A Movie Not to Rent

I rented (and suffered through) Down in the Valley with Edward Norton the other night. If you’re like me, you’re of the opinion that he can do no wrong on the screen. Uh, yeah – no, well, I mean yeah that’s sort of true. He’s a phenomenal actor, but the picture was bad. And I mean bad like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil Bad. So if you’re into taking a little advice from a self-proclaimed movie buff, and big fan of Edward Norton, take my advice here. Don’t waste your time. Furthermore, what?

I did hear that the Rome series is real good though. I today put the entire first season in my blockbuster queue, so I’ll be watching the hell out of that. The guy who turned me onto it said this: You’ll get so hooked into watching it that you won’t want to see anything else. Okay, wow. that’s a bold statement, yeah? Well I’m all over it. I’ll let you know what I ended up thinking of it.

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  • Reading time:2 mins read

Meeting another hero.

Remember way back in 2002 when I met Michael Crichton? Well, about two months ago, when I started reading The Plan by Stephen Cannell, I checked out his website and saw he had a book signing coming up, close to home. So I marked it on the calendar. Tonight was that night.

So I rolled up there with Stout and checked out his discussion session about the new book. About twenty people were there in the seats listening as he talked about how he made it in the business. Need credentials? He’s written more shows than I can count. Basically, he’s the fucing man. Anyway, after the discussion, he took one question (the guy asked a question that required a long ass answer, and Stephen warned us it would take a long time, and was real cool about it, then told it…) he started signing books. So I got my book signed, and I asked him, “Is there any way I can send you a book?” He asked what genre it was and whatnot, and said he typically only reads within his genre, and he reads slowly because of his condition (he’s dyslexic) but said yeah, send it on. He loves to read, and said he’ll get to it when he can.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Treasure in the Woods: Part 2

Okay, I finally have some time to make the update I’ve promised for so long. Like a week. Stout and I made our trip back out to the spot in the woods, shovels and picks in hand. We started digging up around the entrance to the suspected underground lair. We knew we’d found a hatch in the woods just like they did on Lost!

As we dug and picked, we determined fairly quickly that it was going to be a small door. Until we finally found one edge of it. Then we realized it wasn’t a hatch door at all. Nay, not a hatch! But it was a door indeed. The door to a treasure chest! This might be even more exciting, we decided.

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  • Reading time:2 mins read

Treasure in the Woods: Part 1

Sup, peeps? I don’t know what the hell happened to my other column. I guess it’s gone. Oh well. Some quick hits: We found a drummer. Bud from the Transcenders is going to roll with us for a while. We got together Sunday and played with him. That was the fact.

The Space BarThe Space Bar is almost ready to open for business. Just a few small details, and we’ll be serving White Russians with Buttery Nipples. This image is an artist’s conception of the finished product.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

Wrestlemania!

I went to my first wrestling match Saturday night! Well, that is to say I went to see a match for the first time. I didn’t participate in one. I’m not a wrestler. I mean – I wrestle with my four sisters and whatnot, but that’s not the point.

I live next door to this guy. We spend a lot of time sitting in his garage or by his pool, drinking and shooting the shoot. I’ve been wanting to go see him wrestle for a while, but our nights usually end up canceling out, as my band is usually playing somewhere. But I finally got to go check it out. I have to go through the entire night with you so you’ll get a feel of the atmosphere.

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  • Reading time:4 mins read

Happy Useless Commercial Holiday!

Yes, it’s tomorrow. Already. It seems like yesterday was Valentime’s Day 2005 and I was trying to find a way out of buying a bunch of crap for my lovely wife. My problem, before you start thinking I’m an insensitive prick, is not with buying her stuff. I do that all the time. I’d say three or four days a week I buy her stuff. My problem is that some dipshit named Ronny Valentino just suddenly decides there needs to be a holiday named after him and the world now celebrates it.

It’s not a real holiday. You know how I know? Because we all have to work! If you don’t get off work for the day, it’s not a real holiday. But secondly, the fact that it’s a nationally or globally recognized lovebirds day should not mean I am obligated to buy chocolates and flowers for my wife. She already knows I love her. But if I don’t, then I’m an asshole because all her hot teacher friends will be getting crap from their students and loved ones and husbands and gay lovers. “Oh, H24,” they’ll say, “Where’s your heart-shaped box of fattening junk food?”

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A Night At The Lakewood

Well the gig Saturday night went surprisingly well. We had only one instance of technical difficulties, though it was a recurring one. Since Trumby thought it would be a good idea to prop his bass up on a rolling chair in the studio last month, it’s been acting a little differently. Dropping two feet to a concrete floor below can do that to an instrument. So the bass wouldn’t stay tuned, and he’d have to adjust the bridge after every song. But other than that, it went without a hitch.

I posted a few pictures on the site, and Trumby has a few more I’ll post once he strolls in to work here. I think he’s working like nine to five these days. What a way to make a living!

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I’m just a cracker.

I have a friend named Keith who likes to use the word “nigger” a lot. Maybe it’s because he’s black, maybe not. I don’t like to associate behaviors with colors. But a few months after we met and started hanging out, he began insisting that I call him nigger. Not like every time I talk to him. But he wanted me to be comfortable saying that to him. Why?

We stood in the hall one day for several minutes while he tried to talk me into saying the word. I had been talking about this black client of ours who was an asshole, and I said something like, “I can’t stand that big dumb…” and I didn’t finish the sentence. The joke was that I was saying it to Keith to see if he’d catch what I was throwing. And he did, and he called me out on it. He said, “Go ahead, say it.” I shook my head. No, I don’t want to say it, because I don’t really feel that way.

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  • Reading time:3 mins read

What, no San Diego Chronicles?

I’ve been in San Diego all week, but haven’t really been inspired to write anything about it. I have been writing like crazy – don’t get me wrong… Just not about this fair city. Or its glorious sleek-bodied women with their midriffs showing and their ample bosoms bouncing as they walk, cell phones attached to their ears, ponytails streaming behind them like banners in a sex mag. I’ve been writing, instead, on my third novel. In the last four days I’ve written almost twenty pages, which – doing the quick math – translates to about twelve thousand words. Good wow.

I’m really liking where it’s going, and though I never get too much in the way of comments from my fantastic readers on my excerpts, I’ve decided to post a bit of this one. This isn’t a terribly important part of the book, it’s just the last few paragraphs I’ve written tonight. So here it is, an official excerpt from Shedding Sadness, my third novel:

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All I want for Christmas…

Christmas is the season for giving. It’s better to give than to receive. Giving is the king’s – – you know what? That’s BS. All of these quips have one thing in common. They all involve giving stuff away. Well they have two things in common. They all involve someone receiving something. You can’t very well give something away without someone receiving it, right? Well I’m ready to be on the receiving end! That doesn’t sound good. But I’ve already made the joke, so I expect no comments containing jokes about me being “the receiver” and all that nonsense. It’s Christmas, people.

So I wasn’t going to complain, but now I think I am. Just a little. All of this giving is going on. And I’m doing quite a bit of it myself. SpaceBrew did really well this year, so I’ve been able to afford a few thousand dollars worth of stuff to give to family and friends. That doesn’t mean I want a seven-thousand dollar gift coming to me. (Well actually I wouldn’t complain…) But I would like a couple of little somethings to open. Yeah? Yeah. Is that so wrong?

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  • Reading time:4 mins read