Red Sox

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

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

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

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

Pitch-apalooza

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!

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

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?

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

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!