Picked up the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine, you know the Hollywood issue...

Great article about director Brett Ratner!

Sat in a booth at Coral Cafe reading it with eyes watering from the perfume ads. Man, there sure are a lot of ads in the magazine!

Brett Ratner seems to have a pretty amazing life. How does he do it? At what point does cute and childlike enthusiasm and unbounded exuberance become annoying?

I have friends that are like that, rapid-fire ass-kissing, adult ADD, embarrassingly self promoting, How can they stand themselves?

Is it that they wear down their targets?

They zero in on the people that can make things happen for them and they don't let up. Wouldn't you feel like a stalker? Starfucker?

David Mamet has a new book out and he's been doing a lot of radio interviews. "Bambi vs. Godzilla" is the title taken I believe from the old short film that I first saw at one of Spike and Mike's Animation Festivals. Here's a quote from one of the many interviews and I believe it's in the book:

"The observed rule in Hollywood is, Feel free to treat everyone like scum, for if they desire something from you, they'll just have to put up with it, and should they rise to wealth and power, any past civility shown toward them will either be forgotten or remembered as some aberrant and contemptible display of weakness."

Mamet is so funny in these interviews.

He talks about his early days in Chicago theater with the likes of Stuart Gordon and Steppenwolf, where he describes much of the exciting stage work as a bunch of kids putting on a show in a garage.

I have to get this book!

Have the audio book of David Lynch's, "Catching the Big Fish" loaded up on my iTunes and it's a set on "repeat all" so that when I drift off into unconsciousness Lynch will speak to me through dreams. He talks about how many directors and Hollywood itself tries to rule through fear. He makes it sound like being a crew member on one of his shoots would be a blast.

When I talked to Henry Rollins about working with David Lynch, he said, "He he was as cool as you always wanted him to be." I knew immediately what he was talking about. There's something about David Lynch that you just root for.

A friend in San Francisco, wrote to me knowing my desire to see, "Inland Empire" saying that it will be playing up there in a few days if I want to drive.

One of my numerous welcome home gift was a memory card for my Canon PowerShot SD 550 Digital Elph that has such storage space on it, I believe I could shoot an entire feature film. I really am thinking of making the movie on this little camera!

I just know there has to be a way for me to make the kind of films I want to make where I don't have to ass kiss anybody, deal with any studios or executives, have to schmooze, or blow anyone...

... and still make a nice living.