Happy Birthday, Dad! I love you!
As usual, she made lemonade out of her lemons expressing admiration for Mr. Nelson's recent tax troubles and sticking it to the big, overbearing, soul-crushing, evil government of the United States of America. "Heil Bush!" and all that, says raddidge. Meanwhile I'm now stuck trying to negotiate with some FBI agents to have her released from a New Mexican FEMA camp built for the re-education of citizen dissidents. Plus I'm due to be on the Alex Jones show to discuss her plight and how the greys will rescue her with a giant Moloch owl.
Heh, "infowars". Dude it's all cyber-y and things!!!
On Saturday we rented Der Himmel über Berlin. The rest of us know it as Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders. I was a bit trepidatious about the movie but I gave it a chance. The first time this movie crossed my radar was back in the early nineties when I was listening to this late Sunday night radio show called Vin Scelsa's Idiot's Delight. Think of a well-meaning, college radio station that actually played music half the time which someone would listen to rather than just play to stick it to the man.
I didn't see it up til now because I thought it was going to be too arty.
What a wonderful movie. First and foremost, City of Angels was complete shit. Now that I've seen the original film, I realize the depth of this remake's crap.
Only forty five minutes of the movie is spent dealing with the angels. The rest of the movie is simply observing the lives and thoughts of the citizens of former West Berlin. How all these experiences build a foundation that leads up to Damiel's decision to leave the celestial ranks and fall to Earth. Being an idiot at heart, I didn't catch on that the brief flashes of color in Der Himmel über Berlin were brief points where Damiel was touching Earth. All of the scenes involving the angels from their point of view were filmed in black and white.
I found the movie to be quite touching and evocative of the moments. The only speedbumps being the Nick Cave performance which seemed to be thrown in for no real reason except to have a musical interlude. At the end there was a small remark of "To Be Continued dot dot dot". I figured the movie wrapped itself up quite nicely and if there was going to be a continuation then Wenders might as well have it as a surprise for his fans. Der Himmel über Berlin stands on its own two feet quite nicely thankyouverymuch.
raddidge and I were living in New York City. She was working as a waitress and I was doing something for money. In this particular universe there were only 500 people living in the United States of America. This old lady who made raddidge's acquaintance wanted a motorcycle to get around, do her groceries and other old lady things. Unfortunately most of the motorcycles were well beyond her budget. So I kicked in a tidy sum and raddidge kicked in her cash along with other folks in the neighborhood to make the ensuing motorcycle payments more reasonable for the old lady living solely on her pension.
Once this good deed was completed, I was given a look at a world map. The North American continent was dead center in the middle of the world but everything else was ocean. Suddenly a small window appeared, a light started blinking and another continent rose into view. This reinforced my nascent philosophy of "We're all in this together".
Why?
Because if a bunch of people can come together and help one person, there's nothing that would stop people from helping other people and bring together all the people of the world.
Reading this with my waking eyes, it reads as being really naiïve and childish and pie in the sky. Unfortunately I can't think of any real practical examples where people could exercise this in their lives and share the love. Especially in this world where health insurance costs are tripling and gas prices are rising at the pump.
Now I'll get off my high horse and stop pontificating on a subject you, gentle reader, may or may not give two shits about in the first place.
Needless to say it has me feeling a bit self-conscious. I know that I'm opening myself up to more ridicule than usual with these pronouncements and ideas. At least they're not being posted as ~*~* OMG TEH FRENZ ONLIE *~*~.
