California Dreamin'

SO WHY a tuna salad sandwich might have spurred a certain nostalgia for California, I do not know. I can only say: it's a good thing. Since my good pal Doc Nagel moved out there back in 98, I have gone to visit at pretty much every excuse I could find, the exception being this year, where I could have gone on the excuse that the Wifey is going to Dragon Con with a friend of hers this August-- of which more shortly-- but I think I have decided, on balance, that I ought to stay home with the dog for that long weekend. Better for the dog, I think.

Not that the decision is written in stone. I am NOT going to Dragon Con, for a variety of reasons-- first, waiting in lines is not one of my favorite things; second, Atlanta; third, Atlanta in August. But I could still find an excuse for going to California. I kind of think I need to.

Now, back to the sandwich. The tuna salad component was basically a given; the fries are the local grocery chain's shoestring cut, which I am quickly developing a preference for as a sandwich mate. So the wild card here was the beer. I had managed to get out and run a couple of errands earlier in the day, and about the time I was ready to begin the lunching process, it had started raining. For no readily apparent reason, having run about in the Miata with the top down for a an hour and change put me in the mood for reminiscing about previous visits to the Golden State. Why the Saranac India Pale Ale would remind me of a fish sandwich I had at a smarmy faux pub on the bay at Monterey, and also of the crumbs of a poem I started writing about the experience that never gelled, I know not. The Black Forest, on the other hand, had plenty of reason to remind me of serial visits to the 'frisco brew-pub we end up going to about every other time we hit the burg. Either way, it was a worthwhile endevour.

In other news, there is a reason why there hasn't been a movie of the day for awhile.

Not that I haven't been watching movies. But I did watch this one, and it kind of has me stymied. If you have watched it, you probably know why. If you have not, well, it's HUGELY tempting for me to tell you why, but that would spoiler the thing. And I wouldn't be the first. About every critic I have run across has confessed to the sin of wanting to spill the beans. Because the twist that is coming is one hell of a twist, and even though I saw it coming, even though I knew what the twist was going to be, I managed to maintain a state of denial right up to about five seconds before the filmmaker tipped his hand and let the cat out of the bag.

Confused? Still know nothing about what this film is about? Whew. Thank God for that. Suffice it to say that this is a film about a very nice guy who knew another very nice guy that some terrible, terrible things happened to-- and happened to have spent about a third of the guy's life shooting film on him! I highly recommend it. I almost didn't. It is a hugely painful procedure, and more than once I found myself feeling slightly dirty for watching, but the fact remains that this is a hugely effective tribute to one helluva a guy who was brutally taken, for the wrong reasons and too soon. See it.

So there's that. I have got it off my chest. We now return you to your irregularly scheduled program, which, as fate would have it, was richly primed for a little California nostaginatin'.


THAT's better.