A Walk In The Vineyards

Cloudy and cool today. High about 70 F.

We pretty much did nothing today, except take a walk in the vineyards north of B's place. Found a small Heuriger that was open...sat down and we drank a grape juice mixed with sparkling water.

What we saw, below. (Click on pics to enlarge)

An old wine press at the entrance to the Heuriger.

Walking along, we saw a bunch of beehives in a small field.
A closeup of Hive #2. Note bees, and garden gnome. There were about ten hives in all.

Check out this very cool tiled house! A creek runs alongside the path to the vineyards.
Across the creek is a wooden bridge leading to a small compound where some sort of
Zen Buddhist dude lives---there are prayer flags everywhere, a tree house, a water wheel that spins a prayer wheel, etc. There are a few small buildings on the property.
We think this is new--his house?

If you take the long looping road you come up behind the guy's land.
I zoomed in to get this pic of the top and rear of the guy's house.
I think my buddy, the noted Zen Man MCARP, should have a place like this.

Vineyards. Vienna. A non-shitty vista.

Why don't they build modern houses like this in Oklahoma,
instead of the shit we usually build?

We came to a vineyard with plaques on the vines---each with the name of someone who had sponsored a vine, I guess. Actors, bigshots in the Catholic church, royalty from different countries, sports figures. Here we have the Bill Clinton grapevine. Looks more or less healthy to me.

Here's the Barack Obama vine. Somewhat younger, but still with good leaves, etc.

Huh. The George W. Bush vine doesn't have any leaves on it, and looks kind of stunted. WTF?

Flea Market and an Unusual Movie

B's dad bought a DVD player-recorder for the TV. He couldn't get it to work so he asked me if I could come over, see if I could get it running.

I got there about 11. There's a flea market near his house, held on the grounds of a soccer field every Sunday. Before we started on the DVD recorder, he wanted to take me there so we walked over. This is a side of Vienna I haven't seen---the immigrant population side.

Just like in American flea markets, there was every kind of crap for sale. Ancient computers and computer parts...I saw laptops twice as big as the kind we have now. Piles of power supplies. Old cell phones that probably don't even work any more. Old clothes and shoes. Plumbing parts---some new, some salvaged.

One guy was selling hydraulic hoses and connections, the kind you might find on farm equipment. I thought: where the hell did he get this stuff, and who the hell does he think is going to buy it?! Some random farmer or Bobcat operator?

I saw Albanians, Romanians, Serbs, Croats, Hungarians, Turks, a lot of gypsy-looking people...and few Austrians, neither among the sellers or the browsers. Austria is not an immigrant nation like the US, but once the old East Bloc opened up and a couple of their countries joined the EU, the flood began. Old timers like B's dad were used to a homogenous population, more or less, and they don't quite know how to wrap their minds around the growing number of non-Austrians.

From my standpoint, another strange observation---it felt kind of odd not seeing a single Mexican.

The flea market. Junk, junk, and more junk for sale.

As for the DVD player-recorder: we figured out how to play a DVD, but trying to figure out how to record one from the TV signal was like trying to overhaul the space shuttle. We experienced mission failure and after a few hours I went home, offering to read the entire manual in the meantime (which was in English) and try again soon.

That night we joined our friends Peter and Vivian for a movie----I Love You, Phillip Morris starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. I knew nothing about the film except that Jim and Ewan play a gay couple.

But I found out the film 1) was based on a true story of a man who meets his boyfriend in prison, and becomes an extraordinary con-man and escape artist in order to maintain his relationship with the guy, and 2) was considered too homo-erotic to be released in the US. Even after being re-edited. Though the film was shot last year and was originally scheduled for release in the US in April of this year, the distributor got squeamish. It's now scheduled for release in October 2010. We'll see.

Jim Carrey is a pretty good actor. Too bad his rubber-faced antics kind of carry over into this film, sometimes, because he really doesn't need that over the top shtick---he does just fine in serious roles.

My only problems with the film were 1) it seemed to start off kind of like a comedy but then went to a drama, and 2) I did think the scenes of Jim and Ewan kissing and prancing around were a bit too much. OK, we get it---they're gay and they love each other. How many fucking times do they have to kiss each other on screen? What's the point of it? It did seem it was done mostly for homo-erotic purposes instead of to propel the story along. Like hetero nude scenes---most of the time they're in the movie just so you can see the actress naked, NOT because it does anything for the story.

I have no problems with human sexuality, gay or straight, but all I could think of while watching Jim and Ewan kiss, simulate blow jobs, and so on, was: "I wouldn't do that scene if they paid me $100 million. No. Fucking. Way."

Still, for the rest of it, the film was well done, the story was good, and it could have stood as a drama on its own. 

All in all I give it 7.5 Bratwursts out of a possible 10 Bratwursts, in my Bratwurst Film Rating system.

When the movie was over, we emerged to a rainy Vienna night.