I'll Catch Up

"I'll catch up with your blog when I'm on the train."

"What do you mean 'catch up'?"

"I haven't had time to read it in awhile."

"I don't think you can catch up.  The thing is a serial.  I mean, you have to know what happened a day or two ago to know what the blog is about that day."

"What am I supposed to do, get up in the morning and sit down with the blog?"

"Yea."

"I am amazed that you are still writing every day.  I don't know how you do it.  It's amazing."

"I tried to stop.  I can't.  It's like nothing has happened unless I write about it.  Otherwise. . . it just disappears."

"Yesterday's blog was bland.  Why didn't you. . . "

"I can't sometimes.  I don't know who reads this.  Sometimes. . . "

"Bullshit.  Who cares?  Write it.  Don't be bland."

"It got worse the next day."

"I read it."

Red and I went to dinner last night at my favorite Italian place.  I had a hard time getting to the hotel, though, for the Boulevard was blocked off.  They were having the annual Christmas Tree lighting.  It used to be locals only, but now, in the time of GPS, it is a shorter trip to my own hometown than it is to Disney.  People from the outskirts now want to come to enjoy the fruits of our little Boulevard and environs.  As always, of course, their presence changes everything from what they came for to what they were trying to get away from.  It was an obstacle course of knuckleheads.  I had to come down the back street to pick her up. 

Think I'm being an outsized dick about this?  I am.  I know.  I am.  

Fortunately, she was standing on the corner when I got there and we were able to glide into the only parking spot on the street by the restaurant.  

We sat down at the outside bar.  It was a nice night.  They had the outdoor heaters at the ready.  We ordered drinks and decided to split a meal.  I was drinking beer.  I've often thought that this was the way to avoid drinking, so I was tickled when Q sent me this clip of Billy Bob in "Land Man" (link).  Everybody I know who has Paramount and has seen the show is raving about it.  It is hard to beat Billy Bob.  

I was going to pull up the clip I had sent to Tennessee, but I dialed him instead.  I hung up immediately with an "Oh, shit!" but he called right back.  I had no choice but to answer. 

"Dude, I have you on speaker.  I'm with Red, so watch what you say."

He wanted to tell more about the story I deleted on yesterday's post.  It is colorful but dangerous to people who were there, so. . . .  But it tickled Red.  He was supposed to be at dinner at the big dollar steakhouse, one of Travis's favorites, a place I used to go to with Brando and another buddy but haven't been to since Covid.  He was going to be with Black Sheep and his father and a bunch of other money boys.  

"I don't want to go.  They have been at a bar downtown drinking since five.  They have the private room at the restaurant reserved, and when we get there, they will order fifteen bottles of expensive wine and it will get out of hand."

"So. . . are you going.'

Pause: "I'll go for a little while."

Good old Red was throwing in her caveats and the conversation went on and on.  Finally, he said he had to go.  Our dinner arrived.  We ate.  We drank.  Then I said I had just bought two bottles of scotch and we should go back to my place for a quick one.  

This morning when I got up to make the coffee, I saw the bottle was almost empty.  Red leaves for Miami today.  Art Basel and work.  

"Are you coming down?"

"Probably not.  It's hard for me to get away.  My mother's birthday is next week."

We talked about a trip I want to make this winter--L.A. Palm Springs, Vegas, and Joshua Tree. 

"I don't want to go where it is cold, and flying to either L.A, or Vegas from here is a cheap flight."

"Come in January.  I'm pretty free in January."  

Red has a house just a little south of L.A. on the coast.  She works for a company who makes things I can't disclose.  It costs a LOT of money, and is used by many of L.A.'s rich and famous.  She was telling me about the bracelet she was wearing.  It had been her grandmother's who had just recently died.  I asked how old she had been.  

"What?!?!  How old is your mother?!!!"

Christ, I don't want to go into it, but I AM getting old.  Red wants to give me this product so that I can live forever.  

"I don't want you to die!"

I don't know, I said.  It is tempting.  

Vague?  Yea.  Again. . . there are things I just can't reveal.  So Red. . . if you are reading this, see what I mean?

"I would think you would come to the blog everyday just for the music."

"I have a whole Spotify playlist of the music you post."

"So. . . you just come to look at the pictures and listen to the music."

"I read." 

We each said we needed an early night, so I had her back to the hotel at a decent hour.  She needed to get ready for tomorrow's trip.  I'm sure she had correspondences to catch up on, too.  

When I got back home, I poured a scotch and sat on the couch.  I turned on the television and rented a film version just released of Hemingway's "Across the River and into the Trees" (link).  It was the novel most hated by critics.  They said that Hemingway had become a parody of himself.  It is an unlikely story, of course, about a beautiful young woman who falls in love with an old soldier.  A fantasy, right?  Such relationships. . . whatever.   

Ernest Hemingway fell in love with Adriana Ivancich, a young Venetian girl, while on vacation in northern Italy. Ivancich inspired the character Renata in Hemingway's 1950 novel Across the River and into the Trees. She also illustrated the cover of the book and the first edition of The Old Man and the Sea.

Adriana Ivancich met Hemingway in 1948 when she was 18 and the writer nearly 50. In spite of being married, Hemingway fell in love with her, spending time with her in Venice and Cuba. They met for the last time in Italy in May 1954.

So I sat with scotch and the movie thinking about such things.  And then, the shocker--the protagonist, Colonel Cantwell, is only fifty-one!

There was about half an hour or so left of the movie.  I turned it off and went to bed.  I will finish watching today.  

I sent this to C.C. yesterday.  It was sent to me by Q.  

It is something that, independently the three of us have often discussed.  After C.C. commented, though, I sent him a quote from Woody Allen's "Interiors."

"But what of us who have all the angst of the artist but none of the talent?"

He shot back--"We make avocado toast."

That one put me on the floor.  I was just about to make some.  

I have always said, "Happiness teaches us nothing."  

That may be true, but I am really ready for a little now.  

Three nights in a row, and I am tired.  I am ready to return to my routine.  Aren't I?  I am sure I am, and I am sure I won't like it.  

"The trouble with people is they don't know what they want."

"Most people only know what they don't want."

As I've said, I know what I want--the impossible.  

Today I'll do what I do, then I will go to the cafe for the first time in weeks and then I will visit my mother.  And then it will be Friday night, and I will. . . . 

"Hey, Red. . . want to hear a song?"

Cool, huh?