Realizing I was much too inebriated to make the half hour drive back to my friend’s house after the party I attended last night (theme: “naughty & nice”), I ended up instead spending the night on the back seat of my rented Focus. When Ford says ‘compact’, they’re not kidding.
Posting may be sporadic between now and next Tuesday, as I’ll be bouncing around LA with uncertain housing plans and even less certain web access until then. (Today’s screed, for example, comes courtesy of the fine residents of 423 Seward who have unwittingly lent their living room wi-fi to the back seat of my freshly rented neon blue Ford Focus, parked directly out front. God bless you NetStumbler.) Between now and my arrival up in San Francisco, I’ll be wedging in way too many brunches, lunches, dinners, coffees, meetings and drinks with LA-based friends, colleagues, potential collaborators, etc., etc.
And, of course, I’ll be partying like a rockstar. Sleep is for pansies.
Heading to Rite Aide to pick up a few last pre-trip essentials, I passed a group of black high school girls on their way home.
“Hey mister,” one of the girls shouted, “for a white boy, you got a pretty cute ass.”
Despite the slew of Friendster filly rendezvous, I realize it’s been a while since I’ve been genuinely excited for a date.
After my (relatively) extended stretch at home sweet home, I’m headed back on the road – first LA to check up on post-production for ILYW, then San Francisco for the inimitable Helen Jane‘s big day.
I’ve clearly been traveling too much when there’s actually something oddly comforting about packing.
Last night, on a whim, we headed over to the New York Public Library, on the steps of which we had heard Sheryl Crow would be recording part of NBC’s Fourth of July special. Indeed, she was, and after standing in line for a little over an hour, we were packed into the tight space around the recently constructed stage. As it was more of a recording session with live audience than a real concert, it mainly consisted of the same few songs played over and over again; but because of the small size of that audience, we ended up some ten, fifteen feet away from Sheryl herself. My main conclusions:
1. The world needs more live music.
2. Sheryl Crow is teeny but hot, hot, hot.
3. Cyan is definitely going to start producing music videos.
If you have a lot you intend to accomplish in a day, and if one of your close college friends arrives in the middle of that day from France with a backpack full of bottles of French wines, odds are, you won’t actually accomplish any of what you intended.
I hopped on the Long Island Rail Road yesterday to meet up with my aunt, uncle and young cousins, as well as my visiting grandfather (in from Florida with his wife), for an over-large pre-Father’s Day steak dinner. At some point post-meal, discussion veered towards preparations for my cousin Brandon’s fast impending bar mitzvah, which led to the whipping out of my own bar mitzvah video, something I hadn’t seen for years and years. My immediate discoveries:
1. Apparently I was a seventh-grade rock star. Way to shake your booty, 13-year old me!
2. Braces and a bowl cut are perhaps not my best look.
3. Laura Friedman, however, (my girlfriend at the time and an 8th grade ‘older woman’ to my 7th grade self,) still struck me as a hot little number.
After a full half hour of watching the younger me in action, I could basically conclude that, aside from having picked up about a foot of height, I’ve changed dangerously little in the intervening ten years.
Sorry mom, I guess this isn’t just a phase.
Lucky me, I’m getting audited!
Fortunately, I’m being audited for a year when I was still a student, and consequently had such little actual income that no matter how brutally they reject my deductions, I can’t possibly owe more than a few hundred bucks of additional taxes. Still, in an effort to better prepare for possible questions, I requested some additional information from my Revenue Agent, who was kind enough to fax over the relevant documents.
If I was at all worried before, however, the cover page of her fax set me completely at ease:
“Gee golly,” the featured clip art seems to say, “despite what everyone says, we’re really just a swell bunch!”
An American, a Canadian, an Israeli, a Nigerian and a Swede walk into a German bar. After a few rounds of drinks, they decide to stay for dinner.
[Ed. Note: Yes, I know that isn’t funny; but it’s what I actually did last night.]