ashley and i went to see “the ring” on friday night

thisismethe ring is the new scary movie thats supposed to be really scary.

so was it really scary?

ashley kept her eyes closed and her hands over her face for the last 15 minutes and then cried for a half hour after the movie was over.

she didnt let go of my arm until we got back into my house and then she wouldnt leave my side until after we turned on all the lights and got the tv going for a little while.

she said, please dont fall asleep. and then started crying thinking i would fall asleep and leave her alone with thoughts of

the ring

in her mind.

i thought the movie was good. i thought it was made well, and smart, with good acting and a good story.

but i think the movie could have been a bunch better if the last scene would have lasted two more minutes. same image, just longer. i think that would freak people out big time in a movie theatre and maybe everyone would go home crying and scared shitless.

i thought about the movie for a while as we drove home, trying to think about happy little things that i could say to ashley. i thought that it’s pretty hard to make a good scary movie.

you need a good monster. you need it to be ruthless. you need good people for it to terrorize. innocent people are the best. the blonde lady in psycho is a nice innocent person, for example.

and the more laws of nature the monster can break while seeming believable, the better.

jurrasic park is one of my favorite scary movies, because if we can believe that twisted logic about dna in a mosquito, etc. equals dinosaurs who could get in the situation of trying to eat little kids stuck in the rain in an explorer, then we can find ourselves in a super scary situation.

and to have a ghost or a demon chase the innocent ones in a story where said evil ones could possibly be real in modern day times, then you have something that might make you not trust going to bed without the sheets up high.

thats a really good scary movie.

in my opinoin, the ring was mighty close to that. and far better than i expected.

do you have a good life?

frisco i have a good life. i always forget that i do. sometimes what i write on here is just little reminders to me that i should be happy about what i have. we always want more or different than what we have. problem is i never look back at the old posts. they bore me. sorry if i bore you all the time.

our power went out for a while here. and we were sitting in the basement here talking about the “forensic files” and trying to concoct the perfect murdrrrr. my buddy was saying that you have to pull out the teeth and toss the body into the sea. that way they cant match dental records.

i say stab the guy with an icesickle and toss him into a volcano. no fuss no muss.

our boss was overhearing us and said, blood would get all over you either way so we’d have to toss our clothes in the volcano too, but most active volcanos, he said, suddenly an expert, are much smaller than we think and a body wouldn’t fit into one of those holes and if it did it would probably come shooting out right away. plus theres always a lot of people near active volcanos. tourists.

fucking tourists.

then we thought that we could just rent a plane, strap a parachute to him and toss him out into some remote area and pretend that he was parachuting. but then the boss said, “all they’d do once they found him would be to ask all the skydiving companies if they remembered such a man, and what the hell were they doing parachuting in the rocky mountains?”

so there you go. ain’t no perfect crime.

makes you wonder how OJ got away with it.

that’s right, the gloves didn’t fit.

tomorrow me and ashley are going to catch a matinee of “sleeping beauty” at the el capitan in hollywood. it cost $10 but apparently it’s worth it cuz its such a great theatre. and all the kids get dressed up and have a little parade before the show. i like little kids. mostly i like their honesty. i also like they’re lies cuz they’re pretty creative, but i like how if you give a kid something new to eat and he hates it he’ll make a face and spit it out right there.

we need to stop teaching our kids how to lie, i mean how to be polite.

so many times people will say nice things to me and i wont believe them, i think they’re trying to be polite.

then when they say mean things i wont believe that either, i think they’re just trying to protect themselves.

the only person who i really believe is the owner of my apartment who is very honest about being a cheap bastard and not wanting to fix any of my shit. hes a terrible businessman. i pay so little rent its insane. such a great place too. he could get double, easily. so he caught me the other day outside and asked me if i ever considered moving out.

i thought to myself how much i would like a hot tub again, and a dishwasher, etc. but really i love my pad and i love that two of my friends lived there before me and i love the time ive lived there. its been great. this blog started there.

so i told the guy, who’s younger than me, i think. that yes, i would consider moving.

he said, i could make it beneficial to you, financially.

and i said i had to run, but i would think about it.

and i have thought about it. $7,500 and im out.

he’d make that off my place in 8 months if i was out of there and he could charge double.

with the money i could have first and last of another pad, and downpayment for a snoop deville.

strange that a guy who would want to kick me out of my own home, might just be the one who helps finance my dream car.

have a good weekend, superstars.

one reason i wanted ashley to date boys her own age

is because eventually she would figure out that im a bit wacky and the last thing that i would want her to think is that all guys are like this.

if she was dating a guy 19-21, all they’d want from her is sex. simple.

i think it’s way easier for girls who are 20 to think that all guys ever want is sex.

when i was at the age where all i wanted was sex, i also wanted to be the manager of the chicago cubs. predictably i didn’t get either.

but now poor ashley (pictured, with Losty) has to figure out how to please a guy who has had his share of carnal pleasures, has heard all the best music that will be recorded, has seen all the freaky things that hollywood will ever deliver up, and has pretty much done everything that he has wanted to do…

for the slight exception of managing the cubs to a long overdue world series championship.

so how on earth can she please me?

often she says im never satisfied. and on many levels shes right. last night we rented my favorite movie of all time, the blues brothers, and like a trooper she sat through it with me.

ive gotta say that even though the movie was made before ashley was born, it held up well and she gave a few courtesy chuckles and asked when i wanted to go to bed.

i said, im not sleepy.

she said, who said anything about sleep.

today it was my turn to compromise. i had to listen to kroq all day waiting for the new no doubt single to play so ashley could call in to win a fabulous prize. how listening to kroq 106.7 for 8 hours equals watching john belushi and dan akyroyd for 2 hours is beyond me, but many things are these days, like what are hot twenty year olds doing still hanging out with me more than a year after she must have realized that i ain’t all that.

just past signal hill on the 405 this evening the magic song was played and ashley darted through my gym bag and found my cell phone and started dialing and redialing and after a few songs it became obvious that she was not the winner. once the contest was over, it became obvious that our sunday was pretty much ruined due to the fact that she couldn’t concentrate on anything other than winning the trip to australia.

still heading south to drop off the daisy princess, she turned to me and said, what can i do that would make you happy right now.

now one reason that ashley is still in heavy rotation is because when she says things like this, the skys the limit. and if you know me you know my sky is high and wide. a question like that could begin with miniature golf and end with nine holes of real golf and tons of other variants in between.

this evening i said, “just say something nice to me.”

she said, “im sore because your ungh’s so big.”

and trust me when i tell you that even writing down that beautiful lie still brings a smile to my face.

and once again, ashley has proven that i should stop worrying about her so much, because shes far more wise than anyone gives her credit for.

her answer, for the record, earned her a trip to jamba juice and a few rounds of mario cart in her living room.

took ashley to see austin powers

drove down sunset through west hollywood turned left at rodeo drive and then right on santa monica to century city.

some ass changed the name of the century city mall to westfield mall.

westfield mall?

the dot com that i worked at had its start in century city right there on avenue of the stars. we would eat lunch in the swanky outdoor mall every afternoon. that was in the summer of ’98. an eternity ago, to me.

it’s 840pm and two of the showings are sold out. somehow they create a 930pm show and we buy tickets and hang out in the bretannos where chris got drew barrymore’s autograph for ashley. she also got one for me.

ashley (not pictured) gets very excited when she realizes that drew was in the same place that she is at. very excited.

get popcorn, two large sodas and a bag of sour gummi bears. $15. back in 98 a week before i got the job at the dot com i had a date with a girl where i invited her to my house to drink the only coke that was in our fridge. $15 would have lasted me a week.

spill some of the popcorn at the door while trying to show the 36 year old usher my stub, he yells, tania! tania! i say, dont worry about it. he says, you dont want a new popcorn? no. no thanks.

as i get older i start falling asleep easier. eating, drinking, smoking, snacking, and holding ashleys hand in the theatre with a pleasant movie on made me very very drowsy. in a good way. “austin powers in goldmember” is a good solid movie. totally fun. very funny. sexy. predictable. a touch offensive. and head and shoulders better than 98% of what you can see at the movies nowadays.

mike myers is in top form. beyonce isnt bad, and mini me steals the show, again.

we take the ten home, stopping off at mcdonalds for an oreo mcflurry.

we get into the house.

turn on the slow jams.

turn off the kitchen light.


ashley is the most jealous girl ive ever met

theres an ashley on your porchi find it endearing, in a way, most of the time.

the same way that i hope all my friends and loved ones find it endearing how messy my home is, how crappy my clothes are, how ridiculuous it is that i have no automobile, and how my memory is as reliable as a cell phone in the canyons.

but im crazy about ashley and that shouldnt be a surprise to anyone. everyone loves the daisy princess.

she pouts and cries and yells and is always there to tell me what parts of my blog and web site are incorrect. how i have ignored her Once Again, even after the poll overwhelmingly said that they wanted more, not less, of her on these pages.

she lets me know what a mistake im making with the girls i dont even dare write about on here.

she lets me know how much she misses me and thinks of me and tells me the things we’d do if id only rent a car and pick her up and wisk her away.

she is a naughty angel trapped in the body of a teenager struggling to escape into a world of barefoot walks through dandilion fields that culminate into wild romps that make the doves scatter and the sunbeams blush.

shes a whirlwind of affection caught in a rainstorm of apathy called downtown irvine.

shes as single as can be and only has eyes for me.

until recently.

for the longest time ive been telling ashley that she needs to date guys her own age.

of course they wont be as talented and skilled and practiced and witty and marvelous and honest and romantic and amazing and humble or be able to shapeshift and juggle and ballroom dance, and cook, and rollerblade like me.

but you’ll make due, i told her.

then the other day i was reading her online diary and within days of my little pep talk i discovered that she made out with not one, but two, available young orange county suitors!

so here’s to you, ashley newingham, princess of the 949, sow your wild oats in the parking lot of wild oats… but be safe because thats good shit over there.

and in a few years it will be i who will be the jealous one.

40. hosemonster

ashley seems to think that im hiding her

i like the fact that she wants attention and credit and adoration and fame and celebrity and love and fan mail and phone calls and pizza and mentions in a blog that matters not. but im not hiding her.

everyone knows tons about ashley and knows that i call her every day and knows that we get to hang out a lot together, and now that no doubt is in town there would be no doubt that shed be in town, and now that theyre on their way to vegas, she’ll be on the road east to make the shows.

the person that should be complaining the most is Jesus.

i havent spread the word in so long and here it is Good Friday and this is what i’ll say about it.

read a few chapters of the Good Book this weekend.

it might surprise you.

for example, on this day, Good Friday, lots of interesting things happened. one writer says that there was an earthquake, one guy talks about one of the bad guys putting a straw down Jesus’s mouth and poured vinegar down his throat while he suffered on the cross. one guy talks about Jesus’s brothers and family showing up.

for some reason these details never really get talked about in the movies or on tv or in church even, and i wont give you my opinions on them, i would way prefer it if you formed your own. to me spirituality is the most personal part of a person’s life and its ok to talk about these things, but today i’d rather just suggest that you crack open the book and spend a few minutes, or, gasp, even an hour reading some of the new testament and read for yourself a little bit of matthew mark luke or john. i promise you there will be something in there instantly that you will be surprised to read.

theres no way i shoulda gone to work yesterday, i had this very strange dizzy spell where i thought i was gonna fall down in the hallway and i dont know how i made it through the day but i did, somehow, and now im back at my desk again and im feeling much better, thank you.

and thank you to everyone who is stoking the kitty fund and the snoop fund. i promise you. this blog will not evolve into a charity drive each and every day. i’ll only talk about the kitty for a few more days. latest news: if things couldnt get pathetic enough, the kitty had to go to the doctor and came home with one of those sad tubes around its neck because the paw is infected and will probably have to be amputated, costing karisa even more cash. but they did learn this very important lesson that i would like to share with you, if i may.

apparently there is pet insurance that people can buy. i dont know what it’s called, if you do, just say so in the Comments section (at the end of this post) but it cost about $7-$10 a month and you have like a $100 deductable – i dont know how it works really, i was just surprised to hear that you could have pet insurance.

Happy Good Friday, gentle readers, i think the world of you.

what a difference a shirt makes

ashley anna is on a virtual tear on the coastal town of Acapulco, destroying Tathiana Garbin of Italy 6-1, 6-2 yesterday and making it to the quarter-finals of the Mexican Open.

Ashley was at the beach house yesterday to help me during my brief ailment brought on by what appeared to be too much Novacane. But it was she who went through a series of emotional changes that were pretty amazing.

The former teen princess of the desert is 100% Italian, and I watched her turn red with excitement when she saw me – it’s been a while. And for the record, ladies, a fella always likes it when we can see on your face how happy you are to see us. It’s sweet.

But then I saw her turn green with envy when a good friend of the Blog called around midnight. This brought on my disapproving looks, tears, and raised and then hushed voices. The problem with the Hollywood cabana is that it is entirely made of wood, including the floors, which means that voices echo. Especially crying voices of young girls who like to shreik “get off me!” which alarms, you could imagine, the bored and curious neighbors.

Ashley completed the Italian motif by turning a near clear white in the wee hours when it became apparant that the soup she took from my cupboard was not entirely all vegetable soup and even in the colorful shadows of my bedroom, there wasnt even a hint of tint on our little angel.

Speaking of which, congratulations T-Bone Burnette for winning several Grammys last night. T-Bone produced most of Elvis Costello’s best records and produced Peter Case’s first record, which is still one of my all-time faves.

my shower has been a dripping mess.

you’d think with 4 bedrooms and 5 1/2 baths, I wouldnt care so much about the shower in the master bath, but i do. it’s my favorite. at first it was a slow drip. then it became a steady stream. the landlord promised to come over and fix it since he pays for the water and he came over two weekends ago and found Ashley there and said, “wow, you’re a lot prettier than I expected.”

he expected me, but was greeted by ashley in a sundress. i look pretty in a sundress too, but lets get back to the story. the story of my shower.

landlord didnt fix the shower that day, he told ashley how wonderful my fireplace was, how it was the best one he’d seen for such an old hollywood villa. she smiled. she’s always smiling.

when i came home we inspected the shower and noticed that the stream had increased. the hot water had created much steam in the sad blue bathroom, so we changed into towels and read the newspaper while smoking cigars and enjoyed our new hippy sauna.

last night i came home and the cheerleaders had all dispersed. as has become my ritual, i poked my head into the bathroom to see the state of the drip. to my surprise i noticed a stray cheerleader enjoying the week-old sauna while smoking a cigar and reading one of my secret notebooks.

“welcome home,” she said.

only in my life would a situation like this be a bad thing.

first of all, i didnt remember her name. secondly, i had a hot date and being carless, she was to pick me up. thirdly, she was smoking my last cigar.

“thank you, red, what a pleasant surprise to see you here.” i said and put down my briefcase and unholstered my . 45.

“why are you surprised, i was here this morning when you left.” she said and turned the page in my notebook.

i had been showering at the gym after work and i went to my room to empty out my stinky clothes. when i opened my bedroom door i was more stunned than when i had opened my bathroom door, the room was immaculate.

“i tidied up for you.” she yelled from the folding chair in the shower.

not only were all the clothes, books, magazines, condoms, newspapers, cds, and beer bottles nicely tucked away in all the appropriate places, but the drapes were open, the shelves had been dusted and candles were softly flittering around my suddenly handsome quarters.

it made me want to nap.

the ecstasy the night before made me want to nap, but knowing that i didnt have to clean before my hot date really made me want to climb underneath my electric blanket and take a power nap until i was to be picked up for my mexican fiesta.

so i undressed.

when i turned around i noticed that the cheerleader had finished her sauna and was attempting to join me in my siesta.

“im sorry sweetheart, you’ve got to go. i appreciate all that you did here but it was so unneccessary.”

“i know,” she said, “but i wanted to do it for you. you were so nice to all of us last night.”

“ok good, well, heres a hug. i really have to take a nap right now, not everyone got to sleep in this morning.”

“dont you want me to nap with you?” she asked.

“no no, not necessary. thank you, though.”

“well my friend isnt going to pick me up for about an hour, would you like for me to clean your kitchen?” she asked. she was wearing my robe. my robe seemed quite pleased.

“ok look, if your friend is really going to be here in one hour and not one and a half hours or two hours, then yes, you can nap with me, but no talking and no funny business.”

she disrobed and slid into my sheets.

of course i had my Dilbert glow-in-the-dark boxers on and i tried to be suave and slip them off with my cords but im not as graceful as you’d think. somehow i made it in my bed.

it was hard to sleep. we spooned. i looked at the clock radio. she held my hand in hers under her cheek. little tone was trying to get closer to her, so i changed positions.

now she was pressed against my back and her arms were around me.

this is nothing how i imagined it in grade school.

she whispered in my ear, “did you enjoy sleeping with me last night?”

“i dont remember much of last night.”

“dont worry, you were a perfect gentleman.”

“we didn’t…”

“everything but.”

“everything?”

“you dont remember the hay and the trick ropes?”

“no.”

“you dont remember the whipped cream and the bongos?”

“uh, no.”

“you dont remember the ‘Pictionary’ competition?”

“i just remember pom poms.” i wispered back.

“thats good, at least you remember some of it then.”

i tried to keep quiet. totally impossible.

“are you in love with this girl?” she whispered, annoyed.

“which girl?”

“the girl you have plans with tonight.”

“i think she’s spectacular.”

“is she as pretty as i am?”

“all the girls in california are beautiful,” i answered.

it was quiet, so quiet i could hear the radio playing a stevie nicks song next door at my neighbor’s house.

the steady stream of water in the shower was soothing and made up for the mildew collecting on the window pane and soon i was asleep and soon i was awake and soon my date had arrived with a long sleeve surfer shirt with the word “free” printed on the front.

she has a magic spell on me, one that prevents me from looking at her for too long or sitting too close to her. a spell that makes me smile like a fool nonstop.

i wanted to show her my sauna, but i wanted to leave the house quickly before the cheerleader had become aware of my disappearance.

home

truth is stranger than fiction and sometimes it’s nicer too.

rarely do i leave the complex to hob-nob with the working class but sometimes the invitiation is so inviting and im insppired to break from tradition and actually leave the damn house.

friday night i ventured into the Laurel Canyon just beyond Mt. Olympus to the sprawling grounds of Brian Linse who hosted such a nice sweet party that i couldn’t even believe it.

normally when the premise is that several big name web loggers are going to meet one another, the results can be scary. nobody cool writes on a blog on the Internet, do they? of course not.

but i have been pleasantly surprised in the past by what has come my way via the www and friday was no exception.

the host and all of his guests were not only as interesting as their writing, but polite, and smart and fun and more social than i expected. the nerd-factor was there but only because i was in attendence and the wine was delicious.

i can’t guarantee that i will be more social in 2002, but this was a fabulous start and it reminded me why i need to venture out more often as the universe is abundant, generally with wonderful and intelligent souls.

and what do you know, i got home before my pumpkin tuned into a snoop de ville and had enough time to play on my little computer and pass out in a smelly mess in front of the roaring fire only to be awaken by the four am thump of saturday’s paper arriving at my doorstep.

saw “the others” on saturday and was also, thoroughly impressed.

wanna have a good cry at your office cubicle?

then go to the Presidio Pet Cemetary. in lots of ways, San Francisco is just a larger Isla Vista in that it has more curious, crazy, wonderful, lovely things, all squeezed into a ridiculously small area. And the Presidio, now opened to the public, thanks to military budget cuts, thanks to the fall of the Soviet empire, thanks to Bill Clinton, a hem, is turning out to be the best kept secret in Frisco, despite the movie that no one saw called, “The Presidio.”

Don and Jen got hitched there, Chris worked there, I even got paid to update a web site for a non-profit there. It’s home to the coolest Burger King in America, and who knew it has one of the most charming pet cemetary in town. It may have the only pet cemetary in town since Frisco put a moratoreium on cemetaries way back when it became obvious that they were running out of space for people who were still alive (the locals are usually laid to rest in the neighboring Daly City, which boasts more dead people than living ones.).

One of the markers grieves the long-departed Coco, who passed on in 1925(!), which is the oldest stone you’ll see on the web site.

Sorta makes me want to have a pet so i can bury him in a nice place one day.