Please note the remarkable lack of expletives, and enjoy it while it lasts, as I furiously attempt to decode Niume's conspiracy to make me full of myself and still shy away from a Facebook massacre
Ever since Nicholson inhabited About Schmidt as a paean to the over-rated radicalism of the Kennedy era, with its giants now tottering, the industry seems to have reinvented the swan song as a revitalized subgenre. For Pacino this might have been The Humbling, which did more for its octogenarian author than for the Italian American grandee reprising its title character. For Eastwood it was Grand Torino, despite the fact that Million Dollar Baby was one of the most controversial films of this century's first decade. De Niro has yet to fill this niche. But Everybody's Fine, his 09 comedy drama, notches a fourth rung on the ladder from the top, and comes fairly close to letting us reminisce the burrowed fury of De Niro's signature roles. The retired Frank who sits on his absentee son's stoop in New York might indeed echo Scorsese's anti-hero Bickle from Taxi Driver, just as the dream sequence toward the end of the film, with a dark and raging cloud overhead, might lead us to remember the sheer energy it took for De Niro to embody Jake LaMotta.
Raging Bull, in point of fact, is one of the few Scorsese vehicles with which this lesser Italian American has no empirical quarrel, standing alone among her superlative peers. It is probably the best and greatest film to explain the Italian imprint on the American soul, The Godfather and its like notwithstanding; Everybody's Fine inhabits a different tempo, and is a mature film for an adult audience, one which industry insiders complain we never go to see.
It hits all the right cues, that we live in a mega mart alienated and gated world, isolated soap bubbles on the weary health stricken back of the industrial age, which De Niro's Frank embodies with his damaged pulmonary function. The script, despite De Niro's carrying power, is far too schematic and predictable, but you need to ignore that, and look for the small glimmers, the poignant self-references to De Niro's giant footprint in our fading baby boomer, post-beatnik lives, like the musical son introducing him as "my famous dad," or the additional allusions to Penny Marshall's Awakenings, where De Niro and the sorely departed Robin Williams have to carry an absurd institutional story. Yes, that's right. As a movie where disease is the antagonist, Awakenings is beyond a bad joke, but De Niro's furious enemy combatant tactics against his own body make Marshall's pesky incidental instances when dealing with catatonia something more. He cannot do this in Everybody's Fine, even with emotional wounds from which father's never recover, but it's nonetheless worth seeing, to bow our heads, a sentimental au revoir.
I feel like Upton Sinclair foisting the Federal Meat Inspection Act on her own vernacular. All I need to do is play the pedestrian and my social media rating jumps, and then all I have to do is spit vitriol and subsequently ignore it to console myself. I've learned not to make too much of the automated accordion by now, but I have not changed, and if the building manager had a popular online account, she'd tell you that. Libertarian embrace has made me ferocious, but, to sound like the ghost of Deng, there are only so many ways to slay the cat: and I am not interested in "making a scene" on niume. I have virtually next to nothing against the platform, and would have bolted it three weeks ago if they had mailed me an automated password boot. My issue is with the model, not the people running it, or the users, and this is Google's fault. The Godmother glares at search giant, round 2.1. I let Kwale Powerhouse go because he was a bit too eager to exploit me, and this is what I've learned. Blacks use race to hurt the disabled, yet I ain't allowed to say certain truths without the online world choking on a wingbone (rolls eyes). This is why I am angry with Jerry at a deeper level. I bought his intellectual argument, and it was as much a crock as any conservative hypocrisy. Might as well mention it now and perhaps refine later, but I missed O'Neal's self-pity, so self-evident on Tavis, in his younger self in Hill's genre driven experiment. If Walter Hill knew what thesis I was building on his film, he'd say "girl, pretentious snit is a generous charge," and he'd no doubt be right, but I see what I see, beat slow and steady. I have nothing against Ryan O'Neal; he was the romantic lead who shaped my youth, and recognition notwithstanding, his weariness and mine converge at many points. My ambivalence about him doesn't desire pillage: I care too much about my product, but I don't care about his Sunset Boulevard melodrama. I care about his creative legacy, the output, biding my time to email his publicist again. He is going to be gone soon, and I need him to let me in, just a bit. Perhaps he dislikes Walter and doesn't want journos on the scent.
I can't laugh, and I can't sing-- at least one thing the mercurial faggot got right.
Actually, the non-paying think tank provided me with a green light to go ahead, and this is where you start to swivel the joystick in a blind panic: National security is not my field of expertise, and there are more than a few thousand bloggers who dissect Washington daily, who have far greater ease of access to deputy directors and the plethora of advisors who've circulated in and out of the West Wing over the last twenty years. Now I have to track a couple and compel them to talk to me. Only I have no idea how to pose my questions with a straight face, but this is what I wanted, despite my imminent lodging crisis, so you may feel free to see me screaming in a Six Feet Under sketch, while I curse Twitter's staff profusely for recycling the has been relevance of Barry Manilow's sexual identity, because Manilow was the virtual definition of a fop long before gay marriage became a rallying cry for their side. He is the king of Dork, and now, I can't get his duck paddling vocals out of my head. Yes, I had an album. My parents no doubt preferred this variation of gruel flung from a spoon to stick to the wall, as opposed to Peter Townsend's seductive and daring artistry, but why I had the album, why I sat reading postcards for the Manilow fan club on the school bus, this is anyone's guess.
Calm down. If I marshaled my forces to get a query past the gate, then I can marshal an article on a policy hypothetical and its repercussions. I do not have to re-litigate an entire series of events which have already been reported ad nauseam. I am a real journalist. Was, not a pretense of a recording artist whose fifteen minutes of fame barely merits disturbing the grave of Andy Warhol, tragic pop culture guru, dispensed dung beetle refuse. In many ways, my willingness to breach decorum, in a montage of biting disillusionment, is too toxic for social media, and too nasty for Niume, with its few lions and flocks, yet the sheep keep coming. A follow, a subscription, these are effortless. Human intervention, well, that is another matter, with sometimes detrimental results. The question becomes, if my disdain is so all pervasive, the love for the scold itself, that too, lends itself to the strident mockery embedded in the blank verse of Moliere. But if Jack thinks he is going to save his company with marshmallow whip, perhaps United Airlines can have him appointed as Viceroy to Saint-Helena, as this is one quad who wouldn't mind seeing Silicon Valley in a game of Castaway. Google finds me dangerous. Various web communities followed suit, but no one has lifted a bloody finger to help me against my disadvantage and nearly intolerable circumstance. Remember, I live with activists who were under investigation, whose institutional solidarity humiliated me. I should not have to be reminded of this on a daily basis, in a senior living facility which finally acknowledged what I've condemned for years. The disabled can no longer live in section 202 housing, unless they meet the age requirement. The American welfare state is going to implode and destroy itself sooner rather than later.
I interpreted Dylan Allman's follow as a gesture of allegiance rather than a numbers pick up, and debated staying with him in about as brief a span. I am stressed, stricken with allergies, and may soon be barred entry from my building in far swifter retaliation than any legal eviction process, and this quadriplegic needs a dose of nobelesse oblige as much as those with an agenda want her to add to their base.
The poet Robert Thomas, to paraphrase, messaged that he hoped I wasn't a racist. He's obviously not reading my twitter links; I am intending to launch a war with my rental agent, win or lose. I need another environment to live in, now, my poverty notwithstanding. (Large or small, I also like to keep my follow to followers ratio in proportion.)
We have no housing suggestions at this time.--Toomey's regional offices
I was a little more unkind to Jayne Anne's legacy than I had intended to be here, was mildly surprised Niume allowed me the ventilation, and shall perhaps make up for it at a later date. I cannot remember much about Fast Lanes or Black Tickets, and have yet to restart the earlier vignettes which earned the studiously silent professor her acclaim; no, I am not pouting that she will not respond to me; I simply thought emailing her would be the fastest method to get a copy of my poem back. I may even no longer have a draft, and murderous contempt for vacant Christian idiots doesn't solve the problem, does it now?
I know the alt.right doesn't give a fig leaf for my liberal brown nosing, blow upon blow. The state GOP, Toomey. They seek my loyalty, my monetary support, and if I have committed nearly irrevocable acts against black monolithic bull dykes, as long as the lava vein doesn't lead to property damage, who cares? So why have I switched sides? Because Toomey would have evicted me by now; there may have been some humiliation involved, but not this slithering nigger poison on its daily saline drip, and I like straight forward talk, think the man got the CIL to declaw my supervisor. The most cognizant rationale I've read about McConnell's breach of Beltway decorum, allowing the Garland nomination to expire, was that the party wanted to keep Scalia's seat solidly conservative: I've enough independence of mind left to be critical of "unicarmelizing" the federal legislature. It only gives libertarians more fuel, as we all grow more suspicious.
Sure, Obama disillusioned me, and his policies did jack to help me, as quads are always dismissed, third class humans, at best, if we require too much mending, but he was still the president. Trump wants the same respect, and in that light, Garland should have had a hearing. Gorsuch gets in, yes, but after I am dead, does Scotus become a dog and pony show off Broadway? If I can be nearing 55-- just barely, and be cynically disgusted, it is quite an erosion. Mr. Delvechio's history student, 36 years ago, was a patriot. She believed in her country. Philadelphia, as a chronic condition, destroyed that by the time the broken half-wit from the Bronx proposed to me. I think I was 42, thinking I'd stay well built for a while. Now I am ejecting myself from the inglorious projects which consumed health, virility. We'll see if JFK security shoos me off, like a mad woman, if I present myself to the Senator's staff, in the interim.
Sleep with the fishes
With the possible exception of the homosexual class, what I despise the most in our human endeavor is stupidity and convention shielded by collectivism. It is a great deal to say I've bottled so much of my malevolent contempt, in relation to this, with a cork because of brotherly kinship for the absent libertarian Tony Stiles, but there is a grain of truth in it, because I must have been a Roman henchman in another life for a prominent family, and if I really let my hair down, I mean really, I'd blow more than one server on Blogger and really pose a problem for my local precinct.
Lest you think my hatred is merely aimed at the disposal of disadvantaged human wasted space, for which American 202 public housing was designed, let's take Michael Pera. He is either Italian or Polish, as in "stupid Pollack," an affable custodian, but also one of the dumbest morons I have ever encountered. When I bellowed out loud and clear you can go fuck yourself to Trudy on Friday, pulling my phone out of pocket, Mike looked like a frightened bug eyed beagle. It is 6 against 1 here at Riverside, no more than a gang of 4 or 5 at any one time, and they are scared to death of a cripple with 1/3 normal mobility; I was perfectly civil to the patrol officer they summoned to my unit, and have no idea what the young man told them, as this is sort of aggrandized domestic violence, but they all the sudden folded. Michael Pera makes my dead ex seem clever, and he makes Trudy Richardson's managerial conniving seem nearly prosaic.
What am I not hearing in Trudy's and my sister's and my family's argument? That going through another 25 to 50 paraprofessionals would assist my grooming and cleanliness and ease my housekeeping stress and at least get me food when this Jazzy goes down for good? I have already been through nine years of this; the afternoon in 07 I accidentally flipped, I had an aide scheduled who never showed, and Trudy launched her first attack, assigning blame, to me, because the system has such huge craters that I had to wait nearly a year for a fucking power chair because I earned an unexpected insurance payout, and the fucking assessment team asked me if I was suicidal, in public, after being molested by an Unlimited Staffer. It is all of you who are deaf, and whatever my belligerence, these fraternal government partnerships breed ineptitude. I am going to see to it that at least one minority's career in gerontology impoverishment comes to an end. Watch me roar.
Highlight two or three keywords in yellow-- a Kenyan
Other than for obvious reasons, such as development of cult followings, I do not know why the 09 wrap up episode of Dead Like Me had to be made. The substitution of Wynter for Harris was poor form, and while the replacement of Mandy Patinkin as the preserver of tradition with a hedge fund manager may signal the obvious about our times, the last episode in 2003 was open ended enough to make this closure, six years on the drawing board, a bit redundant, even if it is about disruptions to the status quo. We can infer, because little sister Reggie decides to let go, that Georgia's reaps end with the comatose quarterback in the hell of his body, but I remain uncertain as to what the team revolt against Cameron signifies, unless it's just that some conditions always revert back to form-- which may mean I am going to be incarcerated regardless of what I do, but I cannot stay at Riverside any longer. So Kwale's observation that I have enough time on my hands to write positive posts about his equatorial continent isn't entirely accurate, as I have to find a way to bully myself out of the city in the time I myself have left on the clock. My personal sanity is at stake.
I have been brutal to Trudy, nigger nanny extraordinaire, I won't mince words about it, but the bitch is a conniving weasel who strikes behind my back. Why? Section 202 housing is as authoritarian as any Moscow dormitory for native Africans which only winds up burning down due to shoddy maintenance. I have to go. I won't get far, with my resources, but I have to. I cannot take it anymore. So she wins, in that primal cunning of our original model, lifestyle evolved to combat pervasive conditions brought about by malaria. Thousand word posts, with keywords. It makes the 3k I earned under contract look like a small fortune. Grunts.
I realize not everyone who reads me can put all my various threads through a needle, but a young African of Kenyan extraction invited me to write for African Zeal. He offers not much better than Niume or the deceased Examiner before it, 2000 posts for ten dollars. Uh huh. I have no reason to disbelieve or believe him about the money, but a scant few of my long term followers know I wear my racism; indeed, I've given the four minorities in my first floor office good reason for dissolution of my 32 year lease under their management. The receptionist, Lanisha, is terrified of me; charming, (why not?) Kwale reads my work and solicits me.
I am smacking my lips with more than slight incredulity, but for the moment, I'll leave the torpedoes in the chamber. You have a good morning too. I am not in the mood to drop my rental subsidy in the slot until this evening; in 202 they drag it out five business days, not counting the weekend. Wonders never cease. I have some ideas; we'll see what he does with em, curdling.
Every time we post something which can be seen as inflammatory on the basis of reality, social media administrators warn us about privacy settings. Is there a tally to this before account suspension sets in? The poet Robert Thomas posted a link to a Washington Post data survey about the GOP and the failure of black economic matriculation, found it deplorable, and I posted a stark reality reminder comment about inner city living by referencing a Sunday evening sexual assault event currently under investigation, even while merrily skimming past my former minority co-worker Cheryl's sunny day images which are the equivalent of my family's sunny day images, a blanket cover of positronics, almost like automated cymbals through which we deafen ourselves, even if the reality represents something we as a populace are helpless to mitigate. Another victim, another day, and the half cocked spastic should just grin and bear it and stay put. Wilson Goode set an entire neighborhood in flames in an attempt to pacify Move, before I became locked in as a Presbyterian zoological specimen, then the more dynamic prosecutor Ed Rendell sued gun manufacturers, then Michael Nutter had to wear the shame of Danieal Kelly on the city's face. Danieal doesn't happen with a great deal of frequency, but just enough to remind us how low humanity is capable of sinking, much like Russian thugs perforating livers of Putin dissents reveal the nature of Slavic brutality beneath the surface; and Kenney? Jim Kenney is not a mayor who is intent on creating his own imprint on Philadelphia. He is an interim executive with a corrupt DA on the sole of his shoe, a carry over of liberal exhaustion, no less factually bankrupt simply due to the fact that Ross Douthat epitomizes Trump as the exhaustion of the libertarian idea on the other end.
What I wrote in the comment on Robert's feed was that blacks who "aren't matriculated through their counter culture are exploitative opportunists." So I did leave something of a gap open for the civility of black professionals who would no more use sex to subdue a quadriplegic than the few academics who occasionally cock their ear in my direction. Am I a bit pensive? Most assuredly. Can't I ever be in a good mood about anything? Ah, but bursting bubbles in the swirl of indigence which can be directly attributable to former disability activists is all part of the fun.
Robert and I have interacted with each other well over a decade. Shudder. We met once. Are we true friends? Location prohibits either couple friends intimacy, if I had a new couple prospect to consider, or the nuisance invalid interloper, in the less charitable role of a third wheel, into a rare example of Californian style marital happiness. We do not pick up the telephone to chat about intimate details of our lives, but we respect each other's accomplishments. Is that now doomed because I spearhead Frisco's patrician gentility? Not on my end, not yet, as long as ideological cleavers don't slice the gourmet pizza into a potentially dangerous wedge.
