My gal Rachel at a press conference in LA yesterday for her new movie “The Vow.” I mean there is no competition when it comes to “The Notebook” but this new movie….it might be the closest thing I’ve seen in a while. Who’s with me? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Maybe RyGo will see this and want to get back together with her and then he will dump Eva the beezie.

My other gal Oprah. I miss her terribly. Damn you Comcast for not including OWN in my package!

It’s confirmed that the new album will be out in 2012. Rumors were making the rounds that it would be out in the next few weeks but it ended up just being a rumor. I CANNOT WAIT for this new album and if she tours, Ima be over the moon.

Like Epic Records with Fiona A, AMC will stop holding out and is finally bringing Mad Men back on the air.  March 25th will be a very good day. Party at my place? Here’s what Don Draper has to say (or not say) about it.

In addition to overdosing on Nitrous, it turns out that Demi Moore also has a penchant for the Red Bull.  ”Demi Moore was obsessively drinking Red Bull in weeks preceding her 911 emergency, but we’ve learned her addiction to Red Bull is a decade old. Moore — a recovering addict — had cases and cases of Red Bull delivered to her home as early as 2002.” -Source

Another actress having a horrendous time coping with the aging process is Cameron D. I would say something mean but this picture says it all. Yikes.

First Seal and Heidi Ho and now G&G?! What is the world coming to. After 10 years of marriage, shit is hitting the fan and the end could be near. First the secret daughter (Daisy Lowe) and then Boy George outing Gavin’s affair with a cross-dresser named Marilyn followed by Courtney Love claiming to Howard Stern that he cheated on Gwen with her (BARF x 1000). Apparently Gwen is ready to throw in the towel. Farewell rockstar power couple. Your union resulted in two ridiculously adorable kids, although it’s a little twisted how you dressed them. Just saying.

Went to Sundance! We saw this incredible French movie called Declaration of War which is the story of a young couple dealing with their child’s potentially fatal tumor. I loved this movie and would highly recommend it. Trailer here.

Heather’s dog Maeby who I fell in love with. I have known her for years but this year I really took a strong liking to her. Bo and Maeby are my two favorite bitches of all time.

It snowed a lot on Saturday so we missed seeing three films we had tickets for because the roads were too hazardous. But Sunday was a beautiful day so we took Maeby for a walk and admired the winter wonderland.

Dave cocktailing up a storm during his company’s holiday party  last night at Tony’s Pizza in North Beach. He was one of the two winners the bartenders chose for making the best drink during the drink-making competition. That’s my boy!

Tickets for Modest Mouse tonight. I haven’t been this excited for a show in a while. Also seeing Wilco on Sunday. It’s going to be a good music week.

I took a picture of my room this morning because I love waking up to foggy San Francisco mornings. If I get a another view better/like this  this in my lifetime, I won’t believe it.

And then 2009 (not sure where pics from 2007 and 2008 went)…

And our last trip was in 2010 when Celeste J. joined the crew…

This year I plan to see a handful of movies. Our years of seeing 10 popular movies at the fest are long gone due to the fact that Sundance has gotten more popular than ever. You now need to buy a pricey package to get access to the good tix. However we are gonna wake early and wait in the freezing cold to see if we can get our paws on some of the day-of tickets that are released at 8am.  Excited for this show we will be seeing on Friday. We’ll also be hitting up my favorite sandwich spot Legers and thrifting a bit at Decades. 2012 picture post to come when I return! We will be foregoing movie-watching on Sunday so that we can cheer for San Francisco’s 49ers. Yes, I am a bandwagon fan.

I saw My Week With Marilyn yesterday and it was one of my favorite films of the year. I fell even more in love with Michelle Williams as an actress in addition to her very handsome costar Eddie Redmayne who may be knocking RyGo out of his #1 spot…Redmayne apparently dated Carey Mulligan (that gal gets all the gents!). Make sure to read the latest GQ piece on Michelle. I think it’s one of the best yet.

There is a question I have been wanting to understand the answer to, but have been feeling that I simply can’t ask. Eventually I just ask it anyway:

Do you think there was a part of you that imagined the two of you would somehow end up together?

Immediately, I wish that I hadn’t. The look on her face—a kind of juddering visceral alarm at what has been said…I don’t wish to see that look many more times in my life. “That would make me way too sad to answer,” she says quickly, and I hurriedly begin another question, about something completely different, hoping that if I say it fast enough these new words will chase the old words away from where they are hanging in the air between us, and maybe she will let me pretend that it was something I never said.

“No, no,” she says, and I can see the tears forming, and I think she means that she doesn’t want to answer any more questions about anything. I mutter some kind of apology under my breath.

But, even now, I’m wrong about everything. Mostly she is just trying to stop my new question. She has something to tell me.

“No,” she says. “I said it would make me too sad to answer but it’s also…”—and she nods even as her voice breaks once more with tears—”…one of my favorite things to imagine.” And through the tears, a beaming, almost beatific smile stretches room-wide across her face. “It’s actually one of my favorite places to visit.”

My new favorite song. Give it a listen!

That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.

Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

-Steve Jobs

Blog entry 3

Besides dancing, writing keeps me on my toes

One of the things about writing is that one must be consistent. If you miss too many days you’ve lost momentum and you are sidelined—out of it, never in it long enough to count. Writing (blogging) is a marathon. At best you set the pace and lead the pack. At worst you keep going alone and cold and get to the finish line long after the winners have been cheered, the rest have crossed and there’s nothing left but silence and a stark littered landscape reminiscent of Pasadena the morning after the Rose Bowl.

But you ran the race to the end of the course because you like running and because there’s a course. So what does that have to do with staying forever young? Kids do things with no ulterior motives. They skip and run because they feel like it. They roll down hills because they like to get dizzy and see the sky trade places with the grass over and over and over again.

Ideally writing a blog, or anything else should not be painful. It should be fun or shouldn’t be done. Ideally. But sometimes it’s more fun than other times. Those are the times when you experience something that is indescribable, but you try to nail it down, to hold onto it anyway, using whatever tools come to hand or to mind. You can’t
help yourself and you’re off to the races. This impulse came over me on a visit to San Francisco when my daughter and I took in the Tutankhaman exhibit at the de Young. So I wrote some rough impressions in a notebook, which I found today in a file. I worked on it a while and found I had a poem. Here it is:

You Are Here X (the de Young Museum August 2009)

Now is the edge of Eternity

Words cannot convey

They are mightier than that

Words have the power to conger and transport matter through time

Tutankhaman, Tutankhaman, Tutankhaman

Spoke these words writ by scribes:

“I will live as long as people say my name.”

And they did for a time and then not

For thousands of years

His mummy in its golden sarcophagus

Along with much that he possessed

Including his words, were swallowed whole

Deep in time

To a golden city in a golden state in an unformed nation,

To San Francisco in the year of our unborn Lord 2009

In Golden Gate Park at the de Young Museum

Throngs of murmuring tourists listen to the story of Tutankhaman

They pause to ponder his life, his words

They say his name

They think about where to have dinner

They have made it to the edge of Eternity

And they are hungry

For now