Hat. Brooch. Pterodactyl.
Sometimes you have to improvise, that much we all know. But sometimes, sometimes you choose to do it. Sometimes you improvise because you can, because you enjoy exercising your intellect or other talents. Sometimes you do it to entertain others. And sometimes you improvise out of love for another. You find ways to spin bad things into not-so-bad, or distract with the good things to give some breathing space to the bad things.
This past weekend was up at the River, with Fred, Donovan, Derek and Marcello. It was all for Marci's birthday, and you know what? I got more out of it than I ever expected. And I expected a lot.
Things have been rough eventful lately, and even up at the River all was not a good time for me, even in the midst of a 3-day-long Good Time Had By All. But my friends were there. Whatever conscious efforts they made on my behalf I'll never know. I just know that I was surrounded by amazing people who wouldn't let me fall too far those couple of times when I felt like I was falling off of the face of the earth.
God is a red balloon at a picnic.
But mostly it was a great time. I know Marci had a great time and that was the single most important thing. Never underestimate the inadvertent payoff of making someone else feel good while having no expectation of payoff.
At every moment when I had a chance, the question would cross my altered or unaltered mind: how did I get so lucky to have these people in my life?
I need to know; but I suspect I'll never know. I guess I'll have to improvise.
Comments
"Hat, brooch, pterodactyl"
AMC is doing a series called Movies On DVD, (or something like that) where they run the movie in letterbox, with superscript dissections of each scene, based on info from the directors and producers.
ANYWAY.
Last night was "Airplane" and the crawl read that when the producers saw Steven Stucker's bits, they weren't sure they would make the movie, but that test audiences *loved* the queeny character.
Not apropos of your post, but interesting to an Airplane fan, which you clearly are. BTW, Stucker died of AIDS in about 1990.
Posted by: Joe.My.God. | July 11, 2005 06:27 AM
I just watched Airplane round a mates house and it was very strange seeing it 23 years after it was made. Actually saw the 2nd one all about the space shuttle. Obviously before the Columbia disaster of 1986 as they would never have been able to do it !
Just found out that Stephen Stucker actually died of aids in 1986. The really sad thing is I couldn't even find an obituary, tribute or anything relating to his life, work or death.
I just think of the millions of people that must have laughed at his stupid antics over what is almost 1/4 of a century and theres like nothing written about him apart from daft into text to plug the movie.
I never realised that if you got AIDS you dropped off the planet and were never spoken about again.
I guess the biggest tributes are the two Airplane films he left behind and the fact that you guys are decent enough to remember him.
I actually feel better knowing that there are a few people out there that are still laughing and appreciating the jokes he left us. :D
Posted by: Brian Clark | July 26, 2005 03:53 AM
The reason thre isn't much info about him is that he basically died pre-Web and he only did a few movies. There are many many fine actors, past and present, that don't have much of a presence on the net for one of those reasons (let alone both). There probably isn't much known about him.
Posted by: Suzanne Lanoue | August 6, 2005 11:10 AM