A weekend off call?

No fucking way.

I never realize how much I like weekends until I have two on call in a row.

This last one made some money (the one before didn’t); enough I would have gotten the wife that netbook if she’d wanted it. The thing’s so small when I asked if the screen was longer than my cock, she had to think real hard. (the screen won, but I hear it’s the girth that matters anyway). But the money’s only a band-aid. For it to make a real difference, it’d have to be something like … hmm … if 30x=600 … 20 calls. 20 calls, if they weren’t terrible and were properly spaced, wouldn’t be impossible. I think coworker1 got 25 calls over the Thanksgiving weekend last year–when I was enjoying a fine Thanksgiving dinner catered from Le Central, the decent French place (is it snobby to have a decent French place and then the French place you really like).

Speaking of which, am I having the fam in for Thanksgiving this year? I think my dad invited himself. My sister might be busy. I was kind of hoping my friend D would come in because we had such a good time when he visited over New Year’s and this time I wouldn’t have to take any time off, but it’s not looking promising. I saw that and he’ll probably be crashing on my couch come November anyway.

Hopefully, the wife’s mom and grandmother are coming out for Christmas. I say hopefully because odds are I’m going to fuck up by then.

But back to this weekend.

I’m going to read. I already know that.

Sunday morning I think I’m going to get agent queries together and then just print out the pages and use the postage at work on Monday.

I haven’t decided if I’m drinking Sunday. If I were just giving it up because I were trying to be healthy, I’d definitely do it. But the last drink yesterday hit me pretty hard. Could have been the Diet Crush. Whatever it was, not sure I want to be drinking hard Sunday. It might make me real sick, so I could stay up late Saturday and get ripped. But I suppose that move isn’t a wise one either.

Eh.

So what to do with the weekend?

Sleep; read; watch a movie (I was thinking Once and a George Sanders Saint and something else, maybe the Towering Inferno, but then I remembered the podcast movies). No idea when we’re recording the next episode so I guess it doesn’t matter too much.

What else … gym. Obviously. On Saturday

Why I hate going to see movies with friends

Someone asked. Well, not just someone, M1.

It’s not all friends.

I love going to see movies with DBBF. And even with my friend D, though he and I don’t really like the same kind of movie anymore.

No, now I’m getting roped into seeing Star Trek in IMAX on opening weekend. Why? Because a friend of mine HAS to see it. But he HAS to see it soon. Like it fucking matters if we wait a week. Next weekend, not this weekend, we’re hoping to see it with this guy I knew in middle school who lives nearby (he was at that party last weekend). I don’t want to see Star Trek twice. Even if it’s okay, I don’t want to see it twice. The era of seeing okay summer movies twice with different sets of friends (I mean, shit, with this first friend, the one from grad school, shit… I had to see Iron Man twice because of him) is long over. It was fine in 1989, when I’d go see Batman and Weekend at Bernie’s multiple times with different friends. It was probably even fine in 1992, when I went to go see Buffy the Vampire Slayer a couple times with different friends. Or 1998–I saw the Faculty a couple times.

But not anymore. And not Star Trek? I mean, nobody wants to go see Redbelt multiple times with me.

The Semi Suite thing

I didn’t discover Tom Waits until I was … 17, 18. One of the two. I can’t remember how–maybe through a Jim Jarmusch movie. I hope it wasn’t because I was curious who Renfield was in Coppola’s Dracula–which I’ll admit here and now … I like as I walked home from seeing it when I was fourteen. Or thirteen. How I got into that R-rated movie but couldn’t get into Unforgiven is beyond me.

But at some point I got douchebag best friend to listen to him. He might have started listening to him around the same time.

We were supposed to use Semi Suite in some student film. It’s so lame calling it a student film. What else do you call it? A short film made in undergrad? I mean, for some of them, I technically was a “video production” or whatever the fuck my prestigious almamater called it major. Or pledge.

Whatever.

But it’s frustrating not to know what project is was. Douchebag best friend probably doesn’t remember ….

It might have been the adaptation of Cathedral, the Raymond Carver. Now, I know everyone gets all gooey over Short Cuts, but–as a writer–reading Carver then seeing that movie? It’s one of the worst adaptations in film, because Altman doesn’t get it. And I love (and hate) a lot of Altman. But it’s kind of like that Gary Sinise story about Ken Kesey. Sinise just put on some grandoise Cuckoo’s Nest adaptation and Kesey was blaise about it. Kesey told Sinise his favorite Cuckoo’s Nest production was a high school one. And Sinise mocked him in the interview for it. Who’d know better?

The Cathedral short never happened.

My douchebag best friend, the reluctant actor of so many shorts, didn’t want to headline, didn’t want to give the part to his wife’s gay friend, who was too young.

And we just kind of forgot about it.

But it would have been amazing. I’d been watching a bunch of Fellini at the time–good and bad as Fellini’s are–and it would have been amazing. Funny the best film script I ever wrote was the last one, the one I did nothing with. I don’t even have a copy anymore.

But, no, we weren’t going to use Semi Suite in that one.

In fact, I think the Semi Suite thing was just some bullshit–like my douchebag best friend would play it on the jukebox or something.

Moments in writing vs. film

I’m listening to I’ll Be Gone (Moby + Patti LaBelle)–for a couple reasons, 1) coworker1 hates it and she’s been texting for the last twenty minutes so fuck her and 2) Miami Vice.

Until recently, Mann always had at least one great cinema moment in his films. Thief has one, Manhunter has one (“my man”), Last of the Mohicans (theatrical, not director’s), Heat has three or four, Miami Vice has one (the I’ll Be Gone sequence). Insider doesn’t, Collateral doesn’t. Et cetera, et cetera. Public Enemies will not, Ali doesn’t have any.

Other great moments–The Last Temptation of Christ, the ending. Henry Fool, the ending.

Those are the ones I’m thinking of now … maybe the helicopter rescue in Superman (maybe).

These are cinematic payoff sequences, where the medium just skyrockets in potential. Most movies don’t have things like them, most great movies don’t have things like them (Kubrick never had one of these). They’re somewhat populist moments. I’m trying to think of another example and I really can’t. Mann’s kind of the best for them, just because he understands that kind of payoff storytelling.

In grad school, when I was still working towards a story collection versus a novel, I used to want to write something with one of those cinematic payoffs. It’s incredibly hard to even conceive of a way to get them down in a draft, much less edit them, much less make them successful. I’m trying to think of a novel with one of those moments. Cat’s Cradle has one. Vonnegut has them, but he usually saves them for the endings. In Cat’s Cradle, he does it early. Bluebeard’s got a great one.

Novels don’t tend to work in moments like that. In singularly memorable moments … not even punch in the gut ones, just moments in general.

As a going present, my professor/mentor gave me an annotated copy of Dracula. I fucking hate Dracula. I wrote an essay about how much I hated Dracula–and she read it out loud because I was busy with my mom’s … I guess memorial service is what it’d be called. So I couldn’t figure out why she was giving it to me.

HUGE Dracula reference in the novel. About it sucking no less. And I totally forgot about it. And giving a copy of Dracula as a gift was part of the fucking scene in the novel. I felt like a douchebag. It’s probably the second most thoughtful gift I’ve ever gotten. No, first. The only competition was when my dad got me this Muppet Show soundtrack CD. So I douched on this great gift, because it wasn’t a memorable part of my own fucking novel. I mean, I kind of recovered–I blamed it all on being a drunken dipshit.

No big cinematic moments in the novel, the first one (no idea what’ll happen in the second). In fact, one of my advisors told me to put one in–the eureka moment–to make it more sellable and I argued for about two hours to not. It was a funny scene–I mean, I hated this two-faced woman but she did know some stuff and sellable was one of them–because we were in this “family friendly” coffee shop and there was this kid around and we both kept swearing and getting nervous looking, like we’d get 86′d.

I think I’d like to do one of those moments. Paul Pope does an amazing one in 100% (ending). But they’re not easy in literature. I”m pretty sure T.C. Boyle’s never had one, no for Rick Moody. Pynchon has a bunch, obviously, but he always cuts them short. I feel like I just read another one–besides Cat’s Cradle–but I can’t remember what.

Coke and Tom Jones

So, when I was … nineteen? Eighteen, maybe. Not twenty. Maybe seventeen. I’d go up to visit my douchebag best friend and we’d get some coke. We never did the pot thing (seperately, but by the time I had a car and the desire to go up and visit, we’d moved on to coke).

Our dealer connection went like this.

First it was my dbbf’s friend/roommate who’d get the coke from his pot dealer (who got it from someone else). Pot dealer looked like a red-haired Ted Neely.

 

Yeah, because Jesus would have been white. Sure.

So eventually, it got to the point we could go straight to the pot dealer.

Then it got to the point I could go along with the pot dealer to pick up from his supplier.

Apparently, and I only kind of remember this one and I don’t remember it being a big deal, I once scared the living shit out of the pot dealer while fucked up on … ritalin probably and drunk off my ass, speeding through rural West Michigan while blaring Tom Jones in the car.

I mean, I believe a lot of this story. I did used to drive 100 miles an hour (we got it up to 120 once, which fucking rocked). I mean, dbbf was screwing his girlfriend in the back seat. I didn’t really want to drive slow, right? I wasn’t worried about him finishing or whatever, I wanted the car ride to be over.

I did snort a lot of ritalin back then.

I did drink a lot back then.

And I did have a Tom Jones greatest hits CD.

So, I suppose my only problem with the way this story is reported back to me–like I remember it, I was zonked out of my mind on ritalin and fucking hammered–is the pot dealer getting scared for his life. I remember it was a fine, amusing drive, where we discussed the importance of police in society.

 

Tom Jones comes up, this story comes up, because last night M1 did me a favor and named a character for me.

She didn’t go with Delilah, but she went really close ….

We probably didn’t listen to Delilah that car trip though … I always preferred Daughter of Darkness.

I hate snow but . . .

I hate snow.

Absolutely hate it. Hated shoveling it, hated driving it. I once spent six hours in a car on Christmas Eve trying to get home from work (downtown Chicago), all because of snow.

But I will say something for it. It looks good. When it’s snowing, it does look good.

Makes me think of The Ice Storm (film, not novel, just for the visual effect) or, strangely) Ford’s The Hurricane (which just an amazing storm sequence at the end). I haven’t seen any of the recent (are they recent?) weather-related disaster movies–I think the last one I saw was Twister–so I don’t know if CG’s gotten to the point of being able to do good bad weather.

Writing does it well, but it’s a trope so it’s hard to use it anymore.

For some reason, the whole thing reminded me of Days of Heaven, which I’m not a particular fan of, because Malick shot the whole thing–the daylight scenes–during the magic hour. You couldn’t do that with snow. Snow looks good when it’s snowing and then goes to shit and slush when it’s not. I mean, constant snow on the ground–I did grow up in the middle west after all and douchebag best friend did live in Michigan until he was 21 and I hung out up there–looks really great sometimes. But in general, it’s never as asthetically compelling as when it’s falling. 

At least I’m not full of shit

So.

I fucked up last week.

Again.

I thought I could handle chatting, emailing, etc with the woman I had the e-affair with.

Guess what?

Couldn’t.

So, after two days of chatting, I decided to leave my wife and run off with this other woman.

And a day after that, I realized how stupid it was (mac afficionado, M1, coworker1 and boss all pointed out what an idiot I sounded like).

So it’s a week later. And I’ve already dropped a buck twenty on martial counseling and I’m going to be dropping a buck twenty every week for the near future. When money’s in the fucking drain–not my fault, really, wife’s (not intentional, but it happened, right).

But at least I don’t have to lie anymore. At least I get to be myself. When the wife and I have a fight now, at least the emotions I feel are real and not some bullshit created emotion based on a complicated series of lies I’ve been holding up for eight years.

Is honesty the best policy?

Fuck no.

Wife regrets the shit out of telling me she wanted to lay the slacker Billy Crudup lookalike at the gym in the back of his hippie van.

But about the fundamentals, I don’t have to fucking lie anymore. And it’s kind of nice. At least if I’m going to crash and burn now, it’ll be for who I am–not just with the wife, but with dbbf who’s going through depression problems and I’m gaying on the line and telling his weepy ass to give me a call if he needs to talk (because I’m surely the one to talk to) or M1 (I can’t believe the things I said to her a few minutes ago… she must think I’m drunk, nuts, both or leaking brain matter) or anyone else (great chat with, hopefully, a new chat buddy today and damn if I didn’t flush all preoccupation with decorum).

Maybe I’m just geeked because I wrote a great 573 words last night or because I saved two days ago’s writing yesterday am.

Whatever. It feels good to be honest for once

What happened was …

This is going to be a boring writing post. It’s a gin-filled anti-Writer’s Chronicle-esque rant.

Why did I fuck up yesterday? Why does a bad night of writing–writing for about an hour, 573 words–mean I need/want/think I have to drink a gin and tonic at 8:30 in the morning to get soused enough to edit those 573 words?

If it were just a bad day, a lame piece, that’d be one thing. I’ve written two or three lame pieces for this project. I hate one of the story threads. It was supposed to be a Lovecraft meets Jaws thing, except I’ve never read Lovecraft, I just like some Lovecraft fans (like John Carpenter) and I love Jaws to pieces, but not in the reverential way one would need to write a fucking homage to it. That thread is totally fucked. But I recovered on the third or fourth section (I hope).

Can I recover from last night’s writing?

Yeah, sure.

I could even leave it be, try to forget about it. Just let it be a dead-end piece.

I’m listening to Leonard Cohen right now, singing Be For Real, which ties in to the Afghan Whigs, which is what I was listening to (1965) while writing last night. It’s hard to be mad at them right now, because it was my own fault for putting them on, because I knew what I was doing ….

And there’s the difference with knowing what you’re doing and not.

I was had an idea for a story/novel/piece about Little America, that hellish roadside whatever the fuck–ice cream place, motel, whatever–out here somewhere. I got hammered and told a friend all about it–this was in 2001, early 2001, pre-9/11 (oh, I should do my utterly selfish 9/11 post sometime, that’ll offend some people but not people who actually matter)–it must have been a screenplay. I was still planning on moving to NYC, going to NYU and working at an editing house at that point. FTW.

But I never wrote that script. I don’t even remember the particulars. Because I told my friend all about it. What was the point in writing it.

Last night, I sat down to write with an all-new idea for this project. I’d incorporate one of my old standards. What a great idea.

Standards.

Standards being … my story tropes. Not everyone’s story tropes, but mine. The relationships I find interesting, the scenes I find interesting. I burn them off in stories, the first novel.

So somehow, I decided to bring back one of my oldest standards–maybe the first real screenplay (in terms of ambitiousness and artistic intent … not in quality) I ever finished. Dude and a slightly older married woman. Except it’s been thirteen (?) years since I last worked on that story. Used that standard.

All of a sudden–I think it was because of Haunted and the four levels it hit me on and I’ll break those out in a second if I can remember them–I thought it’d be a great idea to incorporate that standard, that story, into the current project. There’s room for it, there is. But it should be organic, not forced, not planned.

The four levels the song Haunted hit me on …

(Off topic, I’m curious if M1 has even seen Sid & Nancy … it’s a female movie like the Princess Bride but I think of a certain generation … I’m sure it’s passed).

1. I was twenty-two and in wondrous physical condition and in love with a girl who didn’t love me back 2,975 miles away. The song immediately reminded me of being that person. That stupid fucking person who should have been laying everything he could instead of doting. I mean, what’s the karmic payoff of doting on someone who needed doting, but … wasn’t offering anything in return? That’s rhetorical. The payoff is zero. Speaking of ol’ girl … Chris Cornell is here in town soon. I saw the sign on the venue on the way home from the liquor store. We saw Chris Cornell during my week in the meat grinder–he gave me a knowing nod, like I was banging her. I wasn’t. I tried to explain that difference to her. I really never found her hot, which is something no one ever believes, but I didn’t.
2. Sid & Nancy. Loving that movie. Watching Alex Cox movies. Seeing fucking Repo Man. I remember thinking last night, if listening to this song, watching Sid & Nancy, gets me to sit through Repo Man again … I’m going to be pissed.
3. Writing. Thinking I should “feel” when writing, “feeling” the protagonist’s feelings. Musing. Douching. I used to write like an undergrad poet who didn’t understand poems aren’t your soul puked on paper, but editable, changable artifices. I wrote an okay screenplay during this period. I’ve read it recently. It’s decent. It’s something absolutely no one would want to sit through without opening his or her wrists … but it does make the viewer/reader reserve judgement of the protagonist until the last minute, which is the point. And the Sam Cooke usage is tits. I once gave an impromptu five minute Sam Cooke lecture in a history class. Leaving academia was the worst thing I could ever do. I was a goddamn superstar in training. That motherfucker who puts together the boy bands, he was putting me together as an academic superstar. Seriously … the dictionary recognizes motherfucker. Word.
4. What’s the fourth one? Ol’ girl, movies, writing … I forgot the fourth one. Sorry.

So, back to editing, as I’m hammered, spilling my drink, listening to Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen (my Human Touch/Lucky Town story is a downer so I won’t share it, surfice to say, I’m a piece of excrement and I loathe myself–in a good mood though) and Nick Cave.

Now it’s time for a little 2Pac.

I wish my wife liked 2Pac.

What’s funny about last night’s knowing fuck-up?

It wasn’t fueled by personal bullshit. It came after a two hour fight. Had nothing to do with that. It was all about self-confidence, etc.

DBBF once told me hating something you write–because it can’t be good enough before you show it–was a sign of good writing.

I don’t know if I agree. I kind of do. I think loving something enough to show it is the same thing though. I mean, I’ve got a useless diploma somewhere telling me I’m a writer, an educated, trained one.

You know what the problem was in high school? White kids.

Seriously. I mean, I wore Cross Colours and listened to rap music, but … I at least liked it. I appreciated it. I wrote M1 a fucking great liner note thingy on 2Pac. So I was lame, but not lame in the right way with that … it’s upsetting. But, this was during the whole “alternative” phase, and that was it’s whole thing. I mean, today I listen to 2Pac and am embarrased I ever, even as a teenager, as a young teenager, listened to the Singles soundtrack. Fuck Campbell Scott, btw; no offense, but he’s like a static Robert Sean Leonard. Spanish Prisoner was wonderful though. I wonder if M1 has seen it. I know ol’ girl has. My wife would hate it. I need a fucking movie buddy local. Someone to go see WKW with.

Where was I?

Am I drunk enough to edit? At 9:18 Ante Meridan, am I drunk enough to edit?

I think I’m close. I mean, sure, I’m drunk. But am I drunk enough.

When I was in undergrad, I used to have to edit my student films–sorry, student videos (wasn’t half-inch at least)–no, not edit, watch, review, my student films drunk.

Getting stoned cuts off too much. Like I can’t get stoned and read. Or write. It fucks up the experience–I can be on call drunk (word to next weekend, drunk all through it, even if I have to transcribe for the mfing movie blog just not to be a douchebag on that one), but I can’t be stoned. I do not care when I’m stoned.

Intoxicants, from worst to best

1. Tobacco. I occasionally–very occasionally, once or twice a year–have a cigarette. It’s all psychological. Haven’t smoked regularly since junior year of high school. My mom used to buy me a pack every other day. My dad told me it was stupid. Stopped for a girl (a senior girl, it started then), who eventually shat all over me. Not literally. Literally would have suggested intimacy. But at least I found some good theaters thanks to her. Ought to facebook her. Curious. She liked some shitty novels/movies.
2. Alcohol. WTF? It’s a fine tool, but whatever.
3. Pot. You know what I do when I smoke pot? I play video games because I love the way it fucks up my perception of time. Wife wants to get jiggy thanks to having read Natalie Angier’s Woman: An Intimate Geography but smoking hurts her throat so we don’t do it.
4. Acid. Because I end up naked in the woods, convinced I’m in my primal state.
5. Coke. Because it’s fun. And I like having fun. My wife would love coke. It took her like five years to admit it.

Unfortunately, this list doesn’t include mini-thins/mini-phins or any of the prescription drugs I’ve snorted, because I can’t remembered their names. That’s my DARE alternative–kids, when someone rolls up a dollar bill and tells you to snort Jimmy’s crushed up prescription medicine … don’t do it. You’ll end up thirty and drunk at 9:28 am. And you’ll be drowning in credit card debt because you really, really, really need that motherfucking Rocquefort steak at the French place you can’t afford. And you’ll need a bottle of Pinot too, because you’re a human being, you’re a Cheyenne, you’re not a savage.

And a boner out to all the film major girls who got that reference. Someday, you’ll be immortalized in some writing–the Cheyenne thing is one of my writing tropes.

i think I’m drunk enough.

To edit.

I can’t remember anything else.

Did I finish the story about being drunk when watching my movies with people?

I made some well-made shit.

Impressive even.

Thank goodness I flushed my filmic ambition.

Okay, yeah, it’s time to edit.

Word. Bring on the fucking Young Snakes (not really, but bring on the Til Tuesday)

Men’s legs

Why this post?

A post titled Men’s legs?

Because I’m looking at shorts. For the first time in ten years, twelve years, I’m looking at buying shorts. I used to wear shorts to the gym, now I wear workout pants (activewear?). Of course, the shorts didn’t give a clear view of my johnson–and yes, I’m wearing underwear–and the pants do. So. that’s a little weird. But anyway.

Shorts.

I consider myself a realistic when it comes to style. When I go shoe shopping, I do not look at the Air Jordan’s. Realistically speaking, only certain white guys can get away with those and I’m not one of them. A friend of mine does fine with them, for instance. So I ask some guy who’s working what I can get away with. And he laughs and shows me. That’s easy. They’re fucking shoes for running. I’m married. I’m never going to be impressing anyone with having cool shoes (but they can’t be embarassing, I mean, really).

But. Shorts.

I go to Tommy Bahama, they’re going to be trying to fucking sell me shorts. Are they salespeople on commission, then they’re really going to be trying to sell me shorts.

Now, here’s the funny thing. Apparently, I have nice legs for a man. They aren’t chicken legs, they’re not the super-distorted calf or the inverse (really thin and muscley). Some girl in high school who I didn’t know once told me that and I thought she was being a bitch to a stranger for some reason. But, according to my wife–back when we met–apparently no. Apparently, they’re solid man legs.

Which doesn’t mean I don’t feel like an adolescent when I look at shorts, when I think about wearing them. Having, reportedly, nice man legs doesn’t get you a pass on looking like you’re in third grade because you’re wearing shorts.

I mean… there’s got to be an alternative right–even in 120 degree New Orleans August–what kind of material really breathes?

I’m figuring lots of air conditioned bars, lots of fans but there’s also going to be walking around–one of the untold (to my sister) plans for the trip is to find some nice place to get a memorial brick or stone or something for my mom. And unlike her obit, I’m going to be proud of whatever I write for it. Fuck obits, by the way. They’re fucking bullshit. If anyone ever asks you to write an obit, save it being a job, say no. Because they’re fucking bullshit. It’s basically taking a person you love and dehydrating them to nothing. It’s an awful experience, because while you’re in the middle of remembering this person, mourning, it’s a reminder no one really gives a fucking shit and you’re doing this because it’s the way things were done back when people actually did give a shit and now they really don’t. My friend D wrote my mom an obit on his fucking myspace page and you know what… a billion times better than the one I wrote for the newspapers.

As awful as it sounds, I’m hoping with all the rebuilding, there are places doing such things. I have no idea what I’m going to write yet. Depends on how much space I have. But it’s going to be good. Not something I’m embarrased when people ask me if I wrote it.

Risky Business

Okay, so I went batshit crazy last week.

About a week and a day ago.

By one week ago today, thanks to the cardio versus muscle days, I know I was almost totally fucking gone.

What suffered? Let’s see… too much to list right now. I might do little post-marriage counseling thingies, but I don’t know yet. Haven’t decided.

But this blog definitely suffered.

Driving home, passing the bus stop, I noticed there weren’t any cute girls. Which got me thinking about having sex with a cute girl on a bus. Which got me thinking about having sex with a cute girl on a train. Which got me thinking about having sex with a specific beautiful young woman on a train. Which got me thinking about Risky Business.

Warner Bros is making a big deal with their Warner Archive DVD series, but they haven’t discussed whether they’re going to do anything really interesting–like the director’s cut of Wyatt Earp or the director’s cut of Risky Business.

See, has this specific beautiful woman seen Risky Business? Not really for her generation–I’m pretty sure the M1 is from that generation where Tom Cruise was no longer popular. Though I’m not a 100% on it, I’m pretty sure.

Well, can she see Risky Business? Sure, she can rent it.

Can she see the director’s cut of Risky Business? No.

Because Warner didn’t include the director’s cut of Risky Business, didn’t do streaming, just slapped the director’s cut ending (the rest of the film is Brickman’s) on the recent special edition disc. Want to make a director’s cut? Have to do it yourself, like I did.

It’s not just not being able to recommend it to M1–my douchebag best friend can’t even see it and he’d love it. I mean, I could go through the trouble of sending him a copy, I could easily make a copy available for her to download (but won’t because I’d rather she watch the other movie I recommended)… but then, driving home, still thinking about all this malarky, I realized I might have encoded it while my Elgato Turbo.264… which does an ass job. Not an ass job, but nothing something I’d want a permanent copy of a film in.

So I can’t decide if I want to check… or just pretend it’s fine since I won’t watch Risky Business again for at least nine months (douchebag best friend is coming to AWP… if he bookends it with some extra, non-drunken stupor visit time, we might watch it). M1 is, oddly, also invited to AWP, so if we timed things right, she too could see the Risky Business director’s cut. But I don’t think she’s coming out for AWP. I’m psychic about these things. Just like Warner Archive is never going to give me my nice anamorphic Wyatt Earp Director’s Cut… M1 is sitting AWP out next year.

Other douchey non-DVD releases… oh, there’s only one, starring everyone’s favorite anti-semitic bigot Mel Gibson. I recently had a discussion about him with a gay friend–yes, Mel Gibson is a piece of shit. Total piece of shit. Good movie star. Ransom rocks. Need the director’s cut. The theatrical cut is lame. But that’s a Disney thing, unrelated to Warner.

Or AWP.

Or Risky Business.

Or my douchebag best friend.

Or M1.

Or the bus stop.

Or the drive home.

I really missed this fucking blog.

does anyone else lose underwear?

Does anyone else lose underwear?

I mean, I have–because I bought packs of these things–eight pairs.

And I can’t find anyone of them. And I did all the laundry Sunday. So… that means I should be down three pairs, maybe four, depending on when I started the laundry.

I don’t remember having any accidents. I don’t remember needing to be changed. So that means four to five pairs should be clean and wearable.

Nope.

They’re fucking missing.

Which leaves me wearing something uncomfortable today. Especially given my morning post writing. I’m worried I’m going to have the blood cut off and it won’t be able to get back circulating.

None of this is particularly interesting.

However–my douchebag best friend.

He used to have something like three pairs of underwear.

Total.

And didn’t do laundry.

I missed his wedding reception, so I couldn’t talk about it during the best man speech (also, given his wife’s family, I wouldn’t have done it). But I’ve got to keep that one on the tap for telling her about. He gets really funny when confronted with his past as a dirty hippie.

Clothes shopping

So, coworker1 can look at shoes all day online but when I look at clothes, there’s something wrong with it?

She told me to buy a suit at JC Penney. I mean… I suppose if I needed a suit for something and had a budget… I’d get a suit at JC Penney or Target or Goodwill or whatever the fuck. But I don’t need a suit for anything except looking good in a suit.

I like coworker1 and all, but I can’t stand being around women who don’t understand why a man would want to wear fine clothes.

Where does one look for this kind of thing?

Dreams 09-04-21

Couple remembered dreams. Both of them day specific… so I figured a fast post before I got caught up in writing today’s post for the M1, which kind of makes me feel like having to write The Erasers in one drafting, without any notes.

1. Coworker1 forgets to bring me the cup of coffee she owes me. Apparently, I’m very worried about it.
2. M1 asks me dancing–this afternoon–and I keep thinking I can’t go… because I have something to do. Except, I don’t think I do. And, waking up, remembering it’s on call day… I don’t, so dancing would have been fine to schedule.

The return to caffeine and the general lack of sleep (six hours a night) are cutting into what I can remember from dreams. But I’m thinking, depending on what I read next, it could get shaken up.

Into the ether

It’s 4:32. What the hell am I doing up?

I actually woke up at 4:20, something I would have found incredibly amusing when I was twenty.

I realized, as I was trying to get back to sleep, I haven’t heard from my old writing prof. She’s not in a good place right now (the job is ass, well, the students).

Think I’m going to call her today. I guess giving her the nickname old writing prof isn’t appropriate… it’s more of a Mr. Miyagi type thing.

What the hell am I going to do for the next forty-five minutes before I can leave for the gym though?

Passover for athiests

So, like I said before, I grew up the child of a couple failed Catholics. Even though I’m pretty sure my dad wasn’t raised Catholic for long. His mom was raised Catholic at some point and it’s kind of always there. My mom was a nun. So… I guess if you quit being a nun for liquor, tobacco and men, that makes you a failure as a Catholic. My father, as far as I know, never went to church except for funerals and weddings. My mom was the same way, though she threatened to go on a couple holidays and rarely did.

Growing up, until high school, I basically knew Catholic people and Jewish people. There must have been protestants in there–I mean, my hometown has a fuck-load of churches–but they never talked about it. I did have a friend who was Jehovah’s Witness or something… he couldn’t celebrate holidays. Anyway.

In high school, I encountered my first churchy. He wasn’t that bad… he thought dogs had a heaven, so obviously, he wasn’t a good churchy.

After high school, I worked with Jewish people and Catholic people. My closest “friend” when I worked on a stock floor was this devout, self-loathing Catholic who was a hoot. Got thrown out of college for robbing his frat’s treasury to buy coke. Hilarious guy. I’m sure he’s dead. He was a bit of a piece of shit, but an amusing one. And he’d talk to me about religion, him being a Catholic. Made me watch The Exorcist once, didn’t understand why I wasn’t as freaked out as he was. Whatever. Solid guy in a lot of ways. Nice to my mom. I kind of miss him. But not really, he was a sexist, racist piece of shit. The Jewish guys I knew were older, they were traders; we had breakfast most days of the week.

Somehow, though, it didn’t occur to me until two days ago I have no idea what Passover is.

I think I got days off of school for it. No idea what it is. Considering I thought Easter was all about the Easter Bunny–no religion in my family holidays, though I did manage to offend my mother, when I was twenty-two, by suggesting a Jesus doll that sang “Hey, now, it’s my birthday” and kicked his legs out to the sides on a cross–I’ve since learned, of course, there’s a connection between Passover and Easter. Somehow. I’m not really interested in that connection, I wanted to find out what Passover was all about.

And, if you’re reading this and you think you know why I want know about Passover or you’re the reason why I wanted to find out about Passover, you’re right. Thanks, you’re encouraging me to learn. That I’m only learning this because of you… eh… ignore that part.

I started at wikipedia, kind of browsing their article. I got caught up with the matzo thing. It seems very complicated, like I might need a diagram. I mean, really, I know the place names from The Last Temptation of Christ, so… it’s kind of hard. I might need a map too.

But, I figured, if the Agnes Moorehead of Colloquial Blogs isn’t for explaining how an athiest learns about Passover, what the fuck is it for? I don’t know if Agnes Moorehead would be proud. I doubt it. It’s not an insult. She’s an incredibly handsome woman. It’s kind of Orson Welles’s fault for never casting her as the love interest.

Anyway. Passover. For Athiests.

So, I found chabad.org’s article, which seems to be written for kids. (I also can’t understand why they allow comments on it–first rule of cheap hits, attacking someone’s religion–which the first comment is–I did this to great effect in a short story once, I was so proud of myself, immediately turned everyone against the protagonist). But, I get it now. Some of it.

Let’s take into account… most of my understanding of Jewish traditions come from things like The Big Lebowski.

Walter Sobchak: I told those fucks down at the league office a thousand times that I don’t roll on Shabbos!
Donny: What’s Shabbos?
Walter Sobchak: Saturday, Donny, is Shabbos, the Jewish day of rest. That means that I don’t work, I don’t get in a car, I don’t fucking ride in a car, I don’t pick up the phone, I don’t turn on the oven, and I sure as shit
[shouts]
Walter Sobchak: don’t fucking roll! Shomer shabbos!
The Dude: Walter…
Walter Sobchak: Shomer fucking shabbos.
The Dude: Oh fuck it. I’m out of here.
Walter Sobchak: Dude, come on…
[rolls his eyes at Donny]
Walter Sobchak: BABY…
[Donny nods]

Which does not provide, really, a lot of information.

The chabad page is okay–the links are really neccesary, like the one to the Laws of Yom Tov, for people like me, who also probably learned most of what they know about Jewish tradition from episodes of “Seinfeld,” which might not have had education in mind.

Am I just confused, Christians don’t do stuff like this, right? Do they? There’s the long repetitive thing Catholics do at funerals, which I’ve blocked out (not because I’m a general dick, but because I’m a specific dick–it reminds me what a fucking lousy grandson I was), and some other stuff… but…

I mean, I think I’ve seen The Ten Commandments–but, as a bored kid–so….

I’ll close this with something I think Lewis Black needs to do. He has to do a TV series where he lectures about the New Testament. It’d be fucking hilarious. Here’s his skit about Christians talking about the Torah.

For those wondering if the whole point of this post and my survey into Passover was simply to find out what was up with one person for the next seven days (i.e. level of communication). Yeah, it probably was… I mean, what the fuck, right?

Am I worried this person is going to think I’m shallow? Not really… a little bit, but nothing to be insecure about.

Like I said before, the reason I learn something isn’t as important as that I learned. I only learned to read as a kid because of Penthouse Forum*. The blog’s not called Frontal Lobe Disinhibition for nothing.

• That statement is actually not true. According to my mother, I only learned to read as a kid because I wanted to read about monster movies. The Crestwood House Monster series, actually. By Ian Thorne. I’ll have to thank ol’ boy for getting me to read in some dedication somewhere.

Dream

Lengthy dream about bonding with coworker1 and her husband. He and I talked about exercise and law enforcement. She and I talked about my mother’s death. Guess I don’t want her to quit.

I wonder if it’s all guys who have dating problems who ask out waitresses.

I just went to Starbucks and had to wait for freshly brewed coffee and talked to the checkout girl for three minutes. She was kind of cute–blue hair always reminds me of my first screenplay, makes me nostalgic for simpler times (oh, to write solely for one’s self and think it’s the way to do it!)–and it was a pleasant conversation. Don’t know if it’d qualify as flirting. I don’t think I would.

But I realized my friend D would. In fact, he probably would have asked her out. Sitting there in the drivethough.

I think I already told that story about my other friend who made the joke about having a waitress be nice to him so it must mean she’s in to him. My friend D doesn’t get that. Like, I’ve explained it to him and he still doesn’t get it. Not only does a waitress’s job rely on tips, she probably gets hit on all day. It’s like that episode of the Office where Michael is a boor to the Hooters waitress.

Not being a waitress, I’m only guessing… and considering my track record with waitresses, maybe I’m not the best one to talk about it.

Brief recap:

Went out with both waitresses I’ve asked, the one bartender/waitress I asked (until my Justin Timberlake-looking friend’s fuck buddy cock-blocked me), and the other bartender/waitress I asked approached me after she broke up with her dude, but that didn’t go anywhere.

So, whenever I think about the waitress thing, I realize I did all right with it. Maybe not McNulty all right, but when watching McNulty pick up a waitress and take her home–my friend not believing it–I was at least able to say, “No, that’s plausible. Likely even.”

Wire reference. Sorry.

Can you believe my wife DOESN’T want to name a kid after Stringer Bell? But anyway….

But I went to visit my friend D and he was bitching and moaning about being unattached and I told him we were going to take care of it. Really, really simple plan. He was supposed to go up to women and ask them out. “Hi, I want to go out with you. Can I call you?”

Nope.

I think I gave up after pushing him toward a girl on the street. He was a statue.

Instead, we went to drink and he developed a crush on the waitress. Then he drug me to a strip club–which might have been the most awkward experience of my life, a strip club in Texas–and ended up giving a fucking stripper the money for a lapdance on the promise she’d meet him at an IHOP. I sat around a fucking IHOP for two hours–sober, mind you–on this one.

Where all he really had to do is just ask, what, ten girls out? He’s a little heavy, but he’s not ugly or anything. Got a fine personality.

This all happened like seven years ago and I don’t think he’s had a girlfriend since. Because “Hi, I want to go out with you, can I call you?” is apparently a more frightful prospect than self-abuse for a decade or whatever….

cardio vs. muscle

I just realized, it’s been a long time since a porn post.

Huh.

It’s not like I’ve been skipping them intentionally… maybe I’ve just been too busy, between… oh. Yeah. I’ve been working on the private posts instead. Yeah, I guess the porn posts are going the way of the dodo… the private posts are much more rewarding. Which I’m sure will disappoint all those who show up (or so wordpress’s stats tell me) looking for links. And general readers, since the private posts are, well, private.

I’m also wondering if the endorphin addiction has just gotten to the junkie stage–the wife doesn’t have it yet this week–but I’m constantly craving exercise. It’s like cardio isn’t enough because it doesn’t provide enough movement. Thank goodness tonight’s yoga and weights. It’s bad enough I’m excited about the new equipment I get to use at the gym. I haven’t been to this stage in years… like eight of them. It’s relatively bitchin’.

It’s like I’ve been in a funk since writing. It’s a fine enough response… but it’s… eh. (I’m not talking about the private post for the m1–that was fantastic and possibly the most emotionally draining writing experience I’ve ever had… I’m worried it got my thyroid on hyperdrive, ramping up my metabolism and exhausting me). It’s just an okay 573 words. It’s got me thinking of how to edit–right now I print a copy of the response and go through quickly… since there aren’t weekends off, it’s hard to figure when to do a more involved edit–and what to do in a more involved edit. I think I just got overthinking before I was writing–work IS NOT an acceptable writing place, simply because it doesn’t allow me to give the word cloud enough consideration before responding to it. It’s a shitty day, comparatively, but the whole point of separately this thing into 573 was one part could be shitty and get fixed later. I’m sure there are going to be other shitty writing sessions between now and Oct 22, 2010. It just feels lousy. Fucking constraints, this is why I hate writing with constraints, it means you have to keep with them, even when they don’t work.

Apparently, either my ass…

Apparently, either M1 didn’t see my ass–it was shown, which doesn’t neccesarily mean she saw it (I actually have no problem being lucid on this, it’s just fun to play with the forms of to show)–or she liked my ass.

As it was shown, via the internet.

If she did see it… I hope the internet version looks as good as the real one (I don’t go to the gym to work on my calves).

There’s also the concern this post is incredibly confusing and implying I’m posting pictures of my CG-ass on the internet for, well, 1 m1 to see… but it’s actually a follow-up to a previous post. A sequel, as it were, if posts can have sequels, which I don’t think they can, since a blog is sort of a serialized memoir–or this one is–they’re serialized something regardless. And I don’t think, until the serial ends, you can have a sequel to it. Like those old Flash Gordon serials… once all the episodes were done (twelve a piece I think) you then did a follow-up… except a blog isn’t really supposed to be finite.

But whatever. I’m glad she didn’t dislike my ass showing if she got to see it and whatever… I’m done with the forms of to show. I was thinking it would have sounded better in French, but montrear isn’t all that great a word either….

so ol’ girl emailed me back

So ol’ girl emailed me back

and yes, her husband did find the phone call as awkward as I did.

We’ll see how this goes. It’ll be nice to email “talk” to another Mickey Rourke fan, assuming she emails more than my douchebag best friend.

my douchebag best friend

I understand–kind of–why my friend was avoiding the call. We don’t talk on the phone much, emails can go weeks before they get replies, unless it’s a subject line: “Alive?” email, which usually gets answered in a day (we set up a death or injury system back when a friend of mine died in a car accident and I didn’t find out for a week).

So the phone’s got to be bad. Dead mothers, molested sisters, d-i-v-o-r-c-e-s.

But a yippee phone call?

Those don’t happen. I don’t think there’s ever been a yippee phone call, not at least since we were fifteen or something.

It doesn’t help my friend’s the speed dial for a lot of other people’s bad news calls. I’ve seen him get the calls (someone’s wife, for instance, left with the kid) and it visibily knocks him back. It should have occurred to me my drunken voicemails were going to come off as bad news.

It isn’t actually all good news, not for me–I have to explain an “experimental,” he’ll call it, writing project to someone who hates “experimental” writing. He probably doesn’t hate “experimental” good writing, he just hasn’t read enough of it. It’s funny how different grad schools–I mean, he likes Robbe-Grillet’s The Erasers, which I’m sure he would have dismissed as “experimental” before he read it. Not to compare the Ulysses 573 project to The Erasers–I thought about it, an Erasers-like project, but having to figure the geometry of it is a little more than my math-allergic brain would allow.

So I’ve got to curb the explanation of the project a little. Emphasize the publishability of the project and how the end product isn’t neccesarily “experimental.”

Showing my ass on the internet

I’m kind of upset.

I just showed my ass–in the biggest way I remember showing my ass in a LONG time and via the internet to boot–and I can’t even find where the term came from (in the similar usage of revealing oneself in a manner one should not). I kind of remember a good actor babbling the line, was it a Mamet or Price script?

Regardless, I just showed my ass.

Yeah, that always turns out well. I think the reason one calls it showing his or her ass is because it’s not going to work out.

What movie was that from?

He’s drunk, babbling, “I just showed my ass out there.” Maybe even crying. What the hell movie is that? Shockingly, Google is no good for searching for “showing my ass.”

Regardless, better to show it now than later, I suppose….

Was it James Woods?

Nope, it’s Paul Newman. It’s the Color of Money. 

“That takes a real gift to show your ass like that.”

I feel a little better. If I’m going to take the hit for showing my ass, at least I’ll be doing it because I’m trying to act like Paul Newman.

now that was awkward….

Just left a message with ol’ girl’s husband.

How odd. Trying to figure what the dude had heard about me from the tone of his voice… probably nothing.

Figure I’ve put all the effort out, karmically, into the ether, on this one I need to.

It’s got to be the endorphins, but I feel great. Better than I’ve felt in years.

I feel like this:

Verse 1:
Yeah, said it’s all right
I won’t forget
All the times I’ve waited patiently for you
And you’ll do just what you choose to do
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

Verse 2:
Yeah, I heard a funny thing
Somebody said to me
You know that I could be in love with almost everyone
I think that people are
The greatest fun
And I will be alone again tonight my dear

In the Bottle Rocket context.

I don’t remember the last time I was as excited about a project as I am the new one.

The four year old movie site is getting the short end of the stick, but it never turned into a paying job and it was a lot of work and it’s just got to chill. I shot the load on the Crossing Guard. That’s a respectable finish. Did I mention it was taught in a college writing course? A good college, much better than the one I went to and can’t even afford to go to for my second master’s.

Home’s good. Made it through wife’s first day back after spring break (thought I needed a hazard helmet for that). Work’s good. I can write there. Only thing pissing me off is really the apartment plumbing’s new foghorn system….

Glad I found an occasional IM buddy in the Mac Aficionado.

Can’t even verbalize how I feel about finding M1–don’t have the vocabulary to do it. (The mix “tape” was for her… hoping she digs it. I’m listening to it right now. It fucking rocks).

I’m even thinking, depending on how the new project turns out… I might do the writing PhD. Shh, haven’t told the wife (only if I get an agent for the first novel first). I’d rather have someone else pay for my degree than take out more fucking loans.

Maybe it’s just because I nailed my weight work out today. I felt like Prince or something.

The last time I felt like Alone Again Or was my personal soundtrack, my life came crashing down. Awful time. Hope that doesn’t happen again.

And I think I’m going to actually work at getting some communication open with ol’ girl. It might be worthwhile.

the slave to love post

I’m hoping this post will have cathartic results, which might make to incredibly boring to any number of readers. I’m sure if you click on pornstars over on the right, there will be a lot of fine search results for you.

Last night I listened to Bryan Ferry’s Slave to Love (not prominently featured, but featured nonetheless, in 9 1/2 Weeks) for the first time in eight years. Seven years. Eight years.

I used to listen to it all the fucking time. Every Wednesday my sophmore year of undergrad, my friend and I went to this bar and got shitfaced for five or six hours. I actually don’t remember much about these evenings, except that we had them–and the one time we invited another friend along he spent our money on brandy, the prick–we kind of flirted with the Wendie Malick looking bartender (I almost hooked up with her later on until the prick’s fuck buddy cock-blocked me–bringing up the twenty year age difference… I mean, what the fuck, how’s that cool….), drank a lot–probably gins and tonic–and I played Slave to Love maybe three times a night.

I was harboring, afflicted by, suffering from–I was in love with someone who didn’t love me back. 

But anyway, I’d play Slave to Love maybe three times a night on the jukebox. Ol’ girl loved 9 1/2 Weeks, loved the song. What the fuck, I was a drunken moron. I’m sure my friend had a great time.

After the breaking–which, unfortunately, is punctuated with a visit to the WTC bar, ruining my life-long positive feeling about the Twin Towers–I tried playing the song again. Nope. I was done with that business.

Last night, I didn’t just start listening to Slave to Love again, I even emailed ol’ girl. It’s been eight years… she’s a Mickey Rourke fan, maybe the only other one who can fully appreciate the Wrestler comeback, so I figured what the fuck. Emailed her.

Why am I being a grown-up? Wait, I’m not being a grown-up. I’m turning the other cheek or something, aren’t I? What am I doing–it’s the cheek thing.

Why am I listening to Slave to Love all the time again?

I think it’d be fun to slow dance to with M1. I’d definitely need to brush up on my dancing… the last time I danced was with ol’ girl at a mutual friend’s wedding and I was so exceptionally drunk I’m shocked I didn’t get us killed driving home.

Off to do the laundry. Boo!

Tomcat in Love by Tim O’Brien

I don’t know why I’m thinking about Tim O’Brien’s novel (probably what’ll be his last good novel), Tomcat in Love.

While it’s still about Vietnam, it’s a comedy about this professor who’s life is in shambles, partially due to the revelation he keeps a journal of every female encounter he has (nothing lavicious, just women he passes on the street). I guess it got terrible reviews from scholarly readers–one of my professors savaged it (but she liked my novel, which basically features a far less likable, far more manipulating, but similar, character).

It’s a fun novel, from the late-1990s, when footnotes were still relatively new in modern literature and came without any pretense.

I haven’t read it in nine years I guess, so maybe it is a piece of shit (post-grad school), but I doubt it. I’m pretty sure the professor in question didn’t like Kurt Vonnegut either.

I’m thinking about starting writing again in April (just like I meant to in January, February and March) and I’m thinking about doing a comedy, one I don’t have to research (which puts the World War I absurdist comedy epic on hold once again) because I’m lazy.

I’ll probably not do it… but I am supposed to present some writing to a friend’s undergrad class in a couple months and it’d be nice to have some writing newer than three years ago.

… I wonder if that post I wrote for M1 would work… I’m thinking no… but it’d be hilarious to present it as a first person, future tense piece.

(and now I remember to email my friend back about her party this weekend… see, stream of thought posts do work out)

I’m sorry for harping on about it, but it occurred to me I’ve never made a list of the people my wife’s told about my pecker size.
Let’s see…
Her sister, her mother, her childhood friend. Her mother’s boyfriend. I’m hoping not her grandmother… but her uncle’s possible.
Both of her closet friends now.
Her OB/GYN.
Probably the last couple OB/GYNs.
My mother.
Coworker2.
At least one of our under grad friends.
At least one of my grad school friends–who proceeded to tell our freaking professor about it.

I think the OB/GYN today was the most mortified I’ve been, probably because I was there.

It seems like there have to be more people. Like ones on the street she just called it out to… I should get her a laminated picture to carry around.