What to do...What to do...

Do I Compromise my integrity and watch this freaking 'Spanglish' movie because I love Tea Leoni and absolutely abhor Adam Sandler and have always consciously said I will never watch anything he is in? The Elmhurst Library's pickings are slim.

***UPDATE: I'm glad I watched it. Tea was great and she floored me in this one scene where she was having sex w/ Adam S's character and he pats her body and says"Look at this body", and MAN, you had to she her body in this shot. She had like a freaking 8 pack going on. Screw shadow make up and lighting, this was a hard core body. A lot of reviewers were saying when this first came out that she would be nominated for an Oscar, then all that buzz slowed down and everyone was on the bandwagon of an over the top preformance. Having lived in both L.A. and UES and UWS of Manhattan, I have seen these women. I have dealt with these women. Any Nanny or Maid or Butler will concur, but usually they do not speak English to blab this.
Adam Sandler looks like a 5 year olds drawing of a man. Just a blobby looking guy with a fro and sallow skin and such. It's such a fucking shame that casting couches are not around for schlubs like him, denying him roles that someone with any sort of pedigree in acting could have made a little bit more interesting. Shit, it happens to women all the time.
Maybe now I will watch "Punch Drunk Love" because I dig Emily Watson tons as well.

Payton Revisited...

One of my favorite scenes in moviedom has to be when Rebecca DeMornay as Payton in "The Hand that Rocks the Cradle" confronts the little boy @ the schoolyard who has been picking on the girl she has been tending to. I'm paraphrasing here, but 'Payton' is alerted to the fact that the little boy is present in the playground. he is surrounded by a few of his cronies and she grabs him by the collar and says, "Call her one more name and I'll kick your fucking ass to the ground..."
Again, I'm paraphrasing (Every movie of my past must be reviewed as a sober dude), but it reminded me of how I acted no longer than 20 minutes ago.
We are all waiting for the library to open (@ 10 am) and everyone is on line. It's about 3 minutes to 10 when these two Paki kids walk up and sort of hover around the front door. I actually saw the fatter of the two look at the long line and decide not to get on it, nudge his friend and park it by the door.
The doors open and the little fucks squeeze in behind the oblivious 3rd and 4th person.
Now, I would not be pissed if it was not for the fact that I knew that these little bastards were going to use the computers, and the fact that there are only a few of them made me more incensed because that is why there is a line. I could just see them getting a PC so they can send Emails and check their MartyrSpace.Com web pages, but I'll be damned if I get shut out.
When everyone started lining up for the computers we were told that they were down. I knew this was probably temporary so I started looking for a new book to read (having ditched "Drink" by A. Burroughs at page 78 <------ quite possibly a first for me, that I can recall; and I just finished "Strong Motion" by J.Franzen).
As I'm going down the aisles I see the little turd and I cornered him and his friend and told the fat one, "Do you know what a line is?" And he looked at me as if I was asking for directions or something. But I interceded and said, "If I ever see you cut the line again I am going to personally throw your ass into the street." His glasses fell off his face and the skinny one looked like he had to go take a quick shit as the sand color drained from his face.
I kind of felt triumphant, thanked my Wellbutrin for the Assertiveness (albeit to a child!) and left.

"Living inside my head, not much room for the two of us..."

...The Lemondrops.

• The subways in Queens are all mostly run above ground and requires all patrons to climb two, three and sometimes four flights of stairs. Why in the world do I always get stuck behind this fat assed meanderer who seems like he/she just got shot with a tranquilizer gun from Marlon Perkins and they are about to collapse at any second. It's either that, or I get behind the mother who is finally teaching her kid how to walk stairs and decides what better place than the freaking 'Stairway to Seven'.

• Like Bart, I am wondering why I am not famous (or near there). It seems every week or so, someone I hung around is making it. Last week I was reading the poster to Harrison Ford's new movie "Firewall" on the subway platform and as I read the credits I noticed a name of someone I was pretty well acquainted with. So much so, that she sent me a 'homemade ' Valentine's Day Card. I mean, good for them. I sincerely mean this, but...(In rehab they have a saying: everything after but is bullshit). So, does this mean when I finally give an interview I could say, "Yeah, it was myself, so & so and so & so hanging around The Formosa Bar..." Kind of like the crew of Scorsese, Lucas and Speilberg et al who hung around L.A. in the early 70's or this one: Kevin Spacey, Val Kilmer and Mare Winningham all being classmates!

• I read today that most men would choose to have Tom Cruises' teeth and smile. Who the fuck do they ask these things to? I have never been 'poled' in my life about stupid nonsensical bullshit like this. And most of all, how the hell do they get this tidbit in the newspaper? First off, Tom Cruises smile? That forced 'Glamour Shot' that he has been sporting since his third or fourth movie. It's like I want to hear a canned soundtrack playing "Ahhhhh" when he smiles. In porn it's called the money shot. On him it is this forced botox frozen expression that internally is saying, "I am such a fraud"..."I am so fucked in the head"...

• These Muslim leaders are getting picked off like flies on a screen door. I think Joyce DeWitt has better security than these Imams.

Do newspapers have a retirement age?

I freaking hate Liz Smith and Cindy Adams. There. I wrote that first sentence so many times, all the while trying to use a different word than hate, but none of them had the impact or resonated enough. These two bitches should be a GreenPeace target. The amount of paper and squid ink these two morons waste with their blathering senile comments and kiss ass bold face names is deplorable. Liz Smith, who "by the by" ( I FUCKING HATE when she writes that! It reads like she's a fucking nosy bitty in a bad Harlequin Romance.) came out of the closet at like, 96 years of age, makes so many mistakes in the name of Gossip. Doesn't this woman have IMDB? How she can GO TO PRINT with so many errors is beyond me. In spite of that, yesterday she was talking about the 'controversial ' movie, "Crash". If any of you have seen this movie you would see that it was a contrived piece of bullshit ripping off Magnolia so badly that I wrote about it here months ago, and weaving a story around all these coincidences it felt like a Disney flick with it's amount of unbelievableness. Cindy Adams on the other hand comprises her columns by going to real interviews that celebs give other publications. If Meg Ryan says she likes Gouda Cheese in 'Lady's Home Journal' you can bet your ass it will be a whole column along with others who enjoy cheese in this bitches daily parrot cage filler. I used to picture myself bumping into Rupert Murdoch's son (he was kind of a hottie) somewhere in NY and asking him why the fuck he employs these two bats. I need to start an impeachment trial for these two. Only in New York Kids!!

Short Yellow Bus

So, I take a couple of Seasons of the Soprano's on DVD from my moms house and watch like an episode a night. I've seen them all, once, twice or ad nauseum (sp). But, I was wasted as well, so what I thought was excellent then, might seem unbelievably great now. I'm checking out this one episode and Carmela is in the supermarket and as she is about to round the corner of the aisle she notices one of the moles of a now deceased Mafiosi demoing pigs in the blanket. I shut the dvd off and contemplated life.
Since I am living in the halfway house of horrors, a working one, there are certain specifications that I must follow. We have two mandatory meetings per week in which all must attend, these being on Tues and Thurs @ 6 pm. Whichever job you take, you must allow for these, which kind of sounds like no biggie, but it does act like the monkeywrench a lot of the times. Add to this the fact that we can not come into the house past 11 pm or you will be tossed out. (Actually, the person on duty refuses to answer the door after 11 pm). So, with a background in food service and management and cooking, it's kind of hard to finagle something other than corporate dining around these stipulations.
The job I have is bullshit, I know and add to it the fact that I'm on the Upper East and West Side of town and you can see where my insecurities lie. Manhattan has always made me feel 5 inches shorter and 25 pounds overweight and now throw into the mix a seemingly smart looking guy, like myself, wearing a baseball hat and an emblazoned store apron handing out gourmet food. I wonder if I was me as a customer, would I stop and ponder this situation. Like, "How did that guy end up with this?''
I'm putting the finishing touches on my second original script which I hope to present as a 'calling card', along with the first for any writing assignments in idea arid Los Angeles.
Just thought I'd let you know.

Evil Ugly Twin

Did you ever meet someone you liked a lot while being a supporter or fan of this person. Like a musician or an actress/tor or a politician or writer? How many of us have the clarity or hindsight afterwards of now determining if something they kind of did sort of irritated us and well, I'm really not into them anymore. The lack of love and support does not just end there but it sort of wanes over time whereas a couple of months back you may have circled a day on your calendar regarding this persons newest book or album or movie, now it seems you notice it while you come across it in the bargain bins or when it's on cable. This happens to me a lot with everyone, but in celebrated people more often. My favorite actor/actress/musician list dwindled considerably after working with a lot of my favorites at my job in Los Angeles. It could be their phone manners or the way I would observe them treated their crew members or fans or the way they acted outside when that imaginary 4th wall (or is it 3rd) is broken down.
I also sour on some when their fame is too big for their once small britches.
I've seen some of my favorite bands play clubs with 15 people and now all they play are stadiums. I've gone through reams of order forms and hours of search time trying to obtain movies that are so rare but they star someone I'm totally into. And then, one little song or scene might propel them into the stratosphere of Joe Buttcrack in Peoria and then I lose interest.

I'm reading "Drink" right now by Augusten Burroughs and is it me, or is he trying too hard to make me laugh? Or am I skeptical because he is the author most often thought to be a member of the Bullshit Memoir Club that James Frey started up? A book that I would have consumed with glee in two days now has the potential of a library late charge and a bookmark opage 38.

The Gift

About 12 years ago I gave up the coolest apartment in NYC right across the street from Washington Square Park to move down to the up and coming town of South Beach: Miami, FL.
This had to be the biggest scam I ever was a part of. Bigger and more self deprecating than the time I bought those Stereo Speakers from the guy in the parking lot of a Mall in Jersey, only to have purchased empty shells of speakers with bricks inside. But I digress. South Beach was supposed to be this burgeoning Mecca of show business, with supposed studios in the works and production crews scouting around and blah, blah, blah. I took the bait hook line and sinker and like a good addict, I took someone very close to me along for the ride. I ended up staying there about two months. This after shipping every single thing I owned down there via Parcel Post and cutting all ties with my hometown. Why the frig didn't I sublet or contact a corporation that puts up out of town employees, I don't know. What I do know is that South Beach was a bust. You saw the same people everyday, in the 8 square blocks of usable terrain. So, if you saw Joe and Beth at the gym, you then saw them at the supermarket, and then you bumped into them when you were buying your Cuban Coffee, and then you saw Joe rollerblading Ocean Avenue while Beth was tanning on the beach and you wrapped up the day with seeing them at one of the clubs. Every Fucking Day, every Fucking Person Living There. I had just went through my fifth job in a month, and the square mile or so mentioned above turned into square footage of space where I could possibly show my face.
My friend Brian whom I had coerced into moving down was experiencing similar woes with the modeling business for which he was pretty successful at. He ended up quitting the business due to the caliber of people who amass the industry, from the bookers to the agency heads and to the cut throat models he was having to see (repeatedly) at go sees. His new Cocker spaniel, Ben was dying of the heat that also permanently stained the armpit spots of many a cherished shirt of mine. Walking one block in the Summer in South Florida is akin to being a break dancer on the Equator.
I, besides hating most of the above, could not stand to be around these so called hipsters and nellies who basically got 86'd from New York for one thing or another. Every drag queen who burned his bridge in the club scene in NY was manning (for lack of a better word) the doors of the clubs in Sobe, as they tried to called it, but embarrasses me just to write it. Every failed waiter and waitress, which means actor and dancer from NYC (myself included) scurried down there. The lure of cheap and plentiful drugs could not entice anyone with half a brain left to consider planting your feet there. So, I left.

Epilogue: I cringed when I read in yesterdays gossip column how Jon Bon Jove could not contain his loud guffaws as Chris Kattan (of SNL) did his Night @ the Roxbury dance as Paris Hilton looked on as well.

We are DOOMED

The recent activities of Muslim Extremists has me questioning one part of that sentence. Is their any Muslim NON-Extremists. Doesn't it seem that for every single outcry by this fanatical sect, they all jump and caterwall and light fires and throw rocks and denounce a WHOLE COUNTRY by the actions of one person. These people are doing exactly what they tell us they do not do. Generalize. They freaking generalize every situation. If Denmark pisses them off, then it is Death to every Dane, if it's Somalia or freaking a Antartican they fucking write in their 900 newspapers "Death to the Antarcticans".
You probably heard about the ferry crash where their are like 900 presumed dead Muslims (hand me a tissue, please) coming back from work. Did you hear that while the Shippers where out helping in the search, all these "fanatics" torched their offices. Did you hear that the captain of the boat evacuated first? All these Koran thumpers spew venomous quotations at the media, yet when their backs are half turned they contradict themselves by doing the opposite.
We are doomed folks. Would you trust any one of these fuckers with the rights to a Nuclear warhead? I wouldn't, I'd have trouble giving them a freaking water pistol. Look how they make weapons out of the most primitive sources of nature. People still get stoned to death on a regular basis. The inciter of this whole Danish rigmarole happens to be a buddy of one of the 9/11 hijackers.
Not to leave you in limbo, but I now live with this Muslim guy in the halfway house, I feel like a sixth grader saying this, like I was talking about my new love, but I can not wait to tell you about this CHARACTER!!

More Agita

So I do what might be construed by the typical reader as Demo-ing. Which means that I hand out shit to people as they shop at the store I represent. Now, this isn't Cosco we are talking about here, this is an Upscale Upper East Side Gourmet Store, where customers get their hair done before coming to shop and the soccer moms have Bentley's instead of Dodge Astro's. But, just like you can not buy class it seems that the Manners Store also went out of business where these people are concerned.
I take Neurontin for my anxiety and shit, and these fuckers really seem to test the RDA of my Rx. Besides the grabby old men who come up and reach for the first thing they see; these the men for whom "Please Wash Your Hands" signs in bathrooms were invented, the same old bastards who dribble their honeycomb yellow piss all over the seat that they leave down in all bathrooms, the same guys who forget to flush and constantly pick their ears and noses with no avail to who is watching. Their screechie voiced shorter spouses whose vitrolic comments to anything resembling a pleasantry come up grab and than go, "Whats this?" like I fucking owe them something and It'll just make my day if they like what I'm showcasing. And they will take it anyway. These ladies are a few dollars away from being like their ilk down in Florida who attend functions with plastic baggie lined pocketbooks so they don't have to eat cat food in the coming week.
The ones who really fucking kill me are these uglyish Broker Types who make a decent salary and attended an East Coast University whilst coming from Buttfuck Red State. This type of Lifetime watching chick who buys a gym membership on January 2nd of every year and is looking for a refund on January 16th. The kind who does not have a cat, but everything she owns has cat-like potential in it's cheesey down on the farmness. This one c word was showing some visiting yokel our store, going up to every counter and showing off her new cosmopolitan lifestyle. Calling guacamole with a mole at the end of the word instead of mole-ley and telling her dimwit friend that those mushrooms are pronounced Shi-take, instead of shitcakes like he was trying to read. She came up to me and she was like: "What in God's name is this" and I answered "A Demo" as someone would say, "Duh" and she was like "I have never seen such a thing at C___________." And I replied, "We do it 5 days a week" to which she had to pretend an excuse because she knows dam fucking well that she never shops here, she knows we do not sell "Chunky Monkey" here, the only item she indulges herself with to mask her miserable phoney life.
This is my misery!