sinatra too strung out to swing. wrote about this film today for the book. elmer bernstein score. saul bass design. kim novak helping him get the monkey off his back but “the monkey never dies.” if you’re lucky you can keep him in the cage for as long as you live. the same year sinatra did guys and dolls with marlon brando who was already “the wild one” since ’53. in ’53 sinatra was oscar winner in from here to eternity. the man with the golden arm was sinatra dirtied up, showing his range and rebellion… willingness to be ugly and vulnerable and sick. rebel without a cause also ’55. presley wouldn’t make a movie for a year. this is the seed bed for the rock and roll cinema hero. anti-hero.
this way to woodstock. i think maybe i need to move there if i’m going to do some of this book in cafes, which are key once reporting and drafting is done. cafes are where i go to get out of the house and do my do. after say six or seven chapters in the can, i can write anywhere (in other words, in my apartment, with the laptop in front of the TV, propped up by magazines) but that tricky process of reaching cruising altitude, i have to break out. ten pages today. you would think that because i live in greenwich village i would have an array of great cafes to write in but i have nitpicked every single one of them. i’m freakin’ goldilocks on that shit. one is claustrophobic, the other has shitty wi fi, the third played candlebox. i once interviewed candlebox at spin. i guess that dates me. what doesn’t date me these days? i think it’s a matter of settling. i have one that i hate BUT i manage to write in which is where you will find me more often than not but i don’t like it. in fact the greatest feeling in the world is leaving it… with ten finished pages. that could be the key. not what cafe will provide a nice atmosphere, play great music, have great coffee and fast wi-fi, but which cafe is so horrid that i can’t wait to write what i have to write and leave.
we’ve got 8 glasses of water with lemon daily, plenty of klonopin, netflix and baseball for comedown, american spirits in the fridge for emergency freakdowns, it’s time to go back to book jail. hit it.
there may be days where i don’t talk to a single person as i finish Loud Pictures, a working title that has survived a year of reporting and drafting and doubt to become an actual title. i will be writing here as a means to communicate. i don’t know, maybe with nobody, maybe with you, but just as a flare to let people know i haven’t moved to Paris or died or died in Paris. i don’t care too much that I can’t really afford to write for free. i need to do this for the time being. maybe it wont become a daily thing. maybe it will be a twice daily thing, who knows. i’ve made promises and broken them before. but i’m back blogging or whatever they call it now. i did it years ago for my old employer when there was no word for it and now I don’t even care what the word for it is. i just want to emerge with a good book and sane and i can’t afford talk therapy, time wise or financially. I like this better anyway. my blog. a brisk walk along the river and that weird sensory deprivation tank that is book jail. my laptop is propped up on about six old copies of sight and sound and film comment and I think I’m facing south. maybe west. here we go…
i bought a bread basket. i’m not procrastinating anymore. in the end, i blame the pollen. the pollen made me what i am today (shut up, spitz, you’re just another white, suburban punk like me)… i know but it still hurts….
this is the bread basket. i keep my baked goods in the freezer and have no cause for the bread basket really except perhaps some top storage, and to speed up avocado ripening (no small thing) and banana ripening (a smaller thing since they seem to riper on their own in about 30 seconds and die in about a minute and a half around here).
i hope you like the bread basket. i hope you will like the book i’m working on. my mother seems to think it’s fascinating (book not basket) which is usually a good sign because sometimes i describe my works in progress to her and she says, “marc, who is going to read/see that.”
Things I am doing besides writing my book or coming up with new magazine/newspaper story ideas at the moment: waiting for the mailman to deliver my Klonopin scrip, watching Roger Federer lose to Stan Wawrinka at the French Open (and feeling like tennis more than any other sport is unforgiving when it comes to youth vs. experience and talent), wondering if the fish tank vacuum I bought from China is going to make any difference, thinking about Alan Moyle and what he wanted to say about youth… vs. experience and talent (hopefully I will get to interview him), drinking very sugary coffee from a cart on 14th street (no from a cup silly), reading Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf for the second time in my life and thinking that it really is an amazing title, wondering when I will really begin my new play, which has a story outline and characters and names for those characters… it’s been three years since i wrote a play, geez, thinking that the Dream Catcher I bought and placed over my bed to ward off nightmares might be defective (I often dream of The Strokes, i don’t know why… the young Strokes and in this dream we are at a beach party on the shore of shark infested water and there was a sign saying, ‘Be Warned, the Sharks will go after the tallest first.” And sure enough Nick Valensi got eaten by a shark, what else?, did I mention that I am out of Klonopin? How did I write books without it? (answer: Xanax), feeling proud of myself that I found a Harold Pinter postcard on line (and bought it). it was one of those moments where you are bored and searching and saying “Let’s see if theres a Harold Pinter postcard…” I read The Caretaker recently (always having a play opened now… for inspiration) and it blew my head off… Wondering when and how Morrissey is going to cancel his show at MSG this month (i.e. should i buy tickets and can I afford to wait for them to be refunded), wondering why Bill Nelson was not a bigger pop star (acceleration) and now watching the Tsonga match (unforgiving in Paris).
Today is the day to watch Alien and Aliens. This may not be an original idea but I am realizing that it’s less a monster movie than I remembered (I think I was ten the first time I saw it) and more of a statement about workers getting royally screwed by the indifferent “man.” I do recall this theme is more overt in the sequels but those are set for later this aft. I am gathering that the orig. is just one really shitty office space, down to the cold coffee cups and fluorescent lights. Then again, I am on a lot of Benadryl.
I’m going to have to teach myself how to confidently read film theory, essays and reviews this summer for book research. And how to make coffee with an electric percolator. I’m intimidated by both but especially all the Sarris, Kael, Hoberman, Ebert, Truffaut on my shelf now. There’s Greil Marcus on Elvis and Dylan there too. I might just take it all downstairs and trade it in for a microphone.
Watching Straight to Hell. Crap old VHS copy. I need to locate the tracking button on my player for the first time since the Reagan era. I always had a problem with this movie and it’s because I loved Repo Man so much that it’s just jarring to see Archie and Light, J. Frank Parnell and Duke in different roles. That’s really it. That and the fact that it’s terrible, but looks like it was a lot of fun to make. I’ve never seen Walker. That’s next. In my Netflix queue. There are a lot of stylistic debts that Guy Ritchie and Quentin owe to this film. I wonder if they will admit it. It’s like they took this model and improved it (by a lot). Courtney is great though. She seems to get that as a movie, it’s utter chaos and easy to steal. It’s hard to follow something flawless like Repo Man and I think Cox is smart to not even try… to go in the opposite direction and like… flaw-out. Make a real mess. They call these movies “acid westerns” a la El Topo I guess, but I’m only drinking a Diet Coke. Another thought: Sy Richardson remains underused. Is he still around. Where the fuck is Sy Richardson?
MARC SPITZ - WRITER 