Island of Hair

"Dune" (1975) = kill my weekend

2011-07-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

Depending on how you look at it, this weekend was either spent or ruined entirely on Friday night. I was up until 2:00 a.m. reading about and watching YouTube videos about Alejandro Jodorowsky's attempt to film "Dune" in 1975. I was looking for the Jodorowsky script online for a while until I read that it had been the size of a yellow pages phonebook. Today Saturday I got nothing done, I wandered around until I took a three hour nap. Tomorrow is Sunday, and Sundays are always similar non-days.

Nosferatu Home Video Pix 2010 - "Winter's Bone"

2011-05-13T10:39:00.000-07:00

I am chagrined to admit that, of all resources, I have to thank the confounded Academy Awards for introducing me to the otherwise obscure 2010 movie “Winter’s Bone”. Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for best actress and John Hawkes was nominated for best supporting actor. The movie takes place in the modern day Ozarks and the filmmakers ought to be saluted for filming entirely in Missouri. The movie is about the rural mountain people, their kinfolk, the culture and subculture of the Ozark clans. The story is told from the perspective of the innocent bystanders who live on the ragged fringe of their kinfolks’ drug - and otherwise illegal - subculture. The Ozark bootleggers have, of course, graduated from moonshine production to meth labs. The local cops are dirty and the mountain folk, of course, have always relied on their own laws and justice system.

This is not inherently dynamic subject matter. One of the strengths of “Winter’s Bone” is its more than convincing reflection of the dullness of ignorance, poverty and broken relationships. Shudders. What is dynamic is the threat of being reduced from merely hard times to complete destitution and ruined lives. The major strengths of the movie are the performances of Jennifer Lawrence as 17-year-old Ree Dolly and of John Hawkes as her moody, druggy uncle Teardrop Dolly. After I saw “Winter’s Bone”, I described it, in one of my rare moments of mirth, as the mountain clan version of “True Grit”. In one of my even rarer moments of reflection, I realized that this is not a ridiculous comparison. Teenage girl takes on the responsibility of righting of a wrong done to her family. Seeks aid of a reluctant, possibly useless, older man to track down the elusive wrongdoer. Many warnings, harrowing circumstances, removal of human limbs. And I would honestly say that both “True Grit” and “Winter’s Bone” are appropriate movies for family viewing.

To flesh out the plot of “Winter’s Bone”, I’ll say that Ree is looking for her missing father, Jessup Dolly the meth lab expert who has put up the family log cabin and the surrounding woods as collateral for bail and then promptly disappeared. Ree, her mentally incapacitated mother, and her younger brother and sister are looking down the barrel of being turned out of their home and being separated from each other to live their lives as beggars. When Ree goes on the hunt for Jessup, her uncle Teardrop (antihero for the ages) is the first of many of the kinfolk and related clan members who warn her not to ask questions or make waves. When you meddle with the Ozark underworld you’re cruising for a bruising, you’re playing with fire, you’re walking on thin ice. After seeing Jennifer Lawrence and John Hawkes as Ree and Teardrop, I would watch any movie that features either of them, they are galvanizing ingredients.

Can’t forget to mention an additional strength of “Winter’s Bone” - the cinematography. The cluttered mountain environment becomes its own character in the movie. Living on the skids among nitwits never looked so pretty.

Nosferatu Pix 2010

2011-02-27T22:17:00.000-08:00

This is the closest I've come to not coming up with a Nosferatu Pix list at all. It's sort of a mess. I'm surprised to see how many movies I watched this year, I thought all that I saw was "The King's Speech" and "True Grit". Those came out in November and December, that was Academy Awards Obeisance season. January to September, as we know, is Ordinary Time, and there has never been a more barren Ordinary Time. There's never been a more barren year.

ORDINARY TIME: January - September 2010

It's true that four of the ten (TEN!) Oscar nominees came out between April and September: "Winter's Bone", "Toy Story 3", "Inception", and "The Kids Are Alright". Yet these films never really had a chance at Oscar gold. That's what happens when there is a compulsion to nominate TEN films for best picture during a particularly awful year for movies.

Film comments:

"The Book of Eli", Gary Oldman was, once again, a pretty good villain. My least favorite actor Denzel Washington was not bad. Good to see Jennifer Beals working.

"The Wolfman", it was at least fun to see how pleased the werewolves looked once they were transformed.

"The Crazies" was not bad. Yes, looks awful, but it was entertaining.

"Leap Year", I dunno, at least I didn't turn it off.

"Splice" I turned it off, it was awful.

"Hot Tub Time Machine", I should have turned it off.

"Shutter Island", one of my least favorite actors Leonardo is confirmed as one of my least favorite actors. Ben Kingsley and Max on Sydow were slumming. Good to see Jackie Earle Haley working, for the moment he was in the movie, but he was slumming too. So was director Martin Scorsese.

"The Runaways", Kirsten Stewart makes a good Joan Jett, but unfortunately not a noteworthy movie otherwise.

"Iron Man 2" I was looking forward to, Mickey Rourke was great as the Russian villain with electro whips. Unfortunately it tried to have too many characters and deteriorated into a mess.

"Jonah Hex" - this is the last time I watch a movie based on a graphic novel. Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, how did anyone agree to being in this movie? What a mess.

"Inception", as I've mentioned in other places, I walked out of this movie in the middle after having paid Arclight admission price. Leonardo - gah, why did I bother?

"Dinner For Schmucks" - Steve Carrell was funny, Zach Galifianakis was funny, Jemaine Clement was funny. But the premise of the movie was built on Paul Rudd's adoration for his foreigner girlfriend Stephanie Szostak who was unlikeable. The premise was ultimately too distracting and displeasing.

"Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" turns out this was another one based on a graphic novel.

"Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps", it put me to sleep (wonder how many other people have used that line, I don't read enough reviews). The first "Wall Street" used the Talking Heads song "This Must Be The Place" to good effect, so Oliver Stone had more David Byrne songs for this movie and they were immediately forgettable. I hope people stop putting Shia LaBeouf in movies.

Ordinary Time Films that look interesting that I didn't see:

"Winter's Bone" - I never read anything about it until today, I hope it's good.

ACADEMY AWARDS OBEISANCE SEASON October - December 2010

BEST FILM:

"The King's Speech"

"True Grit"

Film Comments:

Six of the ten (TEN!) Oscar nominees didn't come out until somewhere between October and December: "The Social Network", "127 Hours", "The King's Speech", "Black Swan", "The Fighter" and "True Grit". Why all this talk about the Oscars? After all, who cares about the Oscars? The problem remains that Oscar hopefuls are often not released until ACADEMY AWARDS OBEISANCE SEASON October - December. Regardless of distain for the Academy Awards, this creates the situation where I don't have good movies to go see in the theater for most of the year. This was the worst year for movies in my memory and the only films that I was looking forward to didn't come out until December - "Tron: Legacy" and "True Grit" - and "Tron" turned out be less than what I had hoped. I'm grateful that "The King's Speech" took up the slack.

Academy Awards Obeisance Season films that look interesting that I didn't see:

"Secretariat" - I want to see a movie in which John Malkovich does a good job. So it's said.

"Black Swan" - I want to know why Natalie Portman has spooky red eyes.

"The Fighter" - I've heard that it's good, I'm willing to give it a try, especially this year.

"Biutiful" - I like Javier Bardem. I was going to avoid it because I thought that it was about Mexican sweatshops, and that sounds boring.

That's all. Maybe it's me. Maybe I just don't like movies anymore?

Curtains for the Crime Lord

2010-09-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt that I was an urban crime lord enjoying a reign of terror. Through sheer power of intimidation I had recruited hundreds of killers, muggers and hoodlums to do my bidding throughout the city. I had amassed wealth and power through the crimes of my minions who stole, extorted and killed for money. Most of the money was the result of killings. The most common method of murdering was for one or two of my men to tear people apart with their bare hands.

My downfall came when I made the mistake of congregating all of my hundreds of criminals together for a mass meeting in a sports facility. The purpose of the meeting was to demonstrate to my underlings the size of my criminal operation. In my address to the criminals I was strutting about, reminding the killers of the power I wielded and generally showboating.

“Look around you,” I said, “I have the power of life and death in the palm of my hand. Remember that.”

“I hate myself for being a killer!” one man piped up, in tears, “I hate what you’ve forced me to become!”

“Shut up down there!” I said, “I’ll break you like a twig!”

“You’ve forced us to kill,” said another thug, “But you’re the one who should be killed!”

“Let’s settle down, now,” I said, losing control, motioning for everyone to remain seated, “If you have complaints, I’m willing to listen.”

“Let’s kill him!” someone screamed.

I turned and ran down the bleacher stairs and out the back door as hundreds of killers chased me outside. I was fleet and ran across the parking lot to a soccer field. Hiding behind a chain link fence, I asked an elderly couple to call the police to save me.

The hundreds of criminals soon found me because they could see me through the chain link fence. They approached but were daunted by the arrival of two police detectives. The detectives recognized me as the local crime lord.

“I’m not going to risk my life by protecting someone like you from that mob of criminals,” said one detective. He and his partner drove away.
My hundreds of criminals now surrounded me on the soccer field. I was frightened and annoyed by the irony that they would employ their customary method of killing on me, their leader. The dream ended as one group grabbed one of my arms, another group grabbed the other arm, and they began a tug of war with my body.

Burning Love

2010-06-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

To celebrate our four-year anniversary, Nicole and I managed to finally return to the site of our honeymoon. I don’t know when Las Vegas installed the monorail, but it is very, very helpful. As soon as we dropped our bags at the hotel we took the monorail to what used to be The Barbary Coast and what is now Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon (the old cigarette smell isn’t half as bad as it was in 2006).

Big Elvis (Pete Vallee) has been performing at this venue for eight years (through three different casino ownerships). He does three shows a day Monday through Friday.

We got to sit through two shows and Pete Vallee exceeded my high expectations. Phenomenal voice. Maybe I don’t get out to see lounge acts much, but I honestly felt welcomed and believed that he was proud to be with us. High energy, everyone was glad to be there. He’s such an endearing personality that I’m reluctant to refer to his weight, but it’s good news – he used to weigh nine hundred pounds and now he only weighs four hundred pounds. You can read his story at Guideposts “Viva! Big Elvis: The King was his hero—and his inspiration for change”…

http://www.guideposts.com/story/big-elvis-impersonator?page=0%2C0

Pete went out of his way to give signed Big Elvis certificates to all of the couples celebrating anniversaries (30 years, 40 years, 50 years…). Nicole and I were too shy to ask for a certificate, but Nicole put in a request for Elvis’ gospel song “Crying in the Chapel” and Pete sang it.

Between shows I asked Pete to sign one of my favorite books, “Biggest Elvis” by P.F. Kluge. I asked him if he had read it and he said no. I was so star struck that I tried to give him my copy. “I don’t want to take your book,” he said, “I’ll look it up.” I asked him to sign it “Burning Love – Pete Vallee”. I’m going to order him a copy of the book.

naked maniac

2010-05-25T22:06:00.000-07:00

Somehow since January I've shared an office with social workers and I regularly hear dynamic stories. Today's story was dynamic.

It seems a patient came to the hospital today because of complications due to his use of crystal meth. Another patient, significantly older, also visited the hospital today because of breathing trouble. These two should never have met but, yes, somehow they met.

The older patient was placed in a bed for some rest. The doctor told the patient's sixty-year-old daughter that if the breathing trouble continued, an air tube might have to be sent down the elderly patient's throat.

Hospital staff took the crystal meth user to an examination room. He was said to have been calm and the staff left him alone in the room, although he had made numerous recent trips to the hospital, all of these visits due to psychiatric trouble and disturbances. Apparently the fellow took advantage of his privacy to enjoy some drugs that he brought with him to the hospital. This is assumed because he suddenly went berserk, stripped himself naked and went on a rampage through the emergency department.

Meanwhile, our elderly patient is beginning to feel better. Seems like intubation for oxygen won't be necessary after all. That was a close call.

As fate would have it, while on his rampage, the naked, psychotic drug addict managed to dart into to the elderly stranger's room. What for? Why, to strangle the wretch! He choked and choked the aged neck and almost choked all the air out of the oldster. Who knows what he would have accomplished given enough time and opportunity.

Somehow the hospital staff became alerted to the problem and, ultimately, responded. The naked psychotic was dragged away laughing, well on his way to a date with the behavioral therapy department across town. The emergency crew did some work on the elderly patient. They informed the distraught sixty-year-old daughter that the visit from the naked maniac had only made the original breathing trouble much worse. Ironically, an oxygen tube insertion was necessary after all.

Nosferatu Pix 2009

2010-03-27T10:47:00.000-07:00

2009. Balancing the scale. “Paul Blart: Mall Cop”, “Confessions of a Shopaholic”, “Race to Witch Mountain”, “Fast & Furious”, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”, “The Taking of Pelham 123”, “Orphan”, “The Time Traveler's Wife”, “Love Happens”, “Amelia”, “Old Dogs” and “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” That’s the crap end of the scale. I wouldn’t even look at the billboards and I didn’t watch the movies either. If it looks like crap, smells like crap and draws flies like crap, you can believe it’s crap. On the other end of the scale: “Gentlemen Broncos”. More on that later.

Unfortunately, even the best movies of 2009 weren’t that great. And then there’s Ordinary Time (January – September) versus Academy Awards Obeisance Time (October – December). It seems to me that roughly HALF of the year’s better films come out at the end of the year, between October and December. They’re hoping to be fresh in the minds of voters when the Oscar winners are determined. That means that for the other nine months we have to live through movie famine. Nine months is basically a year unto itself. It’s not fair to include that spurt of movies that showed up late hoping to win an Academy Award. Therefore - like the Academy Awards, which has started nominating ten movies for best picture (because a movie advertisement featuring “Oscar nominated” will generate more money for Hollywood) – therefore, I say, I’ve nominated five best films for Ordinary Time and five best films for Academy Awards Obeisance Time.

Before we blame the economy for this year’s poor crop of movies, let’s remember that last year’s films were even worse. The very best that 2008 gave us was: “The Bank Job”, “The Dark Knight”, “Iron Man”, “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The Wrestler”. When will I see new movies that are even as good as “Trainspotting”, “The Name of the Rose” and “No Country For Old Men”?

I’m almost done complaining. In fact I am done, because Hollywood karma has somehow given “Avatar” director James Cameron what he deserves. I’m so pleased that he lost to “The Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow. Besides the fact that “The Hurt Locker” was great and “Avatar” was a politically correct, self-righteous, simpleton’s failure, Kathryn Bigelow is the third of James Cameron’s five ex-wives, she’s three years older than him and she looks twenty years younger than him.

Speaking of “Avatar”, I was especially pleased with “District 9”. This movie was a solid success in expressing a message that “Avatar”/James Cameron’s sledgehammer tried and failed to convey effectively. To illustrate, the underdogs in “Avatar” are ten-foot-tall blue cat people. The humans/Americans/earthlings, whatever - the Military has invaded their world and wants to kill these noble savages in order to mine valuable minerals from underneath the holy tree of the blue cat people. The blue cat people even ride six-legged horses and whoop like Indians. I get it. In “District 9” (one of the funniest movies of 2009) hundreds of working-class aliens (or prawns as they’re called) (“I mean, you can't say they don't look like that, that's what they look like, right? They look like prawns.”), I say, hundreds of working-class aliens stranded in Johannesburg, South Africa, have been relegated to a refugee camp that, after twenty years, has become a slum. A delegation of humans arrives at the slum to get the aliens’ signatures on notices of eviction from their shacks. When an alien answers the door of his shack he is asked if he is the owner, “Christopher Johnson”. This alien character is known throughout the film as Christopher Johnson.

I do like director Lars von Trier, and I like Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, but this year’s “Antichrist” sounded just too harrowing to even try to watch it. You can look into this one if you want, but I don’t recommend it.

Last, and maybe least (but probably not) we had the glorious failure “Gentlemen Broncos”. This is the third or fourth film by Jared Hess who brought us “Napoleon Dynamite” and “Nacho Libre”. Here is a summary of the film provided by ImdB.com:

“Benjamin, home-schooled by his eccentric mother, is a loner whose passion for writing leads him on an journey as his story first gets ripped off by the legendary fantasy novelist, Ronald Chevalier, and then is adapted into a disastrous movie by the small town's most prolific homespun filmmaker.”

The opening credits sequence consists of a series of anonymous, insane-looking, 1970s science fiction paperback novel covers with the book titles replaced by the names of the cast and crew. Over this we hear the 1969 Zager and Evans song “In the Year 2525”. I was overwhelmed with awe and anticipation. Unfortunately, although the film doesn’t exactly go steadily downhill from there, it is, eh, uneven. What this film needed was a stronger leading character or actor that could have done what Ellen Page did for 2007’s “Juno” (and what she didn’t manage to do for this year’s “Whip It”). There was much awkward humor and behavior. Much limp aimlessness that was probably meant to be funny. What “Gentlemen Broncos” did have was Jemaine Clement as Dr. Ronald Chevalier, the author who steals Benjamin's novel. You may know him from the HBO show “The Flight of the Conchords”. If he couldn’t save this movie then no one could, but I was sure that he would. Before seeing the film I watched the Youtube video “Dr. Ronald Chevalier - The Art of Relaxating” (which unfotunately does not appear in the film, but you should check out the link at the end of this post). He introduces himself saying, “I wrote such titles as The Cyborg Harpies, Hagborgs, and the spinoff novella Hagball.” I was expecting much from "Gentlemen Broncos". Something else “Gentlemen Broncos” has going for it is its fantasy depiction of Benjamin’s novel The Yeast Lords: The Bronco Years. The hero, Bronco (Sam Rockwell), flies a jet-powered (stuffed?) "battle stag" shooting rockets at cyclopses. If I need say more than that, then this is definitely not the film for you. I went to see this movie with Dad, he left the choice of the movie to me, trusting my good judgement. It felt like a reckless choice while watching it. Now, however, I honestly believe that we were part of a very small national audience during the extremely limited theatrical release of a future cult classic. The flop scenes in this movie flop badly, and the scenes I laughed at made me laugh very hard. And I’d rather laugh hard just once during a movie rather than watch three hours of “Avatar”.

Best Film (2009 Ordinary Time: January – September):

District 9
The Hurt Locker
I Love You, Man
Inglourious Basterds
The Stoning of Soraya M.

Best Film (2009 Academy Awards Obeisance Time: October – December):

Crazy Heart
Gentlemen Broncos
The Lovely Bones
The Road
Up in the Air

2009 Nosferatu Pix:

Crazy Heart
District 9
The Hurt Locker
The Road
Up in the Air

Honorable mention:

I Love You, Man
Inglourious Basterds
It Might Get Loud
The Lovely Bones
The Stoning of Soraya M.

Best Actor:

Jeff Bridges (“Crazy Heart”)
George Clooney (“Up in the Air”)
Sharlto Copley (“District 9”)
Viggo Mortensen (“The Road”)
Jeremy Renner (“The Hurt Locker”)

Best Actress:

Amy Adams (“Sunshine Cleaning”)
Shohreh Aghdashloo (“The Stoning of Soraya M.”)
Helen Mirren (“The Last Station”)
Saoirse Ronan (“The Lovely Bones”)
Meryl Streep (“Julie & Julia”)

Best Supporting Actor:

Jemaine Clement (“Gentlemen Broncos”)
Jason Segel (“I Love You, Man”)
Stanley Tucci (“Julie & Julia”)
Stanley Tucci (“The Lovely Bones”)
Christoph Waltz (“Inglourious Basterds”)

Honorable mention:

James Caviezel (“The Stoning of Soraya M.”)
Clifton Collins Jr. (“Sunshine Cleaning”)
August Diehl (“Inglourious Basterds”)
Robert Duvall (“Crazy Heart”)
Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”)
Jon Favreau (“I Love You, Man”)
Paul Giamatti (“The Last Station”)
Jackie Earle Haley (“Watchmen”)
Rob Huebel (“I Love You, Man”)
Thomas Lennon (“I Love You, Man”)
Brad Pitt (“Inglourious Basterds”)

Best Supporting Actress:

Vera Farmiga (“Up in the Air”)
Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air”)
Diane Kruger (“Inglourious Basterds”)
Mélanie Laurent (“Inglourious Basterds”)
Theresa Russell (“He’s Just Not That Into You” deleted scenes on DVD)

Honorable mention:

Emily Blunt (“The Great Buck Howard”)
Emily Blunt (“Sunshine Cleaning”)
Kathryn Hahn (“The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard”)

Favorite Cameos:

Aziz Ansari (“Observe and Report”)
Hank Azaria (“Year One”)
Sam Elliott (“Up in the Air”)
Arsenio Hall (“Black Dynamite”)
Bill Murray (“Zombieland”)
Leonard Nimoy (“Star Trek”)
Cedric Yarbrough (“Black Dynamite”)
Young MC (“Up in the Air”)

Most disappointing:

All About Steve
Avatar
Cold Souls
Gentlemen Broncos
Land of the Lost
New In Town

Guilty Pleasures:

Black Dynamite
Brüno
Drag Me to Hell
Gentlemen Broncos
Zombieland

Glad to see them working:

Mary Birdsong (“Adventureland”)
Jim Gaffigan (“Away We Go”)
Juliette Lewis (“Whip It”)
Melanie Lynskey (“The Informant!”, “Up in the Air”)

Slumming:

John Turturro “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
Christopher Eccleston “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra”
John Malkovich “The Great Buck Howard”

Quotes:

“Can I give you guys a word of advice? Lose the beards, because your King Osama looks like a kind of dirty wizard... or a homeless Santa.” - Sacha Baron Cohen, “Brüno”.

“If I have to eat nine servings of fruits and vegetables a day to live, I don't wanna live.” – Larry David, “Whatever Works”

“We are the Hebrews. Righteous people - not very good at sports.” – Hank Azaria (as Abraham), “Year One”

“In those moments where you're not quite sure if the undead are really dead, dead, don't get all stingy with your bullets. I mean, one more clean shot to the head, and this lady could have avoided becoming a human Happy Meal. Woulda... coulda... shoulda.” - Jesse Eisenberg “Zombieland”

Movies that I was interested in but didn’t see:

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans
The Blind Side
The Hangover
Precious
The White Ribbon

Youtube:

Dr. Ronald Chevalier - The Art of Relaxating

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NtdCq0-Qn8&feature=related

Dr. Ronald Chevalier - The Art of Inspiring Oneself

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVoD1804bkc&feature=related

"Black Dynamite" - Pimp Counsel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Mvp-nOz9Gk&feature=related

So you like flavored coffee creamer

2010-03-26T09:59:00.001-07:00

Time to move on. I made the mistake of trying to understand what I was dealing with in the staff lounge refrigerator situation. There is no refrigerator monitor, there is no method or reason, there’s only mob rule. A mob of dull, furtive, hopeless, unattractive peasants with no aspirations and a limited vocabulary. And they like flavored coffee creamer. “Taking other people’s things at work is okay - I deserve them because I will never have the nice things I see on the TV. Or if I can get away with not coming to work at all today, that’s even better.” God help the patients in this hospital.

The disgusting, probably expired “Dulce de Leche” coffee creamer that I planted in the refrigerator remained there for two days. But after the first day, someone removed my identification label and about half of the contents were gone. On the third day I noticed the empty container in the garbage can.

Then earlier this week I left a can of soda (I found it in a conference room) in the refrigerator with my actual initials and a date on the label. The next day I found the soda gone and the label left behind.

My initial reaction is to fill a coffee creamer bottle with watered-down mayonnaise and leave it in one of those refrigerators. This may happen, but I won’t honor this wretched staff lounge with any more blog posts. For now I merely left a “holiday cookie”-flavored air-freshener hidden in a nook behind one of the staff lounge microwaves. It smells awful, like cinnamon-flavored Play-Doh. The innocent will suffer with the guilty, but, like Clint Eastwood tells us, “We all got it coming, kid.” (-“Unforgiven”)

A Chance to Begin Again

2010-03-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

I’ve neglected to mention that there are two refrigerators in the staff lounge.

I’m realizing that my original “Spiced Rum” seasonal coffee creamer, though properly identified and dated, disappeared from the refrigerator on the left. I have been abandoning food items with ridiculous notes in the refrigerator on the right. Poorly identified, undated food items left in the refrigerator on the right have enjoyed far more tolerance than my original coffee creamer received in the refrigerator on the left.

Is it possible that different entities are responsible for each refrigerator? Is that heart magnet a signal to identify the casual refrigerator of lax standards?

The disgusting, probably expired “Dulce de Leche” coffee creamer went into the refrigerator on the left this morning. For now I’m tired of hassling with the Iliad-themed names on the identification notes. Went with the tried and true Jasper alias today. That name originates from my college dorm refrigerator, I’d label food I didn’t want to share, but I used that name so that I wouldn’t be associated with stinginess.

As long as the “Dulce de Leche” receives the 72 hours of unmolested tenancy in Refrigerator on the Left, this can all end in 72 hours. Otherwise, Hector Griego is still as forgetful of his food, as neglectful to label it with a date, and as uncomprehending of staff lounge refrigerator standards as the day he was born.

“I’m a monster again!” – Cinefamily and the Silent Movie Theatre

2010-03-01T09:42:00.001-08:00

Thank you to Nicholas Klemek for reacquainting me with L.A.’s Silent Movie Theater and for introducing me to Cinefamily which now runs the place. The theater is now a cinematheque and presents movies similar to those at the Egyptian’s American Cinematheque and at The New Beverly revival theater. Great news because in addition it still shows silent movies with organ accompaniment.

My first movie there was Saturday’s Czech film “Valerie and Her Week of Wonders” (1970). It was the last film in the theater’s recent series “Czech Your Head” (which apparently included one of my favorites, the not-available-on-video Dark Ages epic “Marketa Lazarova” [1967, 162 minutes!]). “Valerie” is a surreal, horror-themed fairytale featuring 13-year-old Valerie in a series of inappropriate settings and circumstances:

“…a haunting psychoactive period piece which plunges the beautiful heroine Valerie into a phantasmagorical world of thirsty vampires, the dark arts and dreamy free love -- all set to one of the great film scores of the era, a cocktail of psych-folk and avant-garde classical by the great Luboš Fišer. The film opens with 13-year-old Valerie's first menstruation and subsequent sexual awakening, the unsteady discovery of which lets loose a torrent of quixotic, hallucinatory experiences both terrifying and beautiful; amongst a haze of shifting tones and a flurry of role reversals and Gothic nightmares in broad daylight, Valerie floats along, buoyed by the fears and fantasies that come with nascent sexuality and teenage fantasy...” – Cinefamily.

There’s almost no one I could recommend this one to, but I laughed and laughed.

One of the most prominent characters in the movie is a bald, Nosferatu-like, white-faced vampire monster in possibly multiple roles. He is the Bishop, Grandmother’s boyfriend Richard, and possibly Valerie’s father as well as the father of Valerie’s boyfriend (an adult bespectacled Euro-geek named Eagle). My favorite moment occurs after Valerie attempts to restore the monster to his true self by passing a mouthful of chicken blood into the vampire’s mouth. The vampire transforms into a 1970 Czech-handsome man (wide-set eyes and caterpillar mustaches) and Valerie embraces her “father”. Suddenly he transforms back into the vampire, still embracing the now terrified girl, and informs her with glee, “I’m a monster again!”

injustice

2010-02-11T18:13:00.000-08:00

Finally. Hector's plate of food was removed from the staff lounge refrigerator. It went in Tuesday, February 2 and had a good long run in that venue until today, Thursday, February 11. Sigh. John's good, good, properly identified and dated Spiced Rum coffee creamer lasted less than 72 hours, and a "Hector Griego's" plate of spoiling garbage rests untouched for more than a week. I'm taking this so personally my eyes are protruding.

The Rise of Paris Trojan

2010-02-08T22:24:00.001-08:00

Enough salad for ten people, but Paris isn’t sharing.

His brother Hector’s pathetic plate of food was still in the refrigerator this evening. Tomorrow morning will make one week. Was it the desperate, pleading note that did the job? His semi-literacy? His inability to learn from past error? The refrigerator monitor is looking the other way, whatever the reason.

Paris found the leftover salad in a conference room this afternoon, now it's in the fridge. There isn’t enough for everyone, but he needs a place to keep it for an open ended period. He isn’t the sort to beg for special treatment, he commands it.

aerosol pancakes

2010-02-06T15:54:00.001-08:00

Sloppy work. Hector’s pathetic plate of food was still in the staff lounge refrigerator Friday evening. That’s roughly eighty hours later.

Each of Hector Griego’s items is eventually removed by the refrigerator monitor. Yet, a note identifying them as belonging to Hector always results in more clemency than was had by the Vanilla Spiced Rum coffee creamer identified as mine.

Perhaps yet another staff lounge refrigerator persona will have different luck. Someone presumptuous and used to special privileges.
As for yesterday, an expired aerosol can of pancake batter found its way into the staff lounge refrigerator. No identification, no date. After it was already in the fridge, I talked to Nicole and she said that eating expired pancake batter may cause visions. She cited the case of the Salem Witch trials in which young girls ate fermented grain and were driven to wizardry. Well, the damage is already done, and I’m not the one who got us into this mess.

The Hunger of Hector Griego

2010-02-02T10:27:00.001-08:00

Ultimately, Hector’s can of Dr. Pepper and his apple did not escape the notice of the staff lounge refrigerator monitor. Yes, merely a “monitor”; the “refrigerator nazi” doesn’t deserve the title after last week’s sloppy and confusing lack of vigilance. Monday morning found the soda and apple disappeared. In a conference room yesterday, Hector discovered a pathetic slice of beef and a spoonful of rice. He added to it a half-eaten tacquito from El Pollo Loco. This plate of food spent the night in a storage cupboard but found its way into the staff lounge refrigerator this morning, with another craven note asking for mercy.

Hector Griego Unbound

2010-01-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

Still annoyed about losing my coffee creamer from the refrigerator at work. It was Vanilla Spiced Rum flavor (only available seasonally), I was really looking forward to it. Coffee is always a special occasion for me. Irksome when a troll from the staff lounge interferes with my coffee. Having coffee at home this morning with the inferior Dulce de Leche flavored creamer (what was I thinking?) brought the indignity fresh to my thoughts.

Took the day off yesterday, but on Thursday I checked on "Hector Griego's" opened, partially consumed can of Dr. Pepper that I left in the staff lounge refrigerator on Wednesday. Hmm, it was still there. The undated note pleading for clemency still attached. Will "Hector Griego's" items remain in the refrigerator undisturbed while my property faced constant danger of discard?

Before I left Thursday, an apple joined the soda in the staff lounge refrigerator. I found the apple at home, forgotten for who knows how long, in a corner of the kitchen. I put it in an old, used ziplock bag from the trash along with the note: "Please don’t throw away my apple. I want to eat it later. I have no put to place it. Thank you, thank you! Hector Griego."

The Sorrows of Hector Griego

2010-01-27T15:35:00.001-08:00

My worksite has changed, same job but at a different hospital. The staff lounge here features a staff lounge refrigerator nazi. Nothing can remain in the refrigerator for more than 72 hours, dated with “property of” employee identification label or not. It will be thrown away after 72 hours. Kind of strict, but okay, I’ll be sure to label and date my coffee creamer.

Nope, it doesn’t matter. Coffee creamer thrown away by the refrigerator nazi. It hadn’t been in the refrigerator for 72 hours, it’s not right. Dang, can’t keep coffee creamer in the staff lounge refrigerator.

I’m developing another persona, the craven Hector Griego. Occasionally Hector lifts leftover sodas from conference rooms after meetings are over. Yesterday he left three sodas in the staff lounge refrigerator clearly labeled “Hector Griego” but with no date. Today they are gone.

This afternoon, an open can of Dr. Pepper ended up in the staff lounge refrigerator with the label “Please don’t throw away my pop – Hector Griego.” No date. He'll never learn.

Pickwick Papers

2009-11-27T00:07:00.001-08:00

'Weal pie,' said Mr. Weller, soliloquising, as he arranged the
eatables on the grass. 'Wery good thing is weal pie, when you
know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain't kittens; and
arter all though, where's the odds, when they're so like weal that
the wery piemen themselves don't know the difference?'

'Don't they, Sam?' said Mr. Pickwick.

'Not they, sir,' replied Mr. Weller, touching his hat. 'I lodged
in the same house vith a pieman once, sir, and a wery nice man
he was--reg'lar clever chap, too--make pies out o' anything, he
could. "What a number o' cats you keep, Mr. Brooks," says I,
when I'd got intimate with him. "Ah," says he, "I do--a good
many," says he, "You must be wery fond o' cats," says I. "Other
people is," says he, a-winkin' at me; "they ain't in season till the
winter though," says he. "Not in season!" says I. "No," says he,
"fruits is in, cats is out." "Why, what do you mean?" says I.
"Mean!" says he. "That I'll never be a party to the combination
o' the butchers, to keep up the price o' meat," says he. "Mr.
Weller," says he, a-squeezing my hand wery hard, and vispering
in my ear--"don't mention this here agin--but it's the seasonin'
as does it. They're all made o' them noble animals," says he,
a-pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten, "and I seasons 'em
for beefsteak, weal or kidney, 'cording to the demand. And more
than that," says he, "I can make a weal a beef-steak, or a beef-
steak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice,
just as the market changes, and appetites wary!"'

- The Pickwick Papers, chapter 19.

3rd Year Anniversary – Pine Hills Lodge

2009-09-26T18:08:00.001-07:00

We went to the Pine Hills Lodge in Julian, CA for our third anniversary. We went there for our first anniversary too, that same black and that same black and white cat from 2007 was still wandering around. We arrived late Friday night and the main building was locked up, couldn’t get the key. Pine Hills Lodge is in a tucked away spot up in the mountains, they shut the operation down early. Eventually they answered the phone and came downstairs and we went to sleep in Pine Cone 2 cabin. It’s a lovely room but it has curious graffiti inside the wooden dresser drawers, former residents signing their names and leaving positive comments about their stay.

The next day we went to ride horses (see previous post). Later we went to the Julian Grill for some dinner, went there in 2007 too. Nicole ordered some soup before dinner.

The real fun began when we got back to the cabin. For our anniversary Nicole got me “The Last Days of Disco” on DVD, one of my favorite movies. I’ve been waiting for this to be re-released on DVD for years. Before we watched it on Nicole’s tiny DVD viewer I wanted to achieve an appropriate level of excitement, so I opened up the Mountain Dew. As you may remember, drinking an ice bucket of Mountain Dew has been an anniversary ritual for me since our honeymoon. This year Nicole provided me with a test market size bottle of the experimental blue Mountain Dew. Blue Mountain Dew tastes disgusting but we gave it a whirl.

“The Last Days of Disco” is eleven years old this year and it stood the test of time. The Mountain Dew did its job. The scenery and horses can speak for themselves. Great food, it was an utterly satisfying weekend. But Nicole met a dog that she liked at the Julian Stable and now she wants a long-haired Chihuahua too.

3rd Year Anniversary - Julian Stables

2009-08-03T18:13:00.000-07:00

We married three years. THREE YEARS! If our marriage was a person it would already have self-awareness and the ability to speak with limited coherence. Doesn’t seem that long, seems like, hmm, a year and half maybe.

To celebrate, we went back to the site of our first wedding anniversary, Julian, California (old-timey historical town in the mountains above San Diego). We visited the Julian Stable and went on a trail ride. You’re not supposed to take photos on a trail ride because the horse might get nervous hearing camera noises. The helmet ruins whatever decency your hair begins with, but riding the horse is worth it. I was surprised that the horse smell wasn’t that bad, I was expecting to have to destroy my clothes afterwards.

The horse that I rode was named Harry Trotter. Hm, okay. Nicole’s horse was named Angel. If you’re like me, the name Angel immediately brings to mind the 1984 film “Angel” about the girl who is a floozy at night and who attends high school by day.

The controls on the horse are easy to work. To turn right you pull the horse’s rein in your right hand and push your left foot into the horse’s body. To turn left you do the opposite. If you want to go slower or stop you pull the reins with both hands and say “Whoa.” The brakes on my horse were bad, he kept crowding Angel. Our guide said that he wouldn’t keep his distance because horses are herd animals, they like to stay together - that’s why he resisted control. In horse lingo that means that his gears are stripped.

After we got back from our ride we got to feed the horses carrot treats. There was one nameless horse kept in a pen who was forced to wear a blindfold – he had committed crimes against both humans and horses and so he was being brainwashed with sensory deprivation/isolation punishment. He didn’t understand English or any language. Actually that’s not true, he could see through his mask, he was wearing it to protect his eyes from flies and irritations. Can’t remember if he got a carrot, but the little pony got carrots. I can’t think of anything funny to write about the pony, his eyes were already crazy, but apparently he was normal.

We had a great time at the Julian Stables, they gave us each a blue ribbon that says, “Champion Trail Rider.” I’m looking forward to meeting new horses and learning how to control them.

Cruel Summer – “The Stoning of Soraya M.” – Get me off of this rock

2009-07-30T07:43:00.001-07:00

This summer began in chaos and clutter. Work all day, come home and sort through boxes of paper. Preparing for Nicole’s pa and Dixie to come visit in July.

During the first week of its release we went to go see “The Stoning of Soraya M.” Without the momentum that Nicole provided I wouldn't have gone at all. I wanted to pay for tickets, contribute to opening week success, but I didn’t wanta watch. Not my first choice for a movie to help me relax. I got the heebie jeebies anticipating the climax. In fact, I didn’t plan to watch the climax. I planned to slip out and go chat with the snack counter attendants during the stoning. Buy some Junior Mints.

Thirty years ago (yes, thirty years), the summer of 1979, “Alien” was released. Seeing it in the theater was out of the question, I had to wait until it came on cable TV and go watch it at my cousins’ house. Even in that environment I was scared out of my wits. I had already been exposed to the graphic novel (or “illustrated story” presented by Heavy Metal). The prospect of watching the film had my imagination going haywire.

"Alien" was certainly harrowing, but even at it's most gruesome it couldn't compare to what I had built up in my mind. In addition, it was also cool.

A cool aspect of "The Stoning of Soraya M." that I wasn't expecting was the Iranian lead actress, Shohreh Aghdashloo . She wasn't Soraya, she played Soraya's aunt, and much of the movie is seen from her perspective. You might've seen her in "The House of Sand and Fog" or "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" (I haven't watched those yet). I can't imagine that she won't be among my top five actresses of 2009, she has a fascinating magnetism.

The movie takes place in 1986, but in the rock village where Soraya lives, most of the folk seem to live like Jawas. It's bad enough to see injustice performed by Romans or Communist China but it's doubly frustrating to see mob injustice at the hands of Jawas. It's like the Wild West without guns. Actually the two guys in the village who have Kalashnikovs instead of rocks are every bit the hillbilly as their brothers, but somehow their guns give them a sense of technological sophistication.

Of course I ended up watching the stoning. As with "Alien", my imagination turned out to be much worse than the actual film. Nevertheless, even when I know I'm watching actors performing in a drama and even though I recognize "Well, that blood came from the hidden squib that the special effects guys exploded", it's still pretty awful to watch somebody get buried up to the waist and get rocks thrown at them until they die. Sigh. It's unbelievable that movies like this need to be made and seen. It's the equivalent of needing movies about parents putting babies in microwaves for tax reductions.

The most peaceful scene in the movie occurs near the beginning when Soraya is playing with her two daughters in a meadow. Like the rest of the film, it's still creepy because you know what's coming, but it's comparatively peaceful. When Soraya finally dies the film cuts back to this meadow, as if to say this place is heaven for Soraya, where she can be at peace. I was thinking to myself, "You gotta be kidding - she's still on planet Earth, Planet of Bastards?" Nobody is safe on this rock, she should at least be allowed to go to outer space away from the cavemen.

I can't imagine the target audience for this movie, but when we went to see it the crowd looked to be made up mostly of Middle Eastern folk and female college students. I kept my sunglasses on until the moment the film started to delay the experience as long as possible. Not a good date-night movie but I'll be looking for the next film that features Shohreh Aghdashloo.

John and Nicole Three Year Anniversary / Northwoods Inn

2009-06-24T08:05:00.000-07:00

Our third wedding anniversary fell upon the middle of the week. We were looking forward to a weekend away in Julian, but on June 24 we managed to go out to dinner. Hadn't been to the beloved Northwoods Inn for about six months.

I splurged and ordered coffee even though it was the middle of the week. Don't remember any ill effects. In addition, I was wearing my new "Jim Jones" shirt that Nicole procured for me as an anniversary present. She has knowledge of Jim Jone's tastes from her vast readings of People's Temple.

We both ordered steak kabobs and they were *perfect*. I don't often ingest beef but this was some fine meat. I couldn't even eat my potato. Cheese bread, yes, that was another case of splurging. The hostess told us that our waiter's name was Mike. He introduced himself as Michael. Usually it's the other way around, Michael to Mike.

Michael had a knack for snapping the plastic bags that he was putting our leftovers into. It was like a show, he was a showman. I asked him, "Did you ever work at Disneyland?" He gave me a flat "No." We gave him a decent tip.

So on the first night of celebrating our third anniversary we were very well fed.

"Now we are here in Xanadu..."

2009-06-05T13:30:00.001-07:00

...in the words of Olivia Newton John. I have a tendency to quote that to my cousin Jennie every few years, including last night.

But yes, we are done movin'. This photo was taken a couple of days after we moved in. Unfortunately the place looks pretty much the same now, about six weeks later. But what can I say - it's such a relief to be out of the old place that we obviously don't mind our cluttered condition in the new place.

Has it come to this? I'm blog posting about clutter? There must be something more interesting going on.

Moving to Pasadena

2009-04-16T09:35:00.001-07:00

Oh, what can I tell you? We had great hopes for the Villa Montanic apartment complex. It used to be an attractive, quiet place.

I'll go ahead and say it - I didn't like the landlord. Life at Villa Montanic was like the old Soviet Union, both the just and the unjust suffered but there was centralized control. Last spring, after we endured a particularly annoying battle with the landlord over a small fee that he had no right to demand, he promptly died.

Suddenly the hitherto quiet and cowering neighbors became barnyard animals. The next door neighbors would bellow at each other morning, noon and night (this was particularly evident during my struggle with hyperthyroid and stomach flu when I would be blundering around the apartment at all hours listening to the ignorant, bestial peasants shouting at each other). I would pound on the wall with my hickory stick and they would have the effrontery to curse back in their own coarse foreign language. The new landlord turned a deaf ear, decent folk began moving out and anyone was invited to move in as long as they were loud, filthy, and enjoyed entertaining on their patios.

What put Nicole over the edge was when I gave up trying to clean my bathroom and started using hers. I couldn't help it, the fan in my bathroom would pull in all manner of filth and sprinkle it over every surface. The shower was tiled so unskillfully that the drain was at a summit, the water would pool in the corners. I was constantly fighting the slime. After years of previous abuse, the drain itself was chock full of human detritus. Even after repeated flushings with Drano I still had to cut circles of window screening to put over the opening to prevent several of my hairs from going down there and clogging the pipes. I quietly moved into Nicole's bathroom and she quietly began looking for another place to live.

In record time she found this lovely condo in Pasadena. At first I balked at the stairs ("When we have babies they're going to take a swan dive off of the top step and then I'm going to have to write a book about Fulfilling Your Destiny Despite Life-Shattering Challenges Because of Bent Children") but I can honestly say that this condo is the highest quality of life I've enjoyed since my last apartment in La Jolla (and I loved that place!).

That old landlord at Villa Montanic could inspire a whole series of uncharitable blog posts. I'm never going to rent from a human being again, only rental agencies from now on.

Branford Marsalis at Catalina Jazz Club

2009-03-28T22:43:00.001-07:00

I've been back in Los Angeles for almost three years now, but I haven't taken nearly enough advantage of the entertainment available. Visiting Catalina jazz club with Nicole and Dad was a step in the right direction.

Most of the time I don't recognize upcoming people on the Catalina calender, I had't been there since it used to be located on Cahuenga. The new place seems bigger. We got a table in a perfect spot close to the stage. Dinner was perfectly adequate, the equivalent of paying $8 for a beer at a stadium. Dessert was more than adequate.

The show was perfectly entertaining, Branford Marsalis and his group are at the top of their game. Many transcendent moments. The piano player wrote some terrific songs, I'll have to find out what his name is. They played a Thelonious Monk song that I recognized called "Monk's Dream".

Watching Branford Marsalis on TV never gave me an accurate sense of his physical presence. I was amazed. This guy is tall, handsome, charming, witty, talented, charismatic, well dressed, confident, and he doesn't perspire. I can't get any taller, but I could work on my charisma.

I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on the show, but Nicole and I are in the middle of packing to move to Pasadena and it'll have to wait.

Feeling Better

2009-03-25T20:20:00.001-07:00

After about a week and a half of Methimazole medication my condition has improved remarkably. I no longer feel poisoned and exhausted all the time. I’m not so itchy but my voice will still disappear now and then. I’ve gained some weight back and my heart has calmed down.

The top picture is what I look like tonight. Nicole looked at the bottom picture (from a week and a half ago) and she said “That looks like Patrick Swayze.” Flash photography does little for anyone’s features, but I felt as bad as I look.

More good news - Nicole and I are moving, we’re going to rent a condo in Pasadena. Pictures and details to follow.

Saturday was fun. Nicole and Mom went to hear a writer speak at a women’s club and I took myself out to breakfast. I still can’t have coffee but I went to Starbucks afterwards and ate pastries. All the while I was reading the book Sideways, ha!, so entertaining! I can’t recommend it because it’s appalling, but I was ever slapping my knee. We borrowed the Ciaran Hinds version of “The Mayor of Casterbridge” DVD from the library and we went to Moffetts chicken pie shoppe for dinner. The horror of Hyperthyroid is abating.

Hyperthyroid (I’m a Wreck)

2009-03-17T21:13:00.001-07:00

Compare for yourself from the pictures above: less that three months ago, at Christmastime, I was full-jowled and jolly. I would even wear funny hats. Now look at me. I’ve lost twenty pounds, I’m weak as a kitten, I'm exhausted all the time, my heart is always going like bongos, my voice is hoarse, I’m itchy and I’m restricted from coffee. It’s almost impossible to e-mail, can’t write, after work the most I can do is read. Watching lots of TV, “Intervention”, “Ghost Hunters”.

The doctor recommended a drug called Methimazole. It has potential side-effects: it can cause a rash on your chest, nausea, itching, muscle pain, headache, drowsiness, or change in taste (?). That sounds about as bad as, if not worse than, what I got now. I went to see the doctor yesterday to hear about the alternates.

“Well,” says he, “If you can’t tolerate Methimazole, you can swallow a radioactive capsule that will neutralize your thyroid permanently. You’ll have to take hormones for the rest of your life. Or we could remove your thyroid surgically and you would also have to take hormones for the rest of your life.” I chuckled in disbelief.

“That’s a very narrow alley of treatments,” says I. He did not chuckle with me.

I picked up the Methimazole at the pharmacy on the way home. Took my first dose last night, gonna take my second dose in a few minutes. The doctor says it’ll take three weeks to feel the good of it. I still feel terrible, but so far no chest rash, etc.

And what’s worse, when Nicole and I met Mom for St. Patrick’s Day dinner at Coco’s they had already run out of corned beef and cabbage. They said they ran out at about 3 p.m.

From Bad To Worse: John Adds Stomach Flu to Hyper-Thyroid

2009-02-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

Horrible, this week has been horrible. This past Monday evening I started feeling ill. I was up *all night* taking every position on and around the toilet. Nicole took me to the doctor the next day, got some Cipro antibiotics and anti-nausea meds. Horrible.

Night before last, in the midst of sickness, I dreamed that I was a Roman slave boy (yes, wearing a loincloth). I was part of a small group of misfits that was attempting to organize a Christian circus and gymnasium. We were immediately dispersed by the authorities and I ran for my life.

What is going on?

Thank God for Nicole, she's been bringing home all the sorts of food that you're supposed to eat when you can't eat anything. Popsicles ahoy. And I'm supposed to go back to work on Monday.

Nosferatu Pix 2008

2009-02-22T17:02:00.001-08:00

My movie picks are a little late this year. The Oscars show has just started. I'm still sick but I've started taking beta blockers so that my heart will quit going bananas.

As usual, all the films in each category are listed in alphabetical order, because we're all winners! Well, usually we're all winners.

Not a great year for movies. Ordinarily "The Bank Job" would get merely a mention, but beggars can't be choosers. I'm not even very disappointed that I didn't get to see all the movies I wanted to see. I can't believe "RocknRolla" wasn't better than it was. Surely 2009 will have better movies. Surely.

Best Movie

The Bank Job
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
The Wrestler

Honorable Mention

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

Best Actor

Gerard Butler - “RocknRolla”
Mos Def – “Be Kind Rewind”
Robert Downey Jr. – “Iron Man”
Mickey Rourke – “The Wrestler”
Jason Statham - “The Bank Job”

Honorable Mention

Viggo Mortensen - “Appaloosa”

Best Actress

Saffron Burrows – “The Bank Job”
Melonie Diaz – “Be Kind Rewind”
Thandie Newton – “RocknRolla”

Best Supporting Actor

Ralph Fiennes – “The Duchess”
Robert Downey Jr. – “Tropic Thunder”
Werner Herzog – “Mister Lonely”
Heath Ledger – “The Dark Knight”
Dylan Moran – “Run Fatboy Run”

Honorable mention

Jeremy Irons – “Appaloosa”
Ben Kingsley – “The Wackness”
Adam Scott - “Step Brothers”

Best Supporting Actress

Marisa Tomei – “The Wrestler”

Glad to see them

Billy Connolly – “The X-Files: I Want to Believe”
Jackie Earle Haley – “Semi -Pro”
Mary Steenburgen – “Step Brothers”
Alicia Witt – “88 Minutes”

Adult Men Spending Time with Young People,

Something’s Wrong Here

88 Minutes
Gran Torino
The Rocker
Slumdog Millionaire

Dismemberment

Mother of Tears
Tropic Thunder
The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Wanted To See, But Didn’t Manage To

Diary of the Dead
Frost/Nixon
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Let the Right One In
Milk
Mongol
My Winnipeg
Quantum of Solace
Revolutionary Road
Shine a Light
Twilight
Valkyrie

P.S. Many scenes in "The Wrestler" take place in a strip club, so if nudity isn't a welcome part of your movie night, you've been cautioned.

John sick with Hyper-Thyroid

2009-02-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

I've been home from work since January 20. It took four visits to my Kaiser primary care doctor to diagnose me. In the meantime (and $700 later) Nicole's cardiologist figured it out after one visit - I got the Hyper-Thyroid!

Yes, I'm sick. I'm even too sick to post a visual aid. I'm not lying.

I've been trying to connect with an endocrinologist since last week. I have an appointment for Thursday.

With the Hyper-Thyroid you get very weak all the time. Your heart beats too fast all the time (even when you're sleeping). You get hand tremors and it's hard to type and it's even hard to turn pages. For some reason my voice is also gone - that's supposed to be a symptom of the Hypo-Thyroid. There's fatigue, lack of appetite, weight loss - last time they weighed me I'd lost eleven pounds.

This all started immediately after my birthday, as soon as I turned forty I fell apart. Nicole has been working overtime trying to get me cured - I'm a wreck and she's my angel of mercy. She also got me Nikki Sixx's The Heroin Diaries for Christmas. It's dismal stuff, but a page turner, and now I know things could be worse, I could be a rock star.

2008 Hurray for Christmas!

2009-01-06T21:17:00.000-08:00

2008 Pre-Christmas portraits of John

2008-12-30T14:51:00.001-08:00

What can I say? As you can see, it was a fun pre-Christmas holiday season. Russell managed to show up and stayed almost a week. Unheard of! Typically Russell will threaten to visit for weeks on end, then, at the last moment, call and express regrets – he’s concerned that he was recently exposed to a cold at the supermarket and, well, anything might happen, so too bad, he’s not coming.

This time he arrived and somehow was convinced to stay for days. We probably won’t see him again for years. But at least we had fun this year.

An amazing aspect of this Christmas season was that Nicole and I got our first Christmas tree. Been married two and a half years and never got a Christmas tree. The amount of ornaments I used to have were enough for the little tree (on the table in the background) that I used every year. Had to buy some bulbs for the big boy tree.
I think Russell showed up on Friday night after he went to see “The Nutcracker” at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion downtown. I took a picture of him without the flash and it came out all blue.

Next night Russell picked out “The Last Picture Show” at Videotheque. Yes, that is Wallace Shawn standing behind him in the picture. I had recently read the book because the movie was on the schedule for The New Beverly cinema. I didn’t finish reading the book in time to watch the movie, but now I’ve read it. The movie didn’t feature the scene in which the teenage boys made love to the cow.

Somehow we went back to Videotheque and I picked out “Two-Lane Blacktop”. Warren Oates becomes more brilliant each time I watch it. Russell liked it too. You can see me standing in front of the screen (wearing my Billy Graham Training Center t-shirt) while he was watching the supplementary material disc. I brought a projector home from work and we projected the DVD onto the wall.

After church on Sunday, we went to Ernie Jr.’s for lunch. Nicole and I were clearly in a good mood before I ate clearly too much chili con carne. I was thrilled to notice that Anne Rice was sitting in the booth behind Russell. After all that chili con carne…well, I felt unusual.

I don’t remember what day Russell and I went to Starbucks on Lake Avenue in Pasadena. I had a peppermint mocha latte; it was out of this world! My passive expression doesn’t convey the thrill of a caffeine fan enjoying Christmas peppermint wonder in coffee form. I think Russell got an eggnog latte.

After lunch at Ernie Jr.’s, we took Russell to Forest Lawn. Nicole and I had been there a few weeks ago for my Uncle Gary’s memorial service and Nicole fell in love with the place. She recently visited the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina (she won a radio contest) and it was there that she heard about the largest oil painting in the world. It’s about a hundred feet long and about forty feet high, depicts the final moments before Jesus’ crucifixion. It’s housed in its own auditorium at Forest Lawn in Glendale. Once an hour there’s a presentation that includes a documentary about the painting’s history. After the presentation we took some photos behind the building. Looks like I disputed with Russell over one of them.

Somehow we ended up at North Woods Inn. Appetizers in the lounge. Terrific Christmas decorations. Nicole looks so beautiful looking sideways with dimples! We don’t see that face often enough. Many pictures of John apparently in conversation. Posed or candid? Can even I distinguish? I performed my party trick of drinking alcohol. I wanted to order something seasonal, festive. I ended up with some kind of vanilla chocolate blah blah blah. Ridiculous. Turned out to be basically a White Russian. I seem to be pleased with myself nevertheless.

The last stop was the supermarket. Picking up supplies. The only essential item for me was eggnog. And not eggnog lite. I swear I paid for it. At the check-out counter, and later.

2008 Thanksgiving boiled in oil shrimp

2008-12-22T21:29:00.000-08:00

Nicolette and I had Thanksgiving in Illinois this year. The turkey was boiled in a deep fryer. Dixie provided vast quantities of food, and Nicole's dad provided us with a shrimp ring. This is a ring of cold shrimps that you dip in cocktail sauce. The weather was cold too. I like my shrimps hot, so I asked Dixie for a wooden skewer. She had one of course. I skewered the cold shrimp and plunged it into boiling oil. Kept it there. When it had had enough, I took the shrimp into Dixie's house and showed it to Nicole's dad. I told him that I eat the whole shrimp complete with its tail, and he was surprised.

Gosh, I ate a great deal this Thanksgiving. It all began with that little shrimp. And the holidays were only beginning.

Siberia

2008-12-02T21:16:00.000-08:00

“…the need to populate Siberia and to mine its ore drew out a deepening river of deportees, and by 1753, when the death penalty was abolished in favor of lifelong labour, the variety of offences punishable by exile had grown bewildering. Prize-fighting, wife-beating, begging with false distress, illicit tree-felling, vagrancy and fortune-telling might all condemn a man to Siberia as well as the European innovations of taking snuff (exile was accompanied by ripping out the nostrils’ septum) or driving a cart with the use of reins.”

- Colin Thubron In Siberia.

Russian Tuva throat singer on David Letterman

2008-11-11T20:14:00.000-08:00

A Journal of the Plague Year

2008-11-07T23:58:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year. This book is a description of London during the Great Plague of 1665. It sounds like people back then were as ungrateful and oblivious as they are now:

“But the Mercy of God was greater to the rest than we had reason to expect; for the Malignity, as I have said, of the Distemper was spent, the Contagion was exhausted…and the Health of the City began to return…

“I wish I cou’d say, that as the City had a new Face, so the Manners of the People had a new Appearance: I doubt not but there were many that retain’d a sincere Sense of their Deliverance, and that were heartily thankful to that sovereign Hand, that had protected them in so dangerous a Time; it would be very uncharitable to judge otherwise in a City so populous, and where the People were so devout, as they were here in the Time of the Visitation [of the plague] itself; but except what of this was to be found in particular Families, and Faces, it must be acknowledg’d that the general Practice of the People was just the same as it was before, and very little Difference was to be seen.”

Thank you California

2008-11-05T21:18:00.000-08:00

Clearly there are lots of people (maybe you) who disagree with me about Proposition 8. I can tell because my car (and its "Yes on 8" bumper sticker) has been taking it on the chin for me. One day somebody left a critical note, another day somebody smashed an egg on the car, and yesterday somebody splashed coffee on my windshield. I wouldn't do that to somebody with a "No on 8" bumper sticker. It's un-American, and ill-bred.

There's no middle ground between the "Yes on 8" position and "No on 8", and there shouldn't be. And there's no middle ground in my feelings towards my "No on 8" friends and family - you have my love and warm feelings. Even if you throw eggs and coffee on folk's cars (but it's still ill-bred behavior and you ought to be ashamed).

Catawampus

2008-10-14T21:56:00.001-07:00

Nicole and I live about a mile from the L.A. Arboretum and manage to visit regularly. The Arboretum currently features an art installation made of saplings called Catawampus. The tram driver said it'll be there for about two years. I think it looks like a living space built by a space alien culture that doesn’t make sense to normal humans. Sort of like the derelict space ship in the movie “Alien”. It has different chambers that you can walk into. You can read about it here:

Catawampus

I looked for some definitions of the word Catawampus online. The MSN Encarta definition of Catawampus says that it means “in a diagonal position or arrangement.”

The Urban Dictionary said that Catawampus is, “a verb used to describe someone who walks strangely.”

Then there was the Urban Dictionary’s definition of “Catawumpus”: “When something is all off balance or disheveled to the degree that you can see how its supposed to be and yet its clear that some rough-housing or real messin/cuttin up has made it nearly unworthy of bothering with to get it back that way due to the humor of the present state.”

There was also a sky writer making designs overhead.

Blindness

2008-10-02T21:09:00.001-07:00

Someone on Nicole's drug withdrawal internet forum recommended the 1991 Jim Jarmusch movie "Night on Earth", so we watched it last night. I seen it when it come out; I probably enjoyed it more last night because I was expecting less. Roberto Benigni, in the Roma sequence, where he drives the priest in his taxi and confesses his increasingly mortal sins to him, is still unstoppable and stands the test of time. What I forgot was how entertaining it is to watch Beatrice Dalle as the blind woman in the Parisian taxi. All blind women should put on their lipstick and fuss with their hair like Beatrice Dalle. Sighted women too. She had a mesmerizing, Stevie Wonder manner of rolling her head around. Beatrice Dalle needs more roles like this. In the 2001 movie "Trouble Every Day" she played a cannibal.

Old Finn

2008-09-12T23:50:00.001-07:00

"After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there for two drunks and one delirium tremens."

- Huckleberry Finn chapter 6

Take a little off the top. And off of the sides. And off the back.

2008-09-11T15:10:00.001-07:00

Seven years after 9-1-01, it’s a fine, fine thing to be a local. I don’t have to drive two hours from San Diego to South Pasadena to get a haircut. Down the block from the barbershop, Videotheque is still there in case I get an impulse to rent something without waiting for Netflix. I haven’t been to the new Gus’s BBQ yet, but whatever they’ve done to it I’m sure that it’s better than no Gus’s at all. Small town America is flourishing in the midst of the metropolis.

Seven years later, small town America is also flourishing in rural America. Illinois was the last place that I ever expected to spend any time in. It is a good place, I want to spend more time there.

Lastly, I recently got my own copy of Huckleberry Finn. Seems like I’ve forgotten almost all of the story. My favorite character is Huck’s father, Old Finn, with his delirium tremens and wrongheaded political ideas. I hope he shows up later in the book. Nicole has been volunteering to read the book to me when I’ve been sleepy. For this I am hopelessly grateful. In addition, she has a devil of a time with Huck’s pal Jim’s old fashioned slave jargon:

“Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place.” (from chapter 8)

“Dese” (for example) comes out “Day-say” instead of “Deez”. The girl grew up pretty close to Missouri but I’ll be swizzled if she can manage any kind of regional accent. But how can I complain - she's an American girl reading American literature to me, life doesn't get any better than that.

Shakespeare at the Park

2008-08-21T16:12:00.001-07:00

I think we went to see this performance on July 26 at Memorial Park in Sierra Madre. What a charming little small town it is. Having a permanent stage in the neighborhood park must be fun for the young people. Around sunset we sat on the grass in our beach chairs with the neighborhood folk. The price was right and the entertainment was worthwhile.

In addition I noticed that my interest took more notice whenever one of the two leads was on stage. That must be a good sign. Unfortunately the program got thrown away so I don’t know who they were. Let me know if you can recognize them in the picture.

The play takes place in Sicily and this production made the interesting choice of setting it during the 1930s. That would put us in Fascist Italy. Other than the appearance of the actors, there were no other cues to the time period; never picked up on any subliminal signs of allegiance to The Leader ("Libro e moschetto - fascista perfetto!")

Camping with Sweeney Clan

2008-08-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

We had a three day weekend the first week of August and met the extended Sweeney clan in Kings Canyon. Nicole’s first camping trip. You may be gratified to see there are photos of John clowning in this post. There are also photos of my cousin Jennie putting up her family’s tent, Dad making some breakfast.

I didn’t get any decent pictures of people. I can’t put my finger on the cause. Maybe I was lazy. Maybe folk were giving off the vibe of savages who don’t want their souls stolen by the camera machine. Hopefully I’ll be able to make more of my next opportunity. It’s better to experience Sweeneys than to examine them anyway.

The river was quite cold and the current very swift, but I crept on the rocks and eventually perched briefly. Due to drought, the campground showers were closed. I know Nicole was really hoping for shower access. Later the clan went further down the river and I splashed in the cold swift current, almost got knocked down.

On the way back Nicole and I stopped by a pond. I tried to create some Monster Hunter style candid photos of a mythic forest dweller creeping out to drink from the brackish water.

Later the clan gathered to make spaghetti dinner. There is often minor disputation regarding who is or ought to be helping out and who is or ought to be at leisure.

The last night we tried to get a picture of me inside the tent using only the available light from Nicole’s tiny battery-powered tent lantern. Nicole or Russell said I look like a gang member. I had brought my cowboy hat but our parked car got so hot in Fresno that the cowboy wilted. Gotta get it “reblocked”. I bought a Kings Canyon cap to cover my filthy unshowered hair. More comments to come (hopefully).

Mammoth 4th of July

2008-08-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

We spent 4th of July weekend in Mammoth with Mom and Dad and my Auntie Chrissie and Uncle Sal. It was very lovely. None of these pictures is really funny, but this was our 4th of July.

Nicole put together a whole "Battlestar Galactica" puzzle in the livingroom. Uncle Sal brought his guitar, he is a fan of Blues music. I don't know how I got that shot of him playing away, I am usually a dirt poor photographer. Dad and Uncle Sal caught some fish and ate them for dinner, we others had chicken.

One day Nicole and I went out to Twin Lake, stopped by the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory store first and got an "Apple Pie" style candy apple. Russell said that picture of me contemplating the apple was Byronic, as in Lord Byron, all emotional and earthy. It wasn't posed; I'd describe my attitude towards the apple as more Robotic, as in unthinking, unstoppable consumption "You must be assimilated".

Anyway, we had a fine time and I was able to bring "Cinnabon" flavored coffee from L.A.

Grotto Minions 2

2008-08-09T08:55:00.000-07:00

Shortly before visiting the Grotto, and its suspicious garden (in the background of the first photo), I had seen a documentary on the History Channel that featured photographs from lynchings. There always seems to be at least one person in those pictures who is helpfully pointing out to the viewer the direction to which one's attention should be drawn.

We found some rocks that had been painted red, Jason sported with them. I sat on the rocks where I used to go and brood when I was in college, that's where Nicolette and I took our wedding invitation photo. At my feet you can see a giant toy pill capsule that someone had discarded.

Grotto Minions

2008-08-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to San Diego, my college roommate Jason and I visited the UCSD campus and, of course, the Grotto. We found a garden.

green onions

2008-07-31T21:47:00.000-07:00

We're going camping together for the first time tomorrow. It's 9:48 p.m. and I'm cutting up green onions. The onions aren't going camping, I need to freeze them. If I don't freeze them they'll go rotten in the refrigerator, I've seen it happen before. The carrots and beets will keep until we return. I'm also in the middle of doing three loads of laundry. And I've got to inflate the air mattress to make sure it hasn't any holes. At some point I need to go to bed because I have to get up for work at 5:30 a.m. After work we're driving from L.A. up to Fresno to stay overnight in a hotel. Then we'll get up the next morning and drive up to Kings Canyon and put up the tent.

But first, I need to finish cutting up the onions for freezing. So they don't go rotten. I'm so tired, I want to go to sleep right now. I haven't had any dinner yet. I should just eat the onions. I wonder if this has ever happened to anyone else. O Great Spirit, don't let me go to the dogs tonight.

A week in Illinois, part 3

2008-07-28T20:18:00.000-07:00

As our two year anniversary was near our recent trip to Illinois, for a present Nicole's pa and his lady Dixie arranged for us to have an overnight in a bed & breakfast we found. There are a passel of pictures of the place but I also have this video, so I slapped it up there to save time.

And this is my first video on the blog, I'll make them shorter in the future.

A week in Illinois, part 2

2008-07-27T00:06:00.000-07:00

We moved at a pretty slow pace in Illinois. What activities we did were performed slowly. We slept about ten hours each night. One evening we drove over to Oglesby to have dinner at Sam’s Pizza. Sam works the front, his mom makes pizza dough in the back.

If I were a photographer I’d share pictures of the abandoned cement factory that we pass on the way to Oglesby. In the right hands it would be an interesting study.

The moon was coming up over the pastures and cornfields on the way home. Passed by some cattle, evening grazers enjoying a little dinner. They had tiny phosphorescent eyes that glowed in the dark.

My brother-in-law Brian has been working on a green flame paint job for his car. Brian is Nicole’s brother and I took a picture of them with the car. When we sent that photo to Brian I wanted to be in the picture with them so I pasted myself in.

When anyone is home at Nicole’s pa’s house, their dog Jane is allowed to come inside. If no one is home she has to stay out in her pen, otherwise she whiles away the time indoors shredding things, chewing stuff to pieces.

One night we went to dinner at a steak place with Nicole’s pa, his girlfriend Dixie, her son Nick, my brother-in-law Brian and his wife my sister-in-law Tracy. My steak was overly seasoned, but at this place you pick your own piece of raw meat out of the refrigerator (visible in the background) and cook it yourself on the big grill. When folk asked how I liked my steak I said, “It’s perfect! A real professional job. Next time, if you like, I'll cook yours for you.”

Later back at the house I snuck out of bed and got a snack when I was supposed to be asleep.

A week in Illinois, part 1

2008-07-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

It’s very easy and very difficult to describe rural Illinois in June. It’s green and beautiful and flat. It just is. Nicole’s pa’s house is in the middle of miles of farmland, out of every window you can see it sprawling every which where. The sky and the weather were unbelievably nice.

There’s a tree in the backyard that I took a picture of in the winter and now you can see what it looks like in the summer.

After the street passes the house it becomes a gravel country road. Nicole and I took the family dog Jane on a walk on the gravel road and we all had a good time. Walked down the road a piece. It goes along for quite a long way. We passed a good deal of young corn, it’s springing up all over the state. Far down the road it looks like there’s a kind of farm house, but we never got that far down the road. Jane had nearly run herself into a lather so we turned around and went home to relax.

Anniversary 2008

2008-06-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

We sort of already celebrated our two year anniversary last week in a bed and breakfast place in Illinois, but today was our real anniversary. For dinner we drove up the road to Sierra Madre where I went to pre-school. There you’ll find a restaurant called Casa Del Rey that features my favorite restaurant tacos in Los Angeles. I took a picture of Nicolette while she was looking at the menu and I took photos of the food. Afterwards we walked round the corner for ice cream then we went home. That’s when things got out of hand.

I put on my vest and opened a bottle of Mountain Dew while Nicole read some articles that she printed out from the internet. I says to myself “It’s on!” and I pulled down my champagne bucket off of the cabinet. It’s a standing tradition that I enjoy cruel Mountain Dew out of a champagne bucket every year.

The first time was during the honeymoon – nobody bought me the champagne bucket I asked for in our wedding registry, so I had to drink out of the hotel champagne bucket at the casino where we were staying in Las Vegas. Last year, our first anniversary was in the mountains. Nicole got me my own champagne bucket that year and I bought the Mountain Dew in a little town store in the mountains. I didn’t have my vest with me last year, but I did tonight, and let me tell you, it got *Kray-z33!*

"Hmm, I haven't heard from John..."

2008-06-08T22:04:00.000-07:00

I have to learn to use this software for work. You use it to make software demonstration files. For example, software often comes with tutorials that you watch to learn how to use the program – you watch a little movie on the computer in which the mouse runs around and clicks by itself and there are captions and usually narration.

Unfortunately, this software I’m learning doesn’t come with any instruction book and its tutorials aren’t real clear to me. Adobe doesn’t have any books available on it so I bought one that I found on Amazon. It cost $35 and it seems like someone just printed it out from a computer and had Kinko’s put a spiral binding on it.

The book is making sense, however. I am finally making progress. The worst part is that I don’t have time to learn the software at work, I’m going to have to learn it at home on my own time. Sigh. Could be worse. The software is interesting, I just wish I could be playing with it at work instead of at home. I’m glad I have a job, I haven’t anything significant to complain about.

Actually I do have something to complain about: here is another reason why I have no free time to communicate with friends and loved ones. Where is all my time going? A chunk of it is being spent on this software. At least I didn’t have to buy the software.

Nicole finds picture of dwarves

2008-06-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Nicole says to me, "Look, I found this picture of dwarves."

How's that? I take a look.

"Yup, those are dwarves," says I, "What do you want that for?"

"I'm looking for pictures to make a YouTube video," says she.

"That's a picture from The Hobbit," I says, "See, there's Bilbo."

"No," she counters, "That's not from The Hobbit."

"Yes, it is," says I, "That's Bilbo and the dwarves. They're from The Hobbit."

"No," she insists, and moves on.

I don't know what to tell her. Doesn't like The Hobbit. Why does she want to make a YouTube video that features a dwarf or dwarves? I'll keep an eye on her.

Psycho

2008-06-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve heard from more than one that I need a new blog post. I remember when I could invent new posts when nothing was happening, but it’s become a challenge now.

Nevetherless, last weekend Nicolette and I were lying around languid like a pair of pet shop skinks. Turns out “Psycho” was on TCM channel and somehow N. had never seen it. In addition, the movie hadn’t already been spoiled for her by much previous knowledge of the plot.

I discovered that it’s still a very entertaining movie for me. Very goofy and wacky.

From the start of the movie, when Janet Leigh is in the hotel room with her boyfriend, her character is basically flesh for wicked fantasy. That’s her purpose, she is supposed to make you want to do bad things with her but keep your exterior respectability like she does. Back at the real estate office, after her nooner, the rich guy keeps trying to insinuate himself with her and he is creepy ahoy. Everybody wants to get at the raw meat! At the Bates Motel, crazy Norman checks her out through the secret peep hole – he thinks he’s looking at the display window at the butcher shop!

Nicolette was surprised that Janet Leigh didn’t make it through the movie. I think that N. supposed the shower scene would be the climax at the end. Pa told me that even now it’s still unnerving to him to see Janet Leigh slain. I forgot that just before her shower she had decided to straighten out, return the stolen money and fly right. O, irony! The movie doesn’t give her a chance to turn over a new leaf. The movie doesn’t even care about the stolen money that sinks into the swamp, it has different priorities than you and I. That’s because the movie is crazy.

I also forgot that at the very end when the last shot of Norman/Mom is fading, there is a skull subliminally superimposed on his face. What more could one ask for from 1960?

found image

2008-04-17T20:31:00.001-07:00

Dirty Dancing

2008-03-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

I tagged along to Nicole’s visit to her cardiologist yesterday and he had nothing but good news. Healthy heart, healthy arteries. The uncomfortable and unnerving heart anomalies are harmless, should disappear in a few months.

You might recall that all the health questions began at the New Beverly Theater last summer (July 13, 2007 - hold that thought). I didn’t manage to get back to the New Beverly until last month to see a midnight showing of “Dirty Dancing” which I had never seen before.

Like any sane person, I was deeply disappointed by the movie. I was honestly surprised at how bad it was, no one had warned me. As for the experience – seeing a 1987 artifact (for the first time) in a theater with a live audience of both fans and braying neigh-sayers in L.A. at midnight – memorable is not the word. It was a rollicking good time.

Before the show began, the theater manager addressed the audience. He may or may not have been the son of the former owner, Sherman Torgan. According to Reuters, “Torgan, who founded and ran the last remaining full-time revival cinema in Los Angeles, died Wednesday [July 18, 2007] of a heart attack while bicycling in Santa Monica.”

The manager told of future midnight shows and asked if anyone in the audience had never seen “Dirty Dancing” before. I and perhaps a couple others raised our hands and prompted audience murmurings of “Virgins…” I had heard a young gal (about as old as the movie) telling someone on her phone that she had seen the movie a hundred times but never in a theater, only on video, DVD, or cable TV.

A high point of the evening was the trailers before the film. I can’t remember all of them, but they included films in the same genre as "Dirty Dancing" like “Ice Castles” (1978) and the Village People vehicle “Can’t Stop the Music” (1980). Clearly (and perhaps fortunately) these won’t be coming to the New Beverly anytime soon, but the trailers were pretty funny.

So, “Dirty Dancing”. During the black and white, slow motion opening credits with the Ronettes song “Be My Baby”, I thought to myself that it might be a good movie. Moments later it turned out that Jennifer Grey’s character’s name was Baby. Ridiculous. If I had seen this movie in 1987, I would have at least been watching a hit movie from current popular culture. On the other side of the scale is a cluster of nightcrawlers groaning and cracking up, most of who knew that this was going to be a terrible movie.

In the film there are at least a half dozen indignant, square-jawed reaction shots of Patrick Swayze each time he is confronted with insult, class prejudice, general injustice, sexual arousal. Each instance was a cue for a wag somewhere near the back of the theater to murmur with urgency “Swayze…!” Yes, it eventually got a little old but it was funnier than I’m able to describe it (as in “You had to be there!”) and damn it, it made laugh during this freak of cinema.

The ‘60s music helped, but the rest of the music was insane. “She’s Like the Wind”? Sung by Patrick Swayze?

And certainly the moment that got the biggest laugh came when Patrick Swayze gave the out-of-nowhere line: “Nobody puts Baby in a corner!”

It was only weeks after my return to the New Beverly Theater that we learned the news of Patrick Swayze’s pancreatic cancer. Says Nicole, “That place is cursed.”

I hope I never see “Dirty Dancing” again, but this singular instance was probably the only reasonable opportunity for me to enjoy the experience. I had the time of my life.

Nosferatu Pix 2007

2008-02-22T22:22:00.000-08:00

After the slow year we had in 2006, I’m pleased that 2007 was a much more successful year for movies. I loved the 2006 movie “The Children of Men”, but the less I ponder over that year’s movies the better.

The first film that I saw and liked in 2007 was “Amazing Grace”, the movie about William Wilberforce. I was still reeling from 2006 and I thought to myself, “Here’s at least good movie for 2007. I’d better make a note of it, there might not be any more.” There were more, but I hope the film industry hasn’t shot its bolt and left us nothing for 2008.

I don’t think any of us saw a film better than “No Country for Old Men” this year. However, I did have a movie experience that topped it. The evening that we saw Guy Maddin’s “Brand Upon the Brain!” at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood, the movie featured live narration by Udo Kier, live foley artists and a live orchestra. At one point Udo Kier went nearly haywire with his groaning and crying out. I’ll never forget it.

Unfortunately, I’ll also never forget following the ambulance that carried Nicole away from the New Beverly Theater after “Grindhouse”. Such an experience would be better suited to the film year of 2006, or, better yet, never at all.

Something that I was pleased and surprised about this year was how little struggling it took for me to see so many films that I wanted to. Turns out there were eight movies that I wanted to see and didn’t manage to. That’s about average for me, roughly the usual number. What was unusual was how difficult and exhausting this year has been. Hard to believe I didn’t miss more movies, but here are the ones I hoped to but didn’t manage to see:

30 Days of Night

Control

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

Juno

Resident Evil: Extinction

The Savages

There Will Be Blood

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story

In fact the “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” DVD is sitting behind me, I just don’t have the energy to stay up late to watch it before posting this. But I’m looking forward to it. In the midst of the challenges of 2007 I continually insisted “…but there’s a good time coming.” As for movies, this is it.

Best Film:

Amazing Grace
Grindhouse: Planet Terror / Death Proof
The Lives of Others
No Country for Old Men
The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Honorable Mention:

Brand Upon the Brain!

Best Actor:

Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)
Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men)
Ioan Gruffudd (Amazing Grace)
Ulrich Mühe (The Lives of Others)
Cillian Murphy (The Wind That Shakes the Barley)

Honorable Mention:

Adrien Brody (The Darjeeling Limited)
Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises)
James McAvoy (Atonement)

Best Actress:

Maya Lawson (Brand Upon the Brain!)

Kelly Macdonald (No Country for Old Men)
Natalie Portman (The Darjeeling Limited)
Parker Posey (Fay Grim)
Katherine E. Scharhon (Brand Upon the Brain!)

Honorable Mention:

Keira Knightley (Atonement)

Best Supporting Actor:

Timothy Dalton (Hot Fuzz)
Robert Downey Jr. (Zodiac)
Albert Finney (Amazing Grace)
William Forsythe (Halloween)
James Urbaniak (Fay Grim)

Honorable Mention:

Bill Murray (The Darjeeling Limited)

Best Supporting Actress:

Zoe Bell (Grindhouse: Death Proof)
Rosario Dawson (Grindhouse: Death Proof)
Jenna Fischer (Blades of Glory)
Romola Garai (Amazing Grace)
Beth Grant (No Country for Old Men)

Honorable Mention:

Romola Garai (Atonement)
Amara Karan (The Darjeeling Limited)

Glad to see them working:

Peter Fonda (3:10 to Yuma)
Udo Kier (Grindhouse:“Werewolf Women of the SS”)
Udo Kier (Halloween)

Malcolm McDowell (Halloween)

Theresa Russell (Spider-Man 3)

Julie Walters (Becoming Jane)

Guilty Pleasures:

Music and Lyrics

Reno 911!: Miami

Slumming:

Steve Carell - Evan Almighty
Robert Carlyle - 28 Weeks Later

Ioan Gruffudd - 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Wanda Sykes - Evan Almighty

Live Brains in Danger:

Atonement

Brand Upon the Brain!

No Country for Old Men

Fingers in Danger:

Eastern Promises

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

Favorite moments:

Blades of Glory – Chazz Michael Michaels’ (Will Ferrell) solo skating routine while wearing the red t-shirt, black vest and cowboy hat.

Darjeeling Limited – Bill Murray and Adrien Brody running for the train.

Grindhouse (trailers): “Machete”, “Werewolf Women of the SS”, “Don’t”, “Thanksgiving”.

Hot Fuzz – Timothy Dalton to Simon Pegg while jogging “Arrest me! I’m a slasher -- of prices!”

Reno 911!: Miami – Any scene featuring Terry (Nick Swardson).

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

2007-12-20T15:36:00.001-08:00

Been a tough year. I am patient and comforted in my greater hope, but damn. Circumstances are much better than those of many less fortunates, and yet the challenges get to me.

I'm grateful for my job, grateful to be living in L.A., but the job has been very frustrating from the beginning. Nicole and I hadn't been married a month before this gig began in Fall 2006. Seems to take eigthy percent of my energy. Haven't managed to be creative when I'm off of work. Feel like I'm out of juice much of the time.

In addition, we're still contending with Nicole's health problems. Much improved, but she's still getting chest pains, dizziness, fluctuating heart rate, fatigue. Not life threatening stuff, but it brings her down, and that brings me down, affects quality of life. Been about six months. Say a prayer.

So, for about eighteen months I haven't been able to communicate with folk as much as I'd like. Excuses, excuses. Neither have I been able to keep up with movies or music, I don't know what's going on. Some improvement in 2008 would be nice.

But Thank God it's Christmastime, it's very cheering. I rarely drink coffee these days, but, for the next two weeks as I'm celebrating the holidays, I'm having coffee every day. This is going to be a major binge and I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to read a load of Anna Karenina and a lot of H.P. Lovecraft. I have a John Waters DVD from Netflix called "This Filthy World" and it looks like it's going to be pretty funny. I finally got some new shoes on Friday. They are black with steel toes and silver buckles and have tremendous tread. Nicole and I are going on many walks in cold weather.

I hope y'all are having a great Christmas season. Wish we could have communicated more this year but there's a good time coming! I know it! Eat the holiday food and watch the holiday moives and I'll see you in 2008!

bad dream adulthood horrible

2007-12-02T12:32:00.000-08:00

Friday night I had a bad dream that gives a pretty accurate picture of how work is going these days. I’m hoping the Christmas season will cheer me up.

I dreamt that Nicole and I had moved back to Los Angeles again. We moved into a large, odd-looking rented house. The house was in a ridiculous place for me to be living in, somewhere like urban Long Beach, on a busy street. Either the house or my new job or both were handed off to me by good old Jaime Hessel. She left me a list of instructions written in red ink.

The job seemed perfect at first but turned out to be horrible. All I had to do was assist a woman who was an instructor at a college that was a lot like UCSD. The woman handed me some electrical cords and told me to deliver them to another instructor on campus. I started bundling the cords then the room darkened. The cords turned into something else, like old, rusty wires, unrelated to what they had been before. These old wires slipped out of my hands and disappeared. This seemed to happen several times.

The instructor asked me if I had delivered the electrical cords yet. I told her no, but that I was working on it. She told me to take some sound baffling boards to the cubicle of the same instructor who wanted the electrical cords. She also introduced me to a student assistant who would be helping me. He was a young blond guy from the college, he seemed like a recovering skate boarding enthusiast. I asked him to look for the electrical cords that I had lost.

When I went to pick up the sound baffling boards they had grown much larger. In addition, they had disguised themselves amidst a collection of lumber and I couldn’t find them. I considered taking all of the lumber to the second instructor’s cubicle and sort it out when I got there, but I couldn’t lift any of it.

I asked the student assistant if he had run across the missing electrical cords. He hadn’t been looking for them. Instead he had drawn a diagram of the electrical cords, which he showed me.

I went to the cubicle of the instructor that wanted the electrical cords and the sound baffling boards to see if they had arrived on their own. The instructor asked if I had brought the cords and the boards. I said no. She looked disappointed but not surprised. Then my clothes started falling off.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-21T16:31:00.000-08:00

Salt and pepper shakers. Very heart warming. The pilgrim man is what I would look like if I had a beard and a hat. Took forever to get a picture that was in focus. Turkey tomorrow. I’m more into the thought of pumpkin pie at this moment. Tired, tired, tired; and I didn’t even have a big dinner, how am I going to remain conscious after Thanksgiving dinner?

Sunset, Hollywood, Vermont

2007-11-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

Our Nicole fell under the weather this weekend but I managed to get over to Hollywood on Saturday evening and poke around.

I hadn’t been to Wacko’s “new” location on Sunset Boulevard in years. I was impressed with their current selection of goofy novelties. I saw a lunchbox that I mean to get for my brother Jim for Christmas, should have bought it Saturday. My favorite thing I saw there was a 12” action figure of Bela Lugosi from “White Zombie”, it fully looked just like him. Nicole is a big fan of the movie “Ed Wood”. Martin Landau gives a great performance as Bela Lugosi in that movie. So I thought she would enjoy it if I got her that “White Zombie” action figure since she didn’t get to go to Wacko with me. Then I thought maybe my reasoning was flawed: A fan of the movie “Ed Wood” is not necessarily a fan of Bela Lugosi action figures. What if I got her this “White Zombie” man and it didn’t result in the response I wanted from her? Ultimately I decided not to risk my feelings getting hurt. I could just see myself bringing “White Zombie” Bela Lugosi home to her, and maybe I imagine a wave of lack of enthusiasm sweep over her face. The result would be that I would have a tantrum and throw the “White Zombie” off of the balcony into the swimming pool. It’s not worth the risk.

But it was fun visiting Wacko.

Next I visited the comic book shop Secret Headquarters on Hollywood Boulevard. It came highly recommended to me and it was indeed an interesting space. Polished wood floor, dark lighting, obscure ‘60s ska music playing on the speakers. I could wish that it had a larger selection of stuff, but at the same time it wasn’t cluttered with the endless toys that really belong over at Wacko anyway. It did have a few Adrian Tomine books. Giant Robot magazine is constantly printing articles about him and now he’s done some covers for the New Yorker, so I finally bought one of his books, Summer Blonde. It’s pretty entertaining so far.

I had a cheeseburger for dinner at Fred 62 just because it was convenient. Sat there listening to a couple of twits talk to each other (“Beverly Hills sucks!” “I know!”, “I’m not high maintenance, it just takes me a long time to read menus.”).

I wanted to go see a movie at the Vista theater, but it was playing Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster”. I’m sure I’ll see that one eventually, but I was in the mood for a comedy. I couldn’t remember ever going to the Los Feliz 3 theater on Vermont but it was playing “The Darjeeling Limited” so I bought a ticket. I won’t be going there again. How was I to know that the movie would be playing in a pillbox theater, the screen was about six feet tall by twelve feet long. A bushy-headed hippie sat alone in front of me. Gross. Whenever I watch a new Wes Anderson movie I’m always disappointed that it wasn’t better, then almost immediately I forgive the film and accept it for what it is. These are movies that I look forward to seeing the second time because I’ll enjoy them more. My favorite moment in the movie was right at the beginning when gangly-legged Adrian Brody overtakes Bill Murray as they’re both running for the train and jumps on the last car leaving Bill Murray behind. Someone will have to explain to me why that was so amusing to me.

Nothing really happened Saturday night, and yet everything happened. It was just…a happening. I think that’s what the hippie was supposed to symbolize.

The Lengend of Boggy Creek (1972)

2007-10-31T10:07:00.000-07:00

Before last week I hadn’t seen this docudrama in more than twenty years. I know that Pa watched it at least once with Jim and me. It’s a Bigfoot movie rip-off that was produced by the community of Fouke, Arkansas (near the borders of Texas and Louisiana) in an attempt to get some national recognition for something. Twenty years ago it was clearly a bad movie, but I hadn’t realized how unbearably boring it was. It has a very entertaining 1972 grainy look and lots of wooden non-actors, but surprisingly that doesn’t help much.

As we watched it Nicole said, “This is a town full of Boomhauers.” And it was true. Beneath the bland narration, there flowed a steady stream of Texarkana gibberish from the people on screen, “Ding-dang-monster-got-me-gummit-freaked out-tell you what-dern-what you boys think ‘bout turkey hunting this year?”

The film begins with much too much footage of empty swampland and wildlife. Next we see a little boy running across fields and crawling over fences for far too long. He finally arrives at some kind of smokehouse or convenience store where he asks a geriatric man for help. The boy's mother has been frightened by a large, hairy, wild man on the property. The old coot laughs and says to tell her that he’ll stop by the following day and sends the boy away. The old man laughs with his even older friends and one of them spits into the wood burning stove.

This is followed by unending re-enactments about people who have noticed The Creature or its three-toed footprint in the woods while they were out hunting. One fellow who saw The Creature became so upset that he changed his gun ammunition from squirrel shot to buckshot. Eventually I fell asleep, but I woke up for the last story.

The narrator says that two couples, in order to share expenses, decided to move into the same house in the woods. For some reasons this already sounds filthy. Before long The Creature stops by to visit them on a night when the men are gone and the women are alone. On this occasion much less happens than one might hope for. One of the women, while reading newspaper advertisements on the couch, hears The Creature as he hops onto the porch outside the window. Unfortunately nothing happens other than the women driving away in their car.

The following evening, while the men are at the house, the woman in spectacles is talking about The Creature. Suddenly the blind flies off of the window and The Creature’s arm reaches into the room. Now the men load their rifle. One of them suddenly has to go to the bathroom, so we watch from outside the window as he pulls down his trousers and sits down on the toilet. But these people are not even safe in the bathroom – The Creature pulls off the screen and attacks the window. The poor hillbilly has to run out of the bathroom while he’s still pulling his pants up over his long underwear.

There is some business of the men shooting into the woods from the porch and the women screaming from the window. At one point The Creature throws one of the guys through a large pane of glass and this story ends with him being taken to the hospital. I think that this window is actually where this story began –

Doctor: “How did this man get thrown through a window?”

Jinger Hawkins: “Well there was this Creature…”

There’s a lot of dreadful pop music with lyrics about The Creature, the swamp, and the residents of Fouke, Arkansas. Yes, pop songs from 1972 about The Creature sound entertaining but they’re just…not. Jim used to parody these songs when we were kids but he lost his lyric sheet long ago, I last remember seeing it in our bedroom in the sheets of his unmade bed the day after he wrote them.

The best thing about the movie are the still images that one can snatch out of the long, plodding mess. I hope that someday I’ll be able to re-edit this movie myself for my own purposes.

Moffett's Chicken Pie Shoppe

2007-10-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

Nicole and I have been exploring our neighborhood and ran across Moffett’s Chicken Pie Shoppe a few weeks ago. “Moffett” sounds like something out of Star Wars – Grand Moff Tarkin, Boba Fett, maybe some Ewok thrown in. What was the name of that robot dog thing in “Battlestar Galactica”?

We had dinner at this Chicken Pie Shoppe for the first time Friday night and almost went three nights in a row (they were closed on Sunday). Saturday night Mom and Dad came too and I remembered my camera.

Inside I was surprised to find that there was a chicken motif everywhere in the interior decorations. Even the curtains had chicken insignias on them. It was no accident. Nevertheless, Nicole had a ham steak on Saturday night, because she’s rebellious like that. Actually she had a chicken pie the first night.

You can have chicken pie with mixed dark and white meat or all white meat. I just don’t care, that’s why I had mixed meat both nights. That’s the way I do it.

They sell frozen raw pies out of a display case that you can take home and bake.

I meant to take a more appetizing picture of my dinner before I started to eat it, but then I forgot to take a picture until it was halfway gone. I was just so hungry. And I got so full – both nights I ended up feeling like I was going to have an out-of-body experience, like I was going to burst out of my body.

Speaking of the ghostly realm, there was the image of a woman that kept showing up in the pictures over my or my dad's shoulder. I experimented with adding a ghostly glow around her, and Nicole laughed at my experiments, but I was afraid that if she happened to research her favorite chicken pie shoppe on the internet it might hurt her feelings.

I think we'll be spending more time at this place. It’s one of the few places where you can be in America and Los Angeles at the same time. Another one is my apartment.

She finally resurfaces

2007-10-09T14:21:00.000-07:00

She’s been MIA since about 1989. She was always capricious, but missing for eighteen years? Good heavens.

I discovered Min in the eighth grade,1982 - great saucer eyeglasses and a tendency to not draw attention to herself in class - and I said to myself “She’s about to become a remarkable woman and I know she’s going to be important to me! I’ve got to make her a part of my world!”

And so she was for many years - vital to my emotional health as we grew from saplings to confused trees. The confusion increased until in 1989 or so she slipped away into the outer chaos. I was too beset by undergraduate cares to track her movements and so we were sundered.

Fast forward to the present. Nicole and I are living in L.A. and purchased tickets to go to my 20-year (is it possible?) high school class reunion (thank you *again* Karen for all your organizing, you are a wonder worker on the level of Annie Sullivan). Unfortunately, due to our challenges this summer, we couldn’t make the scene. Later I did receive a booklet with contact information for former classmates, but I thought, “What’s the point? So much time has passed, people are busy and caught up in their lives.”

Then up pops an e-mail from our Min. I could not believe it. To make a long story short, she also lives in town and Nicole and I made plans to meet her for dinner. We went to a very popular Chinese dumpling restaurant about three blocks away from our new apartment. Afterwards we brought her home and stayed up late trying to catch up.

One of Min’s many characteristics that have not changed is her squeamishness about having her picture taken. I got her to pose once with Nicole and me but I still blew it and the picture came out blurry. The one food photo I took was of something Min ordered from the menu that was called simply “appetizer”. I think it was strips of tofu, maybe some ginger in there. When she ordered it I had a funny feeling that it was going to look unusual.

Anyway, I can’t properly convey the importance of this event, it’s like the restoration of a limb, or having Marvin Gaye raised from the dead.

Nicole is getting better, my job is getting better, I love our new apartment, and now the sea gives back one of the departed. Let’s have a great year!

John gets a gig

2007-09-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

After weeks and weeks someone finally asked me to shoot another video at the hospital. I want to become more popular at work at a videographer so I need to make the most of every opportunity.

I wasn’t in the video but they gave me a costume to wear. We were making a short video about operating prep so I had to have a sterile exterior. I thought I’d get to wear those scrubs clothes but I didn’t even get a surgical mask. They give me this huge disposable jumpsuit made out of paper towel. Then they give me this flimsy hairnet, felt like it was made of spider web. I looked like Run DMC or one of the rapmasters.

Not a complicated project, I gave them their DVD quickly and I’m hoping to start spending more time in the little editing room.

radio in for back up

2007-09-13T20:48:00.000-07:00

Nicole's pa flew in from Illinois last Thursday to stay with us for a spell. Nicole's been steadily improving, we're very encouraged. In addition it's been most, most helpful to have an additional handler to keep an eye on her. Sometimes it's more helpful to have your dad tell you, "Hey, relax," than to have John tell you, "Uh...why don't you...relax..?"

I wish my reasoning abilities were doing as well as Nicole. Her pa brought, not one, but two pairs of his cowboy boots. On Saturday he mentioned that he was also in the market for a pair of sturdy, knee high work boots. We looked around on the internet but didn't have much luck. Then I had a bright idea. Doc Martens were originally manufactured as work boots before they became fashionable. The steel toed variety are certainly still available.

I called around and finally found a place called "Posers" on Melrose that had knee high Doc Martens. We drove out there and found the shoe department upstairs. Lots of boots featuring skulls, faces of rock stars, platform heels. It was run by a cynical Scandinavian dude. Nicole's pa quickly determined that knee high Doc Martens was not what he had in mind, steel toes or no.

However, the next day we went to Boot Barn and amidst all of their no nonsense western and work boots he still couldn't find what he was looking for. He's just very particular.

bright moments

2007-09-06T14:37:00.001-07:00

John: "Did you watch 'Mister Rogers' when you were little?"

Yni: "No. I was too young."

aluminum caskets for two

2007-08-31T10:03:00.001-07:00

It’s been a challenging six weeks. Nicole and her cardiologist have been trying a different medication just about every day. On every trip we’ve made to the hospital I’ve had the song “Dropkick Me, Jesus” playing in my head. Fortunately I’ve seen definite improvement in our Nicolette, just not at the rate that we are impatient for.

Despite the challenges and stress, I think I’ve had a pretty positive attitude. I honestly believe that I’ve enjoyed an optimistic outlook. And yet I suspect my subconscious disagrees…

I dreamt that I had reached the end of my rope at work. I determined that the only solution was for my assistant Yni (pronounced “Ee-nee”) and I to commit suicide. Yes, Yni and I would escape from our frustrations by ending our lives - the only rational, noble solution. Very Roman.

Conveniently, our office supply catalog featured reasonably priced aluminum caskets. I ordered a pair of the same model and they seemed to arrive immediately. Yni is more petite than I am so I ordered a smaller sized casket for her.

Upon seeing her casket, Yni gave me one of her categorized looks. This is look #9 that conveys the idea: “I understand what you’re trying to tell me. Nevertheless, I disagree with your scheme. I’m not going to say anything now, because I know how you react when challenged at the theoretical stage. But you can expect me to speak up before you do any real damage. So go ahead - run wild, run free.”

I began making preparations, tested my casket’s hinges, told Yni how our coworkers would realize, only too late, how necessary and valuable she and I really were. Everything would fall apart without us. By the time the others understood that they needed our help, Yni and I would have already passed away.

“How are we going to actually die?” Yni asked.

“Well, we’re going to suffocate!” I said, “Right there inside those caskets.”

“I see,” said Yni, sizing up her casket. I was already lying in mine and could tell that Yni was hesitating.

“What’s wrong? What’s the problem?” I said in my usual patient tone.

“I don’t think mine is big enough for me,” said Yni.

“You’re going to be dead!” I sputtered, “You don’t have to be comfortable!” She continued to hesitate. “Fine!” I said, leaping out of my casket, “You take the big casket, I’ll take yours. I’ll just bend my knees a little, I don’t care if I’m comfortable.” I crammed myself into the lady-sized casket and looked up at Yni. Still she hesitated.

The last thing I remember is sighing and saying to Yni:
“I just don’t think you get it.”

bright moments

2007-08-22T21:00:00.000-07:00

We saw the cardiologist today and got some different heart medication for Nicole, hopefully it will be more helpful.

Meanwhile, it’s nice to still be able to laugh. Young Devon has, for some months, been dating Yuko, a young lady from Japan. In the spring, Nicole and I enjoyed having them over for dinner. For some reason I was inspired that night to lend Devon my DVD of the mini-series “Shogun” – let’s not ask why, I’ll just join you in shaking our heads about how my mind works.

I was greatly amused this weekend to read an e-mail from Devon featuring his reaction:

“…I’d like to write and tell you my thoughts about Shogun, but my busy time and lazy time have only given me the chance to watch one disk. The age is what I like most about it. It might sound stupid, but the technology used to film and the acting remind me of ether Roots or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.”

Musing over this later, all I could remember was:

“Roots” + “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” = “Shogun”.

root canal

2007-08-19T14:51:00.000-07:00

38 years old, never needed braces, never had a cavity, regular visits for teeth cleaning have always been freighted with compliments from the dentist on what good shape my teeth are in. You can imagine what kind of a helter skelter year I've had from the fact that I haven't been to the dentist in all that time and managed to develop a problem requiring a root canal.

For you folks who haven't heard from me in quite some time and think I'm taking it easy and am just too lazy to e-mail you -- you're not the only ones whom I'm neglecting, I'm also neglecting my own body! And I really need my body!

Friday after work I went to see my new dentist, Dr. Chan of Healthy Smile Family Dentistry on Fair Oaks in South Pasadena. To make a long story short, he did the first part of my root canal on Friday night and stage two on Saturday morning.

The happy smile news is that it was a painless experience. They pumped a load of anesthetic into my gum and all the nerves were shut down in the lower right quadrant of my face until about 10 p.m. Whenever I touched my cheek or my chin it felt like a hunk of somebody else's face had been grafted onto mine, and it felt like the face of a huge person. The worst part of the procedure was that when he started drilling into the nerve of my sick tooth it smelled like burnt hair.

It's been over a year since I've been plugged into heavy duty antibiotics and once again I am grateful to have them. I also had pain medication prescribed but never friggin' needed it! That's what I'm talkin' about. As Dr. Chan was drilling away at the old fellow who was my tooth, sawing off slabs of gum, I was thinking to myself, "This is my kind of twenty-first century technology, what a root canal should be like. The only way this could be easier is if it could be done by phone."

The only truly painful part of this story is that Dr. Chan hit me for $244 on Friday night and $231 on Saturday morning, all out of my own pocket. And the hits keep coming, he's still got to install the permanent crown (they were wondering if I would be interested in a designer model for $900; I'll take generic). So I've got this blocky, robotic, temporary crown for three weeks, looks like a tiny hippopatamus tooth. When Dr. Chan gets back from wherever he's going, probably the Bahamas, he'll finish the job and then we'll make an appointment for a regular teeth cleaning. In the meantime I can only eat soft foods, let me know if you have any suggestions.

In other news, Nicole begins her third week of disability tomorrow. Her heart medication is giving her awful side effects including near constant anxiety. I think we've been to every emergency room in the area several times. Many of our moving boxes are unpacked but we're still using paper plates and plastic utensils because we can't find where we packed the real ones.

I will end on a positive note - the New Beverly Cinema is, apparently, not closing after all. Thank Heavens. Now I just gotta find the time to go watch a movie there. For now, Nicole and I are cheering ourselves up by watching the all-day "Ice Road Truckers" marathon on the History Channel.

Unpacking

2007-08-13T21:57:00.000-07:00

I am exhausted. Things have been very challenging. We are finally moved into the new apartment in Arcadia. Nicole has been sick for about a month now. She’s arranged to be off of work for two weeks and she doesn’t feel significantly better than when this started.

But on the positive side, I’m noting progress in Nicole’s condition. And somehow we managed to get everything out of the blue house this Sunday and turn in the keys. We aren’t going to move again until my children can speak to me.

The tree in front comforts me in my unhinged state. Haven’t took a swim in the pool yet, but there’s a good time coming. Our apartment is up the stairs on the second floor and it’s relaxing to look down on the pool from our patio. We’re done moving, I’m out of juice, and I’m exhaling amidst all these boxes in the living room. I’ll post pictures of the inside of the apartment after we unpack.

Our apartment is in an Asian neighborhood and we are fortunate to live within walking distance of a 99 Ranch Asian supermarket. We’re also close to Santa Anita Race Track and the Los Angeles Arboretum (where they filmed the “Zee plane! Zee plane!” opening sequence from “Fantasy Island”).

traumatic

2007-07-31T10:03:00.001-07:00

Ahoy neighbors. Things are hectic but not completely unmanageable (but close). In the last two weeks my unnamed associate and I have made a number of trips to the hospital. Same symptoms: chest pain, heart rate zooming up for extended periods for no reason, severe anxiety, soreness in left arm, dizziness and a feeling of imminent fainting.

Haven’t connected with a cardiologist yet somehow, she has a couple of appointments with possibilities this week. From what I’ve learned, the cause of our suffering sounds like a couple of related problems: Inappropriate sinus tachycardia (no, not nasal sinus) and Mitro Valve Prolapse. To make a long story short, hopefully it’s a case of finding out how to alleviate the harrowing and painful symptoms of a minor heart problem.

In addition, we’re moving to a new apartment next weekend! We’ve hired professionals to move the chunkage, but the whole process is always a pain in the neck for me. This will be the third move for Nicole in about a year. Say a prayer for us and check back for pictures of the new place.

"Grindhouse" / Emergency Room

2007-07-24T09:09:00.001-07:00

On Friday evening, July 13, I drove out to Hollywood with a companion of mine (who wishes to remain anonymous for this post) to celebrate the second anniversary of our first date. Somehow we hadn’t been back to eat at Canters on Fairfax since July 13, 2005.

My beef sandwich was ridiculously dry, I’m never going to order it again. I was in a hurry to get to our movie so I stuffed about the last quarter of the sandwich into my mouth. As I sat there, unable to speak or swallow for about seven minutes, I reminded myself of nephew Jarod who, as a toddler, used to insert three quarters of a banana into his mouth and then work on chewing the whole thing up all at once.

The movie we were on our way to see was “Grindhouse”. It was playing at the perfect venue for this film, the New Beverly theater, the last classic revival theater in Los Angeles.

There was a good Friday night turnout at the New Beverly, the movie did not disappoint, and all was well until the last ten minutes of the film.

My companion turned to me and said she needed some water. I was surprised that she couldn’t go to the drinking fountain but needed a cup of water. The snack bar was closed and dark and there weren’t any cups. I came back and told her and asked if we needed to leave. She said that she might be having low blood sugar and asked me to take her pulse. The pulse was zipping along like she was running a sprint, her left arm was hurting, hands tingling and she was feeling like she was going to pass out.

As the theater was emptying out, instead of climbing over the snack bar counter to get at the cups for some water, I went up to the projectionist booth and let him know what was going on. He came down and gave me a cup, sold me some Reeses peanut butter cups. My sick companion had some water and ate a little but did seem to be getting better.

To make a long story shorter, the projectionist called an ambulance. The fire department arrived first, then the paramedics, and my date was taken away from the New Beverly in an ambulance with me following in the car.

We spent the night in the Cedars-Sinai emergency department, eventually getting some tests done, waiting around for results, more tests, more waiting. At one point a West Indian security guard took me aside and impressed upon me the importance of my not taking photos in the emergency room, so I just got the one. (Her pulse rate says 84 in the picture so I caught her at one of her calmest moments, much of the time she was up to 115.)

We left the hospital without any more information than that my companion was feeling better. Unfortunately she had more incidents during the week along with some inconclusive visits to the doctor. Last Friday, July 20, we ended up in the Huntington Memorial emergency room. We spent the weekend there, had lots of tests done, and went through a semi-Code Blue on Saturday, after which they got her an oxygen tube for rough moments.

Huntington Memorial released her yesterday since whatever is going on isn’t life-threatening. We’re waiting to hear about a test that she may have to do again, she’s going to go see her primary care physician, they gave her a prescription for anxiety that hopefully won’t result in side effects of nausea or depression, and she’s supposed to stay away from stimulants like caffeine.

In the middle of last week we read this on the New Beverly theater website:

“Due to the sudden and completely unexpected passing of my dear beloved father Sherman, the New Beverly's programming will be cancelled until further notice.

“Sherman was my father and my best friend, and his passing has left me and my family completely devastated. He was the main force behind the New Beverly from May 5, 1978 until the present. I simply do not known when I will be able to fill his shoes. My pain and sorrow are truly too much to bear right now. He was still so young and full of life, and was doing what he loved so much, riding his bike on the Santa Monica bike path, when he died. My mom and I are in utter shock.

“Thank you to everyone for their support during this difficult time.

“Please check this website for any updates on public memorials and the future of the New Beverly Cinema.

“With love, Michael Torgan”

When it rains, it pours. I think we all need to take the rest of the week off.

If I do get “Grindhouse” on DVD I don’t think I’ll keep it prominently displayed, it’ll be behind the counter, you’ll have to ask for it. Those Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, etc., fake trailers were my favorite part. “Don’t” - ha!

Happy 4th of July!

2007-07-04T23:20:00.000-07:00

This Independence Day was pretty quiet. Our Nicolette was hoping for a quiet holiday and by chance that's just the way it turned out. I spent a good hunk of the day finding music on the internet. When I was otherwise occupied Nicole would be on the internet looking for our next living space. I think we had the television and the air conditioning on all day, which was pleasantly indulgent.

Speaking of the television, at one point an L.A. news show was interviewing people about their terrorism concerns for the 4th of July. One lady said, "Well, my life can't stop just because other people are dealing with their issues." Can you be a little more vague?

In the evening we went over to my parents' house for dinner. Earlier, on the phone, my mom had asked, "What should we have for dinner?" Nicole answered, "Something American." Hot dogs it is! I brought one home for the photo shoot. I forgot my sparklers at the Blue House or I would've taken the picture beside Pa's barbecue. Somehow my camera doesn't capture the glory of sparklers, just the smoke. Looks like I'm celebrating with a lit fuse.

After dinner we all watched a DVD Nicole bought from Ebay in 2004 before we had even met and which I'd never heard of. It's a VH1 "Inside Out" documentary about Warren Zevon, his demise from cancer, and his successful efforts to produce one last great album with his starstudded cast of friends. My favorite part was the song "Disorder in the House" and specifically Bruce Springsteen's contribution and guitar solo. And Mom brought us ice cream and some kind of 4th of July doughnuts while we were watching the DVD.

I'm sure I'll have more exciting and festive 4th of Julys in the future, but, for a number of reasons, this was my favorite so far.

2007: John & Nicole One Year Wedding Anniversary

2007-07-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

Has it truly been a year since that surreal day in 2006 when I was desperately trying to get a wedding license on the *day* of my wedding, when the only wedding license office that was open was down in San Diego? Yes, and as soon as Nicolette and I got to the front of the line, the office was closed due to a bomb threat. How did we not go insane? And how did we arrive at our own wedding only an hour late?

Our original scheme for our anniversary weekend was to spend it in Las Vegas, at our honeymoon hotel The South Pointe (nee The South Coast). Somehow the room prices went from ridiculously cheap to out-of-reach in only one year. Instead we went to Julian up in the mountains behind San Diego. At the tail end of our honeymoon last year we took a trip to Julian and ate at the Julian Grille. We chose that restaurant specifically because it had the strongest air conditioning. It turned out to be very good so it was our first stop on our anniversary trip.

Our original scheme for our anniversary weekend was to spend it in Las Vegas, at our honeymoon hotel The South Pointe (nee The South Coast). Somehow the room prices went from ridiculously cheap to out-of-reach in only one year. Instead we went to Julian up in the mountains behind San Diego. At the tail end of our honeymoon last year we took a trip to Julian and ate at the Julian Grille. We chose that restaurant specifically because it had the strongest air conditioning. It turned out to be very good so it was our first stop on our anniversary trip.

Culture Shock: "Brand Upon The Brain!"

2007-07-04T23:00:00.000-07:00

Let's Go to Arizona!

2007-06-06T09:01:00.001-07:00

Jim's 40th Birthday Party

2007-05-21T15:26:00.001-07:00

Jim's 40th birthday party theme was "Star Wars", which should be no surprise. What surprised me was the news that they were hiring people to dress up as Princess Leia and Darth Vader to attend the party. I swear I didn't know this was just a casual joke, I'm sure I heard it mentioned several times as earnest fact, and it creeped me out not a little. Strange are the Sweeneys and strange their humor.

Arrived late and most of the guests were watching the Triple Crown horse race on Jim's big, imposing TV. This horse race was explained to me but I still don't understand. It sounds like one horse won a third of the race, another horse won the second third, and the actual winner of the race was yet to be determined. Whatever, but a Triple Crown sounds pretty cool. Like all unfair things in life, though, they probably won't let the horse wear it, they'll probably give it to the friggin' jockey.

Tried getting some decent pictures of Jarod, young Tyler Keck (blond son of my blond pal and old school roommate Jason and his wife Tracey [whom I never roomed with]) and Lyla Joy, Jarod's pal since infancy. Kids weren't really into it, though. While I was trying to get the picture of Jarod and Lyla they were both on the verge of meltdown; I told them "We're just pretending to take a picture, there's no film in the camera. Look at the camera but don't smile, this is just pretend."

Nicolette and I may look sleepy but we'd just driven two and a half hours.

My old pal Bruce was wearing a bright yellow shirt, gotta get me one of those, one really stands out in photos. I've know Bruce since 1988, almost 20 years, met at a college bible of Mount Soledad Presbyterian church - it has since reincarnated into two separate churches. One of Bruce's most fascinating qualities is that his existence is such that he doesn't have to work, he just travels around most of the time, goes to see his friends, visits places. I'm going to try to get him to work chez John & Nicole into his rotation once we move out of the Blue House, ramble onto new territory.

You'll see Jason instructing son Tyler regarding the backyard sprinkler head. As I recall, the young guy was fully into sprinklers that day. When I was younger I might have chortled up my sleeve at the idea of a child taking a long-term serious interest in sprinklers. After taking such a long, harrowing time myself to discover something profitable to work at as an adult, you will not ever catch me thusly chortling.

I managed to catch Mom engaged in her hobby of taking out garbage whenever she can get hold of some, whether she's at her own house or anyone else's. If she can see it, it's up for grabs.

Things started winding down eventually somehow. Tracey and Nicole planted themselves on the couch for a while chitchatting. Found Pa out back snoozing.

When you open Jim's Mr. Spock birthday card, you can hear Mr. Spock saying the mystery word "Irritating."

Culture Shock: Southern Gospel Music

2007-05-04T13:55:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I took Nicole to her favorite yearly concert event - Bill Gaither and His Homecoming Friends Southern Gospel Music Explosion (I'm the only one who calls it an "Explosion"). It was at the Honda Center in Anaheim, formerly the Anaheim Pond.

Okay! I went with an opened mind, and my mind is still open. I can't say this event didn't boast a lot of energy. The crowd roared like a lion. And the music was LOUD.

The merchandising wasn't obnoxious, but the food prices were. I ordered two sodas and a pretzel for us and I thought the lady said it cost $4.50. I handed her a $5 and she gave me a funny look. I misheard, it was $12.50. Later I noticed that if I had wanted a Rubios chicken burrito it would have cost me $7.25. I don't go to a lot of arena events and I was surprised.

Nicole has about twenty or thirty Southern Gospel music DVDs and in addition she often finds Southern Gospel concerts on cable t.v. I thought I was pretty well prepared for this show. I know that I don't have a natural connection with Southern Gospel music, but this show was as alien to me as Arapaho folk dancing. However, it was equally American.

Besides the Gaither Vocal Band, the concert featured a blind pianist who cut up with the sighted performers and a family of Apalachian bluegrass musicians. In addition, there was a quartet of young male vocalists (lead singer, tenor singer, bass singer and baritone singer) called Signature Sound who are very popular with the young and vital among Southern Gospel music enthusiasts, none of which were in the audience at this concert besides Nicole.

Did I mention that it was four hours long? For the first hour I was interested. After two hours I was still patient. After three hours my eyes were drooping heavily and my bottom hurt. After four hours I was fried. During that fourth hour I was startled when Nicole made a comment to me about a performer and I realized that she was still totally into it. Indeed, the senior citizens surrounding us were all very much into the show even at that point.

Just after the intermission I got a good shot of some nearby spectators. My favorite is the guy in the top left corner with his head on the lady's shoulder.

After the concert I noticed that Nicole seemed a little sad. She said that she was concerned that I didn't have a good time. I told her that I didn't have a good time, but I didn't have a bad time either, I was just tired. It's good to expose oneself to alien environments. She said that she often goes to these things alone because she thinks no one would be willing to go with her. I know what it's like to have to go to unusual events by myself because I can't find anyone to go with me. I told her that I will go back with her next year and keep her company. And I will be prepared, I'm going to download a book onto my faux ipod.

Glorious Nightmare

2007-04-30T22:12:00.000-07:00

I had a glorious nightmare that took place inside a movie theater. It was a luridly illuminated theater with shadows darkening every corner and the back rows of seats. The place reminded me of the Rialto theater in South Pasadena. The theater was populated by the ghosts or the reanimated corpses of long dead film stars. They all had completely black eyes, like Ray Milland in "The Man with the X-ray Eyes". I recognized Gloria Swanson and Joan Crawford somehow mingling with fiendish Buddy Epsen.

I was afraid of all of them, they all seemed on the verge of going haywire and attacking me. In addition, fire was spreading though the theater. For the moment they seemed under control and I was determined to escape from them.

I addressed them all together and bade them to stay, stay and burn in the consuming fire. They stayed in their seats, looking about with their black eyes. I ran out of the theater, down the back stairs, thrilled that they had obeyed me and would be destroyed. Once I was safe I realized with horror that I had forgotten my flash drive in a backpack in the theater lobby.

Night Terrors

2007-04-30T21:55:00.000-07:00

I recently had a nightmare in the middle of the night. I dreamed that I was in a devastated area, what looked like a blasted academic area, perhaps a ruined college campus. There was drizzly rain and moaning wind. It looked like something out of an H.P. Lovecraft story. I was overcome by night terrors, an overwhelming feeling of dread and irrational fear. Projected onto one of the collapsing walls I saw a staticky, purple image of Jodie Foster. That's all I remember.

I woke up in the darkness with my heart pounding. For the first time ever I wakened from a nightmare with the luxury of having someone in the bed to comfort me. I have a vague memory of clinging to Nicole and saying, "Hug me, I had a nightmare." What I have no memory of is being dissatisfied with her effort, but she recalls that I then said, "No!! Hug me tighter!!"

Easter Photo Mosaic

2007-04-30T21:24:00.000-07:00

This is a random collection of pictures from Easter 2007. It will give a sense of the chaotic experience of Easter at my grandma's house. She is turning 88 soon and she can still peel the potatoes.

I'm training my nephew Jarod to be photographed like a Russian, that is without smiling ("What is there to smile about please?"). Nicolette gave me a Noah's Ark card memory game, we played it with the boy for a while. Nicole beat us, but Jarod beat me. I have a memory weaker than a 3-year-old's.

As for the rest of these photos, the one thing they can't convey is the loudness. Bunch of kids, food preparation, television, people calling to each other from different rooms and trying to talk louder than the surrounding noise. Actually this isn't very crowded compared to Christmas. But at Christmas we have tamales and I eat until I make myself ill - at Easter I only eat until I am falling asleep.

Happy Easter

2007-04-08T09:09:00.000-07:00

It's Easter morning. I was going to go to the Easter "sunrise" service (at 7 a.m.) at the park, but no one I know wanted to get up that early and go with me. In the end I couldn't summon the energy to challenge the jibe. [note: it rained anyway.] We'll be lucky to make it to the 9:30 a.m. service, and it will be crowded because this is one of the only two days each year that many people go to church.

For Easter Nicole gave me a tiny, battery-powered reading light - so that I can clip it on my book and read in the dark - and a Noah's ark game that nephew Jarod and I can play with. I gave her a set of mullet haircut magnets (she is amused by mullets more than most people I know) and a Jesus rubber duck (Jesus with a modified beak and a duck's tail, bathtime fun).

I wish I could get Easter presents for everyone, but what I can do is to give folk my favorite Christian book this year. I've always wanted to give folks I know a book that gives a good presentation to answer the question, "So John, I can relate to your interests in movies, books and music, but I just don't get the Christian thing -- why are you interested in that stuff?"

I know some interesting Christian biographies or Christian "I'll prove it to ya!" types of books that *I* like, but I've never imagined that my friends and loved ones would naturally relate to them. In the case of "Hind's Feet on High Places" this is also the true, ha, but this is a brilliant book.

When "Hind's Feet on High Places" was recommended to me years ago I thought it looked completely goofy and very girly. Kind of like a darling plush toy. Worse yet, it's an *allegory* (like "Pilgrim's Progress"; the characters have names like Much Afraid and Craven Fear). For some reason I tried to read it and to my surprise it sucked me in.

It's a very simple story about a young woman who is following the Shepherd up a mountain, but it's so...deep! Profound! Apart from the Bible (when was the last time you cracked open the bible? That's what I thought.) it's the best and most accessible explanation I've read that demonstrates why a reasoning, intelligent, completely imperfect person would be drawn to Christian faith.

What's more, I'm giving it to you this year with your birthday present, so deal with it. You don't have to read it if you don't want to, but it's coming. Happy Easter!

Lucky Baldwin's 3-20-2007

2007-03-20T22:15:00.000-07:00

Tonight I returned to Lucky Baldwin’s for the first time since I’ve been living back in Pasadena. Nicole and I have been wanting to go since we saw a documentary about Guinness on the Food Network. We didn’t do anything fun on St. Patrick’s Day, and all the pubs would have been too crowded to have gone anyway, so we had a St. Patrick’s Day today.

Almost as soon as we sat down the juke box started playing all the old college music that still seems reasonable to listen to while you’re in a pub. "Baby," I said to Nicole, "This song is ‘Stairway to Heaven’ by Led Zeppelin!" "Yes, baby, I know," said she. After that they played "All My Love" also by Led Zeppelin, then The Who, then Jimi Hendrix, etc., you can imagine. They even played Oasis.

Nicole had beef potato soup and chicken and vegetable pie for dinner. I had a full order of fish and chips. Nicole wondered why the Irish aren’t heavy folk if they like taters so much. I told her that it’s because we’ve never gotten enough taters to eat to grow heavy. Deprivation.

Across from Nicole’s seat there was a beer ad that featured a picture of a sheep that she liked. Of course there was a soccer game on the televisions up on the walls.

When we were ready to go home our barmaid took a picture of us and I took a picture of her. We’ll go again soon, and we’ll remember to dress more warmly, it’s as cold as the bloody U.K. in that pub.

John's Assistant Resigns

2007-03-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

Well, she resigned in the same sense that Socrates committed suicide - it was one of the only two options given.

Of all the people working at this hospital, she was the only one who even resembled something remotely like a friend to me. It's therefore ironic that, though I wasn't her supervisor, if I had been her supervisor she would have been severely punished long ago.

Oh, she was rash. She was capricious. But if they had made me her supervisor, had allowed me to use my own punitive measures on her, she would still have a job today. And in fact, in the end she would have thanked me.

How did she get away with taking hour-long and ninety minute lunches *every day* when the limit is a half hour? Each day she would arrive at work roughly at 9 a.m. (meaning anywhere between 9:15 and 9:30), leave at 4:30 p.m., and in between do about fifteen minutes worth of actual work. In the meantime there was myspace browsing, e-mail, and chatting on the phone.

Yet she could have run the Media Center better than me if she wanted to. She was a wealth of knowledge regarding every aspect of the operation. If I ever had a question (and as long as she wasn't cranky) she would have the answer in a flash, or she knew where to get it.

Nobody at work is giving me any details about her departure of course, the rats. The word on the street, however, is that she took too many days off. That's like saying there were too many hungry Russians during the Siege of Leningrad. *Every week* I would be surprised if she worked three days out of the five. The last time she called in sick, before the heat came down, she phoned and said that she had a headache.

I'm going to miss the stories of Bellflower gangland mayhem. She was kept awake the other night by her boyfriend writhing in pain. He has chronic back problems as a result of being shot by one rival gang member and run over by another rival gang member. And what I want to know is, since he hasn't worked since November, who is going to feed his four kids (by a previous baby mama) and who will feed my former assistant's one kid (by a previous baby daddy)? And indeed, I did prefer hearing stories of the current boyfriend instead of answering the phone when her former boyfriend was making collect calls from L.A. County Lockdown to *the Media Center*.

I wish her all the luck in the world, and I hope she's not reading this, but I think what would be best is if she would just ask my advice for every decision that she makes for the rest of her life. Yet she's never asked my advice about anything, so I doubt that she'd start now.

The Gold Line and Grand Central Market

2007-03-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

Here are some recent pictures from Saturday, Feb. 17. The Florendos graced Los Angeles with a rare visit. We met up at Amy and Gordon's place and then took the Gold Line downtown. This was Nicole's first ride on the Gold Line. It was Chinese New Year so we heard lots of firecrackers going off at the Chinatown Stop. At Union Station we took the Red Line to Pershing Square and walked to Grand Central Market for lunch.

It wasn't a long walk, but if Nicole and I look tired it's because we weren't expecting to do any downtown walking that morning. Nobody walks in L.A. Amy and Gordon's blithe and good natured young son Logan was fortunate to be shuttled around in a stroller.

Grand Central Market was lively, crowded, strange. I'd like to revisit again when I'll know what to expect. I remember griping dramatically to John about my job, I remember sawdust on the floor, I remember urban rustics snatching our chairs as soon as we stood up to leave. Food was pretty good, cheap. Outside I tried to take a picture of Nicole with the downtown skyscrapers towering above her, but it didn't turn out.

Side note: The unread e-mails in my inbox have risen past the 200 mark. I have 200 e-mails to sort through. O how the mighty have fallen. But imagine how impressive it will be to surmount this challenge.

Nosferatu Pix 2006

2007-02-23T14:31:00.000-08:00

I should have known that it couldn’t last. We’ve had it too good for too long. O cruel irony - how bittersweet it is that the best year of my life would also be one of the worst years for movies. Look at this – here is the caliber of movies that were available in 2003:

21 Grams
American Splendor
Cold Mountain
Lost in Translation
A Mighty Wind
Monster
Mystic River
Once Upon a Time in Mexico
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Seabiscuit

Another great crop in 2004:

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy
Hotel Rwanda
In the Realms of the Unreal
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Million Dollar Baby
Napoleon Dynamite
The Passion of the Christ
Sideways
Team America: World Police

And in 2005, the party kept going:

2046
Batman Begins
Breakfast on Pluto
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Good Night and Good Luck.
History of Violence
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Walk the Line
War of the Worlds

Then along came 2006. I think most of the film industry took the year off. And I suspect that the better movies are being released increasingly later in the year - most of the time there aren’t any interesting films to go see and then at the end of the year there isn’t time to see the ones that I want to.

However, the struggle to see all the movies that I was interested in this year wasn’t a great problem. I wasn’t interested in many new movies this year. Of the 2006 movies that I was interested in, I saw twenty of them. Actually I wasn’t interested in “Superman Returns”, but it was a hot day in San Diego and Nicole and I wanted to escape the heat. So that leaves nineteen. There were seventeen movies in 2006 that I was interested in but I missed. And most of those I wasn’t very interested in, but here are the movies that I didn’t manage to see:

All the King’s Men
American Hardcore
Apocalypto
Casino Royale
Curse of the Golden Flower
The Departed
Fast Food Nation
Fearless
Flags of Our Fathers
The Hills Have Eyes
Hollywoodland
Last King of Scotland
The Painted Veil
The Proposition
Stranger Than Fiction
This Film Is Not Yet Rated
Tideland

Oh, this is so pathetic. For the first time I have to include a disclaimer: Even though I include films like “Borat”, “Nacho Libre”, and “Pan’s Labyrinth” in seemingly complimentary categories, that doesn’t mean that I recommend them for everyone. This year especially, be sure to check into what these movies are like before you watch any of them. As I was watching “Nacho Libre” this summer, I remember thinking, “This is pretty funny, but it would never make it onto the Nosferatu Pix except in the ‘Guilty Pleasure’ category.” O how the mighty have fallen.

Best Film:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
Nacho Libre
Thank You For Smoking

Best Actor:
Jack Black (“Nacho Libre”)
Sacha Baron Cohen (“Borat”)
Aaron Eckhart (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Colin Farrell (“Ask the Dust”)
Clive Owen (“Children of Men”)

Best Actress:
Ivana Baquero (“Pan’s Labyrinth”)
Rosario Dawson (“Clerks II”)
Laura Dern (“Inland Empire”)
Helen Mirren (“The Queen”)
Maribel Verdú (“Pan’s Labyrinth”)

Best Supporting Actor:
David Bowie (“The Prestige”)
Michael Caine (“Children of Men”)
Michael Caine (“The Prestige”)
Gary Cole (“Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”)
John Malkovich (“Art School Confidential”)

Honorable Mention:
Héctor Jiménez (“Nacho Libre”)
Stanley Tucci (“The Devil Wears Prada”)

Best Supporting Actress:
Asia Argento (“Marie Antoinette”)
Maria Bello (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Idina Menzel (“Ask the Dust”)
Julianne Moore (“Children of Men”)
Maya Rudolph (“Idiocracy”)

Best Music:
Marie Antoinette

Disappointments:
“Art School Confidential”
“A Prairie Home Companion”

Guilty pleasures:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Clerks II
Idiocracy
Nacho Libre
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

Nice to see them working:
Sam Elliott (“Thank You For Smoking”)
Jon Favreau (“The Break Up”)
Shirley Henderson (“Marie Antoinette”)
Jason Mewes (“Clerks II”)
Molly Shannon (“Marie Antoinette”, “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby”)

Slumming:
Paul Giamatti (“Lady in the Water”)
Bryce Dallas Howard (“Lady in the Water”)
Parker Posey (“Superman Returns”)
Kevin Spacey (“Superman Returns”)

Favorite Moments:
“The Loco-Motion” dance moment in “Inland Empire”.

The homeless Asian lady’s ridiculous monologue in “Inland Empire”.

Trying to jumpstart the car while escaping down the hill backwards in “Children of Men”

Too many moments to mention from “Nacho Libre”

Nacho: “Ok. Orphans! Listen to Ignacio. I know it is fun to wrestle. A nice pile drive to the face... or a punch to the face... but you cannot do it. Because, it is in the Bible not to wrestle your neighbor.”
Chancho: “So you've never wrestled?”
Nacho: “Me? No. Come on. Don't be crazy. I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies, and the clothes, and the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good! Really good! I get to wake up every morning, at 5AM, and make some soup! It's the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed, all by myself, all of my life! That's fantastic! Go. Go away! Read some books!”

So that’s 2006. The good movies were great; there just weren’t enough of them. Hopefully 2007 will make up for it. At least the Nosferatu weren’t been reduced to including anime this year. As they say in “Logan’s Run”, “Be strong and you will be renewed.”

P.S. I forgot to mention that I also saw "The Good Shepherd", but I can't think of any category to place it in. And I also wanted to see "For Your Consideration" but I couldn't manage it.