From the monthly archives:

January 2008

Resolutions 08

by japhy grant on January 31, 2008

It’s the last day of January and I haven’t put down my resolutions for the New Year yet! On the one hand, this is great because I got a whole extra 30 days to think about what I wanted to do this year, but on the other, I only have 11/12th’s of the year to accomplish the things I want to do. It’s a good thing I’m motivated by deadlines.

  • I promise to refinish my desk a nice walnut stain and find a better monitor stand than a Katherine Hepburn biography stacked underneath a copy of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry.
  • I promise not to stare at my dead actress poetry monitor stand and resent it for not letting me browse its pages.
  • I promise to go to the gym five times a week but still feel comfortable making fun of people who go to the gym all the time.
  • I promise not to blame the little baby projects that come up in my head all the time for distracting me from the unruly and less pleasant teenage projects that I need to be working on. Instead, I’ll just write down notes for them and come back when they’re older and more likely to yell, “You don’t understand me!” in a squeaky voice.
  • I promise to go to Utah this year and have breakfast at “The Merry Wives” diner.
  • I promise not only to return all emails, but to return them within 24 hours of receiving them.
  • I promise to translate my enthusiasms for politics into practical service to my community.
  • I promise to eat only at new (to me) restaurants.
  • I promise to make brunch.
  • I promise not to crib from ZeFrank’s resolutions format next year.
  • I promise to not go out and try to beat someone at their own game just because I know I can.
  • I promise to pick up the phone when people call, even though I loathe phone calls so very very much.
  • I promise to finish my novel about how much I hate Perez Hilton.
  • I promise to pick up my art installation at the WOW Gallery that’s been there since last year.
  • I promise either to save up enough money for the awesome Bruce Naumann print I’m in love with or make my own.
  • I promise to wake-up early on the weekdays.
  • I promise to cut myself some slack and realize that you can’t write four scripts, go to the gym, do laundry and meet friends for dinner all in one day.
  • I promise not to take the comments I get on my blog personally or if they’re anonymous, assume they were written by an irate Perez Hilton.
  • I promise not to start reading an article on the Internet by clicking on all the hyperlinks, looking up the relevant Wikipedia entries and reading all of those things (and also the links that interest me ad naseum) and then after having 23 tabs open, slowly making my way back to the original article, filled with the knowledge that I know all this stuff already.
  • I promise to write at least two sentences a day that I’m not getting paid to write or come in the form of an email, chat or Google query.
  • I promise to launch a website that will make L.A. more fun.
  • I promise to create something for the smart gay kids.
  • I promise to not get so bent out of shape when people dumber than me act like I think I’m smarter than them.
  • I promise to spend more time making Kevin’s cats race around for the laser pointer.
  • I promise not to sing out loud songs I’m listening to on my iPod when there are people around.
  • I promise to start a business that will be an umbrella for small projects that entertain and inform.
  • I promise never to mention my 28th birthday again.
  • I promise to switch it to beer after the second g&t, since it’s easier to convince semi-drunk me that he’s consuming empty calories when they’re malty.
  • I promise to admit to myself that my blog is more for my own amusement than anyone else’s.
  • I promise to do some sort of theater thing.
  • I promise to write three screenplays by June 1.
  • I promise not to constantly try to imagine myself as a dark and tortured soul living on the fringes of society.
  • I promise to make my ideas and thoughts concrete so that they aren’t abstract notions of potential, but real tangible work that I can observe, understand, edit and refine into something that I can show to the world, allowing me to go back out and find the new, the dangerous and the unknown.

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George Clooney, Craig Newark and YouBama

by japhy grant on January 30, 2008

Everyone’s getting in on telling their stories about why they’re voting for Barrack Obama at YouBama. The site’s owners, two Stanford students unaffiliated with the Obama campaign, describe it as a way “to democratize the election campaign process…voters can say what they want, how they want. Then they vote on the videos so the best ones rise to the top.”

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The NYTimes Joins in the Race Baiting

by japhy grant on January 28, 2008

An open letter to Patrick La Forge, City Room Editor of the NYTimes, regarding the front-page article, “Ghosts of 1984″:

Mr. La Forge,

I think the editorial thrust of this article– to draw comparisons between the candidates of ’84 and today, is a specious one and worth arguing about.

Clinton’s offhand remark about Jackson having won the ’84 SC primary was a major topic of conversation on talk shows yesterday and this article seems like it could have used some revising to reflect that reality. Instead of looking harder at whether the comparison between ’84 and ’08 is a fair one to make, this piece just goes along with a premise.

It’s very easy to write a biased article under the auspices of “historical comparison”. Why not an article comparing the Clinton’s to the main characters of the recent film “Sweeney Todd”? Or to keep it New York, why not compare multi-millionaire trial lawyer John Edwards to multi-billionaire real estate developer Donald Trump?

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“I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.” – Caroline Kennedy from Sunday’s NYTimes

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Yet Another Reason the NYTimes is L.A.'s Local Newspaper

January 25, 2008

The Feds raid four L.A. area museums as seen on the NYTimes website. And as seen on the L.A. Times site (yellow highlight mine):

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Japhy Grant to Bill Clinton: "Some People Say You're a Morally Bankrupt Power Monger"

January 23, 2008

Well, Bill Clinton’s just the gift that keeps on giving. “I think it would be just as much a change, some people think more, to have the first woman president than to have the first African-American president,” the former President and spousal surrogate said Tuesday. Now, this is a stupid argument to make and anyone [...]

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Modbury, England to L.A. – "Drop Your Bags!"

January 22, 2008
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Stanley Fish to Independents — Sit Down

January 21, 2008

That dinosaur of sophistry, Stanley Fish takes on independent voters in the New York Times today, in a column entitled “Against Independent Voters“. As a lifelong independent voter, Mr. Fish’s call that I should stop treating politics as a “shopping bazaar” and get “down and dirty” by becoming a partisan is laughable. I’ve voted in [...]

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And the Award for Best 'Fuck You World' EVER Goes to

January 15, 2008

16 year old Corey Worthington n’e Delaney of Australia, who threw what sounds like the most freakin’ awesome party his Oz upper-middle class tract home development’s ever seen. Interviewed on national TV in fur jacket opened up to sunburned nipple-pierced chest, rag doll yellow hair covered with a rainbow-brite-inspired ball cap (I think it’s actually [...]

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Read Your Contract

January 14, 2008

Because it’s Monday and you need to be entertained.

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