Click images for desktop size: "Igniting Colours" by KGRZ The skanky cat came back.
It's snowing.
I'm sick with a cold.
My friend is sick with her cold. She shared it with me.
And that brings it all up to date.
Pretty much.
The day is snowing and the snow looks like glitter gently raining down. Its still snow. Its still cold.
The Oscars were Sunday. Pretty horrible affair. The winners anyway.
I refuse to acknowledge any award that doesn't go to Marisa Tomei this year. Although even if I don't think much of Penelope Cruz there is something infinitely cool imagining the party afterwards. Her ex, Tom Cruise, covets an Oscar as much as his
Click images for desktop size: "Faces" by Unknown "Theatan" brain can crave anything and while he's trying to rebuild a career his wackiness threatens to take from him him having to congratulate Cruz at one of the Post-Oscar parties would have been astonishing.
I've tried to watch "Slumdog Millionaire" twice. Fallen asleep once and found cutting my fingernails more interesting the second time. Now I feel obligated to try again . . . nothing like movies as home work assignments.
Its pretty much the same with "Milk". Keep trying to watch it and keep getting distracted. Watching it has become another chore.
Heath Ledger got the Oscar . . . Peter Finch got one after he died for his role in "Network". Finch was at least good. Ledger's take on Joker, that nothing has to make sense in his entire performance
Click images for desktop size: "He Was a Friend of Mine" by Hebus and consistency from day to day is a trivial thing when you're playing a madmen isn't anything I could appreciate.
I liked the tech awards though . . .
I finally did watch Truffaut's "La Nuit Americane". It won a best foreign film Oscar, back in the day. Back then they used to put the foreign winner as an automatic candidate for Best Picture the following year. None of them ever won so they dropped the idea.
A lot of my fears were justified. When I first saw the movie I went to the theater everyday for a week to see it. It solidified my ambitions. I was going to be an NFL running back who used his fame to promote his band and then when I retired from the NFL I was going to use my fabulous wealth to make movies. This little movie made me certain that's what I wanted and was going to do.
The movie is great, up there with "Sullivan's Travels" as one of the best movies ever about making movies. Back then it was a film that inspired me and made me want to be something more than I was. Now, its just a great "film".
Watching it reminded me of something. Bernie Grant was a black member of Parliament. The first black member if I recall. I liked him and was seriously grieved when he passed away.
One of the crazier dreams he had that he let me be a small part of was to start an Arts and Entertainment Academy. Fancy as heck. Not to be just a school but an open place where kids could come and use the creative urges they were overwhelmed with. Dance, theatre, music, TV, film, whatever. A place to learn and a place to create.
Bernie even had a location picked. Cheap land behind the sewer processing plant up by Edmonton. My light involvement was in the recording studio and the theatre. The construction and equipment end.
He had the dream, the location and the people lined up to make it a reality.
Then the focus for his plan got shifted, at least by the money people, to the London Olympic Committee. I was involved in that too, until I quit. I thought it was, is and will be a lousy idea. The London Olympics seemed to be an ego and money thing. There wasn't going to be any lasting legacy for the kids. The all white, all upper class steering members wanted the ego and the money. The benefits to kids that they insisted were there were all
Click images for desktop size: "Iron Snowflakes" by Unknown a sham that only rich white guys who never talked to poor, minority, or working class kids could ever take seriously.
And then Bernie died. His widow tried to keep his idea alive but she lacked the charisma and drive. The new blood who took over Bernie's seat had different ambitions. Not that his desires and drives weren't okay but they didn't focus on the kids.
So the dream died. Vanished as if it never existed. I think the world would have shifted some if it had happened. There's be fewer criminals, because they'd have had a chance to be something else. There'd have been a rise in self esteem. There'd have been hope, not just for the kids in Haringay but all the kids around the country and then the world. To go to the Academy all you had to do was want to.
That was what I felt now watching "La Nuit Americane". It was watching dreams die. It was seeing the few things in my grandiose plans seem small and ridiculous. I know they weren't. I know a lot of people would kill to have some of the chances I had, the chances I missed and the chances I seized on and the ones I made for myself.
It might seem silly to most but I realize that the only accomplishments that I truly think were important were the things I helped others accomplish. The kids who got into school, the ones who played sports pro and the few who got to the Olympics. Even the bad movies and plays that my work helped get finished. The puppies I've found who became friends and family.
I guess that's why I was a good tech and never really wanted to be a director.

There's a drag about being sick. My friend's cold has hung on for well over a week. Mine was terrible yesterday but only bad today. I figure tomorrow I'll be close to well and by Thursday I'll, hopefully, be fine.

Click images for desktop size: "Alice 19th" by H02B One drag is that the dentist called. They had a cancellation and could see me then. But the stupid cold caboshed that.
I figure the dentist will add to but ultimately reduce my discomfort by at least 40%, at least for now. Maybe someone else will cancel next week.
I did get the Medical History form to complete. I hate that, reliving the past. Somethings I remember far too clearly. I remember it through my eyes, my feet, my hands and my heart. I don't much like recalling the past. It hurts.
I know I write a lot about the past but those are thoughts that come unbidden. I don't dredge through "back then" except when I need it to understand "now".
At least this medical history form seems cognizant of chemo and its effects on the body, teeth etc.
The final drag is that the sold is slowing my friend down at work. She missed a couple of inconsequential deadlines. She takes that sort of thing seriously. It distresses her. Then she had her first major conflict at the job.
Her boss retired last month. The job is now held by a woman wearing two hats, as a National VP and as a Regional VP. Its temporary but for right now . . . Her normal position is National VP. She seems to be trying to use the new regional position to entrench her position Nationally while subordinating the regional objectives to her other objectives.
By all accounts he can be pretty rude too.
It will pass but its silly which makes it a drag.
The final drag is skanky cat. I put food out for her. She eats it. Problem is I'm not dead cert its a female. I don't know if she vanished because she found better food and warmth elsewhere or if she vanished to have a litter. If she's around at spring I'll have to catch it/her and probably have to have it neutered. Stupid cats.