Insomnia Revelations

I have insomnia pretty often. Or sometimes I can fall asleep but only for a few minutes at a time. That’s what this week has been like. When you’re sleeping less than an hour a night, it doesn’t take long for the rest of your life to take on a surreal feeling. I keep hoping for a lucid moment where sleep deprivation magically produces some kind of enlightenment, but it isn’t like that. It’s more like swimming in Jello.

You can learn some strange things when you’re awake all the time. For instance, there’s a whole different population that is out and about at night. People who work night shift, students, the unemployed, and other insomniacs.

Hollywood’s Pathological Hatred of Italians

We’ve ignored it long enough.

It’s time to confront the entertainment industry’s pathological hatred of Italians. It’s one of those things that’s always been there in the background, but I never saw it for what it was until tonight.

Things have a way of becoming very clear at 2:30 am on Wednesday, when it’s just you, Captain Morgan, and Nick at Nite.

 

 

 

These producers and directors have systematically picked the dumbest oafs ever to represent Italians on TV. Maybe you could accept Joey Tribbiani and Fabio were a coincidence… but CHACHI? And are we to believe that John Travolta and his chin were just cast at random?

 

 

Rudolph Valentino’s life, death, and Art

Rudolph Valentino is possibly the most famous star of the silent film era. He was born in Italy in 1895, and immigrated to the United States at age 18. Initially, he settled in New York City, doing odd jobs and giving tango lessons to keep afloat.

He got his start in show business as part of a dancing company, and from there he began getting bit parts in movies until his career took off. Apart from his work as an extra, Valentino starred in 14 films between 1921 and 1926. His movies, experts say, don’t meet the high bar other films of the era set. I guess that’s true – people don’t watch his movies for the cinematography.

Old Sins have Long Shadows

Probably not the way most of these people would like to be remembered, but I love these mug shots! So many years later, and they’re still raw.  Some of them bleed tragedy, and some are really glamorous. There’s also an epidemic of ridiculous-looking mustaches.

Prison’d in a parlour snug and small,

Like bottled wasps upon a southern wall.  

- William Cowper

Ghostly Daydreaming

Randomly wondering today whose ghost I’d like to meet. There are some famous ghosts that reappear with some frequency to the living – like Anne Boleyn, Lucille Ball, or Abraham Lincoln.

Supposedly, Winston Churchill was a guest at the White House once, and after

Look Churchill, it was no picnic for me, either.

his bath (but before his pajamas), he came face to face with Lincoln’s ghost. Churchill said it was pretty embarrassing for both of them. Afterwards, he declined all overnight invitations at the White House.

Anyway, meeting the spectre of Abraham Lincoln would not be a top priority for me. But any ghost I’d want to meet has to be at least 100 years old or I’d feel like I was being ripped off. Modern people aren’t really ghostifiable. You know? I think it’s because we lack reticence, and that makes us common and ordinary. No one ever has to wonder what you’re doing… they can just subscribe to your Twitter feed. (While we’re up, can I just say, I hate the word Twitterverse?) There’s no mystery to any Hollywood types, and definitely no glamour. People of the past really valued their privacy, and weren’t all about whoring themselves out to tabloids and reality shows. And their lives prepared them for being ghosts, since they had plenty of time to think and reminisce and compose poetry. They really did shun any kind of undue attention.