Meet Stella Rose

After 36 exhausting hours of labor, Stella Rose was born on February 21st at 5:47pm. She's long and big, weighing in at 9lbs 5oz and 22in from head to little toe. Daddy diary to come in the next few days...

Photo Los Angeles: 07: Downtown Los Angeles IIII

I can't help myself...more shots from Downtown...

7th and Broadway


9th and Broadway


9th and Spring

Nonrequired Reading: 011: Factotum

It was true that I didn't have much ambition, but there out to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?

-- Charles Bukowski, Factotum, 127

Best Films of 2008

Just when I thought 2008 was a write-off on the film front, December came along and slapped me in the face with unforgettable performances and some downright disturbing tales. After viewing fifty-seven films in the theater, including all of the Oscar selections, my favorites include the following (winners in bold):

     Best Picture:

In Bruges
Revolutionary Road
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

     Best Actress (lead/support):

Meryl Street - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Christina Barcelona
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road/The Reader
Frances McDormand - Burn After Reading
Cate Blanchett - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

     Best Actor (lead/support):

Sean Penn - Milk
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Colin Farrell - In Bruges
Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight

     Best Director:

Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Sam Mendez - Revolutionary Road
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Martin McDonagh - In Bruges
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon

     Best Writing (original/adapted):

In Bruges
Frost/Nixon
Revolutionary Road
Milk
Doubt

     Funniest Movie:

Burn After Reading
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
The Hammer
Pineapple Express

     Best Action Flick:

Wanted
Tell No One
Iron Man
Tropic Thunder

     Worst Picture:

27 Dresses
The Incredible Hulk
Quantum of Solace
The Bucket List

Photo Los Angeles: 06: Downtown Los Angeles III

Going on three straight days of rain downtown. Low flying black clouds move slowly around skyscrapers like ghosts, dumping much needed rain on our dry metropolis. Traffic halts to a stop (LA drivers treat rain like Michigan drivers treat a blizzard). The homeless head for their tents and downtowners run across intersections, avoiding puddles and looking for overhangs. It's all very enchanting...

Nonrequired Reading: 010: Factotum

That was all a man needed: hope. It was lack of hope that discouraged a man. I remembered my New Orleans days, living on two five-cent candy bars a day for weeks at a time in order to have leisure to write. But starvation, unfortunately, didn't improve art. It only hindered it. A man's soul was rooted in his stomach. A man could write much better after eating a porterhouse steak and drinking a pint of whiskey than he could ever write after eating a nickel candy bar. The myth of the starving artist was a hoax.

-- Charles Bukowski, Factotum, 63

Photo Los Angeles: 05: Point Dume State Beach

- Point Dume State Beach
- 30 Miles northwest of Downtown LA