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(with leftover opinions)
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 Murry doesn't understand those geeky 'Matrix' movies. But what if he had a different perspective? |
Hey, I'm Back To Tell
It Like It Ought To Be!
By MURRY FRYMER
Leftover Columnist at
TheColumnists.com
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(I have too much privacy. Somebody invade my space.) --Murry Frymer |
Four years! My goodness! Not that TheColumnists.com lasted this long. It’s that I lasted this long. I wrote about 70 columns for this site. I am awaiting my first check. Never mind.
Here are some opinions I never got to state. I better get them said today.
I used to be a movie critic. But I am glad I am not a movie critic now. I cannot imagine discussing some of today’s hits. Like the “Matrix” trilogy (I remember trilogies used to be something Latin or Greek and dull. Now they are movies. And dull.)
I watched parts of the Matrix series. I said to my daughter, who works for Warner’s, the maker of this stuff, what’s it all about? How come when the good guy and the bad guy (machine, I think) fight, they land cosmic blows but never seem to hurt each other. They just keep landing cosmic blows. Why watch it? At least with a video game, which these films resemble, you get to control the action. Here you just watch the game and are supposed to take some sort of meaning out of it all. OK. I guess the last four years have robbed me of some of my means of discerning meaning.
I have listened to Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. These guys are inordinately popular. They both seem to scoff a lot. I don’t mind an occasional scoff, but both Bill and Rush seem to be implying something profound in their scoffs. I am slowing down and can’t quite fathom what is profound in their scoffs. I know I am not happy when I talk to people who scoff a lot, and in fact, I used to be a scoff-a-lot person. And I was not happy. So I don’t listen to these guys much, though I do think I should not scoff at two guys who have such a big audience. Even bigger than TheColumnists.com.
Since I have become a Senior, people invite me to join Senior groups. I have been to such groups, usually to deliver a peppy talk and sell some of my books. I have noticed that all the people in these groups are old. Old people, and I know whereof I speak, have two things on their mind: Their illnesses and their investments. In my case, the two are the same, and both give me gas. I suppose it is some sort of pleasure to confab with people of a like mind. But I have not discovered it yet. I do think I would join a group of very, very old people. Then they would call me “sonny” and make me feel young. But to feel young, I can take a nap. In my dreams I am perpetually 21.
Speaking of taking naps, I understand Michael Jackson likes to nap with young people. Very young people. Very young boys. I could have told him this would get him in trouble, though I share his penchant for avoiding people his own age. I have never thought of inviting anyone to join my naps. Sometimes my two cats join me, but I suppose they would join Michael Jackson if he would ask them. And he would get in no trouble at all. My cats are female.
Since this website began, I have suffered through the George W. Bush election, the stock market collapse, the 9/11 attack, Gary Condit, Scott Peterson, my slipped disc, high blood pressure, The NY Times/Jayson Blair scandal, various hurricanes and the Southern California fires, the mutual fund scandal, a touch of diabetes, 32 fights with my wife and one makeup session. It’s been a rough four years.
Since this site began, Ron Miller moved from his home in Los Altos and the unappreciative buyer tore it down; Jerry Nachman wrote another superlative book hoping women would come running--superlative women; Jim Hummel won a celebrated Reuben (top cartoonist) award; my younger son earned his PhD and hopes to turn that into a job someday, I watched dozens of episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond,” fell in love with Australia, did not eat one potato pancake, wondered if it was time to throw out two boxes of my column clippings. I keep thinking that someday my grandkids will spend their nights combing through my clippings with great pleasure and pride. But I don’t have any grandkids yet. I don’t think I would spend my nights going through my own grandfather’s clippings, if he had any. I think its time to toss them.
I have come to believe in the Death Penalty. I would broaden it. I would include graffiti artists, bad drivers, surly waiters, pretty girls who don’t smile back, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, people who tear down beautiful old houses, Jayson Blair, the guys or girls who write viruses in software, the Bush administration, the gay guys on that TV show that mocks straight guys, whoever it was that destroyed Broadway, the administrators of my HMO. Actually, this is my short list. My long list has the weight of the Yellow Pages.
In four years, I have become a cranky old guy. Yeah, I’m working on a book.
©2003 by Murry Frymer. The Murry Frymer caricature is ©2000 by Jim Hummel. The ad for "Matrix Reloaded" is from Warner Bros. Pictures. Murry Frymer is not in the movie--at least, not as far as he knows.
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