At the Movies w/ Carol and Roger

I had this old girlfriend to whom I used to say, “She’s tidied up and I can’t FIND anything!” This used to bug her. A LOT. I don’t know if it was because I said it a lot, because I referred to her in the third person, or because she didn’t like Thomas Dolby.

So, I don’t say that to my wife Carol. I may THINK it, but I don’t SPEAK it. In the past month, I realized that I have been missing my baseball glove, my binoculars, and this great pair of sandals that I bought in Barbados in 1999. I knew where all of them WERE, but not their current whereabouts, and I made sure to let her know that. Then, last week, I looked in my armoire, and there were my baseball glove and my binoculars! When Carol wanted to clear out the guest room, she asked me to find another place for them, and I must have forgotten? Oops. (Anyway, they’re BACK in the guest room, where I can find them NEXT time. Don’t tell her.)

Carol and I saw TWO movies in two days this week! Maybe that’s not such an event in YOUR household, and two years ago, it wouldn’t have been such an event in OUR household, but it sure the heck is now. We opted against seeing Fantastic Four since Carol is unfamiliar with the characters; Johnny Storm is the name of the character, not the actor. (But to get links to more FF reviews than you’re ever likely to read, go see “ol’ reliable Fred” – July 13).

Cinderella Man

I took a day off work on Monday after the reunion. Lydia went to daycare. We went to see a matinee of Cinderella Man, the story of boxer James J. Braddock. I think it’s very hard telling a story like this where the outcome is already known, at least by me. When I was a kid, I could name probably every heavyweight champion from John L. Sullivan to Muhammad Ali. Of course, that was in the day when there was but one sanctioning body, not three or four.

If I say that Ron Howard is a competent filmmaker, it sounds like being damned with faint praise, but I don’t mean it to be so. Cinderella Man is more a story about a man who happens to box for a living because we see the man behind the boxer as well. If it is not The Best Boxing Movie Ever Made (that would be Raging Bull), it is a well-made film about a very good man and his family. That it doesn’t descend to a maudlin weepie is undoubtedly a function of the direction, the script, and the acting of Russell Crowe, teamed up with Howard again after the award-winning A Beautiful Mind. Some of the fight scenes were realistically bloody, and Carol (and, OK, I) did turn away for a moment or two. I think the mediocre box office has been a function of 1) the subject matter (which doesn’t grab either a lot of teens or a lot of women, I understand), and 2) the title, which makes sense if you see the movie or are 75, but is confusing otherwise. Too bad.

Mad Hot Ballroom

My wife is a teacher of English as a Second Language. If you’re a teacher, or work with children, or are a parent, or are thinking about becoming a parent, or are a citizen concerned about the welfare of children, you should see Mad Hot Ballroom, as we did Tuesday night, thanks to our marvelous new babysitter. (This means you, Mrs. Lefty.) For about a decade, there has been a 10-week curriculum in ballroom dancing in the schools of New York City. Last year, I saw a segment on CBS Sunday Morning about P.S. 144 in Queens, which participated in (and won) a citywide competition of 5th graders in the tango, foxtrot, merengue, et al.

The movie is based on the same competition a year later, but it focuses on three schools in Manhattan and Brooklyn. The kids are from a wide range of cultures. I enjoyed listening to some of the preternaturally wise girls, especially Emma, and watching the boys, who find that touching girls isn’t THAT awful. Many of the teachers are men, and it shows how important those male role models are to the boys. It’s a film of hope and inspiration in the midst of poverty.

All in all, a pretty good way to start to celebrate Carol’s birthday week. Today is THE day. BTW, over the past weekend, she went up to the attic and found the sandals (which SHE buried up there, so you know.) And we’re going to celebrate by going to see Arena Football? Really. We got free tickets, and the regular season ends this weekend, and the Albany team isn’t going to get into the playoffs, and I’ve always wanted to go…

Happy birthday, Carol. I love you.

USA News

I’ve been musing over the London bombing fall week. Not about why. One of my fellow bloggers, Greg Burgas has an interesting theory on that. He’s kidding. Sorta.

It’s more about what is the news and why do we respond the way we do. It was the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill that famously said: “All politics is local.” And in THIS country, it seems that almost all NEWS is local. Oh, yeah, there’s an international segment in the broadcast, but it’s so often about OUR soldier in Iraq or OUR local celebrity. When Ismail Merchant of the Merchant-Ivory films’ fame died, it was a LOCAL story in the local paper, because Merchant had a farm in nearby Columbia County. (Two mentions of Columbia County in three days. Gads.) Of course, it does not always have to be positive. The Houston trucker who transported illegal immigrants in his vehicle, several of whom died, is a local story because he used to live in Schenectady.

Bombings

Some guy I read was complaining, and this is a heavy-duty paraphrase, “London was bombed. Why is the second lead, ‘Is America next?’ Why is it always about us?”

If someone conducted a poll, and the responses were honest, I’m betting that the 7/7 bombing in London was more palpable to most Americans than…let’s take a comparable example, the 3/11 bombing in Madrid last year. Both attacks likely the work of the same organization, and twice as many people died in Spain than in Great Britain. So why IS that? Is it because the Brits speak our language? (Actually, we speak THEIR language, but let’s not complicate things here.) Is it because of our common heritage? (They’re more like US.)

Who’s she?

I remember seeing a story on ABC News about a young black woman of 22 who disappeared in Illinois, and her mother, who was NOT well-spoken, trying to get the media involved in her disappearance. Her mother was told, “No, she’s 22. NO one would be interested.” Then Dru Sjodin, a 22-year old blonde student from North Dakota goes missing, and it’s national news. Indeed, now there’s Dru’s Law, the National Sex Offender Public Database Act of 2005 being offered up in Congress. Meanwhile, I don’t even remember the name of that young black woman or know whether she was ever found. Was it that Dru Sjodin looked more like US (well, not me specifically…)

Why Laci Peterson and not other victims of violent crimes have something to do, I’m told, with identification with Laci – heck, we call her by her first name, as though we KNEW her.

Their disasters

Bam, Iran was destroyed by an earthquake on December 26, 2003. The initial reports said that 30,000 were killed, later upped to 43,000. It barely made two news cycles. I had initially thought that the reason that the Christmastime tsunami of 2004 was so newsworthy, long before anyone knew the death toll, was because there were so many people with video cameras showing the devastation, and that may be true. But inevitably, there were those stories about how Americans and people like US lost their lives because we can RELATE to them.

Indeed, there have been floods in Bangladesh and China over the past 40 years that have taken more lives than the tsunami, but that barely hit our consciousness, if at all. Maybe it was also the novelty of the tsunami. Or maybe it’s that news people like to say “tsunami” and hope that the graphics department spells it correctly.

When I’m close to the border with Canada and watch the CBC news, it seemed to be more…balanced. When I watched the news in Barbados in 1999, the same thing- a greater awareness of the whole world picture.

How is it that the Great Melting Pot can be so xenophobic? I ask, not out of anger, but out of concern.

(I always hate posing questions that I really can’t answer.)

RSE

I’m excited/nervous about the Discovery launch today. I didn’t sleep so well because my subconscious was thinking on that, because it’s hot again, and because I haven’t played racquetball all week. I have what’s known as “tennis elbow”. I have an ailment named after a sport I don’t even play. They should call it “racquet sport elbow”, or RSE, to also cover badminton and squash; I doubt most people will call it lateral epicondylitis, mostly because most of us can’t even pronounce it, let alone spell it.

ROG

Pop’s Death

I wrote a little about my grandfather’s life a couple of weeks ago. Here’s something about his death. Most of this is from the recovered diaries. I was living in Albany by that time, while Pop was still in Binghamton.

Thursday 6/26/1980: My father [who was living in Charlotte, NC] called to tell me pop died. He sounded incredibly like a newscaster reporting it. Apparently, the landlord hadn’t seen Pop in a few days, so he got the police to get a search warrant. He was DOA at the hospital {I was first told.]

My real regret is that in my 5½ photo albums, I don’t have one picture of him. Pictures tell a kind of history, which is increasingly important to me.

Called Betty [family friend in Vestal, near Binghamton, with husband and five kids] and asked to crash at her place Saturday night. She had received a call from my father this a.m.

[My sister] Leslie is coming to the funeral [from California.] I haven’t been to [a funeral] in 10 years, and I haven’t been to one where I really cared about the person since 1966.

The wake

Saturday 6/28: Spent $15.50 for roundtrip ticket to Binghamton – outrageous! After talking with Betty on the phone, I went to the wake. Pop died Tuesday but wasn’t found until Thursday, necessitating a closed casket, a fact I was grateful for. Dad arranged a wreath around the picture of him on the wall, which says “The Pride of Bloomsburg, Pa.”, [his hometown.] Lots of flowers, particularly from WBNG-TV people [WNBF-TV changed its call letters], who were in abundance at the wake. [My sisters reminded me that one of the arrangements was a wreath in the shape of a horseshoe, probably arranged by my father, in recognition of his love for the ponies.] Also present were [list of many friends and relatives], all people I had not seen in a long time. One man was bawling his eyes out, an old bowling buddy of Pop’s…

After a discussion on the problems of Veterans Benefits for burial rights (he fought in WWI but kept no records), and playing with RJ [Becky, Leslie’s daughter], Mom & Dad took me down crowded downtown Binghamton. (BC Pops and fireworks.) [I always thought these, in some cosmic way, were for Pop. Why it was incumbent for US to prove my grandfather’s veteran’s status, instead of checking with the VA to confirm that status, is now lost on me.]

The theft

Sunday, 6/29: Mom & Dad called, asked me to seek out a trailer. After striking out with U-Haul, Betty contacted a Mobil station on Vestal Parkway, from which we got a truck. [We all eat at a diner.] Follow Dad to Binghamton, where we discover that the very items we got the truck for, a couple blond dressers and other various items, including his coins, are gone.

Dad was very angry, tho’ he tried hard not to show it, and Leslie called the police. The items were present Friday night. It was clear that it had to be a 2- (or more) person job…

Sorting thru his personal effects, looking for discharge papers. (The scent of the bedroom slowly made me ill.) I found obscure items like his failure to pay his 1957 state taxes and court appearances so attached; a letter that I wrote to him some years ago ripped in two (which was how I felt about it when I saw it); and various & sundry pictures, 2 of which I will [and I subsequently did] get made into prints…

At the funeral, I saw lots of Dad’s relatives… Pop’s brother and sister were there too. The service…was pleasantly brief.

[Subsequently, a couple of neighbors were arrested for the crime.]

Well, that’s pretty much all I wrote. I can’t believe I TOTALLY FORGOT about the robbery. Maybe, my mind decided to hold on to the GOOD things.

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