I don't ever recall seeing this movie, but there are some interesting details relevant to me to note. The first is that it released about a year after I returned home after my escape from Africa. I recognize the date 4/14/1986 as when the prison I was being held at as a Prisoner of War in Libya was bombed and I escaped captivity. My family thought I had been killed that day and they had a funeral service for me on 11/25/1986. Phoebe portrays a character named "Amanda" in this movie and in my artificial and symbolic memory of 1988, I had a girlfriend named Amanda. In my artificial and symbolic memory, I returned from the Persian Gulf in 1988 and Amanda broke up with me about 3 days after I got back. I have written about those artificial "memories" many times over the past years.
From 4/14/1986 to 4/1/1988 is: 718 days
718 / 2 = 359
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094799/
Bright Lights, Big City (1988)
Release Date: 1 April 1988 (USA)
Plot Outline: A disillusioned young writer living in New York City turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife.
Phoebe Cates ... Amanda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_Lights%2C_Big_City
Bright Lights, Big City is a 1988 film staring Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland and Phoebe Cates.
Michael J. Fox plays a sympathetic cocaine addict in the movie of Jay McInerney's popular novel Bright Lights, Big City, the book that famously chronicled the coke- and cash-fueled era of the 1980s. Jamie Conway (Fox) works as a fact-checker for a major New York magazine, but because he spends his nights partying with his glib best friend (Kiefer Sutherland), he's on the verge of getting fired. His wife, a fast-rising model (Phoebe Cates), just left him; he's still reeling from the death of his mother (Dianne Wiest) a year earlier; and he's obsessed with a tabloid story about a pregnant woman in a coma. The movie captures some of the glossy chaos of the time and of a man desperately trying to escape the pain in his life.
JOURNAL ARCHIVE: Journal May 25, 2006
...
That memory of the doctor tearing through the flesh on my hip is probably only representative of some other reality. I looked at scar as best as I could last night, if looks like someone made a careful incision, although some of the scar is not consistent, as it is a little wider at places. I was wondering if it started as some kind of puncture and then a surgeon had to make some kind of repair to the joint. Those 3 cortizones shots I remember may not reflect reality, perhaps they represent being stabbed with something, it was certainly painful. I figure the memories were transformed from memories of being tortured to memories of being cared for by a doctor. There is a certain logic to that. But who the hell knows. I don't know what the hell it all means.
WHY CAN'T I REMEMBER!!!!
What is the significance of the second vehicle I had, which was a 1967 blue Chevrolet pickup? As with the ford, the Chevrolet wasn't that great looking, but I cleaned it and people started complimenting it. I like the Ford a lot better than the Chevrolet, but the latter did have a more powerful engine. It was a V-8 with dual exhaust instead of the straight-6 and single-exhaust on the Ford. I put many late nights into rebuilding the engine on the Chevrolet. One of my high school friends, Pokey, who was a cousin of my girlfriend, R.R., ran my pickup into the river the night of graduation when we were drunk.
I have this memory of Theda (properly spelled as Thedia) commenting on how my girlfriends were always named Tracy or Amanda. That wasn't true, I remember thinking, but some of my more important girlfriends had those names. Tracey was the name of a girlfriend from Wisconsin who was also stationed in Charleston when I was on the Taylor. I think she was a Hull Technician. Then there was Amanda, from Scotland, Aberdeen I think, who broke up with me after I returned from the P.G. I had some other girlfriends in between with different names, but my ex-wife was named Tracie and her daughter was named Amanda.
I loved that little kid and it is a horrible feeling to know now that she doesn't exist. It was bad enough that I never got to see her again, but now I know she never existed. And I wonder, greatly, if she represents someone else in my real life. I can remember this one time, it was Christmas Eve. Tracie and I were assembly toys for Amanda at Tracies parents house. I got called into work and after I got through, I called Tracie and told her I wasn't going to drive back because I was a long ways away. Tracie was disappointed and wanted me to come back. I told her I wasn't coming back but then I changed my mind and drove back. I remember assembling a red wagon for Amanda. That reminds me a red wagon I had at Homer's farm outside Antler's and my sister had a smaller green wagon. I thought more about that the other day when I saw an image in a news article where some company was testing a spacesuit designed for a Mars expedition and the person had a red wagon nearby. The first toy I gave her was one of those mechanical little yapping dogs and it was funny, or something like heart-wrenching in my memory, to watch her trying to hug it.
