Nine Zero Two One Zero

Some crazy shit went down on the last disc of 90210 Season 5.

Dylan realized through hypnosis that he and Kelly are soulmates, way more than anything she has with Brandon. So he calls her a lot, finally goes to her apartment at night, and she answer the door and asks if everything’s okay, and you know she loves that he’s clearly been obsessing over her, and he shakes his head, and says, “Kel… I’ve been thinking about you a lot, and…” he trails off into a kiss.

End of episode. Next episode, Kelly is rollerblading. She falls over and who should fall on her but Dylan, who shows her plane tickets. He’s planned a trip around the world and wants her to come along. Great. Oh, except for one thing: why is he suddenly so sure about them as soulmates, when before they’d always fight. “We fought because we cared, because we felt something” (paraphrasing).

Oh, except for one other thing: she has a boyfriend. Brandon. Fuuuuuuck. She’ll need some time alone to think it through.

Bad Ass vs. Earnest.

Valerie goes to Kelly’s to pick up some class notes. She sees the plane tickets on the mantel, made out to Mr. Dylan McKay & Ms. Kelly Taylor. BUSTED. Kelly snatches them away. “None of your business, bitch.”

As Brandon’s longtime family friend and roommate, Valerie tells Brandon what’s up. Brandon needs some time alone.

Blammorino, next scene, Brandon bursts into Dylan’s house. “Wanna tell me why you’re inviting my girlfriend on a trip around the world?” “We have something more, something you’ll never understand.” Brandon laughs and walks out. But… not such a confident laugh. His back is against the wall.

Brandon gives Kelly a new pair of rollerblades. Nice one, B. Trip around the world… rollerblades. YES! I’m laughing at Brandon, and it fucking is a confident laugh, but wait, joke’s on me, crammed into one of the rollerblades is a little black box. And not the type you’d find on an airplane.

Proposal, Kelly, will you be my wife? She needs time.

Not a good sign.

Finally, Kelly calls D and B together, to say she can’t marry B… and can’t go with D around the world. She chooses herself. Whatever that means. (Masturbation).

Brandon goes to Palm Springs and gets hammered. Dylan tries to sell a script with Charlie. Kelly hangs with the lesbian she got caught in the fire with. The always immature Claire and David assume Kelly is now a dyke. After all, she is in college, not an unprecedented move.

Nope, Kelly is still into men. She just likes that girl as a friend.

Meanwhile, Ray Pruit tosses Donna down the stairs. Fucking Ray Pruit, with one T, that’s all his mama could afford. If only she’d spent more wisely, she could’ve afforded that extra T, and all this nonsense could’ve been avoided.

But she couldn’t, and it wasn’t, and now Donna’s sprained her wrist, and Steve made out with a tranny at the gas station. Classy, Steve. He told Brandon about it, which made me respect their friendship on some level. Honesty is always respectable.

In the end, it’s Brandon and Valerie at the house, his parents having moved to Hong Kong. The house has been sold, and they’ve got to vacate in two weeks. “A lot can happen in two weeks,” Val states, one of the best closing lines to a season ever. Shit, she’s been hot for him for years. Brandon grabs her by the back of the head and pulls her towards him. They’re kissing, she climbs on top of him, and credits. They’re gonna fuck for the next two weeks.

But of course, we all know what we find out in Season 6.

Avi

This is a silent documentary I made about my friend Avi when I stayed with him in Paris in 2007. He was writing and cleaning apartments for some cash. I want to make more of these about different friends in different cities.

2008 Best Flicks

1. Synecdoche, New York – This will someday be known as Charlie Kaufman’s best picture (to date). Absolutely brilliant and unfairly underrated.

2. The Wrestler – Mickey Rourke, it’s true what they say. Although they should give more credit to all the amazing movies he was in in the 80’s.

3. Man on Wire – Fascinating documentary on a unique subject, a Frenchman I’m glad I learned about.

4. Rachel Getting Married – I’m not into TV on the Radio’s new album, but the guy is in a great movie right here. And Anne Hathaway is so good I saw Bride Wars because she was in it. That sure was a mistake. Nevertheless, if this is her Erin Brockovich, it’s a hell of a lot better than Erin Brockovich.

5. In Bruges – Martin McDonough, great playwright, very good first film.

6. The Strangers – I’m not normally into horror, but this has such an excellent setup. It falls apart at the end, as most horror movies do, but the first three quarters had my neck pinned to the top of my seat. I was pretty high when I saw this, and had just read Bugliosi’s book on Charles Manson, whose escapades the movie is very loosely – but certainly noticeably – based on.

7. Let the Right One In – I’m not normally into vampire movies, but there was something weird and different about this one that kept me involved. Just goes to show, execution is more important than genre. This movie is Swedish.

8. Appaloosa – Bad ass Western with one of my favorites, Ed Harris, starring and directing, also with Viggo Mortensen. I like it even though Jeremy Irons is in it. For some reason I can’t stand Irons.

9. Vicky Christina Barcelona – Scarlett Johanssen is damn hot. I like this movie for many reasons, that is just one of them. I saw this on a Monday afternoon by myself in a near-empty theater in Los Feliz. It will put you into a joyful mood.

10. Milk – Everyone’s good in this, and I like Gus Van Sant. He’s had an interesting career. I wonder why no one ever screens My Own Private Idaho or Drugstore Cowboy. I wish I owned a theater, I would screen those for sure.

Best Movie of 2009: Two Lovers. Joaquin Phoenix should win the 2009 Oscar hands down. One of the best performances I’ve ever seen. I doubt anything will eclipse this, it’s the best movie I’ve seen since Little Children in 2006.

Movies I have yet to see that could make the list: Snow Angels, Role Models, A Christmas Tale, Doubt, The Visitor.

Who would ever think that you would spread like mustard?

I’m a 31 year-old walking twelve blocks down Pico, a 12 year-old at heart.

When you listen to Biggie when you’re high, every song feels 20 minutes long.

And now I’m drinking hot tea on a Saturday afternoon.

Once in a while I begin to re-appreciate a rapper, to fully appreciate that rapper for the first time, and right now it’s the B.I.G. In particular, “Get Money” by Junior M.A.F.I.A.

“Fogless”

Don’t buy a cheap fogless mirror at Bed, Bath and Beyond. When I shower, the fucking thing gets foggier than the regular mirror in the bathroom.

The FOGLESS MIRROR gets foggier than the MIRROR THAT IS SUPPOSED TO GET FOGGY.

Stupid.

Maybe you’re thinking, It’s cheap – what did you expect?

First of all, even a cheap fogless mirror is still like 20 bucks.

This concept is simple. It’s either fogless or not. Doesn’t anyone test these things?

When I shave in the shower I have to wipe off the “fogless” mirror every time I want to look at my stupid face. It should have quotation marks around it so we know.

This is not the mirror I have:

I did have a superb fogless mirror back in Brooklyn. I wish I hadn’t left it behind.

Love,

Aaron

p.s. Shaving in the shower is wonderful. Guys who use electric razors are suckers.

p.p.s. This is me with a mustache and my sunglass eyeglasses:

Conversation on a Platform: The One Act

Greg and Jamie stand on an outdoor train platform.

Greg: She’s got a bad reputation and it’s certainly deserved.

Jamie: Everyone’s got their reasons.

Greg: And she’s no exception. She used to blow me kisses whenever she’d leave.

Jamie: That’s nice.

Greg: I enjoyed it.

Jamie: Too bad about her… reputation.

Greg: Well, it’s deserved.

Jamie: I’m sure she had her reasons.

Greg: Reasons for what?

Jamie: You know. Being that way. She wasn’t always that way.

Greg: True. She wasn’t born that way. As far as I know.

Jamie: I mean, with you. She wasn’t always that way with you.

Greg: Of course not. If she was, I’d have never fallen for her.

Jamie: I thought you enjoyed the… difficulty.

Greg: She used to turn and blow me kisses as she was walking away. I enjoyed that.

Jamie: Who wouldn’t? A beautiful girl like her.

Greg: But the last time she walked away, she didn’t blow me any kisses.

Jamie: You lost that privilege.

Greg: I didn’t lose it. She took it away.

The train arrives. The doors open. Jamie gets on. Greg hesitates.

Greg: I’m going to catch the next one.

Jamie: Why?

Greg: In case destiny has something in store for me.

The doors close and the train whisks Jamie away. Still on the platform, Greg lights up a cigarette.

CURTAIN

Passage I Like

I saw her home to her side of the Common. Henry’s light shone below the door of his study, and we went upstairs. In the livingroom we held our hands against each other’s bodies, unable to let go. ‘He’ll be coming up,’ I said, ‘any moment.’

‘We can hear him,’ she said, and she added with horrifying lucidity, ‘There’s one stair that always squeaks.’

I hadn’t time to take off my coat. We kissed and heard the squeak of the stair, and I watched sadly the calmness of her face when Henry came in. She said, ‘We were hoping you’d come up and offer us a drink.’

Henry said, ‘Of course. What will you have, Bendrix?’ I said I wouldn’t have a drink; I had work to do.

‘I thought you said you never worked at night.’

‘Oh, this doesn’t count. A review.’

‘Interesting book?’

‘Not very.’

‘I wish I had your power of — putting things down.’

Sarah saw me to the door and we kissed again. At that moment it was Henry I liked, not Sarah. It was as though all the men in the past and all the men in the future cast their shade over the present. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked me. She was always quick to read the meanings behind a kiss, the whisper in the brain.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’ll call you in the morning.’

‘It would be better if I called you,’ she told me, and caution, I thought, caution, how well she knows how to conduct an affair like this, and I remembered again the stair that always – ‘always’ was the phrase she had used – squeaked.

-Graham Greene, The End of the Affair

The worst part of it is, as incredible as this passage is to me, I’m sure half the people who read it will think nothing of it.

Or maybe that’s the best part of it.