Note to self. Do not watch movies where protagonist is horribly murdered by his own friends right before you go to bed. I didn’t think that Throne of Blood would bother me too much as it almost seems like a dry run for Kurosawa’s masterpiece, Ran, but it actually is much more disturbing. They always say the unknown is more frightening as can be witnessed in horror movies; when you see the monster, it takes away some of the fear it inflicts upon you. Case in point; Jeepers Creepers was actually kind of disturbing until the monster turned out to be the Undertaker from WWE with wings…not exactly giving me nightmares. In Throne of Blood, this poor sap played by Mifune is seemingly led about by fate, and fate is not a very nice person. To die alone, hated by all with the world seemingly against you has to be one of the worst things that can happen to a person.

Today was a pretty uneventful day; although I did learn something new. Never, EVER go to a health club/gym at 5:30 in the evening. Apparently, everybody and their mother decides this is a perfect time to go. I’m not kidding; I actually saw a young lady and her mother working out on the machines…I didn’t know that spandex stretched that much. There’s another thing I learned today. Seriously, spandex should only be sold to those who won’t disgust the population when wearing it; you should have to get a permit or something. Same deal with speedos. If I see another fat, German waddling around with his branch and dingle-berries strapped to the bottom of his heaving stomach, I’m going to go on a rampage. Why the Europeans insist on wearing these tasteless bathing suits is beyond me…it may even explain the nude beaches. I think it might not be nearly as disturbing seeing them naked instead of dressed like a Chippendale’s dancer. I have actually been working out consistently for almost a year now; I’m sort of proud of myself. I’ve managed to slim my way down from being fat to not-so-fat and without much of a change in diets. Take that Jenny Craig! It turns out, if you move around a lot, you lose weight…there should be some studies on this; the world needs to know.

I’ll be traveling up to San Francisco this weekend for a party that my friend has been hyping up for at least a year now. It’s going to be on Castro Street which is actually a homosexual hangout. I’m not sure which disturbs me more; the fact that my friend is experienced in this area or the fact that I’m going up to see it. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. He says it’s a huge party with half a million people turning up last year and raging in the streets ‘till the break of day…beats sitting in my underwear at home scaring the trick-or-treaters by actually answering the door. If you haven’t been living in a cave with Osama the past week or so, you may have heard that we in California have been having huge fires all over the state. There has already been 1,600 homes lost and 20 fatalities as I’m writing this with the possibility of more. It’s a sad, tragic state of events with many people’s lives being ruined and billions of dollars in damage. What’s worse was the fact that I was more concerned with the freeway not being closed so I could actually drive up to San Fran. Does this make me a bad person? I have to admit, I find it hard to empathize with people I don’t know; when you live in a big city, even if you know hundreds of people (not likely), you still don’t know a fraction of all the people that make their homes here. I know Stalin once said one death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic. I can understand that sentiment. If one of my friends or a friend of theirs happened to lose their house or was killed, I would “feel their pain” as it were, and it would hit much closer to home. To hear that 1,600 houses have gone up; I think, wow, that sucks, but how can I empathize with something I can barely comprehend? I guess it’s overload. Same when you hear about millions of deaths in Africa; nobody really can understand something like that.

Well, I watched Kill Bill tonight to see what all the hype was about. I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not because it was a good movie; quite to the contrary. In fact, it was a very stupid movie with terrible dialogue and even worse actors. Somehow, the fact that it seems this is exactly what they were going for seems to work. It’s sort of a guilty pleasure; like watching Saved by the Bell or Beverly Hills 90210. You know they’re completely idiotic without any artistic or technical merit, but you can’t help but smile and laugh all the way through. The violence quota was just a bit out of control. I don’t think I’ve seen that many severed limbs in one movie…actually, I’m sure I haven’t. They may have been shooting for a Guiness World record or something. Uma Thurman played the perfect part of Uma Thurman; a terrible actor who doesn’t seem to realize she’s being laughed at. It doesn’t help that every time I see her I think of The Avengers or Batman and Robin, two of the worst movies ever put to film. This part happens to work for her though, because it’s meant to be cheesy; much like her film presence. Lucy Liu manages to not piss me off in her role as well. It may be because I had to sit through Charlie’s Angels on a plane flight home…even without sound it was shitty. It’s also nice to see Sonny Chiba acting again; his Street Fighter movies are greatness. He always seemed like a classy guy, even while pummeling his opponents. This movie even included that nutcase from Battle Royal who knifes that poor guy’s privates, Chiaki Kuriyama. Apparently, Tarantino was a fan of that scene as he had her do it all over again with much more disturbing visuals in this movie. Her fight scene with Uma was probably my favorite scene; there’s something very surreal about watching Poison Ivy fighting to the death with a little Japanese school girl. Surreal is probably the best way to describe this movie…unless Japanese airlines actually let you take samurai swords as a carry on. I’ll definitely want to watch the sequel, if only to see what cool eye patches Darryl Hannah will be wearing. She seemed to have quite the collection in this movie; she even had a red cross eye patch to go with her nurse’s outfit…now that’s class!

Thank god for the Simpsons. I’d been having a bad day until I had Radioactive Man, the movie waiting on my Tivo. I’m not sure how mentally healthy it is to have my moods change with television shows, but I’m technically a generation Xer. We were all raised by Voltron, G.I. Joe and Bugs Bunny. I wonder if the internet is going to be the next generation’s t.v.? Today I had a loan document signing to take care of as part of my notary public service. On my free time, I notarize loan papers for refinances on properties for extra cash. It almost pays more than my normal job and I get to meet a wide cross section of Los Angeles society. I love observing people’s living habits and very few other jobs lets me walk right into stranger’s homes…at least legal professions, anyways. It’s interesting to see how certain people decorate their homes, treat their spouses, cook their dinners, etc. Today I was supposed to complete a signing with three Asian women on a rental property they own. Unfortunately, the loan company, which shall remain nameless, totally screwed the pooch on the documents. They misspelled Irene K. Ng as Ifene K. Hg…I guess it would have been more noticeable had her name been Barbara Smith. Not to be racist or anything, but Ng as a last name? Yes, Pat, I’d like to buy a vowel! They probably assumed her first name was anything but normal so Ifene could pass as “oriental” to some dumb hick out in Pennsylvania typing up the docs. They didn’t stop there, though. They also screwed up their social security numbers by mixing them up…Hehe, I guess even on paper, all of those Asians look alike to the white bread boobs on the East Coast. They even got the address wrong! I mean, you’d think with thousands of dollars at stake, they might actually succeed in locating the damn place they’re lending the money to pay for. Needless to say, the signing was cancelled and now I have to explain to the clowns that sent me on this fool’s errand why I couldn’t complete it without questioning their stupidity or blaming my incompetence.

After laughing way too loud at the Simpsons, I felt better and decided to catch up on several of the movies I’ve had my Tivo record for me. Usually, I’ll have it record famous, Oscar worthy films because I’m supposed to watch them, all the while ignoring them to watch reruns of Seinfeld. Every once in a while, a movie comes around that I’ve really been meaning to see such as the one I watched tonight, Throne of Blood. This is Akira Kurosawa’s take on Shakespeare’s play Macbeth, so it’s really the best of two worlds. I love Akira Kurosawa’s movies despite the fact that he has his actors overact in every scene…it might be the subtitles and the fact that I don’t understand Japanese that it works for me. My personal favorite of his is Ran, a remake of Shakespeare’s King Lear,(yeah, he’s got a hard on for Shakespeare, but who doesn’t? The Earl of Oxford was “bloody brilliant!) which tells a great story and manages to have more blood and guts than an Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick all the while managing to be artsy at the same time. Macbeth also happens to be my favorite Shakespeare play; probably because it’s his shortest. O.K., also because the main character happens to be an interesting and empathetic character who just happens to be married to the most evil and terrible characters in the history of…the world, really. Seriously, Lady Macbeth is the poster child for “Just Say No to Marriage!” Throne of Blood plays it pretty straight; it’s pretty much the exact same story only set in feudal Japan instead of feudal Europe…the only difference is probably hygiene, really. Toshiro Mifune plays the lead role and he’s magnificent as always. He’s one of the coolest actors ever to grace the screen; he’s right up there with Humphrey Bogart, William Holden, Clint Eastwood or Bruce Campbell (hey, the Evil Dead movies are a work of art.) He manages to be a brash, clueless rogue with a heart of gold in The Seven Samurai, a conniving, intelligent and dangerous killer in Yojimbo and an intense, effective yet insecure leader in Throne.

What makes a great tragedy is the self inflicted wounds caused by their protagonist’s faults and vices, not external events. King Lear is so arrogant and such a bad judge of character that he destroys his own family and everything he fought for his entire life; Othello and Macbeth fall due to their own insecurities and ambitions, much like the modern day loser Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman. A good tragedy is truly hard to beat in terms of staying power within people’s minds; they teach a lesson about human weakness and the dangerous inherit with submitting to them. They’re really just safety films with higher production values and better writing. Even if you don’t like downers, you have to admit they’re better than those terrible after school specials we were forced to watch…and certainly not as funny.

Well...this is interesting. I have decided to try and keep a blog for several reasons. The first is several of my friends, let's call them Mr. T and Chow, are addicted to reading blogs and need a new fix. It's sick and twisted, but hey, it could be worse. They could be addicted to watching Joe Millionaire. The second is the fact that I recently kept a journal for my vacation this year and enjoyed it more than I had any right to. It's been years since I wrote anything of substance and it was almost like putting on a comfortable pair of shoes; it felt natural and relaxing. Sort of like therapy for me to vent my usual brand of nonsense into a solid form that I could look at later and gage my sanity. The third reason is I fear my writing skills may be deteriorating as we speak. I seem to have trouble spelling and resort to a childish vocabulary to get my point across. Me no like. I figure if I'm going to practice expressing myself, I might as well have an audience.

This will be my journal 2.0. For the record, my life isn't exactly exciting. In fact, my last journal was probably far more entertaining as I was in a foreign land seeing extrodinary things; my usual day is a lot like the Weather Channel. It's interesting for about 10 minutes to see what's happening, then you want to flip on over to that Girls Gone Wild commercial or an episode of the Simpsons. Well, I don't plan on writing every little thing that occurs in my life in here, as that would be sad and depressing for all involved. No, I'll just bring up the events that attract my attention. Maybe you'll enjoy it, maybe you'll think I'm a complete tool; either way, at least I'll get a reaction. So here goes, my first entry into the blogosphere.

As I type this, I'm supposed to be watching the Lakers playing the Mavericks, but I'm actually more engrossed by Joe Millionaire. That show is killing me; the guy is some strange cross between Woody Harrelson and Owen Wilson. From what I understand of the first one, which I didn't get to watch (seriously, I'd probably watch it now if it's anything like this one) the first guy was a total fool and only worthy of being liked by the money he supposedly had. This guy on the new one is actually pretty charming in a goofy, school boy sort of way. The women are nothing to write home to mama about though. I was just in Europe and it is chock full of gorgeous, sophisticated women and this is what they brought to the show? It's a travesty, really. I know they want to mock the foreigners in this particular show, they wouldn't have chosen a "cowboy just like President Bush" if they hadn't want to make these women go completely against their morals, but they could have grabbed a couple that didn't look like they just came out of a brothel. It's an interesting concept; making women look like money grubbing bitches, but isn't this show just a microcosm of men and women relations? Men do their best to look important and successful enough to attract a woman that they think they deserve, and women generally gravitate towards important and successful men. Even females who are millionaires usually are looking for a man even more successful then they are; it's just hardwired into our brains, I suppose.

Ahem...Anyways, back to the Laker game. First of all, I'm not a Laker fan; actually, I grew up a Boston Celtics fan and really still do pull for the Truth Pierce to get his team past the other underachievers Eastern Conference teams every year. Still, I live in L.A. and this is the most successful franchise in the city and as everyone knows, L.A. loves a winner. The game isn't particularly interesting at the moment; both teams have recently done a complete roster overhall and have no idea what their offense is supposed to be yet. It's going to be like this for at least another couple of weeks and the only thing keeping me interested at this point is my fantasy basketball league. No, what's been very interesting has been the Kobe-Shaq feud that's burning as brightly as the San Bernardino hills right now. Shaq has always taken cheap shots at Kobe over the years, many were deserved, some were just piling on. Kobe, on the other hand, has always tried to be little Jordan and kept what he said under control and has always carefully chosen his words so not to express any opinion that wasn't completely dull and uninteresting. Yeah...we know you want to win and give 110 percent and all that crap, but seriously, what are you thinking? Well, we found out this week. What with this little rape case hanging over his head and his marriage, career, hell, life hanging by the accusations of a maid from Colorado, he's finally decided he just doesn't give a crap. He came out full blast on Shaq and called him everything he probably did privately for the past several years. He called him a fat ass, a whiner, that he shucks responsibility, even that he has a low pain threshhold. Personally, I think this is pretty healthy. It's finally out there, like a big zit on the nose, screaming to the world,"Look at me!" Now they'll have to deal with it one way or another; either a trade or an agreement to just play the damn game and win. I don't know what will happen with Kobe, whether he'll be able to be the great player he was last year or even if he'll stay out of jail, but I think this is probably the first step to his actual maturity. Jordan was able to lock it all down for some time, but even he snapped and had to take a couple of years off from being Mr. Perfect and even had to deal with his own gambling demons. It's time for Kobe to stop pretending he's the best thing since Tivo and just deal with being a very talented basketball player.

Wow, I really babbled on in this first post. I better get back to watching Joe Mill...er, the Lakers. Wow...Payton really still is the man!