Quondam Dreams

More Making With The Funny

2011-07-03T19:40:00.000-07:00

The latest excuse for lack of updates: Many of the little breathing spaces in my life are filled with ranting and throwing people around, my main duties as Angry Woman Marion Burke, a regular character on The New Level, which takes sketch comedy to... well, the San Fernando Valley, but also your computer. And also to a new level. But you probably guessed that already.

Of the stuff that's currently posted, I'm in the series promo and episode 3. The producers also post bite-sized bits on The New Level Facebook page. Look for the angry woman in my late great-aunt Gertrude's leopard-print coat.

Hey, I have to do something now that the Bush Twins aren't funny anymore.

2011 Magic 8-Ball Oscar Picks

2011-02-25T11:36:00.000-08:00

Hello poor, neglected blog. What have you been up to? Yeah, not much here either - at least that makes for interesting blogging. If you're really bored, ask me what a taxonomist does. Hint: It's interesting to maybe 1% of the population (including me, fortunately), and does not involve stuffing or mounting anything.

Reassuringly, there will always be ,Magic 8-Ball Oscar picks. The 2011 list is up at Red Carpet Crash. Enjoy.

Magic 8-Ball Predictions 2010

2010-03-05T12:17:00.000-08:00

...now available on Red Carpet Crash. For Tweeters, that's http://bit.ly/9JP1WL.

(Yeah, I'm too lazy to reformat everything. So sue me. Or don't sue me: all you'd get is a few books and some beads anyway.)

Latest Endeavor: More Blogging

2010-01-11T13:26:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm back. I doubt many people noticed I was gone, but for those of you who have: I'm fine. There just hasn't been a whole heck of a lot going on these past several months. I may be the only person that's ever stopped from blogging.

I'm popping in now to let you know that I'm blogging for Red Carpet Crash -- mostly about TV, but as the only Hollywood-based contributor to an entertainment site, my subject matter is likely to expand. Peruse the whole site (and you should; it's a wonderfully unique mix of stuff, with previews and giveaways and whatnot) or just check out my posts here.

(Oh, and NBC? Should you want to replace Jeff Zucker with someone who has a clue about how audiences and affiliates work, I'm available.)

Approaching The Halfway Point

2009-06-30T22:01:00.001-07:00

We're just about halfway through 2009, and I can't help but notice that a lot of us are having truly craptastic years. Unemployment, deaths, illness, pestilence... just a whole lot of no fun.

So if you're reading this, 2009, please tell me what we did to you to make you so mad at us. I can't promise that we'll stop doing whatever it is, but it would be nice to have an explanation for all the suck.

Elsewhere

2009-05-31T23:23:00.001-07:00

Yeah, I know. I've been slacking on posting to this blog lately. I've been pouring much of my blogging time into yet another one that I hope to launch soon, and the rest into Rose Knows. (I'm always fielding questions and taking requests; whether I answer them is less of a certainty.)

If you need more Rose pithiness in your life (I can't imagine why you would, but that's your business), I'm @roseknows over on Twitter. Look for the purple Devil Duckie.

A Note To Recruiters, Re: Taking You Seriously

2009-04-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

Hi, recruiters. I know it's been a while since I've written to you, but I've been busy not working.

Now, I know it's not your fault that the job market's slow, even for eminently employable people like me. I know it's slow because lately, I've been getting pitches for the same position from two or three recruiters. I've found that I have more success by having one person push for me than by allowing my potential employer be spammed with my resume. (And by "success," I mean, "ever hearing from someone about this position again". Lowered expectations, I have them.)

So what might make me go with one recruiter over another? Here are some sure-fire ways to make sure you're not the one who could potentially get a commission off me:

Use of "LOL" in email. Just don't. Ever. Especially in a business email. If we've been working together for a while, I'll let a well-placed :) slide, but "LOL"? Save it for IMs to your friend from college.

Hotmail email address. Ideally, you should have an email account from whatever company you're representing. If you're freelancing, then you really should take the time to register a domain name. But if for some reason you really do need to use a free account, then use Gmail. You can do much more with it than you can with other free services, and it doesn't put ads on your messages. (Jury's still out on Yahoo addresses. My current thinking is that they're fine for the job seeker, but I'd rather see a recruiter that's researched which service will give them the most bang for their non-existent bucks.)

Unintelligible voice mails. No-brainer, right? You'd be surprised.

Unidentifiable area code. I debated whether to include this one. I'm big on telecommuting, because it's better for the environment and because I can wear shorts if I feel like it. But the fact is, I'm going to give more weight to someone with a local or easy-to-pinpoint area code. A local number is an indication that you know the market; an out-of-area, but well-established, area code means that you're more likely to be working with an experienced recruiting agency. It could also mean that you're in the middle of Iowa and are savvy enough to get yourself cell phone with a Los Angeles area code, but at least you've put some thought into it.

Obliviousness to geography. Used to be, I only had to contend with recruiters who didn't understand that from my residence, a ten-mile commute east can easily take three times as long as a commute north. Now I'm contending with recruiters who are trying to sell me on "local candidate only" jobs that are 600 miles away. When I get multiple pitches like this, they're usually from different people at the same company. That company goes to the bottom of my priority list. A group of people who don't talk to each other, and make the same stupid mistake? Next.

I want to work with you, dear recruiter. But let's not waste each others' time, 'kay? 'Kay.

My Romantic Life In 13 Words

2009-03-26T21:23:00.000-07:00

"I'm not that guy," he said, and then proceeded to be that guy.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

(Okay, 16 words. Whatever.)

(If you're reading this, don't worry. You're not any of them.)

2009 Magic 8-Ball Oscar Picks, Sort Of: Now With Backup!

2009-02-21T23:01:00.001-08:00

First, the picks. Then, the methodology:

PICTURE: Milk
DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
ACTOR: Sean Penn, Milk
ACTRESS: Meryl Streep, Doubt
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Josh Brolin, Milk
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Frozen River
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Wall-E
ANIMATED FILM: Wall-E
ART DIRECTION: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Reader
COSTUME DESIGN: Australia
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Encounters at the End of the World
DOCUMENTARY SHORT: The Final Inch
FILM EDITING: The Dark Knight
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: The Class (France)
MAKEUP: Hellboy II: The Golden Army
ORIGINAL SCORE: Wall-E
ORIGINAL SONG: "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire
ANIMATED SHORT: Oktapodi
LIVE-ACTION SHORT: The Pig
SOUND EDITING: Slumdog Millionaire
SOUND MIXING: Wanted
VISUAL EFFECTS: The Dark Knight

So sue me: When packing for my current convalescence, I forgot to bring my Magic 8-Ball. When I realized this, I seriously considered forgoing the picks this year. I mean, does anyone really win pools with them? Since it's the same voters every year, we all know how to pick the acting winners: Top priority in each category goes to portrayers of real people, the more recent the better. Supporting Actor is the lifetime achievement award. The only thing that can stop the giver of a true breakout performance from winning Supporting Actress is a nominee from a Woody Allen movie. And when in doubt on Best Picture, count the technical nominees.

Yeah, so we all know that. But when it comes to the technical categories, you need an oracle. And that's usually my Magic 8-Ball. Which could be a problem.

Fortunately, I have way too much time on my hands. So I pulled apart an old project and concocted the Quick 'n' Dirty Magic 8-Ball. That still seemed too impersonal, so I decided to go old-school and pull dominoes from a bag. (No, seriously, it is too old-school. What was frequently used to cast lots back in the day? Bones. What do people often call dominoes? Bones. Therefore, domino-pulling is the modern equivalent of casting lots, and if that's good enough for that "God" person the winners keep thanking, then it's good enough for us.)

For the most part, the dominoes backed up the 8-Ball. Here's where it didn't:

ACTRESS: Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: The Reader
ART DIRECTION: The Dark Knight (with Changeling and Revolutionary Road right behind)
COSTUME DESIGN: The Duchess
MAKEUP: The Dark Knight
ORIGINAL SONG: "O Saya" from Slumdog Millionaire
LIVE ACTION SHORT: Toss-up between Manon on the Asphalt and Spielzeugland
SOUND EDITING: The Dark Knight
SOUND MIXING: Slumdog Millionaire

And there you go. Choose your oracle and take your chances. If you win anything, just remember who consults 'em for you.

A Note To Barack Obama, Not That He's Answered Any Of My Others

2009-01-21T15:40:00.001-08:00

Dear Barack,

Please don't blow this.

Thanks,
r.

P.S.: I know that you have millions of people asking you to put their issues first, but if you could get hopping on the job and health care stuff, I'd personally appreciate it. I'll totally send you a cookie when I can afford to.

A Note To Certain Internet Users, Re: Opinions

2008-12-18T11:29:00.000-08:00

Dear message board users, email list posters and blog commenters,

I've noticed that more and more of you are ending your missives with "Just my opinion".

Why?

First of all, if you're posting something that's not a direct quote, it's a safe assumption that it's your opinion. No need to clarify. Save the keystrokes. Consider using the resulting ten seconds to head over to FreeRice.com and directing a few grains of rice to the UN World Food Fund. It'll make you feel good and smart, if not a little hungry.

Perhaps more importantly, it's not "just" your opinion. It's your opinion, and just as valid as anyone else's. Own it! Claim it! Defend it! Put it on a t-shirt and sell it! You're adding to the global human discourse, for heaven's sake. Type with pride and confidence! (Though perhaps not so much confidence that you damage the keyboard. That wouldn't be good for anyone.)

Now, sit down and be counted.

r.

Not The Way-Post-Election Post

2008-11-28T15:11:00.000-08:00

I doubt that anyone but me missed it, but I've officially given up on the post-election post this time round. Since everything in my life happens at once, I had some health issues emerge at the same time as the final election run-up. I could keep them at the back of my mind while I was spending my days and evenings gleefully buried in data - but now, without the election to distract me, I've been kind of preoccupied with the personal.

(It's nothing life-threatening. It's something that can be controlled for now, but the controlling is a whole process. There is a small-but-significant chance I might need surgery in a couple-few months, which adds another layer of fun to the ongoing job hunt. In case any potential employers are Googling me, I'd like to assure you that my doctor can tell me to stay off my feet, but she can't stop me from reaching for my laptop and cell phone as soon as the knockout drugs wear off. Because I'm that much of a workaholic. Really...)

Anyway, if you know me, you know what I was going to say: That the vote broke down pretty much like I expected it to; how I can't turn cartwheels over Obama's victory because of Prop 8's passage; how Prop 8 clearly violates the equal protection clause of California's state constitution, but the fact that it shouldn't pass legal muster doesn't excuse the way in which the No campaign was so horribly mismanaged; and that, all that aside, we freakin' did it!

Now, if only the new administration would hire me for something...

Election Night Photos

2008-11-06T22:41:00.001-08:00

While I work on the inevitable post-election post, here are some camera phone photos I took at the Obama California HQ on Tuesday night...

(Or view the photo set on flickr)

An Election Morning Post

2008-11-04T11:09:00.000-08:00

I'm writing this just after voting, and before heading to the Obama state HQ (conveniently located right near me) for one more marathon of data slinging. Phone bankers may get all the glory, but something's got to happen to all that yummy data. Mmm. Data. I've mostly been doing data entry, but lately I've been tapped to... count stuff. I never said it was thrilling.

The past few days, every nook and cranny of the offices - plus a good chunk of the sidewalk outside - have been filled with people making cell phone calls to people across the country. I've handled data for Nevada, North Carolina, Indiana, Florida, Colorado and probably some other state I'm missing. While I haven't personally encountered Missouri, the phone bankers I've talked with say the Missouri people are largely charmed that folks all the way in California would be interested in li'l old them.

I'm told that celebrities have been in and out of the phone bank room. Apparently, I've missed Orlando Bloom, Eliza Dushku, Dule Hill and Ryan Philippe. Though I doubt they swang by the data room anyway. The only non-geek types to seem to are parents who want to show their kids what's going on. Hi, kids. Would you like to draw a poster?

Here are some of the things I'm going to be looking for in the moments I can get online throughout the day. Grab a pencil and play along!

Population density correlations: In 2004, the higher the density of a region, the more likely it was to vote Democratic. The trend seems to be continuing, as people move out of the cities to live among more like-minded people, and a more diverse crew moves in. (This is a gross oversimplification, of course. For actual details, check out Bill Bishop's The Big Sort blog on Slate.com.) That said, the Obama campaign has made a concerted effort to reach out to voters in rural areas. Will that show up in the final tally?
Voter turnout by age and party affiliation: Youth voter registration has been strong, and tends Democratic. Will they actually turn out? And, assuming they do, will the influx of Obama supporters carry over to what I like to call "reality legislation" initiatives on state ballots? (About which: Look, self-appointed moral guardians of America, I know that you think that gay people shouldn't marry, that teenagers seeking abortions should talk to their parents, and that frozen embryos should have the same rights as living, breathing, fully-developed people. Guess what? Reality is kinda different, and your trying to redefine it won't make it so.) Also, will the young voter turnout be higher than predicted? Most telephone polls are limited to landline numbers, which leaves out the ever-increasing number of people who only use cell phones.
The effects of early voting: Will this cut down on overly-long lines at the polls?
Difficulties voting: There are always glitches, both machine and human. With record turnout predicted, there are sure to be long lines, but some places will be less prepared than others to move things along. Will these be limited to local snafus, or will there be a more systematic pattern among polling places in a given region or state?
Skittish news anchors: In eight years, they've gone from wanting to be the first to call the election to trying not to say anything at all. It's kind of funny.

Okay. Off I go. No matter who you support, I encourage you to stop by the local offices today at see if there's anything you can do. Even if you don't care now, I promise you will when you leave. Working with a campaign makes everything so much more tangible. And, hey! Snacks!

It's Official: I'm Insulted

2008-10-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

John McCain, re Obama not voting for a "partial-birth abortion" ban because it didn't include exceptions for the health and life of the mother:

Just again, the example of the eloquence of Sen. Obama. He's health for the mother. You know, that's been stretched by the pro-abortion movement in America to mean almost anything.

That's the extreme pro-abortion position, quote, "health."

Wow. Just... wow. The health of an adult woman in distress is an "extreme pro-abortion" concern. And that's not taken out of context. (Here's the transcript for proof.)

I can only infer that McCain's been spending so much time courting the religious right that he's completely internalized their shorthand.

But, then, this is the guy who keeps pushing employer-based health coverage even as unemployment rates rise. And he also seems to think that tax credits for employees to go out and shop for coverage are going to keep prices down. Those of us who have had to deal directly with health insurance companies can tell you what's likelier to happen: Rates will go up, because the insurance companies will smell extra money. The proposed tax credit won't cover comprehensive plans as it is.

It's obvious that John McCain hasn't ever had to shop for health insurance, or look for a job. Of course he hasn't: He's worked for the military and the federal government for almost all his working life. But the rest of us, who've worked for private companies, don't always have it so easy. (Which is not imply that it's easy to work for the military or the government, just that you don't have to worry quite so much about health coverage when you do.)

Obama is right that the American taxpayers are already paying for a lot of people's care, so we might as well make it work. John McCain apparently thinks that health care -- and possibly health itself -- is a liberal luxury.

Wow.

(P.S.: I still love you if you agree with what John McCain had to say. But I'd appreciate it if you could explain it to me, because I really can't come up with any plausible justification.)

Unconventional Wisdom

2008-10-07T23:53:00.000-07:00

I was having a nice little birthday walk along the beach today (distinguishable from all my other nice little walks along the beach only because of the date - I do love this corner of the world), idly wondering if I'd learned anything over the past year.

I was almost back to my car when I spotted a flash of green and black, hovering just over the surface of an empty parking lot. It was a kite, and there was a guy on Rollerblades who was trying to get that kite aloft. The fact that there was only the slightest breeze did not deter him. He'd speed across the lot, and the kite would billow and go up, just a little. He'd stop, and it would go down. He'd look at the kite, not the least bit frustrated, and he'd turn around, and head back across the lot, and the kite would fitfully skim over the asphalt as long as he was moving. And then he'd stop and turn around again. He was still at it when I left.

And that's when I realized what I learned this year:

Assuming they're not going to lead to obvious and immediate harm, it's okay to do futile things and make bad decisions. Because if you don't, how do you know you're really alive?

That, and Flash.

A Note To Sarah Palin, Re: Character Issues

2008-10-03T00:56:00.001-07:00

Dear Gov. Palin,

Bush Twins Party Hour is a work of satire, not intended to be used as a template for answering questions posed in debates and interviews. That said, I'm impressed by your ingenuity. I'd be even more impressed by a shout-out. If you can say hi to your brother's class during a debate, you can certainly give your character inspiration a little plugerooney. It makes great filler when you've used up all your memorized talking points and other people are talking about stuff that you didn't study at debate camp.

Thanks,
Rose

A Question About Economics

2008-09-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

For all the economists out there -- especially those connected with the Bush administration, but a whole lot of others, too:

Unemployment's on the rise, stocks are in freefall, the social safety looks more shredded every day, and the government keeps trying to bail out entire industries with money that may or may not exist.

How are we not in a recession?

Really. I'm curious.

A Note To John McCain, Re: Separation Of Powers

2008-09-12T15:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, Senator. I realize that having thrown your lot in with the religious right - the self-proclaimed "base" of the Republican party - you have to throw in their favorite phrases every now and then. That's how it works. So, fine: Talk about the "culture of life" all you want, and let people interpret the vague statement depending on their individual views.

But would you please stop talking about "legislating from the bench"?

The judicial branch can't legislate from the bench. They can't legislate, period. They can only look at legislation and decide whether or not it complies with the Constitution. It's up to the other branches of government to enforce the decision and/or change the Constitution.

I'm having a hard time considering you a legitimate candidate when you keep casting doubt on whether you've actually read that Constitution you've sworn to uphold.

It's entirely possible that you'll ignore this. After all, I'm just some tree-hugging Democrat -- clearly not the audience for whom you're reciting lines. You do what you're going to do. I'll vote for the guy who's done the required reading.

I Think I'm Kind Of Insulted

2008-08-30T13:44:00.001-07:00

I've been poking away at assessments of both major candidates' VP picks, slated to be posted at rose-knows.net in the next day or two.

I keep getting sidetracked. Something's bothering me about the whole thing.

At first, I thought it might be Obama picking Joe Biden over me. But that's not it: If Barack wasn't going to go with me for the reasons I laid out, then most other sets of priorities do point straight to Biden.

Then I realized that the unease had set in right after John McCain announced that Sarah Palin was his running mate -- when his campaign started sending out that very clear message that disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters should vote for their ticket for the sole reason that John McCain had picked a female running mate.

Um. Wow. I think I'm kind of insulted.

As it happens, I voted for Obama in the primaries. But I'm still offended by the notion that a candidate's campaign things so little of a huge chunk of the electorate that they'll try to entice those people to vote for a ticket with views diametrically opposed to theirs -- first, because Obama didn't pick a woman; and, second, because McCain did.

The pick of Sarah Palin was clearly reverse-engineered by looking at the groups of likely Republican voters whose support for the candidate wasn't quite up to historical levels: Her voting record is right in line with what the evangelical community likes to see; she's a gun-owning mom with a kid in the military; and she's, y'know, a chick. Obviously, it was more important to fill in the demographic gaps than it was to pick someone qualified for the job. (Maybe I'm being overly snarky, but I've been on a job hunt of my own long enough to know that in the real world, her resume never would have made it past screening.)

You know who else is probably feeling kind of insulted? Parents of kids with Down syndrome. Sarah Palin's decision to go ahead and have a kid is being hailed by certain segments of the evangelical community as the greatest, bravest, most amazing decision ever. That clearly implies that people with Down syndrome are somehow "undesirable," so undesirable that people who are staunchly anti-abortion have a stack of "Get out of hell free" cards at the ready for just such occasions.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being overly sensitive.

I am, after all, a woman. You know us chicks.

Apparently, we're all the same.

...Okay, rant over. More sober assessment to follow on Rose Knows.

A Note To Barack Obama, To Be Written In Colored Ink On Folded Notebook Paper

2008-08-25T16:18:00.001-07:00

Hi Barack -

You probably have a lot of notes to get through, so I'll get straight to the point. I just heard that you're taking Joe with you to Denver. That's not why I'm writing. I'm sure you two will have a good time.

I'm writing because I think it was really cheesy of you not to tell me in person. Instead, I had to find out by text message in the middle of the night, like everyone else.

I don't know, maybe you didn't see my note. I guess it's possible that you had so many people inviting you to invite them to Denver that you missed mine. Except I know you're hyper-organized, so it's hard for me to think that you didn't file my note in alphabetical order with the rest of them. My last name starts with an A, and I know that if you were looking at the Bs and Cs then you had to have seen it. Plus, mine had glitter stickers. How can you miss something with glitter stickers?

So, yeah, I'm a little miffed. But in case you're worried about it, I'm not all that mad. I'll still vote for you for president of the January Ball, because I think you'll do much better than John would, and, anyway, you're cuter. I'll still be here in case you need me to help, which you might if that thing about Joe comes out. (What "thing about Joe"? Exactly. You heard nothing from me.) Call me or text me if you need me to talk to Hillary, or if Joe is totally boring you.

g/g - ttfn,
Rose

P.S. Tell Michelle I said hi.

A Note To The Obama Campaign Vice Presidential Search Committee

2008-08-04T11:47:00.000-07:00

To: Obama campaign vice presidential search committee (attn: Caroline Kennedy and Eric Holter)
From: Rose
Re: Availability

I'm a bit concerned. It's already August, mere weeks from the Democratic National Convention, and I still haven't heard from you.

Perhaps you missed my previous announcement, in which I declared my availability as a presidential running mate. Understandable; it was a while ago. Since then, I have become increasingly convinced of the importance of the importance of returning to the letter and spirit of the Constitution by choosing a vice president who does very nearly nothing. I'm kind of a workaholic, so it would be hard for me, but I can be idle for the good of my country.

I know you've considered every prominent Democrat -- and a few prominent Republicans -- in your search. It must be awfully tiring. You have a lot of factors to consider. Going by Senator Obama's recent appearance on Meet the Press, I honestly think I might be just what the Democratic ticket needs. And picking me now means that you can still enjoy a few weeks of summer.

From the interview:

I'm going to want somebody with integrity; I'm going to want somebody with independence, who's willing to tell me where he thinks or she thinks I'm wrong; and I'm, I'm going to want somebody who shares a vision of the country where we need to go, that we've got to fundamentally change not only our policies, but how our politics works, how business is done in Washington.

Integrity. I have integrity. The fact that absolutely no one will come forward to say otherwise should not be construed as proof to the contrary. I'm trustworthy; I do my best to follow through on my promises; and I have a compulsive's work ethic, especially if what I'm working on pays overtime.

Telling the President when he thinks he's wrong? As anyone who's ever been wrong within my earshot can tell you, that's not a problem. But I do try to do it nicely.

And I'm totally on board with the changing and the vision and the hope and all that stuff.

I think the most important thing from my perspective is somebody who can help me govern.

Oh, you mean a project manager? I'm sometimes a project manager! I'm pretty good at taking a vague proposal and turning it into something that makes sense, and I'm just awesome at telling people what to do.

Also, I know how politics work. I'm a bona-fide Student Congress trophy-winner. I haven't moved the previous question since high school, but I'm sure it will all come back to me that one time in four years that I have to show up at the Senate for something other than the State of the Union address.

I want somebody who I'm compatible with, who I can work with, who has a shared vision, who certainly complements me in the sense that they provide a knowledge base or an area of, of expertise that can be useful.

As it happens, I hold a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies. The whole country is my area of expertise.

Anyway, haven't you heard? Rose Knows!

Because we're going to have a lot of problems and a lot of work to do, and I'm not interested in a vice president who I just send off to go to funerals. I want somebody who's going to be able to roll up their sleeves and really do some work.

This is where I think we might have some philosophical differences. Going to funerals is a form of sitting around and doing nothing, which is the number one duty of the Vice President. But, let's face it, I'm kind of a workaholic. I bet I can come up with some way to get a lot of work done while maintaining a facade of idleness. Oh, I know! I'll work on the White House web site. If any reporters or informants walk by my office, I'll pull up a solitaire game. That should throw them right off.

...I think Hillary Clinton would be on anybody's short list. She, she is one of the most effective, intelligent, courageous leaders that we have in the Democratic Party.

Dude. Except for my occasional tendency to start statements with "Dude,"
I am exactly the kind of voter that Hillary Clinton was after. I'm a white, middle-class woman hit hard by the recession. If the die-hard Hillary supporters can't have her, I bet they'd be willing to take a look at me. Because I'm just like them. Only with better hair.

In the Democratic primary, older voters were more likely to vote for Hillary than younger voters. I can help you there, too. See, grandmas love me. Doesn't matter what their race, ethnicity, religion, class, geographic area, political affiliation or shoe size is -- they love me. Even the ones who don't like my positions will love me for trying.

So we know what the candidate's looking for. How about the voters? Luckily, Slate.com has taken a poll. You'll notice that the word that jumps out from both the Democratic and Republican tag clouds is "experience".

Experience I am not inexperienced in politics. I've been raising my voice since I had a voice to raise. I just don't have any experience being elected to anything besides political theory debate panels in college. But look at it this way: Next to me, Barack Obama would look incredibly experienced and distinguished. Problem addressed.

I'd also be a great help in fighting the smears against Senator Obama. Take the persistent rumor that Obama is a Muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that). I'm Jewish. The people who "know" that Barack Obama is Muslim are the same people who "know" that all Muslims hate Jews. By picking me, you're proving to that small but vocal population that he's really, really not Muslim. (Not that there would be anything wrong with that.) As for the other rumors, they're pretty easily provable or disprovable with a little Googling. I am a Google goddess. (In a non-pagan sense. Not that there's anything wrong with goddesses in the pagan sense.) Bring 'em on.

Now, I'm not perfect. I sometimes take too long to return emails, I talk about baseball too much, and I'm perhaps a bit too fond of karaoke. But you won't find any mistake for which I haven't apologized, no matter how hard you dig. And there will be digging, because some reporters are going to decide that my squeaky-clean public record indicates that I have something to hide. Even if I did (and I'm not saying I do, but doesn't everyone say that?), any incidents they find would be well within the law.

I am currently available for interviews and photo sessions. Please feel free to contact me through this blog. I look forward to hearing from you. I can't wait to detail my plans for turning Dick Cheney's man-sized safe into a craft supply closet.

Enjoy August in the Hamptons!

In Re: Hollywood (The Neighborhood, Not The Industry)

2008-07-24T22:40:00.001-07:00

Given the current state of the economy, I'd think that any sort of entertainment hub-type neighborhood might want to encourage people to come out and spend money.

So why does it keep getting harder and harder to find free or cheap parking in Hollywood?

Bush Twins Party Summer

2008-07-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

Summertime is time for new episodes of Bush Twins Party Hour! Be the first kid on your block to see what we've been up to this year:

- Find out how we got the Bush Party started in The Bushy Bunch
- Check out exclusive videos from Jenna's bachelorette party month, with some very special guests
- Get more presidential with Extreme Bush Makeover
- See how First Lady Laura Bush sends her daughters off on the campaign trail
- Put your knowledge of the family's misdeeds to the test in Bush Family Scandal!

Where will the trail take us? To the summer's hottest events, of course. You'd expect any less? Reports are coming in, and we'll let you know just as soon as they've cleared Secret Service.

Check us out at:
bushtwinspartyhour.com
www.myspace.com/bushtwinspartyhour
revver.com

Any Questions?

2008-07-01T15:51:00.000-07:00

I'm bringing back the Rose Knows Q&A. (Why now? Why not now?)

Qs are currently being collected at rose-knows.net, with an eye towards a "real" launch in a week or so. Email your Qs to askroseknows at gmail.com, use the handy "Ask" form at the site, or post 'em in the comments on the initial thread. Or message me or comment here, if you're feeling lazy.

So go ahead. Ask. Anything you want, on any subject. Do I promise to answer? No. But if you get your Qs in now, you stand a pretty good chance of getting As. Heck, the As might even be related to the Qs.

Weirdest. Game. Ever.

2008-06-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Last night. Angels and Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.

The Angels don't allow a hit.

The Dodgers win.

When Vin Scully and Joe Torre both say they've never witnessed anything like it... you know it's weird.

(Yes, the articles are saying that it's happened four previous times in modern major league history -- but it doesn't count until Vin calls it.)

And people wonder why I love baseball.

(Insert Your Favorite Dirty Word Here)

2008-06-23T01:32:00.000-07:00

George Carlin.

*sniffle*

I was going to write some soppy thing about how much the guy meant to me and mine, but, frankly, I'm too drained. Instead, I'll just note that when I logged into my MySpace account tonight, all 10 bulletins displayed on my front page were from different people cursing George Carlin's death. Which is pretty insert-your-favorite-dirty-word-here-ing impressive, in a weird way.

Why I'm Not Bothering With Daytime Emmy Picks This Year

2008-06-20T13:03:00.000-07:00

The Daytime Emmy voting system is whack.

The Academy keeps trying to fix it, I'll give them back. But this year's scheme - a longer list of pre-nominations from each show; voters theoretically trying to watch up to 30 submissions reels while cranking out a new hour-long show every day -- lends itself to the very bloc voting which the tweaks have been decided to prevent. Remove the final step of a panel to judge the top five vote-getters in each category, and you have a free-for-all.

I understand why the Academy is trying something different. Given the number of gazillion-nominee categories and ties for the statuettes, it's clear that they've been having a hard time getting enough people to commit to judging. I don't have any suggestions, but if I did, the current system would be nowhere on my list.

So, if you're one of the few people out there who still care about the Daytime Emmys -- or Daytime in general -- just keep in mind that the nominees are the top five vote-getters from the preliminary round. Quality of submissions will play into it, but I suspect that so will popularity, longevity, and memories of who bought which round of drinks last year.

Still, I'm nothing if not compulsive, and I have to see how this latest fiasco turns out. Setting DVR now. The sartorial fiascos alone should be worth the drive space.

Weather Report

2008-06-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

In case those of you who live in other states were wondering, there have been no reports of fire or brimstone hailing down on California since Monday at 5:01 pm. Despite what the self-appointed moral guardians of America would have us believe, there have been no unusual clusters of lightning strikes, hails of frogs, or total darkness.

In fact, if one would like to use the weather as an indication of their particular divinity's stance on California allowing same-sex marriage, one would have to assume that said divinity is pretty darn happy. Across the state, we're having nothing but gorgeous weather.

Those who believe that said divinity wants them to be financially successful might wish to have a gander at economic projections, which predict that same-sex marriages will add hundreds of millions of dollars to the state economy, in both wedding and tourism sectors.

The only slightly troubling sign has been George Takei and his new husband flashing the "live long and prosper" salute at every interview. I suppose it's appropriate under the circumstances, but it's still a little disconcerting to see it coming from Mr. Sulu.

Our Short, Localized Nightmare Is Over

2008-06-14T14:04:00.000-07:00

Meet TACKAY: The Apple Currently Known As Yolanda. Why Yolanda? Why not Yolanda? It's just a placeholder until I get to know my electronic problem child a little better.

And a problem child, she's been, to the point where anthropomorphizing is absolutely appropriate.

I should have had a clue when I found her in the "refurbished MacBook" section of the Apple site. (Yeah, I got a plain old MacBook. I would have loved to splurge on a MacBook Pro, but given my current circumstances, it seemed wiser to leave the extra room on my Visa Of Last Resort.) All of my laptops have been refurbished rescues, and Yolanda's predecessors have been so grateful to have a new, permanent home that they were little cooperative angels right off the bat.

Not this one.

Perhaps I should be proud that my new bag o' chips managed to come up with a problem that -- judging from Google, Apple tech support and a bevy of Apple Geniuses -- no other MacBook has ever had. (Post-data migration, the built-in keyboard and trackpad weren't recognized, though an external mouse was. No, it doesn't make sense.)

After a series of daily visits to the Apple Store, and lots of experimentation, we're finally set. I think.

So, please feel free to resume normal communication methods. Now, back to whatever I was, or wasn't, doing before all this happened. Um... yay?

Stuff Happens, And Continues To Happen: Computer Edition

2008-06-08T18:45:00.000-07:00

Given that I'm an unemployed geek who's been relying on her laptop to look for gigs, beef up her portfolio, gain some new skills, kvetch about recruiters, and generally keep up with stuff while she's down with what seems to be bronchitis, what is approximately the last thing I need right now?

Right. Rose's computer, RIP.

Now that I've regrouped from my meltdown, I need to figure out whether it's more cost-effective to replace the logic board or charge a new computer. In the meantime, I'll be quasi-offline. I can check email via my phone, but if you need to get in touch with me in the next couple-few days, you'd be better off calling or texting.

Thanks. Love ya, smooches, etc.

(So, uh, anyone have a spare laptop?)

109 Days

2008-05-27T20:32:00.000-07:00

Yep.

Unemployment is officially wearing on me.

I spent big chunks of the past two weeks doing editing and coding evaluations from places from which I still haven't heard back. It's unpaid labor, but at least it was something to do.

Latest sign o' the times: The site that seemed like a good bet for employment decided that rather than go through the trouble of recruiting, interviewing and hiring new people, they'd just buy another company and pick and choose from the people they absorb.

"But they'll probably do another round of hiring in a few months," the relevant creative agent told me, trying hard to sound perky and sort of succeeding.

Right.

I'm hanging in there financially. I'm still out there socially, staying out way too late. I'm devoting some time to properly learning Flash and PHP; they're not really part of what I do, but out-of-their-depth recruiters and HR people like to see those buzzwords on resumes. There are exit polls to analyze. I'm keeping superficially busy. I'm not wallowing, at least not much. I'll live.

But, damn, is it boring.

Great-ish Moments In Adulthood

2008-05-13T21:04:00.001-07:00

I have made my last car payment. I now have a pink slip with my name and address on it.

I'd celebrate, but I'm still trying to figure out what other money drains I can plug up so that I can afford the health insurance that I can't afford to be without. So, uh, no one total my car for a while, okay? Especially with me in it.

Another Friendly Note To Recruiters

2008-05-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

Hi, gang. Thanks, as always, for your calls over these past few months. I appreciate your taking the time to reach out to me; your time is, of course, incredibly valuable. As is mine. So let's use it wisely, shall we? I've been out of work for three months now, so we're clearly not using it well.

I know that most of you only read the first three lines of my resume when it comes up in a search. That's why I cram all the important stuff into the first three lines, and why you should take a moment to look at the search hit in context.

While I'm flattered that you think I'm some hotshot PHP programmer, if coding were my strong point, I'd bump it up from third to first position. And I'd certainly do something more than hide the PHP in a list of things of which I have "working knowledge".

Also, could you maybe do just a teensy bit of research on the positions you're pitching? I don't ask that you do a site visit or anything strenuous -- just look up terms with which you're unfamiliar, like they taught you in third grade.

Here, I'll make it easy for you. Based on conversations I've had in the past couple of weeks, here's a list of things between which you should review the differences:

CSS vs. CMS
JSP vs. Java vs. JavaScript
XML vs. XHTML vs. DHTML
Content development vs. design vs. coding
Building content management systems vs. managing content
SQL vs. MySQL
Copywriting vs. technical writing
Los Angeles vs. Diamond Bar

There are more, of course, but that should be enough to keep you busy.

'Kay? 'Kay. Yay!

News Flash: The Kids Like Obama

2008-04-25T16:52:00.001-07:00

Being a numbers junkie with way too much time on my hands, I've been staring at enough exit polls to notice something that the professional pundits are largely ignoring -- and I think it's why they tend to be so off on their predictions.

Yes, you can look at the Democratic primary votes along race, class and gender axes, and that'll give you a pretty fair indication of how a given state might go. But if you really want to get it right, look at the ages of the voters.

It's possible that the pundits are taking age breakdowns into account, but they may be looking at the wrong ones. The most commonly-used categories (18-29, 30-44, 45-59, 60+) don't tell you as much. The more granular set (18-24, 25-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-64, 65+) gives a clearer picture.

CNN.com has exit polls for 27 states. Shuffle the numbers around, and it's pretty clear: There's a generational divide, and it's somewhere around the mid-40s. People younger than that are likelier to vote for Obama; people older than that are likelier to vote for Clinton.

In the case of Pennsylvania, only 22% of the voters were under the age of 40. I'm still futzing with the numbers to try to find the national tipping point; what I'm coming up with so far is that in order to have a realistic shot of winning a state, the Obama campaign needs to get that number up to about 26%, and the Clinton campaign needs to fail to turn out enough 50-and-older voters to make up a majority of the electorate. (These aren't hard-and-fast numbers, just general trends. I'm still crunching.)

My methods aren't particularly scientific. I'm just plopping numbers into a spreadsheet and going crazy with the color-coding. But, for heaven's sake, professional pundits: If I, an untrained number-futzer, can come up with this incredible stroke of insight on my own, why can't those of you who are getting paid for it? And, more to the point, do you want to hire me? Because I'm still jobless, and the more time I have to sit around and play with numbers, the worse I'm going to make you look. I think there are some subtler age-related trends at play, too, and I've got plenty of time to draw them out.

A Note To Pennsylvania Election Officials, Re: Ballots

2008-04-11T15:28:00.000-07:00

Hi, gang.

Hardly a primary goes by that we don't hear about a shortage of Democratic ballots in some precincts. It seems that no matter how carefully state and local officials plan, sometimes there just aren't enough ballots to go around.

I know you're probably not used to people paying so much attention to the Pennsylvania primary. When was the last time things were up in the air as late as April? I'm sure you're all very good at your jobs -- but, frankly, I'm worried that if good-at-their-jobs people in states that are used to mattering couldn't figure out how many ballots to order, you might be a little out of your depth.

I believe in solving problems before they get out of hand. So, possibly-overwhelmed Pennsylvania election officials, I ask you:

Would you like me to make you some extra copies of your ballot?

Seriously, I've got a couple of days, and I'm sure I can get some copy store clerk to let me in on the script rate. If you let me know now, I can get a whole bunch done by Monday afternoon. I'll overnight them to you, and you should be good to go on Tuesday.

If you can use my help, please feel free to contact me through this blog. If you don't contact me, and find yourself short of ballots, I reserve the right to say "told you so".

A Note To Recruiters, Re: The Most Important Thing Of All

2008-04-03T21:08:00.000-07:00

Hi, recruiters. Thanks, as always, for googling me upon stumbling on my resume. This little note from me to you is getting to be an annual tradition, because my springtime unemployment is getting to be an annual tradition. (Three years in a row now. Four out of the last five. I feel like I should get a ring or something.) I was keeping track of lots of little things that are driving me up the wall this time around, and I may yet get around to writing about them. However, something of paramount importance has come up.

Recruiters, I'm happy to come to your office to meet with you. But please, please inform me on the phone if you don't validate parking. If I need to come armed with tons o' cash, I'd rather know ahead of time.

Mind you, I can't see why you wouldn't validate, especially if your office is located in a place with minimal street parking (say, Westwood). Yeah, it's a small expense for you, but you plan to make more money than that off of me, right? If I have to pay, then that's sort of making me pay a fee to be represented by you, and that's just plain not cool.

Now, maybe you're calling me from a city with decent public transportation. Yeah, see, we don't have that here in West L.A. The people at your West L.A. office will confirm this.

Please don't tell me that too many people come through your office for you to absorb the expense of validating all those parking tickets. The great majority of agencies I've visited validate, and they don't give me tsouris about it. In fact, they smile and thank me for coming in. It's almost like they want to work with me or something.

I want to work with you. You want to work with me. Why stick me with a nasty surprise when you could avoid it in so many ways?

Thanks for your interest. You're a wonderful human being who does an outstanding job. I can say that with absolute certainly, even though we've never met. Yup.

A Baseball Observation

2008-03-24T13:54:00.000-07:00

Playing third base for the Dodgers is the baseball equivalent of drumming for Spinal Tap.

A Metaphorical Epiphany

2008-03-18T15:28:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama is not JFK.

Barack Obama is Peter Pumpkinhead. Except, one would hope, for the last bit.

Take it away, XTC:

XTC - The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead

(Right, so Peter Pumpkinhead is arguably JFK. Another director might have gone with another figure. Point is, this song came out in 1992, and Andy Partridge should be rewarded a cookie for his prescience. As should I for using "prescience".)

A Note To Guys At Bars, Clubs, Parties And Similar Situations

2008-03-09T20:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, guys.

I don't expect that if you're chatting me up in the presence of alcohol, you're going to be telling me the complete truth about yourself. It's part of the mating ritual: Peacocks puff up their tails; human men puff up their accomplishments.

But next time you're sober, could you please take a minute to get your story straight? My not having to try to figure out which thread of lies to follow will make the conversation ever so much easier. You might even be entertaining and not-frustrating enough to get my number. Mind you, I'm still not going home with you tonight, but you'll have that much more time to find someone else who will.

Treat it like any other writing exercise. Type it up and edit it until it makes some sort of sense. (It doesn't have to make absolute sense; it just needs to hold together for a few minutes.) Memorize it. If you can't memorize it, then create a cheat sheet which you can discreetly tuck into your jacket sleeve. I can show you how to make a darling little in-sleeve pocket if necessary. It'll make it so much easier for you to tell me about your simultaneous careers, which at last count included film director, covert operative, drug dealer, dog-sitting entrepreneur and part-time rock star -- without wasting both of our evenings.

Women who embellish their accomplishments may wish to follow the same procedure, though I would suggest keeping the cheat sheet wherever you keep your cell phone.

Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

(And, no, I'm still not going home with you tonight. Smooches anyway.)

Late-Breaking Magic 8-Ball Oscar Picks

2008-02-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Having finally located my Magic 8-Ball in one of the boxes that's cluttering my new bedroom (have I mentioned how much I hate moving? Oh, I have?), I have put this year's crop of Oscar nominees to it. The most positive response for each category is recorded here. Arbitrary? Sure, but so are the actual Oscar voters.

As always, base your picks on these at your own financial risk - but if they work out for you, do show some love to the oracle.

Picture
No Country for Old Men

Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood

Actress
Julie Christie, Away from Her

Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Supporting Actress
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone

Directing
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Adapted Screenplay
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Original Screenplay
The Savages

Animated feature
Persepolis

Art Direction
American Gangster

Cinematography
No Country for Old Men

Costume Design
La Vie en Rose

Doctumentary Feature
No End in Sight

Documentary Short
Salim Baba

Editing
No Country for Old Men

Foreign Language Film
12 (Russia)

Makeup
La Vie en Rose

Original Score
Marco Beltrami, 3:10 to Yuma

Original Song
"Falling Slowly" from Once

Animated Short
Moya Lyubov (My Love)

Live Action Short
Tanghi Argentini

Sound Editing
Transformers

Sound Mixing
Ratatouille

Visual Effects
Transformers

(And if you actually want to win? Look at the winners in a given category over the past few years and pick the nominee that most closely matches this time around. Films and performances come and go; Oscar voters stick around.)

Bush Twins Party Hour Mobisodes Sneak Peek!

2008-01-28T22:04:00.001-08:00

Need a little Bush Twins Party Hour in your life? Of course you do. And now, thanks to www.FunLittleMovies.com, you can party without leaving the comfort of whatever you're sitting on now!

Go to www.FunLittleMovies.com right now for a sneak peek at our interview with Hillary Clinton. Then click the handy link to Revver to check out additional episodes featuring chats with Barack Obama, George "Dubya" Bush, and the Child Left Behind. Plus, the Twins will show you some vacation videos, tell you about the Drink of the Day, and explain the world with the help of the White House Disco Globe.

Subsidized partying 'til 2009!

Words Of Wisdom

2008-01-19T18:37:00.000-08:00

From the aptly-headlined Taunting a factor in tiger attack:

"Clearly there's the lesson to be learned here," said zoo spokesman Sam Singer. "The lesson is that it's not a good idea to drink, it's not a good idea to be high on dope, and it's not a good idea to taunt a man-eating tiger."

Word.

A Few Things I Need

2008-01-17T23:31:00.000-08:00

Things I need within the next few weeks:

A new apartment.

A new day gig.

An open-source content management system which is less trouble to set up and use than it would be to hand-code the site I need to revamp.

Some time to sit down and pore over exit poll data.

The day gig, I'm not too worried about. It sucks that my current one is likely ending in a few weeks -- but roughly annual job searches are a hazard of my profession, and Aquent has always come through for me. They throw a great holiday party, too.

I'll continue to sift through content management systems on opensourcecms.com until I find something that I can easily tailor to bushtwinspartyhour.com, or until someone offers to do it for me. (Not that I'm fishing. Unless you're good at setting up templates. Then I'm totally fishing.)

The exit poll data will help distract that portion of my brain that obsesses over numbers and pointless details. The fact that it's also research for the show is a nice bonus.

Now, does anyone have a line on an apartment in West L.A./Santa Monica which can accommodate two adults, two cats and two cars for an amount of money which might seem exorbitant in most places but would actually be quite reasonable for the 310, and is available by early-mid February?

Hey, a girl can dream.

(This is all going to make a great novel someday, right?)

A Parade Photo

2007-12-24T14:30:00.000-08:00

You may have noticed the lack of Hollywood Christmas Parade review in my blog this year. This is for two reasons (which you may wish to skip, because they're not as good as the picture):

First, there technically was no Hollywood Christmas Parade this year. Sure, there was a cheesetastic parade down Hollywood Boulevard on the evening when the Hollywood Christmas Parade would normally be held -- but this was the new Hollywood Santa Parade. It seems that after last year's shark-jumping edition, the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce realized that putting together a tacky parade wasn't as easy as Johnny "Johny" Grant made it look, and got out of the holiday parade business while the getting was good. As fall set in, the L.A. City Council apparently realized that the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce was serious, so they threw together a parade which was only distinguishable from previous years' because all of the marching bands were local. The late scheduling meant that there was no live television coverage. As luck (?) would have it, I had to do some stuff in Hollywood that evening. And I do have this lovely new-ish camera.

Secondly, I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm to get all the photos organized and captioned. I've been otherwise busy, with the day job and with a project you'll be hearing about very soon. I'll get to them at some point... maybe this week; maybe by Labor Day.

But there is one photo that I just had to share with you now, a snapshot of some universally-loved parade participants.

Was it... one of the marching bands, playing one of about four approved songs? No.

The fire trucks? Warmer (no pun intended).

One of the many Disney and Nick kids' series actors? I think they were universally-loved by the kids, but no one over the age of 14 knew who the hell the people were.

Shirley Jones and Marty Ingles, celebrating their 30th anniversary with another trip down Hollywood Boulevard? Eh. The miniature horses? Closer. Fred Willard? Nope.

Dear reader, I present the high point of the Hollywood ~~Christmas~~ Santa Parade....

Christmas Llamas!!

Hope you're having a wonderful whatever you may be celebrating. I'm sure the llamas would concur.

Reaction to the Mitchell Report

2007-12-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

In re: Report to the Commissioner of Baseball of an Independent Investigation into the Illegal Use of Steroids and Other Performance Enhancing Substances by Players in Major League Baseball:

Gee, ya think?

When I'm In Charge, November's Gonna Be Different

2007-11-21T15:21:00.001-08:00

When I'm in charge, November is going to be a little different.

I'd never be so crass as to ban early holiday displays, of course. Besides being mean, it would just make people start pitching Christmas trees even earlier in a show of defiance, and that would be plain counterproductive.

However, when I'm in charge, all pre-December Christmas trappings will be strongly discouraged, with the exceptions of the following:

Seasonally-flavored coffee drinks, especially Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice concoction. That, right there, is some good stuff. But if you want that egg nog-flavored stuff... have at it. More Pumpkin Spice for me.
A Charlie Brown Christmas. The soundtrack is too smooth (in a jazzy sort of way, not a Muzak-y sort of way) to put anyone on edge. It may be the only in-store music that I ever see anyone grinning about. The actual special is pretty freakin' good, too.

Who's with me? Show of lattes!

That Strike Post

2007-11-12T12:43:00.000-08:00

When I watch something on a network's web site, I have to sit through what's obviously paid advertising.

If I legally download or stream a movie, I pay for the product.

I've done more than my share of work on network and studio web sites, and I think I'm qualified to make the blisteringly obvious statement that said networks and studios wouldn't be involved in new media distribution if they weren't making money off of it.

And the studios have the chutzpah to tell writers that they're not making anything at all back on new media?

Here are two things about showbiz that many who aren't in the midst of it may not realize: Writers are at the bottom of the Hollywood totem pole, and studio accountants can make numbers say anything they want. They can even try to convince those lowly writers -- you know, the people without whom the studios wouldn't have any product to push -- that there's no money in online sales.

They can try, even if it's in the face of reams of evidence to the contrary.

And we can stand up, hoist a picket sign, look the producers in the collective eye, and say, "We don't believe you." And, "We'd like our share."

(The producers, I'm sure, have a completely different perspective. Unfortunately, they seem to be speaking in an entirely different language, and they don't seem interested in using an interpreter.)

If you're a writer or an actor, this affects you. If you appreciate quality film and television, this affects you. If you work for a studio, agency or production company in any capacity, this affects you. For more in-depth information, opinions and reportage -- and suggestions for what you can do to support the writers, should you be so inclined -- please visit the United Hollywood blog. If you're a fan, you should also check out fans4writers.com. And throw a few bucks in the Food for Thought bucket while you're at it. The pizza delivery people are being hit, too.

A Note To Everyone, Everywhere, About Everything

2007-11-06T14:59:00.000-08:00

RTFM. Can't find TFM? Google is your friend. Hang out with it. It will save us both a lot of time. 'Kay? 'Kay. Love you! *totally sincere air smooch*

An Announcement Of Very Minor Importance

2007-10-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

Now that I have reached the age of thirty-five, I hereby declare myself a candidate for Vice President of the United States.

After Cheney, I think this country will be ready to return to having a VP who merely shows up to events that aren't quite important enough for the President to attend, and can stay awake during the State of the Union address. It'll be tough, but I think I'm just the person to restore inactivity to the office. Worst-case scenario, I am now fully-qualified to assume the presidency. Should that happen, I will gather a cabinet of trusted advisers and pay attention to their advice. (I'm capable of doing my own research, and surely will, but they are the experts.) And then I will go back to whatever I was doing that whole time in the VP's office. Perhaps I'll take up quilting.

Please pass along word of my availability to any Presidential candidate whose views I might be able to defend with a straight face. Statements of interest may be emailed to me. I anticipate that most of the Democratic candidates, and a few of the third-party and independent ones, will be interested in my services -- or lack thereof -- so submit early for guaranteed consideration. I will inform my chosen running mate in plenty of time for a traditional July announcement.

Rose Auerbach for Vice President: Because the only way to restore dignity to this office is to do nothing but look dignified.

I've Got What Plants Crave

2007-09-23T11:23:00.000-07:00

Jodi asks, "Why is it when I did a Google image search for "brawndo" that your picture came up on the second page?"

Apparently, I've got what plants crave.

(I'm guessing the Myspace linkage doesn't hurt, but mostly? It's the plants.)

How To End An Endless Conversational Thread

2007-09-09T23:56:00.000-07:00

"Just sayin'."
"Yeah, but still."
"Exactly."

Repeat, with lines taken by various participants, until you've forgotten what was being just said about in the first place.

(Posted here for the ad hoc New York crew. Thanks, ad hoc New York crew.)

All You Need To Know About Web Design, In Seven Convenient Items

2007-08-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

Now, I'm not saying this is the be-all and end-all of design advice posts. I'm just saying, I've been in this game for just about as long as it's possible to be in this game, and I have some really basic guidelines which you young whippersnappers might want to peruse.

In no particular order, but numbered for hypothetical reference:

One
Know what you want the web site to do in the long run, what you want it to do now, and what you can have it do now, given the time and resources available. Build it around what you can do, with room to expand. And -- here's the really important part -- don't bring up the long-run stuff on the site unless you really, really have to. "New features you didn't expect!" is much more satisfying than "coming soon... well, soon-ish." If you do have to post a coming soon page, make sure you mean it.
Two
I don't care if you've spent tons of time, energy and/or money on developing a feature. If more than 20% of people who use your site think that feature's a bug... it's a bug.
Three
There is never a number three, and you should never base your site in Flash unless there's a damn good reason. ("Everyone else has an unskippable splash page" is the opposite of a damn good reason.) If you really do have a damn good reason, then learn a little bit about search engine optimization, so you and/or your client can skip the panic that ensues when joeslilypads.com doesn't pop up on the first page of Google search results for "Joe's Lily Pads". Otherwise, use CSS for layout and save the Flash for a portfolio site.
Four
No frequently-updated information should be more than one click away from the landing page. And we're talking really obvious clicks here -- like, "Calendar," not, "hover the pointer over that frog in the lower-right corner, wait for the menu to unfurl, click on 'my lilypad' and select the flower with the stem that says 'what up'." (And, yes, clicking from a splash page to the main landing page counts as a click. Maybe you should just ditch the splash page.)
Five
There's not much point in using an attention-demanding graphic if the viewer's attention is going to be split, so don't use more than one blinking or animated element in any given screen. "Screen," in this case, is defined as an area equivalent to whatever your usage stats show the most common screen resolution to be, usually 1024 x 768. You do know how to check your usage stats, right?
Six
Don't depend on Dreamweaver, or any other auto-coding program. You can use them for basic layout, but learn how to fiddle under the hood. Making a tweak in the code is faster, easier and more effective than fiddling with and re-uploading the whole page.
Seven
Include a contact email in an easy-to-find spot, and make sure every email is answered by (or appears to be answered by) a real, live human -- even if it's just a stock, "Thanks for your email - we'll take it under advisement. Love, the management." That's not a design thing, or an architecture thing, or a functionality thing. That's just good manners.

That's almost certainly not exhaustive, though it's arguably exhausting. I think there might be a sequel at some point. Got any more items for the list? Shoot me an email.

Rumors of Bush Twin Activity

2007-08-16T23:53:00.001-07:00

So Jenna's engaged. Which means the Bush Twins are in the news (-ish). Which means that many lovely people are asking me what's up with the Bush Twins Party Hour. So, here's the latest:

The pilot's been shot, and is currently being shopped. Meanwhile, we're working on some stuff for those of you who aren't tv development people. In typical showbiz fashion, I can't say much more than that until some deals are hammered out -- but, believe me, when it happens? You'll know. Because you're on the BTPH email list, the practically no-effort way to get the Party Hour scoopage, right? Right?

Right.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Reaction (sans spoilers)

2007-07-26T00:59:00.001-07:00

Huh.

Not the direction I'd have gone, but I wasn't driving.

*shrug*

A Note To Be Slipped Under A Certain Washington Door

2007-07-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Yo, George -

Hi. It's us. You know, the people you pass in the hall every day? We're writing you this note because there's something you need to know, something everyone else in the world knows -- but no one wants to say it to your face because you can be such a... well, such a vindictive ass, frankly. That's why we're the ones writing this: Because even if you knew our names, you wouldn't be able to hold anything over us. (Not that we're signing our names. We may be brash, but we're not stupid.)

So, George, here's the thing:

Nobody likes you.

We took some polls, George. Surveyed the student body, as it were. And no matter what we asked, we got the same results: 70% of the people hate you; 20% of the people say they don't mind you you, but only because you've got them scared of what would happen if someone else were in charge; and we're pretty sure the other 10% are being paid by your dad. But, hey, you can lump those last two together and decide that 30% of the people think you're doing a good job. It's still a pretty sucky job approval rating.

Why do we care?

Because you're making us look bad.

Yep, that's right. We're worried about what other people think. So sue us. Heck, you probably will. And that's only going to make us look worse.

The people you have working for you will deny it, of course. That's why you have them working for you: Because they never tell you anything you don't want to hear. Anyone who does tell you something you want to hear finds themselves looking for new employment. It's like you read one of those "create your own reality" self-helped books and completely missed the point. Deciding that your desired reality is in effect doesn't mean that it actually prevails. You can say that things are going swimmingly all you like, and that you have the evidence to prove it. But if the best evidence you can muster is that things might be kind of starting to sort of maybe go well on eight out of eighteen points... yeah, not terribly convincing, no matter what your few remaining friends say.

To put it in terms you might understand: We're in the AL West, but no matter how you try to spin things, we're not the Angels. We're not even the Mariners. We're the Rangers. (Hey, remember the Rangers? You used to own a piece of them. We know some people in Texas who would like to have a word with you about that.) Let's be generous and say that you've halfway succeeded in eight out of eighteen at bats. By our calculations, that's a .222 batting average -- a couple of lucky hops over the Mendoza line. More to the point, that's a .222 winning percentage. That puts you four games behind the 1962 Mets. You can protest that we're not done with the season yet -- but, dude? This whole war thing has been going on for the equivalent of eight and a half baseball seasons.

George, we don't particularly like you, but we're trying to help you. As much as we don't like how you're representing us, we're even more scared of Dick Cheney. See, when you talk about how the executive branch of government has more pull than the others, it just sounds like you flunked your high school government class. When Dick Cheney talks about it, it sounds like we're all doomed -- especially when he starts trying to put himself above it all. It's like he's taken a nice, balanced system of rock-paper-scissors and turned it into rock-paper-scissors-bomb, and one guess which one he's throwing. (Um, that'd be the big-ass bomb.)

We don't really have any suggestions, except that you get off your high horse and stop insisting that anyone who doesn't agree with you, sucks. You can think that all you want, but when 70% of the people you're supposed to be working for and with think you suck for saying that they suck... it's not pretty. Trust us. You've been insulated pretty well up till now. We're going to make sure you're not anymore, even if it means we have to keep sneaking in and slipping notes under your door.

Sincerely yours,
us

A New Record

2007-06-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've been doing web sites for a long time -- really, nearly as long as there have been web sites to do. I picked up my first book on programming sites for Mosaic right after I graduated from college, and it's been a life of markup tags ever since.

I've worked on a lot of web sites. I've never been so relieved to get a site up and running.

And here it is... Phase One of www.ovationtv.com.

Innit pretty? I can't take credit for the overall look and feel, but I can -- and will, thankyouverymuch -- take credit for making sure all the content's there.

I won't get into all the tsouris here. Buy me a drink, and I'll rant until you're sorry you've asked. For now, suffice it to say that this is my first actual weekend in nearly a month. I have no idea what to do with myself. It's kind of a nice problem to have.

Department of Old Habits that Die Hard: Daytime Emmy Predictions

2007-06-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

Oh, what the hell. It's not like picking the soap category winners requires actually following any of the shows. The voting has nothing to do with a yearlong body of work. The voting is based on the two episodes which each nominee submits to a panel -- a panel whose collective tastes remain remarkably consistent from year to year. I always kind of hope that my picks will turn out to be way off, because that would mean that the panels finally got some new blood... but even since I stopped working in the soap world, I've been distressingly close to the mark.

Lead Actress: Crystal Chappell, Guiding Light. You'll notice a lot of GL picks on this list. A little while back, they started doing these weekly "Inside the Light" episodes, which focus on a particular character or story for the entire hour. Besides being an interesting break from form, they have the potential to provide some serious showcases for actors who can handle the pressure. Crystal Chappell and Kim Zimmer are both formidable forces -- and, if the panel is small enough, it's entirely possible that they'll cancel each other out and As the World Turns' Maura West will slip in there. From what I've gleaned about the reels, though, it's Chappell's standout material edging out Zimmer's same-ol', same-ol'. Which, mind you, is Emmy-winning, same-ol', same-ol'.

Lead Actor: Ricky Paull Goldin, GL. Because the only thing that the voters like more than Tony Geary's Luke Spencer angst is a guy going through withdrawal.

Supporting Actress: Genie Francis, General Hospital. Oh, come on -- like they won't? Never mind that it's great work by an icon who's been away for a while -- did you see what that month-long return did for the ratings?

Supporting Actor: Dan Gauthier, One Life To Live. With no nominee who stands out demographically, and no one from GL, I have no choice but to actually go by the submissions. I know!

Younger Actress: Julie Berman, GH. Because the only thing the voters like more than a second-generation actor who happens to be pretty decent at what she does (hi, last year's winner Jennifer Landon of ATWT) is another generation of Spencer angst.

Younger Actor: Tom Pelphrey, GL. Daytime's not going to miss one last chance to remind him where he started. (But pencil in ATWT's Van Hansis for next year.)

Series/Writing/Directing: Distribute among The Bold and the Beautiful, Guiding Light and General Hospital, roughly, but not necessarily, in that order.

UPDATE: Post-Mortem

Here's how things turned out:

Lead Actress: Maura West, ATWT
Lead Actor: Christian LeBlanc, Y&R
Supporting Actress: Genie Francis, GH
Supporting Actor: Rick Hearst, GH
Younger Actress: Jennifer Landon, ATWT
Younger Actor: Bryton McClure, Y&R
Writing: GL
Directing: ATWT
Show: GL and Y&R (tie)

Nailed one supporting actress, picked out the spoilers on the other two -- this year is proof that Jennifer Landon is going to win every year she's in it (cf. Jennifer Finnigan) -- and looked a little confused at the rest. I'd never begrudge Christian LeBlanc an Emmy; he's a fantastic actor, and all-around good people, and always gives the best speeches. But his reels just weren't up there with Goldin's or fellow Y&R nom Peter Bergman's. Rick Hearst... totally solid actor, fine human being... whatever. Bryton McClure was the big "Who?" of the evening, though it did make more sense than when, say, David Lago won a few years back: McClure gave a nice, under-the-radar performance as a teenager dealing with difficult family stuff and sudden deafness -- so, fine, whatever.

The real story, to me, is in that tie for Best Show. There were two other ties last night, and at least a couple of others in the creative arts awards. You know what this says to me? They couldn't get enough people to be on the judging panels. With small panels, you're going to have ties. You're going to have canceling-out. You're going to be at the mercy of the biases of the judges, and while I really do believe that the voters make every effort to be impartial jurors, at the end of the day this is a pool who knows what they like going in. It's not just the soaps: Ellen DeGeneres won her fourth consecutive Emmy last night, and even she seemed a bit confused as to how she'd beaten the Rosie O'Donnell-fied View. Bob Barker won his 19th award for host, and you can bet that next year, if he submits his final episodes, he'll win his twentieth. Unless and until the academy gets some new blood, panels will keep defaulting to the same winners.

Not that I care, really. I just can't help but notice that the trends -- trends which the newer system of nominations was supposed to break -- continue on. But, hey! It'll make for easy pickings next year.

Time Is Relative (Or Maybe Math Is Hard)

2007-06-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

I'm adding up the numbers, and they keep telling me that I worked almost two weeks last week -- and spent two days shooting a pilot, too.

But, dammit, we got that site launched. A few days before launch, with things not going as planned (as if they ever do, especially when they rely on other people), a few of us took a collective deep breath and launched into a frenzy of site-building not seen since about mid-2000. Take note, all you kids with your dynamic this and on-the-fly that: We don't need you. Yes, we like the tools; yes, we like the part where you don't have to create and save a bunch of static pages. We also know how long it will take to create a static version of a site to hold us until you've held up your end of the bargain, which we will do. In fact, we'll finish early, because when you've been cranking out pages for fifteen hours, what's another two or three more?

And, dammit, we got that show shot. When the show is picked up and we go on the publicity circuit (just smile and nod, folks), we will have amusing anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of independent television production, including how one goes about mounting a production when the building in which one is shooting loses power. We will give shout-outs to the sympathetic crew shooting a couple of doors up, who let us plug into their generator; to our phenomenal crew, who made sure we looked and sounded great despite the less-than-ideal circumstances; and to our audience, who gamely hung in there despite the heat.

I know all that stuff gone done. I have no idea how I squeezed it all in.

No wonder I'm tired. I get a little loopy when I'm tired. I find myself doing odd things like... you know... getting home before midnight. And going to bars and... asking for a Diet Coke.

"That stuff's poison," this guy said to me at the Kitty the other night. (So sue me, I went out on Monday night. I'd meant to take it easy, but I was bored. I stayed for maybe an hour and a half, belted out a couple of karaoke songs, consumed perhaps a bit too much soda, and was home by 12:30. Really, Mom.)

I looked at my cola, communing with a plinth of ice in a highball glass. I looked at the suspiciously amber contents of his tumbler. And I asked him: "And that stuff's not?"

He looked like he was sorry he'd gone through all the trouble of trying to save my life.

Somewhere in all this, there's a lesson about how you can sit around waiting for conditions to be perfect, or you can make whatever it is you want to happen... happen.

I'm just not entirely sure where.

Party Hour Party Time

2007-05-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

We have a couple of events coming up in the Bush Twins Party Hour world. You should be there.

Sunday, June 3: Pole Party Fundraiser

6pm 'til whenever at Jenny's place (call or email for the address)

Karaoke, alcohol, pole dancing... does the Bush Twins Party Hour know how to throw a party or what?!

Suggested donation is $10 in advance via PayPal (address: jennypurple @ yahoo dot com) or cash, or $12 cash at the door.

All proceeds go to....

Sunday, June 10: A super-special invite-only event!

For various tedious reasons, all I can post here right now is that it's going to be in Hollywood, and it's going to be in the late afternoon, and that it has a little something to do with something recently mentioned in this very blog.

Free that afternoon, or just plain curious? Pop your address into the handy-dandy box at www.bushtwinspartyhour.com, and we'll send you the details.

I'd insert the customary "WOOOOO!!" here, but I don't want to scare the cat.

The Inchoate New Day Gig

2007-05-13T15:38:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, I started a new day job-type thingy. I'm the... um... digital content manager? web content specialist? The only word on which everyone can agree is "content". Let's go with "content aggregation maven" for now, and update as things coalesce.

I'm working for Ovation, a cable/satellite arts network which is about to have a much cooler site. It's a two-month contract to start, and we'll see how it goes from there.

Many thanks to everyone who's sent me job leads over the past couple of months... they've been greatly appreciated, and I may be hitting you up again soon. But for now, I'm set.

I think.

Assuming I ever figure out what exactly it is I'm doing.

But, hey -- at least I have a legitimate excuse to use "inchoate".

A Superfluous Note Re: Television Production

2007-05-07T19:22:00.000-07:00

If you're on a production crew, a one-camera location shoot means a long, busy day.

If you're in the cast, it's a long day, period.

I don't mean to kvetch. I'm thrilled that we're shooting this pilot, and we have a phenomenal crew. I learned a ton about framing shots, lighting, sound -- all the crucial stuff we actors tend to take for granted -- just from watching.

I'm also inexplicably tired from two days of sitting around on my ass.

Glamour, schmamour.

But, hell -- there are worse things from which to be tired, and the final project is going to be amazing. If you're going to be in the L.A. area on June 10 and want to find out how to be part of the action, email me or go to bushtwinspartyhour.com and sign up for the update list.

It'll be very.

Review: Hot Fuzz

2007-04-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

It's easy to describe Hot Fuzz as Shaun of the Dead meets any of the Lethal Weapon movies, and if you need to come up with a one-line summary that everyone will get then that's a pretty good one.

If Hot Fuzz is anything meets anything, it's the tv series Keen Eddie as re-imagined by Mel Brooks for the BBC, if Mel Brooks still made good parodies and if the producers could talk Jasper Fforde into punching up the script.

I enjoyed Hot Fuzz, of course: I'm a big fan of everything mentioned above. Yes, it dragged in the middle, but most two-hour movies do. The rest of it was plain ol' fun.

Would it have been better with zombies? Of course: Everything's better with zombies. But Hot Fuzz makes up for the lack of zombies by featuring XTC's "Sgt. Rock (Is Going To Help Me)" over a set of pub scenes near the beginning. This makes it very likely that the number of people who've heard the song over the past couple of months is substantially larger than the number of peopole who heard it in its prior twenty-odd years of existence.

And that, my friends, is the state of the art.

A Note To Recruiters, Re: Los Angeles Geography

2007-04-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

Look, I appreciate your coming across my resume and taking the time to Google me. (It's kind of a creepy notion, but if I saw my improbable resume, I'd probably want to investigate, too. It's all true, though, even the bits at the end.) If you have an employment opportunity for me, I'd certainly like to hear about it.

Just one thing: Please don't tell me that the opportunity is "right near [me]" unless the opportunity in question is in the 310 area code.

The only general exception to the 310 rule is the 323 -- and even then, I hope you're pitching me a phenomenal gig with flexible hours.

I'm not being a wimp or a snob here. I don't mind driving, and I have nothing against the rest of the Los Angeles area. I'm just saying, if you're trying to send me more than a few miles from my home address, I don't care how close the office looks on a map. I've been driving in this town for a long time. I know the traffic patterns. If I have to spend an hour in my car, the job is not "right near [me]," and I'd rather you mention the location at the top of the pitch.

To summarize: 310 = good. 323 = iffy. Anywhere else = ask about telecommuting policy.

Thank you for your interest. No, really. Mean it. Just trying to save us both a lot of phone minutes.

Review: Grindhouse

2007-04-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

(zombies + best prosthetic leg ever) x (cars + wanton destruction + ass-kicking women) x (better previews than the 20 minutes' worth of real previews before the actual movie + classic coming attractions/feature presentation animation sequences) = what's not to love?

Idle Baseball Season Predictions

2007-04-02T13:08:00.000-07:00

A few predictions, to be taken for whatever they're worth:

With conventional wisdom having the Dodgers set to make it well into the playoffs, they will be out of the race by July. I base this on the fact that every year they're predicted to be out of the race by July, they win their division.
With conventional wisdom having the Tigers set to take the AL Central, and possibly the Series, they collapse under the weight of their own expectations. I base this on the fact that the universe threatens to collapse in upon itself if the Tigers win it all.
The Giants will disintegrate as the Barry Gulf opens and widens. "I remember when I was the cool new kid in town," Bonds will sniff, as the young folks all congregate to Zito, who throws in a free guitar lick with every yoga session.

"Dude," one of the bench coaches will point out, "you haven't been the cool new kid in town since Pittsburgh. You've been here forever, and If you were cool, you wouldn't be demanding so much money that the team can't afford to keep a good hitter in the lineup behind you so that you don't get intentionally walked 120 times a season. And you'd be talking about the whole BALCO thing. And you'd actually look happy to be playing in your 40s...."

Bonds looks around. "Someone say something?"

Bonds, by the way, will break Hank Aaron's home run record in late July, and no one will care.
Barry Zito and returned Diamondback Randy Johnson duke it out for the Cy Young award, but it ultimately goes to a nonroster invitee from the NL Central. Zito shrugs, picks up his guitar and heads home for the off-season. Randy Johnson gets stuck in a door.
Disaster strikes the Texas Rangers halfway through the season, as all of Scott Boras' clients realize what they've done and how long they've committed to do it for. By the All-Star break, the only new acquisition not on the DL is Eric Gagne, and that's only because he came off the DL a mere week before. He will pitch in a total of 10 games before he wrenches his back when he picks up a resin bag.
Yankee Stadium collapses in May. Chase Field (or the BOB, or whatever they're calling the Diamondbacks' park this season) melts in August.
In September, Corey Hart of the Milwaukee Brewers hears one too many "I wear my sunglasses at night" jokes and demolishes a Ray-Ban outlet.
The Red Sox and the Yankees engage in a one-game division playoff that lasts until November.

An Automotive Discovery

2007-03-21T20:11:00.000-07:00

It is entirely possible that the left headlight of the 2003 Toyota Corolla is the hardest-to-reach part of any car in automotive history.

Magic 8-Ball Oscar Picks '07

2007-02-23T17:26:00.000-08:00

It's Oscar time. Those of us in the greater Los Angeles area can tell this because Hollywood Boulevard has been blocked off for the better part of a week. The rest of you may just have to take my word for it. This year, the buzz that would normally alert you to the event has been replaced by critics and pundits droning on about how unimpressed they are with the nominees.

The Magic 8-Ball does not care. The Magic 8-Ball simply predicts.

The Magic 8-Ball, as always, has had each and every nominee presented to it. The most positive response in each category is recorded below.

Caveat: The Magic 8-Ball has not actually seen any of the nominated films or associated performances. Then again, from all accounts, neither have many of the voters, so willfully random picks might not actually be a bad way to go. So, base pool picks on this list at your own risk. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it -- but if you do, and it works out for you, remember who hooked you up. (Right. Me. Hi.)

BEST PICTURE: Babel

ACTRESS: Helen Mirren in The Queen

ACTOR: Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Alan Arkin in Little Miss Sunshine

DIRECTOR: Clint Eastwood for Letters From Iwo Jima

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Babel

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: After the Wedding (Efter brylluppet)

ANIMATED FILM: Happy Feet

ART DIRECTION: Pan's Labyrinth

CINEMATOGRAPHY: Pan's Labyrinth

COSTUME DESIGN: The Queen

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: Deliver Us from Evil

DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT: Recycled Life

FILM EDITING: Children of Men

MAKEUP: Click

ORIGINAL SCORE: Babel

ORIGINAL SONG: "I Need to Wake Up" from An Inconvenient Truth

ANIMATED SHORT FILM: The Little Matchgirl

LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)

SOUND EDITING: Letters From Iwo Jima

SOUND MIXING: Dreamgirls

VISUAL EFFECTS: Superman Returns

Valentine's Day In Context

2007-02-14T23:03:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day used to bother me.

Now I just don't care.

Is it progress, or the cold medicine?

(In either case, I'll take the candy.)

Pan's Labyrinth: A Review, With Digressions

2007-01-13T18:50:00.000-08:00

Pan's Labyrinth was exactly what I thought it would be, and that is not a bad thing.

As I'm sure you've heard, Pan's Labyrinth concerns a girl having an entirely logical reaction to her surroundings. When things suck, you cope. When you're about ten, and you're living in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, and your stepfather's a monster worse than anything you've read about, you cope by escaping into fantasy. Hell, I'm a nominal grown-up, and I do it, too. Right now, I am fantasizing that I have a clue what I'm going to be doing a day from now. Fantasy is fun!

I think a lot of people there that day thought that they were going to be seeing a straightforward horror film, and, really, given the ad campaign, I can see where they might get that impression. Thing was, no one seemed disappointed that they were seeing something entirely different than what they expected. I didn't even hear any of the teenage boys kvetching about the subtitles. It's a Guillermo del Toro film. It's beautiful, and it's horrible, and it's horribly beautiful and you can't look away.

Pan's Labyrinth gets right everything that Terry Gilliam's Tideland got wrong. Don't worry if you didn't see the latter. I've tried to forget it. And if I did that with a Terry Gilliam movie -- Terry Gilliam, who's had a hand in so many of my all-time favorites -- you know it can't be good. Freakin' Terry Gilliam. Freakin' Tideland.

...Oh, right. Pan's Labyrinth. We see from the outset that Ofelia likes her fairy tales, and that their reality is much more pleasant than the one everyone else is stuck with. When that first sprite comes along and leads her to a faun who offers her a way out, Ofelia accepts with little fanfare. Ofelia's fantastic reality unfolds itself in a completely understandable fashion, which sure beats the hell out of living under a Fascist captain in 1944.

You know this movie isn't going to end well for the protagonist. The girl is named Ofelia, for heaven's sake. Things never end well for Ophelias. Anyway, they pretty much give it away in the opening shot. But that's not the point. The point -- the point I'm trying to make, anyway -- is that sometimes we choose how we see things. The fact that our perception is absolutely logical doesn't necessarily mean it's accurate. But that doesn't mean it's not valid in its own way. The trick is to know when you're fooling yourself, and to decide whether it matters. (See also: The collected works of Edward Eager, especially Magic or Not? and The Well-Wishers.)

Plus, fauns? Fauns rock.

Media Junk 2006, Part Two: Books and Some Web Stuff

2007-01-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

(Please see disclaimer at the top of Part One. I know you don't really care, but humor me.)

BOOKS

Chances are . . . : Adventures in Probability by Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan

I love numbers. You know this about me. I can take or leave math, but I love numbers. That's why I love baseball, and that's why I was so charmed by this book. And I was especially charmed when, in the middle, the authors pull back a little and tell us:

"The problem with life is that we have to live it from the begining, but it makes sense only when seen from the end. As a result, our whole experience is one of coming to provisional conclusions based on insufficient evidence: reading the signs, gauging the odds. . . . We see faces in clouds, hear sermons in stones, find hidden messages in ancient texts. A belief that things reveal meaning through pattern is the gift we brought with us out of Eden."

And that's why I loved this book.

The Pop-Up Book of Celebrity Meltdowns by Melcher Media
I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence by Amy Sedaris
Journal: The Short Life and Mysterious Death of Amy Zoe Mason by Joyce Atkinson & Kristine Atkinson
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore
Found II : More of the Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World by Davy Rothbart

These were very nice-looking books. That's not a backhanded compliment; they also happen to be good reads.

The Dead Beat by Marilyn Johnson
Final Exits: The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of How We Die by Michael Largo

I’m not obsessed with death. I just... happened to read a couple of books...

The Devil Is A Gentleman: Exploring America's Religious Fringe by J.C. Hallman
Who Are You People?: A Personal Journey into the Heart of Fanatical Passion in America by Shari Caudron
American Bee by James Maguire
You Can Get Arrested for That: 2 Guys, 25 Dumb Laws, 1 Absurd American Crime Spree by Rich Smith
A Good War Is Hard to Find: The Art of Violence in America by David Griffith
Teen Dreams: Reading Teen Film and Television from 'Heathers' to 'Veronica Mars' by Roz Kaveney

"America is hard to see" - Robert Frost

We can't see it all at once, so we examine it from different angles. I doubt that any of these writers were trying to make any sort of great statement about "America" -- for that, you'll want to read Bernard-Henri Levy's American Vertigo. (Or maybe you don't want to read it. Up to you, really.) What we have here is a nice little trip through American obsessions and compulsions, from within and without.

Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast
Hell In A Handbasket by Tom Tomorrow

And then there are those who see America, and hope we'll listen. Judging from the midterm elections, 2006 was the year when a lot more people started.

World War Z by Max Brooks

Studs Turkel does George Romero. Yeah, there's all sorts of implied social commentary, but really? It's all about the zombies. ZOMBIES!!

I Know You're Out There: Private Longings, Public Humiliations, and Other Tales from the Personals by Michael Beaumier
How to Stay Bitter Through the Happiest Times of Your Life by Anita Liberty

I'm not bitter, so much as... bitten. Sometimes it's nice to know I'm not alone. And, who knows? Things could change. Stranger things have happened. There might even be a book in it.

Bitter Is The New Black by Jen Lancaster

Speaking of there being a book in bitterness... The bitterness here comes from the frustration of trying to find a job when you're overqualified for everything for which you're not underqualified, but I've adopted the title anyway.

The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

I love Jasper Fforde. I fear the Ginga.

Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst

This one didn't make much of an impression on me at first, but it comes back to me whenever I watch The Amazing Race or read about "ex-gay" crusaders. While not quite as profound as it thinks, it's still a good read.

From the Young Adult shelf:

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter
Never Mind the Goldbergs by Matthue Roth
How It's Done by Christine Kole MacLean

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You had me at the title. It was that kind of week. Admittedly, I was hoping for something about a snarky woman in her thirties who's contemplating making one last mistake before giving up on men forever (have I mentioned that it was that kind of week?), but what I got was a downright delightful reworking of those mid-eighties series set at girls' boarding schools in New England. It's like The Girls of Canby Hall or Hearts and Diamonds meets Alias, with Pop-Tarts. First in a promised series.

I stumbled on never Mind The Goldbergs while I was looking for something else, and it turned out to be one of my favorite novels of the year. It's your basic fish-out-of-water story; in this case, the "fish" is a punk teenage girl who's also an Orthodox Jew, the water is New York, and the dry land is Hollywood. Could've been awful; turned out to be insightful, grounded, slyly educational and often funny.

Even with all the reading I do, it's rare for me to identify with a character quite as much as I did with How It's Done's Grace. Reviews tend to highlight how Grace was brought up in a small town with overbearing parents; now that the opportunity has presented itself (himself), it's time to break some rules and face the consequences. And, yes, that's the basic plot, and if you can leave it at that then you're far more secure than some of us. Grace is attracted to Michael because he's attracted to her -- not her sexy, brash best friend, not those cliquey cheerleaders that sneer at her for having hips, but her. Michael may be the first non-related guy in her life that's treated her like an adult, and so what if he's a little older? So what if she has people like me delicately trying to warn her that he seems awfully concerned with keeping up appearances? Because here's the truth of Grace: If people keep telling you how smart you are, but only mention that you're kind of pretty when they're trying to help you feel better aboutg yourself, the first non-related, grown-up guy who tells you you're hot is going to be mighty attractive. And so will the next one. And the next. All you can do is try to go into it with your eyes open a little wider each time, and brace yourself for the consequences.

SOME WEB STUFF

Passions on nbc.com
One of the most consistently entertaining shows on television, now legally available on your desktop.

Slate.com
Daily stop for good reads.

bushtwinspartyhour.com
What, like I'm going to miss a chance to push the Bush Twins Party Hour? Please.

Defamer
If you live in L.A. or work in entertainment, you're probably reading this already. If you don't fit either of those descriptions, check it out and laugh at us. It's okay. We don't mind. We know it's silly. We just don't care.

And finally, the Channel101 roundup.

You're not wasting time. You're checking out new talent before everyone else jumps on the bandwagon. ("Chad Vader," anyone?) A quick list of some stuff I especially liked in '06:

Your Magic Touched Me/Your Magic Touched Me Nights
Classroom (especially Episode 6, in which we learn about the hidden dangers of Glamour Shots)
McCourt's In Session
Fire Guys
Stripey (I was underwhelmed until the last 30 seconds of Episode 1. Then I thought the whole episode was freakin' brilliant. The second... eh.)
What's In Your Fridge? (Episode 1 was great. Episode 2 was... episode 1, which is probably why it only lasted the 2.)
Fun Rangers (See "What's In Your Fridge?" note)
And, of course, Yacht Rock.

And some shows that didn't make it past their pilots, because no matter how brilliant everything is, only five shows can return each month:
Axl Rose's Paradise City Apartment
Bone Boys
The Ghostevator
Hi-Jacked
Kill Patrick Sullivan
Pool Master

A lot of other people seemed to like Phone Sexxers, Quest, Raptor and Dohar: Lord of Beasts. Who knows? You might, too.

Next screening is scheduled for Sunday, January 28 at CineSpace. If you're in the L.A. area, you should be there.

Now go outside and play.

Media Junk 2006, Part One: Movies and TV

2006-12-31T21:06:00.000-08:00

I'm stating this right off the top: This isn't a "best of" entry. For all the time I've spent watching and reading stuff this year, I know I've hit only the slightest fraction of what's out there. This is a vaguely-grouped recitation of movies, shows and books that provoked some sort of reaction from me, and/or weren't so much of a waste of time that I mind revisiting them. Conversely, movies, shows and books which represent time I'll never get back aren't here, because, really, why bother? (Non-inclusion does not indicate a complete waste of time, however. Just means that they didn't stick with me as much as the others.)

Also not here: A slew of movies, shows and books that a lot of the year-end lists are extolling or slamming, but which I haven't forced myself to get around to quite yet. Sometimes it's a question of not having had the time, but at least as often, the reasons have nothing to do with my perceptions of their quality. I know that a lot of people liked Rocky Balboa, but Sylvester Stallone bugs the crap out of me. I'm not touching that one until I can consume it in small, widely-spaced chunks. I haven't read The Emperor's Children because, frankly, I've had my fill of characters in their late 20s-early 30s, Ivy league graduates who who are rarely employed but rarely short on cash, slouching through New York City at a very important time in our recent history, waiting for something to happen but not quite prepared to have the outside world intrude on their faux-slummy apartments. I think the real story is that we're far enough beyond 9/11 that we're ready to start folding it into the navelgazing genres.

So, having disclaimed, here's some stuff I watched that stuck in my mind. Books will be in Part Two, which I'm hoping to get up in a day or two.

MOVIES

Borat
See previous entry Borat: Cultural Learnings Of The San Fernando Valley.

Casino Royale
Yeah, you know: return to classic Bond, reboot, new take, blah blah blah. This pretty much came down to Daniel Craig advertising a video game, and I've got no problem with that. Especially when he's in Speedos. Ahem.

Idiocracy
See previous entry Review: Idiocracy. The DVD comes out in a couple of weeks, by the way. Guess what you're all getting for your birthdays this year!

Let's Go To Prison
I think your reaction to this movie was going to depend on your particular affection for movie cliches, your tolerance for slightly forced social criticism and the amount of time you've spent at Upright Citizens Brigade theaters. Me, I love cliches, am willing to give screenwriters a little leeway if they're trying to prove a point that serves the plot and have spent an awful lot of time at UCB since they opened the Hollywood theater, so this was right up my alley. It wasn't great, but for what it was, I thought it was decent.

Snakes on a Plane
See previous entry Review: Snakes on a Plane.

Marie Antoinette
The Departed
I'm grouping these two because I think a given viewer's reaction to them is colored by their opinion of the director in question.

Granted, Sofia Copolla doesn't have much of an -- oh, help me, I'm getting pretentious here -- oeuvre, but Marie Antoinette fits right in there. It's historical biography as Impressionism. We all know how the story ends. Marie Antoinette is about one aspect of how it got there. Plus, it's a very pretty movie. Ooh, shiny things!

The Departed is, of course, A Martin Scorcese Film. Like so many Martin Scorcese Films, it's a gritty portrayal of men in tightly-choreographed circumstances, inviting us to try to sort out the morality involved when it's clear that every character has his own particular take on the matter. And I do mean "his": Martin Scorcese Films have this tendency to be devoid of women who aren't flat-out plot devices. (This doesn't mean that they're necessarily bad parts; fleshing out those roles certainly worked out for Jodie Foster and Cate Blanchett. They just seem to have to work much harder than -- and be seriously outnumbered by -- the dudes.)

I appreciate Martin Scorcese and his Martin Scorcese Films, but I don't always like them. My principal reaction to The Departed was, "I think I'm missing a point here".

Night of the Living Dead
I know, I know: We're a few decades past the original release. This year, I got to see it on the big screen at the Nuart. If you get a chance, you should see it that way, too.

Wordplay
It's so nice to be reminded that there are people as compulsive as I am.

TV

30 Rock; Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
30 Rock is a Tina Fey-and-company show. Studio 60 is an Aaron Sorkin show. Tina Fey and company write comedy. Aaron Sorkin writes occasionally-funny dramas about work. Not everyone likes both genres. I do.

Or maybe I'm just hoping that sketch comedy will get enough industry cred that it will become a viable career path.

Heroes; The Office; Scrubs; Veronica Mars
You know that cliche about some things being more than the sum of their parts? Here are a few illustrations. The parts are good on their own. The results are even better.

Doctor Who
I went into full-on geeky glee when I heard that the BBC was producing a new version of Doctor Who. And then I blinked in amazement as it turned out to be.... well, good. It's still got the cheese factor, but there's this completely different undertone to it now, like the kids who wrote increasingly-complex Doctor Who fan fiction grew up to make television shows and run networks.

That's my theory, anyway. I don't think it matters whether it's accurate. This is just pure, solid, well-done television. If you didn't get a little choked up during the last few scenes of the season-ending "Doomsday," then you live a truly charmed life.

A Very Special Holiday Message For The Drivers Of West Los Angeles

2006-12-21T12:50:00.000-08:00

Leaning on your horn will not make the person in front of you move any faster.

This is especially true if they are holding off on their turn until those pesky pedestrians finish crossing the street.

This is even more especially true if the person in front of you has stopped at the instruction of a traffic cop, who is in the middle of the intersection in order to mirror what the traffic lights are indicating. That's all they're doing, you know. They're not saying, "Hey, there's [your name here]! We don't like [your name here]! Let's screw with her/him!" and randomly stopping traffic with the sole aim of annoying you. They're there because you can't be trusted to refrain from entering an intersection after the light turns red. (No fair claiming that you had already started your turn. You hadn't, and you know it.) By the way, they're only supposed to be there through the holidays, but if you keep acting like you own the freakin' roads, I don't think those nannies will be going anywhere in January.

And it's even more especially true when traffic around you has stopped and/or parted in order to make way for an ambulance... which you didn't hear, because you were focused on asking the person on the other end of your cell phone call to speak up, because you couldn't hear them over your horn. Not sure what an ambulance is? Keep driving like you're driving. You'll find out soon enough.

And it's even more super-duper especially true when I have a headache.

Whatever you're racing towards will still be there, even if your turn is delayed by twenty seconds. Really. I promise.

This concludes my very special holiday message to the drivers of West Los Angeles. Thank you for your attention. Don't make me come down there. You really don't want me coming down there, not with this headache. Trust me.

Peace and other concepts with which you are apparently unfamliar,
CrankyRose

The Hollywood Christmas Parade Jumps the Shark

2006-12-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Hollywood parade is a bit out of step --Los Angeles Times headline

It's been two weeks, and I still can't think of anything clever to say about the Hollywood Christmas Parade.

I'm used to the parade sucking. I'm used to loving that the parade sucks, because it's usually such a gleeful sucking: "We know we're not the Rose Parade -- hell, we're not even the Doo-Dah Parade -- but we're still going to get out there and shimmy our little butts off, even if the temperature dips below 60. Because we're the Hollywood Christmas Parade, dammit!" This year... not so much.

Some years, it seems that the parade is phoned in. This year, it was a drunken text message sent at one-thirty in the morning, reassembling itself the next morning as "Inky wood christmas spade". Which is actually pretty comprehensible for a one-thirty a.m. text message. Or, uh, so I hear.

I had a feeling we were in trouble when I discovered the Hollywood Christmas Parade Myspace page. Yes, the 75-year-old parade has a Myspace page, written in the first person but apparently designed and maintained by a fourteen-year-old intern. But, hey, I figured; they're trying to reach out to the kids.

Then they announced that there would be two grand marshals: George Lopez would be the main guy, and Regis Philbin would be the "Diamond Anniversary Honorary Grand Marshal". Well, that's a little odd, I thought. Either they were trying to ramp up the star power (relatively speaking), or they had two separate groups working on grand marshals. Still, give 'em credit for trying, right?

The real downhill tumble started with the parade's opening performance. Most years, that slot is filled by a scaled-down production number from whatever touring musical is in town. This year, The Lion King is back in town. I wouldn't be surprised if one of the conditions of their return was that they wouldn't be required to go through the performance agony again. So this year, instead of a bunch of costumed dancers trying to lip-sync and not bump into each other at the same time, we got Brooke Hogan trying to lip-sync and take her choreography cues from a bunch of costumed back-up dancers, all while trying not to bump into one Paul Wall, a "rapper" who looked and sounded like the improbable offspring of Kevin Federline and that guy you knew in high school who you thought was kind of cute until he opened his mouth. Though that guy probably didn't have a full set of grills.

Then a bunch of resigned-looking B- to C-list actors and overly excited politicians started coming at us, interspersed with equestrian groups, tartan-clad high school marching bands and floats meant to look like what you might find under the giant Christmas tree at Tinsel Emporium. The only person whose smile seemed genuine was Nicolette Sheridan, there to mock -- uh, I mean support -- Michael Bolton. The delegates from High School Musical and Dancing with the Stars -- you know, the smile-no-matter-what brigade -- were obviously sick of being asked why they weren't dancing. Even L.A. Mayor AntonioVillaraigosa, the man who usually projects sincere enthusiasm, seemed to be forcing it.

In the end, the most interesting part was watching the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the LAPD argue over the number of spectators lining the sidewalks. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce apparently realized that no one was going to buy theirpre-parade estimate of 500,000. The LAPD's initial estimate was 15,000. After some haggling, they settled on... uh, a couple-few hundred thousand, maybe?

Still want some HCP snark? Here are some pictures. Have at 'em. Me, I'm going to seek out properly sucky holiday stuff for our mutual amusement. If you have any suggestions, please do drop me a line. I think my schlock radar is still recovering from parade overload.

Reuters via Yahoo!
L.A. Times (search results page - scroll to the bottom for photos)
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
WENN
LFI (In the true spirit of the parade, Eric Braeden is identified as "Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan")

Borat: Cultural Learnings Of The San Fernando Valley

2006-11-13T21:17:00.000-08:00

Warning: This post contains spoilers. They're probably nothing you haven't already read or heard, but if you're super-sensitive... well, if you're super-sensitive, you probably won't be seeing this movie. But anyway: Spoilers.

This weekend, I caught a late-afternoon showing of Borat in Northridge. At one point, several people walked out.

This did not happen when Borat said anything racist, sexist, antisemitic, or anything-phobic. Of course not: Everyone knew that was coming. That's kind of the point of Borat -- that he's putting it out there to see how people react. For all his commitment to the character of Borat, we know Sacha Baron Cohen doesn't actually believe what Borat says. We're all too self-congratulatingly smart for that.

No, the thing that prompted people to walk out? Naked men wrestling.

If they'd hung around for another couple of minutes, I might have understood their disgust. I might not have shared it, but I could have seen where some people might be offended by the latter part of the scene. But, no: fellow audience members people walked out after about twenty seconds of good, clean, can't-even-see-any-naughty-bits naked wrestling between two none-too-attractive guys. They didn't even stick around for the really homoerotic parts. The fact that there were a couple of naked guys, like, touching each other was enough to send them running.

I guess it's one thing to laugh at other people's prejudices, but it's entirely another to come face-to-butt with your own.

Election Predictions: Some Scenarios

2006-11-06T21:09:00.000-08:00

With the current run of Bush Twins Party Hour shows over -- and, by the way, thanks to everyone who turned out for them -- it's time to get back to the real business at hand: Half-assed predictions. And just in time for the midterm elections, too! What are the odds?
So: Some possible outcomes.

Scenario 1:

Both houses of Congress end up in virtual ties. Since an even Senate split goes to the party of the Vice President, Republicans remain in control. The Democratic party focuses its efforts on wooing Joe Lieberman back to the fold so they can retake the majority. The Republican party tries to woo back Jim Jeffords, but he glares at the advance team and slowly reaches for a large red button on his desk. The advance team backs away, frantically trying to think how they're going to explain this failure to Dick Cheney.

The House retains a one-seat Republican majority and decides that this is a sweeping mandate to do whatever the hell they want.

The usual Republican voters who found themselves voting for Democrats look at the results, then dimly remember something about how easy it is to screw with the results of the most popular voting machines. The voters demand an inquiry, and the Republican-controlled Congress complies for exactly as long as it takes the electorate to forget about it.

Nothing changes. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld continue to be the only three people in the world who truly think that things are going well in Iraq. They also continue to be the only three people in the world who think that Don Rumsfeld should still have his job.

After about six months, a bipartisan group led by John Murtha and representing two-thirds of the House of Representatives politely informs the President that if he doesn't turn over the Iraq campaign to people who actually know what they're doing, he's facing impeachment. (Most of this group will support a call for Bush to shut up about tax cuts -- but, you know, one thing at a time.)

Bush stays the course until the last possible moment. The night before he's facing impeachment, Don Rumsfeld steps down to become a "private security consultant" -- to the federal government, natch. Dick Cheney covertly assumes oversight of Iraq and Afghanistan.

All hell breaks loose. Again. Only more so than you ever thought possible.

And would you look at that? It's Presidential election time again! So long, suckers!

Scenario 2:

Absolutely nothing fishy happens on Election Night. Senate is evenly split. House goes Democratic by about five seats.

Fearing impeachment, Bush privately threatens to fire Rumsfeld if he doesn't let the people who actually know what's going have some say. Flush with confidence, Bush starts to say the same thing to Dick Cheney, but Cheney's eyes glow a strange shade of green.

Scenario 3:

Senate power is evenly split. (Sensing a trend here?)

About 20 key House seats are in legal limbo, due to irregularities so blatant that full investigations can't be avoided.

These investigations will take about six months apiece... which is kind of a problem, given that the next Congress has to convene in two months. And the number of disputed seats is just large enough that no party can realistically claim a majority, though this won't stop anyone from trying.

After seven weeks of jockeying for position, party leaders sigh heavily and agree to divide committee chairs evenly. The question of who, exactly, the Speaker of the House is, is pointedly not addressed. Come State of the Union time, the President speaks against a neutral backdrop, with Dick Cheney sulking just off-camera.

Nothing changes.

Eventually, the courts start to rule on the House seats. At this point, no one but political theory wonks and talk show hosts care, because, hey, it's Superbowl time! Or American Idol time, or tv season finale time.

Pretty much the usual, then.

Scenario 4:

Just as the crucial results start to come in, the power behind the curtain finally reveals itself.

It's not the military-industrial complex.

It's not Big Oil.

It's not the liberal media. It's not the vast right-wing conspiracy. It's not Xenu.

It's a fluffy little kitten.

Or so it wants you to think.

Because it's always the innocent-looking ones you've got to watch out for.

Ahem.

Enjoy the show!

Bush Twins Party Hour Election Extravaganza Details

2006-10-16T19:43:00.000-07:00

The Bush Twins Party Hour Presents
WFCT: State Of The Union: A Benefit

Sunday, October 22 @ 6:30 pm
Sunday, November 5 @ 7:30 pm
$12 admission includes whatever drinks you can score off Hot Bartender
Special election drink theme: Red, White and Beer!
(That's red wine, white wine and Pabst Blue Ribbon, yo.)

Westside Eclectic
1323-A 3rd St. Promenade
(In the alley between 3rd and 4th, just south of Arizona)
Santa Monica, CA

Comedy! Prizes! Videos! Raffles for stuff you can actually use! We're pretty sure it's the most fun you'll have supporting independent media this election season. Proceeds from these shows go to our buddies at WFCT, producers of fine satirical comedy who are looking to make the jump from Internet to TV. They do great work, and we'd support them even if they didn't want to do a Bush Twins Party Hour tv pilot. Seriously.

The Bush Twins Party Hour is, as usual, hosted by Jenna (Jenny Purple) and Barbara (Rose Auerbach). Guests scheduled to appear on October 22:

- If he tells you to duck, you'd better listen... Vice President Dick Cheney (Brad Haight)!
- We wouldn't be here without him... our dad! That's President George W. Bush (Chris Raiskup) to the rest of you.
- Our new Secret Service Dude (Derek Maki)!
- "The Kid" (Tirosh Shneider)
- And, of course.... Hot Bartender (Joseph Canarkov).

All of the October 22 guests are scheduled to join us for the Extended Election Extravaganza on November 5, along with:

- We REALLY wouldn't be here without her... our mom, Laura Bush (Mary House)!
- Don't ask us to spell his last name... Governor Arnold (Miko Hughes)!

Raffle items include such goodies as editing time, camera rental, a demo reel and theater tickets. (See? We told you it was stuff you could actually use.)

Any questions? Check out www.bushtwinspartyhour.com, or email me. You crazy, hip kids can befriend us and read the Party Blog at www.myspace.com/bushtwinspartyhour.

Bush Twins Party Hour Election Extravaganzas - 10/22 & 11/5

2006-10-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

The Bush Twins Party Hour Presents
WFCT: State Of The Union: A Benefit

Sunday, October 22 @ 6:30pm
Sunday, November 5 @ 7:30pm

Westside Eclectic
1323-A 3rd St. Promenade
(In the alley between 3rd and 4th, just south of Arizona)
Santa Monica, CA

Raffles! Games! Souveniers! Booze! Get the Bush Twins' unique take on the November elections, watch some very funny WFCT clips and help us raise money for the independent production company that wants to produce the Party Hour tv pilot. (But we'd still help 'em out even if there wasn't something in it for us.)

Check the Bush Twins Party Hour site or Myspace page for guest lists and such.

Plan o' Birthday Attack

2006-10-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

Friday night, 10/6, sometime between 11 and midnight: Liquid Kitty.

Saturday night, 10/7, 8:30: Brass Monkey.

Because few things say "hey, Rose survived another year!" like establishments that follow the adjective-animal naming convention.

Review: Idiocracy

2006-09-05T00:19:00.000-07:00

Title: Idiocracy

Stars: Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard

Writer and director: Mike Judge

Quick, referential description: Sharp as Office Space, lowbrow as Beavis and Butthead. Humor for all!

Filmed: Two years ago

In theaters: Now. Honest.

Total amount spent on advertising by Fox (trailers, commercials, print ads, etc.): Approximately zero dollars.

How I found out it had been released: From a guy introducing a movie at the Nuart, who couldn't quite believe he was plugging a movie that wasn't even showing at a Landmark theater.

Pre-release reviews: Are you kidding? If they'd screened it ahead of time, then some careless critic might have given away the movie's existence. And heaven help them if they actually like it.

General post-release review: It's pretty good. It's certainly better than [The Sentinel/Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties/John Tucker Must Die/Just My Luck/Date Movie]. If you have any appreciation for satire then you'll probably enjoy it.

Possible reason for Fox's lack of action number one: The film targets corporations and America's lowest common cultural denominator, suggesting that if things stay on their current trajectory then we might be in trouble in 500 years.

Possible reason for Fox's lack of action number two: Fox's movie marketing division is just plain incompetent.

Rule of thumb: Even if there's some level of corporate intrigue involved, one shouldn't be so quick to attribute to conspiracy what can more easily be explained by mere incompetence.

What I'm sayin': An absolute must-see. You should go see it while you still can, provided you live in one of the seven markets in which it's playing. In fact, you should buy your tickets right now. Go on. Right now. (Just don't be surprised if you don't find the movie listed on moviefone.com. It comes up on Fandango, Yahoo! Movies, and the various theater sites, though.) If you don't live in one of those markets, it should be coming out on DVD... someday... maybe...

What I'd probably be sayin' if Fox weren't apparently trying to bury it: It's fun. Not the greatest, most pointed movie ever made, but still well worth the price of admission. If you're reading my blog, then you'll probably like the movie, too.

Note: If the word of mouth (mouth, internet, whatever) this is getting translates to the movie actually making a little money, someone from Fox will try to take credit from it. Don't believe them.

Show business: Still weird.

Overheard/Inferred

2006-09-01T18:49:00.000-07:00

Scene from a Starbucks:

There is a really bad first date ending at the next table.

"It was nice meeting you," she said a minute ago. "But..."

"Sometimes people just aren't compatible," he said with authority.

"I'm sorry I'm so tired. I'm totally crashing."

"It's that apple cider," he said, not joking. "The sugar will make you crash." And he went on about that for a good ten minutes before she could extricate herself.

She will call a friend on her way home. "He seemed okay at first," she will say, "but he wouldn't stop talking! And when I could get a word in edgewise, he had to pass judgment on it."

"I don't understand why she didn't call me," he will say to a friend in a couple of days. "We talked and talked, and I tried to show that I was interested in what she said.

"He was definitely older and fatter than his profile," she will say.

"She was hot! I didn't just come out and say that though. I said I liked that she was girly," he will say. "That's okay, right?"

"I never knew one cup of coffee could take so long," she will say.

"Maybe I shouldn't have told her how I get so crazy when I drink, but that I do like the taste of beer," he will say.

"So finally I got to talk, and he kept going 'uh-huh, uh-huh,' but the whole time he was just looking for a way to get back to talking about himself," she will say.

"Maybe she just got busy," he will say. "She said she goes out with her friends a lot. Like, all the time."

"Screw JDate," she will say to her friend. "Let's go get a drink." And they will. And she will have a fabulous time.

"I don't know why these dates never work out," he will say. "Guess it's time to tweak my profile again. Think I should say I'm a few years younger? Why are you laughing?"

Review: Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Snakes. On a plane.

Snakes on a plane!

MOTHER-EFFING SNAKES on a MOTHER-EFFING PLANE!!

This may be the best bad movie ever. Ever!

Snakes on a Plane is exactly what it says. Snakes... on a plane. Starring Samuel L. Jackson as, well, Samuel L. Jackson. You know exactly what's coming every single moment, and you still jump, because: Snakes! On a plane!

You can't rate this movie on a conventional scale. It's pure, cheesy mindless fun, and you can't describe that with stars or thumbs. You got an issue with knowing what's going to happen when you're watching a movie? Go see The Illusionist or something. You'll have plenty of room to spread out. The rest of us who'd normally be all over that sort of movie? We're in the next theater over, giggling and screaming and applauding every single snake we see, because sometimes it's fun. If you can't hear anything because of the noise, it's because Samuel L. Jackson has just declared, "Enough is ENOUGH," and we all know the line that's coming next.

Because it's MOTHER-EFFING SNAKES on a MOTHER-EFFING PLANE.

And I'm so going again.

WHEEEEEE!!!

Dodger Game Photos

2006-08-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

As I was getting ready to head to Dodger Stadium one day last week, it occured to me that I'd never taken a camera to a baseball game.

The situation has been remedied, and the evidence is online in two flavors:

Pretty presentation on "It's A Talking Sport", home of much baseball goodness
Bare-bones presentation on sometimeyesterday dot net

Dreamtime

2006-08-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

Last night, I had a dream.

It was not about love, or flying, or any other wish-fulfillment.

It was not a nightmare born of my fears and insecurities.

No, last night -- for no apparent reason -- I dreamt that I was hanging out in a sunlit nook with one of my college professors. We were talking about economic reporting along race, class and gender lines. I was putting forth the half-formed opinion that, based on the way the axes tend to intersect, it could be argued a middle- to upper-class woman would have more insight than a middle- to upper-class man when reporting on working-class issues. We discussed it for a good little while.

I woke up thinking that I should have brought up Barbara Ehrenreich as a test case.

My brain is a very strange place.

(Like this is news.)

Think Of The Children

2006-07-23T22:35:00.000-07:00

Back in the days of the second Clinton administration, our self-appointed moral guardians' refrain was, "What do we tell the children?"

The President was having an affair. "What do we tell the children?"

The President was engaging in adult activities. "What do we tell the children?"

The President was lying under oath. Oh, sure, he fessed up when he had to, and made his apologies exactly like one should do -- but, still: "What do we tell the children?"

It was, of course, not acceptable to suggest that the parents not allow their children to watch the evening news. From the sounds of it, the news was mandatory viewing, to be followed by a long discussion of everything covered in the broadcast.

Fast-forward to the second George W. Bush administration. Over the past couple of weeks, the President has:

Imbibed on German television -- which wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't make such a big deal about having given up drinking all on his own, and if he hadn't in fact shown every indication of showing up for work drunk for days.
Sworn live on the very public networks he's so intent on sanitizing. Whether NPR will get dinged by the FCC is still up in the air.
Given an unsolicited shoulder rub to German leader Angela Merkel, who seemed appropriately exasperated.
In one particularly bizarre lunch meeting, displayed stoned-type wonderment at the size of the world, pigeonholed Tony "Yo, Blair" Blair into a discussion of sweaters and Condi, and -- cover the children's ears -- spoke with his mouth full. (Here's an article with links to various transcripts.)

Yes, in the case of that last one, it could be argued that the President didn't realize that the microphone was hot, that he thought he was speaking off the record. Sorry, self-appointed moral guardians: Clinton thought he was acting privately, too.

So, I'm wondering: What are our self-appointed moral guardians telling the children about the President's recent behavior? And are they finding ways to blame it on a Clinton?

In re: Kenneth Lay, Or: Finally, a chance to use se non e vero, e ben trovato

2006-07-09T20:21:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to believe that Kenneth Lay is dead until I see the body and some DNA confirmation.

A guy with that much money, facing serious prison time and apparently sociopathically lacking in any sense of responsibility, would have the means and motivation to fake his death. It would have been much easier to disappear from Aspen, CO than Houston, TX, where he would have been watched more closely.

I know that I'm not the only person who doubts that he's shuffled off this mortal coil. I'm just kind of suprised to find myself thinking of it that way.

I'm a big fan of Occam's razor, because in most situations a simple explanation is just a whole lot more plausible than an elaborate conspiracy theory. Still, Occam's razor allows for the possibility that a more convoluted explanation is the correct one, because sometimes the world is just that weird.

Maybe Kenny Boy really did just drop dead of a massive heart attack. But given the people and circumstances involved, I think it's at least as likely that he's already started a new life as a beach bum in Rio. We'll know for sure if, after his criminal convictions are overturned -- as they probably will be, based on Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals precedent in re: abatement -- Lay comes skipping back into Texas cackling about double jeopardy. It wouldn't get him out of any civil judgments against his estate, but given the size of the guy's ego I don't think he'd care. What's a little cash to a few people when he can put one over on the whole country?

Se non e vero, e ben trovato. Try that with Occam's razor.

Sweet Turnabout At The Aero

2006-07-02T18:59:00.000-07:00

With the program a 70MM double feature of Total Recall and Terminator 2, it was not a big surprise that there were far more men than women at the Aero last night.

Still, it was awfully sweet to see men have to wait in long restroom lines while we women waltzed in and out of the ladies' room, pausing only to comment on the novelty of the situation.

While I was happy to be there with my friend Rachel, I told her that I kind of wished that we'd brought a guy -- just so I could greet his return to our seats with, "What took you so long?"

Love, Cell Phones, A Strange Walk And Me

2006-06-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

My cell phone sucks. It seemed nice enough at the beginning of our relationship, but as time has gone on, I find myself discovering more and more ways in which this supposedly non-sentient object is quite deliberately trying to drive me crazy. It's like one of those movies where the main characters have to stage a marriage for a set period of time, except for the part about falling in love at the end. We'll probably stay together through the terms of our agreement, but I don't think we'll be shacking up forever.

My last phone and I split in December. If you were to ask it - and if it were a living thing that could actually answer back - it would say that it left me. Since I'm the one telling this story, though, let the record show that I dumped it in order to take advantage of my plan's biannual upgrade hook.

After at least a couple of minutes of deliberation, I settled on an LG VX6100. It seemed like a nice, solid phone, balancing the features I wanted to have with the price I was willing to pay for them.

It looked so sweet and innocent.

Here's the thing the phone only revealed to me after the ink was dry: the buttons on the sides stick out far enough and are sensitive enough that seemingly every time I pull my phone out of my purse, it's done something I don't want it to do. I've spent hours deleting pictures of the inside of the lens-protection slider from the gallery. Putting the phone in manner mode is all but pointless, because if one of the buttons on the left side gets nudged for a couple of seconds, the phone goes into Driving Mode and loudly announces all of my incoming calls. If the phone gets nudged again in just the right way, it may turn Driving Mode off, but the phone defaults to regular, ringer-enabled mode even when it was in manner mode in the first place.

As if that weren't frustrating enough, over the past week or so it's become fickle about how much of a charge it will allow its battery to hold.

Since relationships are about compromise, rather than ditch the encumbrance for a younger, flashier model which would undoubtedly cost me more than I planned to spend, I decided to get myself one of those in-car chargers. A little online recon pointed me to a Radio Shack a couple of blocks from where I've been working. Perfect for a little lunchtime stroll.

Maybe I should be thanking whatever forces brought this phone and me together. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have taken a that walk, and wouldn't have run into this succession of people:

- A guy who was quite certain in his conviction that Lyndon LaRouche is the only real Democrat, and everyone he doesn’t like is a Nazi. As if that weren't enough, he also told me that I've been suckered in by said Nazis; tried to pressure me into giving money to the LaRouche PAC, because, to hear him tell it, that was the way to prove that I am committed to promoting political discourse; and had the bad form to guess my age right on the nose. He seemed very disappointed that I wouldn’t give him my phone number.

- A very smiley girl, handing out small double tablet-shaped cards imprinted with the Ten Commandments.

- A group of expensively-highlighted women assembling for an L.A. Film Fest event, all of whom were wearing vaguely Indian-inspired couture with uncomfortable-looking sandals. Predictably, they were chattering away on Blackberries and looking at everyone except the people with whom they were standing.

- My aunt Ruth, who seemed slightly thrown by my presence in her neck of the woods.

For reasions I can't quite explain, I felt like I'd traveled through a scene from The Crying Of Lot 49. Life imitates Pynchon. Call me Oedipa.

I acquired the charger from Radio Shack, and returned later in the day to exchange it for one that actually worked with an LG VX6100. When I got to my car, I plugged everything in. The car charger lit up with a faint green glow. The phone's display brightened up blue-grey. I drove off into the golden magic-hour light, humming.

I hope I can remember that feeling of contentment the next time my phone starts screaming numbers at me.

To Those Three Guys I Met At The Well In Hollywood On Saturday Night, Should They Be Reading This.

2006-06-12T19:08:00.000-07:00

Hi.

What the hell?

Seriously. Who the hell ditches a woman in the middle of Hollywood at 1:30 in the morning? Who the hell ditches anyone in the middle of Hollywood at 1:30 in the morning?

Oh, that's right -- the three of you.

You know, it's a really good thing for you that I have a healthy sense of the absurd, and that there are a lot of people walking to their cars on Hollywood's side streets at 1:30 on a Sunday morning, because otherwise? There could have been A Scene.

Allow me to refresh your memory. One of you met me at the bar at the Well as I was closing out my tab, and proceeded to initiate flirting. My friends were leaving, but I decided to stick around for a little while longer and hang out with the three of you. Why not? You certainly seemed like fine, upstanding young men, at least by Hollywood standards, and I do enjoy chatting with new people. When you all decided that the bathroom line was too long and wanted to go to the Bowery, just across the street, I took up your invitation to come along.

Apparently, the Bowery wasn't happening enough. One of you suggested that we go next door to Magnolia. You milled around the foyer, trying to decide whether to stay or go.

"You guys figure it out," I said, touching the arm of the guy who'd been trying to feel me up for the past hour. "I'm going to find the ladies' room." Which I did.

Evidently, you used that time to figure out that you didn't want to be anywhere near Magnolia.

Oh, I did all the logical stuff. I walked through the restaurant. I asked the guys at the bar in the foyer if you'd said anything about where you might be going.

"Those three guys that were here -- they didn't happen to say where they were going, did they?"

"Sorry."

"Yeah. I think I've been ditched."

"Seriously? Dude, that sucks."

"Ya think?"

I checked the Bowery. I even struck up a conversation with a busboy on the Magnolia patio, just in case you were all in the bathroom at the same time and were going to emerge.

"You didn't happen to see three guys taking off, did you?"

"Sorry."

"They totally ditched me."

"They what?"

"Took off."

"I'm sorry, sweetie."

I was so pissed at this point that I didn't even object to some strange guy calling me "sweetie".

Since you guys obviously had left the block, and not having any other ideas, I went back to the Well and had a look around.

Nada.

"What the fuck kind of putz ditches a woman in Hollywood at 1:30 in the morning?" I asked the bouncers on my way out. "'Cause I met three of them here."

"Oh, that's not right," one of the bouncers said, in a sentence that would go on to win the "understatement of the evening" prize if there were such a thing.

"Well, if you happen to come across three nebbishy guys from New York looking for a woman named Rose, tell them I left." The bouncers agreed to do so, but we all knew you weren't going to show your faces again.

I made the circuit one more time: I checked Magnolia, stuck my head into the Bowery, scanned the streets and walked through the Well once more.

And then I went back to my car and went home.

So, guys: I'm curious. What the hell? It doesn't matter, exactly, since there's no way that you can ever justify abandoning anyone -- much less in Hollywood -- much less a woman -- but I'm wondering what was, or wasn't, going through your heads. At least two of you were sober enough to know what you were doing.

Seriously. What the effing hell?

If you'd like to come beg my forgiveness and perhaps explain, the one who was trying to get me to make out with him at the bar was told where I hold court on Monday nights. He also knows -- or at least was told -- what web site he can reach me through; hence this post.

This is, of course, assuming that you're big enough to show up and take responsibility for being total jackasses.

And that you're reading this.

Friday, June 9: The Bush Twins Learn To Share

2006-06-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

The Bush Twins Party Hour will be back at The Actor's Space in Sherman Oaks this Friday, sharing a bill with the Breakfast Junkies sketch comedy troupe. Two shows for the price of one -- such a deal. You should be there! (Distance is no excuse. You have plenty of time to make the drive.)

As always, you can find the latest info at www.bushtwinspartyhour.com and www.myspace.com/bushtwinspartyhour.

Putting the Ow in WOW

2006-05-31T20:12:00.000-07:00

When you attempt an activity that was once second nature for you, it's supposed to come right back. Your muscle memory takes over, the theory goes, and you're on your merry way.

I'm sure this is true about many things for many people. It might even be true for me: It's been a while since I've played piano, but I think I could still bang out a pretty respectable run-through of the first movement of Beethoven's Sonatina No. 1 in G. If I were ever to hear Balkan dance music, I'm sure I could comfortably settle into the appropriate dance and carry on a conversation while I did it. And I still do a mean backstroke.

But what if the action in question wasn't ever second nature? Does muscle memory still kick in?

I bring this up because of Saturday night's excursion to World on Wheels.

World on Wheels is a good old-fashioned roller rink that puts on an "adult skate" some Saturday nights. It seemed like as good a way as any to spend a recent evening, so a bunch of us piled into a car and made the short drive. We found parking, walked across the lot, opened up our bags for inspection (it's not in the best part of town), paid our entry fees, stopped at the skate rental counter, and sat down to lace up.

Feet securely, uh, secured, I gingerly stood up.

Muscle memory, my ass.

I was a pretty decent skater back in the day, but evidently not good enough to remember what I was doing twenty-odd years later (and, yes, it's pretty sobering that I'm old enough to not have done something in twenty-odd years).

So I found myself standing on that low-pile carpet indigenous to the foyers of bowling alleys and roller rinks, having a hard time finding and keeping my balance.

By the time we'd all put our stuff in lockers, two of the people I was with were out on the rink zipping around. Three of the others decided this was a good time for snacks. That left me.

Okay, I thought. Maybe I'm just having trouble because I'm on this carpet. Maybe I'll get my bearings once the skates are rolling like they're supposed to roll.

It was a nice theory.

I paused for a moment at the border of carpet and wood. Well, okay, it was more than a moment. Point is, I finally stuck my skate out there.

I kind of pulled myself along the wall for a few feet, and then pushed off...

And fell right on my ass.

Good thing I have no problem with making a fool out of myself in front of total strangers, because that's what I'd just done: Wiped out right in front of the railing that people leaned on to watch the skating. I laughed it off as I attempted to stand up, and they chuckled sympathetically. Or maybe they were laughing at me, and I just refused to accept it.

I heard a whistle. A guy in a referee's shirt skated towards me, diverting traffic around me as he helped me up.

"Sorry, it's been a while," I said.

"If you're going to skate slow, you need to get to the middle of the rink," he said by way of reply, indicating a cluster of couches surrounded by a low wall.

That struck me as kind of odd. I always remembered the fast people gravitating towards the middle and leaving the outside to the wall-hangers. I also remembered there being a good reason for this.

"How am I supposed to make it to the middle when I still can't remember how to make it ten feet?" I thought it was a very good question. In reply, the man in the striped shirt towed me to the bottom of one of the ramps leading off the rink.

If it hadn't all been so ridiculous, I might have felt a little humiliated. Instead, I felt kind of validated. I knew I was going to suck. It was just a question of how much I was going to suck. Now I knew: I sucked a lot.

Meanwhile, two more members of my group had jumped onto the rink and were twirling around like they'd never stopped skating. That left me and one other person. In time, she was persuaded to go out and be pulled around the rink for a while. My friends tried to get me to do the same thing, but I was done for the night. It was one of the easier decisions I'd made all week: I'd tried skating. I'd sucked. I'd been lucky not to break anything. I'd need some serious practice before I tried it again. Until then, if I fell, I wanted it to be on the carpet.

I had a good time, though. Usually, I prefer to be in the thick of the action, but this was one of those times when I was glad I stayed off to the side. The passing parade was pretty entertaining. There were people out there who must have been practicing their moves in their garages for a couple of decades, just waiting for a chance to show them off again, and I had a better vantage point along the side of the rink than I would have had if I were sprawled out on the rink itself.

WOW closed at two-ish. We piled back into Randall's car and went to Canter's. I hung out with my friends and had matzo ball soup. I got home after four and went straight to bed.

Sunday morning (okay, afternoon), I kind of wished that I had a better story about where I'd been all night and why I was slightly favoring my right foot. But, hell, I think I had a better time than I would have doing the archetypical Hollywood Thang. I probably escaped with fewer injuries than if I'd been out at shows (especially if any of those shows had been at UCB, where I always manage to injure myself), and I got matzo ball soup. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night.

A Quote I Like

2006-05-26T18:33:00.000-07:00

"The problem with life is that we have to live it from the begining, but it makes sense only when seen from the end. As a result, our whole experience is one of coming to provisional conclusions based on insufficient evidence: reading the signs, gauging the odds. . . . We see faces in clouds, hear sermons in stones, find hidden messages in ancient texts. A belief that things reveal meaning through pattern is the gift we brought with us out of Eden."

Michael Kaplan and Ellen Kaplan
Chances Are . . . : Adventures in Probability, pp. 61-62

Weekend Update

2006-05-21T23:43:00.000-07:00

At 4:30 this morning, I lay awake thinking that this was a time at which no one should be awake.

If you're up at 4:30 AM, it generally means one of these things:

1. You have a job that requires you to show up by six in the morning. Congratulations, you're a grown-up. Isn't it fun? (Note: If the job at which you are up early involves any sort of non-news radio or television, disregard the part about the "grown-up".)
2. You were out living it up until well past 4. Shouldn't you have outgrown that already?
3. There is never a number 3.
4. You just plain can't sleep.

Much as I'd like to claim that I was up because I was out doing some appropriately wild Hollywood carousing, I'm afraid I just couldn't sleep. This might have been because I'd slept so much of Saturday morning away, which was certainly because I was wiped from the Bush Twins show on Friday night. (The Bush Twins show went well, thanks for wondering. The theater management was impressed enough with what we were able to do in less than a week that they want us to come back on a more regular basis. Soon, there will be no excuse for not having experienced the magic. You've all been warned.) Or perhaps it was because of a new special-case reason:

5. There is a bird that chirps like a car alarm around the clock. It's quickly gone from cute to grating, and the nonstop nature suggests that the initial bird has recruited a few friends to take over during naptime. My roommate and I are about ready to go after it/them with a BB gun. Not that either of us own one, or have any desire to actually hurt the bird(s). It's just really tempting.

On the bright side, I don't actually have to be anywhere until Monday morning at 9. I'm in one of those rare periods when I don't have to be at any classes or rehearsals during the weekend, and I'm kind of liking it.

Of course, this means that I really should be using the time to update my blog in a more timely fashion. (I should also be using it to save the world and broaden my horizons and make lovely things, but I'm trying to be realistic here.) So for anyone who was wondering, here are the updates.

I'm off the hook for jury duty. I went in Monday and was honest: While I was certainly willing to do my civic duty, it might be hard for me to concentrate, given that if I wasn't put on a case then my weeks of unemployment could end the next day.

I was the first one excused from the jury pool. The judge and lawyers wished me luck as I left, which I thought was nice.

(I think I would have been excused anyway. The case was a civil dispute over a car accident, and when asked I couldn't promise that I could be completely impartial. Those of you who remember my old car -- a.k.a. the Blue Thing, the Blue Bomber, the Smurfmobile or Qris -- may remember how it met its end in front of the place where I was working, when someone in a minivan ran a red light. Even though there were several witnesses to back this up, the other driver initially tried to claim that I was the one at fault. She dropped it, but it did leave a bad taste in my mouth.)

The next morning, I started my current day gig. I'm spending the next few weeks in the office that produces some of UCLA's publications, doing various web site update projects. Which means I'm doing a lot of copying and pasting, with a little HTML and image formatting. Funny how when you get right down to it, the skills that get me the most work are exactly the ones that got me work in 1998.

It's busy work, really. Kind of pleasantly mindless. I'm next to a window, which is nice. There is a large plant strategically placed so that the view of my monitor is obscured by all but one person, and she's not looking. While I am not taking full advantage of this, I am able to keep a much closer eye on my email than I have at my last couple of gigs.

At least it's just a few miles from where I live. And it pays decently. That's one thing I can say for this whole web racket: The work may be sporadic, but what work there is pays pretty well. While I'm still looking for a Real Job™, and the agency is still setting up interviews, I'm grateful to have something that will give me some income for the next couple-few weeks.

I'm starting to feel calmer, finally. Still pretty agitated, but it's heading down towards normal-for-me levels. I'm really, really appreciating my friends. Even kind of appreciating someone that I have every reason to hate -- or, even worse, feel indifferent towards. Despite everything that has, or hasn't, gone down between us, the fact is that we are going to have to deal with each other one of these days. I'd rather be friendly. The person in question seems to agree, at least in theory. That's good, I guess. Better than being incommunicado, at any rate.

Last weekend, I had dinner with a friend who I rarely get to see. He asked me something that he almost always asks me: What is it that I really want to do? And I answered him the way I always do: I don't think it's been invented yet. Until then, I do what I've done since I first sat down in front of that TRS-80 in elementary school: Hone my skills, keep my eyes open, catch the wave of the next big thing and enjoy the ride.

And remember that this, too, shall pass.

Bush Twinnin' It On Friday, May 19

2006-05-14T12:52:00.000-07:00

The Bush Twins Party Hour parties on this Friday at The Actor Space in Sherman Oaks. We'll be back to the usual shenanigans -- i.e. drinking, hanging out with the family, having a hot bartender hand out drinks to the audiences, playing games like "Bush Family Scandal" for prizes which may or may not be alcoholic... you know. The usual!

I know it's kind of short notice, but look at it this way: If you start your Memorial Day weekend partying a week early, then Memorial Day weekend lasts for, like, a week and a half.

Info going up on www.bushtwinspartyhour.com as it comes in.

L.A. Vignette: Birdsong

2006-05-07T20:55:00.000-07:00

The past couple of mornings, I've heard a bird chirping something that sounded familiar.

I've finally placed it.

It's the rhythm of a popular multi-stage car alarm.

About That Scream You Just Heard

2006-05-04T20:12:00.000-07:00

As you've probably surmised from previous entries, I haven't worked in six weeks.

I lost out on a good contract gig today because I have jury duty next week, and
therefore couldn't guarantee I'd be able to start on Monday. According to the nice woman I spoke with at the court, if I'm called in then I will have to put in an appearance, even if it's just to plead for a postponement.

My agency is trying to set up another interview for me tomorrow. The same question will undoubtedly come up. I have emailed the court for guidance.

Employees can't be fired for performing their civic duty, but there's nothing saying a potential employee can't be passed over because of it. And there's certainly nothing saying that I can't be evicted if I'm not able to pay my rent, even if that's due to missing out on a job or wages because I was reckless enough to register for jury service.

I'm trying to be a good citizen here, but my savings are dwindling and I can't get by on unemployment checks and credit cards for much longer.

So, yeah, I'm just a little frustrated...

The Upside Of Stress

2006-05-01T17:13:00.000-07:00

This whole unemployment thing is stressing me to a degree not seen since... well, since my last bout of unemployment. I've had a whole bunch of interviews, but nothing's panned out yet. I'm getting the feeling that at most places, the people who sent out the job posting don't talk to the people who will be doing the hiring -- so I find myself going in for jobs that certainly sound like they'll deal with project management or content production, only to find out that the interviewers are actually looking for someone to do object-oriented programming or photo editing. I did have a promising meeting last Tuesday; unfortunately, it was with someone who's notorious for taking an awfully long time to get back to my agency.

I spend a lot of time just trying to keep busy enough to notice that I'm not actually getting much done. I'm doing everything I can to get the work thing going again, but that knowledge doesn't keep me from feeling the stress. And I mean that physically, as well as psychologically. Usually, I just get really bad headaches. I know how to deal with those. This time, my skin started going nuts, and all the appointments necessary to take care of the situation make me really glad that I've continued to pay for health insurance I can barely afford. I'll spare you the details; suffice it to say that while it's not exactly attractive, it's nothing serious. Still, just to be on the safe side, the dermatologist ordered a whole bunch of lab tests. He called this morning with the results.

Apparently, I've never been healthier. Everything's functioning normally. My glucose levels are perfect. Even my cholesterol, which is usually on the higher side of the normal range, is at a great level. There are a couple of things that the doctor wants to double-check, but the odds of them being anything significant are pretty small. My blood pressure is a textbook 120 over 80. Meanwhile, I seem to be losing weight.

I'm never quite this healthy -- on paper, at least -- when I'm not sitting around quivering with tension.

Um...

Yay?

Daytime Emmy Soap Predix (For Posterity, Not Because Anyone Who Reads This Blog Cares About Them)

2006-04-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Old habits die hard... plus there's a chance I may need to get back up to speed on all this stuff. Anyway, I'm in full-on pre-performance procrastination mode...

Drama Series: The Young And The Restless. All actors, writers and directors are hereby ordered to watch the episode in which Cassie dies. See, that's how you wring every ounce of emotion out of a situation without insulting the audience's intelligence. That sucker was better-done than most of what gets submitted for prime time Emmy judging. The other submitted episode was run-of-the-mill good up until the last few minutes, which were... um, pretty damn hot.

All that said, Guiding Light might pull it out. They submitted some great tapes, and they could frankly use the win.

If General Hospital wins, it will be because it has mastered the art of producing two blowout episodes per year and submitting those for the Emmy. I think that's kind of pathetic, but it does seem to work for them. So there ya go.

Directing: Y&R. Writng: ATWT. Always the safe picks.

Lead Actor: Tony Geary from General Hospital. See Park, Hit Out Of.

Lead Actress: Kim Zimmer from Guiding Light. The Bold And The Beautiful's Susan Flannery has won before by submitting the same type of tapes that she did this year, so I'm thinking a little fatigue might be setting in. Wait a minute. What am I thinking? This is the Daytime Emmys. Fatigue never sets in. Let's say it's a toss-up between the two of them.

Supporting Actor: In this category, there's usually someone who stands out in a very particular way, and they get the award. This year, there are two of them. Depending on who's on the panel, it will either go to Jordan Clarke of Guiding Light (he's the one from a different demographic -- see Stuart Damon and Ben Hendrickson's wins for an example of this) or Trent Dawson of As The World Turns (same age range as the other three nominees, but the only one who consistently brings the funny). Jordan Clarke wins if Trent Dawson splits the votes with last year's winner, Greg Rikaart of Y&R. Trent Dawson wins if there's new blood on the panel. Greg Rikaart wins again if there's not. (Not that he doesn't do a good job. I just don't think his tapes from this year are as good as last year's, and I think that does matter.)

Supporting Actress - There's rarely a way to predict this one. My gut says Gina Tognoni of Guiding Light. Not that my gut instinct is any great predictor.

Younger Actor - Michael Graziadei of Y&R. The soap press at large has been fawning over GL's Tom Pelphrey ever since he started off, but I don't think the voters quite buy it. From what I hear, Michael's submissions were better. Possible upsetter is Jesse Soffer of As The World Turns, though Jennifer Landon's going to have to win her category for him to pull that off. Speaking of which:

Younger Actress - Toss-up between Y&R's Camryn Grimes and ATWT's Jennifer Landon. In Camryn's favor: Freakin' amazing as the dying Cassie; previous win. In Jennifer's: Great submissions; she's Michael Landon's daughter.

UPDATE: And the winners were...

Show: General Hospital
Directing: General Hospital
Writing: The Young And The Restless
Lead Actor: Tony Geary, GH
Lead Actress: Kim Zimmer, GL
Supporting Actor: Jordan Clarke, GL
Supporting Actress: Gina Tognoni, GL
Younger Actor: Tom Pelphrey, GL
Younger Actress: Jennifer Landon, ATWT

Sometimes it's like I never left.

I Never Learn

2006-04-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

The other day, I had what seemed like a very promising job interview. I had the background the interviewers were looking for. I knew exactly what they had in mind for the position, and I was chock-full of ideas that went over well. I clicked with everyone there. Best of all, it was close to where I live.

Yeah. Just got an email rejection.

Why do I even bother getting my hopes up anymore?

--

So I met this guy. I didn't think that it was the love match of the century, but there was potential.

Yeah. Email rejection. Classy.

Why do I even bother getting my hopes up?

--

Of course, there's a difference: While I'm just fine being single, this unemployment thing is doing quite a number on me. Yesterday, I thought I was finally relaxing a little, but I think what happened is that my stress odometer rolled over. Today, I'm back to clenching my jaw and restraining myself from lashing out at innocent bystanders.

This, too, shall pass. I'll live. But will I ever learn? And would my life be any better if I did? Wouldn't I just be turning in one set of frustrations for another?

And people wonder why I went into comedy...

Next Bush Twins Show

2006-04-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

On Friday, April 28, we'll be presenting the Bush Twins Party Hour very special spring break special, Bushes Gone Wild!. It's part of Part of The Boob Tube's Wild On Spring Break Episodes show at Second City. Visit the Bush Twins Party Hour site for the scoop.

Not our normal interactive format, but we'll have some special guests, including a hosting assist from Daddy's old friend Scoot Dogg, and some really impressive... drinks.