1) Sex. I’m not entirely sure how or why this came up in conversation, but it did. And the 35 or so seconds that it did come up in the conversation made me uncomfortable. Not exactly the kind of conversation I wanted to have with my grandmother. So I quickly tried, unsuccessfully twice, to change the subject. Fortunately, she moves from topic to topic quickly and we were able to move past this awkward moment.

2) Volunteering. My grandmother is still extremely active and likes to volunteer at events and theaters all over Los Angeles. This gives her an opportunity to do two of the things she does best: (1) Meet and talk to anyone and everyone – she’s extremely friendly and (2) Get free stuff – in this case: shows. She noted, however, that some of the theaters she has been volunteering at, like the new theater at UCLA, were either charging their volunteers to park (which I told her I thought was absurd) or were replacing senior volunteers with kids from the campus.

3) The Elusive “Vents”. My grandmother’s house has central air but the vents are out of her reach and / or hard for her to open and close. I don’t keep tabs on the weather reports in the Los Angeles area on a regular basis but, for whatever reason, whenever I talk to her, the vents need to be either opened or closed.

4) The VCR / DVD / TV Debacle. Similar to the vents issue above, somehow my grandmother always manages to press the one button on her remote or on the VCR, DVD, or TV that causes them all to stop functioning at once. Fortunately, it sounded like my brother dropped by and fixed the issue when it happened recently.

5) Casino. As I indicated above, there is no one more adept at getting free stuff than my grandmother. She is always traveling to casinos on trips with senior groups – to Henderson, Las Vegas, and some “Indian” casinos closer to home – for free. She described her latest trip in detail and, if my calculations are correct (and they should be as she described the trip in minute detail) – accounting for the $1 she paid to have her car “locked up so it was safe” before she got on the bus that took them there, the food and slot credits, and tips – the casino actually paid her approximately $17.50 to go to their casino and hang out.

Once upon a time, I went camping with my good friend Leon. We were camping somewhere in the San Luis Obispo area, set up our camp, and had driven off to find the nearest market to buy some food to cook over the campfire for dinner – Likely some sort of beef portion to sear on the grill and some corn to roast. That’s what camping is all about isn’t it? Anyhoo… We found a local market and had eagerly entered the fine establishment in search of meat and corn. Then it dawned on us… We needed a beverage! BEER! said the voices in our heads. But alas – neither one of us was 21 yet and both too poor to afford a proper fake I.D. We would have to settle for the nearest thing: Near Beer. It didn’t have quite the same romance as real beer, but it was the best we could do. So we headed for the beverage aisle…

Now on our way, for reasons I can’t quite remember, we were discussing funky music and being able to groove to a beat. By the time we were ass deep in the beverage aisle, we were both snapping our fingers and dancing a little. Our dumb cracker-fest in the middle of the beverage aisle was interrupted by an old black man who was suddenly not only in the aisle but standing only a few feet from us and staring at our stupidity. We immediately stopped. Embarrassed. For a moment he was silent – as if carefully calculating his thoughts. Then he pointed to Leon and said, and I quote: “You… You have no soul.. But you…” – and he pointed at me – “You got soul.” And then he slowly walked past us on the aisle and moseyed off into the sunset. We both stood there stunned for a few moments having felt enlightened somehow. Then we grabbed our Near Beer, our meat, our corn, went back to the campsite, and ate our grub. But the story has become legendary…

*NOTE: I tried to find a streaming version of this song for you to listen to but was unable to find anything. You’ll just have to trust me.

She’s a good girl, loves her mama.
Loves Jesus and America too.
She’s a good girl, crazy ’bout Elvis.
Loves horses and her boyfriend too.

Daniel meets a girl, Ali Mills (Elisabeth Shue), a high school cheerleader … the nice and attractive popular girl of the school …

It’s a long day livin’ in Reseda.
There’s a freeway runnin’ through the yard.
And I’m a bad boy, ’cause I don’t even miss her.
I’m a bad boy for breakin’ her heart.

Daniel LaRusso has just moved from New Jersey to Reseda, CA (a neighborhood in Los Angeles) and is finding it hard to acclimatise to life in the new city. He is promised a swimming pool and a beautiful house but when they get there, it’s anything but. He meets a beautiful blond girl but encounters a gang of bullies who make his life hell. This further dampens misery into Daniel’s life as he just wants to go home. He is continually bullied and is afraid to show his face around the high school.

All the vampires walkin’ through the valley
Move west down Ventura Blvd.
And all the bad boys are standing in the shadows.
All the good girls are home with broken hearts.

School life isn’t so easy for Daniel, especially when he begins to like Ali, the nice and attractive popular girl of the school. Soon her jealous boyfriend and his gang, The Cobras, all of whom train at the local karate studio, are out to get Daniel, who is eager to prove himself courageous and not be scared off by the bullies, but also isn’t keen to blindly be punched up by the gang.

I wanna glide down over Mulholland.
I wanna write her name in the sky.
I wanna free fall out into nothin’.
Gonna leave this world for awhile.

Through the teaching, Daniel learns not only karate, but also important life lessons, such as the importance of balance, reflected by the belief that martial arts training is as much about training the spirit as the body. Daniel applies the life lessons that Miyagi has taught him to strengthen his relationship with Ali … Mr. Miyagi performs a mystical act on Daniel’s sprained leg, causing the pain to disappear. Still hobbling, Daniel performs a skillful move to beat his opponent, winning both the championship, the everlasting friendship of Mr. Miyagi, and the love of Ali.

GIRLFRIEND: :-O for what?

ME: Trader Joes Wild Alaskan cod fish nuggets and tartar sauce :D

GIRLFRIEND: My boy is transforming before my very eyes!

ME: I’m not a boy. I’m a man :(

GIRLFRIEND: You are my boyfriend. Or do you want me to call you my manfriend from now on?

ME: Sho. That’d be rad. :D

GIRLFRIEND: Dork :P

Something occurred to me, however, in watching the film… And you’ll have to stick with me on this because it’s a long road. It’s like the foul mouthed pianist joke (PUNCH LINE: “Know it? I WROTE it…”). The difference being that my blog entry won’t likely have you rolling on the gum wrapper littered floor of your Geo whereas the pianist joke might. So here goes…

If you go to the archives in DC or to the Huntington Library or some museums, you’ll find these amazing historical letters. A letter Ben Franklin wrote to so and so or a letter Shakespeare wrote to so and so, etc. And what you realize is that, at least with some of the more prolific writers, there are a good deal of these letters out there – these guys and gals were writing letters constantly to each other. They couldn’t just pick up the phone – and, in cases where they lived long distances from each other, couldn’t meet in person to exchange ideas or just “shoot thy shit”. I just watched an entire film that was based around, primarily, the writings of one individual and in more recent of times (i.e. within the past 100 years). Writing letters was the primary, accessible form of personal communication.

I have to imagine that when telephone lines and long distance and phones became more commonplace, letter writing as the primary form of communication became antiquated. Why go through the whole process of writing a letter, getting an envelope, a stamp, etc. when you could just pick up the phone and find out how Uncle Trevor was doing instantly?

But flash forward to nowadays with the interwebs and “smart” phones. We e-mail. We instant message. We text message. I am writing constantly. Verbose e-mails to clients. Disgusting text messages to my friends. Sharing information and ridiculous links to cohorts over instant messenger. It occurred to me that, while technology has essentially advanced, we’ve swung around full circle to more people writing to communicate than, in many cases, talking over the phone or even in person.

And then I thought, “Whoa… I just blew my own mind…” And then I grabbed a cookie.

In the case of “Across 110th Street”, I snagged the DVD because I had grooved to the Bobby Womack theme song (it’s on a CD called “Pimps, Players, & Private Eyes“ – a classic) a few times before and figured it would be a pimping, player-ing, private eye-ing movie. While there were a few pimps, maybe even a player or two, there weren’t any private eyes and the film primarily centered around a fairly standard white racist cop paired up with a black cop to try and save the day together formula. It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting – which was more in line with a Shaft, Superfly, etc. style of film. So, to that end, I was a bit disappointed. Certainly no catchy 70’s catch-phrases like, “Looks like you’re gonna have to close it yourself — SHITTY!!”

That’s not to say it was bad. But I have never seen less realistic looking blood in a film – it was easily day-glo orange and had the consistency of heavy cream.

It did, however, stay true to 1970’s-style film making in the sense that it ended both awkwardly and abruptly.