A little Elvis for the Road.

Not a good angle some may say . . . pssshht to that. It is a marvelous view of the pelvic gyrations and the booty shaking of Elvis. You can't get any better.




Try to enjoy what is left of the beautiful day.
Even at Heartbreak Hotel,
Cindy Mayweather

Coal Miner's Daughter

I don't typically go out of my way to watch biopics. Just as I generally enjoy covers of songs, I like seeing one artists take on another artists work (a book to movie sort of deal). It gets a little different for me when it's a movie on someone's life. Perhaps a life reduced to 2-3 hours . . . which moments would you toss out?
Loretta Lynn is an inspiration on so many levels and I'm glad NPR is paying homage to her today.
I love the part in her interview where she describes how she had to cut 8 verses from her song, Coal Miner's Daughter--- the song she says is "her story." She also goes on to say that she didn't think the song would be a hit,

"I didn't think anybody'd be interested in my life," Lynn adds. "I know everybody's got a life, and they all have something to say. Everybody has a story about their life. It wasn't just me. I guess I was just the one that told it."

"Coal Miner's Daughter" is also one of my favorite biopics and here's one of my favorite scenes.





Enjoy!!!

Chick Flicks

So what are the prerequisites for a good quintessential chick flick? I generally say to each vagina her own . . . but when compiling my list I made several strict guidelines (just for shits and giggles and because I don't want this thing to go on forever).
1. Time period: 1980-on. Because I really don't want this thing to go on forever
2. Main character is always one female.
3. Main character always goes through some sort of transformation, she makes lots of self-realizations and she grows (and she CRIES). She tends to find balance between personal and professional goals.
4. In a good chick flick the main female character only ends up with her intended . . . if they're meant to be.

Pretty Woman . . . no explanation necessary.




Working Girl stars Melanie Griffith as Tess who shows you can win the game if you keep your heart in it. Always trust your heart . . . and ride the Staten Island Ferry when you need a break.




Raising Helen shows that even the "it" girl doesn't know what she's missing if she doesn't have true love and family in her life. Kate Hudson dazzles as Helen learns how to go from "Cool Aunt" to "Nurturing Mom." She surprises herself at the lengths to which she'll go to keep her family together, learning a lot about herself along the way.



Stealing Beauty, using the overwhelming natural beauty of Liv Tyler, tells the tale of a young woman learning the beauty of some of the darker sides of life. It's down-right awkward at points, and yet beauty radiates from the screen the whole time proving that life truly is beautiful.





How to Make an American Quilt and The Joy Luck Club are along the same vain. I know I said the movies would focus on one woman's story, but it most be noted that one woman IS a complex web of stories she has learned from the women who have shaped her life most.



Now while we're on the topic of "shaping one's life" a phenomenal film that deals with just that, memories . . . Eve's Bayou will chill you and thrill you. But don't take my humble opinion, listen to what these two "critics" have to say. It's not a chick flick, per se, but it's a film I would insist EVERYONE add to their must see lists.

Song to Bobby

There are times when words are not even needed to convey a feeling. It exists beyond the mere confines of a font, of the ink-swirled cursive on crumpled piece of paper. I can boil the words down, but the feeling . . . Words may be discarded, misinterpreted, interrupted while feeling will always find a way.

Dream hard and play fair
xoxo always,
Cindy

Susan Boyle

You, dear, light up my life. Fuck American Idol, this sensational lass (with one of those sexy brogues I love) made Simon Cowell smile more times in a minute than the lot of you have all season.

I Dreamed A Dream


Favorite Susan Boyle quote, "A lot of things can happen that have been really sad and you've got to cover it up. You either laugh or you'd greet (cry). And we'd all be greeting, that would be a terrible mess." (from itv.com)

Where the heart roams while I'm alone.

Bowery Blues

Cindy Mayweather is away.

Nope, the title pretty much sums it up.

Oh, Cruel World; oh Sweet Rant

This is a rough draft of an essay I probably won't submit to the Edy's Slow Churned Neighborhood Salute Contest.

When I was a young child and the world was getting me down, I have no fonder memory than one of my mother leading me by the hand to the freezer opening it and . . . pointing out that having gallon sized portions of ice-cream in the freezer (unless for a party) is a complete and utter waste. Then she'd gather my brother and I into her beat up station wagon and cart us across town to Stensen's--- an ice cream shop owned by a father and son who knew how to churn black-raspberry right and scoop it into a waffle cone with love.

Whatever my problem, the elder Stensen would listen with genuine interest and just having someone outside the immediacy of my problem listen, well that did my soul good. And the deliciousness of that ice-cream never hurt. Being with other people from my neighborhood, sometimes strangers (it's a fairly large city and community) and knowing we were all there to celebrate, to feel better, to enjoy this town's tiny bit of history --- no other town had a Stensen's in it--- made those moments special.

So Edy's Slow Churn . . . suck it. Your conglomerate has put places like Stensen's out of business. My neighborhood wouldn't need cheering up after a girl was shot in the arm (leaving her paralyzed in that arm) two houses down on my street if kids had other places to go than the safety of togetherness provided by street gangs.

And your shit ain't got shit on Ben and Jerry's. Bite me.

An ode to the rare

Proving you can rock it and get raw with an accordion, here is Jason Webley doing his sweet thang.
Wild rumpus to this dude, MoFo's. Hey Ya.



















Last night . . . er . . . early this morning, I caught a documentary on Twin Savants, Flo and Kay. I found it eloquent and moving. Dustin Hoffman eat your heart out. Life lesson learned: don't knock insomnia. Read more about Flo and Kay and autism in general here: Autism Family Adventures.

Sunday's Secrets

No. I did not know there was a blog for this until Alison told me. Thank you Alison.
Sunday's Secrets rocked my world.
The top one especially, for numerous reasons.


Life is good. Everyone just overreacts. Even me.


I miss the odd smells of Battery Park and the cool feel of the steel on the rails of the Staten Island Ferry . . a little more now that the weather is warming up.

Hume was a strict empiricist

(while in his study) Live forever

Behind me I distinctly hear the word magistrate. Do I imagine it or are my neighbors inching away from me?
The Colonel steps forward. Stooping over each prisoner in turn he rules a handful of dust into his naked back and writes a word with charcoal. I read the words upside down: ENEMY . . . ENEMY . . . ENEMY . . . ENEMY? He steps back and fold his hands. At a distance of no more than twenty paces he and I contemplate each other.
Then the beating begins. The soldiers use the stout green cane staves, bringing them down with the heavy slapping sounds of washing-paddles, raising red welts on the prisoners' backs and buttocks. With slow care the prisoners extend their legs until they lie flat on their bellies, all except the one who had been moaning and who now gasps with each blow.
Waiting for the Barbarians, J.M. Coetzee

He was born on a Monday . . .

died on a Friday. The Hello Man, The Beatless

Never is a promise

I don't think it should take a 300 level Modern Philosophy class for people to realize the definition of "forever" as beyond our comprehension. Its synonyms hold about as much meaning "infinitely" "always" "eternally" "everlasting" . . . etc. These word embody the impossibility of grasping such a notion, any attempted definitions are circular.

In the movie, Mirage, some crazy shit goes down. David Stillwell (Gregory Peck) has a crazy bout of amnesia. An old girlfriend, Shelia (Diane Baker) is claiming to help him, while in a bit of a jam herself. They share a moment on the couch where Shelia is explaining why the two split, as David can't even remember them being together.
Shelia: You wanted togetherness. I wanted forever.

It's not that I'm scared about death (To die would be an awfully big adventure--- James M. Barrie and Parting is all we know of Heaven and all we need of Hell--- Emily Dickinson). What I'm scared of is not living everyday, getting caught up in the everyday circus of being someone I'm not. Ergo, therefore, in closing, what I'm scared of is . . . what if all we have is togetherness, what if all we have is tonight. Oh what a night.

I'll never understand forever. Doesn't mean I don't pray to God it exists.

Pieta

So the scriptures tell us Jesus rose from the dead today. I'm never really sure what to believe as far as such theological matters go. But historically, Jesus did exist. I love the King (Elvis), and I love to cling to the mystery that he still roams the world today; I even like to go along with the nut-bag in Tennessee that saw his face in her potato chip, but . . . well, there's nothing really wrong with believing in miracles. I believe in Mother Mary. Whether or not Jesus is indeed our savior, a mother still lost her son. So I'd like to give a ferocious soul hug to Mary, because son of God or not, no parent should HAVE to bury their child.





I usually like to get all up in the face of Dante's Inferno . . . but on days like this, Canto XXXIII of the Paradiso is what I love to read.

Whisper words of wisdom.

Just in case . . .

Okay, now seriously, Happy Easter.

Happy Easter

You don't have to rise from the dead to be relevant.

It may just be that I live with my family that I'm constantly being reminded (whether I want to be or not) that I'm important. I'm needed. I'm loved. Sometimes Descartes' cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) model for existentialists, really doesn't ring true (it doesn't for most existentialists either). At what point do some of the people in my life become lines in text messages or just faces on a screen? I suppose if anyone is reduced to anything, I prefer their voice on a telephone (I always prefer to go blind than deaf). Regardless I'm beginning to see the ugly truth I've never wanted to see before. It has a habit of sneaking up on me, typically at work, when I'm in the middle of some mundane task and I've allowed my mind to wander freely, some appeasement I suppose for keeping my body in one place. Why it always goes for the gut first . . . I'll never know. While I'm still reeling from that blow, it wraps its hands around my throat and chokes me. I feel the tears coming to my eyes but I always stop them. I always stop them when it's the truth that's causing them. I will not give truth the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Truth figures that out, and while it loosens its grip, it travels down to the chambers of my heart where it resides and every beat is a reminder that I am here.
One part of the truth I've learned is while a proverbial shout-out, a message in a bottle sort of deal in a blog, in a sea of lives, the net cast is quite large and really who is special that responds? Lots I suppose. I just don't know ya. But a hand that reaches out in the night, across a bed, a hand that rests on your back . . . it may not be as serendipitous as the first, but it can feel as surreal. It can be just as charming. And it certainly should be reassuring that despite everything . . . you are relevant.