Earlier today I caught almost 80% of Freida Mock‘s Anita, a decent-enough doc about the trials of Anita Hill, the Oklahoma-born attorney who testified in 1991 about having endured sexual harassment from then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. I was reminded how ugly the questioning of Hill was, particularly from Senators Alan Simpson, Arlan Specter and Orrin Hatch. Anita is at least partly a perspective doc as one concludes that kind of sexist bellligerence could never be voiced today at a Congressional hearing…or could it?

And then I slipped into the first half of Freddy Camalier‘s Muscle Shoals, which was also pleasant and affectionate. The part I saw was about Rick Hall‘s FAME Studios, which is where the all-white-guy rhythm section called The Swampers first assembled and played on Percy Sledge‘s “When A Man Loves A Woman,” Wilson Pickett‘s “Funky Broadway,” Aretha Franklin ‘s “I Never Loved A Man Like I Love You,” etc.

The part I didn’t see presumably covered the decision by the Swampers to break off from Hall and start their own Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. This is where the Rolling Stones recorded “Brown Sugar” and “Wild Horses” in early December 1969. Other big songs recorded there included the Staple Singers‘ “I’ll Take You There,” Paul Simon‘s “Kodachrome” and “Loves Me Like A Rock,” and several Bob Seger classics including “Night Moves”, “Katmandu” and “Old Time Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

I left because I told myself I needed to write more than watch Muscle Shoals. So I stepped out into the Holiday Cinemas parking lot and looked at the p & i and public screening schedules and…I don’t know, man, but I just kind of lost interest at that very moment in doing the festival at all today. Nothing appealed to me at all. The sky was gray and bleak and the pavement was damp fro the melting ice and snow, and I just didn’t want to do anything except sit indoors and plotz. To hell with it.

So I went over to Fresh Farms and bought some detergent and humped it back to the Park Regency and started a wash and ate a salad and tried to write. Nothing came out so I watched MSNBC and read. Before I knew it it was 6 pm and then 7 pm. Maybe I’ll be able to write tonight and maybe not. I don’t care either way. Okay, I care but not that much.