i know it's good for the fires, and everything, so i guess it's ok, for a little while, but i don't have a top on my car, so if the rain could just go away very soon, i'd be really grateful.
on the drive home the traffic is crap. every highway is full. i figure the lakers are playing. or maybe everyone';s deiving all slow because of the rain that's about two months early on account of the fires.
when i get to my apartment, all is explained. the entertainment weekly in my box tells me it's friday. the people stepping off the elevator in hippie regalia reminds me it's halloween.
oh yeah.
so in honor of that--
___________________
i remember one halloween in particular.
i trickertreated with karen, a daughter of a friend of my mom's. she was older than me, maybe twelve. i guess i was seven or eight.
we walked door to door in a neighborhood that was a little far from home. we had heard there was good candy.
i had a plastic pumpkin head with a black plastic strap in which to carry my loot.
karen escorted me from one house to the next.
i was still cute then, and i got lots of candy. i remember being very excited about it.
two black kids started walking behind us for a while. they were older. maybe fifteen or so.
they were always one house behind us. they didn't have bags, just stuffed the candy into their pockets.
and they weren't wearing costumes.
i was nervous about them, but karen assured me it was fine. she even stopped and talked to them. they asked if they could trickertreat with us, and she said they could.
we hit one house together. then another. then another. we were one big group now. they talked to her as we walked.
then, after maybe a block or so, they grabbed our loot and ran ran ran.
she ran after them for a block or so, but they were much faster than she was.
they were gone before i knew what had happened. i'm pretty sure i cried.
we turned and went home at that point. what else could we do? it was late, time to go in soon, no time to start again, and no way to carry it anyway.
at home, mom greeted us. i was candyless and tearstreaked.
i will never forget riding around in mom's car with a giant salad bowl, hitting house after house, rebuilding the stash. trickertreating by car is way faster and more efficient. by bed time we were close to the amount of candy we had lost.
ah, the good memories. 07:30 p.m.Friday, October 31, 2003
there's a car wash on melrose. it's where all the beautiful people go to wash their cars. cause of on account of all the trendy clothing stores for the hot chicks in belly shirts to shop in. and cause of all the belly shirt girls for the guys to see.
so beautiful people wash their cars on melrose.
it's near my friend ben's house too. and near coffee. which we like.
so on a nice day, there can be a car wash, a good friend, some belly shirt girls, and coffee. not so bad for getting a chore done.
not today. today ben was busy. and melrose ain't that close. so i stayed near to home.
there's a place near my home that washes your car too. it's not pretty. eight or nine mexican guys standing in a circle, descending on your car en masse the minute you get out. it's fast, if not so thorough.
but hey, i mean--it's eight bucks.
and here's the thing--i have been there twice. and though i have not yet driven away thinking "now there's a good car wash!", both times they have found something dear to me that i thought i had lost; dug up from somewhere deep in the bowels of the car itself.
last time it was my "sucker 213" baseball hat.
this time it was my mini swiss army pocketknife with a little red l.e.d. light.
these are things that i love.
i would pay eight bucks just to have found those things again.
in my book, getting the car washed was just a bonus. 09:24 p.m.Wednesday, October 29, 2003
i'm glad the sun went down, cause the blood-red sun that shone overhead all day long was really freaking me out. sunset-caliber light at noon just ain't right.
could people please stop burning up the trees, please?
cause "shit's on fire" is not what i want to hear. 11:06 p.m.Tuesday, October 28, 2003
on this movie there is an actress that i used to crush on a little bit when i was younger.
today she had a scene wherein her character drops her bra and flashes the crowd. we shot her from the shoulders up, so she didn't really have to take off her top.
then we shot the turnaround, from behind her, with the audience in the background.
while we were setting it up, and i was talking to my bosses about important camera business, i felt someone pulling tape off of my belt. (i wear a utility belt with all my tools on it, and on it i keep several rolls of tape). i felt the tug, but someone was helping themselves, so i ignored it (this happens a lot).
when i finally glanced over, it was her.
actors do not generally grab tape off my belt, so i was surprised.
a few minutes later, i saw her out of the corner of my eye, in a darker corner. i turned to her, and saw that--
she had taken her top down and was placing my tape over her breasts.
so when we shot the reverse, she did take her top off, but all the extras in the crowd only saw my tape.
and i can die someday knowing that my tape touched her boobies.
ain't the movie business a weird 'un? 10:35 p.m.Sunday, October 26, 2003
when I am getting gas, and the bum walks over to say "can I wash your windshield, sir?" and I say no, and then he walks away, and I sit there and think that yeah, actually, my windows are really really dirty, why did I say no? why not, they do need it, I wish he would come back and ask again, but I don’t want to call him over and tell him I changed my mind, that would make me look so stupid…
when all that happens, and then another guy says "can I wash your windshield, sir?" would it be wrong to tell the second guy yes?
bottom line: my windshield is still dirty.
11:51 p.m.Saturday, October 25, 2003
there was a car with a red bull strapped to the top.
it was a mini. it was silver and blue. on top was a giant can of red bull.
in it were two cute girls.
outside of it was a movie crew that wanted everything that car had to offer.
"you ladies have any freebies?" shouted eric as they drove past.
"sure do!" they shouted back, and started handing out red bulls to everyone. first out their window, then they parked and walked among the crew. everyone was happy. angels from heaven delivering free caffeine boosts to a a bunch of people working from 7am to 8pm.
these were very popular girls.
i was dragging a bit from lack of sleep, so i drank one.
it helped.
when one of the girls walked by and said, "did you get a red bull?" i said that i did, but would love another. she stopped, and let me unzip her little red bull-shaped backpack so i could get one.
which i am saving for another day when getting out of bed is just a little harder than usual.
that visit from those ladies and the fact that someone somewhere has decided to give me another hour of sleep tonight makes me think i am doing something right in the world. 11:35 p.m.Saturday, October 25, 2003
i am working. all the time. seriously. twelve hour days, six hours sleep at best, long drive, etc. so that is my entire life right now. i have a boss i don’t like very much, who is mean. i work hard. i have bad days sometimes, and come home upset. other days, i come home and i think "i love my job, and i’m good at it, yay!"
but i don’t want to be the guy that writes about how his workday was every day. i went to damn new york city a week ago, and i was in a wedding, and all this other stuff, and dammit, i don’t want that to get all swept away!
i wrote a story called "how i [sort of] ruined the wedding" and then pitas, my server, broke down (again) and i lost a lot of stuff, including that. so let’s see if i can recount it.
__________________________________
i was in a wedding. i was asked to read from the Bible. it was a good passage, old-fashioned a bit, maybe, about wives obeying their husbands and such, but a good, solid wedding scripture.
what happened was, the priest said, "and now, the first reading." then I got up, and walked forward, down the center aisle.
the groom and his best man had to part to let me by. I walked up on to the stage and took my place behind the little stand with the eagle on it.
now, I had brought along a Bible with which to practice. but this one here on the stand was a ceremonial one, more ornate, much larger, and not the same version as mine. the wording was a little different, and I wanted to get every word right.
problem: the stand was extremely low.
seriously. like, waist high.
this made the words hard to read.
in a split second I had to make a decision. either I had to lean down (really far) to read it properly, or I could just pick it up.
"well," I said to myself, "I’m just going to pick this up."
i read the scripture. it went smoothly and without a hitch. when i was done, i put the Bible down, walked back down the steps and took my seat again. the wedding continued.
there were "i do’s" and stuff, blah blah blah, married. everyone was really happy, et cetera.
so then at the reception, one of the groomsmen sauntered over. "good job," he said. i agreed that it had gone rather smoothly.
then he grinned. "’i’m just going to pick this up,’" he said in an affected voice.
what?
"you said that out loud, you know." he informed me.
no i didn’t, i told him. but another groomsman backed him up.
yeah. out loud.
because apparently i don’t know how to think inside my brain.
"well," the first one said. "it was pretty far away from the microphone. i don’t think anyone could hear you but us, since we were so close."
behind him, my aunt, who was much further back in the chapel, shook her head.
11:18 p.m.Saturday, October 25, 2003
when i was in new york, i walked past the untitled woody allen movie that was filming. stopped by the set of 'sex and the city,' where a friend of mine works, and the guy next to me on the plane home said ‘law and order’ had just shot at his law firm the day before. so i feel like i did the whole film nyc! thing.) 11:12 p.m.Saturday, October 25, 2003
i was coming in from work, and i was bringing in my travel coffee mug (with a little left over in the bottom), the mail, a couple of cokes i stole from work, my sweatshirt that i had worn that morning--you know...stuff.
so i had stuff in my hands as i climbed the stairs. at each floor was a sign that said "watch out for carpet tacks!" with an arrow pointing down. they were putting in a runner on our stairs, but had not put in the carpet itself. only the tacks were there.
somewhere in between the second and third floors, one of the cokes slid out of my hand.
and landed on the carpet tacks.
coke began to spew out of the side of the can at extremely high velocity. it started to spin.
i frantically transferred everything to the other hand, and reached down, trying not to drop it all. i picked up the coke, which was streaming down my fist now.
i looked around. i was still two floors away from mine. there was nowhere to take it. but i could not just leave it there.
so i ran up the stairs, two at a time, leaving a sticky trail behind me, easily followed. what could i do?
i got to my floor and ran to the open fire escape window. i put it down and let it pour itself out. then i ran into my apartment and hid.
i know the maintenance guys know it was me. they glare at me now.
when you think about all the things that had to happen to make that go so amazingly awry--i.e. the carpet tacks being laid down on exactly the same day i brought home cokes--it sort of boggles the mind.
but then you think that it's me, and you sort of nod your head and go, "oh. it figures." 09:30 p.m.Friday, October 24, 2003
if you ever go down to get your laundry out of the washing machine, and you see a big mexican man loading his laundry into your washer--
even when there are a million empty ones--
and if he points to a dryer to show you where he put your clothes, and you start to be annoyed, hang on for a second.
cause maybe, just maybe, it's my new best friend manuelfrom apartment 103, who will have put it in the dryer and then paid the seventy-five cents himSELF to get your load a-goin'.
thereby making your day. 06:28 p.m.Wednesday, October 22, 2003
there is something seriously wrong with my server. you can see i have lost some of the most recent stuff i have written. i am working (and so are they over there at pitas) on saving it from total deletion and oblivion.
but right now, things are reallly messed up.
sorry! please to enjoy my friends' blogs to the right. and come back another time.
i'll leave the light on for you. 10:42 a.m.Tuesday, October 21, 2003
a cab ride later ( i have never done that before in l.a., it was weird), i am tired and wondering if maybe never travelling again will solve the whole cramped-legs, late-shuttle-riding, flight-missing, frantic-rebooking, layover-in-atlanta-inducing,resulting-midnight-arrival delirium from which i seem to be suffering.
welcome home, amigo. cabs ain't cheap.
so a shower and a backrub and then straight to sleep (ok, no one to give a backrub, so i guess i'll skip that part), since work starts tomorrow, and my heartbeat doesn't get to slow down until the third day of any movie shoot.
and maybe, in my spare time, an update.
lord i hope so.
good to be home.
01:04 a.m.Friday, October 17, 2003
in a quiet, dark little internet cafe in soho, with new age music playing and a little old chinese lady that barely speaks english watching over me, i sit on a faux leather couch and say to you, dear readers, that here in nyc, all is well.
in nashua, NH, a cousin of mine got married. a bible was read from by yours truly (because wives should obey their husbands, and husbands should honor their wives!)
in the City, as they call it here, there is sunshine. the weather is a symbol. a prodigal has returned and the city welcomes me with open arms.
more to come, i am sure...
05:24 p.m. (EST)Monday, October 13, 2003
a while back, i met some people from the state of minnesota.
they were nice enough. relatively normal, even if they did talk kinda funny. we got along swell.
and the whole time i was with them, i wanted to ask about gov. jesse "the body" ventura. i wanted to know how embarrassed they were. if they had voted for him. if they had the dolls he had had made. if he ever wore a feather boa to work. if he was going to go back to wrestling.
mostly, it all came down to just how embarrassed they were. i wanted them to quantify it. i wanted to know just how bad they thought it was. worse than we did, the outsiders, looking in and clucking our tongues disapprovingly? or defensive, hopeful that they had made the right choice and they would show us? i was just so curious about the whole absurd scenario.
but i never asked.
i didn't want to embarrasss anybody. it might be awkward.
well, now i know.
we got what we deserved, i guess. cause the state of california is full of dumb people.
i didn't do it. it's not my fault. but i did get out and vote, so i get to bitch for a while, i figure. i have that right, at least.
i shouldn't have voted, maybe. ever since i was old enough, i have gone out and voted, and so far, no one for whom i have voted has ever won. i'm batting zero.
so maybe it's my fault. i jinxed it.
sorry.
all i know is i am as embarrassed as hell of my entire state, and if i ever meet anyone that voted for the terminator (really, i have no idea who did), then i am going to have to ask them some serious questions.
and maybe go back in time to make them change their vote.
10:17 a.m.Thursday, October 9, 2003
so it's back up. the server is back, and blogging may commence again.
wow, i never felt so powerless, clicking on my site and getting nothing but error messages. nothing to do but wait.
a big blog blackout for pitas.
funny thing is how it brought all of us pitas bloggers closer together. there was no screaming, or honking, or fighting. we all helped each other, held each other, offered each other snacks...
ok, enough of this tangent. of course, the one time i can't post (or perhaps it's because i couldn't) is the one time i have a lot to say. so here...
10:12 a.m.Thursday, October 9, 2003
having spent almost an entire day (and about seven dollars in quarters) getting all my laundry done, i have figured out a way to keep the amount of dirty laundry to a minimum.
wear the same thing every day.
you're welcome!
02:44 p.m.Tuesday, October 7, 2003
i got some work this past week. a lot of it, actually. it meant working long hours, getting up really early with very little sleep, and then going off and doing a whole lot of long hours of hard work again.
my body seems to have gotten comfortable with our previous arrangement, and pretty much threw a tantrum.
"what the hell is this?" it seemed to say. "i thought we had a deal where i got to rest as much as i liked, waking up when i was good and ready, and in return i never gave you any trouble, let you be the healthy, happy guy? that was the deal. so what is all this four hours of sleep in between fourteen hour workdays?" it basically demanded of me.
i had no good answer. ignored it. just went to work.
it responded by thrashing my sinuses until my eyes swelled up so much it looked like i had a couple of black eyes. by day four, i went in to work and heard gasps over and over. "what happened to you?" "didn't you get any sleep?" "rough night?"
the jobs are over now, so i hope we can work out all of our issues. i know i'm giving my poor body all the sleep it wants. and apologizing a lot.
hopefully i'll be pretty again sometime soon.
(for the record, the makeup girls told me that preparation h truly is the cure for puffy eyes. and they gave me some to apply. they brought it to me in a little circular case with "MAC" inscribed on the top.
i thanked them for not bringing the whole tube.
"oh no, we never do," they said to me. "actresses would never allow us to put it on if they knew..."
waiting in line to get into a bar (something i don't often do, as i assume lines [and velvet ropes, for that matter] are basically designed to keep people like me out, but friends of mine were already inside, so i was sort of obligated), i asked a couple of my friends if they noticed that all the hipsters were shaving their heads these days.
i wondered out loud if bald was the new longhair. like, the hippie freak flag; the new "i am independent, and unusual, and thinking for myself, and i like to shave my head so i shave my head!" kind of thing.
they said no, they didn't think so, unless somehow agreeing would make me cut my hair. which it wouldn't.
(apparently, my letting-my-hair-grow look is not so popular.)
but then, a few minutes later, when we got in, i noticed a lot of bald guys. like, a lot. cool, hip, and bald. everywhere.
the only problem was, sometime during the conversation, i had started picturing this guy and so every bald guy i saw, i was like, "hey! that guy!"
it was kind of strange, and probably not at all what any of the bald guys there would like to have heard.
sorry, bald guys. 03:22 a.m.Sunday, October 5, 2003
there was no work, there were but a few minor errands to run, and i had days to do them. everyone works during the week, there was no hurry. nothing but time.
i sat in the park and read a book that i really need to finish so i can move on with my life.
my cell phone rang and i glanced down. the number was restricted. i almost didn't answer it. i don't like answering restricted calls.
i did. and it was a work call.
and so all of a sudden my week was booked. today and tomorrow with a little band you might know called blink 182, and then two days on a television show. woo hoo! working man!
wish i hadn't put off all the little errands though. cause my week just got full.
overall, though, staring at dancers in schoolgirl outfits as they tear them off to reveal their punk rock underwear (guys did it too, but i ain't writing about that) is not so bad a way to kill a day, even if i didn't get to go grocery shopping or do the dishes (again). 01:09 p.m.Tuesday, September 30, 2003
the other day, i did the dishes, and put them in the dish rack to dry. then i left my house.
later, when i came home, jagged shards of glass were on my counter. a glass had fallen and broken.
a glass that sat so perfectly still when i was there, waited, bided its time, and then crashed to the counter, making a million tiny little knives. no doubt there was a loud noise.
it was a violent happening, and it happened when i wasn't there.
i find it very oddly disturbing. 10:05 p.m.Tuesday, September 30, 2003
the infamous (more than famous) sarah b thinks charles is hot. charles likes being mentioned on the internet, and sarah b, out of the clear blue sky, responded to charles' comment (out of the 33 she gets every day) by clicking on his website and telling him he was "super cute." so i don't think he will mind me telling the world.
but alas, ladies, charles is taken.
smile and wave, charles, and let them feast their eyes as they wipe away the tears.
10:14 p.m.Tuesday, September 30, 2003
this is an amazing thing my good friend allie showed to me. i don't know the guy, but damn, this is neat. take a few minutes. i'll wait... 01:53 p.m.Monday, September 29, 2003
It’s official. I am a vampire. I live by night,. I sleep by day. I tried it. it works for me. I’m in.
What that means to you—do whatever you want at night, rave, watch tv, recruit for schwarzenegger, or darn yourself some socks, i don't care, but keep it down in the morningtime or my cranky, groggy revenge will be swift.. And if you think for a second you will hammer at eleven a.m., you'd better do it with your runnin' shoes on. cause I will drain the darkness from your shadow and the light from your eyes.
I will lob spiky lawn darts the size of buicks over my dark wall of hate. that's a promise.
it sent a talented writer, haruki murakami, to write a crazy book. a book full of weirdness and mood, with characters that somehow invaded my dreams tonight. it sent in literary spies and they whispered to me to dream about the book, to urge me to wake up and read some more. to think about all the things i could be doing instead of sleeping. to get up and do them. to notice how thirsty i am.
i rubbed my eyes. though it was five a.m. and the sun was not yet up, the darkness in my apartment was more grey than black. covers were too hot, then too cold. the fan absolutely had to be off, it was just too damn loud.
eyes no longer wanted to stay shut, though they hurt to be open after so little sleep.
thank you japan. for starting my day so early. for reminding me that people work while i sleep. that insomnia can happen to anyone. for warning me not to talk badly about you. for letting me know you still hate me. yeah, i know it was you.
or maybe i'm reading too much into this, and it was just that damn garbage truck. 06:25 a.m.Monday, September 29, 2003
well, not in the clouds. somewhere though. somewhere i don't know.
not a bad mood. not a good one.
i'm not on this planet today.
maybe it's lack of sleep. maybe it's the claritan. i'm reading a weird book. maybe it's that. i wrote a letter to someone i wasn't sure i would be talking to anymore. so maybe it's that.
so we can all agree that bill murray rules, right? that he's like a comic genius, and that he can also act, cause of the whole "crying inside" thing. right?
i saw lost in translation the other day. it's a good movie. sofia coppola is no longer grounded for her first film.
but that's not what this post is about.
the thing about the movie (there are many things, including maybe the best opening shot ever, causing me to nearly fall over as i tried to find a seat) is that tokyo is so all over it, it's practically a character in the movie. it really made me think about a trip i took there once.
i felt like writing down a few of the random memories it brought back in me.
____________________
raf and i arrived from thailand. we had two days there on our way home. we had just run around with eli for two weeks, and lived it up. everything was cheap, there were beaches and elephants, cheap beer and food, we each had our own bungalows--it was heaven. this was our first time out of the country and were amazed at how easy it was.
tokyo taught us differently.
we spent most of that first day looking for a hotel we could afford. making calls on pay phones to people who seemed to speak no english, but could tell us "no" just fine. when we finally found a place, we had to split one room with two beds for eighty dollars. and it was across town.
we didn't understand the subway system, and ended up several times either on an express train that didn't stop where we needed to get off, or headed in the wrong direction. very little english on the subway maps, you see.
we had decided on the train in from the airport that we could probably speak english pretty openly without fear of being overheard and understood. still, just to be sure (after all, they can always speak english in the movies) we decided that if we were going to talk about someone on the train with us, or point out someone we thought was interesting, we would just talk really fast, slurring all our words together. surely they couldn't understand that. we could barely understand each other.
this came in handy when we started noticing all the schoolgirls in their white button up shirts, blue skirts, and big furry legwarmers. yeah, legwarmers are back, at least in japan. this was remarked upon many times in superfast english.
we made it a point to see as much as we could as we worked our way to the hotel. we went through old graveyards, checked out temples and trees full of people's prayers, lakes full of lillipads and buildings that looked like they were made out of giant legos.
the whole time it rained on us. our packs on our backs. working through city traffic. in the rain. to call it "miserable" would not be inaccurate.
the lady at the hotel wanted cash. this was the last of the cash we had brought, naively thinking we could get along like we had in thailand.
soaked to the bone from all day in the rain (i now know the difference between water-proof and water-resistant), i needed a hot shower. but there was no shower. only a tub the size of a barrel.
now, i am tall. and this thing was maybe 3'x4', and about four feet deep. so this was not very practical. still, i filled it as deep as it would go and sat in it, knees scrunched up to my face. it was cramped, but it was hot, so i didn't care.
after noticing that the television only had shows on it that were so bizarre we couldn't even understand what was going on, we decided to head out to find an atm.
this is when we discovered that most atms were inside the banks. that were only open during business hours.
the rest of the evening was spent wandering around in the rain again, trying to find an atm that would take our american cards, or a restaurant that would take our credit cards.
we found a restaurant and ate. at the end, the nice waiter gave us an umbrella. a small clear one, big enough only for one, but we were grateful, and we made it work.
we found a convenince store with an atm in it. we were so excited we asked the clerk to take our picture with it. which he did. we smiled, and i made a big thumbs up sign.
turns out it didn't accept our cards.
we were so frustrated, we started asking strangers if they knew where an atm would be. they would shake their heads and stare at their shoes. no one would speak to us. or even look at us.
finally i addressed a group of japanese waiting at a crosswalk: "does ANYONE here speak english?!?" one man in the middle looked up for a second and then back down. so i pounced on him.
"you! you speak english! don't you! you understood me! didn't you! where is a money machine?!" he shook his head furiously and headed off with the crowd when the light changed. i think i might have scared him a lot.
this is how japan treated us.
we ended up going back to the hotel in defeat. no local nightlife. no nighttime adventures. just wacky television and solid sleep. we would try again in the morning, when the banks were open.
the money crisis was no longer a crisis by light of day. all the banks were open and money was easily exchanged.
that final day we didn't try to do much. we knew tokyo had beaten us. so we set our sights low. we mostly just walked around, taking trains to various areas of the city, checking things out, and trying to buy a playstation six months before they came out in the U.S.
but the whole city was sold out of playstations.
for lunch we wanted to try an authentic japanese place. i had heard about the restaurants with the machines outside, where you buy the food and take the ticket in to the cook. so i was ready for that.
what i wasn't ready for was that the vending machine--where you inserted the money and punched your meal--had only writing on it. japanese writing. no pictures. the pictures were inside on the wall. away from the vending machines.
what happened next was something out of a keystone kops picture. we ran back and forth, choosing the picture of the food we wanted, memorizing the shapes beneath it, and running out to the machine while we still remembered it ("ok, a triangle-looking thing, a space invader-looking thing, and then a circle with a line through it...") and frantically scanning the buttons for that combination of symbols.
this did not work as well as you might think.
in the end, i accosted another stranger, a man walking out of the joint, to go back in. i pointed to the meal i wanted, then escorted him back to the machine and he showed me which button to push. success! i would eat!
raf, seeing what i had done, then made the man do it all again for him. which the man did.
that man is the only one from tokyo with whom i am still on speaking terms.
in fact, the entire city took me for as much money in three days (oh yeah, we also missed our plane, but that was more raf's fault than tokyo's) as thailand did in two weeks. and we took two more flights in thailand.
it rained on us, it starved us, and it never took us out for a good time, even for one night. so basically, i am done with tokyo.
still, it did very well in lost in translation.
so there's that.
10:28 p.m.Wednesday, September 24, 2003
the sudden changes in climate this last few days (e.g. sunday it's ninety, monday, it's seventy) are really playing with my allergies. last night i could not sleep. claritan did not work. didn't think it was bad enough for nyquil till about four, which is really too late to start. maybe got an hour's worth of rest.
so i feel shitty today. do you mind coming over? and will you bring all the "spider mans" i asked you to tape for me, and the "reno 911s", and the "dead like mes"? hell, i'll even watch some old "west wings" if you got it. cause since raf took the ps2, i don't have a dvd player as of now.
and i don't think i'm going anywhere today. 08:19 a.m.Tuesday, September 23, 2003
yesterday i ran into a guy used to know. i haven't seen him in a long time. he didn't even remember my name. but i remembered his.
he happens to be a midget (or a dwarf? a little person? i don't want hate mail).
and i liked him, and we caught up a little, said our hellos, i met his wife, and then he went on his way.
and the whole time the only thing i could think was--
"I know midget! i am talking to a midget!"
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tonight, as we stood talking in the arclight parking lot, a car came flying at us.
"watch out!"
i looked, and it was coming right at me! i didn't know where to move.
as it got nearer it slowed down, and some young guys were laughing hysterically.
"assholes!" we shouted after them.*
five minutes later they came racing by a second time. we watched them come, from well out of their way, and glared at them.*
why had they come round again?
later, as we drove away, raf confided that he had thought that we were really going to have to fight them. they had come back, and he thought it was really ON.
i had never thought about it at all. i was still thinking about the movie we had just seen.
i wonder what that says about me?
(*denotes things that were done by people in my group, but not by me, per se.) 02:01 a.m.Saturday, September 20, 2003
the reigning holder of the title "the busiest unemployed guy in the world" continues to not find time to write. maybe it's an excuse, maybe it's the truth. maybe i just lack in inspiration. i don't know.
i do know that my time has not been spent idly.
more unemployed people have been located, much time has been spent with them.
errands have been run.
proposals have been sent to bands who said no three seconds after receiving them.
chutzpah has been lost.
computers have been unable to get on the internet.
movies have been seen.
sleeping time has increased as the weather has cooled down.
and today, for a brief few hours, the title will be relinquished. cause i'll be working.
hope i see everyone at the underworld late show tonight... 10:36 a.m.Friday, September 19, 2003
what is there to say? life continues, just less interestingly. or more personally maybe. either way, there's less to share, it seems. less that i know how to tell.
i'm waiting for an exciting conclusion to all the plotlines running in my life. so i can have a complete arc to share.
maybe.
i've been seeing a lot of movies lately.
and all i've got is this:
if lucy lui would call me a "silly rabbit" the way she does uma thurman in the kill bill trailer i think i could maybe be happy forever. 10:21 a.m.Wednesday, September 17, 2003
when i saw the algae (or maybe it was the plankton, i don't remember for sure) that only comes once a year make the ocean glow like it was lit with a giant pool light, coloring the whitecaps neon blue for whole seconds at a time.
standing at the water's edge, watching the fluorescent waves break.
wondering why asa wanted me to write my name in the sand, then gasping as the sand underneath my finger's weight glowed like a sparkler, just for a second.
wishing that second would never end. 11:47 p.m.Sunday, September 14, 2003
which frustrates me more, i wonder--being the cheezy guy in the bar that talks to strange, beautiful women apropos of nothing, or being the guy who doesn't even try?
9-11 came and went, and i forgot it was even here.
johnny cash died, and john ritter too.
not sure if i should stop feeling sorry for myself long enough to feel sorry for the rest of the world, or if that's just more of the same. self-pity on a grander scale.
maybe i'll listen to "a boy named sue" while watching "three's company" on tivo somewhere.
and blast some spotlights into the sky for the terrorists to see. that'll teach them.
or maybe i'll go back to bed and wait for everything to be better. 11:07 a.m.Saturday, September 13, 2003
at sixteen years of age, i loved mc hammer and vanilla ice.
allow me to explain.
see, i didn't discover the radio until i got a car, so i didn't discover music until i got a car.
when i was sixteen and driving myself to school, i started noticing all this music. and i started to like it. and with no one to tell me what was what, i was left to my own naive tastes. and what i liked was the happy rap music.
i'm not going to defend it, because that's not the point. just know that that's how it was.
then one day, i was at a friend's house, and he turned on what i would later learn was called "music television." and the number one video that week on the countdown was a song called "losing my religion" by r.e.m.
that video blew me away. it was beautiful to look at, like a painting, but said something too. it was magical. it was an art form i hadn't known existed. and a band i hadn't known either.
i saw that video maybe ten times that weekend. i sat in front of my friend's television and waited for it.
the song was good too, i realized finally.
and that's why the first good album (and maybe by good i mean non-cheese-rap; or maybe i just mean rock and roll; or maybe i mean an album i'm not ashamed to admit to liking) i ever bought was "Out of Time."
i never went back to vanilla ice again.
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not more than a year later, i was returning from a ski trip with my cousin. we were listening to "finest worksong" and michael stipe was singing what we want, and what we need, has been confused, been confused....
and my cousin, who was my hero--the coolest guy in school, a jock, every girl wanted him, and was just all around prom king material--said "wow, that's really so true."
and i saw a side of him i had never seen before.
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i became a big big r.e.m. fan. i'm sure i would have told you i was the biggest.
and when "Rolling Stone" put out an ornate cover with them on it, and gold trim all the way around the edges, i cut it out, and put it in a box, so i would always have it forever.
i bet i still have it around somewhere.
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another year or two later, i worked an office job that left me alone at a desk with not much more than a phone. there were some things to do, sure, but sometimes there was nothing.
that was when i sat with a walkman and transcribed every lyric to "it's the end of the world as we know it (and i feel fine)." it took me about two hours.
i will know those lyrics until the day i die.
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at my first college, i signed up for work study. but at the job fair i walked around and decided nothing appealed to me. or maybe i didn't go. anyway, by the time i was ready to take anything they had, all that was left was janitorial.
i mopped the same hallway in the communications building every night for two hours with a red vest pulled over my clothes. it was a very depressing thing.
the only thing that got me through it was "automatic for the people."
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when a really good friend decided to leave us all here and move back home, he put on his goodbye mix cd one of their songs called "electrolite" that ended with the line i'm out of here.
it makes me sad to this day to hear it. cause i miss him.
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so tonight at the hollywood bowl, it should come as no big shock--
that when they finally stopped playing new stuff and went into "fall on me" i had to be told by the guy in front of me to stop tapping his seat so hard...
...so that when "don't go back to rockville" and "one i love" came on, i had to make sure my feet were firmly on the ground the whole time, but i still couldn't help singing along.
that when tony clifton joined in for "man on the moon" and wound up chasing michael stipe around the stage till he was escorted out, i was utterly delighted.
that when they came out for the encore and went straight into "everybody hurts," i had to fight back tears. (funny, that song used to be all about the cool video. guess i haven't heard that song in many years--at least not now that i have actually experienced that kind of pain.)
that when michael stipe ran into the audience in the middle of he finale, which happened to be "it's the end of the world as we know it and i feel fine)," i sang along to every damn word.
and that when the lights came up, though i was all the way at the back, in a crowd of 18,000, i screamed my guts out wanting more.
12:17 a.m.Thursday, September 11, 2003
(and here is where a long blog becomes a short one.)
the dentist didn't want me cause i had no insurance, my car went on strike and wouldn't leave first gear, and my sister dropped her phone down a sewer grating.
he went in and got her phone back (he is a bona fide hero, just ask sis), then sat with me until the two giant coffees perked me up. and then as i walked back to my newly broken-spirited bronco, the sun broke free of the clouds and made a mad dash for the back seat of my car.
maybe things ain't gonna be so bad.
more later, maybe. 10:44 p.m.Tuesday, September 9, 2003
so i worked with a kid who is a hot commodity right now. and good for him. he deserves it.
and he just did a movie with a behind-the-scenes television show attached. and someday it will come out on dvd (cause everything on tv will be on dvd soon, and we won't need tv at all). and on that dvd there will be a short this kid directed. and there will be a behind-the-scenes of that and it will be starring me.
that's right. i will be playing the part of "camera assistant no. 2." the tall guy with the blond hair who's always running somewhere. yep. that's me.
for reals. i signed a waiver, i was interviewed. i was on camera every time i turned around.
ima be famous soon.
it was fun to work again. fun to be back out there, doing all the film things i used to get paid so much to do.
though i'm sore, which is something i haven't been in a while.
favorite moment:
there were four homeboys playing the parts of "gangstas 1 through 4," decked out in baseball jerseys, skull caps, timberland boots, that kind of thing. they were not taye-diggs-acting-ghettofabulous-types but the real thing. while they waited in the shade for their time to perform, they talked about the internet.
"yo, do you yahoo search that shit?"
"nah, man, you google that shit, dog."
and on and on. with the hip-hop talk about the internet. and www.bigbooties.com. (i would try to recreate it more, but it would only lose more authenticity, as i am the whitest of white guys.)
and the whole time, i didn't look back at them, only listened and couldn't help but think--
truly, these are revolutionary times in which we live. 02:04 p.m.Monday, September 8, 2003
when saying "i'm tired" got a sympathetic nod rather than a "why, what did you do today?"
when your hands hurt from carrying all those cases? when your head ached from all the stress? when you came home and collapsed on your bed and were asleep in seconds, because you had been out in the sun, working hard all day, being a camera assistant on a hit children's show, loading mags and marking actors? remember that kind of tired?
when i lived in austin, i went to a lot of live shows.
there was this club called liberty lunch, that ruled. it was a big small club, like you could smell the band, but it could hold a sizable crowd, you know what i mean? i don't know numbers. let's say it could hold near eight hundred. nah, let's say five.
anyway, i went to college, and i worked at night. but i sat at a phone, and i read the local paper. the free weekly. whatever. the austin chronicle. and i watched the bands come and go.
i had just moved there, was a shy guy. i made no friends in classes of three hundred kids, and i worked alone, in the back, by the phone. erego, no friends.
so when rancid was coming to liberty lunch, i got on that phone, and i ordered me some tickets.
i ordered two. oh, to be young and optimistic again.
but as the days went by, and no friends materialized, no girls emerged, that ticket just sort of sat there, glaring at me. taunting me.
i lived with a guy who was much older. bill. he was an engineer on assignment; his company had rented him a house and he was taking my rent money as extra cash. nice enough, liked to brew his own beer, i remember. from minnesota, i think maybe.
and on the day of the show, when no likely candidates had emerged, i invited him. free ticket, i offered, hoping he would offer to pay.
he didn't. but he did come to the show.
we had a beer at the bar while we waited, but i shot up to the front once the show started. i was that kind of fan.
rancid rocked the house, and i loved every minute of it. i jumped up and down, i sang along. i cheered. i might have even moshed. i did things like that back then.
when the show was over, i found bill, filing out with the rest of the crowd. i asked him how he liked it.
"they were great," he said. "if only the singer could sing, or the guitarist could play."
turns out, he had left in the middle, walked a block to the sports bar, and watched some baseball. then he had come back for the end of the show.
tonight, trucking down the highway, with the top off and the wind in my hair, screaming along to "ruby soho" at the top of my lungs, thinking about their new album i can't wait to get, i'm glad he didn't like them.
glad they're all mine. 10:56 p.m.Thursday, September 4, 2003
he decided to celebrate his special day in las vegas. and we, his friends, wanted to be there for it. it was a three day weekend, after all.
i didn't win any money, but you're not supposed to leave with nothing.
here's what i took from my visit to the land of siegried and roy:
southwest airlines still has peanuts. but their flight attendants are more scared of turbulence than you are, so you might not get any if it looks like a bumpy flight.
you can double down when you are dealt blackjack. they'll let you. but that's stupid, and you don’t really want to.
there might actually be more cheezy/hot people in vegas than in los angeles. it’s not documented, and i know it’s hard to believe, but i think it might be true.
just because you are paying two hundred bucks a night does not give you free access to the shark park in the hotel. (note: this does not mean it's not worth it. when you look up and there is a six-foot shark hovering just above you with its teeth all sharp and pointy, and it's just cruising by above you, and you jump--cause i mean, holy shit, there's a shark right there!--well, that's worth all the marbles.)
i am no clooney. i do not really know how to slyly light a lady’s cigarette without using at least four matches and babbling like an idiot the whole time.
raf is the king of craps, and ashley is the queen.
i am officially comfortable to gamble at two tables--blackjack and craps--alone. though i should not be allowed to throw the dice without everyone wearing safety goggles.
speaking of ashley, we found out that if you are friendly to every guy that you talk to, you will absolutely be hit on by every guy in las vegas.
the best way to observe all the attendees of the annual "pimps and ho's" party is to follow the velvet rope that wraps around the casino. they are all standing beside it waiting to get in, and will likely spend most of their night in that line. you can then walk by at your leisure. you can stop, take some pictures of any you find sexy and/or interesting, maybe point them out to your friends, and then move along when you are ready. it's kind of like the zoo.
only sexier!
it is also possible to see too many ho's, and become immune and/or frustrated by all the sexy. it is a rare phenomon, that i have only witnessed in las vegas (and melrose, some saturdays).
nickel computer blackjack is way more fun than slot machines. (and they still give you free drinks!)
it's HOT in vegas, and there is nothing to really do about it except go to the "wave pool" (which is a misnomer, it doesn't really have that many waves, just gets one big wave about every five minutes) dunk your head, then run back to the chair when you get bored of standing in the water, and lay back down.
this gets old fast.
said wave is much more fun if, when it hits, you go "woooooooo" like a slide whistle as it passes over you. even more fun if you can enlist your friends in joining you in this activity.
cell phones are absolutely necessary if you plan on ever hooking up with the rest of your party again. if you are like me, and remember to take your cell phone to the damn laundry room, but forget to take it with you to vegas, well, you will be hearing about your idiocy the whole time.
i know more blues traveller songs than i ever would have thought.
there is no more pathetic feeling than when you hit the atm at two in the morning, and as you walk up it greets you with "do you have a problem with gambling addiction? get help!"
it does help, however if you win that atm money back right before you leave for the airport.
there is a cinnabon in every airport, if you look hard enough.
did you ever spend the night in a haunted house? on a dare? or for a bet? when you were a kid? that kind of thing?
no. no one did. only in the movies.
did you ever go camping when you were young?
of course.
what i am getting at here is, remember that feeling where you're out there, and you're proud of yourself for being out there, cause you know that the one thing you will never admit is that you are fucking terrified of being out there, you are sure an axe murderer or a werewolf, or just a pack of wild dogs, but something is out there.
and even as you laugh and joke around with your friends, in the back of your mind, you are worried. you are listening for the smallest crack of a twig, ready to bolt.
well, that, for me, was vegas. mostly, i was afraid of ghosts.
still had a lot of fun. just flinching a little under the surface.
fortunately, i brought all the right people with me.
cause i stayed. and i won that bet. 05:00 p.m.Wednesday, September 3, 2003
