Last Page of Dear Diary - Sad!!

Dear Diary,

Sorry I've been so neglectful. Things have been real busy at school...uh...okay...truth? The truth is...I've been cheating on you, Diary!

There I said it.

I knew Mom was keeping me away from the internet for a reason and that reason is that she didn't want me to find out about "the blogs". Instead of spending my time writing diary entries, I was too busy starting one at www.johnnyhongkong.com/blog. My recent post on the Super Bowl totally got linked by Deadspin.com, the Gawker Media Empire (and still others) sports blog (it's the first link at http://www.deadspin.com/sports/about-last-night/about-last-night-
-152869.php)!

Don't say it, Diary - I know that "blog" is the new "passe" but "black" was once the new "diary" (where have you been?). It's not just a blog, but there's also a website for people to keep up on my A/V projects and stuff (and also for the revival of "Date Plate". If you don't know about it, it's totally a treat). Okay... so the site is a work in progress and not even a tenth done yet but my math teacher keeps giving me too many algebra problems...

Anyway, don't take it so hard. It's not you, Diary, it's me. Keep your head up. On the bright side, johnnyhongkong will provide a loving home for all your frayed and broken hearted pages. Hey, it's better than all those ratty yellow O-PeeChee folders I've been sticking you into. :)

Fondly,
David

A p.s. to you faithful or unfaithful Diary readers: please update your links and or news aggregators. Thanks.
___
www.johnnyhongkong.com

I know Kung-Fu!

March 25, 2005

Dear Diary.

I know I've been hating in my last few entries but I don't always hate, sometimes I...uh... masticate. Regulate? Figure skate? Conjugate, congregate, ovulate...?

Whatever - anyway, I saw the coolest movie last night, Diary! It was a special sneak preview of Stephen Chow's Kung-Fu Hustle on the Sony lot and boy, was it gooood.

First, let's forget about the fact that Stephen Chow is dreamy (so dreamy that I am working through all of his movies and currently, I'm in the dregs and yet I still don't care), that there is no "hustle" in the sense of a "hustler" or "the hustle" as in the dance, so I don't really know why they couldn't just go with the original Chinese name Kung-Fu because there IS plenty of that, and that it drags a little towards the end (whew, if that's not a run-on sentence, it should be. I'm not sure because I'm going to public school!).

Yeah, forget that stuff. Because if you don't, you'd miss quite possibly, the most funny, outrageous, absurd, insane, sweet...just plain fun movie you'll see this year.

Kung-Fu Hustle follows in the loose form of Chow's major works (King of Comedy, God of Cookery, or Shaolin Soccer) where a loser wishes to be something more, tries in vain to be that thing, and then finds his nobler self by being what he truly is, often times aided by Shaolin monks or Buddha (G.O.C. being the most notable exception where the journey is inverted).

Chow's social commentary hasn't changed much throughout the years: goodness and purity can only be found in poverty (where the downtrodden also must make and sell food), while fame and riches are pathways to corruption, however, this time out he's added more "American tasting" themes as seen in the recent hits, The Incredibles and Spiderman, and The Matrix from a few years back.

And his humor has certainly risen from the lowbrow to the middlebrow with no ill effect (the style is still Cantonese, it just doesn't have all of the dick jokes). For example, the liberal sprinklings of polk-gai (there is one moment, early on, where a character's delivery of polk-gai almost made me pee my pants) make up for that one moment in King of Comedy that made all of us feel dirty for laughing so goddamn hard.

If you happen to live in San Francisco, Boston, Dallas, or Chicago take this link and sign up for a free screening. Otherwise, if you live in LA and NY, you can pay to see it on 4/8. If you live anywhere else you gotta wait until 4/22 or even later if you're in the stix.

Kung-fu fighting,
David

Do you smell cat pee?

March 24, 2005

Dear Diary,

No, I don't smell cat pee.

And maybe, Diary, that's ultimately the reason why our A/V project didn't get into Tribeca. Forget WKW, his daddy named Mary, and 2046. Forget Robert De Niro and his voodoo hex he put on us.

Thanks to my hometown paper, I have come to accept that the real reason we didn't get into the Tribeca film festival: lack of Cat Pee. And how I, in my infinite stupidity, made a movie about wine and did not include any references to cat pee, wet dog, mouse droppings, or bacon in the script. It's not like I didn't have a chance - the script was written and then voice-overs written a year later.

Not. One. Reference.

Cat pee.

I bet that bitch ass Alexander Payne has cat pee all up in his movie. Cat pee AND that guy. Alex, that's the luxury you have when you're the second wine movie that went into production in 2003/2004. You get to find out about cat pee. You see, we were Deep Impact to your Armageddon; We're Dante's Peak are you're Volcano. Dammit! I like totally forgot: first is the worst, second is the best -

That's it: I'm making ANOTHER movie about wine which would make me third and thus the blue bird sitting in the nest.

Here kitty, kitty,
David

WKW: Yo' mama name is Roscoe

March 23, 2005

Dear Diary,

What an exhausting week!

The student council hearings about off-campus lunches and that dumb Chris Paul not punching people in the nads when it really counts, thus making my winning NCAA bracket go to pot.

Now this. Apparently, Sony Pictures Classics has aquired North American rights to dreamy Wong Kar-Wai's 2046. But that's just window dressing. The part that caught my eye is that it will have its US premiere at the Tribec-kaka film festival.

You know what's not having its North American premiere at Tribec-kaka?

That's right, Diary! Our film!

But I get it, though. Bobby D couldn't possibly have programmed two poetically lyrical, voice-over heavy films into his festival.

For example: if The New World had been entered, instead of our film, Bobby D would have had to make a choice between The New World and 2046 to represent the "heavily voice-overed" film of the festival (not that I've seen New World but I'm just guessing that drunky Colin Farrell is going to be "thinking" a lot about the Indians and Thanksgiving).

So I get it. Bobby D, my anger has been misdirected at you. I crossed out all the "Tribeckaka Poop Festival eats...kaka" references in my burn book.

Wong Kar-Wai: it was YOU who punched me in the nads!

But WKW, because of this, I'll forgive you.

Just consider yourself warned. I have gained Player Hater Ball points and am drunk on the Haterade - you're getting awful close to the burn book.

Hatingly,
David

Student Council Hearings

March 18, 2005

Dear Diary,

I was "subpeonaed" today to testify in the special student council hearings on eating lunch off campus, the hot new scandal at school. It hasn't exactly been against the rules to go off campus for lunch, but it's been one of those implicit agreements, or something like that but mysteriously, over the last few years, around lunch time, there have been less and less kids eating lunch at school. Personally, I thought it was The Mothman Prophecies, but the word on the street was that kids were leaving in droves to eat lunch off campus.

*gasp*

Have I? Well, Diary, I can't tell you, because I might be incriminating myself, but this is what I told them. I said, "I have never eaten lunch off campus, nor do I know anyone who has ever left the campus to eat lunch, not even at Whole Foods when they have the Organic Meatloaf. And hell no, I would not rat on my friends." I also told them that Mike Mertula might not have given me my burning bush.

Diary, why does the Student Council care so much? Don't they have bigger things to worry about? Like how our student body president is trying to steal other school's mascots and install ours? Or how about the school bully beating up on my arty friends? Or that the poor kids don't even have enough money to eat lunch at school? Student council says that eating lunch off campus could kill us and that it's a school wide epidemic. You know what's a school wide epidemic? Smoking.

Who cares about off campus lunches?

By the way, I came home and watched the steroid hearings last night. MSNBC replayed it at night, apparently taking a cue from their sister station NBC, "If you haven't seen it, it's new to you." Here are my thoughts:

You know who I feel bad for in all of this? Ozzie Canseco. He's like, almost identical to Jose and he roided himself and still couldn't play or almost sleep with Madonna. This brings up yet another GI Joe existential dilemma: if Tomax injected himself with steroids, would Xamot get big?

Who deflated Mark McGwire?

When did Sammy Sosa forget how to speak English?

Rafael Palmeiro's acting coach needs to be fired. I don't care if 50's matinee idols never used steroids. The look only works for Senator Richard Alarcon. Plus the finger pointing? Raffy, give me a break. This all goes to yet once again confirm that Will Clark was the better 1st baseman from the 1984 Olympic team.

Anyway, the student council hearings are continuing. I will keep you posted.

Organic Meatloaf...mmm...,
David

Demon Deacons Are Scary!

March 17th, 2005

Dear Diary,

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm so totally decked out in green because I don't want those icky boys (Mike Mertula, you smell like cornchips or athlete's foot) all up in my bizness pinching me and stuff. I keep hearing about people wanting to drink the Guinness today.

"Brilliant!" they yell.

You know what I say? "Like, that's soooo stupid!"

How are you supposed to drink a book? And what does that have anything to do with lucky charms, little magical leprechauns, and the luck o'd'Irish? I hear paper mills stink. You don't want that stuff in your system and I don't care how many anti-oxidants this "Guinness" has.

Today is also the beginning of March Madness, when everybody goes crazy for the big basketball tournament. I filled out my bracket (with my lucky green Kogepan pen) and turned it in just before the tip off of the first game this morning. I picked Wake Forest to win it all and I am right because:

1) I won last year.

2) Demon Deacons are scaaaaary. Empire-ically, or something. I mean, not only are they already demons, they are also deacons.

3) Their star point guard, Chris Paul thinks like me and therefore, is obviously a genius. I had just been rejected from the boys basketball team tryouts for like the zillionth time - something about me being a girl or playing like a girl, I was so agitated, I wasn't really listening - and I was at home in my Zarko Cabarkapa jersey, all bummed out and watching that stupid movie BASEketball when I thought how a 15-year-old like me can spice up the game of basketball. And I swear, diary, when it came to me, it was like Moses and the burning bush.

My burning bush said, "what Basketball needs a 6th person on the court - a nut kicker."

Genius.

It would be the great equalizer. You think Kobe's so smooth and his beef is so tender? Tell me what happens after it get kicked a few times. You think Big Aristotle is so unstoppable? Kick him in his little Aristotles. Iverson acting a fool with his gats? Kick him in the nads.

Both teams have nut kickers. Nut kickers can get their nuts kicked, but only by the other team's nut kickers. They cannot touch the ball (the one in play). Their sole purpose is to kick or not kick other people in the nuts. You see the strategy developing?

And Title IX? Screw it. You can kick that in the nuts too - hell yeah, girls can play. Tell me right now, Diary, that Mia Hamm wouldn't be the best nut kicker in the game. She'd be positively Bondsian.

Chris Paul must have brain wave stealing skills or something. It must have been that night that I went to sleep without putting my tin foil hat on - the next morning, I read that he had punched Julius Hodge in the nuts. Are you kidding me?

Ah crap! Chris Paul must be an alien too, leading me to #4 on my list of why the Demon Deacons will win the NCAA tournament...

4) Chris Paul might be an alien.

I feel it.

In my bathing suit area.

A revolution is in sports is afoot.

David Stern, where u at?

Protecting my ovaries,
David

PS: Bobby De Niro, our rift is forever now! You suck eggs for not coming to closing weekend of Overflow!

He's Just Living Up To His Namesake...

March 9, 2005

Dear Diary,

I hate Robert De Niro.

Yes, Bobby, I’m talkin’ to you.

There ain’t no one else here, so I must be talkin’ to you.

I hate your stupid Amex commercial directed by your no Oscar having best friend that cross promotes “your city, your card,” and “your poopy film festival that doesn’t want MY FILM to screen in the Triangle Below Canal.”

You think I’m mad? Honky puhleeze…I’m sooo over triangles.

Dodecahedrons are obviously the new triangles. Considering that you live in YOUR CITY with YOUR CARD, I’m surprised you didn’t know that. That, and your little neighborhood film festival in Manhattan is no dodecahedron. It is only a triangle and A-squared + B-squared = C-squared is so passé.

Okay, maybe I’m a little miffed but only because in all of my fifteen years of honing my cinematic critical skills, it is in my humble opinion that The Marriage of Charlie Johnson is better (that is, has a little something more to say) than Godsend, City by the Sea, and much better than The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle.

I know you may hold grudges as we “offered” the role of Jay to you (in our minds) but you scoffed at us (in our minds) and our insistence that you forgo your $20 million salary requirement. We said, “the movie is only going to cost $10,000.” You said, “[That noise you made in This Boy’s Life and The Fan].”

Mr. De Niro, the only way that you are going to get back on my Christmas list is if you come to see the closing weekend of Overflow, the play that Justina Walford wrote and that I directed. It’s only got four more performances – this Thursday thru. Saturday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM.

Considering your recent run of paycheck roles and that dumb commercial, I’m guessing that times are pretty rough for you. That’s okay, Bob, because here’s a link that will get you half-priced tickets. If you don't want to hassle with the brief sign up, try this one (you’ll have to enter promo code 008 to get your discount) - you can even use YOUR CARD to pay for YOUR DISCOUNT TICKETS.

Didja get that? Cool, then I’ll see you this weekend, Mr. De Niro. I totally forgive you for not taking my film and don't worry, the next film I make, you’re still my first call for SAG scale. But only if you come this weekend! If not, I may have to continue trying to gain hater points for acceptance into the Player Hater's Ball.

Kisses,
David