Month: April 2024

  • Showing My Kid “Cool Hand Luke”

    I’m not the best father. I have very good intentions, and I show up, and I am dependable, but outside of that, I’m floundering around here.

    One of my flounder moments of late is trying to show my kid good movies. Like really good movies, the best movies, movies that had a huge impact on storytelling, movie making; you get the deal. I am way too eager to do this, and I have to remind myself that most of the beast movies ever made aren’t appropriate for a nine-year-old.

    So, of late, I have just been showing her the start of movies or very famous scenes. Amazingly, this has worked out very well. After watching Barbie together, I thought showing her the opening “Dawn of Man” section of 2001: A Space Odyssey would be a good idea, as that part is parodied in Barbie. And I was delightfully rewarded showing it to her, because she was able to visually follow the story, understood the importance of the bone/tool, and how tools good be used for good and bad. And she especially understood what Barbie was parodying.

    After having such a rewarding experience with 2001, I decided that I would press my luck and show her one of my favorite movies, Cool Hand Luke, a film I consider a great movie and if nothing else, it’s Paul Newman’s best performance. Unfortunately, the only streaming service I could find that had the movie came with commercials. What this availed to us was two minutes for me to answer questions, which is to be expected, as I do have a very curious and inquisitive child. Mind you, we only got 1/3 of the way through the movie.

    The questions she provided me were; Where are the girls? Why does everyone smoke? Don’t they know that’s bad for them? Is there a prison for women and do they do the same thing? Do they have air conditioning? Are the guards allowed to shoot people? If the guards shoot people, do they get in trouble? Why isn’t “The Box” illegal? Are there bugs and rats in “The Box?” And my favorite – How do you play poker?

    I don’t mind her questions, that’s how you learn; you ask questions, right. What I forgot was how much of a huge jump in her experience it is to see a movie made in 1967 about people living in the South during the early 1950’s. It’s just on the very edge of her understanding. Such as, she sees the cars and the trucks, those are things she can relate to and understand. But no air conditioning? She doesn’t know a world without A/C. And then I had to explain to her what parking meters were – how you had to put change in a machine, and turn a handle, and it counted down until you had to put more change in it. That kind’a blew her mind…

    And we haven’t even got to the egg eating scene yet.

  • There’s an Eclipse, Ya’ll

    I was trying to think up some non-cliché shit to say about the Eclipse, but then I gave up. So, I’m not trying to say cliché things, but at the same time, I’m not trying to avoid it either.

    That having been said…

    The kid’s school is letting all of the students out early so they can see it, and I’m going to join her and her class. Here in New York City, I believe that we are getting a 90% coverage. Not sure what that will be like. It could be something, it could be nothing. Don’t know.

    But if you go looking for me, I will be the guy looking at the other people who are looking at the eclipse.

    I seem to remember that there was a partial eclipse in the Dallas area during the early 80’s. My older brother made some sort of viewing box so we could see that a part of the sun was being blocked. The other thing I remember about the eclipse was being warned not to look at the sun, as it will blind you and do all kinds of awful stuff. I think my brothers were trying to scare me. It worked. I was afraid if I looked at the sun my face would melt like in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

    This time around, I think we’ll have spotty cloud cover, so we might not get a chance to see anything.

    Not that I’ll be looking.

  • ODDS and ENDS: I Felt the Earth Move, Tottenham Home Stretch, and the Dog Got a Haircut

    ODDS and ENDS: I Felt the Earth Move, Tottenham Home Stretch, and the Dog Got a Haircut

    (She blinded me with science…)

    NYC and the surrounding area got hit with a 4.8 magnitude earthquake which lasted for about 20 seconds. The epicenter was about 50 miles west of Manhattan. I was at home with the wife when it hit, and for the first few seconds of the quake, I thought it was come from the construction site behind our building. You know, like they were drilling or something. Then I thought that a truck had hit our building. But my wife was the first one to say, or I guess ask, “Is this an earthquake?!” In fact, it was. Thank God for social media, because within three seconds, people were posting. Funny enough, this is the second NYC earthquake I have been through. Back in August of 2011, a 5.8 quake hit northern Virginia, which was felt all the way up here. I was on the 12th floor of a building in midtown at that time, and all I felt was the building swaying, which was a very strange sensation. But in both occurrences, the overwhelming feeling I had was disbelief. You don’t think about NYC having earthquakes.

    We are down to the final nine matches of the season, and I hate to admit it, but it looks like Tottenham is playing for a place in the Champions League next season. Of those nine matches, three of them are against the teams ahead of Spurs on the table (Man City, Arsenal, and Liverpool), then there is Newcastle twice and Chelsea who both are hanging around in the middle, followed by three matches against teams fighting against relegation. The way I see it, Tottenham will walk away with three wins, three draws, and three losses, concluding the season with 69 points. Will that be enough to get past Aston Villa? I don’t think so as Aston does have the easier schedule compared to Spurs. This will be an interesting two months. Interesting in the sense that it will be infuriating, and gut wrenching.

    My dog got groomed yesterday. She’s very happy about it. She looks like a puppy.

  • Goodnight Springton! There Will Be No Reviews!

    Yeah, I tried my best, but this week just had it out for me.

    There will be no reviews this week.

    Which is annoying as I had several pieces in the hopper that I just haven’t read yet.

    Such as:

    When She Falls by Louise McGuinness, from Milk Candy Review

    Mr. Mollusk by Didi Wood, from Okay Donkey

    An Excerpt from “Howling Women” (Shelby Hinte), from Rejection Letters

    BOZO by Souvankham Thammavongsa, from The New Yorker

    Hopefully, I will get them read, and feel free to check them out yourself.

    If it helps, here’s a picture of my dog back from the groomers, contemplating if free will is an illusion.

  • Broken Car Window Throws Off Local Man’s Day

    By Matthew Groff

    April 3, 2024, 11:37am

    When I walked out of my apartment on Tuesday morning, it was an overcast and drizzly day, which felt appropriate for having to move my car for the street sweeper, as Alt Side Parking is one of my least favorite “New York” things that I have to do, sometimes twice a week. The closer I got to my car, I noticed that the car parked behind me had their back window smashed out. “That sucks,” was my first thought. And then I saw my car…

    “This really sucks,” was my next thought.

    And though I knew that my whole day just got shot to shit, I wasn’t that upset. I called my insurance company, and got that process started. A woman came up to my car and told me that she also got her back window smashed in (four cars total got broken into) and she just called the cops who were on the way. I texted my wife and let her know what had happened, and she was pretty annoyed.

    My insurance put me in contact with a window replacement company, and I was making arrangements with them when the cops rolled up. Clearly, most people don’t put the glass people on hold, because when I told him I needed to speak to the police, he seemed annoyed with me. Anyway, I was raised that when the cops show up, you talk to them right away.

    The police took a statement from me, said they were sorry for the situation, and wanted to know if anything was stolen. A cooler bag, I said. That worth anything, the cop asked. No, it was an old cooler bag, I answered. So nothing was stolen, the cop finished. Nothing was stolen, I agreed. The cops were nice, but I think we all knew that there wasn’t anything they could do, but I appreciate the effort.

    I called the glass people back, and made arrangements for them to come replace the window on Wednesday. I went to the hardware store on the block and got some duct tape and plastic to cover up the window. The wife came out and helped me with it. Not our best work, but it would do.

    Then it really started raining.

    Then the glass people called back saying that they had to reschedule because of the three days of rain we were about to get. How does Friday afternoon sound, they asked. Not good, I said. We’ll see you on Friday afternoon, they told me.

    Then I got annoyed. Not with the glass people, because logically I get it. You can’t replace windows in the rain, as coming out to your car is their whole business. What I was annoyed at was that somehow having to reschedule made me feel like I wasn’t in control of this situation anymore.

    Then I checked on the plastic over the widow to find out that our “not the best work”, in fact, was regular “bad” work; Water was getting in the car.

    Then I really felt powerless. Three days of rain, water getting into the car, and the new window won’t show up until Friday afternoon.

    Luckily, I have a wife who can fight through my annoyance and powerlessness, when it occasionally happens to me, and found a nearby parking garage for the car to sit in for the next three days. Which is smart and makes sense, and though costs us some money, at least the car is staying dry.

    And through all of this, my annoyance and having my day thrown off, I never thought about the person who broke into my car. I never felt anger at this faceless person, or entertained feelings of wanting to get revenge, and any angsty questions of “why did this have to happen to me?”

    This whole thing feels like stepping in dog shit. This sucks, and I have to clean up my shoes, but it happens from time to time.