I was thinking that the gypsy wasn't lying.

Funny sight? Sand being emptied out of bathing suit pockets on the G train platform. It just looks so incongruous.
It takes a good long while to get to the beach from North Brooklyn, but as soon as you get out from underground and feel that sea breeze, the journey feels entirely justified. Plus there's that neat little preview when you're on the A shuttle and go across the bridge, staring out either side at rippling water, jetties and circling gulls.
The massive hangover I was experiencing tried its damndest to ruin the experience for me. That's what I get for not downing painkillers as soon as I woke up and for not wolfing the food down on the way back from DD instead of waiting until I got on the train. Or, you know, if I will be honest, that's what I get for drinking half a pint of whiskey, stealing various shots of vodka from my roommate, doing another shot of Johnny Walker, then going to a bar and while sipping on my responsible decision to switch to beer, getting two rounds of shots bought for me by my associates, all after eating a pretty meager dinner of a sandwich. But I'd rather believe that if I'd just timed my recovery program properly, I could have avoided throwing up under the boardwalk.
A dip into the ocean did wonders. Not in the least because as me and my buddy Ivan found out after a bit, Hurricane Earl didn't bring in a storm to ruin the day, but he sure as hell brought some bitchin' waves. I haven't been knocked over and knocked about by waves like that in a good long while. The first one really threw me for a loop, and I wound up with a mouthful of seawater, tossed end over end a few times then thrown to the seabed. Awesome. The next couple that pulled me over seemed much less scary, and truth be told, I didn't fight it quite as hard, because it was kind of refreshing.
I was still feeling pretty damn ill, but the rest of the day flew by. Maybe I dozed off, but I felt like I'd only been there like an hour instead of four.
Then I went home and totally betrayed my 70s movies only vow by watching The Great Dictator, because I didn't feel like working with my computer MC Frustrator McCrashy to use Netflix Watch Instantly, and the only 70s movies I could find of my roommate's exceeded the amount of brainpower I had available to understand them.
Never seen it before. In fact I'm not sure I've seen much Chaplin at all. Pretty nuts that it was made in 1940 before the US was in World War II, and that critics of the time thought that the fact that storm troopers were shooting Jews in ghettos was just too overdramatic. Sigh. Even though, Chaplin himself said he wouldn't have made it if he'd known how pervasive the Nazi persecution was.
The totally out-of-character speech by the barber at the end...it's cheesy I know it, but it's just so damn heartfelt. Fucking unconscionable that someone making that speech could get tossed out of this country for being a Communist. Yeah, they don't tell you that stuff when playing Chaplin clips in history class, do they? Being against fascism before it's been deemed appropriate by the American Government is a sure sign of communism.
Now, how best to use my labor day, hmm....