Los Angeles

An interesting little town filled with the unemployed and unemployable. People taking breakfast meetings at 11AM, people who have nothing but time and money and people who just sit around getting high.

Overheard During One Night Stands

A short list of things overheard during one night stands:

1) "I may be post-op, but my vagina is still just an inside out penis."
2) "I'm having sex with you because my father hates Jews."
3) "So that's where I left my Salmon Mousse!"
4) "Blood and tears are just as good as lubricant."
5) "Pee on my face then flush my head in a toliet".

Sage Advice

Two things you don't want to blurt out during a one night stand:

1) I love you, Kacey.
2) I love you, Kacey. (if her name is Elizabeth)

The Dead Letter Office

Dear Death,

Remember that fateful night we spent together in Monte Cristo? The smelting iron and painful jackknives were especially memorable. Should I tell Mr. Sanchez that the villa will be purchased like we once dreamed? Those long eternities that we spent in each other’s arms...You whispering sweet delicate nothings into my ear; Me gasping for breath as the life force was sucked out of me. My darling, when will it be like that again?

Your love,

The late Joanne 'Peaches' Worthington, PHD

Dear Couple That Sat Behind Me at "Anchorman" Two Years Ago,

Hi. How are you? Could you please stop talking right this second?

After you laugh, you don't need to say 'that's funny'. Of course it's funny, we all laughed. Yes, he was talking to his dog. It's really humorous. Compaired to it, the Marx Brothers verbal repartee seems as funny as the final scene in "Philadelphia". But as laughing is the international sign of something being funny, there's really no need to speak any further on the matter. Do people sneeze and say 'I just sneezed'? Well, perhaps you do, you filthy piece of distended rectum.

And when Ben Stiller appeared for his cameo? Did you need to say 'that's Ben Stiller'? Think about it. Do you really think you were the first person in the audience to figure that delectable little factoid out? Also, is there really a need to point at Ben Stiller while you were identifying him? I'm not getting upset, I know you wanted to clarify that you were talking about Ben Stiller, and not the tree next to him. It can be very confusing. Ben Stiller, something wooden that has emerged forth from the ground. I know I can't tell the difference.

I know it's hard to believe that Will Ferrell said 'Go back to your home on Whore Island' but there is no need to question his witticism with a loud 'Oh no he didn't!'? I just hate to correct people, but yes, yes he absolutely did just say it. You saw him do it right on that humongous screen a few yards ahead of you. I can double check, but I'm pretty sure you, me and about 150 other people heard him say it.

Now I tried to be polite. I gave you the annoyed cough. That didn't work. I stepped it up and tried the slight head turn. You just thought I was cracking my neck. Finally I went 'shh!' under my breath. It did nothing! What more could a reasonable man who is afraid of confrontation do?

So, to sum up, please stop talking. The movie going experience is difficult enough, what with the commercials, trailers and mediocre 'star vehicles', please stop making it worse.

Sincerely,

Annoyed Movie-Goer

Childhood Memories, or Dead Jews Bake in Florida.

Joe: She spoke to me, pop, pop, pop. But I noticed her words were all whispers gently floating away in the wind, passing by without a thought of tomorrow.

Boy: Then what Happened?

Joe: What do you think? She totally blew me.

Boy: What's a blow job like?

Joe: It's sort of like reading a long, boring book. It's long and hard, but eventually you lose interest and give her a fake name and tell her you'll call her tomorrow.

Boy: Wow, sounds like magic.

Joe: It sure is Billy, it sure is.

Boy: My name is Alex.

Well,

I'm suffering from writer's block. Sometimes when this happens, I feel congested, like there's something inside me waiting to be put on paper. Well, not this time. I feel crap. I'm more vacuous then a viewer of "A War At Home". God, I can't even come up with a good - uh, whatever that last sentence was. You see? I can't even remember what the word is for that.

I'm putting together this grant proposal to get some money to make a feature film. I wrote the film, but now I've got to write about myself and my goals and I have no idea where to start. It's almost 11PM and I've been sitting here since 6, blank eyed and ponderous.

I've never been so self absorbed or insular in these stupid blog entries then in my last two posts. Sorry about that. I have no booze around.

God, I feel stupid and boring. Maybe I am suited for life in LA.

Astoria.

I had a bleeding heart stomach ache. The whiskey I just gulped flowed through my vein and dealt me a solid knock in the face. The two attempting-to-be-younger 30 odd year olds laughed at me while I talked aimlessly about the possible transit strike.

“I'm stuck in Astoria every day” I mumbled, with what might be considered 'dangerous' breath. I must have smelled like a furnace after a fire... “Why can't everyone else suffer like I do?”

They chuckled inanely. The fat one with warts wasn't interested, but she was polite. The thin, cute one with an Irish accent pushed me. “What street are you stuck on?” she smiled, like a devil looking for a signature on a binding document.

“29th” I thought about lying, but what was the point?

“I live on 30th” If this was a porn film, I would be filling her various orifices. But this was real life and it seemed like a bad idea.

I sipped my whiskey. The guy turning 70 next week grabbed my arm. “They're striking no matter what”. He was so sure and so old, how could I not believe him? His grip was firmer. He needed something to hold on to. He was in a room with people so much younger then he. I wondered why, but later my question was answered. “I have no one left”, I was quizzing him, because I thought maybe he wanted to fuck me because he touched my arm so much. “No wife?”...”No wife” he said “kids, nephews, anything?” I mistook his loneliness for some sort of perverse homosexual desire. He just wanted to talk. But Christ, Dude, stop touching my arm. “No, everyone's dead. Yesterday...Well, Wednesday, I guess that was yesterday, I put a reef on my sister's grave. I saw my headstone. I'm next.”

I told him about my 96 year old grandmother. “She's bonkers.” It didn't do much for him. I don't talk to 70 odd year olds as a general rule. I don't hate them, I just don't usually find myself at a bar at 1am talking to them. “You're so young” again with the arm. He HELD HARD. He was grabbing on to me, I thought, because he had nothing left to hold on to. “Your parents must be worried about you”. I could have taken that miserably, like there was something wrong with me, but instead I took it at face value. “Well, they do call too much”.

I had to walk out. I'm turning 25 next week. What happened to 16-24? I thought. I'll be 70 soon enough. What was I doing here?

I bought Paul a whiskey. He was talking too fast with some Canadian about health care. I didn't give a shit, but I could see Paul did. If I ran back to the bar to buy a drink I knew I was buying some piece-of-mind time. I kept looking back and I stared at the 70 year old man's face. He was so fucking lonely. There was no one else. Not in this moment. He couldn't look beyond this shitty Astoria bar. This was what was left of his life. He'd be dead soon enough. Why not hang out with some mid-20's kids? If he wasn't around dead people, he wasn't dying.

Still, he didn't figure on some 25 year old Jew who has lived his entire life afraid of death. I looked in his eyes and I saw myself in 45 years. Alone, wrinkled and at some shitty Astoria bar assuring some kid that the transit strike was going to happen. If I wasn't steadfast about it, he thought, I might be wrong about a lot of things. I gotta tell him I know it's going to happen, or somehow my life is meaningless. If I can't talk with authority at 70, then life's a shit worth shit.

I told Paul we needed to leave. I gulped my whiskey, nodded to the 30-something nymphets and ran out into the cooling rain. Life's too short to be worrying about life, I thought. I don't smoke, but I lit one up and walked a few blocks home. Carpe Diem, I thought. Carpe fucking diem. You couldn't catch me fucking dead in 45 years lamenting to a stranger. That's not me. I'm not that fucking guy.

So I inhaled deeply and stood in the rain for a second. “I hope he's right about that transit strike” I thought. “Everyone'll be trapped in Astoria like me” I thought.

Definition of Procrastinating

Webster's Dictionary defines a 'Treatment' as "a bunch of bollocks that a screenwriter is forced to write because most LA-types are too lazy to actually read your script". Can anyone tell me the PURPOSE in writing a five page summary of a script that's completely finished? A one sentance description, I understand. What's the film about? Certainly, I would want to know that before I read the script. One paragraph description, OK. Are these characters I will be interested in? OK, cool, whatever. But what jackass needs a five page cliff notes verision of the script to be attached to the actual script? It's like jerking off before having sex. It only makes things less pleasurable. Honestly, would you want to read a beginning, middle and end without any of the nuances or subtleties of an actual crafted, finished work?

Oy gavult. I'm complaining instead of doing. But, that's the Jew way.