Wall-E

Finally got to see Pixar’s phenomenal Wall-E last night with a good friend. The film is one of the best films I have ever seen — animated or not. It’s really just a simple little tale about finding love against all odds. Brought many a tear to the old Flaming Curmudgeon’s sappy swish eyes. I won’t rave on about the technical skill of the phalanx of artists it took to create the film, although I do believe the film should be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar® and not just a Best Animated Picture Oscar®. But I think the key to the movie’s success as a work of art is the use as a motif of the music and lyrics of Jerry Herman from Hello, Dolly! not only for satire but for good old American tugging at the heartstrings. The emotional power of traditional songs from the American musical theatre pantheon cannot be ignored. And the idea that something so frequently treated as inferior — mostly by idiots, if I may be so bold, or by people who think that “sentiment” is some sort of weakness — would be perhaps the sole remnant of the arts in a post-apocalyptic world just melts my waxworks heart at a time when I have most wanted to nail it up in a box, safe and secure from the world. Goddamn them all to hell! and thank you to those Pixar magicians for inviting me into a world of hope and dreams and possibilities where “It only takes a moment to be loved a whole life long.”

Dream a little dream of me

No, I won’t bother you with last night’s dream with the train ride seemingly to nowhere to take a rental car with the family in the jalopy with the bald tires which needed to be replaced by some back alley mechanic. Apparently my mind remains a hopeless jumble. Maybe poppies will make me sleep?

Dreaming of Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie

I really must be cracking up or something. Last night I had another very vivid dream in which for some strange reason the Flaming Curmudgeon was hired to be some sort of au pair or nanny or babysitter or personal assistant by Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Why are these people invading my dreams? Don’t I have enough nonsense sloshing around in my cranium already? I mean, I’m certain these are two delightful folks who happen to be extremely rich and about as famous as people can get. But I don’t want to be dreaming about them. No, siree, bob. My dream began fairly innocently. I either received a telephone call or a visit from someone and I was informed of my new position in the new Jolie/Pitt household. Without so much as boarding a plane I was there in their home. Well, actually it was a dream home. I mean, not the home of their dreams but the home that my bowl of mixed nuts of a dream dreamt up for them. I mean, in the dream I knew it was that estate in France where they are currently holed up but, well, this house was some dreary suburban home with bad furniture and carpet stains. At first I was alone in some room and I remember being nervous about meeting these people. There were no security guards. Some older grandmotherly/nanny sort of woman said something to me and I was led into another room which really seemed to be some 1970’s basement rec room in middle America. [I swear, please believe me, I am not making any of this up. I mean, no, none of this is real but all of this is what really occurred in my dream.] There was a white formica counter with stools in front of it. Ms. Jolie was in some further off darkened grotto-like area playing the piano and singing and asking for advice from Brad. I gathered that she was rehearsing for a cabaret act. This did not seem at all odd to me in the dream. Not one of their children was present at any time during this dream. Nor was there any mention of children. Soon we were all sitting at the stools at the counter and I believe I was

Rosalind Russell

This wonderful actress is TCM’s “Star of the Month” for July — tune in or set your recording device every Tuesday this month for a cavalcade of her many movies. Last night I watched Craig’s Wife which is the movie that made her a star (according to Robert Osborne). 1936 — I think every film should have been made in 1936 with huge art deco inspired sets and women sporting miles of fabric and endless eyelashes. I watched her in Four’s Company last week and her character is just such a wonderful rehearsal for her Hildy Johnson in the awe-inspiring His Girl Friday. She even plays a reporter! But in Craig’s Wife she is playing ultra-dramatic, sort of the ultimate frigid, obsessive/compulsive housewife. And she is dynamite. The close-ups of her tears are heart wrenching yet cinematically breathtaking. And don’t confuse this with the remake titled Harriet Craig starring Joan Crawford made in 1950 which is trés trés camp. I always thought my own dear mother in her younger days looked a little like Roz . Perhaps that’s just the Flaming Curmudgeon wishing he were somehow magically Hollywood royalty. Someday I shall have to share a photo of mom in her youth and you’ll see the resemblance too.

Western Spaghetti

I came across this delightful stop-motion animation short over at bad banana blog this morning and I just had to share it with you. Just plain simple joyous fun.

Water Music Sweet

I have no idea what kind of music I will use for my aqua antics this evening. I really need some inspiration. I haven’t put together any new playlists lately due to my financial woe distractions. Is that why I get myself into these financial messes — so I can be distracted from attacking my life with gusto and verve? When did I get to be such an old stick in the mud?

Caution

Peekaboo

My mother wanted new toilet seats so while I was home we visited Home Depot and purchased two (one for upstairs and one for downstairs). I took out the old ones and installed the new ones. My mother thinks I’m nuts for posing for pictures like this. My mother is always right. But I think these photos are most appropriate because my life is pretty much toilet-centric, physically and emotionally. Even with all my efforts I can’t really imagine being out of debt. And even with my wild imagination I cannot envision a world in which I’m actually involved in the arts instead of just bitching about them. And there’s not enough liquor on the planet to get me drunk enough to hallucinate someone willing to love me deeply and passionately and without wondering why the hell I would pose for pictures with my face framed by a toilet seat. I’m not trying to be merely maudlin, really, I’m trying to figure this shit out. Because if I’m as sick as I am of listening to my own malarky, how can I expect anyone else to read this neurotic blather?

Hello, Dali!

I’m just having a really shitty day. I thought I was making huge strides in paying off my debts but I seem to be stuck in some maelstrom I can’t escape. I am trying so hard to fix the financial feces I have made of my life. I’ve always been just plain fucking irresponsible. And now I see that the mistakes you make in your earlier years are not so easily atoned for. And yes, that’s a shitty sentence and I’m leaving it that way. The Flaming Curmudgeon is embarrassed by himself and all his lack of accomplishments and he is not inspired by bloggers who have extricated their shiny young fucking selves from their mundane existences and published semi-humorous books detailing their exploits. I am nothing but a money-owing pantywaist adrift in Manhattan. And I’m too old to be acting this way and too old to be writing sentences like these. Some people make news and some people read it. Period. It just seems that the more I pay off the more there is to pay off. I feel like I’m living in a mediocre musical based on a bad copy of a Salvador Dali painting and choreographed by Helen Keller.

Back in Manhattan

This was the view upward of the whirling clouds just before it started to rain during the fourth inning at Clipper Stadium in Lancaster on July 3rd. We left soon after I shot this picture so that mom’s hair would not suffer. Just one of many seemingly insignificant moments during my mini-vacation. More to come.

All Aboard Amtrak!

My return train will depart the depot to chug me back to merrie olde Manhattan in just about four good old American hours.  Please don’t meet me at the station.  I don’t like a fuss.  I’ve had a lovely, lazy, lethargic time in this quiet pastoral land of farms and shopping malls.  I’ll tell you all about it when I can post the photos.  But don’t wait up tonight for them as, well, you know how the Flaming Curmudgeon is on a Sunday evening with a bottle of wine.