Sideways
Cinemax viewing

Watching Sideways for the first time since it came out made me aware of how my life has come, in a few ways, to resemble that of Paul Giamatti's character Miles: middle-aged writer trying to create something of value; still thinking about a relationship that went sour long ago (not as much as he was though); meeting a new woman and wanting to get something going with her (let's just say I'm still waiting for a sign of interest from her); seeing friends around me get married (though that's been going on for years). I didn't feel uncomfortable watching the movie, but the parallels didn't sit all that well with me either.

Miles tells people his book is about to be published when there's every possibility it won't happen. He feels like the writing he has done throughout his life doesn't amount to much. I don't necessarily think that way; the comics I've written in the past were well received, even if they didn't sell in big numbers, and they set me on a path that led to some important people and places in my life - but I think it's only natural to hope for more.



My novel may or may not be that "more." I tell people I'm writing it to see of I have it in me, which is 100℅ true, but I want it to make lots of money too. I've heard and read much about the struggles that face  a prospective writer these days. Jen and Sandi have shared their war stories with me; I have a fair understanding of the odds. I could do like Jacqueline and go the self-published route, but it's not like comics, where you run off a bunch of copies of Kinko's, fold and staple them and you're good to go.



I'm scared. I admit it. I'm scared in a way I never was when I made comics. With them, it was easy to put one book behind me and move on to the next, partly because I was young and stupid and didn't care about the odds against me, which didn't seem as imposing anyway. Plus, it was easy to contextualize what I did as striking a blow against the mountain of corporate superhero comics, in an industry dominated by them, devoured weekly by Fandom Assembled.



With prose books, it's different. I'm certainly not treading any new ground in a market built around a single genre. I have no illusions that what I'm writing will change the world. I'm not making any grand statement about the state of the world, nor is that my intent - but I want somebody to care about it anyway. Someone once said writing a book is like raising a child: you invest all this time and care into its development and then you release it into the world, hoping it'll find its place. I can totally see that.

Getting back to the movie: still great. I remember trying to drink wine when I was in Barcelona, but I never refined a taste for it, even though I kept thinking I ought to somehow. Occasionally, when Vija throws a party, she'll serve wine; I may try some, but I never finish my glass. Not much more  I have to say about wine. I'd rather have a beer.

The Kirk Douglas Blogathon is an event honoring the life and career of the actor-producer on the centennial of his birth, hosted by Shadows and Satin. For a complete list of participating bloggers, visit the link at the host site.

Lust for Life
library rental

When I ran a Google search on the name Vincent van Gogh, I was surprised at the number of recent articles about or related to him. For instance: there's a new book out containing previously-unseen drawings of his that some people say are fakes. Another new book about the 19th-century Dutch painter claims he cut off his ear because his brother Theo was getting married. A third new book claims the Metropolitan Museum of Art's VVG painting is fake too. Plus, there's an upcoming VVG biopic requiring over 60,000 original oil paintings to animate.

Over a century after his death, the strange life and brilliant career of VVG continues to captivate modern art lovers and incite discussion. Despite his talent, the dude had some serious mental issues. He was the original tortured artist. The theories as to why he was the way he was abound: he was bipolar; he was epileptic; he was a mama's boy; etc. It's unlikely we'll ever know the truth.

St. Patrick's Day always comes right before my birthday, but Tuesday night was the first time I had ever bothered to take advantage of it by getting drunk the night before. Who cares if everyone else is getting plastered for a completely different reason? I've always considered myself a kind of honorary Irish by virtue of being born the day after, anyway!

The crazy part is that it only took me one beer to get drunk! But that one beer looked like this. I think the bar where the Queens World Film Festival Opening Night after-party was held at was offering a special, but it was an odd one: either that one humongous beer or two smaller ones, and I couldn't get one now and the second later, so I bought the one big one and carried that mug around with me all night as I talked to old friends and made new ones. 

Long Island City, where the Secret Theater is located

How did I get home? Well, I wasn't totally out of it. I was coherent enough to get on the train and then the bus, but what it came down to was that I told myself one thing, over and over: DON'T FALL DOWN.

Yesterday, I treated myself to a late lunch/early dinner before heading to Long Island City for Day 2. I had salmon. And that was the extent of my celebrating...

...because I had other plans. The Secret Theater in LIC once again hosts QWFF screenings. I wouldn't mind coming back here for something else one day, though it's easy to see what puts the "Secret" in Secret Theater: if you were walking past it, you'd think it was just another loading dock to a warehouse. Yes, despite all the development in LIC, there are still warehouses, and artists' spaces. My friend Nancy has an art studio there, not unlike what you'd see in SoHo or DUMBO.

I stayed for the first two movie blocks of the night; this is what I saw (Reminder for all you newbies: QWFF shows mostly short films, so they're arranged in "blocks," and the audience pays by the block and sees about an hour or two worth of short movies):

- Into the Dark. In the future, two prisoners shipped on a space-worthy vessel headed for their execution find the only comfort they can - in each other. It always amazes me how modern software technology can make outer space and computer graphics and spaceships look as slick as anything JJ Abrams can come up with, and that's the case here as well, but the story by writer-director-star Lukas Hassel is equally compelling. It's a one-man show, like recent films Buried and Locke, with all other characters off-screen, a format that I think works better for short(er) films like this one. Genre fans will dig it.

Filmmakers from the first block of films at the Secret Theater

- 4AM Gas Station Muzak. Heaven and hell compete for the soul of an ordinary guy just trying to put his life back together. Maybe a little too clever for its own good (did they really think that by showing an angel and demon playing chess together that we wouldn't think of Ingmar Bergman?), but it's still a game effort. Multi-cultural cast, nice use of location shooting in the California prairie, among other places, good editing.

- Reuber. From Germany comes this Gilliam-esque modern-day fairy tale, a bedtime story about a boy whose act of negligence leads him to run away into a magic forest with some bizarre characters. Like The Wizard of Oz, characters in the real-world framing sequence play double roles in the fairy tale, which is a nice touch, and there are funny moments, as you'd expect, but I thought it rambled far off course at times and wrapped up too neatly. Worth a look, though.

- Bright in Here. A one-night stand between two lesbian women on New Year's Eve. A nice character study, but that's about it. One would like to spend more time with these characters, though, to see where their relationship leads.

- Middle Man. At a tele-texting service for hearing-impaired people, a phone operator facilitates a conversation between two gay dudes trying to patch up their relationship. Clever premise, well-executed (although it took me awhile to figure out why one half of the couple didn't speak), but this is a Scottish film, with very, very thick Scottish accents. That, plus the fast pace of the dialogue made it difficult for this Yank to follow the story. Subtitles would help tremendously.

- Intrinsic Moral Evil. From the Netherlands, a very unusual short that's more of a performance video than a narrative, in which the concepts of homosexuality and youth are expressed in interpretive dance. Excellent cinematography and editing that uses the Zack-Snyder-slow-down-then-speed-up trick well. Quite fascinating and hypnotic.

Filmmakers from the second block of films

- Fire Island. Could the end of this marriage be decided by pure chance? Shot on location at the titular strip just off of Long Island (right before Hurricane Sandy hit!), the dodgy American accents by the actors were a distraction for me, but otherwise, it was okay. Good mix of comedy and drama.

- The Blood of Love. A woman goes to any and all lengths to keep her husband from dying of an unusual blood disorder. If there's one genre that QWFF has been far too short of over the years, it's horror, and this one had a good mix of gore and genuine drama. I was worried that the audience was laughing in places that weren't meant to be funny, but director Jeff Meyers said afterward that the laughs, intentional or not, didn't bother him.

- Remains. I'm sorry, but this Israeli drama about two gay guys bored the living hell out of me. I was already a little drowsy by this point in the night, but I swear, it seemed like all the characters did was bicker and I didn't care about either one of them - and of course it was the longest one in the block. Ugh.

More pictures from QWFF at my Tumblr page.

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Previously:
Day 1

One Two Three
seen @ Landmark Loews Jersey theater, Jersey City, NJ
2.23.13

When I still drunk soda on a regular basis, I was a Pepsi drinker. As a kid, drinking soda went hand in hand with redeeming the empty bottles for cash. There was a tiny bodega a couple of blocks from our house that accepted empty bottles, and my parents places the responsibility burden of redeeming them on me. While it was always great to get free money, especially when you're young, I hated having to be the one to gather all the bottles, stuff them into a garbage bag, and schlep them down the street.

I remember, of course, when New Coke came out, but since I didn't regularly drink old Coke, I wasn't as indignant as everybody else was over this new flavor. I did try it, but I certainly don't remember now how it tasted. Back in the 80s, for awhile it really did seem as if your choice between Pepsi or Coke said something about you personally, though that was probably just the result of clever marketing - and we as kids were certainly susceptible. 


Therefore, I remained loyal to Pepsi in the face of all this New Coke hype, though I will say I thought Coke had the better commercials.


The only Pepsi commercial from the 70s/80s that I can recall at the moment was the Michael Jackson one, and of course, that's mostly because of the accident he got into while filming it. There was even a playground rhyme that grew out of it (please forgive the political incorrectness): "I pledge allegiance to the flag/Michael Jackson is a fag/Pepsi-Cola burned him up/Now he's drinking 7-Up." How do these things get started, anyway?

When I spent the summer of 1993 in Spain, I drank Coke. At the time, they sold Coke in tallboy cans, which I had never seen in America before, so I suppose the novelty of it appealed to me as much as anything else. (I should've remembered to save a can; it would've been in Spanish.) Of course, I also drank a lot of bottled water too, since we were told not to drink the local water.


I certainly drank other sodas too. I loved Sunkist, which was great on a hot summer day. Their commercial re-wrote the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" and now I can't hear the original without thinking about Sunkist. The "un-cola," 7-Up, had that commercial with that guy from Live and Let Die, Geoffrey Holder, but something about the way he said "The Un-Colaaaaaaaa!!" was funny and kinda weird.

Shea Stadium used to serve RC Cola, which I hated! It was always flat and didn't have the same kind of punch as Pepsi or even Coke for that matter, but you needed something to go with your hot dogs and pretzels, and I was too young for beer.


While living in Columbus, my eating and drinking habits changed slightly. I don't recall if it was a conscious decision to cut down on soda, but I think it must have been. Certainly Max was a subtle influence. He's a generally healthier eater than I am, and while I bought my own groceries, I'm fairly sure that his example rubbed off on me a bit. So I would buy juice and punch for myself, and I've stuck with that ever since. I did, however, acquire a small craving for Dr. Pepper.

So soda has never been completely cut out of my life and I doubt it ever will, though I have weaned myself away from Pepsi in recent years. I find that odd, since as I said, I was such a die-hard Pepsi drinker for so long. I guess that's just how people change.

It's Coca-Cola, however, that's part of the story in One Two Three. I've already written about what growing up under the Cold War was like, and I've paid homage to Jimmy Cagney as well. I'd only seen thi film one other time, and I had forgotten how funny it was. Maybe it had to do with seeing it with an audience, but I was busting a gut laughing at this one! Plus, Billy Wilder shot it HUGE. It's got to be the same dimensions as The Apartment, his film prior to this, and indeed, the two share a few of the same compositions in places.


In Cameron Crowe's book Conversations with Wilder, Wilder indicates that while he liked One Two Three, he didn't consider it among his very best. Still, he gave Cagney all the credit for making the film work like it did:

...we had to go with Cagney because Cagney was the picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny. But just the speed was funny. The speed was very good, how Cagney figured it out. The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world, and give the actors, in order to make it seem fast, some slower scenes too. But that went very, very well.

Wilder goes on to compare Cagney's rapid-fire delivery to that of Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity, especially in the scene where he describes all the suicide possibilities.

I had no problems getting to the Loews this time around; the PATH train service was restored to normal weeks ago. Speaking of the Loews, by the by, you need to check out this article about one of the Loews' sister theaters from back in the day, the Valencia, here in Queens. It's now a church, but the original architecture and design has been faithfully kept up and it looks remarkable.

The Thin Man
seen on TV @ TCM
7.9.12

Awhile ago, I talked about my drinking habits, such as they are. Basically, I don't drink unless it's a special occasion, like a party. Last week, I was fortunate enough to have attended three different parties, and I drank at all of them, some to greater degree than others. It was what most people at these parties did and was no big deal.

Today, we're more aware of the dangers of drinking to excess, whether it's a celebrity being hauled off to rehab, or PSAs that emphasize having a designated driver.  I believe there was even a recent movie about the guy who founded AA. And this is as it should be. Alcohol is as easy to obtain as a trip to the supermarket or bodega, provided you're of legal age (and sometimes not even then), and it's even easier to abuse.


Back in the day, though, social drinking was looked on with much less of an eye towards responsibility. In watching The Thin Man yesterday, I was surprised to see William Powell's character, Nick Charles, depicted as such an unapologetic lush. I imagine Dashiell Hammett wrote him as such in the original book, but to see it in a movie is another thing.

It didn't spoil my enjoyment of the movie; indeed, it was kinda cool to see such an un-PC character. (One wonders if the remake will handle him the same way.) No, we don't see Nick suffer the painful effects of too much alcohol, but if you want that, you can always see The Lost Weekend, or better yet, The Days of Wine and Roses. This is not that kind of movie, and that's okay. Still, I did find it somewhat surprising. It had been a long time since I had seen The Thin Man and I had forgotten that aspect.


Does anyone else confuse William Powell with Melvyn Douglas, or is it just me? As I watched The Thin Man, I kept wondering whether or not Nick Charles was played by the guy from Ninotchka...


The Thin Man, of course, was one of the earliest Hollywood franchises, spawning a whole bunch of sequels, and in thinking about that now, this seems like an even more extraordinary thing when one considers the kinds of movies that spawn franchises these days. Seriously, can you imagine a franchise being built around a movie like this today - one that values witty dialogue and mature, sophisticated characters, without special effects of any kind?


Says a lot about the way tastes have changed, hasn't it?

The Roaring Twenties
seen on TV @ TCM
5.7.12


I've never thought of the drinking of alcohol as a vice. I remember my father letting me have a sip of his beer as a kid, every once in awhile. I thought it made me feel grown-up. (I think he drank Michelob, but I don't recall for sure.) My beer of choice is Heineken (sorry, Frank Booth), but I usually only drink on special occasions. I'm not a prude, I'm just not that into beer, which also means I'm not a regular bar-goer. Hand me a beer, though, I won't turn it down (especially after spending twenty hours on a train).


Same goes for wine and other spirits. When I traveled to Barcelona for a summer, I was only 21 and still learning about the rest of the world, so it took me a bit by surprise when I saw how commonly people over there drink wine. Either my first or my second night there, I tried some of the local vino. I can't say with any authority whether it was good or not because I was unused to the taste of wine in general. Suffice it to say it wasn't to my liking. I stuck to Coke and bottled water for the remainder of the vacation. And of course, I've had champagne on New Year's Eve, but that tastes even weirder.




I'm certain I've never been falling down drunk - and no, it's not a matter of "if I have been, I wouldn't remember," either. It takes longer for someone as big and tall as I am to get drunk. I have a few friends who are recovering alcoholics. Once, I was at a comics convention and I was crashing with one of those friends. We had come from a party in the hotel and were walking across the parking lot to her car. I was finishing off a beer. As we got into her car, she said to me, "Please don't drink that in my place," and I was quickly reminded that she was, indeed, still clean and sober. I hurriedly drained the bottle dry and stuffed it into my backpack, out of sight.


In thinking about Prohibition, I can't help but be reminded of the so-called "war" on drugs. Without getting into a big political debate, let me just say that curtailing vice through legislation seems to create more problems than it solves. I think the most you can do is make it harder for people to engage in, as opposed to eliminating it altogether. Here in New York, laws have recently been passed banning smoking not only from bars, but also from parks, beaches and pedestrian plazas. I still see people lighting up, though - and cigarettes haven't gotten any cheaper either.




The Roaring Twenties plays kinda like a documentary in that the narrative is sprinkled with voice-over montages describing what Prohibition was like in the 1920s, how people profited from the liquor bootlegging business, and how the law combated it. I'm sure this movie was meant to be as much cautionary tale as entertainment; after all, Prohibition was still within recent memory. It's unsubtle, yet interesting to watch, and doesn't detract much from the main narrative.


Jimmy Cagney's in fine form, as always. I really felt for his character as he goes through his rise and fall. It was odd at first to see Humphrey Bogart in a supporting role, but there's no mistaking his presence - and he shares some great scenes with Cagney.

...theaters clearly permit eating in the auditorium. They might, fairly, be able to stop you from eating if eating was not permitted at all (say, for sanitary and janitorial reasons; in fact, they encourage you to eat messy and smelly foods).

This is the My Hometown Blogathon, the first WSW theme week doubling as a blogathon. The goal is discussing movies set in one's hometown, or at the very least, the area of one's birth. All this week I'll write about movies set in my home borough of Queens. Check back on July 23 for a list of participating bloggers in this blogathon.

Frequency
seen online via YouTube
7.16.11

I feel about the 1986 Mets the way most long-time Mets fans feel about the 1969 Mets. That entire year of 1986 was something of a landmark for me: not only did I start high school, but my whole self-perception began to evolve. I realized that art was more than just a fun little diversion for me, and I began to think about seriously studying it - with some encouragement from my parents, of course. I also put more effort into writing, and took my first steps into acting as well. All things seemed possible that year.

That also held true for my favorite baseball team. The previous year the Mets and Cardinals were involved in a furious dogfight for the division title that came down to the final three games of the regular season, head-to-head in St. Louis. The Mets came up short, but many people believed they had what it took to triumph the following year - and boy, did they ever. They didn't just triumph, they conquered, winning the division by 26 games over their nearest competitor, with a swagger and brashness that made them hated and feared throughout the National League. They won the league title in six games after an epic 16-inning battle in Houston and the World Series in seven games after coming within one strike of defeat on their home turf. And I was witness to it all.


The 1969 team was quite different. They were seven years removed from being an expansion team, formed in the wake of the loss of the Dodgers and Giants to California. In the franchise's first two years, the Mets were the laughingstock of professional baseball, losing games at a mind-boggling rate, yet doing so with a shaggy-dog resignation and an innocent, gee-whiz attitude that endeared them to their fans. The Mets of those early years knew they were bad, but they could still laugh at themselves in a way The Team From the Bronx could never do. And then they started to get good. Really good. The nickname "Miracle Mets" was well-earned, given how low the franchise started off - and how high they rose.

I grew up relatively close to the old Shea Stadium. My father and I would drive to the games at first, but when I got older I found I could walk there too if I wanted. I sat in all parts of Shea - the box seats, the mezzanine section, and especially the upper decks. I remember going to a Dwight Gooden game with my father and friends one night, bringing a giant homemade "K" sign that I'd proudly hold up and wave every time the pitcher struck out a batter. 

Shea used to serve RC Cola, which I never cared for. It always tasted slightly watered down and nowhere near as strong as Pepsi, my soda of choice for many years until I recently cut back on soda. Most of the time, though, I'd end up getting a cup of the stuff along with my hot dog and Cracker Jack because you need something to drink on those hot summer afternoons at the ballpark and it never occurred to me that I could just order a different drink (don't ask me why).



I don't know if they still do this, but every year the Mets would host Banner Day, where a parade of fans with homemade banners would march around the perimeter of the field. A team of judges at home plate would pick a winner and runners-up, and there would be prizes. One of the proudest moments of my childhood was when I came in third place one year and won a color TV and a stereo. I still have the TV.

I can close my eyes and still picture myself at Shea... Bob Murphy's voice on the radio, the concrete ramps, the DiamondVision scoreboard, the outfield bullpens, the Home Run Hat (every time a Met hit a home run, an apple with the Mets logo would rise out of a giant hat in right field, underneath the scoreboard, and light up), the stairway and landing outside the 7 train subway station where if you stood at a certain spot, you could see a sliver of the game from right field.


I think perhaps the most profound difference between the Mets and The Team From the Bronx is that the Mets, after all these years, still feel like a local team. One can find fans of The Team From the Bronx all over the country, and indeed, all over the world. They have been immortalized in numerous songs, novels, and yes, films. They have an aura about them that is recognized even by non-baseball fans, and give them their due - they have absolutely earned it. The Mets, however, still feel like they belong to New York in general and Queens in particular, even in the face of an increased corporate mentality over the years that rivals that of The Team From the Bronx (the innocence of the 60s has completely worn off).



The premise of the movie Frequency - a father and son communicating across 30 years of time through a ham radio - is no more odd than anything The Twilight Zone ever did, although I felt the movie was more than a little ham-fisted and unsubtle. I won't even go into my problems with the butterfly-effect aspects. But it was nice to see a movie in which the '69 Mets play a pivotal role in the plot. 

It's supposed to take place in Bayside, and I suppose it kinda looks like Bayside in a highly generalized way. It would've been nice to have gotten in a shot of Bell Boulevard, the main drag in that area. I'm assuming the prominently-seen bridge must be the Throgs Neck, which I always confuse with the Whitestone because they look pretty much the same. If so, then the park must be Clearview Park, which I've never been to.

----------------------
Previously in the My Hometown Blogathon:
The Terminal

Related:
Eight Men Out
Game 6

POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold
seen @ Kew Gardens Cinemas, Kew Gardens, Queens, NY
5.10.11

First of all, I should say that POM is expensive as hell. Yes, I actually went out and bought a bottle of POM after watching POM Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, just so I could fully experience this movie the way Morgan Spurlock intended (presumably). Seeing him chugging this stuff, it looked like it couldn't have been more than 12-16 ounces, so I figured it wouldn't be more than a couple of bucks. Wrong. $4.49 for a 16-ounce bottle at my local Key Food supermarket. So the price alone guarantees that I will never drink this stuff on a regular basis. Plus it didn't even have Spurlock's face on it.

I remember seeing ads for POM in the subway. Didn't think too much more of it than most of the other ads I see in the subway all the time. Pomegranates sounded like something out of the Bible, like something Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden maybe. Dictionary.com defines it as "a chambered, many-seeded, globose fruit." Maybe that explains the bottle shape. It tastes alright; sweeter than I expected.


Living in New York, one can't help but be inundated with ads everywhere you look. I remember when the subways went from having a bunch of different ads on both sides of each car to one or two ads dominating the entire car. At first it was overwhelming, and a bit intimidating, as if they want you to buy this one product so badly they're willing to pummel you with ads everywhere you look within the subway car. If it's a creative ad, something that's funny, it's not so bad, but of course the downside is that once you've seen the entire ad, there's nothing else to look at but the other passengers (which is why I always carry a book with me). Now it seems like every square inch of the subway cars and stations are for sale - and given the fact that the city transit system is broke, it's hardly surprising.


Movie ads get me excited, as you might imagine. I missed seeing them when I lived in Columbus. Who can forget the Godzilla ads from 1998: taking up huge billboards and entire sides of buildings, with legends such as "His foot is bigger than this sign," or something like that. And I have to admit, they got me so excited for the movie I went to a Tuesday night preview (it was due to officially open on a Wednesday). After enduring the suckitude of the movie, I felt like a total chump for falling for the hype.

Greatest Movie, like Spurlock's previous film Super Size Me, ultimately felt like another excuse for Spurlock to pull one of his wacky stunts, but because he comes across as so likeable and down to earth, you're willing to follow along. I wish the focus of his movie had been on Sao Paolo, the city without outdoor advertising. He did spend a good amount of time on that, though.


Another thing he touched upon was how everyday people sell themselves as a brand, to a certain degree, to get what they want. Think of personals ads, or resumes, or portfolios. What are they but ad campaigns meant to sell the other person on you? Of course, most of us don't have to see these things everywhere we go. I'm reminded of the old Judy Holliday movie It Should Happen to You, where her character tries to sell herself as a brand. In fact, that movie and this would make for an interesting double bill, to see how much - and how little - advertising has changed in fifty years.

Any thoughts on modern advertising?

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle (unrated edition)
from my DVD collection
11.17.10

True story: when I was in high school, I took a special art course at Cooper Union one summer. One of the assignments they gave us was, if I recall correctly, to make a sculpture out of found objects. So what did I do? I made a small cube out of White Castle hamburger boxes. Still have it, too.

Personally, I always preferred the Castle's chicken sandwiches. I used to go to the Castle near my house all the time for them, but one day they took them off the menu and I can't find them anywhere around here anymore. It's no big deal, but it is kinda disappointing. And the only fast food burger I'll touch these days is Five Guys.

I'm gonna sound like a total killjoy, I know, but it's true: ever since reading Fast Food Nation, I've tried to reduce the amount of fast food I eat. (Eliminating it altogether is not quite an option yet.) Vija lent me the book years ago, and I've never regretted reading it. Don't get me wrong; I've never been one of those people who stuff their faces with McDonald's every day. The most I would do is once a week - and again, my preference would be for the chicken sandwiches.

Giving up McDonald's was easier than I thought - although in recent years, I've shifted over to Wendy's and Popeye's. When I was living in Columbus, I ate at Wendy's a bit more than usual. Maybe that was because Wendy's originated in Columbus.


Actually, the Midwest has some decent fast food places - some we don't have back east, some we do. Jimmy John's is a sandwich shop like Subway, although I'd also go there for the chocolate chip cookies. Charley's is a better sandwich shop; they make fresh cut fries and have lemonade. The OSU location is where it originated. The first time I ate Five Guys was in Columbus. The one near OSU opened up while I was there and they stay open super late. My absolute favorite, though, was Raising Cane's. They serve chicken fingers, along with fries and a slice of French toast and it's all delicious. I ate there all the time and I wish there were one here in New York so badly!

These days, I try to be a little more health conscious whenever I eat fast food. I've cut back on Wendy's and Popeye's, but whenever I do eat there, I make an effort to take long walks immediately afterward to use all those calories. I also eat at places like Cosi and especially Panera Bread for less junky options. I am deeply in passionate love with Panera. The first time I ate there was in Columbus, and I was so happy to find when I came back that New York has it too. It's a nice place to sit and relax, too, whether with a computer or not.


In addition, I've greatly reduced the amount of soda I drink. I used to drink Pepsi all the time; now I almost never touch it. If I do drink soda, it's always in the smallest cans possible, but otherwise it's lemonade and tea (sometimes iced, sometimes not) and juice and punch all the way. Ginger ale too. It's just as easy to live without soda as with it.

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was a pleasant surprise. I didn't think it would be quite so good, but it is. It's funny because I've seen John Cho and Kal Penn in more serious roles prior to this. Cho, of course, is the new Sulu, and I first saw Penn in The Namesake, a wonderful adaptation of the Jhumpa Lahiri novel, in which he did a fine job. So it was a bit odd for me to see them do comedy, even though this movie put them both on the map. (By the way, is it my imagination, or does Penn's skin look lighter on that poster than it actually is?)



This is another DVD formerly from Sue's collection. Inside it there are unused coupons for White Castle, which makes me wonder whether this whole movie was intended to be one big commercial. I mean, this could've just as easily been a made-up burger joint. Filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith create original brands specifically for their movies with no loss of credibility - the very opposite, if anything. But maybe the director needed the extra cash such a blatant product placement could provide. Regardless, I can't say it bothers me that much.

Face/Off
first seen in Chicago, IL
1997

I saw Face/Off when I was vacationing in Chicago in the summer of 1997. (I don't remember what theater it was in.) It was my first time in the Windy City, and I did most of the tourist-type things - a boat ride on Lake Michigan, a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, visiting the art museum, even eating at the original Pizzeria Uno's. (Love Uno's. Love it.) But I'm going to cheat a little bit and talk about the second time I went to Chi-town, because it's a much more interesting story.

This would've been in 1999, I believe. It was in March, and I was going to a comic book convention. In '97, I went by bus to Chicago, if you can believe that - 17 hours straight! So this time I decided to take Amtrak. I probably would've made better time, except I left in the middle of a snowstorm that ultimately turned into a blizzard! I distinctly remember looking out my window at night and seeing the snow fall through the pale yellow light of a track signal, piling up all around. It continued that way as we slowly trudged through Ohio and Indiana. Naturally, I was pissed, but I remained hopeful that we might arrive before the end of the Saturday portion of the show.

At least I was comfortable on the train. Take it from someone who has done his fair share of cross-country traveling: riding by train can be so relaxing. With a bus, you've got people packed in close together, in seats that sometimes have fixed armrests, with people yacking on their cellphones or scolding screaming babies, and if you're big like me there's never enough legroom, and getting enough sleep is always a tenuous proposition at best. I could do an entire post on this.

Train cars are wider, have plenty of legroom, you can lean back in your seat without bumping the legs of the guy behind you (and vice versa), there's food available, and they travel faster. Not to get too political, but the Obama administration supports high-speed rail in this country, and it's an idea whose time has long since come. More trains means fewer cars on the highways, and when you're talking high-speed, there's really no comparison when it comes to longer trips.

So back to my train ride. We made it into Chicago too late for the Saturday part of the show and I was pretty tired. I went to the hotel, checked in, and saw a bunch of my friends at the bar. I went over to them, we talked for a bit, I told them I'd join them shortly, and went to my room to set my bags down. Then I returned to the bar.

Someone bought me a drink and I started talking about my agonizing trip, saying something like, "Oh, man, it was horrible, I was on the train for 18 hours in a raging blizzard," and so on. Some other people join us and I get handed another beer, and I have to retell the story for the newcomers: "Yeah, man, I was on the train for 20 hours and I didn't think I'd ever get here," et cetera. Another beer and suddenly my ride lasted 21 hours. By this time I was feeling pretty good and it showed, if you know what I mean. The impromptu party soon retired upstairs where this one guy broke out a cooler of beer, and of course, I had another one and my trip was now up to 22 hours, and so on and so on all through the night! I don't recall how conscious I was of my ever-expanding fish tale; I don't think I was deliberately exaggerating in order to get more beer, but I might have. Regardless, it was just what I needed, so I didn't care.

The show itself was a bust. Very few people turned out on Saturday, from what I was told, and Sunday was worse. The less said, the better.

I spent Monday in the art museum before getting on my return train, but when I got out it snowed again, and hard. I thought I knew where the train station was, but the snow was coming down so hard I got lost. I remember walking up a bridge thinking I was going the right way, but after awhile it was clear I wasn't. In desperation, I asked a passerby where the train station was, and of course, it turned out I was going in the opposite direction, which is what I had suspected. My train was delayed, and I knew I'd miss a day of work.

I did share a nice conversation with a pregnant Chinese girl who was going to New York to be with her fiancee. She wasn't familiar with the city, so I made sure to tell her all the places to go. I remember playing Hangman with her to pass the time.

So that was the second and last time I've been to Chicago (so far). I don't recall much about seeing Face/Off during my first trip there (beyond the film itself), except that it was with a big, pumped-up audience (it was a big summer movie, after all) in a fairly largish theater. Of course, I've seen it plenty of times since then, on home video.