I have the kind of insomnia where you wake up at four am. I don’t have any trouble falling asleep because I have been drinking Kava tea (after a half to ¾ bottle of wine) and reading a Russian novel before bedtime every night. So I’ve been getting up mad early. This was ok for me one day out of the week because that is how many days I am a fitness professional. But now I think it’s really going to start to work out for me, this reverse insomnia, because B and I have taken to patrolling the Silverlake reservoir in the morning. A nice five mile walk-a-bout with a 70% chance of running into or getting run over by Giovanni Ribisi. He nearly hit us in this giant Cadillac/Chrysler 300 today and B shouted “there’s that man again!” Like he was the same dude that had just oogled us seven blocks back.

Yesterday N and I learned a wonderful city secret that I’d like to share with those of you living on the east side or close to Pasadena. The Academy Theater on Colorado in the dogged-out part of town has two dollar matinees and one dollar hot dogs. Those are seventies prices folks! We saw “Standard Operating Procedure” and I highly recommend that everyone go see it. It’s not much of a date movie (unless you met your date in the trader joes parking lot after admiring each others “Fuck Bush” bumper stickers) but a great thing to take your parents to. I love that all the soldiers got to tell their side of the story and I love how Errol does his visual thing by concentrated slow motion reenactments on key or offbeat elements. One particularly unnerving part presented a close up of an eyebrow getting shaved off with a disposable razor. So close up you could barely make out what was going on; is that the logging of a forest or the close up of that play-dough salon toy? Some old lady in the theater couldn’t control herself and yelled out at one of the young soldiers, “don’t you have a conscience?!” The five other people in the audience shushed her. She was missing the subtleties of the movie, the overall argument made by the film; that the big big guys in the US administration put the blame and the burden of the immeasurable corruption in our armed forces on our undereducated, and oftentimes poor, entirely volunteer, young-as-hell soldiers. And conscience? Well maybe they do have a little trouble in that area but in my opinion (and Errol Morris agrees, I can tell by the slow-mo dog growling footage) that is yet another thing the US Military took away from them when they signed up.

Peace in the Middle East.
End for-profit culture.
Stop nuclear testing.
Support our soldiers.
Love one another.

Happy Birthday Bethany. That is your free revolutionary message. Enjoy.

Another taste from the hot flavor that is an ingredient, known as Vistas Video, in quite possibly the longest website launch in history:


Salton Sea Vista : The Biggest Butte from kayekilla on Vimeo.

Goodbye Kelly, I will miss your celestial ways.


Circle in the Moon, Heaven is a Place on Earth from kayekilla on Vimeo.

K and I were trying to tell Mims that it is a miracle that people were even outside on such a day. Poor kid was born in Missisippi or something and now lives in New York where people are forced to go outside all the time- sometimes just so they can pee in the street because people can’t afford both a bed and a toilet (at least that’s what I hear about NYC).

I came home to find the Dodgers game postponed in the 9th due to rain so I found Casino on Bravo TV. I have sworn to cancel my cable after the playoffs. Who can get anything done when Casino comes on every six hours? I'm helpless. A commercial just came on saying, “You think you know Denise Richards?” and I was like I don’t, I don’t think I know her. I thought Denise Richards was a fitness instructor featured on Buns of Steel Vol 4-7 but that isn’t the same one that has a new reality show.

Last night I watched the new Coppolla film. "Youth Without Youth" and I was confused and dissapointed. Today I saw the new Speilberg film (at the Dome, ahem) and I was pleased and nostalgic. I would like an appointment with Blanchetts facialist. Wouldn't that be a fun sweepstakes prize? These aging directors should just stick to the formula that worked for them twenty-five years ago. Really that isn't fair, Coppolla doesn't have a Harrison Ford to pull out of retirement, and he has to deal with all of his obnoxious children and the winery and the short fiction mag.

But really do you think you know Denise Richards? I bet you don't.

THERE IS A FINE LINE BEWTEEN SABBATICAL AND UNEMPLOYED

So what if I recently decided to quit another job. I am going on sabbatical. I’m surprised at how this freaks people out. “What are you going to doooo?” is an annoying question that I have been answering: I’m going to just wait for my trust fund to kick in.
But I can handle (or at least make fun of) annoying - what is really frightening me is this response; “oh I would go crazy if I didn’t work, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

I mean people, seriously – you wouldn’t know what to do if you were in control of your own time? It would make you crazy? This is a pandemic of lost souls. What the hell? Who cares about the terrorists, apparently the mind supply around these parts is tainted.

I can think of three million things I would and can and will do whilst not boarding my soul at some random place of employment. Here is a short list of what I have planned for my first week of sabbatical:

Finish one of seven-trillion already-started novels/essays/short stories/scripts, eat seven thousand king dongs, find a celebrity to have a baby with, stalk Russell Martin (goes with previous suggestion), make a movie about my feet, make a movie about social injustice, make a movie about a car, race a car, build a car, ride a bike, write about a bike racing a car, make interesting shapes out of fruit roll-ups, write a letter to the WNBA, write a letter to a friend, help a neighbor get their cat spayed or neutered, put together 24 hour long movie of Dodger highlights, buy some land in Salton City, paint my nails purple, set up a kissing booth in the back seat of my new car, gamble, finish reading one of five already-started novels, drive the 10 freeway all the way to Florida, see new Errol Morris film, learn to swim (butterfly, backstroke), hang out with David Lynch, clean bathroom tile, walk to Long Beach, untangle hair, pray an entire rosary at a Korean catholic church, learn to play backgammon, attend professional tennis match, invite Bernard Cooper out to coffee, interview Tayshan Prince, make out with one of the two dudes who were up at the Tee Gee writing on legal pads (prefer taller one) earlier this evening, review back taxes for favorable discrepancies, write tell-all book about working at Glamour Shots, work on Obama campaign, watch horse racing at Hollywood Park, sit on sand at El Matador, walk through cacti in Joshua Tree, complain about consumerism at the Americana, visit with Kelly K who is in town from NYC, and of course, blog.

Everyone that knows me knows that cancer survivors rule. We all have a very specific lust for life, an aversion to medical dramas, and a joyful seriousness that fuels our every venture. Whether it is cliff jumping, selecting shampoo, or accomplishing one of the rarer feats in Major League Baseball, we got it. I just get tears in my eyes when I see the highlight clip of Jon Lester’s no-hitter. Lymphoma forever.

For anyone that is feeling the pressure of this technology rat-race we now call normal life, I recommend getting a new laptop with Windows Vista. I have had my new laptop for about a month now and I can testify that with Windows Vista it’s like I’m back with my Tandy500. It really forces me to slow down and wait. From power button to actual interaction I’d say I have about ten minutes. A little longer than it takes my coffee to brew in the morning. It teaches me lessons like don’t take for granted that your computer is on and two programs are running at once. You never know when that black screen is going to come.

We have bigger problems though, sick and serious problems that will throw a black screen the size of ten million lives over us all if we do not post up. Today over a egg scramble at Millies, N told me that she has very legitimate information that we are going to be experiencing an earthquake of a seven or higher magnitude on the Richter scale within thirty years. Not maybe, just when. I usually find this kind of information liberating but not today. I’ve become hip to FUN: the Fierce Urgency of Now - which is not only an Obama campaign slogan adapted from a MLK Jr speech, but a training motto for the Ohio State football team. It is now the battle cry for the seven people I have assembled on my earthquake apocalypse team. Doomsday in a hopelessly un-evacuate-able city is a challenge not even Survivorman would take. We know we won’t have the luxury of choice or superior camera equipment so we have started to buy bottled water and Cliff bars. We have a pedal bike route to some off-the-grid hippy compounds in the desert and I am teaching myself general surgery and welding. I can only hope it is enough. We can’t all be Windows Vista all the time.

On Friday night at the stadium, B sang the seventh inning stretch anthem, "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with such gusto that the man in front of us turned around with tears in his eyes and said, "that was inspiring." No joke. Some people are gifted in that way. Well, don't get too big for your britches Miss B, some songs are just spiritually uplifting in that way.

AAA from The Big D was in town all weekend and I am a little pissed off at her for actually getting on the return flight. I don't know if it is because she didn't get to hear the Randy Newman song at the Dodgers game or if it's because I introduced Pinkberry too late, but she's gone and now I am back dealing with my own regular home life which has lately been involving lots of solo typing and Sportscenter.

A was trying to shake the aftershock of a (wrongfully/dishonorably discharged) broken heart so we took it to the streets. I have a time-tested theory that driving on an open road has a therapeutic effect; if you can't move forward at least your car can. It's even better if you can get out in the desert to see some prehistorical nature. So, I had planned on driving her around until she was cured but that was a lofty goal. Instead of total cure, we learned valuable lessons from random roadside prophets. As the Mariachi band guy says about heartbreak, "don't waste your time." Confusing advice for a messy, unfair world but totally perfect coming from a musician who speaks only one word to his partner on the harp, "SIXTIES" and he knows to play the "Hey Jude/Tomorrow" medley.

AAA's Visit

AAA's Visit
Originally uploaded by kayekilla.

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I just wanted to share that today I went on a field trip with the 6th grade to the "Human Bodies" exhibit at the science center downtown and it has the oddest senisibility; bad-art; like what biology class would look like if the old-couple that runs the wood-burned roadsign booth at the local craft fair had a say in it. Everything looked like a mess of bones in near flight with skirt-steak wings.