the friendship counter


i saw this truck on the way to work today. who doesn't want some goldenflow milk?

in other news, larry carlson has finally started a job today. it's official. i just got off of the phone with him as he was standing outside of the building waiting for his new co-workers to let him in. ha ha ha. go get 'em LC. it's about time you contributed to society...

as far as this weekend was concerned, it was pretty tame. friday night i went to this film 'undertow' which was directed by the guy who made one of my favorite films ever, 'all the real girls'. it was ok i thought. it could have been really good, but there were just too many silly chase scenes toward the end that i thought crippled an otherwise beautiful southern gothic-y story. i will say that one of the kids in it, the younger brother, is super interesting looking and was probably my favorite thing about the film. he throws up a lot in it for some reason.

then saturday was studio work followed by a birthday party.

sunday was just studio all day.

wait! i just remembered...while i was eating my breakfast at this diner in my neighborhood, i met the most insane guy ever.

i was sitting at the counter, getting ready to eat, when this guy started talking to me. asking me what i was reading (chronicles, the new bob dylan autobiography) and what i did (i answered "sculpture"). anyways, he says that he met dylan a few times back when he was panhandling in the village and then launched into how he used to be a cop, a detective i think actually, but now he was an actor. he said he was discovered by benjamin bratt while they were filming a scene for i think law and order and he just happened to be standing around.

this led into him talking about how harvey keitel was interested in buying the play he is writing and about meeting julia roberts and how he is auditioning to get into the actor's studio this week. then he wanted to know what i thought about his play, so he starts telling me the story...

all the while, i am thinking that either this guy is either the most interesting person i have ever met while eating scrambled eggs, or he is completely insane and he is going to end up stabbing me with my butter knife. either way, i finished my breakfast quickly just in case i had to make a quick exit.

his play was about police stories, one of them having something to do with a monkey locked in a file cabinet that kept playing with itself. this led into about three or four REALLY intense and insane cop stories that led to him saying how he had to kill two "perps" in his career. but that didn't bother him because he was a sniper in 'nam and it was just part of the job. give him a dossier about who to hit, and he and his rangeman would find the guy and take him out from afar....sometimes he had to do it up close and personal (while he said this, he was making these quick stabbing motions at an invisible foe). but yeah, he was injured pretty badly in the war...see how one leg is atrophied smaller than the other? then he took his fake teeth out...then he said, "give me your hand." in my mind i was thinking, "no anthony, don't give him your hand...seriously." but as i was thinking this thought, my eyes saw my hand inexplicably reaching out. he grabbed it and put it against the back of his head where there was some big bump from where the metal plate was.

for about the next five minutes of him talking, i didn't hear anything. all i could think of was the fact that i had just rubbed the back of some stranger's bumpy head at the breakfast counter in a restaurant.

when my wits came back to me, he was talking about how he got some bad news yesterday..."you ever heard of agent orange? well the doctor just said that i have one year to live." and on and on and on....

it just kept getting crazier and crazier and crazier. the thing is though, i think that i believe him (or at least most of what he had to say). i finally managed to say goodbye to him and get outside into the fresh air. i spent the next few hours in my studio trying to decide whether or not he was insane, and i don't know...i think that there is a small chance that he wasn't. either way it was a totally amazing breakfast. i just really wish i could have gotten a picture of him for you.

next time i guess...

p.s., did anyone hear how the yankees/red sox series turned out? i haven't been paying attention...