It's Hard to Get Ahead

Originally Posted Tuesday, November 4, 2014

The most difficult thing in the world to do is to end things gracefully.  It is true of everything from a conversation to a party.  Forget about an affair, a marriage, etc.  But for a television series, it is rarely done well.  "The Wire" had the most successful last show ever.  It was as well done in the last episode as it was in the first.  The actors, the director, the producers, the writers--they had not simply given up. 

Last night I watched the last episode of "Boardwalk Empire."  This morning, a friend wrote to ask me how I liked it.  I had gone to bed just after finishing it and hadn't thought about that yet.  So, darling, here's your answer: I liked it fine, but it wasn't great.  They tied up the character arcs, made it fit with history. . . but they might have taken another two or three episodes to do it well.  It just felt rushed.  It was too neat, much like the Well Made Plays of the 19th century.  Having just said that, I realize that the entire series was really constructed that way.  Bad people end badly.  We have a new set of gangsters in the end, but we know what will happen to them.  The world loves badness, but it must live with the consequences.  It was tight. 

I don't know. That is off the top of my head. 

The picture above is about six years old.  That is how long the film has been sitting in my house on a table unnoticed.  There is a Christmas tree in the background.  I can't remember where we were.  I don't recognize the place.  I know the boy, though.  He is about to turn fifteen.  Why do they do that? Just to piss us off, I think.  The picture was taken with a very expensive Hasselblad XPan camera.  I had to have it.  I guess that was the last roll of film I ran through it.  It has been sitting since.  I thought I would use it all the time as there are not so many of them and it would give my images a unique quality, cinematic in a way.  I found the images cumbersome, though, in the end, usually with too much extraneous information.  I may give it another go this holiday season, though.  May. 

I talked to Q on the phone yesterday afternoon.  We were talking about sports and writers and arguing about the likability of the Talking Heads.  I maintain that they are always talking down to their listeners (singing down, I guess) and that you must feel as snotty as they are to truly enjoy the stance, must feel yourself to be an insider.  I always have difficulties with that.  I can't remember if Q agreed or not in the end.  He likes the music.  He asked me about a dog track near me.  He said he couldn't remember where it is.  I knew where it was, but I had never been, I said, neither there nor to the Jai-Alai Fronton that is not so far from it.  It seems sinful that I have never been to either.  In fact, I don't think they actually play Jai-Alai at the Fronton any more.  I think it is just an off-site betting place with t.v. monitors.

We talked about the our interests in watching dogs run, and I suggested that it would be much, much better if the dogs had little monkeys riding them as jockeys.  THAT would be a great idea, I said.  There would be little saddles and some sort of reins and the monkeys would wear jockey colors and little hats.  Picture the monkey in "The Hangover."  Right?  Picture him on the back of a dog running fifty miles an hour, him looking over his shoulder with that wicked grin, screaming into the wind.  Fuck, who wouldn't go to see those races.  And they would be pretty straight.  I mean. . . how do you bribe a monkey?  Q suggested that we take all the money from my retirement and invest in this idea, do it in India where they can train anything.  He had me convinced, really.  How could this go wrong? 

So I cam home and Googled "monkeys as jockeys."  My heart sank. 

It has been done (link).  

Fuck it.  There is no way to get ahead in the world.  I haven't told Q yet.  I know it is going to break his heart.  We've both been living this up big in our heads.  We could see the tracks, the champagne, the beautiful women of every ethnic origin. . .  and a few more thrown in.  Gone are the Sharkskin Suits I was ready to have made in Hong Kong.  Gone are the Havanas and the new Triumph motorcycle I was going to buy.  

I guess its back to the drawing board.