An odd turn of fate

An odd turn of fate

So I got a call tonight from a TV production studio with a job. Starting next week I'm going to be John Larroquette's (of "Night Court" fame) driver while he's their principal on a pilot they're doing. While my rate's only going to be $7/hour, I get to be on the company's insurance while I work for them, and there will surely be some good stories that come out of this. Some might be how awkward it was to be stuck in traffic with John Larroquette, but hopefully there'll be some other good stuff that might pop out of it. I'll keep you posted.

D

Stick a fork in me

Stick a fork in me

Well, I finished Doom 3 today. I'm finishing Philip K. Dick's VALIS right now. I finished sprucing up Clint's resumé. I'm just done in general, it seems. That's a pretty darn good feeling.

On the other hand, I've got two more P. K. Dick books to read in his final trilogy of novels, and I must say that the first one has got me pretty pumped about the other two. For a Catholic boy of dubious faith with a love of science fiction, these books are right on target for me. It's a mixing of theology, philosophy, pink lasers and a detective story. I'm not sure what The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer are going to be like but if they're anything like VALIS, I'll be pleased as punch. It's an absolutely fascinating read. It's a little scary, however, how a character that's quite insane (or should I say irrational) in the book strikes such a chord with me. If there's one thing I've learned from the read, though, it's that rationality in an irrational universe is viewed as lunacy. I recommend it.

In other dangerous-to-my-finances news, I found a great used book store that accepts credit cards three blocks from my apartment. While I was waiting for my car to get an oil change the other day I stopped by and picked up Umberto Eco's (one of my favorite authors) Serendipities: Language and Lunacy, Albert Camus' The Plague and Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius at low, low discount prices! They were practically giving them away! They must be crrrraaazzy!

Seriously though: they're prices were quite reasonable.

In a striking turn of events, I decided to not go see Collateral tonight to instead read as much as I could of Dick's next book, The Divine Invasion. How odd that I'm favoring print over pictures, moving ones at that. A sign of old age, surely.

Anyway, I'm going to have me some s'getti and meatballs and curl up with a good book. Perhaps later on I'll pop in The Good Thief, Scary Movie 3 or Shanghai Noon given to me by Kate and Eric as birthday presents. Thanks guys. You rock my world. I wish there was a way for you not to read sarcasm into that phrase and there is. The printed word is dead! It's up to you not to make it sarcastic!

That last part was, on the other hand, a bit sarcastic. I am now rambling. I declare that I am now finished again...with this post.

D

Doom 3

Doom 3

Well, I just bought my first computer game in a long time. It felt pretty good, and I must say the title is absolutely worth it. The boys at id Software have been working long and hard and certainly deserve something to show for it, especially after the what has to be record breaking piracy that has occurred before the game was even released. Before the game was even on store shelves, id Software lost almost $3 million according to the most liberal estimate in the article. Now I'm not saying I've never downloaded anything without having first paid for it, but I certainly want to give my money for those products that I think are worth my money. Doom 3 is certainly one of those products, and I'm happy to spend my money on such quality. It's a shame not everyone shares these sentiments. At the same time, however, the boys at id are no fools. They understand the Internet Underground, and I'm sure they already knew about how much money they would lose simply by making the game. I'm proud that I'm not one of those people, and I'm glad I had the money to spend at the time.

D

[UPDATE: Man, I'm actually doing something that I haven't done since the original Doom; I'm dogding in my seat. When I first played the original Doom I would shift in my seat to avoid fireballs thrown at me from these furry Chewbacca creatures. I'm actually doing the same thing with the very same creatures in this game. I would say it's a little embarrassing if I wasn't having such a good time doing it.]

My roommate the superstar

My roommate the superstar

Click here. P sent me an email a while back, and I must have missed this little guy hanging out at the bottom of the page. I did, however, catch it as I re-read the email as I was responding to it. Nice picture, eh? I hope he still talks to me even though he's famous. Good job, man. That's really awesome! And you know I'm frugal with my exclamation points.

D

Two things

Two things

1) Watch this trailer.

2) Mike Nichols has a new film coming with Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. Though I don't care for Roberts, that's one hell of a cast. And for those unfamiliar with Nichols work outside of That Graduate, I think you should check out Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Carnal Knowledge, and (from what I hear) the HBO miniseries "Angels in America" based on the play of the same name.

D

How long's too long?

How long's too long?

It has been a really long time since I've watched a movie. I just looked on Film Journal X3000! and discovered that empirically it's only been a week, but I can't remember the last time I went a week without having seen a new movie. I saw Garden State today, and it was the perfect way to break the losing streak. Check out my thoughts here.

D

So full of promise in the morning, so full of shit in the evening

So full of promise in the morning, so full of shit in the evening

Today was a complete one-eighty from yesterday. We were outside filming in downtown Los Angeles and had to lockdown crowds of angry Los Angeleans from getting into our shot. Depending on what corner or nook one took, there would be a crowd of a pedestrians of a ratio of 30:1 to a PA. The instructions they give is be firm, but don't touch them or they could turn on you. Basically, that translates to: "You have no power, and they might kill you." Then they yell if someone gets through. Luckily that only happened once or twice to me, and neither really affected the shot.

We were at the center of an intersection, and we had to cordon off in a block in every direction for a 360° camera move. We had one PA for each sidewalk for an entire block. This was around 4 PM, and we had to make sure no one went on the streets or sidewalks at all while remaining out of sight ourselves. We all had alleyways within the block to deal with, too. That was just absurd. It was just an all around bad day. I worked sixteen hours doing bullshit work for less pay and worse food than my previous job, on which I only worked ten hours a day.

Anyway, I have more interesting things that I forgot to write in my post about yesterday. Perhaps some of you remember Todd's blog post about a certain commercial parody of a certain breakfast bar. One of our extras was the chubby black boss from said commercial, the one introduced holding lacy women's unmentionables. While I was bored with Blair Underwood after about five minutes (despite his kick ass shoes), I couldn't work up the courage to approach this other guy whose name I don't know because I didn't approach him. What do you say to a man like that?

"Hey man, I think you're the funniest man who ever lived except for God, and God's dead so it's pretty much just you."

I think that would get a little weird a little fast.

Also, I saw a homeless woman (and heard) cuss out a homeless man who was "stalking" her in a Rite-Aid drugstore on a run I made yesterday. Then she ran her cart hard into his shin. Then he threaten to break his not-yet-purchased fo'ty over her head. Then she began to wail that he killed her husband. Everyone around me was laughing.

I also ran into a homeless man today that said he was expecting to put out his first feature in late 2005 and another who said he had a Screen Actors' Guild membership card and he had just recently gotten a Writers' Guild membership. The first guy said he'd been in town for only a few weeks. The second guy had accomplished all that and worked with Lee Strasberg in some vague capacity after being here only three months.

And would any story of mine be complete without mentioning the older man--Roger in this case--who said I should be in porn? After all, there's 1) good money in it, 2) a lot of "fun" involved and 3) my parents being very proud of me afterwards. Oh, Roger. You silly, perverted "filmmaker".

I think that's pretty much it on my end. Shout out what happened on your weekend.

D