Glendale Babylon

Drunk, pantsless Cable Guy

2011-10-24T10:02:00.001-07:00

The Cable Guy came this morning to fix a minor problem. Ellen and I were both home.

When he was done, he handed Ellen his card and said to both of us, "You may get a call asking how I did. I'd love you to give me a positive review."

I responded, "So we should omit the part about you drinking a beer in your truck before you came in?"

Ellen chimed in, "And don't you guys usually wear pants on these appointments?"

(Neither of these things were true of course.)

The guy got a nervous smile on his face, the kind that says, oh you guys are joking, ha ha, it's not that funny, how do I get out of here?

But did I marry the right woman or what?

Memories of Louie

2011-07-11T10:22:00.000-07:00

I like to think I treated Louie well and he enjoyed his life. He was a rescue, after all, so any decent life I gave him was a plus. I loved him and I still miss him terribly. But there are two things about his life I regret.

First, I left him home alone a lot, since I worked most days. I think he got used to it -- so much so that getting him a little brother to keep him company didn't seem to impress him much. I wish I had had a dog walker come every day, but back then I didn't think I could afford it. Of course I could have.

Second, what happened before the adjacent photo.

When I was growing up, we had two different Golden Retrievers, Scotchy and (inevitably) Whiskey. Both lovely dogs. (Don't get me started on the fact that Scotchy had to live outside in the New England winters.) Whiskey loved to swim in our pool, which was always a hoot. It took some hamburger to lure her in at first, but after that she's go in for any old reason. She was even seen taking a very brief dip on very hot days, swimming a tight three-foot circle and stepping out, just to cool off!

So, of course, I wanted Louie to be a swimmer. Early on in our time together, I tried desperately to lure him into the Grandma's pool in Palm Desert. Cheese, hamburger, nothing worked. So with great compassion and concern, I threw him in the pool, thinking he'd see it wasn't so bad. He wouldn't come near me the rest of the day.

I gave up and left him alone. And on subsequent visits he didn't seem to fear the pool, rather he'd just ignore it. He'd even come over and lick my big bald head while I was lounging at the edge of the cool blue waters.

Well one day late in his life, when he'd started to have a little trouble walking, we were hanging around in the house in the desert, doing nothing special. We tended to leave the sliding glass door open so the dogs could wander in and out to the pool area, where there was also plenty of grass where one could do one's business.

Well in comes Louie, soaking wet! I was thunderstruck, since he could well have drowned out there and we never would have known. (He was not really the type of dog who would bark or whine when he needed something.) There was no reason to believe that he knew the pool had stairs and that he could find them and get out, so I could only imagine him pawing at the side of the pool endlessly until he drowned, while we sat idly by inside, oblivious. It still haunts me.

But he did find the stairs and get out, and you can see he was no worse for wear. It turned out that a poor little baby rabbit had drowned in the pool and was floating lifelessly in the middle of the pool. It looked almost exactly like one of Louie's most beloved furry toys, so he must have been desperate to get it, and fallen in while trying to reach it. We determined to be much more watchful.

Later in the day, Louie again waltzed in all wet. Hooray for our watchfulness!

A few years later...

2011-05-15T11:05:00.001-07:00

Guantanamo Bay

2011-04-25T19:22:00.000-07:00

The question is, are we a nation of laws or are we not?

Long ago it was decided that our system of jurisprudence would lean toward protecting the innocent. That's the way Americans are used to thinking, whether we like it or not. Miranda rights, no search and seizure without a warrant, etc, these things are all to protect us, the vast majority of Americans who are innocent of any crime, from persecution. Most importantly, our system is designed to sometimes let guilty people go free, in order that no innocent person is ever wrongly imprisoned. Of course this happens anyway, and that is a tragedy in every case, and we should try to keep this from ever happening again. But that is the way it is.

So Gitmo. There we have lots of different types of people: as the recent Wikileaks documents reveal, some were held simply for their intel value, and without real regard for their guilt or innocence. This too is a tragedy and a black eye for America. A deep gash in the flesh of our core values.

That's why I say close Gitmo. Anyone who has committed crimes that can be proven in a court of law, try them. Those that haven't, let them go. I know this means some of them go back to being terrorists -- but this can't be helped. Obama et al would say they are enemy combatants in a war -- but if so, it's a war seemingly without end. Are we really going to hold these people without trial forever? That's not America. That's Soviet Russia. I don't want any part of it.

Close Gitmo, Obama. Like you promised.

Memories of Louie

2011-04-24T10:18:00.001-07:00

As Louie got very old, he got pretty deaf, mostly in one ear, so when you called to him from his right side, he would turn to his left see who was calling him. It was funny the first few times, but after a while it was just sad and counterproductive. You had to go grab him at dinnertime and lead him to the kitchen.

His sight also suffered, so he could only really see things right in front of his nose. Also mostly sad, but at least one time funny. You be the judge.

One night several months ago I was in the kitchen fixing dinner. Was it Chateaubriand, or Trout Almondine? I cannot recall. Anyway I decided to give the dogs a mini Milk Bone. They're smaller than regular Milk Bones, and multicolored, and at least look tasty, though I've never tried one. Elliot was in the kitchen, so I just handed him his, but he doesn't like them very much, so I think he just let it sit there, trying his hardest to look pathetic. He's just a little off. Louie, on the other hand, was resting comfortably in the living room, as was his wont, just lying face down on the carpet, sleeping, dreaming I hope of running in grassy fields. I called his name and he looked up, but couldn't really see me due to his blindness, nor could he tell where I was calling from. Lazy and a little cruel, I decided just to toss his Milk Bone to him.

Well I was on my game this evening because it landed right between his paws, right under his nose. Strike one! He didn't see it coming, but he sure heard it land on the rug, and startled he looked down and saw it, with -- I swear -- look of surprise on his face. I suddenly got a very clear view into his doggy mind. As he sniffed it, grabbed it, and happily bit down with a crunch, I realized exactly what he was thinking. A dog biscuit just magically appeared in front of me! Oh benevolent dog Gods above, what have I done to deserve this? Usually, I must remain alert for when my master goes into the dog biscuit closet, but this one just incorporated out of thin air right in front of me. What alchemy is this! Actually, who cares, may I have another?

Now he didn't actually look to the heavens, but I know he was thinking this, and I am pretty sure that he wondered for the rest of his life why it never happened again.

Memories of Bill

2011-04-23T11:19:00.001-07:00

First in a series of however many I can remember.

Maybe 20 years ago, my brother shared with me that he had gone duck hunting. (I think he was hanging out with clients, or potential clients.) I was slightly horrified. Not that I really have anything against hunting: I'm a meat eater, and I believe that if you eat meat you can't be against hunting, at least hunting that is as humane as possible and hunting that is for the purpose of eating the meat. But hunters are certain types of people, I felt, perhaps erroneously in retrospect, the kind who can watch an animal die without sadness. I didn't think my brother was one of them.

I asked, taken aback, "You shot ducks?"

Without a moment's hesitation, Bill responded, "I shot at ducks."

Good Riddance Blue Dogs

2010-11-06T11:27:00.000-07:00

I read somewhere that a large number of the Democratic seats in the US House of Representatives lost in the recent elections were the seats of so-called "Blue Dog" democrats. These are the most conservative members of the Democratic party, largely from the South. These are the guys who pull the party to the right, who held up the Health Care law for a provision that no federal funds be used to pay for abortions (which was already law anyway). These are the guys who make it almost impossible for the party to achieve consensus on anything.

So I say, good riddance. I'd rather have a minority who more closely share my liberal views and will fight for them as a solidified group, than a party that always seems to be fighting among itself and always manages to produce watered-down legislation that no Republican votes for anyway. Eff you guys! Have fun lobbying!

Now we have to wait and see what the Republican majority will do. Probably, they will be revealed to be hypocrites, calling for lower taxes and the requisite lower spending, but they will just lower taxes and be too pussy-ish to actually cut spending, so the deficit will go UP not down. If they want to actually cut the hell out of the budget, I say go for it -- I might not agree with the cuts, but at least I would applaud their gumption. Of course I don't expect this. Their leadership has said their only real agenda is getting rid of Obama. Nice.

Alan Greenspan is a F*&@king Idiot

2010-07-23T20:55:00.000-07:00

I'm going to start venting my rage here about the latest US economic crisis. Not every post, but occasionally. Every American should be outraged. The financial reform bill recently passed doesn't go nearly far enough. (More on that later.)

I don't blame the economy for my current situation -- anything can happen in the entertainment business, and we took our chances. And, were doing fine.

But still, I'm appalled at the idea that huge financial institutions can mismanage themselves to death and the federal government bails them out with MY money. And the senior executives of these institutions are still taking home huge paychecks, for what reason? Because we still must prop up these companies? Only the executives at Lehman Brothers, and long ago Salomon Brothers (and others I can't remember) have had to pay the price of their incompetence.

Tonight the object of my scorn is Alan Greenspan, who famously championed deregulation because of his firm belief that Corporate Officers would always act in the interest of the corporation, which would lead them to act properly and ethically so their businesses could thrive. Now of course hindsight is 20-20, especially when that hindsight is literally from my ass, but clearly this guy has never actually held a job. Employees always act in the best interest of their company? Hasn't he ever worked at a restaurant and stolen food? It seems obvious that when greed is the main motivator (and I have no problem with that in theory), it's possible -- nay probable -- that those in line for huge bonuses will simply act in a way as to guarantee that bonus is big for a few years, company be damned. Greenspan couldn't see this coming?

His later apologia and admission of error in this regard cuts no mustard with me. Where were you when we needed you? Now we're screwed.

Now Greenspan I'm sure has several advanced degrees, and has said many smart things about complicated topics his whole life. But for his short-sighted and pro-corporate contribution to the economic clusterfuck of the last few years, I dub him a fucking idiot.

Next?

Afghanistan Bananastan

2010-07-16T13:22:00.000-07:00

I've been meaning to post about Afghanistan for a while now. The whole thing frustrates me, because I know it is a lost cause. No one has ever succeeded there, not for hundreds of years, in creating a stable government. That's not to say it isn't possible, but I believe it can only be done by the Afghan people themselves. I hate to see any one brave American lose his life or his limbs trying to reach what is essentially a non-military goal. And as much as I dislike a lot of the compromised politics of the Obama administration, I hate to see the glimmers of hope that still exist sacrificed on the altar of an unwinnable war.

But why listen to me? Rachel Maddow says it more succinctly and more cogently than I ever could.

http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/15/4687273-maddow-the-hard-choice-in-afghanistan

I'm not a Rachel Maddow dittohead -- sometimes I think she strays too far from rational argument just to make point, wandering into Michael Moore territory. But she is a much more reliable liberal reporter of the news than ANYONE on the other side of the political spectrum. So far, she is the yardstick by which any politically aligned reporter must measure themselves. And, frankly, any reporter who considers themselves "unbiased."

Living with an Old Man

2010-07-02T14:16:00.000-07:00

Living with a very old senior citizen is never easy, but we try to make do, since our senior citizen is a terrier mix. His name is Louie, as faithful readers of this blog know well. By our calculations, the number of faithful readers of this blog is: 0.

Louie's back legs have started to go, so he doesn't have much of the spring he had in his mid-single digits. He can't jump up on the bed anymore, and his attempts to get up on the couch are a 50-50 affair, with some successful and some resulting in him holding onto the seat cushions for dear life with his front paws, with a kind of desperate look on his face, determined not to give up the progress he's made but unsure how to proceed. Then he falls back to the floor, gives up and wanders away. If you noticed his thwarted assault on the couch and approach to physically lift him up, he will avoid you, as if to say, "I think I know why you are chasing me, and I refuse to submit as I find your help humiliating and frankly a bit discomfiting." Sometimes I'll grab him and heave him up anyway; he then leaps back down, only enjoying a sojourn on the Davenport if it is the result of his own efforts.

Also, his back leg weakness makes the usual race down the stairs to greet us when we walk in the door an adventure in skidding. Louie doesn't seem to remember the last time and will run down the carpeted stairs just as fast as Elliot, but when he reaches the tiled front entryway his back legs will fishtail out from under him like a drunken hockey mascot attempting to run on the ice in street shoes. Occasionally, he will bash into the front door. But like any dog, he doesn't seem to mind, or notice, or certainly not remember the next time.

With regard to the bed -- ours is, admittedly, too high -- he seems to have given up trying to get up onto it, even though he very much used to like to sleep there. I recently bought carpeted stairs made for just such a need, but they are kind of steep and Louie will have nothing to do with them. When we try to force him to make an ascent, he struggles and falls/jumps off. Of course Elliot is no help, because when you try to get him to use the stairs, he just springs up onto the bed in one leap, wondering what all the fuss is about.

Also, in our ongoing efforts to make Louie's last years as comfortable as possible, we bought him a new bed, the kind that had and seemed to favor when he was young and I lived in Burbank. He sniffed it, tested it out reluctantly, pawed and scraped at it to try to make it conform to his specifications, then wandered away annoyed. After several days of this, we gave in and returned his old bed (given many years ago by his Aunt Lee Anne) to its rightful place and he seems happy again. The new bed sits in the living room, available to all comers, dog or human. Much to our delight Elliot was discovered sleeping on it the other day. This is the first time in recorded history that Elliot has slept on a dog bed. Maybe he'll play with his first dog toy someday soon.

GOP leader John Boehner demands apology from Paul McCartney

2010-06-04T21:20:00.000-07:00

Washington D.C. -- GOP leader John Boehner today demanded an apology from Sir Paul McCartney, in the wake of the former Beatle's performance at the White House where he received the Gershwin award for songwriting.

"I think all of America deserves an apology for that ridiculous punchbowl turd 'Ebony and Ivory' that he did with Stevie Wonder," commented the visibly angry House Minority Leader. "I mean, is that song supposed to sit in his body of work along with 'Let It Be,' 'Blackbird,' and 'Hey Jude.' Those are classics! But 'Ebony and Ivory' -- I could shit a better song than that! Not only are the words simplistic and the tune boring and derivative -- the metaphor on which the whole thing is based is dumb and obvious." Boehner then called for an immediate emergency session of Congress to make performing the song punishable with a fine and, if judged constitutional by the Roberts Supreme Court, caning.

When subsequently asked about McCartney's comments in which he implied former President Bush didn't know what a library was, Boehner smiled. "He's right on that front. That guy was a gigantic dumbass."

Raining In Glendale

2010-04-11T22:01:00.000-07:00

It's raining tonight in Glendale. We like the rain. Something about inclement weather makes the house seem more like a home, makes us feel warmer inside. That's a common feeling in New England and in the Pacific northwest, but rare here. I think it contributes to the general malaise that afflicts Southern California.

Elliot's Lament

2010-02-18T20:27:00.000-08:00

Once in a while, as many as several times a month, little black Elliot will wander to an empty part of the house and begin softly to whine. Just for a minute or two: then he'll stop. If you hear it and call to him -- "Elliot, what's wrong?" -- he'll come to you, seemingly snapped out of it, full of affection.

What makes him do it? We don't know. It could be some minor pain that he feels; it might happen more often after meals. (We haven't really been able to deduce a pattern.) But there is nothing wrong with him, and it doesn't sound like physical pain. It sounds like sadness.

As you might know, we adopted Elliot from a local shelter after seeing his picture in a newspaper ad. We took cranky old Louie with us to see him, in order to know if they would get along. Louie paid absolutely no attention to Elliot; he was focused on walking around new place with new smells.

Elliot looked like hell. They told us that he had been found alone, on the street. His hair was so matted they had to cut most of it off. You could easily feel his ribs. Still, he had a certain nervous amiability, so we took him. How could we not? He's still a tentative sort, sometimes giving love enthusiastically, sometimes edging up to you hesitantly until you pet him. But he's been a part of our family now for a good 6 years.

When I hear his low-volume, high-pitched keening in some dark corner of the house, I can't help but think that he is remembering his long lost mommy, from whom he might have been taken too early, for whom he desperately longed during those cold hungry nights on the street, and for whom his heart still aches.

We love you, Elliot. I hope that's enough.

A Friend Request From Saint Nicholas

2010-01-08T20:27:00.001-08:00

As presented at Cam Clarke's annual Christmas party, 12/19/09. It killed.

A Friend Request from Saint Nicholas

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a computer was stirring, not even a mouse.

No children were nestled all snug in their beds,

I’d shot them and buried them out in the shed.

Just kidding I’d never had kids of my own,

But that left me this evening to be all alone.

Yes I in my bathrobe, the only one home,

Just me and my gin and my little iPhone.

I thought, maybe this will amuse me tonight,

So I fired it up and let music take flight!

(Sadly tap out Jingle Bells on iPhone)

Well that wasn’t working, its sound was so slight,

Where else could I find Christmas cheer on this night.

So I settled down in my chair with a plop,

And opened my red candied Apple laptop.

My computer is often my only real friend,

I thought as I sat on my flabby rear end.

I considered my usual nights online whirl,

Pretend I’m a nubile young age 13 girl.

Seducing some mayor or minor State Senator

Who’ll inevitably end up on To Catch a Predator.

No not on this night, not on this Christmas Eve.

I said as I wiped my red nose on my sleeve.

I think I will see how the holidays look

On that home for the lonely: I’ll check out facebook.

Facebook – that well-known web-based friendship shrine

Where I can keep up with my good friends online.

Here we gathered – me tonight, others online since dawn

In hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would log on.

Instead facebook gave me the same old malaise,

Snooty parents bragging kids who brought home straight A’s

Some people I barely know off shooting movies,

Or lunching with someone that’s famous or groovy

It seems all these people are much more successful

Than me which I find so annoying and stressful.

But then on my homepage arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my desktop to see what’s the matter.

Away to my inbox I flew with a smile,

Clicked double the e-mail and opened the file.

The background of white looked like newfallen snow,

Or lines of imported Columbian blow.

When, what to my wandering eyes should appear,

A curious message that bid me draw near

Its sender mysterious, its format so slick,

I knew in a moment it must be Saint Nick.

His big fat red face then appeared on my screen,

And loudly he spoke as his eyes they did gleam:

Now Flickr, now Twitter, now MySpace and eBay!

On Yahoo! On Hulu! On YouTube and Pal-Pay!

He added: yes my reindeer naming rights I did sell

My costs have gone up and corporate sponsors pay well!

Now to the top of the profile! And a’top the firewall!

Now text me, and poke me and reply to all!

I eyeballed the screen and said, “No need to shout,”

“And Santa – what the hell are you talking about?”

But it turned out to be what I wanted the best,

It was from old Kris Kringle– a facebook friend request.

But then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As ashes flew round my dim room with a poof,

Down the chimney Saint Nicholas fell with an “oof.”

He stood up and looked at me straight in the eyes

Then he shook, what he saw was a shocking surprise

Every Who down in Whoville the tall and the small

Was singing without any presents at all!

(Pause, realize this has veered off into “Grinch," then continue.)

Down the chimney Saint Nicholas fell with an “oof.”

He was dressed all in fur, and none of it faux,

And sweating like crazy – it’s LA, you know.

He was covered in soot from his head to his toe,

He looked like a homeless guy down on skid row.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

His pupils dilated, and don’t think I’m joking

I wondered what kind of mistletoe he’d been smoking.

For one thing he giggled a lot from his belly,

So his man-boobs they jiggled like silicone jelly.

Santa, I said, you’re looking quite punchy

He said got some cookies? I’m getting the munchies.

Then he stood and addressed me, as he straightened his spine,

It’s Christmas Eve what the hell are you doing online?

These people on facebook they’re not your real friends

They don’t really care – it’s all just pretend!

But Santa you yourself tried to friend me, I mentioned.

He said I was just trying to get your attention!

I started to argue then put up no fight,

I realized that Santa Claus surely was right.

Facebook friendship is nothing, it’s nada, it’s zip

It was supposed to be fun but it’s really a gyp.

I smiled and Kris Kringle saw I understood

And he took a long puff from his pipe made of wood

He held in his breath, grinned, and said “HydroPonic

Sure helps those darn elves grow some damn righteous chronic!"

I said dope and Santa – aren’t those two antithetical?

He said hey back off man my mary-jane’s medical!

Why don’t you try daily hoof-kicks to the head

While you’re trying to rig eight crabby reindeer to your sled.

Then up the chimney he went, which wasn’t so easy,

His bulk was tremendous, and the flue tight and squeezy,

Then he sprang to his sleigh, well not sprang, more like fell,

And away they all flew like a bat out of hell.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

“Now get the hell out of your house for the night!”

Then my computer it died with a sad little sputter

Maybe from all that spilled Vons peanut butter

But then my heart gave a discreet little flutter

As I heard Old Saint Nick had some last words to utter.

He yelled from afar be like Holmes not Moriarty

Be like Rick in Casablanca don’t be like Ugarte

I figured that meant don’t be dumb be a smartie,

So I rose and got dressed and I came to this party.

So to you my real friends, or those Cam did invite,

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Important Information

2009-10-16T17:33:00.000-07:00

I wanted to poach some eggs, but the first one I reached for was stuck to the package. As everyone knows, this means it cracked and leaked, then dried. This is why, when buying eggs, one must touch every egg to make sure it moves. Michael Haney taught me this. Sure.

I decided, rather than let someone try to grab it too vigorously and get egg all over the place, I should label it. That done, sharpie in hand, I decided the others might benefit from some more positive sentiment.

LA Decom

2009-10-05T16:20:00.000-07:00

Every year after Burning Man, people feel a little lost. They've had a tran-scendant experience, some little fun, and/or a lot of drugs, and they miss it. Kind of like when you leave summer camp.

Enter the concept of the "decompression" party. Several cities around the US (I don't know of any abroad) have large, open-air parties about a month later, inviting people to set up dance stages, performance spaces, wear costumes, etc, just like at BM. To try and recapture some of that Burning Man feeling, in order to feel some of the lost passion that they felt in the Northwest Nevada desert, to cure some of their ache for the experience.

So I bought two tickets to "LA Decom" ($10 apiece). I thought, maybe this is a way for Ellen to get a sense of what it was like -- athough I secretly suspected it would be weird/lame/boring. It was to be held in an open space right near downtown LA, not far from Dodger stadium and right next to Chinatown, in what used to be, I kid you not, a cornfield. In fact the way they clarified the location for the Decom party was to refer to its location as "yes, the cornfield." Apparently this piece of land, once the site of a Tongva Indian village, was for a hundred years a kind of railroad depot. The tracks were then removed and the city bought the land in the early 2ooo's. Then in 2005 an artist planted corn and dubbed the work "Not a Cornfield." I unfortunately never got to see the corn. It's now just a large dry dusty park.

Ellen and I arrived last Saturday for Decom and were greeted with the traditional Burning Man invocation, "welcome home." (I like this about Burning Man.) But the actual event was a bit disappointing. If Burning Man is Disneyland, then this was like a small-town San Gennaro festival. If Burning Man is the Super Bowl, then this was like a rural high school game. So we wandered around for an hour, enjoying the LA sun, and not much more. A few times, we got a little Burning Man type fun: some guy, sitting under a large shade structure, would yell "Gummy Mango?" and then slighshot the little individually wrapped candy at you. It hit me, but it didn't hurt -- I just picked it up and ate it. When I stood arms akimbo and feigned indignance -- "how dare you sir." He smiled and pegged me again. Yummy!

Then there was the Black Rock roller disco. A large area of plywood was laid down, and you could borrow skates and skate around. A few hardy souls tried it out -- they couldn't skate very well. No helmets. An accident waiting to happen. Or, as I then clarified to Ellen, "happening."

I kept saying to her, this is a pale shadow of what it was like. She said she understood. The only way to experience it is to go. At one point the wind kicked up and a significant amount of gritty dust blew in our face. "Now THAT'S what Burning Man was like," I exclaimed.

Still, we didn't have a terrible time. We wandered back out onto the street, hopped back on the Gold Line, back to the beautifully restored Union Station, where we had parked our car.

Burning Man Part 2 -- The Dust

2009-09-13T12:36:00.001-07:00

The dust is everywhere, surrounding you, permeating all barriers and entering your very being. Just like, as they taught us in church, God.

Sometimes, the dust would just kick up as you walked, turning your legs an odd shade of yellow, like you have a series of minor bruises, or like you applied spray-tan wrong. (Seasoned burners, as far as I could observe, wore cowboy boots or other high, protective footwear.)

Other times, the wind would begin to blow and the dust would form a few-hundred-foot high cloud, creating "white-out" conditions. There were moments, during one or two days, that you couldn't see twenty feet in front of you. And, memorably, on the night of the "burn," I had to shine my flashlight at the ground three feet ahead of me because that was the limit of my vision in the dust storm. I didn't want to step on anyone. The wind was powerful. It was spooky -- people appeared suddenly out of nowhere, face covered with bandanas and big goggles, like bug-eyed bandits. (I looked the same of course.) As the spirits would have it, the wind died down and the dust cleared in time for the 40-foot high neon-lit man to burn spectacularly.

Now, what remains for me of Burning Man are some great memories. And the dust. Basically, anything I brought to BM, whether it sat outside in the open or lay buried in a duffel bag, is covered in dust. My backyard looks like an exploded campsite as I hose everything down and try to get some of the dust off. It's not working. From now on, whenever we go camping, there will undoubtedly be a significant portion of Northwest Nevada dust on our stuff, reminding me of BM 2009.

Oh, and of course I'll be shitting all the dust I swallowed for weeks to come.

Burning Man Part 1

2009-09-10T15:50:00.000-07:00

Yes -- I went to Burning Man this year.

As you can tell from the above photo, there is a certain amount of hardship involved in attending BM. It takes place in the middle of nowhere, a white dusty dried lake bed in an area of northwest Nevada known as the Black Rock Desert. Really, it's miles and miles from a tiny little non-town.

There are two principles of Burning Man: radical self-expression and radical self-sufficiency. The first means large art installations, crazy modified vehicles, nutty outfits, weird theme camps, and the occasional nude person. The second means bring absolutely everything you'll need: water, food, shelter, etc. Many people come in RV's, but many others camp out in tents, like I did. And you must leave no trace -- not even the water you use to wash with (otherwise known as gray water). Burning Man makes a big deal of "leave no trace," and most people devise some way to take showers while capturing the water to let it evaporate. I just laid out a tarp and took demure sponge baths.

I had been wanting to go to Burning Man for many years now, and only this year did my ability to go coincide with a spike in my desire. Ellen, on the other hand, had no interest, seeing as how I kept telling her about the dust and the wind and the camping out. I had a bit of trepidation -- wasn't it just a haven for hippie losers? Hey I'm no hippie! But what about the other word?

I read obsessively about it for a few weeks before going and prepared diligently. Already owned a tent, bought a tarp for shade, bought freeze-dried food and a camping stove, etc.

Then drove 10 hours to Reno NV and stayed in a depressing Motel 6 ($27.99/night) before heading out to the desert. Set up my tent, got on my bike, and headed out into Burning Man.

What a revelation. The "art cars" (moving vehicles altered to resemble fish or animals or just abstract sculpture) scurrying every which way (there had to be 70 of them), the large scale art installations, the loud dance music coming from lots of camps (and from most cars), the crazy costumes people wore, the sheer size of the place (30,000 people attend, in a huge well-laid out circular grid a few miles across) -- and the Man himself at the center of it all, 30 feet high, surrounded by a weird organic looking abstract base, made of wood and ready to burn.

And that was just during the day. The place really comes alive at night -- every piece of art, stationery or moving, had a nighttime look, lit up with neon or LED ropes. Most people and bikes had lights of some kind on them. The Man is outlined in neon, even though when he burns all that neon will be destroyed.

The whole thing felt like a combination of Who-Ville and Road Warrior and a Fellini film. It was like living in a Terry Gilliam movie.

I loved it.

Even though at least one night, the wind was 50 mph and there was so much dust you couldn't see three feet.

But that's for the next post!

Poker Buddies

2009-08-02T14:06:00.001-07:00

These are the guys I play poker on Fridays once in a while. It's rare to see a photo of us -- we generally show up, talk a little entertainment business, and play poker. But the guy in the middle holding the cake, David Himmelstein, a screenwriter, has decided to move back to Cambridge, MA. I envy him. In a rare show of minor emotion, a cake was gotten for his last game with us. (It was festooned with little cards and a roulette wheel.)

One guy's missing -- Chris Kruize, a production accountant -- several days ago he had his gall bladder out, and he couldn't make the game. Pussy.

It's a weird experience, this game. I got into it because my friend Stephen Bulka (pictured to the left of me) got me into it. I've been playing for maybe 5 years? Maybe more. But there's very little personal discussion at the game, so nobody really knows anything about me, except that I used to work in animation, and maybe that I am married. But it's fine with me. We joke, drink a little beer, insult each other's poker prowess.

It must be mentioned, though, that this is no "Odd Couple" cigar-fest. No, it's a modern Southern California poker game. We used to order subway sandwiches, because everyone thought pizza was too fattening. We recently switched back to pizza, but a few guys still bring their own lo-cal meals. I bring peanuts and chips on which to snack, but Bulka brings grapes. Jeez. Also, our stakes used to be nickel-dime-quarter, and I lobbied to raise them to fifty cents-dollar-two dollars. Now keep in mind even these raised stakes mean that on a terrible night you could lose $60. But some of the players fought this tooth and nail. Luckily the higher stakes prevailed, so at least it feels like you're playing for actual money. One other note about the wimpiness of the game: Randy Kornfield (pictured to Himmelstein's right) has a college-age son, who whenever he plays, inevitably beats us and walks away with $80 of our money. We hate him. Really.

Still, it's fun to have a regular poker game, and much to my delight the insults fly and are often hilarious. But I am a terrible poker player.

Angry Old Man

2009-06-14T15:30:00.001-07:00

I guess this entry is proof that what really makes me want to blog is anger. Plenty has happened to me over the past few months but this really got my goat.

As we like to do occasionally, Ellen and I went to the movies yesterday. The 4:25 show of "The Hangover" at the Americana. (Very funny, but certainly not the second coming of Preston Sturges or anything.)

The theater was pretty crowded -- our row was full, mostly of teens and twenty-somethings. The young people behind us talked throughout, but I let them alone. Because: soon into the movie, a young woman one seat over pulled out her phone, read a message, and texted one in reply. This happened over and over. After the sixth time it was clear that she was more interested in the text conversation than the movie. (Maybe it was too lowbrow for her sensibilities, and she should have gone to see "Dim Sum Funeral" instead.) I leaned over and said "hey could you stop texting, it's very distracting." She replied, "It's distracting you?" or something like that, to which I responded, "yes." She stopped.

Then later in the movie she started again. I thought of leaning over to her friend (who was right next to me) and saying, "If your friend doesn't stop texting, I am going to grab her cel phone and heave it at the screen," but for some reason I didn't, even though it was making me mad and kind of ruining the movie for me.

But I did make my point. After the movie was over and the lights came up, she and her friend stood up and started making their way past us. I let her friend go past, but then immediately extended my leg to block the offending texter's progress. She was forced to stop. I said to her, "You shouldn't text in movies. It's fucking rude." She looked at me and made her counter-argument: "Shut up old man!" At that point Ellen sort of reached out to push her toward the aisle, saying something like "Get out of here." They left. I felt good that I had said something, but I must admit I didn't like being called an old man, even by a rude young whipper-snapper.

I was glad that I didn't lower myself further by adding "I said no texting fatty!" even though it would have been appropriate.

Sorry

2009-05-01T22:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been so lazy. I cant believe I haven't blogged since mid-March.

But t's been so busy lately. I've been working more than full time, on this nutty show called "Lost Tapes."

I've also been taking two real estate classes. Tonight I'm studying for the final in one of them. It's tomorrow, Saturday morning, at 9AM. Jeez. Then the following Saturday I start another class.

Ellen and I have also been looking at rental houses. And we took Hunter to Disneyland for his birthday last Saturday.

This is the busiest I've been in a long time. Maybe ever. Why isn't it making me rich?

More later, I promise.

Invisible Car

2009-03-19T14:18:00.000-07:00

The other day, Ellen and I are tooling around Glendale in my dark gray Prius. Having a lovely time in The Jewel City (which is the inappropriately flattering nickname of our home city).

A minivan or pickup -- my memory fails me a bit -- is slightly ahead of me and tries briefly to merge into my lane, only to veer back into its own. I pay it no heed. I'm the best driver on the road and I drive defensively against all the other nutjobs out there. Probably, this includes you , dear reader.

Anyway, I pull up at a stoplight in the right-hand lane. The minivan -- or was it a pickup truck? -- pulls up to my left. The driver motions for me to roll down my window. I do. He says to me, with -- and how can I say this without sounding prejudiced in any way -- what I take to be an Armenian accent: "Your car is invisible." What? I blurt, confused. "Very difficult to see your car, like it's invisible. I could not see you." I process this for a second before responding in my usual style: "Maybe it's your driving."

He looks at me. "I don't mean to offend, it's just that your car is invisible." "OK" I reply cheerfully, as the light turns and he drives off. I just assume this guy lives in some Wonder-Woman fantasy world where this is his best explanation for why he veered into my lane. Good for you sir!

Ellen and I now mock his accent mercilessly as I drive my invisible car. I'm definitely marking it up when I sell it used.

Claustrophobia

2009-03-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

This morning I went for a CT scan. It's nothing, there's nothing wrong with me, it's just a precaution. Probably. Even though I have asthma, allergies, moderately high blood pressure, some trouble swallowing occasionally, frequent colds, and a history of minor chronic ailments, I generally feel like a healthy person. There's definitely no danger of my becoming anorexic.

Last year I had a scan for an unrelated reason, again no big deal. But it turned up a little spot on my kidney. (From Hannah and Her Sisters: "I was worried -- I found a spot on my back." "It was on your shirt!") It's a cyst, said my GP, but since your health insurance may run out soon, why don't you go see your urologist, who knows more about this kind of thing than me. (We have since found new health insurance, but that's a whole different story.) The urologist, a jovial sort, says it's nothing. People have little cysts on their kidneys all the time. Think of it as your own personal urinary Dippin' Dot! Anyway, just to be sure, why don't we wait six months and do another scan, to see if it's grown at all.

I thought, maybe it's one of those undeveloped twins you read about, a tiny little head with arms, growing out of my kidney, just waiting to gain enough power to take over my brain and force me to start killing hobos. This is a theory I developed in film school, not med school.

So the six-month check-up scan was this morning. I've had MRI's and CT scans before -- that's right I've done it all sister -- and I've had claustrophobia issues. Particularly during an MRI on my head years ago (negative on all counts, including personality). They put you on a motorized bed and slide you into a tunnel not much larger than you are. Sort of like being in a smooth white coffin, open at both ends. But the openings at both ends don't do much to calm the feeling of being closed-in. I barely made it through the MRI, which lasted forty-five minutes, and the only way I did it was to close my eyes the entire time. The nurse, who promised to stay by the intercom at all times, actually wasn't there one time when I called out to her. Nice.

So before I agreed to this current CT scan, I made my urologist -- a really good sport -- show me the machine. Telling me it was no big deal, he took me to the CT room. This machine was really just shaped like a big donut, only about a foot thick, not at all like a tunnel or coffin. OK, I said, I can do it without any prescription relaxers -- but really maybe feeling a little peer-pressured into saying "no problem." Besides, if I took a stress pill, then Ellen would have to drive me, a big pain in the ass, I can handle it.

Or so I thought. When they had me lie down, and the little motorized bed from hell moved me into place inside the donut, it started to look a lot more like a tunnel. Sure seemed like my head was pretty closed-in. And if I started to freak, getting myself out of this damned oppressive donut would be very difficult. I could feel it coming on -- a bit of a panic attack. I had to consciously control myself: don't ask to be taken out, don't try to get up and out, don't start clawing frantically at the machine and sobbing uncontrollably. Conspiring against me: the room is kind of cold, the machine makes a whine like a particle accelerator, and although I am covered by a sheet, my dungarees are around my ankles.

The scan starts with my head almost directly inside the donut but slowly moves me out during each of five scans. (We're scanning my kidney, remember.) The moving out feels good, the stress ebbing. But after the first one, moving in again, looking up at the machine very close to my face, I decided again to just close my eyes. For the whole duration. If I open them, I just see the machine looming over me and the panic creeps back. Better to keep them closed. Whenever I am moved back into the machine, I can sense through my closed eyes the shadow of the machine over me. I fight the unease. The technician, a personable if young hispanic man, can communicate with me via intercom from the next room where he operates the machine. So I suppose he could hear me also humming a little tune to calm myself (Beatles: "...and in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love... you make").

For each scan, I have to hold my breath. The technician's intercom voice was replaced, incongruously, by a recorded male midwestern voice telling me to stop and start breathing. (The technician told me this voice "came with the machine.") The breath-holding was for 28 seconds, long enough to be slightly uncomfortable. I wish the tech had warned me about how long, because the first one was disconcerting -- I had no idea when Midwestern Joe was going to let me breathe again.

For the last few scans, an iodine IV, just to increase the discomfort. Isn't iodine poisonous? Is this tech some sort of madman, poisoning white CT scan patients to gain revenge for the Aztec Empire? I closed my eyes. Thought of Hawaii.

Then -- done. Gracias, mi amigo! The whole thing lasted about twenty minutes. I leapt off the cot of death and pulled up my pants, feeling a little silly. It was nothing!

I get the results next week, which I'm sure will be nothing other than a $10,000 bill for my insurance company.

But if there is a next time.... bring on the Xanax. Make it a double.

Coraline

2009-02-26T14:06:00.001-08:00

The iPhone takes terrible pictures, especially in low light, and especially when you ask a stranger to handle it. Thus the "this is the only known photo of the bell tower gunman" look of the photo to the right.

But this is Ellen and I after seeing Coraline, a movie we really liked. The movie's in 3D -- so everyone had to wear these bug-eyed glasses.

I have liked stop-motion movies in the past -- Wallace and Gromit comes to mind -- but they all kind of have a matte-finish, clay plainness to them. Which kinda works for the drab English life of W&G.

But Coraline absolutely glowed from within, with a beauty to which it had no right. In particular, the garden scenes (let's discuss after you've see it.)

The story sometimes lagged, but during those times, there was always some clever bit of design or animation that kept me entertained. For instance the "snapdragon" flowers in the garden are actually shaped like dragon's heads.

After you see the movie, let's discuss of what the soft crinkled tunnel to the other world reminded you.

Over Stimulus

2009-02-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday we attended a Deaf West Theater production of "Pippin," that 70's pop chestnut. The cast was a mix of deaf and hearing actors. Those hearing actors who spoke their own roles also signed them. Deaf actors had a counterpart who spoke their lines while they acted and signed them. This was occasionally beautiful, but had a weird effect on the show: not much dancing. Now there's not much to the story of Pippin. In fact the book is lame. But in the 70's production I saw, the lead character (the role originated by ben Vereen, played by Northern J Calloway when I saw it) performed some real show-stopping dance numbers. But not this production, everyone was too busy signing! Putting on Pippin without the dancing is a little like porn without the sex, if you ask me. Two thumbs down.

Yesterday, as if to cleanse the palate, I went to a two-hour "Support the Economic Stimulus" meeting of a local Obama support group, for which I had done some phone-banking during the run-up to the election. There were about 40 of us, crammed into a coffee-break area in an open-style office space on Melrose. It sure seemed like a motley crew of people my age, if the pre-presentation chatter was any clue. The somewhat overweight lady next to me seemed, from her slow and simplistic speech patterns, to be a little "off," kind of in the way the men and women who worked in my high-school cafeteria were "off." She kept interrupting other people's conversations to say something like "I hope I can help." I avoided looking at her.

The meeting started boringly enough, with the showing of a video made by Tim Kaine, governor of Virginia (?). Oddly, the TV was somehow mis-calibrated, and the only color possible was blue. So it was sort of like a Democratic infomercial filmed by a Nam Jun Paik. Gov. Kaine -- not the most entertaining orator -- answered e-mailed in questions about the stimulus. To me, his answers were glib and condescdending, which I thought was a rip-off for us faithful. He didn't seem to think there were going to be ANY problems with transparency or getting the dollars out there. Well whoop-de-do for you.

The real entertainment started when the video ended. The two meeting leaders asked us to go around the room and for each person to describe how the economic downturn had affected them. It started out calmly enough, with seemingly more than half of the room un- or under-employed (me included). The lady next to me said something short and sweet about wanting to help, but I was nervous about allowing her to help. Maybe it was just me.

Then we got to the fat gray-bearded man in the corner. This guy was ANGRY. Angry at Republicans, angry at Democrats for giving in too much to Repubs, angry at Obama for compromising. Is this what he worked so hard for? (He never got around to his own situation, but I can't imagine it was good.) Some granola muncher who reminded me of Janice from the Muppets band jumped in to defend Obama ("we need to trust him!"), others dove into the fray, and we had a full-fledged argument going on! A smile crept onto my face as I saw the fat man's visage turn red. Now we're talking! The two meeting leaders tried impotently to calm everyone down, like the cops on the street in the final chaos of "Animal House" -- but without success. Others in the room had to shout the arguers down before we could being going around the room again.

No more arguments broke out, but there sure were several people who were passionate about the current economy, or who liked the sound of their own voice a lot, or both. Teachers, retirees, unemployed film producers, and even one hypnotherapist who said his business was doing just fine. Bastard!

Finally catharsis was achieved when one woman -- another underemployed film producer -- gleefully started letting loose with "fuck this" and "why the fuck won't they do that?" It's amazingly freeing when everyone's been speaking very politely if passionately and then someone just starts using the f-word, like we all do all the time. People smiled and I laughed out loud. Hooray for you! Although I think I might have smelled alcohol on her breath. Oh well, no matter, you go sister!

Of course the meeting was only two hours long, and this "everyone talk about their situation" took almost the whole time. The meeting leaders did very little to try and move it along from the zealots and the bloviators. Only the very last few minutes were left for brainstorming things we could do to support the stimulus, which naturally devolved again into every shouting about boycotts and calling Gov Schwarzeneggar (sp?). Janice, fat gray-beard, and everyone else just started yelling. I loved it!

Curry Flavor

2009-02-07T18:40:00.000-08:00

Although it may seem inadvisable given the end of my last post, tonight I made chicken curry for dinner. It was delicious!

Now I guess I just have to work on my food photography skills, since the accompanying picture isn't that appetizing, if you ask me.

Along with the curry, besides peas and rice, was Garlic Nan, purchased at a local Indian market that Ellen and I visited for the first time. It was like stepping off an LA street into a third world market, where everything looked foreign: big bags of grain and rice on pallets, weird brands of food mix, bottles of barley soda. Also available, on top of the shelf units, were tablas and sitars. Behind the counter were all sorts of religious icons. We stuck with the nan, mango candy, and some dubious looking Indian cookies.

Bon Appetit!

The Clifton's Diet

2009-02-05T13:09:00.000-08:00

An article in the LA Times alerted us to a Los Angeles institution -- Clifton's, a downtown cafeteria. Fun! Kitschy! Good cheap food! Authentic LA! I love cafeterias (ever since the one in Dadeland Mall, Miami FLA), so I convinced the wife to accompany me that very day to Clifton's for a late lunch around 3PM.

Parking is such sweet sorrow. Actually not sweet at all. You'll pay $15 to park anywhere near Clifton's, thus ruining anything "cheap" about your lunch. But no matter -- we were full of eager anticipation for our gustatory adventure. We haven't walked a downtown street in years, so we were enjoying the multi-cultural throngs on a warm winter day as we strolled towards the restaurant. The entire jewelry district lay before us, but we didn't see any elderly Nazi war criminals.

Walked in the front door of Clifton's and were immediately struck by the dingy sadness of the place. The famed bakery counter, bathed in non-appetizing flourescent tones, was only half-full of lonely, aging cakes and pies. On a bench right near the entrance sat a 400 lb woman in a mauve jogging suit hiked up her top in order to scratch her Buddha-like belly. Surprisingly, I remained hungry.

The decor itself seems to have seen its best days about 40 years ago. It's meant to have a sort of log-cabin, Country Bear Jamboree feel to it, but now has the feel of one of those run-down Santa's Villages, as if the Bears had gone bankrupt a while back. There are little pockets of theme-park-ishness with woodsy cabin interiors next to formica tables, and back-lit photos of the American west on the walls. There's even a motorized racoon who slowly, jerkily pops up out of a tree trunk every five seconds or so. His fur looks dirty.

We grabbed trays and ambled on down the food line. It seemed like "late lunch" was a bad choice, since the food looked old enough to vote and many of the sneeze-guarded countertops were bare. I chose a fried chicken leg, spinach, mac n cheese, and a piece of chocolate banana cake. The lovely wife got spaghetti and meat balls.

We chose an upstairs table overlooking the great unwashed below. The place was sparsely populated, with the occasional patron yammering to a seemingly perfect stranger about some inanity.

The food was LOUSY. Chicken leg bland, ditto the mac n cheese. Cake a little bit stale. (Spinach OK I guess.) The wife glumly ate her spaghetti in dutiful silence, offering up that it was cold only when asked.

But here comes the best part. I almost immediately started to feel a rumbly in my tumbly, and not the good kind. (Is there a good kind?) My stomach twisted and turned, as if trying to avoid the food coming down my gullet, like Regan in the Exorcist trying to avoid a splash of holy water. I hastily recused myself to the downstairs mens room, which was old and run-down but clean. Still, this was one of the rare times I used one of those tissue paper toilet seat covers. Isn't it neat the way its little paper tongue makes it flush itself down?

I told the wife we better cancel out movie plans and head home. She nodded, worried. Pretty much once I got behind the wheel of the Prius and motores back onto the streets of downtown, heading back to Glendale, my intestines started sending me a message. An urgent one. I had to GO. I gunned the little engine and turned my wheels onto the 110 North. Right into bumper-to-bumper TRAFFIC.

Now it was a race against time. And not a fun one. I needed to go, and I wasn't about to stop in Chinatown and look for an open restaurant. We inched along as I tried to visualize making it home in time and breathed deeply. Things were getting more urgent with every minute that passed. Soon we got onto the 2 North, out of traffic, and I stamped on the gas pedal. The fried chicken leg sped through me.

Got home, ran into the first floor bathroom just in time. Phew! Look out below!

So thank you Clifton's, for a memorable afternoon. Never again.

Iron Lady

2009-01-23T11:19:00.000-08:00

Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State. I may not be her biggest fan -- I really held her vote authorizing the Iraq war against her, like many Americans. But I'm also far from a Hillary hater. I think most "Hillary haters" really made no sense -- they really blamed her for her husband's transgressions, or they thought that any agressive woman was a plain old bitch.

But I always liked her toughness. It became clear that my man Dennis Kucinich had no chance -- about the same time it became clear that bears shit in woods -- but I voted for him in the primaries anyway. If I can't vote for the guy who most closely reflects my views, regardless of his viability as a candidate much less as a fetus, then when can I?

But after that, I was impressed by Obama's passion but also impressed by Hillary's toughness. I couldn't decide.

Now I'm glad she'll have a central role in what I hope is this country's turnaround. (Is there anywhere to go but up? It's like inflating a helium balloon in the Marianas trench.) Obama will negotiate and be conciliatory. But is there any doubt Hillary can and will, when necessary, kick some ass?

A Shout-Out to the Nonbelievers

2009-01-20T11:50:00.000-08:00

Amidst all the exaggerated hubbub of the Inauguration, one moment stood out to me, the cynical godless heathen. First, I don't know if any of you noticed, but our new President is black!

But also, in his Inaugural address, he inclusively mentioned Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus. But he paused a moment and added, "and non-believers"!!! I think that's a first -- the atheists included! Sweet. Made me feel good.

Now I'm off to officiate at a naked Wikkan wedding.

Al Franken

2009-01-03T17:48:00.000-08:00

Of course my first choice for Minnesota Senator was "Lizard People."

But my second choice was Al Franken, and it looks tonight like he is going to win. Hooray! I don't know why I care so much, but I've always been a fan and used to listen to his radio show a lot. He seems smart and funny and certainly suffers liars poorly. Don't we want more of that in Washington?

(Side note: Usually it's the Republicans who choose unflattering photos of Al from his comedy days in order to try and diminish him. But I say, why run from your past? Embrace it! Let Bill O'Reilly call you Senator Smalley! Who cares! You're a senator!)

As many of you know, on Election Night Al seemed to have lost by 400 or more votes. Then lots of corrections were made, and the actual election tally had Al losing to Norm Coleman by 200 votes and change. (Out of millions of votes.) Then, because the margin was so slim, state law required a recount. And now the recount has been completed, including lots of absentee ballots counted today. After the recount, Al is up by 225!

Of course there can be court challenges by the Coleman campaign, but they seem unlikely to win. A good summary can be found at talkingpointsmemo.com.

One question I have in the aftermath: why were all the initial corrections to the vote count seemingly to correct errors that went in Coleman's favor? Was there some minor Republican hanky-panky in many counties, as usual? Someone should look into this.

My Top Ten Movies

2009-01-02T12:38:00.000-08:00

It's January 2 2009. I'm a few days late with this -- no excuse really. But I know you've all been waiting for my first annual best and worst movies list for 2008. Oh sure, many periodicals with somewhat larger readership weigh in on this topic, and many of them see every movie (not me), but no lists generate as much buzz among my 7 readers as this one.

So -- even though I haven't seen the Hannah Montana concert movie, or Speed Racer, or the I-thought-sure-to-bomb-so-what-do-I-know Beverly Hills Chihuahua, here goes.

Best ( in no particular order):

Cassandra's Dream: Although I love Woody Allen when he is funny, this movie generated actual suspense and drama. Ellen and I looked at each other afterward with slightly surprised expressions and said to each other -- I liked it! Some quibble with the ludicrous set-up of the uncle suggesting the brothers murder someone, but I just went with it. Colin Farrell was excellent.

In Bruges: Violent, but really fun twists and turns, great characters especially (again) Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes.

The Hammer: Made my list I guess because it was such an underdog. Featuring "Man Show" and "Loveline" alum Adam Corolla, who I think is funny already. But the movie told a surprisingly simple, hilarious and ultimately touching story of a grown man who decides to get back into the boxing ring. Not rocket science, but a solid funny movie.

The Fall: Simply spectacular to look at. Many faulted the weak story but I thought it worked great, involving me enough to care, all the while showing me amazing places. Apparently there are no effects in this movie. Hard to believe when you see all the crazy beautiful locations.

Bigger Stronger Faster: I love a great fiction film, and I love a great documentary. But I'd rather watch a decent documentary than a decent fiction film any day of the week. Unless of course the decent movie features Marisa Tomei naked. But Bigger Stronger Faster tells a really interesting story of one man's investigation into steroids in sport. He and his brothers all took them at one point. All weightlifters. But what really makes the movie great is the twist it takes halfway through: the filmmaker begins to make a pretty good case for the notion -- what's really wrong with taking steroids? He punctures the commonly held belief that they have been proven harmful. Very interesting. Watch it. (Sad footnote, one of the brothers was just found dead.)

Wall-E: I know, everyone else likes this. And Pixar can go suck it, as far as I'm concerned, given my experience with them at Disney. But luckily that attitude does not keep me from enjoying their movies. I put this one on my list more out of admiration than love. I don't really like the moralizing about fat humans in the second half. But any modern movie where the two protagonists are basically non-verbal, and it's still highly entertaining, is OK in my book.

Man on Wire: The images of this guy wire-walking between the towers of Notre Dame and the Twin Towers are strikingly beautiful. And the movie is surprisingly suspenseful and fun as it tells the story of how they managed to get to the top of the Twin Towers past security, how they managed to string the wire, and how he did it. Of course underneath it all is deep sadness at what the images of those two building now represent. A great movie.

Ghost Town: The funniest movie of the year and effectively emotional to boot. I hate when romantic comedies, or any comedies for that matter, feel they have to turn sweet in order to tell their story. (Here I sincerely apologize for my role in "The Mighty Ducks." Everytime I watch the great "Bad News Bears" I am ashamed.) But in Ghost Town, perhaps the funniest movie of the year, it is done with great care and truthfulness and even a bit of cleverness. (Minor Spoiler: I loved that the woman patient he constantly and carelessly ignored turned out to have her own tragic story. It's so true -- the people we disdain often have much more going on, and deserve much more of our attention, than we assume.) Really well done, I thought it was truly the most entertaining and crowd-pleasing movie of the year, and a shame it didn't find a wider audience. Maybe on DVD.

Synechdoche, NY: My favorite of the year, probably because it reflects, to whatever extent, my worldview. Ellen did not enjoy it. I loved every second of it. An often somber, but wildly inventive and entertainingly absurd look at the essential tragedy of life and the necessity of dealing with our coming deaths. And, even given that previous sentence, it is, more than one would think, funny! Though it was frequently surreal in a Bunuel-ish way, it felt very true to me. A woman buys a house that is literally burning. An obvious metaphor but one I liked -- aren't all our houses burning, sure to consume us eventually? I can't wait to see it again. I know most people will hate it -- but don't fall into the trap of "I didn't get it." Take it on its own terms, "get" what you "get" and don't try so hard to "get" the whole thing. I think you'll enjoy it.

Role Models: Again not a masterpiece, but really really funny. A very simple idea played out beautifully, with some hilarious performances -- especially Paul Rudd, whose odd scrunchy-face every time someone says something that could be construed as dirty made me laugh. But also the bearded guy in the medieval battle game who would only speak in Renaissance English, "Forsooth we must needs to do battle anon" and other ridiculous things like that. I was a little disappointed that it opted for a sort of standard trajectory to a sweet happy ending when I was enjoying its snarkiness so much, but it didn't ruin it for me. I needs must watch it again anon.

Doubt: Loved it. I've seen the play twice, and the reviews have been mixed, so i went with some trepidation. But of course the actors were great, and I thought Shanley found new things in the story to make it feel fresh for the movies. It's really a movie that makes you think and want to talk about it afterwards. As Roger Ebert said, how many movies do that>

Nights in Rodanthe: I never thought a romance like this could make my heart so, but....wait, I didn't see this. I would never see this is a gajillion years. I sped up as I walked past the theaters showing it. If this didn't suck ass, then my worldview is deeply shaken.

Worst (at least of the movies I have seen)

Leatherheads: It sucked, really sucked, but perhaps no more so than any other non-funny comedy. I guess I just thought, what a missed opportunity -- that era of football seems ripe for the plucking, and I think George Ca-loony is funny. But this one made a stench most foul.

Narnia--Prince Caspian: Is it just me or have both these movies set new standards of boring? These kids couldn't be blander, in an "I say Daddy, could I have another drop of tea" British way and the story could not have been more drably photographed. Now normally I'd sit up and take notice of any movie featuring a talking beaver, but this one left me uninterested. If these kids are who I'm supposed to root for in Narnia, then I say bring back the Ice Queen.

Get Smart: I love Steve Carell and thought this would be a no-brainer. Until I saw the trailer, and realized that the movie wasn't funny. It's almost a given that if the trailer isn't funny, the movie isn't funny. Movie marketing execs are shameless for taking the five funniest jokes and putting them in the trailer, often ruining what might have been a mildly funny movie. But in movies like Get Smart, there really are no funny moments. How is this possible?

Tropic Thunder: Almost everyone I know thought this was really funny and a really clever send-up of Hollywood and actors. Not me. In particular, when a fairly realistic movie with a fairly realistic tone has a character for whom we feel some sympathy step on a mine and blow to fleshy bits right before us, I tend to turn off. It was all downhill from there. Did people really think Tom Cruise was funny? What part?

Space Chimps: Well no one involved with this really knows how to make a movie, much less an animated movie, so including them on this list feels a little like booing at the Special Olympics. But it was bad. And ugly.

Towelhead: Just watched this last night on DVD, and we could only get through about twenty minutes. We are Alan Ball fans -- at least we were -- but this movie is way too cartoony and full of less-than-believable characters for its highly challenging subject matter. It's just uncomfortable to watch. Two towels down.

Special Section: Movies I liked that critics didn't

The Happening: I thought it was really suspenseful. If nature's trying to kill you, how do you get away?

Igor: Admittedly, directed by a former co-worker. But I am merciless and wouldn't say I liked it if I didn't. And I did. Clever and funny and great-looking on a shoestring. MUCH better looking than Space Chimps at half the cost. Better than Bolt.

That's all folks. Let me know yours!

Tune in next year for more rapture and rant about the movies!

Glendale Foliage Season

2008-12-23T21:41:00.001-08:00

Very few things make me nostalgic for New England as much as images of the reds, oranges, and yellows of foliage season. The visuals conjure memories of other senses: the slight nip in the air, the crunch of fallen dead leaves, the smell of cloves and pumpkin pie. In the mid-1980's, I worked a job as an assistant cameraman that found me and a few other crew members flying in a helicopter over pretty much the entire length of Vermont at the height of fall color. The whole state was a carpet of crimson, tangerine and flaming gold. Not only was it beautiful, but also gave a sense of perspective about the relatively rural state: it sure looked like nobody lived there.

Ellen and I have talked about going back east for foliage season every year for years now, but somehow it never happens. Someday, though, it will.

We've had cold weather here in LA for a few weeks now (including, as could be predicted, the week we had no gas and ergo no heat). The nights have been in the 40's and maybe even dipped down into the 30's. I know, I can hear you northeasterners snark, "that's t-shirt weather!" Shaddap.

As evidenced by the photo above, it was cold enough for long enough for some of LA's deciduous trees to actually turn. As far as I can remember, this is the first time this has happened in my twenty years here. Or at least, the most colorful. I point out the trees to Ellen, and she acknowledges that they are beautiful. Now imagine, I tell her, trees like that as far as the eye can see...

Rain in LA

2008-12-17T18:04:00.000-08:00

It rained all over Los Angeles today, that kind of rain that goes all day and never really stops, the kind you get in Seattle or New England or probably a lot of other places. Extremely rare here, usually we just get a few hours at best.

I have a cold, so I stayed home and just enjoyed it.

Unfortunately, today was the dogs' bath day. Bad choice.

The Bird

2008-12-11T11:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, driving around, I got flipped off three times!

I admit I have a tendency to honk when I feel someone is driving poorly. I'm just letting them know -- hey you may want to improve your skills behind the wheel!

The first was someone who was a bit asleep when the light turned green, and I was behind them. I assure you I gave them plenty of time!

The second and third were people driving recklessly, too fast, changing lanes in front of me, coming too close to my car for safety, in my view. The third guy zoomed past me, then stopped in the right-hand lane at a stop light. A little concerned about him, I slowed and stopped a few car lengths behind him, not excited about pulling up right next to him. He shoved his arm out his driver side window and gave me a very energetic, enthusiastic Bird. Then he turned right! He actually stopped, just so he could flip me off!

Do you think it's the economy?

Belated Thanksgiving Report

2008-12-08T15:46:00.001-08:00

Because we had no gas, Ellen made a reservation for Thanksgiving dinner at the Smoke House, a venerable old somewhat-above-mediocre 40's restaurant in Burbank, right next to Warner Bros. Studios. Maybe Bogie ate here.

When we arrived, Grandma rounding out our party of four, we realized we'd be having dinner with 1,000 of our closest friends. There was a line of about 50 people ahead of us just to check in! (See photo.) The line featured Eric McCormack of Will & Grace -- proof that there are no favorites at the Smoke House. Patience hanging by a thread, I went to the bar to get us drinks and dragged Hunter with me. After waiting for a few minutes I found myself yelling at the bartender, "Hey I was here before them!" Again, modeling excellent behavior for young Master Hunter.

Drink in hand, I decided to loosen up and just enjoy the experience. Our reservation was for 7:00 PM, and we got seated at 7:45. It proved to be a little difficult to get napkins, but otherwise it was pleasant and festive. Lots of big parties. I've had better prime rib, but Ellen and Hunter seemed to enjoy their traditional turkey dinner.

I decided this year that I just don't love the traditional turkey dinner. The meat is often cold, and I don't really favor yams. I'd rather have steak, or creamy pasta. That's what I'd give thanks for. But really, the lesson learned is that the best part of Thanksgiving is the adult beverages. Serve early and often.

The Joys of Gas

2008-12-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

The above photo is the ceiling of our laundry area, right off the kitchen.

For about a year, we'd been smelling gas occasionally in our garage. We had a guy from the gas company come out maybe six months ago. Maybe two different guys. Anyway they waved a little wand-like thing around that made high-pitched sound if it detected gas. I could use one of those when the dogs are having digestive issues. But nothing.

But now the house has been on the market for a while and our crack realtor mentioned to us in passing that several prospective buyers has smelled gas. Hey quit being so negative, I demanded, find us someone who wants to make an offer on a house with an undetermined gas leak!

Well time to call the gas co again, I guess. So the guy comes out with his magic gas sniffer and points it at an exposed pipe in a hole at the bottom of the wall of the garage, and sure enough it immediately emits a high-pitched whine. The whole process took about fifteen seconds. He seemed a bit disgusted that the previous guy hadn't found the leak.

Anyway gas company policy is, when there's a leak, to turn off your gas and PUT A LOCK ON THE VALVE. Suddenly faced with the prospect of no gas -- no hot water, no cooking, no dryer -- I asked the guy, what if I just break that lock and turn my gas back on? After all, we'd been living with the leak for so long. He responded, well, it's a felony. Go ahead John Dillinger! I declined.

That was ten days ago. The job of finding and fixing the leak is mine and my plumber's. They jackhammered a few holes in the garage floor and capped the gas pipe (it supplied a gas heater in the office above the garage, a heater that hasn't been there for years). But that didn't work. The gas guy came back but the meter still showed there was a slow leak somewhere, so no gas for you! Boy was I mad.

But it was off to the Y for showers, a trip to the laundromat for Ellen, and cooking on one hotplate for us.

Ultimately the plumbers were unable to find the leak, and had to assume it was somewhere in the concrete slab that sits not only under our garage but also extends to under most of the kitchen.

So that meant going to DefCon 5: running new gas lines from the meter in the basement to the kitchen and dryer (near the kitchen). Through the walls and ceilings. See above.

Thankfully, after ten full days, we got our gas back yesterday.

Inchoate

2008-11-10T21:06:00.000-08:00

I would like to think my expensive secondary school and university education would lead to a large vocabulary -- or to put it another way, knowing lots of words. Unfortunately, with me it's an uphill battle.

I used to think the word was pronounced "in-chote" and meant deeply ingrained. I guess that's just what I thought it ought to sound like and guessed it meant. Then I was listening to "Left Right and Center" a favorite political program on KCRW, and the conservative guy (a British-y douchebag) pronounced it "in-ko-ayte." I thought to myself, what kind of elitist, ridiculous, pompous pronunciation is that?

Then, sitting at my computer later, I remembered my feeling of superiority and looked it up on dictionary.com. There I experienced a moment of private humiliation, similar to crying at home while watching "Pretty Woman." The conservative douche's pronunciation is of course correct (although "in-ko-et" is also acceptable). And it doesn't even mean what I thought it meant! It means beginning, or incipient. Don't know what incipient means? Too bad.

Reminds me of the time I asked my Dad what ubiquitous meant. He smiled at me and answered, "ineluctable."

Election Day

2008-11-04T09:18:00.000-08:00

Even though I am a cynical, godless bastard, I do love this country. At least, I love the idea of this country.

As an interesting side note, the "Yes on 8" sign-holders on our corner have now been rained on twice. Maybe the Lord is on our side.

Appropriate Responses

2008-11-03T16:01:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend, I had to take Hunter to his guitar lesson, where he learns the answers to such timeless musical questions as, which metal riffs played over and over endlessly at maximum volume in the basement, are most pleasing to my parents' ears?

At the bottom of our hill, at a big intersection, were about 30-40 people, spread out on all four corners, holding "Yes on 8" signs. Proposition 8, here in California, would if passed outlaw gay marriage. You know, to protect "real" marriage, between a man and a woman, with a 50% divorce rate, with the ability to dump a plain first wife if she is sick and get a new rich glamorous wife, the way the Lord intended.

These people looked normal enough, although I consider them bigots who ought to know better. Just because gay sex is dirty, it's no dirtier than straight sex. As Woody Allen once was asked, is sex dirty? His reply: if you do it right it is. Anyway as I've said recently, I think most of these people just are afraid of gay people, just like they were afraid of black people years ago (or still are). Does this give them the right to say who can marry? Even if their "good book" supposedly tells them homosexuality is an abomination? No. No. No. Nein, danke. We have a little thing in this country called separation of church and state, and that means, to me, in a very basic way, that if the defense of a law is because the Lord says so, then that law is to be struck down. Which, even if the proposition passes, the California Supreme Court will do, again, if there's any justice.

Well. As Hunter and I drove by, I complained aloud to him that there was no good way to express one's disapproval with the views the sign-holders were advocating. Honking, of course, is interpreted as support. "I could spit on them," Hunter offered helpfully, although there was no denying the tone in his voice -- spitting on people with the approval of one's stepdad would be cool. No, no, I intoned schoolmarmishly, I do not approve of spitting on people, even if on some karmic level they deserve it. With any luck, Jesus will spit on them in heaven.

But what could we have done? Yelled at them? I didn't have a sense of what would be appropriate. If we opened our windows and booed, it wouldn't have been very loud, and might well have been interpreted as cheering for Kevin Youkilis or Bruce Springsteen. Maybe we could have stuck out our tongues (see Fig 1) but they might not have noticed. Perhaps the old Bronx cheer?

None of the above occurred to me until it was too late. So, I just stewed impotently as I drove away, like usual. Quite the example for young master Hunter.

Fans of Democracy

2008-11-01T15:32:00.000-07:00

Of course, I'm voting for Obama.

I like to think that it's because I am an educated, enlightened voter, up on the issues, in touch with what candidate best reflects my views. That, frankly, is why I voted for Kucinich in the primaries. He may be a bit of a nut job, but he best represents my political views. He was one of the few brave ones to come out in favor of gay marriage, which to me is a simple case of equal human rights. No more, no less. The notion that Obama feels he mustn't endorse gay marriage in order to be elected, even though he privately favors it is, to me, sad. And if he really opposes gay marriage, then I might have to vote for Nader.

Most conservatives, I believe, oppose gay marriage because they think gay people, and the idea of gay sex, is alien and disgusting. But they use the bible as a crutch to explain why -- the Bible says it is an abomination! But if you ever meet one of those people, don't let them get away with it. That quote is in Leviticus. Make them turn the other parts of Leviticus, where it says it's OK to sell your daughter into slavery, that working on the Sabbath merits stoning, and even prohibits hair trimming. In fact, any time anybody quotes the Bible to you, tell them to take their good book and shove it, since it's full of little-referenced ridiculous stuff that makes the common stuff preachers always quote completely invalid.

But enough about that (for now). Whew.

I find myself wondering how anybody could support McCain. Of course, I admire and revere his service to our country in Vietnam. And to a large extent he used to be a fairly centrist Republican senator, although still much too conservative for me. Better than most, I suppose. These days, though, I think he is a pretty lousy candidate for President; it's a sign of how conservative the country is that Obama isn't ahead by more.

Two things bug me about McCain, and they aren't news. First, his "I'm going to drop everything, suspend my campaign, and head to Washington to fix the economic crisis" gambit. Well he did head to Washington, but he didn't really suspend his campaign, still running commercials and letting surrogates represent him on the stump. And it turned out he didn't really have much to say when he got to Washington. So the whole thing was an empty political song-and-dance. How could anyone in the country not see through that?

Then of course there's Sarah Palin. McCain's signs say "Country First" but that is completely put to the lie by Sarah Palin. Is there anyone in the universe who thinks Sarah Palin is the best conservative to put second in line for the White House? Yes, admittedly, lots of other candidates have chosen running mates primarily to help their ticket. But they've always chosen from a pool of experienced, qualified people. (Of course I exclude Dan Quayle, but at least he'd been in the Senate for a while.) McCain met with Bible Spice (Alex Baldwin's term, not mine) for a few hours and made his incredibly cynical pick.

Now you may argue that Obama isn't much more experienced. That may or may not be true. But Obama was chosen as the Democratic nominee by millions of Democratic voters who want him as President. On election day, you can cast your vote as to whether you think their judgment was right. But Sarah Palin was chosen by only one man -- McCain. And that choice is a direct reflection on his judgement, what kind of judgement he'd have as President. And he failed.

Who could possibly disagree that McCain is a terrible candidate? I mean, you may be desperate to roll back Roe v. Wade, promote the teaching of creationism, and a whole host of other conservative agenda items. But this guy? Does 45% of America really think this guy would make a good President? I really have been struggling over the past weeks to believe that.

Then I realized how most people view elections. They view them like sporting events.

Most people have a team they root for no matter what. I admit I root for the Red Sox no matter who is on the team. It's because I grew up near Boston, and that's that. I mean, I like a lot of the players, especially Mike Lowell, who took less money to stay in Boston. (And now of course he might be traded. He was an idiot for not asking for a no-trade clause in return for taking less money.) But I root for them even though I don't like a few players: Manny, I came to believe long before he left for warmer SoCal climes, is a dick. But even though Manny is a dick, I would never start rooting for the Twins or the Rangers. And certainly not for the perennial cellar-dwellers the Pirates.

So, like their sports team affiliations, most people form their political views in early adulthood and stick to them forever, no matter what. So it doesn't matter if Bush Sr. picks Dan Quayle as his running mate, it doesn't matter if Reagan broke laws to arm the contras, it doesn't matter if Bush Jr. is an anti-science zealot. People who consider themselves Republicans are going to support their team, no matter what.

Ukulele Mood

2008-11-01T15:16:00.000-07:00

Ellen's friend (and my friend) Cam Clarke had his annual Halloween party again last Saturday, and this year the theme was "Residents of Emerald City." I went as that guy who first answers the door at Emerald City -- photo to the left. As you can see, Ellen did yeo-woman's work sewing fake fur on the lapel and hatband. Still, unfortunately, I ended up looking more like Bill the Butcher from "Gangs of New York" which was not what I was hoping.

Ellen went as a lovely lady dressed in green. Some others came as witches, there were several other top-hatted doormen, and at least one guy took the green theme less literally and came as The Hulk.

That's not Ellen next to me, that's Susannah, Cam's cousin. Every year people read scary stories, and some years there are songs, mostly scary ones. But since this year had a "Wizard of Oz" vibe, I suggested to Cam that he team me up with a singer and we perform that ukulele Iz version of "Over the Rainbow."

Which we did, and it sounded lovely, by all accounts.

Weeks

2008-10-25T11:13:00.001-07:00

Jeez -- it's been weeks since I've posted. Could it be possible that I just don't have anything to say? Not much happening, no jobs or special events to report on.

Ellen and I went up to her friend Cam's house in Lake Arrowhead last weekend, joining a group of about 8 just relaxing and enjoying the mountain air. I read most of Obama's book "Dreams from my Father," which I found alternately boring and deeply insightful. Kind of like therapy, or professional wrestling.

I also took a few hours off to go to a local bar to watch Game 6 of the Red Sox attemtp in vain to reach the World Series. It was fun -- there's always some half-in-the-bag guy near you wanting to chat or tell you his life story. One guy introduced himself as a Dr. from Lowell. At the end of the game I bid him a "see ya Dr. Lowell." He said, slurring his speech a little, "I'm from Tewskbury." I mentioned his earlier reference to the once-bustling Massachusetts mill town. "Oh -- well no one's heard of Tewksbury, so I say Lowell." I replied with a smile, but to myself I thought, how many more people have heard of Lowell than Tewksbury?

Tonight we head to Cam's annual Hallloween party; this year the theme is "Denizens of Emerald City." I'm going as the guy who first answers the door. Also, I'm playing ukulele while one of Cam's singing cousins sings that ukulele version of "Over the Rainbow."

The Swell Season

2008-10-09T21:11:00.001-07:00

You might have thought this title was about summer in the Gulf of Mexico. But actually it's about a concert Ellen and I attended last Saturday night at the historic Greek Theater in the hills of Hollywood.

The Swell Season is the name of band that really only has two members, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, of the movie "Once."

What's that you say -- you haven't seen "Once"? Shame on you. I think it was the best movie of last year, a beautiful small Irish musical. Of course it hooked Ellen and me from the start, since its first scenes take place in a part of Dublin where we had just walked months before seeing the movie.

It's a tiny-budgeted movie, about an acoustic-guitared broken-hearted Dublin busker who meets and has a brief (platonic) love affair with an Eastern European girl. She encourages him to record his music, helps him do it, and in the process also helps him to heal his heart. In the end, he decides to go find his old lost love in London, so it has a bittersweet ending. But beautiful, I thought.

In real life, there were happier endings. Hansard and Irglova fell in love (he a boyish 38 and she a very mature 18 -- we'll see how long it lasts) and they pulled off the upset of the year at the Oscars by winning best song. Unfortunately they forgot to thank the director of the movie but hey -- they were nervous.

Ellen and I just loved the movie, and listen to the soundtrack all the time. I even have learned to play a few of the songs (poorly) on the gee-tar.

So when tickets went on sale several months ago for their show, I snapped them up. Literally the minute they went on sale. Which of course in today's modern world means my tickets were about 30 rows back. It's an outrage.

The day of the show it rained off and on, but the clouds parted for the show. Glen Hansard is a real showman and the crowd was totally with him. A high point was when he stepped away from the mike to play "Say it To Me Now" -- a favorite of mine -- without any amplification at all. This in an outdoor arena that seats maybe 5000. But it worked -- everyone could hear him, especially when he stamped his feet and sang at the top of his lungs at the climax of the song.

He's also a guy who really seems to wear his heart on his sleeve in relating to the audience. He told a little story at the beginning of each song, encouraged people to sing along and seemed genuinely pleased and grateful when people did. But this fragile connection has its downside too. When a few drunkards yelled at him (somebody yelled "come on!" during one of his stories) he seemed truly offended and the show suffered. At first I thought, hey you're a professional, get over it. But then I realized, if you're really going to put yourself out there, offering your heart and soul to the audience, I guess the thin thread of give-and-take can be easily broken.

Luckily later in the night the crowd got more and more enthusiastic and the broken thread was reconnected. People sang along eagerly. Hansard smiled.

Then a very unexpected, oddball treat. He told us of his and Marketa's crazy time in LA during the Oscars, and how they had met a lot of people. One such meeting was with an older gentleman, who was asking very specific question about some of Glen's songs, like what key were they in. Then the stranger let on that he had written songs, too. Oh, like what, responded Glen. You ever hear of The Jungle Book? asked the man. He turned out to be Richard Sherman, co-writer (with his brother) of several classic Disney song scores. Then Glen invites him out on stage! And he sits down at the piano and proceeds to sing and play "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!" The band was all smiles, and the stunned but pleased audience clapped and sang along. I don't think anyone knew all the words except the woman to my immediate left - Ellen -- who sang them out loud, con mucho gusto.

Can't wait til they come around again.

P.S. I took the above picture.

Obama-rama

2008-10-06T19:36:00.001-07:00

This past Saturday I volunteered to makes phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama. You know, the black, inexperienced, terrorist-associating, smear-mongering, liberal Democrat. I like him because he has a good fade-away jump-shot.

Anyway, although this photo makes me look a bit hippy, I had a fun time. My old friend Steve Tao runs the phone bank with an iron handset, but I think I got into the groove pretty quickly.

Basically, we were calling people in Nevada, a "tossup" state. It's only a few electoral votes, but of course every electoral vote counts. If it was up to me, I would junk the electoral college and go with direct voting for president. Why can't we make that happen?

I was given a sheet of phone numbers, detailing the name, age and party affiliation of likely or possible Democratic voters. I picked up the phone and started dialing. Of course, it being Saturday afternoon, no one was home. Someone answered maybe 15% of the time. And at least half of those, the person I asked for wasn't home, which has to count as a "not home."

But if, on the off chance I got the person listed, I was supposed to go by my script. First, to ask if they were going to vote for Obama. Most just said "yes," although one lady sharply pointed out to me, "it's a secret ballot, you know." I replied, "Well Senator Obama wants you to know you can shove your secret ballot up your ass." No, I didn't. If they told me they were going to give their vote to Obama, I had a box to check off on my sheet.

Next, we were supposed to encourage them to vote early, an easy option in Nevada. (I was instructed that it's "Ne-va-da" with the middle "a" rhyming with "bat," not "Ne-vah-da.") A few people told me they were going to vote early, but one chatty middle-aged lady told me she liked the rush of people at the polls. I agree, although maybe for different reasons. I like the ritual of voting at my local fire station.

My favorite call of the day was to a man of 91. An old lady -- his wife? -- answered, and slowly told me to hold on. Then, I swear to God, literally 2 full minutes went by. I chatted with the phone banker next to me while I waited. Finally a very old-sounding man picked up an extension and said hello. I introduced myself and asked if he was going to vote for Obama. Oh yes, he answered. But then as I asked him the subsequent questions I was supposed to, I got the distinct impression he did not know who I was or why I was calling. I can't remember what gave me that impression, except how he signed off, after I told him goodbye. He said, "thank you dear" and hung up.

Still, he responded yes, so I checked the "yes" box. I hope he makes it to the polls and punches the right box.

F**k the Bailout

2008-09-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty liberal on most things. I voted for Kucinich in the primaries, even though he was basically out of the race by the time of the California contest. He was the candidate that most closely represented my views (even though I acknowledge on some things he was a little woo-woo). I honestly believe he would have made a great POTUS. I especially applaud his openness to gay marriage. Most candidates, including Obama, probably favor it, but pragmatically (or fearfully) won't support it.

But this "bailout" thing has got me feeling pretty Republican. If it fails, it will probably hurt my own already tenuous finances. But still, I do not support it. Why should the US taxpayer be on the hook for $700 billion to the benefit of just a few Wall Street firms? First of all, I do not believe it will really end the bloodletting. And second, why address this problem from the top down, rather than from the bottom up? I mean, the problem is shaky mortgages, right? So why not use that money to guarantee the average person's mortgage?

I mean, it doesn't seem fair if the government steps in to save some people if they default on their mortgages. But why is the bailout of a few corporations any fairer?

To quote Airplane, the Movie: "Shana, they bought their ticket, they knew what they were getting into. I say, let 'em crash!"

House Cleaning

2008-09-20T15:32:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes me want a job more than having to clean the house.

We're having another open house tomorrow (having lowered the price again) and the house is disgusting by Ellen's standards (just a little dusty by my standards) so the house has to be cleaned . We waited and waited for the cleaning lady to show up, but then remembered we fired her ass months ago when we decided we needed to save money.

So Ellen and I spent much of today cleaning the house. Why, oh why, did we buy such a big house? Can't we just live in 500 sq ft of this one and and just sweep the dirt into the rest of the house?

Later, I have to vacuum the pool. If I find any dog poop in it, I'm moving to the YMCA.

Sonny McLean's

2008-09-14T17:41:00.001-07:00

First of all, sorry it's been so long since the last post. Nothing much has happened. A few fruitless job interviews, a few movies, a few nice dinners. And Tom Brady going down.

But this afternoon, since Ellen declined to go with me to a sports bar to see a Pats game, I decided to drive to Santa Monica (45 minutes to 1 1/2 hours, depending on traffic) to Sonny McLean's, a Boston sports bar. (Can't afford the NFL Sunday Ticket this year.)During the previous two World Series in which Boston participated (and won) you couldn't get in to Sonny McLean's without being a regular.

Anyway it was really fun. When I arrived the Red Sox game was on TV, and the Sox managed to fend off the Blue Jays and win, right before the Pats game went on at 1:15 PM Pacific time.

Almost everyone in the place -- and I think by the middle of the game there were maybe 150 people -- wore some sort of Boston garb. There were Moss jerseys, Brady jerseys, Bruschi jerseys, and other contemporary Pats player jerseys. But also lots of vintage jerseys, bright red: people like it to be known they have been fans for a long time. Also plenty of Red Sox attire, including a "Feed the Monster" t-shirt. One guy also had a "Title Town" t-shirt withsilhouettes of the two World Series trophies, three Super Bowl trophies, and the recent NBA championship trophy on the front. And best of all, there was a guy with a "Cassel" jersey -- can't be more than 6 days old.

It was tons of fun to have everyone rooting for your team. First half was kind of a nail-biter, but the second half was pretty much all Pats except for one good Brett Far-vra drive. Pats are now 2-0.

The four large glasses of Sam Adams October Ale helped the enjoyment immensely.

Look for me there next week!

Nantucket Wedding

2008-08-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

No pictures yet, but just got back from our Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket Adventure. Definitely tried to do it on a budget -- frequent flier miles, stayed with Ellen's sister, not that many meals out.

Flew Burbank to Denver, Denver to Boston, Boston to Martha's Vineyard on Tuesday. Spent a couple days there with Julia, Ellen's sis. She has a new house on a quiet road. Went to "Illumination Night" at the former Methodist Camp - everyone puts Japanese lanterns on their porches. Quite beautiful. Also went to the fair, complete with rides whirling, bolts flying off, large pigs, etc.

Then took the high-speed ferry to Nantucket on Friday, checked into our cute B&B, and pretty much went straight to the night-before Clambake on the beach. Big tent, great food, lots of speeches, booze flowing like wine.

Next day window shopped, rode bikes, then dressed up for the wedding at the bride's parents house. House turns out to be a huge (at least 10,000 square feet) mansion on a bluff with an ocean view. Big tent, great food, lots of speeches, booze flowing like wine. Met some great people lots of fun.

More later when there are photos!

Movies

2008-08-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

Not much happening here in the dog days of August. A friend gets married next week.

But there have been movies:

1. Tropic Thunder. Really, really not funny, if you ask me. But everyone loves it! Maybe I'm just a square, or a prude, but when a real character steps on a land mine and blows up rather graphically on camera (the director) I'm put off and not laughing.

2. Frozen River -- great. Very understated but very real. Deep sense of place. Compelling drama, with unpredictable characters.

3. Vicky Christina Barcelona. Lots of fun. Only occasionally funny, but never boring, very sensual, everybody's great in it. The real star is Barcelona, to which I would like to travel very soon.

4. Space Chimps. I went by myself. Wish I had stuck wood slivers under my fingernails instead.

Weblag

2008-08-09T17:45:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since I last blogged. Really, it's because not that much has happened. I know that seems unlikely -- how can a dazzling, sought-after Angeleno like myself not have some hilarious movie-star encounter to relate? Several potential lawsuits prevent me from commenting on my recent celebrity encounters. You understand.

Last weekend, Ellen and I went back to North Reading MA to help celebrate my Dad's 80th birthday. He's in pretty good shape for an old man, still getting around with no problem if a little more slowly, and in very chipper spirits. One highlight was after the serving of the birthday cake: sister Lee Anne brought his old trumpet out of the basement, still in its old case that looked like it had survived the Battle of the Bulge. Dad gamely grabbed it and played a few notes, then a tune or two. A little rusty, but he can still play. Later he was heard alone in the basement, picking out a few old tunes.

Also of note was a trip into Boston featuring me, Ellen, my brother Bill and his 7-year-old daughter Tatiana. We followed a bit of the Freedom Trail to Fanueil Hall and Paul Revere's house, punctuated by a quite dramatic thunder-and-lightning storm, during which we beat a hasty retreat into a North End watering hole for an adult beverage. (Tati had to settle for an Arnold Palmer.) Then on to a delicious early dinner at a North End Italian restaurant, for which Bill sprung. Thanks Bill!

Now back in Los Angeles, looking for a job. Ellen's waiting to hear on a job at Disney. Later in August, I have a second interview for a job at an effects house that wants to make movies.

Yesterday I went to see "Man on Wire," the documentary on Phillippe Petit, a slightly crazy French wirewalker who in 1974 snuck into the World Trade Center, strung a wire between the twin towers and wirewalked 100+ stories up. I loved the movie. The Petit himself, and the coterie of assistants and acolytes who helped him, are all a little nutty and fun. And I hadn't expected to be so struck by the beauty of a man on a wire between the late, lamented towers. (In the past he had also wire-walked between the towers at Notre Dame, also a stunningly beautiful image.) I had heard about this story because Robert Zemeckis is planning to make a feature film about his WTC adventure, which I think is a great idea. It's like a heist movie in the way that they had to meticulously plan for the attempt, and then of course it went wrong and went right in unpredictable ways. Really fun, I recommend the documentary.

That's all for now!

Fat Free Waffles

2008-07-27T19:34:00.000-07:00

I decided to make waffles this morning, so I checked that we had all the correct ingredients. We didn't, but I decided to proceed anyway.

Let me assure you, waffles made with whole wheat flour, artificial yellow-colored dairy-free spread, skim milk and fat-free half-and-half are refreshingly flavor-free. We do have geniune maple syrup, but it didn't help.

Still, the Brown 'n' Serve sausages were delicious.

The Lazy Man's Earth Hour

2008-07-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

I missed the actual Earth Hour this year. Earth Hour, as you probably know, was started in 2001 in Sydney Australia as an experiment to see how much electricity could be saved if everyone in the city was asked to cut down or eliminate their electrical usage for one hour. (See the before and after photos to the right.) The idea was to raise a little awareness of our individual and collective use of energy. This year, on the last Saturday in March, dozens of cities around the globe participated. raging success, by all accounts.

Of course there are skeptics who note that cities like Sydney really only cut their power consumption for the hour by 15%, and that there was a corresponding spike in electricity demand in the hours before Earth Hour -- as if everyone just decided to run their dishwasher early in order to avoid the designated hour. Even given these cranky naysayers, I do believe that the experiment is a good one, even if it's just to make everyone a little more aware of how they use electricity in their own house.

So, since I missed Earth Hour, I decided to try my own. I even thought I might make it a monthly event, as suggested by talkgreen's Tara Benwell.

We tried it this past Thursday night. I made sure to schedule it on a night when my 14-year-old stepson was with us, and also made sure it was after dark for full effect. I thought the stepson would hate the idea, but when we decided we would turn off everything and then play a board game, he was surprisingly into it. Even better, he chose the game "Clue," a murder mystery game, perfect for playing by candlelight. It just so happened that my mother-in-law was also with us, so it was a big family affair.

As the appointed time approached, everyone actually seemed to be looking forward to it. "Is it time yet?" I was asked more than once. When the hour arrived, we all rushed madly around the house turning off lights and unplugging televisions. I thought I had explained that only things that can't be shut off (like TVs that constantly draw power) need to be unplugged, but I guess I wasn't very clear since my wife and her son went around happily unplugging everything.

Here's the "lazy man" part: we wimped out a little, I'm ashamed to say, when it came to things that were a little more difficult. If I unplugged the yard's sprinkler system, I explained to my wife, I will just have to reprogram it -- a pain in the neck. So we left it on. And, we could not figure out to shut off the little digital clock in the oven -- wired in the wall somewhere. But still: when we started the hour, the little wheel in our electrical usage meter was spinning madly, and when we were done it had slowed to a crawl. We felt pretty good.

The rest of the hour was spent playing "Clue" as Lincoln would have, by the light of several candles. This was probably the first activity that the four of us -- me, my wife, her Mom, and my stepson -- had participated in together for months. So, dear readers, you don't even have to care about the environment: Earth Hour is good for family togetherness!

Now one other thing I must admit: we didn't even make it to the full hour. I had promised to take everyone out for ice cream when the hour was done, as a reward, and the second game of "Clue" ended with five minutes left to go in the hour. We all looked at each other, then jumped up and headed for Baskin-Robbins. Yay!

Tune in next month, in which I commit to turning off the electric sprinkler system, even if it means I then have to reprogram it. I really want to see if we can get that spinning electric meter wheel to stop entirely.

Chewing

2008-07-13T11:31:00.001-07:00

My little medical episode really put me down for the count, and I felt sick and couldn't really talk very well for a day or two. I sounded like Brenda Vaccaro after some Primal Scream Therapy.

But now I am back to normal.

Last night I cooked a couple of small steaks for me and Ellen, accompanied by some delicious garlic butter green beans. Or should I say, the garlic and butter tasted delicious, the only downside being the taste of green beans.

I made sure to cut my steak into smaller pieces than usual and chew them thoroughly. I felt like that guy in "2001" who ends up a decrepit old man in a bright white room, slowly masticating his little bits of food and looking around nervously. Ellen, I suppose in this scenario, is the mysterious black monolith? I admit the comparison sort of runs out of steam here.

Anyway it all went down fine. I may switch to an all-gruel diet sometime soon.

My Fun-Filled Wednesday

2008-07-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is probably the most boring kind of blog entry imaginable: what I did yesterday! But it was a relatively eventful day, at least for me, so I thought I would just set it down in prose for your enjoyment.

I spent my morning doing my first stint -- in what I hope is a weekly ritual -- volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. I figure if Jimmy Carter can do it at 80, so can I. From an altruistic standpoint, I'd like to do something to help my fellow man, just like us all, right? And from a non-altruistic standpoint, when people ask me what I am doing with my time while unemployed, I want a better answer than "nothing" or worse, "writing a screenplay."

So off I went to the bare-wood-frame condo complex going up near me in Glendale. Maybe 6 units, 1200 square feet each. Right next to the highway, but what do you want for free? The deal is, if you are a low-income family, and want a Habitat house, you have to put in a certain number of hours yourself toward the building of the house. Which I think is cool.

Arriving at the site, I was a little nervous, because Accuweather said it was going to be in the 100's. Yikes. In anticipation of a sweat-fest, I chose shorts. But of course, it was a quite pleasant 80 with a cool breeze. And I dinged my legs several times on bare wood planks, due to the shorts. Great.

My image of myself pounding manly nails with a big manly hammer were dashed as the Construction Manager assigned me to clean-up duty on the plywood-and-bare-rafters roof of one of the buildings. Me and a tight-lipped 17-year-old, who must have been doing the "I need good stuff for my college applications" deal. So the two of us spent five hours sweeping up sawdust and nails. Yippee. Five hours. I have to tell you, at the end of that five hours, I was exhausted. Ready for a nap. Maybe I need to get in better shape.

Then, at around 6 PM, I headed off to meet my friend Beth for a drink at the Ahmanson Theater and then to take in a performance of "The Drowsy Chaperone." I hadn't seen Beth in maybe two years, so we had a lot of catching up to at the lovely outdoor bar outside the theater. The show itself -- I loved it. It's a sort of parody of and love letter to the cheesy old broadway musicals like "No No Nanette" that didn't really make a lick of sense, but had a jaunty romantic comedy story and upbeat, silly songs. Really fun. It was Beth's idea to go to dinner after the show, which I was reluctant about -- I'm usually in bed by ten! But after the show I was hungry and full of energy, only to have Beth say, "I'm tired." Hmmph.

That's when the night really got interesting. I went home and boiled some spaghetti. You know the way I like it -- with just butter and parmesan cheese on it. Almost dry with so much cheese. Some of you might remember a previous blog entry in which I choked on some food. Well it happened again. As I was snarfing down the spaghetti and chasing it with delicious Sprite Zero, suddenly I started choking. I could not breathe, unless you call ghastly croaking panicky attempts to draw in air breathing. Ellen immediately got behind me to give me the Heimlich, with an decidedly frightened look on her face. I really could not breathe. But either from her efforts or just from my body trying to do its job, I spit up the Sprite Zero and some of the spaghetti. So now I could at least take in air.

But unlike the last time this happened, I was not able to eventually swallow or spit up whatever was blocking. I could not swallow any water without it backing up in my throat and potentially blocking my windpipe again. Not a good feeling. As I sat waiting for the blockage to go either up or down, even the saliva I was producing was backing up in my throat, and I had to spit it up occasionally as Ellen looked on, concerned. Minutes ticked by, and nothing changed. After about an hour, I acquiesced to Ellen's plea that we go to the local Adventist Hospital Emergency Room.

By this point it's past midnight, and I was feeling pretty bad. The sensation that nothing, not even liquid could go down, and having to throw up saliva every once in a while, is a very unsettling and discomfiting situation.

It took maybe two hours to see the doctor, which is really not bad for an Emergency Room. I thought for sure the doctor would just sedate me, snake a tube down my gullet, and poke out whatever was in the way. But he advised that the esophagus is delicate, and snaking tubes down there willy-nilly was "counter-indicated." So, as I was spitting and retching into my home-brought garbage can, they proceeded to try various muscle relaxers to try and get my food tube to loosen up. First, it was a little tab of nitroglycerine under my tongue. I thought -- are they trying to explode my blockage? Well that didn't work. So then we proceeded to intravenous (since I couldn't swallow anything) Glucagon, a more powerful muscle relaxer. It's a synthetic version of a hormone naturally produced by, I kid you not, the Isles of Langerhans. (One trivia note -- check out Weird Al Yankovick's Beach Boys parody song "Pancreas" for a mention of both Glucagon and the Isles of Langerhans.)

Well one side effect of Glucagon, at least on me, is violent, wrenching nausea. This is pretty much my least favorite feeling in the world, so far. I prefer the kidney stone to this. But, I admit, I've never been shot or broken a limb. Yet.

Anyway I get a severe bout of technicolor lunch, but not much comes up. So they double the dosage. This time I really wretch. It's excruciating. But then -- it came up! The big stuck wad of spaghetti. After a period of recovery from the puking, I feel much better.

The doctor, the nurse, and then a jaunty trio of other nurses who sauntered past my screen arm-in-arm with a "can we see your spaghetti" -- they all expressed amazement that I could wolf down such a large relatively unchewed piece of food. They all scolded me -- chew your food! In fact my release form included the rather parental-sounding, chastising "Be sure to chew your food properly."

It was 4:30 AM, Ellen and I were exhausted, and we headed home. With not a little bit of the feeling of -- it's nice to be alive.

Today, my throat is so sore I can barely talk, and I'm very tired (couldn't sleep much past 8:30) but I feel fine. Aren't you sorry you read this entry?

Tissue? I Hardly Know You.

2008-07-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Here's a pet peeve of mine, for those of you who wear spectacles, like me.

Have you ever been at a friend's house and notice that your glasses are a little dirty? Maybe you left a few too many fingerprints as you grabbed blindly for them while the alarm clock screamed? Maybe hot grease flew onto them as you checked too closely to see if the bacon was done? Maybe the dog licked them?

Whatever the reason, something on your glasses is bothering you, so you reach for a Kleenex (or other brand) tissue to clean them. You breathe delicately onto the lenses to moisten them just the right amount, then gently wipe away all the imperfections, preparing for the rest of the day to look bright, shiny, and crystal clear.

Then you put your glasses on, and you realize your mistake. Awww -- you whine to your host -- are these those Kleenex that have lotion in them?!? You can't quite see your host, though, because your lenses are now coated with a thin, semi-translucent patina of moisturizer. The world now looks like one of those White Diamonds perfume commercials in which they have heavily filtered the lens in an attempt to make Liz Taylor look anywhere south of 50. Good luck getting it off without Windex. At least your glasses will now be soft and supple to the touch.

Next month's pet peeve: President Bush.

Toddenda

2008-07-04T08:44:00.000-07:00

I wanted to add a little something to my blather about the Todd concert.

I wrote that Todd is "just a guy...." etc. Well he may be playing small clubs, the world may not care about him anymore, but the guy has written and sung:

Hello It's Me

Couldn't I Just Tell You

A Dream Goes On Forever

Real Man

Can We Still Be Friends

Love is the Answer

and a few no one but Todd fans know

Just One Victory

Cliche

Parallel Lines

and others.

These are some of my favorite songs.

I feel like in my last column, I belittled the achievement of someone like Todd Rundgren. OK, so maybe you don't write another great song, ever. Or maybe you do. Time will tell. That doesn't diminish the great ones.

It's like, whenever I hear people complain about Woody Allen's recent movies. Why do so many of them stink. I always think to myself -- or say aloud with a lot of attitude -- how many great movies do you want a guy to make? Jeez -- Sleeper, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Hannah and Her Sisters, Crimes and Misdemeanors. Come on -- that is a staggering lifetime's achievement.

Todd is Godd

2008-07-03T14:12:00.000-07:00

Todd isn't really Godd, at least not anymore. He's just a guy who used to have a few hits, sell a few records, and tour, both solo and with a band called Utopia. I've been a fan since 1974, seen him through the ups and (mostly) downs.

For the past several years he's been living on Kauai, making music when he feels like it, making the kind of music he feels like making, seemingly without regard for sales or popularity.

But that's probably stating it too favorably. I think he'd like his music to be more popular than it is, and can't seem to find the right groove anymore.

Which is why he used to play 3000 seat arenas, but last night played the Key Club in Hollywood to a crowd of maybe 200. I was there, with my friend Doug and his friend John.

First of all, the "Key Club" makes it sound like some sort of exclusive, polished brass password-only speakeasy. But no. It's not much more than the usual sticky-table-and-bar-food music venue like all the others on the Sunset Strip, like the Troubador or the Roxy.

One notable image of the evening: Doug's friend John had brain surgery 8 months ago, and has lost a lot of weight. He seems to be recovering well, but the surgery was a shock to his system, and he still cannot swallow anything, so he has a feeding tube in his stomach through which to put formula, etc. But the tube also accepts dry martinis, which John proceeded to suck out of his martini glass with a large plastic syringe and inject directly into stomach via the tube. Doctor's orders!

A lackluster opening act wandered on and off stage, whining pitifully about some Gen-Y problem or something. Todd came out around 10:15, which of course is when I usually go to bed. True to Todd's iconoclasm, he played only about five old songs to begin with, a few of them covers -- one was The Call's "The Walls Came Down," a song I really like -- and then launched into all 13 songs of his new, yet-to-be-released album. 13 new songs in a row is a bit of a grind for any audience. But everyone listened politely. I even liked a few of the new tunes.

John is friends with a few guys in the band, and had managed to get us a reserved table upstairs and our tickets comped. But unfortunately the sightlines from upstairs sucked, so after a while I went downstairs to stand with the rest of the Great Unwashed. This was more fun, I was pretty close to the stage. (See the photo above, from the crummy camera in my iPhone.)

As I was stomping my feet and generally enjoying myself, I looked around and noticed everyone looked really old. Many gray and balding heads, lots of paunchy guts. Gross! I suddenly felt tired. The show ended soon after.

Todd, of course, who just turned sixty, looked great. Come to think of it, I hate him.

Jesus and Three Friends

2008-06-29T20:53:00.001-07:00

I found this image online, and it took me a few seconds to figure out what these three guys are doing.

Comments

2008-06-29T19:55:00.000-07:00

To me, there's a certain serenity in posting to my blog and not caring if anyone ever reads it. It's just a thing to do, like exercising or meditating or yawning, something where the doing is as important, if not more important, than the end result.

That said, isn't there anyone out there? Why aren't I getting the attention I deserve!

If you take a look at the "comments" section for each entry, you would think that the only person that reads this blog is my sister. And her, not very often. How humiliating -- my blog only has one reader, and she seems bored by it.

So you other readers -- I've heard tell of a few of you -- start commenting! Doesn't anything in my posts make you want to respond, even if it's to say, your life stinks? Experiment with your inner Siskel and Ebert -- rate my blog! "I give Brian's life two thumbs WAY down!"

Better yet, start your own blog, and let's link to each other's.

Maybe if I get up to five readers, I can start selling advertising.

More Wildlife at 1433 East Mountain

2008-06-25T17:15:00.001-07:00

Ellen spotted this hawk hanging around our front yard for the last day or two. He's sitting on a branch of our 80 year old pine tree, screeching about something, who knows what. Jesus, Shut UP!

My web research leads me to guess that this is a red-tailed hawk, a common sight in Southern California. They eat rodents (including squirrels!) but also insects, snakes and frogs. They can live as long as twenty years.

Maybe I will tame this one and give it a name. Then I can call it my friend and train it to help me exact revenge from my enemies. You know who you are.

A Few Work Notes

2008-06-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

Nothing much to report except a few work notes. While I continue to look for a job, I am also still flogging my three pitches around town. Yesterday I pitched to a guy named Jason Lust at Jim Henson Productions, which is now located at the old Chaplin studios on LaBrea. I believe they own that lot now, which is steeped in Hollywood history. (First it was Chaplin's Studio, then for the longest time it was the home of A&M records, now it's Henson.) The place is beautiful, although I take slight issue with the big cheesy Kermit-as-The-Little-Tramp that tips its hat to passersby.

Anyway I plied my trade there, and there were no takers. Still, Jason was very pleasant and certainly left the door open for future interactions.

This coming Friday I have my first meeting at Dreamworks on my Dolphin project. I first pitched it to them on April 7, so it gives you an idea of how long deals take, even on a project where I basically accepted their offer. Now we're in for at least a year or two of development, maybe five, and then either abandonment or a movie made. Be sure to check back in.

Yesterday's Post

2008-06-21T10:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday's post was actually a cut-and-paste from a new thing I'm doing to fill the time and exercise my brain a little. There's a new Canadian website called "talkgreen" -- a kind of clearinghouse for eco-news and meeting place for eco-discussions. I'm sure it will tank in a matter of months.

But they advertised for writers and I decided to do it. There's no money involved, just a share in the potentially worthless ownership of it. And I don't know yet if the guy who is running it knows what he is doing.

But it's fun. All I do is surf the web (generally using StumbleUpon, a thing I heard about from Peter Gabriel's monthly video blog) and find something I think is noteworthy. Then I write a little paragraph or two about it, trying to bring to it my irreverent but hopefully fun tone.

We'll see.

Do the Eco-Hustle

2008-06-20T12:13:00.001-07:00

One of the many problems with trying to get people to live greener is the widely held view that it involves uncomfortable sacrifice. For instance, at one end of the spectrum is the so-called "No Impact Man," (www.noimpactman.com) who made a well-publicized experiment of living in New York City for one year and attempting to have no net impact on the environment. As you can imagine, this was quite the challenge and called for siginificant deprivation. No fridge, no A/C (in the NY summer!), no TV, no electric lights. And, in the most disgusting bit of denial, no toilet paper! Of course, in the process of giving up all these creature comforts, No Impact Man found amazing new ways to bond with his family and has ended up remaining very low impact, preferring the mostly-off-the-grid lifestyle. But that's a topic for another day. Most people would consider his lifestyle VERY uncomfortable.

But club-goers in London now have a new way to enjoy themselves AND draw very little power from the grid. How do they do it? Just by dancing.

According to London's Evening Standard newspaper, come July 10, a rich real estate entrepreneur named Andrew Charalambous will be opening London's first eco-dance club.

When London's energetic dance youth arrive at the new club, they will be charged ten pounds entrance fee -- unless they can prove they walked, rode a bike, or took public transportation. In that case, entrance is free. Drinks are served in cups made of eco-friendly polycarbonate cups. And, gray water will flush the toilets.

But the most interesting thing about this club is its dance floor. It is raised a few inches, supported by an array of short columns made of piezo-electric crystals, which generate electricity when compressed. So, when the hordes of half-drunk young Londoners pogo madly to the beat of the latest endlessly repeated Euro-house dance loop, they will be generating up to 60% of the club's electricity.

Charalambous and his new organization Club4Climate (dedicated to helping halt climate change) plan to open clubs in New York, Cape Town, and Rio. Their motto: "All you have to do is dance to save the world."

If only that were true. But, this new club is -- forgive the pun -- a step in the right direction.

The Happening

2008-06-14T17:47:00.000-07:00

"The Happening" -- a film by M. Night Shyamalan.

We went to see it today.

Why, you might ask? Isn't that the same M. Night Shyamalan that directed recent cinematic turd "Lady in the Water"? Didn't he also write and direct that shaggiest of shaggy dog stories "The Village"? Didn't "Signs" really suck?

And doesn't this movie garner a Bush-type-approval-level of 20% on rottentomatoes.com?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But we went anyway.

We went partly because we liked the trailer, partly because I had read online what the secret of the movie was, and partly because of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable" -- two actually good movies, if you ask me.

Guess what. We liked it.

Probably our expectations were low. And, admittedly, some of the movie is ludicrous. (I almost feel like I am spelling that word wrong, having read the spelling "Ludacris" so often in People magazine.) And the acting is bad. I think unless M. Night lucks into good actors, like Bruce Willis, he is at sea.

But the idea of the movie is really good and fun and scary, and there are lots of really suspenseful scenes built on very little. I call that filmmaking skill. I don't want to give away the idea, even though it is discussed not too far into the movie, in case anyone reads this and wants to watch it.

Anyway, it is far from the disaster that everyone says it is. Like all Shyamalan movies, it is slow-ish. But I found it interesting and at times gripping. Loved the way it ended. And I think it is a really good idea for a movie.

So there.

Now, that said, I can't help but include a link to a particularly clever and resourceful vandalization of the teaser poster:

http://filmonic.com/the-penis-or-the-happening

Maybe This is Why

2008-06-02T17:53:00.000-07:00

I didn't get the ImageMovers Zemeckis job. Perhaps, as suggested by the ad to the right, I didn't shave close enough!

But apparently, from the brief phone call I got from his agent today, it was really all about Zemeckis, and I guess I didn't make enough of an impression on him. After the interviews he apparently decided very quickly he wanted to hire someone else, without a lot of discussion.

The weird thing about Hollywood is knowing the people who made the movies. I truly love some of Robert Zemeckis' movies, but now when I watch them I'll always have a little tinge of -- hey he didn't want to hire me!

Make Way for Ducklings

2008-06-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

It's beginning to seem like the only real news in this blog is duck visits.

A few days ago we came home to find a Mommy duck and nine ducklings in and around our pool. Between the waterfowl and the multiple birds nests in the nooks above our covered patio, it's a regular sanctuary.

The ducks seemed to be having a great time until the little ones tried to get out of the pool. They couldn't. Of course Ellen and I immediately flashed on having to fish nine lifeless tiny bundles of furry feathers out of the skimmer.

A few of them were able to figure out how to jump up onto the floating chlorine dispenser and get out. Others weren't. Were we witnessing survival of the smartest in action? Ellen decided to step in, God-like, and help out. First she went out and put one end of the the clothes-dryer sneaker-drying rack into the pool, a kind of metal ramp for the ducks. (When she first entered the pool area Mom -- and the few ducks who had already jumped out -- jumped right back into the pool. So at first, she made the situation worse.

But then a brainstorm: she stuck a few Noodles (long tubular pieces of styrofoam used as pool toys) of varying widths into the skimmer. After some skeptical examination, the ducklings each hopped their way up the styro-staircase and out. Success! After some dilly-dallying, the ducks then exited through the gate toward the front yard and disappeared into the ivy that covers our front slope. Bye-bye!

Roadblock

2008-05-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

A minor film noir effort. It's basically about a tough-guy insurance investigator who falls for a femme fatale who is bent on finding a rich guy. By which she means, not him. But he's desperate to get her, so he cooks up a scheme with a local crook to steal some cash being transferred between banks. But in the meantime, she's fallen in love with him, and so after the crime is put in place, she ironically doesn't need him to be rich anymore. At that point, like in many good film noirs, it's too late.

It contains a bit of dialogue I love, early in the movie when she is still in the take-no-prisoners golddigger mode:

Her: I'm tired of being kicked around. I'm gonna start out with silver fox and go straight to mink.

Him: Then ermine, sable?

Her: Everything. Know what everything is?

Him: Happiness doesn't count, eh?

Her: Can happiness buy money?

I also love that in the car chase at the end of the movie, his destination to get away is Glendale.

In Search Of...

2008-05-27T15:58:00.001-07:00

...the elusive good photo of Elliot.

Louie is naturally photogenic, and because he is white, his nose and eyes stand out.

But Elliot is harder. Harder to expose correctly, harder to pick out his nose and eyes, and thus his personality.

This image is a start. Stay tuned.

Editing Previous Posts

2008-05-25T11:21:00.000-07:00

I just finished changing one of my previous blog entries. It mentioned a lunch I had with a well-known animation director, and it used to mention him by name.

But this morning I read an article in the New York Times Magazine about a well-known blogger and her many regrets about very personal information she shared in her blog, exposed for all to see. Some very offending and embarrassing personal information, apparently. She chose, rather than to take the blog entries down, or change them, simply to password-protect them, so only her friends could read them.

I chose to go back into a few of mine and in one case, take out a nasty comment that I now regret, and in this recent case just take out someone's name. The blog entry is fun and I think mostly positive, but not ALL positive, and this person might be offended.

Is that so wrong?

Yet More Crowded House Shows

2008-05-19T09:58:00.000-07:00

I didn't take the picture to the right, but I certainly did attend both Crowded House shows here in LA recently. (This after attending four last year.)

Friday night, the first of two nights, I just went by myself. There's only so much CH Ellen can take, after all. (She likes them but will occasionally comment "all their songs are so sad." Mentally I reply, "exactly!") The lovely, somewhat restored Orpheum theater in downtown LA played host to the band, so I dragged myself down there in the Prius, wondering if I should score some crack since I don't get down there very often. Instead, I had a $9 margarita at the bar next door to the theater, then ordered a bacon cheeseburger at the little greasy spoon window-service establishment adjacent to the parking lot. They have a little tiny linoleum counter bolted to the outside of their closet-sized cooking area, with ugly stools. I sat there, basically in the parking lot, munching on my burger, watching the BMWs enter, perfectly happy. But perhaps that's the margarita talking.

Then I went into the show, Row J. Not too shabby. It turned out there were two "singles" on either side of me. One was a 20-something Brit who was in LA on business and took advantage of the coincident CH tour schedule. I liked him until during the show he several times called somebody on his cel phone, yelled something, then held up the phone so they could hear a distorted, unrecognizable bit of live music. On the other side of me was a 50-ish woman who came with her sister, but they couldn't get tickets together, so her sister got the second-row seat. They had taken the subway and misjudged how far away the subway stop was from the theater (about ten blocks), and were a little nervous about the walk back late at night. I told her I thought she'd be fine as I mentally made a note of her appearance for comparison with crime scene photos in the paper tomorrow.

Then the band came on, which was wonderful of course. I won't blather on and on about it. Crowded House shows are always different, they like to mix up the set list, take requests, banter with each other, play old obscure songs, make up songs on the spot. That, and beautiful ballads like "Fall at Your Feet" and "Don't Dream it's Over."

After the show, the lady next to me tapped my shoulder and said "nice to meet you." On the spur of the moment, I turned and asked her if she and her sister wanted a ride to the subway stop. The look on her face said, "I suddenly realize you could be a registered sex offender" and she declined. Hey I didn't really want to do it anyway!

The next night Ellen and I went to a fun Irish pub (reliving our last year's trip) downtown before the show. I had "bangers and mash" which is Irish for bland sausage with brown gravy and mashed potatoes. This being LA, they were garlic mashed potatoes.

The show Saturday night was even better than Friday. Crowded House -- c'est bon!

Louie Cools Off

2008-05-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

It's been hot here. Up to almost 100 yesterday and today. So, even though we try to be good citizens and money savers and set the A/C at 78, it comes on fairly often.

And the dogs are not immune to the heat. So (and this is a relatively new phenomenon) once in a while Louie will plop himself down in front of the heat/cool air vent and let it blow over him.

See above.

It can also be viewed on youtube:

http://www.youtube/watch?v=Zlfh9La1QqM

My Lunch with Fred A. Nonymous

2008-05-12T17:45:00.000-07:00

In trying to broaden my search for what to do next, I have been trying to meet different people, maybe even find someone who might be willing to cook up movies to pitch together.

For instance, a few weeks ago I decided to invite Fred A. Nonymous to lunch. (I decided to give him a pseudonym, not because this story is so bad, but just to courteous.) The same Fred A. Nonymous who co-directed several famous top-grossing animated movies. I had made a tentative connection with Fred through a website called "LinkedIn," a sort of FaceBook for businesspeople, I think, since I have never been to FaceBook. I'm too old.

Anyway I figured, in a rather mercenary way, that I might be able to convince Mr. Nonymous to work with me to cook up an animated movie idea for me to produce and him to direct. After all, I'm good at coming up with stories, and he hasn't had a movie made in a while. Maybe he'd be up for it. (I already have three animated movie ideas that I am pitching around, but the three of us who cooked them up do not have the name value of Fred N.)

I send an e-mail, and Fred quickly agrees to lunch. I guess he's in the "hey it couldn't hurt to meet anybody" mode too! We meet at a groovy forties-style deli in Glendale at noon last Wednesday. Fred's maybe my age (a little under 50), still got all his hair, or most of it, and has an open, young-looking, generous face. He smiles when I introduce myself and we get a table. I order the pastrami. I forget what he ordered. But so far so good, lunch couldn't be more pleasant.

I ask him to tell me the story of his last few years (since it's been that long since he's gotten a movie made). What happened? Well Fred launches into his narrative of woe. The stories are very entertaining, full of visits to development hell, development purgatory, and development boredom. There are good guys and bad guys, and many hurt feelings. I ask, what happened to Ethelred the Unknown, his partner on all his movies? Well, he's at (another animation compnay), laboring away, also trying to get a movie to direct. (But seemingly happy there, to hear Fred tell it.)

What's Fred doing now? Well trying to get some movies going with various former colleagues.

Just to clear the air, I asked him if he was offended by the idea of sequels to his movies. No, he answered, I just avoided seeing them or thinking about them. He had heard a few of them were good, and a few of them were bad, no skin off his nose.

So I launch into my pitch. I've spent the last 8 years cooking up stories at Disneytoons with some level of success. I know he doesn't know me from Adam, and I worked on mostly sequels, but maybe we could help each other. I would do as much of the heavy lifting as he wanted in terms of cooking up a story, and we would together use the leverage of his name to pitch around town, trying to get something set up. He nodded politely, and I could tell already he was not ready to accept this offer right now.

So I backed off, saying it's something that maybe could be filed away as a future possibility, that right now it's great to have met and establish a relationship. Yes, he agreed. But, I continued, maybe there was a way for him to familiarize himself with my work, since I of course was already familiar with his work. Although it may sound nutty, the movie I am most proud of from my DisneyToon days was Cinderella 3. Maybe he'd like a copy to watch?

Well you should have seen the look on his face. It was as if I had handed him a knife and asked him to go home and stab his mother. He was trying very hard to be polite, but it was clear that underneath the polite smile was the feeling, "I'd rather drink my own urine than watch Cinderella 3. Didn't you hear what I said before about the sequels?"

Well there you go. I accept his reaction. And I still found him charming and pleasant. But it was a clear reminder where the direct-to-video sequels stand with some people.

Onward and upward!

Movies, Pitches

2008-05-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

Just a short missive today. Not much news, really.

Another open house today, so we had to get out. Went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" which we both liked very much. Sweet and funny.

My long ago aquaintance Alex Schwartz, who now heads up Dreamworks Animation development, is interested in my "Dolphins" pitch and told me she wants to pitch it to Jeffrey Katzenberg. Lovely!

Movies and BBQ

2008-04-27T14:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't been a very good blogger lately, I'll try to be better.

Yesterday Ellen and I ended up watching some show about barbecue and I decided I just HAD to have some. There isn't really a great barbecue place in LA (not that I am the greatest judge), but there is decent, proven by our trip to "Big Mama's Rib Shack and Soul Food" in Pasadena. We shared a combo platter of ribs (OK but not quite falling off the bone), chicken (pretty good), hot links (OK), and sliced pork (very tough). Also some pretty good corn bread. But boy I love barbecue! I'll have to take my Vegan sister here. Not!

Then we went to see "The Visitor," a disappointing outing. Directed by the same guy who helmed "The Station Agent" which I liked very much, this one features a similar sort of emotional restraint. But here, there's less at the core of it. Everything happens too easily, everyone's too nice. (If you've seen it, let's discuss.) At least in The Station Agent, you had the chatty Italian coffee truck guy trying to befriend Peter Dinklage, and PD did not want friends, so there was conflict. There really isn't much conflict in The Vis. I wish we'd seen that documentary about the old people singing. That's supposed to be good.

We also went to see the traveling "My Fair Lady" this past week, which was fine I guess. This show, of course, features many great songs -- With a Little Bit of Luck, Get Me to the Church on Time, On the Street Where You Live, I Could Have Danced All Night, Enter Sandman -- wait, that last one is a Metallica song. Sorry. But I'd forgotten how boring the actual story is. Higgins is training Eliza to speak better and have better manners. Who cares?

Last Saturday, we took Hunter and four friends to Disneyland for his birthday. Luckily, they are old enough that they don't really want to hang around with us, so it's mostly just Ellen and I chilling in the Magic Kingdom. Unfortunately, I've been to Disneyland too many times in the last ten years, and it's not that much fun anymore. There is one new ride -- the refurbished submarine ride, now "Finding Nemo" themed. We were very excited about that one and didn't mind the 90 -- that's right 90 -- minute wait. No FastPasses available for this one.

But we learned the meaning of a new word Ellen read recently in a book -- Antici-pointment. We experienced anticipointment. The ride was lame. The new Nemo stuff was almost all projected movie images, not animatronics. I wanted animatronics! It felt like getting into a submarine to watch a movie. Darn you Disney!

2008-04-21T20:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a picture of Tom Brady, apropos of nothing. The Super Bowl was a huge disappointment, and it's taken a while to get over. The NFL draft is this weekend -- bring on 2008!

This is a relatively busy week for me. Pitched today at Fox (some minor interest in one of my stories). Pitching to my former boss tomorrow (she might have some good notes). Then pitching to Sony on Wednesday. Wednesday night brings the Little Mermaid 3 wrap dinner, and Thursday I have an informational meeting at FilmRoman, an animation company. Whew!

Also, Thursday is Hunter's birthday. There'll be cake.

Waiting

2008-04-17T21:44:00.000-07:00

Really not much to report. Waiting for my manager to set up meetings for me to pitch around town. Waiting, and waiting, and waiting.

Waiting. For a Meeting.

Wasting. Away.

Fasting. Metaphorically.

Farting. Is Such Sweet Sorrow.

Parting. See you tomorrow.

Diamonds and Ducks

2008-04-15T14:24:00.001-07:00

Mr. and Mrs. Duck returned to the pool today to spend about an hour with us. No quacking this time, just some R&R swimming, drinking, and cleaning themselves on the deck. On the downside, they also felt free to use the pool as a restroom. Hey -- we don't swim in your toilet man!

Falling into the "can't we have any good news" category, apparently several pieces of Ellen's jewelry have been stolen, probably during one of our open houses. This was stuff in a drawer in the back of her small walk-in closet, not out in the open. Granted, it was in a small drawer unit on top of which sits her display of all her earrings, so if you were looking and peeked into the closet, you'd be drawn to the this small drawer unit.

Of course when you have an open house, one realtor sits, usually in the kitchen, while strangers wander the house. Our realtor had warned us to put valuables away, but we took this to mean put stuff in drawers. Now we've learned our lesson. And our realtor will make sure someone comes upstairs with people.

What about homeowners insurance, you ask? Ours has a $10,000 deductible.

It's not so much the money, although this was thousands of dollars worth of stuff. It's the sentimental value -- diamond earrings Ellen's Dad gave her, a little diamond trifle I gave her. Also it's just the frustration that we made it so easy for someone to steal our stuff, and they got away with it. Maddening.

Please check back for some good news which must be coming at some point.

Leatherheads, Miss Pettigrew

2008-04-14T16:42:00.001-07:00

Ellen and I had a relaxing weekend, after having had Hunter for two weeks straight. Although we really must keep up our effort to look for jobs, can't do much on the weekends. So we see movies.

But there really isn't anything these days that really floats our boat; most investigations of the movie listings result in a sort of bored disappointment, with an "I'd see that I guess" substituting for "yeah." Boy Indiana Jones better get here soon.

Saturday: Leatherheads. A seemingly appealing throwback to the screwball comedies of old, and it's about football to boot! My choice. But I can now report, without fear of contradiction, that it is Snedeker-certified comedy free! A boring slog from start to finish, with Clooney mugging way too hard to try and rescue unfunny situations and dialogue. And I usually like him, the Lake-Como-living, model-dating bastard. Also extremely poorly directed for a comedy, with almost every scene ending with a long pause, apparently waiting for that perfect bon-mot scene-ending line which never comes. Clooney just waits a few more moments and cuts away. And here's my biggest criticism: not enough football!

Sunday: Another open house day, so the dogs needed to be deposited at "Wagville" while we got out of the house for three hours. This day it was "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," starring Frances McDormand. Ellen liked it, but I napped a little -- "Mr. Snedeker Snoozes for an Afternoon." It had some good actors, and Amy Adams was fun and delivered her lines with gusto. A minor affair. Two stars. Whoop-de-do.

Then we went to pick up the dogs. While they go retrieve them, you can watch the doggie play area on webcam. I could see Louie just sitting there in the middle of the area, watching the front door, Elliot was orbiting him like some wobbly moon. It's sure seemed as if Louie does nothing but sit there and wait for us to return. Hmmph.

Washcloths Make the Man

2008-04-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

It's time for the first installment of what will perhaps become a semi-regular BSB (Brian Snedeker blog) item called "marital bliss." Perhaps I'll come up with a better name sometime, something cleverer, like "Wife Lessons" or "This Old Spouse" or something like that.

Anyway, the other day I was laying in bed, wondering whether to get up or not. I look into the bathroom and see Ellen grab the washcloth that rests atop the shower door.

B: What are you going to use that washcloth for?

E: I'm going to use it to wash my face. Is.... that OK?

B: Have you used it before?

E: Yes. Why?

B: I mean, feel free, but that's the washcloth I use in the shower to wash my ass.

After laughing, we started naming the piece of material in question: the "butt-cloth," the "ass-rag," the "poopah-loofah."

Tune in soon for the next installment!

Choking at Lunch

2008-04-11T14:37:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it's been since March that I added a blog entry. I'm a terrible blogger. But I guess -- if a blogger apologizes in the forest and no one reads it, did it really happen?

Occasionally, over the past few years, I have had trouble swallowing food. Nothing major, just sometimes a piece of food will get caught in my esophagus, a feeling I find very uncomfortable, slightly panic-inducing. As long as I have a beverage with which to wash it down, I'm fine. But there have been times when I have had to jump up from the table and quickly open a 7up, trying hard to look like nothing is wrong.

A few years ago I went to see my GP about it, and he ordered some tests, one of which was to drink a horrible chalky barium drink while x-rays (or mri or something) were taken. The diagnosis was nothing more than inflammation of the esophagus and the valve that leads to the stomach. He prescribed something for me, which I was to use as needed. A few years ago he told me I could just buy Prilosec over the counter. Problem solved?

Lately the symptoms have returned, although in a minor, non-concerning way. I just occasionally get something stuck. I'm always able to wash it down.

Cut to: today Ellen and I had lunch with our friend Doug Segal. He's always a fun date, very easy to talk to, good storyteller. He regaled us with the saga of his nascent screenwriting career, and of directing the annual all-school show at his kids' school (a harrowing tale). But after a few bites of my rotisserie chicken, a piece stuck. I do not in any way blame this on Doug's story. I tried swallowing, but it wouldn't go down. I immediately took a sip of my lemonade, but it STILL wouldn't go down. I could feel the cold lemonade sitting in my esophagus on top of the lodged piece of chicken as I tried quickly, over and over again, with a rising level of alarm, to swallow. But no dice. I tried coughing it up, still no go, but I did sort of spit up the lemonade onto my plate. I think this got Doug and Ellen's attention.

Then I tried to breathe, and realized I couldn't. I attempted to inhale, but got nothing more than a little bit of air, generating an alarming rasping sound as I sucked in as hard as I could. For better or worse, Mo's is a loud restaurant, and no one else notices. But as if to echo my rising panic I stand up, laboring to breathe, with (Ellen told me later) a bright red face. Doug and Ellen are staring with some concern at me while I continue my desperate but vain attempts breathe and swallow. Ellen asks, "heimlich?" and I nod hurriedly yes, please. She jumps up, gets behind me and squeezes once -- nothing. Then another squeeze, and I finally swallow the recalcitrant chicken morsel. Whew! I take in a nice generous supply of air, sit down, cough many times, but I am fine. Ellen looks more relieved than I do.

After a brief moment to make sure I am OK, conversation starts up again. To be polite, I continue to pick at my vegetables, until I remember that I had very recently spit up lemonade on them.

But this kind of choking episode has never happened to me before.

Wait -- yes it has. I remember at maybe age 12, putting WAY too big a wad of spaghetti, covered with only dry grated parmesan, into my mouth and it getting stuck. I don't remember anyone having to give me the heimlich, I think I just finally spit it out, but I have a strong memory of the dog starting to eat the ball of spaghetti before being shooed away. No, Whiskey!

Anyway, because of this near-death experience, I have decided to completely change my life and devote myself to helping those less fortunate than I.

Wait -- no -- that's not right. I think I'll just take a nap and sleep it off.

Red Sox

2008-03-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

The Red Sox were in town today, playing at Dodger Stadium in their last exhibition game. Weirdly, they played their first two regular season games in Tokyo vs. the A's (they split 1-1) and then came to LA for a few more preseason games. Yesterday's game was at the LA Coliseum and attendance was 115,000 and change, now officially the largest crowd for a baseball game ever. The Red Sox won. We weren't there.

Unfortunately we attended today's game, a bust all around. We had four tickets, Hunter was supposed to come with a friend. But at 12:30 Hunter gets a message from his friend's Mom saying the kid can't come. Now Hunter REALLY doesn't want to come, knowing somehow that Ellen and I would embarrass or bore him, or cleverly figure out a way to do both. So we drop him at a friend's, and they immediately take off walking to the mall. What they do there for the next 4.5 hours we have no idea. Ellen and I go the ballgame alone. Our seats are nose-bleedy but OK. Lots of Red Sox nation there. We enjoy a few dogs and sodas. The Red Sox get only ONE hit and lose 8-0. We would have left before the 7th-inning stretch, but today was an open house day at 1433 East Mountain, and we couldn't even go home. We were basically squatting at Dodger Stadium like homeless people who had found two tickets in a dumpster.

Still no offers on our house.

Hey Red Sox, help me finally put to rest my bad memories of the Super Bowl. As Ellen would say, "don't even say Super Bowl."

The Dogs Don't Like the Dog Park

2008-03-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

One of the things that sucks about selling the house is that we can get a call at 9:30AM, telling us someone wants to come by and look at the house at 11:30. So we have to put away the cribbage board, scramble around cleaning up the house, get the dogs out of the attic and get out. Ellen went to the store, and I took the dogs to a lovely dog park on East Orange in Pasadena.

But the dogs don't like the dog park!

Once we're in the dog park, Elliot really just follows me around. Occasionally he'll wander away, but he doesn't stray far. He looks at me like I'm a drugstore clerk and he's a teenager buying condoms -- can we please get this over with?

Louie, on the other hand, waltzes in and takes a look around, sniffs a few butts. But, after about ten minutes, he trots across the width of the park to the exit door. He then turns and sees that I haven't followed him there, and I am in fact sitting in a chair all the way back where he started. Disappointed, he trots back to me. A beat, then he trots all the way back to the exit door. Then back, then forth, then back again, like a mental patient walking around the pole in "Midnight Express." I know he wants to leave, I say to him, but we can't go back to the house yet!

Oh what the heck -- I love the dogs anyway! Here's Louie doing his funny rolling thing:

Visions of Light

2008-03-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here, still getting over my cold, watching a great documentary called "Visions of Light," about cinematography through the years. As I watch I am madly adding movies to my Netflix list, some of which I've never seen (Day of the Locust) and some I haven't seen in a long time (Out of The Past -- photo above). Some movies not available on Netflix (Magnificent Ambersons). Shame on you Netflix! Anyway Visions of Light is a fascinating doc, featuring lots of great cinematographers talking about how much they admire the work of their predecessors, how they accomplished some of their own achievements, and most fun, how a random accident turned into a beautiful shot.

Meanwhile Ellen's busily writing away in the office -- very good work ethic. Later, we'll watch our most recent Netflix receipt -- Where the Sidewalk Ends, a classic film noir that I haven't seen in a million years.

The documentary is on Ovation, so there are commercials. You know what I hate? Scams. For instance, I just saw a commercial for Kinoki Foot Pads. What bullshit! They tell you that if you simply apply this pad to your feet when you go to bed, in the morning you'll find the pad has gotten dirty with "toxins" drawn out of your body through your foot. They show this in the commercial, and quite frankly it looks disgusting, like someone wiped their ass on the pad. But the model/actress couldn't be happier that this shit-looking-stuff isn't in her body any more! Yay! If you then subsequently use the pads over and over again, you'll see less and less brown goo on the pad in the morning. The pads are getting rid of the toxins in your body, right?

They even have the audacity to compare this process to the way a tree draws air in through its leaves and draws the toxins down and expels them through its roots. Really?!! What school of botany did these guys attend? ITT Tech? Last time I checked, plants draw water and nutrients IN through their roots.

Anyway this kind of scam always makes me mad so I did some simple online research, where of course I found out exactly how this dumb product fools innocent people. The pads have some sort of mineral in them that turns brown from the difference in pH with your foot! And this process actually leaves a deposit on your foot, so the more you wear the pads, the less the stuff turns brown. Thus, you are being rid of those nasty toxins.

Why do people fall for this crap? I wish I could have a TV show just debunking this stuff. or a newspaper column. But I think these TV shows and columns already exist, right?

Sick Day

2008-03-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

I'm down for the count today with a cold. Head's too clogged to blog.

Pitch-apalooza

2008-03-24T16:16:00.001-07:00

Well it's time for me to get out there and start pitching my animated movie ideas. (Actually I worked them up with the help of Frank Nissen and Margot Pipkin. Many thanks to them for helping and for agreeing not to be attached.)

I hope somebody likes them. I've already got meetings set up at Dreamworks with Alex Schwartz (an old colleague) and at Fox with Karen Rupert-Tolliver (another old colleague). My manager (it still sounds weird to say "my manager") Peter McHugh is contacting most other places.

However I won't be pitching at Disney. I've been informed that John Lassiter handpicks people he thinks have what it takes to be directors and solicits their ideas. So Frank Nissen, who directed two movies for Disneytoon Studios, can't even really walk in and pitch ideas for him to direct. That's crazy.

Wish me luck pitching!

2008-03-23T20:30:00.000-07:00

I guess whenever I don't have a better idea, I will upload a picture of Louie, whom I shore do love. My new-ish camera, a Fuji Ultrazoom, has a pretty wide-angle setting, which is always good big-dog-nose fun. The focus is a little soft on this one, but that's probably my fault.

Ellen Hunter and I went to see Sweeney Todd at the Ahmanson this afternoon, you know the nutty John Doyle production where the actors play the instruments. Ellen and I had seen this production in NYC with Patty Lupone, and this one didn't quite measure up, although Judy Kaye was very good as Mrs. L. Having seen the original production (with Angela Lansbury and Len "Caribou" replacement George Hearn), nothing has really come close since then. Especially the movie, which I hated, even though I like the Depper. To me, the melodrama and darkness is supposed to be counterbalanced by big fun and soaring music. Tin-ear Burton and John Doyle don't understand. (Although, P.S., Ellen and I went to hear Sondheim himself speak recently at Royce Hall, and he says Sweeney is the only movie version of his shows that he likes. He hates West Side Story. Sorry, Sondy, but you are wrong!)

Do all these dumb nick-name shortenings of celebs' names make me sound like Nikki Finke? Good!

Saturday

2008-03-22T19:02:00.000-07:00

Open house today at 1433 E Mountain. Yes, we're trying to sell our house, which we may or may not do, depending on the price offered. Wish us luck. Selling would give us another 2 years of cushion.

So, because we had to be somewhere else, Ellen and I went to see Adam Corolla's movie "The Hammer." A lot of single men. Ellen was a little bored and maybe dozed off, but I thought it was very enjoyable. Not great by any stretch, but consistently funny-ish, and I thought Adam was a very appealing screen presence in a not-as-attractive-Vince-Vaughn kinda way. Adam is no actor, so the romance fell flat for me, but he's pretty good at playing himself. I think I enjoyed it much more than I'm going to like "Horton Hears a Who" which I guess I have to see, especially if I am going to pitch to Fox.

After the movie, we walked next door to a bookstore, where I made a purchase. The young lady behind the counter asked me if I wanted to sign up for blah, blah, blah, I stopped listening because I assumed it was to join the club where I get a discount, which counter to all logic I always refuse: I hate having to have some account everywhere in the world. So I said, no I'm not a member, and I don't want to be one, I don't want another card to carry around. Slightly annoyed, she countered that there was no card, and it was actually a deal where they give a percentage of every purchase to charity. I felt like quite the asshole. (A feeling I know well.) I felt like saying "well my answer is still no but at least now I feel guilty about it." Instead, I signed up for it.

Walking back to the car with Ellen:

B: I signed up for some cockamamie charity thing.

E: Nice. I still give to Save the Children and Feed the Children. When are they all going to be, you know, saved and fed?

B: Hey -- don't you remember what Jesus said? (singing) There will be poor always, pathetically struggling, look at the good things yooooou've got! (really pouring it on) Think while you still have me, move while you still see me, you'll be lo-oost, you'll be so so-oo-o-oo-oo-ooo-ry when I'm go-o-o-o-o-o-o-one!

E: For every situation in life, there is a lyric in Jesus Christ Superstar to guide you.

B: Right -- what would Jesus Christ Superstar do? WWJCSD?

2008-03-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had a visitor to our pool today. This lady duck quack-quack-quacked as loud as a car alarm, rousing us out of our mid-afternoon stupor and luring us to the window. After a few more quacking jags (the duck not us), we saw a male whizzing by in the distance. It wasn't too long until he came splashing into the pool in a one-large-point landing. Senorita duck immediately took off, as if to say -- hey! Fly faster and keep up! He followed, looking sheepish, which is hard for a duck. End of distraction.

I promise that hardly any of my subsequent posts will be this cutesy.

Switching Blogs

2008-03-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

This is my first post in my new Google blog. Why have a blog? I dunno. Hey -- when no one, for instance the Glendale News-press, seems interested in your opinion, then start a blog! If a tree blogs in the forest and there's no one around, does anyone care? No!