“Positively Bank Street“, posted on 6.17.18: “The last time I posted this true story, about an event that happened in ’81, I was accused by some of having lacked scruples. That wasn’t the thing. I’m going to try it again with extra wording — maybe this time it’ll be understood. The original title was “My Own Llewyn Davis Moment“:

For a good portion of ’81 I was living in a sublet on Bank Street west of Hudson, almost exactly opposite HB Studios. The rent was around $350 per month. (Or so I recall.) The sublessor was a 40something guy who lived in Boca Raton, Florida. The landlord, who knew nothing of this arrangement, was one of those tough old New York buzzards in his ’70s.

Anyway the landlord got wind and told me to vacate as I was illegally subletting. He naturally wanted a new fully-approved tenant who would pay a bigger rent, but he wouldn’t consider my own application as I was a shiftless scumbag in his eyes. I hemmed and hawed and basically refused to leave until I could find something else.

And then one day I came home to find my stuff (clothes, IBM Selectric typewriter, small color TV, throw rug, framed American Friend poster) lying in a big pile in the hallway with the locks on my apartment door changed. The buzzard was playing rough.

When you’re looking at sleeping on the sidewalk, you man up and do what you have to do to avoid that by any reasonable means necessary. Which is what I did.

There was no point in paying any rent at that point as I was a marked man who would have to leave the place fairly soon. The sublessor’s actual rent was $185 or something like that so he’d been making a monthly $165 profit from me. I figured once the buzzard started playing rough by (a) refusing to consider my application for a legit lease and (b) changing the locks and moving my stuff into the hallway that all bets were off and it was a game of habitat survival at all costs until an alternative presented itself.

My place was on the top floor of the building (i.e., the third or fourth floor). I went up to the roof and looked down the air shaft, which was smack dab in the middle of the building and about eight or ten feet square. I noticed a piece of lumber — not a four-by-four beam but an old pinewood board of some kind — bridging the air shaft with one end lying on a metal ladder or mini-platform of some kind and the other end on a brick ledge outside my bathroom window. I lowered myself down the ladder and slowly crawled along the air shaft board and opened my bathroom window and let myself in. (I said a prayer as I did this and God decided to cut me a break.)

I immediately moved my stuff back inside and then called a locksmith and changed the doorknob and bolt locks. The buzzard or one of his flunkies came by two or three days later and tried to open the door and couldn’t — hah!

I knew I’d have to leave before long but the air-shaft derring-do bought me an extra three or four weeks rent-free. Soon after I found another sublet (the bottom floor of a duplex on West 76th between Amsterdam and Columbus) and all was well.

How was this a Llewyn Davis moment? This was a tale of dark, lowball, no-direction-home desperation with no apparent light at the end of the tunnel. That’s Inside Llewyn Davis in a nutshell. The only difference is that God is indifferent if not mocking in the Coen brothers universe and yet He allowed me to cross the air shaft on that piece of lumber and not fall to the basement level.

Yesterday morning Gerald Peary launched a Facebook quiz about leading men who’ve worn glasses. But with several restrictions. Only in the case of the main lead character, and only in Hollywood-made features released between 1930 and 1980. And it can’t be a biopic like The Benny Goodman Story or The Glenn Miller Story (which should have been called Moonlight Serenade). And the character has to be under 50, so he’s not wearing glasses due to old age. And it can’t be Harold Lloyd, who always wore them. Or Gene Hackman in The Conversation. Despite all this the post has attracted 346 comments.

Here’s my comment, posted early this morning:

The second-to-last scene in Land of the Pharoahs is about Joan Collins‘ Princess Nellifer receiving a death sentence. She learns that she’s been deceived into allowing herself to be trapped inside the pyramid tomb of Khufu (Jack Hawkins). Trapped in an airless chamber with Khufu’s trusted friend and ally Hamar (Alex Minotis), 20 or 30 bald-headed slaves and a few torches. No escape, no food, no air-conditioning. So how does death come about? Does everyone just sit around and wait for weakness and slow suffocation to settle in? Or would some choose suicide by dagger? Even when I first saw this on TV I wondered if everyone would behave honorably or if the slaves would take advantage of this situation as far as Nellifer was concerned. Obviously a grim scenario no matter how you slice it.

…if I could magically replace Joe with Pete Buttigieg by clapping my hands three times, I would clap my hands three times. No offense or disrespect to Joe, whom I will be voting for. I know I’m repeating myself. I know there are commenters who will say “drop this bizarre Buttigieg obsession,” etc.

And by the way, anyone who thinks there’s any value or intrigue to bringing fresh scrutiny to Hunter Biden‘s personal failings is delusional. If there’s one thing that American families know about, it’s dealing with a bad-seed son, brother, brother-in-law, nephew or next-door neighbor. Alcoholism, drug abuse, self-destructive behavior…everyone’s either been through it or knows someone who has. It’s tragic but it happens. It’s certainly too common to be a thing.

I’ve never broken up with anyone over their failure to fall in love with a film that I hold in extremely high regard. That would be a form of attempted tyranny. You can’t muscle people into being the kind of person you might want them to be. You have to respect their journey and their choices.

I’ve shown Tatiana several classic films that I love with all my heart, and some she’s either been bored by or dismissed as a turn-off. She loved Twelve Angry Men. She applauded Casablanca. She embraced Heaven Can Wait. She expressed a certain muted respect for Notorious. But there are also some indisputably great films that she won’t even watch.

If I had gotten kicked out for showing my live-in girlfriend a certain film that she hated, I would probably take that as a premonition of things to come. What other liking offenses will I be ejected or otherwise attacked for? Will it just be about films or also books, plays, political candidates, choice of clothing, etc.?

I nonetheless chuckled when I read about The Woman Who Hated Requiem For A Dream Too Much. She felt totally overwhelmed by the fact that her newly-moved-in boyfriend worshipped a impressionistic, jagged-edge nightmare film about drugs and addiction and electro-shock treatment that she found nothing short of revolting. I found Requiem difficult to watch the first time, and I can’t say I’ve been eager to see it again. Then again I adore the ballsiness of mother, The Wrestler and Black Swan.

Alan Ball‘s “somewhat autobiographically inspired Uncle Frank (Amazon, 11.26) hits a…successful balance between ensemble seriocomedy, Big Issues and a somewhat pressure-cooked plot. Set in the early ’70s, it casts the reliably deft Paul Bettany as a gay man forced to confront the Southern family to whom he’s stayed closeted. Even at its most manipulative, Uncle Frank remains polished and engaging. A big plus is Paul Bettany, who makes the title character’s residual Southern courtliness, acquired urbanity and painful psychological scars keenly felt.” — from Dennis Harvey’s 1.25.20 Variety review.

One look at Bettany tells you his character probably isn’t straight — the slender frame, the moustache, the extra-precise cut of his sports jacket, the way he holds his cigarette and touches his sternum during solemn discussions. His extended South Carolina-residing family senses something different about him, but they don’t spot the specifics. Or would rather not.