I went to see 500 Days of Summer tonight. I have to say that I was not so thrilled. I got suckered into it by the trailer where she is singing the lines from one of my favorite Smiths songs...'if a 10 ton truck kills the both of us, to die by your side...'. It was just another take on sensitive-emo-love-sick boy chases emotionally unavailable but super hot (in a quirky sorta way) hipsterish girl and gets his heart broken. How many of those movies have there been?! I'm sick of seeing idealistic and earnest romantics getting their poor little hearts tromped all over by some cool, elusive, hard-to-pin-down lover. Its bad enough when it happens to you personally without having to watch this tired cycle endlessly glamorized in popular culture. (I'm sounding a bit cranky here...)
Anyway, my drive home was much more interesting than the movie. It was a lovely balmy night here in Oaktown, I had some good music on in my car stereo and I decided to take a little drive. First I had an idea to sneak into a cemetery to look at the moon. Sadly the gates were locked. I briefly debated hiking up a dark hill to check out a mausoleum but then changed my mind when it appeared that a lot of young thuggish looking guys were hopping in and out of cars on the dark street. Apparently a dead-end cemetery street is a great place for drug dealin'.
So I decided to drive through Piedmont. Damn Piedmont is nice! Huge houses stacked on hillsides with crazy panoramic views of the bay. Trees forming graceful arcs over the street. Skunks and raccoons waddling around on their nocturnal quests.
I love to walk through neighborhoods like this and peer in people's windows. It always fascinates me to imagine the lives going on inside those houses. What kind of people can afford places like this? Are they ordinary people who just happened to get lucky or who were born into money? Or are they extraordinary people - a reknown cardiologist who invented a new surgical procedure, successful filmmakers, trilingual international CEOs, famous novelists, a university professor researching the cure for HIV? How are their private lives inside those immaculate, manicured homes? I'd love to make a documentary about the American Dream and interview these people to find out more. How did they get there? What are their lives like?
It was 68 degrees out at 11pm. Nights like tonight remind me its gonna be a hard to leave Oakland. I'm a little enamored by this strange town. Still in the honeymoon phase, I guess.
1 comment:
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