bank job

It's a funny thing...so often reviews and reviewers just plain get things wrong. If I had read some of the reviews about the movie "The Bank Job" before heading out tonight with the DW, I would have stayed home and watched some insipid reality show on TV. As it, I luckily hadn't read any crap on IMDB and as a result saw one of the best movies I've seen in ten years. The pace is fast and furious, the period (early 1970's in London) well portrayed. The bad guys are bad to the bone and the good guys are only slightly bad. A good soundtrack and an edge-of-your-seat thriller with Cockney accents, a phenomenal bank heist and some stomach churning torture scenes. I'd rank this up there with another excellent gangster movie I saw earlier this year, "American Gangster" and very close to my all time favourite "Pulp Fiction", though perhaps not quite as enormously intelligent and intricate, and definitely a lot less self-referential, than PF. A delicious twist is that this movie is based on real events. Almost makes you want to believe the conspiracy nuts. Rush out and see it. And don't read the IMDB reviews - judge for yourself.

Whoa! Hard to believe I haven't written anything in almost three months. My last entry sounded like I had it SO together....but the rest of the winter was a biatch. Too much snow for human and canine.

Talking of too much snow....yesterday, as I drove home from my local supermarket, negotiating the winding, hilly streets of my neighbourhood (yeah, like I live in San Francisco!), I saw an elderly oriental lady chipping at the remnantes of a snow bank in her driveway. What a crazy, silly thing to be doing - hacking at the last two inches of ice when it's 60 degrees outside and sunny and what ice and snow is left will be gone within 24 hours anyway. Does this sort of activity come down to people simply having nothing to do?

Back in February, I played at a big gala gig at the Royal York hotel. A fun gig - except one thing. There was a silent auction and I couldn't help but bid on an acoustic guitar. It looked so pretty, a little thin Ovation imitation. Couldn't resist. I ran it up all the way to...nah, I can't tell you. I'm ashamed. So, I bring the thing home and it turns out to be an unplayable piece of plastic garbage. It took me an hour to file down the saddle to just be able to play a G chord. Absolutely, positively, THE worst guitar I ever played. So today, I took it down to Capsule (a great store, well worth checking out) to have them consign it for me. They were very reluctant to defile their store with this piece of junk but eventually took it. If it sells, I'll make $40. Waaaaaaaaay less than what I paid. If Jews are supposed to be good businessmen, I am the honourable exception.

Yesterday, I sat down to write a ballad. A great jazz ballad. The greatest jazz ballad ever...to rival My Funny Valentine. I'll let you know how it goes - but so far I only have 16 mediocre bars. Very mediocre...although I did insert some very hip chords. So hip, I don't even get them. The tune is called "One Day in Early Spring". If it doesn't go as ballady as it should, I'll rename it "I Sprung One Day Too Early"

Au revoir....I'll try to open you more often, dear diary