GJ Willis' Art Notes

This morning I woke up later than usual because I forgot to set my alarm clock for work. I signed up for Saturday overtime> I signed up mainly over guilt for taking three days off for vacation. I’m not sure what time I will make it in to work this morning.

OH NO!!!!!!
I just learned last night on a web site that my favorite local comedy talk radio show, Out To Lunch with Miles and Thrill, was axed. It appears that they signed a deal with a Seattle radio station. I’m mad at the radio station for just firing them instead of letting them do a farewell show. First the loss of WHFS and now the loss of the OTL Show. I now loathe with every fiber of my being Infinity Radio. Who ever is running the Baltimore/Washington area of that company is a moron of the highest caliber.

WHAT I’M WEARING:
Today, I have on a royal blue sweater with... you guessed it! A mock turtleneck. This time it’s white. The pants I have on are blue jeans. The shoes are the usual brown leather lace ups.

It’s rainy outside. The bus arrived at 5:38.

WHAT I’M WEARING:It’s business casual day at work so no jeans today. Instead I have on dark blue slacks, a blue fair isle knit sweater that has various shades of blue in it and a dark blue mock turtleneck underneath it. My shoes today are the brown lace ups.

The bus was on time this morning. The bus driver is different from the one we had yesterday. This one kind of remind me of the comedian Sinbad. I hope that he will get the bus to my job on time.

DEATH OF A RADIO STATION
Yesterday, evening I turned on one of my preset stations, 99.1 WHFS and was astonished to hear Latin music playing. LATIN MUSIC@!?#$

WHFS used to bill itself as being the True Alternative. I suppose playing Latin music makes them alternative again. Anyway, WHFS haven’t played real alternative music since the early 90’s. In the mid 90’s they became pretty much corporate rock radio.

98 Rock, the other area rock radio station seems to be stuck in a time warp. Listening to them is like groundhog day. It’s always 1985 on 98 Rock.

I guess from now on I’ll have to switch to WTMD as my primary music source. The only problem with that is that they don’t have Franz Ferdinand on their playlist.....

WHAT I’M WEARING: Today, I have on a blue paisley turtleneck pullover. The pants I have on are blue jeans. The shoes I have on are blue suede shoes.

The bus arrived at 5:42. It stood at the staging area in front of the hospital for a very long time. For a while I was afraid that the we had a new driver. But the driver is not new. It is the same guy I remembered from Monday. He’s young kind of reminds me of Malcolm Jamal Warner who played Theo on The Cosby Show. Hopefully, there will be no mishaps this morning and I will will be 10 minutes early for work a usual.

WHAT I’M WEARING:
Today, I have on blue jeans and a purple mock turtleneck pullover that has a leaf design on it. Now that I look at it. I seem to like wearing turtlenecks a lot. I guess I like them because there not very fussy to iron and I like soft cotton jersey material. 99% of my wardrobe over the summer consists of soft cotton t-shirts.

Anyway, in case you're wondering the shoes I have on are brown leather lace-ups.

This morning the bus arrived at 5:38. This is a lot closer to it’s arrival time in the schedule book. Again, I did not get a good look at the driver. I have no idea if it’s male or female.

So Far So Good
After coming back from my three day vacation I’m happy to report that I still have a job!

Yesterday, at work started off kind of rocky. Brian, called an early morning meeting. Whenever meetings are called I get scared. I’m always afraid that they will say that there will be budget cuts and that they’ve decided to eliminate our department.

This time it was very minor it turns out that someone in our group wanted to change their work schedule and he wanted to know if anyone else wanted to change their schedule as well. Luckily, everyone else was happy with their schedule. Whew!!

Yesterday, I did see Martin Scorsese's’, The Aviator, at Baltimore’s historic Senator theater.

I arrived at the theater at 3:00 but the movie started at 4:30. So to eat up time I went over to this new book store that opened up across the street from the movie theater. They were having a huge sale. Some books were discounted to nearly 80% off. I love to read so I bought a few books. I bought primarily bought classic paperback books. The books I purchased included; Washington Square by Henry James, Jayne Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Daisy Miller by Henry James, Emma by Jane Austin, and The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

The one book I was curious to read was Thomas Hardy’s, Return of the Native. I was assigned to read that book my senior year in high school but never got around to it. The reason why I never read the book was that I noticed that my English teacher, Mr. Edwards, had the peculiar habit of reading out loud chapter by chapter, page by page, the books he assigned the class to read. So I thought to myself, why should I bother reading the book if he’s going to read it to us? I believe I was the only student that year that did not bother to read or buy the book. In case you're curious I did pass my senior English final exam and graduate from high school on time.

The Aviator
The movie was outstanding. Martin Scorsese's did another excellent turn as director. Leonardo DiCaprio did a stellar acting job. Cate Blanchet did a dead on perfect Katharine Hepburn. She even nailed Hepburn’s trademark laugh. I find this incredible because Blanchet is Australian not American. I hope she gets an Oscar nod for this movie. I feel it’s already a foregone conclusion that Leo will be nominated for Best Actor.

In case you’re not aware The Aviator is about the early life and times of Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes was born into a wealthy Texas family. His father’s company, the Hughes Tool Company, invented a tri-form drilling head for oil mining. The drill head was vital to the proliferation of the oil industry and is still in use today.

Howard Hughes was a man obsessed with many things, flying airplanes (set a record in 1938 for flying around the world in 91 hours), making movies (The Outlaws, Hells Angels, and Scarface), having a Hollywood starlet on his arm (Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Jean Harlow), and hygiene.

Things I learned while watching the movie that I did not previously know about Howard Hughes was that he owned TWA airlines, the RKO film studio, and was hard of hearing. I of course was shocked to find that he was hard of hearing because I’m hard of hearing. Now if only my parents were billionaires who left me with an empire to run at the age of 24....

Fantastic things about the movie, you get to see Leo’s ass about twice in the movie. The ass shots occur later in the film as Howard Hughes is going through a mental breakdown.

All in all The Aviator is great movie. I would recommend that you see it. However, I do admit that I kind of wanted the movie to end with Howard Hughes hitching a ride from Melvin Dumas...

WHAT I’M WEARING Today, I have on a green multi-coloured v-neck sweater. Under the sweater I have on a marigold yellow long sleeve turtleneck pull over. My pants are blue jeans. My shoes are my usual beloved brown leather lace-ups.

This morning I left out the house extra early trying to catch the 5:36 bus #8 bus, instead of the 5:46 bus. As you can recall last Tuesday the 5:46 bus left at around 5:57. This made me 15 minutes late for work. I’m not sure if the bus’s lateness could be attributed to the driver’s own idiosyncrasies or if it was a fill in driver not familiar with the time schedule.

Anyway, when I arrived at the bus stop at 5:20 there was a #8 bus already pulling up to the stop. As I got on the bus I heard him mumble something.

I’m not sure if I’ve said this before but I’m slightly deaf. I admit that I wear earphones a lot to cover up that fact. It gives me an instant excuse. You know I couldn’t hear you because I was playing my tunes. Not that I couldn’t hear you because I don’t want to wear a dorky looking hearing aid.

Anyway, it took me a while to decipher that the bus driver said that the bus was heading to Stella Maris not Hunt Valley. Stella Maris is a nursing home that is no where near my job. So I got off the bus and walked up the street to the next stop mainly to keep myself warm. While waiting for the #8 Hunt Valley bus I saw a man possibly roll a joint. I was shocked because he looked very respectable. It wasn’t until he started smoking it that I realized that it was just regular tobacco. I can’t believe that there are still people in this day and age who still roll their own cigarettes. I suppose it’s a cost cutting issue. I don’t smoke but I do understand that cigarettes are very expensive to buy.

In case your wondering the 5:36 bus did eventually arrive this morning at 5:41. This isn’t to bad because it got me to work 10 minutes before start time. With the light rail I should note that I usually make it in 15 minutes before start time.

CONCERN OF THE DAY: Do I Still Have a Job?
My main concern this morning as I head in to work is whether or not I still have a job. Last week I had three scheduled days off. I’ve never taken this amount of time off from work in my entire life. I usually take just a single day off when I’m using up my vacation/personal time. The reason why I decided to batch a few days together was so that I would use up some of my vacation/personal days. I ended last year with vacation/personal days I never used. Once the year is up those days do not roll over into the new year. So this year I decided to use my vacation time instead of letting it sit there.

The main reason why I would take a single day off instead of a week is because I sometimes hear about people getting fired after they come back from long vacations. I used to sit next to this girl named Joy who got fired a couple of weeks after coming back from a long vacation. Also Maria Dennis, a Baltimore radio personality, got fired after coming back from maternity leave.

To the best of my knowledge I’ve been doing an ok job at work. I can’t recall Brian yelling at me for anything recently. The only thing I can think of that could be a target would be the occasional latenesses due to the MTA. I guess I’ll just come in today and do the best job I can.

One thing’s for sure I will be seeing the 4:30 showing of The Aviator at The Senator. I’m really looking forward to this one because Leonardo Di Caprio for the first time ever on film bares his bare ass.

WHAT I’M WEARING: I'm wearing a kelly green sweater. Underneath the sweater I have on a green plaid long sleeve cotton shirt. The pants I have on are khaki pants. The shoes I'm wearing are brown leather shoes that you have tie up. I feel comforted by these shoes. They are very generic looking. They remind me of the type of shoes my mother used to buy me.

Today, is the start of my quest to see all the movies that are likely to be nominated for Oscars. The movies that seem to be getting the most Oscar buzz include: The Aviator, Sideways, Million Dollar Baby, Hotel Rwanda, Closer, Finding Neverland, Kinsey, and a Very Long Engagement.

The reason I like to do this is so that I can have a clear idea of who to root for when I watch the Oscars later this year. I admit this year I did the majority of my movie viewing at home with Netflix. The only movies I recall seeing this year were Troy, Spiderman 2, and Fahrenheit 9-11. These three movies I know are unlikely to have multiple nominations in categories other than special effects, costume design, and documentary.

I started my quest today at The Charles Theater where I saw the 2pm showing of Sideways. The movie was more of a dramadey than an out and out comedy. Overall, it was an above average movie.

As far as the plot line goes, in short, I would describe it as a modern day Odd Couple. Where Felix and Oscar decide to visit California's wine country for a week. They go there to celebrate Oscar's impending marriage. Wine just so happens to be a subject that is near and dear to Felix's heart. While there Oscar is bored and decides that it would be great if they just picked up chicks and got laid. This idea of course horrifies Felix that Oscar could be so callous, so close to his wedding day.

Okay, ok. I admit that the two main characters in the movie were not named Felix and Oscar but Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church). They both gave great performances. Their portrayals of the two characters struck me as real. I'm not sure if they struck me as real because they were not young pretty boys or that they were doing an outstanding job. I later decided that the reason the characters struck me as being real was not because of their every day people looks, but there talent. Overall, I didn't feel like I wasted two hours of my life watching the film.

However, I don't see why Thomas Haden Church got nominated for a Golden Globe. While watching this movie I wasn't going, Wow! This is award winning stuff! I guess to me whenever I see him I think of that goofy mechanic character he used to play on Wings. His role in the movie didn't seem like that much of a stretch. The only difference I could see is that this character was just a tad bit on the amoral side, yet still loveable.

I guess he picked up the nomination for that big crying scene he did towards the end of the movie when he asked his friend Miles to help him out on something. In that scene he went from being a guileless asshole to being a deeply pathetic and scared man.

Two other great performances in the movie were Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh as the two waitresses the guys pick up. Of the two female performers my favorite was Sandra Oh. I loved the spunky, vivacious, spark she gave to her character. If Sandra Oh gets nominated for best supporting actress for this role I will not be going, Huh?

WHAT I'M WEARING: Right now I have on a dark blue sweater, black pants, and purple fuzzy slippers I got Christmas.