[thechat] O Brother, drugs, movies, and hats

[Quackamoe]

I grew up smoking Afghanistan Primo and Panama Red
back in the old days. Been drug and booze free since
1971. In spite of all that I found myself dealing 
with chronic depression for a very long time. A
year ago I started taking Paxil and it seems to have
done at least a passing good job. Now it's time to
get off of it. Ah, here's where it gets interesting.
Maybe I'm just an isolated case but getting off of
Paxil is no easy matter. I didn't write to anybody on
thelist or thechat or webdesign-l or babble or 
anything because I was in the midst of a hefty case of
Delerium Tremens - or however the hell you spell it.
Puked my guts up. Shaking like a leaf from head to 
toe. And this is GRADUALYY decreasing the dosage 
under an MDs guidance. So now I have a bottle of
paxil that I'm taking less and less of and a bottle
of xanax which I'm taking more and more of. Well, just
thought I'd share that little tidbit from my boring
little life. 

"Mommy, what's wrong with daddy?"
"He's going through drug withdrawals. Remember that
commercial on TV about your brain on drug? Well, there
it is, live, in your living room."

Hopefully that will strengthen what they got in the
DARE* training at elementary school. 

On a more upbeat note I just watcjed "O Brother WHere
ARt Thou" on video. Well, WOW is about all can say at
this point. What a movie. What a twist on a 3000+
year old story. Although I must say the Odyssey aspect
was pretty thin. Where was Elpenor? Lotus Eaters? The 
whole Telemachae was skipped over - wasnt' it? And one
of Ody's most famous(Greek)/infamous(Roman) traits was
that he was an Archer of some renown. Didn't see any 
of that in there, did you? Granted, I was kinda stoned
and could've missed lots of things. At least Kubrick
named his Odysseus "Bowman." Okay, I'll take John
Goodman as Polyphemus. The three washer ladies as the
Sirens, but Odysseus didn't reaally escape their song,
he just outsmarted them. We those three a combo of the
sirens and the Lotus Eaters? What about Ody's trip to
the Underworld? Did I miss that? Who was Tom, the
black
guitarist who sold his soul to the devil and what did
the rather amazing rescue of Tom have to do with the
Odyssey. I say amazing in the sense that it worked at
all. 

Clooney referred to his wife by name only once thaT 
i caught and he called her Penny. Ody's wife was of
course Penelope. But what about the suitors? Plural?
And her steadfastness in doing her embroidery by day
and unraveling it by night. What was up with that
ring,
too? Something just for the movie or did it have some
origin in Homer?

[note to self - keep copy of this and post it to
 blog]

So, When Odysseus got home he had to "cleanse the
shire" as it were with the great bow. Then reunion
with his SON - Telemachus. Then he had to carry the
oar until somebody said "What's the funny looking
winnowing fork"? Then he could go back to his throne
at Ithaca and be a better king than he was at the 
beginnning of this ROUND TRIP of discovery and growth.
That part comes through in 2001 quite well when you
realize that the Star Child is Dave Bowman having made
the next evolutonary step and then returned home to 
show us a better way. [Not that Arthur C. Clarke 
understood that part as is obvious in 2010 and 2069.
I couldn't get very far throuigh 3001.] BTW, it was
Kubrick who handed a copy of Joseph Campbell's "Hero
With a Thousand Faces"**, not the other way around.

Heck, even Top Gun has a more beat by beat correlation
to the Odyssey. NOTE: O Brother was a waaaaaay better
move than Top Gun. But Top Gun is more closely tied
to the Ulysses theme. It even has the death of Elpenor
(Goose). And it's a round trip of discovery. Maverick
ends up back at Top Gun as in instructor, no?

If anybody's driving from San Diego or especailly
El Cajon and could stop by my daughter's place and
pick up the videos of this season's Buffy, Roswell,
and Enterrpise I'd really appreciate. I'm not 10 
minutes off the I-15 in Hesperia, CA. Anybody going to
like, Barstow or Death Valley or Calico or Baker to
see the honkinest thermometer in the world or even
if you're going to Vegas, it wouldn't take you much 
time. We could even meet right at the freeway and the
In'n'Out Burger or Denny's or Dairy Queen. Waddaya
say?

And on a final note, I wrote asking about FDNY hats
a few weeks ago and got absolutely NO respoonse. Just
wondering if I've done something to alienate myself 
from this gruop or is there something wrong with the
way I'm subscribed. I get all the posts. Does anybody
get mine? 

djc?

Oh, and just heard on MOnday I think that Enya is 
doing 2 songs for LotR. One of them in Sidarin I 
think. I had always thought of using Black Sabbath
as a leitmotif for the Nazgul.

Ooops, rambling again arent i?  Must be going now.

Terry Fowler
pray for me to get drug free. After 30 years of not
getting high except on the occasional Tylenol 3, to
be going th rougj this hell; like totally sux.

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