02.29.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 3:42 pm by Gregory
It’s basically Summer here again (drat!), and yet my mother, far away, is about to go outside and shovel some snow. That’s weird. That’s very, very weird.
Not looking forward to Summer. Not here, anyway. Trying to figure out how to be someplace where it isn’t unbearably hot and bright to the point that people lose their minds.
It brings me pleasure when it’s sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit outside and people around here shriek about how “freezing” it is. I smile at that. It is innocently bizarre.
But enough about the weather.
Regarding seasons, women are becoming significantly flirtier again, so the planet must be telling them that it’s almost time to get an embryo fertilised. (Whee.)
There’s no river nearby — not literally, anyway — but there are several extremely busy automotive routes. I stood beside one a couple of days ago, and beheld two different motorists both “rocking out” to the same song on (apparently — unless it was extremely weird synchronicity) the same radio station. It was that “Lithium” song (had to look it up) by that junkie who married the scumbag-wannabe and then blew out his own brains. Still a “hero” to many, apparently. The male human was rocking out a lot — but the female human was rocking out a whole lot more! It was pretty funny to watch — humans hopelessly stuck in traffic, alone, screaming out the mostly meaningless words of a dead guy who never made much of a point about anything.
Honestly, I felt a bit sorry for them.
Cut to yesterday — and I was going to call this post “Bob Dylan Sucks” (just for the counter-obnoxiousness of it; plus imagine the hate-mail!) — and a Boomer-aged woman calls up. Vague acquaintance. Usually, I have found, such people get in touch either when: A. They’re horny/bored (usually about the same thing); or B. They want you to buttress their stupid little worldview for a few minutes.
This seemed to be a combination of the two. I was busy and stressed, but she’s generally intelligent, so I played along for a few minutes.
Talk turned to movies, though — and although we have concurred that “Daniel Plainview” (the character; the performance) is a joke, other issues arose. I admitted that I chuckled at the stroke at the end of Diving Bell and…. Couldn’t help it; that was my honest response: It looked like somebody very aggressively playing at being retarded. Laughed. Wouldn’t laugh at a real victim or cripple. I was laughing at a moment of extemely amusingly bad acting.
That probably didn’t sit well with her (she’s already shown signs of getting very angry when somebody doesn’t agree with her completely — and she loved the movie).
I attempted to recommend Away From Her as a superior film in many ways; turns out her mother has Alzheimers.
Oops.
Of course, I was merely treating this like a conversation: I be honest; you be honest — and thus I didn’t realise until the abrupt end that I was bleeding points into the water. (Like I care.)
The end was pretty funny — which is why I mention it here.
Turns out she loved I’m Not There.
Oops!
Mind, this is a person who is part of that generation brainwashed into believing that if you don’t absolutely worship Bob “Dylan,” then there’s something wrong with you.
Whatever.
Whatever-whatever!
[Hilarious side-note: The actress — as in the actress! — is calling me right this very second. Ha! It’s been months. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! No frickin’ way. Say hi to voice-mail, multiple-millionaire-banger.]
Anyway, as I was under the impression that the Boomer woman and I were having an open and honest conversation, I courteously invited her to express her opinions on I’m Not There first — and I listened.
Then she asked for my opinion, and I admitted that the movie gave me a headache, which became progressively worse “until by the point that Richard Gere was riding around on that damned horse, tears of agony were running down my cheeks and I wanted to shoot myself.”
In standard Boomer fashion, this Boomer woman then immediately leapt to the defence of Bob “Dylan,” proclaiming her adoration for the film because it’s about his “mythology” and “that little black boy” and ya-daa, ya-dee…(etc.)
I said, look: Good on Todd Haynes for being creative (as such), but it really just wasn’t to my tastes. I was, however, very kind in conceding that Cate Blanchett’s turn as “Dylan” was, by far, the best (at least, the most accurate: if still rather pointless overall).
Then I discovered something Magical!
I discovered a way to make Boomers go away!
“Bob ‘Dylan’,” said I, “is an incredibly obnoxious vocalist. I know that a lot of people worship him — but really, he sounds like a bumblebee.”
I then proceeded — briefly, tastefully — to provide my rendition of “Dylan”-As-Bumblebee. (Which, for the record, brightens my day any time I do it.)
Within thirty seconds, Boomer woman was done and gone.
It was amusingly lame, too:
“Oh my god! I just looked at my watch [”watch”??? in 2008??? -Ed.] and I’ve gotta run!”
There was no reason given, but none was needed. I offered that we were just discussing film, no biggie, opinions are opinions –
–however, as someone who has written and published over half a million words of cinema criticism, I had forgotten a significant factor in the turbulent psyches of many human beings:
They want their opinions matched, parallelled, supported — coddled.
I had neglected to do that, so Boomer woman quickly fled.
Well, so much the better.
I think making fun of celebrities we don’t like is very enjoyable (if admittedly limited in scope).
On that topic, then: It has been announced that Madonna’s new album is called “Hard Candy,” with her publicist going on to explain that The Immaterial Girl will be “kicking our ass” (thus the “Hard”) but then “making us feel good” (thus the “Candy”).
Notes unheard, I say to hell with that shit.
That is 100% the exact opposite of what I want from entertainment and entertainers (don’t kick me at all, and only “make me feel good” if it’s true).
Madonna is cordially invited to go kick her own ass (or, in Kabbalah-ese: “arse”).
All the way back to suburban Michigan, kiddo.
Madonna: Your best song was “Like A Prayer” — and even that you totally stole from David Bowie’s “Underground.”
(Which was, in turn, stolen from the Gospel tradition — but at this point the argument becomes hazy.)
Speaking of the Gospel tradition:
“Dearly Beloved, We Are Gathered Here Today To Get Through This Thing Called…
…HIP-REPLACEMENT SURGERY.”
Yikes.
Lil’ Purple’s going to get some fake bones down there.
I have outgrown Prince’s shtick — but his great stuff is truly great, so here’s wishing him a quick lil’ purple recovery.
(Movie tie-in: One of his very best songs is from one of his movies almost everybody hated. Bet you can’t guess what it is.)
Oh, this post is becoming increasingly more vital by the second.
There are various reviews gestating in my review-gestator: Other Boleyn Girl, Spiderwick Chronicles, No Country and “Milkshake!” and stretching back through The Black Book and The New World and all sorts of things I’ve seen but upon which commented not — however, we’ll see. It’s still a tense time.
My splendid niece wrote recently, and responded quite thoughtfully to my correspondence of a couple months back — one of the primary topics of which was the importance of one’s life having a “core.”
Hers, she feels, has one at this time. She is younger, and the core may be somewhat makeshift — but one does what one can to fill ‘er up. (She does well.)
I have yet to respond beyond an interim message, for at this time — and for the past several years, frankly — I strongly feel that my life lacks a “core.” Family: Aloof. Partner: Nil. Career: Crashed. Neighbors: Noisy Nutcases (although my usually-wretchedly-stern landlord has finally conceded, even semi-sympathetically, that there may be a problem with them). Nonetheless: Sleep: Troubled (no problem getting there — but then it is always abruptly curtailed before I am adequately rested). Nest-Egg: None (toodles, female humans!) Local Pleasures: Mainly at night — I like to walk.
That’s about it.
No core.
See, I don’t feel like joining a religion, either; just not my thing.
(Movie Geeks may enjoy, however, that the other day — a full hour before the neighbors began their early morning screaming — I awoke in a panic, shaking and begging [albeit belatedly] for an answer: “My God! Why was 2046 so fucking boring?!?!?”)
(Does that count as a spiritual path?)
Anyway…
I never presumed, at this age, that the undefinable energies which make life worth living would be almost entirely absent. I say this not for the sake of melodrama (for, in life, I loathe melodrama — it’s a poison), but because it’s true: As an adult, I have had to intellectualise — to invent — reasons to keep living.
[Your Hate-Mail Here. {How Clever.}]
That’s a weird place to be, don’t you think?
I mean, some of it has to do with people in Southern California taking great pleasure in being total assholes. Not everybody, certainly, but there is a self-obsessed vibe here which can prove extremely draining.
Confronting that vibe on one’s own is very, very, very challenging.
[Which is why I didn’t even consider taking that call a few minutes ago; good riddance to the insanity; I paid my dues to it for a solid, very draining year.]
I don’t wish pain or hurt on anyone — I really don’t (in addition to being horrible, it’s useless) — but for the sake of amusement, I rather wish that it were legal (and encouraged) if, when someone walks up and says, “Hi! I’m an actress!” you get to bitch-slap them as hard as you can with as many people watching as possible — and then the onlookers hold up numbers to rate your actress-slappin’ prowess.
That would be a slightly better world than this one.
(Mind: In theory. Some of us know the difference.)
Still, if I manage to get around to the Boleyn review, readers may discover that I’m being surprisingly kind to Scarlett Johansson. Nornally, with that mouth-breather problem of hers, I think she resembles a cross between a human and a barnyard animal — but she actually fit her role as Mary Boleyn rather well. T., as I recall, stated this — in which case I agree with him.
And more? Well, there isn’t a lot more at this time. It’s Leap Day in Leap Year, of course — but the human calendars being such arbitrary creations in the first place (don’t get all worked up over “2012″ incidentally — for just how exactly did the Mayans decide what “12 December” was — or, for that matter, “December” at all? Is “December” really the twelfth month in the Mayan calendar? How convenient!), it occurs to me that there’s nothing particularly special about this day.
It’s Friday, Fridays are kind of boring, it’s another week-end, and hundreds upon hundreds of them all blur together, and if we’re not very, very, very, very careful, we may end up with another (and potentially more lethal) war-monger as leader of this nation and the free world.
Please be careful about this. If my life ever gains a core, I’d be very sad to see it destroyed along with the rest of the world due to the wiles of extremely stupid men who mistakenly believe that fighting other human beings will ever (to borrow a phrase from Samuel Clemens) “break a chain or free a human soul” (it won’t).
Chanson du week-end: It’s by Sparks, and on the main page (but unlabelled because those guys are totally paranoid about I.P.)
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02.26.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 2:42 am by Gregory
One of the more intriguing aspects of racking up unruly personal thoughts online all the time is that the process tends to yield unpredictable effects. Par example, people you know may suddenly regard you in new and unexpected ways, while people you’ve never met before may suddenly give you a cyber-clap on the back (”cyber-clap”…ew…) for championing some random notion they coincidentally hold dear. Or else you can make people hate you. A lot. Real quick.
I have a friend who’s quite fond of the people who call themselves “Bono” and “Diablo Cody.” I am very grateful to him for not disowning me for sneering at those two dubious mouthpieces for the money machine. I just can’t help it. I didn’t ask to be fired by total scumbags. Once that happened, the words had to go somewhere — and here they are. The thing is, I’m really not very good at concealing my opinions.
It is a strange world indeed that catapults people to outrageous fortune for adopting an extra-obnoxious fake name and running around inflating their egos to epic proportions over some comfortably “significant” causes…all the way to the bank.
I liked U2 for years, and still occasionally enjoy their sound. But if “Bono” wants to save Africa or whatever, why not start by selling his hotel or a few of his ultra-plush houses — or, better, inviting entire starving villages to come and live in them (”Edge” can do the cooking). Rather than squawking out impassioned pleas for donations to broke fans who really shouldn’t be spending a hundred bucks on a concert ticket, plus another fifty for a t-shirt.
I have just had a nice, long, hot shower; this is my equivalent of alcohol; it relaxes me. (The fluoride on my skin is probably worse than rot-gut, but that’s mostly out of my hands.) And the purpose of the shower?
To wash away this year’s Oscar residue.
Yick.
Related: One of the great things about the internet is that we no longer have to watch television. At all. It was very easy for me to click around and find a concisely edited clip of “Diablo Cody” rising up in her “accidentally” ripped dress (to the crotch; nice “accident”) to claim her five-hundred-dollar statuette.
I wanted to see the clip because my friend likes her, and he liked Juno more than I did, but I liked it okay. I most certainly did not buy it for a second (to me, the movie shimmers with falseness), but — very much like the equally entertaining/emotionally-unsatisfying Charlie Bartlett — the movie reminded me enough of my own adolescent fave-flicks (and I actually listened to Velvet Underground’s “I’m Sticking With You” a lot as a sixteen-year-old) to inspire a sort of wary affection. Like being on a bad date. You know it really isn’t going to work out, but the person is adequately cute and the soup has already arrived. Eat the soup. Whatever.
However, because Juno was intentionally launched by a huge movie company as a pre-fab “phenomenon” (literally this year’s Little Miss Sunshine — but less well written), its marketing eventually eclipsed my goodwill toward it. The pushiness becomes sickening.
Still, I wanted to understand this peculiar moment in pop culture, so I watched the clip. It didn’t really affect me in any discernible way. Shrug. However…
Why the hell was Harrison Ford presenting the Best Screenplay award? Now that’s a stunt! Has Harrison Ford ever written anything — I mean, besides personal checks for nickel-bags?
It is exactly that sort of stunt that makes me distrust and dislike these shows. I really wish, just this year, that the writers’ strike could have killed it. That would have been cool. Memorable.
Thanks for affording me the ventage; I believe I am finished with that mess now.
Oh — well — except for this mild weirdness: Twenty years ago (egad), I wrote my first complete screenplay. I won’t tell you the title, because it’s still a great title, and nobody has used it. But it was an action-adventure movie, involving a big bag of money and a bunch of guys chasing each other around, killing each other for it. It was crude and brutal (I tried to make it cerebral, but it was based on a concept from a then-friend who is dead but even while alive had no command of English — plus he liked violence a lot). It featured a dependable father figure attempting to save a reckless son figure. It also featured a large, dangerous killer hell-bent on recovering the money.
It was basically No Country for Old Men.
Egad.
I just noticed that.
(The difference being: Even after my former friend’s death — when the property became fully mine — I buried the script, and it stays buried.)
Other uncanny Oscar connections:
Daniel Day-Lewis has a large skull — and so do I. (Plus we both act like total idiots — which is why I don’t.)
When I returned to L.A. in 1995, I wanted more than anything to work on Tim Burton’s “new” project: Sweeney Todd.
I went through a long stretch of listening to Edith Piaf all the time (even though I’m straight).
I met Tilda Swinton at a party once (coincidentally, directly upstairs from the Kodak Theatre — very not-coincidentally, it was a Fox Searchlight party…oh, stories from that…).
Um…um…
Much like Sir Sidney Poitier, I was the first black man ever to win an Osc–
Well, that’s quite enough (although I do possess more natural rhythm than most writers I know).
I dunno; I guess I’m trying to find some connecting reasons to appreciate the big award thingie that my friend P. last night called “an abomination.” (Funny!)
Am I jealous of “Diablo Cody”? Nope. This seems to be a hot topic (pun very intended) all over message-boards at the moment — as anyone slamming her alleged writing ability is automatically labelled “jealous” — but really, the only thing that inspires jealousy in me (which is very, very rare) is when somebody does what I want to do and does it better than I could. So far, I’ve never noticed or encountered anybody who does what I want to do, thus this is not a problem. Plus I’d certainly never want to do what “Diablo Cody” does, thus that’s even less of a problem.
What is a problem is that, all of a sudden, the IRS is on my back. Get this: For not making any significant money!
I received a threatening letter from the government today.
Great.
Comforting.
What are you supposed to say?
“Look, well, I lost the income I slaved very hard for years to attain — and I accidentally live in a place where white people aren’t taken seriously when they apply for real jobs. So tell me, government, what do you suggest?”
It’s gonna be a hell of a week.
I did, however, manage to find my toaster. Can-opener still missing, but toaster safely located. Two toasters, in fact. They were both hiding.
“But why weren’t they just in the kitchen, where toasters belong?”
(Appliance-bigot.)
Actually, they were almost in the kitchen — so you’re close. But in the three and a half years I have lived here, I have never once cooked or prepared anything in the kitchen.
In fact, this evening I threw away a lot of four-year-old food!
It wasn’t gross — just dry pasta and canned goods and stuff. But it had a sentimental attachment to it — because I almost ate it in my previous apartment, and that wasn’t a home either, and I was harbouring these items under the auspices of some strange sort of denial.
Waiting for a home. To have a home.
Politics: Obama is gaining a lot of traction with some factions of the American people due to one word:
“Hope”
I just…erm…
Nah.
I don’t buy that.
Hope is meaningless. Hope is akin to religion. Makes you feel better, but doesn’t actually accomplish anything — good or bad. Just fills up the pre-grave time.
The policy I could stand behind is one dedicated — blatantly dedicated — to Eradicating Stupidity. Like, for instance: Pull at least 90% of funding from the military and put it directly into education. That’s Eradicating Stupidity. Take the rest of the money and give everyone FREE health care. That’s Eradicating Stupidity. Put in terrific public transportation everywhere it’s needed. Make it a serious crime to own firearms. (I know that’s just begging for an early grave — saying that in this nutbag nation — but if you believe it, say it; life’s too short anyway.) Encourage youths to nourish their minds, bodies, and creativity. Encourage old people to stop being assholes. Tax the living shit out of obscenely rich people. Make parking tickets a slap on the wrist. Give a million dollars to every single guy who doesn’t own a car…
Hm.
Oh, I saw Jenny Hewitt again today. You know, that sexy brunette actress? She was mowing down on overpriced hot-buffet fare at Whole Foods. Third time I’ve encountered her without trying. First two times, I didn’t recognise her (the first time I was sitting right next to her at a DreamWorks Summer Preview party featuring the likes of Bryan Adams and Hans Zimmer as entertainment — spotlight hit us, freaked me out, then she stood up and did her spiel — pun also intended). This time, I just happened to be walking past her, and her aura felt so utterly self-obsessed that I couldn’t help but notice her. It was a matter of seconds. I didn’t say anything to her. She kept eating. Her butt didn’t look particularly large.
What was I talking about? Oh — hope. Right…
Oppress people and they’ll pretty much agree to anything fanciful you wave at them. History has borne this out. I don’t think Obama is a bad guy — but this litany of “Hope” feels like the equivalent of pixie dust or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (or a winning lottery ticket). Nice in theory — but does it really work? Does it actually exist?
My job was the only thing holding my life together, and that was stolen from me. In the wake of that, I soon learnt that my family really don’t care about me, that my friends are scattered and mostly too busy/exhausted to work on better things together (exceptions have recently emerged), and that it is absolutely impossible for me to have anything resembling One Happy Relationship with a person of the other gender here in Stupidland. I have done everything a person is supposed to do — and still it has turned into absolute shit. I’m not blaming myself anymore.
Thus, this year will take on a significantly different tone. Last year I (perhaps) provided some entertainment (as such) by attempting to survive emotionally among actresses — who are, by my experience, the most deceptive and rotten species of human. It was sort of amusing, but eventually confronting insanity just isn’t funny anymore.
I have the feeling that I’m going to become Successful this year (alas), and thus one of my Highest Hopes will be ruined: That I’d be able to enter into a lifelong loving relationship without first negotiating a pre-nup.
So much for that.
I trust some of my closest friends — but beyond that, I have observed far too much deceit to proceed with any amount of faith in a domestic partnership.
It’s just not that sort of world anymore.
Evidence abounds.
I also recently lost my Dream — however illusory it may have been over the years — of a True and Happy Life.
Damn!
Thus, at this point (those Oscars are directly connected to the various careers of my adult life, thus being depressed by them is akin to the depression accrued by having to watch an insane moron rule “my land” and the whole free world for the past seven years and counting), I think it is reasonably accurate to say that I have been surviving without Hope for several years.
And if I can do it, anybody can do it.
(I think that was most of what I wanted to say here. This parenthetical bit at the end is simply so it doesn’t end on too drastically self-serious a note.)
(I do wish that absolutely everything didn’t suck, though.)
(Don’t you?)
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