another brain dump

 Scraps of paper pile up and I need a place to hide my stuff away, so here are some other things.

1. An idea for betting -- when you sign up for one of those online betting platforms, you declare a "home team". That's YOUR team, the one you root for. If, during the course of the season, you bet on the result of a game in which your team is playing, and you bet AGAINST your team and win, you get a payout with an extra 5% premium for your guts.

2. Watched more football and heard the following comments:

      a. of a place kicker, "he is among the top 5% in the league in successful kicks and that field goal shows you why." No, it doesn't show WHY -- it shows how he qualified for that statistic.

      b. The decision to challenge a call, to throw in that red flag and contest the on-the-field call voice of the expert. This is, you understand, not just a game -- this is the referee's workplace. You are watching him or her at work so now imagine if all those people watched, replayed and dissected everything you say and do and then you get challenged, in public. You just want to whisper "pssst, hey, coach, stop undermining my authority and making me look like an officious douche, you jerk."

      c. I just saw a receiver, in between plays, chatting with a defender. There is a challenge about whether the reception was a completed catch and I swear I just saw the defender say "it don't matter to me either way."

      d. Heard this comment about a player's improved play -- "He's dusting off the cobwebs of his old self." I have no idea what that means.

3. I think playing slot machines is sort of like sitting in front of a guy who keeps yelling "I'm thinking of a number! GUESS IT!" and no matter what you guess the guy yells "WRONG!" and slaps you in the face and then you both keep repeating this.

4. I did learn that Atlantic City has no supermarkets and has to have food bussed in in to be sold. That's insane.

5. Leo Sayer's "When I need love" is a really nice song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obC0MFHWJ0A

6. I watched the movie "No Body" again. I really, really like this movie. There is something so EARNEST about each of the characters/actors. The camera angle choices, the composition, it is all so balanced and intentional. It is understated and sincere but never taking itself too seriously. It just unfolds. There is an emotional depth and the movie unapologetic. Fantastic.

7. The music of my youth and adolescence is that elusive warm blanket for all me-kind; a patchwork of squares of sound, ragged edges and all, all holding me together in memories I should be able to access.

8. God doesn't let us understand the true nature of death because God doesn't want us to get too comfortable in this life or too certain about the next. We should never feel rewarded and clear on what's going on.

9. Sure, they say we have satellites in orbit that have cameras that can soo down to earth and read the license plate off of a moving car, and can look into the expanse of space and peer into the dawn of time, and yet, here in my world, I can't get a simple pair of binoculars that incorporate multi-spectrum sensitivities and magnification equivalent to an electron microscope with offensive weapons capability, and still be scratch resistant. Sheesh.

I watched a couple of movies

 So one movie I saw was called The Serpent. I have no idea what it was about. It was really bad but I took some notes. I don't think the context is necessary, so I'll just transcribe the snark as it happened:

1. Yes, but they're Company hot pants so it makes sense she would wear them on an op.

2. She steals 3 cars, kills 14 men including 2 CIA agents, makes a series of phone calls and raises a child from birth to 14 years old, all in the space of a 25 minute tracking shot.

3. It was so bad, I want someone ELSE'S money back.

The other movie was the new Indiana Jones movie (the Dial of Destiny). 

There was prodigious product placement for Pan Am Airlines. I am much more aware of their brand identity now and am very interested in availing myself of their product or service.

I have about a million questions about plot. How did the bad guys know to go to Sicily? The one bad guy watched a boat move away by using binoculars. He was able to discern the direction ("they're going west not east") but that should still leave a lot of planet to cover.

The whole issue with Schmidt and Voller and the same actor playing two unrelated roles makes no sense.

Indy gets shot. He is almost dead. A few scenes later, he is doing well. Then, he is collapsing and near death. Then he gets better.

I also saw "anon" last week (a Netflix original!) It is a Gattaca based movie that looks like parts were shot in Washington Heights when no one was in town.

Jets game, notes

 During the game Jonathan Vilma was discussing the holding calls that no one can see as there were calls that befuddled everyone. Then there was another strange call, "improper helmet use" but no player number was given and there was no replay -- instead, the camera switched so we can watch the guys in the booth chat. Eventually there is a replay and Vilma says, "he doesn't use his helmet at all" (which, I believe he says be cause he is assuming that the penalty was on a player involved in the tackle whereas I think the refs were finding something to call on a player off the ball and no one knew that that was what they were talking about because somebody was off book).

Despite the spate of questionable calls, no one thought to consult rules expert Dean Blandino until the 4th quarter. Greg Olsen had been complaining about the officiating since the 3rd quarter of the 49ers-Eagles game. Everyone sees it!

Coexistence Games

 So I had an idea. "Idea" is ancient Stupidic for "thought that keeps you from sleeping." So here's my idea:

Invite 2 representatives of every religious organization in an area (or every cultural group etc) to a get together to increase cultural sensitivities and knowledge. Each person should prepare by filling out a set of forms that have questions (what are the common misconceptions (or questions...) about your particular religious (cultural, political...) identity, what are three core ideas, what is one thing you have learned about another group today etc). Participants are invited to sign up to be "presenters" at scheduled sessions, in small groups, and those who aren't presenting can see the lineup of scheduled presenters and choose a group to join. The presenters explain whatever the topic is for that session/group, and then maybe take a question. Then there is food and milling about and then people sign up again, so many can choose to present and you can choose to whom you want to listen. Take a day and have 50 reps (25 groups) and 10 sessions of 15 minutes each, some lunch and snacks, and people leave fed and informed.

Someone run this up the flagpole and see who salutes. Now I try to go to sleep.

I confess

The following was written in real time, as it happened:

Today I'm going to admit something to you. Please don't think less of me for this -- accept me or reject me, there is no try, but here it is: I have never, never ever seen The Kentucky Fried Movie until tonight [ed. note, last night]. There it is.

I pride myself on my knowledge of trivia and cultural knowledge having consumed all and drunk from the fountains of communicative expression in all forms. I thought I'd seen it all and I acted like it. And I have seen a lot so I guess I somehow faked it and people just thought I had seen TKFM. But damn it, I'm watching it now [ed. note, then] and it is incredible! [ed. note -- I'd like to think that this is because of the movie, not because of any other variables which might have affected my mood at the time].

But if I haven't seen it, and I'm pretty sure I haven't, why do I feel such a crazy and constant sense of de ja vu as I watch? The scenes (the visual aesthetic and the familiar nostalgia), the plots, the actors...I somehow HAVE seen it but I have no ACTUAL memory of it, just the suggestion of memories.

I have to to have seen it. But I know I haven't. Or at least, I don't know that I have.

I feel guilty about this, having passed myself off as this flavor of fraud. I'm not sure that that's the wording I mean, but I'm trying to explain that I let and even led people to believe my encyclopedic knowledge of cultural touchstones and references (covering a particular range of years) and here it is, this perfect source code for 90% of modern day life on comedic earth and I have no conscious memory of ever having seen it. But it is triggering in my head a 24 frame per second set of technicolor de ja views and chains of thought that make simple memory look like a figment filmed in sepia tones.

I'm angry now -- at me and at the rest of the world. How did I miss this? How did the world let me miss this? I made it through all the banter and nodded sagely when the topic arose, and assumed that because wasn't called out for NOT recognizing all the bits and pieces, there was nothing so essential in the movie that I missed. I got everything the equivalent from somewhere else. I got by without it and nobody said a word so I couldn't have missed much. How unique and distinct could it possibly be?

I was a fool, a goddamn fool. I know that now and I'm not sure what to do with this new, little piece of self-knowledge. What else is the universe holding back or hiding from me, or me from myself. And why?

But maybe, somehow, in some alternate way, I DID see it, hear it and not just of it. Clips? Copies? I just don't know, but that film was a revelation.

There was no specific moment, no formal exam ever administered, nor any oath of loyalty required so no one knew that I hadn't seen it, but no one directly asked me and everyone just thought that, as it is a cultural imperative, I must have seen it and the world rolled on.

Brain Dump

 Another collection of things I have written recently that have no other home. Sift through them as you will.

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I was watching a football game and there was a camera shot of the defensive coordinator, the guy way upstairs, watching the game and some screens intently, and telling the guys downstairs what to do.

Every group of guys has at least one of these type -- always yelling at the TV set, telling everyone (especially the TV set) that he could do a better job of calling the game. "Put up or shut up" somebody said, and this guy said "try me."

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I watched a documentary of Pink Floyd that clearly didn't have the permissions of the group members, nor any access to copyrighted material so it was pretty weak. But I realized that I like the song "Money" somewhat but I really like the song, "Time."

There was a string group playing a classical-type rendition of a Floyd song and I actually had this thought in my head, "I would have pitched that down and scored it for viola."

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You know all those TV shows on which the host tries to conquer some restaurant challenge meal, some ungodly amount of food? I see those as menu inspirations for dinner.

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Decisions....decisions!

I realized that I'm not actually aware of the decisions I make most of the time. Even if I do acts consciously, I can't pinpoint the moment when I flip that switch and decide to act. When did I actually choose that course of action?

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Sometimes when I see someone pulling a rope that goes down a well, I wonder if that person is having a tug of war with someone in China.

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there is more but the paper on which I wrote it is in the other room.

The Dallas Game

 

If you think I'm done with my NFL-is-Scripted theory, you're wrong. I watched the first half of last week's Thursday night game and, oh man, I have notes!

First Dallas possession. First down throw in the Red Zone. "Flag" on the play. Now, the announcers tell us, "We'll hear from the officials." The announcement comes, "There is no flag on the play" and we all repeat dumbly "there is no flag on the play" like hypnotized zombies. The official releases the mental hold he has on all of us and turns to two players who look at him confusedly and he says (yes, I heard him say this) "No, none -- we called it off, we called it off!"

The TV guy says, "Well, I guess. There's. No. (in a high pitched, squeaky voice) Flaaaag. Ontheplay."

Cut to commercial.

Later comment when something similar happens soon after, "That's the second time they've picked up a flag."

[the commentator knows something is hinky]

During the course of the game, I see, after more plays than usual, players lifting their hands after they make a tackle or whatever it is they do, as if to say "Not me, I didn't do anything." I've seen players being nice to each other, helping each other up and chatting between plays. All of this sends the messages to the officials that "we aren't your pawns tonight. We aren't going to give you ANYTHING to call us on and hold against us -- nothing to allow you to steer us. If you call a penalty, you will be seen as the corrupt force that you are."

At least that's what it looks like to me.