Raised on Popcorn

My parents were young. I was their first child, the kid with whom they could tinker and screw up because they would go on to have chances with others. In my baby book under "First Movie," the word Vampirella appears in my mother's measured handwriting. This bit of movie trivia tells me nothing (and yet, everything) about this set of new parents. One) I have yet to discover a film of that title from the time period. So I'm not sure if this is entirely accurate information. So the question becomes, "Were you paying attention?" Is my birthday really the third of May? Is my whole life built on lies? Two) my mom might have half-heartedly accompanied my dad to any British, lesbionic, vampyre, bloody, tittie flick of the early 70s. Months later, she may have jotted down this particular title because it sounded about right. And then there's three) baby's first film was a porno. 

Knowing mom, my vote is for our second option. Any way you look at it, it's pretty...well, it's pretty much a great many things: tacky, hilarious, inappropriate--because, frankly, no matter the subject matter, we can be certain it was no Disney film. It's most assuredly super-fucking-radtastic, considering  the grindhouse/genre geek film-sploitationeer I've ended up becoming.  These days mom says I have weird or, "artsy-fartsy" taste in film. Mostly because I wouldn't watch Grown Ups. Not if Adam Sandler himself invited me over for foot rubs and a private screening held high atop the Hollywood hills in a hot tub filled with strawberry rhubarb ice cream. Also, I have not now, nor will I ever, find the need to pour into my eyes anything adapted from a dying kid/cancer/going off to war novel by tearjerkoff authors such as Nicholas Sparks. I do not watch, what I've noticed women of the mid-west regularly classifying as, "cute shows." Those features that focus on shiny-faced children. Or whimsy. Or talking animals. Or Colin Firth. Or a combo plate featuring any of the listed ingredients. 

And while I do enjoy my fair share of subtitled features, and documentaries about livestock and popular fonts, as well as the occasional Lars von Trier vehicle for his full-tilt pretentiousness--that is about as artsy, and as fartsy, as I get. I still regard popcorn as manna.  Something post-fetal occurs within me as the lights of a theatre dim. I am at my most comfortable when the disc in the DVD player is a horror picture.  Or an old western. Or a straight up gumshod Dana Andrewsy noir. In fact the cheaper a film was to make, the more likely I am to find it a masterpiece. For this I blame mom, dad and the lesbian vampires of the cinematic underworld.

I become very irritated when I overhear parents say, "Oh, we could never let Tyler watch something with lots of sexy-sex in it, but we'll take the most violent film on the shelf. Boys will be boys, ya know." That seems like highly ineffective parenting. As a kid, dad took me to the movies a lot. Between 1975-1988, I'm pretty certain I saw most main-stream motion pictures in the theatre. Off the top of my head: Jaws, Conan the Barbarian, First Blood, Angel Heart, Brubaker, An Officer and a Gentleman and Bad Boys.  And I can never remember him NOT engaging my questions, fostering conversation, or explaining the moral of a "story," while listening, thoughtfully to what I had to say about what we had just seen. Film is an interactive medium, (though, ssshhhh....not during) as is parenting. It's simply not enough to jump up, dust the popcorn remnants off, and be on your merry way. Movies create opportunity--opportunity to help your children understand the world around them, as well as the world we don't see. The one in their little heads.

On numerous occasions I have stated that when it comes to movies I'm basically a 9-year-old boy. And though I am neither of those things--the sentiment is nevertheless true. Self-diagnosing this DSM-4 defying pseudo-psychological condition was fairly easy. It didn't even require therapy, remote viewing, or an iso-tank. The mystery can be solved by acknowledging the fact that I was raised in a theatre. Not Catskills-born-to-Vaudevillians-birthed-in-a-steamer-trunk-theatrically-raised, but I was blessed with a set of happy-film-going parents who passed that love to me both through nature and nurture. 

Having been raised a heathen first class--I have no ear for the word of God. I do, however, respond quite submissively to the voice of Don LaFontaine. I don't know hymns, but I do know that the 20th Century Fox fanfare centers me in a way no prayer ever could. The torch-bearing Columbia may be the closest figure I have to a Mother Mary. And, despite Warner Brothers insistence on being the world's most evil media conglomerate, the WB shield means more to me than the crucifix. Beyond these icons I am offered not a necessarily the tangible, but something more heftily relevant than the stations of the cross. There is a measure of salvation in the lion's roar. And a designed deliverance just on the other side of the mountain. Childhood Sundays were for some kids spent in church, or on spent on chores, or in the bleachers. Me? I got to go to the movies. 

My first memory is of going to the theatre. The shrinking iris of time produces a pattern composed of a hundred bright lights--this constellation exists now only in my imagination and extends all the way to the tips of my eyelashes. A spiderweb of light suspended from the soffit of my memory, the collective warmth conveying a fragility similar to that of a worn postcard. What could have been such an easily disposed of memory, is over 30 years later tucked away for the sake of happy remembrance. Like a valentine. Like a pressed cloverleaf. In 1976 a little girl stood beneath a marquee, waiting with her parents just to see a movie. Inside that singular, otherwise forgettable moment, the definition of the person that girl would become began to form. 

I don't typically traffic in mantric bumper stickers. But if I did, mine might read: I don't go to church, I go to the cinema. 

The dark offers redemption. And occasionally forgiveness.

The dark offers absolution. And most often sanctuary.

What's most curious about my cinephile status is perhaps its genesis. Typically children are taken to the theatre to see a holiday production of the Nutcracker. Or the symphony, or a ballet recital, or the Ice Capades. In subsequent years I have been made to suffer through those miserable rituals. But the first actual memory I possess (one I hope never to misplace) and my first memory are of a movie theatre. They are one in the same. A filmy haze loiters just above my kodachromatic recollection--but the memory is never far from me. I wouldn't let it be. I would have turned 4 that May. My parents took me to an evening screening in June. I'm told I read quite early, whether that's my mom's way of feeling like a superior parent or it's somewhat true, I suppose I won't ever really know. So I wonder if I might've actually read the marquee that night, or if it's a slight of hand on the part of my brain that distinctly recalls the fat, black letters spelling out the title: The Outlaw Josey Wales.  

I got this thing about feet. And handbags.

Earbobs

I have given birth, which means hearing the first precious sounds of life uttered by a beautiful son who would go on to sweetly call me, "Mommy." I have sat in a arena while Barbra Streisand sang "The Way We Were". When the actor who voiced Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer passed away a few weeks ago, there was a moment of devastation because some warm audiological nostalgic was lost. I've heard Prince perform Purple Rain. Live. In the dark. By the way--the closest I’ve been to God. I have witnessed Brian Setzer play a gorgeous 1957 Gretsch-White Falcon. There were tears. Handsome men have whispered sweet somethings into my ear. And I’ve been told that I am loved. Having drank roughly a million beers, I treasure each dulcet “fah-link” of the opened bottled cap.  I've performed in comedic productions and had people laugh in the right places at the things I have said. I was fortunate enough to have parents with profoundly good taste in music, therefore, The Beatles are like air to me, like breathing. I have presented my spoken word and poetic efforts to crowds of people and received the compliment of genuine applause. I have been told by people I respect that I am a good writer. Upon meeting my absolute hero Elvis Costello backstage at the Chicago Theater, he asked me (rather lasciviously) in his darling accent where I had gotten such beautiful blue eyes. So, all in all my ears have had a pretty swell go of things.

But I am here to firmly state that there is no sweeter sound, no more gorgeous audible emission in the entire universe than that warm, snowy static followed by the melodic tone that precedes any original television series aired on HBO. It's the audible equivalent of macaroni & cheese. 

Book Porn

Facebook, you cad! How could you?

Every three months or so Facebook and I break up. 

Ours is a volatile relationship. The kind you know damn good and well you’re going back to, but you’ve silently vowed to hold your ground until your combatant comes to their senses, buys you daisies and drinks, and indulges you with an hour or two of non-stop make-up posts. After the reconciliation, things float right along until the next time your romance takes a turn toward lamp tossery. 

This particular break up was rooted in a number of factors. Facebook, once a trusted companion, helping to balm the work-a-day blues of being in front of a computer for 8 hours, had a hold on me of which I wasn’t fully aware. I am, by no means, a Facebook junkie (I don’t even have one of those Farm thingees), but lately I have felt a sort of compulsion to check status updates. A need to toggle back and forth between profile and home in hopes someone might grant me a little electronic validation. I've obsessively played my turns at Lexulous. And waited with hastened breath to see of what my buddy just became the mayor. I looked at photos of people's art. And kids. And cats. And pictures of a baby shower thrown by a friend of a friend (from high school?) Enough already!  Perhaps my recent job transition and an assortment of uncertainties regarding real life had me searching for answers. Answers that cannot possibly be found in HTML code. Perhaps my natural Peeping Tom-girl urges were in hyper-drive. Whatever the reason, I had to get it in check.

Add to that a rash of posts which I felt were antithetical to being a good human. I will say this again, perched from the high horse I call SoapBox, I know the world is a hateful place. I don’t need to see racism and unrepentant spite rear their ugly mugs in updates when I’m merely trying to get a beat on the best Mexican food in Columbus (Cuco’s, by the way). And who the hell, you might ask, am I (a woman who swears like it’s her part-time job, rambles incessantly about the detachable parts that come with her Robot Boyfriend, and whose photos take place mainly in local bars) to pass judgment on others for their particular political/social outlooks? The short answer is nobody. 

I know the current social climate in which we live promotes the notion that we are all big, fat somebodies whose every fleeting thought is a magnificent pearl to be shared with the world, but that might be the subject of an altogether different fit of my low-fi bombast. Also, it’s MY newsfeed. You want to advertise that you’re a racist, homophobic, short-sighted cracker? Do it on your own time. How do you say “delete” in Americun? 

Which brings me to the heart of the break up. Don’t for a minute get me wrong--Facebook is a swell cat. 

The Pros: this social networking monster keeps a certain notoriously bad telephone user connected to the people I love. And some I just like. And one dude I don’t even know! But he has good taste, so I hang on to him because he posts old punk rock videos. I’m Facebook friends with the first boy I ever kissed (age 6), the first boy I ever KISSed (age 14) and the last boy I ever kissed (age “muffled response”). I get invites to shows--shows I will continue to go to until my inevitable ventilator becomes too unwieldy. I also shamelessly anthropomorphize food, send along hilarity whenever I find it, and empathize genuinely when anyone’s going through a bad patch. Oh, and I get to list things. Granted, it‘s the same shit over and over. What?? I like Elvis Costello the most and I think Jaws is one of the greatest films of all time. I hate Rush and romantic comedies. So go ahead. Bring a class-action lawsuit on a woman whose opinions have gone largely unaltered since 1984. 

The Cons: I knew there was blood in the water when one of my best friends commented on my post while sitting across the room from me. There is also the matter of my low-grade ADD. My wayward attention span is something that has always required a little wrangling. So while EffBee and I were at loggerheads, I tried to better examine what kind of time I was wasting rummaging through the dailies of everyone else's life. In essence, the question was how does this website impact my actual existence? And without sounding too scientific I learned, in point of fact, it was a metric fuck-ton. Being that I have often fancied myself the creative writerly type, I realized I hadn't written anything of substance since that last time ol’ Face and I were on the outs. I rarely read fiction anymore. I peek at the television over the laptop. Mind you, this isn't all Facebook's fault. I don't need an A&E FB Intervention or anything. A lot of the blame could also be placed on the broad shoulders of the almighty Internet. Though I think that might edge into some sort of Sins-of -the-Father type territory, and might be straying from the subject at hand or (better still) be fodder for yet another diatribe. There is also the altogether different matter of reprogramming your brain to not automatically think in third person. Thusly, "Jennifer Bee demands a Coney dog" reverts to "Hey, I would like a Coney dog."

I started to write about "the search to understand myself." But then again, kids--existential I ain't. Though I do believe we are collectively moving toward, perhaps not a loss of 'self', but certainly a redefinition of our selves.  These ego-driven internety time-killers are not our real lives. But then again, I just asked my son how to go about getting myself one of those high-falutin' frou-frou blog dealies. To which he just rolled his eyes. I suppose the bottom line is this--I don't know what the future holds for Facebook and I. We don't want it to be over, but we know we can't go on like this. And sometimes you just got to know when to fold 'em.  Who knows what I'll take up next? As web affairs go I've already (ahem) experimented with Etsy--and let me tell you, that was a rough and pricey couple of months. Bitch. I do know this--I have more to say than the mere 10 sentences I might churn out over the course of a week. So that's what I'm going to endeavor to work on. That and my actual factual life. But before I do...here comes a week's worth of status updates condensed and categorized into my Top Ten favorite subjects:

Movies--I wish I lived in Woody Allen's apartment from Play It Again, Sam.

Drinking--Wednesday 6:22 am: How early is too early for a rum and coke? Or just the coke? Or just the rum?

Work--Dear Ladies of the library, I had a step-mother. Meaning: I'm stocked up on enough passive aggression for the rest of my life. Thanks ever so, Jennifer

Eats--If you had told me 20 years ago that I would like black beans this much, I would have punched you straight in the gob.

TeeVee--Fringe! Yippee!!

Shoes--The strappier the happier.

Our Animal Friends--Finally. I caught sight of the fabled east side an albino squirrel. Pret-ty rad.

Hair--Big. Natch

Film quote--"I call it 'the hot dog tree' because, well...it's a hot dog tree." - Big Top Pee Wee

Song lyric--Something shamefully cool - Big Top Nick Cave