Once, but on the lips.

Man-boy I've written a bunch of entries on this bitch, lemme tell you. A hunnert-and-five and counting, and all of this accepting the conceit that... I missed January! Oh man... months go by and still I dream of soup.

So... a couple of things...

1) I got rid of the desk that I've worked and occasionally been amorous on (O high school... how much fun you were) and have replaced it with this:



That's right. Rather than a corner desk "workspace," I now have a cold, unfeeling, synthetic "station." What else can it be called? Whenever I sit there I feel as if I should be launching nukes or inventing new ways of hacking into government databases and surveilling Will Smith. It is crazy futuristic up in here!

A closer view? My pleasure!



So I saw this ding-dang thing sitting at Fry's while picking up accessories for one of my new machines, and the price was right and the thang be mine! The really neat thing is that it matches all of my aesthetically pleasing Mac stuff... so I have this space-age metallia to work in.




I gotta say, having this cash flow is nice. I can buy things for myself now without any guilt or worry. I'm a fairly low-maintenance person, I don't need a lot of things and don't make a lot of purchases, so I can buy pretty much whatever I feel like buying and know that I'm not in danger of spending too much money.

2) What did my friend Redd from the Times get me for Christmas?



OH HO HO DOES HE KNOW ME OR WHAT?

3)



My brother is ridiculously talented.

4) And finally, of the things I've been meaning to share, this came in the mail recently:



(ed.: Of course, when I first posted this I forgot it had my real name on it. I wonder how many times I've betrayed my identity here and not caught myself in time.)

Wow... that really drives it home. All that work and struggle adds up to this. I've decided to walk in May, for my parents as much as myself, as I've always been one for ceremony and I think I need some epic event to usher me into the next period of my life, be that heading off to grad school or working on the book while I keep working at the Times. Either way, this little peice of paper is a huge thing for me. When it came, I actually touched the paper, and having it tangible, actual in my hand was something I'm not going to forget anytime soon.

It's not actually sheepskin. I'm very disappointed in that.

In the meantime, I'm working on knighthood, and have finally found my seat so sitting a trot isn't the ass-pounding it used to be. It's a hell of a thing that a hundred-and-fifty years ago horses were the main form of transportation. If you didn't have a horse, you just weren't going anywhere. Nowadays no one rides. This logically led me to an interesting idea for a documentary, but it would be a ways off in the future, maybe once my tenure with the Times has run its course and I'm ready for the next thing. Of course, that'll be a couple years off at least (pending grad school) as I am continuing to excel in my efforts towards knighthood. The only thing holding me back is my class schedule, which keeps me from getting as much practice in jousting and games as I'd like. The fights and riding are fine, of course... but once I get those other things down, I'll be set.

The people at the Times don't dole out compliments... in fact they are rather few and never between... but my bosses take time to tell me that I'm impressing them, and it's always nice when I get assured that what I'm doing is exceptional. I have a tendency to forget how awesome I am, and have had a lot of difficulty remembering since October. But... you know... it's coming back to me.

Another thing that my ex had a lot of fun convincing me of was that I'm a terrible person to people, and that's why I have trouble making friends. Fuck that sauce! I have become the golden boy among my coworkers, and feel the love and appreciation of people who genuinely like me and who I am whenever I go in, like school but not so muted. I am a fun dude to be around! So I've been making a lot of real good friends at work, and a few of the guys and I have started what we affectionately refer to as "Best Buddies Night," at my behest. Tuesday nights we get together, grill it all up outside and smoke from a hukha, which is an interesting experience to say the least, then head inside to play games. It is awesome. Sometimes Toker uses the bathroom right after knocking my cigar on the ground. Then I pick the lock on the door and this happens.



Good times. Good times.

I'm programming now for both the Newport Beach Film Festival and the L.A. Film Festival. My weekly movie load:



Of course, we're in the crunch time for Newport, so I'm watching slightly more movies for them this week than I have up until now... but still. You're looking at 24 features/docs and 13 shorts. Of those there are a number of foreign films, one musical, ostensibly some animated submissions though I have yet to run across any personally, and statistically at least one or two that are worth a good God Damn. For the most part, these films which together comprise millions of dollars of investment and years of production, are shit. I mean, they're shit. There are a few for which the filmmaker should never be allowed near the camera, should be shot out of a cannon into the sea... a special section of the sea where it can be guaranteed they could never swim to the bottom and find the wreckage of a forgotten Panasonic merchant vessel... but most of them just aren't any good. It's really a shame, that so much effort and expense should be wasted... but there you have it. The industry is run and maintained by industrials... not artists. Every now and then you find one, and it becomes youre responsibility to make sure that that person has a chance to present their work. Other than that, you must simply bear silent witness to the demise of the greatest art form the world has ever seen.

Of course, it is resilient. It's the ocean. You can beat it as much as you want, but you can't destroy it.

For example, yesterday after screening most of these... things... I treated myself to To Catch a Thief, which is almost by definition a good film, and literally felt myself recharge from the shit that had preceded it. I felt myself completely reenergized just by seeing a single film that, after fifty years, still holds the same value and beauty that it did when it was first released. Hitchcock's a brilliant, brilliant man, and it's a pleasure to watch his work. I may just watch Jamaica Inn tonight. It was his first film after coming to America, you know. I mean, after he came to America. Hitchcock didn't make Coming to America. Once my brother and I got threatened by an angry Negro for singing the Soul Glo theme song from the film in a "specialty hair product" store while purchasing wax for my dreadlocks.

So... I kind of lost my focus there.

As I say, I have plenty of films to get through, so I'm gonna get watching. It was nice checking in. I'll talk to you soon.

I can say "I love you" in five languages, and have no one to say it to.