Becoming Unemployed During Hard Times

"We're letting you go..."
As if they'd been holding
you in a tender embrace.

"We're letting you go."
As though you'd
won your freedom;
as though it had been
a great struggle
and you'd emerged
triumphant.

"We're letting you go."

We're dropping you
into the chasm.

A. Murray

Adios

Marine Boy

I received this movie as a gift. The giver must have had some insight into my psyche of the moment, and decided I needed a jolt to get me out of there.

It worked.

Being anti spoiler, I won’t tell the story, but I will say, seeing Kim Kang Woo for the first time was a treat and a half.

For the girls: He’s very handsome (serious eye candy), masculine, and seductive.

For the boys: He can swim, fight, and successfully seduce pretty women.

This is a nifty mix of the hapless, entangled with dangerous gangsters galore, in all shapes and sizes. Lot’s of dirty dealing, lots of major violence that flips around so unexpectedly, you’ll laugh before you realize it’s funny. It’s that slick.

Being one who adores really violent explosive stuff that makes me howl with laughter for the simple reason it’s so over the top, I love this movie. It’s neck and neck with, “Running Seven Dogs”, one of my bloodiest insane favorites from Korea.

The power of horrible screen violence that is done with the slyest imaginable wit…the wild humor of madmen, who have utter disregard for the polite/prudish viewer’s sensibilities, is delicious.

I mean…look…a mouthy guy gets beaten to death by a major gangster boss wielding a dangerous frozen salami.

What’s not to love?

This is a great flick. I watched it twice in a row and found more to laugh at the second time around. It has staying power. There’s so much action, it’s virtually impossible to get bored with it. It’s as wild under the sea, as it is on solid ground, and everywhere in between. It has everything, not to mention a terrific cast loaded with quirky talent.
Available at HK Flix

Click image to enlarge.

A few new things...

have been posted at Hagfish Lite. Drop in, but be warned, good taste is not in the interest of Hagfish Lite. Hagfish laughs at narrow minded sorts, so...if you fit the profile, stay right where you are. Not that good taste is abundant here either, but there are fewer photos of naked butts, and sundry other thingys.

Now I know you can't wait to get over there.

On the day of enforced rest...

Lately I’ve come to a point where being precise is losing appeal. There’s a constricted feeling about my existence, something that makes me edgy, something knocking at the perimeters of my life from the outside. It whispers, “jump”.

Restlessness has me in its jaws. I’ve been working on photographs, and I realized how controlled they've been. They're so acceptably presented. Neatly cropped for the most part and contained conventionally.

I've started to feel so commonplace it makes me itch. Those pictures are the reflection of a part of my mind. I don’t like the box I find myself in.

I want that un-cleaned, imperfect, ragged non gentrified photographic howl to come out of me.

This is what I want.

Please Click Image to Enlarge.

Hetrick's Barn, and how I feel about it

I hate this barn picture. I am not bucolic by nature.

Bu col ic–adjective Also, bu⋅col⋅i⋅cal.
1. of or pertaining to shepherds; pastoral.
2. of, pertaining to, or suggesting an idyllic rural life.

Give me grungy city streets any day.

It's true.

Please Click Image to Enlarge.

Old Girls

They were desperately alive back then, in their late twenties-early thirties. Manic and hopeful in their relief at having freed themselves from ill-chosen men.

They were smart, funny, vital, and laughed at everything. They were shot through with sexual energy and on the make for any new encounter. They glowed with an abundance of self assurance and joy at simply being.

They plucked their eyebrows, shaved their legs, put on perfume, wore high heels, and felt like women again instead of dish washing machines with vaginas.

They made love as often as possible, choosing their partners with an eye toward continuing freedom. In other words, they were like men; on the prowl, and disinterested in anything more than a few good times.

Of course some grew weary of the game life presented. Some of them missed the old ball and chain because they forgot what it was like. They married again, and occasionally, again and again. Trial and error doesn’t always work, but they had a naïve hopefulness, for which they must be forgiven.

There are those who remained single, and decades later, drabbed down and a little tired of it all, would ruminate on the fact there was nothing more interesting between their legs than the crotch of their underwear, which in some cases was still black-lace sexy, but wasted on an audience of one.

They are like the waning Moon, and the only waxing that gets done is to the outdated furniture they inherited from their soured marriages, or maybe their rooms as teenagers, when they were flowers; restless to know life, still safe with parents keeping them in check.

When they look back, what do they see?

Rubble?

Little bits of glitter they should have picked up with reverence, to be stored against all the rainy days to come?

The glitter these days is a flash of mica embedded in the stones they tread; not to be mined by them…beyond their grasp.

What could cheer them up and on?

A cluster of rampant penis’s perhaps?

Penis’s attached to healthy males, preferably a bit younger who gave them the eye, and smiled that secret smile at a few still-pretty women. The kind of men who would adore them for a while because of their sophistication, wit, lack of demands, and in some cases, lack of inhibitions. The types who love women just because they are women. Men, who will flirt outrageously, then follow it through with a certain air of gratitude and delight.

Of course the old girls would flee these encounters, laughing uproariously, escaping the bondage of good sex.

They’d fall in a heap into a booth at a ratty diner, order coffee and giggle, while normal color came back to their flushed faces, and their hearts raced with that high feeling of excitement, which comes in part from possibilities, in part from the somnolent embers that suddenly heated up even though they were assumed to be dead.

They’d glow again from the electrical charge of being seen as desirable.

They’d go home to slow baths with bubbles and emollients, shave their legs, put on perfume, seductive earrings, a bit of makeup, dress sharp, and then go dancing.

That’s all it takes… a little genital buzz.

Dedicated to Carlos, one of those men.

Mark Morford Today

Mark Morford has a very excellent piece today in the San Francisco Chronicle. Their archives are not permanent, so I'd suggest getting onto it if you're interested in something bitter and depressing, but REAL, unlike the news you may usually read/see/hear. Click anywhere on this post to be transported to Wonderland.

In the eyes of the beholder...

See This. It's a link, CLICK it. It's good.

Fragility

There are times when she feels like old lace curtains that have hung in a window for too many years. They appear to be intact, but if touched, they will disintegrate.

So much violence has crept into her life over the decades, it staggers the mind. It came through the portals of direct information conveyed generally by phone, though sometimes the messenger arrived at the door.

There were trickier means also. For example, discovery of a murder, no, make that two, were via the Internet. If one could simply set the world to System Restore, go back, and never enter those names, never click on “search”, never read those pages, never dig for the outdated news articles….

The ringing of the phone. This is not the perky telemarketer announcement of an earnest broom or vacuum cleaner salesman, wanting to enrich your life with greater efficiency when it comes to the beloved American cleanliness fetish, anymore than the knock on the door is a delivery from the Chinese restaurant. The Internet information is not due to a misspelled name typed in haste, allowing one to exhale again.

Oh no, it is not benign data. We are indifferent to the benign. This information is of too much import, we are not indifferent here.

At this moment, the sky is gray and white as though all color had been erased from the world, leaving only a photograph in gray scale. It is Limbo, the place between Heaven and Hell of the heart gone away from average days, where the soul waits for good news, if it ever comes.

In theory, Limbo is temporary. It is there for the convenience of the gods. A storage bin filled with things to be decided upon, but not immediately. The gods do not appreciate being rushed.

But I digress where this tale is concerned. Forgive me.

Decades ago, an infinity it seems, the phone call came from a doctor announcing the anticipated death of her mother.

She was sedated by spirituality; buffered by belief and weariness. The howl came later. The grief, a river rushing toward a wall of stone, came later. Vestiges remain always, like stray hairs tickling sensitive skin, they cannot be ignored.

Her mother’s death was of natural causes, likewise, her father’s death.

The other deaths are the ones she counts on worry beads used as an abacus to keep track of violent unnatural events. She holds a cluster and counts them off. Four suicides. Another cluster…two murders, no…three actually if she counts the man she didn’t like, but did admire.

Then she hits a sticky area.

Does the accidental shooting of her young husband, many moons ago, count as murder or mishap? Shall she call it “uncategorized”? Now, if it’s murder, that would make four.

Four feels right.

Two fours equal eight. Eight is a fated number according to the study of numerology. Her name number is eight, as is her address.

Don’t try to tell her she’s not fated.

What could be more fated than a bullet from a small antique firearm which only holds one shell, tearing through a twenty-seven years old lung, leaving its owner waiting days for the rescue of death in a small hospital in a far away country?

She hates the uncategorized. At heart she is a file clerk in a narrow room fretting about a lack of order.

She could go mad from the weight of these folders containing so much intensity.

She could become Ophelia, pulling petals from flowers, keeping count, finally drifting in the waters that would claim her.

But then another would need to count off her beads, and add to a category. She doesn’t trust others with her record keeping. She doesn’t trust others, period, and exclamation mark.

The knock on the door is the worst. The parties on the other side know you are in that house, they will not go away. They will pound until the door too, disintegrates, and they will announce the uncategorized death while looking into your eyes to see if it is really true, or are they in a nightmare? Are we all in a nightmare?

Or it will be a single individual on business, announcing, after much cat and mouseing around in the name of said business, the fact he, she, or it, is not permitted to divulge the circumstances that led to this visit, but will pass on a phone number which will open the gate to another circle of Hell.

The man with the blue and white umbrella committed suicide early in July of 2009, taking her with him to Limbo. They are discussing things, and waiting for the wheel of karma to make another click.

Dear Reader,
Do not be misled by the apparent calm the above statement re the man with the blue and white umbrella implies. She is stuck together by a weakening will, and is not fully herself these days. She is being barbecued, turning on a spit over fire which does not cauterize, does not kill pain, as “normal” burning does.

It’s a messy business, full of anguish polite society can’t bear to witness. Her mother raised her to save face at all times so as not to divulge the inner heart, which would display weakness. Frankly, she would prefer to run through the streets screaming and tearing her hair out.

Suicides and murders are horrific happenings. She will skirt the recent awareness of a murder too close to the bone to think about.

For the benefit of polite society, she will be politically correct. She will state she suffers from overexposure.

What a strange circle she traverses.

No one knows her.

Rachmaninov Had Big Hands

This gem came to me from my sister, Alma Rands, jewelry designer and maker extraordinaire. Blessings on your head sistah!

Enjoy!

Presentation by:HirnW

Midnight Cop - A Hagfish/Hyacinth Review

I love this movie.

It's funny, cynical, and a nifty spine-tingler. It's also very European with good reason, it was made in Germany. It doesn't reflect an American sense of humor. Its wit is lost on many.

It’s got nice a gritty quality, with moody evocative night filming making a fine point from which to view it. It isn’t a lighthearted comedic venture, but it has its moments.

Speaking of visuals, the cop shop workplace is pretty good too.

The core of the story has to do with the horrifying accidental wounding/disabling of a young child during an attempt to arrest a major drug dealer by the lead character, Inspector Alex Glass, played brilliantly by Armin Mueller-Stahl, a man in wretched condition as the story opens.

He is sleepless, rumpled, irritable, and lacking in any kind of hope. All his life is sour, and he is being beaten down by the one terrible event of his existence, that has caused him to nearly lose himself.

Music is one of his few outlets.


Then, there's the job.

He has a new assistant, Shirley May, played wonderfully by Julia Kent, and a concerned friend, the District Attorney, played by Michael York.

Alex is a man quietly thinking out the case, as it escalates into a surreal nightmare, with nude bodies being found, abandoned, and smeared with grease; a profoundly obscure touch, which because of its very oddness causes a chill of disgust and discomfort. We know we’re not in Kansas anymore. A dark thinker is afoot, and his victims are giving no clue as to his identity.

Concurrently, Inspector Glass is also engaged in impossible attempts to break through the wall erected by his vengeful ex wife, between him and his daughter. He begins to unfold, and display himself for us: A sleepless man who spends nights tossing in bed while the neighbor on the other side of the wall has gleefully noisy sex. His answer is to pound futilely on the wall until he is called a pervert. It brings out the sneaky voyeur in me, making me wish I could see through plaster and paint to watch the couple wallow in sybaritic splendor. (see note*)
In trying to hold himself together, he finds more strings of himself unraveling until eventually he becomes involved with Lisa, played by Morgan Fairchild, an apparent bimbo, who manages to become another drop of the glue of life that keeps him from disintegrating entirely.

I was not impressed by Morgan Fairchild the first time I watched the movie. Like most others making hard comments, I thought she was an absurd choice. That is, until I thought it over for a while.

It dawned on me, she was perfect for the role; when she threw her head back and laughed in one scene with Mr. Mueller-Stahl, I fell in love with the character, and with the actress. She was funny, sexy and pretty as Lisa; and she was brave. Good for her!

Alex is older than she. So what? We should all be so magnetic and well-preserved as we grow older. They're a rather odd couple. This does nothing but lend a spicy, amusing and rather sweet atmosphere to a very gruesome and sometimes terribly sad tale.

Frank Stallone as the villain, makes me wonder how on earth the kid brother got so famous, and eclipsed him. I loved Frank as Eddie, the pugilistic, hot pistol ladies-man bartender in Barfly. Sly couldn’t have done that part with Frank’s panache. Sly gets kudos, Frank gets too short a role in Midnight Cop.

The way the cookie crumbles I guess. There ain’t no justice.

This is a movie that cries to be viewed with a sense of humor, and a little stretch of the mind, because it isn't for dummies.

It's a spoof on American cop pictures, where the hero never misses, and sex as audience bait, takes the place of acting.

Yes, there's sex in it, and most of it is hilarious. However, there's never a glimpse of action on-screen. That's a nice change from all the sweating and heaving that goes on here in the U.S. for the purpose of keeping our limited attention on the movie.

There is nudity, but unless you're into necrophilia, it's not going to tweak you.

While the story deals with a serial killer doing his thing, it isn't full of gore and splattered brains. In fact it's an excellent flick, in part, due to what you don't see.

Three great points:
Armin Mueller-Stahl stuffing a lettuce leaf into his pocket.
Armin Mueller-Stahl’s underwear.
A beautiful rendition of A Lighter Shade of Pale, which opens the film.

See this movie. And use your brain. Have no expectation, either good or bad, and you'll be pleasantly surprised!

*note: “wallow in sybaritic splendor”, swiped from the online dictionary. Thought it was overblown and funny.
BEST PRICE: AMAZON

The Zippered Man

Once she had a dream lover. She would lay in his arms all night long, feeling safer than she had during most of her life. She thought at times, it would be nice if he had a zipper running the length of his body. There was a good deal of comfort to be derived from the idea of climbing into him, and zipping him up with her inside, hidden from the world. The world is a dangerous place in the best of times, and deadly in the worst.

Of course she was crazy.

That was a frequent judgment.

She was adjudged to be amoral a few times too, by quizzes applied through several authoritative online sites laden with expert analysts for the benefit of hungering masses in quest of an answer as to who they actually are.

Armchair psychologists and dilatants plastered to television sets, tend to enjoy these sites.

The experts gave their opinions which nothing could sway. They were based on ironclad courses taught at various universities noted for their pompous conspicuously moral wisdom-dispensing professors.

It seemed a feather in her cap to be amoral. It meant she was running against the odds, since the “average” were generally moral according to the rules.

Morality in her opinion, amounted to a collection of regulations laid down by the elite for their own convenience. Therefore, to be amoral was to shake free of them and their iron fists.

She thought there should be something for everyone...many sets of rules, without religion connected to them.

The word regulations had too militant a connotation for comfort.

She thought religion tended to complicate things unnecessarily. An entire collection of esoteric regulations plagued many religions. Far too many regulations would need to be remembered if they involved religion too. Also, people sometimes killed each other because of conflicting attitudes stemming from religion. So perhaps it was best to keep religion and guns separate from each other.

Guns would be secular in their nature.

Therefore, all rules laid down outside of religion, should never contain even a whiff of sectarianism.

There was one universally applicable rule everyone would have to obey. Just one: Only the most reasonable and responsible secular leaders could have anything to do with guns.

They would be very reluctant to kill anyone, since everyone obeyed their own rules; there was little, if any, major discord. Eventually they would realize how stupid it was to have guns, but never shoot at anything. So why bother to have them?

Of course though, she was crazy.

In thinking it out on a deeper level, if there were too many sets of rules, anarchy might ensue.

Anarchy seemed so exhausting.

The zippered man was her best idea in the long-run.

February 15, 2007
A. Murray

Bertha, Ella, Sid, and the little green apples...

a peculiar little tail.

Bertha shoved the broom across the kitchen floor, muttering to herself, "damn filthy little bastids, makes me want to squash their little heads with the heel of my boot…"

The mouse sat in the entryway of his apartment complex, whiskers twitching, eyes shining like new shoe buttons, and ears turned to the sound the giant was making.

The mouse spoke minimal English, but enough to get by on. He was hungry and tired. He'd been travelling for days to get to the place where he would spend the winter this year. The last house was drafty and immaculately clean. He'd caught a cold at Thanksgiving, and kept it until spring. And because of perverse hygiene on the part of the farmer's wife, he'd nearly starved to death during his stay there, emerging a mere shadow of his former self. He shuddered to think about it now.

A vicious swipe of the broom too close to the molding nearly knocked him off his feet. Considering this to be a portent of doom, his own in fact, he decided to crawl back into bed for a little nap. It was early, and dinner wasn't on the table until some time around five-thirty. There was plenty of time to rest before the job of harvesting from the floor, where some of his favored delicacies were generally plentiful, thanks to the smaller giants who ate there on occasion.

He understood the salient points of the conversation the giant was having with herself, and it's not so underlying rage, was enough to breed caution even within such an adventurous soul as he. So he turned, and to his undying regret, missed the most interesting thing of the day. He heard about it later, but would have given an especially fine whisker to have seen it first-hand

All in all however, at that moment, life was good again. At last….

"Next time I catch them little rats thrown' food across the room, I'm gonna break an arm first, and answer questions later…spoiled little crap-heads, killin's too good fer 'em."

A disembodied voice floated near enough to halt Bertha's fury laden diatribe. "What on earth are you nattering about Bertha? Milk gone sour again? Sorry if it is, I can never get those damn incantations right."

The disembodied voice grew nearer…the house was so cavernous, it was an echo chamber. Whispered conversations could be eavesdropped upon conveniently from what seemed like miles away if one was aware of all the strategic positions for doing so. The speaker was.

Bertha managed to pull her act together with effort. She wasn't in the mood for the "lady" of the house. Last night had been terrible; and she was tired, hungry, perplexed, and crotchety.

The voice drew nearer.

"So what's wrong today Bertha?"

"Nothing special Missus, just them kids hurlin' food across the room like it was a game a that Frisbee stuff instead a supper…little savages…. At least a damn Frisbee thing is made outta plastic and it don't shed crumbs an' muck all over the damn place."

"Ah, is that all? I thought a spell I was trying out last night had backfired again."

The disembodied voice became full bodied and astonishing in it's appearance. Bertha did her best to act tactfully, and disallowed her jaw to drop in an impolite rube-like manner.

The "Lady" of the house was standing in the doorway with the usual disreputable plaid bathrobe gaping open to reveal one of a collection of the worst nightgowns Bertha had seen before coming to the Big House as a charwoman/raving lunatic/superstitious native, and half-assed friend. Floppy slippers adorned large feet, which were also encased in purple socks. The entire costume shrieked "BAD FASHION SENSE".

But that wasn't the cause of Bertha's jaw struggling with gravity. It was the hair.

It was green, and huge…like a gigantic fern that had grown from the top of the woman's head.

"Oh good lord," Bertha said to herself. "The poor thing."

"What was ya tryin' last night", she asked tentatively.

"Eggnog."

"Oh, of course, eggnog." Bertha couldn't tear her gaze away from the apparition standing in front of her.

Ella, for that was her name, reached up as though to fluff the atrocity, but instead whipped it off her head, much to Bertha's relief, and shook it like a recalcitrant fuzzy animal.

"Dynel," she said, giving it another vigorous shake. "Wash and wear! Don't you just love it?"

"Well, it's certainly differnt," Bertha stated, with as much diplomacy as she could muster on short order. "D'ye you care for a cuppa tea now? I feel the need a one myself at this very moment." With that, she turned toward the kitchen, and to the safety of sane company.

Sid sat in the Kitchen window seat, moodily staring out at the landscape stretched endlessly before him. He noted with horror that every tree within his view was full of lovely little green apples. This would have been wonderful if they had been apple trees. Alas, they were not.

"Uccccmmmpphhh", he sighed, shaking his head with a certain weariness that bespoke of long practice at it, as he wondered aloud, "What in hell did she do THIS for? I can't leave her alone for a single evening without coming back to yet another bloody fiasco. The woman needs to be kept on a leash. A short one at that!"

He bent to wash his tail, which usually restored his spirits, and increased his pleasure in contemplating the fresh bagel sitting on the table, waiting to be devoured by the she-beast, which was how he was perceiving Ella at the moment.

Dropping nimbly down from the window seat, he meandered across the kitchen, and jumped up onto the table. Ah, good…the bagel was still warm. He gripped it in his teeth, then leaped off the table, and dragged it to his favorite rug in front of the fireplace. There was never a better breakfast in any kingdom, than a fresh toasted bagel with cream cheese.

Bertha clumped into the kitchen. " 'Mornin' Mister Sid," cuppa tea?"

"Why yes Bertha, that would be nice." Sid licked cream cheese off a paw, then said with the sarcastic chuckle that had become ingrown over time when discussing Ella's fiascoes, "I assume Bertha, you are aware there are green apples growing on the blue spruce, the oak, the maple, and every other damned kind of tree for miles around this misbegotten village…that is since you did walk here from your home, and had to have noticed…"

"Oh yes Mister Sid, I noticed indeed."

"So tell me Bertha, have you a clue as to what she was up to?" Sid sat looking at Bertha as though she had all the mysteries of this complex corner of the universe, tucked under her bandana, waiting for her to whip out the answers to life's most perplexing questions, no matter what they were about.

"Eggnog."

"Ah! Eggnog. Of course I should have known. How silly of me. She's up and about I assume?"

"Yes Mister Sid, and headed this way," Bertha said, eyeing Ella's half-eaten bagel on the rug beside the scraggly long bodied cat.

Sighing in resignation at the inevitable screaming match about to begin, she set about preparing tea.

September 27, 2004

One of the worst old stoner jokes

so why am I laughing?

The Monkey and The Lizard

A monkey is sitting in a tree smoking a joint when a lizard walks past and looks up and says to the monkey, "hey! what are you doing?"

The monkey says "smoking a joint, come up and have some."

So the lizard climbs up and sits next to the monkey and they have a few hits.

After a while the lizard says his mouth is dry and is going to get a drink from the river. The lizard is so stoned that he leans too far over and falls into the river.

A Crocodile sees this and swims over to the lizard and helps him to the side, then asks the lizard, "what's the matter with you?"

The lizard explains to the crocodile that he was sitting smoking a joint with the monkey in the tree, got so stoned he fell into the riverwhile taking a drink.

The crocodile says he has to check this out and walks into the jungle, finds the tree were the monkey is sitting, finishing the joint. He looks up and says, "hey!"

The Monkey looks down and says, "man, just how damn much water did you drink?"