The Walker Identity

Okay, I'm still too busy to blog, but I just had to say one thing:

There's an episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger" on USA right now and Walker has amnesia and I swear the plot is eerily similar to that of The Bourne Identity. And despite the fact that I have time to watch "Walker, Texas Ranger," I'm technically taking a lunch break and Chuck Norris is part of that.

That's all.

Too. Busy. To. Blog.

Sorry!

The Sum of All Years: 30

Bonnie posts yearly life updates called The Sum of All Years on her blog on her birthday every year, and ever since I first read through all of the sums of all of her years I've wanted to do my own. I figure 30's a good year to start. (It is a pretty cool fucking birthday, after all.)

What is The Sum Of All Years? I'll let Bonnie explain: "The Sum Of All Years is an autobiography where the word count for each post is limited to the corresponding age for that entry." Pretty simple, pretty cool.

So here's my first entry...

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The Sum of All Years: 30

Family craziness. I feel like a “man.”
Uma’s brain explodes, but we make miracles happen: healing, speech, love.
Professional screenwriter, breakdown goes out on my birthday.
New home, new hope(s).

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One of these days I'll get around to writing entries for the 29 years that are currently sumless, but for now I'm just gonna say a toast to the end of my twenties and say hello to a decade I'm really looking forward to. Salut!

Heinz Ketchup

A few weeks ago, I posted a high school diary entry where I talked about seeing my eight-year-old brother Josh performing a scene and a song for some class and I pontificated on Josh's future as an actor. (If you don't recall my particularly mortifying pontifications--and I use the word "pontificate" twice because there really ain't no other word for the kind of diary writing I was doing--I pondered: "Is this a beginning? As much as I hope it is, pity he who goes into acting for a living, for I know there isn’t much out there to make a living off of in ratio to the number of actors out there.")

Well, fourteen years down the pike, my brother Josh is now twenty-two and he's not an actor--no, he's pursuing a career that's probably even more difficult to break in to: he's currently going to film school to become a director. And I don't think I'm being biased when I say he's pretty damned good at it. I just think he's just pretty damned good at it.

He has a short little film on youtube right now, a commercial for Heinz Ketchup--Heinz is holding a contest for the best 30-second commercial, and they're giving the winner 57 thou. They have a committee of judges who are narrowing the videos down to 15, then a popular vote chooses the winner. I imagine that the number of times a commercial has been viewed on youtube might affect the judges selections--you never know--so I want to spread the word and get my brother's commercial gets more "views." So if you have 30 seconds (I mean, hello: it's only 30 seconds), please check out my bro's video. It's below. Just click on the "play" triangle.

Today is...

...the second to last day of my twenties!

Check out my brilliant friends!

I'll be at both of these shows/parties, and you should be at both of them too:

(1) Friday night, August 3rd, (that's TONIGHT!):

Christy and the Nonos
will be bringing a whole lotta music-love to the people live on stage
at the Bootleg Theater
(the space formerly known as the Evidence Room)
for one night only

The band will be performing all of the songs from their new album, The Runner.
Chris Wells, Fred Cassidy, Laural Meade, John Ballinger,
Patrice Quinn, Polly Segal, and Darrin Embry
will be making all the love happen for you. TONIGHT, Aug 3rd!

Doors open at 8:30, show at 9:00pm
The Bootleg Theater
2220 Beverly Blvd., LA, 90057
$15 at the door
213-389-3856
reservations are recommended but not required

and

(2) Saturday afternoon/evening, TOMORROW, Aug 4th!:

at 6011 Fair Ave, North Hollywood 91606

RACHEL KANN'S BOOK RELEASE PARTY FOR "10 FOR EVERYTHING"!!!
4PM Cookout - Bring Something to Eat
5PM Open Jam - Bring Something to Play
6PM Plugged in Music Starts Outside... - Bring Something to Something- and blankets, chairs, whatever makes you comfortable on the grass.
Rob Thain
co-lab-oTASTIC Ben Thomas
BOLT www.breathoflifetribe.com
Rock Yoga with Jen Swain!!!

9PM Rachel Kann and friends
Special Guests:
AIMEE BENDER!! The Girl in the Flammable Skirt (NY Times Notable Book)

Guy Hoffman of the violent femmes!!!

Gayle Brandeis, winner of the Belleweather Prize for Social Change for The Book of Dead Birds

Tod Goldberg, winner of the OV Short Story Collection Prize for Simplify

11:30PM Unplugged Music Starts Inside...
Mike Weiss
Eric Bloom

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p.s. LET ME KNOW IF YOU'RE COMING TO EITHER EVENT SO I CAN LOOK OUT FOR YOU!

Michael Cera won’t leave me alone, and (spoiler) Superbad is Fuckinggood

Okay, this blog post was supposed to be about how so fucking good Superbad is. When Eleanor and I walked out of the sneak preview screening we saw tonight, that was the first thing I said to her: “I can’t wait to blog about how amazingly funny that fucking movie was.” I think that’s an exact quote. We weren’t planning on seeing Superbad. It just kinda happened. I was stranded in Burbank earlier this afternoon (that’s a long story and it’s totally boring so I’m not even going to go into it) and so I called Eleanor and begged her to pick me up and drive me home, but of course I wanted to give Eleanor a carrot so I told her I’d take her to see The Simpsons. So we went to the Burbank AMC 16 for a 5:45 showing and as we were running up to the theater (at 5:52), we noticed people lined up for the aforementioned screening of Superbad. We didn’t give it much thought because we were late for the Simpsons movie and I can’t stand to miss the beginning of a movie. (Eleanor was like, “it’s okay if we’re late,” and I told her I was okay with it too, but I was lying, and I think she knew I was lying, but she didn’t say anything about it.)

Um, I’m sitting at the Bourgeois Pig coffee shop right now and I totally have to poop so bad that it’s hard for me to concentrate on writing this blog post, but the barista is really cute and I was flirting with him and when I tried to go poop a few minutes ago, the poop wasn’t coming out as easily as I would have liked, and I didn’t want to be in the bathroom long enough for the barista to know I was pooping because that’s not exactly the first image I want him to have of me in his head, so I gave up on the poop and came back out here to write this, and I’m kinda pissed at my bowels.

Anyway. So we got into the Simpsons movie just as it was beginning, we weren’t late at all, and everyone keeps telling me that it’s like a really long, good episode of the TV show, but I have to admit that I only agree with the “really long” part and not the “good” part. I would say it was about fifty percent good. Which isn’t enough. Sure, the fifty percent that was good was hella good and all, but I need some more bang for my fucking buck. Especially where the Simpsons are concerned. I would say every fifth or sixth joke landed, and I wanted more.

So then we walked out of the theater and the line for the preview screening of Superbad was just being let in and the first person I saw was my cousin Matt. Who I didn’t recognize. Not because he looked any different than he ever looks—but don’t you ever get that thing where you’ll see someone who you know really incredibly well but you’re seeing them out of context and unexpectedly and your brain won’t compute? That’s what happened. Like, the first thought I had when I saw Matt was: “why is that guy waving at me?” And then, oh, say six-and-a-half seconds later, my brain was like: “um, because he’s your favorite cousin, asshole.” (Apologies to all of my other cousins.) Yeah, okay, so we talk to Matt and we’re all jealous that he’s about to see the preview screening of Superbad, but he’s nervous because the movie’s rated “R” and he’s not seventeen yet, so he’s not sure if he’s going to be able to get in. He tells us that he’ll give us his tickets if they turn him away at the door. So we’re like: “awesome, okay.” And I’m sorry Matt, but for a second I was hoping that they were going to check your I.D. because I knew that Superbad was going to be better than The Simpsons and we really wanted to see a good movie after being so disappointed in the Simpsons. And then I felt guilty for hoping my cousin wouldn’t get in to the screening, and now I’m glad that he DID get in to the screening because it was SO superbad of him to get in and be underage and all.

Oh my god, I’m going on and on about so many things that aren’t even important and I haven’t even gotten to the part where we met Michael Cera. Okay, so: flash forward. We got into the movie and the movie fucking rocks and we were laughing so hard we almost broke our faces. Seriously. So hard that sound stopped coming out of our mouths. I don’t even want to say anything else about the movie because it’s too good to spoil even the tiniest jokes. I have a feeling that Superbad’s gonna become my new Wet Hot American Summer, (which is to say I’m going to see it a dozen times this summer). Go see this movie. (Grandma, you might want to skip it.) (Or go see it, just be prepared for a lot of penis jokes.) (Which I’m sure you’ll enjoy.) (Because who doesn’t enjoy penis jokes.) (I can’t believe I’m talking to my grandmother about penis jokes on my blog right now.) (Because the thing is, my grandmother actually DOES read my blog.) (Hi grandma.)

So after the movie, Eleanor and I were famished because we had been planning on getting dinner after The Simpons, but then we were hijacked by the whole Superbad screening, and we weren’t even able to get popcorn because they ushered us into the theater too fast, and so then we headed over to Birds for some eats. And of course we’re going on and on about how much we loved the movie, and we’re walking down the street towards the restaurant, and I see a few people standing in a group up ahead and immediately notice that one of them is Michael Cera. And I whisper to Eleanor, “stop talking about the movie, it’s Michael Cera.” And then she sees him too and we walk by him and we’re totally freaking out. Not because he’s a celebrity or anything—I see “famous” people in Los Angeles all the time and it doesn’t faze me anymore—no, we started freaking out specifically because here’s Michael Cera who we’ve just been watching for the last two hours in Superbad and whose brilliance we’ve just been going on and on about. Like, it felt like we manifested him or something. It was just too weird. Oh, and I should say that I was holding my shoes and walking down the sidewalk in black dress socks. (Which is part of the whole “stranded in Burbank” story, but again I’m not going to bore you with those details.) Oh, and also, one of the other people in the group with Michael Cera was Charlyne Yi, the hilarious stoner girlfriend from Knocked Up, and we recognized her as well, and we definitely thought seeing her was cool, and maybe if we’d literally just walked out of Knocked Up we would have freaked out about “manifesting” her, but we hadn’t manifested her, we’d manifested Michael Cera, and she was just a by-product of that manifestation, so we were freaking out about Michael Cera. Anyway, if I’m obsessing right now, it’s because I still have to poop and the barista is still way too cute, and I still haven’t gotten to the good parts of the Michael Cera story, and how many times have I typed his name in this paragraph? Too many times.

So we walked past Michael Cera and then we got to the end of the block and Eleanor was like, “we should have said something to him—we should have told him how good he was.” Because the movie doesn’t open for a few more weeks and we thought he should know that his movie is about to become a huge fucking hit because it’s brilliant. And Eleanor was like, “we missed our opportunity, we have to go back.” And then I was like, “yes, let’s go back.” And then we both were like, “we’re gonna look so weird.” And then Eleanor was like, “you’re holding your shoes, you already look weird.” And then I was like, “let’s go tell him.” And Eleanor was like, “go, go, now!”

So we walk back down the sidewalk towards Michael Cera’s group, and they’re totally immersed in conversation, and we totally interrupted them, and I was like, “Um, uh…excuse me?” (I don’t think I actually said “excuse me,” but I’d like to sound a little less rude on my blog so I’m gonna say I said “excuse me.”) And then I stammered out a couple more “uh’s” because I was completely acting as un-suave as a human being can act, and by then everyone in the group was looking at me like, “you just interrupted our conversation, say what you’re trying to say,” but in a nice way. So I continued: “We just saw a preview of your movie in Burbank and it was so good.” And then Michael Cera said: “Wait, you saw the preview?” And I said, “yeah, in Burbank, you’re so funny.” (I don’t know why I kept saying it was “in Burbank”—I think I felt like the words “in Burbank” gave me some validity, like he’d know there was a preview screening in Burbank and therefore know exactly what we were talking about.) But then Michael Cera was like, “or, wait, you saw the whole thing?” And then I realized that when I said we’d seen a “preview” of the movie,” he thought we’d come over to him to gush about the trailer before some other movie. Which was kind of embarrassing because we’d actually seen the entire movie. So then I was like, “yeah, we saw the whole thing,” and then I felt the need to overexplain, so I continued: “And then we walked past you and we got to the corner and we couldn’t walk away without telling how good you were, so we came back, and here you are, and you were really good.” And then Michael Cera, sounding exactly like Michael Cera, said: “Well, thanks for coming back!” And then Eleanor and I smiled and thanked him for being so good and continued on our way to Birds. And even though our encounter with Michael Cera was totally awkward, we were happy and ready to go on our way to dinner.

And that should be the end of the story. But it wasn’t quite. Because as we were finishing our meals at Birds, we looked towards the door and noticed that Michael Cera’s group was standing outside, waiting for a table. They were basically standing right in front of the door, which meant the only way for us to get out of the restaurant would have been for us to walk THROUGH their group. And we didn’t want to have another awkward encounter with them, so we were stuck. And we sat there at our table for, like, twenty minutes, waiting for Michael Cera’s group to either get a table or leave. Just so we wouldn’t encounter them again. We’d had our moment. We didn’t want another one. Just. Too. Awkward.

But they just kept standing there. And we kept waiting. And they kept standing there. And we kept waiting.

And then we saw our chance. Charlyne Yi came into the restaurant and walked over to the “to go” counter, so apparently that’s what they were waiting for. "To go" food. And as Charlyne Yi walked up to the “to go” counter, Michael Cera walked away. We were like, “awesome, he’s leaving, this is our moment to get out.” So we paid for our food and we snuck out of the restaurant, and we made our way over to the Bourgeois Pig (where I’m sitting right now, making sexy-sexy eyes at the cute barista and not pooping) and as I reach for the door handle to enter the coffee shop the door suddenly opens and suddenly Michael Cera is standing in the doorway holding some sort of smoothie, and he sees me and Eleanor and immediately recognizes us as the weird people who saw his movie tonight, and we immediately recognize him as Michael Cera who starred in our movie tonight, and then we all kind of step back awkwardly as if to let someone else get out of the doorway first, and the sudden awkward movement causes Michael Cera to jerk his smoothie towards the door and smoothie flies all over the door, which we all look at, again awkwardly, and then he was like, “um, hi,” and we were like, “um, hi,” and then Eleanor and I parted so that Michael Cera could pass through us and then we went into the coffee shop and now we just want Michael Cera to let us enjoy our food and drinks in peace, please.

Oh my god, but you have to see his movie. At least ten times. It fucking rocks cock in the best way.

Now I really have to go poop.