Vayland Rd.

[a recap of the first bit]
I remember a time when I was very young, riding in a car with green, leathery seats that got very hot when the sun shone on them in the summer. The car was green as well, although a different shade, and it seems to the me of my memories that most of the cars back then were that color. It was a popular trend I suppose, or maybe my child’s perception was skewed.
At any rate, there were several undisputed facts; the car was green, the seats were green, it was summer, the sun was hot, and the seats were hotter. We had the windows open to let the air in and my mother was driving us to town on an errand.
The road was a winding black hardtop that looked down into sharp ravines between the hills — drops that seemed (to me) to go down and down farther than anything in the whole world. I would look down and out from the tiny back windows of the two door and think about what it would be like to go sailing off the road and into the ravines, tumbling over and over and finally exploding at the bottom, like on TV. (We lived a long way from town and when it was only you and a younger sister for a playmate and no one else for five miles, you learned to entertain yourself.)
So, with the sun beating down and my boredom rising, if I saw a goblin shambling along the bottom of a ravine with an old and rusted sword across his back like the yoke of a wagon, I didn’t bother mentioning it to my mother. Even at that age, I assumed I’d imagined it.
I believed that for the next 28 years.

~ The Call ~
My cell phone rang, the screen showing Out of Area instead of a number. I answered with an abrupt “this is Sean”, which usually clears up wrong-numbers in a hurry.
“Hey bud, how’re you doing?” My mother was only person in the world that called me ‘bud’, among other things, a lukewarm leftover from my pre-teen years that she tended to drag out when she was feeling down.
“Hey, I’m good. What’s up? Something wrong?”
“Oh, you know…” Her voice wavered a little bit almost immediately and I knew it was going to be bad. “It’s been a little crazy here for the last couple of days.”
“What’s going on?” I didn’t try to keep the frown out of my voice; it wouldn’t make her feel any better if I did.
“Well, we can’t seem to track down your dad.”
I glanced around me to see if I was standing in the shadow of a building. “I lost you on that for a second. You can’t seem to track down Dad’s what?”
“No, we can’t find him.” I could hear her set something metal down on something solid. She was wandering around her kitchen, fiddling with things. “It’s been two days.”
My frown had deepened. “You… I don’t understand what you’re telling me. Is he traveling?”
“No, he’s been home for a couple weeks.”
“Did … what happened? Did you get in a fight or something?” It sounded surreal even while I was saying it.
No, of course not.” She, the happily-married, properly-raised, Midwestern wife, sounded vaguely insulted by the idea. “I went to bed a few nights ago and your dad stayed up watching TV. When I got up the next morning he wasn’t in the house. I thought he’d gotten up and gone out to get some work done before it got hot.” Before the sun came up, more likely, I thought. “But he wasn’t out in the machine shed.” Her voice started to crack around the edges. “I know it’s a long ways, but can you come home? Everything’s just so strange.”
I couldn’t seem to hear her clearly; my ears were ringing and everything around me seemed have had the color washed out of it. So strange? What does that mean, Mom? I shook my head and tried to think. It remained quiet on the other end of the line.
“I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I made sure not to hesitate in my reply.
“Where should we pick you up?”
“I’m driving out.”
“Oh honey, you can’t.”
“It’s the only way I can.”
“But it’s such a long ways.”
“Yeah,” I said, “it is.” I checked my watch “I’ll call later. Be careful.” I finished, and ended the conversation wondering why I’d said it.
Several hours later, filling a single suitcase and leaving messages with various people about an unspecified family emergency, I still didn’t know.

“Check out the feature on muzzle velocity…”

A few days ago, I found Jackie downstairs watching TV. I asked what was on (it was on a commercial break), expecting the standard Trading Spaces answer.
“A special on Kevlar.”
“On what?”
“Kevlar. The stuff they use to –”
“I know what it is, why are you watching it?”
She shrugged. I went back upstairs. Today I asked her about it again.
“I just feel like I’m in the dark about body armor compared to everyone else [that we know].”
A telling statement about us and our friends, to be sure.

How is this possible?

Susan Lyne, president of ABC Entertainment, told reporters that ABC’s spy series Alias will take on a new level of complexity in its upcoming sophomore season. The mind boggles.
This announcement has sparked a small, panicked avalanche of copycats “making something that already is incredibly __________ even more incredibly __________” in arenas outside of television. Sources report that Dick Cheney plans to have small devil’s horns in the shape of nuclear warheads surgically attached to his head, George Bush is scheduled for a full frontal lobotomy, and Big Oil and the American Tobacco Growers Association have revealed (in a prepared joint-statement which closely matched the original ABC template) that they plan to “take on a new level of rapacious self-interest in the coming year”.

Review

So, went to see Mr. Deeds tonight with a couple free movie passes. I’ll provide a short review (sure, you’ve probably either already seen it or aren’t going to, I know… I just feel like talking about it), but let me first frame this up for you:
I don’t worship Adam Sandler. Little Nicky was an abomination, for example. That said, I’ve enjoyed several of his movies (I quote lines from Happy Gilmore under my breath while golfing far too often.) Everyone clear? You know where I stand?
Okay, the review: I think this is probably the best Sandler movie. If you liked The Wedding Singer, you’ll like this — it has the same feel-good vibe with Sandler playing a genuinely nice guy (no dumb voices, no abject stupidity, etc.). It’s upbeat, it’s funny.
Still not convinced? Okay, here comes the big guns:
John Turturro, whom you might remember as Pete Hogwallop in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (“Do Not… Seek… the Treasure…”) plays Emilio, the spanish butler.
He’s a genius. There are other reasons that this is now my favorite Sandler movie, but if you removed all the rest of them and left Turturro playing Emilio, it’d still win by a nose. Great stuff.

Day in the Sun

Just something that’s been tickling the back of my brain for awhile.
I remember a time when I was very young, riding in a car with green, leathery seats that got very hot when the sun shone on them in the summer. The car was green as well, although a different shade, and it seems to the me of my memories that most of the cars back then were that color. It was a popular trend I suppose, or maybe my child’s perception was skewed.
At any rate, there were several undisputed facts; the car was green, the seats were green, it was summer, the sun was hot, and the seats were hotter. We had the windows open to let the air in and my mother was driving us to town on an errand.
The road was a winding black hardtop that looked down into sharp ravines between the hills — drops that seemed to go down and down farther than anything in the whole world as far as I was concerned. I would crawl up and look down and out from the tiny back windows of the two door and think about what it would be like to go sailing off the road and into the ravines, tumbling over and over and finally exploding at the bottom, just like on TV. (We lived a long way from town and when it was only you and a younger sister for a playmate and no one else for five miles, you learned to entertain yourself.)
So that day, with the sun beating down and my boredom rising, when I saw a goblin shambling along the bottom of a ravine with an old and rusted sword across his back like the yoke of a wagon, I didn’t bother mentioning it to my mother. Even at that age, I assumed I’d imagined it.
I believed that for the next 28 years.

“Actually, I’m just from Heck”

In other news, I watched From Hell last night. Very much like Sleepy Hollow in that Depp was great, the female lead was interesting-looking but not compelling, the cinematography was good, the story was quite predictable and a fine actor was under-used in his role as the bad guy.
I did like how many of the various historical Ripper theories/possible suspects they managed to work into the overall story. That was interesting, as was the secret society stuff that underlit the whole thing — I’ve been a sucker for that sort of thing since the first time I saw the fnords.

And in the “cold day in hell” category…

The main-stream alternative radio station (yeah, I get the irony) in town just played Tenacious D’s “Tribute”.
The greater irony: it’s in the playlist from their “new release rack”… how long have they been doing that song?