Important Announcement

This thursday, I am scheduled to have the internet hooked up at my apartment and therefore will have no further excuses in making this the greatest and funniest blog ever created by one person.

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Kingdom of the Spiders

Editors note: There has been a tremendous question lately of what has happened to my blog i wanted to assure everyone that it is still here by presenting this blog in progress. i thank you for your time.

I spent last night in terror watching the screen in agony wondering how it would all end; and it was presented magnificently in full color Shatner-vision. Yes friends, I watched the entire classic film from 1979, Kingdom of the Spiders. It stars our intrepid hero William "Tyberias" Shatner in a role that he was born to play, just like the *gods were born to eat grapes and bring torment upon us poor humans who deign to serve them.

* Reference to classic 1969 episode of Star Trek entitled "Who Mourns Adonis" where the Greek god Apollo captures the crew of the enterprise and forces them to serve him. The third season was low on budget and a bit silly. It also featured the infamous "Spock's Brain episode. I don't want to go into details on that one.

Shatner plays small town veterinarian "Rack" Hansen, a smooth-talking, small town doc ready to lay the charm on any beautiful out of town specialist female who might happen to come by to verify some blood samples that were taken from a recently deceased cow with cobwebs hanging from its mouth.

Synopsis with commentary is as follows:

I must begin by expressing my tremendous dissapointment that the spiders in question, who naturally ravage the town, are not giant spiders from space but a large scale invasion of tarantulas. Thus you can understand my confusion when in the opening scene we see a cow grazing on the field and then the screen pulls back to a wide shot and slowly approaches the cow with that sort of traditional horror device I can only refer to as the "monster camera". The monster camera lets the audience know that a monster is on the trail of some unsuspecting bystander and we'll see a shot of the bystanders doing something which requires them to basically just stand there, be it eating, cooking, playing, etc. If they ever happen to move slightly out of the way, then well, tragedy averted.

I was really hoping that it was like a small space spider of some sort that would grow bigger through eating flesh. Alas. Ayway bottom line: cow's dead. The black rancher couple notifies our small-town cowboy hat wearing doc who gets a blood sample from the poor animal after "doing all he can for him". This upsets Colby the rancher and he lets loose a stirring line of disappointment that seems lifted somehow from should have been at some time academy award nominated actor Louis Gosset Jr. for his stirring command performance in Iron Eagle III: Aces High. "A thousand dollars for that prize cow shot all to hell. He was going to win at the county fair this year."

The blood sample was sent for testing, and this prompts the arrival of the aforementioned out-of town specialist and damsel in distress to be, referred to in the movie only as "Miss Ashley". She wastes no time in sidestepping Rack's advances and requests for dinner and makes her way to a local bed and breakfast where she was promptly hit on by a really awkward married man (with his wife sitting at the table) who, after his wife finds that Ashley is into science thinks that she might be interested to know that her husband is into science too. he brags to her that his expensive mobile home parked outside was paid for by inventing a cleaning agent for portable toilets and then askes if he can buy her a drink. This is called "local color" I suppose.

But of course poor Miss Ashley stood no chance for the brute charm of Shatner, who after getting his second request refused runs her car off the road with his van, engages her in conversation, then jumps into her car and pulls her in, driving off to their dinner location, wherever that might be.

Around this time there's a fun bit of useless sideplot where Kirk reveals to Miss Ashley at dinner that his brother is dead and that he looks after his wife and daughter. There's a scene where his sister in law comments, "You take such good care of the cow that I thought you'd want some milk after all this time." "You watch out or I might milk that cow one of these days." She's got a huge crush on the captain which makes him look like a huge jerk when he brings Miss Ashley over to his sister in laws house to take her daughter out on a hiking trip.

...Later that Day

11:20 head over to the library at 43 and 5th avenue to read the new Robert Redford article in Moving Pictures Quarterly.

11:23 Purchase a hot dog from a street vendor

11:25 Spill the relish on my brand new Armani's.

11:26 Freek out in the middle of Time's Square but no one is paying attention.

11:30 Arrive at library to find that magazine cover is ripped. Do not wish to patronize a library with undelicate customers.

11:37 Purchase Moving Pictures Quarterly and am disturbed to find a profile of Anne Heche. Feel that she has no talent and time with fellow lesbo (unmentionable) was too much time spent in media spotlight.

11:39 The next article on John Turturo brightens my mood considerably. His new French comedy where he plays a former lawyer who turns into the town drunk and wakes up on a priest's doorstep sets the scene for a heartwarming story of redemption. I smell a winner. Wake up and do your job Academy!

11:47 My agent calls and asks if I can audition for a guest spot on Day's of Our Lives tommorrow. I grudgingly agree knowing that it will make me late for my power lunch with Natalie Portman, and you know how I hate to keep her waiting.

11:58 The cold weather drives me inside H & M where I go shopping for the perfect sweater.

12:04 I'm captivated by the dark blue sweater with the swirly patterns.

12:13 My purchase has been wrapped lovingly in a bag and I depart.

12:29 Pop over to Central Park to work on the sequel to my bestselling first novel. I begin with the words, "Darling, you don't know what you're doing to me right now. Yes I do she says, as she delicately twists the knife into my spine. I want you to pick up the phone and tell the police that you're okay so we can get down to business."

12:47 Really this book is going to be a hit.

1:03 Run into Art Spiegelman in the Tea Room of the Waldorf Astoria. I listen to him prattle on about the cost of Kosher meats lately. I mention how much I adore Maus and suggest that he should do a sequel. He tells me that he did. I ask him if it's true then how come I haven't heard of it?

1:45 Head over to Suncoast to do an instore to promote White Men Can't Jump part 2. I note the lack of screaming fans with utter disdain. However I am impressed with their intelligent questions regarding my free throw shooting abilities as compared to the other white guys who auditioned for the role.

3:12 Head down to the gym to work on quads, thighs and glutes with my personal instructor Pierre. I have a mancrush on Pierre and I don't know if it's healthy.

4:10 Finish up my sets and pull on my ipod for the subway ride back to my upper west side apartment. I'm on chapter 3 of basic French linguistics on my audiobook. Pierre doesn't even act like he notices me leaving. I'm slightly offended.

4:37 Arrive home. kiss my girlfriend quickly because I'm afraid she's caught something. but the pasta she's making for tonight smells good. Enter bedroom. recline on the twin bed in the fetal position and make a mental note to practise yoga.

5:15 wake up and start watching Dr. Phil. That man is amazing!

6:00 Me and Catherine start eating. It's important to have dinner at exactly 6 o clock. I read that somewhere in Ladies Home Journal and I think it has some deep applications to life.

7:00 We finish dinner and I, as my custom, help her with the dishes. It's my little way of saying thank you.

7:15 We read over her Shakespeare lessons for that night. I discuss the meaning of Othello as relating to mankind's struggle with life and why it's important today.

8:21 The books are closed. She brings out the wine. A nice 1957 variety of Chardonnay. Those Californians really know what they're doing.

9:07 I'm a little bit sleepy. Catherine seduces me and we make sweet love till daybreak.

A Day in the Life

There has no been no "typical" day for me in NYC so far. Every day has been a new exciting and often stinky adventure. So here is something of a travelogue of an imaginary 24 hour time period in the life.

2:30 a.m. arrive home. notice multiple dirty pots in sink. evidence of cooking by roomate. open the refrigerator. 12 ounce cans of Coke that were placed in the refrigerator earlier have dissapeared. correction. one of them is standing empty on the wooden table that is covered with a blue sheet in front of the couch that is covered with a blue sheet and cigar ash stains. An ash tray rests on the table, filled with remains of a night of cheering for the Giants while chomping away on a cigar. A stale smell permeates the air. i make a slight noise of disgust and tromp away to my room.

2:45 a.m. probably asleep

3:00 a.m. my cell phone rings. its a girl. she says she was only going to leave a message and wonders what I'm doing answering the phone at 3 in the morning. I tell her a story about how several years ago when me and my brother lived at home and had dial up internet connections, I would leave the internet on all night to download large files. that night my brother was involved in a drunken accident for which he shared probably very little of the fault but perchance the same level of drunkeness. He was unable to get through to the house on his cell phone because the signal was tied up with me trying to get part 1 of office space on to my computer. Ever since then I've always left my phone on for emergencies. The girl is a little taken aback by the story but I thank her for calling anyway, and she explains what she's been up to for about 30 seconds, which mostly involves catering and being tired. Then she hangs up. We both go to sleep.

3:50 a.m. I'm awakened to hear my Italian roomate cursing some inutterable words which rather disturb my slumber. The television sounds like it's on. Probably Perry Mason, Columbo or the Jeffersons. nothing else is on between 3 o clock and 4 in the morning on any tv programmers schedule. I try to sleep thinking that the noise will be kept to a reasonable level.

4:15 a.m. the "reasonable level" of noise has kept me up till this point. at the sound of gunfire and laughter from my roomate. I rouse myself enough to stand, open the door and ask for the noise to die down. My Italian roomate apologizes and the television volume is turned down by probably 2 levels.

4:25 a.m. the sounds of muffled screaming convince me to awake and again complain of the noise. An apology is again quickly offered in what seems like an instinct response more than actual attention to any offense or discomfort caused by watching television loudly in the middle of the night.

7:25 a.m. My italian roomate is now yelling into the telephone and complaining to someone. since he said "ma" i am forced to assume that he is talking to his mother. My much larger roomate of indiscriminate origin is wandering around and is pestering italian roomate about some domestic matter. I can't tell what. I just wish they weren't there.

9:30 a.m. I want to get up and eat breakfast and leave the apartment but i can still hear some faint roomate rumblings and I don't want to see either of them so I wait till all is silent. I lay my head back down on my boxspring futon and check the time on my cellphone. It's 9:30 in the morning. I think about writing more of my new book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Idiots" but I can't get up any inspiration for it. I vow to write more on it later. Then I fall back to sleep.

9:50 a.m. The coast is all clear. I slip into some jeans that have been worn 20 times at least since coming to the city and put on some socks and shoes so my feet can escape the disgustingly dirty conditions of the kitchen floor that I'm about to tread on. As I walk around the corner I catch sight of my larger roomate of indiscriminate origin pouring a box of cereal into a very large bowl. This bowl is much larger than any that I would have ever thought would be used to put cereal into, except for industrial purposes. The nauseating smell that arises from the roomate as well as the sight of his flabs of skin hanging over his nearly equally unsightly backhair push me back into my room quickly. I grab a book and head for the private bathroom in my room which also affords me the only seat to read on in the apartment without a blue sheet covering it.

10:10 a.m. the coast is clear. this time for real. So i grab some bacon and 2 eggs from the refrigerator and fry bacon and eggs over the electric oven. I enjoy the way the flames come crackling out and cook things in like 2 minutes. It's like a 1960's version of the microwave. The whole place actually reminds me of the 1960's - all hardwood floors, dirty floor tiles in the kitchen and bathroom (not mine but the public one with the shower in it) an entire corner of the main room devoted to a table and smaller piles of what appear to be useless junk that hasn't been thrown out yet, and of course no decorations on the wall of any kind. Yup, just like the 1960's all right.


(to be continued tommorrow)