20 January 2009

Earth, January 2009, or Coletta Factor: new BSG, or why didn't anyone throw shoes 5 years ago when it mattered?


On Earth, in this month of January 2009, Dualla found the end of her journey; she found a last perfect night with Apollo, then Felix Gaeta found her brains on the wall. Kara Thrace found her long-dead doppelganger, the burning of which upon a funeral pyre did precious little to mitigate the existential maelstrom into which she was thrown. The Chief found a shadow, the Pyramid star found a fragment of his guitar, Saul found a memory of Ellen, and Gaius Baltar found seeming proof that we, here and now, are Cylons, destined to die and be found in the distant future by the 12 lost tribes of Humanity. The Old Man and the Schoolteacher, each on their own, looked backwards at their journeys and found nothing but emptiness.


On Earth, on this 20th day of January 2009, the washed-up cowboy rode off into the sunset. Everyone was happy to see him go, no tears were shed except those of happiness for the closing of the darkest chapter of history in most of our lifetimes, and the beginning of a new era of wisdom, forethought, integrity, and true compassion. You could not see the crowd on the mall in the shot of Bush's helicopter leaving Washington, but I like to think that if we could have seen it, we would have seen 2 million people throwing shoes at the deposed decider. Thanks for Katrina, Iraq, 9/11, Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, warrantless wiretapping, the Patriot Act, Dick frakkin' Cheney, "freedom fries," the global gag rule, the new Depression, the legions of fanatical enemies of America that you created by meeting the ravings of a megalomaniacal murderer with more of the same.

19 January 2009

I had the strangest dream...

In my dream, there were these guys, 3 or 4 of them, not really identical, but they all fit the same general description: thin, bearded, baseball caps, bad acne, like really bad acne, you know, the kind of acne where you wonder whether it's actually the Bubonic plague. It was Christmastime, I had left my house carrying 5 or 6 Star Trek action figures still in the packaging, (yes, I collect them.) My friend Nate was there, and me, and these 3 or 4 guys. They all had that withdrawn, awkward look that people get when they get dragged along to a dealer's house. You know, they don't really want to be there, but they want to get some greens, so they go along anyway. There were no greens in the dream. In fact, there are currently no greens in my house in real life. Damn recession!! Anyway, in my dream, in the room we were in, someone had turned on a police scanner. I got really nervous because these guys were just sitting there all awkward and picking at their acne. I realized I didn't really have to be there, so I decided to go. I looked for a bag to put my toys into, and Nate said that there was one right on my lap, and so there was. I wondered why I had taken the toys with me, wondered in fact why I had left the house in the first place. I packed up my toys and left.

Next part of the dream, I was in my house. This is my dream house, the one I dream about all the time. It looks nothing like where I actually live. There are 3 floors in my dream house: the sunny attic, the maze-like, many-roomed living space, and the empty, solitary rooms in the basement. I was on the middle floor, and this time, I lived there with my mother and my girlfriend, both of whom were my actual mother and girlfriend, respectively. I was in the room I shared with my girlfriend, and decided to take a walk around the house, maybe hit up the kitchen. As I got there, I realized that I never use it because it is all cluttered with junk. 2 kitchen tables stacked on top of each other, with a giant bag of saltines perched on top of those; I grabbed a handful and continued to wander. I suddenly became aware of a group of girls in my house, 3 or 4 of them, about college age. I think they were my mother's friends. I saw one of them turn a corner into another room and thought it was my girlfriend; same style of dress, hair, etc. I called to her, and when she turned around, I saw she was a stranger. The group of girls continued on and I went a different way. I ran into my girlfriend and we walked around all the rooms, most of them filled with unused furniture, dusty, hardly lived in. I started to think of all the ways we could make the whole house habitable, instead of just the room or 2 we use now.

Then I woke up. What the frak??

07 January 2009

What's been happening??

So I've been working tonight on a video I shot yesterday at the corner of Kilmarnock and Peterborough, formerly home to Thornton's Fenway Grille, which burned down early Tuesday morning, taking 6 other restaurants with it. Thornton's was a hangout for me and my friends when I lived at 109 Peterborough back in '94 and '95. The highlight of the video is a short interview with Joe Life, a permananently coke-and-booze-addled neighborhood resident who used to come by our place and trade his artwork for some greens. I wish I still had some of that art. The only place I know where you could find it is in the liner notes of a CD by (formerly local) heavy metal band Poets n Madmen. The video is giving me headaches because I shot it in a hurry and can't seemto find the right way to edit it together. Maybe I'll just post the Joe Life interview now and work on the whole thing later.

Also, my hands are acting up again, but this time I have an appointment with a dermatologist and I fully intend to get some documentation squarely placing the blame for my condition on the toxic chemical used in my place of employment as "sanitizer." I wonder how much of my job I can do once it is determined officially that I can absolutely not touch the stuff; we use it all the time for everything. Will they have to provide me with an alternative, limit my duties, or just pay me not to come in? We'll see.

Ok, the schedule. 24 starts Sunday, BSG Friday, Bush's last day the following Tuesday, then Lost returns, 2 weeks from tonight. Watch this space...