9 to 5

This is a sampling of the people related to me. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 5. The short story is that my brother got married (he and Jenny are in the center and scattered throughout the collage). Yes, I shot my own brothers wedding and no I don't recommend it -- working a family event means you don't get to enjoy it as much as you might if you were just, say, drinking or entertaining babies or eating (in that order). However if you are the type of person who hates his or her family, this new form of practical isolation might be good for you and might endear you to them.

The long story is that I've been trying to hold working office hours to get the film done. This means that there is no film from Antimagic and Talk Normal at Silent Barn, nor is there any film from [All Nines] and Japanther from last night (8/24/08). I am behind, and I've been neglecting my precious, precious blog. This is going to get worse before it gets better -- I'm off to Redding, PA (Huh?), Pittsburgh (PA) and Buffalo (NY) this week for a food show or somesuch. Details are sketchy at best. All I know is that the Redding Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates are in their respective towns and I will get to see my long lost friend Ashley and her flock of children in Buffalo.

Then, Fashion Week, Season 8 -- The Return.

Yes, I Went To Disneyland

Disneyland is many things, and a mess of contradictions which I am still limping my way through. Currently. In no order:

1) It's smaller than I remember. Now, I've not been there in 12 years or somewhere thereabouts. In any instance, the forced perspective in the buildings (Main Street gets narrower and the buildings get shorter as they approach Sleeping Beauty's Castle) is now less effective now that I am 6'2". There is also an argument for my "seeing better," if that makes any sense. What took a whole day to walk around now takes about 20 minutes and most of the time is spent waiting in line for rides, which speaks to the designers' grace in jamming so much shit into such a (relatively) tiny space and still managing to give each Land its own entry way and exit.



2) Disneyland is BIGGER than I remember. There's a whole second park, with a second admission fee (Disney's California Adventure), which was built over the old parking lot. Now you take a tram (or walk through Downtown Disney, a weird little shopping mall/esplanade thing) to the main gate from the multi-story parking garage with super-high-flow escalators and a view of scenic Anaheim over and beyond the Magic Kingdom.

2a) Disney's California Adventure is clearly not meant for people from California. Or maybe it is, but that has a certain cynical implication that the good people of the state of California are too dumb to go visit their own (real life, with real bears) attractions. My family and I took a cursory walk through it and I was pretty unimpressed.

Consider below:



Poppies: Check. They are the state flower. Well done. They're all along the highway.

Retro Font: Check. Sell the postcard image of sun-drenched beaches and Beach Boys compilations.

Movie Theater: YOU'RE IN LOS ANGELES MOTHERFUCKER GRAUMAN'S IS VERY CLOSE BY MAYBE YOU SHOULD GO. SHIT IS CRAZY.

Pen: I don't get that. It must be some Miramax-Barton-Fink leftover shit.

Sun, Surf, Palms: See: "Movie Theater," substitute "Venice" for "Grauman's."

3) Disneyland is scary.



There's a lot of skulls. I recall there was a skull count a few years back (which was done apropos of nothing) and the number was pretty high. Or higher than you might expect or think of off the top of your head. There's a lot of blacklight stuff and fucking two story WOOZLES (above) which will clearly haunt your dreams. We can joke all we want about Coney Island being a strange and violent looking place, but all things are equal in this instance and in spite of Uncle Walt's best wishes, Disneyland is closer in spirit and execution to the old carnivals he was trying to render obsolete than we might want to admit. Permanence is great, and the safety record of the park is unbeatable, but content is content is content and the Indiana Jones Ride is just as dark as Dante's Inferno.

4) I might just be getting cynical ("getting," "ha, ha") in my old age. I mean, the holiday re-dressing of the Haunted Mansion (the ride, not the sad Eddie Murphy movie thing) for the Nightmare Before Christmas was pretty cute, and clearly had a lot of thought and love behind it (unlike the sad Eddie Murphy movie thing). Kids seemed to be having a good time still, which is important, because when the STOP having a good time we should burn the place to the ground, and people closer to my age seemed to be having a reasonable time as well. So what does this say about me?

Retroactive Post to June 23, 2007

I've been offered travel jobs in the past that would take me back to California before, and they've all been canceled shortly after informing my parents of the possibility of my arrival in the state of my birth. This has led me to not talk about jobs before they happen, or at least to wait until the very last minute to tell people where I'm going.

In this instance, I got confirmation from Dan in quick order that the job was going to happen, and he had the tickets to prove it. So I called the folks and they drove the hour down to Westlake to see me, and I was happy to see them and we drove another hour south towards Dodger Stadium where it just so happened The Police were playing. This ate up another hours' worth of time and delayed our arrival at Philippe's, purported origin of the French Dip Sandwich (pictured above, with lemonade and pumpkin creme pie). It's a landmark of sorts, and is covered in Dodger memorabilia and artifacts from the nearby Union Station and features $.09 coffee (I like the way nine-cents looks when digitized like that).

The waitresses aren't allowed to handle money, mostly because of disease, though I'm sure at some point someone's pilfered the till -- you put the cash on the tray (left of frame) and they take it to the register (not pictured) and bring the tray back to you. You can see the plastic safety gloves on her hands. The sandwich is turkey (I'd already had a roast beef). The waitress in the picture started crying for some reason after she took my check over to the register. I never found out why. She had an eastern-european accent.

Tomorrow the crew will fly to Denver, weather permitting. So far the actual shooting has gone off without a hitch.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY CHINKS

I think Chinese New Year is the only holiday celebrated by that side of the family that isn't totally Americanized -- and even then it's not like we're out setting off fireworks in the street or baying at the moon so even I wonder if it's even a celebration. CNY does end the four-month blitz of red envelopes, however, and all that entails (Thanksgiving through multiple Birthdays, X-mas, "good grandchild awards," and the New Year).

Above and below is Mee Heng Low -- my family's restaurant. Though the business is no longer run by us, the building is still owned by us, and for all you perverts out there wondering, it translates to "Most Savory Place" or somesuch.