July 31, 2002
11:41am Wednesday

SO DRINK, DRINK, DRINK AND BE ILL TONIGHT

I feel like I can breathe again. It's a good thing the script made it, otherwise you would've found me at the bottom of the Pasadena bridge. Yes, I am this delicate, like a flower in a hurricane. Not really, but this kind of pat on the head has been a long time coming. (I had a manager, and an option a few years ago, but it was all totally frustrating and mired in deal-with-the-devil bad compensation and attitudes, so this is much more pure. The "Congratulations!" on the first line was better than two years of drawn-out almosts and maybes and "We love it, but..."s.)

One of the best parts of this kind of validation is that it lends me legitimacy among my 9-5 hard working friends who don't understand exactly what I do or why I do it, who must certainly think that I suck if I haven't "made it" after all this time spent writing. Maybe now my mother-in-law won't suggest I sell Avon anymore? I can dream.

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I saw Tadpole and it was good but it looked like crap. I think I mentioned how one of the reviews said "Give that guy a real camera!" and it's true. Blown-up video makes everything look bleached out and home-movieish, even with a good 3CCD prosumer camera like the director used. (He spoke here yesterday, at the Burbank Hilton, at the LA DV Show. I went to the show and it stunk. Literally, at times, because it was hot and a lot of those techie nerd boys forgot their Ban roll-on.) The sound on Tadpole was super bad, too, which is funny since they spent double their shooting budget on fixing up the audio. Or maybe it was because of the sound system at the old Rialto in South Pasadena.

Some of these old theaters in Los Angeles are amazing inside, just beautiful. But I'd rather see (and hear) a movie at the AMC.

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I have no pictures to adequately describe the party I went to on Saturday night, except for two of me totally doughy-faced drunk and leering, plastic drink cup tilted in my hand. I will kindly keep them to myself.

This party is a big ole event thrown every year by the original Myst!ery Science Theat3r guy (I'm defying the search engines with my secret-code text here) and his go-getter business-partner brother, and since I was in charge of counting the sign-up entry forms the next day I know that 660 people showed up. I also know that Courtney Cox doesn't know her own email address, and that she and David Arquette span nearly a decade in age difference. I know that Pee)Wee Herman didn't want to "go home alone," and that Weird Al Yankovich is very quiet and poodle-permed and shorter than expected. Dan Castellanetta (sp) likes to hang out in quiet corners with his wife, and Naked Trucker rocks the house.

Last year Jon Brion showed up for a long time, but not this year. And last year Cheri Oteri was there, but not this year. This year people said they saw Jan Hooks, but I missed her. It's a great party, and it's fun because it isn't chi-chi, you don't have to check your hair every five minutes or even dress up, you can just get stoopid-drunk and hang out and bash in the heads of pink pinata dogs until someone tells you to stop. (The irony is the next day during clean-up I had to carry the pink dog delicately across the soundstage so it could be picked up by its owner, this after I'd tried to cream it with the golfclub the night before.)

"Don't fuck with the pink dog."