Well, dear readers, they say some like it hot but I can say with a certainty that no one likes a house that is eighty-three degrees hot. It is unbearably hot and yet I must grin and bear it, which is, I suppose, better than to grin and bare it, especially at my age, baby. You just don’t want the word “bare” and BK anywhere near each other. Perhaps if I lost fifty pounds, I’d feel differently but I already know that differently doesn’t like to be felt. THIS is what the unbearable heat does, causes this kind of comedy. I’m currently using the think system to make me feel cooler. It’s not working. I did manage to watch two count them two motion pictures, both directed by Joseph Ruben, the last two I needed to see to have seen all his films. The first was entitled The Forgotten, starring Julianne Moore. About twenty minutes in it started to feel familiar, but I didn’t really remember much beyond that. Turns out that I’d forgotten I’d seen The Forgotten ten years ago and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it this time, too. The story is a little out there, but Ruben directs it very well and the actors are all really fine. Plus, rather than the synth scores he obviously prefers, this one had a real bona fide movie score – not brilliant – but it serves the film well – James Horner is the composer and it’s a big orchestral score. The movie got some good reviews and some bad, but it moves right along, and the story goes to some unexpected places. I’d never seen the second film, The Good Son, starring Macauley Culkin and Elijah Wood. It’s The Bad Seed on steroids and didn’t do so well at the box office back then because Culkin skewed the film in a weird direction because everyone was expecting him to be funny and so the film got unintended laughs. His father, who was a holy terror while managing his son’s career, was apparently from all reports on a big ol’ power trip, living his life through his son because he failed at his own acting career. Novelist Ian McEwan wrote the screenplay, but Ruben brought in another writer to rework some of it. I’d really like to read McEwan’s version – and apparently McEwan wrote a detailed article about the film, which I’m going to seek out. In any case, it probably plays better now that we’re many years on from Home Alone, but he still skews it in the wrong direction. Elijah Wood is terrific, though. Culkin’s out of control daddy also insisted two of his other kids get roles. This jerk is now estranged from all his children, and he had a LOT of children, eight to be exact. Ruben’s direction is, as always, well thought out and professional and the film looks great. It also has a real bona fide movie score and it’s a terrific one by one Elmer Bernstein. But in the end, it’s a really nasty, vicious, off-putting movie due to its subject matter. As always with Ruben, he knows shorter is better and sans end credits, this on runs about eighty-three minutes.
Yesterday was a day. I only got about five hours of sleep because I went down a wittle wabbit hole, trying to find certain dates for certain events involving a certain ME. It made me realize how truly extraordinary it is to have a literal daily diary of my life from November 2001 to now and beyond – that’s twenty-three years, baby. Maybe I should publish all of it – but I’m sure it’s well over 10,000 pages by now and even if each book were a whopping 1,000 pages it would be ten volumes, but probably more. That’s some diary. Once up, I answered e-mails, got confirmation that the lunch meeting was on, so I did a few things and then moseyed on over to the mail place to pick up one little thank you note from one of the kids in the Kritzerland show – very sweet – and then I moseyed on over to the Coral Café to meet with Doug Haverty. I’m offering some suggestions on a piece he wrote a few years ago. It was fun and I had my usual patty melt and fries, both very good.
After that, I came right home into the sweltering hotbox. I answered more e-mails, dozed off, then watched the two movies. And here we are.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll try and go out to have food in some nice air-conditioned jernt, I’ll probably do a little Gelson’s run, and then I’ll just try to endure the heat and watch, listen, and relax.
Tomorrow, I have to be up at seven, the coil is arriving and hopefully that will end this heat wave in the house for good. I’ll immediately get the house cooled down to seventy-two. Otherwise, this week is busy with choosing songs and catching up on stuff and casting the final person for the anniversary show.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, perhaps eat out, do a Gelson’s run, and then hopefully endure the heat until the coil arrives and all is put well. Today’s topic of discussion: It’s free-for-all day, the day in which you dear readers get to make with the topics and we all get to post about them. So, let’s have loads of lovely topics and loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, whilst I continue to grin and bear it.