LYT's Weblog

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December 30, 2002

Best. Headline. EEEVER!

From Friday's LA Times:

"Park Can't Ban Pedophile's Clown Performance"

"NEW YORK - The only government-owned amusement park in the United States cannot bar a convicted child molester from performing a clown act and soliciting money in all public areas, according to a judge's ruling made public on Thursday."

The park is called Playland Park, and is located in Westchester County, 20 miles north of New York City.

Posted by LYT at 4:04 PM | Comments (0)

December 29, 2002

Yeah, I've been slacking off

Yeah, I've been slacking off on the blog, but mainly that's because everyone seems to be away and not checking the site anyway. You'll have plenty to read when you get back. Let's touch on a coupla things, anyway, both personal and political...

My Not-so-Brilliant Korea

Here at least is one world situation where only the most hardened lefties and isolationist righties can blame America. It's as if Kim Jong-Il felt affronted that we were focusing too hard on mid-East baddies and not giving him his due as Gangster #1, so he has to start waving his dick around. One thing I'll say for him -- the timing was perfect, making Bush look like an idiot for being distracted with Iraq, a country that's a whole lot less dangerous.

The problem is, though, that North Korea can't win in any kind of prolonged hostile situation, and they must know that. Russia and China are traditional allies for them, but both have condemned this new nuke-building. And despite what one columnist on Counterpunch wrote, North Korea does not, by most accounts, have missiles that can reach the U.S. They can make things very, very difficult and very bad for all concerned, but in the long run, they cannot win. And they've gotta know that if they start the Korean War anew, the U.S. won't stop at the DMZ this time -- we're talking regime change, and neo-hawks like Paul Wolfowitz are dying for that kind of excuse.

Yes, Bush did get 'em mad by calling them evil. But if any government deserves to be called evil, this one's high in the running. I don't see why we can't at least talk to them, though. They're gonna force our hand sooner or later to where we'll have to. And Reagan talked to the "evil" Soviets many times.

Air Buds

Doing the killradio show Friday was a great time, with both me and John agreeing that it didn't feel like an hour at all. I should be back in a couple of months. Afterwards we went to a Korean bar called The Prince, where I'd been once before as it's a favorite of both Lucky McKee and my ex-ladyfriend. Last time I was there with Lucky, he ordered some powerful Korean liquor in a green bottle, so I was trying to figure out what it was this time. So I described the green bottle to the bartender, and the first thing she said was "Heineken?" Nope. Tried describing it fiurther, and she brought out a bunch of different bottles, finally getting the right one, which as it turns out, is called simply "Green." (ironically, the drink itself is clear -- it's kind of like vodka, made from sweet potatoes with a vaguely sweet-potato-like flavor).

So we're clear: You sell a product called GREEN, and when someone asks you for a strong drink in a GREEN bottle, the first thing that comes to mind is Heineken?

Whatever. Get Kim Jong-Il on this stuff. He needs to loosen up.

One other great thing about The Prince -- free spicy vegetable pancakes if you stay at the bar long enough. Real good, too.

Biting the dust

And last night was the send off for New Times writer Marnye Oppenheim, a.k.a. Bite Me, who's moving to Phoenix. Fans of hers from LA should start paying attention to phoenixnewtimes.com sometime in the next month. It's also the home of NTLA alumni Rick Barrs and Tony Ortega, as well as many of my reviews.

There's a big desk in the middle of my living room. I suppose I should create a work area with it.

Posted by LYT at 4:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 25, 2002

California Dreamin' of a Lite Xmas

I want to say this about Christmas. When I was a kid, in 1970s Ireland, we had white Christmases. We were proud of them. And if California had followed our lead back then, we wouldn't have had all these problems either!

Gotta milk the joke while it lasts.

So how did LYT spend Xmas? (I call it that because honestly, it really has very little to do with Christ. Other than getting presents from wise men when he was born, I don't think there's any reference to Jesus celebrating his own birthday, in any text)

I spent it alone. And in fact, I chose to spend it alone. Far from being the worst Xmas ever, as I had feared, it was actually quite nice. I had gotten out and about the night before, going bar-hopping with a friend of mine whose drinking ability puts mine to shame (for the sake of anonymity, let's call him "Dave Stevy"). He's English, and has never found a bar here to equal the British pubs, so I suspect the night might have been disappointing for him. But it was fun seeing Hollywood so empty.

Thing is, I got more buzzed than I thought, and I think I pushed it a bit for having a cold. I tried to stay awake until the drink had all worn off, but at 3:16 a.m. I decided it woudln't totally go away, and called my French family, getting to hear baby Adam laugh for the first time. Couldn't find my South Park Christmas album to fall asleep to, so I went with Johnny Cash as a religious theme (it was either that or P.O.D.!).

Woke up sick and hungover. Made sure to be up by noon in anticipation of the English relatives calling me, and that was great, but then I just wanted to sleep again. "Dave," who had fully recovered, called me up in reference to a possible fancy $58 lunch at a hotel he wanted me to go to with Gregory, but I had to bow out, not wanting to spend even a buck on food that wouldn't be welcomed by my innards. Dave seemed pissed off, and I honestly would've made the effort if it woulda been just me and him, but I think he and Gregory had a fine time without me. So then I went back to bed and slept till 5pm. I had some Froot Loops when I felt I could eat again -- haven't had Froot Loops in years, and I remember them only having three colors: red, orange, yellow. Now they have blue, purple, green, pink...not that it matters because they all taste the same, and I challenge any cereal geek with a blindfold to prove otherwise. Hit the spot this morning, er, afternoon. Damn, I mean early evening.

Finished opening presents when I got up -- I knew what most of them were since I bought them myself with my dad's money, but they were exactly what I wanted, and I'd purposely stuck them in the back of the closet until today. The porn star toys I've been begging for are perfect, and the Barker/McFarlane toys are nice, but have an unexpected feature -- they actually cause pain when you put them together. I wonder if that's a deliberate in joke -- so many of them feature fiddly bits that won't go in without a lot of force, but if you apply the force too harshly, they'll break. So what ends up happening is you push with all your might using only one finger on the head of a very small pointy piece, and that hurts! The 12" Tortured Souls actually seem poorly engineered; I've had to use glue on the two that I opened.

(side tangent -- when I was at the mall on Xmas eve, at least two different parents tried to quiet their crying toddlers by pointing out my pretty hair. In yer face, naysayers.)

Dinner was at IHOP, where I once spent a Thanksgiving with Lucky McKee and his dad. I had a turkey melt sandwich with onion rings, and an orange herbal tea. Then on to Arclight to check out Roberto Benigni's Pinocchio, which is really hard to fairly assess because of the awful dubbing. We're talking kung-fu level bad. See my 12-21 entry for more on this topic. I'd love to watch it again subtitled -- it is the most faithful adaptation to date, though no-one ever wants to do the large talking animals right, and herein they either look stupid (giant black rabbits that look like plushies) or are humans with mildly anthropomorphized prosthetics. Love that shark, though. The Green Fisherman, doomed to remain MIA from all Pinocchio movies, it seems, is sadly absent. I'd say Terry Gilliam should make a Pinocchio, but he's already drawn on it so strongly in his other films that there's no point.

It did occur to me for the first time how Biblical the whole tale is. The nobleness of a poor carpenter who conceives a son without intercourse has always been obvious, but the book of Jonah is an even stronger influence (maybe that Veggietales movie made me notice), as it too is the tale of a whiny brat who doesn't do what his "father" tells him until a large fish swallows him.

Benigni as a wooden puppet is less bothersome than you'd think, though it totally dilutes the impact of having him become a real boy. Of the dubbed voices, only John Cleese as the cricket and Topher Grace as Lampwick (curiously renamed Leonardo herein, and given a much bigger role) stand out. Breckin Meyer's voice makes no sense coming out of Benigni's mouth.

I must've gone to 7-11 at least three times today. Three different ones, too. The best service was at the one on Sunset and Cherokee; the worst, Vine and Willoughby. Oh thank heaven.

And now I'm home. Am planning to eat ice cream and watch TV when I'm done writing this. Thanks to all who sent me gifts, especially Mick & Jill, who either remembered from a long time ago that I'm a fan of M.C. Escher, or they simply intuitively figured it out. Way to go, guys. It's always nice to get the sense that someone truly knows you for who you really are.

Honestly, though, those of you who follow this site regularly have a pretty good idea, and it'll only get better. Happy holidays.

[addendum -- concluded the night by watching my old holiday fave, the Beavis & Butt-head Christmas special. Always a hoot. I'd love to have a good quality soundbite of Beavis, in the alternate "It's a Wonderful Life" parody, saying "Hey, we still have to give out gingerbread men!" or the dialogue between B&B about the strange-looking Elf in Run-DMC's "Christmas in Hollis" video ('He's a munchkin!' 'Yeah. An ass-munchkin').]

Posted by LYT at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

December 23, 2002

Bottom of the barrel

I just found out there's a country named Djibouti. Yeah, I'm a typical American who doesn't know about other countries. But if it's pronounced the way I think it is, consider the joke opportunities:

Get Djibouti on the dance floor

Shake Djibouti

Djibouti-call

(all possible Pentagon ops names if we ever go to war with 'em. You're welcome, guys).

God, I'm stupid today. Blame the cold medication.

Posted by LYT at 2:25 PM | Comments (0)

December 22, 2002

Heal the sick

It had to happen. I've had a sore throat for at least two weeks now, and while it was kind enough to wait until my end-of-year deadline, it's now kicking in as something more. Nothing too dreadful -- just sore throat, blocked nose and constant feeling of exhaustion. I still have a little work to do, but it's really more of a side project.

Read in the LA Times yesterday that the U.S, is more religious than any other "developed" first-world nations. About 52% of the population considers religion very important. Interesting stat, and I wonder why it is.

Theories of mine include:

1. Gap between rich and poor. The survey makes abundantly clear that poorer people are more likely to be religious. After all, they need more hope, and most religions glorify poverty somewhat -- almost all prophets are wanderers with few possessions if any.

2. The fear factor. Fear of death draws a lot of people to religion, and we're a paranoid nation -- see "Bowling for Columbine." I too fear death, but as a believer in evolution I also wonder why we'd evolve the capability to imagine the soul and an afterlife if such a thing could not be. That gives me hope, anyway. Animals don't have religion, and they also (in theory, though I don't know how it's been proven) don't know they're gonna die until they do.

3. Personal responsibility. Conservatives ALWAYS advocate this, then take no responsibility for the environment, often on the grounds that it's God's problem, not theirs. A belief that the Second Coming will happen soon anyway feeds right-wing Christian dislike of environmentalism. It also lets them off the hook big-time.

4. Immigration. We were founded by religious nuts (Puritans) who wanted freedom to be so, and many of our immigrants today come from staunchly Catholic Mexico. The founding fathers were very liberal Christians, but that goes forgotten half the time.

I don't know. And maybe it's not a bad thing that we're so much more religious. In general, though, religious discussion in this country is dominated by nutballs, and that is a bad thing. You go to England, and most Christians are quite moderate. Ireland may be a different story, but at least their Catholic church places a strong value on charity.

I'm happy to live here, but I don't think California represents the whole country accurately, so it's easy to be misled. Think I'm babbling now so I'll stop.

Posted by LYT at 5:51 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2002

Xtina Aguil-whore-a, part II

Note to the ladies: Pose nude on the cover of Rolling Stone, and you get my attention. But that's not what I'm gonna write about here. I just happened to see "Xtina"'s new video -- I think it's called "Beautiful" -- while channel-surfing.

First thought -- Weird, she looks kinda like Tori Amos in the closeups.

Second thought -- This is a video full of weird people and outcasts, like goth punks, guys explicitly making out with each other, midgets, and flat-chested girls. She's singing about how everyone's beautiful inside. A little bit easy to say, lady, don'cha think, for you? Lemme ask you, Xtina, if you were an obese midget, would you be singing the same thing and posing nude? Better question: would you have a music career at all? I'm guessing maybe Linda Perry wrote this one, as she is kinda strange looking (remember 4 Non Blondes' one-and-only video?). I can tolerate this kind of sentiment when it comes through Pink (for whom Linda also writes): Pink is often hot, but she's also blatantly strange and definitely not conventional. Christina seems to think piercings and black extensions on her blonde hair make her weird. Ahhhh, nope.

Maybe I should just be judging the music. Anyone have the new CD and know if it's any good? I liked "Genie in a Bottle," but everything else I've ever heard her do has that annoying diva-histrionic thing that Mariah Carey does on every song. I don't want to listen to songs that break glass, however ostensibly "talented" that ability makes the singer.

On the other hand, I just saw Justin Timberlake's new video and I'm ashamed to say I kinda like the song -- it has a real 80s vibe to it.

Counsel of Trent

So Trent Lott is now gone. But those in line to succeed him have equally bad voting records, and in some cases have made equally questionable remarks on the subject of race (just not so publicly). Maybe having a rabid right winger in Trent's place (not that he wasn't one, you understand, but he was driven more by money than ideology; even right wingers didn't like him that much, which is probably why he's gone) will royally backfire on the Republicans, like it did with Newt Gingrich. Provided Nancy Pelosi is competent enough to exploit things, and I have no indication thus far that she is.

But on a scarier, less frivolous topic, check out this Reuters report (thanks to Tom Tomorrow's site for alerting me to it):

"LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Hundreds of Iranian and other Middle East citizens were in southern California jails on Wednesday after coming forward to comply with a new rule to register with immigration authorities only to wind up handcuffed and behind bars.

Shocked and frustrated Islamic and immigrant groups estimate that more than 500 people have been arrested in Los Angeles, neighboring Orange County and San Diego in the past three days under a new nationwide anti-terrorism program. Some unconfirmed reports put the figure as high as 1,000.

The arrests sparked a demonstration by hundreds of Iranians outside a Los Angeles immigration office. The protesters carried banners saying "What's next? Concentration camps?" and "What happened to liberty and justice?."

A spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said no numbers of people arrested would be made public. A Justice Department spokesman could not be reached for comment."

OK. I've always been opposed to the idea of labeling one's political foes as Nazis. But, well....

On a more whimsical note, we had the website launch party last night, and it went better than I'd hoped. Photos soon. In case I haven't hammered it home often enough, my webmasters are amazing. They either believe in me, or willingly feed my delusions, and that's a true friend.

No-one won the trivia contest, so it's still open. If anyone wants me to repost the questions here, lemme know. ALL the answers, except the tie-breaker, can be found on this site, so no crying about the questions being hard.

[Boo-hoo!]

SHADDUP!

Hi-Diddle-Dee-DUMB

Movies for the year mostly all seen, save Benigni's Pinocchio, about which Miramax is embarassed, probably because they dubbed it with voices like Regis Philbin and John Cleese (it's one thing to do that in a cartoon, but Benigni speaking in Breckin Meyer's voice sounds just plain weird). They also cut about 8 minutes from it. Pinocchio's been crying out for a cinematic adaptation faithful to the book for years, and Coppola's been dying to do one. It doesn't look like this new movie will be it. If you have kids, be sure they read the book, which is a whole lot darker than the Disney version. For starters, Jiminy Cricket gets squashed to death with a mallet by Pinocchio.

How does Miramax have any art-house cred whatsoever when they do stuff like this? Even if you can defend their dubbing and shortening of martial arts movies (and I don't condone it, but I kind of understand it), Benigni's an Oscar-winner, and Pinocchio is Italy's entry for the Best Foreign language Oscar, yet we're not even gonna get to see it in said foreign language?

Harvey Weinstein says he knows what works, and that's why he does it. Well, Harv, Pinocchio's also Italy's top-grossing film ever, as I understand it. It was doing just fine until you came along. What does it say that your publicists won't even screen it for critics? (Here's a hint -- they even screened frickin' Pokemon4ever to the press. Yes, Miramax did a Pokemon film.)

Discuss on the Cutting Board.

Posted by LYT at 3:03 PM | Comments (0)

December 17, 2002

Transformers! More than meets the eye!

Irony, Alanis-style: on the rainiest day of the year so far, a transfomer across the street from me explodes and sets a building on fire. No power all night, even though houses across the street have it. I've never experienced a power outage quite like that. My smoke alarm felt the need to make very strange "low power" noises all night in response. Thankfully, my phone still worked, and my usually unavailable friend vivaknievel was home, so we spoke a long while with no distractions. Then I had to wash the peroxide off my hair.

The Truly Terrible reviews page is now up. Inspired by Louis C.K., these things amuse the hell out of me, but then they would, wouldn't they.

Posted by LYT at 10:43 AM | Comments (0)

December 16, 2002

Porn again

One more thing to notice about the porn star toys. Read my 1999 article, "Toys R Rated," in the rants and reviews section. Turns out I predicted there'd be porn star figures eventually.

I didn't think there'd be sadomasochistic ones first, though. Score one for Clive Barker.

Kicking in the Gore

Seems Al Gore has announced he won't run for president again. Or maybe the DLC told him that after endorsing single-payer health care and condemning Bush's Iraq plans, there's no way in hell they'll back him.

The bad news is that this means Lieberman WILL run.

I get wet

Not having a car makes me remember the reasons behind some of my irrational hatreds. Take my dislike of screenings on the Sony studio lot. They always have great screening rooms, so why did I always feel this aversion to them? Aha! It's because there's no easy bus route back from there -- you gotta wait at least half an hour on some dark street in the middle of nowheresville (true, country folks, this means something a little different in the city, but the effect is the same).

My dislike of rain is directly related to the above dislike. See if you can figure out exactly how.

On the plus side, my Dad agreed to foot the bill for those porn star toys I've been begging for, which I found for a bargain price at an unlikely location -- the usually scalper-happy Golden Apple. Sorry, guys, I got the last set.

And for those in LA, the LYTrules launch party will be this Friday at Wolfgang Pucks, 8000 Sunset Blvd. Though you can park there for two hours with validation, I recommend street parking a coupla blocks away -- residential neighborhoods off of Fairfax just north of Sunset. Then you can party all night and not have to worry about only having two drinks.

If you can't make it, tune in to "Standing Room Only" on killradio.org and hear my little rant. Haven't recorded it yet, but I'm sure it'll rock your hiz-ouse.

Posted by LYT at 6:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 13, 2002

Two in the Bush

Well, shortly after I posted yesterday's entry about Bush and Lott, Bush apparently issued a strong condemnation of Lott's remarks. Also, as Tom Tomorrow has pointed out, Lott is on record as having made similar comments regarding Thurmond's run for president on at least two other occasions.

It's lucky Friday the 13th today. Maybe I'll get laid.

Posted by LYT at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)

December 12, 2002

Whole Lott o' hate

I know this has been done to death a bit on these shores, but for the benfit of international readers, thought I'd weigh in on the whole Trent Lott thing. Lott, if you don't know, is a conservative Republican, and as of January will be Senate Majority leader. At retired Senator Strom Thurmond's 100th birthday party, he said the following:

"I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Now, Thurmond was a third-party candidate back then, running almost exclusively on a pro-segregation platform. He's retreated from those views a bit since then, but back in the day that was his key issue. Is Lott proud of that?

There's an old C.S. Lewis argument that Christian fundies like to bring up about Jesus, that based on the evidence, you must conclude that he was either a dangerous madman or the son of god, but there's no middle ground (I don't concur, actually, preferring to think that the accounts we have of him aren't actually eyewitness and therefore may not be accurate).

I'm gonna use a twist on that argument: either Trent Lott is an idiot, or he's a racist. There's no other interpretation. And we do know for sure that this quote is accurate.

I suppose it could have been meant as a joke. But it's about as funny as jokes about black people in watermelon patches.

Maybe I was wrong about Bush being anti-racist. He needs to lay the smack down on Trent if he truly is.

Posted by LYT at 12:15 AM | Comments (0)

December 9, 2002

Down With the Sickness

Not having a car isn't sooo bad -- I get my cardio in every day, and it keeps my thighs from chafing. It only gets to be a pain in the butt-ox when I have an evening screening in Culver City and no friend with car wishes to join me. That this city is poorly laid out for transportation is well-known -- but the means to get from Culver City to Hollywood are even more poorly thought out, especially at night. The North-South buses run maybe once every 45 min, if you're lucky, and Culver City's green bus system goes nowhere you wanna go; sorry but I'm not willing to stand alone in the dark at Fairfax and Crenshaw, right around where the LA riots started.

I'm in the process of trying to see every major movie of the year by the 20th, so if you've tried to reach me and failed repeatedly, I'm either at a screening, on the bus, or arriving home at a late hour after which I'd feel bad about returning a call. Let me know the latest I can call you back if you leave a message.

We're looking to have a launch party for this site on the evening of the 20th. Keep that night open if you're gonna be in town.

Oh, almost forgot: A clerk at 20/20 video said of my longsleeve LYT-shirt "That's sick, dude. I like it." He didn't realize it was my intials; I suspect "sick" is one of those words the kids today use to mean "meritorious." I offered to sell him one, and he declined. He did find the movie I wanted, though.

Posted by LYT at 4:55 PM | Comments (0)

December 8, 2002

New toy review: Jenna Jameson in Santa suit

OK, I've seen these porn star figures take a bashing from folks online, but I happened to be at a screening in the vicinity of Hustler Hollywood today, and decided to stop by and check 'em out. I've been begging everyone I know to get me these for Xmas, so on the offchance anyone ordered me some I bought the variant Santa Jenna. I don't know what people are complaining about! OK, I know what those who don't like porn are complaining about, but the people who say these are badly made are either confusing these with the earlier, cartoony Jenna toy, or simply smoking crack. I love this toy. Oh wait, it's not a toy -- the package says so ("This is not a toy"). Certainly I've only ever seen it at Hustler Hollywood alongside the sex toys.

Now, who here's been waiting for a toy with removable thong action? You got it.

Accessories: Giant candy cane, removable Santa dress, removable thong, big display base with one foot peg.

Articulation: Ball-jointed shoulders, double ball-jointed neck.

Santa hat is nonremovable. It's actually kinda tough to get the dress off, too, even though the head and arms pop off to make it easier (if only real women were like that...I'M JUST KIDDING!). Actually, I suggest NOT removing her head -- the double ball joint makes it hard to pop back on, and besides, the dress fits over her head fine. It's rubbery, stretchy material, and her wide chest will make it stretch when you pull it off.

Sculpt: Not really a sculpt, rather a full-body realscan. Looks good, and I imagine some cool customs could be done with these. The paint jobs on some of the other figures aren't as good as they could be, but her tattoos are nicely detailed, and the, ahem, "details" are also nicely detailed. Party Angela has nothing on these gals.

Overall: Some fans may be upset that these figures aren't very posable; they may be action figures, but they ain't gettin' any action in these fixed stances. If you like toys primarily for display, with some articulation for variety, these are great -- better than MAC's Lady Death line, for instance. I'm not a major porn-watcher, so I don't need to see these figures in every position, and I think too many joints would ruin their look, especially since you can't hide articulation with clothing here.

I love this toy and I can't wait for the rest. Also, these toys are BIG! 7.5 inches. (huh-huh, he said "inches"). Price: $25 plus tax. Less online, if you look around.

If you're reading this, BUY ME THE OTHER SIX FIGURES NOW! Plasticfantasy.com. It's all I want for Christmas, short of a genuine beautiful girl.

Posted by LYT at 12:42 AM | Comments (0)

December 5, 2002

Vehicular Vehicide

Seems like only last month my transmission went out and I had it fixed for about $500+. That's right, it was last month. The car's dead again, and this time I'm letting it stay that way. Makes my goal of seeing every major movie by Dec. 20 a bit more of a challenge, especially since bus routes to the Sony lot in Culver City SUCK MAJOR ASS.

But there's a bright side. As any wino can tell you, one can get drunk and still ride a bus home. Not always a bed of roses tho' -- depends upon one's bladder strength sometimes.

Interesting dichotomy in movies seen by me today. Both the major ones are about dealing with hardship. Nicholas Nickleby looks at a boy coming through it staying strong ("Being weak is tiring. Being strong is exhausting" or something like that), while Love Liza depicts a guy totally cracking under stress -- it's Philip Seymour Hoffman's big Oscar bid, as he mourns his dead wife the whole movie while huffing gas. Totally pointless. Kinda dug Nickleby, especially the fact that the villains are sort of Victorian-era Kenneth Lays. Then I went to see Treasure Planet also. Think Titan AE with more suckage. Disney should've either done a faithful adaptation (heh, do they ever?) or been even more wild -- sailing ships in an oxygen-rich outer space just don't work, and Long John Silver's pirate accent was horrible.

Let's talk about something else. Justin Timberlake broke his foot and cancelled two weeks of appearances. Now, I've nothing against Justin other than his stupid hairdo, his career in one of the most annoying bands ever, and the fact that he laid his hands on parts of Britney Spears' body I've never even seen, but I have some unsolicited advice that of course he'll never hear: Do the damn shows anyway. Get out there in a wheelchair and sing your heart out. Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen could do that, and their audiences wouldn't care. Hell, they'd love it.

But of course I suspect that the reason he won't is because his singing alone doesn't hold up without pyros and ass-wiggling. If it did, doing the chair thing would give him an unbelievable amount of newfound credibility, don't you think? If he sticks around long enough, I suppose he'll get that anyway, then he'll go into middle age and have babies of his own to dangle from German balconies.

Posted by LYT at 1:29 AM | Comments (0)

December 3, 2002

Lap it up

I forgot to mention, I actually came up with a new drink at the Colonial party: The LYT.

Here's what you need:

Red soda (Safeway red twist, in this case, which tastes like Red Vines...mmmmm!)

vanilla Stoli

Blue soda (Safeway Razzberry Blast)

Lotsa ice cubes.

Fill glass with cubes. Fill about 1/3 of remaining space with blue soda. Next third with vodka. Next red soda. If there's enough ice, the red and blue should stay separated by a white mass of ice. Thus the drink looks like my hair.

Hey, you come up with a drink that looks like you! Betcha can't.

Posted by LYT at 1:24 AM | Comments (0)

December 1, 2002

Jivin' Turkeys

It's been a party hardy kinda holiday weekend. Let's see if I can remember any of it. Thursday was spent at Chez Campbells in Malibu, where many a good holiday has been held. Featuring ample food and booze, as well as the usual nude hot tubbing, though the casual skinny-dipping atmosphere was often broken up by a gentleman dubbed "Count Sack-ula" who felt the need to dive underwater with a flashlight for close-up looks at crotches, in addition to various exhibitionist prancing displays on the lawn. My farewell to New Times video was screened twice -- it's a parody of a New Times LA staff meeting, conducted by action figures with me voicing all the roles. Very well received by those who got it.

Friday was a Colonial House alumni party, which always means lots of toxic clouds of secondhand smoke, though in this case we also got to watch a fire dancer do his thing in most impressive fashion. Good to see many of the old gang, and some new faces. One thing that's blown my mind at these parties and elsewhere is the popularity of the LYT-shirts! Everyone seems to want one. No-one wants to pay cash, but the trade option is very popular. These things are going wide, and going global -- I have orders from the UK and France, as well as Texas and Arizona. Get 'em while they last -- my goal is to have Entertainment Weekly feature it as the cool shirt of the moment. So if you know anyone who works for EW, work that angle! I now have more than one webmaster working on the site, and I spent much of Saturday hashing out some of the new stuff, which will blow your mind. LYTrules is gonna get much bigger and better soon. If you'd like to see more merchandise than just T-shirts, lemme know on the Cutting Board and we'll consider it. Let me know also how much you'd be willing to pay. I know that $20 per shirt seems exorbitant to some, but trust me when I say that I shelled out a lot of cash and invested a lot of time in the shirts (I wear them myself, and I won't wear just anything, as you can tell from the photo gallery), not to mention that buying an envelope and mailing one adds about $5 to the cost these days. I'm not making much, if any profit. Then Saturday night was a farewell party for former New Times LA editor Rick "The Finger" Barrs, who will assume the same position at the Phoenix New Times, along with Marnye "Bite Me" Oppenheim and Tony Ortega/Antoine Oman. Rick was one of the people who selected me personally for the job at NTLA, my first job of any real satisfaction (unless you count "screenwriter," which I was briefly paid for). Over the 3 years I wrote several Finger pieces for him, and though we had occasional disagreements, they were minor and no power-tripping was involved -- he was the first boss of mine to be reasonably sane. He was also the first boss of mine I'd call a friend in more than just a facile sense, and I resisted that for along time, under the assumption that one should maintain professional distance from the boss. I decided pretty early on, however, that you also shouldn't say no when the boss invites you to his house, and the parties at his now-former residence were some of the best ever, especially July 4 and Easter of last year. Before long it wasn't a question of whether or not to say yes, but rather "Hurry up and throw another damn party, Rick, I'm having withdrawals!" Rick Barrs is a prime example of someone who grew up without doing that sell-out/mellow out thing that most "mature" adults tend to do when they disown their iconoclastic past as middle age approaches (You know that apocryphal Churchill quote conservatives love:" If you're not a radical in your 20s, you've got no heart. If you're still a radical in your 40s, you've got no brains"? I always wanna add the LYT corollary: "If you sell out your youthful idealism just because you got older, you've got no balls." Rick Barrs has balls). Part of that undoubtedly comes from not having kids, who enforce a degree of normalcy by necessity, but it's my hope that when I hit the 40s and 50s I too will not decide that being a conformist is now a better thing. Those who remain uncompromising and iconoclastic are worthy of admiration, and Rick fits that description. Phoenix people don't know what they're in for. I trust I'll see him again at next year's press club awards, when we sweep once again.

Posted by LYT at 6:41 PM