And so it begins.

I'm now on the IMDb

Not the Christmas Gift I was looking for

James Brown is dead. I mourn. Not because he was going to put out anything quality again, but because it is always something when a legend passes. But he paid the cost to be boss. His papa didn't take no mess. And he didn't know karate, but he knew crazy. And he loved fat chicks.

I have some more Christmas in Portland stories, maybe I'll get to them shortly. We're in town until Thursday. Aili and I went out on Thursday and did some illegal drugs. We had a good time until Aili realized we wouldn't be coming down for hours. I don't think we'll do that again. Still, the sex was hot. And kinda public. Actually, that's the end of the story. I hope my kid is ready to crash out again soon.

Photos for Scott S from the OMSI Star Wars Exhibit

The first one is a baby diorama, the rest is nerd shit.

Christmas

I'm mixed on this one. We decided not to get a tree as we're flying to Portland in a couple of days. The two hour flight time made the whole idea palatable, and it'll be nice to have a coupleof days where we aren't 100% baby-centric. We don't have a lot of Christmas decorations around, and we live in Los Angeles. And hell, we're not Christians. But I feel a tinge that we don't have a tree for Leonard's first holiday go around.

Aili and I had a big fight. Basically she told me that the sex we've been having is rough on her physically, and she hasn't been enjoying it much. The body is still recovering, but I thought, well, fuck, what do I know. I told her she could have just said something, but of course she didn't and for good reasons. "I didn't know it when I met you, but at some point I knew you'd be my real husband." Heh. Basically she said that now that we're actually a couple, and have a child, the whole real marriage aspect of our marriage has been a little hard to get used to. While she was pregnant it was the ride, but now the reality of our life, and our commitment to each other weighs more heavily on us both. We don't get the chance to walk away amicably whenever we want because we now have a mutual responsibility for the rest of our lives. Or at least that's the way I look at it. Long story short: She was humoring me. So I said something about looking at more gossip sites to take care of business when needed, but that I respect her needs. I just didn't want it to be an issue that sometimes I just need to have sex/etc. Such a strange conversation, which ended with a compromise, and the sentence "You won't resent me when you go down on me, will you?" And then we re-enacted my favorite scene from Goodfellas. And then we realized that oral sex makes the world go round.

I feel weird about the whole thing, still do, but when you're in a relationship for long enough, you realize that there are some issues that resolve themselves, and you have to trust that your partner will be mostly honest about things. On one hand I don't want her to do something just to please me, but on the other I would rather she be involved with it when sometimes she may not want to. It's a paradigm shift, and a hard one. I have to try to ask for sex only when I "need it," and she has to try to understand that this is just simply part of biological urges, something I feel I have little control over, especially when I have such a foxy wife, who I sleep next to. Yesterday I had some morning lumber, and I was worried it might offend her. But she just grabbed it and laughed.

What I learned today

Japanese and South Korean kids are fucked up

As 2006 draws to a close

I really regret the fact that I haven't used the phrase aught six enough. Maybe next year.

Up with the baby

My life is routine. Baby Baby Baby. Baby Baby Baby. Baby Baby Baby. I got that feeling, uh, baby baby I got that feeling. Anything going on? More baby talk, not about this one. I'm talking to Aili that I think we should wait to try until the summer. Have the second in Feb-March. Maybe even April. Keep the kids birthdays apart and away from Xmas. Still we've been fucking without protection a lot lately. Aili doesn't want to go on the pill, and we're fucking married, so condoms? Maybe we'll get a diaphram or something. I might use condoms, but Aili's attitude is also that she's not a fan. I got The Electric Company Set 2 for the kid (it was on sale, will get the first shortly). Wish I had drugs to watch it with him. Presents keep coming in. Very nice. I mean we had to pony up for a lot of stuff, like the crib, and the first set of clothes, and fucking diapers are insane. We're still trying to figure out Christmas. There's talk of going to Portland. Baby on a Plane, not crazy about it, but it's a two hour flight, so it's not as mean. If we go through Burbank, then, I don't know. I've been going on about four hours of sleep a night.

A Prairie Home Companion

It's hard to let go of the people you love and respect, but life sorts us out, and death is part of that continuum. Robert Altman has directed some of the great American films, and is one of the greatest American filmmakers, whose ascendancy into the pantheon will surely be accelerated by his passing. His final outing is well aware of his inpending death, and now that he has passed, there is a great sense of fait accompli in watching A Prairie Home Companion. The sketchy, loose narrative is in essense Altman saying there is no point in mourning the course of nature. There will always be a sense of loss, but, as a character says, there is no tragedy in an old man dying. In that way, the film itself is something of a vessel, or at least it feels that way today, now - perhaps when the film is cemented in the canon, a different reading of it will be atainable, but likely not. With his slowly darting camera, the audience hangs out, as it does in most of his film, surveying the recording of the final show of Prairie Home Companion like an uninvited guest at a party, bouncing from clique to clique, an observant wallflower. That was his gift, and in the corners there is always something interesting to discover.

I don't know if it's a great film, my sense is that it is minor, though an essential piece of the canon (unlike something like Pret-A-Porter, or Cookie's Fortune) and strikes me as more resonant than something like 3 Women, though that's just me. The film is very charming, but what I didn't expect is how emotional the last act made me, in a very sneaky way. Say goodbye, the film offers, I'm going away, but it don't worry me. There's something profound in that, and a perfect summation of Altman's sloppy genius. If I am a little depressed at Altman's passing, it's only for the loss of a master whose career is now encased in amber.

I just bought the Criterion collection of John Cassavetes

Good Lord, when am I ever going to have that weekend? When I do, I'm sure I'll be wrecked after. Well, what better motivation to make a list of Criterion titles that make a library complete. I skipped multiple titles by the same director unless they were in a box set. Since every film listed is a masterpiece, I'll skip the commentary.

Criterion
1) The Rules of the Game
2) Trouble in Paradise
3) Six Moral Tales
4) Red Beard
5) Straw Dogs
6) Au hasard Balthazar
7) In the Mood for Love
8) Le samouraï
9) All That Heaven Allows
10) I Know Where I'm Going!
11) The Adventures of Antoine Doinel
12) The Lady Eve
13) Orphic Trilogy
14) Yi Yi
15) Naked
16) Pickup on South Street
17) The Complete Mr. Arkadin
18) The Leopard
19) Do the Right Thing
20) Fists in the Pocket

Turkey Baby Day

Aili and I dragged Leonard out to join some friends for Thanksgiving. This week has been odd. I've been doing work as a System Analyst for a couple months now, and I got called in for a meeting on Friday last week. It was a two hour drive for a review, and three hour drive back. Honestly I was a little nervous, it was a review to determine my future with the company, and frankly I'm happy with what's going on right now. And with the drive, and getting there early and grabbing lunch it was the longest I've been away from the wife and kid since we had him. The meeting went better than I thought, they offered me a bump, and then dangled a desk job. I told them that I just had a baby and that I had to pass. It was scary. But they extended my assignment for the next six months, and I guess I'll have to come back for a review then. They didn't freak out over the baby, which is good. I work about forty hours a week, but because of the kids, it's an odd forty. Sometimes I'll put an hour or two in at three or four in the morning if I can't get back to sleep. Since I'm gonna be home a lot with the kid in the near future, I often will take the kid and take care of his needs in the odd hours out of practice. I hear this gets better at some point. But the meeting and time alone, after the meeting, so just see the possiblities of life, you know, and some of the weight of my responsibilities kicked in. I'm stuck on the 405, and I started crying. Life changes. And there you go. The iPod kicked in on Eliot Lipp's Like No Tomorrow, and I kept hitting repeat. And repeat. Couldn't get enough. It just hit home. With no lyrics.

Turkey day was great. Leonard behaved himself, and me and P. Diddy and some friends and God were all there. Both meand the wife had a couple drinks and let our kid socialize, as it were, with the gang. I don't know if God would ever take credit, he tends to suggest free will when pushed, but Leonard totally behaved the entire time. It was nice and relaxed. And I was in love again, in love with my life.

Oh yeah, my reviews for the week:
Hands over the City
Sergeant York
Sweetie

Altman is no more

Most of my posters are in the garage. Covered, looked after, but I've got a couple of my honeys up. One is McCabe and Mrs. Miller. It was signed by Robert Altman, who I met in 1999. Altman was promoting Cookie's Fortune, one of the okay but not great films he's made in the last couple years (less than Gosford Park, more than Dr. T, I'd reckon). We talked about posters, mostly because I was so fucking intimidated, but he was calming and mentioned that one of his nephews was named as I was.

I've always thought of Altman as the stoner version of Howard Hakws, in that he conquered every genre: musical, western, noir, horror, science fiction, war, even teen nonsense, to which Altman put his curious stamp. There is a strong case to be made that Altman is the director for the second half of the 20th century, and when you stack up the features, few compare.

Plus he showed that Julianne Moore's carpet match the drapes.

Spy-Curious

James Bond
Carol Reed!
Mediocre John Huston!

Spy-Curious, tee-hee. Baby, baby, baby.

The only DVD worth buying for the next couple...

Says it all to me, really.

What an exciting election, no?

The Host/Borat/Mom/Shopping for Illusionary Pussy

I saw The Host. It's now my second favorite movie of the year. It was directed by Bong Joon-ho, who was at the screening. I had this planned with my boys before the wife spit the kid out, and with my mom in town, it was okay that I went. I really enjoyed the movie, but it fucks you up to leave your kid at home after being so attentive for the last couple. It was a relief, but it's still hard to leave behind. The film is coming out in January, and you ahve no excuse not to see it.

Saturday night my mom let us go out for dinner and a movie. Aili wanted to see Borat. It's funny to hear a Finnish girl do a Kazakh accent, but she nails it. Aili also loves it because it makes fun of both Americans and the Eastern Europeans. It's a two-fer. Aili had a glass of wine at dinner, but then stopped herself, thinking about the kid and the milk. That shit's fucked up yo. She still hasn't made up her mind if she's quit smoking or not. Mostly, she's worried about the weight, and most mornings now, now that she's at least a little back to it, she tries to put some time on our exercise bike. We both loved Borat, BTW.

Having Mom here (she's leaving tomorrow) was nice for the break factor. She gave us both some time to not deal with the baby, though we both are very much in the headspace where even though we might want that a little, we can't keep ourselves away. Aili's not due back in the office until mid-January, but she's already doing some things from home. Just cause. Mom got a little testy because we're both so ragged. And then on Saturday, on the way home, I slipped and tweaked my glasses. Right now it's tough, it's so incredibly tough when it comes to money, and we just paid the rent, and though Aili's still salaried for her absence, and I'm working, baby's cost money, and there's so many new expenditures. Though the glasses weren't broken, the thought of both being sightless (my only pair), and having to buy new ones set off panic attacks. Mom sort of helped by saying she'd help, but it's just the way things are. It's so tense because we're starting to build up more and more credit card debt. Part of that is just one time expendatures, but budgeting with children is difficult. And sometimes we're both horrible about getting our son stuff. We find it hard to say no to him. I took the glasses in and they were fixed in an instant, but that was fourteen hours of pure stress.

This morning I took the kid out for some shopping at our local Ralphs. Like most parents, I don't get more than a couple hours sleep in a row, so I took the kid with me this morning and let my wife and mom sleep in a bit. But by the time the two of us were ready to get going, my mom was up and did the normal mom thing by doing some cleaning. I said I'd be back in a bit, and offered to have her join us, but she was happy cleaning our bathroom. Moms be crazy. By the way, I'm finally at about B- level at diaper changing.

Here's the funny thing, it's 9:30, I'm shopping at Ralphs looking mostly like a zombie, but women just can't keep away from a baby. I looked fine, but everyone likes to stop and stare for a minute. Hot thirty-year-old women love my baby. I'm too tired to flirt them up, but it's a weird catch 22. And I get it, they don't want me that much, and the reason why they are so flirty is that babies tend to bring that out, and they know I'm safe, but being all daddy with baby is just sick when it comes to that. But that phermonal sign that I'm a breeder, and that I take care of my own is dangerous shit.

I'm reminded of a time I went out to lunch with the head of a company I worked for with a bunch of my coworkers, and the waitress was flirting with me. After she left that came up though mostly between us, and I said "Oh, you noticed that?" His response was "Well, yeah. I'm alive." Me too, I'm alive too. But I love my wife and life. So there you go.

TiVo in the bedroom

I'm in my work room, and we're going to watch some catch up stuff tonight. South Park, 30 Rock, and The Office here in a minute. We've got the wedding anniversary in a little over a week, and this is my two year Anni for being in Los Angeles. Working from home is a trip, but with the baby and the wife here, and my mom coming in tomorrow it's harder to get work done than I like. I still make it work, and sometimes I'll be cradling my kid at two in the morning and filling out some spread sheets. SWEET. Leonard likes Granddaddy, not so crazy about Arcade Fire, likes BSS okay, and gets on great with Sufjan. Which is good. I haven't exposed the kid to any Rat-A-Tat or Dr. Dre yet. Maybe when the wife isn't around. Post Pregnancy sex is weird. Part physically, part psychologically - Aili's body is functionally different for the time being so things we used to do are different. Then again I've spent much of the marriage having sex with her while she's pregnant. We'll get there. Though also, you know, it's like the baby is always close by. I'm mean it's kind of weird to make out with your wife and gear up and then Baby issues! So if we do do anything we have to wait until the kid has just conked out, and sometimes timing stuff like that is fun, other times it's so totally unerotic that we stop before we start. We're already having the second kid talks. I think we wont make up our mind on that for another couple of months, though. I'm for it, but fiscally, it's going to be a little harder, and there's talk of moving to Portland or possibly elsewhere. It's also going to be a while before Aili can go back with me in tow to Finland, which is difficult in and of itself, or at least it's one of my wife's talking points. My guess is we'll make it through one of the shows (22 minutes, shit) before one of us passes out. That's why they call it TiVo, I guess. Maybe we'll try and fuck. Doubt it. Cause that sounds erotic, don't it?

I have become boring

Though we didn't go out tonight, the baby spent the day in a Tigger baby outfit. I've talked to the wife about it, she knows about the blog but doesn't want to read it, and I've had a no pictures policy in the past, I don't like putting pictures of myself up on the internet, and I sure as shit don't want to put my family up here. But... Leonard ... Is... So... Damn... Cute...

David Cross did a whole routine about how parents get fucking boring. He's kind of right.

United 93 is truly a great film

Best of 2006 (so far):
1) United 93
2) Miami Vice
3) Brick
4) Down in the Valley
5) The Departed
6) Dave Chappelle's Block Party
7) Inside Man
8) Cocaine Cowboys
9) Taledega Nights
10) Monster House

Best movie (period) released in America in 2006:
Army of Shadows

Watching the sups on U93, I'm struck how great this movie is on a moral level. These people died because there is no god. And World Trade Center? That movie is a piece of shit in comparison.

Hooray for narcissism!

That's very much the definition of Wes Anderson's cinema. WA is fascinated with the involved narcissist who learns to sort of accept the outside world a little bit. That may be why I value Bottle Rocket and Royal Tennenbaums over Rushmore and The Life Aquatic. Narcissism breeds narcissism, and Where BR and Rushmore are about the beautiful dreamers, I think TRT at least deals with the grief such painful insulation can cause.

That may be why I find Life Aquatic so troubling - it sacrifices youth for knowledge. Publicly I have bad mouthed such directors as PT Anderson, Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith (among that entire generation of filmmakers) because they never seemed to leave their bubbles. Wes strikes me as one of the best, but ultimately these people need to experience more, to understand more to truly become great directors. We'll see how it goes, but Tarantino, for better or worse bests these guys because he knows that "a man's got to know his limitations."

Watching the United 93 supplements

An idea for a not great film, but interesting nonetheless: An actor/actress playing someone's husband/wife in a recreation of a tragedy ends up fucking/in a relationship with their widow/widower.

Amoeba/Sympathy Blow Job

Went to Amoeba the other day, such the best store in LA. Or my favorite. Got Modern Romance, a present for my friend Jeremy (alas, baby duties kept me away from his party), and some other things. I got a bag for my discs, and when I touched the bag it was wet. It was an insta whoa, and then I smelled my finger. It was gin. Huzzah! Drunkards ahoy hoy. This amused me to no end.

I feel sorta weird cause I got a pity BJ from the wife. She's not up for fucking. I don't know if I'm totally all "yeah let's get it on!" but as a man with seed, after about a week or so I start getting squirley. And Aili noticed, and though it's been a busy week and a half, and I've been on temporary leave with the J and still working from home, we put the baby to sleep yesterday and Aili whipped my pants off. Aili also went from a B cup to milk filled, so that's sorta fun too. TMI, for sure, but there's something (at least now) kind of thrilling of hoping to get finished before the baby wakes up again. I mean, if this was really TMI I'd talk about breast milk. I mean, sometimes that stuff leaks. Okay, shit, I've tasted it, but suckling (besides stealing from my son) was too enfantlizing. But even playing with them, they can squirt. We've got a pump, but still.

Aili got a three month leave. My mom is coming in a week for four days (on a road trip), and my bro's coming at some point soon. In a couple months I'll be working at home and being the primary care person. Fuck me.

Home again

We're home, crazy week. Tiring. And now we've got the baby. You don't sleep as much, that's for sure. Maybe I'll get to fuck again in a month or two. Maybe I'll get a full night's sleep in a year. Great. Great.

Born to feel the Illinoise

When I was at a wedding a couple weeks back I played for the Bride "After the Curtain" by Beirut. To me that song is the wedding. When my wife started having contractions late last night we drove to Illinois. For some reason Aili wanted a boom box while she was in labor (we were going to induce at the end of the week), and so it was mostly Sufjan Stevens who was to be played as our baby came into the world. I must say I agreed with this idea to no end, and besides, it helped things out for her end. We made an iPod playlist excising stuff like John Wayne Gacy Jr. (and almost exed Casimir Pulaski Day, but I made an appeal that held), threw on some Talking Heads (Naive Melody [This must be the Place] was the big one, Once in a Lifetime though it seemed too cheesed). I got away with a recent addition of Arcade Fire's Rebellion (Lies), some Beirut, some Mathew Sweet, some BSS, and Prince's Erotic City simply to fuck with the nurses (I love my wife that she let me get away with that). We just let it play at random while the contractions got closer and closer.

At 8:27 am on 10/16/2006 (that being a Monday), Aili gave birth to Leonard Evind Houx. As it was it was Vito's Ordination Song that was on when he popped out, here are the lyrics to that song:

I always knew
You
In your mothers arms
I have called your name
I have an idea
Placed in your mind
To be a better man
I've made a crown
For you
Put it in your room
And when the bride groom comes
There will be noise
There will be glad

And a perfect bed

And when you write a poem
I know the words, I know the sounds
Before you write it down,

When you wear your clothes,
I wear them too, I wear your shoes.
And the jacket too

I always knew
you
In your mother’s arms
I have called you son.
I’ve made amends
between
Father and son.

And if you haven’t won
rest in my arms,
sleep in my bed,
there’s a design

(repeat about twenty times):
to what i did and said
rest in my arms,
sleep in my bed,
there’s a design

Jesus, that's making me cry. Even cutting and pasting the lyrics. That song (for better or worse) will now be cemented into my life. I think for better (better than Once in a Lifetime... lucky me).

I'm near my wife, who's asleep right now, working off some wireless. We're both exhausted. Her more than me, obviously. The nurse told me I spent all night trying to keep everyone entertained. I guess I kept checking up on everyone. I've napped off and on during the day, had to run home to get some stuff around noonish when Aili was just passed out. I've spent some brief quality time with our kid.

And writing that sentence, it's just too much right now, it's too overwhelming. I can't type right about it anymore now, sorry. Just, you know, so you know, right now being a father feels pretty fucking awesome. And I'm not using awesome lightly.

Unexpected

There is evidence that I am sexier than other people

Expected: The baby's due in a week. I haven't had a lot of time. Or sleep. There's a lot I haven't covered, The Departed, fucking in the baby's room, cutting in line while we waited for Departed (the short story, my very pregnant wife asked to sit in the lobby and then we got our pick of the seats. I told her I should get her pregnant more often after that, and then she hit me). Etc. etc. More soon.

The Rip Off Artist as Genius

I can call myself among a new generation of film fans and filmmakers to revere BLOW OUT (1981) as a masterpiece. Or, at least, I can claim myself among Pauline Kael, Quentin Tarantino, Collider's Jeremy Smith, and Armond White (among others) who revere this film. Watching the ending, you see the metacommentary (pretty excplicit as it my be) that the artist must take his own personal demons and apply them to their art, even if it tears them up inside. They have to, they must. Whether De Palma was applying those demons or commenting on the artistic process (though likely both) is immaterial, that revelation is one of the greatest in the history of cinema, and may prove that De Palma made more personal films that Scorsese, whose soul may have been in the slightly flat RAGING BULL. Or moreso than Spielberg, whose game keep getting more interesting with each passing year, but reveals a craftsman whose soul only lightly touches his final product. Yep, I'm intoxiated enough with BLOW OUT to suggest that it proves De Palma the best filmmaker of his generation.

The Black Dahlia (2006)

There was a list of films to see this weekend. Jackass Number 2, The Science of Sleep, a De Palma double feature of Blow Out and The Untouchables and The Black Dahlia, which I wanted to catch last weekend, but post-wedding exhaustion nixed. With Sunday wrapping up I made the effort to at least see one of the films, and it was Dahlia, which is the one most likely to disappear quickest. I also watched Edmond (which I liked), Body Double (yay) and Lucky Number Slevin (a guilty pleasure, but functional). But I just got back from BD.

One of the things I love about Hollywood is just that it's Hollywood. I go to the Arclight, and who's watching the movie with me but Peter Dinkage. There you go. As for the film, I have mixed feelings for the moment. As a narrative it is talky, and the mystery elements don't snap... the haunted obsession of Elizabeth Short (played well by Mia Kirshner) seems the backstory to the machinations of boxers/cops Bucky Bleichert (Josh Harnett) and Lee Blanchard (Aaron Eckhart). After a shooting, the two become attached to the Short case out of Lee's insistance, and it becomes something of an overwhelming obsession for Lee, something that is shown but not entirely felt. Bucky starts chasing after a woman named Madeline Linscott (Hilary Swank), who knew Short through a lesbian bar. Bucky and Lee have been friends for a while, and share a relationship with Kay Lake (Scarlet Johansson), but though Kay and Bucky suggest their emotions, Bucky's unwilling to do anything while Lee's in the picture. There's a tale of obsession, betrayal, guilt, all the things that make a great De Palma film, but taken as a whole, and a second viewing might settle some things for me, it's a little too leaden for its own good. I didn't sink into the character's emotional weight, and there's so much going on that I felt like some important emotional beats were left out. I got into the film's lulling rhythms, but waited for the moment of total engagement, which just didn't happen. De Palma can still stage a setpiece, and those sequences popped, but I kept waiting for momentum to kick in. It didn't, though I loved the hoary theatrics of the villian's reveal. But the pieces were there for it to be out of the park, and I just didn't feel it. Still, worth seeing, if only for De Palma's command.

Afterwards I drove down Sunset at sunset. I see why it got the name. Now, I'm back in Burbank. I've been freaking out lately about the kid stuff. I'll tell you, the thing that sort of settled me was making love with the wife in the baby's room. We fell asleep in the middle of the room, and I guess everything was okay. You can worry about the long term, and you should, but sometimes the smart money's on staying with the day to day concerns.

Losing my internet cleverness

Damn it, I'm getting old. I'm married, I'm about to have a kid. I've got a job I do at home now because I want to be around the kid. I have a house. I married off two of my best friends to each other. They're gonna have kids at some point. Our kids will hang out. The map of my life is getting scary. I don't forsee myself getting a divorce, so I'm gonna be fucking one more person for a long time. I think I've tried all the drugs I'm going to try. I'm just freaking out a little bit cause in less than a month, I'm a dad. I guess we'll go abroad at some point in the next two years, but that'll be family related. This was never the person I thought I'd be. But I don't know who that person is. Fuck. Fuck Fuck. This is all just baby freakout shit.

Smoking Wedding Photos

Every part of my body is sore

I was in Portland for the weekend. I spent four days helping get my friends Heather and Scott married. I don't know how I cut my right hand (I think it was a bottle top), I know why my feet hurt (new shoes and new blisters), and I'm just generally sore and cranky. Then again, I got to bed at 3:30 last night and woke up still drunk for a morning flight, which - considering the amount of alcohol that was in my system for the last couple days - shouldn't be a surprise.

I got in on Wednesday and went to the bachelorette party. Oh yeah. I forgot to mention. I was the maid of honor. The wife was going to come, but seeing as how she's eight months pregnant she decided to skip it. I felt bad, but she had come out a couple months back. So I was to chaperone the party solo (though I wouldn't have wanted the wife to go... it'd be so bad if everyone else was getting plowed and she had to smile politely). The party consisted of going to two gay bars, the first a more mellow gay themed restaurant, the second the kind that was showing pornos on the TV's around us. I thought I would be surround by ten drunk women celebrating Heathz, but there were only four ladies, a gay man, and myself, and every single person was in a relationship. Still, you get a man drunk and all flirty, and he's happy his wife's out of town.

Thursday some of Scott's friends had arrived so we did the bachelor party. Again, two places, the first for food, the second for booze. I got to spend a lot of time with Scott's bro Joe, and I'd say we became fast friends. Friday was the rehearsal and then the dinner. If it isn't abundantly clear, I got plowed every single night. Totally enjoyed it, but I am not drinking again until the baby pops. There were numerous jokes about whether Joe and I should hold hands during the ceremony.

Saturday was the wedding. It was awesome. I got to give a toast and didn't cry, which I felt like I should have as the maid of honor. It was more fun than anything ever should be. Their gift to the groomsmen were monogrammed flasks, so I loaded Joe and I up with some Glenfiddich, and we kept passing shots to both the bride and groom - Dutch courage saves the day! But the main thing is that I love Scott and Heather very much, and them getting married (of which it has been said I was the conduit... Though that's mostly by me) is just about the greatest thing ever.

I guess I could write some other stuff about the wedding ceremony, about how for the wedding pictures I insisted I lay in yearbook pose, but Scott and Heather and two of my readers, and I just wanted to toast them again, for their friendship and for giving me the honor of being a part of the ceremony and their lives.

Have a beer

Okay. I just got a call from someone I dated briefly when I first moved to Los Angeles, nearly two years ago. She didn't know I got married. That's a fucked up conversation I just had. Time passes so quickly, five years ago the WTC went down, I was living in a basement apartment, dating someone else. I can't even think what I was doing ten years ago - probably heading to college after seeing Prince, actually (actually I just checked, I was off by a year and a couple weeks on that one). But my point is those five years have been the fastest of my life, and the last two have been crazy. But I think she wanted to do something tonight. Things ended... Okay I guess. She was heading to Colorado for some work related stuff for a couple of months, and after a couple of dates, there wasn't the connection there to keep us going with such an absence. When she got back into la there was that flurry of "we should do something" calls, and then nothing and then my wife.

The new house is great by the way. I'd say we're getting close to feeling settled.

Five years ago Autumn called me at four in the morning. She was going to see Radiohead in Germany, and the time difference was so fucked that if we were to talk at all, it was gonna be while I was sleeping. We talked briefly, but I couldn't rouse myself. Heading back to bed, I laid down and realized it was going to take some effort to get back to sleep, as by the time I got off the phone, I had woken up enough to have a conversation.

A couple hours or minutes later the phone rang again. I was slightly annoyed, honestly. Autumn wanted to tell me that a plane had flown into the World Trade Center. I was still sleepy, and couldn't really think about the words. I tried to calm her down, but I had no real idea what was going on, as my brain was already addled from the lack of sleep, and twice being woken up in the middle of the night. And so I went back to bed. But then I couldn't get any sleep, as again I had realized what we were talking about after I got off the phone. I woke up finally to Howard Stern. Everything was nuts on air, and Crazy Cabbie was watching the WTC going down, and I tried to wrap my head around the severity of what was going on. I got up at 7, most of the worst of it had already gone down, but no one knew that, and once peope figured out what had happened and why, no one was sure what would or could come next. I drove into work as my boss (whose wife was born on 9/11) and some of my coworkers were in Los Angeles for the week.

Driving in, it felt like a ghost town. Work was useless. I called my brother repeatedly, but the lines were jammed. He didn't live anywhere near downtown New York, but it'd be a bad day for him or his future ex-wife to be in town. I finally got through later in the afternoon. Everyone was glued to the radio, the few televisions (some which were bought that day), or the computer. The computer was my vice, and information trickled in. Then at 9:45, I left the office and headed over to the Fox Tower. That day it was my job to watch the Mariah Carrey film Glitter.

We went over to the theater, and everyone was acting in that same way of just complete and utter disconnectedness. The town was quiet. You wouldn't hear much of anything. And then we went in and dutifully watched the movie. Now, I own Glitter. I haven't watched it in five years, but there it is.

The rest of the day at work was a joke. I just read message boards and looked at footage of the towers going down of the net. I went to my friend DK's house and borrowed his advance copy of Phantom of the Paradise, because I wanted something to cheer me up. I went to the nearby Fred Meyers, bought a six pack of Bass (which their scanners would often ring up for $1.25) and remember being assaulted by the rows of televisions, playing endless repeats of the towers collapsing.

By that Friday, I saw two guys in the back of a pickup holding on to an American flag hanging awkwardly out of the back of the truck. It took roughly three days for real care and concern to be turned into jingoism and a grotesque patriotism that suggested we should all be proud to be Americans, instead of maybe just lucky or humble. That weekend I also watched Armageddon and King Kong. I, at least, enjoyed the latter.

That girl who didn't know I got married... I don't think it would have worked out had she been around. I think she knew it too. It just never got to bloom, so I don't know. But she did like being spanked, and that just did nothing for me. Nothing at all.

Systems/Go

With the baby weeks away, I've got a new from home job as an analyst. Things I've analyzed (or analysed for my British readers):

BRUCE IS THE GAYEST NAME THAT ISN'T 100% GAY: Like, I guess if your name was Iamamanwhohassexwithothermen, that would be very homosexual, but there's only two people with that name in the whole world, and like a boy named Sue, they're both very angry heterosexual people. Ironically, they've both ended up in jail.

WHEN IT COMES TO RAPE-BASED HUMOR, SIZE MATTERS: Who doesn't love jokes about rape? Nothing's funnier then men being raped by monkeys, dogs being raped by chickens, or the man in the moon taking his discretions with Jupiter's rings. What we discovered is that size really does matter.

Take for instance, man on bear rape. No matter the goofy expressions, a grown man raping a koala bear just isn't that funny, no matter how much the ears act up. Same goes for a Panda bear. But if a man rapes a polar bear... Comedy. Grizzly bear? Hilarious. The bears can react or not react, doesn't matter. Conversely, a man getting raped by a polar bear is disturbing and gross. Grizzly man meat? See my point? But a dude getting raped by a panda bear is high comedy.

This rule basically applies to all rape jokes. A nucleotide raping a cockroach is chuckleworthy. But a alligator raping a parrot just doesn't cut the mustard.

What I did with my Summer Vacation

Eric Rohmer
Akira Kurosawa

Yeah, I love the heavy hitters. And I've learned a lot about life.

So pregnant

Do you guys really want to hear about how my wife is getting rather pregnant? I've had a bunch of social engagements lately, and been able to take the wife to half of them. She was bad about it a month ago, but she knows. Then again, it's all about the game. The game of love. I've been watching the Rohmer box set and it's great. But I swears to god, I'll post more soon. When I don't have to deal with a pregnant wife, a kid, a job, and scripts to write.

ergh

I'm watching Amazing Stories Disc One and the Spielberg directed GHOST TRAIN. Which is the worst thing I've seen him direct. Ever. Compared to THE MAIN ATTRACTION, which is great. I'm worried about GATHER YE ACORNS, which freaked me out as a kid. Mark Hamill plays a guy who hangs on to all his toys, and is given all his dreams when he's, like 80. That shit scared me something fierce back then. The biggest problems with these is that most of them aren't geared towards the 30 minute structure and feel uneven.

The move is pretty much done at this point. Thanks for all the friends who helped, you literally saved my life. Next time we move, next time I'm not going to do it in the middle of an LA summer. Or go to Portland the weekend or two before. Still, we're so far along with this pregnancy thing that I'm going to have to make an effort to blog more. Find some hidden time.

"That Just Happened!"

Things are going fine, I guess. Aili has got a good glow. I won't be a pussy and talk about how I cried when I felt my son kick, but I did. So, to measure that out, pregnant fucking is awesome.

Change clothes

Young Hov in the house it's so necessary
No bra with the blouse it's so necessary
No panties and jeans that's so necessary
Now why you frontin on me is that necessary?

Playing Tomatoes here. I need to stop flirting with clerks at Amoeba. So gonna get me in trouble. The HEAT here is fucking death. Even with A/C we've been slugs. And we've got move soon. Boxes are out (I think that helps), but still. Spent most of the week trying to get sleep. Hasn't been working so well.

Returning to Portland

Went to the P-Town this weekend with the wife. For those I didn't see, I'm sorry. It was a weird trip. Showing the wife where I grew up. Introducing her, such as it was, to my father. I had a great time. My friend Heather turned 30 on Thursday so I came into town to hang with her, but also the wife is getting there (we're at the sixth month point now) so it's going to be hard to travel after the kid's born.

Being in Portland again, this time the differences were acute. Driving around with Scott, he mentioned traffic, and my response was "Yeah, Portland traffic."There were a couple of moments like that. But hanging out with my mom while we shopped at Zupan's, there is a lot that I miss about Portland. I mean the bottom line is that (for better or worse) Portland is way less serious a town. You feel comfortable looking at the people walking around you because you're likely to see someone you know walking around. And I did, just walking around, I'd see people I knew. Someone I dated seven years ago. Strange. In Los Angeles, you're more likely to see a celebrity than an old friend. And the town doesn't seem a openly social, maybe because it's so spread out and nuts, whereas even New York features more carousing. It's just that much smaller, but it's so beautiful. Coming back, it was sort of depressing, especially in this heat.

But I got to spend a huge chunk of time with Scott and Heather, and they got to hang around my wife. You find your rhythms. And you hope your wife likes your friends cause that's gonna be a problem if they don't. I got a couple with Scott and Heath hung with the wife, and it went super well. I think they became fast friends. Heath had a party for her birthday, and it was superfun, introducing my wife to people I ahdn't seen in a while. Doing Karaoke. Though the wife was not happy with how much I drank. To which I feel bad.

The dad thing. Hard. Very hard.

From LA

So perfect.

In Absentia

Look, I'm moving. I work, I've got a pregnant wife. The blog has taken the hit. Went to a baptism yesterday with some of the biggest movie geeks in the world. IN THE WORLD. So people were arguing over Superman Returns and the Pirates gross as a kid was getting dunked in holy oil and stuff. The wife is a grumblecake most of the time, but she's got that pregnant glow thing going on. Crazy. End of the month-ish we'll be in a new home. And yet it doesn't feel permanent. We just could do the apartment dwelling kid raising thing. A little more space, a lot more down payment. Kid stuff. I don't even want to talk about it here. It gets to be all consuming.

I can't help it, if I wanted to,

I can't help it even if I could

I've begun packing. The wife is useless, mostly by my proclamations. We found a house. But finances be tight. We've got to make good on our year lease (we got something of a sweetheart deal), and the wife has a nest egg, but things are in transition. And I find like my parent's marriage, I keep afloat, and she's the saver. But then again she makes so much more than me. Which is an issue, but there you go. I have too many fucking DVD's, so this is another chance to box them up. It looks like everything will be closed up by the end of June, so we'll probably be able to move in by August. We are getting some work done on it, but it's minor things. And now I have weekend plans to baby proof a room.

Look, honestly, I don't want to live in Burbank. I never did. The commute (if I keep it up) will be that much quicker, but this house is a temporary solution to our long term problems. And I hate thinking of myself as a deadbeat dad. LA friends, I will get you drunk if you give a helping hand. FYI. The place is slightly better than my condo, and a little bit more space. I showed it to my mom, who was in town for the weekend. We commiserated over LA prices.

I took her to the MOCA. Preston Fairy was there for a signing. Real heads who know the deal know that "we" were the Preston Fairy of Snakes on a Plane. But there was a Robert Rauschenberg exhibit, and I must say I almost cried looking at Factum I and II. The idea of the piece was that Rauschenberg wanted to show that his art was not the act of randomness that others may have suggested. But in the two versions, there are millions of little differences. So much of creating art is creating failure. So much of art is trying to create precision in randomness. So much of art is instinct mixed with discipline. He both succeed and failed miserably. That's great art.

But like, fifty-two cards when I'm, I'm through dealin, Now fifty-two bars come it, now you feel 'em

You gotta get, that, dirt off your shoulder

I GOT PLUGGED VOL.1
From the Criterion newsletter:
"Rough edged, combative, and honest, Marco Bellocchios 1965 I Pugni in tasca (Fists in the Pocket) has the jangly assault of a punk-rock album. The DVD Journal"

As linked above (here) I did review me some Cemetery Man and it was hard in trying to get it all in. Sometimes when I write, well, shit, like anything it's feast or famine. What was so hard wasn't the actual writing, per se, but trying to live up to a film that I adore so completely. There are few films that are so much a part of who I am. I have learned and stolen a lot from it. "He's only eating me! Mind you business, I shall be eaten by whomever I chose!"

But the shot I love best, the shot that made me fall in love was Dellamorte, after putting a heater under a blanket of the final version of She, goes to his car and lights a cigarette. As he does so the flames from the house hit the window just as he's lighting his smoke. It's one of my favorite moments in all of cinema. And like Truffaut said, it's not literature, it's not painting. It's fucking cinema.

One of the harder reviews I've ever had to write

This shit's gonna be hard.

Why? Why?

Tell them that it's human nature Why? Why? Does he do me that way?

The taint is the body's Rhode Island.

I once fucked a girl who had a shamrock shaved into her pubes. Must have been a Celtics fan.

For the Love of Judy Garland

No, I'm not gay,Really.

Interesting weekend. The wife is four months pregnant, and we had to go to some parties this weekend. The one for her work friends was a pool party, and Aili wanted to wear the bathing suit. She did (looked good, if I don't say so myself, which I probably shouldn't), and she's got a bit of a belly. A lot of people she works with didn't know she was pregnant until a month ago. I have seen most of these people four times over the course. Christmas and the briefer of "stopping by the office" moments. Todd, one of the interns, is pretty cool, so I hung with him mostly when I wasn't at the beck and call of my wife. Todd's gay. That doesn't bother me, of course, but as the intern he's sort of a bad guy to side with, but we both feel like outsiders, and he attends these things with the same amount of obligation I do. Aili likes him, but she feels I should mingle more. One of her coworkers, Tina, started talking about the whole pregnant thing. I found it all overwhelming, to say the least. At least Tina was a straight shooter. Though being told by a woman about vaginal elasticity was a convo I never thought I'd have, I mean we knew about spotting, but whoosh, somethings you just don't want to hear from strangers. Things have slowly gotten better with the wife, all things, but everything's still tender. At one party I didn't drink and she was upset with me for abstaining. Second party, I had four beers, and she was mad that she had to drive. We got home and she got mad at me and herself. It was one of the most schitzophrenic conversations I've ever had. Basically, I explained to my life, in less words, that I love her. This has been hard to prove, but I try. But it's a serious concern, and one that I'm sure I'll be adressing for at least the next year or so.

People hundred of years ago were S-M-R-T, smart!

"And now," I said, "let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets."
"I see."
"And do you see," I said, "men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent."
"You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners."
"Like ourselves," I replied; "and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?"
"True," he said; "how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?"
"And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?"
"Yes."
"And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?"
"Very true."
"And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?"
"No question."
"To them," I said, "the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images."
"That is certain."
"And now look again, and see what will naturally follow if the prisoners are released and disabused of their error. At first, when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck round and walk and look towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains; the glare will distress him, and he will be unable to see the realities of which in his former state he had seen the shadows; and then conceive some one saying to him, that what he saw before was an illusion, but that now, when he is approaching nearer to being and his eye is turned towards more real existence, he has a clearer vision, -what will be his reply? And you may further imagine that his instructor is pointing to the objects as they pass and requiring him to name them, -will he not be perplexed? Will he not fancy that the shadows which he formerly saw are truer than the objects which are now shown to him?"
"Far truer."
"And if he is compelled to look straight at the light, will he not have a pain in his eyes which will make him turn away to take and take in the objects of vision which he can see, and which he will conceive to be in reality clearer than the things which are now being shown to him?"
"True, he now."
"And suppose once more, that he is reluctantly dragged up a steep and rugged ascent, and held fast until he 's forced into the presence of the sun himself, is he not likely to be pained and irritated? When he approaches the light his eyes will be dazzled, and he will not be able to see anything at all of what are now called realities."
"Not all in a moment," he said.
"He will require to grow accustomed to the sight of the upper world. And first he will see the shadows best, next the reflections of men and other objects in the water, and then the objects themselves; then he will gaze upon the light of the moon and the stars and the spangled heaven; and he will see the sky and the stars by night better than the sun or the light of the sun by day?"
"Certainly."
"Last of he will be able to see the sun, and not mere reflections of him in the water, but he will see him in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate him as he is."
"Certainly."
"He will then proceed to argue that this is he who gives the season and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold?"
"Clearly," he said, "he would first see the sun and then reason about him."
"And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the cave and his fellow-prisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them?"
"Certainly, he would."
"And if they were in the habit of conferring honors among themselves on those who were quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before, and which followed after, and which were together; and who were therefore best able to draw conclusions as to the future, do you think that he would care for such honors and glories, or envy the possessors of them? Would he not say with Homer, Better to be the poor servant of a poor master, and to endure anything, rather than think as they do and live after their manner?"
"Yes, I think that he would rather suffer anything than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable manner. "
"Imagine once more," I said, "such an one coming suddenly out of the sun to be replaced in his old situation; would he not be certain to have his eyes full of darkness?"
"To be sure."
"And if there were a contest, and he had to compete in measuring the shadows with the prisoners who had never moved out of the cave, while his sight was still weak, and before his eyes had become steady (and the time which would be needed to acquire this new habit of sight might be very considerable) would he not be ridiculous? Men would say of him that up he went and down he came without his eyes; and that it was better not even to think of ascending; and if any one tried to loose another and lead him up to the light, let them only catch the offender, and they would put him to death."
"No question."
"This entire allegory," I said, "you may now append, dear Glaucon, to the previous argument; the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world according to my poor belief, which, at your desire, I have expressed whether rightly or wrongly God knows. But, whether true or false, my opinion is that in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right, parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed."

A strange week

My wife has been pissy all week. We're going to a party tomorrow night. I plan on spending the whole time ignoring everyone else at the party. I hope that helps. And I wish I wasn't so delighted my wife is jealous. Not that this hasn't happened before. But I guess now it feels so stupid. My wife is hot to me. If you like Finnish chicks.

I got a call Tuesday from a friend from Portland. It started poorly when he said "How's it going with the fake wife?" I tried to correct him, but it went bad from there. He was critical of our relationship, partly because of reading this blog. And he reads this and I'm being critical of him, but my whole stance was "Look it's real now. It's real now."And we got into a fight, and then I have to come into the house where the wife is still upset with me.

Wednesday I get an Email out of the blue from an old coworker who tells me that someone we used to work with has died. I have had many mentors in my life, like any male of my generation who's felt his father was not the man he wished to emulate. Hal was a man of experience, and he definitely meant a lot to me. In rememberence I think of one of the things that made us friends. Early on, I did some thing stupid and he called me on it. I listened, and he did the gentlemanly "I'm going to heavily compliment for something else because I don't want you to feel bad." A couple days later we were doing the employee cake thing, and I had a slice, and he made a comment like "Well, having a second won't hurt you, tubby" (though perhaps more polite), and I said to him "Would it be impolite if I told you to go fuck yourself?" and he was proud of me. "You'll do just fine here, boy." We both had the habit of coming in on the weekends to work, so I saw him often, and like many older men, he would repeat anecdotes and jokes often enough that you knew when they were coming. And he was a Southern Gentleman so politics were a no no, and he was aghast with the annual pride parade, while occassionally his leanings steered into a direction that I would find offensive if I thought he wasn't so rooted in his way, and I felt they led to treating others in a less-than fashion. But the Pabst I drink I drink for you tonight. Hal. Cause, well, I loved you. And I miss you. Part of me knew, as Tarantino said in Kill Bill Vol.2, that one of the biggest killers is retirement. And when they laid you off, I figured you might have some problems adjusting. But this is tragic news. Hal. The last time I saw you was right before I moved to LA. You stopped by a lunch to see that I was doing all right (or was it a couple months before I left, dunno). You were brief but pleasant, a couple months later you were laid off.

Today I got a call from a friend who got into a car accident. Was okay, car totalled. Crazy story. He's one of my closest in and I hope the soreness just goes away and the insurance pays for everything. It's been a weird week. I hope my wife lets me fuck her tonight.

RZA presents: The Fallout (Parental Advisory: TMI ahead)

I came home today and the wife got home before me. The problem with my personal disconnectedness is that I often see things from above. Which sometimes has me contemplating the next move or the grand scheme when I should be in the moment. I can't say I think in chess, but maybe a little. Not good chess anyway. I think in bad chess. But somehow I knew when I got home, and I had a moment to peak, that Aili dumped her porn stash. Kept the vibrator, though. I'd ruminate on how odd I think it is that some girls like to watch porn, but whatever, I Was happy when she liked it, but I'm just as happy it's gone. I just hope she wasn't exposed to it the way I was. Finding your parents porn. The problem with kids is that you really can't hide that much from them. They're innately curious and will go through your drawers.

Part of me thinks I should never post stuff like this. But this is my hole in the ground to whisper stuff, and it may be embarassing or whatever, but I figure as long as I'm honest, then it's interesting, and meaningful. I hope I don't look at this in ten years and cringe. But maybe I'll just cringe because it was me. And if you can't be brutally honest with yourself, then what's the point.

Fight Night

So I made a mistake by telling the wife that I had a sex dream that didn't involve her. Especially after having sex with her in the morning. It's almost a cliche to suggest a pregnant woman is sensitive about certain things, but you throw in married, and the fact that girl told me in my dream that she was 17, I mean that shit pisses a woman off to no end. So she was supremely irritated with me, and like all married couples after the initial "I'm pissed off at you" moment, it moved towards the whole "finding faults with little things you do" style of domestic abuse. Complaints about my chorework (which is admittedly a problem), and that I spend too much time on the computer. Even after her walk she was still upset.

As I've grown older, I've learned some things that I didn't know as a youth. And one of them is that you don't bring up the subject that's annoying the person until they do (and often they want closure for themselves, so STFU if you can help it), and never put it on the level of "well, do you want out" until you need to press that button, but that button is an emergency setting and you better not be bluffing in those moments (also, bringing up "do you want out/is it over" can plant poisonous seeds). On that note the fact that I thought my wife wanted out when she was telling me she was pregnant has led to some profuse apologies, but I love giving them to her, because somehow that reminder strengthens our marriage. I mean, anyone who's had more than two relationships knows these things, but the sort of level of abuse grows when you're married (or so I've learned) because there is that sense of elasticity. That we are committed means that she can extract revenge at great length and with a level of malice heretofore unprecedented.

The problem with this sort of gameplaying is that often you can spot the mechanics of it, which you sort of have to, to know what sort of trouble you're in. But you should try to take it on like you don't know that it's something that must be flushed out the system. As a writer this level of the rules of the game is very amusing to me, but I know that I must play it, so I have to quiet the part of my brain that tells me the whole thing is show. Strangely enough this abuse and ritual reinforces that my wife really does love me - there's something to be said for the notion that you can only really get under the skin of the people you care about. I too sometimes feel the need to extract some punishment, but Aili tends to close the books faster then when the shoe's on the other foot. Also, it's hard to stay mad when your wife throws on some Broken Social Scene and puts on the lingerie after taking a bath. I'm not a fan of sexgames in general, but this sort of apology is a game to itself, and it creates a Pavlovian instinct in me. To that extent I think sometimes we fight to apologize. Again, the elasticity.

And then so after dinner, when things sort of settled down because I did all the prep work and cleaning, and also did some mopping today, and we got one of those clean stick things so I could dust away some corner cobwebs, anyway, that of course being my peace offering, and when it came up again at a more rational level, I realized how badly I fucked up.

I felt sort of faux-bad before, but here's the thing to which I cannot and try not to tell to my wife. I live in a sort of bubble. I can perceive certain things about interactions, etc. But often I am completely and totally oblivious. Some have told me that's a side effect of being a dude. But I never think of myself as super-covetable. And so for me, the idea of having a dream about a young girl desperate to fuck my brains out is amusing. It's not low self esteem, it's just I don't look like Brad Pitt or Orlando Bloom. I look like Phillip Seymour Hoffman. And some women find that very attractive. But it's not Kobe Steak, if you know what I mean (though I should refrain from food analogies after mocking them in a recent review). So when a hot girl is flirting me up I find it amusing, but I don't always (and sometimes rather wrongly) take it seriously. Cause I flirt with everyone, and this is LA. The problem is when you're married, hopefully you are Kobe Steak to your partner. And when your partner is in an emotionally fragile position, as their bodies are starting to change, and their desire to know that they have someone they can emotionally, physically et al. count on...They don't want to know you got a boner from some young girl even if she is a figment of your imagination.

There's a level of emotional fragility that I had never seen before in my wife. She's feminine, believe me, she's got all the requisite requirements, but even her more feminine moments tend to have an edge. Perhaps it's the whole accent thing, the language barrier. And I've seen my wife cry before, but the dinner conversation opened a whole new floodgate of worries and concerns I never attached to her. And the only reason why I type this out, to commit such a memory to the world is wanting to hold on to the moment I found out I could love my wife more than I did before. There was a sense and an air before that she didn't need me. And I liked that when we were mostly just fake married. And now I know my wife wants me around. Aili needs me around. And so I've gayed up the blog again, and even mentioned sex. I told Aili that I didn't know until tonight that she needed me so much, and she told me I'm an idiot. She's right.

Mean Mr. Mustard-Houx-Livesly

I'm being mean
Also, mean

Variety said my Tcheky Karyo impression was phenomenal...

You think any athestists dig on modern country music? My guess is not.

I had a dream last night that I went back to college, and started fooling around with a girl, who told me after we had sex that she was seventeen. I woke up next to my pregnant wife with a boner. I'm still sort of fucked up by the whole thing.

Nuanced Self-Loathing

I just got an Irrate phone call from God. He basically chewed me out for my last entry.

Okay, here are the facts:
1) I do not know Puff Daddy. I have a friend named Paul who was asking about God. Not Sean Combs. I did appear on a TV show. And I have a couple of rapping friend, and I have met numerous rappers through my friendship with God, but Combs is notone of them.
2) God did not resurrect Pauline Kael. I was just being (or trying to be) clever. God does not and will not resurrect people no matter how much you ask him, or how drunk you get him.
3) God will cop to getting drunk and telling me about Lohan and my kid.
4) God wants me to transcribe this, though he's never been as commanding of a verbatim convo: "Look, you and your entire generation are way too self satisfied with your smug and slightly phony self-loathing. You like to spin plates too much. I thought you kids were down with Yoda, and the whole do or do not. You just wasted an hour of your life making fun of yourself, but in such a way that smacks of self aware cleverness. For what purpose did you do that, to show what exactly. It's twaty. Stop it, or you'll become Napoleon Dynamited."

My promise to God: I'll try. I'll try to stop doing the aware and affected faux shyness. I will strive for true humility. And hopefully I'll get to the do part.

Of Gods and Monsters

I was talking to Sean "Puffy" Combs today. Long story. One of the things I don't talk about much, my internship with him, like the TV show I was on for two years. It just doesn't come up all that often. Anyway, he hit me on my cell, and was like "You, dog, love your blog, why haven't you talked about God lately? Cause last time I hung with G-diddy, he was all like 'yo yo yo Damon's got the good blog, talking bout me all the time' and shit. What's up, you guys on the outs?" And we talked about my lady, and J-Lo, and the Cavs, and Kanye, and, well, stuff.

But actually, no I still talk to God all the time, but alas, having a preggers wife means carousing with the boys isn't as oft a possible, cause weekends are now prioritized as wife time. Which means when I can swing it after work I hang, but with LA traffic the way it is, that tends to mean an hour or two or a movie with the group on the weekends, and then maybe The Cat and Fiddle for a while (where it used to be we'd close that shit down). And even the evenings get to be shorter cause I like spend some QT with the wifey when I can.

But a couple days back I got some time to sit with the boys, and God resurrected Pauline Kael to review my blog. That's the problem with drinking with God, never mind the drive home - and it's hard to say no to God's wine cellar, and assorted pleasantries (I can only be so polite) - some shit comes up and it's exciting, and then frustrating at the same time. Moreso than watching Cheaper by the Dozen 2, which is simply torturesome. And then if God gets drunk enough he starts making promises, many of which he ends up keeping, and saying things you don't want to hear (like he told me where Lindsey Lohan's going to be in twenty years... and then he spoiled the sex of my first kid. But you can't get too mad at God. He's God, and he's some great verbal skills). So he brought back Pauline Kael from the dead to write a review of my blog. It was humbling, to say the least:

"It's interesting to note that the epistolary has come back into a new sort of bastardized vogue with E-mail. Though letter writing was dying as I was, the internet has allowed for instant communiques of varied length, to which the latest iteration being the Blog. But the Blog, like pop culture, is an emphemeral artform. It is fast food thoughts, with a shelf life as long as it is kept warm. It's sad to see so many of my colleagues drawn to them, but the advantages (space, lack of editors) are also their greatest shortcomings. There's a powerful sort of empty vouyerism to it all, the false honesty of a public diary. Artists may censor themselves more in personal writings than in art, and that is why an artist's art is usually more interesting than their reflections, even if grains of greatness and truth can be found in them. I doubt a great writer could perfect the art of the blog, but if they did, it'd be like mastering the Limerick.

Summoned as I was from the dead to write this, I was instructed to peruse Erratic Thriller. Immediately the blog is off-putting as the author feigns modesty with his header in an attempt at cleverness. And starting from the beginning as I did - which seems backwards - one senses the author (Damon Houx) finding his footing. Essentially, as two out of three items in his profile suggests, he is interested in two things, movies and sex (and sexuality), but his work is weighed down in the mundanity of his life. Which is the inherent disadvantage to the blogging form. His movie observations are occasionally clever if I am to be kind, though his reviews are often too brief and too stock. Like many of his contemporaries, he fetishizes films that don't deserve the sort of attention he gives them. Witness his latest entries, where he speaks more authoritatively and with greater interest about a shoddy remake of a horror film than of Ozu, whom I must admit I tended to find lacking (Houx does little but applaud an artist he seems to little understand) {Houx note: BULLSHIT}. Too often he is a status quo writer with brief bits of fancy, though too often he doesn't question the reputation of older features without giving them a curt dismissal.

Like any personal dialogue, it's cruel to disect and criticize someone for who they are - some people may just lead more interesting lives (but that too can be seen as a cop out, great artists tend to manage a sense of interest in life's small pleasures). But it's more unkind to the reader who has to slog through such pedestrian narratives. If writing were a protean artform this attention to the banal might have greater purpose, but all human beings eat, produce waste and sleep, while many if not most enjoy sex and culture, to which one wants to find insight into the human condition to make such observations of worth. Some artists have their diaries collected post humously, and one fears the bloggers who may find their works collected. If I were them, I'd make sure their blogs were wiped off the face of the earth."

You take the good, you take the bad...

I've been told I haven't gayed up my blog lately, so sorry about that. This week my wife got me an iPod, and I got her the Facts of Life box set. She got me the iPod as a gift for my new job, I got a promotion at work (I mean I applied for it, so it's sort of a new job). I think this was her way of smoothing things out... we got into a bit of a fight about it. Having me look after the baby is a real thing, and I think she resented me getting the job. I told her it wasn't necessarily permanent, and we're doing some tenative house hunting, and having a little bit of extra cash isn't the worst thing. But she read it as a possible passive-agressive attempt at asserting my masculinity. I know my wife makes more than me. I don't have a problem with it. Really, I don't.

Looking at houses... for a second time in my life. It's like we're looking at slightly larger places for ten times the cost of what I paid in Portland. If our jobs weren't so primarily located here, I think we'd both move. Aili's pretty cool about staying in America. She doesn't really miss Finland. There's been some other drama about the baby's birth. Her parents want to come but don't, and we're not traveling with the baby for the first year (I'd say). Not on a plane for some twelve hours or so. That just seems mean. To everyone. It's weird that I'm now seriously, for the first time since college seeing the schema of the next couple years of my life. Not in a major way, it's just the nature of the beast. We're already talking about schooling. This doesn't scare me, it's just what we have to do. Married for less than a year, it's a paradigm shift. There's a level of acceptance required, even if it's a positive change. I find it hard to put in words, I guess because there are great things about it, and bad things. Bad isn't the right word. It's like learning to use utensils. Or, as I already said, a paradigm shift.

My wife is an exercise junkie, and I don't know how she stands me. We went walking today, a five mile jag, and she told me it was a good way to test my iPod. Which I had a blast loading up with stuff, and choosing what to throw in, a mix of stuff I don't know but have been curious about (Girl Talk, Fisherspooner), and the classics (Talking Heads, London Calling, Notorious B.I.G.). I really did enjoy the walk because of the shuffle setting, but then I'd want to share with the wife, and then we did the shared headset thing, which lasted for about a block. So then I just abandoned the headphones and had to talk to the wife for a while. Heh.

And I'm told I get bonus points for not talking about fucking in this post.

Get More Scared

Ozu's Late Spring
Boo? Hiss.

I love putting words together. That I was able to put the title of this entry in my review of When a Stranger Calls just makes me happy. I love that it sounds bad. It's like blowing things up good. I'm watching Barcelona. So good.

I'll be here all week

So, Poseidon bombed. And the variety will run such headlines as "Poseidon tanks" "Poseidon goes under" "Poseidon waterlogged" "Poseidon sinks." etc. etc.

Here's my take: B.O. Pos(e)i(d)on. It is the bestest and most cleverest. FACE VARIETY!

God is alive and well and living in Sherman Oaks.

Such is the proof (thanks be to one Daniel Laugharn for the link).

I went shoe shopping with my wife today after we both got out of work. She's getting close to the four month mark.

(Parenthetical: I had a bedtime conversation that after the baby is born me and the wife are going to get a baby sitter after eight or so months after or whatever, and we're going to get a friend to watch our kid or something and we're going to go out and get really drunk and then have really drunken [and possibly other things] sex. I kinda feel like we missed our opportunity for that. It's a strange feeling. Then again my wife's response to "Hey, you know what? I wanna take you out some night and get really drunk and have sex." was "You mean Fridays?" We'll both be here all week.)

So the shopping, Aili, was amazed. It took me four minutes to buy shoes. Literally. We went and got dinner afterwards (the wife has to have Zankou Chicken, like five nights a week. Seriously. She doesn't care if it's cold either, sometimes I have to grab some on the way home), and she was still flummoxed at the speed of light shopping.
"If I see what I want, I get it."
"What does that say about me?"
"Everything it needs to."

Humanizing the ubermensch

A Great Movie
You're a Hooker!

1) United 93 is a great movie, I think. It opens in a very smartly banal way. Little happens. There are no movie moments to speak of (even the arrival of a late passanger is what it is), and for me I spent much of the front end thinking of what happened to me that day. I will share my 9/11/01 reminsces on the 5th anniversary later this year (shortly before my child is born). But then the shit hits the fan, and the you are there factor is pretty amazing. In some ways it's a horror film. Very intense, and well worth seeing.

2) I reviewed 400 Blows above. I took my copy to Amoeba. And got the box set of Doinel films. Yay for me.

3) Most blockbusters raise questions like "How'd they do that?" or "That's amazingly stupid!" The question M:I:III raises is "How did they spend 150 million and get so little?" The main special effects of the film are shots of Tom Cruise running. I mean, that shit costs NOTHING. Nothing. I had gone in hearing it wasn't so hot, and perhaps the elements of spinning plates, but for serious, for really reals, I didn't expect something so empty. The problem is that (as my title suggests) the film tries to humanize a character who isn't human by nature. And the fact that he wants to do his dangerous job and then have a girlfriend/wife... well it makes the character look like an ass. And without the sense of geography to the action scenes these sequences don't build at all. There's one amusing bit where Hunt is dressed as Phillip Seyomour Hoffman, and so it's obviously Hoffman running around. That amused. And so did Simon Pegg, who shows up for some quick scenes and kills. But bad exposition and funeral flashbacks really kill the thing. Hitchcock knew the MacGuffin was the thing that moved the plot but didn't matter, but you have to have interesting characters and other agendas to make it work. Not here. Just a rampant failure. And JJ Abrams doesn't know how to direct a movie.

My old job and me.

I still follow the numbers. Every Saturday I hit MCN or B.O. Mojo to see how much business the movies did. These numbers told the story of how my Monday was going to go. Sometimes I'd stop by the office and see exactly how my theaters did. I worked in exhibition for a theater chain for five years and had over a hundred screens under my belt. It wasn't a hard job, per se, but there were things to it. You don't get to add second prints on Monday normally, print buys were long done by then, so there was always a gambling aspect to the job. I sometimes think of one of the last gambles I took (and lost) and wonder if that reflected on me being let go. Sometimes I think it did, but mostly I figure the books were closed long before I got myself into a small hot spot.

Off topic, but just the same, I'm glad things have worked out how they have, and I'm glad to be in LA with my often glowing pregnant wife. We're more than three months down, with less than six to go. We're expecting in early October. Scary scary. The doctor's appointments have gone well. We've decided we're waiting until birth to find out the kid's sex.

But the old job is why I'm fascinated by M:I:III's 17 million dollar opening. It tells a story, because nowadays one day's number suggests the fate of a film. Word of Mouth has been successfully killed as a factor into long playdates for big films. Sure, word of mouth happens, but it's few (The Sixth Sense) and far between (My Big Fat Greek Wedding), and isn't effective on what are considered easy sells. Most word of mouth goes now (thanks in some small part to AICN) to pictures before they open. They solidify the see/not see factor. And once you've studied the patterns of box office, you get a pretty concrete sense of what a number spells, because you've seen those numbers before.

And then also, the 17? Could be fictional. The film's reported budget of 150? More than likely made up. Cruise gets back end (hey now) percentage points. The film has been in development for years. The film was also probably shot in a lot of Paramount owned locations, so the studio paid itself money to make its own movie. Numbers are often fudged a little to make people happy.

Me, I'm going to see United 93 tonight.

Tired

Baby Doll
The Night of the Iguana
Tristan + Isolde

I went to bed around one lst night and woke up, stone cold up at four. I left the bedroom begrudingly around five, and watched some TV until eight when I finally crashed out for two hours. I'm dead right now, and I've been off all day. Which has made Aili kinda grumpy with me. She wanted to do our Sunday evening out, and I'm exausted and sweaty, and unhsaven, and dead to the world. I was doing okay until about four, and then the energy just left me. Now here I am trying to stay awake for a few more hours, so I don't totally screw up my sleeping patterns, while I also don't want the wife to know that it was her cooking that messed up my sleep. I'll hopefully konk out soon enough.

Celeb Sightings

The best of the last couple was seeing Kenneth Johnson of THE SHIELD a couple days after the finale of Season 5, but I just saw Jennifer Love Hewitt on Franklin in front of Birds. What does it matter? Nothing. There you go.

Film Criticism I Hate

getting it/not getting it: Sure, there are some instances of this, some I could draw easy links to, it's just films often are open to interpretation. If someone proves to understand a narative for what it is and then doesn't like it, then they get it.

overrated: The lamest criticism in the history of the world. It says nothing, other than it suggests (as the previous does) "others were fooled." Good not great is a better alternative, but suggesting that is the end of the discussion is frustrating beyond words.

Then again, she's half undressed...

Fists in the Pocket
It's Always Fair Weather

Went to a bachelor party last night. I was running late, as I barely had any time to watch what I had to watch, and showed at the dinner as it was wrapping up. I get there, and the man of Honor, Dave, was already drunk. He had called cause I was running late, and the thought of flaking had occurred as I still hadn't finished everything I needed to (sorry, Dave), but I showed and it was great. Dave's drunk and some guy shows up saying "Hey I saw you were looking at my wife's ass in the bathroom. Let's go." Dave, taking it in stride said "Okay, let's go." The dude kept pressing, and Dave said shit like "I'm looking at you and your wife can't be that hot, so let's go." As I was sitting next to him, all I could do was laugh. Dave stood up and the people there held him back, and the dude back, and then other friends of his, and the manager of the restaurant came over. The dude looked kind of familiar, but I didn't say anything, and as it turned out it was a practical joke on David. It was this guy who I kinda thought it was. And I said to the person sitting next to me, "A dildo, not your dildo." And as we found out later, I was right.

We went back and played poker, a little Texas Hold Them. Thirteen at the table, many drinking or amateurs. Not knowing the lay of Silverlake so well treated me right as I was unwilling to drink all that heavily, and knowing the game put me in a bit of an advantage. We were playing tournament style so top three we money winners, and knowing that I played fast and mostly tight. Getting a suited Ace Eight (DEAD MAN'S HAND), I pressed my luck, and pulled an all in win to get me into heavy chips, though I never got the lead (there was someone there who seemed the best of the lot). I knew that I had chips, and that with so many at the table it was simply a waiting game. People were going to and did take hot chances on okay cards, not waiting for the flop to press their luck, you get that many people going, the table had stages where it went from thirteen to eleven, and then to seven, and then five. There it got cutthroat, but being a chip leader I was able to do some bullying - when you have high chips (not that I'm saying anything new) you put people in positions where they feel the pressure. I had one bad lay where I had trip fives, and the river netted my opponent a flush, but otherwise, I played strong and steady. I had a Rounders moment where I told my fellow player exactly what he had and what I was doing. I could tell that riled some people, but it sort of worked to my advantage. Towards the end, I was running in second, and the chip leader and myself did what was best, which was let the two at the end fight amongst themselves. Doing so sort of tied me with the third best, so instead of splitting the pot 50/30/20, we went 50/25/25, because playing it out at 2 am was just getting wearisome. But that's poker. It's not how you start. So I went out and made a profit by going to a bachelor party. NICE.

I know I talk about fucking my wife too much...

Sorry. My life, as it has been since we got married, tends to revolve around me working from 10-12 hours a day during the week, coming home, watching a movie or some TV and having sex, sleeping, and then going back at it, with some time conceeded for eating. Weekends revolve around errands, watching whatever titles I got from the J, some down time/writing time, and more sex. Sometimes seeing friends, but not as oft as I'd like. Though it looks like I might be getting bumped up at work due the shuffles, so I might have some more free time. We shall see. Also, I'm desperately in love with my wife, so it sort of takes hold of things, and we're kinda cute together. We banter. I like it. There you go. Sorry, again, I'll try and cut it out. Especially since, as I've realized with the previous post, the underwear and the neighbors fucking thing, that essentially I like to present or think of myself as a hedonist, I'm actually rather boring and plain when it comes to this stuff. I like my married sex.

I've been doing this for a year?

And what have I gotten out of it? Nothing. No free toaster. Nothing. Mr. Pill popping rock star... Nothing.

My work situation, which I've chosen not to talk much about for various reasons, is in some tumult because (within the last two weeks) two people have quit to go on to bigger and better, another uncerimoniously resigned, while word is another will be leaving our department in the nearer of futures. All of whom had been with the company for much much longer than I have. Last night some coworkers went out to celebrate one of the happier leavings, and I finally showed around tenish. Mostly because I had just gotten out of work after pulling a sixty hour week. Things were wrapping up, and the person leaving was hammered in such a way that was very cute for a girl, though she was having balance and perception problems, and when I showed up she was happy to see me in that drunken way that immediately intrudes on your personal bubble. This isn't a good or bad thing, it just is, and it was interesting to me to note my reaction to it, which is that I kinda recoiled. What interests me about this is that I can be an outrageous flirt, so I guess I'm better at giving than taking this. The shoe was on the other hand, as it were. It also made me think that most of the people I tend to drink with don't get all cute drunk. Cause they're men and they tend to drink regular, and don't get all flittery. I drink with the wrong people, I guess.

I also did the farewell lunch. This is something I'm not that fond of when you get paid hourly. It's not that I don't want to wish the person well (though in other instances I could give a shit [in that I felt showing up would be a empty gesture as we hadn't worked together very long, etc. etc.], and it feels like the sort of thing best personified by the cake scene in Office Space), but that usually it costs me both time and money to have lunch at a huge table where everyone you work with is spread out and you find your niche and talk with the people talk with, who may or may not be the person who is going away. I ended up at a table with some friends, and that was cool, but I felt sort of bad because it kinda defeated the purpose. I guess, though, the purpose is showing that the majority of your coworkers who are available will sit next to you and think of you fondly. Like class pictures, I guess.

At the drinks setting it was fun, but I had spent the whole week essentially working and sleeping for the last couple days, and with the Tylennol PM I used a coupletimes that week (sore throat, congestion) by the time I got there I couldn't drink because I wouldn't want to drive after, too dangerous sounding, and of course, I'd have to come home to the wife, who was already annoyed I'd had such long days lately.

We got into a tif the other day. I caught her smoking. I didn't really say anything, and she was ashamed, but it pissed me off, and that sort of tension takes a while to disipate. So I'm a little annoyed and then later - when I'm mostly over it - the wife gets mad at me because I called her my Finnish Princess. "That's racist." "Being Finnish is a race?" "Would you call me your African Princess? Your Jewish Princess? Your Chinese Princess?" "No, because you aren't." "So you don't see how that could be offensive?" "Aili, are you fucking with me? I can't tell sometimes." "What do you think?" "I think I need to take your clothes off and have my way with you." "You think too much." "Too much... or not enough?"

And all the people were singin'

Okay, I watched SNL this morning. They had a digital sketch called "Laser Cats," which makes me wonder how long it's going to take SNL to getting around to parodying Snakes on a Plane. But they seem aware of what I think will be the next evolution of comedy films: intentionally bad movies. Take a ludicruous premise and flesh it out to feature length. And who wouldn't want to see a giant elephant do some bullet time kung fu again terrorist planes? "Laser Cats" was exactly like Ali G's "Spies" though PG rated, with the same sort of sloppy editing. Sadly, they copped out on the ending, which should have been Lorne Michaels (having watched the piece of shit) saying 'We gotta turn this into a feature!" and then showing the marquee. This, though, may have been too close to Lorne (producer of such great films as The Ladies Man and Lassie) Michaels hellashitty cinematic career, or the fact that Hollywood is now making these movies. Alas, it will take a leap of faith for a studio to really embrace bad filmmaking. Hopefully, SoaP will change all that.

And the bells were ringin'

The Black Belly of the Tarantula
The Complete Mr. Arkadin
The Damned Dirty Apes!

Aili's brother and his lover are staying with us. I haven't been on much bro-duty excepting yesterday, where we all went out and did some shopping and - smartly - the duo rented a car. As such they were out until three last night, and the wife and I got to have some "quality time" (or, that is, a chance to have sex by ourselves... which was completely obvious from the quotation marks, but I think overexplanation is funny). I've been put in a weird position because Aili can't drink or smoke (well, she can, but she shouldn't), and so I've been about 75% successful in matching her. Three months ago there wasn't a night we wouldn't add to the recycyling bin, and I wonder if this means we're settling down, because it's not like two days after she pops we're going to do some E and drink ourselves unconscious. It isn't painful at all, though, which is nice. And so anyway, I was stuck in a position where I felt I had to join Aili's brother and partner on Friday after our dinner out, because she really can't be tearing it up and I wanted to at least show hospitiableness. I got that weird uncomfortable feeling while out, and it's because I did and didn't want to dance without Aili. It felt sort of rude to her, you know. She's at home, catching up on the Hitchcock box set (it was great to come home and hear that she watched Marnie and loved it), and I'm out clubbing. It felt disrespectful. Which I didn't want to make obvious to her brother, because that would be doubly disrespectful. And of course, he was like "show us your moves, Houxy!" and so I'm dancing with Aili's bro and partner, and it was pretty fun. We got home around 2:30, and Aili was still up, and I was told I could be an honorary fag. So, at least that's something, if the marriage doesn't work out.

What amused to no end is that the moment Aili gets me alone, she starts in with the "honorary fag" business, which of course leads to other things (I've already made the obvious commentary joke once here, and so I'll meta-make the joke here by not making it, which by doing so has meta'd the meta-meta, and if you cook that at 400 degrees it should be ready in 30-35 minutes). And so my wife and I tried to quietly have sex as her brother and partner were obviously trying to do the exact same thing. Thankfully we have two bathrooms, though the water ran out after Aili got her turn. And I'd like to say we went longer. FACE, Aili's brother!

Watching Arkadin, as I did a lot of in the last week, the thing that I love about Welles is the joy he brought to his craft, even in his weaker efforts. He could never stop being Welles. And it's that love of form that I hope I bring to my writing in all its forms. I hope the reader giggles as much reading my stuff as I do writing it. That's the goal.