Rock the Berkshires

I think heaven is a giant outdoor party half-filled with people you know and the other half with new fun people and with unlimited free-flowing booze and music and dancing and food.

At least, that’s what this weekend was.

That Voice

It’s hard to believe that a man who sounds this sexy comes from …ohio. He must have spent some time in N’awlins.

Forgive the fact that it’s a commercial. Don’t buy a Lexus. DON’T. But you might like to listen to his music.

It Is Good To Be A Lady!

I am dressed as a lady again. Men are ever so gracious to a lady in a dress and heels!

Boys Who Like Girls

I’m wearing a dress today. I never wear dresses. But I decided I need some new clothes for my New York adventure and there were so many cute ones that I tried a few on and took a few home. So I’m wearing a vibrant green little number and bronze sandals.

And I’m noticing a big difference in men’s reaction to me on the streets. Much more attention/looks/Hellos, many more men stepping aside and allowing me to pass through doors, etc. It’s weird, because I wasn’t entirely sure about this dress–it definitely shows my fat a bit more than the usual slacks and shirts I wear, but apparently the girly factor is more important to men. Who knew?

Hate Kills Writing

I was recently very inspired to write a screenplay and was very excited about this new project, but I’ve run into a roadblock. The problem is that the characters are based on me and a man, and in the course of writing it, I became so filled with hate, hostility, contempt for him that I couldn’t continue. He was coming out as some kind of ridiculous caricature. And I now can’t talk to him in real life because that hate is real and was there all along and I can no longer push it aside. Quite amazing the way the act of writing something down can make you see things differently. But it also made me realize that writing which is fueled by hate doesn’t work. I tried it once before with a novel, and actually completed the novel, but it was a shit novel. And now that all the hate from that long-ago scenario is long gone, I don’t even find the story interesting. I don’t know that I will ever go back and revise it into something good. So, hate = bad writing, bad stories. I’ve had much more success writing with love.

But I don’t have any of that right now for this person, so this story will have to wait. I’m trying to kill him with every word, and that doesn’t make for good writing.

Hipsters Aren’t So Bad

Williamsburg is growing on me. I always hated it before, and the 12-block stretch of Bedford near the Subway is still a disgusting hipster boardwalk, but I’m here on my own this weekend and somehow exploring it myself makes me see it with different eyes. Also I took the Chinatown bus directly to Williamsburg and was dropped off near the bridge, in a very immigrant-y area, so I see that the entire neighborhood isn’t completely gentrified. And walking from there to my friend’s apartment, where I’m staying alone while they are out of town, the hipster quotient of course increased, but I could still see the structure of the old Williamsburg; the backbone is still there. The Columbian bakeries, the tiny immigrant-owned grocery stores, etc. Also the spas, the hipster coffee shops and bars etc., but somehow seeing it in that order, that progression, made it less offensive to me. And now I might even say I like it.

Some Things I Am Grateful For

1. Everything going wrong

2. Flirting

3. Men w/British accents (see #2)

4. Creative inspiration

5. Hope

Pickin’ Up Chicks

Interesting way to meet girls: Set up a telescope at the corner of Bedford and N.7th in Brooklyn and show passersby a view of Saturn.

Worst line I ever heard that actually worked (not on me): “You don’t betray your quantitativeness in your demeanor.”

I Am Not Obsessed

I would like to declare a moratorium on the overuse–or just the imprecise use–of the word “obsession.” I heard an interview with the authors of The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession recently and this title is a prime example. I am American, and I can assure you I am not obsessed with the Lie Detector test. Nor do I know anyone who is. Nor would I even agree that anyone in law enforcement who actually uses lie detectors is “obsessed” with them. It’s the wrong word. I would bet that there is not one law enforcement officer alive who wakes up every morning thinking about lie detector machines, can’t get the machines out of his head. Perhaps people today have too much faith in them, and perhaps there is a particularly American reason for that; I don’t disagree with the thesis necessarily. Just the use of that word. A word everyone now overuses. Please stop. If you discover some new kind of candy or shoes or cardboard boxes and you really really like them, you are not obsessed. Find a new word.

p.s. this goes for the use of “addicted to” as well.

IFFBoston Here I Come

Look out Davis Square, I’ll be back April 25-30 to cover the Independent Film Festival of Boston. The lineup is looking good, and seems very doc-heavy. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Here are a few of the narrative features I’m looking forward to:

Hanna Takes the Stairs. I really liked Joe Swanberg’s LOL, which I saw at last year’s IFFBoston, and I also very much liked his Young American Bodies series for Nerve.com. So I’m looking forward to his new film, though am wondering if he’s going to break any new ground with this one…the other two projects are good, but mostly cut from the same cloth, and this one looks to be as well, so making something fresh out of that cloth is the challenge he’s facing. Although perhaps it’s a vast enough cloth that there’s still material to be mined. At the very least the film has plenty of cameos by indie film darlings to check out–Andrew Bujalski, Mark Duplass, and Todd Rohal. I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Congorama. A Belgian finds out he was born in Canada and travels there to find his biological parents, but “all he finds in the Canadian countryside is bad fries and bad beer.” I look forward to someone making a movie that slams Canada for a change. Move over America, there’s a new asshole on the map!
(Full disclosure: I stole that line from The Kids In the Hall. And I have a grudge against Canadians.)

Day Night Day Night. The description of this film sounds very Jeanne Dielman: “A 19-year-old girl prepares and waits. Though what she is waiting for is not immediately clear, we are caught up in the minutiae of her preparation. When hooded handlers arrive, what follows is the suspenseful and emotional outcome of someone who has not only chosen when and how she will die, but also why.” But if that film description just totally ruined the film I’m going to be pissed.

Year of the Fish. And indie film fest usually specializes in films that are trying hard to be ‘quirky’. It can get to be annoying because all the films start to seem the same. But this one just sounds loopy enough to be interesting: “A modern-day Cinderella travels to New York’s Chinatown to earn to money help her father. Before she knows it, she’s working as a servant for an evil massage parlor madam. Her only companion is a fish that acts as narrator to our trip through this painted fairy tale.”

And this festival is no exception from the quirky-as-genre rule–there are several which seem to fit the profile, but could be good: Eagle vs. Shark, GoodTimesKid, Gretchen, Quiet City, Low and Behold, Monkey Warfare, The Sensation of Flight. There are also several films in the fest which are, as usual, questionably “indie”–there’s Brooklyn Rules, a gangster film starring Alec Baldwin and Freddy Prinze Jr., Away from Her, an alzheimer’s drama starring Julie Christie, and On Broadway, a Boston Irish funeral drama starring former NKOTB Joey McIntyre and Eliza Dushku. But hey, every festival needs a little starpower, no?
As for docs, there are so many I’m looking forward to but I’ll name just a few–A Lawyer Walks Into a Bar, about lawyers and lawsuits and America’s fascination with both, The Paper, about modern journalism and its problems, including declining circulation, and Strange Culture, about an artist who was interrogated post 9/11 but who can’t speak about the case, so actors such as Tilda Swinton tell the story.

Me, My New Hair, and the Flu

Thanks, D.C.

For gentrifying so rapidly and pushing all your criminals over the border to us. I don’t think crime ever goes down, it just gets pushed around to different areas.

I Hate Flowers. And Trees.

The pollen must be freakishly aggressive right now. I have never had such a severe allergy fit in my life. Even drugs don’t seem to affect it much.

Meanwhile I went to the store to get some Sudafed cuz the non-pseudoephedrine stuff is useless, and I had to go to the counter, show my ID, write my address, and sign for it. And the guy was kind of a jerk about it so I felt like a criminal just asking for it. Just for that I think I’ll cook it into whatever the kids are cooking it into these days.

And today the weather is gray and rainy and I LOVE IT. Drown that damn pollen.

Some Reactions to My New Haircut

1. “Is that what you wanted them to do?”

2. “Do YOU like it?”

3. “It’ll take some getting used to.”

4. “You got your hair cut?” (followed by long pause with crinkled nose)

4. No reaction at all (passive disapproval).

#46

The view outside my office window.

From the Mouths of Babes #3

“Hi fuzzy.”

–3-year-old nephew, upon seeing his mother emerge from the shower

From the Mouths of Babes #2

 

“It looks like a smokestack!”

–3-year old nephew peering into the toilet at his own creation

TV Notes

Best idea for a reality show ever. Ever. UPDATE: Never mind, it’s a fiction show, not reality. Damn. But they should make a reality show about it.

Meanwhile, Eddie Izzard’s new show is pretty boring and their American accents are really weird but I must say that without all the makup he’s pretty sexy:

Though I know women who are in love with him even in drag.

Darth Vader: I will have the penne all’arrabiata.

Canteen Worker: You’ll need a tray.

Darth Vader: Do you know who I am?

Canteen Worker: Do you know who I am?

Darth Vader: This is not a game of who the fuck are you. For I am Vader, Darth Vader, Lord Vader. I can kill you with a single thought.

Canteen Worker: Well, you’ll still need a tray.

Darth Vader: No, I will not need a tray. I do not need a tray to kill you. I can kill you without a tray, with the power of the Force, which is strong within me. Even though I could kill you with a tray if I so wished. For I would hack at your neck with the thin bit until the blood flowed across the canteen floor.

Canteen Worker: No, the food is hot. You’ll need a tray to put the food on.

Darth Vader: Oh, I see the food is hot. I’m sorry. I did not realise. Ha ha ha ha … oh … tray for the … yes. I thought you were challenging me for the fight to the death.

Canteen Worker: A fight to the death? This a canteen, I work here.

Darth Vader: Yes, but I am Vader. I am Lord Vader? Everyone challenges me to a fight to the death. Lord Vader? Darth Vader, I’m Darth Vader. Sir Lord Vader? Sir Lord Darth Vader? Lord Darth Sir Lord, Lord Vader of Cheem? Sir Lord Baron Von Vader Ham? The Death Star. I run the Death Star.

Canteen Worker: What’s the Death Star?

Darth Vader: This is the Death Star! You’re in the Death Star! I run this star!

Canteen Worker: This is a star?

Darth Vader: This is a fucking star! I run it! I’m your boss.

Canteen Worker: You’re Mr. Stevens?

Darth Vader: No, I’m … who is Mr. Stevens?

Canteen Worker: He’s Head of Catering.

Darth Vader: I’m not Head of Catering! I am Vader, I can kill catering with a thought.

Canteen Worker: Wha’?

Darth Vader: I can kill you all! I can kill me with a thought! Just … fine, I’ll get a tray! Fuck it! This one’s wet, and this one’s wet and this one’s wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. This one is wet. Did you dry these in a rainforest? Why, with the power of the Death Star do we not have a tray that is fucking dry? I do not … no, no, no! I was here first!

Other guy: You have to form a queue if you want food. Can I have, uh … ooo, penne all’arrabiata. That’d be very nice.

Darth Vader: No, no, no! Do you know who I am?

Other guy: That’s Jeff Vader that is!

Darth Vader: I am not Jeff Vader, I am Darth Vader.

Other guy: What? Jeff Vader runs the Death Star?

Darth Vader: No, Jeff … no, I run the Death Star.

Other guy: You Jeff Vader?

Darth Vader: No, I’m Darth Vader.

Other guy: Are you his brother? Could you get his autograph?

Darth Vader: I can’t get his … no, I’m Jeff … all right, I’m Jeff Vader! I’m Jeff Vader!

Other guy: Could I have your autograph?

Darth Vader: No, fuck off or I’ll kill you with a tray! Give me penne all’arrabiata or you shall die! And you and everyone in this canteen! Death by tray it shall be!

Canteen Worker: Do you want peas with that?

Darth Vader: Peas! You don’t have peas! You can’t put in right in … you can’t put …it doesn’t work with penne! Unless you push ‘em up the penne tubes and then it’d be weird! Oh, all right! Put some peas in.

Paint

I’ve taken up painting. The thrill of buying art supplies is a completely new pleasure I never knew existed. More pleasurable than the painting itself, in some ways.

The act of painting so similar to the act of writing — in that both are equally painful.

I start off with an idea, full of excitement of hope…and then after I’ve begun, once the broad strokes are down on the page or the canvas, all I want to do is get it OVERWITH. Playing with brushstrokes is fun (above), and is much like blogging. No pressure, no definite destination to reach. Having an idea and attempting to execute it to perfection, however, is a different story.

This is the effect I was going for, but ended up not having the patience to get there. One click with photoshop, though, and I’m there. But I can’t hang it on my wall.

Funnies

merkley???: i drove them off

me: how did you manage that

merkley???: by being unavailable emotionally
and then following that up with loud bouts of neediness
mixed with resentful texting
and insecurity disguised as arrogance

me: way to go

via raymi