5 Things On My Mind: Another bad Armstrong contract, ‘Heat’ with little Buffa, and thinking about Chaim time

A few ruminations before the work week expires.

Rain rain, go away. First, there was a ton of snow and ice. Then, there was a freeze. Afterwards, a slightly lesser freeze. Finally, warmer temps and then the rain falls like there’s a leaky faucet up there or something. An endless array of precipitation is beating up St. Louis right now. It’s so bad, Mayor Tishaura Jones is apologizing again for doing a bad job. You had three weeks of snow banks all over the city, so a simple “my bad” won’t do from the supposed leader of our city.

Let’s get into a few things I know this evening, including memorable experiences with my son as he ages into teenage neighborhoods.

5) EXPERIENCING HEAT WITH LITTLE BUFFA

The best movies create an experience, one that hopefully gets passed down through the generations. Lately, Vinny has gone from a “in my room gaming” preteen who occasionally pokes his head out for a chat with his parents (typical) to a young movie fanatic who wants to watch more sophisticated cinema than a group of superheroes kicking ass and taking names. A few months ago, he agreed to watch Midnight Run and then we watched Civil War last week.

Last night, I tossed up the greatest movie of all time, Michael Mann’s Heat. What started as a plea to give the 1995 crime drama a chance turned into a three-hour epic odyssey through the last three decades. Mann’s film turns 30 in December, which forms a quirky connection with my son and time. I saw it at the Esquire in 1995 with my dad. We each saw it for the first time when we were 13 years old. Useful information that may be useless to you but it’s out there.