Monday, May 05, 2008

Of Movies And Microwaves

I've spent the week watching movies On Demand. Last week I saw the horrendous The Darjeeling Limited and just when I thought there couldn't be a crappier movie out there, along came No Reservations. For those who follow Catherine Zeta-Jones-I-Married-For-Prestige-Not-Love's career, did you know her face now has no expression at all? When she cries, they put EVOO on her cheeks so the tears float down quickly and you can almost hear them saying to one another, "Quick, let's get the fuck out of here, this place is colder than Antarctica." Aaron Eckhart is too hot to badmouth and Abigail Breslin, the Fame Clock called, they want their 15 minutes back.

I loved Gone Baby Gone and have no idea why Amy Ryan didn't win over Tilda Swinton in Best Supporting category for this year's Oscars. Her performance is breathtaking and Swinton's is wooden and one dimensional. Ben Affleck has found his calling behind the camera, instead of behind Jennifer Lopez's career. I also saw Atonement and thought it was great. It was oil barrels better than Michael Clayton and the surprise ending was clever, unlike the dreadful ending of No Country for Old Men which should have been called No Country for Script Doctors.

My microwave is acting strangely, stopping the rotation one way just to go the other way and back and forth like that until the entire thing comes to a jolting halt and the buzzer sounds. Without cooking a thing. It finally started to work but exploded a cup of tea at the normal time I set it so now I can shave 8 seconds off my tea time.

If you know me, and know me well, you know that wherever I am, there is always hinky electronic activity around me. When I spent time trying to sell my Dad's place down in Florida I was having the Jacuzzi fixed. After two hours in the apartment, the electrician for the building asked me when I was going back to L.A. because he couldn't work on it while I was there. Alarms went off, wires didn't connect, extensions died. This was my dad's place and he was dead so I wasn't that surprised by all the activity but the electrician was as he'd worked in the apartment for 17 years and never had any problems before. I eventually returned to L.A. and over the next year and a half, until we sold the place, the electrician never charged me for another thing. But he made sure I was in L.A. before he stepped foot in the place.

In my own apartment, the bedroom TV has turned itself on twice and the stereo in the living room turned itself on twice, all in the middle of the night. When the TV turned itself on the first time, I walked to the kitchen and got a hammer, I guess in case the police came they would find clubbed spirits bleeding to (even more) death on the carpet? This activity has been going on since the late 1970's, when my French grandfather died and came to say goodbye to me in New York. Some of it is just hilarious, like the day I was watching a movie in the VCR and the VCR stopped, spit the movie out the slot and onto the floor and then turned itself off and went back to regular television programming. It had never done that before and never did it again.

I have so many stories like this that I put them all in my first novel, which is really a roman à clef called All The Bad Sex I've Had™. You'd think that sex and spirits wouldn't be related but you'd be wrong. After all, they were alive once and they couldn't all have been nuns and priests. I think we all have surmised that there is way more out there than what we see, things that can't be explained in any rational manner and that there is definitely more than just this lifetime. That is the entire premise of karma, after all, other lifetimes. So if you believe in that, well....

And because I'm open to all of this, I'm open to a lot more. And they find me!

End of chat.

14 comments:

  1. Apparently, you have Poltergeist tendencies--now that was a good movie.

    No Reservations--Worst movie ever. How could the hottie from Erin Brokovich morph into him. There was nothin' cookin' in that kitchen.

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  2. I didn't know there was yet another dimension to your electric personality. nyuk, nyuk.

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  3. Anonymous7:42 AM

    Wow - I LOVE really weird crazy crap like your electrical stuff. I must find your book and catch up with the goings-on.

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  4. A lady I work with was watching Zorro this weekend and said I look like Catherine Zeta Jones then said a young Catherine Zeta Jones now I don’t know if I should be flattered or pissed. ;o)

    I don’t understand why people close to them don’t talk actors/actresses out of having excessive cosmetic surgery. Soon, everybody will be looking like Joan Rivers' long lost offspring.

    Spirit activity scares the crap out of me!

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  5. At least your spirit seems to have a sense of humor.
    I just finished reading Atonement and I was a little disappointed. I would like to see the movie though.

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  6. A songwriter here in Nashville said someone asked him if he believed in reincarnation and he answered "No, but I might have in a previous life." HA!

    I believe in the principle that what you sow (plant), you'll reap (uh, pick). Which is why I thank God for grace--if it were all on me, I'd never make it!

    I recommend any of the Hope-Crosby "road" pictures--except maybe "Road to Hong Kong"--if you need a pick-me-up or something to clear the mental palate between serious movies. Some of that stuff is surprisingly funny even today.

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  7. I hear you loud and clear on the spirits thing. I've had some strange occurrences over the years & although none were ever repeated, I often got the feeling it was someone who loved me & wanted to tease me with some little show of their presence. I can live with that.

    I also recommend The Thin Man series with Myrna Loy and William Powell. They are so funny & witty and just crack me up.

    Mr. Snooty refuses to ever go out to the movies, so I must wait until they come out on DVD to see any new movies. Only I'm too lazy to go rent something unless it's a movie I reaaallllly want to see. I saw no candidates for that at this year's Academy Awards. Sorry Tilda (you wacko).

    How's The Foot healing process going anyway?

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  8. Jenn, NOW you tell me it was the worst movie ever.

    merecat, did you say dimension or dementia?

    daniel, the book is not published yet. Sob.

    bee, not sure CZJ has had anything more than Botox. What I meant is that she can't act.

    gm, I know the movie was taken from the book. I'd say that the reason it didn't win the Oscar was because of ONE WORD.

    Mark, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the road pictures with Hope and Crosby. Hilarious. I need to own those, I wonder if they're out on DVD in boxed set?

    Snooty, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Thin Man series as well. They made me fall in love with Myrna Loy. The foot has one side where it's rubbing against the bindings and is driving me CRAZY. And it chafes.

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  9. Anonymous7:06 PM

    I am so glad you disliked "Darjeeling" as much as I did!

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  10. Well that too.

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  11. Loved Gone Baby Gone. Loved it. Couldn't face No Reservations. I sensed in the trailer that it would drive me insane. I grow weary of the tale of two hardened adults whose love an overly cute kid brings them together. pffft.

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  12. Anonymous9:08 AM

    i'm the guy that got his penis a twitter account. that you'd get a kick out of the fact that i'm based in birmingham ALABAMA. bible belt land.
    i don't have many friends because i'm a habitual line stepper to these simpletons. but i love to make em laugh all the same. including everyone else.

    and that is all.

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  13. Wow. I would love to read your book when you get it published. I find the kinds of experiences you describe as fascinating. Does prayer work for you? Seems like you ought to have some influence and not just spirits visiting you. Being Catholic I have some extreme ideas about saints and spirits that I've never discussed with anyone. hmmmm

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  14. Wow! First of all I am having a great time reading old blogs of yours that I hadn't before read. Love, love, love your blog. It's fabulous.

    Secondly: I can relate to the electronic/spiritual phenomena! Can I leave a long blog comment? Ah what the hell....

    I have this thing where if I'm stressed and I turn on a light it will blow up. It happens a lot. I kept blaming the faulty Belgian electricity but my husband says it never happened before I moved in. I have a history (too extensive to go into here ) of seeing/hearing/otherwise experiencing ghosts, but something that's happened lately sounds a lot like your thing: The past few months I've had a lot of writing to do for a show I'm putting together and I keep procrastinating and watching television instead. I've sort of had this wish to pull myself away from the tv and get something done, but I'm too addicted. So the last 3 or 4 weeks the tv has been messing up completely anytime I watch it. The cable will suddenly switch off then go through the long process of rebooting itself. Or sometimes everything will stop and the screen will just freeze and not respond to any amount of button pushing. And it literally happens every 5 minutes or so except (oddly) when I'm watching something like a war documentary. But it spazzes endlessly through Project Runway which is very traumatic for me.

    So 2 days ago we decided a good New Years resolution would be to give up the tv anyway as it only wastes our time and none of our more interesting friends use theirs. We've decided not to renew the cable when it expires. Well as soon as we'd made that decision THE TV STARTED WORKING PERFECTLY AGAIN. Holy crap.

    Anyway I thought I'd share that with you.

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