This weekend I watched parts of two movies on race. One of them was Crash—forgive me for being a wee bit behind the times. I never saw it in the theater, figuring it’d be out on video or on television soon enough. I guess this weekend was soon enough.

I assume that the film was meant to spur nationwide discussions of the important racial issues of the day, in the hopes of bringing us all closer together. But at some point, a Best Picture winner has to be artistic, and Crash—at least the 15 minutes or so that I saw—was about as subtle as a public service announcement. Maybe one day I’ll have the patience to watch the whole thing and give it a fair shot, but it seemed like little more than an R-rated, heavy-handed after-school special.

The other movie was Mel Brooks’ visionary meditation on race, Blazing Saddles. Sure it’s hilarious, and most who’ve seen it love it, but I think it’s safe to say that it was far riskier to make Blazing Saddles in the racial climate of 1974 than it was to make Crash thirty years later. I think it’s also safe to say that Brooks did more for improving race relations than Paul Haggis did, even it wasn’t all that much. And yet Crash seemed so haughty and important. Oh well.

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This weekend I will drive to Chicago to see friends and relatives I haven’t seen in a year and a half. I’m looking forward to seeing my old roommate, various aunts, my favorite uncle, and my now-eight-year-old cousin–it doesn’t seem like that long since I saw her last, but to her it’s been roughly a quarter of her conscious memory. Happily Sadly, her cat has died since I moved, so I won’t have to worry about being clawedand I hope the cat has gone to Cat Heaven, and is now a Cat Angel.

Truth be told, I’m most looking forward to seeing my long-lost love. It’s been a year and a half with no contact—my fault entirely, I’m the one who hasn’t called. I was stupid, and I screwed up when I left. Now, I’m not in a position where I can just move right back up there, and marriage simply isn’t feasible, and things sweet to taste prove in digestion sour—but O, to taste once again!

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Great commercial, if the Bears didn’t suck this year.

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It was a pizza, in case your browser couldn’t call up the picture. A deep-dish pizza from Malnati’s. It wasn’t a woman; women are everywhere–there’s, like, billions of them. But Malnati’s—fresh Malnati’s—exists only in Chi-town.

One Response to ““If you shoot him, you’ll just make him mad.””

1. Doctor Hmnahmna Says:
   December 10th, 2007 at 7:11 PMAlas, the only Malnati’s I’ve ever eaten has been the variety shipped on dry ice to anywhere in the USA. Still great pizza. Maybe one of these years I can make a longer trip to the greater Chicagoland area than a run through O’Hare.