Free Parking

Last evening as I left my house around 7:30 to go to the grocery store, I found the note pictured to the left under my wind shield wiper. If you can't quite make it out, it says:

YES!

THE RUMORS ARE TRUE

THE NEIGHBORS ON THIS BLOCK

DO NOT APPRECIATE

YOU USING OUR STREET

AS A PARKING LOT.

ESPECIALLY

WHEN YOU LEAVE YOUR CAR HERE

ALL DAY LONG!

My car had been there about 3 and a half hours at this point, not all day. When I got home from work, there was less street parking available than usual, so I parked on the street behind my building instead of the street in front of it.

When I got back from the grocery store, there was plenty of parking available on in front of the building where I normally park, so I parked there. Not because I give a fuck about assholes who sit in their houses with driveways and garages and passive aggressively place notes on windshields. Just because it's much more convenient for me to park in front of my own building when I can. I mean, when I park behind it, it's not for fun. Though, now I guess I'll get a little vengeful satisfaction out of the times I do.

I've lived in this neighborhood for maybe 2 and a half years now and this is my first note. I'd say I park behind the building maybe 1 out of 10 times I park, simply depending on whether or not all the best spots are already taken. I don't have a parking lot, or driveway, or garage (unlike everyone who lives on the block in question) so short of circling the block all night until it's time to go to work again in the morning, I don't have much choice. I guess I could stop owning a car, but I like my car.

Granted, there is construction in the area, so sometimes construction workers park their trucks and then walk to work. Also, I live near a transit center, so some people might park in the area and ride the train downtown for work. I guess this invasion of commuters could be annoying to residents of the neighborhood, but it should be annoying to guys like me who have to park on the street. I simply can't understand why a guy who lives in a house, with a driveway and a garage, and street parking, would be annoyed. The commuters take up my spots. Not his. And they don't bug me, because they show up when I'm leaving for work, and leave when I get back. It's like a delicate ecosystem where the people who live here leave during the day and we get replaced by the people who work here until we get home at night. It's called sharing.

Look: this dude should be glad he lives in a place where people want to park. That's the give and take of living in a happening place. If you want to live somewhere worth living, you're gonna have to put up with other people. If not, you can move to the sticks and enjoy yourself in the middle of fucking nowhere where there's plenty of parking and nothing is ever open. You know where it's really hard to find street parking? MANHATTAN.

The note did make me curious though. I mean I'm not super well versed when it comes to parking laws, so maybe I was doing something wrong. There are no signs in the area, but who knows what the default rules are. If I was being an asshole, I wanted to knock it off. If I wasn't, I wanted to prove myself right, because I love being right, especially when it means someone else is being an asshole. So I looked up the laws.

Turns out I'm totally within my rights. If there are no signs or meters around you're not supposed to leave your car on the street in a residential area for more than 24 hours. Otherwise you're totally fine. Since I drive my car every day, it's never parked in one place for more than 24 hours. Usually when I leave town for a few days I leave my car at work. I think I've left it in front of the building for more than 24 hours once or twice but apparently the assholes live behind the building, not in front of it.

There are certain zones in the city where people have to apply for parking passes, providing the city with proof that they live in those areas. If this guy wants to be such a dick, he could apply for our neighborhood to be transformed into one of those zones. Only it still wouldn't solve his problem, because then I'd just prove I live here and get a pass and still park on his precious street from time to time. I checked the zones online, and my neighborhood isn't any kind of existing zone, so I don't need a pass. The zones are big areas and not street specific, so this guy's notion that I have to live on his street in order to park there is totally fictional, not to mention the fact that for all he knows, I could live there. Hell, I basically do.

I don't want to be one of those guys who starts talking about how he pays his taxes, but I do! I think it's okay to bring up paying taxes in this instance because I feel like the kind of cockface who would put this kind of sign on someone's car is probably one of those people obsessed with taxes. Doesn't part of those taxes go towards streets and sidewalks and parking enforcement? Aren't I partially paying taxes specifically so I can park on the street?

The thing that bugged me the most about the whole thing is I had no way to respond. As I browsed the grocery store, the note fresh on my mind, I tried to think of ways in which I could respond.

1.) I could go door to door and ask each person if they put that note on my car. This would be partially satisfying because I suspect this is the work of one crank and not representative of the entire street, the way the note pretends it is. Most of the people would have no idea what I'm talking about, they'd read the note, they'd agree that only a total ballsack would write something like that, and they'd probably even speculate which bitch on the street did it. Eventually I'd get to whoever was responsible and they'd probably act like they didn't know what I was talking about, all pissing their pants and stuff.

2.) I could just write down everyone's address and send a formal response. But, I thought about what I'd write in the formal response and everything I thought of sounded totally douche baggy. Half my responses were just as passive aggressive as the original note, and the other half were just obscenity laced rants. Still, it would kind of have the same benefit as the option above, which is that all the innocent neighbors who I suspect don't give a shit where anyone parks would be annoyed that someone in their midst would write a note like this. I wouldn't be there to see their reactions, though, and sending an anonymous letter would, again, be just as dumb as the original shithead.

3.) I could do nothing. Frustrating, but eventually I'd forget about the note and I wouldn't be stooping to the level of the child who wrote it in the first place. And by child I mean (probable) senior citizen.

4.) Or I could write about it here. I suddenly remembered I write in a blog and I haven't written in it since February and I hadn't had a good idea to write about recently, so it'd kill several birds with several stones. I could vent, finally post something, and pretend to respond to my enemy, all while avoiding any actual retaliation that my enemy might accidentally get some satisfaction out of.

Loyal readers might remember there was once a little red pickup truck parked outside my apartment building for at least a year. It eventually disappeared, but I was constantly amazed how long it lasted, given the fact that it had several towing warnings placed on it and survived some roadwork that drove all other vehicles away for a few days. It was impressive and I was mildly amused by it.

It's too bad whoever wrote this note is probably never mildly amused by anything like that. I can only speculate, but I assume they haven't been laid in a while and probably don't have much of a sense of humor. Maybe that's not fair, but I guess if you don't want people to think shit like that about you, then you shouldn't put notes on their cars that basically say, "I'm a total asshole."

Cutco salesmen put notes on your car to trick you into working for them. 24 Hour Fitness puts notes on your car to trick you into working out with them. This guy puts notes on your car to trick you into deeply hating him.

And it works.

Romancefest 2011: The Band Wagon

The last movie of Romancefest 2011 is another Fred Astaire one, so it's good to go out on a happy note.

THE BAND WAGON stars Astaire as a washed up Hollywood song and dance man who is traveling to New York to hopefully revive his career on the Broadway stage. Along the way he butts heads with his co-star (Cyd Charisse) a no-nonsense classically trained ballerina and attempts to transform a flop of a show into a hit. Of course, eventually, Charisse and Astaire fall in love.

The supporting cast is great, if a little under-utilized, including Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray as the neurotic married writers of the show within a show and Jack Buchanan as an eccentric director/producer/actor who is obsessed with transforming an innocent romantic comedy into a modern day retelling of FAUST.

The memorable numbers range from the inspired to the bizarre. On the inspired side of things we have the song and dance near the beginning of the film between Astaire and a shoe shine man (Leroy Daniels) who improvises moves with the contents of his shine box. Things get a little weird when Astaire, Charisse and Buchanan team up to perform as a trio of infantile triplets who hate each others' guts.

There's an interesting moment in the middle of the film that I can only describe as "dance foreplay." Up until this point of the film, Astaire and Charisse haven't danced together, and the way they've been paired off in a scene involving a carriage ride through Central Park, the audience can sense a number is coming on. But, Astaire and Charisse ride in the carriage, walk through the crowds in the park, and stroll along alone for what seems like an eternity before finally making the first couple flirtatious moves to dance with each other, before erupting into a full routine. The suspense leading up to it makes the actual number even better.

That, along with one smaller scene and one bigger scene, was my favorite moment of the movie. The smaller scene is a sequence, after the depressing debut of the show within the show, in which Astaire parties with the cast and crew of the musical and sings a tribute to beer. The bigger one is the climactic finale, a song and dance sequence inspired by noirish detective stories, with Astaire as the hard boiled detective and Charisse as both the blonde damsel in distress and the brunette femme fatale, complete with a twist ending. This sequence made me wish Astaire had done a full length noir musical in this style. Charisse looked beautiful as the femme fatale, especially when she shed her trench coat to reveal a hot red dress.

So, as a result of Romancefest 2010 and 2011, I've now seen every single movie on the American Film Institutes "100 Years, 100 Passions" list, as well as a few more from another list. Quick wrap up:

MOVIES WHERE ONE OF THE MAIN COUPLE (OR TRIANGLE) DIES

9 out of 28

METHODS OF DEATH

3 shootings, 1 death by Spotted Typhus, 1 suicide by drowning, 2 probable Yellow Fever deaths, 1 bombing, 1 fall from a high place, 1 death by broken heart

HAPPY ENDINGS

15. . . couples got married, got engaged, ran off together, and stayed married.

MUSICALS

4

MOVIES WITH PARIS

3

MOVIES INVOLVING WAR

5. . . First World War, Bolshevik Revolution, Vietnam, Korean War, action between World Wars

MULTIPLE APPEARANCES BY A LEAD ACTOR OR ACTRESS

3 Katherine Hepburn movies, 2 Marlene Dietrich movies, 2 William Holden movies, 2 Jane Fonda movies and 2 Fred Astaire movies

REPEATED DIRECTORS

2 movies by William Wyler -- JEZEBEL and WUTHERING HEIGHTS. Honorable mention goes to Rouben Mamoulian, who directed LOVE ME TONIGHT and started to direct PORGY AND BESS before he was fired.

MOVIES WITH SWEET BACHELOR PADS

Both WAY DOWN EAST and PILLOW TALK, though separated by decades, involved sweet bachelor pads in which the bachelors in question could simply flip a switch and transform a seemingly normal room into a den of seduction.

Romancefest 2011: Love Me Tonight

LOVE ME TONIGHT came out of nowhere to charm the pants off me.

It was fun to see Maurice Chevalier star in this one after watching GIGI last year. In GIGI he was an old perv -- LOVE ME TONIGHT is from 1932, so this is young Chevalier. I never realized Chevalier was so cool. Now I know.

The story involves Chevalier as a tailor named Maurice (creative!) who falls in love with a princess played by Jeanette MacDonald named Jeanette (creative!). They meet when Maurice is invited to stay at the estate of a gentleman who owes him a bunch of money for suits (Charlie Ruggles). Once at the estate, Chevalier charms everyone (including me), and everyone assumes he's a gentleman of high standing. Chevalier meets the Princess' horny sister (super hot Myrna Loy), a trio of fussy aunts (Elizabeth Patterson, Ethel Griffies, Blanche Friderici), the bumbling master of the estate (C. Aubrey Smith) and a count who also wants to bang the princess (Charles Butterworth).

This musical had me constantly admiring how far ahead of its time it was. Even though it's from 1932, the early days of sound, it makes full use of the soundtrack with dialogue, sound effects, a musical score and lots of singing sequences. Similar films I've seen from the time struggle to comprehend what they're supposed to do with their soundscapes. This one's overflowing -- from the very opening scene, we see the streets of Paris slowly waking up, as one sound effect adds to another until the soundtrack is full of a song made up of the rhythm of the city's sounds. This is almost 40 years before Pink Floyd's MONEY, around 60 years before shows like STOMP.

The direction by Rouben Mamoulian is similarly ahead of its time, using several interesting techniques to tell the story, including an early sequence in which the camera seems to float around the exterior of the giant estate house (it looks kinda like Hogwarts!), peeking in different windows to pick up on different little issues with the various characters in the house.

The movie has a wide variety of humor, ranging from physical pratfalls like the scene where Chevalier has to ride an insane horse named Solitude, to wacky word play, mostly involving sexual double entendres. Some of my favorite quips were from Myrna Loy, who spends most of the movie bemoaning her lot in life, cooped up in a manor house without a single man to sleep with in sight.

The songs by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart are also funny, as well as catchy, and seem to fit well within the confines of the snappy dialogue. The songs never slow the action down, and the movie clocks in at a brisk hour and a half, refreshing for a romance.

I'd like to reiterate how awesome Chevalier is. He's kind of a big oaf with a body and face that seems to have been slapped together somewhat haphazardly, but his style and charm more than makes up for it and his character is so in love with the notion of being in love that he's hard to resist.

Romancefest 2011: Pygmalion

I was familiar with the story of PYGMALION going into it, having seen MY FAIR LADY -- the musical adapted from the play -- before. The two films are very similar, and both are good. So, there's yet another nail in the "all remakes suck" coffin.

In this version Leslie Howard stars as the language professor who makes a bet with his buddy (Scott Sunderland) that he can transform a low class flower seller (Wendy Hiller) into a proper society lady, presentable to those of the highest pedigree. Meanwhile an unlikely romance blossoms between the two stubborn characters.

Wendy Hiller is no Audrey Hepburn, but that actually works to her advantage here -- she's more believable in the role, both as the street girl and eventually as a street girl turned lady. She doesn't have the impeccable beauty and star quality of Hepburn, which keeps her and the story a little more down to Earth and a little less in the realm of a fairy tale.

Leslie Howard is hilarious as the fussy bachelor Higgins. Almost every line he utters is an insult to at least one other character, and I found myself wondering why Howard never became more famous. His most famous role is the supporting role as Ashley in GONE WITH THE WIND, but he shows so much comic potential here (and co-directed the film) that I ended up looking him up to read about his career.

Turns out he died in 1943, shot down by German fighters. So, that's that.

Romancefest 2011: Wuthering Heights

Heathcliff's a badass.

How come they couldn't have just told me that in high school? I don't remember anyone selling WUTHERING HEIGHTS to me in high school as a glorious revenge story in which a dude gets back at everyone who wronged him.

I guess maybe that's because that's not the point of the book. Still, that's what I latched onto for the first part of the movie. Then Heathcliff went a little too far. Oops. The problem with glorious revenge stories is that revenge is never as awesome as you think it's going to be.

Laurence Olivier stars as Heathcliff, a street kid adopted by an estate presided over by a kindly master (Cecil Kellaway). He and Kellaway's daughter, played by Merle Oberon, grow close to each other but the Kelleway's nasty son (Hugh Williams) can't get past the class differences. When Kelleway dies and Williams becomes master of the estate, he sidelines and abuses Olivier, treating him as a servant. Olivier tentatively carries on a romance with Oberon, only to be betrayed by her when she gravitates towards a wealthy neighbor (David Niven) who might be a good marriage option.

Olivier's Heathcliff is at first encouraged by Oberon to go out and seek his fortune so he can come back and sweep her off her feet properly, but as her romance blossoms with Niven, Olivier ends up going off to seek his fortune specifically to come back and seek revenge against all those who have wronged him.

A pawn in his plan is Niven's sister (Geraldine Fitzgerald) and this is where Olivier kind of crosses the line. It's all fine and dandy to punish Williams for treating him like shit and try to upset Niven and make Oberon jealous, but to marry Fitzgerald just out of spite and then, to add insult to injury, not treat her very well afterwards -- that's not too cool.

Anyway, this is another Samuel Goldwyn production, interestingly directed by William Wyler in beautiful black and white. The movie is good at setting tone with the dreary, swampy locations and drafty old houses.

Romancefest 2011: Morocco

Here’s another somewhat rare one – MOROCCO is one of those flicks that seems to have only come out as one part of a Marlene Dietrich box set. Outside of that, it hasn’t been on DVD as far as I can tell, so I went back to Movie Madness and picked it up on – gasp – VHS.

Remember VHS?

Anyway, MOROCCO stars Marlene Dietrich as a traveling cabaret singer who finds herself entertaining at a bar in the title country just as the French Foreign Legion marches into town. Gary Cooper, as one of the Legionnaires, is seduced into a lustful romance with Dietrich after he checks out her hot act in which she slinks around in a tuxedo and kisses an unsuspecting chick in the audience.

That’s probably the most famous scene. The rest of the movie is kind of slow – it’s from that awkward era when silent films had just gone out of fashion but sound films hadn’t quite been figured out yet. Still, being pre-code, it has a little more style and flair than some later more restrained flicks, and with the help of Dietrich’s performance, is able to maintain a certain sultry level of eroticism for most of the running time.

The movie does transcend its own limitations a little bit right at the last moment, in a lonely final shot of Dietrich marching off into a windswept desert that seems ahead of its time and out of the ordinary for a mainstream Hollywood flick. There’s no big swell of over dramatic music, just the dull drum beat of war and the sound of the sand blowing in the wind.

Romancefest 2011: Porgy and Bess

Turns out PORGY AND BESS is kind of a rare flick these days. I didn’t realize that when I made my list of movies to watch for February. It wasn’t available to Watch Instantly or by mail from Netflix, so I checked the greatest video store of all time, Movie Madness. Sure enough, they had it. When I found it on the shelf it was clearly a bootleg of some kind with all kinds of warnings on it:

“DVD-R – may not play in some players!”

“Special $1.00 rental!”

“Transfer quality – fair.”

As I read up on the film, I got a few conflicting stories about how neither the Gershwins, who wrote the opera the film is based on, nor Samuel Goldwyn, who produced the film, were particularly happy with the finished product and buried it after a short release. On top of that it seems most of the major cast members didn’t particularly care to appear in the film and Otto Preminger, the director, didn’t particularly want to make the film Goldwyn wanted to make.

All this is a shame, not so much because the movie is a bona fide great film – it’s just okay – but more because it’s a rare example of a big budget Hollywood showcase specifically for African American talent. Viewing this movie hammered home just how white Romancefest has been – both this year and last.

The movie stars Sidney Poitier as Porgy, a crippled beggar living in a poor, all-black neighborhood just after the turn of the century. A murdering, gambling, drug addict/rapist (Brock Peters) goes on the lam and leaves his floozy girlfriend Bess (Dorothy Dandridge) behind to fend for herself. She resists an offer to go to New York with the local drug dealer (Sammy Davis, Jr.) and ends up living in Poitier’s humble shack and growing to love him in spite of their circumstances.

It’s tough to judge the cinematography and other technical aspects looking through the haze of the “fair” transfer on the bootleg I watched, but it was still easy to see that the entire movie has a slow melancholy tone about it, right from the very first mournful notes in the opening scene. Both lead roles, Porgy and Bess, are kind of thankless, and it’s my understanding neither lead provides their own singing voices, so the two roles really worth noting are Brock Peters as the over the top villain and Sammy Davis, Jr. as the drug dealer. My favorite scene was probably the one at the community picnic in which Sammy Davis, Jr. interrupts a sermon to do a song and dance where he points out that just because it’s in the Bible, it doesn’t necessarily make it so.

In an era when almost any movie is readily available in some form of home media, it’d be nice to see a movie of this cultural significance get a real release with some extras putting it in historical perspective and some restoration to make the widescreen look as beautiful as it should.