Extreme Makeover: Belton Edition

So, it dawned on me, I don't know, like three years ago, that I'm in this horrible rut. And I need to, like, do something. What? Who knows? Just something.

The other day my landlord asked me how my love life was going. He asked me if I needed a guy. Then he asked me if I needed a girl which was VERY PC OF HIM. But I told him, no. I was presently unattached and not looking for a man.

"Pretty girl like you! You should have somebody!" he exclaimed.

Of course, all I could think about was how I've recently lost all control over my hair and that stress has caused an unsightly outbreak of adult acne. (Not just for teens ANYMORE!) Yeah, sure. I feel GREAT. But the fact is, I don't. I feel super lousy. So, I need to do something.

I'm thinking of chopping off my hair and going with the TWA (teenie weenie afro), but that seems so drastic. Thinking about joining a gym (did I mention on my Danielle FAQ that I have a phobia gyms?). Doing SOMETHING. Learn how to swim. Go on a date. Eat a new food. (But not coconut gelatin. If anyone offers you coconut gelatin say no.) Take up some kind of dance or martial art or a martial art that involves dancing.

Suggestions? Anyone? Who wants to get in on the "fix me" campaign? Should I dye my hair again? Lose weight? Buy a new wardrobe? Start a rap career? I'm open to new ideas! (Unless they're icky or weird. In that case, no. Not your icky weird ideas that involve the pain and the botox and the quarter-life crisis.)

I'll report back on my progress in my campaign to fix me. You know? "The Big Fix for '06!" Since it's 2005, I guess I'd need that long to figure out what I needed to fix.

I Always Wanted to Be An Oscar Mayer Winner!

Johnny Depp and Prince Rogers Nelson go gangsta for their Oscar night duds!

And Marty gets the shaft ... AGAIN!

I wound up watching the last thirty minutes of the Oscars. I forgot it was on and then I didn't care, and then I thought, hey, maybe I'll see Johnny Depp because last year I had this totally great dream after the Oscars because I saw Johnny Depp in all his finness and it was a really, really, really good dream. No! Not that kind of dream, ye of dirty mind. He was in a tux. I was in a golden gown. We went ballroom dancing and it was FABULOUS!

Anyway, I got on just in time to see Prince, some Depp action and Marty continue the five time losing streak. Go Marty, go! Lose Marty, lose! My fear is Scorsese will make some film, some subpar film during a craptacular movie season and actually win an Oscar. Then, his heart racing from the irony and injustice of seeing his films lose to things like "Rocky" and "Dances With Wolves" the Italian-Americano with the film fortissmo will just keel right over and DIE while one of the Fembot Oscar bouncer chicks try to escort him off stage. Losing the Oscars is keeping Marty alive. Winning is keeping Clint Eastwood alive. It's a delicate balance, my friend.

Of course, I'm not a big fan of the Eastwood. I mean, don't get me wrong. I liked "Mystic River." Haven't seen "Million Dollar Baby." But I'm still burning over last year. Bill Murray was robbed. Sean Penn didn't need an Oscar. When is Bill Murray ever going to get another shot? I mean, Johnny Depp? He's only 40. He still looks like he's 22. He's got years if he so desires Oscar glory. "Lost In Translation" was it for Bill. No respect. No respect at all. I enjoyed though how homeboy didn't even pretend to act happy when he lost. He totally had the gas-face for the rest of the ceremony.

OK. And was I the only one who thought Hilary Swank's dress was trying to choke her? And why did all the presenters look like they were being held at gunpoint? Writer Charlie Kaufman explained why, nicely pointing out the giant clock staring them down, counting the seconds. I think that was the only thing I felt deserved what it got. Of course, I still think "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was the best film of the year, but hey, Morgan Freeman finally got an Oscar and Jaime Foxx didn't have to wait until he was the same age as Morgan Freeman to win. Halle Berry and Oprah looked nice. Don Cheadle looked sexy. And Jaime's daughter was so cute! Black people everywhere, play on, pop ya collar and get that dirt off your shoulder! WE WINNIN' OSCARS NOW!

Sorry. Let me set my irony meter back on low.

Ah. There we go. The bliss of not caring. I love the Matrix. It's warm and cuddly.

Word! Word! Word!

pulchritude: n. Great physical beauty and appeal.

"That Harry Connick, Jr. sure has a lot of pulchritude."

The Oscars

I love movies so you'd think I'd care about the Oscars.

I don't. Mostly because I think they do an awful job of measuring talent and aren't necessarily good at picking which films are going to stand the test of time. (The ultra cheesy "Dances With Wolves" comes to mind since it beat out Scorese's "Goodfellas" in 1990, you know? Goodfellas? The film that inspires film students and petty crooks to this day?)

I don't like the Grammy's either. Santana had to be fifty-billion years old to finally win something. They're all garbage, I say. Garbage.

Blogger News

Blogger (who manages my Web site) had updated how the comments work now. Now you can put your name on it and you don't need to register an account with Blogger. So no more excuses, you anonymous posters!

Today's Menu

CD of choice: Rilo Kiley's "More Adventurous"

Book of the week: The Underminder: Or, The Best Friend Who Casually Destroy's Your Life, by Mike Albo with Virginia Heffernan

Movie: Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "Jackie Brown."

Random thing I keep saying to anyone who will listen this week:

"All men who are players or wannabe players are punished by having daughters. That way, one day when they're with some hooker or stripper or whatever they look up and realize, 'oh, crap, that's some guy's daughter!' And then they think about their daughter and all of a sudden they're a feminist. I've seen it happen, man. My mom said my dad used to say some crazy stuff about men and women before they got married and he got three daughters. He's one pro-woman statement away from joining NOW."

Aww ... Wednesday afterglow

TODAY'S TOPICS

* Harry Connick, Jr.: Weapon of Mass Seduction

* Brian "Head" Welch: Says "Bye, bye, Korn! Hello JESUS!"

Folks, Harry Connick, Jr. was fan-tan-bulous! He's an incredibly talented, brilliant, funny gorgeous man and he has a great time on stage. His band was marvelous. The whole show had a magic, charmed quality to it. And it didn't hurt that Harry has big blue eyes you call fall inside of and die in. Somewhere around when he sat down at the piano to singing "Please Send Me Someone to Love" I forgot I was supposed to be working. I, lucky duck, was one row from the front, pleased to be in the orchestra pit and have him actually look at me a few times. Delightful! The review will be in tomorrow's paper.

Shock of shocks, Korn's Brian "Head" Welch is leaving the band! I got to speak with Welch last night. (The story is in today's The Bakersfield Californian. Read it here. He says he's leaving the band to dedicate his life to Christ and he sounded super happy about it, like a huge weight was lifted from his shoulders. Welch talked about his daughter a lot and that his decision had a lot to do with just wanted to be a better father.

We spoke for quite a bit and naturally I couldn't use it all in the story, but here are some quotes from Welch on why he did what he did:

"What people think of rock 'n' roll bands, that's what goes on times 10 (drugs, alcohol and sex). It's there if you want it; every temptation to man."

"I come from a band that's looked on as evil. (And I know people think) 'Wow that's guy in the prime of his career right now. All these offers on the table and he's walking away,'" Welch said. "I don't care, I just want to be happy. I haven't laughed in, like, two years and now I laugh every ten minutes."

"I think they still think I'm coming back," Welch said. "That's a negative. I want to be on the same team as them after this all settles down. I'm not doing this to hurt them at all. They're korn. But I had not choice. It was either die or live like I need to live. Die and live that way or change and live like how I want to live inside of me. Made a choice and I'm here."

My Sister Denise

Denise, my big sister who is currently finishing up another degree as a senior at Illinois State University (she's getting an accounting degree to go with that degree in electrical engineering. Yeah, she wants ALL your money.)

But Denise recently sent me a care package and although I don't know if Denise considers herself a humorist, but I often find that what is funny about my math-minded, Vulcan-like logical older sister is how she is often her funniest when she is not trying to be funny at all. Usually she is merely doing things that to the untrained eye just look like nothing. But ah-ha. She's like a shot of top shelf tequila.

She sneaks up on you.

For instance, I will include a list of the things my sister sent me in a package on Valentine's Day (that I wouldn't pick up from the Post Office until today because I'm lazy.)

The humor is somewhere in there. It is up to you to find it.***

1. One copy of Pebbles "Greatest Hits"

2. A copy of our younger sister Deidre's college graduation commencement program. Deidre graduated with a degree in Theater & Dance in December. On the program Denise included a "Kraft Finance" sticky note saying: "Deidre's Commencement Program Did you get one / want one?"

3. One copy of Al B. Sure!'s album "Sexy Versus"

4. A newspaper column on how at 28 you are too old to live at home.

5. One pink Hallmark card for Valentines day saying:

"Danielle ~ Wishing you the simple Valentine's Days joys of living well, loving deeply, and being loved in return. Love Denise XOXO"

All was written by Hallmark accept "Danielle" and "Love Denise XOXO"

6. One copy of New Kids On the Block "Greatest Hits"

7. One copy of a program from Denise's initiation banquet into the Beta Alpha Psi national honors fraterniy for financial information professionals.

-----------

***Why this is funny for those who don't want to just remain in the dark and ponder this for years --

1. Pebble's Greatest Hits: Denise is a child of the 80s. I am a child of the 90s when it comes to music. This is one of those rare moments where our taste in bad music overlaps. Pebble's singing ability is questionable at best but "Mercedes Boy" is a very good song.

2. Deidre's Commencement Program: The fact that she put a sticky on it asking me if I wanted it, but mailed it to me anyway.

3. Al B. Sure! "Sexy Versus": Once again, a moment of Denise and I overlapping in bad R&B land. I could be wrong, but I'm almost positive Denise had a crush on Al B. Sure. I liked his music, but he has a unibrow that for whatever reason, even after he became famous, he would not shave.

This album is significant because on it is "Natalie" a song Al B. wrote for Halle Berry and her character in the film "Boomerang." Boomerang was the first R-rated movie I ever saw and Denise took me and Deidre to see it. I closed my eyes during the sex parts and we had to endure a very loud black man shouting, "Eddie Murphy is a DAMN FOOL!" fulfilling bad racial stereotype #343.

4. Newspaper column about living at home: We often joke that our parents (mostly our mother) would like it if we never left home. Numerous times we have been on the phone with her and after pretending to be OK with us living miles away for about 15 minutes she'll blurt out "You need to move back to St. Louis! But you don't have to. You could stay here and save money!"

5. The Hallmark Card: Before Denise decided to go back to college she worked several jobs as an electrical engineer. One was at Hallmark as a processing engineer. I will not bother trying to explain what she did. I usually just say she makes "widgets." But Denise has never written more than "Danielle" and "Love Denise XOXO" on a card since she began mailing cards when she went off to college the first time more than 13 years ago. She, my mother and Granny are the only ones who used the "hugs and kisses" abbreviation.

Denise is the opposite of me in this manner as I cannot make a grocery list that isn't 25 pages long and doesn't include a table of contents and synopsis.

6. New Kids On the Block Greatest Hits: Growing up our mother was very protective. Until Denise turned 12 we did not have many babysitters. When we were watched it was by a woman who was friends with my mother's sister. Her daughters had every toy in the entire world and were huge NKOTB fans.

We were not. We liked The Time, New Edition and Deidre and I liked The Boys, which was like "New Edition Jr."

Despite this, we still would have liked to play with the other girls NKOTB dolls, stage sets, outfits and whatnot, but as always, we were forbidden to play with anything but the headless, mutilated Barbies.

7. Beta Alpha Psi: Denise is a nerd :)

Word of the Day

This word has been brought to you by the band Bargain Music.

troubadour: n. 1. One of a class of 12th-century and 13th-century lyric poets in Southern France, northern Italy, and northern Spain, who composed songs in langue d'oc often about courtly love. 2. A strolling minstrel.

"As a six-foot-four troubadour who can barely play guitar," Bargain Music, "Waiting" from the album The Magic Is Over (2003).

Hunter S. Thompson is dead

That man could write.

If you don't know who he is, read the Times obit right here.

And for you kids, he wrote "Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas," which was made into a very stylistic film by Terry Gilliam and starred Bencio Del Toro as "Dr. Gonzo" and Johnny Depp as Thompson's alter ego. He wrote for Rolling Stone and for you Doonesberry readers (of course if you read Doonesberry, you probably already know who he is) Thompson is who the "Uncle Duke" character was based on.

Unnecessary side note. I named my cat after him. But the "S" stands for "Shaggy," which is what I call him.

Mmm ... Harry Connick Jr.

I got to interview Harry Connick Jr. on the phone last week.

God, I love a man with a southern accent.

Anyway, he was swell. Very nice and polite and now I'm going to see him in concert tonight at the "Rabobank" Area. God. That's going to take a while to get used to saying. It's one of those words that just feels unnatural rolling off your tongue. It's not lyrical like French, Spanish or Italian. It's not abrupt and concise like English, German or Japanese. It, quite frankly, doesn't sound like anything. It's like someone took the harshness of German and married it up with some space age vernacular that ripped off Latin. Because the instant inclination of most Americans, I'd imagine, would be to say "Robobank" because that comes out of our mouths easier. If any linguists post to this blog, give me your insight on why I'm having such a hard time saying this corporate name right ...

Anyway, did I mention I love Harry Connick Jr. and I'm going to see him in concert tonight? It's gonna be great. If not, I still get to look at Harry and he's pretty. My favorite album is actually "Blue Light." The title track, "You Didn't Know Me When" and "Just Kiss Me" are my favorites.

Word of the Day

This word comes courtesy of the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies ...

pedagogue: n. 1. A schoolteacher; an educator. 2. One who instructs in a pedantic or dogmatic manner.

"Dr. Landy tell me youre not just a pedagogue cause right now I'm lying in bed just like Brian Wilson did," Barenaked Ladies "Brian Wilson (1992)"

Randomness fun facts about moi

FACT #1: My first name "Danielle" is in the traditional French spelling. It means "God is my judge."

According to my mother (who gave me and my sisters the most exotic Latin, Irish and Anglo names possible) I came out of the womb and just looked like a Danielle. Of course, I was a premie, my eyes wouldn't open and I was (as the folks in the hood say) "light bright and almost white." My uncle would comment it was like going to see the same baby as my sisters and I were very similar looking as babies. The only way to tell us apart in photographs is how Denise has bigger ears, I had a bald spot and Deidre came out of the womb posing like a supermodel. Although we all were cute in our own way, Deidre was an insanely beautiful baby.

My middle name is Celena. It's a Spanish variation on the Greek name Selene, which means "moon" in Greek. This was the name of a Greek goddess of the moon, sometimes identified with the goddess Artemis. I actually like this name more than Danielle, although I like that name too.

FACT #2: I was born with a hairy birthmark on my shoulder. As a kid I would shampoo it in the bath. It was like a little, close cropped afro. I didn't have a problem with it although the other kids in elementary school thought it was weird. In the third grade I would have it painfully removed due to the fact that the large mole could potentially be cancerous.

FACT #3: I like Johnny Depp. A lot. Especially in the first two thirds of the film "Blow," all of "Benny & Joon," all the over the top gawdy scenes in "Cry Baby," blind and delightfully bad ass in "Once Upon A Time in Mexico," riding a horse in "The Man Who Cried," saying horrible things to Charlize Theron in "The Astronaunt's Wife," with an alligator's tail in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and obviously in "Pirates of the Carribean."

"Edward Scissorhands" not so much. I'm not one of those S&M, galvanized rubber fetish chicks. It's a good movie but, uh no.

FACT #4: The first two cassette tapes I ever bought were Paula Abdul's "Forever Your Girl" and MC Hammer's "Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em."

FACT #5: It took me six weeks to learn how to do the "Roger Rabbit" dance. I wanted to be able to dance for my sixth grade graduation banquet, and although I have rhythm I'm horribly unbalanced. So I practiced in my basement everyday. I would constantly make my more skilled sister Deidre show me the steps over and over, so I could attempt to copy them.

When I finally got it I was so happy. All the kids, who thought I was the horrendous nerd, were amazed as my dancing ability. It was truly a Hollywood moment that banquet and dance. I, along with Allen Thompson, got to give the keynote speech. I had on a SLAMMIN' black and white stripped dress and I'd accidentally sat on my fugly eye glasses so for the first time in four years people could see my eyes. My mother let me wear my long hair down for the first time ever. It was gorgeous, dark and curly. Everyone fawned over me and was amazed. Suddenly boys who'd igorned me (and ranked me as number #18 in the "Miss Keven Elementary" poll, realized that I was, in fact, a fox.) It is one of the few good memories I have of school which was often filled with embarassment, humiliation and misery.

FACT #6: My favorite film in "Goodfellas." My favorite director is Martin Scorese and I love Robert De Niro in everything. Even "The King of Comedy" where he plays the most unloveable character ever created. Yes, even more creepy than Travis Bickle.

FACT #7: My first high school comic strip was called "I Hate Cheerleaders." It later became "Hazelwood Central," which was the name of my high school. In "I Hate Cheerleaders" I drew cruel pictures of pimple faced, scrawny cheerleaders with too much makeup and bad hair. I realized that despite my dislike for the princesses of high school, it was not the right avenue for me creatively. I, by nature, am a lover. Not a hater.

FACT #8: For the first five years of my life I thought "white people" were just something you saw on TV as I knew no actual white people.

When I started kindergarten at my mostly black elementary school I was completely amazed with my white kindergarten teacher. I thought she was magical as with my logic of all white people being on TV and being therefore beautiful. I would maintain this belief until I was 10 when an obnoxious red-headed white kid stepped on my head to get to the top of the slide at the playground inside the McDonalds. To this day I am somewhat fascinated by white people, but mostly because they usually know next to nothing about black people while I, thanks to television, popular culture at large and life experience, know quite a bit about them. I find this amusing. I do not know why.

FACT #9: I think the film score to "The Royal Tenenbaums" is one of the best scores ever written, next to Terry Gilliam's "Brazil" which is my favorite.

FACT #10: I have a very real phobia of the desert and the woods. I think its some variation on agrophobia (fear of the outdoors). It's almost paralysising and when I covered stories for the local section of The Bakersfield Californian I used to want to vomit every time they had to send me to some homicide in Tehachapi or a fatal car accident in Wasco. I'd still go and about every other time I either had a panic attack or cried.

But I was usually fine by the time I got there.

Word of the Day

Today's "Word of the Day" is brought to you by Bruce Springsteen ...

calliope: n. A musical instrument fitted with steam whistles, played from a keyboard.

"With a boulder on my shoulder, feelin' kinda older, I tripped the merry-go-round. With this very unpleasing sneezing and wheezing, the calliope crashed to the ground." -- Bruuuuuuuce Springsteen, "Blinded By the Light (1973)"

Personally, I prefer the Manfred Mann's Earth Band remake because it's all overblown and arena rock. Gimmie a rock song with violins and orchestral harmonies, man.

Yeah.

I like Queen.

Vagina!

I swear. I feel like writing a musical based on "The Vagina Monologues" just called "Vagina!" everytime I type that.

That said, someone wanted to know about the casts for the upcoming shows ... here it is!

THE VAGINA MONLOGUES
at The Empty Space, 706 Oak St.

8 p.m., Feb. 18, 19 and 4 p.m., Feb. 20
Starring Jackie Bennet, Barbara Gagnon and Christina Varvel

8 p.m., Feb. 25, 26 and 4 p.m., Feb. 27
Starring Colette Masala, Jeny Rendt-Scott and Sarah Taylor

8 p.m., March 3, 4 and 5
Starring Leah Espericueta, Julia Stansbury and Sister Moutique

And here's where I put in my two cents. All three casts have people that I've seen in other performances and have liked. For instance, I like Barbara Gagnon and I've seen her in quite a few shows locally. For what it's worth, she's such an engaging character that she managed to win me over during the Spotlight's production of "On The Verge" even though I wasn't very enamoured with the material. (I love the British, but I've always strugged with the British sense of humor. The play was too Monty Python's Flying Circus for me.)

Colette Masala is new to acting, but she's an exciting performer. I've dubbed her the "Angela Bassett of Bakersfield," and I really, really like Angela Bassett. Colette is just really exciting to watch and totally dedicates herself to a role. It'll be neat to see how she grows as she continues to act locally. For those who saw last year's show she had a stunning monologue as the "Little Coochi Snorcher That Could."

As for Julia, I've also liked her in a lot of things as I think she's a good actress too. She was with Barbara in "On the Verge." She was also in the production my sister worked on when she was in town over the summer "Ziggurat." I wasn't wild about the play, but I felt she gave the best performance. And Sister Moutique is new to the game, a recent transplant from Harlem, but she showed oodles of promise during the benefit show last Saturday ...

Which you can read about in Thursdays Californian ...

The Vaginas!

Saw "The Vagina Monologues" at the Empty Space this weekend. Man, that Eve Ensler can write! A year later and it's still obvious why people love this play so much. I got to see the benefit show, which was the one with the 30 women in it. The following weekends will feature a revolving trio of actresses who were all in last night's show.

I'll be reviewing the show in Thursday's Californian. I'm also going to find out how much they raised for the Alliance this year. It was great to see so many women, several from last year's cast, in such a large show. It's too bad they can't use that many women for the run, but hey, "thems' the rules!" Fortunately the women they have slated to tackle the work as a threesome" should be more than game. I'm especially excited about how Colette Masala, Barbara Gagnon, Julia Stansbury and newcomer Sister Monutique handle all those different roles on their respective nights.

Urban Dicitionary

I've been publishing my own original made up slang at popular website Urban Dictionary. It's fun.

Click on these words penned by moi:

hobohemian
karate thug
to take a left
money church

Enjoy!

Had a column run on Sunday

Read it here.

The Vaginas are BACK! (And Original songs by A Child of the '90s!)

Not that they ever went anywhere. Your vagina. My vagina. You really couldn't lose the thing if you tried but no, I'm talking about Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues."

Coming to The Empty Space the show's being directed by Bob Kempf and Krista Whipple. It's opening this weekend with a special benefit performance for the Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.

You may remember last year's show, if you actually got in to see it. It was a little crazy as the folks at the Space got a chance to feel what it was like to be the popular kids in town for a month. Ashley Bretz directed it. She gets credit for being the first person to ever put on a V-Day show that got shut down by Eve Ensler.

It was literally, too hot for LA.

I'll be interviewing Guienevre Park-Hall from The Empty Space about the show and the event on KBAK TV's Daybreak Thursday morning, plus you can read all about it (of course!) in Thursday's Eye on Entertainment.

Also on Thursday you can read all about what radio stations are hot and which ones are not. And WOTS has written an ode to "Places Where You Find Love." WOTS loves writing poems. I like writing poems. Yet another thing me and my imaginary alter ego have in common. That and song parodies.

I wrote my first song parody around the time when Johnny Gill's hit "My, My, My" came out. I was still excited over parodies, loving Weird Al and I rewrote it so it was about fried chicken. And since I sang my fake version ad nauseum to my sisters I still have it committed to memory. It's corny, but it will give you insight on what I thought was funny in the 6th grade.

Like-to-here-it? Here-it-go!

"My, My, My" (The Fried Chicken version) by Danielle C. Belton, age 12

Put on your Nike tennis shoes
Let's get in our red car
We're gonna drive on down
And get us some KCF
Get some hot wings
And some chicken legs
That I want to share with you
Just me and you
Because today will be a special day
For us and our chicken legs
And I want to share this chicken with you
Cause we don't want no green ham and eggs

My, my, my, my, my, my, my
This fried chicken sho' taste good
(It's so divine)
Oh, my, my, my, my, my, my, my
Pass another drumstick if you could
(That would be so fine)

I would later, at age 13, write my first original song which I wrote for Johnny Gill (um ... I really like Johnny Gill). It bordered between seriousness and humor because at the time I didn't quite know the difference. It was called "Wondrous Love" and I'm not worried about anyone stealing it because it's crap. But it does prove that even at 13 I had an inante sense of what made crappy pop songs work. I could have been Diane Warren, man. Check it out!

"Wondrous Love" (written in the style of Johnny Gill) by Daniell C. Belton, age 13

If you had heart
You'd probably lose it
If you had a mind
You'd probably abuse it
If you had a head you'd go crazy
Over me, baby
Maybe?

Maybe you would
Maybe you wouldn't
Maybe I should
Maybe I shouldn't

Even if love's not true
Baby I'm still in love with you

A wondrous love is what we'd have
Because not seeing you is making me sad
A wondrous love ... affair
A wondrous love affair

Only one chance we'd have to take
How really harder must you make
This wondrous love ... affair
This wondrous love affair

God, I can still hear my feeble plinks on the piano as I created this melody. Alas, I was never able to develop my piano skills freely (I studied classical piano for several years at a youth) because it was in such close proximity to the TV in the family room which I was under orders not to be louder than. Hence, rather than learn how to write my own music (which would have taken hours upon hours of annoying noise making), I focused on writing and artwork. This actually makes me sad because despite the utter crappiness of the first two songs I ever wrote I think it would have been nice to actually be able to play music with the songs I still write and make up in my head to this day. After all, I only learned how to write song lyrics so I wouldn't forget the piano melodies I came up with as a kids (since I couldn't make noise. Heaven forbid we interrupt the Cowboys game with LEARNING.)

Anyway, enough of that. That was about to turn into one of those childhood bitch rants and we don't want to go there ...

Howdy Doody

Hey folks and folkettes,

Sorry my blogging has been "spotty" of late, but I'm working on two big stories. One is about why Bakersfield is alway slow to get those award winning independent film releases (Or how when we do get them they end up at UA East Hills or, in the case of "House of Flying Daggers" is here for like, five minutes, then is gone.)

The other is on local ratings for radio stations. Got some fun stuff there, but that story's a beast because we haven't done much reporting on Arbitron ratings in the past so I'm doing this whole deal from scratch.

Needless to say, I've been swamped! But I haven't forgotten about you.

In random Danielle news I just had my apartment bombed for cockroaches. Even though I live in a very nice apartment complex we had one very bad tennant a long time ago who thought it was a good idea to store garbage in her unit. Then when she moved out she kindly left all that garbage and the roaches who festered in it there. So the owners of the building bug bombed that apartment, but, gosh durn it, those suckers just moved on to everyone else's apartments and have been doing so for well over a year now.

Well, tired of living in a create feature with attack of the killer cockroaches going on all the time, they've taken drastic measures to erradicating the bug that could survive a nuclear holocaust. I don't know how fortunate we'll be in this endevour, but the owners promise to not stop their bombing campaign until the enemy is vanquished.

That said, I'm writing what will be my seventh screenplay in four months. I can't help it. Can't ... stop ... writing!