Hitch 22 ... I’m still reading it, but it’s fun (at the least). Hitch even mentions The Friends of Eddie Coyle (one of his comrades fell head over heels in love with the dialogue and began using it during their intellectual soirees). Hitchens unabashedly reveals some homosexual experiences in boarding school and college (more power to him) and doesn’t self-serve as much as I would have thought, at least not yet (I’m not finished reading his memoir), but he does admit his initial love of communism was an empirical disaster (although he remained a socialist at heart) after witnessing some of the lies of the state in places like Cuba, Angola, Chile, etc.
Here he is arguing with Al Sharpton (now an MSNBC regular by way of Tawana Brawley) on religion (the topic Hitch was most famous/infamous for torching) ...
Yes, you’ll need a dictionary reading his memoir (the man was as brilliant as he was sometimes abrasive), but his memoir is a fun read thus far and if for the required dictionary alone, you’ll learn.
Midnight in Paris ... I won’t say it was a bomb because I watched it anxiously waiting for things to take off ... and seeing Hemingway portrayed was fun, but I kept hearing the Woody Allen lines (meant for Woody) coming out of Owen Wilson’s mouth and somehow the passiveness that was Allen’s trademark (minus the understated comebacks) wasn’t doing it for me. The wife really didn’t like this one, except for seeing Paris (we’re planning a trip). Anyway, this was probably the most disappointing of Woody’s films for me (because Woody wasn’t playing the lead--I guess he’s just too old on film for it to make sense). It was nice to see Rachel McAdams playing the not-so-good girl for a change.
Weight Watchers ... I slipped off the wagon for 3 days during the holidays (one day really bad) but still managed to lose a 1.5 pounds that week. I’ve been back on it since Monday and the weight continues to come off. I’m far from the goal, but this program works because of the competitive nature of it; you wind up challenging yourself to eat less and less points while adding points with activities. The ugly one is down to 323 (from 339) in 2+ weeks ...
Okay, down to 323 is something akin to (as Dick LaMonica would say to me:) throwing a deck chair off the Titanic but it is progress.
Back to School ... Monday I head back to school in Whitefield, New Hampshire ... I’ll be driving with a fellow student (Mae) so the trip will be animated. Mae is a short story writer and fellow New Jersian I’ve nicknamed Potty Mouth ... she’s really a doll. I promise not to put her to sleep with political rants for 6 hours if she promises to keep the language to a bearable level (last June my ears were in pain from all the cussing) ... here's where we'll be staying at Southern New Hampshire University's MFA program (not too shabby) ...
Bills-Cheatriots for the end of the season meaningless game ... I only wish we had something to play for so we could whip their behinds one more time. Chances are it’ll be another Foxboro fiasco (where the refs get their paychecks from Kraft on the way in) ... but it’s a who cares game start to finish. We already beat them when it counted. Besides, they’ll only be around for one playoff game again anyway. Like Dandy Don used to sing:
—Knucks
Instead of Opera today, the best of Paulie Walnuts (especially the Pine Barrens) ...
Pine Barrens (minus the best line ever--Chris to Paulie: “You one shoe cocksucker.”)
