20 Books This Year Project/#2: Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens

Certainly well-written, but, wow, what a dense book. A lot of references to people within his circle, whom I don't know, which makes me feel just a bit less smarter for not knowing. Oh, don't get me wrong, I know who Susan Sontag and Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie are, but when he gets into Middle Eastern scholars and Polish political fighters...he's had an interesting life, but occasionally I got overwhelmed by all of his "good friends"... Grade: B-

20 Books This Year Project/#1: Just Kids, Patti Smith

So, for my own memory, I'm going to list the 20 books I read this year, and then right a tiny paragraph about them. The first book I finished this year was Just Kids, Patti Smith's memoir of her life with controversial artist Robert Mapplethorpe.

True love stories don't always have to be romantic love, and while there was a romantic relationship, at times, between Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, their relationship was about their passion for the creation of beauty. In the end, it's about two people who found their muses in a truly alive period and place for art, music and writing. It makes for an incredibly beautiful, incredibly sad, and completely memorable portrait. Grade: A

Non-Resolute

After writing my list of New Year's resolutions in my last blog, here's a list of the ones that didn't make the cut:

1. Try to dress more like David Bowie, circa 1972. I think Ziggy Stardust would be the right persona for dating in LA in 2011.
2. Write a book called "Cooking With Grain Alcohol". Well, my buddy Hoff will be disappointed about that one not making my list.
3. Do more charity work in regard to the underfunded catastrophe of those really bad boob jobs that leave the Panama Canal in the middle of women's chests.
4. Read Snooki's new book, see how it compares to the work of the young Jane Austen. Or Lauren Conrad, at least.
5. Buy a pony. For the meat.
6. Work more product placement into my conversations. January was going to be devoted to Garnier Fructis (said in a lusty, passionate manner).
7. Get more involved with the community by getting into more back-alley dice games.
8. Slightly related to number five, refer to peeing as "Taking my baloney pony out for a spritzing."
9. Start an impromptu, all-homeless dance sequence of opening number from "Newsies".
10. Make my own DVD commentary for every episode of "Caroline in the City", see if they'll use it. "Nothing funny here...nope, not yet...wait...no..."
11. Get a tattoo of ESPN baseball writer Buster Olney on my right shoulder blade.
12. Try to combat negative persona of Tourette's patients by giving them scarves and fedoras. Then people would just think they were food critics.

Resolute

Yes, practically everyone does their New Year's Resolutions. I'm no different. So, let's give them a try:

1. Write on this blog more often. Okay. This is a good start. Think I only wrote on the blog eight times last year, so this is beatable.
2. Get myself down to 180 pounds. It's going to be tough, since I had a bacon cheeseburger at lunch today and I haven't hooked up the Wii Fit in months. It can be done.
3. Finish my brother's idea for a story - either as a script or fiction. Right now it's fiction. Was a script a month ago. Could go back to a script. An agent is currently reading one of my other ideas. I'll be willing to call this one a win if I get an agent.
4. If that doesn't work, get a job. Play time is not quite over, but it'll be soon. Can't live the life of the free and easy for too long.
5. Continue the reading of 20 books in a year. I think I finished 20 last year, but lost count. Maybe this time I'll do a mini-review on here just to keep count.
6. More culture. Get to at least three museums I haven't been to (or haven't in a while).
7. Do something on a stage. Already made the first attempt at this. Stay tuned.
8. Two trips this year. Whether one is international depends on number four. Might involve hitting a couple ballparks I haven't seen, yet. San Francisco and Denver?
9. Get at least 100 followers on Twitter. It's kind of sad, actually. I think I'm spinning gold on there, and, yet, it's going unnoticed. Oh, well. Getting more than four followers on here would be nice, too. Just follow it! It won't send you e-mails or anything. :)
10. Improve on seeing the Top 100 Films on the AFI list (the 2007 list, not the 1998). Right now, I'm at 61. Want to be at 70 by the end of the year.
11. Meet the right girl. One of these days, I'm going to get that one right.

I think that's enough for now. Full list, have a lot of work to do. Fingers crossed.