Hobos in Space

Two west side hobos talking in a vacuum, thinking they're funny.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

That is SO Hamptons 2000

While waiting for someone at the fairly freshman Ditch Plains restaurant in the Village, I stood on the periphery of a group of young blonde women straight from work (with the exception of one who had detoured to the hairdresser but arrived later to cheers of “Oh my God, I love it.”). I tried not to listen to their fabulously dramatic and yet, vacuous conversation. And then it hit me. Everything around me stopped: the other voices at the bar died, the bartender stopped shaking the pink drink that would soon fill the high-stemmed glasses of these women, the cabs usually racing down the streets, like rollercoaster cars, froze. And I heard it again and again: “Whatever, that is SO Hamptons 2000.”

I laughed, not the quiet, controlled, personal one that escaped my lips as I sat across from a man on the subway who had taken it upon himself to be the car’s official MTA mouthpiece: “Ladies and Gentleman, the next stop is 34th Street Penn Station, transfer is available to Amtrak, NJ Transit, Long Island Railroad. We ask you to be aware. If you see something suspicious, say something; do not keep it to yourself, tell a police officer or an MTA official. We also ask you to take your garbage (stress here) and newspapers with you. Thank you.”

No, this time standing in the doorway of Ditch Plains, I laughed out loud. I couldn’t help myself. It was SO perfect, on so many levels. My friend arrived shortly thereafter, I ate and drank, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind: “That is SO Hamptons 2000.” And I wondered about it. The speaker’s friends were honestly and deeply inspired, as was I. Typically any mention of the Hamptons in that tone makes me sweat and break out in the kind of hives reserved for summer on the subway platforms of New York City. I have flashbacks of an alligator-skinned bleach blonde woman backing her SUV into a crowd of people and screaming something about white trash. Could it be? But alas, that PR girrl’s antics are a relic of 2001. And so in my search to understand “That is SO Hamptons 2000,” I began to catalog the events of the post-Y2K, bottled water hoarding, computer hard drive backing days of the millennium. And this is what I found.

Notable Events of 2000, the year of the Dragon (in the Chinese calendar) and the year of the Leo (in the astrological calendar), include:
*The constitution of Finland is rewritten.
*The crazytown Presidential election and clueless Floridians unsure of how to read or complete a ballot.
*Maurice Richard, famed Canadian hockey player, passes.
*Gary Glitter is released from jail, two months before the end of his sentence for a variety of sexual offences.
*Metallica begins its whiney, “you’re stealing money out of our champagne flutes,” campaign against Napster.
*The release of NSYNC’s debut album and a second hit for Britney Spears. And on a more promising note, Coldplay hits the bar jukebox with “Yellow”.
*MI II, O Brother Where Art Thou, Gladiator, Scary Movie emerge from the artistically rich highways of Hollywood.
*Acronyms explode on the word super scene, replacing actual names, and in the world of fashion, celebrities get equally lazy about actually wearing whole articles of clothing: Lil Kim sports her famous pastie, pre-jail, pre-perjury. J Lo is duplicitous J Lo: ghetto fab, one minute rocking the backless, frontless Versace dress, the next all corn-rowed and bandana draped.
*Speaking of celebrities, the Hamptons, and the millenium, isn’t Puffy still Puffy in this time and place, I mean, Sean Puffy Combs and not P. Diddy or whatever alias he uses these days?

Despite the fact that it is SO yesterday, Ti and I wondered about this orphan phrase that somehow followed me home from Ditch Plains and crept into my consciousness. And over a bottle or 4 of Trader Joe’s three-buck chuck, we coined our own “That is SO Hamptons 2000”. We guzzled, we howled, and we revised. Hers: “That is so Bloomington ‘02.” And mine: “Whatever, that is so Buffalo ‘99.”

One Last Kick Below the Belt: And the Vital Gasp

So it’s over. And I, Cass, am working on letting it go. The Carolina Hurricanes won, perplexing hundreds of thousands of Carolinans and cheerleaders who wondered why hulking men were drinking out of a silver barrel-like object. See the Onion for more on this.

The end of a season is a time for reflection. Personally, I laughed, I cried, I paced, I cheered, I swore, and I chewed my fingernails. Apparently, Scott Burnside, NHL contributor to ESPN.com, was also feeling reflective because he recently graced us all with his top 10 list. This list consists of what Burnside determines to be the IT moments of the playoffs. He starts off with what you would expect; sappy numbers one and one A, describe the beauty of a seven game series and the sight of a thieved hockey franchise celebrating a Cup win. He talks about how these moments gave him chills.

He makes no real mention of the Sabres' season, mind you, despite the fact that the Sabres and their “lack of marquee talent” were slated to finish last in the East and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals (and would have advanced had they not been decimated by injuries). He eschews such sentimental Cinderella stories. Nor does Burnside find the Sabres’ victory over the number one Senators list-worthy; he prefers to list Ottawa’s loss to the Sabres as a choke and tangentially linked to Hasek’s perpetual injury. However, Burnside deems Sabres head coach, Lindy Ruff, list-worthy. In numbers eight and eight A, he portrays Ruff as a whiner, who takes on coaches Hitchcock and LaViolette (individually) for the behavior of their players, but Burnside makes Ruff sound more like a paranoid schizophrenic than a professional hockey coach.

In reality, Ruff was justified in attacking Flyers’ coach Hitchcock, because upon realizing they were getting their lethargic, overpaid asses kicked, the Flyers regressed into the goons they are and spent 80% of the series taking the kind of cheap shots Hatcher has made a career out of. Ruff also took on Hurricanes coach LaViolette when he accused Carolina of prematurely celebrating an Adams Cup Division Championship. Burnside mocks Ruff for misidentifying a bottle on the Carolina bench as celebratory rather than a gift from a local girl suffering from leukemia. You can hear the sneer in Burnside’s fire engine red throat as he annunciates leukemia.

Perhaps in the latter instance, Ruff was wrong. But the question in this disbelieved prophetess’s mind is: what do you think caused Ruff to lash out on more than one occasion? Could it be jackass sportswriters who refuse to acknowledge the depth, talent, or skill of his team, or the bang-up season they played? Could it be the implication from a sportswriter that he is insensitive and oblivious to the plight of a young girl fighting for her life? Or could it be that late in the regular season, his own daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and perhaps he was fighting two battles, one on the ice and one off?

FYI, Scott, last week Lindy Ruff won the Adams Trophy. You know, the one they give for COACH of the YEAR.

Abbreviated Song List #3: a Digression

All I want this year for Christmas is a cello. I, Tiresias, realize that having a cello would mean I would have to get rid of my seeing eye dog, who is about the same size as a cello. A large, sonorous, bulky thing, a cello, awkward, loud, and inefficient, yet so delicate, fragile, ready to shatter at any given moment. (I knew a kid in high school who backed his car over his cello. What can I say?) I was also thinking how nice it would be to listen to the Bach unaccompanied cello suites right now as I type across the table from Cass, in our own gleeful version of playing battleship, in a Starbucks where the rain has made the windows cloud over with a film of moisture. We’re tapping away like the good industrious hobos we are, Eva-style, me in a pink t-shirt and sheer white button-down and Cass in a sky blue tank, black pullover, and aqua-colored earrings.

But I’m not getting rid of my seeing eye dog, as much as she’s a pain sometimes and doesn’t even do her job right and has a fondness for consuming human feces that I can’t beat out of her. And the thought crossed my mind that I could just go up the street to Borders and buy Yo-Yo Ma or Rostropovich ripping and sawing the shit out of their cellos, but I had to pause. What the hell kind of hobo thinking would this be? When you haven’t even listened all the way to your Brahms piano trios and Beethoven symphonies? When you have fifty-two dollars left for the entire week?

It really would be nice to have a cello. I won’t lie. I’m not even asking for top of the line. Decent sound is all I ask. Wouldn’t cost more than a couple thousand dollars. That’s, what, the price of a nice handbag and a tuna melt, right?

Top Ten Reasons Why Tiresias Quit myspace.com Within Twenty-Four Hours

10. Already have two blogs.

9. Plus six email accounts.

8. Plus an amazon wish list that grows exponentially longer.

7. My pictures are all grainy and washed-out, mostly from the fact that I don’t have a camera, merely a camera phone, which is only good for photographs that make people look both anemic and obese at the same time.

6. No pictures of Tiresias. See above for reasons.

5. The interface is ugly.

4. The one person who invited me to join myspace kept sending rapid-fire two-word responses, and I, Tiresias, crippled by time constraints, depression, sleep deprivation, constipation, meetings, dog-walking obligations, and other kinds of exhaustion related to the need for constant foot-washing in the summer, just could not keep up.

3. What I wrote when myspace.com asked why I wanted to cancel my profile: I’m too old for this…

2. Plus I have no friends.

1. Plus I’m BLIND.

Eva, My Love

Eva Longoria was born and raised near Corpus Christi, Texas, the youngest of four, and had dreams of being a star. She has accomplished exactly this as the sultry heart-breaking duplicitous Gabrielle of Desperate Housewives, the runaway ABC hit from 2004 that gave bourgeois women who read Oprah magazine and drank free-trade coffee out of ceramic mugs made by vegan pottery artisans another reason to get together Sunday nights to eat potluck Tuscany-inspired dinners and listen to Diana Krall. “Don’t you miss Sex and the City?” they would sigh. Ever an introspective and free-thinking child, one of her first scientific hypotheses during her formative years was her belief that she had been adopted, so different in appearance was she from the rest of the family, they so fair, she so dark. This author can offer no proof as to whether this hypothesis was ever proved.

Before Housewives, there was The Bold and the Beautiful, The Young and the Restless, General Hospital, and Beverly Hills 90210, where she played a flight attendant on the episode “I Will Be Your Father Figure.” Before the nubile young and French-descended Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs, there was Tyler Christopher. Before she turned thirty, she was a wallflower, an ugly duckling, just another sweatpants girl with dreams and a degree in kinesiology (P.E., my friends), waiting to be noticed and worshipped and paid a quarter million per episode. Before she turned thirty, she was popular and well-liked in high school, and went on to play beautiful people in the soaps. If Ms. Longoria is a wallflower, then Marcia Cross is the spinster in the attic. If this were the case, Teri Hatcher is a buck-toothed wild monkey escaped from the Alabama zoo and Felicity Huffman is a blonde gorilla.

Among Ms. Longoria’s many accomplishments is her turns of phrase. Fresh, shocking, pretty, sometimes, but always entertaining. “Surely there are more beautiful women in the world. I can name ten.” She has plans to enter the film industry after Housewives. This is her first novel.

Monday, June 19, 2006

Eva in Heat

I, Tiresias, dream of writing romance novels for a ton of money. One of the greatest human traits is our ability to perpetuate these illusions that keep us hoping we'll get our stinking heads out the toilet and beget better lives full of better food, better clothes, hot fitness trainers, and victory over the fear of bills.

I don’t even like romances, though I read them when the better-sounding option is running flat-flooted into a wall. They take my mind off things … the haves, the wants, etc. See above. I like to write. I think I could write one if I really, really tried (and swigged lots of bourbon while writing the sex scenes … or better yet, make Cass write them and say I did). It’s a very good dream to have.

Sometimes, though, the dream will be interrupted while I'm staring down the last bite of street pretzel (thank you, Arkansas tourist who asked for directions to the Empire State Building) at the northwest corner subway entrance for the A, C, E trains, where I get a good angled view of the old Penn. In this case, it's when Eva Longoria becomes the prize bone of publishing houses looking to stamp her name and immense literary talents on their next bestselling hothouse spectacular.

I saw this tidbit on the smart bitches trashy books website, which made me see red and curse and elicit startled glances from my fellow hobos and assorted commuters. Of course, Ms. Longoria has been tapped to write a romance novel, when she probably didn’t have to write a single paper for her P.E. major, not even a do/don’t column on how to rock sweatpants and hoodies … not a single essay on nutrition or how to look like you’re glowing and not sweating out your gonads … and in Texas, this is some feat. She looks fun, maybe a bit of a bitch, but I figure you have to be to survive the whole celebrity rigmarole. She’s busy. She has jobs! She’s Gabrielle, she’s Tony’s girlfriend, she has to be there for him during the games, she’s got red carpet gigs, photo ops, celebrity scoop tell-alls in Star and UsWeekly. What the hell good is she hidden away penning her hot salacious Latin-flava romance?

So will Apple give her a Macbook Pro and will we see pictures of her tapping away in SoCal Starbucks cafes?

What possessed her to even consider agreeing to something that would require the use of more than the brain cell closest to her viscera?

I just have to wonder what the hell she's going to write. Is she still hiring ghostwriters? Not that I would have a chance, not after I eviscerate her in subsequent postings (I’ll continue giving faithful updates), but if nothing else, at least I could write her jacket bio.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

The Lake House, Part Two

Here’s a telling detail: I went to see the movie at noon on a Sunday, alone, and paid $10.75 like any decent person who wants to go see a movie in the theater. No kidding. I could have gotten a slice of pizza, a frappuccino, and an Us Weekly, where I could have seen a shot of Sandra Bullock eating corn dogs with her biker husband.

See the previous entry on Il Mare for background rants, which would also explain why I was compelled to leave my newly cleaned apartment at what normal people would consider the crack of dawn to the theater at Lincoln Center on the first officially hot day of summer.

So was it as good as the original? Was it worth the price? Do I recommend it? Well, moment of hesitation, no no and no. Did the Keane song from the trailer make it anywhere near the movie? No. Did the Keane song make it onto the soundtrack at least?

Why insist on asking these futile questions? Let’s just get to MY reaction. I, Tiresias, declare that this movie wasn’t quite the dud I predicted it would be, but worse in a way, because it pretty much followed the original at the same time that it went out of its way to overexplain everything. A Hollywood side-effect, perhaps, or one of their selling points. It’s like they’re trying to explain to a bunch of retarded kids, and I’m like, hello, give the slow folk a little more credit than this.

Here’s an example: Alex, the main guy living in 2004 (our Keanu), has a very conflicted relationship with his father, played by Christopher Plummer (upon his appearance, these old crack-ups behind me went, “Hey, you remember him?” but they were shushed before they went too far down memory lane). We never know what the real problem is, except that he’s controlling. But a lot of time is spent on a character that didn’t even need to be there. I guess cause they wanted Christopher Plummer. And here’s something you never want to pay to see: Keanu Reeves crying out of grief and loneliness and the weight of sorrow. It just can’t be done … sorry. Big crush on Keanu and all, but still, the man can’t do sorrow.

So in the end, instead of cheering for them to get together, you’re just like, do it already, we’re sick of you. All your problems could have been solved (and thus, no movie) if one of you thought to google the other. Of course, there wouldn’t have been much of a movie, and so that falls flat. Again fulfilling my role as a killjoy when really I’m just all in favor of efficiency. And when Kate (our dear Sandra) bursts into fits over why they can’t even try to be together, you’re just like, wait a minute, lady … how old are you again? What’s this whole waiting business? And aren’t you too old to be basing your life on a book? (Kind of a spoiler, so instead of explaining, I’ll just leave it at that.)

It did have some good moments. I really do enjoy both Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock, and seeing them together is a nice thing altogether. And I had a bit of a lump in my throat when I saw the great Chicago buildings. It’s fitting, then, that this was set in Chicago, a city full of architectural oddities and yet close enough to drive your vintage Mustang to the lake house for some paranormal letter-exchanges.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Know Your Role GFY! (And Hockey continued)

We, at Hobos Inc, believe in giving credit where credit is due. With that said, I, Cass would like to acknowledge that over half of our employees (when we track their internet usage) visit the caustic, celebrity-ripping blog GFY. I believe in these 2 young bloggers. I believe in their ability to hold self-absorbed, overpaid celebrities to a higher fashion standard. They are witty. They are cruel. And Ti and I support their crusade against leggings, overexposure (both breasts and ass), and general fashion disarray. However, yesterday in their fashion coverage of a MUCH music event, they crossed a clear line.

A line drawn in blood, as far as I’m concerned. Not only did they claim to be Canadaphiles, but they also claimed to understand (in a casual reference), one of our most sacred topics here: hockey. The GFYers made some inane comment about how they love Canada and would like to see the Oilers back on top, where they belong. Um, yeah. [Deep breaths] I can hear you, dear reader, saying, "but Cass, you hate Carolina, you want the Oilers to win too." And you’re correct. I do hate Carolina and their thieving franchise with the passion of a Hartford Whaler. I hate the fact that if they win, a Stanley Cup will be awarded at the exact same moment as a zillion homecoming trophies. And no one in the Carolinas will pay attention to the former. I’ve even contemplated charging the ice and intercepting the presentation.

However, if you’re going to take on hockey, take it on, ladies. Don’t make some general statement about restoring the Oilers to the top. Because as much as I want Carolina to lose, I am astute enough to understand that the Oilers are not that good, nor do they need to be restored, anywhere. In fact, the NHL could not have predicted a worse playoff end for this ground-breaking season. The Oilers are NOT the IT team of Canada, ladies. I predict had Ottawa made it past my fair Sabres, which wouldn’t have happened, but if by some strange cosmic mishap they did, they would be crushing the Oilers.

And if you claim to be a Canadaphile, back it up, with some hard core facts or name dropping beyond the obvious Alanis : Molson Stock Ale, the Arcade Fire, Tragically Hip, Strange Brew, to name a few. GFY Ladies, despite what the stat counter says, I know you’ve been visiting hobosinspace. We know it. We appreciate your interest, we do. We wish your retention for hockey details and lingo was a bit better, but we love you for caring. However, stick to the celeb-bashing, ok? I don’t pretend to be able to rip J Simp, K Fed, or Bai Ling with your fury, passion, or wit. You rock it. Now, we at Hobos Inc, kindly ask that you extend us the same courtesy. Please respect and celebrate our careful handling of the hockey diatribe. We invented it. We own it. We rock it. Thanks.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Song List for Tiresias #2: Makin' life-sized models of the Velvet Underground in ... papier-mâché

Because clay costs more money than I have these days, and paper's quite cheap, plentiful at every trash receptable at Penn Station (am new york, anyone? not to mention the WSJ and NYT). And glue can be easily made by boiling ground-up rice and manipulating wire hangers.

I listened to more Elton John and sang "Rhiannon" sotto voce whenever I passed Stevie's doppelgänger. But here's this week's top ten, with the aid of iTunes, which not only notes the number of times a track gets played to its end, but also notes the time in which it was played. Minus the times my hijacked copy of Janet Evanovich's Metro Girl accidentally hit play on the iPod while jouncing around in my bag.

1. The new Dixie Chicks album, gotten last Saturday, in spite of the fact that the bank account has yet again dipped into the red zone. I memorized the single, "Not Ready to Make Nice," ever since it was released back in March, and I have loved them ever since their first album, Wide Open Spaces. While I was prepared to like it, I was surprised by my tender feelings for it. The earnest quality of the earlier albums was there, with less of the humor. You weren't going to get a "Goodbye Earl" or "Sin Wagon" out of this one, and the tempo of all the songs never approached the frenetic wastrel energy of a full-on hoedown, complete with gingham and rhubarb pies and pigs in blankets and Natty Lights.

I'm listening to Joy Division ("Love Will Tear Us Apart" on repeat) while I write this. I guess this is my way of trying to achieve objectivity.

The album's smart, anthemic, brash, unapologetic, sweet, sad. Some of the songs translate well to love songs, both lost and found, and some are quite plainly declarations of independence. Take the title track, "Taking the Long Way Around," which evokes some of the same themes in "Wide Open Spaces" and "Ready to Run":

"I met the queen of whatever
Drank with the Irish and smoked with the hippies
Moved with the shakers
Wouldn't kiss all the asses that they told me to."

Of course, this time, their song is not only about independence and following paths that ran counter to the patterns established by all those they knew (will someone please don a white beard and quote some Frost for me here? How bout you, Cass?), but also about The Incident, the words out of Natalie Maines's mouth concerning our current president that sparked a tempest in the teapot and a parting of the ways between the Chicks and Music City and its strict adherence to the cultivation of songs that speak for spunky independent women who shop at Target and buy pastel separates at Talbots, beer drinkin' till four AM and the woman who loves ya anyway, God and His Mighty Power, and the Unconditional Love that moves people to congregate in order to destroy the albums and memorabilia associated with the Dixie Chicks.

Okay, I'm done. It's a good smart country album. They were never anywhere close to Reba McEntire, and this album clearly delineates the great divide between the Chicks and mainstream top 40 country. Which I loathe, with the exception of a very few performers.

2. Aretha Franklin. You haven't heard anything until you hear her cover "Spanish Harlem." And her "Bridge over Troubled Water" is utterly transcendent. And at this point in my life I like her "Eleanor Rigby" better than the original. And it's a toss-up between her "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" and the one by Gram Parsons. Both are equally soulful and sad and sexy. And I am alliteration queen.

3. Ziggy played guitar for the first time on June 6, 1972, so in honor of this anniversary, I played Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and watched countless clips of Bowie doing amazing concerts. Funny but all of them were taped in Japan. They really love him there.

4. "This time, he's over her for good." George Jones. Have you seen his duets with Tammy Wynette? Tender, so so tender. I don't think he ever stopped loving her today. Even when they placed a wreath upon his door and carried him away.

5. The Cowboy Junkies did this trippy, breathy, atmospheric cover of Gram Parsons's "Ooh Las Vegas" complete with guitar feedback.

6. Emmylou Harris, Red Dirt Girl.

7. Bob Dylan, "Desolation Row."

8. Richard and Linda Thompson, greatest hits. I first came to them by way of a cover, which is how I discover any new favorite obsession. Bonnie Prince Billy did a cover of "Calvary Cross," and from there I discovered Richard and Linda. There is a live version of "Calvary Cross" on my CD, and it's a rollicking thirteen minutes twenty-six seconds, and if I hot-foot it, that's how long it takes for me to get from my place to the Museum of Natural History. When I feel like dancing in my kitchen, I listen to "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight." I feel as though I should dedicate an entire entry to the songs that one should listen to in one's kitchen, should one feel like dancing in it.

9. Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer" and "Road to Nowhere." And "Heaven." Because I'm corny, and I like to walk through Hell's Kitchen listening to the Talking Heads. Maybe I should have an entry for all the songs one should listen to while walking in Hell's....

10. For some reason, "She Came in through the Bathroom Window" was the most listened-to song from Abbey Road. Sometimes I ignore sequence and go right to that track.

After much deliberation, I decided not to put Tanya Tucker on the list. Maybe she deserves her own entry.

Queen for a Day

The call came in late last night from a crippled Tiresias: “Cass? It’s me Ti. [Cough, cough, sigh] I predict I will NOT be in tomorrow.”
So as Queen for the Day, or VP for the Day here at Hobos Inc, I’m enacting the follow policies (effective immediately):
*Carolina Hurricanes MUST NOT win the Stanley Cup, ever.
*Cheerleaders of Carolina Hurricanes or any other new, freakish, thieving franchise must be disbanded, never to shake, romp, or bounce ever again.
*All Hobos Inc employees that insist on displaying childish toys & figurines in their cubicles, must hide them away as a penitent and conscious adult would in the first place.
*Today is Van Morrison Day on the iTunes: rock it, live it, love it
*Anyone sporting leggings will be removed from the premises.
*Foreign language chatterers in the bathroom are distracting others from doing their business. They will remain silent when using the facilities.
*It is NOT okay to pee on the steps of Hobos Inc, fellow hobos; that’s what Penn Station is for.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Best subtitle of the week: Love someone or something makes pains on one heart by oneself

When I watched Il Mare a few summers ago, it was during a whirlwind of weekend movie marathons at our university one summer. I dutifully showed up every Saturday, during which PhD girl, or as I dubbed her, freaky K-film fangirl, gave short lectures that were taken straight from her dissertation notes.

I liked the doctoral candidate babbling meaninglessly about just how much she loved the film. I felt like I was getting back in touch with my roots. My Korean got better that summer, and I even watched an entire soap opera, Romance in Paris, in spite of the fact that it was dreadful and improbable and kind of disgusted me for its histrionics.

This is the kind of entertainment I seek out most, in spite of my disgust. So I enjoyed, really enjoyed watching Il Mare, even if it had the most improbable plot of two lovers who were kept apart for the fact that they were always two years apart. Okay, so I’m not explaining this very well. So it happens like this:

A very very very pretty girl (Jun Ji-Hyun) moves into a house. The house is on a long, angular, winding pier, leading out to the sea, thus the title. The house is a gorgeous architectural wonder, a house on stilts, surrounded on all sides by water, made of light, unpretentious wood, nothing ostentatious. The spot of color in all this is the very ornate red mailbox, which is central to this strange budding relationship. I’m constructing this from memory, so if I don’t remember a private scene correctly where the girl is picking her toes thirty minutes into the film or the guy is julienning vegetables for his salad with canned juicy mandarin orange wedges and sesame dressing, I’m sorry. I watched this two years ago. I don’t even remember the last movie I watched; it’s a toss-up between The Notorious Betty Page or Kinky Boots. Or was it actually American Dreamz?

Was I supposed to admit I saw that? It’s the defining moment of the end of Mandy Moore’s career. I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, thus proclaim that the shining star that was Mandy Moore’s brilliant B-movie teen-queen career is about to come to a crashing halt, in spite of the fact that she was on Entourage and Scrubs, in spite of her greatest role thus far in Saved!, in spite of her graceful response to Wilmer Valderrama’s tell-all interview with Howard Stern, during which he bragged about his schlong and about how he wooed Mandy Moore right out of her virginal cocoon and transformed her into the love machine that she is now. Otherwise, would she have lasted so long with Andy Roddick? And what about the way she carries herself, so confident and wordly and mature, now with Zach Braff? Yes, Wilmer, I wish I could be a part of your harem, but like that bland, blank moron Chris Klein, you probably won't date anyone who’s less than an eight … and I’m sadly quite entrenched in the one-to-zero range (haven’t you noticed droll rhymes with troll?), yet you would say this in a more charming, self-effacing way so as to appear less of a pig … yes, you, with that charming from-the-border accent you’ve got. Yes, you, I mean you, Fez.

Jun Ji-Hyun is probably an eight, a nine if she stays forever in her early twenties in that fleshly, pink-flushed prettiness that is as yet untinged by pores and crashing metabolism and long nights staring down discount Boone’s Farm and waking up dehydrated after hitting the bong every time Buffy slays another night beastie on another Buffy marathon night, though because of your highly inebriated state while participating in this slightly shameful pastime, you don’t ever have to admit your love for this cheesy crap and so when people come up to you wanting to talk about their favorite Spike episode, you can, because you were so blitzed, pretend you’ve never seen even a single episode and walk away pure of heart.

So a very very very pretty girl moves out of this house on the sea and so leaves a letter in the mailbox for the next tenant. The man (Lee Jang-Jae) who picks up the letter lived in the house before the girl, and in fact was the first tenant. They exchange bemused letters for a while, driven by curiosity and the loneliness that perhaps one feels upon moving to a house on the sea, and then by the realization that they are able to speak in the now, even though they are separated by two years in time.

It’s a very confusing time-travel concept and it’s that same age-old concept of two star-crossed lovers who get fucked over because they were always on the opposite sides of the train platform.

I don’t know why I keep getting sidetracked. I was reminded of the movie very recently during one of my heavy tv sessions, this time the WB network, probably watching The Gilmore Girls or something, and because my tv love is so great, I find that I’m glued to my seat during the commercials as well.

So next thing I know, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are in my face. The running question: What do you do when you’re separated by two years in time?

There are scenes of Keanu and Sandra retrieving mail from the same mailbox. The house is a house right on the edge of a body of water.

The movie is called The Lake House.

Upon seeing this, I, Tiresias, the blind prophet, jumped up out of the seat and threw objects at my tv screen.

The Lake House, an adaptation of Il Mare, opens on June 16. The trailer fails to mention (and I wonder why) the fact that Hollywood has been sore bankrupt for the past I don’t know how many years and have since started stealing story lines from Asian films. What I admire about Korean films, what actually surprised me the first time I saw one, was how the story lines didn’t quite fit a genre. Sure, this movie was a romance, but it was a sort of visual poem, something that moved me more than the standard boy and girl staring out across a great expanse while love and yearning rippled through them like an insistent dream. No, it wasn’t no fucking Sleepless in Seattle, and no, Keanu and Sandra don’t quite repulse me in the same way that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan do, but see my point here?

A second viewing in preparation for seeing The Lake House brought to mind the small touches of humor that I’d forgotten in the first viewing, her job as a voice actor for a children’s puppet show, the dog that also follows them in their time loops, the utter ludicrousness of her having a job for which the voice is prized, not looks … and upon seeing how pretty she is among the not-so-attractive voice actors, and how her voice isn’t such a prize and if I exhibited her lack of timbre and presence in a voice-acting gig, I would have been sacked within the hour. But maybe her very attractiveness was the reason she was kept on.

So if this were a realistic film, aside from the time-travel thing, why the hell wasn’t she snapped up by a recording studio to make her own BoA-imitation album and be groomed to become the next BoA, or rather, the next K-pop Britney? Why wasn’t Laneige knocking on her door to hawk their new line of moisturizers? Why wasn’t the soy yogurt company wanting her for their midday commercials?

The Keanu and Sandra fart bomb’s not coming out until June 16, but I figure I’ll make it easier on everyone and proclaim that—wait, let me make this official: I, Tiresias, predict that The Lake House will indeed be a big ole fart bomb and will not live up to the graceful lovely confusion of Il Mare.

They’re cute though, in spite of everything. I mean, was I the only person who watched Much Ado About Nothing for the second time just to see Keanu run through corridors doing his best to impersonate Very Bad Evil Villain?

Friday, June 02, 2006

Hobo Sports: Hockey

While Hobos Inc. was in utero and Tiresias was brailing her way through the first few Hobos in Space entries, I, Cass was penitent, knee-deep in that high holy time of year. Yes, that’s right: playoff hockey season. And last night, well, I didn’t see this one coming. I predicted my team (the Sabres) would finish better than the originally slated 14th place….yeah thanks for that ranking SI & ESPN & every other sports network that continues to dump on Troy b/c they’re really pissed that we have a few things left to hold on to, like pro sports teams….but I also foresaw this as the year of the Cup. The year that a bunch of fast, young, no-names, who play as a team and aren’t all “me, me, me” would hoist Lord Stanley’s coveted cup high above their heads in honor of a real sports victory, not one purchased by recruiters and billionaire owners. And in that moment, they would justify all those times, we in Troy, had to suffer through loss after loss, all those times I’ve had to listen to jackass after jackass say, “four straight Super Bowl losses huh?”, as if I’d forgotten. And they would qualify all the time, money, energy, and indigestion I’ve suffered over this season. And they would show Rick Reilly and all those other naysayers that we, Troy, did it. We had a Championship. I believed, you see? I’m not mad at them. They played one hell of a season, and by the end, we were decimated with injuries. They played their hearts out, and that's good enough for this disbelieved prophetess.

But what killed me, what made me want to drop kick the fellow hobo who panhandled me on my way back to my apartment, was that we lost Game 7 to a team from the South. That’s what killed me. It wasn’t that I got drenched on the way to watch the game, that I had to wring my jeans out at the bar, that my hair resembled MJ in the early days of Jackson Five, or that the bartender kept changing the channel because he assumed that as a disbelieved prophetess I couldn’t possibly be watching a hockey game. It wasn’t any of those things. It’s the South. I didn’t even know anyone played hockey south of the Mason Dixon line. They certainly don’t care about hockey down there. And while yes, I love you Tiresias, dear Faulkner, O’Connor, and all the other brilliant Southern writers, the South is fried chicken & NACSAR & Scarlet & croquet on rolling plantations, not hockey. I mean how do they make ice in a place where the temperature never drops below 60 degrees F? And by the way, they have cheerleaders…real ones, all blonde and midriff baring and over-processed. I mean, come on? It’s enough to make a prophetess pen a letter to the NHL…. "Dear Mr. Bettman, there is something inherently wrong with having cheerleaders at a hockey game; it’s un-American, well frankly, it’s un-Canadian." Hockey doesn’t have cheerleaders….they have mullets and crack beer and fights and toothless folk and Canadians and drunks making tin foil Stanley Cups in the stands. Those are the pillars, the tenets of hockey. They are what make it pure.

Prediction for 2005-2006 Stanley Cup Champions: Edmonton Oilers. Because, at least the Canadians up there: recognize snow when they see it; appreciate the inherent loveliness of a crisp, cross-ice pass; feel the pain of a I-didn’t-see-you-coming-I-don’t-see-anything-now (a la Umberger) hit; see the skill in a backhand shot or a butterfly save; can point to the top shelf, where-Momma-hides-the-cookies; and feel gratitude at the sight of overgrown, summerteethed, unshaven, athletic men drinking from a silver Cup.

Your kind expressions of sympathy are welcome and appreciated at this difficult time.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Song List for Tiresias: Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids

If hobos had iPods, is what I actually wanted to call this entry. It must be the air in the tunnels today. I've called off all greeter/consultant duties for today and have instead decided to share my song list for this week with the general public.

1. The Judds. "Why Not Me." And the very earnest, lovely, sweet-styled "Love Is Alive," as in,

"Love is alive and at our breakfast table every day of the week
Love is alive and it grows everyday and night even in our sleep
Love is alive and it's made a happy woman out of me
oh, love is alive
And here by me."

Rocked to that on the C train.

2. Elton John.

"I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" is probably not the best song in the world, nor is it the best song Elton John has done, but it is, for some inexplicable reason, my favorite song. I think it's the lean-in with the piano, the sloping jauntiness of the first few notes before he busts in full throttle with "Don't wish it away, don't look at it like it's forever," and then he says "Between you and me," using absolutely correct grammar, which I love, for the very reason that too many people say "you and I," probably because they had a spottily-educated grammar school teacher who told them it was wrong to say "you and me," but that it's wrong to say "you and me" as a subject, whereas in place of the direct object, it's absolutely correct. But since I was born two steps from the double-wide, I always say "you and me." It always sounds right to I.

Sorry to start with the grammar lecture, but I guess my next point would be that I, Tiresias, never apologize. I, Tiresias, am always right. I, Tiresias, double-dip my fries in both ketchup and mayonnaise. I, Tiresias, think the day is always better after you sing Elton John, especially, in no particular order, "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues," "Daniel," "Your Song," "Rocket Man," and "Crocodile Rock."

Just remember: I'm not the man they think I am at home, oh no, no no.

3. Fleetwood Mac

Which reminds me. I sat across from a woman who kept saying "This is hideous" at the weekly Hobos Inc. meeting, talking about the placement of the park chairs and how the dogs are doing irreparable damage to the flora ... and all I could think every time she said "hideous" was:

Look at You.

She was wearing:

lipstick, bright coral shade
hair similar to Meg Ryan's in Joe versus the Volcano, 'cept longer and frowzier
a body-skimming short-sleeved black lace button shirt
Something raspberry underneath
long boho ruffle skirt
major eyeliner
peter pan pointy little boots
a sour expression.

Yep. I see your gypsy, all right. And I know you got to be more famous than your counterparts and overshadowed the 2-million-cigarettes sultry-singing low-rider-voiced Christine McVie. She looks like she's been run over a few times, but let's not be pointing no fingers too capriciously.

4. Bruce Springsteen. But it's hard to keep listening to him when the CD starts skipping at "The River." And then you know it's all over and you won't be getting another Springsteen album until your next paying gig, which won't be anytime soon.

5. Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle, singing the bad-girl songs of Bollywood. Did you know, I heard them at Carnegie and I just about died? I just about died.

6. R.E.M. Got "So. Central Rain" on repeat.

7. The Shania, and "I Won't Leave You Lonely," because she sings French in it. You know that part where she goes, "Je taime beaucoup mon amour, You are the one I adore." And then at the end she whispers, "Te amo." It's so sweet and it makes me happy, but I can't listen to it too loudly when I'm out in public. If my main ambition in life is to disappear, listening to the drippiest of drippy Shania Twain songs would kind of defeat that a bit.

8. I had to listen to "Islands in the Stream." Twice. Enough said.

9. The Shins, Oh, Inverted World. And not just the songs from the Garden State soundtrack.

10. Because ten is a good number and is a nice way to end this top ten list (wasn't aware that this would become a top ten list of most-played music for this week, but that's fine, as there's really no way I could have exhausted my list with a mere ten. This is a list that sadly won't mention the other jewels from this week, such as Whitney Houston, Willie Nelson, Wilco, and Paul McCartney, but that may be for another time. There's always room for more, and then there's always next week.

Here's the tenth song/band/artist/album: The Education of Mimi. I don't own it, and I kind of don't want to talk about it, but you know she's doing promo/ad stuff for Gillette, right? And that her legs are insured, as she's a part of (or the main attraction for) the Legs of a Goddess campaign. In my mind, it's all I can imagine: this gigantic pair of legs stretching to the heavens that have a light golden sheen to them, feet strapped into a pair of glittery Valentino's, pigeon-toed, thighs clenched together, because, as you know, it's not about the twat this time.

Cause I'm the rocket man, burning up his fuse up there alone.