Bar-hack Obama

Why do I love Barack Obama?

I was just watching him on "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart". All throughout Stewart's semi-amusing Harpo Marx-esque mugging, Obama kept his sheepish grin. Do I actually believe Obama thought everything Stewart said was funny? That would be a no. Did Obama's sheepish smile seem genuine? Most definitely.

This is basically what I've been looking for since I've been voting (Yes, my first vote was for Nader in 2000. My hands and heart are still black); a candidate who can SMILE like they mean it. I think you can tell a lot about yourself based on your candidate's smile.

Let's take a look:

John McCain:He's got that; "oh, I'll pretend your joke is funny, even though I'm old, my prostate's swollen to the size of a watermelon and I'm waiting to collect my social security check; what is this newfangled internot of which you speak? I watch the tube-you!" look about him.

If you vote for him, your sense of humor hovers around that "TV Land at four in the morning, either really old or extremely unemployable loner" category.

Hillary Rodham-Clinton:Now this is the smile of a woman who's been pretending her husband hasn't been "dipping his pen in the company ink" for the past 25 years. This is the "smile at all costs, even though I'm dead inside" smile. "Oh, my life is going to hell? Well that's just swell because your joke is HILARIOUS! Now get me some single-malt whiskey".

You'd vote for her if you were: a scorned woman; a porn star (this smile reminds me of the "wow, that 12 inch cock will sure feel great in my arse!" porn star look), or Bill Clinton; although who the hell knows who he really voted for in the primary; after all, he was the first black president. Ba-dum-bump.

Finally, here's my man:


OK, so I'm a heterosexual, but I sure would love to nibble on those pearly whites. This is the smile of a man who, if does not genuinely find you funny, CARES about whether of not you think he finds you funny; he's the guy who you buy a beer for at the bar because he laughed at your genuinely unfunny quip about modern life, the kind of guy who is gregarious and nods and smirks and takes his shirt off when you rub his chest and...oh wait, I'm confusing my homosexual fantasy with this blog post. Oh well.

You vote for him if: you're me. Or, according to the media, you're a liberal elitist who wants to raise taxes, cuddle up with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and kill all the Jews with your buddy Jeremiah Wright. I always knew I was a self-hating Jew!

15 Years Of Desert Island Discs

My 5 Desert Island Discs.

by me, age 12, 17, 22, 27

Discs by Matt, Age 12:
1) Stone Temple Pilots - "Core" : Because even though they were poseurs absolute, they wrote the kickass music that any 12 year old would love.
2) Guns N Roses - "Use Your Illusion II": Even though I was about 2 years late to the GnR fad, any angry 12 year old is going to love songs like "You Could Be Mine". I remember getting to 8th Grade so happy to have finally gotten into the music that everyone else loved...only to find every kid was a gangsta rapper.
3) Wu-Tang Clan - "Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)": To this day, I can recite almost every lyric of every track from this album. I saw them on "The Box" before they got big and immediately fell in love with ODB. Who could resist?
4) Porno For Pyros - "Porno For Pyros": This is actually the one album that I have not bothered listening to since I was 12. It was among the first tapes that I got, and there were some remarkable tracks; "Pets", "Cursed Female", and the like. I don't know why I never picked this up again, but I just haven't.
5) Spin Doctors - "Pocket Full of Kryptonite": A reasonably awesome album with some really amazing tracks. The blend of blues, Greatful Dead jamming and whistle-licisious melodies have made these songs stick with me longer than perhaps they should have.

After this, I really got into Mudhoney for about 2 years. I was obsessed! I got every single one of their albums, as well as about 10 bootlegs (who would have thought Mudhoney had bootlegs!).

Matt, age 17, lists his Desert Island Discs:

1) David Bowie - "Diamond Dogs": This and "Scary Monsters" were probably my favorite Bowie albums at the time. The "Candidate/Sweet Thing/Candidate (reprise)" suite is a-mind-blowin'!
2) Frank Zappa - "Apostrophe *": I dare anyone reading this (OK, that would just be me) to list a better commercial Zappa album. It's got great musicianship, catchy suites and funny lyrics. Plus all the Yellow Snow any 17 year old boy could want.
3) T. Rex - "The Slider": Simple, whistlable guitar lines with simple, whistlable vocal melodies really combine to make one...whistlable album. Even if I'm not in the T. Rex mood, I can always play a track or two from this "joint" and jam on my air guitar. Also love the space-age, vaguely gay lyrics, and the fact that Marc Bolan was Jewish. Oh, and he named his kid "Rolan": Rolan Bolan. Good times.
4) The Rolling Stones - "Some Girls": Probably the best latter-day Stones album (IE, the best album they've released since "Exile On Main Street"). Pretty diverse too. What other album at the time would have the country honk of "Far Away Eyes" placed next to the new wave of "Shattered" and the disco of "Miss You"? A precursor of today's "iPod-shuffle" albums from the Gorrilaz and N.E.R.D. Good stuff.
5) Syd Barrett - "Barrett": I think his first album's better now, but back then I couldn't resist "Gigolo Aunt" and the "Effervescing Elephant". Looking back, I think people are obsessed with him because what MIGHT have been, rather then what was. Both of his solo albums are really a hit or miss affair.

OK, then I went to college and people started downloading music and albums became worthless relics of an earlier age. Those who still listened to CDs were dragged out into the street, beaten with a Zune and cast into a river tied to a rock to see if they were witches.

I still managed to get an album or two here, but like it was for everyone else, it was about the song, rather then the delectable whole of a well-sequenced record.

Matt, age 22:

1) The Psychedelic Furs - "Forever Now": This is by far and away their best album. I should add an "IMHO", but screw Internet initialisms. Almost every track is bursting with energy; mostly because of the subtle synths and the blistering lead guitar work. Have you heard "President Gas"? Listen to that lead line: it makes me want to punch a transient.
2) The Teardrop Explodes - "Kilimanjaro": Wow, here's another eye opener. Disco bass, super-charged Philly soul brass, angular guitar lines and weird-ass lyrics truly make this sucker a golden remnant of a long-gone era. That was a shitty way to end a sentence, but there you go.
3) Julian Cope - "Interpreter": Again, this is not my favorite Cope Album (that award would probably go to "World Shut Your Mouth"; I just didn't get that one until I was 23), but there are three or four tracks on this album that would blow a deaf person's mind. "S.P.A.C.E.R.O.C.K. With Me" and "I Come From Another Planet, Baby" are slickly sweet camp amazingness and "Cheap New-Age Fix" has an instrumental coda which would melt the wax of any record player you dare put the album on.
4) The Smiths - "The Queen Is Dead": That's one fine album. I think it's probably their best, especially as Morrissey is at his morbid poetess peak and the chugging pop riffs are as catchy as humanly possible. The depressive 12 year old girl smoking cigarettes by the graveyard and cutting initials into her arm inside me totally has a favorite album.
5) Adult. - "Resuscitation": Hey, it's Dance Punk! Remember how Electro got big in the early-naughts? No? Well @$!% you, then! This is actually a pretty good album and I burnt a hole in the CD because I listened to it so much my senior year of college. No one else liked it for some reason! I would play it for almost everyone and I would generally get rolled eyes and one time, someone projectile vomited at me. I remember I thought I would impress a bunch of stoned filmies at my house party by playing this for them, and they walked out! Getting stoned film students out of your house is a pretty tough task, so I guess Adult. was good for something. I suppose people weren't ready for their Nintendo-y drum beats and dissonant female vocals. They were pretty shitty live though; just two people: a singer, bass player and a whole lotta sequenced drums.

OK, Matt, age 27, what do you think?

OK, third person narrator; my ALL TIME TOP FIVE DESERT ISLAND DISCS*

*subject to change on a daily basis.

1) The Beatles - "White Album" - I mean, come on. Sure, there are a few tracks here and there which aren't up to Beatles standard ("Wild Honey Pie" or "Good Night", for example), and it's not as good as "Revolver" or "Abbey Road", but it's got more Beatles songs then any other of their albums and includes 2 of my favorite George Harrison compositions ("While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Savoy Truffle").
2) David Bowie - "Ziggy Stardust" - This is a close one, because I would almost rather choose "Scary Monsters", but this album gets the nod because it is so perfectly arranged; I could listen to it a million times and find something new each time. Thanks, Mick Ronson.
3) Frank Zappa - "We're Only In It For The Money" - It's a close race between this one, "You Are What You Is", and "Apostrophe *", but this one wins because of the sheer volume of different music on it. I love the 30 second song-snippets, but I just wish Zappa had fleshed some of them out a little more and made them into legit songs. Zappa gets the last laugh because he writes way better pop music then the pop music he's lampooning.
4) The Teardrop Explodes - "Kilimanjaro"- Unlike all the other albums on this list, this has been my desert Island choice since I got it. I don't think it's been demoted or overtaken by another Teardrops disc in the past 8 years.
5) The Rolling Stones - "Exile On Main Street" - This is one album I don't come back to all that often (maybe once every 2 years or so), but I consistently acknowledge that it's an amazing collection of songs that the Stones never really equaled. I could imagine laying back in the hot sun, popping open a cocoanut, snuggling next to my favorite Monkey, and falling asleep while listening to its' melodic hard rock and bluesy interludes.

Good times on Desert Island.

Walking In LA

I sip uncomfortably on my Styrofoam water cup. It's free and not soda, so I frequently indulge in its watery deliciousness. As I take stock of the situation, four things come to mind. They are (in no particular order):

1) People in LA have much larger lips then anywhere else in the world: I don't know which consortium of plastic surgeons were responsible for perpetuating the myth that somehow bigger lips equate to "foxy time sexiness", but I'd sure like to beat them about the head with a surgically enhanced wang. And while I was beating them so little globs of Botox mixed seamlessly with the large pools of blood that flowed freely from all of their orifices, I'd ask:

"Why, prey tell, did you make Meg Ryan so nasty looking? I mean, she was hot, no HAUT, before, but now?

Ol' Fish Lip McRyan looks like the last stripper at the club circa 4am. The kind that offers coupons because of the plainly obvious ravages years of unchecked venereal disease and drug abuse have taken on her once merely unattractive body.

2) A Dream Deferred Is A Dream Denied, But If You're Living In LA, It's Reasonable To Deny That Dream If You're 40 And Still Trying To Network And Write Spec Scripts For "The Suite Life Of Zack and Cody":
LA is the land of the broken; long haired 55 year olds producing sequels to horror movies you never heard about in the first place, handing out business cards to 20-somethings hungry for fame while writing scripts about "A Cop On The Edge" or "A CIA Agent Who Must Go Undercover With A Nerdy High School Student", and who, undoubtedly, will be handing out their business cards to the next generation of shitty writers when they're 55. It's the cycle of life; the snake eating its' tail. Vomit.

3) Literally Nobody Walks in LA:
Sure, that might be a catchy New Wave song by three hit wonder MISSING PERSONS, but it's also a poignant aphorism. I think I am the only person who dares walk more then the distance from the restaurant to the valet here. Valet means "personal man-servant" and I believe that pretty much sums up Angelenos attitude towards a lot of things. People here need everything done for them to such an extent that they will pay a "man-servant" 5 dollars to park their car, rather then waste one to two minutes of their precious time finding parking around the corner.

I have literally seen cars go around and around looking for a parking space right in front of a restaurant instead of simply parking around the corner. Perhaps people frightened of walking. Maybe mothers tell their children bedtime stories of the evil "Walk Monster" who eats your soul and rapes your first born if you dare "park around the corner, like a sodomite!"

Now, I admit, after two years of living here, I have adopted some of the lazier habits of the native Angeleno (lardass erectus). I drive places I could easily walk to, I eat hamburgers (I have never seen so many burger joints!), and dip my french fries in Mayo. My legs have become a wobbly gelatinous mess and I can barely make it more then a mile without running out of breath. Occasionally, I sweat when I eat and more often then not I cry while I breathe.

But I still like to go for a nice hour long walk daily; if the air wasn't so polluted, it would be a refreshing jaunt down barren, lifeless streets. I stare at the people in their cars who stare back, their faces saying "what is wrong with that guy? Is he homeless? Mentally deranged? Did his car break down?" A cop pulled me over and made me wear a scarlet W on my chest. W FOR WALKER! Sigh. What's a Northeasterner to do?


4) Frienemies! Or, How to Make Friends and Influence Hollywood!
Everyone is "frienemies" in this town. You're friends with someone (friends meaning a "coffee meeting" twice a year), provided they can get you somewhere in the film industry. The second that person is successful, you're their BEST FRIEND, because after all; you've been friends for so long that you've met for coffee at least twice. The second you realize that person ISN'T successful, emails don't get answered, calls don't get returned, and scripts are dismissed without being read.

Take, for example, a former teacher of mine. I frequently discussed my career path with him, but after a year or so past graduation (and a year or so of me doing PA work), he didn't return my phone calls, answer my emails or talk about me in polite company.

Now, at some point, my film got accepted into the very prestigious Tribeca Film Festival, and figured that I would give him a ring and let him know. I knew he didn't want to talk to me (I had called him two weeks prior and never heard back) and I didn't want to be in an uncomfortable conversation, so I called him on a Saturday afternoon on his office phone, figuring he wouldn't pick up. I figured wrong.

He picked up after two rings.

Teacher: Hello?
Matt: Hey, it's Matt Manson.
Teacher (extremely disappointed): Oh, hi Matt. What do you want?
Matt: I just wanted to let you know that my film got accepted into the Tribeca Film Festival.
Teacher: What?
Matt: My film got into Tribeca!
Teacher: Oh My GOD! Matt's that's terrific news! Did you get my e-mail?!? I didn't have your number and that's why haven't called you! But I e-mailed! Did you get it?
Matt: No.
Teacher: That's strange, because I sent it! I always knew your movie would be a success!!!

There were a few laughable things about that exchange:

1) He was obviously lying, knew I knew he was lying, but just assumed that he could get away with it, because he was saying something nice.
2) Specifically, he lied about sending an email and was lying about knowing my movie "would be a success". He had told me after a screening a few months before that, "if you worked really hard on reediting your film, you might end up with an OK short".

But, there you go. LA! People come out of the woodworks the second they sniff the rancid, putrid stank of success.

After I won an award at Tribeca and was signing a contract with my then-manager, I had a friend I hadn't spoken to in 5 years call me up and ask to grab a drink at a bar. I told him to meet me at 7pm.

He showed up at 8:45pm and may have been wearing his clothes from the night before. This is literally how the conversation went:

Him: Yo! Sorry I was so late, I've been on a coke bender all day. I haven't slept in a week.
Me: Uhm, that's OK. How are you doing?
Him: Yeah, I'm fine. So, can you get me a job or what?

Needless to say, that guy ended up directing a feature film before me. I would hasten to say that has more to do with the "friendship building" power of cocaine in Hollywood than anything else.

So I finish my free water (the concept of PAYING for water is still pretty ridiculous) and throw the cup away. I pass a group of mustachioed hipsters "taking a meeting" in a Starbucks, discussing film and their upcoming projects; one had a script called "Miss Matched" about someone with the last named Matched.

I vomited in my mouth a little, took a deep sigh and headed back to my apartment, which I pretended was in New York City.

My Great Uncle

My grandmother passed away yesterday (3/24/08) at the all-too-young age of 98. I say "all-too-young" (with grammatically dubious dashes), because she never seemed like she would die. I remember when I was a child and she was in her early 80s, I assuredly thought she'd still be baking me gooey Apple Pies and scrumptious Chocolate Cakes well into her 120s. Even towards the end; as she was sick, frail and bedridden, her spirit remained strong and I had no doubts that Willard Scott would be announcing her 100th birthday on "The Today Show" in 2009. Her spirit was just THAT strong: she was the definition of a tough old broad and will forever be missed by those that knew her.

Anyway, I attended the funeral this morning. It was sad, funny and beautiful. I was most effected when my Aunt played Sophie Tucker's "Some Of These Days" on a little portable boom box. Lyrics like:

"And when you leave me you know it's gonna grieve me
Gonna miss your big, fat mamma, your mamma some of these days"

Seem to be written about my big old fat grandma.

While at the funeral I saw my dad's cousin Charlie (or Charlsie! for short). He's a gregarious, funny, amiable fellow that you immediately take a liking to after hearing a single burst of his humongous laugh. His parents were also first cousins, which is neither here nor there.

He told me this amazing story about my great uncle Lee Myles (my grandmother's brother). Lee was a big-band leader who was a contemporary of Irving Berlin and had articles written about him by the likes of Ed Sullivan. He started his own automotive transmission store aptly named "Lee Myles". It's a chain today that's located mostly around the northeast. His store had a big billboard with his name on it, smack in the middle of the Long Island Expressway. It had a big clock, so people who waited in traffic could check the time. Can you imagine people driving around without knowing what time it is?

Charlsie worked for Lee (and later ran one of his stores) and recounted a very funny story to me. Sometime around 1959 or 1960 Lee was contacted by General Motors. They wanted to pay him 7 Million Dollars to buy his stores and another 500 thousand a year to run the place. 7 Million bucks is a lot of money now, I can't even conceive how much that was back then.

Anyway, Lee was excited and was about to make the deal. In the final meeting GM told him and Charlsie what they wanted to do: take Lee's name off the billboard on the expressway and replace it with a GM sign. After all, it would be great advertising; all those motorists checking the time with a huge GM clock. This was a major thing for them.

Lee walked out of the meeting, looked at Charlsie and said "Fuck them!". Charlsie tried to convince Lee that he could maybe negotiate and have the sign say "GM presents Lee Myles", but Lee would hear nothing of it; no damn company was taking HIS name off the L.I.E. He turned the deal down flat and nothing was ever mentioned of it again.

He's my new hero. What a wonderful stubborness! Nanny was special, but obviously she came from a special family: and I'm glad to be a part of it.

21st Century Barbershop

INT. GAIL'S FRONT HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS
Will answers the door...

It's three guys dressed in BARBERSHOP QUARTET outfits; STRAW HATS, PINSTRIPE SUITS...

They are lead by DAVE (36), balding, thin with THICK GLASSES.

He's flanked by BOB R. (37), overweight and tall, and BOB S. (34), a DWARF.

DAVE
Where the hell were you?

WILL
Uh, sorry, long day at work.

DAVE
Work? Work! Dave Dean and His Throatful Three is your work.

BOB R
Yeah, man, how are we ever going to get big if you don't commit 100% to the group?

BOB S
Yeah, Mark. Don't be selfish.

DAVE
America is hungry for something new. That something is Barbershop. Sure, we could wait and take our time, but then some other arcane form of music could come along and take America by storm; Opera Hip Hop, for example.

BOB R
Not to mention Baroque Techno.

WILL
Ok, ok, you guys wanna rehearse here?

DAVE
Now you're talking!

He SNIFFS.

DAVE (CONT'D)
Is Gail getting lit? Does she have some to go around?

BOB S
I know I want some crack.

CUT TO:

INT. GAIL'S LIVING ROOM - LATER

Gail, Dave, Bob R., and Bob S. are sitting around watching TV and smoking crack.

Will has his head in his hands.

GAIL
You sure you don't want some, Marky?

WILL
No crack for me, thanks.

BOB S
Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. We're the fucking funky bunch!

BOB R
You know what is amazing about this world? I mean, let's be honest, we all look at each other and see our differences, but in reality, we're all the same. We should be seeing how same we are instead of how different.

GAIL
Wow.

BOB S
Yeah, wow.

DAVE
You know what's amazing? We're going to be big. Barbershop is going to be so fucking big.

Will looks FRIGHTENED.

sunset (2002)

live without
the closing of the night
day comes

this unsuspecting hour
in our condescending
never ending
just pretending
lines

sunset this
life closing all the eyes
they try

to reawake their dreams
in these mass confusion
pure illusion
substitution
times

angry fires
put out upon the night
less sky

in this crisp suburban night
we saw god itself
stars that fell
shadows that ached in
fire

Memories, or lack thereof

It's interesting to note that I cannot remember a damn thing about my life.

No, it's not the film "Memento", and I am not "Henry M" (google that sucker), but I literally cannot remember anything from the past 27 years. Sure, I know the edited highlights, like my first kiss or those 8 years that I spent crying, but there are severe blocks missing. I suppose time passes and memory fades, but this is pretty ridiculous.

OK, take for example my high school years; not a thing. The only time a vague memory pops into my head is when I listen to music that I listened to back then. Just for my mental health, I will draw up a list here:

Freshman year (95-96):
Fall: Green River, Mudhoney, Monkeywrench...damn, there's gotta be more...those are all Mark Arm related.
Spring: Beatles (Sgt. Pepper), Led Zepplin, STP (Tiny Music), Elastica's first album.

Sophmore Year (96-97):
Fall: George Harrison (more like summer '96), Rolling Stones (Tatoo You, "Heaven" reminds me of riding NJ Transit back to NYC), Cream, Jimi Hendrix (Axis: Bold As Love), A little Sublime.
Spring: David Bowie (Singles: 69-93), More Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers taped off the radio, Some Girls!),

Junior Year (97-98):
Here's where it gets a little hazy. I recall downloading pornography online that had a song called "Uncle Remus" over it, in the days before all the lyric engines, it took me a few days to figure out it was Frank Zappa. I fell in love with "Apostrophe" that year. Also my love of David Bowie began to take shape. Love, in a non-gay way, of course. Speaking of gay, I also fell in love with Trex's "The Slider" album. I remember listening to it in physics class and my teacher (who was a former Motley Crue roadie) said "don't you listen to anything that's not from the 70's?"

Now that I'm writing this, I begin to remember the summer of '98 at North Carolina School of The Arts (the story of that summer is best left to another entry), but I do remember going there with an audio cassette of "Piper At The Gates Of Dawn", which blew my mind (especially the first few minutes of "Interstellar Overdrive"), which means I bought it in the spring. So I guess my watershed albums that year were "Piper" "Apstrophe" and...gotta be something by Bowie. I'm trying to go album by album to remember when I bought each. Let me run it down:

Space Oddity: Cassette, summer of '97 (At UMass), CD summer of '99 (off Ebay). I got it (along with "Low", "Heroes" on tape and I think "Aladdin Sane" on CD) at this great record/tape store in Amhurst. I think the tapes were like 3 bucks each and the CD's were 7). I remember listening to this album on my cassette player as I took a camp trip to Boston in a big Greyhound-style bus.
The Man Who Sold The World: CD: Summer of '98 (In North Carolina), I lost it at a screening of the movie "Insomnia", so I think I rebought it in 2003ish, and lost it again. "Black Country Rock" played the first night I ever spent with a woman...although I guess she was a girl then.
Hunky Dory: I believe I bought this in the summer of '97. I know I had it by the summer of '98, because a guy named Dave had it and we debated which version of The Supermen was better. It was probably one of the first Bowie CDs I got because it had so many singles on it and I have a vague memory of listening to it at UMass.
Ziggy: Spring of '97 (during a weekend I spent at school), I got the special edition in 2002 for Christmas or something. It was my first non-compilation Bowie album, and I remember thinking that "Suffragette City" was the only track that was good. By the end of the school year, I put it away, but I probably revisited it after buying a few more Bowie Albums.
Aladin Sane: No memory of buying it. Probably at North Carolina or beginning of my senior year. I remember BLARING the title track all day long my junior year, where I have a vague recollection of pretending I was fronting a band performing this. What a piano solo!
Diamond Dogs: I remember buying this my senior year in NYC, sitting in the bathroom, expecting to hate it (I expected to hate all Bowie albums; that was the joy, I always fell in love with them after the first 3-4 listens). I had "1984" on my dorm answering machine and I know that my good friend Jake was still humming some of these tracks well into college.
Young Americans: I bought this on LP! in the fall of my senior year, which was a better mix then the CD, so I taped it. I think I finally got the CD at the end of my senior year. Listening to this album makes me think about the end of high school and all the things I left behind (pretentious warning): my innocence, youth, dreams, etc. In high school, everything was possible. College was "now make that possible".
Station To Station: Definitely during NCSA in 98. "Stay" was an anthem for me that summer.
Low: Tape in '97, CD all the way in '99. I remember listening to this on the same trip to Boston as Space Oddity, but I didn't get into either album.
Heroes: Exactly the same as Low. I never connected to the instrumentals on these albums, so I never really wanted the CDs. I must say that I sampled some of the instrumentals on this album to create my first song ever (as well as my freshman year of college final project, which got nominated to some NYU festival).
Lodger: Summer of '99. This was my last "classic" David Bowie album that I bought. My CD player got fucked up once, and I remember listening to Bowie's backup vocals only on "African Night Flight". He's just SCREAMING! Also, I remember my friend Freddie thought Bowie was saying "Gotta get a boyfriend". It was weird. Speaking of that, I remember his friend Greg was scared to listen to Marvin Gaye...because he thought he was gay. Oy gavult!
Scary Monsters: I know I was listening to this by my junior year, because I lent it to a kid who left my high school after that year. I remember him saying "I wish he'd sing normal like on the second track". Oddly enough, that was my first reaction after listening to that album, but it's probably my all time favorite Bowie album.
Let's Dance: I held out for that one...I want to say 2002. I know I played it when I worked at my brother's bar sometimes.
Tonight: I think I ended up downloading this in 2004. Pretty shitty album.
Never Let Me Down: I think I downloaded this around 2002. I remember listening to it a lot that summer at my mother's house, while having a long distance relationship with a hell beast (that's also another story).
Black Tie, White Noise: I remember listening to "Miracle Goodnight" a lot in the summer of '99, so I imagine I got it around then, possibly before. I had a big crush on this Korean girl that summer, so I used to watch Korean TV a lot on cable to have something to talk to her about. Of course it was over email, but we went back and forth every day. I think it's because I called her beautiful in her yearbook. Her mother looked younger then she did.
Outside: This was the first album that I downloaded ever. Right when Napster hit in the first few weeks of College in '99. The downfall of CDs. I was in love with track 3...what was that song called? The Heart's Filthy Lesson! I believe this album played the first time I was with this awful college girlfriend.
Earthling: Someone gave this to me during the summer of '98 (she was multi-colored hair and overweight), but the CD was scratched and I couldn't get into it. I believe that I started to fall in love with it around 2000/2001 as I went for long walks around NYC for exercize. Good walking album. I think I've bought it like 3 times, cuz I kept losing it.
hours...God this album sucked. I got it the day it came out in 1999, but I remember streaming the tracks beforehand on MTV.com or something and saying to myself "I usually hate Bowie's albums, but grow to love them. This one isn't like the rest". It reminds me of Freshman year of college and hanging out in 3rd North. I remember everyone calling me in when Bowie presented an award at the MTV music awards in '99. I also remember Guns N Roses' new song premiered that night...it was also their last new song, and crappy.
Heathen: Right when it came out in the summer of '02. This was a great album and I listened to it alot around the same time I listened to "Never Let Me Down". I remember emailing tracks to my awful long distance girlfriend who was awful.
Reality (the only album title I had to look up), came out right after I shot my short in 2003. I remember never getting into this, playing it alot as I showered while living at my mom's house and still dating the long distance girlfriend (who was living in NYC at the time and cheating on me a lot...again, another story). I remember buying it and making her sit down at a Starbucks while I listened to the album over and over again.

OK, well that covers my junior year. Except, well, I did spend one Saturday pacing back and forth listening to "Thuglife", which was sort of a Tupac album. I fell in love with this crazy looking girl and I wanted despirately to ask her out, but I didn't have the balls. So...for some reason that gangsta album spoke to me.

Senior Year (98-99):
Fall: You Are What You Is (Frank Zappa, bought at the wonderous Princeton Record Exchange, a day when I bought like 3-4 Zappa albums..Friday night. Mr. Liwoz surprised me by telling me he loves Zappa), I remember listening to Paul McCartney's greatest hits a bunch and staring at a screen saver, Diamond Dogs (I still think about the first Grand Theft Auto, with me Jesse, Alan and Jake sitting around...we used to leave Alan playing and sometimes he didn't notice we left him; even for hours), Trout Mask Replica (my friend Jesse gave that to me when he didn't understand it. Actually, I think I just stole it from him). Another memory...I traded a bottle of Vodka that my brother gave me to this guy for the 3 CD Lather set from Zappa, which he bought on Amazon.com.
Spring: Jethro Tull (Cross Eyed Mary brings me right back to directing the senior play), Young Americans (Right blew me away, I repeated the middle 8 soooo much), We're Only in it For The Money (which was the first time I ever saw a CD-r, my friend Jake burned it for me!)

That's about all I can remember about music in high school. I'm sure more will come to me.

What does that say about me? Well, first, I had a hopelessly outdated taste in music...barely anything contemporaneous there. Second, well, I remember more about music then I do high school. I guess it's just easier to remember a feeling then anything that actually happens to you. The warmth I feel listening to Diamond Dogs (which is a downer album) is directly related to hazy memories of sitting around playing computer games. Those may very well be some of the happiest times of my life, even if I can't remember them. At least the music still reminds me of what it's like being so happy.

I think about each of those semesters (and summers) and the music really relates to how I was feeling at the time; I was so angry at age 14, that I was listening to screaming grunge. As I got happier, so did my musical taste. Actually, it's probably as I got weirder, so did my musical taste. Which reminds me, I didn't put Syd Barrett on here, because I listened to him almost exclusively over the summer of '98. Which, as I said, is another story onto itself.

I barely remember my life, but I remember the Soundtrack. It's just like the movie "Singles". I AM THE MOVIE SINGLES!

Ratrick and the Choker

I worked at a certain unfortunate internet company from May of 2006 until two weeks ago. I call them unfortunate, not because I worked there, but because the company is so ill managed that they make something that's poorly managed look entirely well managed. I wish them nothing but ill will and I pray for nothing but failure, and in certain employee's cases, a horrid case of genital herpes.

It might sound like I was fired...that is not true. I quit with all the audacity of hope of a Barack Obama novel. That's for damn sure.

Anyways, if I was to try to pick out a particular incident that defined my unfortunate internet company's unfortunate hiring practices...this would be it: An incompetent manager and a semi-retarded subordinate with all the creative talent of a CW reality show producer.

There are insignificant times in your life, which are sort-of worth remembering; nothing "life shaping" like a first kiss or the first day on your first job...but the kind of story that you recount amongst friends if something apropos came up.


One such story involves new years 1996 when my friend Rachel J and I signed on to AOL chat rooms, pretended to be an underage girl, had cyber sex with old men, then told them as they were climaxing that we were young boys.

I remember with GLEE when one said "I'm going to report you to AOL!"
I wrote back, "Report what? That you're having cybersex with a teenage boy?"
When they didn't respond, I came back with, "huh...loser"?
To which they retorted with wit straight from Thurber, "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!"

I guess me and Rachel were the original "To Catch a Predator". Good times.

Anyway, the point of my story...well, there's no actual point, but I do have a ripping good yarn that I would like to recount at a bar one day.

The Story of Ratrick and The Choker

I had been working with The Choker for a little over a year. She was my producer and generally an aimable young lass. Occasionally, during a video shoot, she would interject "would the shot look better if you...?" or, "shouldn't she say the line like this?". But I simply dismissed her suggestions and she generally wouldn't follow up.

I know it was all good natured, and generally came out of a false sense of equality that I had fostered. Sure, she worked FOR me, not WITH me...but did I need to remind her that? As long as she was getting her job done, she could tell me how to write and direct, because frankly, I couldn't give half a shit.

Then she took a two week vacation. When she got back, things changed. It must have been one of those revelatory "what am I doing in my life?" types of vacations. (not the "sit on my ass and watch British Sitcoms", which I much prefer). Her suggestions were now not so easily dismissed and the orders that I gave were not so kindly received.

I told her to make phone calls, she said "why don't you make the phone calls?". I told her to organize a shoot, she said "why can't you help out?", I told her to "be my producer" and she said "Suck my vagina, bitch". Yet, she always protested that nothing was different.

One time, I brought my feelings about this to her attention.

I calmly ask her:

"Are you ever upset at me? I'm concerned that you're holding something in."

Her eyes began to water and she started to wave her hands near her head, as if the room had magically transported itself from Los Angeles to the Shara desert. There were definitely no camels around.

"No, nothing's ever wrong. Everything's fine."
"Well, I can tell you're upset with me sometimes, so I was hoping you'd tell me why, so we can fix it"
"I've NEVER been upset with you. Tell me when I've EVER been upset with you!?"
"Well, off the top of my head, what about that time I asked you to make phone calls and you told me 'to make them myself'. Or how about that time I told you to get the shoot together and you told me that you wouldn't do it?".
"OK, fine...those were the ONLY two times I've EVER been upset with you. Everything is fine between us".
She then excused herself and ran out with a coworker. I stuck my head outside, saw her flailing her arms like a drowning retard and heard this snippet:
"when I was hired...this isn't what was supposed to happen!"

OK, I thought. BAD IDEA. Never again will I bring anything to her attention, because she's completely insane.

Well, a few months passed, and she still behaved the same way. Co-workers came up to me and said "Why does The Choker hate you so much?". I always just shrugged. Like Atlas, except much less poetic. There was nothing to be done.

This is where Ratrick comes in. I'll preface this by saying that Ratrick is even more insane then The Choker. He's my supervisor...a short, stubby nothing of a man who tries to rule with an iron fist, yet is crippled by the fear of being replaced. His favorite pastime is dragging me along with him for a 45 minute car ride where he questions my loyalty to him. He begs for constant reassurance; "yes, Ratrick...I'm not talking to management about you", "yes, Ratrick, I DO think everyone else is out to get you"

This is what he said to me the first week that I met him.

We were sitting together late one night and I was on my way home;

"Matt," He said with cadence and mannerisms of a Sopranos character, "If you're my friend, I'm the best friend you'll ever have. But...don't cross me...if you cross me, I'm the WORST enemy you'll ever have". He grinned a faux-fiendish grin and stared deeply in my eyes. "Go home to your woman, Matt". "Have a good night, Matt".

All I could do was leave the "Goodfellas" scene study and laugh. What a fucking douchbag of a pathetic loser.

Anyways, he enters our story one day when I'm having another experience with the lovely Miss Choker.

I was given some stupid shoot to manage. I was also busy doing something else, so Choker took full reign and assigned positions. Per her decision, my position was "sitting on the computer doing nothing".

I pulled her aside and said "I wish you wouldn't tell people what I'm supposed to do"
Normally, a big, fake smile is plastered all over her face. That went away quickly.
"Not to go tit for tat, but you ALWAYS tell people what I should be doing"
Now, my response to this should have been 'yes, that's true, because I'm your boss'...but it wasn't. I just said "I feel marginalized enough and I don't need to feel more marginalized".

She walked out in a huff. Or was it a minute and a huff? I can't remember.

Ratrick immediately popped his head in and nodded towards his car and told me to "get in". Great. Another of his fucking loyalty tests. I didn't need that.

After I was kidnapped, Ratrick and I talked about the Choker. I expressed to him that I thought she was upset with me and that she really didn't want me telling her what to do.

"But you're her fucking boss. Did you tell her you're her fucking boss?"
"No, it would just start shit again. I don't want to go through that"
"I'll talk to her"
"Please don't"
"No, I'll talk to her and tell her it was something I observed"
"Please don't talk to her. This isn't a 'please don't talk to her, but actually talk to her because I don't want to tell you to talk to her, but you should', this is a 'please don't fucking talk to her'. It's only going to make things worse".
"OK".

CUT TO: MONDAY MORNING!

The Choker and I sit quietly discussing our weekends. I visited my brother and I didn't pay attention to what she said.

Ratrick came in and closed the door behind him. "Are you fucking serious?" I thought.

Emotions began to run through my head. Do I shake my head? Do I wave my arms? Is it smoke signals? DON'T FUCKING DO THIS!

He sits down.

"Now, a matter has been brought to my attention. Normally I would bring this to HR, but I don't want to get anyone else involved, we can't look weak".
The Choker looked at me "what the fuck is he talking about?"
I looked back at her "yeah, what the fuck is he talking about? DEAR GOD, PLEASE MAKE HIM STOP".

"Matt has come to me and told me that he's having a problem with you. Choker, Matt is your boss, OK?"

Choker begins to cry. Of course, I thought, what a completely true, yet unfortunately bullshit thing to say, I thought. What an ASS, I thought.

"Matt, do you have anything to add?"

"No"

"Choker?"

"I think MATT should say something, it's his thing"

She looked at me as if I was Hitler raping her dog while setting her vagina on fire. I needed to say something...

"Listen, Ratrick, I respect the fact that you wanted to be a manager in this situation, but I didn't want to do this. This wasn't necessary".

He looked at me with disdain. WHAT THE FUCK WAS I SUPPOSED TO SAY? Is this a porn film? Should I have slapped my dick on her face and said "suck it whore?" Sure, I may have dreamt about being in that situation, but those are mere idle reveries. A pipe dream, as it were.

I was sitting in a windowless office with half a desk, a hysterical girl and a huge douchebag. I had to chose which person I needed to placate. SHOULD she have been so upset? NO. But I knew this would happen.

Ratrick lost and he knew it. Bad idea, remember? I told you NOT TO DO IT. It wasn't worth it homey, and now you have one angry employee and another one who is crying so much she can't breathe. He needed to retreat, and like a Frenchman, he backed out of the room.

"OK, you two..." If I was writing the situation, he would have thrown down something that exploded and ran out. I closed the door behind him.

She was crying so hard that she couldn't breathe. She was literally choking on her words...I felt like she needed to go to a hospital..."I--I--I--need to go home". This is what you get when you NEVER talk about what's on your mind...NEVER tell people what you want in life. You can't do that. You don't bottle up all your feelings until you are pushed to the point of exploding in an emotional fireball. Talk about things, tell me I'm being an asshole, whatever. Even if I don't change, at least you have the pride of knowing you told me...Jesus Christ.

Yes, I've been in therapy for 15 years. The idea of being crumpled up into an emotional ball is repellent to me. You end up being another loser holding back, choking on your own words, crying in a windowless room with half a desk at a go-nowhere job working for some guy who doesn't care how your weekend went.

Anyway, I calmed the Choker down and she let loose on Ratrick. "how dare he" this and "what an asshole" that. The funny thing is, I felt the same way. Yes, he said what was on my mind, but it wasn't worth it. I tried once before and failed. The job didn't mean enough to me to try again. This wasn't a marriage, there were no long term considerations.

So, oddly, the Choker and I are closer then ever. Sure, it's purely due to mutual hatred of a common foe, but hell, Stalin and Churchill were friends for a while, what about Manson and the Choker? I'm way sexier then either of those two, anyway.

Ratrick pulled me aside the other day and said "let me take you for a ride"...another car-stravaganza. I didn't want to go, but he told me "15 seconds of your time". Those 15 seconds became 30 minutes.

He said "it seems like you and the Choker are banding together against me".
I assured him that wasn't the case, and more importantly (to him, at least)...I wasn't talking about it with management. It was his fuck up, he knew, and he was scared that someone would find out.

He ended our conversation with a lovely little threat; "don't complain about this to management. They told me they wanted to replace you and The Choker because you complain so much". Two hours earlier management told me I was the most important creative person at the company...so Ratrick can suck his lies.

Anyway, I left the car and my phone rang. It was the Choker.

She said "Are You Alone?"
I said "Yes"
"Well, I was calling because I saw Ratrick dragged you into the car again. I thought I could call and you could use it as an excuse to leave"
I smiled and thought "Thanks Ratrick. You might be a huge, loser douche, but you sure know how to make people come together...even if it's because they both hate you with a passion".

I don't think I'll ever have a problem with The Choker again.


POSTSCRIPT: As I mentioned, I quit. Ratrick spent the next month pacing back and forth pondering his reason for working for such a craphole company. In turn, he was fired. Champagne bottles were uncorked and parties were had, but I truly believe that Ratrick was the victim of an unfortunate circumstance: thrown into a job he was entirely unqualified for with crazy people who were more incompetent then he was.

Ain't that America?

I'm sure he's doing better now. I know it must be hard being fired: basically you're told YOU ARE NOT WORTHY...and what more is life then an 80-odd year strech of trying to prove your worth? But I think Ratrick handled it in style. I've never been fired, but I can only imagine what it's like.

As for myself, I tried DISPARATELY to get fired...and nothing worked. Finally I quit, and it was a transplendent feeling. The weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders that day: birds chirped louder, flowers smelled nicer, women presented their vaginas to me, as if to say, "Fine job, Mr. M. You should have vaginas presented to you as a gesture of gratitude".

I cannot imagine anyone being happier then I, at least during the afterglow of quitting. Now, with a financial reality, and the odd fact that I've been offered several high-paying jobs as an internet consultant, which I turned down, the happiness fades into an unpleasant realism, but hey...at least I'm not with Ratrick or the Choker anymore.

As for the Choker, she's still at that internet company. She's stayed there, I believe, because she thinks it will move her career along. And I agree.

She'll be in the latrine in no time...but I do believe that's what she deserves.

Not Working, Day...Uhhh...

Well, here's an interesting one. Well, not actually interesting, more "ha-ha" funny. I'm currently working freelance, and yes, holy steamingly fresh-out-a-dog's-backside CRAP, it's wonderful. No more coming home and complaining about work. No more being at work...complaining about work. No more watching a movie and thinking about complaining about work.

God help me, why does everyone get so caught up with "work". Seriously, 99.9% of people aren't doing what they want to be doing with their lives, yet they get so wrapped up in the day to day stress of their jobs that their hatred of their JOB becomes a hatred of their LIVES. It gets all wrapped up, thrown in a blender, smashed into a pulp and spit out in one big diarrheal splatter. It's a sad, pathetic, numbing life. Much like a career in the entertainment industry.

Not sure what any of that means. It could be that now I am out of the day to day grind, I completely understand what a large bunch of bullshit the day to day grind actually is. All I hear is "I hate this", "I wish I could be doing this", "what are those red blotches on your penis?", yada yada yada. Well, forget about WORK, drop everything and DO WHAT YOU WANT to do in life. You don't need to quit to get there; but figure out the road and begin to walk down it. You'll end up where you want to be...or at least realize you weren't meant to be there in the first place.

Yada Yada Yada. I'll write something more articulate later. This is just a numbing ramble.

Writing this from my iPod, how 2008 is that?

Ok.so I am probably going to quit this week. I have never quit anything before. It is empowering, especially when you've been working at Craphouse central (aka livearsehole), but all the same, it is frightening. What's next? Who's next? If you boil apples in a rum broth, how many episodes of Golden Girls does it take to make you gay? I believe the answer is 3.

I wonder what my next step is. I can either make lots of money at a job I'm not convinced will lead to anything, or sit at home and write...which I'm not convinced will lead to anything. But then again, life does really lead to anything, except death, which isn't as bad as watching 3 episodes of Golden Girls. God, I'm bored. Ipods unite!

Lifetime at Midnight: A Poem By Me.

blah blah blah
golden girls
blah blah blah
golden girls
fraiser
the nanny
blah blah blah
middleage

lower east side

her LIP lockED knees
kick knocked
CLING CLANG
like a noise i haven't heard since '79
which is strange because i was born
in 1980

she SHOOK like a flutter kick in a puddle pool
face caked
powered traces
lines like scales on her pasty skin
unreal, but mostly crayon
neon moron
more on

moving like a leaf
THUD thudding
clip CLOP
thud THUDDING
clip CLOP

so this was the lower east side on a friday
THIS was the lower east side on a friday

Life/Fantasy

There's a caustic simplicity to sitting in bed at 11:12 on a Thursday morning, sipping coffee, listening to music and preparing to write.

This was my life from early 2005-mid 2006.

Yes, I longed for a more tangible experience. I wanted to see what I wrote exist in reality, not just the "perhaps one day" life/fantasy that a freelance writer lives.

So I pushed, took meetings, got a job, yada yada yada. Yes, writing and directing has a certain dignified satisfaction, but seriously...there's more out there then *GASP*...internet content. I know that my friends both envy me and laugh at me.

A nice 50/50 split of:
"Wow! He gets to write and direct! I wish I was doing that"
"Wow! He gets to write and direct crap! What a loser!"

So, right now, it's nice. I'm alone at 11:17, sipping coffee, lying in bed, listening to music, preparing to write. I've got about 10k in the bank, and I'm wondering if it's time to whittle that savings down to a nub. Nubby nubby nub.

But, I'm scared...if I take off, can I go back? Will there be anything left for me? I know I could probably write 2 solid scripts in 6 months time...but when that's done? Who's reading them? The magical life/fantasy is a wondrous reverie, but is it a tangible reality?

Well, I've lived the last 26+ years fantasizing about things:

When I was 5, I was a Transformer
When I was 9, I was Spiderman marrying the Black Cat
When I was 11, I was an all-star baseball player
When I was 15, I was a rock star
When I was...well, actually I still want to be a rock star and occasionally have little daydreams about it (what else is a shower for...seriously?)
But, it went from rock star to photographer to, yes, FILMMAKER!

Still wracking my brains trying to remember if "Internet Content Creator" is in there anywhere. Probably not.

So, yeah, I'll go back to my rock n roll fantasy and live my Internet reality. But there's going to be a time soon when I'll be in my bed at 11:24 writing something I care about.

It's just a fantasy now.

Pleasant Glibitries

I remember a time when I used to update this page semi-frequently. Much like the Sun to the Earth, this blog shone strong and illuminated the dark, pointless world with its glib pleasantries and pleasant glib...itries.

OK, so I'm vaguely embarrassed about the current state of my life, otherwise I wouldn't be sitting here typing these words at 3:13am. I almost typed "on a school night" because that's how pathetically mundane my day-to-day life has become.

One day I will break out of this drab rut and settle into a perfectly nice rut. Life is a series of ruts; you just have to make sure that you don't fall into one for too long. Some call me a pessimist, but that just means I'm a realist with poor tact.

So, here I sit...older, slightly graying and awaiting the day where my hairline recedes into something resembling a bird's nest. Until then I shall endeavor to update this little shining beacon more often. It's easier then actually doing anything difficult, like working or maintaining basic human relationships.

Fun-larious!

Sexy Bikini News! Bikini News was hilarious!

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Funny Funny Funny!

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Crack Whore answers your questions. Pussy sex hot. Hardcore. Nasty. Booty. Kids in the Hall. Monty Python.




Enough keywords for ya? Nah.




Lindsey Lohan naked.

Tonight on the O'Reilly Factor

This is not a joke...

The O'Reilly Factor

Bill's in L.A. investigating liberal Hollywood — See if sparks fly when actors Drew Carey and Mike Farrell both enter the No Spin Zone! (cc)

'Liberal Hollywood'...when was the last time either of those people were seen in the vicinity of Hollywood? I thought Mike Farrell died in the late 1990's and I assumed Drew Carey was touring the country with his improv troupe 'benign hilarity'. Give 'em hell, O'Reilly! That'll show...someone...something...

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.

9 Minutes

I'm leaving in nine minutes to celebrate the New Years at several venues across New York City. I am never terribly excited by this holiday; it seems, like Halloween, to be just an excuse for a lot of people to get slutty and drunk. Also, what exactly am I celebrating? Jesus's birth? Not for us Jews, we're in the Year Of Our Lord 7,000 or something.

Part of my New Years' resolution involves going out and forcing myself to socialize, so all this falls neatly into my plans. Leaving my house is a Herculean task usually, especially to 'go out and do stuff'. Usually leaving involves going to a dark bar to get drunk, go to someone's house to get drunk or play poker to get drunk. But when I have to dress up to get drunk, problems ensue. I seem to have cultivated a comfortable 'crap' look for myself, and I truly hate messing that up.

So kudos to you, Jebus H. Christ. Congratualtions on being born and dying for all our sins. We will honor you by getting drunk and hooking up with strange women in your name. O, thank ye, Jebus, thank ye Lord. Now let's get plastered!


UPDATE:
I was informed by several people this evening that the New Years has nothing to do with Jebus's burfday. That's Christ-mass. My bad.

T minus 25 and counting.

How long do we really live for? Should I feel that 25 is a milestone? Will this sentence end with a question mark? The answer is inveriably YES, kind sir and/or madam, yes!

Ok, so in a few minutes I'm turning 25. I can't remember turning 15 (actually I can't remember turning 24), but I'm sure it didn't feel the same way. The phrase "quarter-life crisis" is bandied about among my age-set. Is your career going yet? Are you with someone who is marriage-able? How many midgets have you met? We face these questions on a daily basis.

Carpe Diem? Said outloud, it sounds like some sort of Yiddish expression involving phlegm and/or Shabbat, but it's certainly something to think about. I'm not sure what the percentage is, but I know that I've definitely said "I wish I'd have done that" MUCH more frequently then I've said "I wish I hadn't have done that". Turning 25 is just another harsh reminder that there isn't enough time in the world to say 'NO' to stuff.

Same could be said for turning 65, I guess. My dad told me recently that he stayed up all night regretting that he had said 'no' to all the women who at some point said 'yes' to him. Granted, that's a pretty disgusting thought, but he makes a point. If I have a ton of regrets at 25, I can't imagine how I'll feel at 65.

Completely unrelated to that (*cough*), I'm attending the Sundance Film Festival this year to try to schmoooze and market myself. Last week I shot a short film on a whim and I think I may be moving to LA before 2007 is over. Carpe Diem, man. There's not enough time in the world.

Long Island Jewess Drinks and Goes Home.

I have two older brothers, and the less-older of the two has never owned a suit in his life. He takes pride in the fact that up-and-down his entire wardrobe costs under 50 bucks. Anyways, that all has to change because he's trying to get a job as a professor and now needs an 'interview suit'.

I tagged along to show my support, but I'm of little help. I consider myself stylish, or at least generally well groomed - but I'm in no position to give advice about the purchase of any item of clothing that's worth more then the GNP of Kenya. I duly sat this one out.

We ended up at generic Mid-Town Expensive Men's Clothing Store number #41. I sat at a bench adjacent to the dressing rooms and pulled out my new Frank Zappa biography, cleverly entitled 'Zappa'. There was this awful mid-30's Long Island Jewess (complete with accent) sitting next to me, waiting for her equally repellent husband to emerge from the waiting room. A staff member came out and the following conversation took place:

"Your husband likes the suit, but I'm afraid it costs $1200 dollars"
"Only $1200? Tell him it's $2100, flip the numbers around, it doesn't matter to us!"
"Would you like some store-brand water, miss?"
"Imported or domestic?"

At this point, I stopped listening. I read recently that Americans give 15 cents of every $100 they make to charity. This stupid whore is concerned if she's drinking domestic or imported STORE BRAND water, while 95% of the world is wondering if they're drinking malaria infested water from a dank, putrid river.

By any definition, I am not poor. Actually, I'm extremely well off and I consider myself lucky that I grew up in a country that offers so much financial oppurtunty. But seriously, I'm pretty fucking ashamed to be an American sometimes.

What are our priorities? We pride ourselves in being the 'moral compass of the world', but where is that morality? Does it manifest itself in passing laws preventing dudes from kissing each other? Or is it giving to the needy, stopping the spread of AIDS across Africa, spearheading scientific efforts to cure diseases, ect?

Maybe after you buy that suit, you can cut a check to the Red Cross. Not because some previously-unheard-of-disaster happened half way across the world sprung you into action, but because it's the fucking right thing to do.

Hey, look, they did something right for a change.

Harry Reid instructed his minions to vote against a "$453.5 billion defense bill including $29 billion for hurricane relief, the war and border security, and $2 billion to help low-income households pay this winter's heating expenses."

That's great news!

Why?

Because right wing nutjob Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) tacked on a provision to the bill that called for oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. What does that have to do with hurricane relief, border security or helping poor people pay their heating bills? BUGGER ALL! (Stevens, by the way, is the same jerk who shouted poor Maria Cantwell down when she requested that oil executives be placed under oath when they testified in front of a senate committee last month - God forbid)

Stevens and the Republican leadership hoped that Democrats would buckle underneath the pressure of having a campaign commercial next year that says "Liberal Senator Liberally McLiberalson voted, like the rest of the Liberal members of the senate, AGAINST hurricane relief, border security or helping poor people pay their heating bills. Do you want this Liberal in representing YOU? You aren't safe...a-Boogey-Boogey-Boogey!".

Drilling ANWR, not conservation and developing alternative energies, is the cornerstone to Bush's energy policy- just thought I'd put that in there.

So kudos, Harry Reid, et. al., for acting like a Republican and standing up for what you believe in. It's good to finally see a Democratic leadership with some balls. Now they just have to win the (mis)information war. That's the hard part. Unfortunately, "standing up for what you believe in" means bollocks when the campaign ads run. I'm so fucking sick of attack ads that use the word "liberal" like it means "Nazi" or "child rapist". Can't Democrats come back with an attack ad that uses the word conservative like that? Is that possible? Sigh....

Too Bloody Right!

I sweat when it comes to the small things.

Sometimes I sweat the big things, but rarely does it show.

Recently, a picture came to mind that was evocative of a thousand words; none of them were memorable.

Carpe Diem, they say. God doesn't exist, they say. Heaven's a dream, they say. Too bloody right, I say.

Cosmic coincidences abound.

Too bloody right. The world is a mass kufuffle controlled by randomness in search of meaning. If there's no God, then there's certainly someone having a right old laugh at our expense. Maybe just my expense. Whatever he/she/it might be, they obviously aren't a big fan of my writing.

1999ish

I looked in the mirror. Shit. It wasn't pleasant.

It was the dawn of a new century and I still looked like I was some suburban Grungester wannabe. Fuck. That was like eons ago. So 1991. I was too young back then to dress like that, so I guess I was making up for lost time. The long hair parted down the middle and the ironic Urban Outfitter tee shirts had to go. For once, my mom was right. I looked crap.

It was a sea change. In the past year I wrote and directed a play, got off with a model, fallen in love a few times and was accepted into NYU film school. I was shocked. I sent my application in a week late and I was a rich white Jew from New York City. I thought in order to get in, I may have to be a minority along the lines of "Black Asian Lesbian Cripple (With Braces!)", but somehow they took me.

So I did it. I chopped off my hopelessly dated haircut and highlighted the rest blond. I still looked crap, but at least I didn't know it. That oldest-member-of-a-boyband look was real cool in '99. I even allowed myself a goatee. Complete chin rubbish. The mustache didn't even connect to the bottom. But I was older and life was changing, so my look had to catch up. Oh right, I also had terrible acne. Oy. I can't even look back at pictures of myself for fear that my eyeballs might pop themselves out of my skull.

It was about a month until college when I got a letter from NYU with my roommate's name, address and telephone number. Rich Gibson, Some Shithole, Illinois. The next day he called me.

I guess he was nervous about my New York address, maybe my last name, whatever it was, the conversation was wholly unpleasant.

"Hey, so what kinda movies are you into?" He gurgled.

"I don't know. Comedies, I guess. Woody Allen's pretty cool."

"WOODY ALLEN? He's my favorite! I guess we're the perfect match! Maybe we should get married!"

Silence. This kid was fucking retarded. It took him about 10 seconds to realize it.

"...uhhh, sorry, I'm just excited about college"

A few hours later, I got an email from him outlining his personal habits.

1) I'm a Buddhist and I meditate four hours a day.
2) I go to sleep early and wake up early to meditate.
3) I've never done drugs, drank or smoked and never will. Mediation takes me to a higher plane.
4) I can't wait to meditate with you!

Not that I judge people on their habits or personal preferences, but I mean, shit: This motherfucker was strange. 18 year old kid from the mid-west who bases his entire life around meditation? How do I get out of this one?

My blond highlights and goatee needed someone cool to hang out with.

I searched for a way to get out of my predicament.

I noticed our dorm didn't have air conditioning.

BINGO.

I immedately went to my mother: "Mom, they stuck me in a dorm without air conditioning! I want to get out of there!"

Like any good superhero Mom, she sprung into action.

The next day, she told me she fixed everything and that I'd have a dorm with air conditioning.

"YES!"

"I got you and your roommate a new room!"

"My roommate?"

"Yeah, he called when you were out and we talked for 20 minutes. What a nice guy! He meditates, you know!"

I vomited a little in my mouth. I was going to be spending the next year with some Puritanical Buddhist.

CUT TO:

Four Months Later.

It was about 3:00am. Maybe 4. I couldn't see the clock because the room was spinny. No, the room wasn't spinny, it was my head. Colt 45 seemed awl-right when Snoop Dogg poured it out for his dead homies. But it wasn't when a bunch of hipster doofus white kids guzzled it like it was going out of style. It was completely nasty, but we felt so fucking cool. NEW YORK, DRUNK, NO PARENTS! ROCKSTAR!

When I got home, I flipped on the light. Rich wasn't home. The first week he kept to his Puritan mantra, but slowly fell out of it. I saw him smoking cigarettes, drinking and he was sleeping later then I was.

I brushed my teeth to get the 40OZ breath out of my foamy mouth.

CRASH!

The door was closed, but there was definitely some sort of wrecking ball on the other side. I opened it up. Rich lay, with a big fucking gash on his forehead, laughing hysterically. His eyes were dusty red pools of intoxicants.

"I couldn't find my keys. So I thought I'd knock down the door with my body."

I picked him up. The keys were in his hand.

He was an incoherent mess. He sat down and started to freak out.

He breath became protracted and short.

"I CAN'T BREATHE! I'M GOING TO DIE!"

I was too drunk to talk a paranoid down off a high, so I told him to eat some crackers.

He took a box of saltines and gleefully started chomping. One after one, they filled his cheeks until he looked like a chipmunk.

"Rich, you aren't swallowing".

Without hesitation, he spit the cracker dust all around our dorm room, tornado style and started to laugh like a fucking pathetic maniac.

"I KNOW, MAN!"

I jumped into bed and fell asleep. I was awoken less then an hour later to the sounds of gentle sobbing. I put my headphones on and cranked some David Bowie. Christ. This isn't how I wanted to spend my college years.

Rich and I survived that year together. We ended up going to London in the spring where he drunkenly confessed in a men's room that he "Loved Me" a few moments after he blurted out "I'm gay, I'm straight, I'm everything".

We've lost touch over the years. I guess everyone needs to make mistakes. I spent the majority of that year pining hopelessly for some awful Irish girl who laughed out loud when I told her how I felt. Rich is probably a cool guy now. Yeah, he was a pain, but if you don't act like an ass and screw up sometimes then you'll never learn from your mistakes. He learned that the meditation/no drugs thing is bollocks and I learned that I looked like an ass with frosted tips and a goatee. I mean, seriously, what the fuck was I thinking?

Members of Congress caught using Saudi Arabian Oil as Vaginal Lubricant

I saw Syriana last night. There's a wake up call. Sure it was a confused, 2 hour long, pretty much unintelligible wake-up call, but a wake up call nonetheless. Some message board smeg heads (are there any other kind?) are describing the film as "liberal, far-left propaganda" or "the truth about the right wing conspiracy", but the film deals with something that goes beyond party affiliations, something that runs deeper then our petty ideological divide.

Our policies are a depressingly unchangeable Catch-22. At least seemingly unchangeable.

Here are some excerpts from an interview with Robert Baer, the former CIA officer who wrote the novel from which the film was based:

BUZZFLASH: Why do the Saudis finance terrorism? From reading your book and elsewhere, we deduce that there are probably two reasons. One is that they’re paying protection money. You set up the scenario, as you discussed earlier, that if they didn’t buy off al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, they might be the target of a plane that’s hijacked into their oil processing plants, and that would ruin them for years. The second reason is that the Saudis practice what we would view in America as a fundamentalist branch of the Islamic faith that actually becomes a breeding ground for terrorism.

BAER: There's a lot that we really don’t know. There are a lot of people in the royal family that sympathize with bin Laden. There are people in the royal family that feel humiliated by colonialism -- call it what you want -- by the United States, by Israel. And they’re humiliated that they are citizens or subjects of a country that has never fought a war, and yet spends so much money on defense. They’re humiliated that they don’t take the Israelis on, because their army is worthless. And maybe they’re not humiliated but rather disenfranchised because they can never advance up the ranks of the family, and it’s a very tough culture. They sit around and they read the Koran. And they get on these Islamic websites, and they watch Al-Jazeera. And they go to the mosque, and I think they’re believers.

....

That brings me to the State Department. You’ve got ’95, ’96, and ’98 bombings that had a bunch of Saudis. The bombings in Africa [U.S. Embassy in Kenya] and the Cole [U.S.S. Cole] had a bunch of Saudis involved. And we were hit September 2001, and we still don’t have visa interviews for these people. How can you explain that? If you’re a Syrian, you have to wait 30 days. If you’re an Iranian, you have to wait 30 days before you get your visa. In Saudi Arabia, you just send your passport to the travel agent. It comes back, without an interview, without any sort of check, and you get a visa. And that’s what disturbs me.

....

BUZZFLASH: You also mentioned how intertwined business relationships are with Saudi Arabia. Another point you bring out is that the Saudi Arabians keep possibly as much as a trillion dollars on deposit in U.S. banks. So how does that factor in?

BAER: Well, Kissinger set this up in the first oil embargo. He said, listen, fine, you can raise the price of oil. You’re going to get more money for your oil. But let’s be reasonable about this. Take this money and all this profit you’re making, and invest it in the United States, which is a perfectly good policy, by the way. Buy our arms. Keep your money here. It’ll keep our economy floating. We won’t go into a recession or a depression because of high oil prices. And we’re all going to win by this. And that worked fine.

But then that goes back to the dependency. We depend so much on Saudi investments in the stock market, in Citibank and other funds. This is not just Saudi money; it’s other Arab money too. If we go into a confrontation with the Middle East, especially with oil prices so high right now, and that money is not recirculated back in the United States, it’s going to do some real damage. Or if one day, they just completely pull their money out. I mean, that’s the perfect storm: an oil embargo, the Saudis and others' pulling their money out, and having the price of oil go up to $70 - $80 a barrel. We would be hurt, badly hurt.

So it's the snake eating it's tail. We finance them, they finance us, they finance terrorists, the terrorists bomb us and we bomb them. The film suggests that any attempt to change this, bring in a reformer that pushes true democracy and self sufficiency to the Saudis, is actually against our best financial interests. The oil prices might rise and they might take some of their money out of our economy. So we'll continue to support backwards anti-reform idiots who support terrorists because it keeps oil prices down and the rich white guys pockets full.

Would having a Democrat in office make things any difference? Probably not. Maybe some regulation and more funding for alternative fuels, but no fundamental difference in our policies.

Remember when the commercials used terrorism as a way to fight the drug war ("Harmless?"). Well, it ain't pot that's funding terrorism, it's your SVU. So drive that gas guzzler with the "Freedom Isn't Free" bumper sticker. You're a driving oxi-moron and you should be ashamed of yourself. OK, not you, but someone else. I like you!