Author Archives: Randall A. Golden

Sunday Morning with Two Valentine’s Day Early Birds

February 14, 2021 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Yellow rose in a restaurant vase.

A yellow rose in full bloom. A dining room with empty tables. Yet another illustration of The Duality of Man™.

It’s that time again! It’s Valentine’s Day and the internet reactions are more divided than ever. One camp hates the occasion consistently annually and never wants to hear about it again, which is fair. Another camp is bitter because current events and has exercised their freedom of choice to be captivated only by endless sources of bitterness. Meanwhile, Anne and I escaped the house for a short while to enjoy each other’s company before the rest of the world emerges to glut up all the establishments.

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Delighting in Delicacies, Not Pounds of Pasta

February 11, 2021 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Agnello & Caprino!

Dinner for Anne at Catellos: the Agnello and Caprino — rack of lamb atop pappardelle in a red wine sauce with shallots and herbs on a bed of goat cream sauce.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: last fall we shared our tips for supporting local restaurants in person during the never-ending pandemic without a churlish kill-or-be-killed approach. We still don’t dine out too often because COVID-19, but when we do, that listicle’s ten bullet points remain firmly at the forefront of my planning anxieties.

That entry was written during another Devour Indy occasion, a twice-yearly citywide event here in Indianapolis when local restaurateurs — nationwide chains need not apply — offer specially priced prix fixe menus to entice new customers to come sample a few of their wares. My wife Anne and I are fans of the event, but we usually skip the sale items and check out what’s on the main menu. It lets us try places we’ve never been, and it helps them recoup the considerable costs of participation. A few weeks ago, it was that time again.

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Best CDs of 2020 According to an Old Guy Who Bought 5

February 7, 2021 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Five new CDs I bought in 2020.

Per tradition, my annual personal tiny album chart.

It’s that time again! The annual entry where I look back at the previous year as one of six people nationwide who still prefers compact discs to digital. I don’t splurge too much because it’s increasingly tougher for new music to catch my ear as I grow older and more finicky, and as my favorite acts of yesteryear die, stop recording, or turn toward musical directions that take them beyond my zones of interest. That usually means missing out on what the majority loves, thus further dragging me down the long plummet into total irrelevance. Story of my life.

Even in 2020, though, I tried my best to keep abreast of the latest in album-sized tune collections and found a handful of artists and labels releasing new distractions and rays of hope amid the pandemic. It took until September before I finally spent a dime on new music, but the feeling was one of relief that at least one aspect of life had found a way to proceed as normal, or a close approximation under duress.

The following list, then, comprises all the CDs that I acquired last year that were 2020 releases. None were bad, but we’re not into 5-way ties here on MCC, so somebody has to give. Curiously, the longest one clocks in at 42 minutes; the shortest barely saunters past the half-hour mark. I’ve never been one to complain about getting the most bang for my buck out of every CD, so I can deal with it. Part of me is pretty okay with bloated 70-minute albums being a thing of the past if it means we’re hearing more finesse than filler.

On with the countdown!

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Okay, Fine, NOW I Get Baby Yoda

February 4, 2021 By in TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 3 Comments
life-size Baby Yoda statue.

Not mine, a coworker’s. But if he retires before I do and forgets to take it with him…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: my wife Anne and I subscribed to Disney+ a year behind the rest of the world and are doing our best to catch up on the content that matters most. So far that means Pixar’s Soul and the Star Wars universe. On a more inessential note I also watched Cars 3, which was better than the second one, which wasn’t too high a bar to jump.

But our primary objective has been Star Wars because for the past year everyone around us has been “Mandalorian” this and “Baby Yoda” that and of course they had to take turns asking us every ten minutes, “Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet? Do you have Disney+ yet?”

YES, WE HAVE DISNEY+ NOW. Um, finally. Sorry for shouting.

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Old Guy With a PS3, Year 6: There’s No Pandemic in Skyrim

January 29, 2021 By in Misc. Media Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Skyrim Claudia Christian!

Yep, that’s me in the dragon plate armor I forged myself, hanging out with my favorite blacksmith, voiced by Claudia Christian.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, at the beginning of 2016:

As a kid, I frequented video arcades regularly. As a parent, my son and I spent a good decade playing games together on his various systems. When he graduated and moved away to college, he took all his systems with him, leaving me with only my old Nintendo that won’t play cartridges unless you keep the Game Genie firmly inserted, and an Atari Plug-‘n’-Play Controller I got for Christmas a few years ago that interested me for about two weeks. On Black Friday 2014, I decided I wanted back in the 21st century gaming mode and picked up a used PS3.

Naturally I started off a generation behind the rest of the civilized world, but I didn’t care. After fifteen months without, holding a controller felt abnormal and rusty for the first few weeks. Once I got used to it again and figured out how to disable the “Digital Clear Motion Plus” feature on my TV, I could shake the dust off my trigger fingers, choose the games I wanted to play, sprint or meander through them at whatever pace I saw fit, and try some different universes beyond Final Fantasy and our other longtime mainstays…

…and it’s been a minor MCC annual tradition ever since. In an average year I would play three times per week, maybe two hours per session, and get through four to six games. Except for that time I spent thirteen months on Borderlands 2. Or that other time when when I spent nine months of 2019 on Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. Perhaps my definition of “average year” is stretching a bit.

And then there was 2020. Without conventions, family gatherings, friendly outings, work-related events, holidays, out-of-state vacations, or restaurants I could enjoy without terror or paranoia, I had a lot more time on my hands for hobbies. Especially this hobby, as it turned out.

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Yes, There’s a Scene During the “Wonder Woman 1984” End Credits

January 25, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment
"Wonder Woman 1984" poster at AMC Perry Crossing.

A rare sighting of a movie poster in its deserted natural habitat.

Yes, we are going to stubborn lengths to avoid subscribing to HBO Max. Thanks for asking!

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Precautionary Shoegazing: Our 2020 in Pandemic Floor Decals

January 21, 2021 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Donut Shop social distancing floor decal.

Can’t remember which donut shop in Avon has this decal. We visited three of them in 2020.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: pandemic! Pandemic! PANDEMIC!

Among the 6,000 things we hated doing differently for our own safety in 2020, one of the easiest yet weirdest was going into businesses to buy whatever, approaching the register, and having to take standing lessons from social-distancing floor decals. Because in a world where those infected with the coronavirus could unknowingly kill innocent bystanders with their breath like a clumsy ninja Godzilla, some folks were poor judges of distance and/or medical hygiene. As always, in a pandemic or otherwise, some people need practical advice.

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Comics Update: My Current Lineup and 2020 Pros and Cons

January 18, 2021 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , 4 Comments
Alphabetized piles of comic books published in 2020.

The annual photo of a year’s worth of singles in alphabetical piles. Curiously, no titles starting with C, N, T, Y or Z this year.

Comics collecting has been my primary geek interest since age 6, but I have a tough time writing about it with any regularity. My comics-judging criteria can seem weird and unfair to other fans who don’t share them. I like discussing them if asked, which is rare, but I loathe debating them. It doesn’t help that I skip most crossovers and tend to gravitate toward titles with smaller audiences. Whenever a larger company axes titles for the sake of their bottom line or internal politics, my favorites are usually first on the chopping block. I doubt many comics readers follow MCC anyway, so it’s really the best possible place for me to talk about comics unharmed, albeit all to myself. So far I haven’t had to ban myself for flaming or trolling myself, which is nice.

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Evergreen Wisdom from a Feathery Yogurt Head

January 14, 2021 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
"If two million people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

Old friends Milo, Opus, and Portnoy from back in the day.

“If two million people do a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.”

I dived into all the old collections of Berke Breathed’s Bloom County comic strip as a teen. Some of its jokes have aged well. Some, not so much. Some political references would fly miles over my head uncaught. Not until decades later did I learn who Jeane Kirkpatrick was or what Bill the Cat might’ve seen in her.

30+ years later, I’ve never forgotten that simple quote from P. Opus, the world’s largest-nosed penguin. Even before 2020, I thought about it a lot. The voices in my head have found no reason to retire it yet.

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2020 at the Movies at My House

January 11, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Tom Hardy as Al Capone.

If Tom Hardy is determined to play only inaudible characters from now on, might I suggest he grab a corncob pipe and reboot Popeye?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: I saw four (4) whole movies in theaters in 2020, the Purgatory That Only Pretended to Be a Year on the Calendar. For those of us who didn’t live cocky, selfish lives, home video was our best possible escape hatch into other worlds, a lifeline out of this farcical fiasco of a reality, and our safest way to take a scenic cross-country walk in other shoes. And walk I did.

I don’t usually rank my home video viewing. I’d stopped keeping track of all that years ago because my posts about home video arrive with stats DOA. In 2020 I felt moved to devote full entries to a few key works, but by and large I watched them, I processed my feelings, I shut up, and I saved it for later. At long last, later is now.

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My 2020 at the Movies, All Four of Them

January 8, 2021 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Elisabeth Moss in "The Invisible Man".

Elisabeth Moss demonstrates the proper distance to sit away from other viewers at the theater.

It’s listing time again! In today’s entertainment consumption sphere, all experiences must be pitted against each other and assigned numeric values that are ultimately arbitrary to anyone except the writer themselves. It’s just this fun thing some of us love doing even though the rules are made up and the points don’t matter. Even when we don’t have much to list thanks to the decline of Western civilization. Every year I compile this list from every film I’ve seen in theaters that year and, well, you can imagine how that went.

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My 2020 Reading Stacks #13: The Finale

January 5, 2021 By in Comics/Lit Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
The Seeds and Slaughterhouse-Five.

Two of the best graphic novels of 2020.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

At the beginning of each year I spend weeks writing year-in-review entries that cover the gamut of my entertainment intake, including capsule reviews for all the books and graphic novels I’ve read. I refrain from devoting entries to full-length book reviews because 999 times out of 1000 I’m finishing a given work decades after the rest of the world is already done and moved on from it.

As time permits and the finished books pile up, I’ll be charting my full list of books, graphic novels, and trade collections I’ve read throughout the year in a staggered, exclusive manner here, for all that’s worth to the outside world. Due to the way I structure my media-consumption time blocks, the list will always feature more graphic novels than works of prose and pure text. Novels and non-pictographic nonfiction will pop up here and there, albeit in a minority capacity for a few different reasons. Triple bonus points to any longtime MCC readers who can tell which items I bought at which comic/entertainment conventions we’ve attended over the past few years.

And now…it’s readin’ time. Again. One last time for 2020.

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2020 Makes 20 Years

January 4, 2021 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Chocolate Cupcake!

What better way to celebrate a special occasion in 2020 than a cupcake topped with the emoji that best describes 2020.

2020 took casualties on every level, literally as well as metaphorically. Lives have been lost. Survivors have had their lives changed for the worse by lingering coronavirus side effects. Jobs have been suspended or eliminated. Businesses have closed. Families have suffered. Special events were canceled….or worse, continued on schedule but infected and killed their attendees. Plans great and small were waylaid. Happy times were postponed for safety’s sake and downgraded to a form of delayed gratification to be fulfilled in what will hopefully not be an even worse year to come.

Milestones on the calendar came and went — some without fanfare, others with drastically reduced celebrations. My own example at hand: 2020 marked my twentieth anniversary at my day job.

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Midlife Crisis Crossover 2020 in Review Before We All Agree Never to Speak of 2020 Again

January 2, 2021 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 5 Comments
,e and Anne wavign hi on Zoom to ourselves

October 4th: Anne and me testing Zoom while waiting for her siblings to log on for our weekly group chat.

Hi-dee-ho, readers/survivors!

Welcome to the ninth annual Midlife Crisis Crossover year-in-review. This virtual cubicle was slapped together on April 28, 2012, as a place where I could entertain myself by making essay-shaped things out of whatever words and pictures I had at hand, as opposed to surfing social media and hoping all those wandering strangers might make for sufficiently provocative brain engagement. Often it’s been a fulfilling platform to share galleries, memories, Grandpa Simpson-style rambling jags, and peculiar opinions that might otherwise either languish unwritten in my head or collect endless rejection emails from every professional website ever. At other times it’s been less satisfying, but I keep whiling away at one of my most time-consuming hobbies anyway. When my head is in the right space, I still enjoy the process in and of itself. Often I still enjoy the results. On rarer occasions, I’m also privileged and honored to enjoy any and every external response received from outside my own head.

But then there was 2020. That year just wasn’t right.

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Yes, There’s a Moment after the “Soul” End Credits

December 29, 2020 By in Movies/Films/Flicks Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment
22 and Joe's soul in an astral pizza shop in "Soul"

If you loved Jamie Foxx as a blue guy in Amazing Spider-Man 2 or Tina Fey playing against a blue guy in Megamind…

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover back in May, when ruminating on our family’s adoption process for new streaming services:

Our family prides itself on not being early adopters of new technology or services. We prefer to let upstart projects and products get up and running, figure out their processes, work out their bugs, set a price point that’s worth the venture, and build up a reputation, preferably a favorable one. Then we might give them the time of day. Maybe. Sometimes. Streaming services are subject to the same vetting procedure. The internet’s Baby Yoda obsession notwithstanding, we have yet to pull the trigger on Disney+…

All that changed Christmas evening. Everyone does the post-Christmas thing where they wait until all gift-giving is finished, then buy themselves a little something to compensate for any oversights or disappointments, right? Mine was springing for an upgrade to our existing Hulu With Five Tedious Commercials Repeated Ad Nauseum subscription. Now we can access the wonder and whimsy of Disney+. One day in the future I can at long last stop worrying about pervasive spoilers for The Mandalorian.

And what better way to test-drive our new channel than with the latest Pixar production? Soul was among the hundreds of major releases relegated to the once-ignominious fate of a direct-to-video release thanks to pandemic pandemonium. Technically it’s cheaper for viewers this way who have the wherewithal to let the fees sink into the morass of their monthly credit card charges, but on the downside, the wildly inventive score by the Oscar-winning duo of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross made me wish I could’ve seen this in a theater and immersed myself in the splendor of its music, apropos of the film’s own themes. Among other benefits, it might’ve better distracted me from a few things that bugged me as the film played on.

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Merry Christmas from MCC!

December 23, 2020 By in Meta Tags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments
Christmas String Quartet!

Even though our workplace is 90% work-from-home, building management hired a string quartet to usher in a morning of Christmas cheer.

It’s that time again! Another Christmas, another quick new photo gallery of our seasonal surroundings. Somehow we never quite run out of sights, not even in this, the Worst Year Ever.

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A Quiet Christmastime Sunday Brunch Masked Getaway

December 21, 2020 By in Indiana Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Bacon and Leek Quiche with mixed greens salad.

Bacon and leek quiche served with a mixed greens salad topped with champagne vinaigrette dressing and unintentionally shaped like a Podoboo from the original Super Mario Bros or Wilson’s “face” from Cast Away.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: on Thanksgiving weekend Anne and I made a short Small Business Saturday jaunt to a number of Indianapolis establishments that we figured could use some love and income in this unending pandemic year. In that same spirit, this past Sunday morning we once again donned our Christmas masks and headed north for a return engagement with a lovely littler establishment we last visited in June 2019, verified per Google Maps in their usual, helpfully creepy fashion.

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How Many Talented and/or Famous People Have You Unfairly Outlived?

December 18, 2020 By in Movies/Films/Flicks, TV/DVD Tags: , , , , , , , , , 9 Comments
Chadwick Boseman.

The late Chadwick Boseman in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, posthumously released today on Netflix.

The year 2020 is an incorporeal super-villain mastermind and everyone’s list of grievances against it is longer than a protest march and bitterer than black coffee tinged with chicory and herbicide. I’ve tried to work through several of my own fears and anxieties here throughout the course of the year, but one nagging thought has escaped articulation for months. It’s the sort of riddle that drives a thinker nuts if they dwell on it too long. Every faith and/or philosophy has a response to it, but not necessarily an answer. “All is within God’s Plan.” “Everything will make more sense in the end.” “The universe works in mysterious ways.” “Perhaps we’ll never know.” “Everything is meaningless and we’re all doomed so why worry about it.” Or put it out of mind and distill it into Kurt Vonnegut’s black-humored humanist shrug of “So it goes.”

Faith notwithstanding, it bugs me anyway. I’m 48 and counting. I am who and what I am. I have my uses, but I’m just me. Why did Chadwick Boseman only get to make it to 43?

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Wandering The 2020 Christmas Shopping Wastelands

December 16, 2020 By in Indiana, Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Mall Walking.

Deck the malls with melancholy, fa la la la la, la la la…la?

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: it’s a very special pandemic Christmas! Wait, no, not “special”. I meant “panic-stricken”.

This year I was determined to do as much of my Christmas shopping in person as possible, which worked well for me last year. Comparing 2019 to 2020 is like comparing apples and cyanide pills, but here I am anyway, trying to buck the American trend of relying on Amazon for any and every human acquisition need like a newborn infant relies on its parents for basic feeding and sanitation. So far in 2020 I’ve ordered from Amazon four times, my lowest total since 2008. The fact that Amazon keeps that information on file so I could actually fact-check myself is kind of creepy and further justifies my decision to pursue other shopping venues regardless of the added cost.

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Christmas Anyway

December 13, 2020 By in Mundane Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments
me wearing a Christmas Mask.

All-new Christmas mask courtesy of my sister-in-law and niece. Christmas tie from my personal collection. Christmas cheer from divine intervention, maybe.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: pandemic! Pandemic! PANDEMIC!

Also, it’s the holiday season! We found a way to enjoy Thanksgiving weekend safely and are among the 197 Hoosiers who didn’t test positive for COVID-19 two weeks later. Lord willing, we might just make it to Christmas Day. Maybe even beyond! It’s good to have goals and hopes.

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