And that's how I got cancer.

I stayed up all night that night, writing about the Bowery Boys, and for what? So some chiseler with a fancy website, and a journalism degree in place of a heart, could steal my piece and make hackenfish out of it?

Sure.

I really sat here and counted up how many films were in each of the four subsequent Kid series, and how many Kids starred in each film, etc, just so someone who doesn't give a damn about it, could lift my words and math, and post it to her site, smothering me in the google search results for 'Bowery Boys on TCM'.

Not that I care about hits.

I wrote about the Kids, because I care about the Kids!

So I got a little upset. I decided to not blog for a while...it's not worth the loss of sleep.

Instead, I've been watching a lot of movies.

For 2010, my count for new-to-me movies is damn near fifty!

I got one of my holy grails in the mail yesterday. A VHS from the 1970s.

-- Well, the movie is from the '70s. I'm guessing the actual tape was made in the '80s, by recording the movie off HBO, or its equivalent.

...

My Kid had an extended Spring Break. She got sick last Friday, and is only now feeling better. Going to school tomorrow. I'm gonna lay on the couch, and eat, and be happy. Watch my VHS from the 1970s/80s and hope it doesn't give me some sort of strange, 'old plastic' disease.

I cloroxed AND lysoled the tape and its cover.

Bought it off eBay, so who knows.

...

Been absent from blogs in general. Reading the updates in my feeder, though, things sound pretty standard on the Western front.

As if I'm adding anything of interest!

Don't you ever get tired of the same old movies? Of the same old reviews?? Of the same old quotes, the same pictures, the same posters, the same bloggers rambling, wanting desperately to rejuvenate their blogs, so what? So more people will read them?

Why don't they go into Walmarts, and grocery stores, and hand out business cards.

"Here, read my blog! It's great!! It tells you everything you could easily find out just by visiting Wikipedia, the internet movie data base, by reading Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, by reading a million other film blogs, or just by watching the movie yourself."

Better recycle those business cards. Landfills will be filled with 'em! ;)

Kidding.

Feeling rough and pessimistic. Bored with a capital B.

Too much mommyhood. Too much Spring Break, and sickness and fever.

I could easily sleep for a week, then eat for a week, then watch the Marx Brothers for a week.

There should be a mental hospital like the one in A DAY AT THE RACES. Groucho could be my personal doctor. Chico my nurse. Harpo could come and play music for me.

"How'd ya like to get cancer?" Groucho would ask, waving his cigar above me. Blowing smoke in my eyes.

Yesterday, I stood too close to a microwave with a butter knife nearby, and a blue/white flash of light burst from the door. I thought, "This is it; if I ever get cancer, this is where I got it."

...

My DVR is dying. The second one in two years. Thanks DirecTV! I really wanted to lose all my Ginger Rogers Star of the Month goodness, and Bowery Boys movies!

...

I wish it were Summer and hot, and not so quiet here.

I want to lay in the sun, and FEEL something. To sweat, and get tan and cancer!

After my microwave incident, I thought of writing a short story about a girl who drinks water from plastic bottles, and gets plastic water bottle cancer -- the landfills will be filled with film bloggers's business cards, and the empty plastic unrecycled water bottles! -- and people everywhere will join together to lament their cancer caused by cell phones, TV/computer screens, earbuds and headphones, twitter, facebook, and Groucho's ghostly cigar.

I had a dream last night. I was walking through the living room, and the telephone rang. Stumbling in the dark to answer -- "Who would call me at three AM?!" -- I recognized the caller's voice.

"Do you know who this is?" asked Leo Gorcey.

I listened to him whisper about his life and career. I sat down by the window, and looked up at the full moon. I kept waiting and wanting to ask him, What makes a great actor great??

-- As if Leo Gorcey knew! Hell, maybe he witnessed it.

But he kept on talking 'til he finally hung up.

...

I woke up in bed, and had to tell myself it wasn't real.

It doesn't matter.

...

One minute I want to blog more than ever, the next minute, I think, What's the point?

It's all been said.

-- Or will be stolen!

I've got the broken record cancer: a blogger's disease.

Let's run away and forget old movies are old!

Live on an island where the 1930s are still taking place, and while wearing shells and a sarong, I'll squeeze you fresh juice daily, with fruit pressed between my thighs.

"The Great Depression? What Great Depression?!"

-- What so great about it, anyway?

I feel like dirt, and I'm lonely...I need more writing and sun!

I need a man to rub oil on my back. Build me a VCR out of sand, and power it with hyper lobsters! Build me a hut out of palm leaves, and make love to me after cuddling during movies from the 1970s.

"How do you get movies from the future??" he'd ask.

"Due to an unfortunate incident involving a microwave and a butter knife, I'm now capable of time travel!"

No cancer for me.

_______________________