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Stalker (1979)
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2467
And after a bit of a run of nonsense, finally a film worth watching. At 2 and a half hours long, it's too short, the cinematography is brilliant, the settings, amazing, the plot, well, it's a bit of crawl around the Soviet subconscious, but well worth it. Hard to believe it was made in 1979, but they still used writers then, and not computers...
Link: Wikipedia on Stalker
Link: YouTube Trailer
Italians & Filipinos
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2691
Longest day off EVER.
Begin, wake at 7:00, prime, prime, at 9:30 go out and lie beneath the Jetta for 2 1/2 hours to replace the rad hose. I've procrastinated this for weeks. 2 Hours reaching up, cutting, pulling with pliers, to remove the old hose, covered in rad fluid, a mere half an hour to add the new hose. The day grows hotter and hotter.
Job done, drive off, replace rad fluid...drive a bit, the car overheats. It's the damned water pump. This is a repair I don't want to undertake, don't have the finances, tools, bloody hell, so for the moment it's stock up on cheap radiator fluid and ride it out. I'm a one-man ecological disaster.
3:00 it's time to head to G's, pick up the new Italian waiter, head up to the old basement suite. It's his Mom's birthday, we're invited, more obligated, to attend, she's 60.
Well attended, fed, liquor & wine, it's a grand event. About 25 people in attendance, not counting me and the new waiter, 5 of whom are elderly Italian men, the other 20 Italian women, average age somewhere between 70 and 200 years. Conversations in Italian, a hot summer's day, 32, 34 degrees, too hot to eat or drink, merely pass the time and ride it out...and the conversations, mostly in Italian, occasionally someone takes pity on me and translates, mostly they leave me alone, how long to stay here, how long, exactly, is polite? The grandmothers break into arguments over who has the most grandchildren, it's less the number than the loudness of the argument that wins, everyone has their turn, I'm thinking I should win because I have none, then they pass around their phones with the pictures of their grandchildren on them...
One old lady, perhaps mid 70's, she's contrived a dislike for me...I remind her of an actor in an Italian movie who played a drug dealer and murderer, "a very bad man", she tells me, she tells the other ladies and broods upon it. And she returns to it again and again, and I'm being damned by association, I finally have my epiphany and say: "But he was doing it for his mama...!!!" and the other old ladies titter in agreement, if it's for his mama it's a different story, and absurdly enough I'm off the hook...
Another old lady, older even, perhaps 90, she looks at me and smiles ... "Lots of pretty girls here for you...", she says, she's taking the piss, I have to admire her malice...I can only hope to be that lucid and malevolent at that age...
We escape, finally, the Italian waiter and I, after happy birthdays are sung, now to the next party...
The Filipinos of Rundle.
Our Chef, having invited us a few times for dinner, we can postpone it no longer, we go for dinner. A case of beer, but it's too hot to drink, we arrive at around 7:00, the chef is so glad to see us, these people, packed 20 to a house, the landlord, shirt tied up around his chest like a halter-top, others, all temporary foreign workers, paying $500, $600 a month for a small room in an average house, shared, the landlord, he's doing well enough he doesn't have to work. I count 7 rice cookers on the counter. But they've put on a feast for us, shrimp, chicken, pork, rice, asian noodles, it's all fine and close enough to Chinese food that I have no problems with it. The Italian, he has problems, doubts the chicken is really chicken, when we leave I'm treated to an hours speculation as to what it was, what breed and species of purloined pet, but I don't notice, merely different flavors, and souse anything with enough chili oil and it will become edible.
Conversations, mostly about work, a few of the other TFW have better jobs, much better, and I feel for our chef that he got so shafted in this, one of the Filipinos makes $17 per hour, and has use of the company truck. Nice. Foreman for a local landscaping company, he's no complaints, I'm impressed, of course, no one in the world, not even Satan's minion's themselves, have the working conditions of our chef...
2 hours here and it's time to leave, we could stay later, but for no good reason, merely to drink, and it's my day off, there are still yet obligations...
Jurassic World
9:45 and I meet the boy, "Jurassic World", after the day, today, I just want to see people get eaten by dinosaurs, damn the plot, gimme hungry dinosaurs and deserving prey...
And everyone is deserving, but only a few get eaten, exactly the same silliness, plot, as the first, but the dinosaurs are first rate, I knew what I was getting into, for sure, no surprises, but for once, just once, I'd like to see the dinosaurs win, eat the damned annoying children, eat the stupid woman and too-cool Chris Pratt, hire Quentin Tarantino as director for God's sakes and just make it a little less predictable, I'm begging you...
Kink Night
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2565
(Note. Old article finally finished. Yep, I'm behind, behind, behind...)
It's Kink night at a local bar, I saw the poster advertising at Beano, have noticed it a few times and always resolved to check it out, and, finally, without the obligation of partying with the ex-coworkers, I head on down.
I haven't any Kink gear so I simply wear a suit. To these people that will be plenty kinky enough.
It's a dire little pub, centrally located off of crack avenue in downtown Calgary, and a bitterly cold night outside, probably it will be empty, but if it's that bad I can bail and find a better bar.
First impressions aren't so good, the pub is dirty, poorly furnished, dimly lit, everywhere there are fleets of battleships in brightly colored corsets anchored around tables drinking schooners of beer and waiting for someone, anyone to take them away from this. These women, of the second, the third, and even the fifth freshness, the jade working the door, all managing to be sad, lonely, and eager at the same time, it's heartbreaking, there is nothing sadder than a pub full of masterless bbw subs, it's like going to the SPCA, and you want to adopt them all, but that's not why I'm here...
This is my out of the box night, my do something new, get out of my head, dip, briefly, my foot into the current and see what goes on in the city when I should be soberly at home and sleeping.
The show begins, and some of the seniors get up from the VLT machines they've been working all day, begin to pay attention, the early birds and hardened drinkers, they don't have to pay the cover, they're getting it all for free.
A haggard and overweight drag queen is hosting the venue, she does a little improv comedy, answers the catcalls in the audience, banters, I don't know the crowd, don't get the specific humerous insults she's tossing out and recieving, but it's not for long and she introduces the show.
These shows, they're always the same.
1st Act - a foot worshipper lovingly undresses, bathes and examines his lovers feet.
Some polite applause, well (check my watch...hmmmm...).
Intermission. People dancing, talking, it's a social thing, they all seem to know one another. I'm new here.
Now time to check out the audience in a little more detail. The men, well, the few that dressed up are nothing to look at. Gay men do a much better job of BDSM and Kink, they value the aesthetic, keep themselves toned and in shape, there's something to be said for the superficialities. These men, a good fat many with plaid shirts and long biker beards, their girlfriends dressed to the nines in stockings and bustiers, those that dressed up, generally as BDSM masters, invariably short, 5'6" a reasonable average, tight jeans and leather straps across their sunken chests and protruding bellies, fat or thin arms with preposterous leather cuffs, they're fooling no one.
Get in line, get a drink, I'm getting the feeling I'm gonna need a few...
Small Uranium Glass Vase/Perfume Bottle
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1611
The find yesterday, a small (3" diameter) Uranium Glass Vase. My camera doesn't capture the UV spectrum well, but it fluoresces a bright yellow/green under UV light. 25 Cents, curious as to what it will fetch on eBay, bought it on a hunch (the slight fluorescence in daylight), need to bring UV light with me and see if I can't find more pieces. Other finds of the day included a pair of antique candlesticks, with nicks in the bases where they'd been converted to Electric light, "A History of Russia" by Bernard Pares and "Street of Crocodiles" by Bruno Schulz. Left a couple of antique candlesticks at VV, too expensive and one, beautifully aged and polished beyond shape and recognition, but missing the push-up lever, shame, but I don't need more junk...
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