The Bicycle Thief (1949) The feeling is like bobbing in the surf. When the next wave comes on, you feel the surge as you are tossed to the top, lifted a bit so that you can try to shout to your friends, those lifeguards on the beach, and your lovers, sunning themselves in the sand. But they either can’t or won’t look your way and you are soon crashing back into the bottom ass over head, sucking the brine in thru mouth and nose. Certainly at this point two things are true; you know who your friends are. There is a patent difference between those who care and those who have only been paying you lip-service. Friends will wade out and will carry you ashore; buoy your sinking carcass. To the rest, safely on the beach, you are a burden; you call and they look away, somehow afraid you can drag them under too. Most people fall into the latter camp. Don’t be surprised at who isn’t running out into the waves with a life preserver, slow-motion style. You’ll find very few Hasselhoffs on the beach when you need’em. The second true thing is after the first mouthful of seawater, you don’t want help that much anyway. The ocean is nothing if not full and complete and non-judgmental… Frank pauses in this diatribe, abandons his dwindling audience in the hotel lobby as a young lady of the variety that can only be described as “easy” staggers into view. She just wants some food and to be told she’s pretty and at this moment she’s the prettiest gal in the world. Her boyfriend, she says has torn off from the place drunk in his 2006 Ford Expedition. She touches Frank on the elbow, not a lot but more than anybody else in a long time. And Frank knows that if makes some cheap, sleazy move, she’d be his til boyfriend comes a-weaving on home, probably with a police escort. Its one of those times that hangs heavy and pregnant in the air, where a guy knows he just has to ask. A few minutes in the back room may be just another meaningless stab back at boyfriend for her, payback for leaving, but it may just be salvation for Frank. She asks him the necessary prerequisites; does he have a job? How much does he make? When is he planning on leaving here? He furnishes her with muffins and a cigarette and refrains from telling her that the best way to get her revenge is to give a stranger a blow job in the men’s restroom. Criterion is once again re-releasing an over-priced classic, Vittorio DeSica’s The Bicycle Thief (1949). DeSica is the king of Italian post-war realism and though Frank Trautman prefers the cinematography of Two Women (1960) and the knee-jerk pathos of Umberto D. (1952), The Bicycle Thief is an important film, and probably the one you’ve had to watch in most Cinema 101 courses. There’s plenty of pathos here, too. An out-of-work Italian family man gets a reprieve in the form of a gig putting up posters. Unfortunately, his bike gets stolen, making the job impossible to do. Well, much has been made of the film and Frank won’t attempt to replicate, not when Ford Expedition has just breezed back in and scooped up the girl. She was pudgy and had cum stains on her “USA: Love it or Leave it” T-shirt anyway. And there’s a war on and you can watch it on the TV hung over the breakfast bar. And Frank is dizzy because it’s been nothing but cigarettes and Old Crow for three days now. Long Way Home Well I stumbled in the darkness I'm lost and alone Though I said I'd go before us And show the way back home Is there a light up ahead? I can't hold on very long Forgive me pretty baby but I always take the long way home Money's just something you throw Off the back of a train Got a handful of lightening A hat full of rain And I know that I said I'd never do it again And I love you pretty baby but I always take the long way home I put food on the table And a roof overhead But I'd trade it all tomorrow For the highway instead Watch your back if I should tell you Loves the only thing I've ever known One thing for sure pretty baby I always take the long way home You know I love you baby More than the whole wide world You are my woman I know you are my pearl Let's go out past the party lights We can finally be alone Come with me and we can take the long way home Come with me, together we can take the long way home Come with me, together we can take the long way home ~~Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 2002