You know, I'm just plumb out of anything insightful to say. To wit:

* Fresh Survivor tonight. Yes, I am addicted.

* Who's gonna explain to Miss Piggy that Denny's serves bacon? Lots of it? And the commercial even has Kermit cracking wise about not eating French food (presumably thanks to frog legs.) Yo, frog! You're gonna let your woman eat her own kind? Cold.

* Gossip alert! A certain former television star/former minor matinee idol recently spent lotsa time in bed with a certain well-hung porn star. And he got turned on to said well-hung porn star by a former castmate/former major matinee idol. If you'd told me ten years ago that I'd be hearing about gay TV stars getting plowed by gay porn stars thanks to my involvement deep in the bowels (pun intended) of the gay XXX business…

Celebrities On Parade

* Penn (or was it Teller? The one who speaks) sitting in a Starbucks, rumpled and looking tired, and talking about normal stuff, but in a VERY LOUD VOICE.

* That gorgeous, bald female model, dark black skin. Don't know her name. Same Starbucks, sitting outside.

* That "Dude, you're gettin' a Dell!" cutie-pie, very late/early morning, trolling Sunset Blvd. with a bunch of friends and looking uncomfortable that everyone seemed to recognize him.

* A guy sat in Seattle's Best Coffee and LOUDLY asked a friend of his to do Eve's makeup for the Latin Grammy Awards. Then he LOUDLY makes a point of telling said friend that he was calling EVE RIGHT NOW. "Eve? Hi, babe! I found some gorgeous strappy sandals to go with that dress. I'm gonna put together a LOOK BOOK for you. The LOOK BOOK will have everything in it. Can I bring the LOOK BOOK over to you?" Blah, blah, the fucking LOOK BOOK.

* The rejiggering of that new/old Elvis tune "A Little Less Conversation" rocks. But a billboard near my apartment advertising the upcoming disc of you-know-who's greatest hits says, "Before anyone did anything, Elvis did everything." Do I even need to say it?

Hit me with your best shot

My 09/11/01 remembrance yesterday was limited to an hour of watching the reading of the names at Ground Zero (6-7am), a few NPR reports (total time: 15 minutes), a couple of stories on the Internet (total time: 30 minutes), and the "9/11" documentary on CBS (9-11pm). I was captivated by the story of Jules and Gedeon Naudet in "Vanity Fair" last spring, but wasn't prepared emotionally to watch their doc when it originally aired last March. It was harrowing, needless to say. But I was intrigued because the Naudets captured the only known footage of the first plane slamming into the first tower, and the only footage from inside the lobby of the WTC's North Tower as the building burned. One of the Naudets said that there is always a witness to history, "and history chose us." A sobering thought; what would I do if the same happened to me?

I was struck by many things, including the faces of people like Father Mychal Judge and other rescue workers, in the lobby minutes before they died. I couldn't help but peer at them for some clue, some soul foreshadowing, any kind of knowledge that their death was imminent. Nothing, of course. Just concern and worry, anxiety and fear.

There were regular explosions, shockingly loud, that I assumed was wreckage falling from the top of the tower. Later, one of the Naudets explained that it was the jumpers hitting the ground. I'll remember that sound until the day I die.

I teared up a few times throughout the day. But overall I feel a kind of numbing calm about it. I can't get on with the business of my life otherwise. I'm glad that I limited my exposure to all of the hullabaloo. The rest of the day was spent running errands, navigating the city's public transportation lines, and housework. And today will be spent with more housework, laundry, and a lot of writing that has to be finished off before I launch into the weekend. As Tolkein wrote, "The road goes ever on and on."

Hit me with your best shot

My slumber last night was thick with dreams. I woke up feeling good, despite the mugginess of my non-air-conditioned apartment, and decided that I wanted today to be calm, peaceful and productive. A few hours later, I'm getting ready to go run some errands and thinking about what to eat when the guy I'm doing some freelance PR work for called and invited me to lunch. Cool; food dilemma solved. Then he offers to drive us both back to his office for our afternoon meeting. Cool; I don't have to take a hot, stinky bus all the way into Hollywood. But I have these errands I can't put off. He offers to let me use his car after lunch, a gigantic, gas-guzzling, air-conditioned SUV. I spend most of my time navigating the streets of Los Angeles by foot or bus, so I accepted. One hour running errands in an environmentally unsound monster crap machine isn't going to affect my karma all that much. So cool; I don't have to spend two hot, sticky, dirty hours waiting for a hot, sticky, dirty bus. And at lunch were two other gentlemen; one I haven't seen in a long while, and another I've been wanting to meet. Strike two more things off my Auxiliary To Do List.

So far my day had been fairly calm, peaceful and productive. I had a bit of extra time thanks to driving instead of waiting for a bus or walking, and ate decent food (on someone else's dime, a plus when you're freelancing) over good conversation. Plus, I doubt I'd feel an earthquake inside that monster crap machine SUV.

End of the day, I'm at my friend's office arranging press kits. Just as I'm finishing the last kit, I had this thought: "Man, it's 6pm and it's hot and sticky and gross, and the bus will be crowded, and there will be traffic, plus I'm just not in the mood after my nice day to play dueling attitude with all the tweaking, belligerent transexual hookers that hang out at my stop." Just as I finished that thought, a guy who lives in my neighborhood and who was hanging around the office walked over and asked if I wanted a lift home. I accepted. He asked me why I was smiling.

Hit me with your best shot

"The" anniversary approaches. Entertainment Weekly said something like 128 books are set for release commerating, in one form or another, the events of 09/11/01. Virtually every television network is planning a documentary of one kind or another that deal with 09/11/01, even obliquely; Food Network has been relentlessly hawking a special that pays tribute to NYC, the best place for food on earth, etc.

At work the other day, a guy asked everyone in the breakroom what they were planning to do on September 11, 2002. "Probably crying all day," one woman replied. "It's gonna be a terrible, tragic day," said the first guy. "Just awful. Terrible."

I'm not going to watch any television that day. I'm not going to listen to the radio, or pick up a newspaper or magazine that deals with world events. I may extend that embargo for the entire week preceding 09/11/02.

A wise and wonderful friend said, several days after the terrorist attacks last year, that "happiness is the path to evolution." I choose happiness. I don't need to wallow in fear and sadness; I don't need to decide two weeks from now that I will be crying all day. I've cried enough. I'm sure the Frontline docs on PBS and the National Public Radio reports and the stories set to appear in The New Yorker and The New York Times will be respectful, distinguished and will focus on heroism, honest patriotism, courage. You know something? I already believe those qualities exist in the world. I don't need to be reminded. I've never doubted they exist. Even in those dark hours following the attacks, when I had no idea whether more planes would fall out of the sky or what would happen next, I never doubted for a second that goodness still exists on the planet, that peace can prevail. I don't believe that we need war to achieve peace. Haven't we learned that lesson already? How many times do we have to repeat history?

I don't care if I sound naive or foolish. I don't care if I'm the only one in the room who doesn't believe the world is an awful place; that you just get fucked over and fucked over until you die, and that's it. I choose to believe in happiness. I choose to evolve to a more peaceful state of being. You know…fear, stress, anxiety, they're all old friends. They're not going anywhere. But it accomplishes nothing to continually wallow in it day after day. I don't need to relive how I felt the morning of September 11, 2001. I lived it once; that was enough. I'll spend 09/11/02 focusing on something better.

Hit me with your best shot