In which I wax poetic on fame, fortune, and lacks thereof. OK, maybe not poetic.

The Weirdness That is Hollywood astounds me still.

I knew there were a lot of celebrities, both past and present oozing throughout the pores of Los Angeles county. I've run into porn stars trying to forget their porny pasts, blowhard combo-names-du-jour (Bradgelina and the like - ech), and aging boardtreaders wondering where the hell all the time went. I haven't even gotten to the musicians yet.

For instance, I am a waitress. I haven't paid my bills on time once in over eight months. I'm broke. I'm looking to move on to a *gasp* day job, and will use waiting tables to pay off old stuff while new job pays off current stuff.

So I'm applying for this job, and I get this interview. The interview goes well. I'm near Sawtelle, so I decided to grab some ramen. YUM! Asahi Ramen rocks. My feet really hurt. Again, that whole waitress thing. For the 2-3 block walk from my car, I switched to my flops - they do NOT match my ensemble. They shorten me, and make my curvy bits look more like chunky bits. I still got whistled at - SWEET! Doesn't happen much since I moved here. At home, I'm an 8, and here I'm a 4. Sucks. But I digress. Suffice it to say, I felt good about myself at the time.

So I took the window table at Asahi Ramen. The place was full, and an attractive couple wanted a table. The gentleman looked familiar, and he was very handsome. He had dark, curling hair very thoroughly shot with silver - think Clooney while on ER, and you'll have the idea. His hair coloring screamed "early to late forties", but he still seemed young for that. He seemed barely my age, and certainly the young lady was exactly that - young. Something was very poignantly familiar about his lips. I'm an artist, so I pick up on that sort of thing. I tried not to stare, but the couple were kind of in the way of the view. in order to look out the window, I must look at them. Bizarrely, I felt as though I were in a reverse fishbowl. I was a semi-ugly betta attempting to attract attention so I could beg some fish flakes, but no one was noticing. Way weird. Anyway, I can't recall the gesture he made that reminded me, but I realized that I was looking at Balthazar Getty.

He's the same age as me, as a quick google revealed. 34. He's infinitely more handsome that he was in Young Guns II (where I first saw him and sighed), and much older. I still get mistaken for 23. I doubt he's been carded for a beer in years, and he had a baby face, back in the day. When he still looked fifteen, I got mistaken for thirty. Shit's changed.

Tinseltown must weigh a fucking ton, and I never truly saw it until that moment. Yeah, if you're lucky, you get to be like him and work with David Lynch and Oliver Stone. You end up on a diet of protein shakes and botox, too.

Valentine's day amuses me to no end. It's a Christian Holiday Appropriated by Hallmark and Russell Stover, but much more thoroughly than Xmas/Easter. I celebrated by trying my first foie gras (nothing says romance like a force-fed goose!) and sharing a restaurant with David Hyde Pierce of Frasier fame. Not bad.

At my Chinese Chain Restaurant Job, Jani Lane of Warrant ended up in the kitchen while looking for a bathroom. I pointed him the right way with a smile, while Kristi joked that if he stayed in the kitchen we'd have to put him to work. He didn't laugh. He was probably embarrassed. If memory serves from my Mental Metal Edge Archives, he had a real shit job pre-rock-star, and he might have had nasty flashbacks. I'd have left, too!

He is *extremely* blond. He looks better with glasses and short hair. I smile to remember the beef in the early nineties between Matthew Nelson and him over that Bobbi Brown chick that was in the Cherry Pie video (that they played incessantly. Repeatedly. I began to pray for Snoop and Dre to come on and save me, and I was a fucking metalhead, they played that song so goddamn much!) that Jani started dating. I remember seeing exactly *one* Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous episode where Matt dropped $21k for a week's stay in a hotel with that chica, and that was just the room. Not the food! Bitch betta give great head! They spent more in one week back then what I make in a year NOW. Damn. (And now Matt's got a Fredrick's of Hollywood model for a wife. Definitely an improvement. Possibly even a cheaper one.)

Rene Auberjonois (Odo on Deep Space Nine! And also on Benson, et. al.) was my geek high of sightings! Too bad his tablemate was a douchebag. Perhaps the man is ill, but in case of him possibly ever reading this, I have a message:
Mr. Auberjonois, for you I have much respect. Perhaps there are reasons for his actions, but the man you shared a table with at my Chinese Chain Restaurant Job is hazardous to your dining experience. You were in very professional hands that evening, but I assure you that many who share in my job description do not have my scruples, or those of your lovely server. Dining out with this person will result in, and may have all ready resulted in, sullied food or drink. Stay away, for your own sake. And for god's sake, be sure you tip well enough to make up for his behavior. Apologizing to the server wouldn't hurt either. That always goes a long way with us, and we'll share behind the scenes, being sure to keep others' hands out of your food too - the kitchen staff may act in a server's defense. Just sayin'.

Alec Baldwin's publicist is a bit of a twit - there's an hour wait, no, he can't cut in line. But Alec himself was quite pleasant, and sat with his family on the patio in a light drizzle. His daughter is stunning. Then, I was reminded of who her mother is, and remembered why - she has the Holy Grail of Genetics. Nothing like the glare of expectation. I know it well, but at about 1/1000th the intensity. I got your Complete Lack of Envy right here.

So, I skipped watching the Oscars - we killed cable, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna stream the whole damn thing. I heard about the winners, and thought about it.

Heath Ledger died, possibly quite an unhappy person, and won a statue he's too dead to care about. Jani Lane's biggest claim to fame is a commercial crap song he didn't even like very much when he wrote it. Balthazar aged a lot more in ten years than he should have. Alec has some douche talking for him. Rene has to watch his food quality thanks to his tablemate. Angelina and Jennifer will forever be assumed to be locked in a struggle of hate. The worst part is people WATCHING them suffer. I slave for a tiny bit of cash that doesn't pay the bills, endure Verbal Abuse Week at my job, handle endless insult and injury while being underpaid, ache without medical coverage, and wear the same clothing over and over endlessly - and I wouldn't want to be ANY of the above-mentioned people.

I'll keep on being a Hollywood 4, since I'm used to that. Don't have to be a 10 to clean teeth or write a good story. Don't have to worry (as much) about the calories from that extra cookie. Don't have to obsess over each line or wrinkle. Don't have to be the ant under the magnifying glass. Fine by me. Now do you want white or brown rice with that?

Tenses make me tense...

I've been reading the back posts of the Miss Snark blog, and ran across this entry:

(P.S. - Read the comments, too!)

This is a discussion on tenses, and how editors HATE to get submissions in First Person Present Tense.

Some subsequent posts in the blog go on to talk about some very successful tales told in this tense, one that is in Second Person Present Tense, and another that was FIRST PERSON PLURAL Present Tense.

GAH!

But I was wondering about your experiences in this, or your thoughts.

My POV: I utterly detest most writing in the present tense. Note the word "most." Not all. But most. I usually detest First Person POV, too, but not nearly so much as present tense. Put them together, and if I were an editor, that ms would be outta the slushpile and into the shredder before you could speak the second 'B' in "Bob's Yer Uncle." I would instantly return a book that I bought if I opened it and saw such a travesty on page. Blogs or news articles or nonfiction can work with this, but not fiction in my opinion.

Perhaps because it's my years of gaming, and that's how you talk during a game, ( "I roll this d12 in an attempt to successfully wield my +18 hackmaster against this harmless bunny." ), or maybe because I've seen this type of hack fiction before ( when I was 13, an awful writer, and this was staring up at me from my finished pages ), I'm so unimpressed with it now.

Personally, I've never seen it work. I can't get out of editor mode long enough to enjoy it. A master might be able to make me forget with his or her craft, but I have yet to meet that presentation of work. It just seems inappropriate for the fiction page. It's like going to a play and the lead actor is wearing nothing but a rubber chicken... you're going to have to work VERY hard to make me forget that rubber chicken. It just might be impossible.

Another person mentioned on the blog how it's possible that people write like this because this is how they talk in life. Again, not necessarily appropriate for a page in fiction.

I picked up a book called The Witch of Cologne. I cracked it open and nearly screamed in fury. Present tense. In HISTORICAL FICTION!! I mean, really, this is about religious crap from 500 years ago, and that's hardly acceptable to write in the present tense. I forced myself to read the whole bit, and the story was quite good. However, I don't suggest this book to anyone, and I do not plan to reread it. From me, that's a horrid review. I reread everything. I got suckered in by the title and the hot photo on the front of a girl in an open corset with no undershirt. Never again.

I noticed some stories in an anthology lately, and they had the same problem. I liked those stories the least.

I recently read the new "V" book, and finally understood what my 10th grade English teacher meant when she said "Third Person Omnicient run amok." This book had that quality, and fortunately Kenneth Johnson is a good enough writer to make you forget that. I can't deny that I had to scramble to keep up with what was going on with whom, though. The head-jumping between nine (yes, nine) characters across just two pages was enough to make my own head spin. Good story. Well told. Lots of head-jumping.

Maybe I'm just curmudgeonly and hidebound, but I'm kind of fine with third person limited past tense. Works for me. It's comfortable, and I like to read and write in that POV/tense combo. If I want to change character view, I limit quite arduously to just that character's POV for that scene. Or I try to, anyway. We all fail sometimes.

So what do you think? What's your favorite POV or tense?
(neato tense list here: )