xtcian

replay 25 cents

5/31/04

I had the most harrowing bike ride of my life today, and it wasn't down a cliff in Chile or across the Queensboro Bridge at rush hour - it was on the Santa Monica beach bike path on Memorial Day.

Eight miles of every way to get your ass kicked. There were pissed-off Hungarian dads who didn't understand the concept of the "bike path" when he invited his entire family to camp on it; there were skateboard thugs wearing Vans that said FUCK YOU on one shoe and FUCK ME on the other; and there were throngs of sweaty, obese Americans giving God the finger and asking for skin cancer. There were HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE.

It reminded me of the video game "Paperboy," in which you, the player, have to navigate your furiously-cycling paperboy through a daily route, while being sabotaged by breakdancers, dogs, bees, angry motorists and the occasional terrorist with a black bomb.

Once I started thinking about my ride as a video game, it got a lot more fun. Never mind that my actual limbs were at stake; it was like skiing. Having done this ride, I've come away with a few things:

1. Americans have gotten fatter, but they kept their old bathing suits. I can't tell you how these gargantuan men and morbidly obese women fit into their Speedos and bikinis, but somehow, they manage to keep their nads and nipples in. I saw one guy in a navy blue Speedo that was so unbelievably leviathan that even fat people stopped to watch him walk by.

2. Boobs have gotten bigger. Maybe this is part of the weight thing, but your average teen didn't have that kind of chest when I was in high school. Is it the Bovine Growth Hormone in the cheese supply, or is America breeding a gaggle of porn stars? Or did I just go to a conservative prep school in Southern Virginia?

3. The only thing more fun than being with your 15 Mormon cousins at the beach is being with your 15 Mexican cousins at the beach. I mean, I thought we had FUN down to a science when all us cousins got together back in 1983, but these Mexican* kids are a blast. I raced two of them over the Temescal hill, and we all high-fived the winners. Then, I was paid the ultimate compliment when a girl chucked a ball at me, and I caught it, mid-ride, to her delight. Oh, to be Mexican and young again!

* see comments

great balls of CRAP

5/27/04

I would like to draw attention to something I believe is a benchmark of shittiness, a piece of entertainment so bad that it should have been exposed as culture-drubbing dreck long ago: of course, I'm talking about the movie "Top Gun."

"Top Gun" is where the '80s began to get fucking awful; nothing entering 1986 survived intact, and that includes the Smiths. Chernobyl was bad in 1986, but I think the real cultural meltdown occurred on movie screens across America.

You've all seen it, so I don't need to tell you the plot. However, some things need mentioning: the story of snotty-ass prick Tom Cruise becoming a man by breaking all the rules as a devil-may-care flyboy made me shudder with rage when I was 18 years old and supposed to be enjoying it. It's sexist as hell, a script that has Kelly McGillis falling for Our Hero even though he is STUNNINGLY obtuse and rides a motorcycle.

When people talk about how hollow cheap the 1980s were, they're really talking about "Top Gun." People blame "Jaws" and "Star Wars" for the death of American movies, but "Top Gun" is the real reason. It celebrates cock, lauds a me-first machismo, and manages to be clumsily homoerotic without even being interesting. When they did that "I feel the need, the need for speed" line, I took the plastic spork out of my theater nachos and STUCK IT INTO MY BRAIN.

It also marked the nadir for two recording artists: say what you want about Kenny Loggins, but Loggins & Messina had some great songs in the '70s, and "I'm Alright" from "Caddyshack" was awesome. "(Right Into) The Danger Zone," however, is absolute bile. Also, Berlin - who previously gave us the moody, evocative "Sex (I'm A...)" and "Metro" absolutely destroyed their careers with "Take My Breath Away," which is a fucking embarrassment.

Frankly, I was happy Goose (Anthony Edwards, with hair) gets killed, if only to relieve Tom Cruise - and, by extension, his long-suffering audience - from his turgid, onanistic self-involvement. I wanted Val Kilmer, only a year away from his brilliant "Real Genius," to beat the shit out of him.

There, I've said it. Now I can sleep.

peaty, with a spicy resin nose

5/26/04

Another fantastic birthday courtesy of my wonderful wife. We trekked up to the Getty Museum (where I'd never been) and salivated over the delicious Rembrandts, the Bouguereau, the stunning portraits by David. My favorite part was the Illuminated Texts room, which had illustrated books from the 8th century. I think that shit rocks.

Tessa and me at the Getty - the packed 405 freeway stretches between us

I'm keeping this short because I am in the post-coital throes of a Macallan 25-year-old single malt scotch, bought for me by the effervescent Spencer Garrett. Why, you ask? Because Tessa threw me a surprise party at Pinot in Hollywood, where some of my favorite Left Coasters congregated for shrimp hors d'oeuvres.

Of course, this being Los Angeles, only two people were there for the actual "surprise" and the other twenty filtered in throughout the evening. But getting twenty people to do anything in Los Angeles had to be considered a huge success. In the land where "yes" means "no" and "definitely" means "maybe," we had a great crowd and a terrific time.

Oh, and thanks to all of you for your awesome wishes yesterday. If it weren't for the 'comments' section, I might have given this up long ago.

take a ch-ch-ch-chance

5/25/04

my 5th birthday

I always write these blogs late at night, so by the time you read this, it will be my birthday. I'm turning thirty-seven years old today, an age so bizarre-sounding that you have to write it out: "thirty-seven." This means I am no longer "in my mid-thirties" - in fact, some people would call it "pushing forty." I remember a long time ago, my brother Kent was telling me that the band members of XTC (whom this blog is named after) were "pushing forty," and I thought that seemed unbelievably depressing.

Of course, Kent himself provides an excellent scout to the lands ten years ahead of me - he's like Achilles' ship in "Troy," seeking out the decades before I get there. By my definition, he's "pushing fifty" and he still rock and/or rolls every night and parties every day.

Ten or eleven years ago, I was part of an online community on Usenet that was a vibrant, electric and eclectic discussion of all things Generation X, and the time came when the eldest members were about to turn 30. It was a really big issue for all of us, but I decided that I was going to embrace 30 for all it had to give.

Turned out 30 had to give existential dread and moments of suicide contemplation, but hey, you can't win 'em all.

my 20th birthday - note Sean's super-mullet at far left, and my clear Swatch

Now, at 37, most people will tell you how they are in the best shape of their lives, and how they never felt so good, and how everything seems to be falling into place. I think that's a lot of wishful hooey - I have to stretch like crazy after the first hoops game or else I will seize up like an old Datsun with no oil, and I can't fucking drink anymore because the hangovers are SO NOT WORTH IT.

But I will cop to two things: things do seem to be falling into place, and I still look relatively young. Bad skin and stupid hair, as I always say, will keep you fresh in the eye of your beholders. People who look at me these days think "no self-respecting 37-year-old would have hair that stupid." I still get carded.

Sixteen years ago tonight, I drove to the all-night liquor store in Arcadia (only a few miles from here) and bought my first legal liquor: two airplane bottles of Absolut. Tonight, I went to a similar store in Santa Monica and bought a Forbidden Coke and a Zantac. Perhaps that's telling, but fuck that Coke tastes good. I have reverted to the simpler pleasures of my tenth and eleventh birthday, and it feels wonderful.

a few minutes after midnight tonight, in the car

never heard the word "impossible"

5/24/04

You know how, when you are about to move away from a place, time seems compressed into these crystal nuggets of "Must Do This Before We Leave"? When you start a summer, or a vacation, the weeks stretch ahead like endless patches of the Sudan, but the last few days happen in miles per second squared. We are leaving California in less than a week, and I'm already beginning to miss it.

Tessa and I had our first visit to the Disney lot today, to talk TV with some great people in Production. That part of Burbank actually seems like a ski resort in permanent summer, with the mountains hanging so close to the valley (and the water tower shaped like the Sorcerer's Apprentice hat added to the ambience).

"Laugh-In," of course, was filmed in beautiful downtown Burbank

Like all things, TV seems absolutely impermeable until you actually get inside the buildings and crane your ear to hear a meeting, and then you think: these are people just like you, except they've learned how to do something specific, and really well. If your goal is syndication, and syndication happens around the 100th episode, think of how hard it is to tell 100 stories about the same group of people.

It's easy to talk about how bad TV is, and I had my own falling-out-of-love with television around 1992 or so. Previous to that, I had seen, digested, memorized, and obsessed over every sitcom, drama and game show ever aired. In Iowa, we were the first test audience for cable TV, and in college, the tube was always set to AMBIENT. Something clicked in me around 1992, a feeling of betrayal, like TV no longer cared enough to call every night and send me chocolates.

I'm getting over it now, as a new spate of shows has made the genre exciting again. I haven't seen more than five minutes of a reality show in my life, but comedies like "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Scrubs" - and dramas like "24" and "Alias" - would have KICKED MY ASS in 1981. I would have cancelled my paper route and rebuilt an ancient Zenith set for my bedroom (like I did for "Mork and Mindy"). Sure, for every cancelled gem like "Wonderfalls" there is season 47 for "According to Jim," but it feels like we might be headed for a mini-Renaissance.

At least I hope so. And it would be nice to be there writing one.

tell me why-yi-yi-yi

5/23/04

Okay, I need to understand why Republicans and conservatives do the things they do. I think I kind of get it, but to stretch my mind that far, I have to put myself in the position of an 8-year-old on the playground, or, at the very least, a petulant teenager.

Let's step back for a second and look at what conservatives stand for:

1. rolling back environmental protection so that businesses can operate less expensively
2. denying women the right to an abortion
3. stopping affirmative action and generally fighting laws that benefit African Americans
4. believing in a small government with as few laws as possible
5. believing in a strict fiscal budget with highly curtailed spending
6. teaching abstinence in schools and taking the offensive against literature, pictures and other art they see as "pornographic"
7. letting the Arts fund themselves
8. I forgot what eight was for, but
9. pre-emptive military strikes on sovereign nations
10. Machiavellian outlook on world politics, so as to put American needs over those of the entire Earth.

Did I get any of these wrong? Sure, you can quibble semantics, but basically, get a few gin & tonics into your average staunch conservative Republican, and they'd basically agree.

Now, the abortion question is really one of taste - either you can stomach the idea of a woman getting to choose whether their fetus lives or dies, or you can't. There are other things at play here, such as most mens' basic need to control women regardless of topic matter, but we'll let that lie for now.

I can even slightly fathom the way Republicans go after affirmative action, if they truly believe the program was a failure, or that it is unfair in some basic principle. I don't agree, but I get it. And the "fiscal responsibility" and "small government" beliefs turned out to be utter bullshit - any administration with a half-trillion deficit and a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage hasn't got much ammo in that department.

And as much as it pains me, I can also understand the way conservatives want to de-fund the arts. They just don't think it's important. I can't MAKE them. They just don't get it.

But the rest of the list is truly stunning, un-fathomable, self-destructive, self-loathing and TOTALLY UNSUSTAINABLE. Conservatives in America remind me of cancer in human bodies - both are on a collision course to destroy the place where they flourish.

Assuming for a second that conservatives don't have a death wish, what possible good can come of letting our environment fuck off? I mean, really? Don't they live there too? If they're smart - or even logical - they'll also understand that any business that destroys the environment is a terrible long-term bet.

And what's with the hubris and utter disrespect for other cultures on the planet? We are FOUR PERCENT of the world's population. What GOOD does it do us to be such FUCKWADS? How do conservatives benefit from the arrogant dismissal of, say, Iraqi sovereignty, or the Kyoto Protocol? How is it good for Republicans to have vast stretches of the world despise America? I mean, I'm asking!

Here are a few possible answers:

They don't care. Yep, they'll be dead before anything REALLY BAD happens to the environment, and things seem fine right now, and the dividend checks keep coming, so why should they worry? Global warming? That's for their grandkids. Trillions in debt? Hell, they won't be around to pay that either.

If this is the way they think, then we can just go ahead and label them ASSHOLES.

They are Apocalyptic, End-of-Days Christians. We know John Ashcroft is a part of this sect. There have been speculations that Bush is one of them. As I've said before, I think W. is waaaay too comfy to get psyched about the Apocalypse, but they way some of these guys behave is so atrocious that, well, perhaps they really do believe that none of this shit matters because Christ is coming again.

If this is the way they think, then we can just go ahead and label them REALLY SCARY.

They are Inconsolable Control Freaks. Maybe conservatives really do think they can control the way the world works. Even after every test, every poll, every bit of research suggests otherwise, maybe they think they can actually convince teens to stop having sex, or that Muslims can be converted to Christianity, or that they can keep young men and women from growing up gay. It must be tiring to keep that up. If this is the way they think, I would call them "exhausted," but mostly UTTERLY DELUDED.

Is there something I'm missing here? Is it all about the money? Is it about power? WHAT CONVINCES THESE PEOPLE to be SO DESTRUCTIVE if THEY WILL BE DESTROYED AS WELL?

to be, rather than "to seem"

5/20/04

Let's have a little fun, shall we? Time to ask our periodical question, namely: How Are You Web Users Finding My Blog? The statistics page keeps a blindingly granular count of every single method the hoi polloi uses to find their way here, so let me print this month's current top search terms:

I could have cut and pasted it, but frankly, I don't need anyone else coming to this blog looking for "hard f*cking." And yes, I'm using asterisks to keep this particular entry from being Googled to death.

First off, this site seems to be the repository for the best picture of the human bra*in, based on a migraine I had, like, two years ago. Glad to be of service. Also, I'll let on that I know how Tina F*y got her scar, but I'm not telling any of you, despite how much the fine folks at Gawker want to know.

Nice to find out my own name is beat by Tina's mishap, but also cool to see old pal L*urie Dhue from Fox News (and loyal Tar Heel) getting nice numbers. As for "lact*ting," I get the feeling there's some fetishists in the house. Speaking of which... pictures of women wearing one sh*e? Are you kidding?

Some sad entries - the Rimadyl stuff, which I've already covered, and Sp*lding Gray's last trip into the East River. And if people come here looking for wasabi powder, I wouldn't mind someone telling me where they found the good stuff.

Too cute for words: the music to "Happiness" from "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" (a song I sang with Billy Crudup onstage at Carolina, mind you) and of course, that vixen Sarah Jessica Parker in a pair of over*alls. What could be better?

Oh yeah - leave Mr. Marcarelli and Ms. Hofeld out of your fantasies, please. Both are fine TV presences, good old friends, and might be creeped out by the amount of Googling you're doing. Go back to wearing one shoe and taking pictures.

And have a great weekend!

i swallowed the pill

5/19/04

The siren call of California has worked its magic into the dendrite fiber of my brain, and Tessa's too - you know how your body regenerates cells so that you are an entirely different human every 7 years? The effects of this transmogrification must kick in after three months, because New York is seeming very distant, like I'm not sure I was ever there.

Everything in Santa Monica is an opiate. Take this, for example:

I'm not sure what those flowers are, growing on the phone wire, but they give me the soporific sensation of those poppy fields in "The Wizard of Oz." You get sleepy with the beauty here, every day sunny, cloudless and 78 degrees. You'd need a heart made of bruises and veins filled with methane NOT to grow a little complacent.

I swore that I would never return to Los Angeles unless three things happened:
1) I was invited
2) I had a job
3) I could live by the water
Lo, and the Heavens spake forth that I should lack none of those three things, and It has made all the difference. The fourth, most unspoken difference is that I'm here with my wife, thus rendering the delirious horrorshow called "Dating in Los Angeles" a moot point.

I can't recommend NOT DATING in Los Angeles enough. My advice for all men thinking about taking the Hollywood plunge is to forcibly remove your own nads, or swear off all intimacy in a monk-like devotion to your craft. Women: moving to LA means putting all hope of meaningful contact into a lockbox, which you may only open on trips outside the state. This sounds draconian, sure, but BELIEVE ME, it makes everything so... much... easier...

But if you're married? Shit, come to LA and enjoy it. It's awesome. The weather never changes! If you're talented, you might get paid for doing something you like! And there's no humidity!

i'm feeling rather dizzy

perhaps I should lie down

I am a Child of Gosh

5/18/04

While sitting between basketball games at the Mormon Temple, I wandered into the room where they teach Sunday School to the under-12 crowd. I used to be stuck in there when I was a kid, so seeing the room again was eerie. Even more bizarre is the mural that has been on the wall since the 1960s. Thank God I had my camera:

click image for bigger

This painting used to scare the blithering nuts out of me. There was something so haunting about having your life spelled out for you in this way, as if we were on some unflinching continuum on our way back to the Heavenly Creator.

The most distressing part, for me, was the actual artwork. Rendered in that caring, inoffensively deft touch of the whitest 1950s, this was the sort of painting they used to hang in hospitals, the places where my great-grandparents would hang up their proud souls to die amongst bedpans and the smell of barf.

Underneath each image of this mural is a plaque: BIRTH - TEACHING - FAITH (the kid with the book) - ETERNAL MARRIAGE - WORK AND SERVICE (you can tell by the hard hat) - EVERLASTING FAMILY - ADVERSITY (you can tell, because the Mormon guy finally loosened his tie) - CAREGIVING - and then, of course DEATH (which isn't really death because Man lives forever). And then it's back up to the heavens with ya.

Life just seems depressingly short and full of terrible things to wear. The quote on the ADVERSITY plaque reads "remember, Jesus said that God always hurts the ones he loves," and hey, who would know better than Jesus, huh?

When I was little, I used to look up at the picture and think that I was probably the age of that kid reading the Bible. Now I look at this thing and think "I'm the motherscratcher in the hard hat."

sarin-dipity

5/17/04

Look, I know this happens all the time, and I look like a real whiner when I point it out, and it's not going to change anybody's opinion...
BUT...
Earlier today in Iraq, some insurgent left a roadside bomb beside some American convoy. Before the Americans could disarm it, the thing exploded, and two soldiers have been treated for slight exposure to the nerve gas sarin.

The markings on the shell were from the 1980s, and it was a very poor use of sarin, so poor that many military experts and a former weapons inspector have conjectured that the insurgents didn't even know it had sarin in it - it looked like every other shell in the pile. One weapons inspector said that it was probably a prototype left over from an aborted test years ago.

So, my first thought was: from this tiny canister of poorly-stored sarin, the Bush Administration is going to say that they found Weapons of Mass Destruction. I waited for the story to blow up, but by this afternoon, it wasn't even on the front page of the New York Times' website. Nor the BBC, or Reuters. CNN? They were interested in hurricanes:

How about the populist USA Today? Well, they semi-buried it as part of another story on Iraq:

yes, I altered one of the pictures, but Bush's image is not allowed on my blog

Ah, but Fox News, you ask? Simple:

Yep, that's right. "Sarin, Mustard Gas Found in Iraq." Obviously, they know that Average Joe Buttplug, getting his news from Fox, is going to take one look at that headline and scream "Damn right! Bush saw this shit comin' a mile away! I bet them ragheads got more, too!"

It's the little things that get me. This particular instance may not be all that big a deal, but each editorial decision made by Fox News, tiny little calculations, day by day, has made our populace utterly impermeable to the truth. I just need to print it out so it exists somewhere, not just the rage-filled chambers of the back of my mind.

laurel, like the canyon

5/16/04

Readers of this blog who have not shot their long-term memory will remember the day Tessa's best friend Jason absconded to San Francisco to marry his partner Tim, which in turn led to our friends Suzanne and Lee Anne jetting to San Fran the next day to become media darlings. Those issues have been off the front burner for a while, which provided a nice backdrop for Saturday night's wedding reception in honor of Silver Lake's most dashing married couple. Pictures say a thousand words, so here's about 5000 from my end:

Tessa met Jason in 1987 - he had a life-size cardboard cut-out of Tina Turner in his dorm room

above: Tessa in her natural state: speaking in front of a crowd
below: the grooms address the congregation (the shrimp was excellent)

apparently there's nothing I can do about it: I'm going to look like a drunk aging fratboy forever

speaking of which, I ran over to Walt Boyle's party and happened upon some of my bros from Carolina: me with Davey B., Mary Kate, Ned Martel and Steven Comfort. 'Twas excellent!

whiz on the electric fence

5/14/04

I highly recommend my brother Sean's blog on pooping, and also my brother Kent's blog on pooping as well. I know my other brother Steve will probably leave well enough alone, but my sister Michelle already talked about her rectum last year, so I figure it's my turn to wax coprophilic.

To whit: I don't like pooping. Never had, never will. I find this interesting because God himself attached an incredible amount of pleasure to the act of removing any substance from one's body: sneezing is a hoot, burping/farting is sweet relief, barfing is a godsend when you need it, hocking a good loogie is something to be celebrated, and I don't need to tell any of you, fair male readers, how nice it is to get rid of some sperm.

I'm short on good pooping stories, but I will tell you this: for Halloween 1991, my housemates Matt M., Clay B., (future Archer of Loaf) Matt Gentling and I dressed up as babies, complete with Depends™ adult diapers and T-shirts that said "Li'l Stinker." We filled our baby bottles full of Southern Comfort and hit the night running.

Around 1am or so, I was stuck at a party talking to this dreadfully boring chick, and DESPERATELY had to pee. The line for the bathroom was interminable, this girl was never going to let me go... then I realized: hey, I'm wearing diapers.

Here's the curious thing about peeing in your pants: you really have to convince your bladder you're serious. Decades of shame-induced bladder-control muscles don't just suddenly LET you pee while talking to someone who has no idea what you're up to.

So I did it. It was long, delirious and satisfying. And you know what? At the end of the night, I took the diapers off and inspected them, and THERE WAS NO TRACE OF PEE ANYWHERE! The diaper had absorbed it, then transferred it to outer space. In many ways, I found this comforting, as if incontinence in my later years won't be so bad. As long as they can fit under hoop shorts, growing old is going to be a blast!

put some english on it

5/13/04

T, Cyia, Carole, Dad in La Quinta

We spent the last two days in the desert at my dad's house in La Quinta, which is a very, very, very hot place. So hot that it bleaches away your perceived troubles, leading Tessa and I to contemplate Plan B. Actually Plan B through Plan X, since there is one immutable rule of being a freelance artist: do not be content with having four balls in the air; you must have fourteen.

Dad and Carole have a modest place right next to some tennis courts and a nice pool, and I was told there were even some grass tennis courts. I have never set foot on a grass court, and in fact, when people said "grass," I thought they were kidding. Having cut my teeth on the hardscrabble fucked-up asphalt of Eastern Iowa, the idea of bouncing a ball on grass struck me as totally impossible.

Here's the thing about the desert: it feels untenable, like it was built totally on the backs of Hubris. This has to be the most unforgiving land in America, where they get three days of rain a year and September usually sees temps in the high 120s. And yet, the strip of grass down the middle of the highway is verdant green with nightly waterings. It seems like they built a bowling alley on the Moon, because they could.

the unforgiving ragged cliffs behind their house

Yet, it was a great trip - we ate well, dad bought me a bunch of soy lattés (the way straight to my heart) and Tessa's mom gave me an early present for my birthday: a silk Hawaiian shirt that I will actually wear. I'm of the belief that most Hawaiian shirts make their owners look fat, uncomely, bloated and somewhat racist, but not this shirt. This is an equal-opportunity Hawaiian shirt with leftist tendencies.

The ride home was a unmitigated parking lot of sweltering cars that was a miserable, miserable slog, even in the Prius. By the time we got near Santa Monica, I was bashing my head against the window: it took 4 hours to go 93 miles. That's patently unacceptable.

Three Excedrins later, I accompanied Jen, Jen, Jenny (yep), Sian and Tessa to Michael Angelo Stuno's directorial triumph "A Safe Distance" (click here for the rave review) and had a blast. Who knew we could come to Los Angeles and see so much live theater?

Not me. I was expecting jugglers, mimes, and fake boobies. There may be some subtlety to this place after all.

the heirophant

5/12/04

In the Tarot, the Death card actually doesn't symbolize death, it symbolizes "change." I suppose this is what you have to realize when you have the kind of day Tessa and I had, when it seemed like a little piece of our career suffered a little death. In French, "little death" - or "le petit mort" - means orgasm, so there's all kinds of ways to look at this positively.

So it looks like we'll be taking quite a detour en route to our artistic and financial fruition. In many ways, this is the best thing that could have happened, but still, there is that slice of your abdomen that feels intense rejection. My buddy Dan just got fired from a job he loathed, and heavens know I got canned from That Internet Job That Was Making Me Claw My Face Off, but it doesn't stop you from feeling like you failed.

When God closes a door, he may open a window, but my nuts are getting hurt every time I climb through the window.

find me somebody to love

5/11/04

Time to take a little break from the solipsism of the past few days and mark a moment in history, if you will. Arguably the two people I'm closest to - both through shared history and shared bedrooms - are my brother Sean and my best friend Chip. Sean turned 34 today, and Chip got engaged last week. These are both very important things, because it means Sean outlived Jesus, and Chip... well, I thought we'd all see Jesus again before he got engaged.

Having his birthday ten days after his wedding is a little like painting your buggy after painting the Sistine Chapel, and from all accounts, Sean had a pretty average day. 34 is rough the way most ages in your thirties are rough: 30 is a bizarre landmark, 31 means you're "actually in your thirties now," 34 means you're in your "mid-thirties" and my next birthday - 37 (in two weeks) - means I'm "pushing forty."

But birthdays are birthdays, and Tessa and I got him a cool little piece of technology that will enable us to stay connected better even if we're digging trenches on the Fox lot in Los Angeles. I'd say what we got him, but nobody was there to answer the Fedex guy in Astoria today.

As for Chip, I mean, what could be said that hasn't already been said? Shakespeare-trained, Chip has been in more plays and movies than people who want to be actors. Why do you think this could be? Here is a guy that lost all his hair when we were sophomores, ate enough Burger King sausage biscuits to send his cardiologist into a frenzy, and works a mild-mannered job for the EPA in the Research Triangle. Yet during the screening of "The Pink House" last October in Tribeca, he came on the screen, and the entire place erupted.

Why is Chip everyone's favorite person? Why do my female friends get so excited to see him? Why does my mom have about thirteen Chip stories? The answer is ineffable, and I thought it might not ever translate into marital love. But finally - FINALLY - someone came along who GETS him. Cathie is sweet, good-natured, funny, and just happened to be listening when Chip said something funny under his breath as he was pacing out of the room. When the rumor got out that he had asked her to marry - while rowing in Central Park, no less - I think a nation of us leapt in tacit jubilation. It even made Tessa cry.

So two of my favorite people met two other people willing to put up with them in all their brilliant messiness. That's a pretty fucking good week.

Jane Cox, me, the Budster, Chip, Jon and Jill Gilbert in New Orleans, 1987

a few choice morsels

5/10/04

I'm suffering from a bit of post-partum depression from the end of our show, you know, the usual when-shall-we-all-meet-again despondency that accompanies every theater closing since junior high school. And 99% of you didn't even see the production, so you're bored already, but just for my own edification, I'm going to post my favorite quotes from each of the seven shows of the evening. The writers were all fabulous folks, and I learned something important from each piece. I feel proud to have shared the bill with these guys.

"TwoFold" by Tessa my darling wife

LAUREL: I know you are older, but do you have to do *everything* first?
ELIZA: Me? You made out with a boy first, you made out with a girl first, and you even made out with Mr. Marshall first.
LAUREL: You kissed Mr. Marshall? But you said he was a "pernicious misogynist prick."
ELIZA: That's what made him so sexy. Besides, you only like Howard because you aren't sure if he likes you!
LAUREL: Well, you only slept with him because you need affirmation but you're terrified of commitment!
ELIZA: Like the REST of the human race!

"Employed" by Andy Bobrow

(describing how he got a girl)
CHRIS: You know, I pulled the old "my child's been kidnapped and I'll do anything to get him back" routine.
MICHAEL: Okay, that is NOT a known routine.
CHRIS: Hello? "Ransom"? Mel Gibson? You know, Michael, you would do a lot better with the ladies if you were only willing to betray their trust.

"The Lamb" by Sharr White

GARRETH: -your heart isn't in it anymore.
FRANK: What do you care about my heart?
GARRETH: How would you like to be killed by somebody who could go either way about it?

"A Boy Named Sue" by Ben Kull

SUE: I think I finally understand Mom's plan.
ROBIN: Mom had a plan?
SUE: You know, how she named me Sue to toughen me up, like the Johnny Cash song.
ROBIN: Sue, I hate to burst your bubble, but the woman who put a flower in the barrel of my water pistol - in protest - did not want to toughen you up. I was there. She was going to name you "Steve," but when you came out, you just looked like a "Sue."
SUE: I could have been named STEVE?

"Dirtbags" by Matt Boren

KATE: Didn't you sleep with her at prom?
SCOTT: No, that's the girl I TOOK to prom. Why? Because YOU BROKE UP WITH ME!
KATE: That was only for a week.
SCOTT: How was I supposed to know it was only gonna be for a week?
KATE: Because it was high school, Scott, EVERYBODY broke up for a week!
SCOTT: Okay, how about that Harvard loser YOU took to prom?
KATE: He was smart.
MISSY: He was *wicked* smart.
SCOTT: He was SMART? That's your defense?
KATE: There is a big difference between Preston Pacardi, I guy I went out with *once*, and Meg Tivnen, who we grew up with!
SCOTT: Wait, you remember his name?
KATE: You remember HER name.
SCOTT: We ALL remember Meg, Kate! WE GREW UP WITH HER!

"Welcome to Normal" by Josh Ben Friedman

GOOGIE: I'm well aware of the protocol. I'm the sheriff. I don't need anyone telling me the protocol. And nobody - protocol or no protocol - is going to be questioning my son! He has an alibi... me, the sheriff! Sitting at home, watching reality TV shows starring midgets!

"The Last American Liberal" by your most humble host

JANIE: Okay, how did the "liberals" screw things up?
RICHARD: Okay, take same-sex marriages. Personally, I think they're pointless, but if they do it in Massachusetts, they might as well do it here. So we get the bill all the way to the State Senate, and then those people had to have their GAY PRIDE parade downtown!
JANIE: So?
RICHARD: So? So everyone in Maine, from Caribou on down, sees these guys - they're dressed as Dorothy from Oz, with... with...
CARLA: Roach clips.
RICHARD: Roach clips through their nipples! And they're dancing on top of fire engines! Next thing you know, every farmer in Penobscot County thought that Gays were going to make BUTT SEX part of the Presidential Physical Fitness Test!

cast of "The Last American Liberal"

triumverate

5/9/04

Three important things happened today, so lets get right to them, shall we?

1. It's Tessa's birthday. My favorite lady in the whole wide world turned thirtysomething today, and it couldn't have been nicer. I got her the entire Patricia Moyes oeuvre of mystery novels, and her very first pearl necklace. I found it almost impossible to believe that Blakey never gave her daughter any pearls (I mean, it seems like the most obvious Texas preppie thing to do) but it looks like the mantle fell on my shoulders. I've learned a lot about pearls over the last month or so, and trust me when I say they're fascinating. For fun reading, check out her birthday two years ago.

2. It's Mother's Day. My second favorite lady in the whole wide world was in Queens, hanging out with my brother Sean, so I had my other mother - Tessa's mom Sandy - to bring a bit of maternal love to Santa Monica. We had a party for her, Tessa and the entire Naked TV cast at our new digs here by the beach. It was one of those L.A. days, the kind that last forever, threatens to get hot but stays nice, jasmine and honeysuckle wafting as the sun fades.

3. It was the last day of our show. I thought our show two Saturdays ago was basically the best ever... until this evening. I don't know what blue crack this audience was smoking, but this was the most boisterous, incredible theater crowd of I'd ever seen. You know that moment in "Dead Poets Society" when Robert Sean Leonard finishes the role of Puck in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and the curtain closes, and he grips the pure ecstasy of the perfect performance? THAT is what tonight was like.

There was a laugh on every line. When Mary Kay left the stage, there was applause. And it wasn't just my show - Tessa's rocked harder than usual, and the rest were on top form. It is incredibly sad to finish a run like this (the boy in my play cried when he left the cast party, with the unadulterated emotion of the not-yet-jaded) but jesus, it's nice to go out on top. This evening was a three-pointer to win the game at the buzzer.

Rick Gradone and I were at the bar, later, talking about the inevitable death of one's "dreams" when one wanders into the mid-30s. Those dreams never died for me, y'see, they just transmogrified into little moments of lucid delight. There were microseconds during the filming of "The Pink House," there were the bursts of laughter at screenings, and there are nights like tonight. At my age - and at Tessa's new age- these moments ARE the dream, and if nothing else comes of it, we still feel blessed, bloated and satisfied.

THAT is the thing that comes with time, and it's such a relief.

do, re, me me me

5/7/04

We made it back to Los Angeles for the last weekend of our shows, and I realized two things:
a) the entire cast of this event is unbelievably terrific and has really melded into a tight social circle that is accepting, funny, and basically the clique in high school we all wish existed
b) I would have loved it if my faraway friends - most of whom live in New York, North Carolina, points south and even Canada - could have seen this evening.

One thing about plays that seems obvious, but is actually hard to accept: when they're over, they're truly over. There's no videotape, printed review or long-winded memory that can ever do it justice. It is the electricity of that moment, the synapse that fires between stage and audience - that keeps people in the business. But it is also a study in Buddhist impermanence. Just as the Buddhists destroy their gorgeous sand paintings, the curtain comes down on our best work, and frankly, nobody three weeks from now will give a shit.

And this is how it should be.

But I do still wish I could rent this evening, you know, at Blockbuster or Netflix, pop it in every once in a while. There are some great lines by some fine writers, some of which I'll post here Monday, when the hurly-burly's done. The whole experience has been a wonderful opiate at a time when my country seems to be going down the toilet. I listen to NPR for a few moments, get a dose of horror... then I can turn it off and sigh, because me and my baby's got a show up tonight.

add french horn in there too

5/6/04

The Accidentally Fabulous Artist List, in Descending Order

- acting
- abstract painting
- singing
- poetry
- modern dance
- short fiction
- sculpture
- guitar
- piano
- interior design
- saxophone
- screenplay writing
- novelist
- ballet
- violin

Per our conversation tonight, this is a weighted list of art forms at which most people can be "accidentally fabulous." In other words, people can be accidentally fantastic actors, but there is no such thing as being serendipitously good at the violin. The art forms in the middle, like piano, can occasionally be mastered by some savant, but it's pretty rare.

Here's the interesting thing about this list: as you get near the top, the art forms get harder and harder to teach. It's nearly impossible to teach somebody to sing with vibrato or how to write good poetry. However, you can teach anyone how to play the violin - technically speaking - so that you can say "they play the violin well."

Is there anything I'm missing here? Or does everyone think this list is full of shit?

god, grant me the Saran Wrap

5/5/04

I was riding the 2 train when it stopped at Park Place - like it has a million times before - and a rush of acid filled my stomach. I was having a sudden flashback to my days at That Internet Company, the one located downtown by City Hall, and Park Place was where I'd disembark to slog upstairs to one of the last dot-coms left standing.

I wondered what the rush of acid might be, and it was then I realized: it was shame. Remembering everything may help you with writing, but it's hell on your stomach, especially as you're forced to re-live every moronic thing you've ever done. That job was the last element of my life I completed before my nervous breakdown, and now the memory of those days are filled with all the petty, stupid, tiny-power-grubbing moments of ego in which I engaged. I comported myself badly, and now, even years later, I still feel in trouble when the 2 train stops at that station.

AA deals with this stuff all the time; I mean, they must. If there's one thing that marks alcoholics, it's the overweening sense of shame they feel about the way they've behaved when they drank. Untreated, it leads to more drinking - just because you're tired of giving a fuck about what the world thinks of you - or you lash out, telling the cosmos you're going to take your toys and go home. The latter leads to one of my favorite (overheard) statements in AA: "I'm the piece of shit the world revolves around."

Since I can't really stomach very much liquor and have too many control issues to try heroin, I wonder if there's another AA for me, something like BDA - "Bad Decisions Anonymous."

"Hi, I'm Ian, and I've made some really bad decisions."
"Hello, Ian."
soulful nodding ensues

Apparently the fourth and fifth step of AA is to make a "fearless moral inventory" of everything you've done wrong, and then admit these foibles to your higher power. By cataloguing your shame, it becomes knowable. Frankly, I wonder how people start. With a pad and pen, over a cup of coffee, staring out into the rain... perhaps that's how these things are done.

The later steps involve making amends to those you've wronged, but what if you're sure they don't care anymore, barely remember you, have no interest in contact, find the whole thing creepy - and you STILL feel ashamed of the way you behaved? Doesn't that make it about you again and then you're back to being a dime-store Narcissus?

note to self: call pharmacologist to see if Celexa still working

dandelions are not weeds

5/4/04

above, the bridal path on our hill last August
below, the path today

brazen hussies

5/3/04

There is a frustration that is deeper than the frustration you normally feel towards things you loathe. It is the frustration borne out of the belief that nothing is even shocking to you anymore. I have taken a long break from discussing anything political on this blog, perhaps to the relief of my small, disturbed following - but it is the season to start asking yourself if you still plan to live here in mid-November.

Even though the delivery mechanism is flawed, I jibe with Janeane Garofalo most of the time - tonight on the "Daily Show" she said that voting for Bush is a deep character flaw. I don't agree with her that George W is an End of Days Evangelical (I think he's too dimwitted, and frankly, too interested in his own comfort to be psyched about the apocalypse) but she does strike a deep chord in me when she talks about the Dumb and Mean everyday Americans willing to keep that insufferable twit in office.

But again, my frustration: there is just so much bad stuff emanating from our current administration that it fuses together into a sort of indistinguishable mess. There's no one subject to concentrate your rage. Just this week, there were pictures from American torture camps, more revelations about Bush's blood lust for Iraq PRE-9/11, the disintegration of Fallujah, the anniversary of the "Mission Accomplished" horror-show, and disturbing testimony from Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz, who didn't have the slightest idea how many Americans had been killed in the war.

But it's just another week, y'know? You probably got bored reading that paragraph. I got bored writing it. The American populace, and indeed, MY BRAIN, has been so exhausted by the constant state of stunning lies, miscalculations and mean-spirited vitriol cascading out of our government, that I'm finding it hard to give a shit anymore. I'm definitely finding it hard to care about America anymore. The fact that this presidential race is close is a disgrace. And if Bush wins in November, I don't know how me, my wife, or my future family can live here. It won't even be a decision made in rage, it will be calm and obvious.

Before this year, I'd never heard of the phrase "brazen it out." Simply stated, it means you're going to stick to your guns, keep repeating the same shit louder and louder, and be the last asshole standing, even though you're deadly wrong. Someone used it to describe this administration, and I realized that "brazening it out" is the end of dialogue, nuance and art.

I wonder how progressive, sensitive Americans felt in 1973, when the President was dismantling the Constitution and brothers were being flown home in body bags. I wonder if it felt like this.

another fine Judeo-Mormon production

5/2/04

Today's blog is cancelled due to three snifters of Glenlivet, and four Jack & Cokes. I do, however, have the following proof that Sean and Jordana's wedding did happen, and that it was totally awesome.

my big messy, delightful family

Michelle and Tessa, with flash - and without

I sneak a quick one while standing in the bridal party