diana writes:

There’s something special about Modern Family. It’s definitely one of the best shows on television and I’m happy to see it getting the attention it deserves.

But lately the media has been making an issue of The Gay Kiss Thing. When are Mitchell and Cameron going to kiss? Why haven’t they kissed yet? When/If they do kiss, will it hurt the ratings? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Hurt the ratings?!? It’s 2010. It’s a FAMILY show. Set in MODERN times. Modern families include gay people, and occasionally they do kiss. Modern Family is a show about inclusion, embracing differences and celebrating them as part of what make families so dynamic. The show handles real issues with a lot of heart and humor. I don’t think you’ll ever see Mitch and Cam sucking face, groping each other, or using tongue. I do think they’ll continue to show the occasional loving smooch as they did on tonight’s episode, perhaps one day when it’s not taking place in the background.

“The Kiss” (Season 2, Episode 2) wasn’t just about Mitch and Cam planting one on each other in public, it was also about first kisses, and about fathers showing affection for their kids by giving them a kiss goodnight. That’s what I love about Modern Family – they didn’t turn “The Kiss” into a gay thing.

Best Songs about Kissing:

A Kiss To Build a Dream On - Louis Armstrong

Steal My Kisses- Ben Harper

Kiss – Prince

Kiss Me - Sixpence None the Richer

This Kiss - Faith Hill

Kissing You - Des’ree

LOS ANGELES – It was the hottest day in recorded history since Angelinos began keeping track of those things back in 1877. Temperatures peaked at 113 degrees Fahrenheit at midday on Monday 09.27.2010. Even as the sun fell to the west, the heat hung in the air like exhaust from a semi. In a word, it was HOT. And so it was that I was the first to arrive at the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip for An Evening With Pete Yorn.

The doors were scheduled to open at 8PM, so I arrived a few minutes before 7 expecting to find a small queue of overeager fans assembled along the black cinder block façade. Turns out I was the overeager one. I questioned the man perched on a ladder lettering the marquee, was I in the right spot? He seemed confused and so was I. Wasn’t this a sold out show? Queuing up one hour before Doors isn’t so unusual – I had contemplated leaving even earlier, but was glad I had decided against it.

I’ve never been first in line for anything before, close sure, but never first. The coveted spot was mine by an accident of meteorological fortune – I was the only one willing to sweat it out that long, literally. Several of my fellow concertgoers were impressed at my dedication; one gave me a high five and later found me inside to congratulate me on my prime spot along the stage. Doors never opened until 8:45PM but I didn’t mind. I chatted with security while listening to the sound check that could be heard surprisingly well from the street.

When the curtain went up at 9:45PM, both the backdrop and everyone on stage was dressed in white. A bit of irony perhaps since the self-titled PETE YORN album they were there to support is also known as the Black album, so-called because Yorn recorded it with Frank Black (Black Francis) of Pixies fame.

“Rock crowd throw your arms around me / I feel glad when ya’ll surround me / It’s you, it’s you who grounds me / When you’re done put me back where ya found me” – Rock Crowd

PY played 10 of the 11 tracks on the new album, (the exception was Paradise Cove I,) in addition to 5 fan faves (Strange Condition, Life on a Chain, On Your Side, Lose You, and For Nancy (‘Cos it Already Is,) as well as two covers, Gram Parsons’ Wheels (which appears on the album) and the Theme from Mahogany by Diana Ross. 

Favorite track off the new album: Future Life 

This is Daisy. She is in the 5^th grade and wants to be a doctor. But Daisy lives in East Los Angeles where statistically 6 out of 10 students in her neighborhood will not graduate. Daisy has already picked out the school she wants to attend for college and has sent the admissions office a letter asking them to hold a place for her. This is a true story.

The documentary WAITING FOR SUPERMAN directed by Davis Guggenheim follows five young students and their families as they struggle to get a better education in America.

This kid, Anthony, seriously broke my heart. I won’t tell you his story, but bring tissues!

Waiting illustrates some staggering statistics about failure rates in the U.S. compared to other developed nations. Spoiler alert: we’re not even close to the top of the list in terms of producing the best and the brightest candidates to enter the workforce, especially in a global economy that increasingly needs strong mathematicians, scientists and engineers. (Those subjects never were my strong suit…I guess that’s why I have so much spare time these days to write a blog. Yup, you guessed it. I’m unemployed.)

We all better brush up on our Mandarin and Hindi because China and India are going to usurp all of our skilled jobs if we don’t make education a top priority. OUTSOURCED doesn’t seem so funny anymore, does it NBC?

你想與薯條呢?

(Translation: Would you like fries with that?)

Go see this film. Seriously.

I have to admit that before two days ago, I’d never heard of Catfish. No, not the fish, catfish – the documentary film, Catfish, that screened at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival back in January. Based on the trailer, I wasn’t exactly excited to see the film, but a producer friend of mine invited me to an advance screening so I figured, it’s free, it’d be silly not to go.

After seeing the film, I’ll tell you that the movie poster and the trailer are a bit baffling given the film’s content. Catfish is billed as a “Reality Thriller” but that doesn’t really describe it at all. It’s a documentary and it’s thrilling, so I’ll give them that, but it’s more of a relationship dramedy than a thriller.

The stark black background and the blood red catfish make it seem like this is a horror movie. It’s not.

The only part of the marketing campaign that makes any sense is the tagline: “DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU WHAT IT IS.” You’ll want to watch and discover that for yourself.

What I can tell you is that the film follows Nev Schulman, a 24-year-old New York photographer as he develops an online friendship with a family in Michigan who are inspired by his photographs. What unfolds is riveting, humorous and heartbreaking.

Catfish is a must see film. That’s all you need to know. Don’t watch the trailer – just go buy a ticket. You can thank me later.  

I first came across the DVD of Candy, a film starring Heath Ledger, on the New Releases shelf at Blockbuster in the spring of 2007. A longtime fan of Ledger’s work, from 10 Things I Hate About You, a guilty pleasure I enjoyed in my teens, to his masterful performance in Brokeback Mountain, I eagerly flipped the DVD to read the film’s synopsis, then promptly put it back on the shelf.

Candy is a love story centered on the destructive relationship a couple has with their addiction to Heroin and each other.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of drug use, especially its glorification in pop culture. I’ve never so much as smoked a cigarette, a conscious choice I made many years ago. Watching the unraveling of a close family friend who struggled for years with crack addiction, I’ve seen what drugs do to a person, what addicts are capable of. Thankfully, I never needed to go there myself.

Also, I’d read Trainspotting in college in addition to viewing the film for a course I took on Scotland’s national identity. It wasn’t cute when Ewan McGregor shot up in that film, so I wasn’t keen on seeing Heath Ledger do the same in another film about descending into a life fueled by smack. That is, until now.

Last week I attended a literary event at the independent bookstore, Book Soup, located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Five writers whose pieces were included in the inaugural issue of slake, a Los Angeles-based literary magazine, were there to read their work. When Australian poet, novelist, screenwriter, and essayist Luke Davies began reading from his personal essay, The Cisco Kid, about his childhood obsession with America through its depiction on television and in B-movies, I could relate. I too was seduced by Hollywood. Captivated by his story, I wanted to hear more.

You can read the intro to his piece here:  http://slake.la/features/the-cisco-kid

Luke Davies is also the author of Candy, the novel on which the film is based. The book is a fictional account but it contains certain truths from Davies own experience during his years of heroin addiction. As I listened to his beautifully written story of longing for America – and a life more glamorous than his own experience growing up in Sydney – I wondered what had happened to that boy. What made him turn to drugs? And how did that chapter of his life finally end?

After the reading, I introduced myself to Davies and we spoke briefly about writing, Los Angeles, and Reality TV. He was delightful and engaging and signed my copy of the magazine, “for Diana  best wishes  Luke Davies  Sunset Boulevard  9/8/10.” It tickles me that he noted the location where our lives happened to intersect. It is fitting that we should meet here in Los Angeles, the sprawling metropolis that called out to each of us as children, its beacon stretching East across the wide spans of America, reaching me in Philadelphia, and West across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney on Australia’s East Coast. Of course it would be here, where we’ve each taken up residence, that we should cross paths on the most iconic of streets.

Candy has now moved to the top of my Netflix DVD queue. I’m finally ready to view it with an open mind. I see now that it’s not really about heroin. It’s about life. Choices. Journey.

I’ve also stumbled across Luke’s blog; I found it after the cursory Google search of his name, which yielded first the Wikipedia bio, Amazon book listings, and YouTube clips of readings and interviews he’s given. In one blog entry dated November 2007, Davies describes his first Thanksgiving so brilliantly without giving way to cliché:

“When I got back from the rain trip it was Thanksgiving, my first ever first-hand experience of the ritual. It’s been fertile ground in films about dysfunctional families coming together to collectively sprinkle salt in wounds, but I was fortunate to be invited to a mellow lovefest, complete with Louisiana cooking.”

Yes, I will definitely read Candy. And Totem, his most recent collection of poetry. I am drawn to good writing, it inspires me, fuels me to keep going with my own work.

While wandering through the 20^th Century wing of the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, which houses an impressive collection of Modern and Contemporary art, I stopped before several familiar paintings and sculptures. Even though this was my first visit to the museum, and there were several pieces I was sure I hadn’t seen before, a few seemed awfully familiar.

When I peered at Pablo Picasso’s Bust of a Woman, 1923, an oil painting with fixed black chalk on canvas, I recognized the girl as an older, more despondent version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice as illustrated by Sir. John Tenniel, her mind now ravaged by years of quizzical trials and encounters with curiouser and curiouser things Through the Looking Glass, in Wonderland.  

Above: A younger Alice.

Picasso’s woman, rendered in shades of black, white and gray, also possesses what Seinfeld would describe as “Man Hands,” mitts far too large for her body; definitely a deal breaker.

Click on the image to watch a short clip:

In the corner of the gallery stood a shiny bronze statue, Classical Sculpture, 1960 by French artist Hans Arp (a.k.a. Jean Arp) that immediately struck me as the perfect mate for Oscar, the Academy Award ® of Merit designed by MGM art director Cedric Gibbons and sculpted by George Stanley back in 1929.  While Oscar is definitely male, a gold plated knight standing perfectly erect atop a film reel, holding a crusader’s sword, Arp’s Classical Sculpture is decidedly female, with bowed head and shapely feminine curves, lovely bosom and lustrous hips, inspiring awe and commanding as much respect as her masculine counterpart.

It was in that moment, standing in a museum, my gaze fixed on a sculpture of a classical form, that I realized how natural and utterly compulsive it was for me to find references to popular culture in everything I see, to interpret everything through that lens. In order to connect, I need to create a bridge to the familiar. For me, that means television, film, and children’s literature.