Tag Archives: entertainment

Smackin the Cue Ball

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It starts when they rack the balls. They put the eight ball on the dot rather than the one ball. Sinking a ball on the break should be automatic. They do deal with scratches in bar pool more harshly than the Americans do, which I like. And there is more strategy with the 8-ball, except you don’t lose if you scratch while playing it. So it’s not all bad. But here’s the worst part: When you play pool in Europe, lucky shots count. This means that hitting the ball really hard is rewarded. Nobody plays with any touch at all. Even big slice shots they hit as hard as they can, and there’s no thought to where the cue ball might end up.

I was watching people play tonight and I put it to myself like this: in the US, you must predict the action of your shot. You can get lucky, but only if your stated goal is also met.

It’s a shame Americans think that way only while playing pool.

Thanks!

Get Your Motor Runnin’

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On any TV show, in any language, when cops get on big motorcycles, they play “Born to be Wild” by Steppenwolf.

Thanks!

Maybe It’s Kansas After All

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Back at Roma, belly full, glass full, novel almost to 50K, and the local news is on the television behind the bar. I have a theory. I think every local news broadcast around the world really only needs to be produced once. You have a pair of talking heads, one blonde with a frightening amount of makeup, the other a distinguished-looking gentleman with just a little gray at the temples. The glamor and the stability.

It’s the holiday season, so of course you spend five minutes of the broadcast showing people putting up trees and other decorations. There is the shot of parents hiding the presents, another shot of the kids finding them. Some guy is droning on over the whole thing. Blah, blah, blah. For this spot language matters not at all. You’ve heard the same crap year after year. Finally the tape is over and we find ourselves back in the studio. The blonde turns to the gentleman and says, blah, blah, blah. He chuckles and says back, blah, blah blah. You could use Charlie Brown wah-wah-wah dubbing and then use the same clip the world over. No one would even notice that it was not in their language.

And now, the sports.

Thanks!

Movies and accidents of fate

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One time on late-night television, Letterman or something of that sort, Tom Hanks was interviewed. I guess at some point in the past he was in a movie where a dog was a major character. I remember if vaguely; I believe the dog’s slobber was as much a character as the dog. Tidy people forced to live with big sloppy dogs is a Hollywood staple. Not as common as the fifty attempts each year to recreate the odd couple with guns, but there are obviously many producers who read Marmaduke and somehow haven’t realized that the implicit punchline (Boy! That’s a big dog!) hasn’t changed since the first frame was drafted many years ago.

This has nothing to do with what I intended to write about tonight, but if Marmaduke were to choke to death on Garfield’s corpse, the world would be a better place. I know, I don’t have to read them, and I don’t, but my newspaper is paying – giving someone else money – to put that crap in when their whole business is selling space to other people. But enough of that.

I guess the Hanks-dog movie didn’t do so well. So there was Tom, sitting smugly in the guest chair, and rightfully so as I think at that point he’d picked up two oscars in a row, lovingly bashing on Gary Sinese for dragging him down, and the dog movie comes up. The Hankster said something like, “We forgot the hollywood rule. Never kill the dog.”

I just got done watching The Road Warrior. There is only one line I would change in the whole movie. He comes staggering out of the tent and says “I’ll drive the tanker.” There’s some argument, and then he says to the leader, “I’m the best chance you’ve got.” That’s the line I would have changed. ‘Cause really, he doesn’t know how tough the others are, and he’s pretty banged up. I would have written, “They killed my dog.”

I had a housemate once, one of the lowest people ever to walk the Earth. Listing his sins would have to be a whole nother episode. But when I list his sins, the one I finish with was, “and he’s mean to his dog.” Truly, some of his other, um… habits… were more despicable and more harmful. He was a blight on the planet. But his poor dog’s brain was entirely dedicated to pleasing him. I’m digressing again.

In Road Warrior, the bad guys kill the dog (whose name is ‘dog’) in cold blood, while Dog is defending its master. (Incidentally, the dog in question bears a striking resemblance to John and Janice’s dog Jesse, but with a lot more tail.) In that same movie, there is the amazon warrior, up on the tanker as it blasts out of the compound. If I’m not mistaken (and when was the last time that happened?) her last line was “I was wrong about you.” I have seen the movie more than once before, but my reaction every time her body is torn from the barbed wire to bounce across the highway, transfored from being a warrior to being a traffic hazard, has always been the same. “They can’t kill her!” They killed her, and left her on the side of the road for the buzzards to clean up. Not even a pause in the pacing of the film to let us feel the tragedy. Just another casualty. You wonder how she lived so long, being so brave.

The title at the top of this episode promised you an accident of fate, and looking back I may have oversold. But, when looking up the name of the warrior woman, who had a fierceness but carried a lot of freight when she said “I was wrong”, I ran across an actor whose name is… Boulder Road Warrior. Now I could be wrong, but I’m guessing that’s not what his momma named him. The name of the movie he was in was Twister:A Musical Catastrophe. Yeah, I’d change my name, too. Possibly I’d change it to Joe Blow or something like that. Boulder Road Warrior. Imagine you’re casting a film and that name comes across your desk underneath the head shot. There’s an agent crying to be fired.

In one of those Lethal Weapon movies they kill the girl, and wasn’t he the guy in payback, where they kill his dog and his wife? The dog is a much more sympathetic character, but you know sittin here typin I have to take my hat off to Mel, that he turned what for Tom was a Hollywood mistake into a great role. More than once.

Gotta sign off now, I’m playing the soundtrack to Get Crazy, and damn if it ain’t the best movie soundtrack ever.

Thanks!

A Day at the Races

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I had thought to stay at Amy’s last night. I was sitting quietly while she was a work (B.B. King and Dr. John at Humphrey’s), just kicking back and writing. The phone rang. It was Amy. New Boyfriend was in town early and she waned to know if she could have the house to herself. Well, duh. It’s her house, and there are several places in town that I can stay. I hit the road with confidence.

The one catch: it was already pretty late. I headed out, but actually the idea of a hotel room appealed to me. The thing about being a guest is that you put a burden on your host. The morning before, Amy had missed her morning TV because she didn’t want to bother me. Not that she minded terribly much (I think), but people have routines, and I don’t like to disrupt them. Some days I like to live free of the burden I place on others. So a hotel seemed like the right idea.

Note to investors: owning a hotel in San Diego in the summer is a friggin slam-dunk sellout. It’s crazy. There were a couple of places with rooms in Mira Mesa, but they were $150 and up. Mira Mesa. Rather than range north, this time I headed south to Hotel Circle. Amazingly, there are lots of hotels there. Not on Hotel Circle, but not too far away, is the Padre Trail Inn. It’s a dump. Until last night I assumed that the only way it stayed in business was because of the military inductees, who sleep their last night as civillians there before they are swept away to basic training. We used to go to the PTI’s lounge after playing softball across the street. The lounge is awesome only because of Melissa. She is an institution there, an icon in tight jeans and low-cut top, a figure that makes it work, and pure Jersey attitude.

I did not see Melissa last night. By the time I got there the lounge was closed. Also, the hotel was full. Padre friggin’ trail was full, and by the look of the parking lot it wasn’t all MEPS. Out of curiosity I asked, “How much would it have been if you had a room?” The answer: $130 plus all the taxes imposed on hotel rooms in San Diego. (This seems to be the one tax the locals are willing to accept.) Wow. A year ago, this was a place the truckers stayed. Sure, it’s near old town, but still.

PTI aside, I had to find a place to sleep. It was getting very late. I tried a couple of places on Hotel Circle, and at the second one the desk lady suggested I try driving out to Chula Vista. That was a long way away. At that point I was considering calling Amy and telling her that I had nowhere else to go. There was no one else I could call by then. I drove east to get on the freeway. Toward Chula Vista.

I passed the King’s Inn and almost didn’t stop. I kind of liked the look of the place, though, and I thought since it wasn’t a big chain perhaps it would have a room. Bingo. The room seemed cheap compared to the other places I had checked, and it was more than adequate. Any idea I had about using the privacy for writing was lost in the bliss of sweet, sweet, sleep. I slept from the moment I hit the pillow, and I nursed it as long as I could in the morning, and then a little longer. I emerged from the room in a magnificent mood.

It was race day. And Cake day. Cake is a band, and they were playing after the races were over. I like Cake.

I was late to Mikie’s place because I stopped at Waffle King forf breakfast, even though I could see that they were busy. I’m glad I did. There was nothing worth reporting here, but there were archetypes at work. Something I saw there will show up somewhere.

While I was sitting there, it occurred to me that the Tabasco boys should make an extra-hot version. Hot hot hot sauces are all the rage these days, but there is no brand with the power of Tabasco. Just a thought. As I ate, Amy called. Her boyfriend hadn’t come over after all. It didn’t matter. I was feeling cheery. Amy had bought a new hat and was drinking a margarita.

Breakfast chowed, running late, I headed to Mikie’s folk’s place, where my car would rest while Mikie, Mike, Kendra and I made our erratic (Mikie was driving) way up the concrete to the place where, as Bing put it, the surf meets the turf. We pulled into the parking log to be greeted my a big flashing sighn reading “No alcohol in any parking lot.” So much for tailgating. Mikie and Kendra had done a masterful job disguising the alcohol anyway, so we loaded up chairs and cooler and headed inside. Not long after that Kim, Ben and Michelle joined us.

It was a great day to be at the racetrack. The sun was shining, the sunscreen was abundant, there was a good crowd that steadily grew as the day wore on, and for the first half of the day the right horses were winning. Mike Sr. and I paid a lot more attention to the numbers, and I had fun sitting by him comparing notes. After a while, though, as the alcohol started to take effect (Nothing close to the effect it was having on Kendra, however), my diligence waned and so did my fortunes. No matter—I was having a good time. Over the day I lost more on overpriced beer than on horses.

The Cake concert was short (what do you want for nothin’?) but excellent. Maybe it wasn’t that short after all, we spent the first part of it in the beer line. It gave me plenty of time to see that the beertenders were not very efficient, but I didn’t make any recommendations when I got to the front of the line. Since the only limit to their business was the rate they could serve customers, I expect they could have made thousands of dollars more if they could have kept their customers adequately beered. No matter—I was having a good time.

Cake played, and played well. The crowd was large but not pushy, and there was plenty of quality people-watching. I ended up dancing to the music, something I don’t do spontaneously at concerts very often. After the show we made our way back to the truck. I went back to the homestead with Mike Sr. while the others, not content to let the party stop, took off to Michelle’s house, teetotaller Ben behind the wheel. The couch was already made up for me when I got back to the homestead, and I crashed with the TV on, just in time to see the last out in the bottom of the ninth inning of the Padre’s latest loss. I’ve got to leave town so they can start winning again. No matter—I’m having a good time.

Thanks!