Get Your DAMN Hands Off Her

I met Crispin Glover last night.



While I have a special place in my heart for George McFly, I loved Crispin for so many other reasons.

There was Layne. 

"Hurry your ass!"

 The funeral guy from Gilbert Grape.

And Bartleby, oh, Bartleby. 

"I'd prefer not to"

I even liked him in Hot Tub Time Machine.

I can't believe that is the second time I admitted to seeing that movie on this blog.

So, I am a fan. After attending It is Fine. Everything is Fine! last night, I thought that we might have to break up. Please don't click on the link or watch the trailer unless you are prepared for some bizarre stuff.
We spent 4+ hours with Crispin last night. Currently, he tours around the country doing dramatic readings from his illustrated novels, showing his two films, holding Q & A sessions and signing books.
The book reading was really neat.

He created these new art works by taking books that are in the public domain (because they are so old) and cutting them up and changing the story and adding illustration. It reminded me of this book I have been trying (in a very lazy, inactive way) to get ahold of since my printmaking teacher in college showed it in class, The Humament.

Wait, wow, I just ordered it from Amazon. Merry Christmas to myself. I am the easiest person in the world to shop for. 

But here is Crispin Hellion Glover (Given name, btw, I checked. Yes, even the middle name)'s work:

So he reads with a red spotlight and a slideshow presentation for about an hour. This was the best part of the evening.

I thought I was prepared for the movie. I had watched said trailer, read about it and listened to an extensive interview with Crispin on the subject. I knew it would be weird. It was a movie written and starring a man with cerebral palsy. If you think it might be difficult to watch a movie where it is utterly impossible to understand the main character 98% of the time, try to imagine that character's full frontal nudity. As graphic detail as it gets. This one made Captain Spaulding's scene in Devil's Rejects look PG-13. This movie was not for the faint of heart. During the movie, I became upset with Crispin. But then he talked so long during the following  Q & A session that I kind of got over it. Forgive and forget, I say.
Maybe some of the problem with the movie was that we didn't see the first film (What is it?) in the planned trilogy, although he assured us we don't need to see that first and they don't really go together anyway. After having a little distance from the movie, I can kind of, maybe, a little bit understand the film. It is hard to imagine the kind of devastation and frustration, and those words are not even close to strong enough, of having a healthy mind inside of a severely handicapped body. But it's hard to feel too bad for the guy when he has sex with numerous women, at least one of which is meant to be a young teenager, and then kills them. Yep, that's the plotline, but I guess that's not so much the point. It has kept me thinking about it though, which in this case does have the unfortunate nudity seared into my memory. Maybe that makes me shallow, I don't know. My man thinks we might be squares. It's true, we don't have face tattoos, like the couple that was sitting next to us at the screening. We weren't the only ones, though, because I heard the woman behind us apologizing to her date on the way out.
Crispin stuck around to sign books long after midnight and took time to talk to each fan personally. Even in my (quickly evaporating) disgust, I was quite starstruck, and shook his hand twice. The second time he was reaching for the book to sign.
So anyway, big night. I guess it was what I expected, but more so. I guess we can still be friends.

Half Awake, In a Fake Empire

The end is in sight. The summer paper that is somehow creepin into the winter. We will present our paper in about a week and a half, and, while slightly panicked, I am so happy that it will be over and we can all move on. Deception is out. Pricing nerd will be back in full force.

Also, almost over is my torturous soccer league. I thought I would love playing soccer. After all, I loved it my whole younger life, from kindergarten up through freshman year of college. Strictly for love of game, not the competition, as I never made the varsity and played on intramural (not university team) one year of college. I was the honorary captain of the VJ team, maybe because of seniority (literally, there weren't a lot of seniors on the jv) Actually, thinking about it now, I don't think that I made it through the whole college freshman season... Anyway, the point is that that ten years is a long time. Skills that were marginal at best get a mite rusty AFTER TEN YEARS.
To prepare for my first game, my man and I got a ball at Target and kicked it around the backyard. Of course, we wanted to go to the park, but, as I might have mentioned before, we have a beast of a dog who does not like to be left alone and does not play well at the park.

I know it's hard to believe, but trust me. 

So with the only other soccer practice area we could consider being the dog park, we settled for the backyard. Anyway, one errant kick headed straight for the satellite dish and I should have known soccer was not going to go well for me. $75 dollars and 5 days later our cable was restored and I was off to the first game. When the goalie asked me after 10 minutes if I had ever played soccer before, I realized:

1) I was not going to make any friends on the soccer team and

2) I suck worse than I had feared. 

The (sort of) good thing is that the rest of the team in general also kinda sucks. We do have some good players (My man: "You need to be more like Leslie") but we went six straight games without a goal. (My man: "I think your team's goal should be to score a goal." Meaning don't even think about winning). Another good thing is that once the other team is up ten goals you can get an extra player. That has happened to us. Several times. 

Oh yeah - it rains here too. Every Sunday. And we do not cancel games for that here in Eugene.

So anyway, tonight is my second to last game with the dear Soccer Otters. They are continuing to play an indoor league starting next week. I say they because I will not be there.

Related to soccer? Yes, but also everything else.

Some might say this advice is simplistic, but I think it's got to be the key to life, right? And, for real, I am not talking about soccer anymore. And, you know what? It's not simple. It's really complicated. And this advice is hard to follow. Inaction is easy. The key is forcing yourself to move when you need to IMO.