(Just for Jenae):

5 Really Great Movies ( and I HATE movies...)

Please bear in mind I am an Art snob...Watch these and if you don't like them I will reimburse you 15 dollars for the two hours of your life you will never get back per film. For an exhaustive list of movies please see facebook page of David M. Troup. It will bore your ass off. These won't:

BARFLY-

Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway in the loosely autobiographical story of writer Charles Bukowski. "I'm tired of thinking about all the things I don't want to do....I'm tired of thinking about all the things I don't want to be...."

BILLY MADISON

Adam Sandler's first and best. Ridiculous characters with Steve Buscemi, Chris Farley, Darrin McGavin, Norm McDonald and a whole bunch more. Get stupid.

CASABLANCA

Bogart understands the abyss....ALLURING

Let's Spend the Night Together

Lovely film of the 1981 Rolling Stones Tour when they still aimed for the crotch. One film critic described the on screen appearance of Keith Richards and Ron Wood as looking like " a pair of diseased crows." Good schtuff there. :) Best enjoyed with a bottle of Rebel Yell Southern Sour Mash with a splash of ginger ale and some weed. But delightful sober as well. Watch Keith croon "Little T and A" or enjoy a romantic moment looking at the sunset over Sun Devil Stadium in Arizona as the love chords of "Beast of Burden" compel you to make out with the person next to you.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974 Original)

If you give it a chance, you will see it is a suspense film more than anything else. Debut of Tobe Hooper who's low budget filming out of necessity only added to the effect. Also, really no gore or violence , gratutious topless girl /sex bull shit ....just an incredible last 1/2 hour of sheer panic. Also can be interpreted as an anti-Technology, pro Animal Rights statement. This film really created an entire genre. Try it around Halloween.

Drama, Comedy, Romance, Musical, Horror -that about covers it.

ARS GRATIA ARTIS

WHERE IT ALL WENT RIGHT

Reminiscing is mental comfort food without the calories and the twisty turny stream of the subconscious has carried me back to elementary school as of late. Grades K-5 I have only brief flashes of recollection-- peeing myself in reading circle, some fat 4th grade teacher and watching the World Series in some afternoon classroom. Or maybe it was a Space launch, or both. No matter. Regardless, the sixth grade smacks of one huge experience involving a perch, a scalpal and a girl. How do those things all make it into the same memory box you ask? Well, I fell in love with a girl named Amy over the dissection of a fish in Biology class. The pheromone gods were not even smiling on us that day. Olfactorily speaking, the formaldehyde + pickle + alcohol scent of that days lesson stayed in the foreground. But, despite the stench of science, something more incredible than the Big Bang, some heretofore non existent emotion was virginally birthed on that day leaving me covered in scales and guts ( the fish) and a feeling of warmth, caring and love ( Amy). The sparky tool that lit the Bunson burner also ignited and excited the flame in my soul as well.

Over the next two years, we became "girlfriend and boyfriend" in the strictest definition of the kid version of those words and somewhat surprisingly were held to a lot of the same rules and expectations that peer pair partners of any age would be. You could only roller skate with each other, you were forced to occassionally abandon your male buddies on the playground and eschew football and pretend to watch with glee the hopscotch , jump rope or baton twirling activities the girlies enjoyed at lunchtime. The fellas ribbed ya but those guys who had GF's took it easy and kinda understood--as if quietly acknowledging it wasn't a pleasant but a very necessary sacrifice and it could be their turn tomorrow with blacktop chalk in hand non verbally communicating "Yes Dear" at 12 years of age. And of course the opposite sex rumor mill drama was in play too::::Lori Falls let Tony Tassett feel her up at an R rated movie. I heard Neal Mecklenburg called Candee Lawson last nite and by the way did you give Diana Kern a pack of Starbursts because if you did we might be breaking up??? ( For the record, as to the last accusation, I was indeed innocent.)

No one has captured me since the way Amy did. It was like she was the archetype of goodness, the physical representation of all that is innocent and right. Absolute Purity in a Catholic school uniform. Some have come close, some have opened new doors of experiences smacking both of romantic passion and debased debauchery and 2 or 3 others have been momentously loved. But adored? Revered? Cherished? No. Those verbs were hers and hers alone.

Fast forwarding over the ensuing 35 years or so I can report that Amy still visits me in my dreams 3 or 4 times a year. It is always experienced as if you had found the thing that you held the most dear in your heart and as an infinite treasure you thought was lost but that you have now been reunited with.
We laugh and feel close. We dance to pop hits of the 70's and look into each others eyes as we sing sappy love songs confidently knowing that no one else gets it the way we do or has what we have. A shared secret and sentiment foreign to everyone else on earth.

Awake, I linger on the dream recall, smile and wish.