SECRET LIVES OF THE GREAT AUTHORS

If you know someone who's in the hospital, or who's about to take a long flight somewhere, you could do worse than give them one of the books you see here. Nothing relieves boredom like gossip, and no gossip is more satisfying than gossip about the writers and artists who are held up as good examples to the rest of us.

I'm in a funk right now...no special reason, it just happens once in a while...and I'm reading "Secret Lives of Great Writers" to cheer myself up. I'm happy to report that it's working. Knowing that J.D. Salinger drank his own urine, and that Sylvia Plath had bi-polar disorder somehow makes me feel better, why I don't know.

Plath sounds like a monster. Her father was vilified in her famous poem "Daddy," but there's no evidence that he was anything worse than a little distant. He was a respected professor and etymologist, and author of a book called "Bumblebees and Their Ways." He died when Sylvia was only eight. She was so broken up over it at the time that she vowed never to speak to God again.

The story of how she met her husband, the poet Ted Hughes, is hilarious. Plath says she met him at a student party. Ted was a swaggering, macho-kind of guy and after only a few minutes of conversation he kissed her on the mouth and ripped off her hair band in a savage display of desire. Poor Ted was probably feeling good about himself at that point, but little did he know that he had one of the world's foremost man-haters in his arms.  She liked him well enough, but not to be outdone, she "bit him long and hard on the cheek, and when we came out of the room, blood was running down his face." Their stormy marriage miraculously lasted seven years.

T. S. Elliot is described as a prankster who made liberal use of whoopee cushions and exploding cigars. Tolkien was a famously bad driver who frequently drove in the wrong direction on one-way streets. He'd attempt to ram other vehicles and believed that you could "Charge 'em and they scatter."

Toward the end of his life Sartre recanted virtually the entire foundation of his philosophy.  He said, " I talked about it [despair] because it was being talked about; it was fashionable.....I've never experienced despair, nor seen it as a quality that could be mine." De Beauvoir disavowed her old lover's admission, calling it "the senile act of a turncoat."

Emily Dickinson was so reclusive that she forced doctors to examine her from behind a closed door. William Burroughs shot his wife while playing a game of William Tell.

Is all this true? I don't know, but these stories are making me well again. 

AURALYNN LENDS ME A BOOK

EXT. CARL'S JR.:

EDDIE (VO): "Good burger, eh? Now can I see the books you brought?"

EDDIE: "Holy Mackerel! You're lending me all these!?

AURALYNN: "I knew you'd like them. Look at the bottom one first, that's my favorite."

EDDIE: "Haw! Like it? I LOVE it! It's hilarious! Look at all those little guys running around on their heads!"

AURALYNN: "On their heads!??? Uh....I think you're holding the book upside down."

He turns the book around.

EDDIE: "Oh, right...okay....I'll just......"

EDDIE: "Alright, I see it now....yeah....here it is....hmmmmmmmmmm......"

EDDIE: "I don't git it."

AURALYNN: "Silly, it's not a joke book. It's a serious art book about the California Surrealists."

EDDIE: "Well in that case, maybe you should get your money back. Look at this picture....

EDDIE (VO): "....That's a Jackson Pollock if I ever saw one, but the book says it was done by somebody named Knud Merrild."

AURALYNN: "Well, yeah. Merrild invented the technique. He did that painting way back in 1942, before Pollock."

EDDIE: "I don't know, Auralynn.....anybody who would call himself 'Nude'......."

AURALYNN: "Er, that's "KNUD." It's a Danish na........"

EDDIE: "Whoa! What's this???!!!"

AURALYNN (VO): "That's The First Hypothesis by Charles Howard. It's considered a masterpiece of American Post-Surrealism. Howard thought the themes that European surrealists painted were too neurotic and sexual. He tried instead to paint a door into a higher consciousness."

EDDIE: "Hawhawhawhaw! Too sexual!? Hawhawhawhaw!!!!!

EDDIE: "Do you know what that hairy thing is on the bottom of the picture?"

AURALYNN: "Yeah, it's a symbol of mortality. Watch out! You don't want to get ketchup  on the book!"

EDDIE: "Haw! Maybe ketchup would improve some of these pictures!!!!!!"

BAM!!!!!!!!!

NEUHART'S "SOLAR DO NOTHING" MACHINE

Sorry, I won't be able to post again til late Friday night. I'm tinkering with an idea that requires more research than I can give it tonight. See you then!

BTW: The guy above is Neuhart, the designer who built the famous Eames House in the 50s.

BEATNIK GIRL

EXT. BEATNIK COFFEE HOUSE:

BEN (VO): "So you're the new waitress. Your hair is really straight. You probably spent like hours on that."

WAITRESS (VO) (doesn't respond.)

BEN (VO): "Oh...I should probably apologize.
                  I'm sorry.
                  I'm sorry.
                  Um, I don't know why I'm apologizing. OK, I'm Ben."

WAITRESS (VO): (Silence.)

INT. COFFEE HOUSE

BEN: "Oh God, am I being creepy? I hope not. Oh crap! You probably want to run away." 

WAITRESS: (Silence.)

BEN: "No, wait! Come to think of it, I don't care. I honestly don't care if it is creepy."

BEN: "And furthermore, f*** you if you honestly have a problem with honesty!"

BEN: "Let me tell you something....I'M NOT IN CONTROL OF THE TRUTH!"

BEN: "This is the world and I'm in it. And if I can't be honest about what I feel deeply inside of me then, well then...... f*** it."

BEN: "Er...can I say f*** around you? Do you care about things like...

WAITRESS (Silence.)

BEN: "What I mean is that if I can't be honest, and put everything I feel out on the proverbial table then I don't even care about anything anymore..."

WAITRESS: (Silence)

BEN: "You are so pretty."

BEN: "That sounds shallow but it's not. The only way I can convince you of anything is to say that I'm a VERY CYNICAL PERSON. I just DON'T CARE."

WAITRESS: (Silence.)

BEN: "I don't believe in love. I don't believe in 'meant to be.' "

BEN: "I honestly believe that there are like one hundred people. No. Like four hundred people are out there, who each of us could honestly marry. And we all just fall in love slash settle."

BEN: "But when I saw you. I dunno."

BEN: "I saw you buy a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and shampoo across the street, and my connection to you from that moment..."

BEN: "OK there is no way for me to convey this without sounding like someone I would like to murder slash report to the...OK this is going to sound like...urg....er......

BEN: "So....... I love you. Boom. I said it."

BEN: "Bye!"

..............................................................

Wasn't that a nice little story? I didn't write it, the honor of authorship of this little play goes to [Aaaargh! I forget the name!!!!!! I'll look for it, and fill this in later! I'll add the name of the book I got it from, too!] I just drastically cut it down and added bridges to smooth the cuts. The original dialogue was far better than my bowdlerized version. 

The play is obviously a comedy, but it has something to say, too.  We can talk about it in the comments if you're interested. 

THINKING ABOUT VALLEY GIRLS

There's (above) Moon Unit Zappa belting out her hit song from the eighties, "Valley Girl." I live in the Valley and can testify that lots of girls really did speak that way, in fact, a lot still do. I hear it every day. It may have been eradicated from the rest of the country, but embers are still burning here.



Here (above) Frank Zappa talks to David Letterman about how much he detests The Valley. Maybe "detest" is too weak a word...he was positively revolted by it. Geez, that's my home and a certifiably cool guy like Frank Zappa hated it. What does that say about me?

I notice that I say "really" all the time. That's Val Speak. And I confess that I buy half my clothes at The Gap, I wear New Balance shoes, and I get my hair cut at Supercuts. Does that mean I'm....(Aaaargh)....a Valley Guy? Years after everybody else abandoned Valley, am I still holding on? Am I........(GULP!)........unhip?

[The part of the video where Frank talks about the Valley is at 5:10 to 6:30.]

INT. RESTAURANT:

GUY: "There's Uncle Eddie worrying about whether he's hip again. What's with him? I mean, seriously." 

GIRL: "Yeah, it's like bizarre. If he's so worried about it, why doesn't he buy some tight jeans and a lumberjack shirt?

GUY: "A lumberjack shirt!? Man, that's sooooooo mainstream. I was thinking more like  a hoodie and a beanie like I have." 

GIRL: "Yeah, and a beret and some Ray Bans and a cool tee shirt and a scarf. We should take him to Urban Outfitters."

GUY: "Uh....I don't think they let old dudes in there. They might have a heart attack on the floor or something. Literally swallowing their own literal tongue and puking all over. I mean, seriously."

GIRL: "EWWW!"

Well, that's it...no,wait! See what you think of this hipster video, courtesy of Jo Jo Baptista:  

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