December 2010
31 posts
I'M OFF.
This is from a couple of years ago now and it’s time to do it again: the year-end Cayucos trip. There used to be a time when there were about fifteen people who went. Now I think we’re up to fifty. (That’s an exaggeration.) About to leave in less than an hour. I’m bringing a beanbag toss game. Let’s call it cornhole. I’ve never cornholed on the beach before so this is gonna be good. The...
AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL THE PEOPLE FOLLOWING ME ON...
Hey, guys! How ya doin’? I’ve noticed that a lot of you are really young. Way younger than me. I’m almost forty-one and a lot of you aren’t almost forty-one. So are you sure you wanna do this? What’s in it for you exactly? What’s going on in my isolated, dusty life that you’re relating to? Nothing, I hope. What the hell am I typing on this thing that’s getting your attention? (Please,...
"YOU'RE GONNA MISS MY LOVIN'!"
Yes, you’re seeing double. No, there’s nothing wrong with your vision.
I shouldn’t be posting this actually. Because now if I’m late for something (and I will be), people are gonna know I have no excuse. “Champagne, why are you late? You got two Thomas Guides!”
You’re thinking: “How do I get two Thomas Guides?” Well, ask for one for Christmas (yes, I asked for one), make sure your parents...
BURNING BLEAK
I’ve been reading this for a month now pretty much and I’m only halfway through it. My delay is a sure enough sign that I don’t completely care for it. You shouldn’t give your opinion about a book until you’ve finished reading all of it, but I don’t care. Here goes:
These are twenty short stories by a bunch of literati hotshots under forty who’ve been published in The New Yorker. I’ve read...
WHAT'S THAT KLINGON DOING THERE?
I remember one Christmas morning as a kid where I actually had to be woken up. Unbelievable. You know how most of the time you don’t go to sleep the night before Christmas ‘cause you’re so crazy-wired about all the stuff you’re gonna get? Well, I miraculously dropped off and had to be woken up! Can you believe that? I must’ve been beat. What did I do the night before? Watching some...
"THAT'S WRONG, ACTUALLY."
This guy was wearing an Aliens t-shirt one time and I was all: “Hey, nice shirt” and he goes: “Wanna see the back?” and I go: “What’s on the back? Tour dates?” Like there would be tour dates on the back of some old sci-fi movie t-shirt like that? Why would there be tour dates? That would be weird. What, like: You’re gonna go from town to town with your Aliens shirt, showing it...
WHAT DID YOU GOT?
I got two back scratchers. I got two Thomas Guides. I got more than two black socks. I got to spend Christmas Eve with the relatives without turning the TV on. I got sweaty from throwing balled-up wrapping paper at my cousins’ kids. I got plenty of laughs with the family. I got pumpkin pie. I got apple pie. I got cheese. I got seriously into a game called Doodle Jump. I got a thing...
I USED TO HAVE THE BATMAN WITH THE REMOVABLE COWL.
Okay: It’s the Damn Holidays!. (Having a tougher and tougher time typing the word “Christmas.”) Let’s talk about some of the toys I used to have:
I remember tearing open the wrapping on this baby Christmas morning and my eyes rolling back up into my head like I was having a seizure. You know that scene where the possessed girl in The Exorcist starts laughing diabolically while the prayers are...
IRONIC? YOU-RONIC.
This is what the side of the Elysian Masonic Temple looks like. Yeah. A masonic temple. You got three-year-old brick damage on a building whose title has the word “mason” in it and you think your life don’t got no irony?
This damage is right down my street. And it’s been like this for literal years. And I know it ain’t gonna get fixed. If there were ever a structure in serious need of brick...
"JUST ONE SECOND, LEMME FINISH THIS MAZE."
I check my locks twice a night. The doors, the windows, get into bed, can’t remember if my memory of checking them is from ten seconds ago or from the night before, get back up, check them again—and then I can go to sleep. This is why I’m utterly content to be a renter. My biggest fear (apart from being curbed [you know, that thing where punks force you to bite a curb and then step on the back...
EXTRA! EXTRA! SERIOUSLY, BIG TIME EXTRA!
Is that a headline of something that really happened, or is that a dream the writer had?
It’d be great if headlines got so long that they not only gave too much information, but also meandered off into the personal feelings and issues of the article’s writer. Imagine opening up a paper (remember newspapers?) and seeing this:
MAN IN FORD TRAURUS, HE’S LIKE—I DON’T KNOW—FORTY OR SOMETHING, IN LINE...
PUDDLE PICKLE
Oh c’mon. It’s just a little puddle. I mean, a big puddle. It’s a big puddle, all right? That is a formidable puddle that you couldn’t possibly jump over, granted. But it doesn’t look deep. Not really. And what’s the worst that can happen if you walk through it? A little water in your shoe? C’mon. You’ve never gotten water in your shoe from walking through a puddle that ended up being...
THE THING ZOMBIES MOSTLY DO IS LOITER.
The gutted and burned-out Mercedes across the street is still across the street, the glass still scattered around the sides. And with all the rain L.A.’s been getting, it’s gotta be muddy in there: the crispy and scorched upholstery, once dry and crumbling like a shitty cake, now wet and soupy, like a mudslide completely self-contained within the confines of the vehicle. It’s gotta be...
THROW THIS AWAY.
I went through a throwing phase as a kid. (Almost typed: “I went through a throwing face as a kid.”) I liked launching things into the air and watching them travel away from me.
And I’m not talking about the little balls and keys and food that little kids in their high chairs throw. And I’m not talking about sports because I sucked at sports. I’m talking about the Captain America shield...
IT'S TOUGH TO NOT WANT A FAG.
My dad once asked a woman to point her cigarette the other way. The nerve.
My dad has this taped onto a cabinet in his garage. I’m gonna paraphrase, but this is basically the gist of it:
So you enjoy smoking cigarettes. Great.
The residue of your habit is, of course, the smoke you exhale from your mouth. The residue of your habit gets into my clothes, my hair and my eyes.
I have a habit...
FAME-ISH
IMDB (which stands for It’s Most Definitely Boring) tells me my star meter is down twenty-five percent. I go to my IMDB page whenever I wanna know what I’m up to. (In fact, when people ask me: “Hey Matt, what’re you up to?”, I just tell them to go to my IMDB page because—well, you know—I’m busy. [I’m not busy. I’m never busy.])
Two things: First, didn’t know I even had a star meter. That’s...
CHARITY
I’ve seen this: Some stores ask for donations to St. Jude’s. The cashiers ask their customers: “Would you like to make a donation?” Whenever anyone says yes, the cashier calls out the amount—like “Yeah! A dollar!”—with joy and then rings a bell several times at which all the other employees cheer with much happiness. But what happens when someone says no? Do you hear the loser theme to Price...
ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN
So a few days ago I posted a thing about this Russian Girl I met in a bar at LAX while my flight to Detroit was delayed. I mentioned how we read this Pablo Neruda poem together. But what I didn’t mention was the book I had with me. 20 Under 40: Stories from the New Yorker. It was a bunch of short stories from a bunch of hotshot literati under forty. I hadn’t started it yet.
She looks at the...
THE READER KING
Ever tell ya about the time I worked as a reader for a bunch of Lion King auditions?
Yeah. I’d forgotten how gay theatre is.
They were replacing people in the Broadway production of Lion King and the casting people were out here in L.A. to listen to a bunch of actors sing and what-not. And someone from the Mark Taper Forum had my name and asked my agent if I wanted to work for a couple of days...
NOT WITHOUT MY PREMISE.
I think about those movies of the week with titles like Not Without my Daughter or Not Without My Family or something. It’s always about someone who’s not gonna do something unless they have a certain thing. And boy, do they gotta have it! Like that girl in Goodfellas who’s just gotta have her lucky hat before she gets on a plane. Right? Kinda raises the stakes and makes things dramatically...
"LET IT OUT, DOUG."
(Two men—Doug, about thirty-five, and Larry, about sixty-two—are in a room. Larry sits in front of a small, oddly shiny table and holds some weird blocks in his hands.)
(Long pause)
LARRY: Look: I’m hearin’ what you’re saying, but I don’t think you’re hearing what I’m saying.
DOUG: I’m definitely hearing what you’re saying. That’s the problem. I can’t help but hear what you’re saying. I’m...
HACK ATTACK
You can tell when someone’s been hacked. You look at your Facebook wall and that friend you’ve known for a while (or not at all) posts something completely inconsistent with anything they’ve ever posted before. And so you smell a rat: an immediate, stinky rat. And so you don’t click on the link they’ve left because who the hell knows what that may unleash into your world or, worse, your...
CORNHOLE
Looks like I bought someone a gift, right? Looks like someone’s gonna get something really cool from me this Christmas, right? Yeah! Someone is gonna get something really cool from me this Christmas. You know who? Me! This is not a gift for anyone but myself. I know. Kinda shitty, right? I bought myself a beanbag toss game. At Christmas time! What kind of a jerk does that? I don’t...
ME NO FOODY
I start with the tomatoes. I just do. I like ‘em the least usually and if they’re on my plate, I’ll get ‘em outta the way from the get-go so I can get to the stuff I really like. Like the potatoes or the eggs. Or hell, even the sausage. Tomatoes feel like wet flesh. Feels like I’m eating someone’s tongue. I suffer through tomatoes. Sometimes I eat left to right. There has to be a system. ...
DEN ÅTTENDE PASSASJER
All right, all right. Christmas is the giving season, I know. If you’re gonna steal, don’t steal in December. Hell, you shouldn’t steal at all. But…you guys don’t understand! I had to have this!
It’s the novelization of Alien by Alan Dean Foster. In Norwegian, y’all!
At first I thought it was German. No. Norwegian. Look, I love this movie. Okay? And I simply had to have this book. ...
SHUT UP AND SING.
There are only so many songs I’ll sing at karaoke. I think there might be about ten maybe. Let’s see:
***
Head Like a Hole by Nine Inch Nails: I like the screaming. There’s always more instrumental stuff than I remember. I don’t know why I keep picking this one. And then I get fairly uncomfortable with the whole “bow down before the one you serve” part. I sang this song at a bar once and...
THE THE
Some have signs that say: “Beware of Dog.” Some have signs that say: “Beware of the Dog.” Let’s talk about the differences.
Are you saying that passers-by should be specifically cautious of all canines everywhere? Or are you saying that passers-by should be specifically cautious of your canine? The first admonition suggests that one should beware of all dogs. The second admonition suggests...
PABLO FUNNY
My flight to Detroit’s delayed an hour. I meet a Russian girl who’s got a book of Pablo Neruda’s poetry. She’s also got a copy of the The Catcher in the Rye. We don’t discuss that one. Honestly, does anyone have anything new to say about that book? Of Neruda’s writing, she says she doesn’t speak Spanish but thinks the words are pretty. I forget I’m half-Mexican. I always forget I’m...
TRIFECTA!
This. Right next to me. On a damn plane. Two whole seats. Unclaimed for the duration of the flight. This one girl sitting by the window in the row behind me threw her sweater on the seat here closest to my window (how is it my window?) because she didn’t wanna sit next to the two Arab guys she had to share her row with. I guess. But as soon as I could get to my coat, I grabbed it and threw...
EMBASSY SWEET
The young and angry tumblr followers grow in number. Even after the post of a few days ago where I made fun of their names. I won’t give the exact name of the new one, but I will say that it’s very similar to showrespectforsharpthings. I’m serious. These names are like that.
Still in Detroit. Shot my scene today in a zoo. Quite fun. People said I was funny. That’s...
