Now's As Good A Time As Any

Maybe I’ll go to Hyderabad and become the next big Tollywood star: “generic caucausian guy”!

I think I had a dream that I wrote to Madonna and she wrote me back. I think my e-mail said that some of the singles on her last few albums have been really good, and I’m impressed with the way she’s managed her career. I think in the dream I forgot about all the Kaballah crap and cultivating a British accent.

In the dream, I figured she must spend as much time each day replying to e-mails as she does working out.

It must have stemmed from what I was thinking the other day: that there are probably some people who are famous to me who aren’t actually famous enough that they get as many nice e-mails as they’d like. For example: the Dispatch film critic, Frank Gabrenya. He’s been doing solid work as long as I’ve lived in this town. I can’t say whether he’s one of the top critics in the country or anything, but I highly value his opinion because I have a comfort level with him that comes from familiarity. He might be the sort of guy who would appreciate a nice e-mail from a reader. Maybe he’s not too swamped already.

On the bus from Buenos Aires to Rosario, they showed this terrible B-horror movie. It was really dumb, but I could hardly take my eyes off it.

I would love it if Frank Oz would write a book about his relationship with Jim Henson. We often think of the characters as so real that there isn’t anyone operating them, but when you think about it, Frank and Jim played several close pairs of characters: not only Kermit and Miss Piggy, but also Kermit and Fozzie, not to mention Bert and Ernie. They also collaborated on the Swedish Chef: Jim was the head and voice, Frank was the hands. They were two parts of the same guy! We have hours and hours of film and video developing the relationship between the characters, but we don’t (or I don’t) know anything about what the professional/performing partnership was like.

Did I already tell you that my copies of The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper arrived yesterday? I’m going to actually have time to watch them soon! Maybe I’ll take them to Argentina and watch them on the bus!

But right now, I need a nap.

I saw it, laughed heartily, smiled on the way out. I revere comedians. It wasn’t as disgusting as I expected, but that may say more about me than about the movie.

Why can’t I get a Pootie Tang discussion board going in my blog comments? That would be awesome. Let’s see…what would be a good set of keywords to draw the Tang heads out? Hmm…

• Cleepa
• Pone toni
• Tippi-tais
• Biggie Shorty
• “Don’t bang the dillies!”
• “Sa-da-tay!”
• “Cole me down on the panny stai.”
• “I know you love the ladies, and Lord knows the ladies love you, but never let the ladies get between you and the belt.”
• “Sepatown!”

I stopped at the New York Power Authority “Power Vista” which sounds a lot fancier than it is. I checked into my motel and took a nap.

I went to eat at a restaurant called “The Rude Native“, where I got a (Texican?-)Mexican-ish appetizer and curry chicken for a main dish, accompanied by Stella Artois on draft (or should I say drought).

Then I thought maybe I would look for somewhere to get ice cream, but what I ended up finding was an AMC theater where they had Bollywood movies! Well, at least one, the one I saw, called Bunty aur Babli. I don’t really have any basis of comparison to say whether it’s good or not, but I certainly enjoyed it. It was nearly three hours long, though, as Hindi films tend to be. The heavy in the movie looked just like Al Pacino. I thought they specifically found an Indian dude who looks just like Pacino, but it turns out he’s just the biggest star in the business, Amitabh Bachchan, little did I know. So anyway, that’s something I couldn’t have seen/done at home.

Somebody told me today that I look like Peter “Lord of the Rings” Jackson. Then they sort of apologized, but I thought it was okay. I could do worse than be compared to a rich and famous movie director loved by millions of nerds.

Before I wore glasses often, someone also told me that I looked like Oliver Platt.

I think it’s almost time to change the name of this blog. Like I said before, I didn’t even really get off very much on the Matrix sequels. I just couldn’t think of anything better at the time. Well, I could’ve, but didn’t.

Suggestions?

What can I possibly talk about to follow up that performance? Hmmm…something with high Google visibility…something that 14 year olds are very interested in…wait, I’ve got it!

Let’s just take Yahoo’s top ten search terms…

1. American Idol
2. Britney Spears
3. 50 Cent
4. Sony PSP
5. Jennifer Lopez
6. Ciara
7. Eminem
8. Terri Schiavo
9. Michael Jackson
10. Green Day

Add suckage…

1. American Idol sucks!
2. Britney Spears sucks!
3. 50 Cent sucks!
4. Sony PSP sucks!
5. Jennifer Lopez sucks!
6. Ciara sucks!
7. Eminem sucks!
8. Terri Schiavo sucks!
9. Michael Jackson sucks!
10. Green Day sucks!

And viola! Have fun, kids!

Okay, there were just too many cosmic coincidences when I saw Diary of a Mad Black Woman. I’ll sort them all out later. First off, the movie won me over. Is it a well-made movie? A well-told story? No. Is it entertaining? Does it have a good heart? Does it have some wisdom to it? Absolutely.

I was so sure that the lead actress in this movie was in one of the best scenes in Pootie Tang! I was so wrong!

I don’t want to give away a plot point, but there was an event in this movie that was astonishingly similar to an event today in real life.

…maybe I’ll see Million Dollar Baby again.

1. I am considering going to see Diary of a Mad Black Woman out of morbid curiosity.
2. The whole threat of the economy collapsing due to high oil prices is a little overhyped. People only spend a small portion of their income on gasoline or things that generally require gasoline (like shipping things by truck). People will spend less on other stuff and find alternatives to using so much gasoline. The economy will grow slower or shrink for a couple of years while the market sorts out the energy situation, but it won’t be the end of the world.