A Pinch Of That

Today at Babylonian: Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Mr. FBI himself, was shooting a scene. (I could tell you why he's on the show, but then I'd have to...well, you know.) I watched one scene's master shot being filmed. The master shot is the main shot, with the entire text of the scene filmed without cutting. That's called mise-en-scene (impress your friends). I noticed during a couple of lines he flubbed his line -- saying "interesting" instead of "intriguing", for example. But then he did something I haven't seen very much of when I've watched scenes being done: he kept going. He didn't flinch. He just corrected what he was saying and kept going. I went back and told Jeffrey about it. He nodded and said, "A real pro."

Other journals: Okay, I have to say this once. Enough with the self-pitying depression already. If I see one more journal that consists mainly of vague, depressive, "the world sucks, life is tragic" type entries, I'm going to throw up. Or send mail to the writer saying, "Off yourself already!" I cannot figure out why these people start dumping their inner shit on-line, as if anyone could possibly give a damn when all these people offer is how bleak and awful their lives are. Four-one-one alert! Here's a little secret: everyone's life sucks, okay? Get over it already. Or at least write about the depths of your despair with a little flair. I hate these journals so much I'm thinking about adding a section to my why-web-journals-suck essay: Extremely Depressed People With Nothing To Offer Readers.

What my significant other thinks of my journal: Scott asks this question. And my answer: Darin loves my journal. Darin likes reading it, he tells other people to read it, he comments on it when we talk. He doesn't want to start his own journal, but we've talked about adding a "comments column" to mine, so that he can comment on various things I write about: "Lies! All lies!" or "No, the way it happened was..." When he moves down here, that might be a really good idea, so our friends can keep up with what he's up to as well. Or at least what he has to say about what I'm up to.

NPR's series on Hollywood: The past couple of days, All Things Considered has done a series on aspects of Hollywood. They even talked to a couple of USC Grad Film Students. I think they were all Production students, damn them. And I wasn't one. Sob.

LA News: I heard something on the news earlier today that led me to think that Frank Sinatra had died. I knew it wasn't true, because the evening news wasn't spending the first 20 to 25 minutes on that story and stories on the impact of such an event.