Apple Panic

January 31st, 2006General0 comments

I have a leftover Apple Store gift card from Christmas. It continued existence in my pocket is a miracle. It’s like an untouched roast beef sandwich sitting on a tree stump in a fat camp.

There’s nothing I want to buy from the Apple Store.

There, I said it.

That’s so weird for me to say! It used to be that I couldn’t leave the Apple Store without buying something. Cables, at least.

(The Apple Store is one of my favorite stores, along with Ikea, Pottery Barn, Lazer Blazer, Fry’s, Brooklyn Industries, used bookstores, and the Las Vegas gun store.)

Apple has given me so much these past few years. Trouble-free computing. An excellent MP3 player. Just last week I discovered the New Pornographers on the iTunes music store. They’re Canadian and awesome.

What the hell is wrong with me?

The other night the phone rang. I picked it up and heard nothing but sound effects from Katamari Damacy.

Then giggling. It was our favorite glasses-wearing pranksters, Lloyd and Jeanie. They thought it would be fun to leave Katamari Damacy sound effects on my voicemail.

“Elephant” – Jeanie – Pen on Paper, 2006.

“You ruined our fun by answering your phone!” they said.

Lloyd and Jeanie are wealthy people. Wealthy in creativity, puppies, good restaurants within walking distance, and humor. They make Donald Trump look like a hobo.

Expect a new Arnold story soon… Our little friend has been busy mapping the travels of homeless people in relation to local time-space anomalies.

Mr. Mamet Will Have the Twizzlers

January 30th, 2006General3 comments

So there’s a new David Mamet play at the Geffen, written and directed by Mamet himself. I’ve been hanging out a lot at the Ralph’s next door hoping to spot him buying snacks during rehearsal breaks.

Wouldn’t it be really, really cool to see David Mamet, writer of Glengarry Glen Ross, buying hot pockets?

“Hmmm, should I have the ham and cheese hot pockets or the beef taco?.. Ah, I ate twenty ham and cheeses last week at that American drama panel. I’d better go with the — OOH, STEAK FAJITA!”

Then imagine the Puliter Prize winner trying to find the microwave in the newly expanded, multi-million dollar Geffen theater:

“Hey Gilbert, where’s the microwave in this mother?”

Gilbert Cates, former president of the DGA, former dean of the UCLA School of film and television, Producing Director at the Geffen: “It’s in the staff room, third door on the left. But, uh, it’s kind of dirty… Let me get some Windex.”

Wouldn’t it be great to see Sam Shepard snacking on a box of Nerds? Would he hit the grape first and then the cherry, or would he mix it up? Would he allow the flavors to come to conflicting blows like the brothers in True West?

“Whenever I play a distressed U.S. Army Colonel sending his men to their deaths, I like to relax between takes with a packet of crunchy, tangy Nerds candy. Num num num!”

I want to see these guys being human. To eat what we eat, do what we do.

I want to see Edward Albee driving an Altima.

I had another book buying binge this weekend. I got the paperback of Collapse and White Teeth by Zadie Smith (thanks Yumi). Right now I’m finishing Blink.

I think my brain does better at all tasks when it’s being fed books. I think a writer should primarily be a reader. I don’t know who said that first but I believe in it.

I actually like reading scripts better than seeing plays, and reading screenplays is a vastly different mental activity for me than watching a movie. A screenwriter especially should primarily be a reader and not just a movie lover.

Words on a page just activate for me, like the scrubbing bubbles in the bathroom cleaner commercial. Each one is like a little spell, and reading or saying the word invokes all these ideas and conjoined memories. I just really love words.

And Twix.

Art

January 29th, 2006General2 comments

My brother goes to RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design. He’s getting his MFA. He’s really awesome — marvelously talented, this kid.

Anyway, for Christmas he gave us all DVDs of an art video/music piece he created.

I watched it and for the life of me, I can’t understand what the hell’s going on.

Now, I like to think I know a thing or two about art. I know the movements, I’ll drop by the MoMa, I know a Klee from a Kandinsky. But this DVD is way over my head.

He plays the viola shirtless in front of one of his multifaceted multicolored geometrical wood artworks. And it’s multiple shots composited over each other. And I don’t get it.

“Maybe that’s the point,” a friend pointed out.

Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate it. I do. It’s just that my mind demands to know what the hell is going on. It needs a story.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe it’s just a performance piece without a story. Or maybe my brother has created this DVD in an attempt to plant a mental virus in my brain that will snowcrash me. Who knows?

Anyway, the DVD is pretty neat, and my brother composed the music himself. Sometimes I suppose that art is meant to be appreciated for its face value only. Maybe the details are unnecessary. I don’t know.

For Christmas I got him a gift certificate to American Apparel.

We Know Where This Puppy is Headed

January 27th, 2006General2 comments

I just read this book on Buddhism. Rick and Angel asked me if I was searching for enlightenment. I think I am, but I would like to find a new girlfriend and a puppy first.

One thing the book said was that cause and effect are simultaneous. Keep in mind that I’m a neophyte at all this, so if I’m munging your belief system I apologize.

Anyway, cause and effect are simultaneous. An acorn is already a tree, just in an early, proto-tree state.

Now, I’ve had numerous discussions with various people throughout my life about whether they’re good people, and whether things are going to work out for them in the end.

Someone even just recently asked me, point blank, “Do you think I’m a good person?”

We’re all wondering, myself included, if we’re doing the right thing. Are we on the right path?

This is where the acorn comes into the picture. I’m pretty sure that if the seed is planted, then the tree is likely to grow. That is, if you’re working hard and being a decent person in this moment (i.e., right now) then the effects — the future — are likely to be a reflection of this moment.

You my friend are like a good puppy. You’re always full of puppy energy and smiling and you don’t make a mess. You can’t wait to grow. You go to sleep when you’re put in your bed and you don’t poop indoors.

Well, sometimes you do. But you feel bad about it and you tell me you’re going to try not to do it again in the future.

So you shouldn’t worry about the future, because yours is almost certainly guaranteed. We can see where you’re headed.

The Deets

January 26th, 2006General2 comments

I don’t like generic American flag stamps so I go to the post office to buy my stamps in person.

Last month I got the Buckminster Fuller stamps (inventor of the Geodesic Dome!). This time I got Favorite Childrens’ Book Animals.

Curious George plays with his food.

I like stamps. If you call me a nerd I will fight you.

I like how American institutions used to have grand, dramatic mottos:

“Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”

It makes being a postman sound so cool. It even makes it sound downright sexy. But these days the reputation of the postal service has been marred by Cheers’ Cliff Clavin, Running With Scissors’ Postal videogame, and Kevin Costner’s 1997 film The Postman.

But I salute you, postpeople. Unless you lose my mail, like when Jeanie sent me those cookies that never arrived. Then I hate you.

I read a bunch of LCC scripts. I now present to you the two greatest lines of dialogue ever written for an LCC show:

GARDENER
I just got back from a meeting and they are getting rid of all the trees.

TREE
Oh shit.

I think I believe in love again.

Trashed

January 25th, 2006General2 comments

Cleaning my kitchen, I noticed that my metal trash can from Restoration Hardware had corroded past the point of salvageablility. Rust flakes were now dusting off its inside and onto the floor.

It was now in trash can heaven, along with famous members of its race, like Oscar the Grouch’s trash can and the original Dumpster.

So I threw it out and got one of those Simple Human trash cans.

This thing is like the Lexus of trash cans. It’s huge, tall, and it gently and silently closes so as to avoid disturbing your mental state.

I don’t even have to empty it. When I throw something into it, it gets sucked through a time-space wormhole and into a dimension where my trash is lovingly caressed by angelic beings made of pure energy. When you click open the can, you can hear them singing.

Now that’s a trash can.

Powermoves

January 24th, 2006General2 comments

“What do you think of guys with rhinestones on their t-shirts?” a friend asked me at lunch on Saturday.

She indicated a guy sitting outside on the other side of the glass. There were rhinestones stitched into his shirt. They were actually more like Swarovski crystals. Some were pink. He also had mad musculature and fat dreadlocks.

“I think they’re okay if the guy looks like he can kick my ass,” I said.

Duality. It’s a nice thing to explore sometimes.

Like if you’re a beautiful actress, play the ugly girl. If you’re manly, wear Swarovski crystals on your t-shirt.

If you’re a dog, make out with a cat.

Do what you’ve gotta do. Switch it up.

Sometimes you just wanna grab someone (often yourself!) and shake ‘em and yell, “CHANGE! For the love of the Virgin Mary, CHANGE, DAMN YOU!!!”

But they don’t want to change or need to change, so they never make an attempt to. They just remain themselves, stuck.

So I salute the buffed man with rhinestones on his shirt. I salute the puppy making out with the kitty, the Disney buying the Pixar, Conan O’Brien fighting the BEAR. They’re changing the game, grabbing the bull by the whatsits, stealing the plans for the DeathStar no matter how many Bothans need to be sacrificed.

I love people that are making powermoves.

And you know what? Tomorrow I’m buying a t-shirt with freakin’ crystals on it.