Which is more terrifying? A naked blue Japanese child in your peripheral vision OR a Japanese home strewn with garbage?

Has anyone either read far enough back or been reading this blog long enough to know about My favorite NYC film festival? That's right kids, it is time for Subway Cinema's annual New York Asian Film Fest. how great is the flyer?

I was slightly dissappointed to see that there were no Takashi Miike flicks this year. So far we've seen: Legend of Evil Lake, Zatoichi 3, Juon and Juon2. This was the second time we saw Juon, last year some time it was up at Lincoln Center, but it was just as scary the second time! Perhaps even more frightening, is that the american remake is already in post-production starring starring Sarah Michelle Gellar! As we exited the theater C overheard someone explaining to his companions that it was actually the messy house that really scared Japanese audiences.

Flicks I am particularly looking forward to are: Vibrator, Antenna, Azumi and Doppelganger. When I playfully bitched at one of the organizers about the fact that they don't sell full festival passes and that they had better start meeting My needs by next year, he told us that unless they find a corporate sponsor, there might not be one next year. It is terrifically expensive getting these films over here to be shown. So if you have the corporate strings to pull...even if you don't, COME CHECK IT OUT!!!

Today's post is brought to you by the letter E

So, the last few days I've been working with Tom. He is one of My favorite people to be at the shop with. See a very early post here. Anyway, I asked him to guest blog for Me yesterday, but he said no. Luckily, his entry today is all about his shift last night. So in a totally lazy move, I will now co-opt his entire post before he edits it!

Oh Boy

I'm not sure what's worse: the belligerent, drunk, incoherent, paranoid, accusatory, schizophrenic, Tourettes' bum; or the overly friendly, generous, supportive, paternal, homeless man.

Hanging out on Avenue A at 5 a.m., working at the world's only 24-hour record store/hangout for the unemployable, I'm more than used to dealing with the former. They come in with garbage they've found somewhere and try to hock it to us before they pass out in Tompkins Square Park across the street. Usually a simple menacingly glare and a 'No Thank You" will shoo them away easily enough before they start screaming at me.

This older guy came in with a stack of maybe 50 LPs and 45s in his grocery cart early this morning. The records were all in terrible condition, scratched, wet and torn, but he had some awesome titles. A lot of them were 1960s South American mambo and garage rock albums. The coolest featured some kind of Latin Sammy Davis Jr. in a gay pirate costume on the cover. The artwork alone was worth picking them up for a look. The owner of the store took a little time to examine the records to see if any were worth buying for the store.

In the meanwhile, the homeless guy started talking to me. He asked where I'm from and if the traffic there was as bad as it is in New York. Then asked me what famous people are from Baltimore (he knew Johnny Unitas, but not Cal Ripken).

"Well, you can be a famous person from Baltimore," he said.

"I'm working on it," I said and smiled.

"Good, what do you do?" he asked.

"I write," I replied.

"Fiction or nonfiction," the 56-year-old gentleman asked politely.

"Mainly nonfiction," I said.

"Do you have anything written or published?" he queried.

"I've had stories in some newspapers and magazines," I said, surprised by his inquisitiveness.

"Do you have anything with you? I'd like to read it," he said.

I told him that I didn't have any of my clips on me.

"Well, bring some here. I'll stop by again and see if you left anything for me," he told me. "You're gonna make it. If you try, you can accomplish anything."

By this point, the owner had gone through the albums and determined that only a handful were sellable. The man gave the owner the whole pile rather than carry them around. He just wanted them to have a good home, he said.

As he walked away, he pulled something out of his cart and handed it to me.

"Here's a present for you," he said.

The eternal optimist shoved a red, Tickle Me Elmo doll in my hand. Both the owner and I were completely baffled by the gesture.

"No thanks, that's very nice of you, but you keep it," I said.

"No. I'm going to go sleep in the park," he told me with a smile. "It makes too much noise."

Then he grabbed his cart and ambled across the street. I pressed the stomach of the damp Elmo doll. It began to giggle maniacally.

"Oh boy!" Elmo laughed. "That tickles."

I gave the owner the doll for the store, and he set it out to dry when the sun came up. I couldn't tell if the old man was the nicest person I've met in New York, the craziest or the funniest.

About an hour later, as the sun was coming up, one of the balding, cackling, nonsense-talking homeless guys came running down the sidewalk. He picked up the Elmo doll and a look of sheer joy crossed his face.

"That's ours," the owner of the store said. "That's not trash."

The guy held up the Elmo doll and squeezed it in his outstretched hands, smiled and laughed. "Tickle Me Elmo!" he giggled before setting it down and running off.

I had know idea that a child's toy could make grown men so happy. Are they showing Sesame Street in flophouses now? Now I'm going to have to start bringing the friendly homeless man my clips. At least my mom won't be the only one excited about them.

Cheers.

Perhaps I am going overboard being so self-referential today, but now that you have read his take on the homeless men and their treasure/trash, here's what I had to say about it.

Lola and the belated Ronald Reagan obituary link

As you may or may not know, My friendster profile reads, "I live with a cat named Sela, a bearded dragon named Bob and an obsessive-compulsive packrat." You might think that was enough in the pet department, however...

Lately one of our employees has been letting us dogsit her absolutely amazing one year old french bulldog. I am fully aware that websites and blogs devoted to how adorable one's pet(s) are, is beyond passe. However this animal has utterly stolen My heart.

Her name is Lola. No she wasn't a showgirl, nor does she walk like a woman and talk like man.

I know everyone is completely Reaganed out by now, but I've been meaning to link to this since I first saw it. Call Me completely gullible if you will, but as much as I was surprised, I was actually taken in by the first few paragraphs.

My Smoking Fetish/Addiction

I know it has been too long. I suppose I am just beginning to emerge from a major depressive cocoon. They upped My meds, I've lost 20 lbs on Jenny Craig and summer has finally arrived, so I am back, again. Amusing thoughts that I meant to blog about...Is there a fetish for stutterers? A friend was searching for one and said maybe he should have googled (I know, I know, it is something like kleenex for tissues or xerox for photocopy) st-t-t-utt-t-t-er-ers. I am a total nicotine addict. I love to smoke. C however wishes for Me to live a long healthy life without the eventual aid of a respirator, so his campaign for Me to quit continues. Most recently I was busted breaking our current agreement not to buy My own packs. He came home and found Me asleep on the bed with a nearly full pack beside Me. He ripped the pack in half. Junky that I am, the next day I assembled a smokable cigarette by using My endless supply of nicotine patches to hold the filter onto the rest of the cigarette! At the time I realized how absurd what I was doing might seem, even as it made perfect sense to Me. I've also found that the plastic tray that houses the patches doubles wonderfully as an ashtray.