Girl: “Oh my god, look. ‘Manga For Dummies!’ Look. Manga. For Dummies. MangaForDummies!”

Boy: (silent)

Me: ….

Girl: (holding up book) “Manga For Dummies!”

Boy: (still silent)

Me: That’s certainly repetitive!

Girl: “I know– what’s ‘repetitive’ mean?”

You don’t know what “repetitive” means? These kids were easily 13 years old. Maybe older.

I don’t feel one way or the other about manga. I don’t know much about it. I do know that every time I go into one of the “big box” bookstores I always seem to see a collection of dorky kids languishing on the carpet and reading manga for hours. This bugs me a little, but I don’t think its damaging to society or anything, though I think that you would get your ass kicked out of the store if you were doing that mess in a real comic shop.

Kim, on the other hand, sees another side of manga at her job. Kim views manga the way that parents viewed American comics in the 1960’s: They’ll rot your brain, make you even dumber than you already are and they have no redeemable value. She’s hypothesized that manga is a ploy created by the Japanese to get America back for the H-Bomb (actually I think I was the one who came up with that ). Her venom for manga is serious and to me its seriously entertaining to watch her get all worked up about it. I think she really snapped when she saw something like this, but really she probably just has a better understanding of people that are checking manga out of the library. After my little run-in with the dumb kids at Barnes & Noble, I kind of see how easy it is to generalize them all as dumbasses.

According to the myspace profile of the victim, Tim “Jokawild” McLean was an Insane Clown Posse fan. I mean how crazy is that? ICP has like a kabillion songs about decapitation. I haven’t heard much ICP, but I’d say decapitation was at least mentioned in the half-dozen or so songs I have been exposed to. The probability of this kid getting randomly decapitated on a bus in Manitoba has got to be be on par with an Ozzy Osbourne fan actually becoming possessed by demons.

“Well I have 71 hours and I am only taking three days off.” I replied.

“Wow, 71 already? You should take the whole week off.”

So I am.

I just bought a bus ticket for a short trip to NYC to visit some friends from college. I don’t know if I will get to see everyone I’d like to see, honestly, I’m not sure that matters. I, of course, want to see every one of my pals that I don’t  get to see often but I really just want to get away from this area for awhile. NYC is about as far from Norfolk, VA as you can get, as far as scenery and overall vibe, without going to the west coast. I just need a damn break.

Unfortunately, Kim won’t be coming a long, but this gives her a break from my nonsense too. When I come back we’re having a “staycation” in Ghent. She says I have to bring her back some Italian cookies like the ones we got in Brooklyn last time we were up there. I won’t be staying in Brooklyn this time, but I am sure I’ll find something.

I am travelling with a small charter bus company (i.e. not a Greyhound) and the price is a ridiculous bargain. If it works out well I might do this more often.

Brett: since I just remembered that I forgot to call you, this is my formal announcement that I am coming to the City and if you can make it out, I’d love to meet up.

Think of all the money I could have saved if I had just watched this video instead of getting a music degree.

That will be $200,000. Thank you.

Well, I have noticed something about the female population of Ghent: between the ages of 15 and 19 the girls in Ghent are the most attractive they will ever be, then it seems like there is some secret ritual that, upon graduating Maury High School, you have to chug 8 gallons of melted butter before you can go to college. They hit the wall early and hard around here. Oddly enough, after they balloon up through their 30’s and 40’s they seem to go back to waifish by the time they hit 60. You can see them outside of the Naro sometimes. The old ladies in Ghent look like a bridge club of Crypt Keepers that raided Little Richard’s wardrobe. Really, do you NEED a $600 purple rhinestone hat that you will wear to the Harrison Opera House once while you pretend to appreciate opera?

And once again, what’s up with the antique shops and old-fart boutiques no one can afford that close before 5PM? I’ve said it before, but if you were really a “small business owner” you’d be open after 5PM so normal people could shop at your store. You’d want and appreciate our patronage. Owning a business is not an exclusive club. What good is a florist that I can’t even stop in after work? Who goes there? I’ve lived in Ghent for three months and I have had to buy flowers at Farm Fresh because none of you fancy fuckers were open. Remember that when you whine about “big business” taking over the mom and pop stores.

And I can’t go any further on this topic unless I bring attention to the elephant in the room, or should I say, the ATM sitting in the middle of Elliott’s Fairgrounds. That has to be the tackiest and most desperate cry for help I have ever seen. I understand you have to pay a fee to accept credit cards. We all know that. We know that it’s harder on the little guys like you than it is on Starbucks across the street. We also know that coffee doesn’t really cost 2 bucks to make, so, maybe, if you’re gonna keep the ATM, you should ditch “Donations for the use of our public computer” basket and stop acting like Elliott’s is a fucking nonprofit in need of my spare change. I love your coffee, I love your service, I love the general indie vibe of the establishment and I go there as often as I can even though I try to drink coffee at home, but, if you need more money, maybe you should try selling some food that is not 3 days old and vegan. I like turkey sandwiches, please make me one. Also, I would like to use my credit card to buy a prepay card, which, I wasn’t aware existed because the sign is tucked away in the back corner of the counter. You have to do better, folks.

Anyway, from what we could see, the weekend climax of Norfolk’s Restaurant Week consisted of fat, drunk assholes in ugly shorts and overtanned, bleach-blonde blowzers yelling and farting as they stumbled down 21st street mumbling about how much better Cora’s was than the Peruvian place (Imperio Inca) that is there now is. I know a lot of people liked Cora’s but Cora’s reminded me of the lame excuse for soul food I had when I was living in Boston. Soul Food restaurants do not have wine lists and they most certainly do not have a vegetarian or vegan menus. You know what a vegan meal is in a soul food restaurant is? A fried fish sandwich.* You can pick the ham hock out of the greens if you want, but they still taste like bacon, baby.

I love how all of the hippest of the hip restaurants are trying to hustle for Restaurant Week and there’s still more people packed into Red Dog Tavern and San Antonio Sam’s than there are at the Boot or The Green Onion.

Pearls before swine.

(There is a new Turkish place that just opened and has awesome late night hours. We’re looking forward to that.)

_{*That’s Kim’s line, not mine. Kim and I also stopped in the Starbucks on 21st and some woman ordered a frozen Banana chocolate chip mochachino. I mumbled my usual “Damn, what did poor old coffee ever do to her?” line and Kim’s response was “I dunno but it looks like coffee just got fucked in the ass!” How can I not love her?}

We ended up telling one of the mall cops about it and he’s probably finishing off an Entenmann’s coffee cake and some Cheetoes right now.

When Guy (a street musician) meets Girl (a Czech immigrant who sells roses in the street) for the first time she asks him why he never sings his original material during the day when people can hear it and only sing is own songs at night. His answer was one I have said many times: people don’t want to hear original songs, no matter how good they are. People want to hear something they recognize. She insists people would listen because it’s a good song (also something I’ve said myself). Their friendship ensues from this moment on. To some, music is sacred thing. There are those who would sacrifice a small fortune for the opportunity to hear four notes played by their most admired musical heroes. Guy plays music in the street for pocket change and Girl, unable to afford her own piano, sneaks indulgent piano sessions at a local music shop. They are musicians for life, whether they make their careers out of it or not. Once is a love story, and non-musicians and non-artists will enjoy it on that level, it also transcends the trappings of a typical love story. This film is about what people are willing to sacrifice for something as “frivolous” as art. Some can sacrifice everything to “make it,” while others can only go so far. Sometimes they sacrifice “making it,” which is the case of Girl.

Despite her family’s poverty, Girl steals money from her daughter’s piggy bank in order to buy batteries for Guy’s portable CD player so she can write lyrics for one of Guy’s songs. This is a small sacrifice, but it is hardly her only sacrifice. At the end of the film, Girl knows that staying with Guy the night before he is supposed to leave for London will risk keeping him from leaving and keep him from his aspirations. Although her family makes for a reasonable excuse, the possibility of Girl ever leaving with him for London is strained by her obligation to take care of her mother and daughter. Even though she admits that she doesn’t love her daughter’s father, she feels the need to have him back in the picture for her daughter’s sake. Maybe, though, Girl uses her family as an excuse to keep from weighing down Guy. By bringing her estranged husband back into the picture, it fills the void Guy may aspire to fill himself. We can only assume this because she never tells Guy that she loves him in words he can understand (she says “I love only you” in Czech and refuses to translate it for him). This is Girl’s sacrifice for music. Surely, she could be happy with Guy, if she were to keep him in Dublin, which she is very capable of doing.  She knows Guy will be successful, and it seems everyone they come in contact with agrees, but only if he keeps the momentum he’s created by recording this music and choosing to move to London. She can’t stand in the way of that and she won’t allow herself to do so.

Guy has no one in his life at the beginning of the film except his Dad. He has nothing keeping him in Dublin, really. He’s really just feeling sorry for himself because of a broken heart (which has also inspired some of his wonderful new songs). By the end of the film he has Girl, but she is also the muse from which he draws the inspiration to record his music and go to London and seek out his career (and his ex girlfriend, which, though it is never said, seems to be less and less of a motivation by the time he leaves). Since it was a girl that got him into his funk to begin with, it is only natural that it be a girl that brings him out of it. Guy sacrifices a possible future with Girl, but it seems like maybe he isn’t as willing to sacrifice as she is. He seems to be looking for a way to sabotage himself near the end of the film when he invites her back to his place after the recording session and when he tries to visit her before he leaves. He’s looking for the opportunity to express to her how he feels about her and create the classic romantic climax so common in this kind of film, but he doesn’t get the chance. So whether he likes it or not, he is on his way to London to be a successful musician and live with his old girlfriend. Something he knows he should do, and ultimately wants to do, but perhaps isn’t sure about right now. I don’t imagine Guy makes a lot of money as a street musician or from working in his father’s vacuum repair shop so I wonder if buying her the piano wasn’t a huge sacrifice for himself.

I actually had more than one person tell me that this movie reminded them of me, which is a cute thing to tell someone when you see a movie and it definitely intrigued me a little. Then when I saw the promo posters I saw a redheaded guy with a beard and a guitar and I figured that’s all they were referring to. Maybe that is what they were talking about, but damn if Once doesn’t hit close to home. It is so refreshing to see a film made by musicians and, to some degree, for musicians but is not about the music industry or being in a band. It’s so difficult to forget how pure and amazing music can be when you get all wrapped up with playing in bands and trying to make money. It’s not that music becomes something undesirable, it’s just different. It’s like being in a relationship, the most exciting times are usually at the beginning when you don’t know anything about the person, and once the butterflies get out of your stomach, things change. They don’t necessarily change for the worst, but they change. This movie is sort of about an requiented romance, but its really more about Guy and Girl falling back in love with music all over again and, even though their time together is brief, they leave an indeliable mark on each other for the rest of their lives.

don’t I know it? I
answered.

I walked away from the mirror.
it was morning, it was afternoon, it was
night

nothing changed
it was locked in place.
something flashed, something broke, something
remained.

I walked down the stairway and
into it

Sorry I haven’t been posting much original content.

via Shularbrau

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