Gone To The Movies

I usually hate going to the movies. I just cannot stand being anywhere near the rude assholes that always end up sitting near me. I'm sure I'm not alone in this - cell phones, talking, kids, cell phones, rudeness, perverts, crack whores, more cell phones and inappropriate comments. Did I say cell phones?

2 of my favorite movie theater... incidents that stand out above the rest:

Way back in the mid 70's, my girlfriend and I went to see A Boy And His Dog at the Manor Theater in Charlotte N.C.. Things were going well until this man sat directly behind my girlfriend. Suddenly, my girlfriend let out a very loud holler, stood up and started yelling at the man behind her to stop slipping his hand between he seats and grabbing her breast. Well, I was about 17 or 18, a real rebel, and I wasn't going to stand for such...violations of my girlfriend, so I stood up and started screaming at the perv myself. Slowly, the man stood up and it wasn't hard for me to notice that he was way, way bigger and a whole lot weirder looking than I was hoping for!

He started to get upset himself exclaiming that it was just a slip and the boob grab was not intentional. For a moment I thought he might start kicking my ass at any moment, so I headed to the lobby, he followed, and we all eventually ended up in a yelling match that now included the theater manager. I insisted the perv get thrown out, but the manager would not do it, so we left. (Crazy movie by the way, but it is forever tainted...)

More recently (the 90's), Stacey and I were in theater in Emeryville (I don't remember what we were seeing, though) and we had the misfortune of sitting in front of a skinny ass crack whore with an eye patch, who was there with her very young child. Once the movie started, the crack whore started saying to Stacey; "'Scuze me. Can you scrunch down? I can't see!" and she kept it up until I turned to her and told her "No. She's not going to scrunch down!" We than turned back to the movie (which has now been completely ruined) and the crack whore started a barrage of crap, telling us she was going to make this the worst movie going experience we have ever had. I hope her little child was absorbing the wonderful example his crack whore mom was giving him.

I finally grabbed Stacey, telling her I just don't want to deal with this, and we went and sat somewhere else. As I sat there, I was hoping some giant redneck asshole would get our vacated seats and would then have to deal with the crack whore, hopefully in a more...violent manner than is was willing to give up. Nope. A tiny little Asian couple sat there and fortunately for them, there heads were not in the way of the skinny ass crack whore. Foiled again.

Anyways....I did go to the movies with Stacey last Sunday to see The Mist. Pretty good horror flick with decent acting, couple of good scares, interesting story and an ending that I liked very much. You just don't see endings like that very often.

And yes, there was a jerk behind us talking and commenting through the whole thing up until he left, because frankly, I think the movie started to freak him out. Good. But I do love movie theater popcorn!

Gil

This Crazy Biz(music) I'm In

Who woulda thunk it? Vinyl is making a comeback, and it is a pretty big comeback. I thought my days of hoisting and heaving heavy boxes of LP's were long gone. Nope. They're baaacckkk! And in a pretty big way. There was an article discussing this in last week's Billboard,( but of course I can't find it now online...grrr), but one of the funny things in the article was that now, the major labels are having problems finding pressing plants that still do vinyl! Hilarious. There was even a story about one plant that had to shut down for a while because the person who's sole job is to glue the inside edges of the LP jacket down broke his/her arm and no one else seems to be able to do that very specialized skill! Help us all, sweet Jesus.

At the indie distributor where I work, we have always sold a fair amount of LP's. Usually these are audiophile remastered major label hits that the majors would license to whoever would pay 'em. Led Zeppelin, Miles Davis, Norah Jones etc....whatever. They sold well. Now, the owner of my place of work recently bought out another small distributor that specialises in re-releasing more obscure, but just as desirable stuff with a bit more alternative street cred such as Tim Buckley, Nico, Big Star, 13th Floor Elevators and on and on.. And it's mostly LP's! We are blowing this stuff out the door, have a whole new customer base (and a fine one it is - most LP's are sold on a non-returnable basis and I figure these new customers are more than likely not going to give up LP's for digital downloads). Sweet.

So I'll probably bitch and moan about the workload. (And what a load it is - LP's are heavy. A box of 50 CD's weighs 11 lbs. A 50 count box of LP's can weigh about 45 lbs. Imagine the thrill I felt when I was told that 43 pallets of product were going to arrive to be absorbed into our already cramped warehouse over last Labor Day weekend! Grrr). But the good news is a heightened sense of job security. Great. More time to kick myself in the ass for not listening to Mom and getting a real degree in a real job that pays real money. Oh well. At least I'm working.
Gil

Week 4 - no smoking, please

I've quit smoking (again) and I'm pretty sure I have really quit. It's a gut feeling and I like gut feelings, so I'll just say -There! I've done it! I'm still on the patch and I will abide by Stacey's oh-so-orderly wishes of following the directions to the letter. One more week of Step One patches, then I will go to 4 weeks (I think) of Step Two etc....

I have a new doctor and he seems to have no sense of humor at all (when I told him that my wife told me that it's not the fact that I might die from smoking that bothers her, it's that she really doesn't want to take care of a sick husband, especially seeing how it was my choice to smoke in the first place!). That usually can get a laugh or at least a smile out of a doctor, but not this guy. He is concerned about several things going on with me; smoking, alcohol and a blood sugar level that is on the rise. (Seems that pills are controlling my usually high levels of blood pressure, eyeball pressure in my damaged eye, cholesterol and anxiety. Better living through chemistry as my psychiatrist used to say!)

There is also the problem of my family history. Actually the lack of my family history. Smoking probably killed my dad, mom and more than likely, did in the family dog, too (second hand smoke from a houseful of smokers!).

So I'm dealing with the cigarettes first. Maybe once I get all of those evil chemicals and poisons out of my system (not to mention the fact that I will no longer allow The Man - the cigarette companies - to keep me down) my doctor will be so proud of me, he will tell me that no further action is required. Everything else that was wrong with me has miraculously gotten better! After all, my new and really expensive CD box set; George Jones - The Complete United Artists Recordings sounds really, really good with a few beers in my belly!

Gil

I Am So Cutting Edge..

I think that this blogging thing may catch on, so here I am. I'll jump right into it and tell everyone how much I enjoyed my Safeway 1/2 breast of already cooked turkey yesterday. The cauliflower and sweet potatoes are supposed to be very good for me, so I ate those too. Oddly, my wife enjoys those more than the turkey.

Most of Thanksgiving was spent with a purge surge of duplicate videos/dvd's and laserdiscs. I have several hundred movies, mostly sci-fi, horror and Fellini films. I have them all listed on an excel spreadsheet, and it is there that I discovered that I am such a geek I have multiple copies of some of the most minor and goofy films.

A favorite of mine is a very obscure science fiction movie made in Italy in the early 60's called BATTLE OF THE WORLDS. I have 5 versions of it, 3 videos and 2 dvds. It looks like they all probably came from the same old and battered TV print, but you never know. I hope that someday, someone with $ to burn will restore it and release it. It stars Claude Rains and has an amazing soundtrack which features a jaw dropping title song, probably called The Outsider. Here is the Italian trailer - it's kind of long but there is a tiny little bit of The Outsider at the very end:

Well, like I said - I'm really cutting edge...I don't know where that link went.

Gil