Three Beautiful Things 04/05/16: Crock Pot Beefy Taco, Remembering Ramsey, Back to *Choose Me*

1. It was fun getting out the crock pot and throwing together browned ground beef, refried beans, sauteed onions, garlic, salsa, a chopped up skillet-grilled poblano pepper, and grated sharp cheddar cheese, putting the slow cooker on low, and then having flour tortillas set to warm, chopped cabbage, cilantro, and chopped tomatoes ready for when the Deke got home so we could roll us up a tasty and filling dinner.  The only thing missing, for me?  An icy margarita.  Oh, well. (The recipe is here.)

2.  I was in plays in the theater at LCC with Ramsey Tainton. He was murdered last August.  Today was Ramsey's birthday and, as requested by the love of his life, I raised a bottle of Guiness in his honor and drank it in his memory this evening.

3.  Back in 1984-85, a few graduate school friends and I became very interested in a moody sex and loneliness movie directed by Alan Rudolph called Choose Me. I remember we could never figure out if we thought it was a good movie, but it sure got our attention and gave us a movie to talk about. I watched the first hour of Choose Me this evening and I'll finish it on Wednesday.  I'll just say the sex quadrangle or pentagon or, maybe, hexagon that develops in this movie centers around a bar in L. A. run by Eve, played exquisitely by Leslie Ann Warren. The movie's characters are unmoored, drifting, lonely. The movie drifts moodily from scene to scene, encounter to encounter accompanied often by the velvety, soulful singing of Teddy Pendergrass and, at other times, by sultry tenor saxophone jazz. Just like over thirty years ago when I first watched this movie, I have no criteria by which to evaluate it, but the work of Keith Carradine, Genevieve Bujold, Leslie Ann Warren, and Rae Dawn Chong to bring despair to life haunts me with memories of when I was drifting, lonely, and unsure what direction my life might take. I acted on being lost differently than these characters, but the core experience is similar and this movie is bringing the confusion I felt back to me.  (Let me add, that to the viewer less serious minded, even grim, than I am, this movie could be experienced as a farcical sex romp. I get that!)