January 10, 2006

It’s unbelievable that after 15 years, The Simpsons continues to be hilarious. This past Sunday, while fighting fever delirium, I watched a new episode of The Simpsons and it wasn’t that good. But for whatever reason, watching it made me scour through the 153-odd unwatched episodes on my TiVO. Of course, I’d seen most of the previous episodes but had seen none from this season. Tonight, instead of watching me perform (mediocrely) on an ABC sitcom, I watched a recorded Simpsons episode from November about Homer running for mayor and it had my sides splitting. Splitting like an overripe melon thrown off of a gymnasium roof!

It just amazed me that the show can still surprise. Of course, I can’t remember a single joke – that’s not my thing – but it was high-larious. It ain’t perfect, but the consistency is to be commended. And if you’re wondering how I can have so many episodes on my TiVO (at high quality), it takes about a $100 and an hour to increase your TiVO’s capacity 8-fold.

Anyhow, still mildly sick, but had some wine tonight anyhow. What else was I supposed to drink with my penne with bitter greens? It’s so easy, by the way. Go into my garden and pluck a couple handfuls of bitter greens, chop them up and sauté them with some sliced garlic. Add some cooked penne, salt, pepper and grated romano and you’re done. Unless you want to add some truffle oil, as I did. Couldn’t be simpler.

Sleep now.

January 8?, 2006

The past couple days have been sort of a blur. You know how in movies, when the protagonist gets drugged by a spiked martini and then the camera cuts to his/her perspective and it gets all blurry and streaky and the audio sounds like it's coming through a cardboard tube. Well that's what this weekend's illness was like. I had a little cough but still went for a run Saturday morning. I felt like ass afterwards. Then I went to a tennis class and felt like double-ass afterwards. When I got home, I thought, maybe I'm sick. I'm very in tune with my body like that. My temperature: 99 degrees Farenheit. So I stayed in and watched "One Day in September" to bone up on my terrorist history before seeing "Munich." It's an excellent movie. Gripping, sad, frustrating, very well made (by the guy who did "Into the Void").

Sunday morning, I woke up with the blurry/cardboard tube sensation accented by pain in head and body. Ride it out, I thought. Temperature: 100. After watching 3 episodes of the Jack Osbourne reality show where he loses 56 pounds and climbs a mountain, I called my sister and she says go to a doctor. I said, pshaw. Temperature: 101. So I took more Motrin and started sweating gallons. Temperature: 102. At that point I thought maybe it wasn't such a good idea to eat that coughing duck that died on my doorstep. I dragged my ass to Woodland Hills, which I discovered is where my hospital is. That's a 25 mile sucky drive.

But they were great there. I didn't have to wait and they doted on me. Doted, I say! They've got this flu test where they stick a Q-tip up your nose and then make a little culture. Ten minute later, they told me I had influenza-A. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. But what a cool test. It even came in its own cardboard box with picture instructions. Then they gave me Tamiflu, which, because of its prevalence in the news, seemed so trendy and sexy. The whole experience seemed so futuristic; the only thing missing was a robot doctor.

Anyhow, the lesson learned: get a goddamned flu shot.

January 5 2006

January 5, 2006

O.K., I haven’t been the best “blogger” in the world – my intention was to write every day.  But believe it or not, I have been on writing jobs the past two days so I’ve been a little swamped.  Nothing very sexy, but lucrative.  I’m a whore.

Anyhow, I still have more work to do, but I just wanted to mention that while I’ve been shuffling through my MP3 collection, I skip ahead when an Elliott Smith comes on.  But I love Elliott Smith.  I finally figured out that I’m a little annoyed that the ass-faced drunk killed his motherfuckin’ self.  It makes me angry to hear his whiny little voice lamenting away.  That’s all…

Oh, one more thing.  The guy I’m working for now loves to use the ellipses, which I find distasteful, but he’s paying the bill, right?  Anyhow, I find myself using it in emails and other writing and I’m driving myself nuts.  Wouldn’t be the first time…

January 2, 2006

1/2/2006

Playing: “Non-Absorbing” – Guided by Voices

So here’s the second installment in the series.  Only 363 more to go.

Yesterday I went to Burbank to see Syriana.  I go there because I have a short stack of AMC movie passes accumulated from repeated platelet donations and that’s the closest theater to me.  It’s not a bad place to watch a movie; stadium seating, free parking, big selection, free popcorn on Wednesdays, etc.  Problem was Syriana was sold out so, like a putz, I just went to the first available movie, The Chronicles of Narnia.  Whatta not very remarkable movie.

I had read the books as a 13-year-old and remembered enjoying them, but little more beyond that.  My memory for literature, stories and movies is pretty limited.  My memory in general is pretty limited, though I can remember things like my credit card number from ten years ago: 5424 1802 2196 9535.  Very useful stuff.  Anyhow, when reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe I didn’t know who C.S. Lewis was and had a purely secular upbringing so I didn’t pick up on all the religious crap at all.  I got off on the fantasy of going to a magical land of Turkish delight and talking lions.  Who knew the lion was Jebus!  Anyhow, the story is pretty flimsy – plots about fulfilling prophecies and faith aren’t interesting to me because they end up being resolved because of destiny.  These kids beat the evil queen not because they worked hard, had any talent or did something clever, but because their success was foretold.  Big deal.

Watching Narnia and then diving into a bottle of Beaujolais was a sad, sad way to start off the new year.  Hopefully this pattern of patheticism will be broken.

Did I mention that I had a delicious pasta dish with my wine last night?  I mean, pretty standard stuff with bits that were getting old in the fridge.  Nothing to challenge Mario Batali or anything:

Fusilli with Peas, Ham & Mushrooms

8 oz     dried fusilli
1/2 cup     frozen peas
2 oz     ham, cut into small cubes
4 oz     mushrooms, sliced
1/2     onion, minced
1/2 tsp     thyme
1/3 cup     heavy cream
1/4 cup     dry white wine
2 oz     grated parmesan cheese
1 tbsp     olive oil
1 tbsp     butter

In a large sauté pan, sauté the onions in butter, olive oil and thyme until clear.  Boil the pasta in heavily salted water.  While the pasta cooks, add mushrooms to the onions and cook until…cooked (over a medium heat).  Add white wine and cook until liquid boils off.  Add cream and heat until boiling.  Two minutes before the pasta is ready, add the peas and ham to the sauté pan and heat through.  Drain the pasta well and add it to the pan.  Toss with grated cheese.  If you haven’t salted and peppered the sucker yet, you should until it tastes good.

So 2006 has arrived and as much as I hate New Year's Eve and the whole resolutions thing, I have decided to make a commitment to write in every day of this fine year. So let me start by talking about the previous year: 2005 sucked.

Now, perhaps from an external point of view I'm an asshole as in 2005 I was able to make an O.K. living without working full time and I was able to pursue creative endeavors, but I think the problem was that I was living in a dark, deep depression where I was marginally functional. I slept in more than I ever have. I drank more than any other year of my life. I exercised less than any year in the past seven years. I was injured. I was undateable (apparently). I didn't take a vacation. I didn't finish a fucking thing - my house is still unpainted, I have three short films I shot that are incomplete, I have tens of MS Word files on my computer named "Script Idea_2005.02.03" or "Funny Sketch #2" or any combination therein that were forgotten as soon as I pressed ctrl+s.

Anyhow, this isn't to whine or complain. It's just the state of things. So this year I hope to change things.

So far, the future looks pretty bleak; within 20 hours of the new year where I insisted to myself that it was worthless to drink alone, I have polished off a bottle of a crisp, dry and pretty delicious Cote de Brouilly Beaujolais. As all Beaujolais, it's made from the gamay grape. After tasting how the 2003's (the year where all the old ladies died from heat stroke, but the grapes became superripe), I hoarded every Beaujolais I could get my hands on. And now one of those exclusive purchases is being turned urine as I type. What a waste. A sad, delicious waste.

I could have cause as the New Year's party I went to last night was attended by my ex-girlfriend, for whom I still carry a torch (a torch that varies in intensity from bonfire to slightly glowing ember). Anyhow, Tall and Blonde was looking particularly tall and blonde and I was smitten all over again. And of course, my married "Wingman" said afterwards, "Tall and Blonde was looking hot tonight. My bad for telling you to break up with her." Whatta dick. And when I was running this morning (another soon to fail resolution), I thought, why did she ever go out with me in the first place? She's so stylish and beautiful and I'm so Target-ish. And the flame of the torch flared all over again.

So after new year's brunch this afternoon, I went to see "Syriana" not appreciating that this wet weekend is probably the busiest movie night of the year. It was sold out and so I went to see "The Lion the Witch & the Wardrobe" - a movie I forgot as soon as the end credits rolled. It sucked. More later.

Marty