should old left column be forgot, and never brought to mind? no!
any given wednesday
Oh my. My first day back and I’m overwhelmed already. I
just opened my unnecessary and mostly un-reciprocated because I’m too poor this year
but totally appreciated gifts from readers. This is what I got:
From Jessica Kaman – Foo Fighters. There is Nothing Left To Lose.
From Jeff Long – Fever Pitch.
From Pamela Ribon – Radiohead. The Bends. (Ha ha. Pamie gave me the bends. At least the album isn't called the clap.)
From Jackie Danicki (a self-proclaimed "Yank girl in UK" who nevertheless uses such limey words as ‘dosh’ and ‘mo’.) – Portishead. Roseland NYC Live.
From Tom Witherspoon – Harden and Coltrane. The Complete Savoy Sessions.
From Beth Campbell (who’s address I now have, stalkers – and who recently admitted to spending an hour on www.affleck.com) – Barry White. All-Time Greatest Hits.
From Kim Reed – Fargo, the screenplay.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You seven are cool, nice, generous, classy, thoughtful, sexy, have great hair, are fantastic in bed, have IQ’s of 168, are kind to animals, can play the sitar, shoot 87% from the free-throw line, never end a sentence with a preposition, read instead of watch television, can clear 8 foot hedges side-saddle from a dead stop, and under no circumstances in a restaurant would ever bend down to pick up a dropped fork.
Meanwhile…
…In case you tend to zone out during large re-tellings of vacations… I’ll make it short and sectioned. (Just like your mom.)
The drive: I woke up at 5am and with a large 7-11 coffee and some smokes, I drove up Highway 1, just beating a freeway-approaching wildfire near Ojai. The weather was gorgeous and I swear if you ever need to do some thinking, or just shake the rust out, drive up 1 early in the morning.
The fam: My sister and mom are both healthy and happy. Both old cats are currently still around and dog is dumb, smelly, and cute as ever. That’s my family.
The friends: Friends since nursery school Jeff, Derek, Devin, and Greg were all around. We drank beers and chatted. We played poker for 12 straight hours. Just a tip: if you want to win at poker, get your friends stoned before they play. This would have worked had we stopped playing by the time the weed ran out. Unfortunately, they sobered up just as I started drinking. It went downhill from there. Saw Derek’s SUPER PREGNANT wife Rebecca. Derek himself, meanwhile, was rolling joints, drinking, and putting money on the Niners to lose. Father material!!! (Speaking of father material, congrats to Robb and Julie.)
The misc.: I love the Bay Area. Bummed around Berkeley as always. If you wanted to find me, I could have been found sitting at Milano Café downtown red-lining a script, walking up and down telegraph, at the SFSPCA (Gorgeous and wonderful. Seriously.), walking the dog, at a small pub on Solano, at the Elmwood Theatre, standing outside of the Giants’ new home going "wow", having my butt kicked in Scrabble by my mom, or driving around aimlessly alone.
The films: Aside from videos, I saw 3 movies this week. The Talented Mr. Ripley was excellent. I thought Matt Damon was great but a bit miscast, especially judging from the book. (My mother: "His teeth. They’re just… so BIG!") The rest of the cast: phenomenal. I fall more in love with Cate Blanchett each day I live. Very well directed. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that the old principal from Beverly Hills 90210 as Dickie’s father? (I just realized I'm totally wrong about that. Sorry. - ed. ) Saw Man on the Moon. Less successful. Very good performance, but it felt like Kaufman performance recreations held "together" by 20 minutes of undeveloped and unrevealing behind-the-scenes stuff. Any Given Sunday was a complete and total fucking mess. Oliver Stone, Mr. Anti-Subtle himself, at his least subtle. And now I can update the Al Pacino Hoo-Wah Factor chart:
MOVIE / HOO-WAH FACTOR
DICK TRACY - 10
GODFATHER 3 - 11
FRANKIE AND JOHNNY - 1
SCENT OF A WOMAN - 8
GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS - 7
CARLITO’S WAY - 6
HEAT - 7 (recently upgraded from a 5)
LOOKING FOR RICHARD - 11
DONNIE BRASCO - 8
DEVIL’S ADVOCATE - INFINITY
THE INSIDER - 1
ANY GIVEN SUNDAY - 9
Elsewhere…
…So I get back to a computer to find this. Funny, lady. Funny.
My empty pockets…
…OK. Again, I won’t go on about this for long because a) I know you have no sympathy for me and b) frankly it’s boring, but… I am broke. Broke like a motherfuck. And the hurting hasn’t even really started. That’ll start when I get checks minus all the time I took off. I want to not have to work here so much I can taste it (Actually, all I can taste right now is the Red Vine I’m eating. Yum...), but it pays well. And then, you ask, why are you so poor? My answer: I DON’T KNOW!!! I just buy and buy and buy. And not fun shit. Except for my 25 CD changer, but that shit is dope. I pay rent and increasing bills and my own car and health insurance which I never NEED which I assume is the point, nay goal, of insurance. I send out scripts and videotapes like a madman. I buy printer cartridges and reams of paper and stamps by the trunk-load. I go out to eat and see movies and buy booze and smokes, but the rest is for a purpose. And then again I went and got all crazy-generous giving gifts this year. My mom got a TV/VCR. My sister got a power drill. I spent over 500 bucks on other people, and now I can’t go out to dinner on New Years. This is how sad it is: I received a gift certificate from Tower Records, and used it to buy gifts for people. That’s sad.
OK, I’m totally done with my pity party. Growing up, money was a deal because we had none. Now again I have none alla sudden. To be worth nothing, actually with debt, less than nothing, sucks.
But please don’t pity me. My life rocks. Do you know why?…
…Because I am the motherfucking wheelman!!!
Let’s just say after 6 hours of
driving yesterday, I did 6 more at my desk. This game is ill, and I didn’t even get
to play the MAIN GAME because I couldn’t qualify. The one thing that disturbs me,
though, is this face they keep showing ("you", I imagine) reminds me of
Balthazar Getty.
Damn. I might have to throw the game away.
The Larry King Happy
Song Corner
