Libraries are drugz..

I am just stupid excited that BOTH Carmichael and Sterne libraries have extended late night hours this fall! One thing that I always like about finals week and the week preceding are the obscenely late and sometimes 24 hour library schedules. So is it mere coincidence these two libraries simultaneously extended their hours far into the night? I think not. I think it arises out of a collective demand for accommodation to the emerging bizarre nocturnal and even 24/7 lifestyles all the kids these days go by. And so for these generous blocks of extra research time, I think we should all extend our gratitude to an entire generation addicted to Adderall, and the good folks at Shire for putting together the top-notch research team that developed the drug that sells itself.

Sometmes, oftenly, people just suck.

You know who sucks--and y'all best all go ahead and get ready to lace up your black combat boots so you can look cooler when you're gasping and hugging yourself tightly in your Nightmare Before Christmas hoodie all alone in your apartments that are chocked full of bullshit memorabilia and a shelf of your DVD collection just for his movies--

TIM BURTON।

Let me clarify, Tim Burton post-Helena Bonham Carter sucks. Big Fish was his like "good bye mediocre to decent cinematic vision and hello douchedom" film. It's basically a guy with more ideas and big stories than anyone who ever lived literally DYING to tell them। And everybody comes out to say "good bye" and "happy swims" and what a great time we all had because Corpse Bride and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Sweeney Todd (Vom all over the god damn key signature assholes) SUCKED.

I walked out of them in theaters and I was the PROJECTIONIST. I was watching for FREE.

And I didn't even bother with Alice in Wonderland. If I wasn't already fed up with him, this would have been the nail in the coffin. Seriously, for just a minute consider the audacity of that SOB to go around believing it's his god damn duty to film history to remake every eccentric fantastical imaginative journey into 35 mm that was already PERFECT.

Asshat.

I really think that the way Tim Burton makes a meeting is by having his people turn on the big light in LA or London (or wherever it is that he and Helena Bonham Carter are currently and consistently penning their abominations) that summons all the douchey Tim Burton crews and Johnny Depp (whom I used to think had talent and taste but now consider to be possessed of the same burning ego driven desire as Burton to publicly play the weirdo--albeit, Depp strives for the "sexy" freakshow--and bang foreign chicks while struggling film after film to top his last shit storm) to the offices of whatever assholes are paying for these things nowadays to discuss Burton's latest "vision."

And when they're all there, he sends in a proxy to make the following inspiring speech:

"Okay guys, so we've become aware of this [script or story or book or classic film] that could be manufactured as a movie that fits exactly what Mr. Burton believes the world expects from him as a cinematic genius. So basically we want you guys to get together with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter and make this picture as though you were a bunch of amateurs who have seen Edward Scissorhands way too many times. Oh you haven't seen it? That's cool, just google image search for it, and you should be good to go. Alright, any questions? Great, Mr. Burton sends his regards and ah, alright, we'll see you at the wrap party."

And I thought I really and truly hated him for touching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory like he thinks he could ever have a chance in hell of matching the talent contained in Gene Wilder's 78-year old ear wax much less of doing an acceptable adaptation of any of the literary marvels of Roald Dahl. Does he do any research before shooting or is he just THAT arrogant and severely afflicted by hubris???

ROALD DAHL REFUSED TO FINISH HIS ADAPTATION OF CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY AND WAS FORCED UNDER CONTRACT TO HAND IT OVER TO DAVID SELTZER WHO BUTCHERED IT. DAHL WAS SO OUTRAGED BY THE FINAL SCRIPT AND ITS COMMERCIALIZED EMPHASIS ON WILLY WONKA OVER THE TRUE HERO AND INTENDED PROTAGONIST OF CHARLIE THAT HE DISOWNED THE FILM AND DECREED NO OTHER ADAPTATION WOULD BE MADE IN HIS LIFETIME OR FOR AS LONG AS HE COULD POSSIBLY PREVENT IT.

And what does Tim Burton do in homage to a legitimate artist? He rapes a classic young adult novel and then spits in Gene Wilder's wild, blue eyes and unmatchable stage presence while torching every subtlety of the art and craft of film making imaginable and demonstrating an unearned irreverence for the literature that allegedly inspires him. Seriously, it's like he was just huffing set paint all through film school. What a dick.

If I'd known what to expect from this "visionary," I don't think I would've convinced Annie it was a good idea to break into his garage. Unless of course, we were going to leave a different note than we did. We should have spray painted on his garage door. "That's enough, Tim Burton. Seriously. Stop."

I'm glad I'm not allowed on or near his property and he should be too. I'd just pee all over it and I'd be right.

Postscript:

OH, and BTW, Tim Burton didn't DIRECT the Nightmare Before Christmas. He PRODUCED it, which means he had somehow even LESS to do with its vision than he does on the films he puts his names on now. This is why Coraline was AH-mazing--because being a film by the "director of the Nightmare Before Christmas" is a far more acceptable accreditation even if it is nameless.

Transcript of a letter to Justin Justice, the Infamous Double J.

My dearest JUSTICE,

I am writing you from the middle of the road। No, that is NOT a metaphor। I am literally sitting in the middle of the road stopping oncoming traffic from driving through the set just around the bend। I'm reduced to working as a lowly PA for half my daily rate on a Sunday afternoon. Getting paid to sit in the middle of the street and stop traffic. Awesome.

Better than that though is who I'm working for (or should that be for whom I am working?). You probably more than anyone I know will get a kick out of this fact. We're shooting in Lynchburg, home of Jerry Fallwell's notorious cult operations base camp known as Liberty University. The production company is self professed "faith-based" and the cast and crew consist almost entirely of Liberty alums. I'm functioning in some freaky parallel Jesus-centric universe making a movie about fucking MOUNTAIN BIKE RACING. It's like a sports movie in which God brings these two dudes together to overcome their personal tragedies through the power of pushing themselves to the physical brink via MOUNTAIN BIKE RACING.

Justice, are you aware of the bizarrely homoerotic nature of this sport? There's more spandex on set than at a fucking Richard Simmons yard sale. And all these super toned spandex wearing motherfuckers cream their panties every time a dude rides by with a cooler helmet than they have. And as if all these sweaty sack bulges aren't awkward enough all these guys are Jesus FREAKS. Like according to them God came to them in prayer and said, "Ye, my son, go forth and don your spandex psychedelic trousers, clip in, and achieve maximum torque homo Jesus killing blah blah blah and tackle my most bitchin creation: the mountain bike trail!"

Don't get me wrong। Everyone's nice enough and mostly professional. I've even heard the stray dirty joke and met a few folks I genuinely like. However that does not detract from the weirdness of Hollywood del Cristo. Moreso the weirdness of professional mountain bikers. I'm worried that at any moment I'll be exposed for a fraud. So far though, so good. On not being exposed I mean.

So yeah, that's my life at present। This letter is written on the "notes" pages (duh) of my planner. Yes. My planner. Day Organizer. Calendar. Trapper Keeper book of appointments. I'm enclosing (at least intending to be enclosing) this letter in a package containing $10, some dried seaweed (for your continued good health), and gosh, I don't know what else. I'll probably go home tonight, get trashed and fill the ready-mail envelope with all kinds of random things that I find around the house. So I can only truly be held accountable for the seaweed (which is weird enough), this letter, and the ten bucks. The ten bucks is for postage on the stuff I left behind. I must insist that you shove it all in the smallest envelope, mail it as cheaply as possible, and spend the rest of the money on beer or pot. Beer's cheaper though so I recommend 40's. And maybe just for yucks you should listen to that Kid Rock song "Wastin Time" while you drink said 40. But hey, don't let me tell you how to live your life.

Also, I miss you a lot. Duh. Also you're the best thing I ever found on craigslist...unless of course on of those cocaine orgy parties works out.

Love,

Lil

diving into the wake.

In the retail store before it opens I'm mulling over that Death Cab album, Narrow Stairs. I'm arranging the mannequins this way and that--ensuring the cuff of each button down is rolled just so or the cardigan sleeves pinned to the back pockets of the jeans. Everything must look casual and natural.

There is one fitting room with a seat in it. White picket-ish walls like a New England beach house and a mirror that runs floor to ceiling and a dark stained wooden bench facing it. And I sit there at seven a.m. and look at myself in that giant mirror and consider my costume--the look normal. My hair straightened, neat, pinned away from my face. Classic. Casual. Natural. Thinking about that song "You Can Do Better Than Me." This coming apart stuff.

What does it really mean to be seduced by self contemplation in the midst of an arena geared towards over priced self definition? And does it mean anything when I crouch down in the Mens' One Room between the two floor to ceiling mirrors which face one another and try to look into the great infinite? Kneeling there in the midst of infinite reflections considering myself in a place designed to put down self-reflection for the sake of selling high end clothes that will solve all this pesky "WHO AM I" business.

And suddenly I remember. Standing there in the carefully crafted atmosphere, overwhelmed by the "fierce" cologne and "destroyed" khaki cargo shorts. I remember. Walking down a gravel road past the field hockey field approaching the stables and pastures holding hands by the fingertips and he said, "I just want to take you somewhere."

And I said, "Where?"

"I don't know. Like somewhere far away. Like the Far East. I want to take you to the Far East and we can get into some serious meditation and learn that the universe is just a bunch of junk."

"Junk?"

"Yeah, a bunch of junk between us and seeing the reflection of ourselves that the universe truly is."

"So you want to take me on a trip, huh?"

Then we walked around behind the stables and kissed with our eyes open.