New Year's Eve...

...is almost here and I still don't have cable at home. This means that once again I will miss out on the event I look forward to every single year- the Sci-Fi channel's Twilight Zone Marathon. The only other person willing to watch the whole thing with me is Shuvo probably, but he is all the way in Jamaica and obviously it's not cool to have girls over. Not to mention that it would be hard to disguise me as male due to my 15 year old girl voice (when will it go away?).
Let me start off by saying that The Twilight Zone undoubtedly has some of the most creative pieces of writing in American television history. Sure, some of it was corny (hey it was the 1960's...think of desi shows now, I guess it's of the same caliber), but the majority of it is still appealing to us 90's kids. Also, if you haven't watched the series, you obviously miss out on all the references that are everywhere nowadays.

My favorite reference (not episode, persay):
Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
You know, the hideous ape-gremlin creature terrorizing William Shatner on the airplane's wings? No one believes him because it's out of view whenever he has someone look. At the end of the episode he's taken away in a straitjacket, but the damage to the plane shows that something did indeed try to sabotage the plane in-flight. That thing is everywhere, from The Simpsons to, most recently, Madagascar 2: Escape to Africa. When I was in the theater barely anyone else laughed at the scene during Madagascar and I was shaking my head lol. I mean it was even in the Twilight Zone movie from the 80's, wasn't it?

Time Enough at Last
This is another one that comes up from time to time (it was in The Simpsons also). A banker that never has time to read or do the things he wants to is the only survivor of a nuclear attack, and heads to the library to read books for the rest of his lonely life...dude ends up breaking his reading glasses though when he sits down and opens one.

My favorite episode would be The Howling Man, but here are some others along with it:
The Howling Man- A man claims to have trapped the devil and tells his story.
Nightmare as a Child- A woman with repressed childhood memories re-lives her past.
After Hours- A woman at a department store isn't really who she thinks she is.

Anyway, I will probably be watching them online at cbs.com and pretending it's the marathon.
As for today, I will be watching a movie at Rizzy's house. It's 11:25 AM and I'm gonna eat breakfast now!

Sanford, Maine. 5:43AM (February 2007)

he saw her for the last time off route 109
her hair brassy
under the fluid lights of the parking lot

they shared a cigarette, and a cause
as empty as the feeling
in the pits of their stomachs
an infatuation
that caved them like the suburb walls
a town plagued by the diligence of traffic police

she said she owed him nothing
life goes on in this place,
whether I have you or not

in the creeping light of New England dawn
a Chevrolet rounds the bend
the high school janitor has arrived for his shift
across the four lane street,
his uniform embroidered Earl
and a girl of sixteen, clean pressed in navy
sweeps cold floors at the diner
with buzzing neon lights

the burning half of his smoke
meets a crushed end
in the pavement before his departure
he thinks of her in secret;
he loves her in theory

in the mornings his eyes are glass gray
with the slightest bit of sky

The Cowboy (2004)

I picture a drifter, a man of few words
the kind that's had one too many black coffees
at lonesome diners in the southwest

a vaquero of sorts
rough around the edges,
learned hands tough with the experience
that comes from years of ranching stubborn cattle

he takes care not to overstay his welcome,
riding from the ruins of one ghost town to the next,
the romantic figure
with his dark silhouette against the fiery sunset,
lost under that vastness of desert sky

this solitary drifter,
graced with the presence of a million desert stars,
untouchable and free from the perturbance
of desolate city eyes
but no one to hold, as the cool dry air
tears away at his heartstrings.