01.31.07

70 in 07

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 5:45 pm by Gregory

Today is my mother’s 70th birthday. I wish her well, but probably won’t call her, as there has been constant bullshit in my “family” for my whole life, despite my decades of exhausting (and ignored, and ultimately useless) protestations — and I’m thinking I’d rather drift away and vanish than be forced to keep putting on a fake smile and pretending that things are acceptable (which they are not, and, during my lifetime, never have they been).

I figure that over three decades of desperately attempting to convey a vital need for change is more than enough. They ignore, I don’t play nice anymore.

It’s interesting, the tug-of-war: Being loving and generous is my default setting — but non-stop bullshit resets the default.

My “parents” should have divorced when I was tiny. Instead, they live a sickening lie. I wouldn’t have minded if my “father” had simply killed himself early on; that would have been something, at least, instead of the chronic, pathetic nothingness.

Anyway, then put me in L.A. where people are non-stop nuts, after a couple of decades of trying to settle with a reasonable partner who isn’t insane and/or intentionally damaging (I have gotten stuck in some dire circumstances due to opening my doors to the wrong people, and beyond that it’s been mostly like bloodletting), and then have some corporate filth viciously pull the rug on me after several years of constant, dedicated service.

Would you have a generous view of humanity?

So, yeah, it’s my mother’s birthday, and kind of a noteworthy one.

But I’m tired. Too many people have taken too much away from me without giving anything back.

She can work it out with that “man” she married. And they can have America, too: I don’t like the place.

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01.30.07

…and leave!

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 4:40 pm by Gregory

I’m pretty sure I can see the reason behind the Beauty realisation of the other night: So much is unbelievably ugly here that when I do catch a different wave, it’s like a total epiphany of the psyche.

Evidence abounds that I shouldn’t be calling SoCal “Stupidland” (not specific enough), but rather, “The Place Where Everybody Really, Really Is A Totally Self-Absorbed Asshole.”

It’s quite exhausting.

That said, at least it’s cool and cloudy today, if not entirely rainy. I do indeed see Beauty, however it often takes tremendous effort.

Take yesterday, as but one example. That actress person sought my company again. The vibe is completely bizarre and really very draining (been there; know the vibe instantly). But I try to help. As we strode outside, I noticed yet another crew of Mexican guys chopping the shit out of what were once pretty trees. They do this around here all the motherfucking time, and it is really incredibly miserable to behold (and also to have to hear). Trees look great, Mexican guys with chainsaws show up, trees look terrible.

Why?

I didn’t make a big deal out of this, however most women I encounter around here have almost literally no concept of reality whatsoever. (Case in point, former actress from the agency where I used to work, first name Alexandra – saw her yesterday in a huge fucking brand new Cadillac Escalade — most hideous of all the SUVs — with no license plate, of course, for this is somehow excused for the drivers of luxury vehicles — and I have it via reliable hearsay that since her acting career didn’t take off — she was repped right alongside Katie Holmes, I used to pull their headshots personally — she, of course, opted to win the baby-lottery for some stupid rich guy and now gets the goods in quantity. Not very nice to see, but moreover an example of the prevailing mindset among females of this region; in a word: GIMME.)

The actress and I walked outside and I briefly noted the Mexicans once again destroying the local trees — something that, race absolutely irrelevant except that one never sees, say, teams of Norwegian guys doing this (here, anyway), is very disheartening for me to glimpse: The Rampant, Willful Destruction of Beauty; this bothers me a lot. So I made one comment of the “unfortunate” variety in their direction.

Women here, however, having no concept of reality whatsoever, cannot handle honest negativity. It disturbs them terribly. The actress, by way of self-defense, replied to me thusly:

“Oh, well, there are lots of trees all over this huge planet, maybe just not here, and it really doesn’t matter what we do to the planet because it was here long before we were and it will go on long after we are gone.”

Although I am not exactly a tree-hugger and I believe that standing in front of bulldozers in order to get arrested so that the forest is still destroyed only one half hour behind schedule is really extraordinarily stupid — I nonetheless used to live right beside clear-cuts (which most of the world doesn’t realise are truly horrible) and also used to live in a neighborhood with some modicum of shade in it.

Tall, thick trees, though? In this place, where being beaten senseless by incessant sunblast is mandatory, they are, apparently, against the law.

So perhaps you can see, a little, why so many of my comments are laced with bitterness: I have been living in a place where everyone, if not a card-carrying Self-Absorbed Asshole, is at least crazy: “It really doesn’t matter what we do to the planet”?

Today’s advice:

They’re trees; they’re good; leave them be.

AND!

Take that fucking leaf-blower and shove it up your rectum and switch in on full-power until your entrails blow out of your mouth, thank you, buh-bye.

Tonight I have to get some work done whilst pretending that it doesn’t suck here. Story of my life of the past several years.

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On Any Other Day

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 12:20 pm by Gregory

While there is much more important news in the world, it is nonetheless official that The Police are reuniting — albeit so far only for one night:

http://news.yahoo.com/i/762

I have very mixed feelings about this. Although I’ve long since outgrown the “I Was A Fan Before I Was Even Born!” bullshit common among adolescents and undergraduates desperate for cool-cred, I did indeed start buying Police vinyl from the beginning (well, probably 1978), and when the band stumbled after 1983 and released that really lousy re-do of “Don’t Stand…” in 1986 or whatever, I felt cheated: Okay, you got our attention (and our dollars) in a huge way, and career-wise just got better and better…

…and then you totally abandoned your fanbase who were left to wallow through the audio cesspool of the late ’80s and entirety of the ’90s? (It astounds me that teens today grew up listening to what sounds like people bazooka-vomiting, and think that this is somehow good. Then they wanna share Mike Buble with their mothers, in the name of “culture.”)

Thanks, guys.

Not that The Police owed it to anyone; no creator should. It’s just odd — to me — that all of the pop things that mattered to me as a younger youth (also Queen, Star Wars, TA LKI N GHE ADS, plenty more) went bye-bye during their own respective love-fests (it’s not like they dwindled and died, one notable singer notwithstanding). They wowed us and vanished.

Egos?

Anyway, as previously noted, I ran into Stewart Copeland thrice last year, and viewed his excellent Super-8 documentary twice, and during one of those evenings he was directly asked if The Police would ever reunite. He gave a definitive “No,” an “Absolutely not.”

That’s show-biz.

Obviously the one with the stupid fake name calls the shots in that outfit.

(Well, in addition to the marketing team behind the Grammy show.)

Meanwhile, there’s an excellent video report up on CBC news, from North Vancouver. Weirdly, I met Christopher Reeve (friend of a friend, he just wandered up) on that very same studio lot, years ago. Now this is my kind of journalism: They never actually speak with the band or show new footage of them at all, but instead get incredibly short soundbites from random employees, then go across the street to a strip mall to interview an oblivious new mother and one of the cleanest-looking homeless guys I’ve ever seen — who doesn’t even make the “Don’t stand so close to us” joke himself, but rather merely laughs with the reporter making the alleged joke.

Awesome!

I must have grown up or something, because now I am so much more interested in those people at that strip-mall than I am in the guys in that band who let me down over two decades ago.

The Police set for reunion at Grammys CBC.ca – 1 hour, 1 minute ago

P.S. I have yet to meet an actual police officer who doesn’t creep me out.

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01.29.07

Cruel Shoes

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 11:13 pm by Gregory

Blisters.

If shoes will obviously impart discomfort and pain, change them prior to taking the walk.

Also applies to relationships.

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01.28.07

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:13 am by Gregory

I believe I’ve just had the best night of my life (thus far). Significant? Why, yes.

Until I sat down here, I had intended to call this post “The Bottom Line” — owing to this being essentially my state of mind for too long, plus I really dig that Big Audio Dynamite song. But…

That connotes a certain “down” perspective.

Goodness knows I’ve done that enough.

Shall continue being human, however I think some of the woeful tone may evaporate as of now, or be melted away by gentle rains, or something like that.

What happened?

Something Real, Something Good.

Cannot at this time divulge more about that.

I may as well describe the birth of a sun.

What I can say is that I’m finally actually feeling that Inner Happiness totally trumps Outer Happiness. Here in The Fat West — even with all the incessant yoga classes and feng shui obsession and etc. — I’ve been seeing constant miserable (and highly contagious!) countenances as people acquire more and more and more of what they think will make them “happy.” No finger-pointing, as I’ve done this myself (although, unlike many, I’m not a pro at it). Vicious circle.

Tonight — who knows — perhaps it began with getting enough sleep for a change, or not giving Shit #1 what other people think about me or my choices on a personal level (I was born into Spite; have exceeded my intake quota), or even just getting a lovely vegetable sushi from nice people just before the movie, or the movie being amazing (the still above was snapped from it), or the good people encountered before and after the movie, or feeling utterly at ease with enjoying a story (a tragedy, no less) very well told…

…or, more likely, it was all of these things…

…and then:

Joy.

Joy.

I’m sure I’ll still get material kicks, and complain, and note horrid things, and cause a spot of trouble here and there; plus of course I am about to detonate everything I have found familiar (often achingly familiar) for the past goodly while (or, more often, badly while) — which isn’t exactly upping the already abysmal discomfort factor.

And yet, on my own terms, I feel I have found what is — at the very least for this chapter — my own Bottom Line, and have made peace with it, et voila:

I See Beauty.

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01.27.07

It’s Raining Again…

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 4:25 pm by Gregory

…and you may fill in the Supertramp lyrics if you like; but mainly I feel pretty good. Negative ions and atmospheric romance. It is well documented that I love rain.

Funny: Last night I beheld a very earnest weather-reporter promising — promising! — that it would be sunny in SoCal and that any precipitation would be several days away. This is why I pay no attention whatsoever to people attempting to predict the weather: They haven’t got a clue.

Ah, but this sweet rain…

I’m thinking that, despite the comfort of the patter of tiny droplets, this probably had very little to do with the fact that I have slept away most of this particular Saturday. Wow. Haven’t done that in a while. I remember this from teen years, though: Sometimes you simply gauge it: Sleep/Life. If Sleep feels more important (or at least less hellish), that’s what you do!

I had a great dream.

One could also make a case for Depression or Whatever, but more to the point I was up until about five a.m. Went to see Costa-Gavras speak last night (in the ’80s, his films rather stunned me), after which Z was screened — which still holds up rather well, if indeed its violence and stunts seem amazingly, outrageously tame by today’s “standards.” That movie is over two hours long. Delirium was already in the air as the clock neared 1 am (delirium seems to be the conversational mode of choice amongst most people I encounter here), but I’ll tell you what: I needed pasta. And even more than that: Minestrone (vegan).

I know, I know: Carbs in the middle of the night. May as well have been sacrificing a baby. But when I go all day on healthy-alternative pop-tart things and then sit through a very, very talky political melodrama (faded extremely pink by time), what I wants I gets.

This could have led to Canter’s — the relatively famous 24-hour eatery once haunted by the rock’n'roll greats of the ’60s and ’70s and now more spottily haunted by their somewhat-heirs. Canter’s actually has pretty good pasta, served extremely hot.

As an alternative, I decided to try Damiano’s across the street. Mind, at that hour on a Friday night, Damiano’s (which boasts its own share of stories; much like Largo and Nova Express just doorways away; a life I used to lead) tends to be crowded and rowdy. This, it was. I nonetheless managed to place myself conspicuously at a table, and wait.

And wait.

I didn’t actually get upset, but this was the longest I have ever waited for a wait-person to notice that I was the one doing the waiting (I waved, I nodded, I smiled with intent). Must have been half an hour, at least. (I know this from my method of counting songs, which in this case happened to be emanating from not-bad-but-not-great gimmick-station JACK-FM: one of which was “Stairway to Heaven” played in its entirety. Kind of an antidote to the damned Steely Dan. I do not understand — and never will — why anybody would ever want to hear Donald Fagen do his stupid little faux-soul chirping. That guy can mow my lawn.)

Speaking, however, of pop-stars: Brian Wilson and his innumerable friends will be performing Pet Sounds tonight in Long Beach, advertised as the last full performance of it — although they are doing it again tomorrow in Oakland. I already went, last year, Royce Hall, UCLA, had a ball…and weirdly, John Cusack was there and was also at Damiano’s once for a story a friend told me which I shall not repeat here. But even without John Cusack, the Brian Wilson shows still carry a sort of magic. If anybody reads this and suddenly decides it’s a must-go, get in touch immediately and let’s do it. Even if it means hocking the Sting CDs and sitting near the rafters. I respect certain aspects of history.

Anyway, by the time my soup (soup!) and pasta were sitting before me, approximately an hour had passed, which made it, already, 2:30 a.m.

Nighthawk!

The food was pretty good. It was also enjoyable to be amongst a wide spectrum of races — albeit all yelling and staying quite segregated by their own designs (?).

I mention that simply because every table featured a different race, but they weren’t mixing. It was mildly noteworthy.

Wandering back took a long time (I haven’t owned a car in almost three years now — and frankly, friends, haven’t missed it!) En route back I think I bought orange juice and took pictures of a large, amusing rock.

Costa-Gavras, incidentally, is looking and sounding good for a man in his seventies (seems more like fifties), and although the Q&A mostly consisted of people worshipping the mud upon which he rakes, enough moments of humanitarian passion cut through to make it worthwhile.

And now it’s raining. Again.

You know, it’s hard to pretend.

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01.26.07

AUSTRALIA DAY!

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 2:21 am by Gregory

Today is AUSTRALIA DAY!

Happy AUSTRALIA DAY!

Not only is it AUSTRALIA DAY here, but, owing to the general earliness of this post, it’s actually still AUSTRALIA DAY in actual AUSTRALIA!

Me, I like AUSTRALIA. AUSTRALIA has given us Midnight Oil, The Howling III: The Marsupials and Kylie Minogue.

One of the great things about AUSTRALIA is that they have recently reconfigured their entire landmass to resemble the Bat Symbol:

I also prefer AUSTRALIA DAY to, say, The Fourth of July, mainly due to AUSTRALIA DAY having less of that jeering, petulant, “Haw-haw, we’re better’n the rest o’ the world!” attitude plus also a bit less cholesterol-rich burnt muscle tissue (with Pringles).

Of course, AUSTRALIA has also given us useful phrases such as:

“Mate, I’m narked that your ankle-biter’s nappy pongs.”

(”Friend, the stench of your unclean child troubles me.”)

and:

“When Sheila asked if I had hen’s fruit in me budgie smugglers, I thought I’d kark it.”

(”Jennifer noted the egg-like protuberances in my swim-trunks, inspiring chagrin.”)

and who could forget:

“It was a piece of piss to chuck a sickie but the boss is mean as cat’s piss so I chundered a bush oyster to keep him from spitting the dummy.”

(”Evading work by feigning illness proved effortless, however my supervisor is uncharitable, thus, to avoid upsetting him, I vomited some nasal mucus.”)

Glorious.

Hey, did I mention that I’ve had my heart broken by two totally different AUSTRALIAN women? From the same general region, too. But they don’t know each other (I’m pretty sure), and several years separated the quite distinct sadnesses.

I have been to AUSTRALIA exactly once. For about a month. For about three weeks of that month, I malfunctioned terribly due to some kind of water-borne bacteria in me which essentially rendered me a stinky baby (thanks, Tahiti). Otherwise, I recall milk-bars and trolley-cars and feeling unwanted. I sat in a large park one day, and felt like I was in outer space. Speaking of which, whilst ill, I somehow procured a television and watched the episode of Lost In Space wherein Will and Dr. Smith go inside a huge version of The Robot. (Now I encounter Bill Mumy every couple of years; small world!) I somehow landed a job as a babysitter while I was in AUSTRALIA, and the child essentially slept the entire time I was “working,” so I recall reading local papers and magazines, for pay. I learned, via Pizza Hut commercials, that “green pepper” is referred to as “capsicum.” I read The Cider House Rules in its entirety on the flight over there. I’m pretty sure I brought a guitar I don’t have anymore (alas). Oh, and Sammy Davis, Jr. and Jim Henson both died while I was in AUSTRALIA. So did some part of me.

When I came back to America, nobody I knew cared at all that I had been in AUSTRALIA. It was like one of those episodes in which the Captain experiences a whole life on an alien planet while the crew simply think he’s in the dunny…er…lavatory.

The hardest that I’ve ever crushed on an actress involved a woman whose biggest role to date is in a terrific Australian film from 1994. I met the director of said film in 1998 (which seemed like decades later) at a cinema very nearby. He signed the poster for me. Made me smile. Then, weirdly, a few very short years ago, I suddenly found myself sharing friends (and awesome friends they are) with said crush. Face to face. What to do?

As it turned out, I thought I saw a possible Future — but life jests most cruelly. I didn’t have to do anything… because there is no way to be happy with an actress.

The lead-on was pretty spectacular, though; I’ll always enjoy the memory of that.

And I recorded three songs for her. Never got a straight appraisal (pretty sure she hated them with all her might), but all I have to do is re-record the vocals and they’re mine again.

Apart from that, a fine friend’s family dwells in that same region, my friend T. made a movie that took him to a festival in AUSTRALIA, I have tried Vegemite several times (nutritional yeast tastes much better; all the B-12 without the MSG residue), and if you wander around here you’re very likely to encounter Colin Hay (technically Scottish, but still so “Down Under”). Oh, and Nick Cave was in that movie I saw tonight.

But here — here’s what’s going on down there in summery AUSTRALIA right now:

http://www.australiaday.gov.au/pages/index.asp

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01.25.07

Crashn’t

Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 6:09 pm by Gregory

Spent a good chunk of time tidying up this year’s awards — in layout, somewhat (it’s a handmade site, baybee), but also to ensure that the spread of projects is sufficiently expansive. It’s quite a trick to cram a year’s worth of movies into thirteen categories of five each, sans marketing manipulation and standard Hollywood inbreeding, but from this limited commercial Western perspective, it is functional.

Meanwhile, ALL DAY LONG some monster-person ran a machine which sounded exactly like it was designed to cut concrete. This was, very probably, exactly what it was doing (I couldn’t bear to look). At this point I am certain that the city council is paying such monster-people to run such machines ALL DAY LONG, to guarantee the chronic unhappiness of everybody (well, me anyway — perhaps other people love it).

No really, I’m serious — I believe that chronic unhappiness is being cultivated on purpose.

Speaking of paranoia, I also note that Nicole Kidman’s stunt-Jaguar went bonko-bonko late last night in downtown L.A., whilst making yet another version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, apparently. Funny, as I wouldn’t have heard of the project had the crash not occurred; I wonder if it was planned in the publicity budget (”Kidman; very mild accident; press-release”)?

I used to have a mild (very mild; after Dead Calm it just ain’t as attractive ever again) crush on Kidman — mainly because she’s pretty and probably feels pretty good in bed. But then one thinks: “Tom Cruise…” and the fantasy is instantly annihilated. (I’m betting three years max with the alkie country guy.) Mainly now I think of Kidman as the Weinsteins’ prize pony. I’m sure they’ll take good care of their pony.

And me? I am off to see Glastonbury — the documentary by Julian Temple about the famous music festival. I am sad that the movie includes (and, apparently, features) that really rather boring and overrated and hellishly overmarketed band called Coldplay — but the rest of it should be pretty cookin’.

If anyone has been wanting to hear from me, this has been another light-speed hell-week (I give; it takes; I stagger; I fall), and I shall be in touch soon.

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