take me back

A poem.


“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.

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don’t blink

A poem for LMI.


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.”

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Jay’s Take: Ford v Ferrari

fordvferrari
Christian Bale & Matt Damon at Le Mans 2019: Artist’s Representation

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.

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Now Available on Laserdisc: Rapid Fire

rapidfire

Rapid Fire is a celebration of the legacy of Bruce Lee, and an attempt at passing the cinematic torch to his son. Make no mistake, this movie’s primary excuse for existence is jerking off deprived Martial Arts movie fans stuck in a time before Bruceploitation. Both father and son died before their fame really took off but from the eerie slo-mo Kung Fu of the opening credits to the blown-out hair to his Liberal philosophies it doesn’t feel like a proverbial torch being passed so much as the smooth transition that can only be granted generationally. Nature-before-nurture. You won’t believe how many times it felt like I was watching an extension of Bruce himself as opposed to his son carving out his own niche: from the finesse to the wit, if only tweaked by their Lizard Oversee’r (cough… EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) to meet the demands of audiences in 1992. Think Enter the Dragon X Die Hard. But aside from the occasional motorcycle stunt or brandishing a gun, or fondling GRATUITOUS TIDDIES, Brandon sticks primarily to what made his father famous: kicking the shit out of dudes! And kick he can. Or could? What is a more appropriate tense?

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