Godard had Karina, Antonioni had Vitti, Pabst had Brooks, I like to think I had "???"... Wednesday, June 13, 2007
I first encountered the flicker "Lost and Delirious" in Cincinnati. It was the rainy spring of myself induced exile. You see, I had enough of the yucka yuck of Los Angeles. I was extinguished, and uninspired, and for the 1st time in my life my love of film was dull, flat. But I was in love. Madly deeply in love with a gal. An ever encompassing, all engrossing, devouring kind of love. At twenty eight you think I was to old for that, but not I.
We meet on Hollywood and Highland one rainy night (it's true, I wouldn't lie to you my dear friend...only the facts!), now her... well she was from Europe, and she came to Lalaland to live out her dreams of singing. She had a really terrible childhood...really grim, and all that shit. My love of film excited her...and the fact that she was excited, excited me. We got excited a lot together (nod to Jay McInerney) ;) , but we were of a beaten generation, and I was attracted to her sad girl ways. And me, well I was twenty eight.. and I was two steps from twelve... less than zero. And she too, was in a situation as well... none too pretty.
So we were some kind of modern day Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrel, a real today band of outsiders.
Skkkiipp ffffoorward and we were spent on Los Angeles, it just wasn't kind to us. So we made plans to skip town and head out east (or at least the edge of middle Ameriyucka). She wanted a house in the country, and I wanted some kind of a calm that my own life and childhood never provided me.
We decided to leave.
Just like that we were in motion (we knew better than to just stay in place, that's for suckers). She went first by plane, I by car. So off I went.
First stop; Arizona to see the familia.
Then head down south to Texas; see my uncle and cousins.
Then up to Oklahoma, and trough the rest of middle Ameriyucka,
Then - KaPlowee!
Were in Oh-hi-o,
We fight! - I get jealous. Decide to go live in New Yuck City.
I've always wanted to live there.
So hop in the Jeep. Head up towards Pittsburgh (which by the way Pennsylvania is easily the prettiest state there is in this country).
On trough New Jersey. Then Kazaam!
I'm in the little island. Spend a little time there partying and meeting people, all the while, looking for a apartment. Only to be disappointed with the supposedly cool city.
Straight-up lame, just a bunch of lames walking around. I mean it's just rich people or rich kids going to school. All the real people are all B&T's (bridge and tunnel: people who take the bridge or tunnel to get into the city). They all live in New Jersey, or Queens or some other place.
It's just like some Disney theme ride... nothing is left of it's former glory. The days of the 70's or 80's, when New York had true grit, when the rich and the poor lived there; Scorsese's New York is gone! :( only TRL is left to replace 42nd st...
As the sunsets and I've had all my fill, I stand by the dock and look at the skyline with it's skyscrapers, and realize new york is dead.
I was too late to see it's glory days, now I'm just looking at a theme park, which interests me not. I stand proud in the New York skyline, proud to be a Angeleno! To come from a city that has it's poor and rich, side by side! A city that is angry and happy, fake and real, a city of true substance, I then realize I am from the Rome of our times: LOS ANGELES!
So pick up the receiver. Tone. Dial. Ring: "Hi I miss you", "I miss you too, "why don't you come back to Cincy?", "Yeah I think that's a good idea, I want to be with you in Cincy".
So hop in the jeep. Back through Pennsylvania. Down Ohio, and stop just before I cross the border into Kenfucky. Live in car for a couple of weeks. Sleep in me girlfriends, ex-boyfriends flower shop at nights. Showers at trucker stops by day, or at his gym (by which he nothing of, he thought she was there to get back with him).
I was just a shadow.
Find apartment, get job, and then the humid days of summer fade.
A autumn like you've never seen comes. You take long walks. Hangout with friends, and her and you have the best of times & the worst of times....and then...
Days of snow...
I walk out, there are no cars about. The streets are plied with massive amounts of snow. Fresh snow. No one's walked on it yet. ....It's just like one big pillow. So fluffy, SO fresh. The moon is full, and the snow shines. It's unreal. These city eyes have never seen such a sight. It stings your smoggy eyes. You walk home and feel your in heaven.
Your the happiest in your life, you've ever been. The days of snow have begun. You and your girl have a dream like existence. Long walks in the crispy air, that chills the tips of your tippy toes, all the way up to the tip of your rosy nose. Bus rides trough the city looking out at the snow covered house's that don't resemble any style that you have back home. These house's are not Spanish style, or not cookie cut 50's suburban style. These are really old, and when I say really old, I mean way older than the 1920's. And the buses aren't crowded, windows all full of graffiti, these buses are empty and new, and feel like a home on wheels, nothing like the city back home.
We cuddle in cold evenings. Her watching Oprah Winfrey or the like, me on the computer. Us both happy! The heater blasting. Lovely days.
New year comes, and it's spent baking brownies, watching a Morrissey concert DVD, no alcohol, no drugs, none of your common place antics. Then at 1:02 we go to bed. Grandma and Grandpa go nighty-night.
You catch a glimpse of happiness, as if it's tangible and you happily tango with it. That happy couple you've always only seen... never known... is now you. At least you now know, what it feels like to be a happy couple. You relish in the transitory bliss.
For you know tomorrow will surely come, and with it your same old ways. Your stripes will show eventually, my fine feathered friend.
See the people that are from the snow hate it, they cant wait for it to go away, so when it does and the days are warm, they come out and party, and you being the cityboy that you are, you cant resist an invitation to hangout with friends and live it up! You know; "Paint the town red", and so you do.
Splashes of lipstick red.
You are back to fighting with each other now, it's a real love and heartbreak kind of deal now. You love your job, and have tons of friends there, so you always have something to do. So you do. Which doesn't conform to her country lifestyle that she wanted to live.
I thought when I moved to Cinti, I would be around a bunch of yokels kicking shit, but it's not like that. There's really cool people that are just like back home, except there's more trees, and no smog, no traffic, and they all say I have an accent, and I'm like whatever I talk normal, it's you guys that talk all country and shut. But other than that, it's a small city. Which in a way is kinda of cooler than a big city, cause you have your own space. Everywhere you go you run into friends.
But she wanted to move to Kentucky or the border of Indiana, where it's more country and your neighbors are a mile away.
You start to realize that you can take the boy out the city, but you cant take the city out the boy. You know she hates this about you, and your so madly in love with her that you try to cover your spots... but they always show. So what do you do? Well you get jealous, cause you know there's all these country boys out here, that can give here just the life she's seeking, your sinking, but you try to keep the boat afloat.
So one rainy day, you walk to your local blockbuster video down the street. Past the really good sub-sandwich shop, that's next to the really excellent Chinese food joint. That's down from the vid store. God I use to rent videos all the time in Cincy, like five at a time. I'd watch them all in like two days and go back for more.
So you do your normal routine, which is; go to the Foreign section, then the Drama, then New Releases, then back to Drama, then Foreign, then Comedy, then Drama. And on and on. I would like be in the store no less than like forty minutes, sometimes over an hour.
So on this day I cant find nothing, but there's this video that has always caught my eye. It has Piper Perabo from Coyote Ugly, which I liked, and the cover looks interesting. I always see this DVD (it's been like jumping out at me for like five months,) but I always pass it cause I've never heard of it, and I think it's probably some cheap stupid movie ( Cause I know everything that's good, and I would of heard of it.)
But today you cannot find nothing to rent so you grab it, knowing your probably wasting your money. That you probably wont be able to watch a minute of it.
Back in the rain. Past the really excellent Chinese food joint. Past the really good sub shop. Back home. Throw it on. Start cooking some food (cause you love cooking food on rainy/snowy days, and today is one of those day). Your ex is living with her ex, and you feel hexed, you need nourishment.
So the flicker starts and you start to realize... this movie needs attention. You sit down. Watch it.And you realize you love Paulie! You are Paulie! You understand her... and the scene were she tells Mouse what's up, you completely understand! ...and it breaks your heart.
Now try explaining that you saw a movie, that explained exactly the way your love felt. How desperate you are to hold on to a love you felt was leaving you. But that the movie was a lesbian flick, and you identified with one of the girls.
Sometimes people are just to shallow and they cant understand shit. But I showed this movie to everyone that would watch, and never say how I identified with Paulie.
I never told my ex neither, but now I watch that movie and it reminds me of Cincinnati and The Days of Snow.
It's a tricky business... holding on to love. But live and learn... and grow. For all the turmoil and effort, seemingly meaningless. Its really for the best. It's all in the game of growing up. So much learned from my days of snow, that I look back and see a stranger of the kid I was once before, and is no more. Kerouac and Wolfe said it better, but we all feel as much as their letters. I just transcribe my particular, love young fetter.
P.S. It did not work out for me and mine. We split and it was none to pretty, but it remains a most meaning full event in my life.
Here's a rad fan vid of lost and delirious along to the kate bush's song "this women's work"
