My Morning, as told to Mr Earnest Hemingway

The sun was in the windows and on the floor. I got up to finish the film while I had my breakfast. The black girl was dancing and singing, the cereal too sweet and soggy, gaggable stuff. The phone rang, Zurich calling, like always.

"I'm on the tram. I have a meeting to get back to. This train is too slow."

"What are you doing out? It's 5 o'clock."

"I wanted to try going out in the sunshine. I wanted to try it."

"Were you at the Mariott? Did you stay watching the racy films too long? That's why you're late now."

"No. Why is everything about that with you?"

It was an old joke. We always made it. He moved on.

"Kevin Garnett. That man is amazing."

"He is the MVP. He will be. Did you see that Grasshopper lost? Lost in the cup? Their opponent, FC Wil or somesuch, has not won it for one hundred and four years."

"No. Did you speak to the Captain?"

I had known he would say it, before he did. The stupid joke came from the Captain. He who had not been seen by us since Christmas. Or before, maybe summer, in the Tuscan hills with the wine grapes we had fought. With my forehead still stinging from where I had been hit with the rock, I had gone to the train station. I hadn't known where I was going. It turned out to be Rome. Then La Spezia, and Riomaggiore, and Camogli. And then the hours back to Zurich on another train. We had fought again there. The call ended. I pushed the button again for the film.

The water was running now, hot on the dirty tile. I had a friend somewhere in Africa, under a cold, brown waterfall beating his clothes on the rocks. He liked doing that sort of thing. It took millions of dollars in the bank for him to be able to go do his laundry under a waterfall. And surely he would be playing his guitar while they dried.

I turned around to the mirror, and I saw her under the hot water, tucked up like a child in the protection of her mother's stomach. She was slick with soap and soaked to the bone, stillborn but for her eyes blinking. She stayed until the water turned cold. Her tears were hot but she still shivered.

I wiped the steam from the mirror. My towel would be wet now. The razor was dull, and I had no more shaving cream. I cut myself, but I was tired. I closed my eyes. It was time to go.

*-Sorting through my desk looking for bills I found a copy of this thing I turned into a lit class a number of years ago (apparently during the heady days of the Timberwolves only championship run) as my brief response to The Snows of Kilimanjaro. It amused me all over again (ça plus change, ça plus même) and made me think about starting a Hemingway kick for a while, in my often derailed quest to use literature as a form of mental rehabilitation although always leaving room for Rob Zombie, slasher movie auteur du jour. Anyways, the names have been changed to protect against implications due to my artistic license and missing detail in recalling certain events... basically what I'm saying is don't read this and take the implication that the Captain really threw a rock at my head, because he didn't (that was somebody else, and there were witnesses). As always, apologies in equal proportions to Papa Hemingway and to my faithful readership.

On Watching Too Many Horror Movies

I discovered the other night it's a bit difficult getting to sleep with John Carpenter's Halloween theme quietly running through your head. I decided this after a double feature of G.I. Joe the Rise of Cobra, and Halloween 2 or II... well whatever it is officially, the 9th Halloween movie, which to some would sort of make it Halloween Nein. That combination is enough to give anybody nightmares of being pursued through some deserted lonly place by a spectrish, barechested, drooling Marlon Wayans... you'd think the most upsetting thing from that double header it would be the long series of brutal murders, or maybe a redhead named Rachel (merging a few images from my dark past), but mostly it's just Marlon wayans as a male love interest that made me squirm in my seat.


I wish I could follow Rob Zombie's vision of how he wanted to improve on one of the modern horror icons, but in so many remakes a director must always blow your mind by taking whatever was iconic about the original and turning it upside down and inside out, and then deny that he just sort of missed the point. And then I think drop half his own story to get the project completed on time, which in this case was a couple months early, so the DVD would be out by Halloween... somehow that fills me with sadness to think of actual movie theaters as an increasingly pointless marketing exercise. I hesitate to analyze further, because I still have this vivid memory of over-analyzing certain vaginal images in the original remake (???) and being accused of mockery by the girl who'd invited me over to watch it. (Oddly when I tell that story nobody has a problem imagining that I would find esoteric sexual detail in that film worth over-analyzing, but they don't believe a girl would invite me over to watch it.)

Tigers 6-2 Twins, Vikings 27-13 Lions

I don't think I would have been able to take two losses to Detroit in one day, so I'm so grateful for the Lions tackles forgetting how to block in the second half, especially with Favre looking like the old man he is. Although still not so bad as Delmon Young nodding off in left field and needing to take a moment to rub the sleep out of his eyes before he could get the ball back into the infield. It's like he was having this beautiful dream where blondes in bikinis were tossing their beachballs at him (which he still couldn't hit) and then he was jarred awake by the crack of a bat and a ball hitting his glove. I still can't believe we gave up Garza, Bartlett and a bullpen prospect for this guy (given the Twins excess of outfielders and utility infielders with soft bats, the other players in that trade don't really matter).

I may have seen my last baseball game in the Metrodome today; with only one more series left at home and the Twins down three games to the Tigers in the division race as they embark on a 10-game road trip I don't know if I'll get tickets again before Target Field opens next spring. I thought I'd feel a bit more sadness at that, since I really do have so many fond memories of those blue seats. On the other hand it was a dump with like six bathrooms and I'll be back next week for the Vikings home opener. Kind of a pathetic farewell though: usually it's the Lions that put people to sleep on Thanksgiving (if they played after the turkey was served coma wards would have to be expanded) but today it wa the 87 lame pick-off attempts and generally sleepy pace of the game actually killed all my drive to pop back into work for a few hours.

This is the first football season in a few years where I've had a fantasy football team that I actually care about, and I forgot how much it distorts the way I watch football. This week I really need Favre to throw underneath to his tight end, because if he goes deep to Berrian my exultation at the Vikings touchdown is muted by the knowledge that the Rode Duivels have been scored on too. I also still can't believe anybody drafted Calvin Johnson, a player I still associate most with the phrase "Wake up motherfucker, it's our ball!" But the important part is the Vikings are up 2-0, and my undefeated fantasy team is coming off a week two blow-out. I'm feeling luckier than that time I fucked a leprechaun.

There's only one R in Kushner

For the last time... if you're talking The Empire Strikes Back, Robocop 2, Eyes of Laura Mars, Never Say Never Again... that's Kershner. If you're talking Exotica, The Black Dahlia, The L Word, Not Another Teen Movie, The Crow 2, that's Kirshner. If you're talking abuse of executive power and defaulting on IMF loans, that's Kirchner.

If you're talking A Bright Room Called Day, Angels in America, Slavs!, Caroline or Change, Munich, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, East Code Ode to Howard Jarvis, Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy, Geraldine of Albania Meets Lucia Pamela on the Moon... for the last time his name is Tony KUSHNER.

Why must people who add an extra R to his name always do it with such smug authority? "I know all about him, except how to say his name." I mean really.