A night at the Purple Turtle

(to be read in one of those old fashioned detective voices)

It was a warm Saturday night and I was up late at the office, about to lock things up, the end of another slow week. My head is down as I shuffle through my desk for my keys, Im always losing them.. when I hear the door open, and soft voice say: "detective Sanders?" I immediately look up to see who has stumbled into my office, usually all I get are people looking for the wash room. But tonight must be my lucky night, a slender brunette dame with eyes big enough to fall into is standing in my office. She must have noticed my dazed expression because she started to get a look like she had walked into the wrong room. "Sorry.. I was looking for Detective Sanders, the sign on the door says this is his office..." flustered I tried to regain my normal professional composure; "Don't worry doll, I'm detective Sanders, what seems to be the problem?" A look of pure relief crosses her perfect face, then she's all business, "Hello detective, I'm sorry to stop in so late, but I need something looked into." I could tell she was angry about something, she held herself stiffly, and kept smoothing her navy skirt with quick irritated flicks. "what can I do for you?" I ask her, hoping she wasn't just missing a precious earring. "It's my husband Charles, I'm positive he's running around behind my back, and I didn't marry that bastard so that he could just turn around and snatch every floozy in town. The problem is I have no proof... I need you to catch him in the act, I want to ruin him". Aha, now this was a real job, find and photograph the husband, real detective work, no more lost watches or missing puppies. "I'd be happy to help Mrs. ..." "Mrs. Clark, soon to be Ms. though you can call me Vivian" she informed me. "Well Mrs. Clark, Vivian.. tell me, do you know any places your husband frequents?" she responded: "I found a card for a place called the Purple Turtle club, you might check there". After asking her more questions about her husbands behavior and any other places he might go... I then decided to check out the Purple Turtle.
The place was a mad house, like walking into a freak show, apparently there was a "festival of sin" that night was lust, and I was obviously over attired. It was packed with people in goth type clothing, girls with holes in their skits, strippers, foreign kids, all sorts of riff raff; one of them had to be Charles Clark. I struggled through the crowd to get to the bar, Vivian had given me a photo of Charles and I wanted to check with the bartenders. Once I fought my way to the bar, I stood and waited for one of the equally gothed out bartenders to come over, the whole club was so loud from the live band on stage, I wasn't sure if anyone would even hear any of the questions I had. Finally one of the bartenders came up to me, "what do you want?!' she had to shout, "I have some questions about a Charles Clark!" I responded, then showed her the photo. "oh yeah, that guy comes in some times, he might be in tonight.. look I'm busy.. do you want a drink?!" she shouted over the band, "sure I'll have a guiness, thanks!" I paid the bartender, then turned around and surveyed the mottley crowd, come on Charles.. you must get thirsty some time.. hours went by, a new band came on, some girl singing something reminiscent of disco.. girls were walking around in corsets and army boots, short dresses and body paint, everyone dancing and drinking, I was on my third guiness and starting to lose hope of ever seeing the elusive cheating Charles, when suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder, it was the bartender, her black dred locks brushing the top of the bar as she leaned over and and shouted into my ear: "Hey your man just showed up, to your left!" then she turned and went back to taking orders. I turned left, and several drunken exchange students, and sleaze balls down was Charles, staring up at an asian stripper in sea shells and little else, next to him was a woman in a blue corset playing with his hair. This was good.. but not quite enough, still I snapped a few shots slyly, and then waited. Sure enough half an hour later, and several beers in Mr. Clark was getting touchy with blue corset, then what I was waiting for: groping and kissing. I took more photos, I figured I would wait outside for Charles and the lady to come out, then follow them, maybe get some good hotel shots. I pulled out a cigarette and pushed my way to the door and into the cold night air. Vivian had what she wanted, and Mr. Clark would soon be out of the picture.. I wondered if she would need any help moving on...

Sketch

At the Sketch Gallery we saw a "meta film" called The Blessing. It was projected onto all four walls of the completely white gallery, and withing the film were people who were sitting in the same room and at times actually watching the the film that they were in, hence of course the term "meta film". What I took from The Blessing was that the people sitting on the couches all wearing the long colorful almost Indian looking robes were all on a religious/spiritual journey, I got a sort of cult vibe from them simply because of the matching out fits.. similar to that cult who all wore Nike shoes and black robes or capes and drank poison cool aid.. but of course the people in the film weren't killing themselves. Anyway, the whole thing came off to me as very trippy, if I had been on any sort of drug while in there I probably would have been blown away, and stayed in there all day. So the artist is connecting this drug trip idea with these images of space, and prisms that refract light, a man having a seizure (ecstasy/seeing God) the whole idea of trying to find God, or something like God. It reminds me also of Native Americans who smoke Peyote as part of spiritual ceremonies. These people sitting together on drugs searching for God in this white room. Both times we watched I would notice more things that I hadn't seen before, and I'm sure if I kept watching it I would see even more.

rock and roll cinema

I've been to a lot of film festivals in California and I've enjoyed them all, I've also been part of a couple short films because one of my room mates in San Diego is a film major. However, as much fun as the film festivals in the past have been, this one beat them all, the location, the people, the mood, even if the films hadnt been as good as they were I probably still would have fun just sitting drinking good beer with good people; luckily the movies were also all pretty entertaining. My favorite was "Sketch" it cracked me up. In the U.S. the film festivals are often pretty tame, I loved that everyone was chatting and drinking, not just quietly sitting. Also the music was a lot of fun, it made me want to get up and dance, though I didn't really see any British people dancing which discouraged me from jumping up, maybe dancing just isnt that big here.
Anyway, I love the fact that here everyone can drink at the movies, and party in the streets, or just hang out listening to loud music and racing little toy cars. This was one of my favorite outings, though I think I could do without the indoor smoking, one of the few cultural differences that I just don't like, now I smell like an ash tray.