Having A Nice Day

"You could prosper in the field of entertainment."-a fortune cookie fortune, 9/10/07

Yup, right about the time that I was preparing to finally conclude that last post, I happened to go have Thai food, and the universe spoke to me. I do indeed prosper in Entertainment World, and did have a Juliette Lewis sighting. I was talking to somebody when I noticed a disturbance in my periphery. It was a jittery, tiny woman with too much eyeliner, and strange little (applied, intentional) pink squares under her eyes proper. Juliette. She looked like shit.

The last post veered entirely off course during its writing/completion. I wasn't really hoping for a Brushes With Greatness post, nor the Breathy Travelogue of Homes of the Famous (and if you are looking for that kind of thing, something named Taylor Clark who apparently lives here has written something on the subject for Slate. Enjoy.): I think my point was Fame Is Stupid, or something. Don't know. Funny thing is, I also wasn't setting out with the goal of writing/completing a post about How Important My Job Is, either.

I'm a'goin' back to work for PICA again tomorrow, for the first time in
two years. All of us working on this (annual) citywide art type thang got together the other eve at a bar in Old Town to receive our instructions, then sit and catch up. And drink.
Thing is, it was kinda like a class reunion of old theater techs, and as we all got more and more lubed, the talk kept coming back to why we do what we do, and why we love it. I almost never get sick of that topic.

"Threatening to withdraw may harden something that we are trying to soften."-Gen. David Petraeus, 9/11/07

It is nice, as always, to see some genuine wit among the speechwriters. That was followed up, by the way, with the masterful line, "So there's a very, very real issue-a feel for what we think might happen in that case." That's right up there with George Herbert Walker Bush's "You can't put-I mean, un-put things." (Can't git' th' shit back in the cow?)

I don't have much to say here on the subject of Yesterday that hasn't already been said, ad infinitum, in many other posts. I liked how, as usual, The Oregonian feels this overwhelming need to turn everything into a Triumph of the American Spirit story. They profiled five people who refused to react to 9/11's events with "fear and hate", and instead decided to help others. One, an Air Force transport pilot, responded by going on being an Air Force transport pilot.
In the interest of Fairness and Equal Time, I was hoping that they were going to spend 9/12 telling the stories of those in these U-nigh Stays who did respond with fear and hate. There were, I recall, a lot of them, and they are every bit as accountable for what followed as were both a complicit press and terrified/opportunistic political class.

But then, this is the paper that garnered itself a Pulitzer for the (month-long?) story on The Kid Born With A Fucked Up Face. It has caused me to wish to form my own prize: The Tom Hallman, Jr. Prize for Gratuitous Pseudo-Journalistic Tearjerking. (With a special category for best use of Vonnegut-esque One Sentence Paragraph of Immense Emotional Impact:

"It was another day for Joe.

Another terrible day.

For Joe.

Who was born with a fucked up face.")

Yeah, instead, what do I get? Nothin' much, really. Well, except for overwhelming love and support for Chris Crocker, whose most recent rant concerning his overwhelming love and support for Brittany Spears may be found here.
On the Mercury's Blogtown, I responded to this video by saying,

"Oh my dear sir; you simply must be joking.

But let's assume for a moment that he isn't. For one thing, he may very well be, as many of my gay friends are, talented at the satire there. BUT-if I've noticed anything at all, it's that folks of his age market are woefully lacking in irony.

So this leads us to a discussion of Brit's performance itself. There is nothing especially egregious about it: her entire career up until this point is the egregious part. She just looks bored and kinda untalented, which she has always been.

She no longer looks like an animatronic puppet though; this has caused more than one person to make unkind comments. Still-the blame is still to be lain at the feet of Brittany. This is what she has chosen to become, and all the hilarious fifteen year-old boys huddling under blankets going from tantrum to threatening tones aren't going to change that.

If she had any class, she'd be pulling a Garbo right about now."

(He's right, you know.)

Hey: go look at this.

Happy Twelfth, mah bromides!