Oh, what the hell! It's Valentine's Day, right? We're supposed to spread good feeling around to those we admire, right? So I emailed my fan letter to Japanese AV (Adult Video) idol Aoi Sola. I just wanted to let her know where she could get good Japanese BBQ in New York, since she wrote on her own blog about liking it...and I had to compliment her on her progress in learning English, too!

Now, back to more pressing matters, Cranky...like adding up your freelancer's deductions for tax time!!!

Today I read in two places about Valentine's Day in Japan. First I read about it in New York Newsday, wherein a Japanese student wrote about how girls and women give gifts to boys and men, especially chocolate, but men reciprocate not on the same day but on a holiday called White Day in March, when they give women marshmallows or white chocolate...females also give chocolate to their girlfriends on Valentine's Day, and those friends reciprocate on White Day too.

Then, just a little while ago, I read on the Japanese erotica star Aoi Sola's blog basically the same thing. She just got back home from a party on Valentine's Day (I think Japan is about eleven hours ahead of New York, time-wise), and wrote that she was drunk. Her English is not bad in the blog, but I guess her tipsiness made it a little more shaky than usual in her latest post...she is one of the most famous women in Japan--24 years old--the number two most searched for personality on the Japanese Internet--but she has this unassuming blog in which she practices her English and puts up candid photos of herself, just regular snapshots (not nude), also pictures of things she eats, of little snowmen she makes on a snowy Tokyo night...someday I'm going to write a long post about this very, very interesting gal. She makes many other actresses (both porn and mainstream) seem like cold toast...

I tried to post a link to her blog, but it didn't work. Instead, here are links to two pictures of her from the blog. The first is a portrait from her first entry, and the second is from the post she wrote about coming home drunk from the Valentine's Day party. Hmm, she looks as if she could use a back rub...foot rub too...her blog can be found at http://blog.livedoor.jp/aoi_sola_ura/:

AoiSola#1

AoiSola#2

I wrote her a fan letter yesterday, but felt foolish and didn't email it...all I basically did was encourage her in her English studies! Nothing salacious, but it just felt silly to send it...

Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure, here is a link to one of Sir Cranky's favorite short stories, by Anton Chekhov, and perfect for Valentine's Day. It is from the site turksheadreview.com. I read this story in college and many times since. It is the tale of a grumpy middle-aged man, a bit of a misogynist, who can't live with women, but can't live without 'em...he constantly cheats on his wife, but one day finds a girl he can't seem to get out of his mind...it is a little melancholy, but perhaps you will enjoy it too.

TheLadyWithThePetDog

It's been cold and snowy today in the New York area...but I like it. I like winter as long as it's not too fierce, and as long as I don't have to commute on a messy snow day to my freelance gig in New Jersey...and that's one reason why I stayed freelance, so I could make my own schedule. Believe me, I pay dearly for the privilege...I pay my own health insurance, which is costly, and I just sent in my last payment to the credit company for the loan I took out for my 2006 tax bill last April. And then in two months the tax process starts all over again...

Anyway, I was tired from revising my novel over the last four days, and needed a lazy Tuesday...I guess I sound apologetic...I always feel guilty if I'm not productive...

According to a biography I read years ago, the film director Luis Bunuel would often sit lazily in the afternoon and have a martini and just space out. I'm like that on the days I take a mental break. Substitute a glass of ginger ale or a beer for a martini, and you got the picture...

I wasn't really inactive, though, because I surfed the Web doing a little research for a freelance project I'm considering...didn't make much headway, however, because I got distracted by this link and that...I saw some beautiful photos of Aoi Sola, my favorite Japanese porn star (or AV idol--standing for Adult Video Idol--as they call their erotica performers in Japan.) She is like the Jenna Jameson of Japan in terms of her popularity and "crossover" appeal...one of the most beautiful girls on this planet. By the way, her name means "Blue Sky" in Japanese, and I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "Ow-ee." It's also written as "Aoi Sora," but I know that she uses Sola herself because that's what she has on her personal blog...she is also talented at drawing and photography.

Anyway, more about this twenty-four year old cinema goddess at another time...

Meanwhile, I have to be careful not to get down on myself, as I did over the novel, getting myself depressed when I compared it unfavorably to the work of others. I can use any excuse for criticizing myself, like telling myself I'm just a worthless slacker if I take a day off...which is not true at all. In the last nineteen years I've freelanced, I've been incredibly productive...but somehow, I never seem to believe it, because the big dreams, one of which is publishing a book, have eluded me, and I've based too much of my self-esteem on the achievement of ambitions that I adopted in my adolescence. Maybe I will, and maybe I won't, publish a novel...I can't hate myself if the result doesn't satisfy my pubescent fantasies of being the adored author...

Self-loathing is not a good attitude when you're trying to be creative.

I have this negative view of things. I had to go to the podiatrist yesterday, and I was afraid there was something seriously wrong. It turned out to be trivial...I have a catastrophic imagination, that's for sure.

I was critical of myself in my last post, saying that I was "shallow" for having a daydream about selling my book, finding myself a cute Asian girlfriend, and taking her shopping after a Sunday morning of sex and breakfast. One of my friends on the 'Stream, Lady Blumoon (aka Maria), left a comment where she said she didn't think there was anything shallow about having desires. And of course she was right...thank you, Maria...I was being judgmental of myself, expecting that others would be and figuring I'd beat them to the punch; predicting that they would say, "You dirty old man, you and your fantasies..." But Maria allowed me to have my daydream. The problem is with me: I think in order to be a "nice guy" and a politically correct fellow, I should lust after an "age-appropriate" woman, and in any case, my motivations for spending months writing a book should certainly be more "noble" than wanting to get laid and treating my bed partner to a shopping spree...where the hell do I get these sour judgments? It's silly...anyway, thank you again, Maria, for bringing me down to earth again! Check out her blog at Lady Blu's New Vibe...it's on my Blogs I Like list.

You know, even Shakespeare wrote for bread and rent...and maybe to get laid too...I don't know much about him, but he was human, right? And Balzac wrote his nearly hundred classic novels in order to pay the absurdly high bills he accrued chasing aristocratic women, and pretending he was an aristocrat himself...which reminds me, the biography of Balzac by Stefan Zweig is one of the best books I ever read in my entire life. It's out of print, but you can find used copies of it for cheap...what a character, what a life, but his sad end will leave you in tears...

Well, I guess it's time to get some dinner, and take a walk in the snow before it turns to rain...

After my fit of discontent about ten days ago, I got back to my novel revision this weekend...it looks better to me after several days away from it. I have to watch my moods, though, especially my harsh self-criticism which brutally skews my judgment...my friend Sid, observing me go from confidence to despair, fired off an email and told me to step back. His brotherly concern was a help. Thanks, Sid.

The book is what it is. Based on the sound recommendations of a couple of readers, I fixed the weaker parts. I added some material to flesh out one of the main characters, and I rewrote the ending. It just took me a few days. When I finished early this evening, I felt that it was definitely better, but might benefit from a little more tweaking.

I think one of my tactical errors in my overall campaign to "write a novel" was thinking I could crank out the entire thing and finish it last summer. Feeling desperate to improve my financial situation, I dreamed I could write and possibly even sell it (or at least find an agent) in a few months' time. Well, I definitely got a lot of it done, most of the major work, that is; I mean, I sincerely felt it was finished and ready to present to people. But setting it aside and then returning to it has allowed me to go deeper. It may just not be practical for me personally to think I can bang something out in fully finished form in three months.

One danger is comparing my work to that of others. As I said a couple of paragraphs ago, the book is what it is...with its unique virtues and flaws.

Anyway, with tax time coming up, I need to do some extra freelance work for ready cash, so perhaps I'll put the novel aside for a couple more months and then return to it in late March or early April and see what more needs to be done. Although my new ending feels right, I think it might need some more work. And I might need to smooth out or even amplify some of the new background material about one of the main characters.

I feel at peace about it tonight. I can see that I put an honorable amount of work into it, tried to improve it, and somewhat succeeded.

On Sunday, I went to Borders at the Time-Warner Center to check out the magazines. I avoided the fiction section...I didn’t want to feel envious of, or depressed by, other people’s successes. Anyway, I wanted to check out last week’s New York magazine without buying it...nobody bothers you if you want to read an article or two at Borders, although they did get rid of a lot of the comfy chairs to sit and read in...still, browsing through the mags there saves me money.

When I was walking through the Time-Warner Center yesterday, I saw this cute Asian girl with her boyfriend. She was wearing an incredible short little fluffy skirt that came just below her crotch, with black tights and high heeled brown leather boots. She was pointing out all the shops to the guy. Maybe he was taking her shopping, but he looked as young as she was, probably about twenty-one, and not in the bucks...I thought to myself, this is what I want to happen: I want to sell my novel, make a little money, find myself a cute Asian girlfriend, and take her shopping after a Sunday morning session of sex and breakfast. I’m so shallow...I hope my novel doesn’t reflect this. But alas, it probably does...

Last night I hung out with my film buff buddies in the Village. We always meet on Thursday nights, eat Kit Kat and Mounds bars, watch Smallville (I like it mostly for Laura Vandervoort as Supergirl and Kristin Kreuk as Lana Lang), and then we top off the evening's entertainment with a classic movie or episode of a vintage tv show.

Yesterday we watched the great and absolutely crazy 1945 low-budget film noir classic Detour with Tom Neal and Ann Savage. Three of the guys hadn't seen this movie, about an innocent hitchhiker ensnared in a net of murder and stolen identity, and one of guys absolutely went wild over Ann Savage, who portrays probably the meanest and most sharp-tongued femme fatale in all noirdom...he took over the remote control so that he could pause the picture to observe her in all her bitchgoddess glory, which is truly something to see in huge black-and-white closeups! Wonderful movie.

And to show how classy the 86 year old Ann Savage is, in interviews she has credited writer Martin Goldsmith with having essentially created her character, saying it was all in the script...Edgar G. Ulmer's direction is taut, and he did indeed set the ferocious pace of Miss Savage's dialogue which is one of the most remarkable things about the film; but when you're watching the movie and listening to its incredible lines and following the twists and turns of the plot, you know the screenwriter had a LOT to do with why this film works, besides the casting and direction. For years some people have acted as if it was just Ulmer's movie, but watching it last night (probably my fourth or fifth viewing) I thought, "This script is amazing. Let's give credit where it's due!" And when I looked up Ann Savage on the Web today and read her comments, I saw that this was indeed what she had done.

Here's the interview with Miss Savage, by Roy Frumkes, from a site called Moderntimes.com. There's a good mini-bio of her on IMDB too, but I couldn't seem to set up a link with it.

ConversationWithAnnSavage

What I got out of Detour on this viewing is how eloquently it depicts how a sane if cynical person, like Tom Neal's tragic hitchhiker, can be sucked into the psychological vortex of a crazy and desperate one such as depicted by Ann Savage, to the point where he is trying to show her in a rational fashion why her lunatic schemes won't work...yes, the best movies always give you something new on each viewing.

So what are waiting for? Take your Detour! It's easily accessible on low-budget DVDs.