That Old Feeling...

OK, I have been back on Long Island for approximately 12 hours now, half of them while asleep, and I'm already feeling a tad overhwlemed by the milieu...

We had a late night dinner at a Lawrence diner...accents, neon, greek people, the overweight people in tracksuits eating two-fers...it all came flooding back to me...

There's an old saying among New Yorkers...'once you've lived in NY, everywhere else is New Jersey.' I'm not buying that this morning...

"Marry Me"

I could have just as easily titled this post, 'Love Indubitably'.

Just flew in from Burbank to JFK last night and the actress who played Maebe Funke on 'Arrested Development' was on my flight. Much to my disappointment, neither Tobias nor George Michael were sitting with her...

M

13% of Americans have lost their minds

That's the percentage of Americans who think the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the US Government. Not just think there was some kind of cover-up, but who actively believe that Dick Cheney's henchmen were in the basement of Tower 2 setting charges.

Are you all out of your fargin' minds?

There was a guy on MSNBC who thinks anyone in Lower Manhattan who claims to have seen the attack was a paid actor. (I got friends who ain't actors who are never gonna lose that image in their minds)

The local Radio Pacifica station out here in LA held an ENTIRE weekend fundraiser based on distributing free copies of some diatribe by a guy who claims CIA black-bag types were speading explosives all thru the WTC facility. Hello...who was doing this? The traders at Canter Fitzgerald? (They're not that sharp...stuff would have gone off early on the Ferry)

And who is this MIT crackpot who claims physics would never have caused the collapse as observed live and broadcast to millions? The building fell to earth...what else would gravity have allowed?

They should all be ashamed of themselves. Even the Iranians give better credit to what Arabs can do when they are focused.

The only martyrs were the people in the theater

OK, we saw probably the worst movie EVER yesterday...the Nicolas Cage-themed remake of 'The Wicker Man.'

Why did we go, knowing in advance that it would suck?

I'm a huge fan of the orginal. It was creepy, very odd, with funny flourishes that just added to the feelings of dread and awkwardness. So the new one had to be seen for comparison.

Now, I'm not a reflexive opponent of remakes. They can be fun reinventions of older movies (I have limited patience for watching black and white films on TV...they're too dim and shadowy as they were never intended to be seen on anything but a large and bright movie screen), or inventive versions of films that were a little too fixed in the era of their creation (Logan's run was a cool movie, but I'd be into seeing it without the 1970s era vision of the future).

So, with low expectations, we trod off to the theater and laughed our butts off.

Where to begin?

1. Nicolas Cage's awful hairpiece and over-done makeup. (Tammy Faye Baker looks more subtle in her foundation)
2. The obvious stunt double used in several scenes.
3. Cage's ex-fiance was played by a woman so young she would have been a 12-year old when she gave birth to the daughter who centers in the plot.
4. Cage's ex-fiance had a lip collagen injection so significant that I couldn't describe any other feature on her...it was that distracting.
5. A meandering plot with wooden acting and few real details about the culture of the islanders....which was a major piece of the original...in the first Wicker Man movie, you are steadily informed about the beliefs and practices of the inhabitants, which makes the grand finale so much more fascinating and creepy. By the end of the remake, you've got no idea beyond one key element of what they're doing. Which means the animal masks being worn by the citizens (I assume an homage by the director of the remake to the costumes of the original) are weird for weird's sake. You have no idea why they are wearing them and it quickly becomes comical.
6. And finally...a contest between two scenes for 'most ridiculous idea ever'....Take your pick. A) Nicolas Cage pointing a gun at a harmless townsperson on a bicycle and shouting "STEP AWAY FROM THE BIKE"...or...B) Nicolas Cage running through the woods in a BEAR SUIT.

People in the theater were laughing. I was laughing. My wife was laughing.

Oh well. It was better than 2 hours spent listening to Nicolas Cage faking a scottish accent.

Superb Celebrity Sighting

Andy Richter....at the check-out in Whole Foods. Worth noting that he walked his cart back to the little shopping-basket Guantanamo Bay-esque holding area, rather than just leave it beside his parking spot like someone I know. (OK, the someone I know is me, and now I won't be able to get away with it now that A has seen Conan's sidekick behave this way)

Fun facts about LA (a continuing series)

1. The Ivy, a classic establishment dining spot, sucks. Great atmosphere, I'll give you that. Nice old cottage, antiques over the walls, wouldn't be out of place on Cape Cod. But $120 for two standard entrees and two cocktails? Food was pretty mediocre, too. Didn't see anyone famous, either. For that kind of money, I want to watch Tom Cruise change Suri's diaper on the bar.

2. Morrissey, Mr Moz, he of the 'girlfriend in a coma' swoon...lives in LA and is ADORED by the mexican-american community. Seriously. Who knew? I wonder if anything else from my high school-era record collection will sneak back into Vogue?

Ways in which LA is not like NY (A Continuing Series)

Fairly sizeable forest fire is raging outside our building right now, on the slopes of the Hollywood Hills. Sirens blaring from all directions and several helicopters are circling while another one dumps water on the blaze. You can see the flames from the window!

Neighborly Troubles

So we're having a parking dispute with the neighbors.

See, they keep blocking our garage space with their car. Their gigantic 1970s era diesel spewing monstrosity.

And we keep asking them to move it. Real simple, right? Wrong. One day last week we had to wake up our neighbor (at 9:30am on a Tuesday, no less) to move the clunker.

So our management company is trying to host a meeting between all the parties on Friday to resolve this. What's to resolve? Here's an idea - don't block my spot!

What is this, a low-rent episode of A&E's "Intervention?"

Are we back at college and looking for the RA to make sure my roommate doesn't eat my fritos?

Please.

M

Sorry Folks

I've been quite slack in posting. Gonna try to be better about it from now on.

Most unlikely quote I ever expected to hear from Shimon Peres

"If someone were launching missiles from Burbank into Hollywood, I don't think the United States would sit back and tolerate it."

I guess the Bryan Singer-JJAbrams feud is on...

Oh wait, he was talking about Hezbollah....

M

Goin' back to Cali

Finally made the move after nearly 7 months of living apart. What a relief...to have my family back with me here in LA.

Last week in Brooklyn was a blur...cleaning, packing, sending our stuff onto a truck into the hands of 3 large guys with many tattoos whom we may never see again. Finally sweeping up the floors and trying (with some success) to scrub away the dog's paw prints from the walls - hoping to get our full deposit back quickly from the landlord.

Had one fabulous meal at my favorite restaurant on 5th avenue, Belleville, before spending the night at a beer garden with our neighborhood friends. We've got reservations on Sunday night for a similar style place on Sunday night - gotta love the bistro menu and atmosphere...and the ability to find a few good local versions in our corner of Los Angeles is definitely a plus.

More later...

What shall we do with the drunken mover?

Send him home and get a replacement.

Seriously.

Movers came to my place on Tuesday to pack us up (thank you, corporate benefactors) and one of them was wasted. I didn't realize that at first, despite the clues:

A) He smelled like gasoline
B) Every time I said something he agreed with, he would should "f%@k you, that's awesome!" and try to shake my hand.
C) I caught him taking a swig from my half-empty bottle of Jameson's Whiskey

What does one do when confronted with something like this? I suppose a more upstanding citizen might put hands on hips and feign some kind of superiority over a guy who needed to steal a drink at 10am on a Tuesday. But I shy away from confrontation in a life-long quest for efficiency and the avoidance of mental strife.

As soon as he saw me, the mover put the bottle down and said, "I was just fooling around." The crew chief, who was working his tail off, looked at me and shook his head. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, "just keep packing, please."

30 minutes later all 3 movers took a break. 45 minutes later Drunky McSwearwords was gone, replaced by a guy with more tattoos and a fearsome work ethic. The other movers were very profesional about it, to their credit.