[Posted on 5.25.20] “For the first time in 17 or 18 years, I got rip-roaring stoned last night. By way of a single cannabis gummy bear, manufactured by CAMINO. It was a steady. bump-free high, but my God, the strength of it! It was like I was suddenly atop a galloping racehorse, but the horse knew the realm and was fairly cool about it.

“And it was like I’d been shot…shot with a diamond bullet, right through my forehead. (Kidding.) Seriously, I was scared that it might be too much for my psyche to handle, and I think this may have been why I decided to drop a Tapentadol to mellow things down.

“All I know is that my senses and my free-associating mind and especially my imagination became more and more alive and attuned, and yet I was concurrently sensing how frail and delicate everyone is, myself included. I was doing everything I could to speak as softly and gently as possible. Music, colors, aromas, our Siamese cat…everything suddenly had an extra quality. If you’ve ever galloped on a horse, you know that it’s all about becoming one with the charging steed and not fretting about falling off…you have to be fearless and go with it.

“Last night I was half-fearless and half ‘uh-oh’, at least until the Tapentadol kicked in.

“I’m basically saying that the THC in my system felt, from my vantage point at least, very, VERY strong for a while. I was half amazed that I’d allowed myself to get this ripped (which was actually Tatiana’s fault — she popped one of the candies into my mouth and I meekly went along with it), and half intrigued that this kind of cannabis high was a lot smoother and stronger than the pot I used to suck down in the ‘70s. It was quite the ride — lemme tell ya.”

[Originally posted on 2.17.15.] There was a period between my 20th and 21st birthday when I had no job or goals or academic engagement…nothing. I was in my Bhagavad Gita mystical phase, no fooling, except the constant urge to party and frolic and basically pursue the spiritual pretty much dominated everything. Partying and then recovering the next day so I could party again the next night…well, there was actually more to it than just that.

It’s not that I didn’t try to have a kind of “life.” I would land a job I hated and then lose that job. I read the New York Times every day but I ingested a lot of substances and did a lot of sleeping and day-dreaming. I dabbled as a dealer of pot and hallucinogens. Occasional tripping, hitchhiking, chasing girls, wherever the day took me…bars, parties, music and especially (this was huge) lying totally ripped on a floor with two smallish Marantz speakers on either side of my head.

At some point my parents decided to strongly communicate their disfavor. They wanted me to understand that this lifestyle had nowhere to go but down so they kicked me out of their comfortable Cape Cod-style home in Wilton, Connecticut. I would crash here and there but occasionally I’d have nowhere to go. So I’d show up at the Cape Cod around midnight or 1 am and throw pebbles at my sister Laura’s window. To keep me out every night my father would lock the garage basement door plus the dining-room door that led to the basement stairs, so I needed Laura to let me in. After a couple of taps she’d come to the window and then meet me downstairs. I remember I had to raise the sliding garage doors one inch at a time so as to not make any noise. Laura and I would tiptoe upstairs in pitch black and I’d sleep inside the closet in my room. My parents both worked during the day and gone by 9 am so I’d come down around 10 am or so and get some breakfast, etc.

I forget how many times this happened but I’d say at least 15 or 20. Laura was there for me every time. I’m not saying she acted in some extraordinary fashion but she did the good, kind thing.

Laura’s schizophrenia became pretty aggravated around then, and the truth is that we didn’t have very much to say to each other through the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. She had a much higher IQ than I (or so I was told) but she was pretty much off the rails. Laura had a hard life. I took her to Italy (San Donato, Rome) with me in ’03 — that was pretty much the summit of our adult bonding. Laura died of cancer in April of 2008, and it just hit me this morning that I never told her how extra double thankful I was for all those times she gave me the gift of a warm, snug sleep on the floor of my bedroom closet. If she could read this or perhaps hear me on some level…

Chance Browne painting of Seir Hill Road (where I spent my high school years) in Wilton, CT. — my parents’ Cape Cod home (45 Seir Hill) was just down the road.

Panzano, Italy — May 2017.

Rome, last May.

I posted my answer an hour ago: Stuart Whitman and Maria Schell.

There are three kinds of excellent horror film endings, but they all put the chill in and stay there after the closing credits.

One, those that add something totally unexpected at the very end, a la Carrie White‘s bloody hand poking through the burnt embers and grabbing Amy Irving in Carrie.

Two, those that double down by adding a dash of surreal, rule-breaking creepitude a la Anthony Perkins‘ demonic grin blending with his mother’s rotted skull in Psycho.

And three, those that allude to real-world concerns or social tremors, as in The Thing From Another World when a news reporter warns the world to “watch the skies…keep looking, keep watching the skies“, the notion being that James Arness‘s Mr. Clean is actually out there in some form.

What late 20th Century or 21st Century horror films deliver one of these variations?

What is actually being said here? Ask yourselves that.

The message seems to be “unless you’re a person of color and even if you’re Robin D’Angelo, stay away from Wakanda Forever on its opening weekend. Seriously. If you know what’s good for you. Because any whiteys who show up regardless…well, you’ll be branding yourself as anti-black, in a sense.”

I’m not saying this would happen, but imagine if some deranged cracker were to tweet that Black people need to avoid opening-weekend screenings of some all-white movie…The Fablemans, say, or next summer’s Oppenheimer. Imagine if the corresponding slogan was “Black people need to stay away from The Fablemans so white people can enjoy that movie in peace.”

If you go to see Wakanda Forever on opening weekend, you are anti-black.

White people need to stay away so that black people can “enjoy that movie in peace”. pic.twitter.com/QTieYLjfwA

— iamyesyouareno (@iamyesyouareno) October 30, 2022

And this is not an allusion to Brendan Fraser‘s sure-to-be-nominated performance in Darren Aronfosky‘s film, which screened yesterday in Los Angeles but not so far in New York (or not to my knowledge).

“A prestigious team of medical scientists has projected that by 2030, nearly one in two adults will be obese, and nearly one in four will be severely obese. Likewise, the team projected, in 25 states the prevalence of severe obesity will be higher than one adult in four, and severe obesity will become the most common weight category among women, non-Hispanic black adults and low-income adults nationally.” — from “Half of Us Face Obesity, Dire Projections Show,” a 2.10.21 N.Y Times report by Jane E. Brody.

Blue whales are the largest known animal that has ever existed. The largest known specimen had a length of 110 feet, longer than a Boeing 737. pic.twitter.com/tul46mfpOJ

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) October 30, 2022