When Gene Met Terry ... and They Haven't Spoken Since

I was listening to NPR's rerun of Terry Gross' 2002 interview with Gene Simmons. The KISS frontman was obnoxious and pretty insulting . Transcript here

The Oldest Guy

I watched some U.S. Open tennis on USA tonight. James Blake was playing some guy named Fabrice Santoro. I thought I heard McEnroe say that Santoro was 35, but I figured I'd misheard. Sure, he moved more slowly and didn't have the big guns, but I couldn't believe he was that old. I looked him up just now and yup, he's 35. In the end, he lost to Blake in five sets, but that's okay. Yay for one of the oldest guys on the tour.

August Uninspired

Sorry for the especially weak and uninspired posts lately. I can't really think of anything to blog about. Some random things:

I saw Divorce, Italian Style and thought is was pretty good.

I've been spending too much time on Facebook.

I have too many drama queens in my life. You know the type-- you say hi to them and suddenly they start ranting about how terrible life is. (Don't worry, if you're reading this, you are not one of these people.)

I've lost my travel bug. All for the better since traveling is so expensive.

Your Friday Afternoon Video #13: Spicy Ramen Challenge

If you think you can handle spicy food, try Special #2 at Orochon Ramen in Little Tokyo next time you're in LA.

Your Friday Afternoon Video #12: George Michael "Freedom '90"

U.S. Open Means More Rafa

Are you ready?

I Never Thought I'd Say This, But I Want to Go to Vegas

Not to gamble, or to party, or to have some stranger rub up a against me. I want to go see Cirque du Soleil, eat at Lotus of Siam and stay at a hotel overlooking the strip.

E a r t h q u a k e

I haven't given much thought to earthquakes since moving to LA. I mean, it's always in the back of my mind, but I don't really worry about it. I think I worried more about terrorist attacks when I lived in NY than I do about earthquakes now. Still, The Big One is coming. Apparently, a big one hit Peru yesterday.

Are earthquakes the scariest of natural disasters? I guess it depends on where you are. If you're home, then maybe not so scary. If you're in a highrise and you can feel the building sway from side to side, then that's scary. I used to work in the tallest building in LA and was told that it was built to withstand a very powerful earthquake because it was set on rollers (whatever that means). I'm glad that I now work in a short, but new, building. I take comfort in knowing that Eagle Rock is a good 20 miles or so from the beach, so death by tsunami is highly unlikely.

There is a small town in Chilean Patagonia called Puerto Aisen that has had over 7,000 earthquakes this year. It's just been rumbling for months. None of the quakes has been as big as the one in Peru, but the locals are bracing for the big one. It's torn families apart and driven some to alcoholism.

Am I Weird?

Even though I've been married for a while, I still love flipping through wedding magazines. I might love it even more now that I don't have wedding plannning stress. I especially like looking at wedding invitations. How pretty are these? And these?

Giuliani for Obama

Caroline Giuliani, that is. Rudy's daughter and soon-to-be Harvard freshwoman has a Facebook page describing herself as a liberal and a member of the "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)" group. Or rather, she had such a Facebook page, until Slate broke the story.

Attention: Bourne Lovers

Did anyone really like The Bourne Ultimatum? I think the first one was the best, then the second. I thought Ultimatum was good enough, but a distant third to the other two. The action made me a little dizzy. The story was too thin. And why Julia Stiles? Yawn. Too many close ups of her boring face. And what did she mean by "It was hard for me, you were..." (or whatever she said). (Possible spoiler for those who have not seen: please don't tell me they used to be together.)

A Most Summersy Weekend

August is here and I realized on Friday that we have not once been to the beach this summer. We're not really beach people and we don't actually live close to the beach, but still this was shocking to me. What a shame, living in LA and all. The last time we went to the beach was probably last summer.

So we put on our bathing suits, packed our 50 spf sunscreen, slipped on our flipflops and headed west. We decided to go to Venice Beach, one of the more laid back of the LA beach communities. We took five freeways to get there. The 2, the 5, the 110, the 405 and finally the 90. After circling around for street parking we bit the bullet and paid $15 to park all day.

Aaah, the Venice boardwalk. If Berkeley were on the beach, this would be it. The smell of incense and pot. A few street performers and a few more drunkards. People riding their beach cruisers. People getting their first tattoo. It's all here. I sang the theme song to Three's Company as we walked, even though I know they lived in Santa Monica.

Mr. Octopus braved the yellow green water, as I watched from dry land. It felt good to be out in the sun. Small planes flew banners advertising the movie "Hot Rod." Indian people went into the water with their clothes on. A family of French tourists struggled for a half hour to put up a tent. We met up with some old friends at the Figtree Cafe and had a three hour lunch.



We pulled up to our driveway at 6pm, groggy from being in the sun all day. But there was no rest to be had because we were meeting friends at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery for a screening of Pee Wee's Big Adventure. For anyone visiting LA in the summer, I highly recommend seeing a movie at the cemetery. They screen every Saturday, projecting the movies against the backside of the mausoleum. Bring your friends, blankets and booze and picnic as the sun goes down. If you want to take a walk, you can lay some flowers on Rudolph Valentino's grave or pay your respects to Cecil B. DeMille, Mel Blanc and Johnny Ramone.

The cool thing about going to a movie in LA is that you never know who you'll see. Take, for instance, Pee Wee himself. He walks the streets among us, but who knew he would be at the cemetery. The crowd went wild when the emcee introduced him. The crowd got on their feet, hooting and whistling, looking at each other thinking, no WAY. Pee Wee also brought out the ladies who played Dottie and Simone. The cemetery screens Pee Wee every year and the crowd had a lot of hard core Pee Wee fans. The kind of people who get up and dance Pee Wee style when the tequila dance scene comes on. You figured these people probably saw Pee Wee in the theater 20 some years ago in the theater, just like you.