Rod Hagen

Sean Penn is so friggin RIpped in the movie. "Dude, why is your shirt so tight?" "I'm not gay if that's what you're asking." Lol He looks like this:

Yes, he was in the Q&A. Interesting guy, really good actor.

The other night saw a DGA screening with Q&A afterward, Julia Roberts flaked (supposedly not feeling well). I liked it. Guy who shot Clockers did the cinematography and like all of Luca Guadagnino films, it's beautiful.

I've heard from other people that they hate that movie, but I never got a good explanation as to why? It's so iconic for so many of us Gen Xers that I need to ask, what is it that you don't like about A Christmas Story?

Glad you liked it. I'm conflicted. I loved everything before Atonement. Atonement was a major achievement, and I only "liked" the section before the war. Saturday is well written, but the artifice of a book representing a day feels wrong to me, and done to death by other great writers. And he is a great writer. Chesil Beach SUCKED. If he's written other books since then, I'm unfamiliar. I will read What We Can Know, but I'm not expecting to be blown away like he used to do for me.

I'm not. Never heard of him. So I just had to google him and could NOT hit stop on the video fast enough. Not my kind of music. Oh well.

The other day I was reading old emails from Mom, early 2000s. In one of the emails she was gushing with gratitude for the TV, VCR and computer I'd purchased for her. 25 years later, yesterday, I was thinking how nice it was to be able to do things like that for her, and how sad she would have been had she known from where that money came. Not disappointed, just sad. People open to a lot simply are not open to this business (except when they need it).

Who is he?

Decades ago Mom was devastated about her unwanted divorce from Dad. Being a bonehead I thought I'd share some beautiful music with her because I'd just seen The Highlander and I knew she loved Freddy Mercury. Hadn't even dawned on me how sad the music was until I played it for her and she said, "Turn it off, too sad." Idiot.

A few months after it came out, a very close friend of mine and some friends signed up for a Brokeback Tour of Alberta, they often broke down together.

Another good hotel story. Decades and decades ago my friend was staying at the St. Francis. As many of you know, long ago the area to the south of the St. Francis was where lots of hustlers loitered. My friend found one, brought him up to his room, they had a great time and before he left the guy told my friend he had another appointment in just a few minutes in the hotel. Once he'd left, my friend went down and sat in the waiting area at the side of the hotel. An hour or two later the hustler walked by on his way out, and my friend asked him if he'd like to come up again. He did. I use to see, quite regularly, someone who managed a very large downtown hotel, so he always knew which rooms were available, which was convenient. God hotels are sexy. So many stories. Actually, since it seems like there's no end to them, the next escort memoir focus and title: Hotel Tales.

Such a dumb show, yet I keep watching. I want to live in that building, New Yorkers are so lucky.

He may be too focused on Trump, but Kimmel is objectively funny. Arguing he isn't because you don't like him is dumb. I dislike Trump, yet I'd never deny he's charming and funny. "Shithole Countries" Who says that?! It's terrible, and 8 years later I'm still chuckling at that frankness and disregard mixed with vulgarity. :-)

Decades ago late one night at the Hotel Bel Air, I had only my client's first name and his NY cell phone. But there was, and probably still isn't, good ATT reception in Bel Air. It took a lot of calls from gate security to the manager to get them to call the guest with, luckily, a unique first name. Eventually, they let me in and boy was he young and rich and fun. No one famous. Another story I've told here too often was the OC client who wanted me to strip fully down then knock naked on his Beverly Hills Peninsula room door at 4am. I took the dare, but chickened out mostly: the area around his door wasn't quite as private as he sold it, I took off just my shirt, I looked naked through his peephole and he opened the door :-) Strange fun guy, he had a lot of bad notices on the old old (Raphael Alencar sponsored?) blacklist site, but I think that was just because he was unique and demanding and British. He would often threaten to not pay, but that seemed more like just a kink. I digress.

Loved CMBYN, good for you. I rarely give up on books, but 100 pages ine A Little Life seemed only Trauma-porn, so I stopped. I don't like the author, but I love what she has done with the NYTimes Monthly Style Magazine.