Youse guys remember when my varicose vein burst a few years ago and I almost bled out in the kitchen? Well now I have to be really careful. I am on blood thinners and if I get a bad cut I can bleed out faster than the Crack Emcee would run from a real job. I am taking Xarelto which is a lot better drug than Coumadin which is in actuality rat poison. Still it is a dangerous blood thinner and you have to not get a cut.
So today I got a cut.
Actually not a cut but a little scape. It bled like a son of a bitch. It was scary. I am ok because I put on direct pressure and it clotted. So I am not worried. Unless I get cut making dinner or some shit like that there.
It's funny. There are supposed to be side effects. They include:
Shit. That was how I spent the 1980's. Now I don't even have to pay for the beers. The marvels of modern medicine.
89 comments:
You have been manifesting bad side effects for quite some time, as far as I can tell.
Geez, Trooper take care of yourself! We all worry...well, maybe not Crack.
Ron, how you doin'?
I'm fine Sixty.... I have a birthday post up at Ambiance...
http://amba12.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/and-a-year-later/
Good job, dude. Getting your mind right is half the deal.
But be careful hanging around here - we are the lame and the halt - it might be catching.
And I agree with Fred Astaire, but I am more of a fan of Gene Kelly - that lucky bastard got to dance with Leslie Caron - ooo la la! - but I digress - I am glad you are doing better and are still on this side of the sod.
Excelsior!
Hope none of your neighbors are vampires.
Vampires might clean up that mess for free!
Vampire Cleaning Service
Who sez there aren't niche opportunities for the enterprising among us?
Pressure and ice.
Spinz man - how you doin'? Where you be at?
Had a friend in HS who fainted at the sight of blood. He actually got sick during "Health class" when they showed a movie on how blood flowed through the human body.
He was a living, breathing, argument against evolution.
That previous post is off-topic
Blake, are you around?
I saw a movie the other night - directed by Scorsese, starring, among others, Daniel Day-Lewis, who is, in my humble opinion, an awesome actor, one who can inhabit a character so well it is frightening.
So I watch this mess and what do you know - it's one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Gangs of New York it's not, even though it is set in 19th century NYC.
What I am trying to say is that The Age of Innocence should have had more battleships bombarding the city. Couldn't have hurt. Might have helped
Who knew that DDL could be a boring schmoe? Damn, the character he was inhabiting seemed to loaded up with Thorazine. Hideous. Monotonic madness. Stupefying! I assume it ended at some point, but I didn't hang around that long.
That is all...
Sixty--
I do not like Scorcese. I recognize his genius, but I can only marginally enjoy his films. Like, I thought The Departed was watchable.
But I don't like his classics much. I thought it was his love of gangsters which I do not share. Seriously, kick me out of the man-club but I was "meh" about Goodfellas and mostly just can't even get interested enough to watch that stuff. (Never saw "The Sopranos", e.g.)
But Hugo cinched it for me: 19th century automata, WWI, silent movie geekery, slightly fantastic air. I should've loved it but I was so amazingly bored through the whole thing.
So, I can't help you with your conundrum, except to say DDL is perhaps the greatest actor of his generation, but like many great artists, sometimes what he does is jazz. You have to be into the technique to get it.
DUDE!
So that means you are not gonna write the screenplay for "Joey Gallo's Lament?"
Enjoyed Casino, Goodfellas, and After hours. Respect but don't really enjoy Raging bull, Taxi Driver, and Mean Streets. Haven't seen Hugo or Age of Innocence.
Gangs Of New York took a great historical topic and turned it into a cartoon. But then that's what Hollywood > 1970 always does.
Sixty, We be in San Diego. I drove out and my bride flew out. Been eating a lotta seafood. How y'all doing?
Sixty, Astaire also danced with Leslie Caron... "Daddy Long Legs"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Afdn6fayXm0
Nah, I'll write it.
But I gotta go back to things like "Public Enemy" and "Dead End" for inspiration.
Think "My Brother Anastasia" starring Richard Conte.
Or actually "A Bronx Tale." Only in Brooklyn.
"Bronx Tale" I can do. In a lot of ways, De Niro as director is easier for me to take than Scorcese.
Troop's got Jungle Fever - he has Cracked!
But seriously, I thought A Bronx Tale was a very moving film - what is more important than the relationship between a father and son? Okay, parent and child, but we are talkin' Eyeties here, so get back in the kitchen and fix me a sammich, 'k?
DDL in GoNY was amazing. In LotM, he sucked, mainly because he stood in front of NC trees declaiming as if he were in a New York State of mind.
Scorcese is uneven, to be sure. The actress he hired to play Head-on-a-Slinky Hepburn in The Aviator was hideous, but I rather enjoyed the story.
The sequence in Goodfellas where he followed Ray Liotta into the Copacabana was astounding. How he choreographed that is beyond me.
Anyway, I was shocked at how bad AoI was - monotone whispering is not good, even if DDL is doing it. He could have hired one of Jeff Dunham's dummies to play that part and saved a lot on the budget. I KEEL YOU!!!
Spins - good job! Eat, drink, be Mary! Glad you got away from the Great White North - winter in the Midwest is more than I would want to endure.
Say hey to Leslyn for me, tell her I look forward to reading her next book - must find out what happens next!
I liked The Departed, but have been left 'meh' at the other Scorcese movies I've watched--and I try to watch them since he's supposed to be a genius and all.
And I'm glad you didn't bleed out, Jimbo.
Sixty, I will. Still researching Gypsies for #3 in the saga.
Ride the subway in Rome or walk to the Eiffel Tower and you will learn all you need to know about gypsies. They suck.
"Ride the subway in Rome or walk to the Eiffel Tower and you will learn all you need to know about gypsies. They suck."
That's because bigots like you are keeping them down with your institutional anti-Gypsy racism.
Why are keeping them Down Sixty?
Notice how the liberals/left always love the "other"?
Moslems/Gypsies/whatever, as long as the average person in Country X doesn't like them, they love them.
Sixty, When we were in Italy we watched Gypsies in action. They are relentless. Here's an example from years back. This retired homicide detective I know was near the Trevi Fountain. He was walking by himself when 4 Gypsy girls, 5-10 years old, walked up to him begging and touching him all over. He focused on his wallet, but then when they walked away noticed his watch was gone. He yelled and started chasing them. The oldest hung back as the other 3 ran away. She lifted up her dress and was naked. She started screaming "HELP" as my friend got near. He had to laugh and just let her go. Pretty fucking slick. In the Gypsy culture women are almost slaves and do the vast majority of the stealing. Like Jews, they have a name for non-Gypsies ala Jews/Gentiles. I forget it but will ask my bride when she gets home. She is deep into research.
ricpic, I was not saying Jews are like Gypsies. We know Jews only steal your money legally, Bernie Madoff notwithstanding.
Holy smokes, Trooper. Check Amazon for blood clotting bandages and dressings. The can stop bleeding very quickly. They were invented for military use, and are now available for civilians. And they are inexpensive. No reason not to have s few around.
Trooper, I thought you might like this photo of Eli Manning receiving an award from Phil Simms.
I have been by Bernie's current dwelling and I thought it would be interesting to stop by and chat with him about how to get started in his former line of work.
But then I lie down and that thought passes. No reason to make life any more complicated than it currently is.
I saw a gypsy woman in Paris - she was begging, had this grubby little child in her arms (by the way, do any of you city slickers remember being told when young that you might be taken by gypsies?) which she then shook until it cried in an effort to make me open me Scottish purse an gie her a few wee shillings. Not gonna happen, gypsy woman!
On the subway in Rome a swarm of them boarded our car - they held out newspapers, horizontally and swarmed us - trying to pick our pockets and so on. A nice man spoke loudly in Italian, saying something to the effect that "Gypsies are now on this car, guard your valuables". Grazie, nice man. The gypsies were filthy little urchins, and I'll do whatever I can to keep them down.
Irish Travelers, too - so be warned, Troop, as you head down 95, I have my eye on you. Like Jack Elam!
I have my eye on you. Like Jack Elam!
I'll thank you not to steal my schtick.
Hey, steal from the best, I always say!
And never steal anything small.
Holy cow. hope everything is ok with Trooper.
Don't worry guys. That was an old photo when my varicose vein popped a few years ago. I just used it as an illustration of what would happen if I let Crack get near me.
You know he would cut a bitch.
Looks like a crime scene blood splatter pattern from "Dexter."
I am glad you are okay.
I am going to have some bloody mary's in the morning. I am also doing oyster shooters for breakfast.
Gosh, I'm offended. I know we bust balls and all here, but this gypsy shit has gotten out of hand and personal.
You see, I was born in the wagon of a travellin' show. My mama used to dance for the money they'd throw. Papa would do whatever he could...preach a little gospel...sell a couple bottles of Doctor Good
Gypsys, tramps, and thieves
We'd hear it from the people of the town. They'd call us gypsys, tramps, and thieves, but every night all the men would come around and lay their money down.
I thought I'd put it all behind me, but it's all come rushing back reading through this thread.
windbag's mother is Cher.
Who the fuck knows who the father is.
I loved Casino and Goodfellas.
The Chinese version of The Departed is so much better. I'll have to look up the name. I think Jack Nicholson ruined The Departed. He was just Jack. Again.
Infernal Affairs. Loved it.
Nick- it's not so much that Windbag's mother was Cher that raises concern; it's his brother/sister we need worry about.
Wow, Darcy, way to ruin a relationship - Jack Nicholson _made_ The Departed. Whitey "Even His Name is Racist" Bulger wishes he was as tough as Jack was in that movie.
I kid, I kid - the brother of a former coworker from Southie was in Whitey's gang and that was some serious stuff. Fer realz! I am glad I grew up in a small town and never encountered such people. I am almost certain I would have chosen badly.
Hey, no questionable lineage here, but it's true that Papa was a rolling stone. Wherever he laid his head was his home. And when he died, all he left us was alone. We had a tough time growing up in the 60s/70s.
Wait....that was your papa, too??
BROTHER!!
Phillip Seymour Hoffman dead of heroin OD. What a waste of incredible talent. Hoffman could and did play all types of roles. He was fearless.
The role he never conquered was "unaddicted".
He was a Lebowski achiever, and proud of him we were.
Haz, Great line about the Lebowski achievers. What I really liked about Hoffman was he did ALL kinds of roles and was not ashamed of any. That little prick Sean Penn will not allow any questions about Fast Times @ Richmond High. Hoffman made the word "shart" part of the lexicon from a goofy role in a Ben Stiller flick and he loved that. Hell, he was Dusty in Twister!
Nicholson was great in the Departed. As was Martin Sheen.
The whole cast was really good. I hate Matt Damon and Leo DiCaprio--but I loved the film.
But Jack made the movie.
I notice that it's become fashionable in certain circles to put Jack down.
Well, good thing he's retired. You won't have Jack to kick around anymore.
I liked Along Came Polly and PSH was very game to do it, but it was clearly written for Jack Black and PSH was no Jack Black.
As an actor, PSH was probably way better, but Black has a kind of charisma that allows him to be gross and still appealing.
Even so, I always looked forward to his movies; even when they weren't great, he never phoned it in. ACP was one, but he directed a little flick called Jack Goes Boating, played an interesting character in Sidney Lumet's last (not great) film Before The Devil Knows You're Dead...[more]
Sorry. I'm not a big Nicholson fan. I see the same guy in practically every movie he does and in The Departed it seemed over the top. Cartoonish. Liked the rest of the movie and acting, though.
Check out Infernal Affairs.
Before The Devil Knows Your Dead was a very good flick w/ several outstanding performances.
I finished my message up a thread due to browser problems.
Darcy! Get a load of you! You're a foreign language movie snob!! "The Hong Kong Original is sooo much better...."
=P
(Did I mention I was a man-on-street interview for a Flemish newspaper after seeing the Belgian entry for the Oscars, "The Broken Circle Breakdown"?)
"Check out Infernal Affairs."
Agreeance. The Hollywood version was bigger, louder, and longer, but not better.
Yes, Darcy. It was cartoonish.
Shockingly, that's the way the part was written and what the director wanted. It's loosely based on Whitey and the rest of his crowd--and if they'd put half the shit those boys actually did in the movie--no one would've believed it.
I dunno. Maybe living in this neck of the woods and growing up with stories about the Winter Hill Gang (which Whitey took over) as well as knowing some sure enough wops with some ties to the mob down Providence has colored my view of things.
Also, The Departed was the first time I'd seen Jack on film since his twirl in Batman. Did he even make any movies in between?
But Jack's organization was a hell of a lot more organized than anything Bulger's crew did.
But I get that a lot of people don't like Jack. I get that, and it's okay!
Other than being terribly miscast in The Shining--King wanted Michael Moriarty which would've been epic--I like Jack. I get a kick out of his over the top-ness.
Plus, if you've never checked out the deleted and alternate scenes from The Departed--you should some time. There's a scene where Jack and his right hand guy (who I really like...but can't think of his name...) were shooting a couple of people out in the maaaahsh...and Jack says something out of the blue that almost takes the other guy out of character. High. Larr. Eee. Ous.
Did he even make any movies in between?
A Few Good Men, Wolf, Mars Attacks, About Schmidt, Anger Management, As Good As It Gets, nominated for Oscars for AFGM, Schmidt and AGAIG, won for AGAIG, to name a few.
So, yeah. He made some movies in between 1989 and 2010.
Heh. Thanks Blake. Oddly enough I've seen 4 of those and liked 3.
Brain fart.
Thanks again for the help.
Agreeance. The Hollywood version was bigger, louder, and longer, but not better.
Doesn't that pretty much sum up Scorcese though?
@Cody
I would be willing to view it again. It's not that I don't like any movies Nicholson has done or even most of his acting in them. It's just that at some point I became weary of watching what I see as the same character somehow.
I liked Chinatown, Terms of Endearment, A Few Good Men, Mars Attacks (hehehe). I even liked him in As Good As It Gets even though I threw a tissue box at the TV when he won the Oscar instead of Robert Duvall. I'm still not over that.
Wolf!
Loved Wolf. He was really good in that.
Wait...you liked Wolf?
:)
Yeah. It was hilarious. I love when he "sniffs out" the affair his wife is having.
Nicholson, like the aforementioned Jack Black, is a STAR not an ACTOR.
Not to say that either of them can't act, but their personae largely dictate the roles people will accept them in. Black lamented that they wouldn't let him "do a voice" for "Kung Fu Panda" (which he is more than capable of) because they wanted "Jack Black".
There are a lot of great examples of stars going wrong when they try to act, one of my favorites being Henry Fonda in "Once Upon A Time In The West". Fonda is great as a villain, and yet it's just so hard to watch, because, well, he's "Henry Fonda", everyman, decent fella, naive, perhaps, but never evil.
I thought Wolf was one of Nicholson's best performances because it allowed him—though only for a little while, pre-wolf-state—to act against type, as a milquetoast.
But, basically, when Jack's in a movie, people wanna see Jack.
I mean, people other than Darcy,
Interesting you say that, blake--I don't think I agree with you, at least totally.
I always knew Fonda had that streak in him, in other words, I guess I never bought into the all American regular guy stuff that you mention, so when he was playing a bad guy it almost seemed like a relief.
Then again, it might have something to do with how much he reminded me of my grandfather in On Golden Pond, from looks to actions, and I knew my grandfather was more than capable of that stuff.
I hadn't really ever seen Fonda in other stuff before that.
I mean, people other than Darcy
Hehe. Well, maybe I just don't know Jack.
And you're right, blake. I loved that transformation of character between milquetoast to swaggering wolf. I was so rooting for the wolf.
But, basically, when Jack's in a movie, people wanna see Jack.
I grew tired of Jack. He was barely a character - he was Jack as a crazy man, or Jack as an ageing rock mogul, or Jack as a Marine officer, etc.
I think the same thing about Tom Hanks, with the exception of his role in Forrest Gump. He's just another version of Tom Hanks.
Compare that with Helen Mirren. In whatever role Mirren is playing, she is utterly convincing as that character.
My dislike for the Fondas knows no generational boundaries, but I must say I liked Hank in The Lady Eve, mostly because he was working with Barbara Stanwyck - damn, she was smokin'!
Young Mister Lincoln - he took advantage of Ward Bond - who does he think he is, John F'n Wayne?
GoW - reds? Yes, yes you are.
"C'era una volta il West" - great movie, especially when Jack Elam has his eye(tm) on a fly, then catches it. What an amazing scene.
Jack Nicholson reminded me of my late oldest brother. Same intensity, same on-the-edge look in his eyes, same indication that the wheels were turning and boy, you better look out.
Yeah, family get togethers were never dull.
Cody--
You're right: Celebrity is entirely contextual. Henry Fonda may end up being known for his less-than-good-guy performances, but playing against type is seldom successful contemporaneously.
I have that problem with foreign films. Costa-Gavras just made a movie called Capital (which, from the trailers, appears to be pretty anti-capital) starring Gad Elmaleh, whom I know from goofy, light-hearted fare, like "The Valet" and "Priceless". Goofy, light-hearted fare, where he's the goof.
So, for me, this movie looks a little like Pee Wee Herman trying to make a serious, albeit satirical, statement on world markets.
That probably isn't the perception in Europe-land.
Darcy--
The beauty of Wolf is just that. You're not really rooting for Jack when he's not-Jack, when he's Mr. Nice Guy. It's almost hard to watch.
So, all of a sudden, you end up rooting for the werewolf.
Underrated satire.
Haz--
That's the danger of being a STAR. People get tired of that persona. You burn bright and you can practically phone it in but you've got a short shelf life.
Nicholson's was probably about 30 years ('70s to 2000s), which isn't a bad run. A lot of his pre-star work is interesting, too, you can see that he has range.
Blake- if you can find it, check the made long ago British film called Hell Drivers. The cast includes just about every male British actor who later became famous.
Plus, dump trucks.
Barbara Stanwyck was not a great beauty, I don't think. Not like Leigh or Hayworth or Bergman.
But she was smokin' nonetheless.
I've been on a Stanwyck kick lately, speaking of casting to types. She played the most awful characters whom she made lovable somehow. Not quite a femme fatale, more a female version of a lovable rogue.
That's quite a trick, really.
Free on Amazon Prime. I'll queue it up.
I also understand I must see "The Apostle", which appears to be on Netflix.
What an amazing world we live in, eh?
The Apostle is another Robert Duval understated tour de force. Tender Mercies was another, as was Seven Days in Utopia.
2kMB, The Great Santini, Da God Faddah, Lonesome Soiled Dove - the list is long.
I have only become a Stanwyck fan in the past year or so, now I have seen a lot of her movies. What a woman!
Bergman - we have written about her here in the past - what a remarkable beauty, and she could act.
But I digress - weren't we talking about something else?
We started out hearing about Trooper bleeding and manifesting bad side effects, with mention also made of pricks that don't bleed.
People always write about Fonda playing the bad guy in "Once upon a time in the west" but he was the Bad guy in "Firecreek" four years before, and his Col Thursday role in "Fort Apache" was an arrogant, cold blooded martinet. Plus, if Jane and Peter are to be believed, Hank Fonda was more Col Thursday than lovable lug in real life.
And I agree about Hanks, I stopped watching him after "Cast Away" and Jack after "About Schmidt".
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