Sometimes I Feel So Lonely

Oh, sure, that's a reference to my emotional state a lot of the time, but right now I'm referring to a lovely, stirring lovesick ballad from Primal Scream's new cd Riot City Blues. It's a melancholy song, but not an immersively depressing one. More like something you listen to know others feel that way, and that makes it better. It's a good disc, a return to the wannabe '72 Stones side of the band, but less forced (or maybe they're just a better band now) than on Give Out But Don't Give Up. I also downloaded (not for free, I pay) the bonus remix disc of their Dirty Hits and all the mixes are good. I like the long version of "Stuka" a lot.

Tonight I'm practicing a kind of abstinence. I told this woman I like a lot that I don't want to be the other guy and she needs to figure things out with her current situation. It seemed like it just wasn't going to happen, and the amount of attention I was giving her probably made it easy not to change things, as she can have security with one and the attention from me, or whatever the situation is, I don't know. Anyway, though I think about her, I realized if I called or texted her tonight, it would be kind of against my plan of hoping she'll miss me enough to make the break. I'm not holding my breath, but obviously what I was doing wasn't working, so it's time for something else. I'm okay, though--just trying to get work done.

I already watched one movie tonight, a short one, the romantic mystery Laura, with the exquisite Gene Tierney. This was the second time I've seen it but I know I'll remember it much better now. I guess some would lump it into "Noir" because there's a murder and it's black-and-white, but aside from a few nicely composed shadows it really isn't a noir film. It's very well-written and well-cast, with Clifton Webb getting lots of great lines as a worldly, cynical columnist and broadcaster, Vincent Price as a cad, and Dana Andrews as the detective first trying to solve Laura's murder, then finding she might be the suspect in the murder of the girl killed in Laura's place. It's very good, though I have to say director Otto Preminger (who inherited the project already in production, maybe already shooting) really didn't establish that Andrews' character, MacPherson, fell in love with the dead Laura during the course of his investigation, nor did he convince me that Laura fell for him. It could have been done satisfactorily in just a few scenes, but those scenes aren't there, and the audience is just told these things from the dialogue of other characters as if it should be obvious to everyone. A cheat, really, but the film still works.

I also watched one bonus feature, the A&E Biography of Tierney, which is incredibly sad. I'm not going to recount her heartbreaks and illness here, but go look it up somewhere.

Well, as much as I like unloading on the blog, I do realize it takes time and energy away from other writing, like reviews and fiction, so I'm going to cut this short and go work on some of that.