Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence?
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| High Concept Am I blogging...or am I pitching my existence? |
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Tuesday, April 29, 2003 Listings: April 28 - May 4, 2003 (Writers Almanac) Listings: April 28 - May 4, 2003 (Writers Almanac)It's the birthday of poet Yusef Komunyakaa, born James Willie Brown Jr. in Bogalusa, Louisiana (1947). He won the Pulitzer Prize for his collection Neon Vernacular (1993) and he is considered by many critics to be one of the most important African-American poets writing today.I know I've pointed to this site before and said pretty much the exact same thing, but it blows my tiny little mind that Yusef Komunyakaa (I could've sworn that last name had an 'e' in it), Jerry Seinfeld and Emperor Hirohito have the same birthday. Just blows me away. posted by Jeff | 10:40 PM | The Onion | Ashcroft Rejected By Newly Created Bride Of Ashcroft The Onion | Ashcroft Rejected By Newly Created Bride Of Ashcroft Attorney General John Ashcroft's quest for a companion to ease the pain of his lonely and tormented existence was dealt a severe blow Monday, when he was rejected by the newly created "Bride Of Ashcroft." posted by Jeff | 5:42 PM |Normally, Neal Pollack kinda bugs me, but how brilliant is this? Neal Pollack's The Maelstrom There's been much talk lately in circles where talk occurs about a young writer named James Frey. I'm tired of him already. Every five weeks or so a punk comes along and tries to cock-block my mantle when he knows full well that I am the greatest writer of my generation or any generation and that no one better captures the anguish of contemporary American male identity better than I do. You wanna fuck with my shit, Frey guy? I don't think so. Because I really don't give a flying anal gland about Danny Eggleston or Jonathan Safran Fuckface or David Foster Walrus. Not only do I not hang out with them, but I don't hang out at all. With anyone. No living being is worth my company except for my dogs, and only then because I like to fuck them. Oh, yes, I love fucking my dogs, and then I go to a boxing gym because I love beating up black people and then I fuck my dogs some more. So if you want to fight me, James Frey, then bring it on, because my fists are cast-iron and my screen saver reads "BRING IT YOU BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKER BRING IT!" and my tattoo reads "SUCK MY COCK YOU WHORE." But it's not on my left arm. It's on my cock. Suck my cock tattoo that says suck my cock, James Frey, you whore. posted by Jeff | 5:41 PM | The Pitch: It's like The Transporter meets Memento! Continuing this staying home sick and watching bad movies. Although I haven't moved a lot today, I do think the stomach feels better. We'll see how things turn out when I actually get up and get outside for a bit, but right now I'm just appalled--apalled, I tell you--about what the producers of The Transporter are trying to put over on us.The Transporter is probably the best of the "Kung-Fu vs. Eurotrash" movies that Luc Besson's put out recently. Jason Statham plays a driver in the South of France that makes his money running packages, and finds himself in trouble when he disobeys his own rules and peeks in one. Directed by one of my favorite HK directors (Corey Yuen), The Transporter works largely because all the pieces (English star, French location, Chinese hottie) which shouldn't work together, do, and because the Yuen's knowledge of fight scenes and Statham's willingness to rub oil all over himself and kick ass shirtless with bike pedals on his feet makes for an entertaining flick. Entertaining enough I decided to rent it even though I was one of the seven people who saw it in the theaters (on Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2002 in Auditorium 4--I just found the ticket stub on my bookshelf). However... About thirty-five minutes into the movie when I sat up and said, "Wait! Where's the scene where he deflects the missle with serving tray?" At one point, Statham's lovely villa is attacked by thugs who have nine million rounds of ammunition and a rocket launcher. As I recall, the first rocket collapses the roof and almost kills Statham and cutie Qi Shu; the second rocket goes through the front door, Statham deflects it with a serving tray, giving them enough time to get to the dumbwaiter, drop to the basement and escape through the secret hatch as the final missle takes out the whole house. Well, that's how I remember it, but on the DVD, the second missle flies in, Statham pulls Qu Shi to the dumbwaiter, the kitchen explodes, they drop to the basement and escape just as the final missle takes out the house. I checked out the scene on both widescreen and pan-n-scan versions and it's the same. And yet, just to make sure I wasn't crazy, I watched the theatrical trailer and, sure enough, there's Statham hitting the missle with the serving tray. Now, the scene of Statham using a service tray to deflect a missle is absurd. That's what makes it great. Also, part of what makes it great is, in the universe of The Transporter, it's not impossible. I read somewhere that rockets in rocket launchers are usually set to explode with timers, not through impact, to avoid guys loading them from blowing themselves to bits. If someone was fast enough and strong enough, you know, they could do the absurd and bat that rocket off to one side. Statham mentions it in the commentary ("There was a piece where we actually deflected that missle with a tray. [Chuckles] Well, I think it was just a huge stretch of the imagination to make that work. Looked cool, though.") and yet it's not mentioned that it was in the American theatrical release (nor is it any less of a stretch of the imagination when they show the footage, just a second later, of Statham and Qu Shi getting hit with the fireball before they can dive into the water (several stuntpeople were seriously injured by the flames when the stunt didn't go right, but they kept the footage in). Don't you think they should have a warning on the box or something like that? "Altered from its original theatrical release?" Hell, couldn't they have restored it and blurbed it with the other bullshit "extended fight scenes" packed into the additional footage (scenes of people being shot and stabbed were cut to avoid an "R" rating (or worse--there's a disclaimer before each saying they're not suitable for viewers under 18!)). Oh, the movie is goofy enough, and I enjoyed it all the way through, but there's something creepy about the way history has been re-written by the producers of The Transporter--and it makes me wonder how often it happens. posted by Jeff | 1:31 PM | Monday, April 28, 2003 The Pitch: It's like The Last Seduction meets The Double Life of Veronique! Yep, that's pretty much the actual pitch for Femme Fatale, which I finished watching. And I thought it bugged me before....On the plus side, I managed to finish Splinter Cell and it went from wayyyy too hard to wayyyy too easy. All the roommates were there at the end and they all basically said, "That's it?" I may try to replay some levels....maybe. But overall, I'm just glad it's done and out of the way. If I'm smart, I won't jump right back to Tenchu... Oh, and I called in sick for tomorrow because the stomach is still bugging me. I hate missing so much work, but I don't really want to give whatever I've got to my co-workers either. Fortunately, I've got Middlesex to finish...and a few more DVDs to watch... posted by Jeff | 10:07 PM | The Pitch: It's like The Graduate meets Howard The Duck! Foo. I'm at home, sick, today and this is the first time I've spent anything like quality time at the keyboard in about a week. That kind of bugs me. My stomach kind of bugs me. Splinter Cell is really fuckin' bugging me as it's turning into one big killfest at the end, and I'm the one getting killed. Brian DePalma's Femme Fatale is bugging me and I'm not even halfway through. The sky is bugging me, gray, gray, gray, and not any form of positive reinforcement for trying to go to work tomorrow (the two times I stepped out of the house, it started to rain each time). The stash records function of emusic is bugging me. The ambient works on this tribute album to Brian Eno aren't bugging me, but all the techno and rock tracks are.At the moment, this entry is kind of bugging me, and probably you. So, more later. posted by Jeff | 6:56 PM | Tuesday, April 22, 2003 Quake scientists predict Big One likely by 2032 / Bay Area fault study estimates 62% chance of deadly 6.7 temblorIn the most detailed investigation ever made of earthquake hazards throughout the Bay Area, scientists warned Monday that at least one severely damaging and deadly quake is very likely here within less than 30 years. That warning came amid new scientific estimates of the danger levels along the region's hazardous seismic faults. posted by Jeff | 8:19 AM | Monday, April 21, 2003 Good Jim and Bad Jim and Mostly Lucky Jim "That's my favorite hand — my wife's birthday is March 1st, so I always play A-3 suited, and I play it very aggressively," he explained, adding that he also liked 8-9 of hearts, because their first date was in 1989 and their first child was born in 1998. "Game theory says the good hands come along so rarely, you have to have bluffing hands. Mine are emotional and romantic." "Luck is determining to an enormous extent who's going to do well in a poker game," he added, "so voodoo doesn't make any less sense than any other method." And it works. During the 2000 World Series of Poker, Mr. McManus turned his beloved 8-9 of hearts into two pair and a $78,500 pot, keeping himself afloat at a crucial moment to land one of the 45 seats that come with prize money. Having gone to Las Vegas to write an article about that year's tournament for Harper's Magazine, Mr. McManus used his $4,000 expense-account advance to enter on a lark and ended up coming in fifth. posted by Jeff | 5:26 PM | Eureka Times-Standard ARCATA -- In what some are calling the city's act of civil disobedience, the City Council introduced an ordinance Wednesday that opposes the USA Patriot Act and related laws while attempting to uphold the U.S. Constitution. The law states that no city management employee will allow unlawful detentions or profiling based on race, ethnicity, national origin, political or religious affiliation, gender or sexual preference. "No city management employee shall officially assist or voluntarily cooperate with investigations, interrogations, or arrest procedures, public or clandestine, that are in violation of individual's civil rights or civil liberties as specified in the Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." posted by Jeff | 1:01 PM | salon :: :: movies :: review :: "Scream 3", By Andrew O'Hehir :: Page 2 Scream 3," by the way, is a fine example of what I call the Hamlet principle -- the longer any movie or play goes on, the closer it comes to becoming "Hamlet." posted by Jeff | 12:54 PM | Salon.com Technology | The Napster backlash posted by Jeff | 11:24 AM | Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Evel Knievel signs over rights for rock opera Former professional daredevil Evel Knievel has signed over exclusive rights to allow the production of "Evel Knievel: the Rock Opera." Jef Bek, a musical director and composer with the small Los Angeles theater company Zoo District, recently flew to Clearwater, Fla., to gain Knievel's blessings after working for two years on the project. posted by Jeff | 11:22 AM | The Pitch: It's like Planes, Trains & Automobiles meets Orange County! Very much a "didn't, did, didn't" morning. I woke up three minutes before my alarm, still totally tired, performed some calculations in my head, set the alarm to go off in another twenty-five minutes, rolled over to go back to sleep. But, a minute later, a strong wind came up, shaking the house for just a second, and then a strong rain began to fall, and I got up, simply because of the beauty of that sound. But I still ran a little late, didn't bother with possible arch-enemy the 6:21 bus, and instead grabbed a Mission Express sometime around 6:40.The Mission Express bus turns almost immediately off Mission and then gets on the highway and I love it because it allows me to do what I can never do when I'm driving--look at the scenery. If you love dewy morning landscapes populated by junkyards, sandbags and old tires, this is the bus to catch. I know I was worrying all the people sitting because I kept leaning toward them so I could see out the window: fresh grass split grafitti tags at their base; junked muni buses crouch like scarred prowling toms, pale green waterways lying amphoteric and still. It made me think, fortunately enough, of Grand Theft Auto 3 and Grand Theft Auto Vice City, where aesthetics is as powerful a reward as money, and missions frequently get abandoned so one can see what the view is like at the edge of the harbor. As much as I wanted to drive out, right then, to the very edge of China Basin and see the sunrise, I knew I wouldn't--time, effort and institutionalized racism being what they are ("What if my car broke down?" I found myself thinking. "What would I do then?"). But it was far more likely I would at some point, throw the GTA3 in the console and zip around again, watching a sunrise at the water's edge until I got bored, then setting my own car on fire to watch it explode. Which in its way (GTA3, I'm talking here) is some satisfying surreal re-creation of childhood (I use surreal in that specific sense of re-creation: a wheel is a surreal leg, etc.), where I remember standing by the side of the creek, watching only how the light played on the water, and trying to figure if the music of the creek changed as a result, and then turning my mind to the complete opposite of such peace--ripping off huge patches of bark, tossing them noisily into the water and then trying to sink them with stones before they could float away. At the moment, video games are most satisfying to me when they link discreetly with childhood in this way. What's Splinter Cell or Tenchu but extended versions of Hide and Seek or Red Devil that we used to play in our backyard? What's GTA3 but childhood itself, the struggle between doing chores and keeping oneself amused with psychopathic acts? Shigeru Miyamoto has mentioned how his childhood exploration of woods and caves are the major influence on the Mario games (and probably the Zelda games as well, I would imagine). What I'm wondering about these days is how video games might be too successful. At one point, Hayao Miyazaki, the animator, announced his retirement from making movies because he felt children were watching his movies over and over again instead of being inspired by his movies to go outside and explore the world around them. I'm too old now to go out and play Red Devil in my neighborhood, but maybe I could be spending more time outdoors instead of sitting in the dark, virtually skulking. This is what I'm writing about, these days, to various degrees of (which is to say, little) success: young men and their boxes, in living rooms with curtains pinned shut, extending their childhoods artificially, and learning, maybe, the lengths to which their games and their dreams have anything to do with each other. posted by Jeff | 9:43 AM | Tom Bissell/New Pioneers of the American Short Story Indeed, one of the most interesting movements in contemporary American fiction is this absurdo-realism practiced by writers such as David Foster Wallace, Lorrie Moore, and George Saunders. Absurdo-realism has come to us almost exclusively through the conduit of the short story, something for which we should be thankful, especially when so much contemporary short fiction comes off as free throws dutifully shot in anticipation of the five-on-five intensity required to write longer work. Speaking of Wallace, is it now safe to say that, among writers of a certain age and inclination, he is the single most influential writer currently working? With the 1,000-page shadow of Infinite Jest looming over his career, it is sometimes forgotten that nearly half of his books are short-story collections (including his upcoming volume). The self-consciousness, the footnotes (which Wallace might now choose to leave to his disciples), the staggeringly sharp eye and the remarkable ability to write for pages and pages only of detail—all are part of the way many of us write and think about writing now.posted by Jeff | 9:23 AM | Saturday, April 19, 2003 The Pitch: It's Like Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory meets High Fidelity! Yeah, I feel like quite the music equivalent of Augustus Gloop around now. I have, currently, 150 albums stashed on emusic, which means I've marked them for downloading. As for the albums I've actually downloaded...fortunately, that number is a lot less as I've wanted to listen to the things I've downloaded first. But like any good American capitalist, I'm finding myself enjoying the shopping tremendously, and it's hard not to get online when I think of a new artist I want to search for (for example, while typing this very sentence I wanted to see if they had any Elvis Costello (I wasn't betting they didn't but just in case) and then ended up on Donnacha Costello, whose name I remembered from this click-hop compilation I got about a year back at Streetlight, and now I've got another two albums tucked away in the stash.I could bore you with what I have stashed away there, but I'd rather bore you with how I can't remember what albums I've already downloaded. There was Volume I of the Spaghetti Western Series; there was the Princess Superstar album; um, my first reggae dub album I downloaded because I was jonesing for Dub (a weird out of the blue type of jones, the sort of thing that would make me suspect, I dunno, psychic pregnancy or something); Czech vocalist Iva Bittova (whose husband's album I have in the queue); Planet of the Wolves by Guitar Wolf (I tried listening to it once at precisely the wrong time); You Are Free by Cat Power; Dinosaur Jr.'s In Session (which I liked a lot of, and loved Keeblin); oh, and Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights; Robyn Hitchcock's Live at the Cambridge Folk Festival; and Yo La Tengo's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out--those last three, as I recall, being the ones I used as incentive to join, albums that I would have roughly as much money on as I did for the three month subscription. And you can probably understand why I'm holding off on downloading those 150--out of the ten albums listed above, I've listened to five of them and only two of them with any passion. I am passionate about stashing though--more Czech albums, classic jazz (there are only three albums by Earl Hines, but there's huge amounts of Cab Calloway, Fats Waller and Bix Biederlecke), soundtrack albums (mainly Godzilla), indie pop (Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Dashboard Confessional, Built to Spill), ska, some classical, Bosnian garage rock--and I'm sort of wondering on what kind of schedule (if any) I will take to downloading all these albums. If it wasn't for messages on the message board making it sound like some albums have disappeared, maybe I wouldn't download any of them. Just go to my stash page and look at the little jpegs of their covers, and have fun imagining what they sound like, and knowing I can listen to them whenever I want... I'm still trying to figure out if that idea is kind of a healthy idea or just incredibly super-unhealthy. I'm still trying to figure it out. posted by Jeff | 7:48 PM | The Pitch: Man, there are times I'd sooner shoot myself than try to come up with a pitch! Depending on how you look at it, I either had an underachieving lunch or an overachieving lunch. On the underachieving side, I didn't do any writing, merely sat out in the sun (when I could) and read Eugenides' Middlesex. That was it.On the overachieving side, I ate lunch. Twice. Cherry went to Shalimar on her lunch and brought back garlic naan and palak paneer for me. It was a little pricey (nine dollars for just the two items) but they were good: lots of fresh spices in the palak paneer and the garlic naan, although only one medium-sized disk could be pulled open to show a lumpy quilt of chopped garlic. Then, after I was through with that, I went to lunch. I don't think I've covered here the slightly unhealthy co-dependent relationship I've established with my regular lunch place, but let's say I would have felt like I was cheating if I hadn't eaten there. And the idea was to order the salmon box, eat a minimum and either toss the rest or keep it for a late afternoon snack. Sadly, I was reading and it was sunny...dear reader, I have no excuse...I ate lunch twice, and there's an ambitious dinner on the table when I get home tonight...something about Christ's hopscotch from martyr to religious saviour made me weak on this day...I don't know what to tell you. Except I ate lunch twice, and now I'm basically twice as sleepy, twice as lazy, twice as bleary. Otherwise, I'd quote at length from the Shalimar Times, the take-out menu disguised as newspaper that Cherry brought with the meal. My favorite headline is "Just say 'no' to some popular ways of spending an evening. Visit Shalimar instead at anyone one of the four (4) locations." The above-listed sloth prohibits me from trying to parse the subtext there. posted by Jeff | 3:42 PM | Friday, April 18, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Clerks meets Sleeper! Which is just a fancy way of saying I'm super-damn tired. Edi's in the kitchen making a light salad for dinner so I thought I would pop in and say "hey." I was supposed to spend this week writing the CE newsletter which, normally, is a two day marathon in which I turn out somewhere between seven and eight thousand words. But since my humor column got bumped from last issue, all I had to do was about five thou on the new comics coming out in July. So it shoulda been a cakewalk. But instead:Curse you, Splinter Cell! Curse you!! And then work was super-boring, and my feet hurt which is the first time in a while. And I should be cuddling Edi, or at least offering to, I don't know, shake the vinegar or something. But I thought I'd duck in and say, "hey." My hope is work tomorrow will be pretty low-key because of Easter and Passover and stuff. But it could end up being that all the Easter people who would otherwise come in on Sunday will be in tomorrow, or the Passover people, now that they've gotten a chance to eat, will actually have enough energy to do everything they should have done last week. But maybe I'll catch a break. Right now, I'm going to go kiss the back of my gorgeous girlfriend's neck and try to stay awake until we decide to get into bed and read. May not sound like much to you, but I still find it astoundingly amazingly great. Yay. posted by Jeff | 8:48 PM | Thursday, April 17, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade meets Jingle All The Way! So, anyway, I had a momentous event today--I came across the last two Don Delillo novels I need to complete my collection. Well, more or less: I haven't bothered with The Body Artist or Cosmopolis which should be readily available for some time. But, man, the early stuff! I hadn't even seen a copy of Americana before today. Likewise, The Names. And there they both were at Dog-Eared Books, used (which here in San Francisco, generally means you're paying close to cover price. The Names was issued at $7.95. This dog-eared battered paperback is now, fourteen years after it was issued, $7.00. Woot!). All I had to do was buy them both and I'd be set. Game, set and match. No need to walk into bookstores anymore.The Delillo obsession had been nice, precisely because I had so few copies of his work, and he had written so much. And, apart from the ubiquitous Underworld, there was no guarantee walking into a bookstore they'd have anything else. So I was more than happy to pay nine dollars for a used copy of the End Zone re-release five months ago (and somehow both chagrined and ecstatic to pay three dollars for an earlier edition in Berkeley four months later). It was a nice little hunt, and kept me focussed when I went into a bookstore which is important--if I don't have some idea of what I want when I walk into a bookstore, I either overspend or become dithering and morose, unable to leave and yet somehow nauseated by the over-stimulation of so many bookstores. (Indeed, when leaving the third "bookstore"--I have to use the term in quotes because it was one of those shopfronts rented out with tables of remaindered books sorted and heavily discounted on foldout tables (and, indeed, there were two Delillo books there--the large print edition of "The Body Thief" and a small, almost devotionary, hardcover of Pafko at the Wall)--I realized as I got in my car that writing a book seemed to me, like hope, a tacit admission of despair). And so today I only bought The Names, and left Americana for another time--something sort of satisfying in that, the idea that Delillo's first novel will be the last one I buy. And besides, I did end up spending too much at Dog Eared Books. They had a remaindered copy of Sarah by JT Leroy, and also this book, which I really shouldn't have bought new but I did, because it's research. No, really. Although like so many Taschen books, it seems to consciously resist being genuinely useful and stubbornly insist on being a beautiful fetish object only. It and The Names must have felt strange sharing the bag. posted by Jeff | 7:41 PM | The Pitch: It's Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde meets Brewster's Millions! God, have I used either of those movies before? I think I totally suck when it comes to pitching movies about crap that doesn't happy around (a) work, or (b) finances. Of course, I think part of it is Hollywood just does not make a lot of movies that really look at (a) work, or (b) finances. posted by Jeff | 6:59 PM |Wednesday, April 16, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Dracula meets Freaky Friday! I suck. I really, really suck.No, wait. I mean, Splinter Cell sucks. The life. Right out of me. Lord only knows how much time I spent playing that game in the last 24 hours (conservative estimate: seven hours). So, don't blame me, for not posting, and not writing, and not starting in on the newsletter. No, sir. It's not my fault. It's Splinter Cell's. Fortunately, my girlfriend has agreed to take me away from it, and go to sushi and a bollywood movie with me. Just one more reason why I'm one of the luckiest guys alive. posted by Jeff | 5:03 PM | Tuesday, April 15, 2003 health.com :: Tunnel of Love: Sex in an MRI Scanner Neither of the women in Faix's study reached orgasm. Both men ejaculated, but only after a long time, and one needed a dose of Viagra to stay erect. "It's really very difficult to have sexual intercourse in this kind of machine," Faix says. After over an hour in the cramped MRI scanning tunnel, it's no surprise the women didn't reach orgasm. "They were fed up," Faix says.From the wonderful world of Metafilter, of course.... posted by Jeff | 10:28 AM | Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | TV's boldest news show Political humor used to belong to the left, but that all changed in the 1990s, when the priggishness of political correctitude injected new vitality into a segment of the population that had been shut out of comedy's pantheon: assholes. Suddenly, a guy could flaunt his most petty and vindictive prejudices and still get to feel like a champion of truth and freedom. You could rail against "victimology" when, say, sexually harassed workers dared to resort to it, and then turn around and avail yourself of the same trend by claiming that a pack of censorious puritans was trying to shut you up. In fact, the appeal of shock jocks and other bad boys mostly lies in the idea that they're offensive to somebody else, someone you can imagine gasping in horror at each transgression. Without political correctness (and that's fading fast), a big chunk of what passes for contemporary American humor would be flapping in the wind. posted by Jeff | 8:40 AM | East Bay Express | eastbayexpress.com | Film : Movies The French Conniption,Neil Jordan and Nick Nolte pull off a twitchy Gallic heist.,By Gregory Weinkauf Imagine a large, dead Saint Bernard with its bones removed. Then visualize a hefty bellows inserted into it from behind, with a gorilla hopping up and down on it, causing the huge dog's baglike corpse to twitch spasmodically, wheeze, and croak. Voilá, this is today's Nick Nolte.posted by Jeff | 8:36 AM | The Pitch: It's like Waiting for Godot meets The Flinstones! I may have learned something about why my commute sucks. This morning, I cheerily walked down to the bus stop and waited for the 6:21 bus to show. By 6:38, I hopped a commuter express, fuming.I realize that all of my bitching about the 6:40 bus was predicated on the fact that it would either be on-time or very late--I'm starting to think that's because the 6:21 bus is either (roughly) on-time or entirely absent. And the 6:40's tardiness has to do with loading up twice as many passengers on some mornings as others. It could have been worse--it was a pleasant morning and I was quite enjoying Middlesex--but it was also kind of infuriating. Until I can figure out a way to get a dependable commute in, the whole getting up before dawn thing is basically a farce. And not the enjoyable, doors slamming and people leaping under beds kind, either. Grrr. posted by Jeff | 8:32 AM | Monday, April 14, 2003 Justin Timberlake's diva demands; the Crowe's fried-chicken honeymoon; an Osbourne fight Hollywood heartthrob Freddie Prinze Jr. plans to stop acting eventually -- to pursue a writing career.This is a great quote from a guy whose last role was Fred in Scooby-Doo... posted by Jeff | 3:10 PM | Top 100 Bay Area RestaurantsI was really interested to see how few of the restaurants I like and go to cracked this list. Frankly, I kind of heaved a sigh of relief--one more year where there aren't crazy-stupid crowds... posted by Jeff | 3:04 PM | Eliot, T. S. 1922. The Waste Land Unreal CityMentioned in Middlesex (by one Mr. G. Eugenides) but I didn't quite believe it. The Waste Land is one of those weird magical looking-glasses that somehow manages to contain everything inside it... posted by Jeff | 10:31 AM | Yahoo! News - Lawsuit Says Rapper Killed to Hone 'Gangsta' Image Antron Singleton, a rapper who goes by the stage name "Big Lurch," faces murder and torture charges after police found him staggering naked and covered in blood on a southeast Los Angeles street April 10, 2002.Guess there's not really anything to say about this other than "Ewwww....." Oh, and Suge Knight is the devil, but we all knew that. posted by Jeff | 10:13 AM | Yahoo! News - Masked Wrestler Wins Japan Assembly Seat A professional wrestler who fought his way to victory in local assembly elections under his ring name and wearing his trademark mask has vowed the mask will not leave his face even after he enters the staid halls of Japanese politics.See, I think this is supercool. A masked wrestler politician is cool in a way Jesse Ventura isn't, dammit... posted by Jeff | 10:11 AM | The Pitch: It's like Moonraker meets Driving Miss Daisy! Odd. This morning, at Glen Park, at the second bench from the downhill escalators was a copy of Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion in paperback with a torn slip of grey paper on top on which someone had written, in pencil, "Free!" There was nobody around when I came across this.I thought for a moment about taking the book, even though I already owned a copy and had, in fact, read it back in November. I could take this copy and lend it to somebody who I thought would enjoy it, or give it as a gift outright. Or I could trade it in for money at Green Apple. But it seemed somehow contrary to the spirit of the enterprise--the idea seemed, barring poisoned pages, or spring-loaded tranquilizer darts, to pass along a book for someone else to come across. Surely whoever had owned the book could have, if they wished, given it to somebody they knew. Unless they thought it was awful--in which case, they could have sold it. (And besides, Strong Motion wasn't awful. I had thought it a good novel--younger, sprier and more ambitious, in a way, than The Corrections because Strong Motion tried to be a sharply observed social novel with a satisfying beach-read overlay--evil plots and true love and like that. The Corrections is, however, for this very reason, a stronger novel because it stays truer to the social observation and moves deeper into its tone of mean-mouthed exorcism). I dug in my pockets looking for a pen so I could write, below the pale "Free!" something like "Good book!" While I did so, I imagined Jonathan Franzen crouched behind a pillar nearby, peeking around to see who would take it. I didn't have a pen, and continued to dig in my pockets, circling the perfectly positioned book, the perfectly positioned scrap. I wanted to crouch behind a pillar, too. I wanted to see who would take it. More people came down the escalator, crossed in front of the bench and I watched carefully. An African-American man in his forties, with a thick mustache and a gathering of skin tags camped on his left cheek, walked by, looked over, hesitated, then kept walking. A few more people passed, some not even looking down. Then a man in his mid-40's came. He looked a little like Harry Dean Stanton or Dan Hedaya--same hairline, same wolfishness to his features--and he looked at the book, looked around, then sat next to it. What interested me was the way he focused more on the paper than the book. He flipped it over and back quickly. He looked around again. His fingers pushed the grey paper quickly over the cover of the book, playing with it. Again, he looked around and then, cautiously, he took color advertising supplements from the Sunday paper out of his coat pocket and put them quite neatly over the book, hiding it. This bothered me for reasons I still can't quite understand. I assumed it was just petulance on his part: he didn't want anyone to see the book until he decided whether he really wanted it or not. But then the BART came, and he carefully picked up his advertising supplements with the book hidden from sight underneath them and I think this bothered me more. He was taking the book secretly, in the manner opposite in which it was given, and it didn't bode well for Strong Motion's future. But then I lost sight of him as I got on and tried to find a seat, and soon I was safely lost in my own book, and the whole thing was behind me, observed but beyond understanding and so, in its casual way, unseen. posted by Jeff | 9:58 AM | Sunday, April 13, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Top Gun meets Cabaret (meets Kuffs)! So, this dream I had last night. I was with Patrick on a hill overlooking an air force base, watching the soldiers come home from the war. As I look through binoculars, I can see maintenance guys hosing off fighter jets in the warm yellow sunshine of the afternoon. As I watch, a tan shirtless marine takes his girlfriend, lies with her on his surfboard and they ride the runoff down the side of the hill. They're both laughing, and it's a heartwarming thing to watch, but I can't help but wonder about the all the chemicals, jet fuel and such, in the runoff and how it might affect them later.Patrick, tired of waiting for his turn with the binoculars turns to the side of the hill and watches soldiers and their girlfriends walk off on leave. One of the girls yells over her shoulder to another departing group: "Stop acting so intransigent!" Patrick looks over the hill, puts his hands to his lips and hollers, "I always said I'd marry a woman who could use 'intransigent' properly." "Don't get us in trouble," I say to him. "Don't worry about it," he says, and I'm glad he's changed. In the old days, he would have started a fight, although this is exactly the sort of thing he would do then. The next thing I know, we're in the large kitchen of a Victorian, drinking with a bunch of soldiers and their girlfriends. I look over and see Christian Slater with a group of friends, unhappily pouring himself a glass of Gin. Just as he's about to take a drink, I say, "Christian, wait." He looks over at me, angry and defensive and I say, "I don't mean to bother you. But i saw an article with you on tv last week where you were talking about how important sobriety is to you. If you want to, you can not drink, and we can go rent some videos down the street." He looks at me, defiantly but with a trace of vulnerabilty, then puts down the drink. "Okay," he says. "Sure." So now he, Patrick, several friends and I are all going downstairs to get videos. After several wrong turns looking for the restroom, I end up downstairs outside the front door. Christian Slater and his friends are already ahead of us, walking up the street, and Patrick turns to me, and says, "We should rent 'Jamboree.'" "Great idea! That's the perfect musical for a time like this. And I start singing the theme song to 'Jamboree'; "Life is a Jamboree, old chum/ so come to the---" and then I pause. "Wait a minute. That's the theme song to 'Cabaret.' How does the theme song to 'Jamboree' go?" And that's when I wake up, but not before remembering everything I know about Jamboree, which is the reason for this whole entry. Jamboree is a late-60s musical, in its way very much like Cabaret in terms of handling dark subject material and light musical numbers. In Jamboree, Robert Shaw is the leader of a New Orleans jazz band that specializes in jazz funerals. As he and his friends drink themselves to death, the band's extravagant New Orleans street numbers get dizzier and dizzier, brighter and brighter, more and more euphoric, even as more of them die in horrible, lonely ways. At the end, we see Shaw, on his last big bender, the centerpiece of a triumphant, ecstatic Mardi Gras parade, blowing his trumpet wildly, singing, dancing, and the camera closes in on him as he sweats and laughs, and gives it his showbiz all, and then the camera pulls back and we see him, alone, by himself, dancing and sweating and drunkenly singing, alone, down a lone country road to the graveyard. And I woke up, got up to pee, thinking about all this and thinking "How can there not be a musical called Jamboree with Robert Shaw as a drunken New Orleans band leader?" And now that it's 11:33 a.m. Sunday morning, awake and listening to the sounds of traffic on Edi's street, I still want to know. posted by Jeff | 11:32 AM | Saturday, April 12, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Backdraft meets Eat, Drink, Man Woman! Mmm, nothing like a day of tedious work to wipe away all surreality. Yesterday ran the gamut from low to high and back again, as I found myself shitting blood in the morning, having an acid trip on the beach in the afternoon, talking comic books at dusk, and calling my brother with disastrously bad news in the evening. From what I can conclude: I'm fine, Tim's stuff isn't, and, on Baker Beach, if the artfully fake protest dollars don't get to you, the transexuals wearing old lady bras and thongs, or the grinning naked man with the bobbling penis, will. Edi was wonderful through all of it, and kind enough to put up with almost any crazy request I had during the day, whether it was dim sum as a victory "Hooray, I'm not dying!" lunch, or grape nuts as a consolatory "Aww, what's the point?" dinner. (And yes, that's also my reason for not posting....)As for today, it's all been piles and piles of monkeywork--long, long tapes of people calling in wanting to know about one of our lawsuits. Hours of tapes, with most of the calls in Spanish and none of the word processors working today knowing any Spanish. I can feel the urge for a vacation returning, this only two months after my last one. I want to take a few days off and go to the NAZ 8 and watch The Hero and play Splinter Cell, and wish my brother had his stuff back. posted by Jeff | 5:42 PM | Friday, April 11, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Waiting for Godot meets Hamburger: The Motion Picture! Sorry I haven't been posting much. Wednesday was read a bajillion comics and review them day. Thursday was run errands and then get sucked into Splinter Cell day. (Naturally, the day I get a beloved new stealth game is the same day we get an old Dreamcast with a squajillion games. Everyone dutifully watched me play, then gleefully yanked out the PS2 so they could play Looney Tunes Racing.)But then I started to do my taxes. Dear God, my taxes are such a mess. I don't want to go into it at any great length, but let's just say last year I got burned by working two jobs and not having one of them put aside money for taxes. This year, I'm getting burned by having money at the second job be put aside, but having the second job's accountants be completely loons. Anyway, I'm at Edi's, and I'm going to go eat some waffles, so I'm sure it will all seem much better, even though I'm gonna be paying through the butt to the IRS this year.....again. posted by Jeff | 9:52 AM | Wednesday, April 09, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Maximum Overdrive meets The Taming of the Shrew! So I came home last night, exhausted as all get-out (oh, the ugly, ugly jobs I struggled with before I left work) and couldn't wait to go to bed. Too tired to write, to tired to do more than nod over the phone at the SGF, and then I went to bed and found myself sleepy and achey, my arms uncomfortable with any weight on them. Eventually, I slept, after running water on my wrists and popping two Advil Liquidcaps, but that was around midnight. I woke up, just like yesterday, at a few minutes after six, then went back to sleep. Then had to pull myself out of bed to go move the car for street cleaning (the meter maid was parked right in front of me--that was a pleasant thing to see).On the way, I realized that my neighborhood=the war. Because of street cleaning a lot of my neighbors had their cars up on the sidewalks, forcing me to walk in the street. It was a simple little visual reversal (cars on the sidewalk, pedestrian in the street) that shows the importance these damn things play in people's lives. Walking a third of the block to a corner, I counted four SUVs, two vans, two minivans and one truck. This sometimes happens when I'm on the highway. I'll look around and realize I'm the smallest car on the highway. Huge SUVs, with windows tinted (presumably to keep people from robbing all their high-end stereo equipment), shut me in on all sides. I remember one summer back in college, probably the last I stayed with my parents, I got to use my dad's small Toyota pick-up and I loved it. It's not like suddenly I was picking up used couches by the side of the highway or anything, but there were several times I did drive out to the beach and sat on the edge of the cab, watching the sun go down. And at times like those, I fantasized about having my own truck, with a typing table and a lawn chair in the back, and being able to drive anywhere and sit outside and write. It broke my heart a little bit when Dad bequeathed that truck to Chris. And now, at the times when I fantasize about owning a house, far away from all the people, I know part of the appeal (apart from a place where the dogs can run safe and free) is the need--yes, the god-given need!--for a small pick-up truck. Because with all these tinted SUVs and minivans rolling around an urban neighborhood, I think of Sadaam's Imperial Guard, I think of the drug dealers of Central America, I think of the thugs who run the world. And the thugs who need to sell them gas at the cheapest rates possible. posted by Jeff | 8:37 AM | Tuesday, April 08, 2003 CNN.com - The roots of a haunting song - Apr. 8, 2003 Joel Katz's film touches as well on Meeropol's link to another part of 20th-century American history: He and wife Anne adopted the sons of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg after the couple were executed in 1953 for espionage. posted by Jeff | 10:58 AM | The Pitch: It's like Sleeper meets Four Weddings and a Funeral! It's a good thing I've got a reasonably good internal clock, because I forgot to turn on my alarm last night. Consequently, I woke up at 5:00 a.m., which is the time I've been getting up these days. Unfortunately, because of Daylight Savings Time, this meant that it was 6:00 a.m. and I had twenty minutes to catch my bus. Yes, this was the morning I swore I'd catch the 6:21 bus, in the hopes that it'd be more timely than the 6:41.It's funny. It's not surprising that different times of day feel different, but what was surprising to me is how much different 6:20 felt from 6:40. Weirdly, there were more people waiting for the 52 at that time than there are later. The bus driver smiles more, the seats are colder. Nobody except me gets up before the bus has stopped at the BART station. Nobody except me runs across the intersection to beat the traffic--this compared to the two later busses, where I'm part of a small trotting flock that winds its way behind cars and trucks and then waits to sprint from the island to the sidewalk. The BART train is more full (probably because it's the 6:30 train, the first of three that arrives in the space of five minutes) but also quieter, like a nursery during nap time. Less people walk up the escalator, they let the machinery steadily lift them up. And, at the top of the escalator, a different morning: not as many panhandlers, no temp workers saddled with sample bags handing out breathmints or flavor strips, and the smell of Spring cranked up a notch--seeds and dew distilled to the morning air and expanding in the arriving heat of sunrise. It could have been much worse, but it probably would have been better if the alarm had gone off. posted by Jeff | 8:52 AM | Oakland cops defend use of force / But protesters, criminologist contend officers overreacted But an expert in use-of-force policies said Monday that the less-than- lethal weapons should be used as a last resort in the face of impending violence by demonstrators, such as arson, the use of Molotov cocktails or flipping cars over. posted by Jeff | 8:21 AM | Monday, April 07, 2003 Eugenides only got $7,500! For a fucking Pulitzer Prize! The book threw my back out trying to lift it tonight when it got home. Are the Pulitzers giving out the amount set in 1938 or something? That just seems wrong to me, considering all the slop money Hollywood throws around. posted by Jeff | 8:17 PM | Excerpt from a Don DeLillo Interview Don DeLillo BiographyQ: What are your working habits now?posted by Jeff | 8:12 PM | The Pitch: It's like The Virgin Suicides meets a Whole Pile of Money! When the Hell am I gonna read this book? (No, I don't mean Master of the Senate)I could start it tonight, you know. I just finished War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. I've been meaning to read Middlesex for literally months now--I just haven't had the wherewithal to sling its hardbound huge-assedness in my bag to and from work. But maybe it's time. Maybe this is the reason why Mark Costello's Big If was inexplicably not in the more literate of the two nearby junky super-chains I visited at lunch. (It was in the more trashy bookstore down on Embarc. 4, but I passed it up, sure in my belief it'd be closer to the office.) And didn't I say I was going to read Neal Stephenson? All I know is I've got nothing to read on my way home now--except the newly released Employee Policy Manual, which I haven't even thumbed through yet. (I have no doubt I'm probably breaking a dozen or more of its rules by writing and posting this.) Can I go home yet? posted by Jeff | 4:03 PM | As long as I'm beating myself up here, how come I didn't think of this? posted by Jeff | 3:43 PM | Man. Here I am, thinking I'm all cool and shit for throwing three or four links in my blog, and then I gotta go see read Nancy's blog. Do I feel like a lazy writer.... Which is kind of silly, really. I went to lunch and wrote another 500 words on top of the 600 I wrote this morning. So, really, I'm not a lazy writer. Just an inferior one... posted by Jeff | 3:24 PM | MIRAMAX REFUSES TO HEAR THE GONG In an unusual move, Miramax plans to re-release its underperforming "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind" Aug. 1. Distrib said it will try a new approach in marketing the quirky Chuck Barris biopic, with the campaign also serving to hype pic's mid-September bow on homevid.I'm glad to see it get another shot, although I'd be curious to know what Miramax's real motives are. Do they have a future project they're really trying to woo Clooney and Soderbergh for? posted by Jeff | 10:54 AM | Wired News: U.S. EBay Seller Refuses Canucks David Ingram received notification that his winning bid of $24.50 had been canceled, along with this message: "At the present time, we do not ship to, or accept bids from, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany or any other country that does not support the United States in our efforts to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. If you are not with us, you are against us."Oy.... (link via Metafilter) posted by Jeff | 10:34 AM | The Pitch: It's like Pushing Tin meets The Hustler! I'm having one of those moments--the moments where they don't pay me enough. An attorney emailed us, asking for print final versions of the declaration, the mpa (with attachment corrected number from page one), and to create a proof "showing the Judicial Council by hand and all pl and def counsel and def companies on service list..."Naturally, there is no list attached, nor can I find any, showing the defendant companies. It also largely purposeless to serve them because their counsel are being served. Nonetheless, I know that this attorney, when they come in, will want that list, and will ask me to create it because I answered the email. Also, because the motions involve several different cases in different courts, there are many possible headers for the document and I'm almost certainly doomed to pick the wrong one, so that will probably also have to be redone. And finally, all of the documents, because this attorney prefers to do as much of their own work as possible, are slipshod and poorly formatted which, if I don't reformat now, will probably have to later...unless I reformat them now in which case I run the risk of having to change all the slipshod formatting back because the attorney prefers it. In short, I'm behind the eight-ball and there's no way to get out from under from it. I just have to do the best I can, do most of it all over again, and risk suffering negative feedback from this attorney because I didn't do it right the first time. Joy. posted by Jeff | 10:08 AM | The Pitch: It's like Billie Holiday meets Donald Barthelme! MPR's The Writer's AlmanacIt's the birthday of jazz singer Billie Holiday, born Eleanora Fagan in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1915). As a child she ran errands for women at a local brothel near her home, and in return the women let her listen to Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith records.I've been enjoying this site more and more each week. Billie Holiday and Donald Barthelme born on the same day...how cool is that? posted by Jeff | 9:43 AM | The Pitch: It's like Titanic meets Orange County! Super grrr. This morning's 6:41 bus arrived at 6:48. Count in a late BART train, having to wait at two different stations while the train ahead of us , and I got to Starbucks at 7:15--about five minutes earlier than when I used to catch the 7:00 a.m. train. I'm torn as to whether I should (a) talk to the 6:41 bus driver and patiently explain that I will complain relentlessly to Muni management if she doesn't get her act together; (b) go directly to complaining bitterly to the Muni management now and not bother risking an argument with the bus driver; or (c) start trying to catch the 6:21 bus.As a result, my morning writing was a rushed half-hour that tried not to be an angry revenge fantasy enacted upon tardy bus drivers. Not as much fun to write as one might think. posted by Jeff | 8:51 AM | Saturday, April 05, 2003 The Pitch: It's like The Cutest Thing Ever meets The Next Cutest Thing Ever! So. Me and the SGF are supposed to go to this party at the wonderful Davel's house tonight. The SGF picked me up after work, I apologized for being such a punk-ass when I called her from work earlier, we came home, ate a light dinner (laughing cow lite + trader joe's corn tortilla flat breads+ avocado=cosmic bliss), talked while the dishes were done, and then she suddenly said, "I'm sleepy." (I'm leaving out the moment where she said earlier, right before the dishes were started: "I'm sad." And I'm also leaving the me-haranguing-of-her that happened after that.)"Well, we don't have to go to Davel's party." "No. We have to go!" "Okay, if you want to..." So we lie down on the bed and we talk for a little bit about stuff, nothing at all important, and I say, "Okay, well, I'll have to shave and shower if we're going to Davel's party." And she says, "of course, we're going. But I'm going to lie here and I'll get up when you get out of the shower." Fair enough. So I shave and shower, thinking about Alan Moore and Gary Groth (of all people) and when I get out, I dry off and then walk gingerly down the hall, expecting the SGF to be already up and on the computer, or reading The NY Times, or getting ready for the party. But instead she's still lying on the bed, under the comforter, and snoring gently. And honestly? It just made me really happy to see her lying there like that, asleep. It's funny how sometimes, even if you try really hard, you can't open your heart to a person nearly as much when they're awake as when they're sleeping in front of you... posted by Jeff | 10:51 PM | The Pitch: It's like A Beautiful Mind meets Ghost World! Mile High Comics presents... COMICON.com PULSETHE PULSE: Who are some of your creative influences in comics? posted by Jeff | 5:19 PM | TotalVideoGames.com | Reviews | Ape Escape 2 Great game design is definitely Ape Escape 2 biggest strength; beginning with a baton and a net, players simply have to find a certain amount of monkeys per level to progress to the next. Thankfully the fantastic control set-up returns from the PSOne original; using a combination of the analogue sticks and shoulder buttons to move, jump and use your items.Everyone in my house loved the original of this (called "Monkeybutt" for some fun reason). Why the hell isn't it released in the U.S., and does that mean that I won't be able to play it on my region specific PS2 (that last is a sort of rhetorical-like question....) posted by Jeff | 4:37 PM | The Pitch: It's like The Postman Always Rings Twice meets The Graduate! Yahoo! News - Lion Tamer on Run with Lions and Son of Circus BossA woman lion tamer has run away from a circus in Germany with eight lions, two tigers and the circus director's son, police said on Friday.Seriously, isn't this the end of a James M. Cain novel? posted by Jeff | 3:20 PM | Yahoo! News - 50 Million Historical Documents Hit Web "A lot of people active with the POW/MIA issue complain the government doesn't release enough documents about people who are still missing, so almost anything they give out is good in our eyes," he said.posted by Jeff | 3:18 PM | The Pitch: Just the Brilliance that is Seanbaby.... The Wave Magazine - The Bay Area's Best Entertainment Magazine... Ever.Sample Lyrics: “If you only knew! What I’m gonna do to you! You’d be runnin’ out of here as fast as your feet could carry you! Your destiny! Belongs to me! If you only knew!” It starts with a lighthearted warning about the beating you’re about to get, but it gets a little too serious at the end. “Your destiny belongs to me,” isn’t something you say when you’re singing a happy song about hurting people. That’s something you say when you want to turn a confrontation into a duel to the death. Here, I’ll insert it into a typical bar fight situation and show you:posted by Jeff | 3:11 PM | The Wave Magazine - The Bay Area's Best Entertainment Magazine... Ever. Junior Walk of Fameposted by Jeff | 3:10 PM | TWO CENTS / What do you miss about the dot-com boom? posted by Jeff | 3:05 PM | SFPD conspiracy charges tossed / Judge sharply critical of D.A.'s handling of case against brass The five had been under indictment since Feb. 27 on charges that they conspired to block the investigation into a Nov. 20 street brawl in which three off-duty police officers, including the son of Assistant Chief Alex Fagan, are accused of beating up two men on Union Street after demanding they hand over a bag of steak fajitas. Fagan is now acting police chief and was in court for the ruling.Jeezis, this is incredibly depressing--"Fajitagate" seems almost certainly to be an unspoken conspiracy, the type of which police departments are masters of. At every turn, the judge reprimanded all of the parties involved while letting every one of them off the hook. I'm tempted to think part of the problem was Hallinan's typically inept handling of procedure, but that doesn't take the sting off this. posted by Jeff | 3:02 PM | First embedded U.S. journalist dies in Iraq war accident / He was in a humvee that drove into a canal Michael Kelly, the magazine editor credited with breathing new life into the Atlantic Monthly, was killed Friday in Iraq. He is the first casualty among American journalists embedded with U.S. troops.I'm sorry to hear about this, but I'm also willing to use it as an excuse to speechify because this article made me realize something: isn't it somehow creepy and, I don't know, meta that one of the big catchphrases from this war is "embedded journalism," since the phrase must have caught on from the media's use of it. Part of the creepiness is also the awfulness of the term: an "embedded journalist" sounds like something that requires oral surgery. "Embedded journalism" it's an awful phrase, particularly when you've got a situation like here, it refers to a a dead man. posted by Jeff | 2:44 PM | The Title: It's like Fast Times at Ridgemont High meets The Secret Sharer! Jeff is leaving the cafe I go to, and it's a damn shame. Apart from being a pretty nice guy, Jeff is the only barrista whose name I've been able to remember (and for obvious reasons).I've been going to the cafe for a while because, at least on Mondays and Tuesdays, I write in the morning (on Saturdays, I just need the caffeine). At this cafe, as at others of its ilk, the barristas and cashiers make it a point to learn your name and also your drink--it'd be a nice little thing if I didn't suspect it's a corporate mandate and these people are just doing what they have to in order to keep their job. Still, almost all of them are also incredibly friendly. In fact, this one top-notch barrista who had my name and drink done after day four, and would ask me about my weekend and my morning and whatnot, was so cool, I actually asked him his name. This was a horrible mistake. This was tall, blonde guy, very lanky, young. I had him pegged as a 'Brad' or a 'Matt' or whatever the name is that go to tall skinny white guys these days. His name is--Farouz? Faroud? Farhouz? An incredibly Muslim sounding name, which he kept repeating patiently as I went, "I'm sorry? Come again? What's that?" And of course, I would say his name and he'd repeat it back to me, which meant I either had it exactly wrong or precisely right, and the whole time he had a little smile on his face, which was either the smile of saint-like patience or the smile of "Dude, this guy totally thinks my name is Farouz and my name is so totally Brad!" It traumatized me so much I never asked another barrista's name again. I of course hate the horrible condescension of acting not using their names, like they have to know mine but I could give a shit about knowing theirs, but the deeper scars of the whole Farouz debacle linger. (And, honestly, the guy has always been so pleasant and top-notch and willing to tell me about helping his grandmother move when I ask what he did over the weekend, I'm sure now it was the smile of saint-like patience and he's a tall skinny white Muslim, or child of Muslim parents, and there you have it.) And of course, I'm so traumatized by the whole thing that if they did tell me their names, I would never remember them because I'd be too busy thinking "shit! what if I forget their name!" that it wouldn't register. So Jeff, good old affable Jeff, was a godsend. I didn't even ask to learn Jeff's name, I heard someone behind the counter use it, and I latched onto it. In fact, so traumatized after the Farouz incident was I, I'd always say it as a question. Like, "Hey, thanks, Jeff?" And he'd just smile, again the smile of either "well, yes, that's me" or the smile of "I can't believe this guy thinks my name is Jeff when my name is so totally Brad!" But as I stuck with it without his correcting me, I grew more confident: as if, even if it wasn't his name, it was like our private little joke (which is the exact sort of smile you have with someone who shares your name most of the time anyway). So today, while he was making the coffee and I was talking with him, he said, "Yeah, today's my last day." "Here?" I said. "Your last day here?" "Yeah, my dad wants me to pay more attention to my schoolwork since I graduate in May." We made a bit of small talk about what he was studying (3-D animation) and how he had to put together a portfolio and I shook his hand said, "well, sorry to see you go. It won't be the same without you!" And even though I've worked at jobs long enough to know that, really, that's almost never the case except in a small number of cases, I had no way of telling him it'd be true for me: all I have now is a cafe staffed by friendly nameless people who, as in the worst nightmares, seem to know all about me while I know nothing about them. Admittedly, that's overstating things a bit. Even if I don't know their names, I know them on sight, and little pieces about them. For example, the Monday decaf latte tastes different from the Tuesday decaf latte. There's Farouz/Brad's grandmother (who I think of as "the light cool guy"), and there's the girl who works Saturdays and some Mondays who I call "Ace." (I'm still not sure why.) There's the guy who's the manager on Tuesday who I call "Eddie Murphy" because he acts like Eddie Murphy's imitation of a gay guy in Beverly Hills Cop II. There's the guy who comes in on a razor scooter and wear a helmet (who I think of as "the dark cool guy") who is Asian in a way I can't nail down (as opposed to Jeff, who kinda looks, still, like one of those Chinese babies you'd see on revolution posters but may also have a bit of Korean too) and has the world's most calm-sounding voice and is easily the best barrista in the lot. There's Laura, who used to work the morning shifts but now just comes in for coffee (and I only know her name now that she comes in for coffee) who works the ghetto fabulous thing with her open-toed shoes and her toe rings. And there's Colin Farrell, the new barrista guy who thinks he's The Man, but seems pleasant enough in a completely professional way that somehow only heightens his air of arrogant capableness and whose decaf lattes have gotten better and may well end up taking the bitter edge off the Tuesday morning lattes overall. posted by Jeff | 11:00 AM | The Title: It's like Thinner meets 2001: A Space Odyssey! Hold on, I just started scanning something at work, and of course it was going perfectly until I logged on to blog. Stoopid computers...Update: You would think office computers, today, in the 21st century, would be able to scan and surf the net at the same time, wouldn't you? (To be fair, it's scanning and importing to Adobe Acrobat....) but no. From what I can tell, scanners are the most complex pieces of machinery you can ever attach to your computer, because most of our IT guys would rather cut off their own fingers than help you when it goes screwy. If you're lucky, they'll just buy you a new scanner. If you're unlucky, you've got a rectangular ten pound paperweight. I had some fancy-dan point about video games--the well-worn truism about how they keep computers on the bleeding edge and how I'm willing to bet that nearly any neophyte PC gamer has a computer tons better than what they work on in their office--but screw it. The stupid program that interfaces with our HP scanner is the touchiest piece of junk I have ever dealt with. I know the SGF knows better, but I was going to say that I was in a pretty good mood when I walked in the office this morning and this scan project has wrecked it, just because the equipment is shitty. Sigh. Hopefully it won't be one of those days... posted by Jeff | 9:35 AM | Friday, April 04, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Clerks meets Conspiracy Theory! I figure all retail people got it bad. I'm sure I'm not the only one. But working in a comic book store does have its advantages when it comes to the weirdos.To wit: I was standing there behind the counter, shooting the shit with brian when all of a sudden this guy walks in, looks at the Promethea two pack action figure set we've got behind the counter and says, "Oh, how great a Cleopatra action figure." And I'm not paying any attention so I go, "Yeah." Here's my big mistake: a second later, it sinks in what he's said, and what I've agreed with, and I don't keep my mouth shut. Instead, I go: "Actually, It just looks like Cleopatra. It's actually a comic book character called Promethea." And the guy says, "Well, I'd sure like to see her x-rated." And I swear to god, my mouth just flopped open. I want to correct his english, and yet I know this is a "don't feed the freak" moment ("DFTF, dude," is how Brian puts it. "DFTF...") where a crazy person will inflict themselves on you because you have nowhere to go. And yet my mouth is hanging open, just flopping there, and I should really say something. So I just say, "Yeah, well, I don't know about that." My only hope now that I've said something is to get out of there quick, but before I can make an excuse (usually I tell Brian I'm going to the restroom and hide for five minutes), Brian says, "Jeff, I'm running to the back." He sees the look of death i give him, and it makes him all the happier. (Later, he tells me he goes to the back and laughs until he cries over the whole interaction). So I'm stuck with crazy guy, who then says, "Who's this Grendel guy?" And this is part of the comic retailing experience that sucks. Unlike records or pants or salt-shakers, when someone crazy asks you something that sounds crazy ("What are these pants for?"), your answer never sounds crazier than the question ("You wear them.") But when a crazy guy asks you, "who's this Grendel guy?" you are screwed because to actually answer the question you have to say something like, "well, he's the undying incarnation of evil, but that refrigerator magnet there represents the Hunter Rose Grendel, who is a professional assassin and was the first version of the character." So my mouth flopped about for a minute or two and I said, "Oh, he's cool." And the crazy guy (who looked like an unassuming well-dressed middle-aged Asian man) said, "Does he like to party?" This is when I tried to force my astral body to leave my corporeal form so it could travel back into the back room and kill Brian. It didn't work. "You could say that," I said. Fortunately, he got tired of chit-chat and wanted to look at the comic book porn so I showed him where it was and left him alone, and we were both happy. Ten minutes after he left, Brian came back and proceeded to laugh at me for the next hour and a half. On the upside, Volume Three of James Kolchaka's Sketchbook Diaries came out, so it could've been worse. posted by Jeff | 8:03 PM | It's like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde meets Buckaroo Banzai! One of the things I love about the SGF is her disdain for Reggae; it's something I love dearly, as I too, growing up in Humboldt County, was tortured excessively by hacky-sack players and cheerful unwashed college students blasting, every time I turned on the college radio, some seventeen minute ganja manifesto.So why did I download Mystic Warrior by Lee "Scratch" Perry and the Mad Professor? Why am I listening to it now? There's some violent schism in my personality, some sort of desperate rebellious streak, or some strange masochistic warp in my soul. (Although maybe I speak too soon--I've made it track four and it feels like the record's been playing for three hours now). Like any good Amercan, I blame video games. The reggae station on GTA III got some play during all the many hours I was toodling around doing drive-by's. Also it's kinda hard not to love a lyric like "deliver us from vampires...deliver us from voodoo workers" in a song called "Kung-Fu Fighting" (it rhymes, in true reggae/dub fashion, with "people uniting.") I seem to grow more perverse the older I get... posted by Jeff | 11:28 AM | Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | Salon.com Arts & Entertainment | "Matrix" sequel to premiere at CannesPARIS (AP) -- The futuristic sci-fi sequel "The Matrix: Reloaded" will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, where its filmmakers and stars will walk down the red carpet.posted by Jeff | 10:45 AM | Thursday, April 03, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Requiem for a Heavyweight meets Sherlock Jr! The supergirlfriend and I went to the video store after eating dinner. The idea was to get something for us to watch--something light and frothy since my mood was so gloomy and quietly despairing I made Stephen Morrissey look like a giggly twelve-year old. We couldn't really find anything, although not for lack of trying, and I asked the guy behind the counter (since this was a reasonably ritzy video store with special sections for directors and like that) if there was a Jackie Chan section. There was, he said, and he led me to it.About a week ago, I was in a small video store right around the corner from where I used to live on 25th avenue--and that place had a ton of old movies, the types that were still in their super-large video boxes from the 80's, I guess so that people might mistake them for a Gideon's bible and pick them up. And that place, with all its must and mildew, reminded of Video Star, the place in the Silver Lake i rented my first Jackie Chan film. It also had little sections set off by director, and it had those super-big video boxes, where the tape itself was packed in molded plastic, making the damn thing seem more like a scary candy old ladies would offer you than an actual movie. Anyway, there, like here, had a very small Jackie Chan section. But here, unlike there, had a bunch of Jackie's american product, and redubbed rereleases. Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2, Shanghai Noon--all on video and DVD. But after that, it was basically Legend of Drunken Master, maybe one other on DVD, and then a bunch of dubbed stuff on VHS. Not one Tai Seng video on them, and it made me sad. It's something I should go into some other time, when the super-girlfriend isn't in the next room, eating dessert alone. But it was odd, and sad, and not quite right. posted by Jeff | 9:21 PM | The Title: It's like Awakenings meets Catch-22! On the plus side, I bought a five dollar copy of Ratner's Star at this little used bookstore off the racetrack. Unfortunately, I already bought a nine dollar copy a few weeks ago in Berkeley because I hadn't seen a used copy of the book before and figured it'd be a while before I saw one again. It's amazing how quickly life will hustle to prove you wrong.posted by Jeff | 4:48 PM | Yahoo! News - Rare Colossal Squid Found Near Antarctica Yahoo! News - Rare Colossal Squid Found Near AntarcticaThe half-grown female colossal squid is only the second intact example of the monster cephalopod known to have been found, said marine biologist Steve O'Shea of New Zealand's national museum.Apparently there's a difference between the Colossal Squid and the Giant Squid, according to this article. Squid must have amazing p.r. men, what with both colossal squids and giant squids--usually an animal gets one cool name, and then a bunch of other boring stuff. But if it turns out there's an actual Fucking Enormous Squid, I won't be a bit surprised... posted by Jeff | 4:38 PM | SF anti-war protesters smash symbolic windows SF anti-war protesters smash symbolic windowsSan Francisco police said a couple dozen protesters showed up in the city's shopping district this morning to fulfill -- symbolically -- a promise to break windows to dramatize their opposition to the Iraq war.posted by Jeff | 4:35 PM | Pearl Jam's Vedder impales a Bush mask Pearl Jam's Vedder impales a Bush maskDozens of fans walked out of a Pearl Jam concert after lead singer Eddie Vedder took a mask of President Bush and impaled it on a microphone stand.This sucks---I don't want to support either The Dixie Chicks or Pearl Jam, but I feel like I should as a sign of solidarity. God, why can't Tom Waits make some sort of moving statement against George W? posted by Jeff | 4:33 PM | The Pitch: It's like Stranger Than Paradise meets Armageddon! I can't believe daylight savings time ends, or starts, or whatever the hell it does on Sunday. What's important is that it accomplishes what it's supposed to: screw me out of my schedule. I've got a pretty good thing on Monday and Tuesday which involves getting up at 5:00 a.m., which next Monday will conveniently feel like 4:00 a.m. Yay.posted by Jeff | 4:31 PM | Something for the Batman Fans: MPR's The Writer's Almanac MPR's The Writer's AlmanacIt's the birthday of the writer Washington Irving, born in New York City (1783). He is known as the "first American man of letters" and is best known for the short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle." He spent most of his time working with his brother and a friend on editing a literary journal called Salmagundi. In an essay he wrote for it, he referred to New York City as "the renowned and ancient city of Gotham." As far as anyone knows, this was the first time the word "Gotham" had been used to describe the city.posted by Jeff | 11:18 AM | The Pitch: It's like Time Enough at Last meets The Waterboy! Yeah, I woke up at a decent enough hour, with plenty of chores to get done. And then came....The Internet! (Dum dum dum...)Now it's a little after nine and I've got exactly the same number of chores to do, and that much less moxie to get 'em done. Yes, you heard me: moxie. Today my persona will be that of a female riveter from World War II. Speaking of the war, what kind of stage in the siege are we at when it's all about cute female soldiers and guys named after robots? Has the government re-crunched their numbers and realized they have to make soldiers appealing to today's thirteen year olds because we're still going to be fighting when it comes time for them to register? Wait until Gunnery Sgt. Meowth pops up on the scene... Man, I was sure right about this being a better idea for me when I'm at work than when I'm at home... posted by Jeff | 9:10 AM | The Pitch: It's like Apocalypse Now meets The Toy! National guardman changed his name to a toy | wkyc.comOptimus Prime is heading out to the Middle East with his guard unit on Wednesday to provide fire protection for airfields under combat.posted by Jeff | 8:54 AM | Marin breast cancer rate not as high as reported / Old population data led to faulty estimate Marin County's reported increase in breast cancer rates that alarmed residents and health officials alike last year was based on faulty population estimates, according to the National Cancer Institute.posted by Jeff | 8:22 AM | Wednesday, April 02, 2003 The Ptich: It's like All's Well That Ends Well meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre! Okay. Now I've got a separate blog for my research, and a separate blog for the journal stuff. And I played a little bit of video games, and I've got a screaming headache. So I'm fleeing from the computer for a while, wuss that I am. posted by Jeff | 2:41 PM |The Pitch: It's like Slacker meets Ferris Bueller's Day Off! Okay, got the BlogQuote indent thing figured out, got the title field straightened out. I know--I mean I know--I saw a how-to for creating blogs within blogs but I'm just not finding that exact page. So it's gonna wait. I've got some food to eat, video games to play, shopping to do, and shudder, a room to clean.Oh, and I think I'm holding off on emusic until the end of the month. I don't know why, but it just doesn't seem like the biggest priority on my plate, right now. posted by Jeff | 12:41 PM | The Pitch: It's like Showgirls meets Phone Booth! Movie & TV News @ IMDb.comLadies man Colin Farrell spent five hours in a private room with two strippers - and then left them a total tip of $1,800 afterwards. The Minority Report star - who admits his womanizing ways - went into New York club Scores and chose blonde performers Evelyn and Veronica to be locked away with in an intimate booth. He vanished into a back room with the leggy lovelies at 10pm and was not seen to re-emerge until 2:45am, according to British tabloid The Sun.posted by Jeff | 12:11 PM | The Pitch: It's like Young Frankenstein meets The Recruit! I don't know...these fucking title fields....I'm not sure they're not more trouble than they're worth.And you see that indentation thing that kicked in after my Phil Ringalda entry? I think that's a result of BlogQuote which I'm just learning how to use, and I'd like to undo that. Sigh... you mean beta tools aren't bug-free??? posted by Jeff | 12:06 PM | The Pitch: It's like Betrayal meets Baywatch! Phil Ringalda is a god, neatly solving two birds with one page:Install BlogThis Instructions: If you haven't yet upgraded to Blogger Pro, use the Blogger Classic links. Once you upgrade—it's just a matter of time, isn't it?—you can come back and upgrade to the Pro versions of BlogThis and BlogQuote as well.posted by Jeff | 10:41 AM | The Pitch: It's like Short Circuit meets Weekend at Bernie's! It's Wednesday and it's my weekend! I'm trying to get things rolling by straightening out some blog stuff (title fields and sub-blogs) but Blogger's Knowledge Base seems super-slow to me in the mornings (or maybe it's slower for me at home than at work which would be kinda ironic) so I'm having trouble. It's kinda like having a perky shortish robot help me carry a dead corpse around without anyone catching on (and that's probably gonna be the last time I'll ever explain one of my pitches).posted by Jeff | 9:53 AM | Tuesday, April 01, 2003 The Pitch: It's like Soylent Green meets Sleeper! Good news for the girlfriend...BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Bananas could split for good The problem is that the banana we eat is a seedless, sterile article which could slip the way of its predecessor which was wiped out by blight half a century ago. posted by Jeff | 5:48 PM | From Chris Hedges' War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning (pg. 81-2): Until there is a common vocabulary and a shared historical memory there is no peace in any society, only an absence of war.…The search for a common narrative must, at times, be forced upon a society. Few societies seem able to do this willingly. The temptation, as with the Turks and the Armenian genocide, is to forget or ignore, to wallow in the lie. But reconciliation, self-awareness, and finally the humility that makes peace possible come only when culture no longer serves a cause or myth but the most precious and elusive of all human narratives—truth. For extra credit, compare and contrast this with Alan Moore's belief, expressed in From Hell, that all history is a fiction (I'll have to research this and get back to you later). Maybe I'm just confusing things by swapping the ideas of "narrative" and "fiction" (I'm tempted to say, which I think Hedges would sharply disagree with, that all narratives are, by definition, fictional) but it seems there might be something worth digging at there. Perhaps war is such a component of human life precisely because there can never be a common vocabulary (due to linguistic entropy) or a shared historical memory (maybe a shared agreement of history at best) and so the best we can hope for is precisely that: an absence of war. posted by Jeff | 4:26 PM | The Pitch: It's like Snowcrash meets Brewster's Millions! Still quiet here. I think I've decided I'm going to join Emusic when I get home. I'd really like to support a music subscription service that doesn't suck (takes away your music when you quit the service, won't allow you to play music offline, etc.) and it's got stuff like this for download.On the opposite end of the smart consumer spectrum, I went to the EBX and put down money to reserve a copy of Splinter Cell when it comes out next wednesday. Which was quadruply stupid: I'm nowhere close to finished with Tenchu, I'm not here on Wednesdays and they'll only hold my game for two days, they didn't have any more of the demo disc you're supposed to get when you pre-order the game, and money is going to be tight until next payday. But by the time I asked and found out the middle two facts, I already felt committed. It's times like this I feel like Raven in Snowcrash: I should just have POOR IMPULSE CONTROL tattooed on my forehead... My hope is that if I show up a day early and maybe even right before closing, they'll give me the game early. I think that's what they did on GTA: Vice City. My other hope is that I don't go get my game and then show up at the store on Saturday and I can get my five bucks back. I mean, what's the point of putting actual money down on a game if they're not going to hold it for you? I'm an idiot...although the upside of this is I realize I should read some Stephenson when I finish my current reading... posted by Jeff | 3:15 PM | The Pitch: It's Like Memento meets High Fidelity! There's a great idea for a sci-fi story in the first line of this review...The Onion A.V. Club | Music The one downside of great albums is that they can only be heard for the first time once: Imagine being able to hear Let It Bleed or 1999 again for the first time, to be taken aback by greatness once more. posted by Jeff | 2:35 PM | The Pitch: It's like DOA meets The Truman Show! As all the web-excerpts might suggest, it's not particulary busy here: groovy coworker just went upstairs to scan an eighty page document, and I've just been twiddling my thumbs, lurking on the artificially resuscitated Warren Ellis Forum and watching everyone spout off (for the twelve hours the forum's open). A lot of these people are happy to be posting in that place again, you can tell, and it's kind of nice to watch.Reminds me of that creepy scientific paper that popped up on the Internet a while back, about how they tested people who watched sitcoms (I believe Friends) and afterwards the people tested as if they had been interacting among friends, instead of sitting there watching people interact (and, to make it more depressing, watching people paid to pretend to be friends interact). I'm not sure what the point of the study was (other than to make me cry). I think there was something there about our inability to totally parse what's real and what's not, and maybe also something potentially healing in having people watch happy television (ignore the brutal banality angle). In this way, I've been in a fairly good mood watching people who I don't know, except through some lurking months and months ago, once again take up something once very very important to them. (Okay, actually, I know about five of them). Maybe it says something good, not bad, about human nature that I can be happy just by watching people chat and flirt and post silly photoshopped images with which they cracked themselves up a year ago. Or maybe it's just too damn quiet at work... posted by Jeff | 11:51 AM | Again, cursed April Fool's Day! I was sure this link, forwarded by my supervisor was a hoax. and I still think it is, considering I can't find any of the attorneys mentioned listed on Martindale, nor the firm itself, nor any other reference to the firm on Google. But, on the other hand, they answered their phone, so what do I know? Powers Phillips Home Page Powers Phillips, P.C., is a small law firm located in downtown Denver, Colorado within convenient walking distance of over fifty bars and a couple of doughnut shops. Powers Phillips also maintains a small satellite office-in-exile on the cow-covered hillsides near Carbondale, Colorado, where it puts out to pasture some of its aging attorneys. posted by Jeff | 10:02 AM | I guess today is bash the authors I like day: NYPress: 50 Most Loathsome New Yorkers49 Jonathan Franzen , Author If only al Qaeda could be conned into a prisoner exchange: We get the retarded adopted son of bin Laden’s plumber’s apprentice, they get Jonathan Franzen. Alas, they’re smarter than that. The author of The Corrections made his career by loudly offering himself as a leading candidate to write the next Catch-22, despite the fact that he has absolutely no sense of humor. Has made himself the leader of a self-congratulatory public campaign to bring back "serious" writing, which apparently means 576 pages of namedropping, contrived situations and agonizingly overwrought metaphors. (The Corrections has a full page on the theme of "the alarm bell of anxiety.") The reason people don’t read books anymore isn’t because they’re too lazy to turn off the Knicks game; it’s because the New York publishing world makes darlings out of writers who seem proud of how much they suck. posted by Jeff | 9:54 AM | There's something doubly scary about this: Neva Chonin's insists on referring to the band members by their first names, and seems completely unaware that she's pegged why today's retro might be so popular: Stripes' 'Elephant' -- unforgettable music / Album takes raw, powerful look at loveAt the same time, "Elephant," in stores today, digs deeper than treatises on waning romance. Recorded onto an eight-track tape with equipment built before 1963, it also testifies to the loss of raw immediacy in a digital world. Listen closely and you can hear the creak of a stool, the movement of hand on guitar as Jack shifts into the distortion of a slack, brilliant guitar solo. Increasingly rare in an age of seamless technology, these moments feel as tactile as a human touch. posted by Jeff | 9:47 AM | If this is an April Fool's joke, it's a very cruel one: BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | Actor Leslie Cheung 'found dead' Hong Kong singer and actor Leslie Cheung is reported to have committed suicide after falling from a hotel room. Local TV and radio stations have reported that the Canto star, whose most famous role was in the Oscar-nominated Farewell My Concubine, was found dead on Tuesday. posted by Jeff | 9:25 AM | All Day in a Rich Guy’s Limo Makes for a Very Silly Novel We badly want there to be a novelist who can pronounce on the Big Themes of our mediated world, and Mr. DeLillo has always been up for the job. For all his weaknesses (plot, character, dialogue), he writes terrific set pieces—critics and fellow novelists will forgive you anything if you deck it out in a glittering style—and he can work himself up into quite a state about the significance of it all. He’s not afraid to be grandiose; that, and his eloquence combines potently with our desire for an oracular voice to obscure the fact that for years almost everything Big he has had to say has been either 1) banal or 2) wrong. posted by Jeff | 9:20 AM | Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time The problem with coming across a page of the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time is the nagging feeling that you are looking at a metahoax, and all these damn things are made up, just to fool you. (link from the googleriffic Metafilter. posted by Jeff | 8:57 AM | |
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