The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    kyle flynn's picture

    Midnight Musings

    By kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:43am |

    I was visiting synchronicity's latest post. I left a comment to a comment rmrd0000 made and then noticed DD left a comment. I appreciated his comment. I got a chuckle. Nothing unusual, there. And for reasons I can't explain, I responded to DD's comment which made reference to my comment. DD offered a funny response to that comment and ocean-kat and PP responded, respectively, to DD's comment. Both also funny. (To be perfectly accurate, I think I'd have to include an additional comment from DD. It has something to do with teeth.) Anyway, PP's comment inspired me to create an avatar for myself,  which I did. I was about to post it under PP's comment. Luckily, I stopped myself. It seemed wildly inappropriate of me to further soil an important and serious post of synchronicity's with a photo of Gene Hackman. So I'm doing it here. My new avatar:

    I've never been able to see it, but maybe my friends are right. Maybe I do look a bit like him. I consider this one of the more flattering stills of Hackman. Maybe. My hair is curlier.

    It's late and I'm going on vacation tomorrow--a week on the Oregon coast to visit in laws. So I figured I'd write a few sentences and try out my new avatar. I remember back in the Cafe days someone would generate a post almost every night. It was framed like "come on in, sit down, have a glass of wine, relax." I tuned in all the time. It had a solid following. Was it Barefooted? I feel like it was. Anyway...

     

    knock knock. who's there? hike.

    hike who? didn't know you liked

    Japanese poems

     

    My boy got me with that before bed tonight. He laughed for 5 minutes. And yeah yeah, I know. Nontraditional is a nice word for what that is. Don't tell MrSmith1. I was just sort of amused to find it contained 17 syllables. Go figure.

    Finally. I still have the life size photo/cut out of Obama that article man (or was it Articleman) sent me from the DNC website for winning the one time Dagblog NCAA men's basketball tourney pool. When it arived in the mail I set it up sort of off to the side of our dining room. Believe it or not, years later, it's still right there. I love it. Obama joins the family for dinner every night. My 2 year old recently identified him on a television that was on in a hotel lobby. And my older son, the comedian, when he was about 4, saw my neighbor (tall, skinny, African American) walking in front of our house one morning  and asked me if that was the president. I think that's amazing. Not for nothing, and to put it kinda crudely, as far as he's ever known (and my 2 year old will catch on to before Obama leaves office) the President of the United States is a black guy. Amazing.

     

    Comments

    Nice writing, Kyle.

    I also have the Hackman double-take affliction, which I think is a nuisance at best, but sometimes amusing, as when John Malkovich kept glancing at my table at a restaurant in Pasadena.  

    I was on a business trip in Japan when "Mississippi Burning" was being released, lots of posters, etc. A Japanese guy in a crowded elevator is pointing at me, ..."....ahh, ahh, Flench Connection, neh?"

    Unfortunately I still look like him but not the pubescent picture you posted.


    by Oxy Mora on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 7:02am

    Thanks Oxy. And just to be clear, I've never been mistaken for Gene Hackman. That would be next to impossible given the difference in our ages--gotta be at least 30 years. I can imagine it might be fun, though. Did you sign any autographs in Japan? "Who should I make this out to?"


    by kyle flynn on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 1:17am

    My business partner was there and started riffing with the guy---"ah so, flench correction---like this" and starts wildly gesturing, some I won't describe, but the guy was laughing like crazy,  bows as we get off on our floor. Had fun on those trips---"Lost in Translation" nails it, just like that...well except... 

    Subject for another time---what makes people want to make these connections? I know a person who is consistently making the actor-comparisons, "..he looks just like so and so, doesn't she look like Anne Hathaway, etc 


    by Oxy Mora on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 10:30am

    I have thought about that too, Oxy  ... One reason, I think is to turn a scary world of strangers into a safe collection of friends.   Our minds look for what we know is safe, friendly and / or attractive.  I suppose it is a survival instinct; we recognize and pick out features we have seen before in order to make the judgment of whether someone is a friend or a foe.  


    by MrSmith1 on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 12:22pm

    Yeah, I'm often mistaken for Ming the Merciless - a lot of unwanted attention I have to admit, gets in the way when I want to go carousing and wreaking mayhem on my own. Whether it's dining at some new ritual cannibalism delicatessen or just about to start a new plague among some civilization or even destroy a galaxy, someone always comes up and wants my autograph or to discuss some retrospective playing at the local atrocity museum.  If I weren't so Merciless, I'd have trouble getting rid of them, but as it is, a job's a job, and the tabloids need filler as well. Still, truth be known, occasionally I have a small bit of petite regrette that quickly passes.

    But if someone's going to play me in the movies, I'd still rather it be Tom Waits than one of these regular actors - he did such a bang-up job in Dr. Parnassus. Even Hackman would have trouble being that mischievously evil.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 5:29am

    Those are awful big shoes you've chosen, fella - Hackman is God. Saw him last night in Reds. Seen him so many times in everything - maybe 1 time he was bad, and even then he was still Hackman. you ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?

    Usually can't stand Tom Hanks, but good in "Catch Me If You Can" - "knock knock" "who's there?" "Go fuck yourselves". Guess you had to have been there.

    So 'avatar - 'ave 2, they're cheap. Cheep. 


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 7:15am

    A friend of mine first suggested my resemblance to Gene about 20 years ago. My vanity interfered. The observation was mostly matter of fact, but I never cared for the comparison. (In all honesty, the friend is a beautiful woman I used to want to go out with back in the day. Might factor in to my resistance.) Anyway, I'm gonna run with it now. He is a badass. Come to think of it, maybe I misread her intentions all those years ago. Oh, what might have been?


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:34pm

    Careful, if it was like The Conversation, she just wanted the tape.

    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 5:17pm

    Aha!  I thought I sensed a haiku hiding in this thread!  
    Tell your son he has an excellent sense of humor.   It made me laugh too.


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 12:45pm

    I told him, and although he's a bit confused by where exactly it's coming from, he's thrilled a complete stranger has paid him a compliment.


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:40pm

    Who in the hell does not like Popeye?

    ha


    by Richard Day on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 1:22pm

    Bluto.    Duh.


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:18pm

    hahahahah

    Popeye Doyle you idiot.

    hahahah

    And Doyle spent a lot of time, according the films, acting bluto.


    by Richard Day on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:34pm

    He was acting Blotto, not Bluto!!  


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:03pm

    I don't get this. What am I missing?


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:36pm

    I get it now. Duh.


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:43pm

    Bluto was the villain in the old Popeye cartoons.


    by Richard Day on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:44pm

    From the wiki machine:

     Popeye has many negative qualities, e.g., he is an overzealous, bigoted and womanizing alcoholic who is often disrespectful to his superiors. Nevertheless...

    Hilarious. What's not to love? Turns out the character ranks 44th for movie heroes of all time.

    p.s. Over 3 hours of cartoon footage. That's gotta be some kinda record.


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 2:52pm

    You mean you could not hang on for three hours.

    hahahaaha


    by Richard Day on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 7:51pm

    Yep, I "hosted" those long ago get-togethers - they were fun! I remember we discussed avatars one night; why we chose them, what they were supposed to signify (if anything), stuff like that. Of course, at the Cafe those little pictures popped up whenever someone commented, so most of the time a name was barely needed. We just kinda "recognized" who we were talking to ... guess that means from now on you're a badass Gene (with curlier hair) named Kyle!


    by barefooted on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:05pm

    Hi Missy.

    How ya doin?


    by Richard Day on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:08pm

    Good, Dick! Just working on the dark recesses of my mind - how are you?


    by barefooted on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:23pm

    They were fun. If I ever commented, it was only once. Maybe twice. But I enjoyed following the conversations. I smoked back then, didn't have any kids and wasn't working all that hard. It was a good recipe for staying up late and passing the time in the quiet. Harder to do these days. 


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:20pm

    Gosh, it does feel like a million years ago, doesn't it? But sure sounds as though your world is a million times better today!


    by barefooted on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:30pm

    This is great, Kyle.  Thanks for blogging here.  By the way, a whole lot of us women find Gene Hackman incredibly sexy.  My favorite Hackman movie is "Hoosiers".   

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     


    by Ramona on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 3:11pm

    Thanks. Even I get sick of sitting around and heckling folks from the bleachers.

    Ya gotta love Hoosiers. I like The Heist quite a lot, and I think he's terrific in Unforgiven. But gee wiz, hard to choose. He's in a lot of great pictures.


    by kyle flynn on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 8:32pm

    Hackman is great in nearly every film he's in.  Even in a comedy cameo as the blind man in Young Frankenstein or playing the villainous Lex Luthor in Superman.  

    The scene where his Little Bill character in Unforgiven insists on reading "The Duck of Death," always makes me laugh.  
     


    by MrSmith1 on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 10:06pm

    I used to get Nick Nolte a lot. When I was younger.

    And then, as I grew older, I got Nick Nolte a lot.

    So... progress, right?

     


    by Q (not verified) on Tue, 07/21/2015 - 9:36pm

    Oh you sombitch!

    hahahahah

    This is exactly how I feel.


    by Richard Day on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 9:19am

    If you can read this blog, pick me up and put me back on my soapbox - I fell and I can't get up. You're not fooling anyone, Q, they all thought you were Falconnetti with your eye patch, sneer and gimp leg. Did your PR guy tell you to spout this nonsense?

    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 9:35am

    Hilarious about cardboard Obama. I'll tell Articleman next time I talk to him.

    Alas, Articleman removed the funniest post ever published at dagblog, titled, "McCain Loses Hastily Convened Fourth Presidential Debate With Lifesize Cardboard Obama." Josh Marshall even linked it from the front page of TPM, which brought a ton of traffic when we were first starting up.

    But I did find this pertinent quote from another A-man blog post:

    At TPM Cafe, articleman has The Top 10 Signs You're Too Into Obama.

    2. You have a lifesize cardboard Obama cutout up in your dining room.

    1. Obama staffer asks you derisively if you hug the cardboard Obama before you go to bed.

    Have a great trip, kyle.


    by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 9:00am

    It really is a funny focal point in our house. It started out as a joke. Pure novelty. Now it's a fixture. And people who come over for whatever often take their picture with it. I kinda think that might be one of the primary reasons these things exist. Anyway, my buddy's folks were in town a couple years ago and my lady and I hosted a dinner. My buddy's old man--let's see, how can I put this? Well let's just say he's conservative--wouldn't pose with the cut out to save his life. We couldn't get him to just stand there and smile. Or glare. We worked on him all night. Nothin'. People. What are ya gonna do?

    Thanks for dropping in. That counts for everyone. Read you next week.


    by kyle flynn on Wed, 07/22/2015 - 12:36pm