The Daily {W{Rite 2o16 January WK o2

Art Walk, January
The cold bit into me as soon as I got out of the car. Yes, I wore the thick winter coat Sister bought for me back in 1995 or so, a blue Cardigan that she also got me for this last Christmas and my sturdy blue sweat-shirt . . . NOT bought by my sister . . but none of it helped. Nothing could stop that bastard north wind which takes special aim at anyone over 60. So, we took an extremely quick walk out of the parking lot and into the "Main Gallery," which was at least 70 degrees so now I started to sweat and was longing for the winter that stood outside waiting on me.

The gallery was an artist patron's graveyard. Only the Art Walk purist were there as usual, sipping champagne or a glass of wine talking to each other about . . . well, I'm not sure what they talked about. Maybe they went on about the weather, the art, local or national politics. I never talk to anybody at Art Walk because I either don't know them or do know them and have a personal feud with them that prevents me from being friendly. David, however, knows everybody and feels friendly towards everyone and MUST stop to chat with each person he runs into, and even though there weren't many folk out last night, there was enough to keep him occupied for about 45 minutes. Me? I just walked around as I usually do looking at the art and taking a quick pic of someone--male/female, doesn't matter much to me. They just need to be interesting to my camera--who had no idea that I was taking their picture.

The Chainsaw Gang's Gallery

Okay, not really their name. I made it up. But these guys have a ton of statues they carve from found wood (mostly), and a lot of their work is done during Art Walk. Last night was no different. Though it was cold enough to make a polar bear shiver, one of the gang was out front of the gallery hacking away with his chainsaw, creating a beautiful wood carving of Yoda! May the chainsaw be with you.

The Stash
What the hell are we doing at The Stash?! Granted, the weather (which had just turned to drizzly rain) was getting to me. I was sweating and shivering at the same time.

Disgruntled and wanting to go home, I followed David into the backroom of The Stash to be greeted with an extremely loud singer and backup band  playing . . . what? the blues? Cajun blues? Well, it was good but so damn loud I started to develop an earache on top of the rest of my wintertime maladies.

Here, take this! David handed me a Styrofoam mini-bowl, a spork and two raffle tickets. What the fuck is this? My inquire was cut off  by David walking away to talk to somebody he used to go to school with or something, leaving me there to juggle a bowl, a spork and two fucking raffle tickets, as I tried to put my camera into its bag-- BUMP! Hey, some asshole bumped into me. I don't know why he did that! It's not like the place was crowed or anything. BUMP! Hey, the motherfugger did it again! AND BUMP! AGAIN. Enough of that bullshit. I glared at the drive-by bumper. He was dressed in an all yellow jump suit with a garland of fake, exotic flowers around his thick neck. A grizzly gray beard, and big, thick glasses (could see every crater on the moon with those bastards!) forced me to assume that he was an escaped mental patient. And he may have well been some nut job serial bumper . . . But I realized he was also the bass player for the band that was just playing. He glared right back at me, but I wasn't going to be intimidated. I glared even harder back at him. Who did he think he was messing with? Hey, come over here and try this! Fortunately for me David's shout disrupted my stare down contest with the bass player. I walk over to the table where David was standing, and I finally understood what the mini-bowl, the spork and raffle tickets were for. The Stash was

having a gumbo-fest of some kind. Each table had a big pot full of gumbo made, no doubt, buy the person stirring the pot and grinning like demented sous chef every time someone came up to their table. They were ladling out samples to give to everyone who stopped by, and the tickets were to be put in a basket (or jar) next to the gumbo you liked the most. Okay, so I'm kind of slow. But I finally got it.

Main St. Tattoos
The walk back to the car was even harder on my bones than the walk to The Stash. The rain was coming down harder and I was worried that my camera (even in its case) would get soaked. So as we walked I tried to sling it off my shoulder and under my coat without taking off the coat. Didn't work. But no worry. I ducked under the awnings along the way and kept both me and my precious camera from getting drenched. Last pic of the night was my favorite . . . Main St. Tattoo. They always have a wonderful collection of  . . . tattoo art on their walls. Come on, I'm cold. David was a maybe ten feet ahead of me. That was unusual. He walks slower than me . . . most times. So, I got a quick pic of the tattoo shop and headed off to the comfort of David's car. Besides, the bad weather and the asshole at The Stash, it was a wonderful Art Walk this month. {smiles}

Sunday, January 10, 2o16

I spent most of my Sunday wedged between two older ladies, both of them so small that I could've stuffed them into the left pocket of my Cardigan and still have enough room for my nicotine gum packet and my reading glasses. David was off somewhere in a seat extremely close to the screen but on the aisle. He likes it like that. Me? I can't sit that close to the huge screens at The Warren.

The Revenant  was extraordinarily good in spots, but the overall effect of the film lacked . . . something. And I'm going to get reamed by my theatre and movie business friends for this, but Tom Hardy is the most uninteresting actor in the world! No, in the universe! I know, I know. how could I possibly say that? He's the darling of both stage and screen. This evening on the Golden Globe Awards, Leo DiCaprio praised his acting, his dedication to the work and blah-blah-blah . . . Sorry, I don't see it. I'll give Hardy kudos  for one movie, The Drop. Everything else he's done is . . . well, mediocre at best.  After the movie was over, I swore to David that when we go to the next movie I'll sit wherever he wants . . . though I'm pretty sure, I won't. {smile}

Monday, January 11, 2o16 1:30 a.m.

The hour is late. Or early. It depends on your point of view. But it is that time of day in which the sun is somewhere else. It seems too often these days that the sun is always somewhere else, refusing to shine on me. I blame the clouds, they govern this time of year, and no matter the time of day clouds rule with a very stubborn hand. The hands on a clock. Shouldn't that be arms of the clock? They resemble limbs more than hands. Or legs running constantly around the face . . . the minute leg jogs, the hour limb strolls while the ever frantic second leg sprints . . . hops across the day from coffee break to coffee break . . . Time is crutch that we depend on to motivate us to do . . .  something, anything before Time runs out . . . stops in it's tracks . . . at least we perceive it as so. But Time does NOT stop, it's in continuous motion. It is we who end not Time. Or do we actually end? Perhaps our consciousness leaves us, but we, our being just transforms into . . . what? I did write a poem about Time once. Well, more than one to be honest. But this one (below) sticks to my brain like a wad of nicotine gum.

Time

Sometimes the day gets away from me,
running ahead of me like my big brother
who was always in such a hurry,
stretching his hideously long legs
out in front of his adult size body,
moving at what seemed to me
a million miles an hour.

And no amount of pleading,

"Come on, man, slow down!"

could stop his momentum.
He’d pick up speed and disappear
around the corner before I could catch him.

It’s not that we run out of Time,

but rather that Time runs out on us,
runs out of patience waiting for us.

We need to get on with it,

get after it with all we got
or Time will turn the corner
and disappear forever.
Woodie o5-1o-12 (rewrites o9-15-14)

4:37 a.m.
David Bowie died yesterday. I found out about it as I was writing my little ditty on Time. Bowie was . . . an artist in the best sense. No one was like Bowie. He created what he created without remorse or apology. The last song I remember hearing from him was the song Cat People (Putting Out Fire). Tarantino used it in Inglourious Basterds.

11:30 P.M.

I woke up at 1:30 this afternoon after staying up until 8 A.M. Damn. I gotta get to bed earlier tonight. I spend too much of my allotted daylight sleeping. There's poetry to write, blog entries to make AND I could spend more time cleaning up the apartment . . . washing clothes. But what can I do? I'm possessed by the demon SLOTH:

Sloth: is one of the seven deadly sins in Christian morality, particularly within Catholicism, referring to laziness. Sloth is defined as spiritual or emotional apathy, and being physically and emotionally inactive.

David left an IM for me on my Facebook page. It said: I'm sorry about Friday night. Yes, I know what you're thinking . . . WTF? My sister called me earlier today and asked if I was all right . . . again: WTF? It turns out both my friend and my sister have been reading my blog. David was referring (I think) to the drive by bumper at The Stash who turned out to be some Ph fucking D dude that David knows. So, I guess he was apologizing for something his friend did? My sister was worried about my health because she read an entre on my blog where I was talking about not feeling well. Hee! Well, it's nice when people worry about me . . . but it is a blog, and I tend to write about whatever is on my mind and I DO exaggerate  . . . sometimes. {smiles}

Tuesday, January 12, 2o16, 2:32 A.M.

Yes, I'm still among the conscious. Not for long I'm hoping. Took a sleeping pill (over the counter stuff, don't worry.) so I'm pretty sure sleep will come for in a half hour or so. But I can't count on it because my body is a rebel and it wants to stay up all night. My mind can't control my physical desire to watch the sunrise, to hear the garbage truck grind past my window which it does every morning at 7:00. Winter mutes the birds, though. But in the spring and summer they rise at 4 A.M. and gossip the whole bloody day long. I hate sparrows but only because I can't understand a word they say to each other. {yawn}

6:45 PM

I'm crumbling. Splintering. Bits and pieces of my existence hanging, clinging to the branches, to the logic that I'm just imagining this . . .  this . . .  existence? Oh, I understand. This frailty is too fragile to not be a fantasy. I'm wake dreaming all of it. All these lumps of dust gathering around me
masquerading as creatures capable of ration thought. Like he extremely short squatty piece of breathing Earth, the one leaning over the reception counter screaming in a leathery voice at a faceless secretary, her tongue a whip slashing to slobbery death a bastard echo of what might once, a long time ago, been the English language. "I'VE LEFT MY INFORMATION AT HOME. CAN I STILL KEEP MY APPOINTMENT?" My ears hate her, they wish she'd magically go mute. But it's not her fault that I can't stand her, this imperfectly formed stranger . . . I wonder sometimes what God is thinking. He too is on my list of annoyances today. Everything irritates me this afternoon . . .  myself included.

8:31 P.M.
 The last State of the Union speech from President Obama started thirty minutes ago.

 He speaks in a strong, hopeful voice about the future of America. More jobs, less Murder of our citizens, protecting the environment. And everyone listens respectfully, even those who are his sworn enemies seem to be more agreeable tonight. Why? Because they won't have to hear him deliver another SOTU speech ever again.

Wednesday, January 13, 2o16
An itch. An angry itch tickling my fragile amygdala. No one is safe. I'm in cave dweller mode. Every slight, every look every word a person says to me  . . . an attack on my primal being . . . and when it comes to my survival  . . .? What a tough guy.
Well, sort of, I guess. At least I talk tough. Yeah, I watched a lot Scorsese . . . Clint Eastwood . . . "Go ahead, make my day!"  Although, I'm really a wuss deep down inside, I do have anger problems. I've always had a tough time dealing with other people. Like that guy at Art Walk the other night. If he'd had taken the pushing any farther . . . I would have got my ass kicked! I'm too old for this "street fighting" thing. Hell, even when I was young, in my twenties . . . I was too old for that shit. {smiles}

I am learning a bit how to "go around" my anger at the world. Not an easy mission to complete. But I am working on it. Aged has helped. I'm not as angry as when I was young. BUT it is still there, still sneaking about in my sub consciousness.

Thursday, January 14, 2o16
Woke up this morning to the news that  Alan Rickman had died. I know, so what? I mean really, People and "actors" die all the time. Yeah, but Rickman? Special. Primarily a stage actor, he's really able to take that wonderful stage training and translate it into great movie performances. He was a dear man too. When the Harry Potter series was over, he became a sort mentor to Daniel Radcliffe. This what Daniel had to say about Rickman's death:

Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that. I know other people who've been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say "if you call Alan, it doesn't matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he's doing, he'll get back to you within a day".

People create perceptions of actors based on the parts they played so it might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of the sterner(or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny. And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his unmistakable double-bass.

As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man.

The main thing about Rickman is that he was always the artist, always working to improve the craft, always showing us actors what you could create on the stage, on screen. He's done a lot of work, varied character work, some of it in BIG budget movies, but a lot in smaller venues. My favorite piece he did was for PBS, The Song of Lunch, an epic poem written by Christopher Reid. It's a beautiful piece of TV/theatre. Rickman was an actor's actor. I wish that I could have had ONE acting class with him. But the truth is, everything he's done on film, on TV has been a master class in the art and craft of acting. Alan Rickman will be missed and cherished forever.