Brother Tombo left this afternoon, and I have a train to catch to Warsaw in six hours or so, but I can’t sleep so I reckoned I may as well write a little something until I can . . .

The other night, after he and I watched CRIMES OF THE FUTURE, we decided we ought to watch something a little lighter, so I put on EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE. I have been evangelizing this film for years. Clint is a blue collar dude who also happens to be the undefeated bare-knuckle boxing champion of Los Angeles. And for reasons that are explained in two or three sentences of expository dialogue, Clint’s best friend is a full-grown male orangutan named Clyde who lives in the shed behind his house. (Clyde is not the point of the movie—he’s a character treated like any other character in the movie.) So Clint and Clyde and their friend / neighbor Orville hang out at the local honky tonk every night and pound beers. To be clear, Clyde the orangutan also drinks with them. And one night, Clint becomes enamored with a blonde country singer who plays for the bar crowd. The rest of the movie turns into a hang-out buddy road trip movie. Somewhere along the way, Clint and co. are pursued by a biker gang of bumbling Neo-Nazis. Listen, if that doesn’t do it for you, I don’t know what will.

Somehow EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE was the fourth highest grossing movie of 1978. It cost $5 million dollars to make and grossed $105 million. Adjusted for inflation, that’s nearly $500 million in 2024. Can you even imagine something like this happening today???

Anyway: We had a real good time watching it. We laughed our assess off. I don’t know how anyone could feel cynical about a movie where a heartsick Clint Eastwood hangs out with his best friends, one of whom being an orangutan, as they search the country for a woman who turned him every which way but loose. We certainly didn’t!

Next day, Tombo went out exploring, and I stayed home to work. He wandered around for hours just looking at the city, what with nearly everything being closed because of the holiday. He came home and told me he had got something for me along the way when passing an outdoor flea market. I could hardly believe my eyes when he took this from his bag:

ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN is the sequel . . . it came out two years later and was the fifth highest grossing film of 1980. The whole gang is back and it’s a real good time at the movies. How this record of all records made its way over to Berlin, and how Tombo came to unearth it is pure serendipity. Praise the Lord. Both movies have great soundtracks, and even theme songs! Now all I gotta do is find its sister album . . .

In other news, the strawberry stands are going to open soon:

. . . and Tombo and I explored Museum Island on the first Sunday of the month when all the museums are free:

We also streamed HOLLOW MAN with McCune and his son (and my baby brother), Tower McCune:

This lead to a Paul Verhoeven kick in which Tombo and I spent the next two nights watching ELLE and BENEDETTA, both incredible. During the latter, I was blown away that I was watching a movie from 2021. Good lord, the dude is a master. Anyway, if you have a chance to see them, you absolutely should! What the hell else are you going to do? Sit around and grow old?

FINALLY: As part of my ongoing descent into a sort of Howard Hughesian madness, I bought a 40-pound bag of jasmine rice. Now I never have to leave the house again:

I really ought to sleep. I’ve got to wake my ass up in less than five hours and travel 360 miles across Germany and Poland to visit a city I know little about. I have decided that I will learn all about it by simply being there. Isn’t that always the best way to go about anything in life??

Sweet dreams~ ☆彡