When walking in the snow, watch before you step.
Always be alert for the Bumpus hounds - or any other hounds, for that matter.
Making up a convincing lie is always better than getting beaten by your mother.
No matter what happens, you are always loved.
I finally got a chance to watch playwright Martin McDonagh's film, "In Bruges", with Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell. Brilliant.
McDonagh is known for his critically acclaimed Irish trilogy which includes the plays: The Cripple of Inishmaan, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, and The Banshees of Inisheer. Equally as well-known are the plays The Beauty Queen of Leenane and The Lonesome West. He won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for Six Shooter. A film I watched and, though interesting, couldn't figure out why, of all the films entered into competition, it came to win the Oscar. Anyway, "In Bruges" is a great flick with sharp, intelligent dialogue and a great premise. This is the comedy I prefer to watch, act in and write in my plays. Dark.
Separated at birth (bet you didn't know that), one's a rebellious rock and roll musician and the other a rebellious rock and roll NFL owner (or thinks he's a rock and roller). One makes his fans sing and dance and the other makes his coaches and players sing and dance.
Just got up, made a cup of coffee and was going to check email. And there it is on the MSN homepage. Paul Newman died yesterday. Cancer. Sonofabitch got him.
Sonofabitch. Now I'm crying. Here's my open letter to Paul in June. I guess he didn't read it - or he just didn't listen to me. That sonofabitch Cancer got my Cool Hand Luke. Just like my mom's father - Grandpa Datka, Grandma Ircink, Uncle Tom Ircink, Aunt Mary Ircink...I wonder if it will get me one day?
I thought Paul would never die. I didn't WANT him to ever die. God damit - I don't wanna talk about it right now. That Sonofabitch Cancer took my Cool Hand Luke away from me... (More tears.)
Paul Newman died. I can't wrap my head around that. Perhaps I never will. I still see his blue eyes - he will always be alive to me. I wonder if this is the reason I posted that daisy below - for no other reason? For Paul.
An excerpt from a letter written by Lindsay Lohan and her lesbian friend to Republican VP nominee, Sarah Palin, "Oh, and ... hint hint Pali-pal -- don't pose for anymore tabloid covers, you're not a celebrity, you're running for office to represent our, your, my COUNTRY! And in the words of Pamela Anderson, 'She can suck it.'"
First off, the sentence isn't written well. Secondly, didn't I just blog about Lindsay Nobrain a couple of posts ago (look for nude of Lohan below). Thirdly, Lohan doesn't add credence to anything she says by quoting Pamela Anderson.
Yah, Lindsay...you're a celebrity and that gives you license to do anything or say anything you want because you know (or maybe you don't) that millions of young lemmings will follow your every dumb-ass word. Shut the fuck up, will you? Will you just - shut - the - fuck - up?
Old news. Schmold news. I'm doing some research for a 10-minute play and came across the following information on Lindsay Lohan in Wikipedia. I just thought it was funny:
It was a bit longer - I just shortened it up for effect. And I did re-up my subscription. Thanks, Hef.
(Interesting side note. My director/actor friend, Stephen, used to temp at the Playboy Mansion for Hef's personal assistant - she's been with Hef for over 30 years, I think. And I still have her phone number. I have Hugh Hefner's assistant's direct line. How can I turn that into my advantage?)
(One more side note. When the Hollywood sign letters were restored for the first time in 1978, nine investors donated $28,000 each - for each letter. Hugh was one of the investors, though he sponsored the "Y" and not the "H".)
Brian's new studio album, "That Lucky Old Sun", hits stores September 2nd! Go to Brian Wilson's site and check out this promo video on the release.
When my turn came, I nervously stepped up to the small circular platform and looked up into the face of Brian Wilson, gazing down at me. I felt like a rowboat peering up at an ocean liner. Suddenly, I was struck with the notion that this was my chance to say whatever I wanted to a man who has been such an inspiration to me. So, after I introduced myself, I drew a deep breath and proceeded to thank him for his willingness to share his gifts with the world. Brian’s head lowered, and the audience swelled into applause, as if to say, “and that goes for us too!”
I then asked my question, which was “What do you love the most about your new album?” In a very un-Brian-like fashion, he gave a long and multifaceted answer, most of which I was unable to comprehend because I was so preoccupied with wondering whether my knees were going to give-way or not.
The band then proceeded to play several selections from the new album: “Forever My Surfer Girl”, “Midnight’s Another Day”, “Goin’ Home” etc. We were rapt. The first line of the final cut, “Southern California” virtually moved me to tears. The long road had led us home again. Brian was back -- & I was called upon to testify.
Once you listen in on “That Lucky Old Sun”, so you shall too.
PS - Oh, right - the pretty woman.
I was looking online for an album image of "That Lucky Old Sun" to use with this post. So I type in "That Lucky Old Sun" and wouldn't you know the very first image that popped up on Google was this one:
The nipple debate rears its ugly head - or nipple - yet again.
Torches lit up the path to the unisex privy (which was very nice for an outdoor bathroom) and off to the right of that is where Laura and her husband and two children live. Laura Mihalka accompanied Jennifer on cello and I gained a greater appreciation for the nuances the cello offers any bit of music. Candlelight, pillows, chocolates, wine - amazing ambiance. I would say 40-50 were there and we had a chance to chat with Jennifer afterwards. I likened the entire experience of being in The Barn and watching her perform to that of seeing the Giant Sequoias with my brother in June. "Wonderment". I could go on and on but why don't you read what others have said... "She speaks of the unspeakable, with great touch and skill in production, the arrangements and the songs. Jennifer Terran did show her nakedness on the beautiful pictures of The Musician, on Full Moon In 3 she is naked in the head of the listener. In my mind I give her a kiss. 5 STARS for FULL MOON IN 3." HEAVEN MAGAZINE (NL) " * * * * " (Four Stars for "The Musician") ROLLING STONE "I'd gladly trade in all my Tori Amos CDs for Jennifer Terran's 'The Musician'...a magnificant album." ***** (five stars and #1 BEST POP ALBUM of 2001 HEAVEN MAGAZINE (Holland) - Eric Scipio "The Musician is Terran's third album, but strangely enough it has the innocence of a debut. The compositions are fluent and playful, both rough and soft. Terran produced and mixed everything herself, but has succeeded in preventing that the spontaneity of her music was killed by perfectionism... At some point Tori Amos had that same gift, but in the meantime she has become a phenomena? Let's hope that Jennifer Terran will never become world famous." PLATOMANIA (HOLLAND) "Listening to Cruel was an orgasmic auditory experience. Sometimes Terran sounds like a spiritual pop-folk goddess, and at other moment she comes off like a wide-eyed town freak ....it always sounds beautiful. You've gotta listen to understand." The Fish Rap Live - Jenni Balsam
The Barn - off the beaten path somewhere in Santa Barbara. I saw this unique singer/songwriter Saturday night. Here's what the critics have said about her:
"Endowed with a voice or heartbreaking purity and melodic talent, Jennifer Terran will most likely rise rapidly to the level of the greats." TELARAMA (Paris, France)
"Breathtaking... timeless... pure... monumental.... Categorizing Jennifer Terran is impossible. Terran is a style of her own." OOR MAGAZINE (Netherlands)
"Jennifer Terran is an unusual, very unusual kind of artist and quite a woman! A truly magnificent Film Noire Diva and a world-class songwriter-singer. This woman is unique, captivating vocalist, pianist, tenderly rebellious songwriter, producer by raison d'etre and necessity, hip-hop dynamic instructor and dancer, story-teller, an existentialist philosopher, an emotionally and intellectually charged teaser and provocative presence and most certainly a daring-devil entrepreneur." HERALD TIMES PARADE (London, UK)
"...sounds a lot like, well, Jennifer Terran. Grade A." LA Times - Bill Locey
"Captivating...powerful voice and songwriting" Chris Douridas - KCRW's "Morning Becomes Eclectic"
(WAIT! There's more...)
I took the Pacific Surfliner (Amtrak) from the 1929 art deco Union Station in downtown Los Angeles up to Santa Barbara, where I was met by my friend Val and her friend Cynthia. We had dinner at some outdoor Mexican cafe, then drove to a remote spot in Santa Barbara just north of the 101. The Barn is Jennifer's private music hall and recording, with the back opening up so that the crickets, the moon, and the air can all listen in to Jennifer's unique voice and music. The intimacy there was quite striking and added much to Jennifer's presence at the baby grand - her voice and her musicianship on the piano. Oh - and if you missed my photographic post on the piano just outside The Barn, you can see it here. 
"All of you wondering whether Kate Bush is going to release another album, or if Tori Amos will ever make another record as good as her debut, can stop bothering with such side issues. Here's the album you'v e been waiting for.... I don't think there's a duff track. Her voice is staggering. And you've got to love someone who can yell out a full-on, Springsteenesque '1-2-3-4!' to announce the arrival of a violin."Terran's." The Musician - #2 BEST ALBUM OF THE YEAR THE TIMES (London) 
Poster from Jennifer's European tour in Belgium, France and The Netherlands.
"FULL MOON IN 3 is a remarkable, beautiful and haunting album, an original, sincere and moving musical masterpiece. It also marks Jennifer Terran out as one of the most creative and distinctive singer/songwriters around at the moment. I will be surprised if anything released in 2006 will match this for its emotional intensity and sheer beauty." THE MUSICIAN (#1 Best Album of the Year), SHAKINSTIR (UK)
"Not everybody can be both scary and vulnerable; Jennifer Terran (pronounced tearin') can. The scary part is her voice, which spirals into regions so high you fear sh e'll disappear or crash, and lately it has acquired a diamond-dust edge that can saw through a stack of hearts, first of all her own." LA WEEKLY (USA)
Dell Computer television commercial, The America Song on Youtube, Grand Canyon on Youtube, and her website.
I attended the Los Angeles premiere of the indie movie, "One Day Like Rain", Friday night in West Hollywood - the flick was an entrant at the Dances with Films Festival and my friend, Marisa Petroro (one of the girls on Deal of No Deal - #18 suitcase) was in it.
Marisa wasn't the lead. She should have been. Not to take away from the lead in the movie, but I just wanted to see more of Marisa on-screen. She's great to watch...and I'm referring to both her presence and her acting. That being said - oh, I went with my friend, New Yorker Michael Carrera - an acting buddy who I met while I was involved in the Coronet Theater Lab for two years here in LA (Marisa was a part of that group as were my friends in Tujunga, Donovan and Maria).
Above: My friend, Marisa.
Anyway, we didn't like the movie. Hey - I give props to anyone - be it an actor, writer, producer, director of photography - for working at their craft and bringing a dream to life on screen. And I appreciated some of the ethereal aspects of the film - the far-out notions and fantasy. It was a "pretty" film. But I had way too many questions after it was over. Were the people in the woods the same creatures depicted in the animation portion of the film? Was as the lead a human or an alien? What happened to everyone at the end of the movie? It was if the goal of the film maker/writer was to keep the audience in total suspense and purposefully make us ask, "what did I just watch?". And the director/write even admitted during the Q & A afterwards that it's an "out there" film (paraphrasing).
If that was his goal, it worked. Because when the movie was over, I asked myself, "what did I just watch?".
But Michael and I went out to this Irish pub in Santa Monica later and caught up on life, acting, cars, women, Favre and the Yankees and all was good.
So I was having a conversation with our head of acquisitions outside our offices Tuesday when I noticed this very tall, "heap of a man" with his dog across the street near Winchell's Donuts talking on his cell. He looks our way; I look his way and I immediately yell out, "Hey - you're the actor...Bo...Hopkins. No - Svenson. Bo Svenson!"
Yep. It's Bo. He comes over and we shoot the shit and I tell him that when I lived in Bel Air, singer/actor Mac Davis was my neighbor (he still lives there) and Mac and Bo starred with Nick Nolte in the classic football flick, North Dallas Forty, in 1979. People forget about actors as the years go by. Not me - it's an obsession of mine to scour the Internet to find out where a certain actor disappeared to, what they look like now and if they're still in the business. Bo still acts - apparently Quentin Tarantino remembered him and found him relevant enough to cast him in Kill Bill 2. 
Above: Bo's business card I snagged from my co-worker. 
Listed as one of twelve "Promising New Actors of 1976" in John Willis' Screen World, Vol. 28, Bo is considered among the tallest leading men of all time, at 6' 5" being an inch taller than John Wayne and two inches shorter than 6' 7" fellow soldier-turned-actor James Arness.
Above: Bo with David Carradine at the Kill Bill 2 premier.
Nothing like doing something on a whim. Just found about the Pier Summer Twilight Dance Series: One Hawaii, this evening. Keali'i Reichel, Hawaii's top selling touring act (below right) and Na Leo (below left), the most popular female group in the history of Hawaiian music will perform a free concert to celebrate Hawaii's statehood. A few more Hawaiian acts will round up the bill, as well as a few hula dancers thrown in for the mix.
The story - in a nutshell. Dean and his mechanic Rolf Wütherich set off from Competition Motors, where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder, "Little Bastard", that morning for a sports car race at Salinas, California. Dean was driving west on U.S. Route 466 (later State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe, driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnipseed, attempted to take the fork onto State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. There's a slight dip in the road and at around 5:30 p.m. when the accident occurred, the combination of the dip, the coloring of the car and the light shading the road, Turnipseed didn't see anyone in his path when he made the turn. The two cars hit almost head on. Wütherich survived. Turnipseed survived. Dean was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59PM.
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(Incidentally, the lyric I used in the post headline is from the song, 
