
the ark


“human beings make mistakes!
‘he cried,
‘the climax to a long and troubled talk.
‘he couldnt keep it bottled in anymore.
‘what was it he said?
‘why was she so defensive?
“we all make mistakes!
“you most of all should understand that!
“you always go and do that
“what?
“make me think that you’ve changed when you haven’t.
‘you’re still the same self-righteous asshole
‘that you were at the start of the night.
“but who is he?
“who?
“this guy that you’re seeing? he’s just a friend right?
“yes i told you
“then why are you making such a big deal about it?
“i’m not i just don’t want to talk about it.
last night,
i dreamt of us.
it was at a party.
you know,
like the ones you used to throw,
once again unsettled by no one i knew.
but i would if i kept looking,
and then i thought i had found you.
not even from across the room i turned to see you
sitting cross legged on the kitchen counter
just like how i had always pictured you,
ignoring me.
and this projection,
in due time it spoke like you,
carefree and senseless,
and i thought to myself
“i thought i had finally gotten over you.”
Let me set the scene: you’ve had a shitty week and you want to escape. You haven’t seen a movie in theaters for a while and the January “dumping ground” of unmarketable trash is overflowing with sub-tier titles to get your tiddies hard from the thought of the camp value. You convince your wife to go with you to a double-feature (but nothing subtitled, so you still haven’t seen Parasite). What do double-features in my family mean to me? It means sneaking-in from one movie to another. It doesn’t mean LEAVING THE THEATER to re-up only to have to come back in and pay for the second ticket. You need to be prepared: bring edibles; make sure you’ve gone to the bathroom; and go on a day when the ticket-taker wicket isn’t set up at the West Wing entrance where your two movies are going to be (the apps let you check your theater number now too). We had it all worked out: Ford v Ferrari was at 12:15 and ended at 15:00; Dolittle started at 15:00; and the theaters were side-by-side. Dolittle is really what we wanted to see but the timing wasn’t working: sometimes the second movie starts right away, and sometimes the gap between them is too long. This sounded like it would have worked like a dream. THANKS GOD. And then I had to piss. And Ford v Ferrari is not a short movie. A good movie, but not short. So I held my pee. And what happens as I leave the theater? They have the wicket set up at the end of the hallway, AFTER the men’s bathroom. Granted it was “Cheap Tuesday” but usually they have the L-shaped divider set up and it wasn’t there this time. The women’s bathroom doesn’t have any security: it’s halfway down the hall. And the East Wing of the theater doesn’t have the wicket set up after the bathroom! So I had two choices: either pee into my water bottle that I sneaked McDonald’s ice tea into and try to remember not to drink from it for the next two-hour movie (because we couldn’t get any snacks from concession either because of where it was located; that’s why my wife brought her purse the size of a knapsack) or pee like a normal person and skip the second movie. So we skipped the second movie.
Continue readingSean Penn belongs to the same club of hellions as Rex Harrison. He may have flip-flopped a few times from lovable drunk to violent wife beater but this was the same actor who bit off his toenails in At Close Range. How can you predict the unpredictable? Did anyone think that Nicholas Cage would get himself into debt from buying dinosaur bones? And while we’re on the subject of controversial celebrities, why does Kevin Spacey lose his career while Sean Penn is still allowed to work? Is it because one abused minors while the other abused women? Shouldn’t everything evil be equally bad? Maybe Penn’s recent philanthropy has cleaned the slate for a good deal of people; but his charity has felt largely like penance for his mean streak, even though he just can’t seem to keep his trademark temper under control! Come on man, you were banging Charlize Theron! And she was not putting up with ANY of his shit. Can we say the same for Robin Wright? What about his State of Grace co-star Gary Oldman’s ex-wife? Can we say the same for all victims of abuse and trauma? What about Gary Oldman? When will I stop digging this hole for myself?
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