Today’s soundtrack:
‘cause me and my crew were out breaking windows
the bingo, the lotto, you know I’ll never win those
Today at 8:02pm: tipping the delivery guy


Fact One: Good-looking people make more money than ugly people, and they’re also more likely to be promoted. It’s a proven fact. The people who make these decisions can’t help but judge by appearances, it’s human nature. Good-looking people hold sway.

Fact Two: Middle America--the farmers, factory workers and truck drivers that provide the population bulk of this nation--are the ones who will elect our next President, with their sheer numbers. Not the coastal “elite,” not the old-money New Englanders, not the movie stars in California or the city slickers in Manhattan.

Fact Three: Middle Americans aren’t as comfortable with ethnic names. If you grew up in New York, for instance, then you knew kids named Shlomo or Vijay or Ting; Missouri, different story.

These three facts lead me to believe Middle America will elect our next president based not on policies, promises or rhetoric; they will vote for the better-looking guy, or the one with the less weird last name.

All the Presidents we’ve ever had had stately or neutral-sounding last names. Carter. Clinton. Reagan. Kennedy is about as ethnic as it ever got. There’s never been and never will be a President Klowicki, Stuttgarten, Yamamoto or Hershberger.

I knew Dukakis would never get elected to the oval office. Ditto for Gephardt and Lieberman. Giuliani, Pataki, not a chance. Schwarzeneger...maybe, but that’s a special case. I mean the man has destroyed cyborgs for chrissakes.

So what are we looking at here? If you don’t want another four years of Bush, I mean.

For starters, we’ve got Dean. Nice neutral-sounding name, has a vaguely authoritarian hint due to the collegiate reference, but he loses in the looks department. His neck is too big and he looks as if he will explode into rage at any given moment. When Dean makes certain expressions he resembles Dr. Bruce Banner in the midst of transforming into the Incredible Hulk, like the part right before the pants rip.

Then you’ve got Kerry, some say he’s the answer. I don’t think he is because a) he looks like he’s pushing ninety and b) his last name sounds too much like a girl’s first name for Middle America to vote for him.

Lieberman, not a chance. Last name too ethnic for M.A. and his wife’s name is, as Deadly Ed Lee pointed out, Hadassah. First lady Hadassah? Fine with me, and I’d vote for Lieberman if I liked his platform, but ask the guys who make Fords what they think. Not to mention he looks like Billy Crystal in an old Saturday Night Live skit.

Edwards. Okay name, good-looking guy, but a bit fresh-faced. At a time when people are obsessed with “protecting the nation,” no one’s going to elect someone who looks like Dan Quayle’s younger brother. If Kerry looks too old, Edwards looks too young. I keep getting him mixed up with the guy from L.A. Law.

And finally there’s Clark. Good, crisp, authoritative-sounding name with a slightly superheroic cast due to the Superman reference. Good-looking cat with the virility of a military background. And out of all the contenders Clark seems to be the only one who could beat Bush in a physical fight. (Or in a punching fight, anyway; Dean might be able to knock Bush unconscious though it would take some grappling, bear-hugging or awkward smothering-type maneuvers.)

So, I think due to Middle American voting dynamics Clark is the only one who stands a chance against Bush. I know he didn’t get Iowa or New Hampshire, but this is not a predicter of who will get the nomination or who will be the best leader, it’s a predicter of who can beat Bush in a heavily-televised election. Out of all the contenders Clark’s the best-looking guy with the least-weird last name, and the “General” thing can’t hurt either.

I guess we’ll see what happens in November. It’s only January now, so by then this post will be long-buried in the LiveJournal archives. It will be harder to find than weapons of mass destruction.

Today’s soundtrack:
Tom Thumb, Tom Cushman or tomfoolery
I’m dating women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery
Today at 8:02pm: digging through a box of screws


Anytime I wander into a Target or a Wal-Mart or a Home Depot, I am immediately reminded why other countries hate us: We have everything. I mean the fact that our president’s a douchebag’s got something to do with it too, but the bottom line is, we have everything.

We have more than the French, more than the Russians, and we damn sure have more than the Iraqis now that our leader has thoughtfully helped them reconfigure their inventory with uninvited bombs. We have everything. Right or wrong, it simply is.

All of NYC’s superstores in Queens, because they can’t fit the damn things in Manhattan. Home Depot is so fucking big that being inside feels like you’re still outside. It’s so big that within its walls they have their own movie theaters and bowling alleys and governments. Anyways I’m dead flat broke, so I’d have no business being inside or outside a Home Depot if it weren’t for the gift certificates in my pocket.

The local phone company keeps me loyal with bribes in the form of Home Depot gift certificates, and after I’d amassed 45 dollars worth I got in the car and drove to Queens. Forty-five bucks is enough to refit my closet and with no work coming in, I don’t have much else to do but use the power drill I bought back when I was making money.

I pushed my orange cart around and after locating the proper aisle--which took slightly less time than it took Frodo to find Mordor--I grabbed the brackets I needed and threw them in the cart. Over in the wood section, I waited my turn at the saw and hacked two 56” segments off a twenty-foot pole. I could’ve bought galvanized metal rods but they cost twice as much and it’s all the same shit. I mean I’m building closet rods, not the space shuttle.

Several aisles away some guy saw the wooden poles sticking out of my cart and asked me where I got them. He looked frantic, like he’d been in there for days. I gave him some water from my canteen and pointed him in the right direction. He didn’t say thank you so I silently cursed at him.

Back in my apartment I mounted the brackets and hooked up the closet rods. My apartment lacks proper closets (it’s a converted sweatshop) so ever since I’ve lived here I’ve been keeping all of my clothes hanging on abandoned garment racks I found on the street. It’s one step away from using milk crates for furniture. I’ve been dying to get rid of these shits and now, thanks to the competitive nature of the telecommunications industry and gift-certificate incentive programs I could.

I transferred all my clothes from the garment racks to the new closet rods, swept the plaster dust off the floor and had a celebratory bowl of cereal while reading Newsweek. Around this time of day I’d normally eat something with meat in it but money’s a little tight. Anyways midway through my bowl of granola I heard a loud noise that sounded suspiciously like all of my clothes and a new wooden closet rod crashing to the floor.

I continued eating and tried concentrating on the article, chewing slowly. After I finished I went into the bedroom, picked all my clothes off the floor (removing errant chunks of plaster) and examined the wall, where the anchors had ripped themselves free under the weight of clothes older than I cared to remember. It would be nice if I could just mount the brackets to wall studs, but I live in an old shitbox building whose walls are thick plaster covering what feels (to a drill bit, anyway) like cement.

I grabbed a fresh handful of anchors, drilled new holes in slightly different places and hooked the whole thing up again, with an extra bracket for good measure. This time while hanging the clothes up I carefully scrutinized them for items I haven’t worn in over a year, or bought more than ten years ago, and threw them into the corner to lighten the load.

The rejected clothes I put into a bag to take to the local homeless donation center. Because in this country you can have everything, but most of the time you need less than half of it.

Today’s soundtrack:
the sea was kind of rough,
it made me feel sick
but I like that kind of stuff,
it beats arithmetic.
Today at 8:02pm: hosting twelve guests and scarfing shabu-shabu, courtesy of Cia


Well, I finally found the job I want to do.

So there’s this guy, right, he drives around the city in a big white truck. It has a “cherry picker” on the back--a bucket the size of half a man, attached to a huge metal folding arm. He parks the truck under a streetlamp, gets into the basket and remote-controls it up, up, up until he’s level with the streetlamp. There, thirty feet above moving Manhattan traffic, he changes the lightbulb.

I just passed the guy doing it on Houston Street and it’s after midnight, so he must work at off hours. It’s so cool. Best of all, it’s a one-man job. He drives the truck, then he leaves it running and gets in the basket. You could do it while wearing your iPod.

It must be great driving around the city by yourself late at night with a job to do. And you get to tangibly fix things, I mean you can see the results right away. Light’s dead, you come in, now it’s lit up again. You understand exactly what the problem is, you use your abilities to fix it and you don’t have to work with anyone else.

Why didn’t they tell me about this job in high school?

The relationship of education to forming an actual working life is so unusual, particularly where humanities are concerned. You can study things like sociology and third-world economics and European history, with little to no warning of the soul-sucking nine-to-five existence this might lead you to, where you have to come into the conference room at lunchtime because it’s Rebecca From Market Research’s birthday. Meanwhile you don’t even like birthday cake. You don’t even like Rebecca.

I want to change those damn lightbulbs. If I had that job, I’d wake up each day or night with verve and purpose. I’d drive around in my big white truck singing along to Smokey Robinson, drinking my coffee and blowing smoke at the empty passenger seat. If work got slow, I’d put fresh BB guns in the hands of various children around the city and slip them a couple bucks to shoot random streetlamps out.

And man, think of the pictures I could take from up there. Because it’s still on the street, and at night no less, you know? I bet you see the most interesting shit from thirty feet up.

Occasionally a bulb will burn out in my apartment and I’ll have to break the ladder out and change it, but it’s not the same indoors, on your own time, when you’re the guy paying for the bulbs. The upshot is that in here I can turn the lights on and off anytime I want.

Well, they’re two different kinds of freedom, both desirable. I’ve got the one so I know oughtn’t complain from lacking the other.

I was listening to the BBC (my favorite) today and they reported how a Danish prison official was trying to get gyms banned from all Danish prisons. “It’s unacceptable for convicted criminals to bodybuild themselves into monsters,” he said. Apparently imprisoned Danish thugs work out “incessantly” and use their substantially increased strength to attack prison guards and commit violent crimes once they’re released.

I’ve been to Denmark before and even the ordinary people are huge, so I can only imagine what these Schwarzenegerized cons look like. It must be like, if Vikings had steroids.

One thing I’ve never understood about American prisons is that they all have gyms and libraries. Just what this country needs--stronger, smarter criminals. I’m surprised they don’t teach them how to make passports, pick locks and scale walls.

On Conan O’Brien, Ice-T said prisons should be stocked with Playstations because it would keep the criminals occupied and help to pass the time. I actually think that’s a better idea than gyms and libraries. Then again, what the hell do I know.

This concludes today’s discussion of penal diversions and vocational dreams, I’m going to bed.

Today’s soundtrack: The Ventures - “Walk-Don’t Run”
Today at 8:02pm: kicking a rubber man.


It’s the damnedest thing. For as long as I’ve known them Ed and Betty have fought like cats and dogs. But now they’re married and they get along! They get along well! They’re a model couple, a perfect fit! I can’t stop using exclamation points! Here’s three in a row!!!

In addition to being my friends, Ed and Betty are the only couple I watched grow into each other. I was there eight years ago for the inception of their relationship, and I had my ass glued to a pew when they traded rings and saliva in a chapel full of relatives. It was quite something. It rained during the ceremony but later got very sunny, who knew how apt a metaphor it would become.

Last night I went over to their place for dinner. We watched the Iowa Caucus, which looked like an unfunny SNL skit. Seriously, who thought this kooky shit up. Anyways I was treated to quite the meal, Ed cooked shepherd’s pie and Betty made some good-ass guacamole. Avocado is so good. I think avocado is a gift from aliens.

By the way the Betty I’m talking about here is Texas Betty, not to be confused with Hapkido Betty (my, er, “homegirl”). Texas Betty’s real name isn’t even Betty, it’s Elizabeth but when I first met her I found it too long to say, and I dislike “Liz” and “Beth” so I shortened it to Betty.

Seven years later the nickname still hasn’t stuck, I’m the only one who uses it, and I don’t think I’ve called her “Liz” once. It makes me think of “Lizard.”

When I was going to high school (in the ‘80s, for chrissakes) “Betty” or “Betties” was a skate-rat slang term for “chick” or “chicks,” which in turn probably came out of surfer slang from the ‘60s. Do they still say that?

Tonight I had dinner with Hapkido Betty. We trained together at the dojang until nearly ten, then headed to Subway (the sandwich chain, not the Six). I’ve been eating the Chipotle Southwest Steak & Cheeses like it’s nobody’s business and I’m helping Betty cheat on her diet by spreading the barbecue potato chips around.

I hardly have any friends my age, I’m at least a year older than everyone, but Hapkido Betty is several years my senior, which is nice. She’s like my big sister.

Having long since surpassed me in rank (she made black belt a couple years ago) she’s been schooling me, drilling me on the advanced techniques, and she gets on my ass when I start slacking. Everyone needs someone like that. I recommend everyone have a Betty in their life. Hell, I’ve got two.

Yeah. We used to say stupid things like “Dude that was the raddest McTwist” and put staples in our ear and call chicks “Betties.” I have no explanations to give.

Today’s soundtrack: and though our health we drank a thousand times, time to ramble on.
Today at 8:02am: unpleasant discoveries


Last night at two in the morning, a street crew is outside my building going at it with a jackhammer. A sidewalk monster sits idly by, waiting to have its destructive force unleashed on the Napoleon cake of pipes and cables that lies beneath every Manhattan street.

I passed the crew on my way into the building and didn’t think much of it. Thirty minutes later the jackhammer was still going and when I tried brushing my teeth, the tap wouldn’t work. When I pushed the knob all I got was a musty gurgling, no water. Figured the pipes were frozen. I went to bed with no flouride.

This morning I’m awakened by the sound of a woman’s voice calling my name. Someone has let themselves into my apartment. Facedown and groggy, I’m trying to think of which ex-girlfriend might have the keys to my place, and not responding in the meanwhile.

“Rainnnnnn.”

Ah, it’s Yuka, my neighbor.

“Hai,” I mutter in my best I’m-asleep-come-back-later voice.

“Downstairs has water but we have no water. You guys have water?” she asks.

“Nai, yo.”

“I better call landlord,” she says, and I hear my door being closed.

I’m almost back to sleep when she returns. “They say it won’t be fixed until tonight.” Fuck.

I drag myself out of bed, figuring I better put a sign on the bathroom before my roommate, notorious for taking E.P.A.-rankling shits, blows up the spot.

Belatedly I discover my roommate’s already left the house. On the toilet is a note in his handwriting that reads “TOXIC” in red letters, and underneath it, in black letters “Do not open lid, no water.” Goddammit. I turn the bathroom fan on and close the door.

I can’t make coffee or wash my hands. Well, at least the heat’s working. If I need coffee I can go to the diner, ditto for the bathroom, and for showers I can trek down to the dojang.

All problems are trivial.

I think the larger problem is figuring out what I’m going to do with the rest of my life. I think I’d be well-suited to criminal pursuits, something along the lines of bank robbery (intermittent spurts of frenetic activity with large payoffs, offset by long periods of laying low) but there are moral issues and I’m not a good candidate for prison survival.

I guess I’ll chase this writing thing down until I starve to death or lose my life in the wrong end of a jihad event. Doctor Seuss received something like 29 rejection letters before a publisher said yes, and he went on to become the best-selling children’s author for many decades.

If I can finish a body of work that garners 30 rejection letters, then I’ll start downloading bank blueprints and buying ski masks on eBay.

Until then, I type.

I want to wash my hands though.

Today’s soundtrack: the fifth-floor landing smells of fish
Today at 6:02pm: chopping up an eggplant while garlic sizzles in the pan


Did I tell you the shitbox diner closed down? Well it did, they closed it around six months ago. It was owned by this old white guy. You never saw him though, just the Mexicans who ran the place day and night, night and day.

The sidewalk story goes that the Mexicans were dipping into the till, so Owner Guy fired everyone and got behind the counter himself, turning the diner into a one-man show. No one came to see it. He ran the business into the ground inside of a month, and next thing I know the door’s locked and the place is empty. Nothing but cobwebs, ghosts and cockroaches.

So, no more late night heart-attack sandwiches for me. I used to eat there at four in the morning and flip through the Daily News’ crime briefs and stare out the filthy window at nocturnal New York going by. Mostly truck drivers and cabbies at that hour, and if you stayed ‘til five you’d get your share of morning delivery drivers and the occasional drunken partygoers getting a bite to vomit before stumbling home.

Real salt-of-the-Earth type of people, with the exception of the partygoers. No one ever hassled me or paid me any mind, it was perfect.

So now I’ve got one less place to go. The attrition rate of my hangout spots is abominable and has been steadily outstripping my new discoveries since the early ‘90s. When the weather warms up I’ll start going for more late-night walks.

I don’t really care what happened to the owner, but I wonder what happened to the Mexicans. We were friendly to each other.

I guess I like people who make me sandwiches. Especially if it’s a well-constructed, ergonomic sandwich. Most deli guys and fast-food burger jerks couldn’t give a fuck, they throw their sauce-spilling sandwiches together with absolutely no consideration for how many of their napkins you’ll have to use to get through it all. And half the time they give you those Dagwood shits where you have to hyperextend your jaw to get it around the damn thing.

But not those guys at the shitbox. They made those sandwiches like they had a degree in engineering. Ah, it’s a shame.

Today’s soundtrack:
Dooba dooba dooba doo-ba,
Ah ha ha ha.
Today at 8:02pm: Trying to get the down comforter into the down comforter cover. There’s got to be an easier way to do this


Something cool happened. I got a call from Betty, who invited me to participate in a rather unusual photo shoot. A videogame company needed “archetypal background pedestrians” of all ethnicities as part of some character study, I’m guessing they’ll insert the subjects (or characters based on them) in the backgrounds of future videogames.

Best of all, she said it would take less than an hour, and that it would pay a hunnert bucks. That’s my kind of time-waster!

So me, Kat and Betty trekked over to a photo studio on the west side, each of us carrying several different “outfits,” as we’d been instructed to.

In the studio they had a plain white “seamless” backdrop. On the floor was a penciled-in circle about the size of a basketball, bisected every 45 degrees. Basically you stand in the circle with your arms out to your side, then they shoot you, then you rotate 45 degrees, then they shoot you again, then you rotate again, etc.

Garment racks on the side of the studio held various outfits ranging from pimp to athlete to barfly to surfer (the wave kind, not the internet kind). I’d brought my own clothes and went with a backdated grunge look, and then my normal clothes.

We got to see photos of some friends of ours who had also participated in the shoot, and it was pretty funny to see, for instance, our architect pal disguised as a hip hop thug.

On the way out I ran into Rianna, one of my favorite girls from back in the day. We used to hang out a lot, I even brought her to a wedding once.

Rianna’s Taiwanese but was raised in Argentina and then Queens, so she speaks Spanish, Mandarin and the type of tough-girl-from-Queens English that makes it sound like she’s holding pins in her mouth. Anyways Rianna had heard about the shoot through a friend and was also participating. Sometimes New York is a small town.

“Hey Ri, they’re paying me like two-fifty, three hunnert bucks. What’re you getting?”

“Pssh, I’m getting five hundred, sucker.”

It’s good to see Rianna again.

After the shoot Betty, Kat and I went to some soup joint on the west side, even though we couldn’t see the place through its windows. It was stupid cold out that day so the windows were all fogged up. I expected to walk in and we’d just see some really big, fat, sweaty guy wearing a wifebeater and steaming up the glass.

The girls ate pastries and we lounged around for a bit. Betty and I are freelancers and Kat’s a student, so we can do bullshit like this on a weekday afternoon. I wish every day was like this.

The downside is that I have very little to no money coming in for February, I mean I don’t even know how I’m going to make the rent. I pay my taxes quarterly and the math was not kind to me this past 15th. I’m nervous as fuck about next month but I don’t like to talk dough, at least not specifics, so I’ll leave it at that.

One thing I will say is that if any of you are looking to hire a writer I’ll do birthday parties, bar mitzvahs, weddings, boat launchings, whatever it takes. In two weeks I need to feed my landlord a four-digit number and I’ve got less shame than Hester Prynne.

Wendy’s Shoot, Day Three

By Day Three this film business is old hat. I show up in the morning, report to my trailer, fire the first of several masseuses I will fire throughout the day (“Harder...harder...TOO HARD...okay, you’re fired”) and take turns belittling my entourage of sycophants.

Okay so in reality I show up, stuff a free bagel in my mouth and park my ass on the couch in the dark, fake apartment. I experiment with the bagel, as I always do with food I don’t have to pay for (“How many bites can I finish this in,” “How much cream cheese is too much cream cheese,” etc.) and wait until someone tells me to get into costume.

Since I’m not in any close-ups, I don’t even have to sit through the makeup sessions, which look grueling. Apparently film reads makeup differently than the human eye does--after the cosmetic treatment, all the on-screen females look like they were attacked by Korean Mary Kay saleswomen.

Since Wendy’s my friend, I’m tempted to go over and bother her with my suggestion that I shoot all my scenes sans pants, but she looks like she’s busy and in no mood so I leave her alone.

My scene with JiHae goes fine, I “hit my marks” for all five of the takes. They say “Action” and she knocks me down, clean, simple and catastrophe-free.

I thought the scene was kind of unrealistic though; in real life, when women knock you down they usually follow it up by throwing flatware or breaking your favorite record album. And I hate when they pick you up in the Fireman’s Carry and spin around until you get dizzy.

Anyways, here are some flicks:

What you see, and what you get.

“I am too taller than the camera.”

The boom microphone, for those hard-to-reach areas.

“All I’m saying is, I’m not sure if a Kieslowskian, Fellini-esque mise-en-scene featuring a polemic for the plight of man is what this shot requires.”

My sparring partner and I.

The director directing, directly.

The A.C. decides to sneeze directly into the camera, to see what will happen.

“Kieslowskian...Fellini-esque...you know what, I’m just going to wing it.”

Pictures I won’t sully with captions:

Wendy’s Shoot, Day Two

Today there are mats on the floor, which is a good thing. Now me, Betty and the gang can roll around ‘til the cows come home.

Actually Betty didn’t have to roll, it’s been decided that after she’s thrown she turns her fall into a one-handed cartwheel. Which reminds me, I really want to learn how to do an aerial. Download the trailer for “Appleseed” and see what I mean.

During the downtime I spend more time on the couch, getting in touch with my inner sloth. The crew, meanwhile, continues to scurry up and down ladders, adjusting lights, taking readings and yelling things to each other. Some of the phrases they use have obvious meanings, others do not. Here’s a sample:


Cool Movie Phrases You Can Use To Amaze and Delight Your Friends


“Call Time” - the time you’re supposed to show up by
“Clear frame” - “Get out of the camera’s way, you douchebag.” (The “douchebag” part is implied)
“Mark it” - “Use that clacker-board-thingy to make that ‘clack’ sound”
“Striking” - You should always yell this out before turning a stagelight on. Why? No fucking idea
“Spinning” - Apparently it has nothing to do with DJs, the sound guy yells this out after they yell “Roll sound”
“Check the gate” - I don’t know, but it sounds cool. The director says it to the cameraman after a take, and now I say it to my roommate whenever he comes into the kitchen
“Craft Services” - the table in the back with all the chow and drinks on it
“That’s a wrap for [so-and-so]” - “[This person]’s role in the film is finished and this is the last time you’ll see them, so hug them goodbye”
“Quiet on set, this is a take” - “Shut your yap and stop moving around”
“We’re getting boom shadow” - “Dammit, the microphone-pole-thingy is casting a shadow on the shot”
“Can someone please Hollywood that light” - not really sure.
“This scene will be M.O.S.” - I think “M.O.S.” stands for “Mise-en-scene” and means there won’t be any sound recorded for that particular shot, but every time I heard someone say it I felt like saying “D.E.F.”


Cool Movie Objects

Applebox - a simple, portable crate with handle cutouts, used alternately as a stool, a platform and a stepladder
Flag - A rectangle covered in some type of gauze, placed in front of a light to dim its effect, like a trumpet mute
Props - a form of respect
Camera - a black, boxlike object used to record moving images
Film - a type of magic paper that goes inside the black box and can be used to steal your soul
Lunch - a box filled with pre-cooked pieces of food, provided to staff for nourishment sometime before three and five p.m.

While setting up a shot in the hallway, the crew left the lights on over the mats, so I was able to stretch out and read The Economist. I would tell you all about the article but it would bore the stuffing out of you, assuming you’re filled with stuffing.

One of the other performers, a cuuuute professional dancer, lay next to me and read a “Batgirl” comic book, which I thought was pretty hot.

Nearly every actor I’ve ever met talks too much, which is why I generally avoid them. People who talk too much weary me. Plus I find there’s almost never a correlation between people who talk a lot and people who have something interesting to say.

The lead actor, Tim, isn’t like this, though; he shows up and pretty much keeps to himself, which I suppose is what I would do if I were an actor. He carries an iPod to get through the endless hours of standing around to be done on the set of a film.

And there is a lot of standing around. Even for a short film like this, the mathematics of shooting time to finished product is grim; the three full days spent on the soundstage will ultimately produce what I’m guessing will be less than six minutes of footage.

Despite having a staff of nearly a dozen to ensure efficiency, something always goes wrong--with the lights, or the sound, or an unwanted shadow appears, or someone like me reads a fairly simple line wrong so the director has to say “cut” and patiently explain to me how she wants it read without outright accusing me of being a retard. It’s all a very tricky process.

Wendy’s pretty patient though. I think if I were a director and my actor messed up his one simple line, I’d stop the action not by yelling “Cut” but by yelling “Retard.”

I finally got my line right on the third take. I don’t know why, but it’s really hard for me to say things the way other people have written them, it feels very unnatural.

It would be easier for me if they just told me what’s supposed to happen, then I pretend it’s happening and just speak naturally. I hear this is how Larry David does it on the set of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the scenes are set but all the actual dialogue is improv.

Well, this is why I’m not an actor. It’s like when the guy at McDonald’s fucks my order up and I’m like, Well, this is why he’s working here and not at The Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.

We all have our place, right?

My place is on the floor, with my head over the white ‘X.’ I look at the ‘X’ and think “I was born to play this role.”

A lot of us might dream of directing a movie, but out of my friends Wendy is the only one to really pursue it. She’s a film student at NYU’s Tisch, currently in the midst of shooting another short.

She had me try out for the lead role several months ago but, being a non-actor, I washed out of the process and they got an excellent actor named Tim Kang. Wendy then gave me a bit part, so I had to show up for the past three days of shooting, on a soundstage at Tisch.

Tisch is the school that produced two famous Lee directors: Ang and Spike. I suspect they’re unrelated, although they both make movies about non-whites--Asian, black, green.

On Day One of the shoot I showed up at the soundstage slightly before my “call time” of 10:30am. The only clear picture I had of what a soundstage might look like was from watching the “Band of Brothers” Making-Of featurette on the DVDs.

Alas, at the NYU soundstage there are no fake trees surrounded by soldiers dying dramatically while trying to hold the line at Bastogne. In place of an advancing German army is a crew of Tisch grad students dressed for utility, climbing ladders, adjusting lights, untangling cables and yelling out film arcanum like “Striking!” and “Clear frame!” There were maybe a dozen crew members total, with an even proportion of dudes and chicks.

Half of the high-ceilinged soundstage is empty, open space. The walls are lined with all kinds of pipes, poles, stands, cables, lights, large wooden panels, and other technical crap it takes to get a film made.

The other half was occupied by an apartment interior that rose to twelve feet and then abruptly gave way to open air, as if the contractor lacked ladders.

The faux apartment consisted of a kitchen, living room and bathroom, each with windows featuring a spectacular view of the concrete wall behind. The style of the apartment was neutral and bland; I’m guessing each successive film crew dresses it up with window treatments and furniture to give it a style appropriate for their film.

The ceilings, which looked to be about twenty-five feet in height, were crisscrossed with metal bars from which hung a variety of stage lights and other things you’re not supposed to see. Far above the action, a plain white clock was mounted high on a column, telling the real time, the only reference to the actual outside world.

My role on Day One was sparing, so I spent most of my time manning a couch in the faux living room. In the dark. The lights in the windowless soundstage are scrupulously directed at only the scene being filmed, so the rest of the place is in blackness, lest some stray light fuck up the shot.

So I’m basically just sitting in a fake apartment in this dark, empty warehouse while the cast and crew shot the scenes I wasn’t in. Too dark to read The Economist so I stretched out on the couch, covered myself in a jacket and snooooooozed.

Eventually I was roused to participate in the Hapkido sequences. The other performers in this scene were three hapkidoists from my dojang--Betty (whom I would refer to as my “homegirl” if it was 1987), Kat (an art student), and Jihae (a professional model).

The choreography for my scene was fairly simple; Jihae throws me, I fall into a backroll and, for the camera’s sake, I have to make sure my head contacts a specific part of the ground, which they marked off with a little white ‘X.’ “Hitting your mark,” they called it.

Unfortunately there are no mats today, so after doing a crapload of rolls my back feels like I spent last night sleeping in a moving boxcar. We did the sequences until the choreographer was satisfied, then the four of us got to go home. I got a free lunch out of it.

Today’s soundtrack: let the music take your mind.
Today at 8:02pm: Burning dinner.


The change was slight at first, but now I definitely notice it: My spaceship has stopped turning. I can still hurtle through space but the outer perimeter of the craft doesn’t rotate like it used to.

There are two kinds of problems, those that can be ameliorated by listening to Smokey Robinson and those that can’t. I’ve discovered that listening to “Cruisin’ Together” won’t get my heat turned back on or light a fire under the ass of the douchebag in Corporate Accounting who won’t send my dough on time.

Why won’t they pay me? The Corporation’s most recent paychecks are later than my high school girlfriend’s periods. And giving me about as much angst. I do the work and hand it in on time, why can’t you people mail the checks on time? Fortune Five-Fuckdred.

After a brief windfall in late autumn, the work died down and my finances are where I left them: In Hell. My PIN code should be 666. I would punch it in then flames would shoot out of the ATM slot.

Work died down, The Corporation hasn’t activated my launch code in almost three weeks. I used to have freelance gigs on the side but these days I’ve got less clients than Heidi Fleiss. The few dollars I have left in my pocket are so old they aren’t even green anymore, they’ve ripened.

Looks like I ain’t gonna get to go overseas anytime soon. Montreal was supposed to be an affordable mini-vacation to sate the border-crossing itch, but unfortunately it sucked and costed more than I thought it would. Learning to live with bad decisions, all part of the fun of being an adult.

I so desperately need to leave the country and go someplace drastically different. Top choices: Cuba, Finland, The Moon. (Earth’s moon, you fool, and you can be damned sure I’ll be on the side facing away from Earth.)

Ten reasons to live:

10. “Sleepwalk” - The Ventures
9. “Cruisin’ Together” - Smokey Robinson
8. “Bewildered” - James Brown and the Famous Flames
7. “Ramble On” - Led Zeppelin
6. “Glass Figurine” - Andrew Bird’s Bowl of Fire
5. “Mambo Mucho Mambo” - Machito and his Afro-Cuban Orchestra
4. “The Headmaster Ritual” - The Smiths
3. “Lo Boob Oscillator” - Stereolab
2. The hope that I might get to shut someone up with a well-timed sarcastic barb in a social situation where retaliation would be gauche
1. Am curious to see if my penis will work through my fifties

I was reading this article about snipers in the Times. Apparently the Army screens would-be snipers very carefully, you’ve got to have the right psych profile and such. More than fifty percent of applicants wash out.

I want to believe I would make the cut...but I probably wouldn’t.

I probably have the right psych profile but lousy fucking aim.


(BLAM)

Dammit!

(BLAM)

Almost got him that time.

(BLAM)

So close! So, so close.

(BLAM)

He keeps moving!

(BLAM)

HEY, YOU! STOP FUCKING MOVING! I’M GONNA GET YOU SOONER OR LATER SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL STOP MOVING.

(BLAM)

I don’t think he heard me.

Do NOT read below if you have not seen Lord of the Rings III: Return of the King, because I’m going to discuss the ending.

It was definitely satisfying, worth every penny of the ten bucks. They neatly tied up most of the storylines so you know what happens to everyone, but to me there are many questions they left unanswered.

So I think they should make a fourth one, Lord of the Rings IV: The Clean-Up. What a mess they made in this movie! From the battle at Minas Tirith to that city they trashed by the river to the destruction of Mount Doom and all of Mordor.


Here are the unresolved issues:

1. Orc-aid. At the end of the movie, Mordor is destroyed and thousands of orcs flee into the countryside. This is a humanitarian disaster! Where are all these now-homeless orcs going to live, and what will they eat? And do you want an unemployed, displaced population of thousands running around carrying spiked iron balls and shit?

2. Lord of the EPA. After Frodo ditches the ring Mount Doom erupts, explodes and erodes. I’m no expert agriculturalist, but come on, all that molten lava can’t be good for the ecosystem. The fallout must have been crazy. Not to mention with that much soot in the air, Gandalf the White had better have plenty of detergent.


BILBO
Oh, you became Gandalf the Grey again!

GANDALF
No, I’m still Gandalf the White.

BILBO
But your robes are all--

GANDALF
I know, I know, I know, shut up about it already. Mordor’s covered in like three feet of soot so what do you want from me.


3. Clean-up in Aisle Seven. The war at Minas Tirith (the white city, the one that looked like a Parliament ad) left a huuuuge goddamned mess in front of the city. Broken catapults, ruined siege towers, gargantuan chunks of masonry, and thousands of corpses, including at least twelve of those gigantic elephant-things.

What do you do with the corpse of a forty-foot war mammoth? You can’t just leave it there to rot--can you imagine the smell? But you can’t exactly drag it away either, I mean where are you going to put it.

I guess they could cut them up and make elephant steak, but you can practically see the looks on kids’ faces (“We’re eating elephant again?”) and whatever they didn’t finish in a week would probably go bad, since they didn’t have refrigerators and stuff.

If I was mayor of Minas Tirith I would dictate the hobbits drag the corpses of all twelve war mammoths back to The Shire. “Oh, they’re little people all right, but don’t underestimate them! You saw what they did. Compared to getting rid of that ring this oughta be a piece of cake... Frodo! You want some rope?”

On the other hand, the broken catapults were probably easy to get rid off--they had wheels, so you could drag them to a lot behind the city and sell them at a discount. (“Like new! Low mileage! Only used once!”) And as far as the siege towers, I guess you could save those in case you needed to raid a neighboring city.

Random Observations:

- For a wizard, Gandalf doesn’t seem to do a lot of goddamned magic. There’s one scene where he rides out and scares dragons away by turning his staff into a huge flashlight. Other than that he doesn’t do so much as pull a penny out of Frodo’s ear. Magicians at children’s birthday parties do more tricks than this guy.

- As Lam pointed out, Gandalf has an air freshener on the top of his staff. (Check it out.) I guess he has some personal odor issues.

- There seemed to be more than one scene where two hobbits take a tumble down a hill or battlefield and one of them lands on top of the other. And then, rather than standing and dusting themselves off, they recite several lines of dialogue to each other while in the prone position. Hmmm.

- I’m not afraid to say it: That scene at the end, where three hobbits are frolicking in a bed and then an extremely enthusiastic-looking dwarf shows up? Yeah, I got a little uncomfortable.

- Do you think Hobbits have huge penises? ‘Cause their feet are like HUGE.

As with the previous two films, it’s a little difficult not to be disappointed with Frodo’s performance. Like if you were Frodo’s boss, you’d totally fire him. The paperwork might look like this:


Performance Review
Employee: Baggins, Frodo

Employee demonstrates:

- A lack of follow-through
- Inability to delegate tasks
- Inability to take command of a situation
- Inability to identify problems and implement synergistic solutions
- A tendency to pass out during times of danger
- A tendency to cry when scared or despairing
- Inability to correctly select which of two companions to align himself with: a) an honest, trustworthy, hardworking and lifelong friend, or b) a murderous, schizophrenic mutant.

Comments: Subject appears dazed and is perenially unshod. Recommend dismissal pending consultation with HR.


If you ask me, Sam is the one who does all the heavy lifting. That’s right, the gardener.

So the end finally comes, and surprise surprise, Frodo can’t do the job. He can’t throw the ring into the fire. Gee, who could’ve seen this coming. All those times he cried and started whining, I said to myself “Now here’s a guy with some cojones.” But no!

If I was Sam, at that point I would’ve double-drop-kicked Frodo right off that ledge. Then I would’ve picked Gollum up and twisted him into a pretzel, and sent him to keep Frodo company.


GANDALF
So what happened?

SAM
Job’s done.

GANDALF
What happened to Frodo?

SAM
Er...he fell.