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The Immaculate Neighbor
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 416
In a weak moment, outside, I spot the neighbor on the landing above and ask to buy a cigarette. She lives in the apartment directly above me. Petite blonde woman who by some miracle or coincidence is exactly my age. I was introduced by the building manager.
So she's chatty and this is the price you have to pay when you want a cigarette. Personally, I'd like to just buy a cigarette and leave it at that but I don't want to seem unneighborly.
Chat chat chat and glancing through her open door I pause to admire her apartment. Exactly the same layout as mine, only...
Well, god-damn if she hasn't done a bang-up job of furnishing the place. And the place is packed with stuff - book-cases, night-tables, chairs, shelves, pictures on every ledge, of family, "art" of the sort that I'm not a fan of, but her taste is pretty much the same as every other woman of her/my age, and - she's run with it, done great things, the place, cozy, clean, filled to the brim with both possessions and room to move.
She's not trying to come on to me. She wants to see my place, which is out of the question, the "studio" is in complete disarray, paints, pastels, acrylic, oil, watercolor, stacks of tarot cards and books teetering on the desk, the 20 or so candlesticks handy to my situation everywhere, more sand on the floor than on the beach, it's out of the question....
What's going on down there? She's asking, are you getting laid?, you sure make a lot of noise. This can be put down to my drunken staggering about in the wee hours knocking over every precipitously stacked picture frame, book, extraneous pieces of shit I set in the way of progress and getting lucky, a diabolical obstacle course of mine own devising, a pile of shoes at the door, laundry in the bedroom, but these aren't particularly better things to confess to so I simply sidestep the question.
She's insistent. She's not trying to get lucky, no, but it's been sooo long and damn, who's that woman I keep seeing you outside with? And I have to think, and it clicks, another volunteer from the charity shop, and laugh, nope, nope, nope.
I'm living in the land of nope.
Finally I manage to escape, go downstairs, smoke my cigarette, save the spare.
***
The night, rainy, pouring, thunder and lightning. Wake up at 3:30, restless, unable to sleep. I still have the spare cigarette.
***
Lie in bed, trying to fall back asleep. It's her turn now to make noise, the wheels of luggage on the floor above, furniture being shuffled, I'm lying there quiet as a mouse, doesn't she sleep?
There's a knocking, a scritching at the door. Damn. Apparently not.
Answer the door and she's apologetic, she's restless, can't sleep, she wants to look around my place, walks in and seats herself while I get dressed. A horrified look around convinces her of the veracity of my statement, my housekeeping is abysmal. We go for a cigarette. It's now about 4:30. Back inside, now to her place, the reasonable choice, on her sofa. She's straddling my lap fixing my collar, no, she's not trying to get lucky. She's splayed out with her painted toenails hanging over my lap. She's not trying to get lucky but damn I'm tall and handsome. A real fixer-upper. She's lifting her shirt, showing me imaginary bruises.
Now she's on her phone, wants to show me some pictures, artists she likes, "Oooops, I really should delete those..."
I avert my eyes.
And she tells me, it's a secret, I can tell nobody, her sister, the building manager....
***
We're going to be best of friends and I'm committed to taking her out sometime, someplace, a proper date, committed to helping her get lucky, I can be her wingman, what do I think of her chances?
***
And finally, finally, she heads upstairs. On her own. And this, a new best friend who doesn't want to get lucky but is going to be scratching on my door every night in the wee hours, and what can I do? I'm suddenly open to the idea of a night shift, if only this town had a Denny's or 24 hour waffle house, and I'm thinking, fucking hell, how many times have I been in this position since moving out here, and maybe I need to start wearing a clerical collar, shave my head, don the monastic robes, remove myself from every woman's list of possibilities...
The Green Door
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Blog
- Hits: 489
And this, at the thrift shop, a donation of a hand painted door. 
Kootenay Style, perfect for the "Budding" entrepreneur or your mushroom dispensary. Please, admire the detail. And Speculation as to what will end up going on behind the "Green Door" and suggesting perhaps a movie treatment when one of the older female volunteers assures me that it's already been done...
A Shopping Cart with a Roadkill Skunk
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
- Hits: 414
Found in the vacant lot across front street, exactly what the title describes. And sometimes I feel as if I've been brought here from very, very far away, Alpha Centuri maybe even, to witness the absurdity of life on earth....
I mean - how did it get there? Why? And for what purpose? An air freshener for the Finley's?
Once Upon a Time in The West - Sergio Leone
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 501
I'd seen this about 10 years ago, but nonetheless watched it again.
And was impressed. This film is a masterpiece, after which the Mythology of the American West was molded.
In everything - in the soundtrack: the flies, the spinning of a weathervane, the gunfire, the harmonica, the sound of the Steam-Engines and Clocks all driving the movie forward...
This is not even slightly accidental, most, if not the entire, soundtrack and dialogue were added in post production. Watch the lips.
The opening - 3 Outlaws come to murder Charles Bronson aka 'Harmonica' - how long? 5? Maybe even 10, no, 12 minutes the film builds, the camera focusing on the flies on their faces, on the heat of the day, on the long wait for their intended target. Minimum speaking, none at all from the the 3 outlaws, merely waiting, character exposition. Then when Harmonica arrives they apologize, by way of making light, for bringing only 3 horses, one short, to which Bronson laconically replies "You brought 2 too many".
Leone sends up every cliche - the good guy in white, the bad guy in black, the whore with a heart of gold, the grasping and murderous railway tycoon, gunfight at high noon, the train to Yuma, the anticipation waiting for the final blow of the auctioneers gavel, and yet he does it so well that - while the characters aren't in any way real, they're archetypes, conventions, you are nonetheless heavily invested.
In every instance he shows, doesn't tell, spells nothing out for you that you should be able to see for yourself (**Note - audiences were clearly a little more clever then. "Dumbing Us Down" is a very real thing in the media as well as in School).
The cast, in places hundreds, the attention to detail - in the recreation of historical settings, props, historical costumes, etc - the scenes that Use the Monument Valley, the Cave Dwelling of the Ute people, in the execution of every trivial detail he's finishing off a masterpiece, and - well, he, succeeds. An Italian Film Director redefines the "Old West", the history, the mythology, sums it all up in the most epic Western ever made, and the world has by and large believed him.
I found it interesting that - having received similar reviews in France and Germany, the year of its release saw it panned in America, and only the fullness of time has proven his vision.
Anyways, if you've never seen this, you should, and if you have, maybe it's time to watch it again. There's a lot worse on Netflix, lemme tell you...
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