Wednesday October 31st 2007, 4:21 pm
You’re a writer.
Write.
Mitt
Tuesday October 30th 2007, 8:21 am
Sunday morning, I woke up from a bizarre dream:
I was in an 80s spy show, and the arch villain was Mitt Romney. Not played by Mitt Romney, but the former governor of Massachusetts, the current Republican candidate, Mitt-as-he-is-now Romney. And he was attacking me with his flock of robot owls.
It definitely wasn’t a nightmare, because somewhere, in the back of my mind, as I was fleeing from the owls and their laser eyes and razor-edged tail feathers, I said to myself, “This is screwed up. And awesome.”
Today, after an excellent swim, I was belting up the 405 when I pass a white Mercedes SUV. Its license plate? MITT 08.
I passed the car, but didn’t get a close look at the driver. I’m pretty sure, however, there were no robot owls inside.
This means something
Vector
Monday October 29th 2007, 1:46 pm
So, I’m eating at the Pit Fire, when this Escalade SUV double parks, someone leaps out and a crowd of desperate people gathers. They’re holding cameras with giant lenses, all such regular looking guys, with one tattooed woman, looking bored. Six of them, pacing, waiting for their target (Lindsey Lohan has shopped next door before, and eaten at this place) to, what? Have a meltdown? Flash the cameras? Eat a baby?
If fame is an external construct, than paparazzi are supervectors. They’re filling some kind of niche in the psychic ecosystem, just like I’m filling a niche of moral scold. Fame for creating stuff is one thing; being in the eye of the Chengdu storm with the crowds surrounding Robert Sawyer and Neil Gaiman was proof of that. But fame for being a public disaster is something that I don’t understand. Sean Penn, famous for punching out paps, was smart enough to take his family to some place where paps don’t flock. He removed his family from the vectors. The target here must like the infection, because it’s the only reason to stay here, unless one’s working all the time (and, in that case, why the hell isn’t the target busy working?).
Being a pap must pay well; one just parked a new BMW right outside. They start shooting each other, showing off their gear, showing off their resolution and zoom and full spectrum bullshit. We moved to NoHo to get a bit of the entertainment biz, and that means getting in the middle of the detritus, too.
I finish my sandwich and get back to work
One Moment
Wednesday October 24th 2007, 7:44 am
I know that the world is burning down around me, and the sky looks like Pompeii on a bad day, and that work will likely be a royal pain in the ass of clients and shit-eating, but you know what? I just ran ten miles, and the iPod was nice enough to put on Guns ‘n’ Roses playing “Knocking on Heaven’s Door.” The live version from the Freddie Mercury Concert. The one where Axl cries, “Gimme some reggae!” and the world is burst of joyous, riotous dance. And I know it’s a little thing, a wee synchronicity that might have happened on any day during any run, but I’ll take it. Good God, yes, I’ll take it.
How Come I End Up Where I Started?
Wednesday October 10th 2007, 3:13 pm
After reading one complaint after another about how difficult it’s been to download Radiohead’s new album, In Rainbows, I only have this to say: try getting up earlier, you lazy bastards.
Yes, I pulled it down this morning around 4.30 before getting in the saddle. Yet another advantage to Ironman training.
I wrote more about it on the Centric blog. It’s that inspiring an album.
The Key is to Commit
Monday October 08th 2007, 10:35 am
Fucked up.
That’s the best way to describe Canned Peaches in Syrup, now playing at the Furious Theatre. Since Ken works at the Pasadena Playhouse, we were treated to an evening of star-crossed love, questions of faith, and bad skin. Lots and lots of bad skin. Plus vomit.
The performances were excellent, and there were some genuinely funny moments, like Pa’s monologue in the second act. And the play mostly worked as SF, though I kept thinking “What about kuru?” (And thanks to Daryl Gregory’s “Damascus” for forever polluting any ideas I have about cannibalism.) Same with the vomit. What’s the nutritional value of vomit?
The fact that I had these questions lead me to the one thing that didn’t set well with me: how much of the play’s fucked-up-edness was there for shock value? How much was vital to the characters and plot? If you’re writing a play about the end of the world, you’re going to have some desperate situations, sure. And, yes, you’re writing a play, which is going to have different rules than a story, blah, blah, blah. But included fucked up stuff for its own sake isn’t good storytelling. Just a thought. Fucking whales.
Dear ABC…
Saturday October 06th 2007, 9:11 pm
If you do anything at all to mess with Pushing Daisies, then it is over between us. I don’t care what you do with Lost or anything else, but leave this show alone and let it grow. It is perfect, perhaps the most perfect thing you’ve ever allowed on that bastion of mediocrity you call a network.
Leave it alone, and let it grow.
Love and kisses,
-A.