Underworld

Why was I so worried about death? It makes no sense to me now that I was so worried about death, more worried about death than life, when life is the real worry.

There can be good lines in bad movies, as there is in "Savages," Oliver Stone's homage to Quentin Tarantino, when Blake Lively, herself a homage to Gwyneth Paltrow, kidnapped by Selma Hayek, the head of a Mexican drug cartel, says to her kidnapper. "savages don't make deals."

Drugs and sex have brought everything into question in my lifetime. I was 17 the first time I got stoned. We smoked a j in Doug Reynolds mother's station wagon in the parking lot beside the Redondo Pier. Of course I remember it as being the best high I ever had. Even walking was fun. The pier in those days had arcade games. We played skee-ball for hours, won prizes, then walked to the end of the pier where it was dark and the night fishermen were lurking.

Another j got passed around. As we walked back toward the parking lot there was my Sunday School teacher, Mr.Allen, with his daughter and son, strolling toward me, each holding a tall wand of pink cotton candy. I couldn't make my mouth work properly, language was rendered inoperable, so I just smiled and could feel my smile flame up into Mr. Allen's eyes so that I smote him and he wast stricken by blindness.

Sometimes it's fun to watch a bad movie, where everyone kills everyone and they're all bad to begin with.