6/27/04 8:15 AM: "A writer is a kind of holy sociopath. A writer -- a good one, anyway -- is always in danger of getting run out of town or denounced from the pulpit or charged with self-indulgence or willful obscurantism or just plain rudeness." -- Jon Carroll

MP3 KILLED THE VIDEO STAR: So out of the blue, and old high school friend (for reasons of her own) donated fifty bucks to me via the PayPal link on the front of the site. This is just damned helpful. My first instinct was to go hunting for karaoke discs, but I thought about it and decided it would be best applied to a new iPod to replace the one I stupidly lost. I go poking at some of the iPod auctions I'd seen, and find a 20GB iPod (sans cables or software, which I have) for a hundred thirty bucks. I make a max bid of $202.02 (I like that kind of zany number) at about 6PM (auction slated to end at 9:30 PM) Friday night and wandered off to go see a Westwood screening of Anchorman (more on that in a few news items). I came home and found I'd won it -- the person I bid against went exactly to $200 and gave up, which is funny because $2.03 more would have beaten me. So I go pay for it, and with my high school buddy's help, end up paying $163 and change for a 20 GB iPod. Woo hoo! I hope to have it up and running by my show on Friday.

OUTBID NOTICE: Thursday morning I went to an auto auction at a tow company in Inglewood. I ended up staying up all night to make the 8AM theoretical time, using the extra time to finish my comics reviews and some other incidental work. So I shlep down to this place, near Century and La Brea, and find out it's not 8AM, but 8:30. I stand around for a half hour, and get a price on replacing the spare tire from a flat tire I'd gotten (sixty bucks, big whoop). Finally they let me in to peek at the cars for sale.

To be honest, a lot of them were junkers. A fifties Studebaker with the whole front end and engine missing. Several cars with significant body and engine damage. Most of which won't start. Crap, really. Of what I saw, there were only two I considered -- a white 1995 Ford Taurus with loose engine mounts and a dent in the driver's side door and a blue 1985 Chevy Celebrity that sounded good when the engine started -- and of them only the Taurus was the right size and age. Bidding was pretty fast, people holding up numbered folders to bid with. I had to put down a $100 cash deposit (all transactions are in cash there, which probably lends itself to some shenanigans somewhere) to even bid, and they wouldn't give it back until the auction was over. Bidding on the Taurus went up to $500 before I opted out (if I paid much more, I figured I wasn't saving myself any money), and ended up going for $750. This was about halfway through the auction, and I started getting sleepy and bored. The Celebrity was near the end, with a start price of $75. I thought to myself, "eh," and knew I'd have change, so I bid on it, winning it with dangerously little effort.

While there, I befriended an older brother named George, who was there specifically to buy back a huge old Ford wagon that used to belong to his brother, but got impounded when somebody forgot to move it for street cleaning. George was a good egg, from Alabama so he and I got along in that instant way that southern men with old souls do. He sat with me as I waited for my car to be brought out, and we chatted about a little bit of everything. I had a feeling I didn't even want this car, because of it's size (I figure I need at least 14 cubic feet of space to carry karaoke equipment, and the Monte Carlo had 15.5), so he offered to take it off my hands for the purchase price. I'm okay with that, and we make a deal. A day later, I hear from George that the car -- which sounded good, but had a lot of some woman's junk in it, including a baby seat and lots of worn clothes -- won't go in reverse, which is too exciting for him to wanna fix. He doesn't hold me responsible, as neither of us knew, and will probably junk it.

There's a much bigger auction this week (start of the month) with 95 cars going up, and I'm gonna go back with my cowboy karaoke pal Jon, just to see. More on that ... well ... now ...

AUTO-MOTIVATED: The ideal car for me now would be a 1997-1999 Chevy Lumina. The Monte Carlo and Lumina had virtually the same body type, except the Monte Carlo is a coupe (which I've learned means "has two doors") and the Lumina is a proper sedan (four doors). I've found five on Recycler.com (eBay for cars seems just too zany for me, I have to have limits ... don't I?) and will be looking at three fairly soon (maybe have seen them by the time I post this). I kind of have a good feeling about a green Lumina owned by a magazine sales manager named Jason, and my feelings have served me well when I listen to them.

Anyhoo, one way or another, by Thursday afternoon I'm gonna make a decision and get a new (to me) car, so I can get Pete his truck back by Friday afternoon. I have to pick somebody up at the airport Friday as well, so it'll be a busy day.

LUMP SUM: Speaking of Pete (I do so love to segue), I finally told him about the break in. When offered the choice between me fixing the truck or just giving him $750 (he gets some of the rental fee as well), he took the cash, as any good business man would do. Near as I can tell, he never uses the truck, which is fine with me. I'm still gonna get his wife some tuber roses (she said she likes them) and get a gift certificate for a new oil change for the thing. It's only right, you know?

Funny thing -- with the cash alone to Pete, the truck was almost as expensive as a car rental would have been. With the lost CDs and iPod ... well, let's just move on.

HERE'S A LITTLE STORY I'D LIKE TO TELL ...: For reasons I'm in no mood to go into, I woke up at 5AM on Sunday morning, unable to get back to sleep. So I got to work on The Crown way early (for a change) for what looks like the last chapter of Book Two. I'm happy to be done with it, and I'm gonna take a long break before I do the really difficult Book Three, because I wanna get some other projects (like my long stalled book on my divorce, which is all my agent wants) under my belt. I also got some more work done on that poem I was working on. It may need another stanza or two, but it's closing in on being done. I like being productive creatively.

SING SING SING: One less-than-successful venture is my quest to get a room for karaoke at this year's San Diego Comic Convention. I'll be able to bring somebody's digital songbook with me (Dana's or Mikey's), so all I need is space and electricity. The 'con's organizers reluctantly told me they couldn't let me do it at the convention (you have no idea how many sci-fi based bands wanna play, and to inspire them would be bad), and I've not had time (with all the other drama) to research much more than the Concourse, which is almost a mile away. Developing ...

ZIG ZAG ZIG: As of Friday, the ex-wife hadn't made good on her promise to mail me the title to my car, or it had not arrived at Inpu's house. I have no idea why she's held on it it so long (she did mention she'd considered burning it) nor do I care to. However, the salvage company got a better idea -- we electronically filed for a duplicate copy, so we could be done. The idea of dealing with it without involving the two most poisonous Virgo presences in my life seemed idyllic to me. I'll get my $300 on Thursday (which looks like it'll be a busy day) and everything seems groovy there.

BRINGING YOU THE NEWS SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO GET IT YOURSELF: As noted, I went to a Westwood screening of Anchorman, where I ran into somebody who gave me some really incredible news that I can't share (the curses of the comic industry). Then we went into see the movie, and it was so freakin' hilarious -- I'm calling it "the next Austin Powers," since it just goes so far with the writing and the acting and all. The weatherman character is really the scene-stealer, and every second he's on the screen is solid freaking gold. There were a lot of "laughing so hard I can't breathe" moments and even more "mouth hanging agape in shock from it being so funny" ones. A real accomplishment.

Saw Stepford Wives as well, and it's almost a horror movie. In a good way. Brilliantly written, deftly cast and acted, with a nice twist. I don't remember the original so well, but I enjoyed this a lot.

Even better, and I'm very angry I missed it originally, is Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger in Down with Love. Wow. From the overlaid sexual innuendo to the amazingly accurate mocking of the period's cinematic stylings, the ending is such a surprise ... it was really good too. So much so, I think I want the DVD. Maybe it's a good movie period for me, as I'm trying to stay in more.

MISCELLANEOUS: Early Saturday morning, hundreds of white people lined the corner of La Brea and Rodeo as I was coming home. I don't know why. Police cars showed up, and a lot seemed to be happening. It concerned me, but not enough to stop and ask what was happening.

I'm out of detergent.

Re-lighting my shrine seems to have helped a lot.

Poser is a very challenging software package. I'm getting nowhere with it. I gotta buy a book, and that doesn't make me happy. Bah.

I'm very surprised at how little sugar I eat these days, compared to the rest of my life.

Updated my songlist with stuff at my job. Forgot to print it out, though, but that's no problem. Gonna start polishing some songs, just because. I got a lot of compliments (especially from one kid, out way too late) on my "Wherever You Will Go."

I'm starting to get my life back under control, I think.

That's all for now. "You stay classy ... planet Earth!"