Subway thoughts,Odin, and Tom Petty sadness
I was on the subway last night – sitting next to a woman who whenever the train stopped she would look at her watch and mutter something like “Jesus fucking Christ” and such like. I didn’t think much of it – New York is full of people who are simply too tightly wound to live anywhere else and sometimes too tightly wound for here. (I do put myself in that category – In my family I thought of as laid back but that’s only in comparison to folks wound tighter than an over wound Swiss watch with 32 jewel movement – I’m not laid back).
Anyway the ride continued through the rain and sleet and snow – it was pretty rotten last night – with the woman cursing next to me from time to time – when she wasn’t looking at her watch. Then a guy came on the train and spieled his spiel – if you ride the N or the W you know the buy – again no names but he’s hard to miss – he’s missing fingers, a lot them – including both thumbs. He, as he always does, said his little speech and then panhandled the crowd – personally I give a dollar cause well hell – it’s hard to fake missing fingers.
My bitter friend next to me mutter under her breath about “I’d love that not having to work all day just walk around.” Which just about floored me – here was a person in what looked to be decent health dressed well, yeah maybe under some stress, angry and indeed jealous of someone with no fucking thumbs – you try doing sometime with no goddamn thumbs and you’ll see what I’m talking about – I have no idea how he manages to dress himself never mind take care of the other daily needs of the body (yes that stuff).
But this woman was angry at him. Jealous. Again the man was begging on the subway and has no fucking thumbs.
It’s a level of self absorbed crazy I haven’t seen in a while – I remember some one else I know who – when Mickey Mantle was dying of liver cancer actually made a nasty comment about how the Mick was put to the front of the line for liver transplants. It was pretty damn amazing stuff – I was in the presence of a man jealous of someone with cancer.
Of course he was also the person who wondered why he wasn’t paid that much since he was told nobody else could do his job while ( I forget the exact star let’s say Mike Piazza for the moment) had a back up and still made millions.
“That’s because 55,000 people don’t pay money to see you work.” I told him.
He didn’t like the answer and changed the subject.
So for the moment this has given me a vital lesson about bitterness – it’s not worth the time kids and you’ll end up saying things that will make your friends think you’re crazy.
Anyway, when I was a kid or teenager we spent a lot of summer weekends at my Uncles house in rockaway riding the waves. The longest rides were the ones you got when there was a tropical storm coming up the coast and the tide was coming in. The most intense rides were very short – when the tide was going out – you ended up riding what we called shore breakers – instead of rolling you along these would pick you up and slam you straight down into about 3 inches of water – along with a lot of broken shells and the angry crab or two. I remember more than once seeing nothing below me but shells as the wave started to break. At that point you just had to ride it out – and more than once I was there with my siblings and my cousins and as we were going over we all yelled “ODIN!”
Let me explain.
The Odin thing is from a family favorite movie “The Vikings” (1958) which started Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Earnest Borgnine (who was born to play a Viking). Per the movie a Viking could only enter Valhalla by dying in battle with a sword in his hand and calling out Odin’s name.
One of the things about this film that stands out is really really bad things happen to all three of the male leads – Kirk Douglas has his face scared up and an eye gouged out by a hunting hawk owned by Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine is eaten by wolves in a pit (after Tony gives him a sword so he can go to Valhalla) and Tony who is the leading man gets his left hand chopped off by the heavy (for giving Earnest the sword). This is followed up by an assault on a castle and a duel between Kirk and Tony (who are brothers half really- it’d take to long to explain it) where Kirk is killed and then is given a Viking burial. I.e. put in a ship and then the ship is put to sea, then burned – it’s a big moment in the movie. The whole thing is done with huge gusto and a great sound track.
And this was the film our family would watch every damn time it came on TV – we’re a pretty weird bunch looking back at it.
Listening to Tom Petty today – the thing that strikes me about his stuff is even in the up beat songs there is this underlying sense of sadness almost melancholy. Maybe it’s just the timber of his voice (the only man who could harmonize with Bob Dylan) but there is a weight there. All the songs seem to say that the sadness of life itself can never be transcended only escaped temporarily at best – it’s pretty downbeat when you get right down to it.
Peace, Love, Last Dance for Mary Jane
Anyway the ride continued through the rain and sleet and snow – it was pretty rotten last night – with the woman cursing next to me from time to time – when she wasn’t looking at her watch. Then a guy came on the train and spieled his spiel – if you ride the N or the W you know the buy – again no names but he’s hard to miss – he’s missing fingers, a lot them – including both thumbs. He, as he always does, said his little speech and then panhandled the crowd – personally I give a dollar cause well hell – it’s hard to fake missing fingers.
My bitter friend next to me mutter under her breath about “I’d love that not having to work all day just walk around.” Which just about floored me – here was a person in what looked to be decent health dressed well, yeah maybe under some stress, angry and indeed jealous of someone with no fucking thumbs – you try doing sometime with no goddamn thumbs and you’ll see what I’m talking about – I have no idea how he manages to dress himself never mind take care of the other daily needs of the body (yes that stuff).
But this woman was angry at him. Jealous. Again the man was begging on the subway and has no fucking thumbs.
It’s a level of self absorbed crazy I haven’t seen in a while – I remember some one else I know who – when Mickey Mantle was dying of liver cancer actually made a nasty comment about how the Mick was put to the front of the line for liver transplants. It was pretty damn amazing stuff – I was in the presence of a man jealous of someone with cancer.
Of course he was also the person who wondered why he wasn’t paid that much since he was told nobody else could do his job while ( I forget the exact star let’s say Mike Piazza for the moment) had a back up and still made millions.
“That’s because 55,000 people don’t pay money to see you work.” I told him.
He didn’t like the answer and changed the subject.
So for the moment this has given me a vital lesson about bitterness – it’s not worth the time kids and you’ll end up saying things that will make your friends think you’re crazy.
Anyway, when I was a kid or teenager we spent a lot of summer weekends at my Uncles house in rockaway riding the waves. The longest rides were the ones you got when there was a tropical storm coming up the coast and the tide was coming in. The most intense rides were very short – when the tide was going out – you ended up riding what we called shore breakers – instead of rolling you along these would pick you up and slam you straight down into about 3 inches of water – along with a lot of broken shells and the angry crab or two. I remember more than once seeing nothing below me but shells as the wave started to break. At that point you just had to ride it out – and more than once I was there with my siblings and my cousins and as we were going over we all yelled “ODIN!”
Let me explain.
The Odin thing is from a family favorite movie “The Vikings” (1958) which started Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Janet Leigh and Earnest Borgnine (who was born to play a Viking). Per the movie a Viking could only enter Valhalla by dying in battle with a sword in his hand and calling out Odin’s name.
One of the things about this film that stands out is really really bad things happen to all three of the male leads – Kirk Douglas has his face scared up and an eye gouged out by a hunting hawk owned by Tony Curtis, Ernest Borgnine is eaten by wolves in a pit (after Tony gives him a sword so he can go to Valhalla) and Tony who is the leading man gets his left hand chopped off by the heavy (for giving Earnest the sword). This is followed up by an assault on a castle and a duel between Kirk and Tony (who are brothers half really- it’d take to long to explain it) where Kirk is killed and then is given a Viking burial. I.e. put in a ship and then the ship is put to sea, then burned – it’s a big moment in the movie. The whole thing is done with huge gusto and a great sound track.
And this was the film our family would watch every damn time it came on TV – we’re a pretty weird bunch looking back at it.
Listening to Tom Petty today – the thing that strikes me about his stuff is even in the up beat songs there is this underlying sense of sadness almost melancholy. Maybe it’s just the timber of his voice (the only man who could harmonize with Bob Dylan) but there is a weight there. All the songs seem to say that the sadness of life itself can never be transcended only escaped temporarily at best – it’s pretty downbeat when you get right down to it.
Peace, Love, Last Dance for Mary Jane
posted by Unknown at 9:30 AM
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