Daniel Kells

I went to exchange my new glasses for newer glasses (I hated the first pair, and LensCrafters has a 30-day no-questions-asked swap policy so I took full advantage of it…), and was walking back when I witnessed a somewhat typical city site.

A bus pulled away from the bus stop at the curb, but didn’t make the light.  So now, the bus is about 6 feet from the curb and idling, and a guy runs up and knocks on the door and the driver, a large black woman, turns her head towards him and shakes it no.  She’s not opening the door for him, and he gets pretty irate.  He’s a handsome guy, white, late 30’s, and he starts banging his hand on the door, yelling up a storm.

After a few seconds of this, it became obvious that the driver had turned him off, and he knew it, so he ratcheted up his aggression, really wholloping on the door.

Finally, he screams, “I bet if I was black you’d open the fuckin’ door,” and ohhhh, did that get her attention.  She snaps her head towards him, and opens her door a crack, and starts to yell through the crack at him.  I have no clue what she said, but he then starts to try and pry the door open, but it’s her bus and she ain’t having none of it.  Light turns green, and she just drives away, leaving him there to scream and yell at the moving traffic.

After the bus drove away, he stewed on the curb for a minute or two, then stomped away.

Now, I’m unemployed, show’s closed, and I’ve got nothing but time, so I followed him for about five blocks, until he popped into Lefty O’Douls, a Union Square pub.  Guess he’ll catch the next one… (and, no worries about him driving drunk).

So here I am in San Francisco, happily ensconsed in my little studio in the Tenderloin neighborhood.  While the building itself is lovely (Oakwood Corporate Apartments) the neighborhood is pretty nasty.  I’ve lived around homeless people before, but I’ve never seen such a collection of them so angry at each other.  Sure, during daylight hours they’re asking me and everybody else for change, but at night, they’re ripping into each other, fighting and screaming like cats and dogs.  Pretty strange sight, the whole thing.

So, last night, I’m walking down Geary Street, back from dinner at Chipotle (my favorite!), when I see a guy sitting in front of the Walgreens a block from my place, and… I recognize him!  I freeze, look away, look back, look away, then start to walk awkwardly towards him.  My mind is RACING, going over every black guy I’ve ever met.  How do I know this guy?  Where do I know him from?  Why is his face so familiar?

As I approach him, he recognizes me.  “Hey, how ya doing?” he asks.  I stop in front of him, now openly allowed to search his face, and stammer, “fine, good.  Umm…”  And he says, “It’s Jack, from the 7-Eleven on Sunset,” and all the pieces fall into place.

 He’s “my begger,” the guy who normally sits outside “my 7-Eleven” down on Sunset and Curson in Hollywood, near my apartment.  And here he is, in San Francisco.  I exchange a couple of niceties with him, he asks who’s watching my dog (how strange is that?), I give him a few coins, and walk on.

Of course I’ve got to wonder what he’s doing in San Francisco.  Perhaps he’s gone north for the winter.  Maybe he summers in San Francisco.  Who knows…

I have no desire to see this movie, but follow this link, as the trailer is a must-see.

I got home from walking the pup tonight just in time to catch Saturday Night Live.

It’s now 12:04 a.m. and I am barely able to keep watching, it sucks so bad.  But, I want to hold on, just to the news.  Truth is, I know the news is going to suck, too.  Ohh, and now the band is on, it’s Snow Patrol, and they’re not doing their only hit.  I don’t like the song they’re doing instead and I’m not sure I can last much longer.

But, all that said, there was a glimmer of hope, gold-colored hope.  A commercial (thank God for the commercials!!) starring Kristen Wiig.  Let me know if I’m crazy, but this made me laugh out loud.

P.S. The news sucked…

The beginning of this video is a bit stage-y for my tastes, but the end had me in stitches.

When I get back to L.A., I’ll resume work at a personal assistant.  I assist director/writer C. Jay Cox.  Perhaps when I return I can do something to piss him off so he can go on a coke binge and chase me around the city a la Lohan.  Ahh… a boy can dream.

C. Jay just premiered his new fim “Kiss the Bride” in Los Angeles and Philadephia.  In addition to assisting C. Jay on the film, I also did the background casting.  I’m pretty proud of what I did on the film, and was sorry to have missed the premiere in Los Angeles due to a bit of a stomach flue…

But, thanks to Google’s blogsearch, I found these links to make me feel like I was there for the festivities:

A couple of pics, then a whole lotta lesbians…
Great pics from Philly
Lots of gay pics and a great shot of Momma
Hot in Hollywood’s interview with C. Jay (and James’s ass)
Fan-base in the Philippines for “Kiss the Bride” (”directed by the cutie director C. Jay Cox” per Cornylicious)
Ginger-kid was so-so on the film
James’s ass makes the smutty blogs…
Snap review:  It’s hot (beware of Debbie Gibson)
The fourth comment on this page is priceless

More in future days as I find links.

Update:  A couple of fresh links added July 28.

Mixed bag from SlipOfTheTongue (comments off??  pussy.) 
Lesbian is so-so on the flick, but “the boys in the theater seemed to love it.”  Pass the lemons, please.

In homage:

Last night, CNN hosted the first-ever YouTube debate.

Overall, I thought it was pretty good.  Barack Obama was great on the fly, Hillary Clinton was a bit steely but good.  I really want to support John Edwards, but I have some very sad emotions about the guy that I don’t really feel like delving into right now.  That said, I feel like crying when I watch him.  Everybody else was pretty decent.  Gravel’s crazy, but I think it’s worth keeping him around.  Richardson is probably good, but he’s pretty horrible in these debates.  Dodd and Biden are better in the Senate, rather than jumping up to the presidency…

The travesty is CNN’s coverage of the debate today.  There’s lots of congratulatory segments.  “Hey, look, it worked!  Aren’t we great?!”  But there’s also a plethora of reallllly stupid coverage.  Like, this gem concerning the dress of the candidates:  “Dark suits, intimidating.  Bright jacket, fresh!!”

And their note to Mike Gravel.  “Angry only works in small doses.”

The kicker, though, is the focus groups they put together.  The ones where “ordinary citizens” watch the debate with little dials in their hands.  When they like something, they can twist the dial towards the little plus, and when they don’t like something, they twist the dial to the little minus.

I’ve done that.  I’ve been in focus groups where you hold onto the dial while watching political speeches, debates, etc., and the consultants run around screaming things like, “react more!!” and you twist the dial in response, and they say, “good, good, keep reacting!!” and you twist the dial some more.  Why?  Why was I there?  Why did they have me there?  Why did the political consultants believe we were genuinely reacting?  And why did politicians (and why do they continue to) pay consultants for this?

Why was I there?  I was there for the money.  $75 for two hours, cash.  Why did they have me there?  Because I answered an ad on Craigslist.  Why did the consultants believe our reactions were genuine?  Because the floor would fall out on them if they didn’t believe us (most of us were bullshitting the entire time… I’m assuming they didn’t have the microphones in the elevator otherwise I’m sure I wouldn’t've been invited back).  And why do politicians continue to pay for this?  Uhh… good question.  I have no clue.

“Of course these finds are unscientific, but…”

So “Office Space” was on E! earlier today, and I had it playing in the background.  Now, I say this so that you understand, what followed on E! wasn’t my first choice of television shows.  In truth, it probably wouldn’t even make a top-100 list.  But, that being said, I was sunken into the sofa with the pup flopped across my lap, and, well… a reality show called “Katie and Peter” came on.

It’s a Brit-pop-ish reality show with vaguely Spice Girl-wannabe-esque ladies and gay-ish yet straight (they’re Euro!) guys.

And I kept it on for about 10 minutes, staring at it more as one would look at roadkill than anything else.

The thing that caught my attnetion, though, was an interview with two friends of Katie and David’s, and below the friends, right below their names, where it would normally say who they are, what they do, what show they’re on, etc., it said, “Celebity Couple.”

Like:

Susie:  Hi there, my name’s Susie and this is Jack, and we’re a celebrity couple.

Me:  Oh, great.  You’re both lovely.  Umm.  What do y’all do?

Susie:  We’re a celebrity couple.

Me:  Ahh.  Got it.

Jack:  Yeah, celebrity–  Yeah.

I missed it.  Totally slept through it.  There was a 4.2 magnitute earthquake at 4:42 a.m. (coincidence? 4.2 at 4:42? hmm…) last night, and I snoozed right through it.  I didn’t fall alseep until around 4:00 a.m., so I didn’t miss it by much, but missed it nevertheless.

And on the subject of the number 42… does it seem familiar?  It’s the answer, per Douglas Adams, as generated by Deep Thought, to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.  42.

We’re doomed…