View From Oggy's Trailer

Sunset

Western Opera

"Station"

This is one of the final scenes of Once Upon A Time in The West. It's moving as that little backwards sign that hangs on the left says "Station" which is the theme of the whole film.* The long stark segments with two people saying nothing are contrasted by these epic scenes right out of the school of Gone With The Wind. There are some edits in the modern version that make it jump around but Sergio Leone really made a great movie here. It should rank with Dr. Zhivago and Gone With The Wind and to some people it does. Don't call it a "spaghetti western" in my presence.

Even though I am definitely in the middle of a similar burst of growth it's hard to keep perspective when you are the one with the pick axe and the bad back. Like Cheyenne says to Harmonica, " When someone takes you down, make sure they know where to shoot you."

*The train is coming from the east so the sign reads correctly for approaching travelers.

The Worst Job

I was reminiscing on a job I had a few years ago when I was starving in Central NH. I was living at a halfway house where everyone had diabetes and more DUI convictions than teeth. The plan was to get a job at a surgical tool manufacturing factory. Or Gunstock ski slopes where I could help people get on the lift or teach kids to snowplow. These lofty goals all crashed down as I missed the application window for Gunstock and the surgical tool place took me on a tour that was like a visit to a hellish future of wearing all white clean room gowns and fighting with fine surgical tubing whilst my prostate throbbed in wounded indifference. It was bleak but I swallowed my pride and begged for the job...and eventually was discarded in favor of some old women who could knit like river powered sock mills.

I spent my last savings at Funspot Arcade playing Star Castle and Venture in a desperate attempt to go back in time to 1982.