December 23, 2000
kestrelsan@ispwest.com
Dan keeps in touch from L.A.
Just got in. Good flight, bad food. Relatively uneventful. Can one get jet lagged flying to L.A., or is that just a European thing? Can’t tell much about the place yet. I’m checked into a hotel, but I’m at the office now, and I can’t remember the phone number. This seems to be my new email account, so in the meantime this is where you can tell me how much the show sucks without me, how Dana’s breaking out again out because I’m gone, and that Natalie finally confessed her secret desire to sleep with me all of these years.
Will write more later. L.A. is bright and hot. No Laker girls yet.
D.
****
Aren’t you a cheap bastard. Pick up the phone. It’s 4:00 here, and I’m in between meetings with exec types. They haven’t yet caught on to my tragic wit or inherent charm, so it promises to be a long day.
The first show is tomorrow night. Watch it, then tell me how good I was. Or don’t watch it and tell me I was brilliant. My co-anchor laughs at weird times and gives me funny looks, but at least he lets me have my own office to myself.
Caught the show last night. Your tie looked like one of my Uncle Morris’s. He’s the one with the seersucker shirts and comb-over. I liked the Rangers line, but tell Dana not to hire that other guy as a permanent replacement. He looked like an aging car salesman.
More meetings---
D.
****
Yes! That’s what I’m saying. Take Martinez out of the picture and no way would they be above 500. I suggested this to Brad, but he was at his funny looks again. I would have told him he was an idiot, but I suppose being named Brad is punishment enough.
So you thought it was good? I don’t know. It feels strange. I don’t know what’s up with the lead-in music, either. I think they think it’s sparky.
Dana called last night---don’t listen to her. Hold out for someone good. That last guy was like one of those little monkeys from "Virus" on vivarin. If she gives you any more problems, I’ll talk to Isaac for you.
Gotta run. We’re having another one of those office get-togethers I was telling you about. Sharing community, my ass. Jeannie---she’s Greg’s assistant---tried to get me to wear a name tag last time. They may find the body yet.
D.
****
Sparky. You know, sparky. As in Sparky Boy. Kind of like a squirrel with spunk.
I’m starting to get used to the system around here. They seem to actually have one, so nothing works and no one seems to be in charge of making coffee. I thought I had a secretary this time, but once again I am foiled in my search for assistance. There is an intern-type here, a Seattle migrant with long, stringy blonde hair. I think she’s supposed to do things like make the coffee, but most of the time she stands by the copy desk glaring darkly at all who pass by. I think she made the evil eye sign at me behind my back yesterday.
Ask Jeremy about the Sanders stats. No one here seems to know anything.
D.
P.S. I forgot to tell you before I left---next to the couch, behind the B-ball encyclopedia., is an open packet of Ho-Ho’s I was saving. Counting today, it will have been there for about three weeks. So you might want to get rid of it, or call the exterminator.
****
I know, it’s a sad state of affairs. But the Clippers should be something to watch this season.
So Natalie and Jeremy are back at it. Go figure. Give them a kiss and a pack of gum from me, then have the paramedics ready for Dana when it all blows up again.
I think grunge girl has a crush on me. I keep turning around to find her staring at me at odd moments. And I think she’s been following me home. She’s half my age (or very nearly), resembles a goal post from the side, and wears a nose ring that makes her look like she’s breaking out in rhinestones. And yet I remain unflattered.
Found a place with a short-term lease. The number’s 323-555-9739. No one has called me here yet but my mother, and you know how joyful that makes me. So call.
D.
P.S. I knew it was Othello and not Hamlet. I just wanted to see if you were watching the show.
****
Natalie emailed me this morning. You didn’t tell me Dana was dating the new owner guy. Are you holding out on me? Natalie says you’re being uncharacteristically calm about it. Calm as in "mailman about to enter McDonald’s with a shotgun" calm, or calm as in "I accept my fate" calm?
You know, calm very quickly begins to look like clam when you write it often enough.
Had a few hours off, so I went to the Dodgers game this afternoon. They sucked, but at least it was sunny while they were sucking. If I live here much longer, I might actually develop a tan. Though I think there’s a clause in my contract against that.
I caught your Maynard interview last night. He looked positively headlight-frozen when you asked about the trading rumors. Keep up the good work.
D.
****
"Uncharacteristically calm" were her words, not mine. Don’t blame me if your past flings with insanity have given you a reputation.
D.
****
No, that isn’t what I meant. I’m not sure what I meant, but it’s kind of like this---I get up in the morning, get in the rental car, and wonder why everyone drives here when the traffic system is so obviously the work of Lucifer. Then I stop by the Starbucks down the street, which is full of people who are much cooler than I am, but at the same time much less cool than you. I haven’t figured that one out yet. Then I get to the office, and everyone smiles and calls "hi" in a way that makes me want to check behind me for burly guys in white coats. I spend the next few hours lounging in my office, looking at the palm trees outside my window and trying to come up with a sports metaphor that hasn’t been used, which is, of course, a doomed proposition. It’s always been doomed, but I remember it being much more fun before. Sometimes people stop by for stuff, and I make a joke and they always laugh, but like I’ve got an unidentified strain of leprosy no one’s told me about yet. Or like they knew it was a joke but weren’t really listening in the first place. Everyone at CSC actually cared enough not to laugh at my jokes.
Then we get together to go through the show---kind of like our run downs, but no one’s yelling or throwing pens. It’s creepy. That’s when they tell me I’ve got an interview with Coby Jones next week, because apparently no one informed them that this country doesn’t give a snail’s ass about the MLS. Then it’s showtime, and I start wondering when I started thinking of the next hour as something to get through before I can go home, rather than something I got through the rest of the day for.
What I’m really saying is that it’s 3 a.m. here, and I need to go to bed. Ignore this, it’s just a thing.
D.
****
No, no, it was just a thing. No big deal. I think I was a little drunk last night. Went out with Jeannie and a couple of the guys from the camera crew. A good time was had by all, though Jeannie looked askance when I suggested a table dance, and she didn’t at all appreciate my Barbara Eden comment. L.A. needs more Dana’s.
Tell me what you think of this:
"And so we head to Coors Field, home of the Rockies and weak beer, for the last game of a three game series against the Reds that included hit batters, bruised egos, and a bench-clearing ho-down in the seventh. At the end of the day, the Reds take the series with a 7-4 final, and the Rockies prove once again to the world how to be beaten like a stubborn mule."
I’m a little worried about Coors and the ASPCA. Peter Coors scares me, though I find him weirdly attractive in those commercials, and he almost makes me appreciate bad beer.
And I’m not sure about the spelling of "ho-down." I’d look it up, but sadly, you have the dictionary.
D.
****
I know you haven’t responded to my last message (what’s up with that?) but ignore the copy draft I sent you, I decided to change it. Mules everywhere will be spared the bite of my cutting wit.
Say what you will, I know you’re laughing right now.
D.
****
Everything's fine here. Dana's just projecting, and you need to get out more often.
I am more than willing, however, to tell you how wrong you are about the Yankees. You see success and expect more success. Follow the law of averages, my friend---it’s why they call it a law. The time is nigh for the Yankees to crash and burn, and you know who’s going to fill their place at the top of the AL east.
No comment about the Reds. Who could have known?
D.
****
No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.
Okay, so I’m being an ass. But I feel neither guilty nor particularly inclined to change that fact. There are bad ideas and colossally bad ideas, and this one, I’m afraid, is a giant ball of fire hurtling toward earth.
Whatever. Send me the flight info.