Overheard at Table 1: Knock Knock (2016)

This is the kind of movie that makes you wonder if the lead actor has severe money problems.

Overheard at Table 4: Hurricane Matthew

I was listening to NPR yesterday morning and they were talking to a reporter that they had down there in Haiti, and I knew, I just KNEW, the moment I heard the question, that there was going to be some lame-ass answer, and they asked, "What was the Hurricane like in Haiti?" and there was this millisecond where I was just cringing, and then the answer:

"Well . . . there was a lot of rain, and a lot of wind."

And I said NO SHIT!  Out loud!  Even though it was only me in the car.  Of course!  It's a HURRICANE!   By the very definition there is a lot of rain and a lot of water.

I want description.  I want imagery.  I want that reporter to say something like, "The rain came tearing through the island like a frat boy on a 'roid rage after slamming down tequila shots!"  or  "The wind blew harder than a coked-out porn star!"

That may not be poetry, but it damn sure beats, "there was a lot of rain.  there was a lot of wind."

Overthought at Table 3: The Nihilist Observes

Woman, elegant in the beauteous wisdomic creases of time and energy spent all these years wuietly observing the eccentricities of her husband, sits in her black shawl intricately laced with embroidered roses, skimming through pictures of her daughter and her daughter's daughters. 


Woman, you are so much more than your children.


The overhead music turns to jazz, with a trumpet swaying and jarring its load, a tempestuous shakeaway of the calm acoustic almost-tango that had bee playing when I came in for my Italian roast.


Two women, brunette and slim, in jogging attire and the skin going slack on their legs, bruising from being mid-40s, ask for pumpkin spice lattes.  It's that time of year.  The end of summer and the hint of fall in the air.  Around here when the temperature suddenly dips to 78 we tend to whip out the Halloween displays.


The elegant woman's elegant husband returns with their coffees.  He is portly bellied, with a thick white Vandyke that snows down to the open top button of his shirt.  A perfect archetype of a leatherworker making embroidered cowboy belts and hats in Santa Fe.  


We are all so much more than these bodies.  We are a sum of all these moments.

Overheard at Table 2: Lucky and Otis Look on the Bright Side

Lucky: Y’know I’ve been thinking . . .

 

Otis: Never a good sign.

 

Lucky: . . . it really wouldn’t be totally bad if Trump becomes President.

 

Otis: Oh Lord.  And how’s that, you figure?

 

Lucky: Think of the literature that would be produced.  I mean, great literature is always fiormed in resistance to oppressive eras.  We’re still producing books and movies about the Holocaust – and the heroes of WW2.  Heck, there’s not a Spanish movie director alive that can set any movie outside of the Spanish civil war.  Terrible times, frankly, make for great art!

 

Otis: So basically you want Trump to be President so that people can make great movies and write great books?

 

Lucky: Hell no I don’t WANT him to be President!  I’m just saying that at the very least, we’d have some great literature that might come out of it.

 

Otis: Well, if he wins I’m going underground, so when the Trumpites take over and put you up against the wall, I’ll write you a damn fine eulogy, OK?

 

Lucky: You’re the best friend a guy could have!

 

Overheard at Table 2: Co-workers on Break.

She: Your wife is so lucky.

He: Why?

She: You're such a ... well, like an old-time gentleman.

He: My wife might disagree.

She: Well you're a lot better than my husband.  Frikkin' idiot is all having a pity party because i got onto his ass for spending a grand on tires for his truck when the kids need school supplies, and glasses, and FOOD!  I mean, he's still on this "I don't have my freedom!" and I'm busy trying to get the kids to day care and kindergarten every morning!

He: Let me stop you, and tell you something.

She: I should just leave him, right?

He: Whether you guys stay or split, that's none of my business.  But I'll tell you this: your husband and me - we're the same guy.

She:  You're nothing like him.

He: I was when I was 29.  My wife will tell you that.  She took decades to make me into this guy I am right now.  It was a lot of sleepless nights and I was nothing but a pain in the ass pity-party, just like your husband.  But she took the time, and we made what we have now.  Which is good.  Not perfect.  But good.

She: So you think my guy's redeemable?

He: Everyone is redeemable.   It all depends on who steps up to the plate.

Overheard at Table 3: Pinky and the Lawnmower

She was saying, "you should have seen what happened to my dumbass husband and the lawnmower.  Told him not to stick his hand under there while it was running and the next thing you know he gets his pinky chopped off.

"Omigawd!"

"Yeah, it was gross, looked just like a rotten banana.  He called himself an ambulance.  Big sissy.  That was four thousand dollars right there.  We're still paying that shit off.   Got him to the hospital and they told me what it would cost to put it back on and I said, 'Aw hells no!  What's a person use a pinky for anyway!  Just throw that fuckin thing away."

"You didn't!"

"Hell yeah I did!  Teach him to stick his damn hand under the damn lawnmower."

Overheard at Table 2: David and the Hittite

Yesterday the pastor was talking about David and Bathsheba, and we've all heard the story, right?  Bathsheba bathing on the roof, so hot he calls her over and does her, then he sends her husband off to get killed.  Simple.

But you know, I've read that story off and on for years but never read it like yesterday.  I guess I never read it at all.   But first he tells this guy Uriah to go home and schtup his wife, and Uriah's like "no man, I gotta stay with the troops.  Loyalty to the fighting men." Then David gets him drunk, and Uriah still won't go home and do his wife.  I'm thinking maybe David is saying if I can get him to do his wife then we won't know the kid is mine.  I dunno,

But then, he says fine, and he sends Uriah to the general with a note for the general which says, "Make sure Uriah gets whacked in battle." And so this general proceeds to send out a full troop of guys on a suicide mission.  Now get this, I'm no military expert, but the way it reads is that the general has to make the troops do something incredible stupid, like something you would never do in a war, and bam!  All wiped out.

The general then sends the messengers back to David, and he tells them, "OK, when you tell him what happened here he's gonna be pissed off, OK? But when you see him getting pissed off, just tell him 'Uriah the Hittite got whacked, too.'"

So they do, and when they give him the message that the Hittite got whacked, David said, "Well, hey, tell the general not to worry about the loss.  People get killed all the time,"

So the point is this, David's sin didn't just get the Hittite killed, it also got a whole bunch of nameless soldiers killed.  David's sin also made his general commit a sin.   Sin doesn't just end with us, it spreads itself out like a bad STD.