lazy saturday thoughts and pictures and things

i am having a wonderfully lazy saturday. it's hot, man. it's hotter every day, every hour. the clouds are burning off now, so hot's gonna get blazing before long.

i was going to see a movie tonight, but now i'll hold off. i think i need a me-time day of nothing, or at least minimal achievement. i'm trying to watch a movie, for instance, but my ADD kicks in every 20 minutes, and i get up to do something else for a bit. i'm awful.

i went all out and used my expensive steak for breakfast. half remains, which i will slice thinly and quickly warm up on the stove for a nice salad with some kind of interesting dressing and perhaps some grilled veggies, and enjoy with the last of my wine tonight. i want to tidy up a bit. i have a new couch coming tomorrow. only two months after the initial "the couch you sold me is a piece of steaming dog shit and i'd like to activate that expensive three-year warranty, please" phone call i made. i mean, i knew within a week i was getting a couch -- they've just utterly sucked at getting that motherfucker to me. tomorrow, it comes.

gone will be my piece of shit PVC "p-leather" sofa, and in its place a new blue cloth sofa.

finally, i can lie semi-naked on my couch in the middle of a heat wave and not have my skin stick to the fucker like some kind of nazi war torture experiment or something. my god, the punishment for sloth around these parts! travesty, is what that is.

come to mommy, couch. i'll treat you right.

(yay, a new couch! having a duct-taped couch is just so not in keeping with my love of the aesthetic. i seem so... common. it's horrendous. now, a new cheap piece of furniture, but at least it'll look nice for a while. pvc sucks. hard.)

i'll get out for a walk or something today, but i doubt i'll really do much besides puttering around the house. i need to plug my new recording gear into my computer and try a test thingie thing tonight. get drunk and ramble into the mic on record. hardy har har.

.............................

well, i bought Brokeback Mountain, but i got it used. annie proulx gets not one dime of my money, and i get to own the movie for posterity's sake. i like owning a nice variety of movies. it's cool. movies rock.

but the x-guy pointed out the ridiculous essay she wrote in reaction to the film adaptation of her tale not winning best picture at last year's oscars.

in it, like a fucking 12-year-old, she says petulant things like,

And rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of
Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline. Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver.

i mean, who, honey, do you think you are? seriously. what she's saying is that the subject of racism is a stereotype. she's mocking the subjects examined by Crash, which is to say racism in all its little veiled forms in today's society. yes, how very passe. i mean, clearly the US is so beyond that black-white-spic thing, huh? it's just so hip and open and accepting. right. canada has race issues, but the US takes it up a notch, man. it's a relevant flick. and it's well done, too. great? i dunno. best picture? ooh, that's arguable, but you're talking about an academy that hailed The Titanic, okay? get off your fucking high-horse.

proulx insults the competition, belittles people like philip seymour hoffman, and makes herself look like a right cunt in that article. great work needs no acclaim, all right? great work stands on its own. when you feel the need to hype it, you really need to shut the fuck up and put your ego away.

she mocks the ceremony -- which is even more immature, because if it's so irrelevant and full of bullshit, why's your heart so fucking shattered to have missed out, you thick wench, you? -- in this passage:

There were orders to clap and the audience obediently clapped. From the first there was an atmosphere of insufferable self-importance emanating from "the show" which, as the audience was reminded several times, was televised and being watched by billions of people all over the world. Those lucky watchers could get up any time they wished and do something worthwhile, like go to the bathroom. As in everything related to public extravaganzas, a certain soda pop figured prominently.

(Insert caps mode here.) She does make a point that Hollywood loves mimicry, and out of the five actors nominated for best actor, three were portraying now-dead celebrities (Murrow, Capote, and Cash). Starting in the dark, as she says, is a greater challenge, but we all know that the Oscars have a tendency to applaud actors for their body of work overall, and not just the one picture they're in that day, and this was Hoffman's first leading role, and a great, great portrayal in a very low-dialogue movie that had to capture the turmoil of a man in danger of getting what he wants while losing everything he needs. Hoffman's been brilliant in everything he's ever done, from The Talented Mr. Ripley to Boogie Nights to Magnolia, he's always a huge contributor. He deserved something.

Proulx's a twat. I'll never buy another book. You don't insult other artists like you're some petulant child. You offer constructive ideas. What a cunt.

...................................

i'm seeing this movie either monday or tuesday evening. gayboy and i will check it out. i heard about it sometime late last year and i was thrilled to hear a treatment was done on this subject and was hoping it'd have relevence in today's military operations. it's a doc about the anti-Vietnam war movement that transpired within the American Armed Forces ranks. it's supposed to be excellent, and it's playing at the Ridge Theatre now, so i'm thrilled to be checking it out. love me some political docs, man.

...................................

Depress-o-meter: And we are holding steady at a five out of 10 today, with 10 being lousiest. I'm blue, but not. I'm content, but not. I'm happy to be vegging, but in my constantly judgmental self-analytical mode, I'm judging myself for being a recluse on a sunny summer day. It doesn't matter that my place is cooler than the world outside or anything constructive like that; I'm just totally negative about anything I decide these days. It's very weird, and I dislike the practice, but as much as I try to will myself into another headspace, I just keep failing to manage it. Anyhow, the down time is doing me good. It's hard, you know, being out in the "What? There's No Such Thing as Depression" real world and having to make small talk and pretend to give a fuck what they have to say to you at any given time. Staying home alone allows me to drop my pretenses and be what I want to be, when I want. I was thinking about seeing a movie tonight, but now I may not. I may still, but I may not. Staying in would be all right, if I can get past the part about feeling like a loser for doing it. I could have gone out this morning, and could have made plans, but didn't, yet I still feel unpopular, but it's of my choosing. How fucked up is this? THAT is depression, the stupid internal dialogue you can't shut the hell up. It makes no fucking sense, yet it's how the thought process spins. Jesus. I do, however, plan to take a long hot walk to the produce store and come home and make a wonderful Indian lassi -- maybe mango -- with a little scoop or two of ice cream. Huge brunch means I'm unlikely to be hungry for hours. I'm also going to make some gazpacho for my Sunday and maybe a latenight snack tonight. That'd be nice, a bowl of fruity gazpacho at about midnight, before a cold shower and bed.