I'm riding a College Street car westbound. One of the regular operators is behind the wheel, and one of the regular homeless guys is sitting right behind the operator.
"Grace!" calls out the operator, referring to the street intersection, and "Grace!" echoes the homeless guy.
As the homeless guy gets ready to lurch off, the operator tells him, "you should go home and take a bath."
This particular homeless guy is malodorous, but by dint of being homeless, he may lack easy access to a bath or shower.
Anyway, the homeless guy bristles at this advice and tells the driver to "go fuck yourself."
"You just buggered yourself," the driver, a grandfatherly-looking sort, evenly told him.
The homeless guy, at the base of the stairs, sags and responds with an ashamed-sounding "I'm sorry."
The driver, unrelenting, tells him he won't be getting on one of his streetcars again.
After reaching the sidewalk, the homeless guy turned left and went to wherever his destiny is to take him.
I should say the driver is a pretty nice guy in other circumstances. Late one wintery night at Spadina, he stopped the car on the west side of the intersection to let me catch it (I'd been coming north on a Spadina car and had been hustling to catch the departing westbound College car, but wasn't quick enough). I can guarantee you that 99 out of 100 TTC operators wouldn't do that.
I hope he relents on the homeless guy, but maybe there's history of bad relations there.
Primarily because I just played Donovan's Atlantis (Update: So I followed through and checked out the flick).
That tune provides the aural backdrop to the vicious beating that Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) administers to Billy Batts (Frank Vincent*) in the Suite Lounge bar after Billy, a made guy, insulted him ("Now go home and get your fuckin' shine box.")
* Vincent had a role as New York mob boss Phil Leotardo in the recently-concluded HBO series The Sopranos. He got whacked there, too. :) Lorraine Bracco, wife of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in Goodfellas, of course had a long-running role in the series as Dr. Jennifer Melfi, shrink to Tony Soprano. Michael Imperioli, the unfortunately defiant Spider in Goodfellas, also had a major Sopranos role.
"Wa-a-a-a-a-y do-w-w-w-n-n-n, bee-l-o-w-w-w the ocean/Whe-r-r-r-r-e/I wanna be/she may be" wails the eerie chorus of the one-time hippy anthem as Tommy pounds Billy to a literal bloody pulp (he got some help from the feet of Jimmy Conway [Robert DeNiro] while Henry stood guard). The combination of brutal violence and dreamy music is really, really nightmarish.
That scene is presaged by this exchange between Tommy and Henry at the Bamboo Lounge where they're hanging out with their fellow wiseguys, the classic "what do you mean I'm funny?" soliloquy, found here. If you're lazy, here's the text:
Henry: (Laughing) "You're really funny. You're really funny." Tommy: (Laugh trailing off) "What do you mean I'm funny?" Henry: "It's funny, you know. It's a good story. It's funny. You're a funny guy." Tommy: (Mildly wounded) "What do you mean? The way I talk?" Henry: (Awkwardly) "It's just, you know, you're just funny. You know, the way you tell the story and everything." Tommy: (Mildly aggressive) "Funny how? I mean, what's funny about it?" (table quiets) Anthony: "Tommy, you got it all wrong..." Tommy: "Whoa whoa whoa, Anthony; he's a big boy, he knows what he said. What'd you say? Funny how?" Henry: (Flailing, plaintively) "It's ... You know, you're funny." Tommy: (Leaning into him slightly, ominous tone) "You mean - lemme understand this, cause I don't know. Maybe it's me - I'm a little fucked up maybe. But, I'm funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you? I make you laugh? I'm here to fuckin' amuse you? What do you mean funny? Funny how? How am I funny?" Henry: (helplessly) "It's just ... You know, how you tell the story. What?" Tommy: (Aggressively, but trying to maintain a straight face) "No, no, I don't know. You said it. How do I know? You said I'm funny. How the fuck am I funny? What the fuck is so funny about me? Tell me. Tell me what's funny!" Henry: (Long pause, wary look, raises hands) "Get the fuck outta here, Tommy ..." Tommy: (Laughing, wagging his finger) "You motherfucker! I almost had him! I almost had him! You stutterin' ... You stutterin' prick, ya! Frankie, was he shakin'?! I wonder about you sometimes, Henry. You may fold under questioning!"
Comedian Richard Belzer did a very funny little take/homage on/to that sequence in the 1990s TV series Homicide: Life on the Street.
Tommy was just fuckin' with Henry, as the phrase goes. However, you could see Henry getting stressed because with Tommy, something so minor could literally become life and death business.
On the DVD commentary track, the real Henry Hill said of the real Tommy: "You had to be in constant fear around Tommy. He was capable of whacking anybody at any time. Even me. ... He was a sick fuck."
Things did turn deadly serious when Tommy got into a feud with Spider, the kid who ran drinks at their card game, and shot him to death after Spider -- in exasperation from Tommy's ragging on him, not to mention having previously shot him in the foot -- told him to go fuck himself.
Not one of the guys at the card table seemed to really think there was anything seriously wrong with the killing, least of all Tommy. They squabbled over who would bury the body.
Part of Goodfellas' genius was the arc of the story. Early on in the movie, you see the seductive, exciting side of gangster life. There's a reason why Dellio picked the scene where Henry and Karen (Lorraine Bracco) enter the Copacabana to the Shirelles' And Then He Kissed Me as his number one use of a pop tune.
By the end, you see these guys as the thuggish, grasping, lying, treacherous scum that they really are.
However, they are cinematically indelible scum, in part because of Scorsese's superlative blend of music and image combined with some brilliant performances.
Africa now supplies more oil to the United States than Saudi Arabia. Investment of US$50 billion in the next three years is expected. John Ghaviznian, author of Untapped: The Scramble for Africa's Oil, talks to Democracy Now!
George Monbiot -- author of Heat: How To Stop The Planet From Burning -- talks with Democracy Now! about the climate crisis, and why even the most progessive governments aren't doing enough.
Well, having 1520 Sedgwick Ave. in the west Bronx declared a national historic site would protect the place where hip-hop began, but it would also protect the working-class families living there from being tossed out on their asses.
Kim Kerr of the Downtown Eastside Residents Association says Cunningham was called by someone posing as a reporter from the free Vancouver daily newspaper 24 Hours asking for an interview.
He said it was done so that (David) Cunningham would be by himself in a public space so that neither he nor the officers would be injured as he was taken into custody. He was held for five hours.
''Because of his nature and the fact he's always giving media interviews they felt that would certainly get him to a spot where they would be able to arrest him safely,'' Fanning said.
24 Hours editor Dean Broughton told CKWX Radio it was unacceptable for a police investigator to pose as a news reporter to arrest Cunningham.
He said the police move affects their credibility and ability to do their job.
From a Washington Post story on speeches delivered by Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. This is Obama:
"We see ... a media culture that sensationalizes the trivial and trivializes the profound, in a 24-hour news network bonanza that never fails to keep us posted on how many days Paris Hilton will spend in jail but often fails to update us on the continuing genocide in Darfur or the recovery effort in New Orleans or the poverty that plagues too many American streets."
Tens of thousands of Venezuelans have rallied in the streets of Caracas to protest against President Hugo Chavez's plans to close a private TV station.
The head of the RCTV station addressed the marchers, urging them to defend freedom and "free independent media".
President Chavez has said he will not renew a licence for the RCTV network which is due to expire on 27 May.
He accuses the opposition-allied TV station of supporting a failed coup against him in 2002.
He has referred to opposition television stations in general as "horsemen of the apocalypse" and has blamed RCTV in particular for spreading immorality with its steamy soap operas.
Mr Chavez plans to replace RCTV with a government-funded TV station.
The NYT's David Brooks talks about a new book that outlines why nation states are at a structural disadvantage when fighting the insurgencies of today.
NATO is looking at its tactics in Afghanistan to reduce civilian casualties, which have prompted protests from President Hamid Karzai, the alliance's top commander said on Friday.
U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock said NATO understood that civilian casualties cost the alliance credibility among local people whose support was vital to defeating Islamist insurgents from the Taliban movement.
"Every time that happens, someone walks away, an Afghan citizen, with a bad feeling towards either NATO or the United States," said Craddock, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander.
"That's what we don't want to happen." ...
Craddock said NATO was looking at all the incidents where civilian casualties had been reported.
He said a preliminary review by the top NATO commander in Afghanistan indicated the military had in most cases followed its rules of engagement, which specify when force can be used.
The rules of engagement would not change, Craddock said, but commanders may decide to change the way they operate.
The largest society of independent journalists in Russia, long critical of the Kremlin’s curtailment of the independent news media, defied a government eviction notice on Friday, saying it would try to remain in its offices in spite of state pressure.
The refusal by the society, the Russian Union of Journalists, to follow the government’s order punctuated a day of resistance to a fresh round of crackdowns on the independent news media here.
All four of the radio correspondents for the Russian News Service, a network that provides broadcasts heard at the top of every hour on radio stations across the country, have announced their resignations to protest new network policies that censor news and require the dissemination of pro-Kremlin material.
It's been a smoky spring here in the Los Angeles area. Last week, wildfires burned both the city's Griffith Park (one of my favorite places on Earth, by the way) as well as the resort island of Catalina. In both incidents, I watched TV coverage, listened to radio reports and hit up news websites. But I kept finding myself coming back to the breaking news blog on latimes.com.
How many acres have burnt now? How much of the fire is contained? Where's the worst threat at this hour? For those essential questions, which readers wanted immediate answers, the Times' breaking news blog delivered.
Newspaper.com managers, take a lesson. If you do not have a breaking news blog ready to go on your website, get started on building one. Today. The blog is the ideal format to deliver information in a breaking news situation. There's no reason to continue relying on traditional newspaper narrative formats online when editors could better serve their readers with the far more online-friendly blog format.
A few plot holes might gnaw at you afterwards, but while you're in the theatre, 28 Weeks Later compels your attention even as you find it hard to look.
CLARKSDALE, MS – Ida Mae Dobbs, longtime woman of Willie "Skipbone" Jackson, called a press conference Tuesday to respond to charges levied against her by the legendary Delta blues singer.
Ida Mae Dobbs, woman of blues singer Willie "Skipbone" Jackson (inset).
"Despite what Mr. Jackson would have you believe, I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be," Dobbs told reporters. "I repeat: I am not an evil-hearted woman who will not let him be. To the contrary, my lovin' is so sweet, it tastes just like the apple off the tree."
Dobbs, accused of causing Jackson pain and breaking his heart by calling out another man's name, categorically denied treating him in a low-down manner.
"He says he sends for his baby, but I don't come around," Dobbs, a brownskin woman, said. "He says he sends for his baby, but I don't come around. Well, the truth is, I do come, but he is out messing with every gal in town."
I was watching a newscast out of Vancouver. Some guy was complaining he had to drive a lot, and that the current high prices there meant he was paying $120 per week at the pump.
However, guess what vehicle he was driving? If you said a Jeep Liberty, give yourself a metropass!
That tune provides the aural backdrop to the vicious beating that Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) administers to Billy Batts (Frank Vincent*) in the Suite Lounge bar after Billy, a made guy, insulted him ("Now go home and get your fuckin' shine box.")
Tommy: (Mildly wounded) "What do you mean? The way I talk?"
