THE TYPESETTING PROJECT

My dark side decided to wait until 12 midnite to go out to Pinks and buy myself dinner, afterwhich I would drive out to the Sunset Strip. Actually, I wanted to do this at the witching hour, 3:15, but I was hungry. So, I leave at 11:30, get to Pinks by 12, and I'm out of there by 12:30.
    Arrive at the billboard for CSI, I find that I won't be having parking difficulty, which was really my whole purpose for going out there so late. A couple passersby notice my camera. The first lady asks why there's so many people out tonight. Not realizing who she's referring to cuz the Sunset Strip's always busy, she means paparazzi.
    This kind of sketching is always fun to do. I'm not afraid of drawing faces regardless of how unlikely they resemble the subject. Drawing faces actually gives me a sense of intelligence. Perhaps it is an ability to study facial characteristics and apply them to different people. I don't know. Maybe it's just because I don't have any scruples to realize that skills like these are useless in the real world.
    I know I'm bad at this. I couldn't bear adding a caption, it's so bad. I like composing editorial cartoons to keep a sense of humor about things, but I can't find anything funny about this investigation, aired last Wednesday. Here, this dynamic duo is shown wearing a black and white suit tie for Henry, and a tube top with coat, for Garcia. BTW, I didn't get so much as a nibble on my laptop, damn.
    I don't find anything funny about City Controller Laura Chick's response to Ana's question. Chick says, "I think there was a lot of playing going on behind closed doors in City Hall."

    I picked up a Venus Flytrap at Home Depot. I think it cost 4.97. They're so small. As soon as I returned home I transplanted it into a larger pot. It's still pretty small. For decoration, I placed the pot in a ceramic vase in the likeness of a cross-eyed, cartoon dracula. I didn't know how to get the plant transferred into an old fishbowl, and I originally wanted to have my halloween green friend in a tank. That idea may still happen when summer ends. By then, I will have emptied the fish tank of fish.
    For now, the plant is getting about 3 or 4 hours of needed direct sunlight. The vase sits inside a fish bowl. So in the halloween spirit, I have a new plant in a vase shaped like the face of a vampire who got decapitated when he tried to pass himself off as an astronaut. Am I psycho, or what? Really, answer the question.
    I'm watching the news on my favorite local network and can't help myself from feeling invaded. If you watch the channel 4 news at 6:00, Fred Roggin pushes the show The Challenge for free plasma TV giveaways. I want one. I think these plasmas are also big screens. I never win these Internet contests, so why bother. If the stakes are raised and I can get Ana to pop out of my Mitsubishi TV if I win, then I'll definitely give it a shot.
    Yeah, it's a little far fetched and immature. But you know, I seemed to have misplaced a certain certificate of acknowledgment that I completed a term of jury duty this year, and as much as I love doing my part as an American citizen, this lost document was definitely to be treated like gold (if only to get me out of jury duty). I'll be damned if I don't have little elves hiding somewhere in this house taking my stuff and watching me go crazy looking for it. So I honestly do wish I had my act together. For now, however, I can only amuse myself by drawing dumb lil' cartoons to keep me smiling.

OMG. I get these calls from work with voices that haunt me. I'm haunted by several voices. The one I got just minutes ago was from somebody who lives nearby. The way I explain it to friends, she was somebody who use to visit quite frequently, then all of a sudden ceased coming, rejected calls (from me) by phone, etc. Long story short, I said to them, she disappeared as if she vanished from the face of the earth and I don't have an alibi. Now my poor friends must think I'm a serial killer.

I just completed reading The lost gospel. I had been listening to the audio book The husband on the ride to work everyday. The latter was pretty good but I thought it had no ending. The lost gospel is a slow read. Early on in the book, names of the people who were involved in the latest paleographical discovery were named and I found myself having to meditate awhile on the name Am Samiah, who is credited for uncovering the catacomb where the gospel of Judas was buried. He is a farmer by trade. He died some time around 1978. About the only point this book links with the farmer is that Am Samiah is not his real name. Joanna Landis is the only proof that the farmer/scout admitted to selling the gospel.
    I am making some progress in the screenplay project I'm working on, but still no response to my e-mail to nbc4.tv news anchor Ana Garcia. One of the episodes of the Henry Rollins show has him reading a letter he writes to Ann Coulter, a news reporter/commentator. Realizing how lame my letter must've sounded, I decided not to write again. Perhaps when some kind of blockbuster even like an underground gas main explosion occurs when I'm in the vicinity of a news van which happens to contain her as the reporter, will I ever have my chance to say what's on my mind.
    I discovered how to embed as explained in the howto community on livejournal. This is giving me ideas on how to revise a few pages on my home page. I took a break today from guitar practice. I know how some people just love to code. Coding can be as much fun as blogging and puting together a zine. It's just so time consuming, but on the plus side, depression really seems to get the best of me if I don't keep myself busy. With all the harangue of the day, plus work, I can't spend as much time as I would like on those things. It's not so much that it tires me out cleaning house, cooking, sleeping. It's more like reality takes the formation of a concrete wall that is currently is my direct path for a collision if I don't stop and vegg out on TV.
    I think I live in a fantasy world, but I'm not sure. Here is the foundation for this assumption. The term used to indicate a web site is 'homepage'. A homepage, on a browser borrows from this term. By adding favorites or bookmarks to your favorite browser, you are creating links that the browser software uses to go directly to that web page. Also, when you start your browser, it usually opens a default page of your choice. Some browsers have a tool bar at the top that allows you to click on to return to the default page. A house icon is used on some browsers. I don't know about you, but I've lived in California (the shakey city) all my life and it really stands out when the idea of homesteads (tool icon for taking the browser to the home page, and defaults (as in earthquake faults) indicate the same thing.
    I found a new book to read. Actually, I'm listening to it on CD, but I like my tunes on the commute to work, so I'll pause the story, change discs something hellish and enjoy the story that much more by furnishing it with my own background music. I feel like I'm watching my own silent film. It's sorta like intermission for reading the subtitles, except I'm listening to music by WASP, Slayer, Lamb of God. The Husband is much more interesting than Killer dreams by Iris Johansen Happy ending. I thought that book had no ending.
    In Koontz's novel, a poor guy's life is altered when his wife is kidnapped and held for ransom. He doesn't know where she is, and the kidnappers direct his every move from moving out of his house to booking a room in a motel.
    As I pause this audio book on my stereo, I slip in DYING FOR THE WORLD and listen to the lyrics of Hallowed ground. It seems to fit perfectly in synch with the emptiness the husband has when he doesn't know where his own wife is located. What I mean is, whether she's dead or alive, if he never sees her again, she's good enough as dead to him, but where can he go to mourne her death but a hollowed ground.
    Killer dreams is a quick read, there's because it's to the point.
    I have good news. I finally completed Mean Man on my guitar. By that I mean, I've played thru every single riff. It's just a matter of memorizing the coda, getting the melody right, increasing my speed and hitting the right notes. I'm still clumsy with the fret hand as well as the pick hand. Today I practiced two hours. My third fingerâ you know the one, it's usually used for wedding bands and is also known as a "ring finger"â well, it feels a bit soar.
    Other exciting news in my life involving computers is the peak-a-boo IE6 bug. Apparently it is obstructing the images of my illustrations if my readers use Internet Explorer.
    Will people begin to think I am obsessed? Nonsense! And how many successful news anchors do you know who's managed to make a career in the public's eye wearing glasses (besides Tina Fey)? The glasses took awhile to get used to mainly because Ana looks better without them, but I've always loved the nerdy type.
    After watching the 6:00 news for the first time wherein the anchor is wearing glasses, all I could think of was the ceramic doll I brought back from a vacation to Germany I took in 1997.
    I also brought back a cuckoo clock for my sister, a beer stein for Dad, and I probably should've bought something for my friends at work, but I had only known them one year when I took this trip. The doll was a red head dressed like a teacher wearing black rimmed glasses.
    I imagined that the kind lady sitting in the next isle to the left of me was Sigourney Weaver. She gave me a Wriggley's gum, or I offered her a gum. I don't remember. The lady's son, who was sitting next to me was tripping at my nervousness. I haven't taken a vacation since then because of my fear of flying. I went to New Mexico on a business trip and the flight was so turbulent because the plane was a 727. I guess that's what flying in small planes feels like, I'm not sure.
    Discovering that Ana Garcia was going to be the regular co-anchor at 6:00 made me happy. I never looked back on the other networks for the news. In fact, I stopped tuning into news at 10:00 and 11:00 altogether. I only watch an hour of news per day now. It would be nice to figure out how to hook up my laptop to the TV so I can scan her image on TV. If I could, I would be all about avatars and banners.
    I didn't find anything on google for her when she was with MSNBC or KABC or KGO, or any other network in Philadelphia or New Jersey. I would love to see what she looked like when she was at that age. How old is she, anyway? Is she a Taurus or a Capricorn?
    Did you read the magazine articles in any of the celebrity zines out there like People, US, Entertainment Weekly about Christy Brinkley? It's a real love triangle, isn't it. I have something to say about this news bit. It's sad that a beauty like Christy should have to go through something like that. The broken relationship seems like another hash mark to reinforce the idea that marriages do not last in Hollywood. I don't think the media helps any in the area of religious beliefs. Nobody could withstand all the gossip that is cause for readership in the magazine, so, there's no chance Christy will probably forgive and forget (for the kids' sake). Marriage vows apparently do not withstand the wrath of gossip. At least not for Hollywood types.For them, they may still be Christian, or what have you, but the vows "for better and for worse" mean nothing.
    While the whole thing is being blamed on Peter Cooke, I'm sure he isn't the one responsible for filing for divorce. I have to support Peter on this one despite all the evidence of the variety of women he is accused of cheating on Christy with, it probably is only his word against others. Look at Koby Brian. His wife forgave him. Could that be because he was only found to be fooling around with one woman?
    The first thing in reading an article of this nature, is to compare the debutant with the mature Christy. The story, IMO, seems to do a play on words. The name Christy is so similar to that of Christianity, that the caption headline directly against her photograph reads "scandal", which is true in so many ways. Recall the Iraq invasion currently being referred to as the war against terroristm. Look at the discovery of the gospel of Judas. The Da vinci Code.

In Entertainment Weekly (August 4 issue) an article appears on pitching ideas for a screenplay. In it Robert Kosberg plugs his website for wannabe writers who may be eager to pitch their ideas to professional writers for expert feedback.
    The last page of the article by Chris Nashawaty is where you'll find the URL for moviepitch. Check out the crazy typesetting design for this article. I like it. Gives you an idea of what a screenwriter is all about. This article was so fun to read, I just had to read between the lines. The drop cap which starts off the story is the letter "Y" as in why? The second page has drop cap of "K" as in "okay, and finally a "B", my fav letter. Also, the ad for Sunsilk looks captivating. ‰

All of a sudden, I'm feeling very mushy. It's a stuffy sensation as though I was being smuthered with love. The other day I heard that the world is going to end
    I might have read it in a sign, but does it even matter anymore? The worst part of fearing doom is failure to protect the people you love.
    I wrote a poem, but it isn't very good. I was going to post it here, but I'm thinking of working on it a bit more. Perhaps in the next zine you will see the finished piece.
    I have a Zonker complex. Are there any Doonsbury fans out there that grew up wanting to be like Zoner? Memorable scenes from Doonsbury are his green thumb as a horticulturist. Or was he just running a nursery with exotic, illegal hemp. Earlier I was imagining one of the nice green indoor palms asking me how the weather the weather was in my realm. Plants love this Summer humidity, but it makes me wilt. I was driving around with my air conditioner. I needed to picked up some cat food, shoes, and an irish coffee at Tom Bergens.
    I decide to drive down Sunset and stop by Guitar Center. There's always somebody testing out a guitar, foot pedal, etc.
    I ended up buying myself a pair of shoes. Unfortunately, they're the wrong color, but I don't care. I wanted them for the steel toe. I'm going to see Slayer and I have front row seats. I know that is a metaphor for being directly in front of the stage. There are no seats and the mosh pit pretty much resembles a dance floor rather than a concert hall. I wanted black shoes, but decided they would make me appear too gothic. I settled for the tan. I have the rest of the day to sloth around and read.
Just when I thought I'd never find another novel with a twisted storyline, I find a copy of one of Vladimir Nabokov's classics. I was entirely captivated by the book. It is so well written that I at times find myself cringing at what might transpire as the protagonist is clearly a sick man.

I never thought I'd luv the fourth of July again, as I found other means of obtaining my pyromania lust for fire in smoking. I want to make clear, however, when I smoke, I don't inhale. This year, it seems people are entertaining themselves everywhere with illegal fireworks. I don't hang around the neighborhood seeking a free grilled steak or a hot dog. I'm usually huddled indoors on the fourth of July, but I can hear all the explosions of firecrackers, cherry bombs, M-50s, 80s, 100s. Then I hear repetive sunfire. It use to be when there was a time that i was able to distinguish when somebody, drunk out of their mind, got trigger happy and risked being fined $1K stipend for firing their weapon in the air. There's so many illegal fireworks blasting in the air now, I can't figure it out anymore. I took this opportunity to play my guitar really fucking loud.
    Although there are times when I can be really inconsiderate with the neighbors regarding volume, if I ever get a ticket because cops are called out to respond to complaints, it's not going to be on the 4th of July. At least not as long as people are setting off their pyrotechnics. I just stepped outside to roll up the windows to my car and there're bottle rockets all over the place (not just Dodger Stadium and Echo Park). I'm eager to complete the song I've been teaching myself.
    I'll probably have to lay low for a bit. I seem to have developed a blister on my third finger. I haven't done that in quite some time seeing as I've developed a callous there. Once this heals though, I'll be back in business.
    Whenever I play MEAN MAN, it isn't until I'm thinking of my ex-girlfriend (now probably very happily married) and following the lyrics in my head. It would be the ultimate dream to be able to play lead and rip out the vocals to this tune. I'm not too hard set in singing. I just wanna learn to play.
    From time to time, I console my zodiac. It's true, I have low self esteem and, because my birth chart describes me as somebody who would be compatible with Leos and Taurus', I searched imdb.com for lists of celebrities with those signs. I did scorpios celebrities a while back when I thought I was compatible with all water signs. Optimism for meeting celebrities isn't not one of my virtues. I feel actors are selected for the roles they take in films by a full examination of their characteristics. I think the best actor/actress is selected who fits the part.
    It's a tedious task researching lists of celebrities. First, I must weed out the actors, then I narrow the list down by checking my chinese zodiac to see who I'm compatible with according to that, and finally, when I comprise a list of only character actors, preferably female, I look up their filmography.
    Normally, when you pull up a well known celebrity, their birthday information appears at the top of the page near their name. Clicking on the birthdate takes you to a list of entertainment industry people with the same birthdate. By reading the URL to this page, it can be altered to show a list of industry workers for any date of your choosing.

Example:

www.imdb.com/OnThisDay?day=22&month=June

    This URL will take you to a list of all industry workers born on June 22. To see a list of industry workers born on January 1, change the number 22 to 1, and the word June to January. I love this feature.
    I love June-gloom too. Whenever I tell people how beautiful the goomy weather we're having is, the first reaction I get is they think I'm a vampire. Let me clarify, I am not a vampire. I enjoyed movies about vampires when I was growing up, but now I prefer horror flicks that have little to do with vampires. The only exception is Nosferatu because he's one unattractive vampire. Just because the sun bothers me doesn't mean I want to be a vampire.
    Maybe I'm behaving spoiled, but growing up in L.A. and working outdoors under the hot summer sun mowing lawns, weeding flower beds, painting walls really developed in me a passive attitude toward daylight.
    I came down with a cold week I was planning to go to a concert. I went to the concert despite a full recovery. I asked the bartender for two shots of whiskey and any infection still lingering in my system disappeared.
    WASP delivered an awesome performance at the Key Club and I enjoyed Lizzy Borden. I finally caught a screening of The Da Vinci Code. It wasn't that bad. I've been hearing bad reviews from the critics, but I haven't quite understood what they base their opinion on; I would've attributed the slow pace of this movie to the court tie-ups involving accusations of plagiarism.
    When I read the book, I couldn't wait to read Holy Blood, Holy Grail. The whole fiasco seemed like a publicity stunt for the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Perhaps the lawsuit involving the authors, Baigent and Leigh, was intended to only scheme ways to devise media coverage and the winning results weren't expected, although I'm sure it would've been nice.
    Since I had the hardest time finding any information on the web about this lawsuit, I'm assuming it was filed in the UK. America doesn't always get the UK. I know I find it difficult to follow the news as reported by the BBC.
    A CD released in the UK isn't always available in the US. I misplaced my DAMNATION AND A DAY CD by Cradle of filth. I can't download a copy from iTunes either. When PRIMAL SCREAM`s new CD, Riot City Blues was available in the UK, I could only manage to preview it accessing the UK store. When I signed up to download it with my AOL account, my credit card payment wasn't accepted. But I can't even find a Cradle of Filth's DAMNATION AND A DAY CD.
    I don't know why they make things so complicated. It isn't so complex placing orders for merchendise on other International web sites.
    I had a nightmare about aliens. I snapped out of it awake at 4:30am. I wrote down as much as I could remember about the dream. I found myself thinking about the dream later that same day. In fact, I totally forgot some of the graphic carnage that transpired in the dream, and suddenly I'm all psyched about having taken the time to turn the on the lamp sitting on the night stand in the middle of the night to grab a pen and write it all down. In this dream I had bitten my lip. I bit it so hard, blood was flowing. I drank my own blood.
    I've been been selected for a panel of jurors trying a civil suit and today I had chicken for lunch. I was at the Stanley Mosk courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
    Eating alone is the worst. Today I walk south on Grand to KooKooRoo and order some fried chicken. Delicious.
    Two things run through my mind as I try to pick a piece of chicken out of my teeth: Lizard man, because I accidently bite my finger with my razor sharp teeth, and "Sometimes you gotta bite your tongue", advise from my brother in law concerning a loan that was never repaid.

 

"O Isabella! I can half perceive

That I may speak my grief into thine ear;

If thou didst ever anything believe,

Believe how I love thee, believe how near

My soul is to its doom: I would not grieve

Thy hand by unwelcome pressing, would not fear

Thine eyes by gazing; but I cannot live"

Another night, and not my passion shrive."

    I found a neat remedy for coughs, colds and bronchial ailments. It is a tea made from Maidenhair Fern leaves. The decoction calls for 15g of fresh leaves mixed with 4oz. of distilled water. Simmer for ten minutes. Searching the web for decoctions of Maidenhair Fern will reveal the many uses this simple remedy is used for worldwide.
    I was 8 years old, in the third grade when Oskar Schindler died in 1974. I didn't know him personally. I'm obsessed with him because one day between 1989 and 1994 I was exiting a parking lot in a little corner shopping center. Something on the side of my eye caught my attention as I waited for the right of way to pull into the street. I thought I saw the concrete wall encircling the lot inscribed with the word SCHINDLER. It didn't mean a thing to me. Then I saw a documentary about his life called Schindler: the documentary directed by John Blair. I thought it was an interesting film, but it isn't available in DVD format. I saw the VHS. This documentary enticed me to read the book Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally.
    I was surprised to learn that
    Schindler owned a cement manufacturing company. I began to wonder if any of the cement that can be found in Los Angeles was taken from his company and whether it was customary to emboss the slabs with his name. This was a big deal for me, because I felt as though I just had a revelation. I didn't know before reading Keneally's book that Schindler was affilliated in any way with cement. Why, then would I see his name? I began to shun it off as coincidence, or maybe an underground storage facility run by the Elevator Company by the same name. Whatever it was, when I saw the Spielberg film Schindler's List, and realized that his edited all information about his post war years and his attempt to run a cement business in particular, I stopped watching all films remotely affiliated with Dreamworks and/or Spielberg as entertainment approaching the plot from a hardcore Jewish perspective.
    I once read a comment in somebody's journal whom declared to be a big movie goer, that she/he would want to see a film with these two individuals involved: Nastassja Kinski and Steven Spielberg. I doubt that'll ever happen. If it did, however, I'll sooner see pink elephants trumpeting their trunks to the tune of ISIS' In the abssense of truth.

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