Lazy Saturday

Yesterday. I went to Danny & Ashley's new place in the city of Whittier, which, I was surprised to find out, is not at all far from my own humble abode, about as far as, say, my parents' house or most of my other friends' houses. I arrived at the new pad around 7:30p and was delighted I was on time because it was only me and Danny and Ashley and Romeo & Juliet for a good twenty or thirty minutes before the deluge. People began arriving unceasingly after that and the party started really hopping. The apartment is absolutely enormous and thank goodness it is or all of the people that came (30-40) wouldn't have fit. I had a great time and it hadn't felt like I'd been there for any time at all by the time I left around 1:00a.

This Morning. I woke up, wrote my morning pages, text-messaged a few theatrical suggestions to my friend Justin and sat myself down to watch Psycho, which I never had seen before. I know, I know, but you could pave a street with important films I've never seen. Sometimes I think of all the books I haven't read and all the films I've never seen and all the plays I've never witnessed and I just get overwhelmed. But I digress. Psycho is fucking great and I loved everyone in the cast. Janet Leigh is pure star-power, giving a subtle, riveting performance and Anthony Perkins is so adorable it hurts. I just wanted to comfort him throughout the whole film. I have seen Is Paris Burning? and Murder on the Orient Express but I, frankly, don't remember Perkins in either film and I can't believe I've never seen any of his other work. I'm renting William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion next just to catch a glimpse of him.

This Afternoon. I read Allen Ginsberg's Howl out loud: a moving, wrenching exercise... not sure why I decided to do it, but I just started and before I could think about it I was done. And I've been researching graduate schools for at least an hour and a half now. It's painstaking and (quite frankly) boring as Hell, but there is an ultimate goal in sight and I have found a few true gems and added them to my list. I keep meaning to get back into Hard Times, but... well, I don't know. I'm tired. I feel tired.

I want to leave you with a little Allen Ginsberg. This is from his poem America, written in January 1956. It makes me think of a discussion I had with a woman at work about what she considers the probability and evil of Chinese hegemony:

America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen. And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power mad. She wants to take our cars from out our garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers' Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia. Him big bureaucracy running our fillingstations.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read. Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.