In today’s audio only entry, Kite talks about her childhood. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.
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Time: 9.29
Kathy and I went to see Rent. I overheard three teenage girls overheard while waiting for the movie to begin.
Amber Is this a scary movie?
Catherine What?
Amber Do they have any guns in this movie?
Catherine No. God.
Amber Do they actually show them…shooting up drugs?
Nicole Well, I won’t spoil it.
Amber GASP. But – what kind of drugs?
Nicole Um, heroin.
Amber Okay. I’ll close my eyes for that part. Do they actually, like, have to do that?
Catherine Well, OBVIOUSLY NOT.
Amber Well, obviously not, but do they have to pretend -
Nicole I saw a fake cigarette thing in the movies, I’ve seen how it works. They wrapped something in a piece of paper and they lighted it.
Amber What makes the smoke, then?
Nicole Well, um, they light it and then they put it out, and you know how smoke comes out?
Catherine Yeah.
Nicole That’s pretty cool.
I kind of liked Amber. I thought the last naive teenager went extinct around 1988.
Rent spoilers below
I know it’s the height of uncool to like the musical Rent these days, that it’s been called pablum for the masses that soft-sells the horrific reality of AIDS in the late ’80s. I don’t care. I like it anyway. I like the melodrama and the harmonies, I like that the story follows not only the opera La Boheme but the writer’s real life. I like the way the movie costume designers managed to turn Adam Pascal into Jon Bon Jovi circa 1986, to the extent that I thought it WAS Jon Bon Jovi for the first ten minutes until I realized that the guy is 43 now and can’t pull off that look anymore.
And when I was in my mid-twenties, I liked to play it on the stereo. Pretty much exclusively. For two years. (Todd knows much of the music, not because he likes it but in the same way you know the latest Hillary Duff song, because it plays constantly in the background at the dentist, the grocery store, and in the too-loud headphones of the obnoxious kid sitting next to you on the subway.)
When I was 25, I found the Angel/Tom storyline boring and the Mimi/Roger ending hand-clutchingly romaaaantic. At 33, I was crying so loudly during Angel’s funeral that Kathy started looking for somewhere else to sit while throwing kleenex at me. The scene was beautiful. On the other hand, when Roger leans over the dying Mimi to sing her the song he wrote I felt like standing up and yelling, “Yo! Roger! Pick her up and BRING HER DOWNSTAIRS SO SHE CAN GET IN THE AMBULANCE FASTER, YOU FUCKING ATTENTIONWHORE!”
Rent spoilers end
In other movie news, I recently saw Robin Williams live and in person walking down the street. I knew that lots of Hollywood celebrities are in town filming various things, and I’d made a mental note to head down to Yorkville to see if I could spot any of them. Instead, Paul and I happened upon the filming of “Man of the Year”. The Canadians were extremely dignified about the entire process. They drove or walked by, looked at Robin Williams in the same way you’d look if you happened to spot your next-door neighbour in the produce section, and kept on their way. I gawked like a thirteen year old. Paul and his friends had figured out that there was a famous person in the offing, and – having no idea which one was the star – ended up deciding on a woman wearing a green scarf, waving frantically and saying breathlessly, “She looked at us – did you see? She looked at us!” I wanted to go over there and say, “Listen, you may think that you’re just a lowly extra, but in the eyes of a bunch of seven year olds today, you were a movie star.”
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In today’s entry, Sage spots a real celebrity. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.
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Time: 6.26
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In today’s entry, an old man puts a smile on everyone’s face. Call 206-666-3043 to leave your comments.
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Time: 4.52
I was heading up the steep stairs at the subway station when an old man came pushing through the crowd, talking a mile a minute.
“Move now, move on outta my way. I’m an old man, and I’m gettin’ up the stairs faster’n you.”
We crowded onto the subway car. I stood next to him and he sat down next to a woman in her early twenties, who turned, amused, and said, “Hello!”
“Well, hi there, now. You be careful what you say. If you say hi in Toronto something’s wrong with you. You better move to Vancouver where everyone says hi. If you wanna be unhappy move to Toronto. In Vancouver, people are relaxed. I’m headin’ out right now to get two beers to wake me up.”
The entire subway car exploded in laughter and continued being an appreciative audience for the rest of the ride.
“Naw, my doctor told me to do it. That’s a medicine. If you take too much medicine you’ll get sick. You know? So you only take what you’re supposed to take. See, that’s what happened to Elvis Presley. Ya see? The doctor gave him medicine and he overdid it. So he died young. Forty years old. I’m seventy, you see? He shoulda lived to a hundred and ten, Elvis Presley, with all that money. A whap-baba-looba-and whap-bam-boom.”
Big laugh. The train lurched and I started to fall, and – this has never happened before – the guy in his twenties behind me reached out lightning fast and caught the hood of my sweatshirt and steadied me.
“You’re all laughin’ but I’m givin it away for free. You want a big show, you gotta pay. It costs ya $150 to see me. It’s very expensive. Just trust me. I’m – look on tv, you’ll see me, ya’ll will know who I am. This is not my real face.”
The young woman, smiling, exited the train calling, “Have a nice day!”
“Okay, now, bye bye.”
“Bye!”
“Now which stop – oh, this is College. I don’t go to college anymore. I graduated. I’m a professor now. That’s right. But I don’t teach. I prophesize. I prophesize. Oh, what is that? I ain’t never used that word myself. It’s new to me. That’s a big word, prophesize. I’m gonna hit the road. I’m goin’ to Kansas City. Kansas City, here I come…they got some pretty ladies there I’m gonna get me one…I want more than one. I’m not satisfied with one lady. I gotta have more than one. I got an old lady and a young lady. How you like that? That’s not bad.”
The woman across the aisle coughed.
“Careful, you got your flu shot?” (Huge laugh.) “That sounds pretty rough there. I hope you don’t sleep with the window open. If you do, cover up good. Okay, bye bye. I’ll miss ya.”
Lots of people on the subway car said goodbye, and he sang, “Enjoy yourself…it’s later than you think! Bye bye folks, I’ll miss ya. Put an egg in your shoe and beat it!”
After the doors had closed, one woman said, “That just put a smile on everyone’s face.” And when I got off the subway it felt like that smile had stretched somehow to cover the entire city, so that the normally taciturn commuters were suddenly talking to each other, laughing and grinning for no reason at all.
