stop and stare at it.
What has always been fascinating about that family is that on one hand, they do seem like people you might know, while on the other they are creatures so alien, so downright cold-blooded greedy and violent, they hold us in thrall, so it's like watching a cockfight or anything dark and senseless. It's a fascination with the purely evil impulse running around somewhere in everyone, but the Sopranos simply say 'o.k.' to it and go.
It's been eight years of watching Tony struggle with his existential questions, his wife Carmella tap dance around her moral ones and the two children, kept in the dark about of the source of money that allows them to live so lavishly, grown now into young adults who are more and more aware of the poisoned fruit that hangs from the family tree. And of course there is the rich assortment of cronies- relatives who are murderers- loan sharks, strippers, kept women and drug addicts who make up the nebula "Soprano".
It's a galaxy that's shone brightly for such a long time now- sometimes waning a bit, wobbling a bit, but every season leaves me wanting to know more. Part of the pull is the way the audience can relate very personally to much of the emotion in the familial or love relationships, yet recoil totally when the same people who made us laugh or cry or feel warm toward, grab a pistol, turn a dead eye on their target, and pull the trigger. It's the way this is all woven so artlessly together that keeps me slightly off-balance. Watching them is like watching a high wire act with no net, they're not paying attention to height at all, but you know somebody's gonna fall.
And for an hour every week, I get to feel what its like to be a true outlaw, someone who steps over the yellow lines we're all taught to observe-- someone for whom there are no lines at all- merely what has to be done to satisfy what is needed, be it money or sex or food or power. The characters all seem to get through this just fine-- except Tony. Tony, the most chilling and cold-blooded of all is also the character the viewer gets to crawl inside of, and for that hour every week- Tony is us. We can understand what he does because he's divided about it. He ruminates: he may be in denial but he always feels uncomfortable, thus the extreme weight and appetites of every kind. The therapy.
Tony stuffs himself. Tony consumes in order to silence the voice of misgiving as much as he can, and it's only when he is truly pissed that all bets are off, the terminator appears, and we watch in horror as the person we thought we understood- who could have been us- beats someone to death in pure fury.
This HBO series has indeed been 'groundbreaking' as they are wont to announce in their promotions, because it does what movies have never been able to achieve: real life, given the time and pace to do it. Eight years of uncensored television so well-written and well-acted, the characters and their stories are now our own. I shall be sad to see it go in June, but I'll miss Tony most of all. James Gandolfini with his heavy breathing and heavy gut, impossibly endearing childlike qualities at times (his care of the wild ducks and his addiction to the History Channel)- even the fearsome cannon blast of his anger colored life a bit more vividly for having shared his underworld- which looked so very much like the real one it was scary. Thanks for making me dizzy, Tony. I'll miss that creepy smile of yours- more than a little.
April 30, 2007~ 4:55pm
Today is a day I look like hell. One of those days you don't feel like hell, but for whatever reason, you just look it. I don't think, number one... (casting about for blame) that tan is my color. Now that the hair's gone so light by letting the white come in, I wash out to dishrag under the fluorescent lights at work. At home: 'passable'-- at work: 'the underbelly of a carp'.
What I don't understand is that I had so much rest over the weekend and so little the three weekends before it, yet I appeared at work at bit 'rosier', more bright-eyed, bushytailed. Maybe the secret to beauty for me is sleep deprivation and the jitters and anxiety that come with it. Maybe the mirror is translating that as youthful 'spirit' in some odd way. Youthful nerviness.........lol. What this does is confuse the hell out of me. I ate well, got plenty of rest, relaxed, and WHAMMY!- face like a beaten ox.
And tonight with nothing on the agenda and a book called "River of Doubt"- (the true adventure of Teddy Roosevelt's catastrophic journey through the heart of unexplored South America after his defeat in 1913)- I'll probably get ample rest and rise to greet the morning looking like I pulled a plow all night. Can't win.
Nah. I don't even attempt it anymore, I'll look whatever I look like tomorrow, period. Perhaps they'll have to label me 'This Side Up' so people know which end they're talking to-- but I will enjoy my book, and I will get lots of sleep. I guess I'll have to get used to ugly because I'm gonna be looking like this for a while: I have no pressures or passions to linger over or to compel me to lose any sleep: this is down time. Apparently I look like hell in down time.
May 1, 2007~ 6:30pm
Above, you see my favorite picture of myself of all time. Almost 4 (my grandson's age)- dirty as all get out, vacationing at my Uncle John Corcoran's house down in Maryland, holding up a cat as stray as myself. Serious. Grimy.......Meeeeeeee!
What lead to this sudden case of nostalgia was listening to Fresh Air yesterday on the way home from work, and hearing Matthew Perry being interviewed. He was talking about how difficult it is to have "one of the 'handsomest men in the world" as your father-- and he mentioned that his dad was the sailor in the Old Spice commercials from back in the 60's. As soon as I got home, I started a Google search for his dad, and low and behold, I came up with
Classic TV Ads
- (the Old Spice is on this page, right hand column). What a WONDERFUL SITE!! LOL!! I spent the better part of an hour, lost in a time warp. Can anyone say "Ipana', "Adorn with the BIKINI BRUSH and STYLING TIPS, FREE", "Halo Shampoo"???? "You can always tell a Halo girl, you can tell by the shine of her curl...." oh man, what a trip down memory lane....
And what the heck ever happened to Halo Shampoo? That- and Prell- are the only 2 we used for yeaaaaaars....and Halo was a beautiful aquamarine color. I LOVED that stuff!
My one and only incident of shoplifting happened over my desperation to own one of those 'free bikini COMBS'- not the brush depicted in the ad on this site, but its forerunner: the awesome little bikini teasing COMB, with the rattail handle you could used to LIFT the steel wool of hopelessly teased and matted hair, after you sprayed it to the consistency of flypaper. LOL!! Those came out in 1965 and I was in 8th grade. I lusted after one of those things, so I could have a puffy, windproof, poofed 'doo'-- too, and stick a clip-on 2" bow stuck right in its foothills, just above the BANGS.
I took a walking trip, one mile to the closest 5 & 10 (remember 5 & 10's?)- I think it was a Woolworth's with some of my girlfriends, and I STOLE one of those little combs right off of an aluminum, ozone-destroying spray can of Adorn. It was pink. I LOVED IT. I slipped it into my pocket and sweated all the way home.
And I teased and sprayed (with 'White Rain'- we had no Adorn) and I proudly stuck my little bow right in the front like the Scarlet Letter. Oh, I was big shit. (At least from the neck up!)
That was just before the Beatle invasion. Later on, ironing the hair for sleek effect was in.....I burned my cheeks. How television influences the young.........always did, always will.
But I want to thank the fella who hosts that site. It was dreamy.....and yes, the Old Spice fella is quite a handsome devil. The commercial on the site is from 1958, but it still might have been Matthew Perry's dad. Old Spice.......still revs my engine, and that's the truth. That little gal with the cat on top here? Her daddy wore it.
May 2, 2007~ 6:00pm
Still caught in the time warp thing here- never left since yesterday, and I keep hearing old jingles in my head. As to the television thing--it made me think. And I thought- as I was writing out some checks for bills today and Comcast's monthly bill of 53 bucks for expanded basic just stuck in my craw- that number one: I used to have TCI cable. 38 bucks. I never asked for Comcast, but they bought out the only TV cable company that services the city of Pittsburgh, and steadily, the rates have crept up-- (as well as constant mail stuffers and emails to 'jump onboard for cable internet/TV/phone service! So much more economical and efficient that way!' Yah, sure. The robbers want MORE of a monopoly....)
That'd be real smart. Why don't I just give them the keys to my house, cut them in on my 401K and name them next of kin in my Living Will??? Number two: I got to thinking how I never-- and I mean never turn on that TV set. I called them and canceled cable television. They were very nice- the young girl extremely polite and solicitous, as though I'd just told her I had a terminal illness and she had to pussyfoot around just why ANYONE in their RIGHT MIND would not want Cable-Fucking-TELEVISION?? She was very quick to add that the disconnect will probably take a week, and since I have no equipment actually in the house, this can be done right out at the telephone pole-------but-------if "by any chance"---I should "change my mind"- ("go home. Try your set without the cable. See if that will suffice") -- oh yeah.....I LOVE TO STARE AT SNOW....
I suspect there will be times such as another Katrina, another 911, where I will want to be glued to the screen , suffering and shocked like everyone else and finding some pathetic sort of communion there, but 99 percent of the time- I won't miss the demon box at all.
I rent films, which is all I use the tube for- and that 600 bucks a year in my pocket will feel plenty good, I can tell you right now. And every time one of those stupid mailings comes around with the cheery, cherry red Comcast logo on it, I will relish picking the cat turds out of the sandbox with it, grinning like a fool.
May 3, 2007~ 5:45pm
Today was a day that felt like- not major- but minor hell. Somewhere in the outer circles but irritating enough to feel the heat. Did you ever have one of those days where you take one step forward, three steps back? Well that was my day. The flow of the workday was strictly 'stop/start'. And I'm a plow horse. Give me a stack of stuff to get through and leave me alone. Not so today. The start part would just get underway and someone would have some pesky snarl for me to look at, or the phone would ring....."Can you look at Mrs. So and So's account? There's something wrong, she's getting a bill..."- and sure enough, it would be some gray-bearded problem that's gone on and on, and someone calls, "Hey, Karen..." and it's the 20th step in a long snafu. Traffic coming home took and hour and a half- not the usual hour. (Yes, sunny beautiful weather brings 'em all out like cockroaches: convertibles, teens, SUV's too big for the drivers to capably handle, so they bully their way nearly causing fender benders whenever they cut in and out, and they were all out there in full force-- celebrating May. I hate May- it brings aggressiveness out in people.)
Now why would that be?
Must be because most folks are selfish pricks to begin with-- and having a gorgeous day out there makes everything but leisure piss people off so they have to be elbowing, pushing-- demanding in ways that never quite approach that pitch unless it it's a picture postcard day with everyone finding out at the same time that life...ISN'T A BEACH... ferchrissakes.
So, the last straw happened when at 2:30, a cranky printer that plods and wheezes on my desk- and just in general misbehaves, always has- decided today it would REFUSE to feed paper. (Oh, the new little ink cartridge inside was stuck in one spot, printing its plastic little heart out on a quarter inch of stand- still plastic housing) but the paper stood at attention too-- not a movement. Now I need this printer to print my UPS labels for packages and I leave at 3:00-- and for me to try and figure out how to re-route the damn labels to another printer was making me sweat. I did it, but in frustration I first tried to 'fix' the 'Lot's Wife' printer- turned to a pillar of salt- right on my desk. After jimmying rollers (which broke), I disconnected the thing, carried it out to the dumpster and hoisted it in. (The high point of the day.)
GOODBYE, you cranky old SUM-A-BITCH!" When I got home (finally)- the computer crashed on me. I brought up MSConfig, and and enabled some sort of thing-a-ma-jig in startup that was listed as a 'workaround' to some sort of 'CMP Lock Out'. I have absolutely no idea what this thing does-- but I figured if Microsoft hid it that well, it must be something beneficial. Some way to get around their cookie crap and things loading that are incompatible (but beneficial to the ISP host, etc.)-- Yep. I'm a cynic through and through. And right now, for the first time today- I'm grinning.
***
(Return To Weekly Archives)
I just watched the first episode of the last season of the Sopranos, and Tony still has the ability to hypnotize me the way a snake would if I chose to stop and stare at it.
What has always been fascinating about that family is that on one hand, they do seem like people you might know, while on the other they are creatures so alien, so downright cold-blooded greedy and violent, they hold us in thrall, so it's like watching a cockfight or anything dark and senseless. It's a fascination with the purely evil impulse running around somewhere in everyone, but the Sopranos simply say 'o.k.' to it and go.
It's been eight years of watching Tony struggle with his existential questions, his wife Carmella tap dance around her moral ones and the two children, kept in the dark about of the source of money that allows them to live so lavishly, grown now into young adults who are more and more aware of the poisoned fruit that hangs from the family tree. And of course there is the rich assortment of cronies- relatives who are murderers- loan sharks, strippers, kept women and drug addicts who make up the nebula "Soprano".
It's a galaxy that's shone brightly for such a long time now- sometimes waning a bit, wobbling a bit, but every season leaves me wanting to know more. Part of the pull is the way the audience can relate very personally to much of the emotion in the familial or love relationships, yet recoil totally when the same people who made us laugh or cry or feel warm toward, grab a pistol, turn a dead eye on their target, and pull the trigger. It's the way this is all woven so artlessly together that keeps me slightly off-balance. Watching them is like watching a high wire act with no net, they're not paying attention to height at all, but you know somebody's gonna fall.
And for an hour every week, I get to feel what its like to be a true outlaw, someone who steps over the yellow lines we're all taught to observe-- someone for whom there are no lines at all- merely what has to be done to satisfy what is needed, be it money or sex or food or power. The characters all seem to get through this just fine-- except Tony. Tony, the most chilling and cold-blooded of all is also the character the viewer gets to crawl inside of, and for that hour every week- Tony is us. We can understand what he does because he's divided about it. He ruminates: he may be in denial but he always feels uncomfortable, thus the extreme weight and appetites of every kind. The therapy.
Tony stuffs himself. Tony consumes in order to silence the voice of misgiving as much as he can, and it's only when he is truly pissed that all bets are off, the terminator appears, and we watch in horror as the person we thought we understood- who could have been us- beats someone to death in pure fury.
This HBO series has indeed been 'groundbreaking' as they are wont to announce in their promotions, because it does what movies have never been able to achieve: real life, given the time and pace to do it. Eight years of uncensored television so well-written and well-acted, the characters and their stories are now our own. I shall be sad to see it go in June, but I'll miss Tony most of all. James Gandolfini with his heavy breathing and heavy gut, impossibly endearing childlike qualities at times (his care of the wild ducks and his addiction to the History Channel)- even the fearsome cannon blast of his anger colored life a bit more vividly for having shared his underworld- which looked so very much like the real one it was scary. Thanks for making me dizzy, Tony. I'll miss that creepy smile of yours- more than a little.
April 30, 2007~ 4:55pm
Today is a day I look like hell. One of those days you don't feel like hell, but for whatever reason, you just look it. I don't think, number one... (casting about for blame) that tan is my color. Now that the hair's gone so light by letting the white come in, I wash out to dishrag under the fluorescent lights at work. At home: 'passable'-- at work: 'the underbelly of a carp'.
What I don't understand is that I had so much rest over the weekend and so little the three weekends before it, yet I appeared at work at bit 'rosier', more bright-eyed, bushytailed. Maybe the secret to beauty for me is sleep deprivation and the jitters and anxiety that come with it. Maybe the mirror is translating that as youthful 'spirit' in some odd way. Youthful nerviness.........lol. What this does is confuse the hell out of me. I ate well, got plenty of rest, relaxed, and WHAMMY!- face like a beaten ox.
And tonight with nothing on the agenda and a book called "River of Doubt"- (the true adventure of Teddy Roosevelt's catastrophic journey through the heart of unexplored South America after his defeat in 1913)- I'll probably get ample rest and rise to greet the morning looking like I pulled a plow all night. Can't win.
Nah. I don't even attempt it anymore, I'll look whatever I look like tomorrow, period. Perhaps they'll have to label me 'This Side Up' so people know which end they're talking to-- but I will enjoy my book, and I will get lots of sleep. I guess I'll have to get used to ugly because I'm gonna be looking like this for a while: I have no pressures or passions to linger over or to compel me to lose any sleep: this is down time. Apparently I look like hell in down time.
May 1, 2007~ 6:30pm
Above, you see my favorite picture of myself of all time. Almost 4 (my grandson's age)- dirty as all get out, vacationing at my Uncle John Corcoran's house down in Maryland, holding up a cat as stray as myself. Serious. Grimy.......Meeeeeeee!
What lead to this sudden case of nostalgia was listening to Fresh Air yesterday on the way home from work, and hearing Matthew Perry being interviewed. He was talking about how difficult it is to have "one of the 'handsomest men in the world" as your father-- and he mentioned that his dad was the sailor in the Old Spice commercials from back in the 60's. As soon as I got home, I started a Google search for his dad, and low and behold, I came up with
Classic TV Ads
- (the Old Spice is on this page, right hand column). What a WONDERFUL SITE!! LOL!! I spent the better part of an hour, lost in a time warp. Can anyone say "Ipana', "Adorn with the BIKINI BRUSH and STYLING TIPS, FREE", "Halo Shampoo"???? "You can always tell a Halo girl, you can tell by the shine of her curl...." oh man, what a trip down memory lane....
And what the heck ever happened to Halo Shampoo? That- and Prell- are the only 2 we used for yeaaaaaars....and Halo was a beautiful aquamarine color. I LOVED that stuff!
My one and only incident of shoplifting happened over my desperation to own one of those 'free bikini COMBS'- not the brush depicted in the ad on this site, but its forerunner: the awesome little bikini teasing COMB, with the rattail handle you could used to LIFT the steel wool of hopelessly teased and matted hair, after you sprayed it to the consistency of flypaper. LOL!! Those came out in 1965 and I was in 8th grade. I lusted after one of those things, so I could have a puffy, windproof, poofed 'doo'-- too, and stick a clip-on 2" bow stuck right in its foothills, just above the BANGS.
I took a walking trip, one mile to the closest 5 & 10 (remember 5 & 10's?)- I think it was a Woolworth's with some of my girlfriends, and I STOLE one of those little combs right off of an aluminum, ozone-destroying spray can of Adorn. It was pink. I LOVED IT. I slipped it into my pocket and sweated all the way home.
And I teased and sprayed (with 'White Rain'- we had no Adorn) and I proudly stuck my little bow right in the front like the Scarlet Letter. Oh, I was big shit. (At least from the neck up!)
That was just before the Beatle invasion. Later on, ironing the hair for sleek effect was in.....I burned my cheeks. How television influences the young.........always did, always will.
But I want to thank the fella who hosts that site. It was dreamy.....and yes, the Old Spice fella is quite a handsome devil. The commercial on the site is from 1958, but it still might have been Matthew Perry's dad. Old Spice.......still revs my engine, and that's the truth. That little gal with the cat on top here? Her daddy wore it.
May 2, 2007~ 6:00pm
Still caught in the time warp thing here- never left since yesterday, and I keep hearing old jingles in my head. As to the television thing--it made me think. And I thought- as I was writing out some checks for bills today and Comcast's monthly bill of 53 bucks for expanded basic just stuck in my craw- that number one: I used to have TCI cable. 38 bucks. I never asked for Comcast, but they bought out the only TV cable company that services the city of Pittsburgh, and steadily, the rates have crept up-- (as well as constant mail stuffers and emails to 'jump onboard for cable internet/TV/phone service! So much more economical and efficient that way!' Yah, sure. The robbers want MORE of a monopoly....)
That'd be real smart. Why don't I just give them the keys to my house, cut them in on my 401K and name them next of kin in my Living Will??? Number two: I got to thinking how I never-- and I mean never turn on that TV set. I called them and canceled cable television. They were very nice- the young girl extremely polite and solicitous, as though I'd just told her I had a terminal illness and she had to pussyfoot around just why ANYONE in their RIGHT MIND would not want Cable-Fucking-TELEVISION?? She was very quick to add that the disconnect will probably take a week, and since I have no equipment actually in the house, this can be done right out at the telephone pole-------but-------if "by any chance"---I should "change my mind"- ("go home. Try your set without the cable. See if that will suffice") -- oh yeah.....I LOVE TO STARE AT SNOW....
I suspect there will be times such as another Katrina, another 911, where I will want to be glued to the screen , suffering and shocked like everyone else and finding some pathetic sort of communion there, but 99 percent of the time- I won't miss the demon box at all.
I rent films, which is all I use the tube for- and that 600 bucks a year in my pocket will feel plenty good, I can tell you right now. And every time one of those stupid mailings comes around with the cheery, cherry red Comcast logo on it, I will relish picking the cat turds out of the sandbox with it, grinning like a fool.
May 3, 2007~ 5:45pm
Today was a day that felt like- not major- but minor hell. Somewhere in the outer circles but irritating enough to feel the heat. Did you ever have one of those days where you take one step forward, three steps back? Well that was my day. The flow of the workday was strictly 'stop/start'. And I'm a plow horse. Give me a stack of stuff to get through and leave me alone. Not so today. The start part would just get underway and someone would have some pesky snarl for me to look at, or the phone would ring....."Can you look at Mrs. So and So's account? There's something wrong, she's getting a bill..."- and sure enough, it would be some gray-bearded problem that's gone on and on, and someone calls, "Hey, Karen..." and it's the 20th step in a long snafu. Traffic coming home took and hour and a half- not the usual hour. (Yes, sunny beautiful weather brings 'em all out like cockroaches: convertibles, teens, SUV's too big for the drivers to capably handle, so they bully their way nearly causing fender benders whenever they cut in and out, and they were all out there in full force-- celebrating May. I hate May- it brings aggressiveness out in people.)
Must be because most folks are selfish pricks to begin with-- and having a gorgeous day out there makes everything but leisure piss people off so they have to be elbowing, pushing-- demanding in ways that never quite approach that pitch unless it it's a picture postcard day with everyone finding out at the same time that life...ISN'T A BEACH... ferchrissakes.
So, the last straw happened when at 2:30, a cranky printer that plods and wheezes on my desk- and just in general misbehaves, always has- decided today it would REFUSE to feed paper. (Oh, the new little ink cartridge inside was stuck in one spot, printing its plastic little heart out on a quarter inch of stand- still plastic housing) but the paper stood at attention too-- not a movement. Now I need this printer to print my UPS labels for packages and I leave at 3:00-- and for me to try and figure out how to re-route the damn labels to another printer was making me sweat. I did it, but in frustration I first tried to 'fix' the 'Lot's Wife' printer- turned to a pillar of salt- right on my desk. After jimmying rollers (which broke), I disconnected the thing, carried it out to the dumpster and hoisted it in. (The high point of the day.)
GOODBYE, you cranky old SUM-A-BITCH!" When I got home (finally)- the computer crashed on me. I brought up MSConfig, and and enabled some sort of thing-a-ma-jig in startup that was listed as a 'workaround' to some sort of 'CMP Lock Out'. I have absolutely no idea what this thing does-- but I figured if Microsoft hid it that well, it must be something beneficial. Some way to get around their cookie crap and things loading that are incompatible (but beneficial to the ISP host, etc.)-- Yep. I'm a cynic through and through. And right now, for the first time today- I'm grinning.
(Return To Weekly Archives)
...
. or pay a visit to my Audio site to hear things
I've written- 
Some are just 'jotters', thoughts as they fly- going
nowhere but where they are. If you stop and read a few~ or post a
few~ thanks for
the perusal. Last of all, if you've a hankering for rants and raging,
try making a stop at my other blog- 
