Tuesday ThoughtsFree time's not been something I've had a bunch of here lately. Like to throw the words "working like a botard" around these parts, here lately. Maybe I oughta change the name of the blog.
Truth be told, it's been a lot of 5 o'clock mornings, and a handful of 11 and 12 hour days. Combine that with trying to take a class, and the fact that I seem okay with donating even more time to an eight-week bowling league...
Still, I like throwing heavy things, so bowling's probably the most heavy outlet for that urge, outside of entering the squared circle.
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I did have time one afternoon last week to go catch The Wrestler. I dug the flick a lot, and have nothing but kind words for the performances of both Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei. More than that, I was more pleased with how the ugliness of what these guys do wasn't glossed over, rather simply treated as part of their lives that they've embraced, for better or for worse.
There's another bit that I ended up digging quite a bit....Randy the Ram finds himself working in the deli of a grocery store, in a move to get himself more hours and perhaps move back toward a more normal life. It's not often that I find myself aghast at something a movie's done...but I'm going to give The Wrestler all the credit in the world and all the thanks in the universe. What I saw was a little bit of my life up there on the screen, and a little bit of how I'm feeling.
I've been writing quite a bit in the past week and a half, too, on top of all my outside work.
I've had a couple ideas kicking around in my head for a month or so. Figured it was time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and hammer something out. I dig the idea...I'll keep you posted.
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An odd thing happened at The Wrestler that I'd wanted to address before today, but time and attention wander away from me.
I made my way down to Chattanooga to see the flick one day after I worked a half day. I live in a town with one small, two-screen theater. Sadly, the arthouse scene doesn't too often filter to my little cranny of East Tennessee. And, with time being what it is, here lately, it's hard to justify driving an hour each way just for a two-hour movie. It becomes a four-hour excursion, and sometimes it's not worth the trouble. Though I grant you, it's a little easier for my mind to handle now that gas is 1.85 instead of 4.00....
But anyway, I wandered in the middle of the day. It was a 1:15 or 1:25 show, there abouts. I bought my ticket, and wandered back to the theater. It was one of the smaller theaters in Chattanooga's Rave theater. Maybe 70 seats, total.
I got in maybe ten minutes before the movie was starting. I took a seat right behind the rail that rests behind the handicapped seating. I like those spots...I can put my feet up.
Well, it's before the flick. I received a text message, work related, and was answering it. Another gentleman walks in to the theater. At this point, there are two people in the theater, and 69 empty seats for him to choose.
I'm finishing my message, and in my peripheral vision, I see the man wander up the same I'm sitting in. He takes the seat to my right, leaving one seat of separation between us.
Now, there was separation. But I still found it odd, that with 69 other empty seats in the theater, he chose that one to sit in.
I know all the other seats were empty, because it was at this point that I turned over my right shoulder and surveyed the emptiness of the theater behind me. The man stared straight ahead.
Maybe half a minute later, my phone beeps with a text in reply to mine.
I open my phone, and am preparing to answer that message, when the gentleman says "You're gonna turn that off during the movie."
Not a question.
A statement.
First, let me say, we're not even to the point of preview trailers, yet. It's the slide show ad content with Coke ads featuring titles of movies with four letters blanked out, and ads for the local chiropractor and how you can get flowers for Valentines at Marv's. No sound, no music. Just me and and a strange, bossy man in a dimly lit room...not at all how I'd envisioned my afternoon off.
"Don't worry about it," I say. I'm not the type to cause trouble, but I hate what I percieve to be Alpha Male situations with a passion. I'm irritated, but I'm also kinda wishing for another person to be in the theater with us, just in case the headcase who decides to sit next to a stranger, who's also bossy when it comes to cell phones, decides to be a little stabby about it.
Let me pause to say that I'm nuts about the cell phones in theaters, too. I'm overly polite with mine, and generally, I turn mine all the way off whenever I'm catching a flick in public. So, unless you're obsessive about trying to figure out what HI_H SCH_OL MUSICA_ 3 will actually turn out to be when the puzzle gets solved, I'm probably not being really rude with my text messaging.
Nothing much more came of it. After a couple minutes, the gentleman gets up. When he comes back, the previews have started, and he takes a seat a couple more rows up. By that time, thankfully, a handful of folks had made it in to catch the flick.
Didn't think about it again. The Wrestler just sucks you in.
After the movie, I was going to the restroom, and I heard the door fly open with the force of sudden impact. I heard four quick footsteps, and a stall door open and close quickly. The space of time between the close of the stall door and what I'll refer to politely as explosive evacuation was nil...I know there was no time to unzip, and barely just time to rip pants and underwear down, for that wearer.
Is it polite to say it sounded like a wheelbarrow full of gravel dumped into a pond?
Probably not.
I could not stifle a chuckle, despite my sympathy, when I heard a heavy, relieved sigh resound from within the stall, after the downpour ended. It made it all the more funny to me to think it was the Alpha Male who'd demanded cellphone etiquette prior to the flick.
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The last thing I gotta say is this....
I dug The Wrestler on a lot of levels.
But I think the one I dig most is that it makes me want to write.
It's been hard taking or making the time, here lately. But at least in the last week and a half, I've made the time again. Very cool, I think.
