Batman and the Hostile Me

Batman and the Hostile Me...

I saw the latest installment yesterday. I was sitting in the fourth row. When “The End” flashed, I jumped up and jumped to “The Exit” which was in front of me and out to where my black batmobile was waiting. For a moment there was total darkness, but I knew there was going to be a door there, and vaguely I could see the bar there that I needed to hit... The door burst open, and there was the black batmobile, and of course, daylight. The dog was in the backseat. Unusual, I thought, unlocking the door, and then, well as I ignited the batmobile, I said, I asked the dog: Are you pissed off... She looked very pissed off.


I shrugged my shoulders; what could I do... I pulled away from the curb. I had a plan; round the corner, round the corner, then left, and to Carkeek Park, where I could run her, and tire her, and then, well, go home and drink beer.

Ah, but round the corner, there was a RED LIGHT, and well, an IDIOT, that couldn’t figure out how the heck to leave enough room on his RIGHT to let someone turn RIGHT (me) when he (him) wanted to turn left, and so I had to wait (well, rage), before the light turned green, and then, of course, when I got to the next light, I had to wait for, before turning left, I realized, well, it wouldn’t have made any difference.

I ran the dog in the park; she wore herself out...

I couldn’t help but remember my anger. There was something about that movie that I didn’t like.

so why am i quippled

A dozen years ago, I was Parthree. No it is actually ten...

It was when I moved here, above the Par Three Golf Course, that I announced that I was going to be Parthree... I put that name up on the pool chalkboard at The College Inn... more than once... and I remember Babi Hammond knowing who I was.

At least one stranger commented on the name.

Before that, I was Thomas Argin D'Argin, of arguin' dargin fame... Well, maybe the dogs knew who I was.

And then once, I thought, well maybe it would be funny, if I swapped at least a couple of T's in my name with Q's, and so, I was Qom Qurkington,,, a name that means nothing...

But that made me think of quarks, which are qureatures of quantum meQuanics, and well, briefly I was Quantom. At least before I was Qurkington.

And then I started to die. I lived through 2 weeks of hellish pain, or was it three? no, I'd say it stretched into 4 before the surgeon cut me open... and the morphine made me think the pain was gone. But no, ... I watched Lost under the influence of percoset (sic?)

And then, well, how many years ago is that? It never really went away. I promised the surgeon I'd make a contribution to his favorite charity, but never really did.

For the percoset and the morphine faded. And the arms still feel the cold pain. Three months ago I started Pamelor, and a month ago I told my doctor I was cured... And then a week ago, well, the least favorite kiss brushed my lips again...

Perhaps it is gone, perhaps I am cured. At least I am typing with beer on my brain...

But when I returned, well, google had come. Dignity was lost in google's scum....

He said, well, I don't know the diocese that Quantom is from...

And wouldn't listen to any words I wanted to run...

So, I said, quck you! I'm no longer a quark! I'm quippled so don't give me no qrap! Or else that qrap will end up back in your qlap!

And love, well is like a flighty dove, she's as likely to grab you as give you a shove.

why I love the fantastic four

Tonight as I waited for the sunset there was a red sail upon the bay..
Later it was gone, nowhere to be seen,
Though there was a blue sail
With a red stripe, amongst the white sails that were sailing there.

The computer could not understand the word ‘sail’; I ranted at it: ‘red sail’ ‘red sail’
It replied: ‘Rad sale’ ‘Bad mail’... Is my voice so sad?

Why I love the fantastic four...

They have a comic book stupidity about them, that bleeds into pathos...
The movies have made it a summer full of superheroes...
Have they nothing else to offer?

But these superheroes, well, they fight the evil amongst us,
But then again they fight the evil out there...
They are not so stupid as to imagine that we are worse than them.

And therefore rise, fantastically,
To this forum made of air.

Attack of the shit mutants

Odd, perhaps, considering the recent post about Charlie's street-cleaning job in City Lights, but I had a dream the other night about what happens without street cleaning.

The world had gone to hell--streets were flooded, fires were raging, society was falling apart. I was, for reasons known only to dream logic, shepherding a small group of elderly academics through the chaos a city. At one point three of us were standing on a small ledge on the side of a tall building that seemed to be swaying back and forth. I worried that the oldest of us would not be able to keep standing there much longer. He looked down and remarked at all the cockroaches crazily running around down there. "Those aren't cockroaches," I said, "those are people."

Later we were crossing the rooftop of another building, hopping from roof to roof to avoid the streets. It smelled terrible. There were piles of shit everywhere. "What is that?", asked companion who had apparently not been paying attention as society crumbled. "That is literally piles of shit," I said. I don't remember if it was spoken in the dream or just understood that the piles of shit in the streets were both a sign and a cause of society's decay. Obviously, in a well-run city, people would not be defecating on the streets. Things had clearly gone pretty far wrong if they were. If seeing this were not enough to cause panic among the people who had not already panicked, the smell from the shit was driving people crazy.

Some of these shit mutants--a term that did not appear in the dream, but was the best way to describe them later--had formed into tribes, painted their faces, and preyed on the tribe-less. At one point I avoided fighting the champion of one tribe through a clever stratagem that I no longer remember. But as the small group of academics I was leading crossed the rooftop, the same champion was blocking the way to a fire escape we needed to use to get to the next building.

She was a stocky white woman with her hair pulled into three stiff ponytails sticking out of the top and sides of her head. She fought with a long pole. Luckily, I too had a long pole, tipped with a taser device. I surprised her by attacking first, and managed to stun her with a blow to the chest. After I did so, the dream helpfully cut away to an infomercial about the taser-tipped pole, explaining how it shocked once on the first hit, twice on the second, and so on. Then I woke up, and the dream never continued.

L'Hommage au Silence

I'm watching Charlie's look of disgust. The horse has just shit in the street. His eyes follow the horse, his shovel follows the shit. He marches on. Before him a team of mules cross the street in front of him... He turns around. Three steps further on an elephant passes by... His eyes register everything.

He's wearing a pith helmet, and a white uniform.

Turner Classic Movies is doing this thing this month where they play one actor's (well, actresses are actors...) movies each day; from dawn til dusk, and well, beyond.

I think Saturday was Charlie's day. I picked City Lights to try to watch. So far I've taken it in installments. It is a strange and beauteous movie... The scene with the horseshit almost didn't register, well, not until the elephant passed by, so I rewound. The second time around, watching his eyes follow the horse, my eyes started to water with laughter. The scene takes 15 seconds. I couldn't stop laughing... I had to run over here.... Remember the moment.

You can tell he knows that talkies are going to kill his medium. That is the most poignant feeling, empathy, I'm getting here, his face, so funny, is really so sad... This, he says, is what you are throwing on the trash heap, in with the horseshit, and the muleshit, and the elephant shit, and the rest of it.

But he doesn't lament.... The music is his. The music is a story unto itself, and is a celebrations of sound... So he doesn't lament.

And Alice perked her ears when he swallowed the whistle... It was like the movie had entered the room. For the whistle scene takes 45 seconds or so, and sadly, well, funnily, my dog didn't understand, but she reacted, she reacted exactly like the other members of the room, like, what the hell is that...; the other members of the room, being those inside my television screen...