It's raining. Again.

One day Spring will come and then it will be Summer.

Long weekend with ups and downs. Friday's doctor visit was not hopeful --- platelets down to 30 and I'm still on steroids, which means something isn't working right. If they go down again on next Thursday's check I'm looking at options like the old splenectomy idea or, if we go way back in time to when this started, the bone marrow biopsy.

Hi! Remember me?

Trick is, now that I've got cancer on my hip, where are they going to jab that thing? Well, there's always the sternum. That's means watching it and feeling it. Oh boy!

That's this month. In July, when I'm normally gambling or having, say, a birthday or something, I'll be getting scanned to see if the hormone treatment is killing the cancer and if it is and if my blood decides it wants to clot again, I'll be scheduled for surgery. If my blood doesn't want to clot, well, I don't know. It's more of I don't know-ing and waiting and hoping that there's no sudden "whoops" moment where it all goes horribly wrong.

So, yeah, that's the bad news, or the wait and bad news, or the we still don't know a g.d. thing news.

On the good side, here's a link to a story that was hopeful: 17 Years Later, Stage 4 Survivor is Savoring a Life Well Lived. My good friend Wuh put me onto it (no, really, I didn't know about it until last night). It's made me put aside my gloom for a little.

Oh, but not for long. I almost forgot because I had blocked it out of my head. The REALLY bad news is that Germany won Eurovision with this song:



It's catchy and her little German accent is cute, but "I bought new underwear for you" --- Seriously????

Slovakia didn't even get into the finals. Neither did my folksy pals from Finland and Slovenia. (Neither did Latvia ... I know, huh? I thought for sure they'd make it.)

A Movie Nearly Every Night: Pyaasa

Pyaasa (1957)
Dir. Guru Dutt
Starring: Guru Dutt, Mala Sinha, Waheeda Rehman


I know, we just keep watching movies. You know why? Because it's still winter here in Oregon, that's why. Because we had 2 days of sun a few weeks ago and now it's gone gone gone gone gone. Yes, rain makes things green, but it also makes the heating bill go up and makes people want to Snuggie-up and stay inside. It helps if you don't want really downer movies, but I had a hankering to see this after watching Kaagaz Ke Phool last year.

Director and star Guru Dutt as poor suffering poet Vijay

This movie is also a little autobiographical, although not as obvious as Kaagaz. This time Guru Dutt is a poet named Vijay and no one appreciates him until they think he's dead. Everyone's out for the quick buck. Screw art, just give us the money. Nobody wants him when he's down and out except for his mother and a beautiful hooker named Gulabo -- and even she doesn't want him at first when she finds out he's broke. But when she finds out he wrote poems she bought as "waste paper" for $10 (yes ... think of that one, artists) she tracks him down.

Waheeda Rehman ... dude, yeah, smoking hot as Gulabo

The "other woman" is poor class-conscious Meena, who threw Vijay over in college for a jerk who had a lot of dough. The jerk later hires Vijay to work at his publishing house (without publishing Vijay's poems, much less looking at them, dismissing them as "amateur trash"), which makes for some uncomfortable moments around the office with Meena. But also makes for some a lovely dream sequence where Vijay re-imagines their college days:



It's all about the poor not being appreciated by the rich (until they die) and class and greed and lies and truth, friends and users, and how to kill art in 10 easy steps. It's a beautiful picture and Guru works some sweet moves with the dolly track. He loves to take that camera right up into people's faces and capture everything they're thinking without the character having to say a word.

"That poem ... it's about me ... f...k."

But there are also a lot of really distracting Christ-moments (the devoted, but tragic mother; the hooker as Mary Magdalene "resurrecting" the dead poet from obscurity; much crucifix posing, etc...) that kept me from liking it as much as Kaagaz Ke Phool, which is a little more natural -- which means that it was very cinematic, but it was a movie about cinema shot with cinema moments, which made it natural. See?

one of many such poses

And Kaagaz is about making movies, so it was a little closer to my heart anyway ---- not that I have anything against poets. I'm just saying, in the race for favorite movies about making movies will come out ahead every time. Part of the problem is that the poems and songs that make up the bulk of Pyaasa were not translated in the version I watched and that detracts a little from connecting too closely with it.

All that said (or not said, since it's not translated), this moment still made me cry like a baby:

A Movie Nearly Every Night: Cinque per l'inferno!

Cinque per l'inferno (Five for Hell) (1969)
Dir. Gianfranco Parolini (Frank Kramer)
Starring: Gianni Garko (John Garko), Klaus Kinski (Klaus Kinski), Aldo Canti (etc...), Margaret Lee, Salvatore Borghese


So our friends turn us onto this movie --- this is a movie for you, they says --- this looks like something you'd watch, they says --- so, I says, is it good? I says --- eh ..., they says, you should watch it, they says.

So we watch it and at the end, I'm thinking "this is a movie for me?"

Well, they'd be right.

When it starts there are all these names like Addobati and Mancori and Bellecca and Micheli and then the director's name comes up:


Shut the f..., I says. Did they think that was an American name or what? Sure enough, because his real name is Gianfranco Parolini, also known sometimes as John Eastwood. E un maestro regista e molto creativo, si?

Too bad this tell-the-whole-movie Italian coming attraction doesn't include the kooky tap dance sequence (although it does feature the fantastic anachronistic music)(better even than Kelly's Heroes):



Trust me, that music will not leave your head for days. You have been warned.

By the way, ignore the ad for the xploitatedcinema site because I couldn't find it there. If you want to buy it go to Movies Unlimited. (Oh yeah, you'll want to buy it.)(Compri subito!)

Ciao.

A Movie Nearly Every Night: Paranoiac

Paranoiac (1963)
Dir. Freddie Francis
Starring: Janette Scott, Oliver Reed, Sheila Burrell, Alexander Davion

he's my brother, he's my boyfriend,
he's my brother, he's my boyfriend

Perhaps not one of the more well-known of the Hammer Films, but so far it's the best one we've watched. Although it's got the requisite busty foreign actress (poor Liliane Brousse as the put-upon nurse Francoise) it's not as gaudy as Brides of Dracula or Lust for a Vampire. It is, however, suspenseful and weird and full of fun little twists, and, by God, it's got Oliver Reed. How can it be bad?

What happens when you tell Oliver Reed there's no more booze

He's fascinating. You can't stop looking at him. Even in black and white you can feel those blue eyes staring you down through the screen, and that voice flowing out like bees trapped in their own honey. Dude. I can't get enough. Not that the other actors are bad, because they're great, doing exactly what they're supposed to do, but Ollie's the one you watch whenever he's on the screen. What's he doing now? How's he going to react? Is he acting or just being Oliver Reed?

Simon, Aunt Harriet and Tony - but which one are you really looking at?

He's tortured. He's a gad-about. He's mad. He's misunderstood. But what about these other people? Is Eleanor mad as well? Is Tony, the brother who returns after faking his own suicide, really Tony? And Aunt Harriet, what's her story? She's absurdly close to crazy Simon. What is she up to? I love Sheila Burrell, by the way. She's got a great character face.

"There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm."

But what's particularly interesting about this movie -- aside from Oliver Reed and Sheila Burrell -- is the way it's filmed. Sometimes there are these weird irises around the central part of the frame. It's very Guy Maddin. But it's not through the entire movie, just where you need the tunnel-vision of paranoia. The world is closing in on poor crazy Simon - what to do? what to do?

Acting? maybe... maybe not

We looked up Freddie Francis on imdb.com and turns out he's this incredible cinematographer who not only shot The Elephant Man (1980) but also did arguably the best of the British New Wave films: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and Room at the Top (1959). He knew how to make that black and white creepy, focused and exciting. Sometimes it's contrasty, sometimes it's muted, but most of the time it's just plain sucking you in.

Under another director it may have ended up more like the other Hammer productions -- the credited cinematographer here is Arthur Grant, who cranked out Hammer films one after the other, and left to his own devices might have just flipped the camera on and watched it go. Instead this is definitely in a league of its own.

Ollie from under the lily pond. He's coming for you next.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

This week's platelet count: 54

So, steroids or not, the platelets are keeping steady around the same number, and while this isn't high, it's higher than my normal ITP platelet count, so cancer doctor was happy and shook my hand. Although the last time I went on this kind of steroid (prednisone) they shot up to 170, so it's weird to me that they're not at least hitting 100, but, whatever. I didn't go to medical school. Doctor says good, I guess it's good. Two more weeks of steroids and then we get to focus on the cancer treatment again.

Not that my faith in medical science is any more sound today than yesterday --- or, not so much faith in medical science, but where I once thought science had a handle on overriding random nature, now I'm not so sure. Stuff might alter a little, but it's not a guarantee of success. I actually felt a little bond with Monday night's House episode when he shouted "I did everything right!" and it still didn't matter. Other stuff gets in the way and screws up everything you did right.

(Otherwise, honestly, that show irritated me. What is wrong with Cuddy? Why does the show keep forgetting that she has a baby after making such a big deal about her adopting one? At least Lucas was a good baby-sitter. House on the other hand ... people, come on... there's no way.)
(But I digress.)

I guess these past weeks have made me focus a little bit more on my mortality, but I still question whether or not my time is any more tenuous than anyone else. Maybe cancer matters. Maybe not. Maybe the fear comes out of my 1980's coming-of-age and watching The Day After and that bomb-drop = death mentality. The cancer bomb has dropped. Will I be Jason Robards or JoBeth Williams? (Regardless of outcome, does anyone want to be Steve Guttenberg or John Lithgow?) Maybe I've got 2 years; maybe it's 12; maybe it's 1. I don't know anymore today than I did a month or 2 months ago. It's still just dice rolling and what about cancer makes that different?

So, rather than worry about the cancer and what may or may not happen with it in the future, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing --- taking the drugs they give me, drinking near-beer, watching silly Bollywood movies and just focusing on each day as each day. Is that really any different from anyone else? I mean, with the exception of the near-beer, since I assume everyone watches silly Bollywood movies.

No plans + No expectations = No worries.

Kelly Jo

We became friends over books -- I told you that I was the only one who shelved the Penguin Classics. You made "that face" said "fine" and walked away. I made "that face" and mimicked your fine and shelved the books ... and then felt like a complete asshole and apologized.

You were young and beautiful and I wondered why you wanted to be friends with someone who was bitter, crabby and dumpy. I was suspicious, assuming that the only reason you wanted to go out together was because I made you look good -- I was the frumpy friend who would get the frumpy companion and you would end up with the better looking boy at the club. Do I know how wrong that sounds? Of course I do. But that was who I was then. What's the point in hiding it now? I didn't trust anyone.

And then that time we went out and I came back from the bathroom at the King's Head Pub and you whispered to me "You're my girlfriend now" and I realized that you didn't need anyone to make you look beautiful and that it was not always a blessing. (I also realized, as you did, that "You're my girlfriend now" doesn't work. Ever. They just get more interested.)

You didn't judge people. It was weird, because that's all I did. You accepted everyone and by doing so made everyone accept you back. It made me protective and fearful for you, but it also meant that I didn't have to work at being your friend. It didn't matter what I looked like or if I spoke in obscure movie quotes or had no pictures of family in my apartment ("Who are all these people?" "Well, that's Irving Thalberg and that's Buster Keaton..."), you allowed me in, and, like everyone else whose life you touched, you cherished our friendship. You treated us all like we had value. We were all wanted and loved and special to you. There was nothing to be afraid of.

You and I went through boyfriend transitions together, hundreds of apartment transitions together and garage sales and states as we moved all over the country and changed our lives and changed our jobs. I have so many wonderful memories:

"How dude" - being the only 2 people in the movie theater who enjoyed The Island of Dr. Moreau - Eiffel Tower earrings - Giggles "Night Club" - men's gymnastics and the pummel horse (oh God...) - the baby doll party - Dennis Quaid and no one wanting to help him in the optometrist chair - William Hurt calling Demi Moore a "whore" - Mr. Fantil - those $1 margaritas in Vegas and how many people did we have in the Honda Civic? - hiding your tweezers - "How much for this?" "Um, that's my purse. It's not for sale." - packing your dishes into my suitcase - the "Be a Chuck" mug - my mom calling you during the hurricane - eating the face cream at Burt's Bees ("It has avocado in it") - spinning - the bunnies in the courtyard - not the cute boy's car - Oscar de la Hoya and lamb stew - "baby girl" - Millennium New Year's Eve in Times Square and how no New Year's Eve after that has ever been the same (kissing the boys who kissed the girls from Sheepshead Bay; the couple from Virginia - "it's for lovers" - who never sent us the pictures - waving a flattened metal horn and shouting OY TAXI!) - Las Vegas and the Luxor pool, the room service, the fight, making up in The Mirage with Chile's idea for an airplane-themed hotel and Chuck loudly cursing the Orioles for losing, and the melted chocolate - Colorado and Matt and not Matt and then Matt and then "I don't know" and then you knew - then Kentucky and Ari and plans to finally go one day to Hurricane Mills.

Then you had cancer and they said it was gone. Then it wasn't. Then I had cancer. Stage IV? Stage IV. Dude, why? I don't know. This is so stupid. It is. Why is this happening? I don't know. I'll have a fundraiser. I'll knit you something. We'll go to Disneyland in January and see if they let us in for free. We'll take Ari, Francesca and Rocco and watch them laughing on the rides even if we can't go on with them. Let's plan on it. Okay.

I'm alone without you, but together with you always. I miss you.

When we picked this picture up at the desk you told me never to show it to anyone, and then we did anyway, proudly, and I show it here now because I love that we were brave and silly enough to ride in a gondola with a Las Vegas showgirl who threw beads at gamblers.

I wish we could do it again.

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare
I've seen your bravery, and I will follow you there
And row through the night time
Gone healthy
Gone healthy all of a sudden

then the bottom fell out

If you've been watching the blog Notions and Threads and My Mother's Apron Strings you'll know by now that my friend Kelly has been in the hospital the past couple of weeks. She also has metastasized breast cancer -- hers went to her liver. She went through chemo, the whole works and now Kandyce, Kelly's best friend and blog partner has posted this today:

And so it goes...
Oh my dear friends,I am heading back to Kentucky. The day after I posted last, Kelly's levels all moved in the wrong direction. They have continued on that course and now her kidney's are shutting down as well. Kelly's Dr.'s have said there is truly nothing else that can be done and she is being moved home. I really don't know what to say other than my heart is breaking. Please continue your prayers for her, her family, for me.

I'm completely devastated by this news in so many ways. I can't make it make sense and I can't believe I have to stay here at work and deal with it. I'm not holding together very well sitting here typing this and listening to someone on the phone telling me to "have a great night" and trying not to let my voice break when I say "mm hmm you too."

I don't want to lose my friend, my companion, my hope, my heart. I hate this disease. I hate having it. I hate what it does. I hate that we have to go through this crap and still have it end up like this.

I may not blog for a while. Or I may blog more. Hate is a great motivator. Although sadness is not.

Mon Dieu! I almost forgot about Eurovision!

With everything going on I haven't been keeping up as well as I'd like with the Eurovision Song Contest. Still, it really only takes about 15 minutes to figure out who the winner is going to be and who isn't going to make it past the first round.

There's always the political song (Turkey) or the odd gender act (Serbia, definitely) or the fun folksters (Finland and Slovenia tie) and the comic song (Lithuania), but they don't get too far out of the gate, although Serbia might carry through because it has a beat, which is better than 75% of the songs competing.

What's with the ballad this year? Everything is either slow, droopy-eyed, wind-swept women or sparkly, earnest boys. Where's the lingerie and cage acts this year? Or, gee whiz, why isn't there anyone who can compete with last year's Balkan Girls? It's a sad state of affairs and, yes, the UK has the worst song again. They just don't want to win.

Oh wait, no. This, my friends, is the worst song. Since they started posting the videos up on YouTube it's made it double-fantasy for those of us who love Europop. This comes from Latvia. Special note on the puppy dog stare and weird beige lipstick, but please, for the love of music, don't turn it off until you get to the chorus. These are some of the best lyrics ever written.



It's like a 4th grade talent show entry in Omaha. It made me tingly all over.

Oh yeah, don't worry, Slovakia has it in the bag to win. No doubt about it.

Up, Up and Away

Today is a good day. I can tell. It will be a good day. Reports on my friend Kelly are good and things are turning around on the other side of the country.

Out here, surgery #1 is finally sorting itself out in the right direction. The surgery went well, I guess. I was put on the table and the next thing I knew a male nurse was feeding me ice chips. So what's to know? And the recovery seemed to be going okay, but I kept getting nose bleeds. That's not good. But the mother and the cousin/roommate said they also had some dry insides, so I didn't worry. Then the red spots showed up and the bruising turned ugly. By then I was going in to see the blood doctor anyway and, as somewhat predicted, the platelets were really low.

They were at 19. (Normal, for those keeping track, is 180.)

In fact, the doctor was more worried about my ITP than the cancer. That's a bad sign. He put me on steroids for the weekend and as of yesterday I'm up to 58. That means I can cut myself shaving in the shower, but I still can't be hit in the head without worry. It also means I have to stay on steroids for another 2 weeks and get my blood checked next Monday and the Monday after that. By then the euphoria will have worn off and I'll be fat and depressed, but no longer bruising. hooray.

Yesterday was also the first day of the bone treatment called Aredia. This is to keep my bones from breaking while the drugs try to shrink the cancer on them. This is good, since 2 spots are on my spine and I kind of want to keep that stable. It's an IV drip, so I spent about 2 hours in the chemo room watching Scrubs and reading The Man With the Golden Gun. Not a bad afternoon. Aredia has some nasty side-effects, which they say I won't get, but I'm done with assuming everything will turn out okay. It all falls apart when I think that, so assume the worst and maybe it'll be okay.

Today it's back to the office and I miss my mom, but I don't miss the couch. I kind of missed my cubicle and the crazy phone calls, although not so much the political discussions that go on behind me. Meh. It's a Zen thing. It can't be all good, yeah?

I do miss watching Bollywood all day. That was fun.

Red Prisoner piping and polka dots and he still looks good

Oh, Amitabh...

A Movie Nearly Every Night: The Razor's Edge

The Razor's Edge (1984)
Dir: John Byrum
Starring: Bill Murray, Theresa Russell, Catherine Hicks, Denholm Elliot, James Keach

The lama wants you to go to a hut in the mountains and don't come back until the music swells

Our local Blockbuster closed its doors a few weeks ago and I made some lovely cheap purchases, including my own copy of In the Loop, a guilty-pleasure copy of Reality Bites, and this little gem that was sitting on one of the back shelves. When The Razor's Edge came out in 1984 I was one of those people who really wanted to like it, but couldn't get passed Bill Murray's slumped shoulders and pouty bottom lip. He was too modern. Too goofy. I didn't buy him having spiritual awakenings in the snow and being an object of love for Isabel and Sophie.

But times have changed and so has Bill Murray. He's more accepted now as a serious actor. Since 1984 I've also read the book and seen the 1946 Tyrone Power version, and revisiting this edition now ... well, I get it and I like it.

I wouldn't say that this is better than the Tyrone Power version, which includes Maugham as a character and Clifton Webb as poor elitist Uncle Elliot ("There'll be none of this damned equality in heaven"), but it has a lot going for it, and, in comparing the two Larry Darrell's, I'm going to have to side with Murray's version.

"You haven't read the Upanishads?"

There's something about the way he listens to people in this movie that gets to the heart of the character. Sure, he's got a dopey, child's face, but it's a listening child's face. He plays Larry as someone who has read a lot of books and knows some stuff, but is not above admitting that he doesn't really know anything at all.

Isabel and all the books Larry's "skimmed"

After his spiritual awakening in the Himalayas he can cure Gray of his headaches and look like he knows what it's all about -- and he carries himself in this higher, spiritual way that tells everyone around him that he knows what it's all about, but then Sophie dies and the shoulders slump again and he's back to the beginning when he's open and confused. He still doesn't know anything at all.

Tyrone Power shared more personal experience with the character and knew his surface, but I think Bill Murray understood the unfulfilled and drifting soul a little better.

What is particularly nice is the inclusion of the war in this version. Maybe it was just an excuse to give Brian Doyle-Murray a job, but thank God for it because he's really great. You know how in Flashdance Alex "borrows" from the policeman, the ballerina and the ice skater to create her routine? No, really. I'm using that as an analogy, because this version of the story gives Larry supporting people to form his philosophy. Doyle-Murray's Piedmont is a dark, pragmatic character that gives Larry a base point to start from. Piedmont is reality, Isabel, Gray and Elliot are fantasy, the lama is philosophy and Larry is where they meet. Without Piedmont, we wouldn't understand where Larry was starting from and how he ends up where he does.

The Harvard ambulance gets hit and Piedmont eulogizes drivers Brian Ryan and Doug Van Allen:
"They were liars. I don't know about you, but I hate liars ... They will not be missed."

If only there there was a way to merge the two versions. I would include the war and maybe keep Maugham in some parts of the story. I would take Gene Tierney over Catherine O'Hara for Isabel, but James Keach over John Payne for Gray.

Normally not this interesting, James Keach makes for a lovely, sad Gray.

And, sure, usually I hate Theresa Russell. Her acting is flat and uninteresting -- although, okay, I admit it, I haven't seen Insignificance and I've heard that's not so bad, but Black Widow? Why did I pay money to see that in the theater? I just don't know. But I definitely take her Sophie over Anne Baxter.

Sensitive, maternal Sophie -- the poet who loves Bob and likes Larry

and sad, pushed-to-the-edge Sophie, who loves Larry and has guilt over Bob and the baby

She really conveys the rise and fall of the character. I believe Sophie's rejection of life once it all goes to hell, her attraction to redemption through Larry, and her inability to hold onto hope in crisis. Isabel was probably right. She'd drag Larry down eventually. What the hell did she do to deserve redemption? She sits next to the teapot and the booze and she's going to reach for the bottle, you know it, but you also know why. The life is completely sucked out of her.

I think it's deserving that Larry gets to confront Isabel with Sophie's death in this version. Sure, righteous Maugham likes the attention, and in the book he accuses Isabel of murder and how she will never understand Larry, blah blah blah and that is all kind of fun, but in this version Larry gets to bring it around to what is really troubling him about Sophie's death.

He tells Isabel that he believed that Sophie was his pay-off and realizes when she's dead that there are no pay-offs. She replies with "Will I ever see you again?" and he laughs. "Isabel, you just don't get it."

"It doesn't matter."

You can go to the Himalayas, read The Upanishads, work in a fish market instead of Wall Street, cure your friend's migraine, save your friends from death only to see them succumb to it anyway, and, in the end, really, it just doesn't matter.

Amen, brother Larry.