Regarding last post

I usually hate those pretentious artists who go on and on about what was behind their art and what they were trying to do and blah blah blah.  I feel the art should speak for itself, generally.  But in this case, I have to break my own rule and add a footnote of sorts. 

I was trying to do something with wildly conflicting emotions, ultimately silly but with dark undertones. It wasn't a chronicle of my life so much as an experiment. I don't consider myself a poet but I sometimes like to dabble in the form. "She" was intended as a darkly funny freestyle tone poem.

It was inspired in part by not being able to fall asleep even though I was exhausted, and in part by the webcomic "A Softer World" (www.asofterworld.com), which has some severely fucked up (but often funny) stuff.  

Anyway, I guess I got a big fail on that one, but it was the kind of thing that sticks in my head unless I write it down, so I did. 

There you go, the DVD extra for the last post.  

She

smells like roses now

not knowing

it was the coconut scent

that drove me crazy

The rose perfume just makes me want to sneeze.

Last night, insomniac; her

arms around me

lend no solace, no comfort

they are the wrong arms

Also that damned perfume is giving me a headache.

I'll be moving soon

she misses me already, she says

There's nothing I can say to that

So instead I roll over

But I sure won't miss that perfume.

Later I stare at patterns

on the ceiling

Thoughts torpid and muddy; darkly existential

(dwelling perhaps on the

unbroken chain of wrong arms)

She sleeps beside me, sated

And I try not to sneeze.

Movie Review: I Love You, Man

I saw I Love You, Man last night.  

I gotta say, I laughed my fucking ass off through most of the movie.  Jason Siegel and Paul Rudd really have earned their place as comedic rising stars. And they actually CAN act, as witness the fact that in the various projects I've seen each of these guys in, they are noticeably different people, even down to body language.  

The movie IS hilarious, but it's also actually pretty damned original, which is no small thing in this day and age of endless adaptations, remakes and revamps. Not that those are all bad, but it's kinda nice to see something that really hasn't been done before. 

If you've seen the trailers, you know what the movie is about.  But I was pleasantly surprised that the trailer really can't replace the movie (as is often the case, particularly with comedies: they put the best stuff in the trailer; the rest is just filler).  In this case, the trailer really just tells you the plot, in the broadest of broad strokes.  It does not convey the impressively nuanced characters, nor does it destroy the best jokes.  

In case you've been living under a rock (or in North Carolina), I Love You, Man is about Peter, a dude who never had a male best friend -- he always found himself closer to women.  Which was never a problem until he pops the question and suddenly finds himself in need of a Best Man.  

So, in typical movie fashion, our boy forays out into the world of "Man-Dates" and internet connections, in search of bromance.  As to be expected, hilarity ensues through a series of mismatches (some thoroughly disastrous).  But obviously he finds eventually finds a kindred soul of sorts, in the form of Sidney (Jason Siegel) and that's where the real fun begins.  

I'm not going to spoil any of the jokes -- and honestly I'm not sure I could.  A lot of it is situational/character-driven humor (I had to bite my hand hard, repeatedly, to keep from yelling at the poor fool to stop trying to be cool, dude -- it ain't working) rather than any form of slapstick, sarcasm or witty one-liners, which is also kind of refreshing.  

As said, Rudd and Siegel do an excellent job filling out their roles, making their characters believable and relatable.  Somewhat less impressive was Zooey, played by The Office's Rashida Jones.  Now don't get me wrong, this woman is gorgeous in a very down to earth way and I love seeing her. And I don't think her acting ability is to blame. But her character didn't seem to connect with me. She seemed predictable and flat, even as her mysteriously Technicolor bronze skin tone leapt from the screen and tried to stab my eyes.  

Whoever was in charge of the overall color scheme around that poor girl should be tied naked to a chair at the end of the Santa Monica Pier, liberally coated in breadcrumbs and fish guts.  You don't give an olive complected girl nothing but yellow. Yellow light, yellow walls, yellow shirt -- it looks fucking weird, like she's the love child of Doc Savage and Jill Masterson (the girl who died in Goldfinger). 

Anyway, the fact that that is my biggest complaint about the movie says a lot, I think. Well, not really, because I don't complain much about movies.  But I really did like this one, for a lot of reasons.  If you want a good solid couple hours of laughs and feel-good shit, check this one out.  

Oh, word to the wise: There are extra scenes during the credits that are well worth staying for.  

Shit's not bad...

I've been hearing a lot of trash talk about Joss Whedon's new show, Dollhouse.  Apparently quite a few people aren't liking it but some continue to watch it out of loyalty to Whedon and/or in hopes the show will start to not suck. But they SAY this, in tones of near derision.

No one, however, seems willing to talk about just why they think it sucks. They use generalities, they say it would take too long to list all the reasons. Could it be they just don't actually have any articulated reasons?

Also I find it interesting that they've conveniently forgotten the whole first season or two of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Come on, a giant praying mantis was better than Eliza Dushku running around looking pretty?  

Moreover, you gotta realize that the show's conceit is going to create problems with the studio's executives.  They don't wanna be seen as condoning human trafficking, prostitution, et cetera.  So they're going to interfere, in the best interests (they think) of their studio.  Thus guaranteeing that we're not really seeing what Whedon wants us to be seeing. Not really. 

I've been watching, and I gotta say that it's building up into something intricate and interesting a lot faster than a lot of other shows have.  How many "great" TV shows took three or four seasons to hit their stride and actually become good?  Try pretty much all of them. LOST is about the only exception I can think of, frankly -- and even that show needed time to become what it did.  Don't try to deny it. You know I'm right. 

I think people aren't loving the show not because it's not a good show, but because they don't like the idea of being a doll, or a slave. The concept is liable to induce a knee-jerk reaction particularly amongst (I think) Americans, for whom slavery is to this day an extremely charged and volatile subject.  So much so that they can't or won't look past the apparent trappings to see what the show really is. 

* * *

Another new show that's not bad is Lie to Me, which has also had its share of detractors, apparently.  

Now, I'm going to admit, the thing that closed me on this show was not the subject matter, but one of the actresses.

  

Monica Raymund pretty much blew me away with those eyes, that jaw, those lips.  Plus she plays a little fireball, which always tickles me. I like little fireballs.

But the more I watched, the more I found the show itself compelling. At its heart, the show is about observation, about seeing what most people don't.  Which resonates with me as an artist, because that of course is what I do, what all artists do.  And to use that to track down the truth, whatever that might be -- well, that's noble. We need a bit more nobility in the world, if only people would see it.  

So yeah, these shows aren't bad.  Even my guilty pleasure (How I Met Your Mother) seems a hell of a lot better than the crap I remember watching while I was growing up. 

If it weren't for the popularity of these freaking reality shows, I'd think America was getting spoiled by good stuff. But when you factor those in, I guess it evens out.

It's a Solid Bet

At least five out of the top 10 "winners" in the 2009 Darwin Awards will involve cell phones. 

This is not just me talking, oh no. This bears the sombre weight of prediction. 

It's nothing new that people don't think.  It's a well-known pet peeve of mine, in point of fact.  People in general do not think.  You might think they're thinking, but all they're really doing is running on a series of automaticities that preserve their carefully-constructed facade of a productive, valuable member of society. If any thought at all could be said to be occurring, I guarantee it is not about whatever they're doing, when they're doing it. 

Case in point: I got rear-ended the weekend before last.  Wasn't a big deal, didn't do any real damage to either car.  But I was at a full and complete stop, and so was the rear-ender, when she suddenly decides to take her foot off her brakes and give me a little love-tap.  

I turned around, all aghast, to see her giggling away on her cell phone.  That she'd just been involved in a minor vehicular collision had completely passed her by. Or maybe it hadn't, because she got the hell out of my lane as quickly as she could, though she never acknowledged me in any way.

Not only is it currently illegal to drive and talk on the cell phone (barring bluetooth), what the hell is up with the bump from a full stop?  Well, she couldn't have been thinking about her driving, could she now?

I've seen women with strollers stop in the middle of a driveway to answer a call.  Not a residential driveway, either. One next to a busy parking lot. But then, you'd have to think to know that parking lots reduce aggregate IQ by 15-20% upon entry. It's not like you'd lose the call forever if you don't answer right away, either.  Most, if not all, cell phones keep call records. 

Today I went to the bathroom at work. There's an outer door and a short hallway that leads to the respective genders' excretion depositories.  I opened said outer door and was immediately confronted with a very large, blue-jeaned ass.  

This woman had stopped less than a yard into the hallway, while holding a loaded baby carrier, to pick up some sundries she'd dropped. While she was also talking on her bloody cell phone.  

If I'd been any slower on the uptake, she would've gotten an assful of door and a faceful of linoleum.  

As it was, she barely acknowledged my presence as she shuffled forward, juggling phone, baby and whatever the hell she'd dropped (which she dropped again, with perfectly Keatonesque inevitability).  

I feel so very, very sorry for that baby.  Because the daddy can't be all that either, to pick Moby Denim for a baby mama. Not that her ass is her -- you should please excuse the double entendre -- biggest problem. Or even that it makes her a bad person. It's her notable lack of intelligence that I'm insulting yours by belaboring. 

Mark my words.  The '09 Darwin Awards will be rife with cell-phone deaths.  

I can't in good conscience say I'm entirely sorry about that. These unthinking cyphers are best removed from society.  But sadly, as evidenced by that sure-to-be-orphaned bundle of joy -- not before they reproduce. 

When Life Gives You Shit...

...You can still make a profit selling to gardeners. 

This past week has been unbelievably crazy.  Everyone's got drama, everyone needs money, everyone is uptight blah blah blah wah wah wah. 

I've mentioned before somewhere that we have a houseguest in the form of my mom's best friend.  It's been over a year now that she's been staying with us, less a few months here and there when she was visiting her family or whatever.  A year to not get a job, not get her own place and basically not do anything of value besides cleaning up the apartment now and then, and sometimes cooking. 

I recently found out she has a long history of living off her friends to the point where they can't take it anymore and kick her out -- and then she acts like the injured party and badmouths the erstwhile friend. 

Also she apparently snores so stentoriously that my mom hasn't had a proper night's sleep for a year.  Even with earplugs.  Which contributes now to my mother's physical collapse from exhaustion.

Basically the woman is a parasite. A big, fat, covertly evil parasite.  Seriously. 

My stepdad has had enough of all of it.  His various interests will require he stay here for an extended period, so he's elected to move to a different, cheaper apartment.  Our current place is his apartment but my arrival left him sleeping on the floor in the living room when he visited.  No one liked it but he insisted on it so ... yeah.  But now that he's getting a new place, he wants one of the two bedrooms (my mother gets the other [they're not married anymore, just friends], which means I'd be the one sleeping in the living room. 

And if the Parasite stays with us for any length of time, she'll be in the living room too.  

Which is not acceptable to either of us.  And my stepdad knows it. 

So I need to get a new place.  In that I really kinda fucking hate OC (although to be fair, I've been a total social maladroit until recently), and I don't wanna move twice, this means that by sometime in May, I'll be living in Los Angeles County.  Don't know where yet, exactly, but it'll probably be in the Glendale/Burbank area, or possibly in a loft apartment downtown.  I'm hoping to score some roomies, actually. Much as I'd love to have my very own place, I'm really not in a financial position for that to be realistic at all. 

Which brings me to the next issue: Money and jobs. 

Money-wise, it seems like suddenly, just when I really need to be saving as much as possible, everyone suddenly wants my fucking paycheck. The bank docked me $70 for a bogus overdraft (which I need to deal with), the credit card company suddenly originates that I owe them $60 in addition to usual fees (which I will also deal with).  Oh, and all the bills I pay arrived in the mail yesterday.  

So here's me, two months from needing to get a new place (which = all kinds of costs) and a new job (which will need to pay at least half again as much as my current one).  It would be smart to save up, right? Except no one seems to want me to.  So for the next two months, I'm going to be even more hermitic than usual, saving every possible penny.  Last night was the last time I'll be going out for a while.  Well, maybe St. Patrick's Day. But only maybe.  

Meanwhile, work this past week was insanely busy, and the customers I had to deal with were total idiotic bitches.  Seriously.  I won't get into gory details but my senior turns around and yells at ME -- the dude who put in like 5 hours of unpaid overtime and skipped three lunches to get the job done, and that was on my own origination -- because the customer always has to be right. 

Those customers can suck it. 

So yeah, the contemplation of a new job is actually kind of a nice one. I mean, I do generally like working where I do, but it's definitely time to move on. 

All of this made for a crazy, stressful week, one where all my stable points, all the things I more or less took for granted, or as problems solved, are suddenly unstable, ungranted, unsolved.  

Hells yes I'm nervous -- my previous experiences on my own were significantly different from what this will be -- but I'm also muy excited.  

Because the waiting is over, you see.  I've spent the last three or four years basically waiting for certain conditions to be fulfilled so I could go out and live my life at last.  Well, those conditions have not been fulfilled (although they eventually will be), but the waiting is over.  It's carpe diem time, boys and girls.  

Carpe fucking diem.

It's been a movie weekend

Well yeah, I do see a lot of movies anyhow, but over the past four days I've had my ass in a theatre chair a little more than usual. 

Thursday night I went and saw The International.  Clive Owen, Naomi Watts?  Snooze-fucking-fest.  I mean, true, I was already tired as fuck and I couldn't hear shit -- something was up with the speakers and/or my hearing aid that night -- so the flick already had two strikes.  But I basically saw the movie by watching the trailer.  Don't waste money on it. Wait for it to come on TV or pirate it if you absolutely must see it. But even then you'll wish you got those hours of your life back. 

Funny thing though was we saw it on Thursday and there was a line forming for the 12:01 showing of Watchmen.  The line had two people in it at 7pm. They'd been waiting two hours already. I felt so sorry for them; had I been less tired and not working the next day, I would totally have joined them.  When we came out of our movie, the line was a whopping 7 people long.  

It wasn't like that in Burbank.  Went to see Watchmen on Saturday evening on IMAX. Forty-five minutes before the show time, the line stretched from the doors almost halfway around the building.  I was glad I got there early so I could save seats for all my amigos who came to watch it with me. 

Watchmen was a terrific movie. It was long and involved (and unless you've read the book you probably won't realize just how involved) but absolutely great to see.  I don't think there's really a whole lot else I can say about it other than see it -- but don't expect it to be anything like the other comic book movies you may have seen.  It's rated R for a reason.  Some critics made pooh-pooh about "campy" elements. To them I say psh.  It's a movie about people dressing up in weird outfits and wearing domino masks to fight crime.  Yeah, there's gonna be some camp vibes. But you can't deny the movie has style. Some others have made noises about the fact that some elements are different from the book. I think it worked, and there's no call for disappointment on anyone's part. 

Tonight I went to see Slumdog Millionaire.  Having seen it, I can totally understand why it won Best Picture.  It's very artistically done, as well as having a good message, good acting, and also opening your eyes to the realities of life in some parts of the world.  Rare these days in that while it's intense, dramatic and has very serious themes, it's also not afraid to have a little fun here and there, particularly in the closing credits.  It was brilliant, and I'm glad I saw it. 

Okay, that's the movie review for now.  Cheers.

Carpe diem

Today is a beautiful day in Tustin.  

The recent rains have hosed the city down, giving it a depth and sparkle normally obscured by dust and smog and the oily veneer of overweening materialism.  

The sky is a perfect, delicate eggshell blue, punctuated by a benign armada of puffy clouds.  It's a storybook sky, a classic Spring sky.  It makes you want to grab children, dress them in pale pastels and dash to a broad expanse of bright green parkland with baskets in search of hidden plastic ovipoforms.*

The air temperature is in the mid- to low-60s, a pleasant, clement temperature. It's not too humid or too dry; it's warm enough to feel comfortable in shirtsleeves and maybe a light sweater but not so warm that you keep taking the sweater off.  

The sun is bright enough for sunglasses but not actinic or piercing.  It's a calm light, a loving light, the light one remembers from one's youth when the world was safe and clean and full of adventure and mystery.

It's the kind of day that makes you want to dig out the hibachi, or find the old catcher's mitt, or strap on the hiking shoes. The kind of day that makes me want to get in my car and explore.  It's a day for the Great Outdoors, for communion with nature, for appreciating the world we live on and that gives us such wonderful days.

So of course I got back inside as soon as possible, my back to the window, to write this blog.

*Yes, that means "egg shapes".  

His Name is Not Ickett

An article on the Yahoo landing page (http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/goddess/m-i-a-my-baby-is-not-called-ickett/191?nc) made me laugh uncontrollably. 

I don't really give a shit about MIA, her baby, her baby's name, or even rap in general.  I only saw this because it's on the entertainment landing page and you can't blame me for wtfing my way to a story with a title like that. 

Come on.  "Ickett"?  And people believed that?  

I'm still giggling. 

Although that may also be attributable to my excitement for the weekend...

M is for Magnetic

Don't really have a whole lot to say here.  I think most who would read this are on MySpace and know of my recent shenanigans.  

But just in case: I've somehow managed to break down a barrier I've had in my life for some time. See, for a long time I've been what could charitably be called an introvert.  I've tended to be quiet and maybe appear a little withdrawn.  While I have had no real problems with talking to anyone (besides the obvious sensory issues), it would be pretty rare that I would attract complete strangers and company would be mutually enjoyed.

In the last two weeks, I have noticed a change in this. 

My last blog detailed (a little too explicitly, perhaps) what happened a couple weeks ago.  Last weekend I was at various social functions and such, and somehow I've become fucking magnetic.  Moreover, I'm magnetizing people who actually seem pretty interesting and cool (unlike before, when the only type of person I could count on magnetizing was a cougar).

Friday night, Bear Brewing Company beer tasting and Joe's 30th.  I never lacked for company.  I mean, they're a friendly bunch but this was unusual.  Specifically a slender hipster girl named Jacqueline (if I remember correctly -- it was kinda noisy when she introduced herself).  That was interesting and fun. 

Went home, hit my bars.  Jamie cuddled me and kissed my neck. Can't say I didn't see that coming, but bears mentioning.

Saturday night. A long-term friend's birthday party in LA.  The prettiest girl there spent the whole evening talking to me, and others tried but at inopportune moments.  When she wasn't talking to me, other people were.  And it wasn't desultory bored conversation on either side, either. We all kept each other entertained; whereas before I'd have quickly run out of things to say and awkward silence would ensue, now I'm a bottomless well of interesting shit. Apparently.

Went home, hit my bars, where Summer danced me to the ground.  Someone else, whose name I didn't get, felt me up very thoroughly (and surprisingly. But I totally gained points with her friends and her husband by reacting with aplomb).  I also danced with Summer's boyfriend, which was pretty fucking funny. I made more friends, people I know I'll happily hang with in the future.

The greatest thing about all of this: I never once froze up or felt intimidated by the hot chicks or whatever.  I never felt self-conscious, and I never had to worry about being caught checking them out, because that just didn't enter into it.  I'm successfully not making any kind of romantic or overbearing conversational overtures on anyone, and maybe people sense that and have to fill the vacuum.  

Or maybe I've just grown up a little, these few short weeks before I turn 30, and have finally begun to become the person I should be.