a peek into the exciting life of splotchy, life's little slices

You’re Not Gonna Die

7 Comments

The commuter train I ride to work has two levels. In the morning I generally ride on the lower level.

A woman in her early 50’s sat next to me today. She is often in the same car as me. Generally she sits up one seat with some friends of hers, where two sets of seats face each other, but her particular spot happened to be already taken.

Still, she was gabbing with her friends on the ride in, if a little more awkwardly. I had started the book Devil In The White City that morning, but got tired of reading, put away my book and just stared at nothing particular.

I was startled by a loud noise. A travel mug from the top section of the train had crashed to the floor next to our seat. As it made contact with the floor, coffee erupted out of it, spraying the woman next to me, and to a lesser extent some other women sitting nearby.

The rest of the ride was tense. Well, not for me — for the women involved. The owner of the travel mug was a woman around the same age as my seat buddy. The mug was handed up to her.

My seat buddy began wiping a napkin over her bleached blond hair repeatedly. She kept on saying, “It fell on my head.” It seemed like she was implying the mug fell on her head, which wasn’t the case. I don’t doubt that some coffee got in her hair, on her clothes, etc. I couldn’t see the degree of coffee damage done from my vantage point, but I imagine it was significant.

She wasn’t incredibly loud or obnoxious about it, but my seat buddy continued to talk about the coffee on her person. My eavesdropping isn’t so good, but I *think* she was talking about how coffee can ruin platinum. Also, she kept on glaring up at the coffee dropper as she was talking.

The coffee dropper, apparently tired of hearing about the droppee’s complaints, leaned down and said, “You’re not gonna die.”

This was fuel to the fire of my seat buddy. She repeated the coffee dropper’s words to her friends. This drew the coffee dropper back to speak again to my seat buddy. My seat buddy said, “You didn’t even say ‘sorry’. You said, ‘You’re not gonna die.'”.

The coffee dropper insisted she *had* said sorry already. I didn’t hear the coffee dropper actually say sorry, but I don’t see how she couldn’t have.

My seat buddy recounted the entire story to the conductor as he handed her the napkins, including the “You’re not gonna die” exchange. As she spoke to him he repeatedly told her to not worry about the floor (she must have been looking down at it intently, I guess) — either it would take care of itself, or he would have it cleaned up.

The conductor looked up and asked, “Was that your coffee?” The coffee dropper said, “Yes.” “Try to be more careful,” he replied. Then my seat buddy informed the conductor that after the accident the coffee dropper had returned her mug to the *same* location it had been when it had fallen down in the first place.

The conductor said that if my seat buddy had any cleaning bills for her coffee-stained clothes, please let him know about it.

I don’t know if the coffee dropper removed her mug from the place where it had previously fallen from, but the mug did not fall again.

My seat buddy continued to glare at her.

Finally, we pulled into Union Station. The coffee dropper slipped out of the train well before my seat buddy and I were able to exit. I presume no fight ensued.

a peek into the exciting life of splotchy

The Dad Flourish

6 Comments


There is such a thing as The Dad Flourish.

The Dad Flourish is important. The Dad Flourish is something that doesn’t necessarily make sense. You could define it as a slightly irrational display of paternal fun and affection.

It can be anything. It can be an object, an impromptu road trip, a weird game made up as you go.

The Dad Flourish is very important, for both the kids and the dad.

I personally witnessed a Dad Flourish when I was a kid. We had two cars when I was growing up. For a while, my dad drove a light blue El Camino pickup. For some reason, he had “Riseman & Sons” painted on the side. My dad worked for the state of Illinois. He did not have a side business, and being 12 and 5, my older brother and I did not work for this non-existent side business.

I don’t think he painted it himself. It was kind of fancy, cursive handwriting. There might have even been a dropshadow. So my dad paid someone to paint a non-existent business sign (referencing his sons!) on the driver side door of his El Camino.

CLASSIC DAD FLOURISH.

I have a great time with my kids. I have danced with them on many occasions. But, despite that being well and good, that’s not really a Dad Flourish.

So, here is one thing I know for sure *is* one.

There is a Rec Center in the neighboring town. They have an indoor playground I sometimes take the kids to. They also have a gym. It consists of three full-sized courts right next to each other. It’s big, and usually pretty empty.

I like shooting baskets, but the kids aren’t yet strong enough to shoot baskets at the full height of the hoops. Probably as a result of this, they don’t really like playing with the basketballs too much.

So, I got this idea in my head. I take quarters and give them to the kids to throw and chase after. Often I will whip quarters too. If you throw it right you can get a good roll going, making a giant circle on the floor (these are throws close to the ground, not big airborne ones).

We haven’t been asked to stop yet, but as I mentioned before, the gym is usually pretty empty, and, ummmmm, I… keep an eye out for the “authorities”. This whole quarter-throwing business is slightly irresponsible, stupid and wonderful.

Dad Flourish. 🙂

a peek into the exciting life of splotchy, experimental film

Dead Mice

Leave a comment

I am cleaning out the garage.

I took an old plastic Christmas tree spilling out of its box and put it on the floor in the center.

I took a half-constructed cabinet, that never got fully-constructed because it was missing some parts, and laid it down in the center.

I took boxes of old broken kitchen appliances and placed them in the center.

I took a rickety, dirty toddler saucer and put it in the center.

Some water-damaged ceiling tiles. A lawn bag of old yard waste whose bottom fell out when I picked it up. Soiled cardboard.

Tomorrow is garbage day.

On Monday and today I have gone to the garage to get my bike, to ride to the train I take to work.

Monday, outside the garage’s side door, I found a dead mouse. I kicked it aside into some weeds near the garage.

This morning, I saw another mouse. I assume it’s a different mouse, and not the same mouse moved by the ants that were crawling all over it on Monday.

I kicked this second mouse (or first mouse that resumed its former position) where I kicked the other/same mouse before.

Tonight, I take heavy-duty garbage bags and waste stickers, collect the garbage from the center of the garage and dump it all to the back alley.

I’ll wear gloves. I’ll look for dead mice.

Here, a movie Stan Brakhage made about his dog’s corpse decaying.

Part 1

Part 2

david patrick kelly

Adopted Actor David Patrick Kelly In Louie!

1 Comment

If you haven’t seen Louis CK’s new show, Louie, on FX, you really should. It’s a very nice, human show. It’s funny, but is also grounded in a very real emotional place. I have seen other people describe it better than I on the Internet, so that’s all you’ll get from me. Don’t try to wheedle any more out of me. I’ll cut ya!

Anyways, I was watching Louie last week, and in that particular episode he uses some framing scenes with a low-key but slightly disturbing therapist. You never get a close shot of the guy, but it looked kind of like David Patrick Kelly. Well, it looked a little tall for DPK, but it looked like him. A tall version of him. Of DPK. Okay, onward.

I checked the credits and didn’t see DPK’s name, so I figured it wasn’t him. I watched the show again, and decided, well, to be sure, better check out the IMDB, the font of all verified and truthful knowledge about movies and television. Sure enough, it *was* DPK playing the therapist. Hurray! I was very happy it was him.

About five minutes ago, I found this interview with Louis CK where he talks about DPK.

Interviewer: First a little quick thing. I want to make sure that that was David Patrick Kelly playing the shrink, but that’s not my real question. My real question is, looking at the pilot and then the first episode that follows it, there’s quite a bit of a difference between them that I kind of want to see, what evolved between the making of the pilot and that first episode? Which, they’re all fantastic. I mean, as somebody who has seen you live many, many times, it was amazing to see that captured, both the live stuff and then just your personality that comes through a lot of your work. What evolution took place between the pilot and then that first episode?

Louis C.K.: It’s a good question. First of all, it is David Patrick Kelly, who I love from Warriors and 48 Hours and Dreamscape. He’s an actor I always connected with. We did an audition for that therapist part and a lot of people did a really corny, kind of beard stroking Freudian therapists, and he just did this really wild, really freaky character and it made me laugh the instant I saw the audition, so he came in. We only had one scene planned for the therapist, and as we started shooting it, he was just so funny I started throwing things at him, saying, “Try saying this,” and he would do it and it was perfect. So I think we have about eight therapist segments. I’m not done editing all the shows yet so I don’t know if I’m going to use them all in this season. I think we’ve used about four.

Interviewer: It was a huge victory seeing him.

Louis C.K.: He’s so great. He’s another example. There’s actors that you love, that you’ve seen in great movies, and they’re just living in New York City, and they’re so happy to work. And it’s so much a better process to just call New York actors and pay them just a … check to come in and really work hard for a day.

The full interview

Watch Louie on Hulu (DPK’s episode is #4 — should be uploaded some time within the week)