Heaven (for Anne Sexton)

In the light beyond
the dim dashboard
some small god awaits
wreathed in blue, clouded
like the sky you seek,
the very heaven in his blinking eye.

In shadow you rise,
a winged refrain,
for the passing, that
godawful rowing.

----I wrote this, 1985

Andy Griffith: Boil Them Cabbage Down

I see Gilligan!

The Darlings: Dooley (Andy Griffith Show)

Andy Griffith: Whoa Mule

A Face In The Crowd Final Scene

Some of us are with the academic; some are with Lonesome Rhodes.
I feel sorry for Patricia Neal, having to choose.

A Face In the Crowd (1957): Free Man In The Morning

Andy Griffith is great in this whole film!
Greasy and gruesome and oh-so-scary to the powers-that-be!

A Face In The Crowd (1957) trailer: Andy Griffith

I love this movie---one of my Top 20 of all time. Andy Griffith is great.

Mother's Day, Mother's Birthday, etc.

My mother and I have been "disassociated" (I'll call it) for decades. But at least up until 2017, we managed to have normal family relations on holidays, birthdays, et al. I looked forward to those times, about once a month.

As of 2017, though, my mother announced to me that she was leaving 75% of her money to my brother and his two sons. I'd get 25%.

It's not the amount of money that bothered me. I actually have enough from various work 401(k)s to sustain me in the last years of my life post-work. It's the principle of the thing: 

#1: There are two kids: me and my brother. Why would she leave 75% percent to his family instead of 50/50 to me and my brother?
#2: My mother has a modest house (bought for about $350K, today worth about $500K). I'm single, in my 50s, and I've never had a house. My brother and his wife have had a couple of houses since they got married in the late '90s. My mother said that she would not leave me her house because "it's worth more than your share." 

OK!

She and I have had multiple breaks in communication since 2017. At one point I told her: "If my brother were single, and I were married with two daughters----you would still leave 75% and the house to my brother, with the rationale: 'Oh, he's all alone and needs a place to live.'" But when it's me who's single, all alone, and sans house: Not quite the same rationale.

It is what it is. I thank my mother for filling out my college application forms; for giving me two of her used cars; for helping me buy a new-used car; for sending me money in NYC when I was desperately trying to get out of a bad roommate situation! That's something that not everybody gets.

But here are a couple of other things:
When I got to college, I shared a room with one girl and shared a suite with two other girls. After a holiday, all of the girls' mothers would call their kids to make sure they got home OK. My mother didn't give a shit. She also didn't give a shit when I was in San Francisco or New York City. At one point in NYC, I called her in desperation, saying that my Craigslist-found-roommate had cut off my Internet and was going through my things----my mother actually hung up on me. Now, she DID send me money to get out of that situation! But she hung up on me.

She has never cared what happened to me. I have always been very independent. The maybe three times in my adult life that I was absolutely desperate (Austin in 2002, then in NYC 2007 and when I needed help post-NYC) when I had to beg for help (though I hated to do so), she DID help financially. So she's not OVERTLY cruel or anything... When I was desperate, she gave me something.

But it's been the bare minimum. (For example: My brother's wife has two sisters who moved to New York City before I did. Their father funded them time and again. They never had to return home to Houston.)

My brother and his wife have gotten multiple gifts from my mother. How much did that huge fence cost? How much was that grandfather clock? (Me: I got a couple of oven mitts from her when I moved into my latest apartment.)

The last communication I had with my mother, back in February 2025: I'd told her that the daughter of a woman (now dead) whom I was once in love with had just contacted me. My mother's response: "Did you really love Sandra?"

I feel guilt for not acknowledging last Mother's Day, and I will feel guilt for not acknowledging my mother's birthday in early June. But since 2017, she and I have been estranged, with only brief interludes of communication.

NOTE: Sis-in-law is also instrumental in my not seeing brother and family. For instance: Years ago, we used to have a group meeting on Mother's Day. Apparently, it disturbed her that me and my mom were a part of this Mother's Day lunch. The sis-in-law put a stop to it. (She's also apparently forbidden my brother from contacting his father. Milquetoast brother gives in to her.)

Corinthians text question

RE: "...And that he was buried; and that he rose again on the third day..."

EWTN (the Catholic Eternal Word Televison Network) has a Q/A program where they answer viewer questions. Someone wrote in about the meaning of "rose again"--- as in: did he rise first, and then a second, time?

The EWTN host pointed out that the translation of "again" was incorrect.

What is so interesting to me about this Catholic station---and I'm not a Catholic---is that they cover all aspects of their religion: You get the live feeds of their daily rituals (including the Pope in Rome); plus the recorded intellectual conversations; plus the 2000-year historical programs about the church.

I haven't thought much about religion before (despite being baptised a Lutheran as a baby), but watching the EWTN station is like being in college again: I'm learning a lot!

Predicting Your Date of Death

When F. Scott Fitzgerald was 40 or so, he predicted that he'd die around age 60, given his abuse of his body via drinking and amphetamines, et al. He died of a heart attack at 44.

Myself, now that I'm almost at 60... I keep thinking that I have until about 70 or so. I drink a lot of beer, but no hard liquor. And I smoke cigarettes, about a pack a day. I have no pharmaceuticals in my system.

My friend Sandra had a stroke in 2018, and died in 2024, after being in various hospices for 6 years. She was 60 when she had the stroke, and 66 when she died. So...I could keel over, and then be utterly dysfunctional, at any minute!

I don't drink like Fitzgerald, and I'm not on multitudes of anti-psychotics like Sandra----but still: I could go at any second! And I have no particular PLACE to be committed to. (It's especially creepy to me knowing that many graveyards are churned over to make room for housing developments----kind of like my dead cats on Rainey Street in Austin!)

There's that old tiny graveyard that I remembered discovering when driving around as a teen... But that place will soon be torn up, too, once the DFW metroplex sprawls that far west.

My father and his family have places in East Texas graveyards. My baby sister (died soon after birth), for instance, is buried there. But... I don't think anyone in East Texas thinks or cares about me. (My mother and her German family roots: Obviously, I'm not going to be buried in Germany since I've lived all of my life in Texas.)

Sigh. I had no place in life, and I have no place in the after-life.

Circle: New Bohemians (1988)

Me, I'm a part of your circle of friends
And we notice you don't come around
Me, I think it all depends
On you touching ground with us, but

CHORUS:
I quit -- I give up
Nothing's good enough for anybody else
It seems

And being alone is the best way to be
When I'm by myself it's the best way to be
When I'm all alone it's the best way to be
When I'm by myself nobody else can say goodbye

Everything is temporary anyway
When the streets are wet
The colors slip into the sky

But I don't know why, that means you and I are
That means you and I....

Little Miss S: New Bohemians (1988)

Shooting up junk in the bathroom
Makin' it with punks on the floor
Livin' the scene out of her limousine
Little Miss S. in a mini dress
Living it up to die
In a blink of the public eye

Day-glo paint on an electric chair
Electric dye in her lover's hair
A pretty sight in the middle of the night
Made up for everyone to see
Swingin' on the branch of a broken family tree

You got a lot of livin' to do without
You got a lot of livin' to do without
You got a lot of livin' to do without life

The village idiots in her bed
Never cared that her eyes were red
Never cared that her brain was dead
In the hours that her face was alive
It was a thing just to be by her side

You got a lot of livin' to do without
You got a lot of livin' to do without
You got a lot of livin' to do without life

Heyy yeah. All right

Andy Warhol/Edie Sedgwick

Last night, watched my DVDs of the Andy Warhol PBS doc and of "Ciao Manhattan."

Here's the thing with many gay guys: They worship the beauty of women, but then they're equally gleeful at the women's demise----whether through age, or drug/alcohol abuse, what-have-you. There's no actual feeling there---just some extreme comments about either the beauty or the demise.

I think Warhol is pithy and interesting in the beginning of his career. The Campbell's soup cans and the Marilyns, etc.: We all think we're getting something different, but we're not...but we actually ARE, if we look closely. The "Death Pictures," also, were interesting: Something so intimate as our own deaths transmitted via millions of copies of the "New York Post" (and then only later via Warhol)---generic deaths, but, again, Warhol expressed their minute differences.

In latter days, though, when Warhol started doing silly films, he didn't know what to do with any real women like Edie, and made similar clowns of his troupe of drag queens pretending to be women.

Edie Sedgwick was a big mess unto herself. Constant drug use, constant sexual demands. A clear case of childhood sexual abuse. Warhol milked it, but I don't think he "created" her neuroses. Said neuroses preceded her two Warhol years and went on for years after she left his circle in '66 or so. Post- '66, until her death in '71, she was in multiple mental hospitals, and hooked up with multiple bikers, etc. It was "The Times," and I supposed she felt she had to "keep up with them."

John Lennon: #9 Dream (1974)

 Dream, dream away
Magic in the air
Was magic in the air?

 

I believe, yes, I believe
More I cannot say
What more can I say?

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)

When I first saw this film, I remember thinking: With every punch or blowtorch to a snarky, vapid, murderous hippie: Goodbye, Biden, and to everything you allow to happen (I can't say "stand for" because you stand for nothing at all). 

 

I don't know that Tarantino meant it in this way (yeah, he did), but it comes across in this way: Bring some real men back to take care of the BS.

 

It took Musk in 2022 to actually stand up publicly by buying Twitter. Eternal thanks, Musk. I remember getting banned from Facebook for no reason, and I remember when Yahoo would not allow any public comments by anyone. I also remember being forced to get a vaccine, or else I'd lose my government job.

We were not allowed to say anything during the Biden years---during a senile admin actually run by Marxist academics who spouted slogans on race and gender without understanding any of the real issues of the country/world or making any attempt to solve anything at all. And who threatened social media outlets and mass media into touting their propaganda. FOR SHAME to all involved (both in the government and in the media).

But here is Tarantino, with his non-political contribution. A paeon to how things should be.

GO CLIFF BOOTH! And, yeah, GO TRUMP! Blow-torch 'em.

Charles Manson Superstar (1989)

Interesting prison interviews with Manson, plus lots of dumb extraneous amateurish commentary by director Nikolas Schreck (nice made-up name!) about Devil Worship and August 8, etc.

One thing, aside from the interviews themselves, that caught my attention:
At one point, Manson started extensively caressing director/interviewer Schreck's hand and then said to him: "You've been through a lot, haven't you?"

A-ha! THAT was the key to Manson's power!

I can see him saying "You've been through a lot, haven't you?" to every single person he ever encountered!

Just as a DVD viewer, I found that "You've been through a lot" statement very moving---I personally wish that someone had just once, ever said that to me!

So now I see how he got his "in" with all these kids! No one touches you or talks to you at home, and then you encounter a stranger who caresses your hands and says "You've been through a lot..." What castaway, circa 1968, wouldn't want to run off and try something new with him?

Something personal about John Lennon

I love John Lennon's music with the Beatles. I like his post-Beatles albums (even 1972's "Some Time in New York City" because I'm a fan).

I hate his post-Beatles ignorant left-wing politics, and I hate his fake relationship with Yoko Ono. Not because he and Yoko didn't love each other, but because he promoted her as something original and interesting, which she was not. ("Imagine the clouds..." isn't anything new.) And, after meeting her, he completely lost his own unique voice and took on the voice of leftist academics. "Received" info instead of original thoughts.

I love his work, overall, but I hate what he became once he got together with Yoko. I think he lost himself altogether.

That said: I don't remember in what bio I read this. At the Dakota in the '70s, Lennon's cat Alice was sitting in a window. (Windows don't usually have screens in NYC.) Some bird flew by, and she was attracted by it, and leapt out of the window after it, to her death. According to the bio, Lennon was traumatized.

Years ago, in the early '90s: I lived in a rented house in Austin, and used to let my cat outside overnight. Each morning, I'd call her in. This one morning, I stepped out on my porch and spotted her across the street. I called her, and she came running to me... A car hit her in the middle of the road as she was running toward me.

So that is one thing I actually do share with Lennon (aside from my love of his music): His utter shock at what had just happened to the cat that had shared his home.

Witnessing my cat getting run over is one of the traumas of my life. And maybe Alice's leap out of his window was one of his traumas, too.

My Mother

When I was in NYC in 2007, I called my mother, begging her to send me money to get me out of the apartment I was living in----my aged, alcoholic roommate had been intentionally cutting off my Internet, sneaking into my phone-book to contact my mother and brother, etc. When I was on the phone with my mother telling her about all of this... my mother hung up on me. (It wasn't accidental: She hung up on me.)

I've been feeling guilty for the past few months for not contacting my mother. But there are YEARS of things that have happened. I always thought, in general, that it was odd/unnatural when children did not have contact with their parents----but in my case, there are 100+ reasons why. I need to stop feeling guilty. I give myself permission to stop feeling guilty. For 100+ reasons. If that makes me a "weirdo" who does not have contact with their parents, then so be it. It's sad, but it's also true.

George Jones: "Take Me" from Leon Russell doc (1974)

From the Leon Russell documentary "A Poem is a Naked Person."

Tammy Wynette: Talkin' to Myself Again (1987)

When I first searched for this on YouTube tonight, I saw that this song has
dozens of comments thanking "GTA 6 Radio" for leading them to it.
I didn't have any idea what that was! Apparently, it's a soundtrack that
the video game "Grand Theft Auto" releases periodically!

Ancient Aliens

Watching the "Ancient Aliens" shows on the History Channel, I encounter the same feeling as with any religion: We are removed from something that we long for. EVERY SINGLE CULTURE yearns for something that they feel is MISSING. We all know that what we're living in the midst of right now is not right.

EWTN

https://www.youtube.com/@EWTNcatholictv

I live alone and I've worked from home since Covid (2020), so, just for company, I like to have the TV on down low in the background during the day.

Also because I live alone, I often like to have the TV down low in the background while I go to sleep.

While going to sleep, I often went to BBC on cable, because they're usually low-key and don't have that many ads. But then they often go off on left-wing climate-change/pro-immigration tangents, which annoys me so much that I wake up just to change the channel. Tried TCM, but then there are some films that just BLARE out at you! (Reminds me of trying to go to sleep back in the '80s to classical music radio stations---they don't always play calming things!)

One thing I just discovered in the last month or so is the Catholic cable TV station---EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network). Unlike fundamentalist religious programs hosted by simpleton white or black sweaty and stupid preachers, the shows on EWTN are actually intelligent! This morning, woke up to a book discussion on Oscar Wilde vs Hilaire Belloc----I know a bit about Wilde, but the discussion made me want to learn more about Belloc. Other EWTN shows focus on the 2000-year history of the church. And then there are purely religious shows with nuns chanting the rosary, or various rituals for the new pope. It's all very interesting to me. There's so much bullshit in the world today, it's extremely refreshing (purifying?) to actually view and listen to some actual purity of thought based on thousands of years of worship.

One minor "revelation" I had while watching EWTN: I'd never thought about Jesus much before. I was raised Lutheran, and I did go to church for a few years while a kid. But I never really thought about Jesus... What happened to him---the political persecution, the crucifixion---was God's experiment! "Let me see what will happen if I send a representative to the earth...." That didn't quite work out so well, did it? I got the same impression when I read George Bernard Shaw's "St. Joan" years ago: The scuzzy temporal politics destroyed her.

So I take it that we're not yet ready for anything based on truth and honesty.

In the meantime, I wish I could just sit secretly in the back of a Catholic church and listen in.

NIJINSKY IN TEXAS

This massively famous and glamorous Ballet Russes star of Russia and Europe was fired from his troupe by director Diaghilev and then forced to go on tour in the US to make money. According to records, he took a train-trip through Texas, putting on shows in Houston, Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio in 1916-17.

Screenplay to come. (If only I were clever enough to write it!)

Real Deal (George Jones, 1999)

Ain't Love a Lot Like That (George Jones, 1999)

The Cold Hard Truth (George Jones, 1999)

Years before she died, Sandra used to send me her poems. She was a very good poet in her youth (I was in awe of her in our shared poetry class with Wevill at UT in the 1980s).

In latter days: She remained spiritually in tune, but she was also very angry. Last night, Sandra appeared to me in a dream---for the first time since she died in 2024.

She acted so nonchalant.

Here's a poem she once sent to me, revealing her lifetime of hurt. Her attempt at a spell, also. 

Alas, she wasn't a very powerful witch. To me, she radiated quite a bit of power, but... what she hoped for was a correction to everything she'd experienced from her youth through her marriage and post-divorce... Those steely men were more powerful than she was. She never could get over trying to woo/conquer them. She hated them, but still wanted them. She died without ever moving on from this mental state.

Poetry didn't save her. But the below is what Sandra had to say:

Bear This

I am assigning jobs to all these dead people I know, knew, and loved.

Surely they can teach each person who has not acted right in my world.

Surely they can accomplish the task of a spiritual order and all it demands.

Aren’t their powers super natural, by now?

Their job is to teach remorse to the perv teacher, the thief, the greedy man, the sadist.

To my father, I give Joe Lucia, the bookie, and stealer of innocent souls.

To my mother, I give Jack Trotter, the thief, let her ferocious rage whip him.

To Craig, I give Annis, Jack, and Berry. Let him teach them manners, refinement, and the lesson about sadism that blinds everyone.

Make them straight, show them their way.

And to Mama, I also give the cowboy who won’t come home.

They all earned their jobs with their deeds of love and loyalty.

Mary Tyler Moore: Theme Songs

I grew up watching this show (1970 - 1977):
This is how I thought everything would be once I got out there on my own!
And I used to practice walking/striding like MTM!
I was too young to know that there was such a thing as being disgusted by meat prices...

RE her ducking down during a shoot---
how odd and interesting a problem to me as a kid,
as was the famous "Mary's Bad Day" episode
(I didn't yet even know what "having a bad hair day" was!)

Weezer - Buddy Holly (1994)

WHY would you pull your shades down??

While on a plane both to and from San Francisco in the past two days, I noticed the following:
There were about 38 rows of seats; so, 72 people at window seats on each side for each trip.
While traveling, I looked up and down the aisles:
Almost everyone had their window shade pulled completely down. 

Typing feverishly into their device of choice. (The outside light interfered with their screen.)
Out of @72 windows, there were maybe 5 or 6 shades up. The rest were completely closed.
You're getting an utterly beautiful and utterly rare and special view of THE EARTH and its geology and its wonder---something truly special and hardly ever seen at this angle.
And you are CLOSING YOUR SHADES? In favor of WHAT?
So you can see your latest Instagram post?!
(Myself: I haven't flown in over 10 years, but I was absolutely amazed by all the land-forms between Texas and California: Including the Grand Canyon (on the opposite side of the plane from me, so I missed it), and so many other mountain ranges, as well as the desert straits, and so many other flows that bring wonder: Are these former rivers, former lava flows? What happened here?)

Both pictures below by me. But there were perhaps a hundred more that I could have taken.
The top one is particularly geographically spectacular---what is the name of this?

Neal Cassady's Address in SF (2025)

Jack Kerouac's inspiration for "Visions of Cody" was Neal Cassady, who lived with his wife Carolyn at 29 Russell St. in SF (an alley off Hyde, between Union and Green). Kerouac lived with the Cassadys at this address from December 1951 to early 1952. He was staying with them when he wrote "Joan Rawshanks in the Fog"---an account of witnessing the filming of Joan Crawford's "Sudden Fear" only a few blocks north, at 1201 Greenwich @ Hyde.

City Lights Books in SF (2025)

Above: I bought the "Howl" book at top from City Lights when I lived in SF in 1994-95.
The below two (Ferlinghetti and Ginsberg's Kaddish), I just purchased yesterday.

Info from Wikipedia:

City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin (who left two years later). Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential collection Howl and Other Poems (City Lights, 1956). Nancy Peters started working there in 1971 and retired as executive director in 2007. In 2001, City Lights was made an official historic landmark. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. While formally located in Chinatown, it self-identifies as part of immediately adjacent North Beach.

City Lights was the inspiration of Peter D. Martin, who relocated from New York City to San Francisco in the 1940s to teach sociology. He first used City Lights, in homage to the Chaplin film, in 1952 as the title of a magazine, publishing early work by such key Bay Area writers as Philip Lamantia, Pauline Kael, Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, and Ferlinghetti himself, as "Lawrence Ferling". A year later, Martin used the name to establish the first all-paperback bookstore in the U.S., at the time an audacious idea.

The site was a tiny storefront in the triangular Artigues Building located at 261 Columbus Avenue, near the intersection of Broadway in North Beach. Built on the ruins of a previous building destroyed in the fire following the 1906 earthquake, the building was designed by Oliver Everett in 1907 and named for its owners. City Lights originally shared the building with a number of other shops. It gradually gained more space whenever one of the other shops became vacant, and eventually occupied the entire building.

My Alexandria

One thing I noticed during my weekend trip to San Francisco:  

During my Geary St. bus ride out to the ocean, I saw that my former apartment (16th and Geary) is still there, but the Alexandria Theater (18th and Geary), where I worked part-time for about 6 months in 1994-1995 while attending San Francisco State, is in a complete state of disrepair. I did not take the below photos---they're from a new May 8, 2025, article from KQED that I just found online, answering my questions about what the hell had happened to it! https://www.kqed.org/news/12039111/historic-san-francisco-theater-might-finally-redeveloped-housing

 

 

EXCERPTS from above link:

The historic Alexandria Theater, located in San Francisco’s Richmond District, closed in 2004, and as the building has sat empty, development proposals have come and gone. As officials look for sites to add more homes, city leaders just cleared the way for a new proposal.

On Tuesday, San Francisco supervisors approved the creation of a special district that would allow the theater to be redeveloped into an eight-story building with 75 apartments, each with two to three bedrooms inside, and at least 12% set aside for affordable housing units....

The special district requires the building to maintain some of its historic features, including its marquee, interior chandelier and murals. Chan and leaders of some neighborhood groups pointed to the project as a way to add housing in a thoughtful way that maintains the character of the neighborhood....

The theater opened in 1923 and was constructed by the Reid brothers, who also designed the third version of Cliff House, the Balboa Theater in the Outer Richmond and the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland. After the Alexandria Theater closed in 2004, it changed ownership several times as plans for redevelopment stalled....

Woody LaBounty, president of preservationist organization San Francisco Heritage, said while the building’s time as a movie theater has passed, the building itself has unique qualities that make the Richmond an architecturally interesting neighborhood.

“It was created with this unique Egyptian revival style that was very much of the ‘20s, and because it had all these very attractive design elements, we’d like to see that preserved and kept for any new project,” he said. “It adds housing while continuing to provide some sort of character that speaks to the Richmond District’s history.”....

--------------------------------------------------------------------

SFGate on sign being torn down: 1/24/23

 

SanFranciscoTheatres blogspot: 6/2017 with many photos and much historical info.

Richmond District Blog: 7/8/11

SFGate on closing of theater: 2/20/04

--------------------------------------------------------------------

My own random personal memories while working there (6 months in '94-'95):

* Famous people that attended movies there while I was working:
Robin Williams: Came in with female companion to see "Braveheart"; very low-key, wearing baseball cap, did not attract any notice (except amongst us employees---we all gawked but no one pestered him for an autograph); asked me (working at counter) where the men's room was.
Danny Glover: Came in with entourage of about 4 or 5 other black men to see "Braveheart." Embarrassing to me because I was working the counter, and the popcorn machine had JUST broken a couple of hours earlier---and one of Glover's entourage specifically asked me if the popcorn was hot and fresh! (It was NOT! We were frantically bagging popcorn up from another theater down the road and dumping it---quite cold!---in our machine for sale!) I still remember how this group of guys sat in the theater: Glover was in one row with a guy on either side of him, then the rest of the guys from the group sat in the row directly behind him.

* The way the theater captured mice was disgusting and horrifying: glue boxes (mice would enter the box and get stuck to the glue and then die there of starvation; when I would take a break and sit in on movies playing, you could hear the mice scittering to free themselves from those boxes that were hidden under the theater seats).

* In the attic/storage space, I graffiti'ed something like "Stephanie from Texas was here, '94" on a beam. Wonder if that's still there?

* Without management's knowledge, we employees all snuck in after hours late one weekend night to see a popular film that had not yet been released. The guy who ran the projector finagled all of this. And I CANNOT NOW REMEMBER WHAT THE FILM WAS!! : (   (I'd at first remembered it as being a "Star Wars" film, but there was nothing released in that series either in '94 or '95---and I now have no idea what big thing it was I might have seen ahead of time!)

* A young female co-worker got robbed at gunpoint at the front box-office ticket window.

* Asian teens and black teens would often try to sneak in the side door without paying. Once when we caught a group of Asian teens, they yelled, "You're racist!" The manager who had caught them and kicked them out was from Myanmar/Burma. When I personally caught a group of black teens trying to sneak in, their female leader yelled at me: "You don't know nothin' you frizzy-haired bitch!" (Ouch! That was always a sore point with me: How terrible my hair constantly looked while I lived in San Francisco---that ocean air!)

*Whenever I worked at the popcorn counter, I would often eat so much free popcorn that it made me sick. But I couldn't stop! One thing I always hated doing was asking each customer: "Would you like a large for a quarter more?"

The Vanishing (1988)

Watched this on TCM late Wednesday night. Co-host Alicia Malone said it was THE MOST terrifying movie she'd EVER seen, and quoted Stanley Kubrick as saying the same.

???

I guess I've read way too much about serial killers, but... This was a well-done, interesting movie, but certainly NOT "one of the most terrifying."

The serial killer's tactic of putting on a cast to elicit pity: Straight out of Ted Bundy in the '70s.

The serial killer being a so-called "family man":  Dennis Rader (BTK) led a family life for 30 years while murdering.

Another detail: In this movie, an upcoming victim spots a family photo on the dashboard of the killer, so she momentarily thinks she's OK: I can't now remember which serial killer, but there was one who would sometimes take his young son along with him---having him wait in the car while he took the young woman out into the woods.

So, no, I wouldn't say this movie, done in 1988, was that "terrifying" to me, personally, given what I already knew about the subject.

And the ending wasn't particularly surprising. It had been 3 years---the boyfriend obviously wasn't going to find his girlfriend alive. And he shouldn't have drunk the laced coffee---which he was warned about ahead of time by the killer. (Many basic theories presented here: The utter randomness of fate, for instance.)

(Ah, but apparently there was a later American version! Where all dreams come true!) :)

Still: Very good movie; very interestingly done. The cuts between the present and the past---the killer's thoughts and practicing and attempts leading up to his first success were fascinating, as was his family life in the interim. While watching, I did have hopes for a different outcome. (Alas, only in the American version, which I have not yet seen.)

(Original by Dutch director George Sluizer. Based on the novella "The Golden Egg" by Tim Krabbe.)

The key to waking up feeling decent:

If you have online stuff to do, then do it. And then STOP! Go to bed! :)

Man... The multitudes of ill-advised messages I've either sent to personal recipients, or posted to general sites, while in my cups post-midnight...

Gotta stop that.

Another helpful hint: Stop watching your cable TV.  You'd think you were in Nigeria. (Conversely, imagine if you lived in Nigeria and saw white people 50% of the time on your TV screen---wouldn't that be odd?)

No Groceries in the House

I normally shop for groceries every 3 to 4 weeks. (The Romaine lettuce and radishes and broccoli and onions and avocados always keep for 3 or more weeks. The potatoes and apples for months. The rest of the meat/fish, I freeze, and they keep forever until I need them.)

Easter Sunday, April 20, was when I last tried to go grocery shopping after 4 weeks. But I'd forgotten that my nearby HEB grocery store was closed that day (they also are closed on Christmas). Which is fine: They have their beliefs.

The next week: Was I too hung-over to go shopping on the weekend? Too lethargic in general? So I missed Week 5.
The result? No basics like cheddar cheese or tortilla chips or cans of beans or potatoes. No vegetables. No salsa. My frozen dins had run out. No fish patties or salmon or chicken or hamburger meat. No milk (for breakfast cereal or to mix with packaged noodles). I did get a 2-liter bottle of Coke (rather than a supermarket 24-pack of cans) from the corner store, but that usually goes flat after a couple of days.

I ate out more often. I made rice and had rice/black beans with leftover mozzarella cheese scattered on top to add some "flare." I had some mozzarella cheese-sticks left over, which I ate for a snack with the dregs of my Prego sauce. I ate my last 5 frozen toquitoes sans any salsa. And my last 4 fish-sticks with the last of my frozen fries. (Still had some ketchup and tartar sauce!)

At the end of 6 weeks without new grocery shopping, I'd pretty much cleaned out my larder! It was kind of interesting: I couldn't just "have an urge" to eat something and then find it! (The ice cream, for instance, was gone weeks ago!) I had to readjust my thinking to what was actually there. (Whoa! Is that some sort of spiritual revelation?!) :)

Today, though, I did go all out at the store! I'm now fully stocked for the next few weeks. (The first thing I ate when I got home: Two chicken strips, half of a turkey-n-rice soup, some potato salad! Followed by a delicious donut!)

Am I a Ghost? (aka "Darwin, Take the Wheel")

I've sold stuff on a popular online site for the past couple of years; over 600 sales, over 200 posted good reviews. So you'd think that whoever was buying something might know that it was all OK! :)

But just got the below:

Wanted to get in touch- just wanted to clarify that you are not a ghost lol... I just have anxiety & would greatly appreciate confirmation that you have indeed gotten my order, and will absolutely ship it out (to your earliest convenience!)

I sent a note of reassurance ("Nope, I'm not a ghost!") with info about when I'd be mailing, how to check tracking, etc. Got the following back:

Please take your time!! I just needed reassurance that you aren't a ghost- thank you so much for that :')

 ----------------------------

I mean... WHY? (This person ordered her item on Friday, May 3, and sent the above messages on May 4/5---Hardly enough time to get concerned about why something had not yet arrived!)

But then I've seen so many posts online in general: "I have anxiety." And this particular online sales site: They even send out automated posts asking if you want to opt out of Mothers Day or Fathers Day or Valentines Day info---in case it might upset your delicate sensibilities! :)

Darwin, Take the Wheel.

Temu has totally lost it!

Thanks to Trump's tariffs on China, which officially took effect on May 2, the China-based Temu (place to buy really cheap things in bulk) has completely bottomed out! Luckily, I was aware of upcoming tariffs and ordered all the stuff I needed to stock up on about 3 weeks earlier, before the tariffs kicked in. Because after May 2: The Temu online shelves are now barren! And everything remaining seems to have more-than-quadrupled in price AND converted into a pseudo-"Local" label, with shipping charges. (Previously, if you ordered $30 or more from ANY shop in Temu, you'd get free shipping for all. Now, though, you must order $30 from only ONE particular shop.)

In short: I'm stocked up for the next 6 months or so, and won't be ordering anything else from Temu at their ridiculous prices for gew-gaws/trinkets/tchotchkes. (Amazon prices for similar remain fairly stable. They were always slightly more expensive than Temu, so I ordered from Temu. But now that Temu has apparently collapsed, I can find the same things on Amazon and still make a profit when I re-sell them.)

Example of Temu's new ridiculousness:
Say you once paid $2.00 for 100 zinc alloy charms. According to the 145% reciprocal tariff that China placed in response to Trump's quite reasonable, equalizing tariff (based on what China has been over-charging everything from the US for the past 3 decades), you should now be paying $4.50 for the same 100 charms. Still reasonable; I'd still pay that, because I could re-sell them and still make a profit. But NO: Temu is now charging $8 for the same set of cheap charms. So, NO.  I'm sure there are many more like me who are not going to be paying Temu's current prices. I'll be OK. I don't think that Temu will be.

Recent Used CD Orders:

#1: Bonnie Raitt "Nick of Time"
#2: Bonnie Raitt Greatest Hits
#3: Tracy Chapman Greatest Hits
#4: Taylor Swift "Folklore"

------------------------------------

First off: I hate the abstractions of songs and books hidden within a cloud of some sort. I want physical representations of my music and books on my shelves! I want to take them out and touch them to listen/read!

#1: I used to own the Raitt "Nick of Time" CD when it came out in '89. I just recently re-heard "Have a Heart" and searched for the CD, but didn't see it on my shelves. Did I sell it to a pawn shop back in the '90s??
#2: I never got fully into Raitt---didn't follow her after "Nick of Time" or go back to learn about her earlier stuff. So I'm looking forward to the Hits to get an overview.
#3: I listened to Tracy Chapman's 1988 debut album a billion times and loved it. And then, for some reason, lost track of her after that. Looking forward to hearing what she was up to later.
#4: I have completely missed the whole Taylor Swift-thing, but the other morning, my clock-radio woke me up with her singing something about Romeo that wasn't stupid. (I didn't quite know if it was Taylor Swift, did a search for some lyrics, went to YouTube, etc. It was indeed!) Upon a search for "Taylor Swift Greatest Hits," I came upon a great many posts saying "They're ALL Greatest Hits." Sigh. So then I had to go to various "ranker" lists online, not all particularly accurate. But I at least came to a consensus that "Folklore" was in the Top 3. And I'm a fan of Americana. So I'm going to try it out!
(A past memory from more than 15 years ago: I once had a hair-dresser who was nice, but also a bit too trendy and poseur-ish for her own good. She also had a young daughter who happened to like Taylor Swift at that time. My hair-dresser was actually worried about this! Swift was not GOTH enough! Which part of "creative and independent" were you worried about your daughter emulating? Should she have gone on to partner with a drug-addict who got murdered, as your lover did?)

When did the Papacy Begin? | Origins of the Catholic Church

This is so interesting, all the arguments.
And they're arguing about very serious things that SHOULD be argued about.
Unlike most of everything that goes on today.
I wish I could sneak into the back of a Catholic church and just soak it all in.

Fine Young Cannibals - Don’t Look Back (1988)

After months and months of despair:
In the past week, as I was especially desolate with thinking about the past 

and about what I could have done better, and how I was eternally condemned...
Suddenly came a flood of movies, songs, philosophies----even Christianity, via the EWTN network on cable!----ALL saying: DON'T LOOK BACK.

Perhaps I am not damned, after all.

-----------------

Never had the good things only money could buy
I'd drive my car, but I haven't got a car to drive
Never had a holiday in the tropical sun
Good times look like they're never gonna come

Oh, I know these times are bad
And they make you wanna cry
Don't be sad
We'll get by

Baby, baby, don't look back
It won't do no good
Baby, baby, don't look back
I'm gonna leave and I think that you should

When I spent my life in a place like this
On the first bus out, I'm gonna get myself a lift
If you wanna stay, well, that's alright
If you wanna go, it's got to be tonight

Oh, I know these times are bad
And they make you wanna cry
Don't be sad
We'll get by