Arrivederci, Maestro!

The brilliant film composer Ennio Morricone has left us with an extraordinary array of music and memories that will live on forever. His work has always filled my heart, soul and imagination with wonder since I first heard him in my formative years and continues to do so to this very day in the process of writing my most recent novel.

Here is an excerpt from my first book IN THE DARK: A LIFE AND TIMES IN A MOVIE THEATER, recalling how the Maestro's music has followed me my entire life, even when I moved here to Portland, Oregon.

The first movie soundtrack album I ever bought was THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY. I’d play it incessantly and discovered the inspirational qualities of music while I wrote my stories as a kid. Many a time, that familiar strangulated cry from the main theme blasted out of the stereo speakers in my bedroom. I often wondered if anyone in my neighborhood thought someone was being murdered in our house. Later, I compiled several tracks from this and other soundtracks to create a mix tape that I used for atmospheric purposes at a western theme park called Pollardville Ghost Town. I was the entertainment director for a couple of years there as well as a cowboy stunt player in the various skits we performed on the town’s main street. (I even wore the poncho I bought ten years before in Tijuana after I’d seen GBU)

Recently, I was in downtown Portland, Oregon waiting for a light rail train nearby what is now known as Providence Park, the stadium home of the Portland Timbers and Thorns soccer teams.. It was near five o’clock on a Friday and I was fatigued by a particularly grueling week. Like everyone else, I just wanted to go home. Music, very familiar music at that, caught my ear. This was a melody so esoteric and personal to me that I began to feel as though I were imagining it, scoring my daily life like music sometimes does. 

But no, it was indeed Ennio Morricone’s music from GBU. The exact track on the soundtrack is entitled “The Strong” and its melancholy tones echoed throughout the streets of Portland. It was coming from the stadium across the street from where I was standing. I walked to the curb and just stared at the ballpark when another cut called “The Ecstasy of Gold” began. In the film, it plays when Tuco (Eli Wallach) discovers Sad Hill Cemetery and searches for the grave holding the buried treasure he seeks.

It was then that I discovered my own treasure. I smiled from ear to ear as I heard the magnificence of Morricone enrich my soul and an actual tear came to my eye in recognition. It was right then that I found that I wasn’t alone in the world. Some one had the chutzpah to play Ennio goddamn Morricone for a sound check at a baseball stadium and that person was just as big of a freak as me. When you’re an eccentric weirdo, you never know when you’re going to run across a kindred spirit.

One final word, Maestro Morricone.

Bravo!

Two Girls, One World Cup

Sports? Who, moi?

With the Fifa World Cup 2014 coming into its home stretch, I confess to having a casual interest in the whole spectacle. To call me a fan would overstating it since I've actually only viewed partial games in the break room at work during lunchtime, but it still holds my interest more than football ever can or will  For the most part, organized sports holds about as more credence in my world as organized religion.

In full disclosure, my grandson is responsible for me watching the dadgum game at all since he's been playing most of his life and I've fulfilled some of my grandfatherly duties by supporting him in his love of the sport. My love for him has weakened my loathing of all sports. Watching him on the field at any early age helped wear me down and soon I was joining him and his parents at actual professional games involving our own MLS team, the Portland Timbers. (See blog post: SOCCER? I BARELY KNEW HER) Those events have been some of the best moments I've spent in the Pacific Northwest. It's not enough to make me a full-fledged, card carrying, drum beating member of the Timbers Army, but if a game is on the telly, I'll stop for a spell. The Timbers help encourage a sense of hometown pride, something I haven't experienced in my lifetime until recently.

(I also get quite a bang out of  bugfuck crazy ass rugby matches as well, the closest thing we have in the real world to Rollerball.)

Which brings us back to the World Cup. Yeah, it's just as corporate and commercial as any other sporting event, but the international flair gives it an Olympic appeal. While I was jazzed for the USA team getting as far as they did (damn waffle eaters got the best of 'em), I was just as engrossed in the matches of other countries.

As for the soccer-haters out there who oh so wittingly chime in with "Can't wait fer the World Cup to be over so's everyone kin not care 'bout soccer agin", take a friggin' breath. Football season is moments away and so is the next 11 months of basketball. Then while you wallow in your steroidsphere, the rest of us have to put up with a bowl game a week sponsored by Cheetos or Hometown Buffet and the endurance test known as March Madness, a name that should really offend metal health advocates.

ANN COULTER on a recent visit to FOX and FRIENDS

And I happen to to like soccer because anything that offends the insensibilities of praying mantis lookalike Ann Coulter really can't be all bad, can it? Soccer's un-American? Why don't you numbskulls either support or try to save the real American game of baseball. (I have some ideas. For example, if a runner gets a hit, he gets to hold onto the bat as he runs the bases)

It 's called the WORLD Cup.You football/basketball Ammurrikins don't want to be a part of the world? Fine. Take a hike.

Earth. Love it or leave it.

See? I can talk sports. Some day I'll tell you all about my lifelong love of professional wrestling. And my credibility begins to fade away in three...two...one....pfft... 

Soccer? I Barely Knew Her

Those that know me will probably find it completely out of character that I've not only attended two professional soccer games in the past couple of months, but also enjoyed myself. Y'see, I'm not a sports enthusiast in any way, shape or form. While I enjoyed baseball as a kid-and sometimes take a cursory glance at half an inning of a World Series game, I loathe football and its milieu. I guess that makes me Un-American. Yawn... I don't mind the fringe sports, especially the recent resurgence of roller derby (particularly my hometeam, The Rose City Rollers), but hey, there are other reasons for my interest in that spectator sport and it doesn't involve skating. And one of these fine days I'll even come to terms for my life-long love of professional wrestling.

This soccer thing has caught me completely off-guard.

First and foremost, my main purpose for attending both Portland Timbers home games was that my grandson, The Great Sebastian, was a ball-boy, as were several other members of his team. Sebastian, you see, lives and breathes soccer. I believe his passion for this game has even exuded my love for movies at his age.

Second, my wife and I were treated to these events thanks to a generous grant from Sebastian's parent company, namely, his mom and dad, the latter generously involving the four of us on this Father's Day outing.

Third, not knowing rule one about soccer, I actually enjoyed the games, particularly this last one against the New York Red Bulls. I found myself cheering more than once...spontaneously. Of course, it helped that we sat on the other end of the stadium AWAY from the Timbers Army, the superfans who incessantly chant all to their beat of their very own drummer. From a distance, not so bad. Up close and personal, I take out a machete.

Fourth but not least, the Timbers games are held in downtown Portland at Jeld-Wen Stadium, an open air venue that used to be known as PGE Park, a strangely isolated spot to contain thousands of soccer fans without disrupting the rest of the city...much. It really tickled my funnybone to realize that the same weekend, downtown Portland hosted not just the Timbers game, but the Gay Pride Parade AND the annual Naked Bike Ride. This weekend, a 40th anniversary singalong of WILLY WONKA AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY at the Crystal Ballroom with a family matinee and an adult evening performance complete with candy cocktails. The week after that? The Portland Blues Festival. Portland is just so darn festive.

Maybe other than supporting Sebastian, which I will do until my dying breath, I think the key to all this hoopla is that, when it comes right down to it, I actually have some genuine pride in this town known as Portland, Oregon. I enjoy rooting for it. It is, after all, home.

I say that now. Let's see if I change my tune if I actually have to pay to go to another Timbers game.

In the meantime:

Go, Rose City!

Rah.