John X sent me an email today saying that there hasn’t been a blogblah entry for a week, and I’ll be doggone if he ain’t right.
I did try to blog over the Christmas holiday, but I ended up trashing my effort because it was just too harsh. Yeah, I know. Too harsh for blogblah? Nahhh. Nevertheless, there it is. I had to back up and start over because there was stuff I just didn’t want to put out there in the universe.
So, here’s a bit of what went on in and around OKC to blogblah in the past week:
There’s much ado over not much amongst those I love these days. Angst everywhere I gaze.
I am not immune. I have my own angst.
So, I’m going to blog about my doings lately, but I won’t be very kind and if you read me saying something really snarky about you, you’ll just have to understand — or not, and get your own knickers in a twist over not much.
Let’s go back to last Tuesday.
It is a day that will forever be enshrined in my memory as “Dog Butt Tuesday”.
A day that will live in infamy, as FDR would intone.
Babs decided she would put together a show. Very 30s musical. She, of course, was cast in the Judy Garland role as Oklahoma City’s Pearl Mesta, the hostess with the mostest. I’m not sure who was supposed to be Mickey Rooney, but my metaphors can be mixed and flawed if that’s what I want. It’s my damn blog. Shut up.
So, she put together a show and put flyers all over town saying there would be three artists and it would be where The Celtic Cup used to be at 23d and Hudson, kind of across the street south from Cheevers.
One of the artists was to be The Oz, which is good stuff, except she didn’t tell him until after she’d advertised him, but he’s flexible and that worked out.
So, Tuesday, we get together at The Paseo and decide to go to this show because, although we didn’t remember that there was supposed to be a show, Button called The Gary to say she was delivering the food she’d prepared and were we going? We couldn’t pass up her food, whether we recalled there was to be a show or not, and went to the show.
I’ll just stop here and say that I don’t eat German chocolate since I’m allergic to cocoanut, but everyone says Button’s muffins were the greatest ever made. I can attest to the other treats as being out of this world, but all and sundry praised the German chocolate to the heights. It was worth the trek just for the food.
There was also pizza being cooked in the back room, an unusual event, and it turns out there was a disconnect between Babs and Button about that. Button thought she’d be able to deliver her treats and get paid and be on her way. Didn’t work that way. Babs expected her to cook pizza onsite as well. Never did find out if Button got paid, and for a girl who can’t fix her transmission or keep the cellphone working, that is an important issue. It’s even more important because there had been a “mixup” at the last thing Babs and Button did and there was a problem about payment. Button has a regular Tuesday gig that pays her $100 for cooking that she passed up for this show, but I just haven’t gotten around to finding out the bottom line of all that.
Anyway, it also turns out there was a curatorial mixup. Derrick was supposed to be part of the show, but the show was hung without Derrick’s work. No room at the inn. So, there was an annex show at his apartment around the corner from the show. More goodies — delicious salmon — and a crowded venue that included his gorgeous 19 year old sister and their father.
Derrick’s work is composed of single, continuous lines that are then colored in brightly, forming figures, flowers, butterflies. It’s a distinctive look and curiously compelling. The works tend to be smaller and intimate and are generally unframed and therefore affordable.
Another peripatetic feature of the show was that next door to the former Celtic Cup, in a building also owned and being redone by Sam, the architect, was the band and dancing. However, the band itself also turned out to be a catch as catch can matter with new people joining in and leaving the jam. Curious, but spontaneous of Babs.
So, that’s what is going on generally at this Tuesday confab. There are people here eating Button’s confections. People are there looking at Derrick’s work and more people are another place listening to the band.
Sorta reminds me of Larry P’s penchant for last minute inspiration and perspiration.
So, the scene is set, I hope.
I walked in and my eye is drawn first to the work by The Oz, specifically one of his portraits, this one of Amanda, next to one of his falling women. You had to go around a corner to see one of my all time favorites by The Oz, one of his floating dress series. Gorgeous work, immaculately conceived.
When I turned around, though, Oh. My. God.
Most of the room is given over to another artist, an oil painter whose name is, I believe, Diane Hall. Sorry if I got that wrong. The artist is showing about 18 works, all paintings of dogs and all about life sized. Now, any painting of dogs will be charming to a certain audience and I’m sure that dog lover Babs, with two scotties she loves and adores and who are the center of her life, owns at least one of these paintings and adores the work.
It was not my cup of tea.
In fact, since all — yes, ALL — the paintings were of dogs walking away from the perspective of the artist, there were about a dozen and a half dog butts portrayed. I’ve never seen so many “pink eyes” staring at me at once. Canine anus overload. It was even hard for me to taste and eat the many wonderful Button baked goods while being confronted by so many doggie assholes. Sort of put me off my feed, you might say. Dog butts everywhere I looked. All around me. I was surrounded by assholes and then there were the paintings on top of that (it’s a joke, see. I changed from dog asses to a scatalogical reference to people. It’s not as funny if you have to explain it. Shut up.).
So, anyway, Tall Ed and Michael H walk in separately and it’s like two women with the same outfits. Both are wearing berets. If it had been a situation comedy, the laugh track would have gone wild. If only it had been that funny in person instead of merely an amusing coincidence. We talked about berets and chapeaus and caps and hats as if that were an actually interesting topic of conversation, but that’s what we do. You can’t always fulminate about Bush and God and the other important questions of the day, so we hide behind such conversations as much as possible and hope to find yourself smiling at the banter at least a little. Michael H wore his as he often does to cover his balding head in the cold of the evening and Tall Ed wore his in hopes that he would not only cover his comb-over, but that he would gain the kind of panache that would attract women. Tall Ed’s funny and it’s great to be around him, even if he is stabbing me in the back on occasion, and the reason is that he’s capable of stabbing me to my face and of taking his own hits from me in return, all with jocularity. In this case, not even the ribbons in the back of the beret were much help and he was reduced to going to dinner with us old folks because no women were attracted either despite or because of the little ribbons on the back of the beret.
So, we gathered up about 8-10 of us and walked over to Cheever’s with some treats already in our belly, but in need of hot and nutritious food. Most of us would share someone’s chicken fried steak meal because cheever’s serves such a large portion of that delicious battered mystery meat.
while we were waiting for our food, Tall Ed and I bantered and he gigged me and I gigged back and then, he says, look at those two beautiful women at the bar. I turned around and, lo and behold, I knew one of them: Beth, who was there to flirt with the bartender, my myspace pal, Christian of the many beautiful women. “Beth!” I called out. Tall Ed was left to shake his head in wonder. What were the chances he would spy two beautiful women and I’d know them? HeeHeeHee. Some guys walk into a bar to get lucky, I just AM lucky.
That was to my left as I sat at the Cheever’s table. To my right, a latent homicide is brewing unbeknownst to most of us.
You see, most of us including me are, shall we say? “of a certain age.”
The Age of Cranky.
The in-between age where we are not young, but we are younger than our parents, who we are cranky about having to see at Christmas and who are really really ancient. We, ourselves, are old enough that we have health issues. We’ve lately had friends, contemporaries, who have died. It’s a sensitive subject.
And, there in our midst, was Typhoid Mary, sneezing, coughing, oozing germs and viruses, and bitching to high heaven that she felt as bad as she ever had in her whole life, was headed for the doctor’s tomorrow and just couldn’t possibily, except go to dinner with all and sundry.
Now most of us had avoided the typhus from first notice. However, ONE particular person who is an inveterate people pleaser who just wants everyone to like her and to get along … OK, it was the Debster, OK? … lost her head over her neurosis and invited the plague to dinner.
Now, the plague carrying party is, at best, a pill. Not always the easiest to get along with. So, although the plague came to dinner at Debster’s invite, Debster didn’t want to sit next to the plague. Not all Debster’s fault to want to sit next to her hubby and all, but it left some of us who didn’t want to be exposed to a flu that left Typhoid Mary feeling “as bad as I’ve ever felt in my life” exposed to a flu that we did not want, didn’t want to take home to our aging parents, all octogenarians, nor were we glad to be sitting with a pill who was an even bigger pill as a result of feeling like crap.
As the evening wore on, the teapot got more and more tempestuous until the next day it raged into a perfect storm of isolation, protest and ill temper.
The Gary wised me up. Anyone who knows me, he said, knows the flu would kill my mother. It never ocurred to me that the flu could be life and death for an older family member, but there were others there who understood the homicidal rage felt by the plague’s unwitting and unwilling dinner companions.
good thing a few blasts of verbal napalm scoured the area of flu germs.
Anyway, the Tuesday group narrowed and the remainder went to the GSpot.
there, at the large, kidney shaped table, we held court, adding to our weight with some people we met there.
I was seated next to the lovely Laura of Pikepass fame who proceeded to scorch my ears with a diatribe about the high costs of professional services like story editing. Just what I needed and wanted at the end of a cold evening.
but, we also saw Julie, who regaled The Oz and wife with stories of the film world in OKC, a topic of great interest to the nascent film-maker in The Oz.
Tall Ed tried his beret on Julie, but left with nothing but his head covering. the next day, he’d switch back to his lucky orange hoodie.
The Wednesday night movie was Dr. Strangelove and that twisted little bit of film from Stanley Kubrick was perfect for the twisted holiday season.
We met again, you know where (G Spot) and you know when (4 p.m.) and had a little coffee chat as usual. It wasn’t much attended since a lot of people were busy with last minute christmas and family stuff. another reason to hate the season. You have to spend time with your family instead of with the people you love. (It’s a JOKE! DAMN! DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING?!?)
We ate at Sleazy Dee’s and, as usual, filled the balcony with raucous laughter and pain. I happened to bump into Heather (?), the punk’d girl who also saw “Coffee and Cigarets” that I’d chatted up at Paseo the week before. I love the fact that Oklahoma City is such a small town that you can bump into everyone you know in the ordinary course of daily life. Of course, I also hate the fact that Oklahoma City is such a small town that everyone knows everyone and all their business.
After the movie, a small group of us went shopping. Yes, I know, odd. We met up with KW, an Edmond adjunct to the group for the purpose of re-igniting a “tradition” we started last year. Other than to say I got to revisit a familiar story about cell phone unavailability, I’ll leave it at that.
Seems like Thursday was the day the grandkids came over and did fingerpaints with Uncle Jack on my kitchen floor. We made handprints and turned them into turkeys and I have a new set of orange, yellow and red artwork for my special place of safekeeping. Having trashed the holidays, I’m so grateful that it means that I get to see my Tucson family, even if my daughter is looking quite thin. Oh, that reminds me, we’ve been warned that blogging about my son in law’s Iraqi adventures can be a security risk, so if you’re curious, you’ll have to ask me in person since I won’t be blogging about that any more.
Friday, I finished up all my Xmas shopping and wrapping and delivered presents to various friends and family. took my family, including grandkids, to dinner at Hideaway for the world’s best pizza, the Paradise Pie. YUMMM!!!
Christmas eve, Saturday, has gone from a very lonely time for me when my family is with my ex-wife going to midnight mass and I’m all alone to a time when I get the real spirit of Christmas by reaching out to a family less fortunate than me. A few people gathered at my house, including both children and the grandchildren for the early part of the evening, and we wrapped presents for a family of five children living with grandmom in a one bedroom apartment. They had not had Christmas the previous year, but this time there were trikes and red wagons and dolls and personal cd players.
Afterwards, the group shares dark stories of wounded childhoods and horrible holiday tales as an antidote to the good feelings we’ve accumulated by doing something nice for someone else. Just to keep the cranky quotient at a stable level, you know.
christmas day was fine fine fine. for one thing, my crazy local sister — as opposed to my terrifffffic coastal sisters — wigged out once more and didn’t show up for the gifts and gastronomic delights. That avoided some angst for me, if not for mom.
I made off with a buttload (technical term used by engineers to mean a large amount) of bounty. A new sharkskin suit, a new shirt, some CDs, and a wonderful new tea set with some Ceylon black tea to brew in it. Eat your heart out, MB! This teapot is MINE MINE MINE!!!
Son Jack stunned me with a wonderful gift from the film world: a movie poster of Orson Well’s Touch of Evil, just like the one at OCAM I see every Thursday in good weather while going through the museum cafe to the roof.
went to see Narnia Monday and really really really liked it. I cut my teeth on those stories as a child and it was just the best to see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe so fully realized onscreen.
I suppose there’s lots more, but I’m tired of blogging and I’ll have to pick it up another time.
Tonight’s movie (Wednesday the 28th) is 2046, a quirky Chinese film that I have to see again because I didn’t get it the first time through, but I could tell that there was something there to get. Much in the way of use of color and stiched together achronistically, it’s a stylish and interesting movie.