Red Light . . . Green Light

The heavens parted, and I haven't smoked a cigarette in three days. For some reason. But its 8 AM on a Saturday and I'm up, drinking coffee, and half reading a poem I wrote last night. I feel a little like Adam Sandler in Big Daddy when he thinks he's up early enough for McDonald's breakfast. Anyway, the Cavalier's first post-season game is today, so it got me thinking about my favorite basketball or sports movies. 1. Hoop Dreams 1. Raging Bull 2. He Got Game 3. Blue Chips 4. White Men Can't Jump 5. King Pin Sports movies are tricky, and I found when thinking of my favorite ones, certain borderline films had to be left out. Like Better of Dead, or A River Runs Through It, or even Caddyshack. All formidable choices though. It got me thinking about my favorite actors, and I really wanted to narrow the list down to one man and one woman. And then my favorite movies in general, and I wanted to narrow that list down to one movie. So, my favorite actress has to be Liv Tyler. I need to dedicate a post solely to Liv Tyler, and her ability to do nothing effortlessly. On the opposite spectrum would probably be Natalie Portman. She's pretty good too. I could watch Liv Tyler sit on a bench for an hour and a half. Then, my favorite actor would have to be Billy Bob Thorton. Something about him makes me laugh uncontrollably. Johnny Depp and Benecio Del Toro come in close seconds, along with Zooey Deschanel and Jennifer Connelly and Emmanuelle Seigner--and any other actresses with thick eye-brows. The least favorite actor award goes to Glenn Close and that red head from Sex and the City. My favorite movie could be Stranger Than Paradise. I also got to thinking about my hollywood crushes in chronological order. I think my first major crush was Willa Ford. And my current crush is that Beetle host from 'Sports Nation.' With Willa Ford, I went so far as to buy her address on a website. This was 8th grade, I think. I never got a reply though. That's not to say I never got any replies from famous people. I sent letters to Tony Gwynn, Patrick Roy, and Tony Hawk . . . off the top of my head. . . and received autographed photos or sportscards back. That was around 5th grade. But no response from Willa Ford. I wonder how many people wrote letters to J. D. Salinger and got no reply. Oh well. I sent an email to Scoop Jackson, about Spike Lee in Reggie Miller's documentary 30 and 30, and actually got a response. ********* Or, we begin, as is, in a good way. Then, there is a middle where we deviate and experiment. Finally, there is the beginning again, as it was at first--the middle, as it never could be--the end, which looks the beginning in the eye, and realizes it is the reversal. But there is no flashback. There is no meaning. There is no final answer or knowledge of where one is going. There is no supplication. There is no Time, because Time is Earthly. Time is a philosophy denoted by color. The End does have an exit, because I've seen a dead body. There is nothing there, absolutely. The corpse is something we see but only understand through our memories of its life. A dead body is an empty object. Stale blood and a dead heart that does not rise or fall. A heart that doesn't rise or fall is a useless object. We are born with a rising and falling heart, and we die with the same heart. So there is a beginning and an end. There is a stoppage of life. You stop a car, then accelerate again. There is no stoppage of life. To stop alludes to begin again. The heart does not begin again after it officially stops. Then what? The heart stops rising and falling, and exists as a useless object. The heart is the sun and the moon, when beating. How would you compare death? How do you compare something that you can only witness from your own perspective: You are bed-side. Your grandmother or grandfather are on their death bed. Slowly, their breaths are further apart. Minutes apart. Then the breathing stops, and does not start. You wait, wondering if the breathing will begin. But it stops, forever. Someone puts a gun to their head, and shoots. What can you say about it? The aim is to famously prove. The evolution of depression is suicide. The erosion of life is death. The connection is an evolution toward death. The word play of sound is universally despised. You die in childbirth, you die in your twenties, you die in your thirties. You die in your eighties. There is absolutely no way of expressing--we've covered and covered it--layer upon layer--the deed has already been committed--and we are a couple of first loves speaking a secret language . . . the obligation to express is like asking the question 'What's the occasion?' God is a hypothetical question. Faith is a suicide hotline. The metaphor is the occasion the simile must dress up for. Reality is the unstable, suicidal man calling the suicide hotline, and discussing philosophy.