And Another Thing...random thoughts

And Another Thing…

This is actually what this blog started out to be. Some of my friends said I could almost be the successor to “Andy Rooney”. While I certainly wouldn’t flatter myself to that degree, I see the connection. But more often than not, these things contain little outbursts, maybe more in a Lewis Black vein I suppose, minus the expletives.  But I do at least try to stop my eyebrows from running amuck, though I hear tell I am not always as successful as I hope to be.

I think we’re getting lazy. Almost every town in America has streets named after florae of one kind or another. The national landscape is dotted with all manner of Pine, Elm, Oak and Maple streets. A little ways away, there is a whole neighbourhood of streets called Primrose, Pansy and Carnation, etc. There’s an olde joke that says that the suburbs are places where we cut the tress down and named the streets after them. But I came across a street name (in California) today called, “Calle de los Arboles” which roughly translates to “Street of the trees”. Really?  I realise that maybe those that planned out the town didn’t want to go the same olde boring route and call it “Elm Street” or something…but there are over 100,000 known species of trees…could they not find even one they liked?

I know this may be a common rant, but what in the world is the attraction to the doors on the subway? I go up the stairs at Penn to catch the train, and invariably, someone will step on the train and STOP….there may or not be someone if front of this person, but he (for it is usually a male) needs to stop as he gets in, so now all of us getting on the train must now swing around this guy to get in. The fun is increased exponentially if there is already someone standing in front of the other door, which creates a little funnel effect. I sense these people may be in league with another of my favourite subway denizens;

Most of the people on the subway at rush hour are going to work or school. I bring this up to illustrate the point that this is a regular clientele.  But again, almost invariably, someone will suddenly remember that they have to get off at a particular stop…the same stop they have been getting off at every morning for 14 years has suddenly snuck up on them yet again. This occurs usually as the announcement says, “watch the closing doors”, and then they have to plough into the guys in front of the doors.

Okay, so how many more bad remakes of classics (depending on your definition of that word) is it going to take to make these folks realise that they should just leave well enough alone and perhaps…oh I don’t know….write something original? I mean really…Carrie? They try to defend this with some codswallop like… for a new generation...or some babble such as that. The real reason I think is that the familiarity factor will generate a few more shekels into the coffers. I understood the “new generation” stuff in the early days, when say…Ben-Hur…or Hunchback of Notre Dame was brought from silent to talking pictures. What I think a lot of those people that make these fail to realise is that there is a reason these movies are “classics”…it’s because they were good. And good is good, no matter when it was made. So please dear Hollywood, write something new because after all, we’ll always have Paris…..