Godspeed to you, Keep The Lighthouse In Sight

The holidays are upon us and we're all prepared to be disappointed, drunk and tired, but how can you not love it? No matter what you celebrate it always seems like a quick drastic change. It flies by in blurs of sparkling lights and turkey legs, but we drudge on with clenched fists and partial smiles. Maybe that is what family is all about…but the holidays bring something larger. Something to make you cry, laugh, cringe and spend money. The holiday movie season is here kids, and so are the good ol’ Oscar contenders. Mickey Rourke is starring in Darren Aronofsky’s ‘The Wrestler’ and the trailer is a good one:





I was never a wrestling fan, although I did like G.L.O.W., but this movie looks wildly promising. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song creatively titled, ‘The Wrestler’ for the movie and it plays in the heart-wrenching trailer. Once again not a fan of Springsteen, but the song works perfectly here. Trailers are sometimes better than the movie itself…they are music videos with big stars (I wrote about this before a while ago). Here is to hoping this movie is better than Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man.

The only thing that has me confused is the uplifting tone that appears in the trailer. Aronofsky did the anti-drug masterpiece ‘Requiem For A Dream’ which makes you afraid to even take Flintstone vitamins. It ends with a double dildo and an amputated arm, leading me to believe Mickey Rourke will be beheaded in the ring by the end of this movie. His head will land the arms of his estranged daughter as Marisa Tomei shoots heroin between her toes in the bathroom. Cue the Springsteen! I mean how else could it end?

Top 5 Holiday Movies:

Elf: Is this considered a new classic yet? Somebody call AMC and have them put it on their list right next to ‘The Rock.” The elevator scene gets me every time.

Gremlins: Joe Dante is a wildly underrated director, and this movie is fucking hilarious. It was kind of scary and funny when I was a kid, now it’s hilarious and a good reminder of how shitty CGI can be.

Scrooged: Bill Murray reigns supreme per usual and a good reminder as to how cute Karen Allen is.

Last Boy Scout: Has nothing to do with the holidays, but Willis plays a version of John McLane with more marital problems and vices, and Die Hard is considered a Christmas movie…So I am slipping this one in here. It’s also fucking awesome.

Empire Of The Sun: A good movie to make kids appreciate their parents around the holidays.

No you can’t, can’t settle down, until the Icarus in your blood, in your blood drowns

I live in a neighborhood with mixed cultures and row homes. Small trees are placed sparingly throughout the street giving an organic feel to a land of cracked concrete and empty Newport cigarette boxes. When you are having dreaded small talk with someone and when you tell them you live in this area they usually say, “HEY! That place is up and coming. Gentrification is my favorite word! Lots of young families are moving in. Etc. Etc.” It’s one of those neighborhoods. They are in all cities and they all generate the same small talk. Some might say it was cute even, and I enjoy it as much as the teenagers roaming the streets at night. I park my car in a pseudo u-shaped parking lot covered by a huge oak tree dropping plenty of shit on the cars below. Windshields are left speckled with yellow splats and heaves of bird poop resembling a disaffected art student’s attempt at something abstract. My car is white, but so dirty, and could pass for an original Ford Model. Its looks a bit ragged and people look up to the sky when I drive by them because the engine sounds like a low flying airplane. It’s just easy to see.

It must stick out in my pseudo parking lot because all the teens on my street congregate on the hood of my car. My front porch is one the side of the lot giving me the perfect view. They must be thinking this piece of shit can’t get any worse. I don’t want to be that guy either. I don’t want to puff my chest out and yell at the kids. I just can’t do it. Am I a little scared of them? Maybe. I know they are pretty young because one of the girls asked me for a smoke one night, and like an idiot I handed her a Parliament. Her friend snapped at me immediately. ‘She‘s only 15 you know! “, she said with a valley girl tone. I am guessing they range from 14-16, but I don’t know kids that young who chain smoke blunts. Call me a puritan. They have ridiculously loud ring tones and seem to like spitting. If I was 15 and walked pasted these kids in the lot I wouldn’t make eye contact with any of them. They are just bad-asses. Bas-asses who make out on the dirt stained hood of my car every fucking night.

They get down. Just full on makeout sessions, which are for some reason the most awkward things to watch. When I was a 15-year-old boy my hormones would have led me to make out on the hood of a car as well, so I can’t blame them, but they look like they are fighting. These kids look like baby birds being fed worm vomit from their mama birds. It’s a vile event and forces me to look away like the 15-year-old version of me would. I still say nothing. What teenage boy wants something like that to end?

One night there were around 50 kids congregating around my car and on the hood. I was brought out to the porch from the noise of ring tones and the F-word. They started yelling at each other and the girls scattered. I have no idea exactly happened but I know was a battle of the sexes. I put my smoke in the ash can went back in the house.

The next morning I get ready for work, grab the keys and walk out to the pseudo lot. The car looks like it always does. Splattered with green watercolors and blasted by bird shit. The sun hits my hood and sends a beacon of lighting piercing through my skull. There is a message written on the hood of my car. It reads: FUCK YOU RAKEIA. It was done with a blue ball-point pen, so it doesn’t jump out, but it won’t come off. I have tried everything. Green Turtle buffer, soap, elbow grease, and something by Armor-All. None of them work.

I too would like to say, FUCK YOU RAKEIA. You must have pissed one of those horny teens off. I could have ended it all. All I had to do was open my mouth and tell them to get the hell away. Now these kids have something to laugh at when they hang out in the lot and when I park in the city people will think I dicked some dude over. By keeping my mouth shut I dealt with a sort of a reverse punishment. If I did say something, who knows if they would have stopped. They might have written something like: FUCK YOU NERD, FUCK YOU GET A HAIRCUT, FUCK YOU PENIS HEAD, Etc.

But they will never write: FUCK YOUR FOR BEING THAT DUDE Or FUCK YOU FOR THE BLUE BALLS, and I can live with that.

Check out my boy Ben's blog: http://randombenonethree.blogspot.com/

P.S. All of my titles are song lyrics from bands I enjoy...I am not that clever.