I’m sorry, Shemp. I’m so sorry. And I’ve used up all my words, a 15-year stream of curses, exclamations, inanities you only babble to cats, prayers, confessions, well wishes, and random musings — thousands of words. Not enough.

Goodbye, pal. I will always love you.

Shemp is also a friend.

I don’t have many friends in this world. It’s sad when a grown man has to cite a cat as a friend, but this is a sad sentiment for a sad day. Shemp has cancer.

We got Shemp a lifetime ago. I lived in a big house in the middle of nowhere with a front yard ending with a highway guardrail and the busy road beyond.  Shemp, an orange-and-white mix and his black-and-white brother, Elvis, were there to help a scared, lonely, and shy boy feel less scared, lonely, and shy. They were tiny kittens, and it was just me, and them, and a roommate, a house we’d later learn was infested with squirrels, and the rushing traffic. And as they became more adventurous, it seemed a foregone conclusion one, or both, would escape the house, go wandering, and meet a terrible end. It was no way for a friend to go. So the cats went to live with my parents. The cats went home.

When I think of Shemp, I’ll always remember him climbing on my bed, muscling me to one edge or the other, or plopping down right on my legs and making it so I’d have to sleep with my legs splayed apart while he took the prime real estate in the middle. Then, when it suited him: To the door, scratching to be let out, to be fed, to be allowed outside to eat grass. When it suited him: Scratching on my door to be let in, relentless. He tore the hell out of our couches and coughed up hairballs on our rugs. He was our bad old man.

When I was unemployed and back at my parents’ home, I was his best friend. He’d wake me up at an ungodly hour to be fed and let out. He’d scratch on the door to be let in. He’d nudge me while I sat at the computer writing résumés. Get me food. You haven’t let me out in the last 20 minutes. For the love of god, you haven’t paid enough attention to me. Shemp got big and fat, and used his bulk to become king of the house. Meanwhile, his brother is, and was, the sweetest cat ever. At least that’s what mom says. And mom, who dotes on the cats, is the foremost authority on these matters.

Now I am a world away, and my friend is dying. I need to get back home and see my friend, and tell him it is all right, and that I love him dearly. And I will say this with tears in my eyes, because the toughest things in life always involve tears.

And then, at the end, a silent prayer, the best I can muster.

Take me where I want to be. Please take me from this misery.

I wrote this on my Twitter. It’s the Twitter equivalent of criticism which, in its own way, can never be anything other than a sucker punch.

People worked long and hard on Sucker Punch: The Motion Picture. They didn’t do a very good job except for the guy whose job it was to ensure the film was the noisiest, most cacophanous and, possibly, least coherent and most jangly thing since Celine Dion attempted AC/DC. But they did work on it, and I can tear it apart in 140 words or less.

I’m not sure the film deserves more. At times, it’s overly violent and mean-spirited. The female characters all dress and act like dolls, and I can’t help but feel this is someone’s kiddy-porn wish fulfillment vehicle. Every scene depicting woman’s empowerment is negated by panty shots; close-ups of thighs; trembling and/or pouty lips; leather, lace, and lollipops. Creepy Japanese schoolgirl porn seems less prurient, more wholesome.

See, to be free you have to, uh, dress like ...

That will end now. It’s time to unlock the gate, dust off the cobwebs, and turn the juice back on. I don’t know if Monsterville is a trip or the final destination, but it’s time for me to figure it out.

I knew that coming in, more or less. Seth Rogan is no great American actor. He’s not even very good. He has his one character, and I guess he plays it dutifully, the sort-of slacker guy who’s kind of smarmy and who, if you ever met him in the real world, you’d probably want to punch him in the mouth.

There were some interesting moments when Rogan and the guy who played the Hornet’s sidekick, Kato, discussed the nature of superheroes and their sidekicks. I liked the interplay of the rich but ultimately useless (or barely useless) in a fight hero and his talented, genius sidekick, and wished there could be more of that and, well, less of Rogan as Hornet smirking and leering his way through the film.

Now the film is kind of stupid, and I wasn’t surprised to see it handled its violence so glibly. During their initial adventure, Hornet and Kato thwart a group of criminals who set upon a couple and, after a stylized fight, the duo escapes in its Hornetmobile.

A dumb chase ensues, but at one point Kato (who’s doing the driving) uses his car to smash a police car into a third car. The cop car does a miraculous flip and rolls/crashes into a storefront fully inverted. This is not the kind of accident people walk away from. It’s likely the kind of accident where they call it in DOA, or else you’re looking an extended hospital stay and maybe brain damage, a wheelchair, or without some limbs.
Returning home, the heroes celebrate. They’re excited their initial foray into crimefighting went so well. They don’t spend one second thinking about the cop they must surely have killed or maimed.

Do other people think about this? I mean, we’ve grown desensitized for sure. I swallowed the scene not with revulsion or horror, but rather resignation. Of course the heroes wouldn’t be thoughtful about stuff like that. It wouldn’t make them reevaluate their tactics or think about turning themselves in. That would be, I don’t know, smart. And Green Hornet was certainly not a smart movie.

The film was also, of course, in 3D. I’ve railed against 3D before. It doesn’t add anything.

Oh, and when the movie ended, a crazy woman began clapping and hooting. “Bravo, Green Hornet!” she screamed.

I wish I was watching the movie she was.

The triangular lights approaching; the train to take me home. Health, and the small island of it I cling to. It won’t be around forever, but for now I’m holding the high ground. The music I hear in my head and in my heart. It’s got a good beat and keeps me moving.

Friends, old and new.

The realization that letting go is better than holding on. Let it go, Greg. Let it go.

PTOM. It’s not bad, and I fear we’re getting better all the time. Not many people can say they like what they do. Me, I sometimes love it.

The woman who taught me that feelings aren’t something you subvert, swallow, or compromise. She broke my heart and then she broke her ass. There’s something weirdly fitting about that.

Hope.

And pizza.

But not this crap

Monsterville is a strange and weird place, but I’m not sure how much I should be sharing. Out in the real world, I am horribly secretive, and although it’s easy to read my face and my mood, there’s so much that I don’t tell people. I’m working out what I can—what I should—say on the Internet and what I should leave for me. It’s a process, but more than that, it’s a way of life. Like that guy in the Crash Test Dummies says, my mouth says things that aren’t so wise. So for now, I have to be careful.

Buried. It’s a strange movie, strange and claustrophobic. Ryan Reynolds as a contractor in Iraq gets buried alive inside a coffin. That’s the entire movie, Reynolds in a coffin, with only a phone to give him glimpses of the outside world. The end moments are horrific, and throughout I could feel the walls closing in on me, the sand pouring on my head. Its moments of dread and terror are tangible. I’ve not seen a movie like this in a very long time, maybe not ever.

Something for the ladies...

The film is a series of endless nonsensical moments punctuated with scenes designed to highlight the 3D I paid an extra $3.50 for. Brains exploded at me, quarters flew toward my face, zombies lunged, concrete shattered, sunglasses spun and whirled. The movie made no attempt to explain any of these moments, such as when the female protagonist assaulted an underground facility with an army that consisted, seemingly, of clones. Nor did it ever attempt to explain why an evil corporation that had wrecked the world was bothering with tormenting the survivors of a zombie holocaust. “They’re experimenting,” we’re told. Why? For what purpose? When the world is destroyed and zombies have made the surface of the planet unlivable, what the hell are you working toward? Is this corporation planning to release another horrible virus? Does it just want to ruin the lives of the small remaining population? I think if you’re an evil corporation, and you destroy the planet, you should probably congratulate yourself on your great victory and call it a day. Hooray! You won. You can stop being evil now.

Anyway. This is far more thinking about Resident Evil than has been put forth by its filmmakers. And, frankly, it’s hurting my brain. I should have just marveled at the explosions and chomped away merrily on the popcorn.

But…Resident Evil has inspired me, after a fashion. As a movie fan, I’ll pretty much see anything they toss up on the screen: foreign or domestic, crap or classic. And I’ll do it knowing sometimes the experience will be more than the actual viewing. I do this because I like the idea of sitting there, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, now and again with a woman, and simply losing myself.

Today’s film, the aforementioned Resident Evil, was in 3D. And, honestly, I liked 3D more when it was a hokey gimmick than I do when it’s a hokey gimmick designed to divest me of a little extra $$$. They’re making a lot of movies in 3D recently, and I’m not sure it’s warranted in most cases. Step Up 3D, which I am almost positive is not a real movie, does not warrant a third dimension. Nor does Saw 3D, which may be a real movie but should rely on its horror and not a series of clever shots designed solely to send spikes flying at the audience.

Used sparingly, 3D is a probably a great thing. But it’s overused now and, more to the point, it’s being overused by filmmakers who drop their pants and grunt heartily to produce their masterworks…

And while we’re at it…

Resident Evil also gleefully embraced another one of my film-related pet peeves: The scene tossed in to make you sit through the credits.

I don’t understand this one. Someone’s already got my $10 or whatever, and I’m sure the people who make the movies know that no one watches the credits even when they’re watching the credits. Is it vanity? Is it some sort of stupid power play? If it’s important, stick it in the movie proper. If it’s unimportant, well, honestly, don’t bother.

This time, the scene served to explain the movie’s final shot: a swarm of evil corporation helicopters coming to assault human survivors. So it was at least relevant, but apparently not relevant enough to show as the film’s 30-or-so last seconds?

Honestly, toying with the audience like this seems cheap and mean-spirited. During Iron Man 2, I waited an excruciating 10 or so minutes, trapped in my seat, waiting for a scene my friends promised I had to see. And when everyone and his mom had scrolled on by the screen, I was treated to 20 seconds of a hammer being excavated. Everyone was so excited! Thor’s hammer! Yay! And all I could think of was the 10 minutes of my life I would never get back. All for a hammer.

In 3D, no less...

I own a Roomba, which makes me now officially too lazy to plug in a vacuum cleaner and make halfhearted pushing motions. Roomba is a vacuum. Or it would be a vacuum if it produced any suction, which it most certainly does not.

Do not presume to know the mind of Roomba. I have watched it come, and I have seen it go. I suspect it has a more interesting life than I do. It goes where it will, and sometimes its cheery humming stops and the whispering begins. Will it come back to me? If you love something, set it free. If it returns with only a modicum of dust and sock lint, rest assured it is Roomba.

I bought Roomba because my mother hates Roomba. She’s the kind of woman who will gleefully vacuum a single room for an hour, shoving the vacuum back and forth over the same spot 2o times. She thinks Roomba doesn’t clean, and she’s probably dead-on with that one, but also hates Roomba because it does not possess the technology to make the people in its general vicinity feel miserable when it’s vacuuming.

I like to talk to Roomba while it’s doing it’s thing. “Kill, Roomba! Seek out my enemies and destroy them.” To date Roomba has yet to destroy a single enemy of mine. I’d like to think it’s just biding its time, but maybe this is wishful.

Roomba and I have an arrangement. I pick up wires and other obstacles, and Roomba finds the one thing on the floor that will bring it to a choking, smoking, grinding halt and runs over it. Someday, I expect I will find Roomba at my throat, and my last thoughts before oblivion will be of a nice, clean rug, and a future provided to me by technology.

I am Roomba and will likely end you

I’m in Los Angeles. Again. The last time I was here was for the video game show E3, and I ended up in a bathroom, unbelievably tired and strung out, listening to a grown man snore while I contemplated my latest (and greatest) spiritual depantsing. Now I’m here to see wrestling: wrestling, wrestlers, and a video game.

And here they are, these feelings again, like errant pieces of luggage, in this hotel room with me. She was beautiful, and smart, and hott with two Ts as the man says. She likes video games and The Simpsons, but not me. And I swear I thought I was over it, over every stupid bit of it after a period of equal parts mourning and moping.

The note arrived amid a sleepless—and I by this I mean it was an insomniac special—night. The walls trembled as my roommate snored mightily, cutting not lumber but swathes of forest. I sat in the bathroom, on the toilet, and with headphones on, preparing for a bleary, blank-eyed Thursday. The snoring cut through the walls, was barely impeded by Mark Knopfler musing about having a case of old damnation for when you get here, my friend. And I sat there and I read her note and lost the beat.

She wanted to be friends, but I’m not built that way. So before we were anything we were nothing, and I’m something, sitting in a towel, drying off and trying to think of what to ask a grown man who goes around hitting other grown men with steel chairs.