Daniel Kells

Here are some random thoughts/observations, from the past couple of days. 

At the end of Olbermann’s interview with Clinton he said that they offered to interview Obama or one of his surrogates as well, but the Obama campaign passed.  Huh?  I mean, talk about a missed opportunity to speak to the activists that Clinton dissed in her very own “Caught on Tape” moment.  And after Axelrod’s sterling performance on “Meet the Press” yesterday, it seems like it should have been a no-brainer.

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Okay, don’t shoot me.  Seriously, don’t.  But I rewound the Obama speech the first time I saw it because it really did look like he gave the finger.  Now, I’m a rational human being, and I know Obama wouldn’t give the finger in a speech, but I did go back and look at it knowing full-well that Contessa Brewer and other vapid anchorwhores would at least question it.

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And this applies to “Fingergate,” as well as any other damn thing.  Once a question is asked, the media seems to give equal weight to any stupid answer, regardless of whether or not the answer is even plausable.  In what world would Barack Obama give the finger during a speech?  IN NO FUCKING WORLD!!  But that answer must be given equal time to the correct answer, that he was scratching his face.  Lordy, the stupid has been brought recently.

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Okay, I’ve only noticed this three times, but that might be a trend…  And John McCain did is Sunday on “This Week,” so I’m inclined to say that Karl Rove whispered this into his ear and he’s following along like a good little soldier.  Here’s what he did.  Instead of calling Barack “Ba-rock,” he called him “Berrrick.”  Maybe I’ve been reading too many blogs, but I’m certain Karl Rove is behind everything, and this type of thing seems so Rovian.

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The footage of the marchers after Obama’s Friday night rally chanting “Yes We Can” was pretty freaking awesome.

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That thing on John McCain’s face seems larger.  Seriously.  It’s like something from South Park.

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I went to see “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.”  My initial instinct was to not see the movie, because their ad campaign around Los Angeles really pissed me off.  (Did this campaign go on elsewhere?  Billboards that say things like “Even my mom could’t stand you Sarah Marshall.”  But they didn’t say anything about the movie?  Like, look at me, I’m clever.  Hehehe.  Whatever, I digress.)  Anyway, didn’t click for me.  But here’s my biggest problem with the film:  the two best lines from the commercial weren’t even in the movie.  Jonah Hill yelling over his shoulder about a party of one, nope, not in the movie.  And Jason Segel sitting naked on the sofa saying, “Do you want to pick out the outfit I should wear for you to break up with me?”  Also not in the movie.  As the kids say these days, WTF?

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Mrs. Landingham is in a commercial for FiberOne Yogurt.  And not as “I’m the woman who played Mrs. Landingham and now I think you need to eat this crap.”  No, she’s just a shopper in a supermarket.  That made me kind of sad.

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On that note, I oftentimes will wake up thinking that I need to check on-line to see what President Bartlet’s administration is up to.  You can imagine my surprise as my dream-state comes crashing down to earth…

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I purchased three non-fiction books today, the first time evah I have not purchased fiction (aside from cookbooks).  Two of Glenn’s book and Cliff’s book.  Hurry, Amazon, bring me books!!

Thanks for reading!!

This is a poem by Robert Hayden. 

“Those Winter Sundays”

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
when the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

My great friend Helen McElwain shot this trailer last weekend.  With enough votes, the mock-trialer could make it as a DVD extra on George Romero’s “Diary of the Dead,” so if you’re the MySpace type, give it a thumbs-up!

A Vegan Cannibals Trailer

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This was posted on a lamp post near my house.

Georgia Frontiere died today.  She was the Co-Owner and Chairwoman of the St. Louis Rams.  I’m assuming they’ll be some sort of rememberance of her during this weekend’s two football games.

Gossip website TMZ, strangely claiming news of her death as “Exclusive,” (even though the Associated Press story is date stamped approximately 30 minutes prior to TMZ’s), has a pretty tasteless headline.  “Frontiere Kicks It.”  Wicked tacky.  They also had a story on her earlier in the day titled “NFL Owner Gets Two-Minute Warning.”  Also wicked tacky.  And tasteless.  And rude.

My friend Rey Lucas is appearing in a feature film called “On the Job Training,” directed by Geff Zamor.  You can check out www.consortiumfilms.com for info on the flick.

Last Thursday they had a screening in Santa Monica and I put together a short video, mostly for Rey’s mom, since she wasn’t able to fly out for the screening.  Enjoy!

I have a pretty tight circle in which I move.  As a result, I rarely come in contact with children.  My boss’s son is 12, but I only see the kid once a week or so.  A family with a daughter of maybe 10 just moved into my small Hollywood building, so I’ve been seeing her lately ride around on a little scooter.  And there’s an elementary school a couple of blocks away, but I’m rarely actually awake at 8:00 a.m. to see the kids walking to school.  Aside from that, I don’t really have occasion to see kids that much.

On Saturday night, though, I was the Assistant House Manager for an evening of comedy with Eddie Izzard at the Coronet Theater, a 300-seat venue on La Cienega Blvd. in the middle of West Hollywood.  Curtain was at 10:00 p.m., and the show was sold out.

Across the street from the theater is a building that used to house a restaurant (called Acapulco), that closed in the past six months.  On Saturday night, the venue played host to a teen dance party, supposedly called a “Red Level” party.

Aside from my high school graduation (fifteen years ago, ugh!!), I haven’t really seen this many children in one place at one time.  And while many of them were acting mature, talking mature, and certainly dressed mature, they were children.

Obviously the promoters of this event underestimated the crowd, and the doors to the club were closed by about 10:15 p.m., leaving literally thousands of kids on the sidewalks and in the streets.  And obviously the authorities underestimated the crowd.  From my vantage point, I saw one police officer and a few security guards, and nothing else.

The theater where I work has a breezeway that leads to a courtyard, where you’ll find the box office and doors to the venue.  Along with the rest of the staff, I stood at the end of the breezeway and watched as the crowd swelled and swelled, eventually closing down the street (one of the major north/south avenues cutting through Los Angeles).

We also did our best to keep folks who weren’t patrons of the theater out of the breezeway and courtyard.  These kids were loud, and we had a live show and a few hundred patrons to look out for, and we’re paid to protect the audience and the integrity of the show.  Dozens of screaming kids in the courtyard, while not a safety issue, would certainly have caused a disturbance on the stage.

But a couple of kids got past us as we stared entraced at the swelling crowds across the street.  Before I could ask them to step out of the breezeway, I saw what I was seeing in the crowds reflected in their eyes.  I sarcastically asked, “What are you guys, twelve?”  To which they replied, “No, fourteen.”  Fourteen years old, and staring at a crowd, that by this time, was getting rowdy.

I’m not 100% certain how things got from a rollicking crowd to the terrifying hights that it reached, but things snapped quickly.  More than a few fights broke out, one about a hundred feet away, then one very close to us.

The fight a bit further down from us caused everybody near it to start running in all directions, and those people began to trip over the fight that was closer to us.  As arms were flailing and kids were tripping, one of the security guards got right into the middle of the haphazard circle and began to pepper spray anybody and everybody.

Suddenly, tough-talking and -dressing kids were crumbling on the street and the sidewalk, sobbing and crying and shaking, bewildered and blinded.  More fights, more pepper spray, more running, more screaming.

Then, finally (and in my opinion about 15 minutes too late) a substantial number of police officers arrived.  One car after another sped up and out came running a few dozen officers brandishing clubs.  No riot gear, most likely because there wasn’t time, but they had back-up in the sky, in the form of helicopters with search lights.

The helicopter searchlights didn’t do anything but fan the flames.  The area was already quite well lit, but the sound of a helicopter flying closer than I’ve ever seen in this city (and trust me, I’ve seen plenty of helicopters flying overhead), and the randomness of the light only added to the insanity of the moments.

It took about an hour to get the area cleared, and in the end things ended tragically for one person.

According to CBS News, somebody was shot and killed.  The news report, for whatever it’s worth, ignores the mayhem that preceded the killing, and further refers to the person killed as a “man” in the headline, even though the story refers to him as a male, either 17 or 18 years old.

I’m not 100% sure why I’ve even written this.  Perhaps simply to say that I witnessed something awesome (in the truest sense of the word), something terrifying, something tragic.  Children, thousands of them, were set-up and left vulnerable by this event, many of them hurt, one of them dead, and perhaps all of them scarred in some way or another.

The two 14 year olds who cowered in the theater’s breezeway stayed there until the crowd thined and one of their parents was a few blocks away to pick them up.  Eddie Izzard did a 30-minute encore to keep our audience inside the building until the streets were clear enough to get them out, and heading to last night’s show was eerie, if for no other reason than because of the noise that preceded it the night before.

And driving past the makeshift memorial in the alley where the kid died drove home for me the immediacy of life, the fragility of it all, and how quickly innocence can be lost.

I’m in Las Vegas for a night, primarily to visit with my stepdad and little brother, who are in town for the big Computer Electronics Show (CES). I saw my stepdad briefly, but will have a better opportunity to catch up with him tomorrow at dinner. But I hung out with my little brother all night, and had a great time. We ate at the Cheesecake Factory at the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. Very tacky, but good. After dinner, we watched some TV in his room (I know what you’re thinking: could this guy’s life get any more glam?!), then I went to play some poker. It’s almost 2:00 a.m. now, and here are some observations, etc.

Little did I know, but outside of Los Angeles and New York (the two big cities I either live in or have recently visited) Victoria “Posh Spice” Beckham has had a decidedly strong influence on the fashion choices of some women who could generously be classified as “cougars” (or, more crassly, MILF). It’s strange to see early 50’s women dressed like complete whores, and not because they actually are whores, but most likely because they like feeling like whores. Maybe. I’m being overly general (and potentially sexist, though I’ll get to the male whores in a moment to even things out), but I have now witnessed at least 4 women all with the same Posh haircut, and the tightest clothes (and faces) you can imagine. And designer whore clothes, like Valentino and Versace.

Then there are two types of guys here right now (again, I’m generalizing). First, there’s the “I’m a computer geek at home but here at CES I’m a fuckin’ rock star so I’m going to put on my best dress shirt undo the top thirty-seven buttons keep it untucked and strut around in cowboy boots.” There’s something both hot and sad about these guys, and I enjoy trying to figure out which of each group (they travel in packs) will be online later attempting to have gay sex. Or perhaps hoping…

Second, there’s the maurading bands of Middle Eastern guys, all dressed like they’re about to go gay bar-hopping in Weho, proving (especially when you get to share an elevator with them) why duty-free shops sell so much cologne. They too dress like whores, and slick their hair into all sorts of shapes and designs. It’s tougher to pick out which of these guys (they too travel in packs) will be seeking gay sex online.

So, poker. A good night for me (with one early-on pussy-ish move that deprived me of $400). I turned $100 into $245 total, which I’m thrilled about, and will avoid playing tomorrow in order to go home with a profit. But I’m still kicking myself for an early fold. My second hand at the table of nine I was dealt Ace-four off-suit in middle position, and there was a raise ahead of me to $25 (a raise of $22 over the $3 big blind), and I folded. I would have made trip aces on the flop, and had I stayed in and went all-in for my original $100, I would have been awarded with quad aces on the river. I folded quad aces!!! Argh!! Could have made a $400 profit. Normally when I see that I could have won a pot if only I stayed in, I play spectacularly bad after. But I kept a level head and won two decent pots over about 2 hours. Trust me, I’m not comlaining!!

And one final observation. My brother and I watched part of the new “American Gladiators” tonight. I felt stupider afterwards than I did beforehand. I hate shows that suck brain cells from my head, as I have so few to spare. But there was one moment that gave me no hope for the state of televison with the writers strike on… For the final challenge, two women competed in an osbtacle course that involved swimming underwater. And, 57 seconds after finishing the course, a lovely African American woman was breathlessly interviewed after victoriously crossing the finish line, only her curls were fluffy and dry and well-styled. What gives?? I know “reality” TV is a load of shit, but come on, couldn’t anybody do better than this? I know I was already lulled into a mind-numbed stupor from having watched for the prior 10 minutes, but even still… Anyway, I’m sure it was a big hit…

Anyway, off to bed with me. (Also, please forgive any typos, as this was done my chubby thumbs on tiny Blackberry keys).

So I’ve headed to the Beverly Center to grab some lunch and catch a movie.

For those of you in Los Angeles, you are at this moment wondering what I’m doing seeing a movie at the Beverly Center. The answer: it’s the only place showing “Gone, Baby, Gone,” and I’m pretty sure after today there won’t be anyplace to see it, and it wasn’t sent to my boss as a screener, so there you are.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Beverly Center, it’s this wanna-be glam mall perched atop six floors of parking with only two elevators into the entire place. The cinemas are a throw-back to the mid-80’s, with tiny theaters (the one I’m in seats 56), and screens not much bigger than the projection TV in my folks’ living room.

Lunch was at Chipotle (read: Mexican-esque crack-flavored food). Mmmmmm-mmm, good. Rice, double chicken, double salsa, guacamole, and an Arnold Palmer to drink.

I finished lunch a bit early and decided to buy myself a book in the hour before the movie began, but the only bookstore this place had has since closed. This I find pretty strange; a mall with no bookstore.

I’ve never been a huge mall shopper. Almost everything I wear comes from either the Eddie Bauer outlet, the Bass outlet, or the Dockers outlet. Without a bookstore, I’m not sure there’s much of a reason for me to ever go to the mall again.

Some other observations…

These kids today and their shaggy hair-dos. Aside from the fact that even the toughest little kid looks wicked gay flipping his hair out of his eyes, I find the look entirely odd. I have no clue if it’s just the young’ens here in LA, or if kids everywhere have the same styling choices.

There are more posters for “Fred Claus” than you can imagine. I feel like I’m living in 2007.

The mall Santa is still out, but he looked miserable. Maybe he’s waiting for the little Greek children to come by for Little Christmas.

And… my movie’s about to begin, so I guess that’s it from the mall!

Greetings, all. I’m at the airport waiting to board my flight to New York. The place is rocking tonight. It feels almost like a party that nobody wants to be at but that everyone decided to attend “just for a minute,” and damnit if we’re not gonna see it through.

I’ll be flying Virgin America for the first time this evening. We’ll see how it compares to JetBlue…

So here are a couple of things that just happened, along with some observations.

While in the line to get my boarding pass and ID checked, a woman, probably late 20’s (though this is LA, she could have been 45 for all I know), did this elaborate improv all in an effort to cut in line in front of me. And I had a front-row seat for the whole thing. The casual and distracted purse rummage, the fake phone call, the pretending to look around for friends (even though she’s traveling alone), etc. Saw the whole thing.

And the strange thing was, the line wasn’t moving. For the longest time the line didn’t move an inch (I was hoping Brad Pitt or Michael Jackson would come down the escalator).

So this woman attempted to rock her way into the line for 5 minutes. Finally, the line started to move, and I was left with a choice: to speak up, or just let it pass…

I chose the former. I mean, fuck her, right?

So I give her the benefit of the doubt (translation: I don’t give her an ounce of doubt, but I want to see her lie)… “Ma’am, perhaps you didn’t notice the back of the line is back there?” and she turns and snarls at me, then says with a vaguely French accent, “Oh, security, no English,” and turns away from me to face the direction the line is moving. But I’m not done and I say, “ma’am, I heard you speaking English on the phone a moment ago. Now I suggest you move to the back of the line.” And that gets a huge “harumphhh,” and some sort of leg-hip-knee-elbow spasm/pose.

And then she left the line and moved to the back of the line.

Now, of course, she’s on my flight. I’ll probably end up next to her.

Then, 20 minutes later, I go to the wildly overpriced deli and pay $6.10 for a bottle of water and a small fountain soda and sit down at a table to eat a sandwich from Subway (tuna on Italian w double swiss and extra tomatoes) and enjoy my beverage.

About halfway through my sandwich a guy walks by and asks where I got the Subway from, and I tell him that I bought it off the airport. He mumbles, “well, that’s not fair,” but he’s not kidding, he really thinks it’s not fair.

I go back to eating, but five minutes later he’s standing over my with a tray and he says, “tables are for customers, you’re gonna have to leave,” and I choose to ignore him. That probably wasn’t the right choice, because his tray’s shaking a little bit and then he yells, “please get the manager, this man is an intruder,” and I do my best not to laugh because either he’s mentally unstable and I don’t want to be rude, or he’s mentally unstable and I don’t want to get whacked with a tray.

The manager arrives pretty quickly and asks the guy what the problem it, and he points at my sandwich (not at me, mind you), and says, “this isn’t from here, this isn’t allowed in here.”

And I’m basically done with my sandwich, which is to say I’m full though still have some left, but I also don’t want to be forced from the table. But the manager says, “sir, these tables are for customers,” and he says it as I’m taking a sip out of what I think was a distinctly-designed cup, but it isn’t until I shake the cup gently and tell him that I bought the soda and a water from his counter that he backs off and tells me I can stay.

But I was done, so I got up and left, and as I was leaving the guy with the tray yells, “yeah, that’s right, go!”

Anyway, he’s on my flight too. Should be a fun trip!!

Oh, and one random observation. I always get jealous of traveling teams. All so healthy-looking, clad in matching track suits, protected by older and slightly rougher men in the same track suits (though not looking quite as good), all happy to be going wherever. Anyway, I always get a bit jealous…