Hat spinning on finger, man. Corduroy baseball cap spinning on a man’s finger, circles-circles, index finger, spinning, no longer on his head, and he is bored. He’s bored sick of all the usual shit. Tired of reading Camus and so what opening scene guy receives telegram about the death and so what if he doesn’t know when the funeral is, big deal. Spinning hat just watched a movie over in Berkeley with a buddy, some guy in a fat silk shirt and ugly teeth, a smelly fucker with shit under his fingernails, and he’s tired of film, too. Fuck film. “Show me a film that really rocked you. I mean truly rocked you. Like Shakespeare. I’m telling you, film’s inferior.” And he’s lounging on an orange couch in Oakland, spinning that hat, disgusted. And he didn’t even spend eleven dollars to get in. Kino. He spent four. Four’s fantastic. You’re getting a good deal at four. I like four, too. The hat twirls, he’s thinking and he’s not too happy about things. He heard the latest Booker is dirt. Utter shit, how this woman on the cable car said. She was reading the book. He an innocent from out of town. “How’s the book?” he asked and nodded toward it. “Utter shit,” her reply. Then he couldn’t talk to her anymore. Then he wondered if her response a diversionary tactic, throw him off, shut the guy up, dirty hill-trolley bastard.
So he went to Barnes & Noble because he had a gift certificate, though he hates going there, unlike his father who loves going there. And he bought the book, this Booker Prize winner, in the 2000s, just so you can research it for yourself, figure it out, because I’m not naming names, won’t get me to say it, might ruin the man’s career. Careers, Jesus, well. He bought the book at Barnes & Noble and went home to read it. He thought about the girl on the cable car. He wondered why people still ride them. He’s from out of town. He thought the book was utter shit. Wished he’d bump into her again so they could compare notes, smile in agreement, laugh at the British, snicker at the poor sucker who wrote the novel, snicker at the sorry publisher who called it a hundred and ninety three page book when, if you widen margins regular, decrease spacing between paragraphs and get rid of the blank pages between chapters, you’d have a book barely under a hundred and that shit’s not a novel. Christ Besides, no matter how long the book is or was, it sucked. Which doesn’t leave you much to work with.
Hat spins on his finger and he’s perplexed. What’s good anymore? Suppose a walk on the beach. Suppose having a dog. Sex is kind of fun. Eating good food. And the hat spins on his index finger, arm out from his side, twirls, mixes and moves. The film didn’t stink, but didn’t blow you away. Makes you sad. Especially if you’re expecting something from life, expecting something from these poor bastards who make movies and you pay eleven to get in, hoping they’ll wow you finally. They entertain. That word. Why are we here? If time’s so short why we forever killing it?
They drove in a car not their own down wet city streets in the evening after eating mushroom soup and red sauce ravioli. They bellied the ATM. Slide your card. Punch your pin. Pause a moment. Answer some questions. Wait for your money. Hope the machine doesn’t keep your card. Remove, return to your wallet. Wait for the receipt. Perhaps look over your shoulder. Grab your money. Walk to the theater or the restaurant. Eat something. Visit another ATM. After the ATM they walked to the theater and paid their money and there weren’t a lot of people. Folks getting tired of this movie by now, bunch of kids doing drugs and dying, somebody’s arm’s amputated and a black guy’s in jail and the girls going ass to ass with a giant black well-greased dildo and mother endures speed addiction, then Valium, then electroshock therapy and everybody’s lying fetal at the end in a world of pain.
Big fucking deal that the director has talent, all we hear on the street, the poor guy, had to pick Selby to work with. Come on, shit’s not that good, shit’s depressing, narrow, dirt imbued. You make a movie about hurting and dirt you enter the dangerous territory of making a dirty hurt movie. No matter how good you are. No matter actor talents. No matter screenwriting gifts. Movie one-dimensional emotion and never wavered, hardly a drop of levity, downward spiral not even to hell. But you pay for this. And what do you get? Large bucket of popcorn and hat-spinner wanted an extra bag so the two men wouldn’t have to share-hold the bag and reach into one another’s laps. And they got a large Dr. Pepper. Popcorn buttered. So you eat popcorn every damn time you go to a movie. Film. The hat-spinner can hardly stand it. Even the good stuff’s killing him. Yearns to be wow like Shakespeare took care of that.
Hat-spinner wondered why nobody’s done a PhD on Asterix and Obelix. It’s serious business, deserving in-depth consideration. But then it would be in Cultural Studies. The human scrambles, hoping, often desperate sometimes beautiful.
Honest search for quality, when you consider hat-spinner’s desires. Hat rotates oblong circumnavigation finger in the air. Dog sleeps at his feet. It is Oakland January. Rained today. Trees in bloom, blossoms everywhere. Some people argued over dinner at a table in a restaurant about “fireperson” versus “fireman” and both were sick to their stomachs. Eavesdropper sick to his stomach. Concentrated on ravioli red sauce. Thought about baseball. He enjoyed baseball. Liked sports. But hat-spinner said, Jesus, don’t be so one-dimensional. So this guy went to see a play. He saw something on Broadway about a drunk and a lady.
Enjoy writing stories with plot, love interest, easily-followed theme, clear action, a few deaths, chase scene, birth maybe, sex perhaps, something with love again, maybe, plot fantastic and intricate. Like this story here. You should see where it goes. What with this spinning-hat and all. The hat just flies out the window and becomes a fairly interesting children’s story about a wayward cap riding wind currents, backs of pets, the errant head and red wagon pulled by a father holding his son’s hand as they walk slowly down the hill. You should just be there when they find out about the hat. You’d say, man that guy.