Click images for desktop size: "Arizona Landscape" I went for coffee and looking through the window of the cafe the grass outside was stripped in different shades of green with an occasional swatch of red and dull purple.
I lifted my dark glasses and saw it was just a trick of the polarized lenses and the glass coating. I was disappointed. I prefer my vision to reality, I guess.

Way back in the hey day of punk  my gal pal in New York used to mail me this odd little xerox weekly newsletter.
This guy, Mike Wheldon, was bored at his job so he would go through the TV Guide and find what he called “Psychotronic” movies on TV. He's then write up his “Psychotronic TV Guide” with some simple enthusiastic reviews, xerox them on the company dime and pass them out around Times Square.
My gal pal worked at Strand Books and got two copies every week.
Wheldon lost his job.
I like “psychotronic” films. It surprises some people. I don't know why. The same people who are surprised that I think Cliff Gallup might well be the greatest guitarist who ever lived.
This week I picked up a copy of “50 Science Fiction Classics”.
It's a 12 DVD set with 4 to 6 movies per disc. Some of the films look like dupes from old VHS tapes.
No right thinking man would ever consider any of these films classic . . . klassik maybe. I think the sets great.
When I was a kid, my mother got divorced. She worked at a drive in up in Speulveda and I sometimes got baby sat by sitting at the patio snack bar and watching cool AIP double features. And the odd Chip 'n Dale cartoon, who I was fond of at the time.
When she got remarried I would get dumped at movie theaters by myself. The Star Lite in Westchester was a favorite.
They had the ceiling decorated so that when you looked up it twinkled at you like the night sky.
On Saturdays they showed a kids matinee - 25cents admission to see 10 cartoon, 3-3 Stooges flics and some cheapo Sci-Fi monster film.
I can't remember many of the names or the plots but I remember all the monsters and some of the scenes.
This pack is like a huge step into that past. Somehow they classify a half dozen Hercules and SOn Of Hercules films as Sci-Fi. They also load Gamera into that mix. It's all cool by me.
They even had the incredibly rare “Teenagers From Outer Space and Robot Monster.” Two incredibly bad movies that made an indelible impression on me when I was a kid.
I guess it was the first time I ever heard themes of self sacrifice and commitment so in-eloquently put.
These films, cheesy and cheap and badly made are still precious to me. I adore seeing them again. Even when the films drag I find myself thinking about the passion of the 20 year olds who were trying to put these things together, whomade these ludicrous films.
The energy they expended for a vision.
Maybe the box office returns and the end products show they really didn't merit the support they didn't get, but I stills ee them as clear eyed and loaded with enthusiasm, getting their girl friends and buds from school and the local hang outs to put on silly costumes and utter ludicrous lines in the world's most “indicating” style.
They lack gravitas, maybe, but they had a dream.
I applaud dreams, especially when a dream is all you have.

I still love my dog.
My health is still up and down.
I had the day off and want more of them.
I'm very worried about USC-Notre Dame this Saturday.