--A LITTLE MORE COW BELL, PLEASE

…Today someone asked how old I was and I told them but I added a year to my age and after the amended age was already out in the spoken air it was too late to retrieve it, so for one day I was more mature than I wanted to be, than I ever want to be.

I don’t want to be a year older.  I know I should say rosy things like “Age is just a number” or “Life gets better the older one gets” but, truth be told (and I always tell the truth here), it’s a lot more fun being young when life is and open road.      

I say this having just read Anna Quindlen’s memoir, “Lots of Candles.  Plenty of Cake” where she says younger is not better.  She reports that a Gallup poll of 340,000 people showed unequivocally that we get more content as we age.”

I guess I disagree.

I guess I think there’s a difference between being content and being uninhibitedly spirited.

I’m not saying I’m not happy, because I am.  But I’d start all over at age sixteen again if someone would give me the chance.

I’d do it in a heartbeat.  

...In a few days Angelina Jolie will turn 37.  It seems as if she’s fifty or something.

...Robin Gibb, of the The Bee Gees (they took their name from The Brothers Gibb) died a few weeks ago from a long bout with cancer at the age of 62. I love the Bee Gees and don’t mind if you don’t.      

  …Breaking Bad,” the greatest television show ever, begins its fifth season in July.  You really should watch this.  Get Season 1 on Netflix or get the dvd’s.  You’ll be very happy.

It’s about a Chemistry teacher who has lung cancer and sells meth with a former student.  I know that sounds wacky, but the acting, direction, writing and cinematography are astounding.        

…It’s the 25^th anniversary of Paul Simon’s groundbreaking album “Graceland.”  That’s another thing you should get.  (I’m not steering you wrong here.)            

…The comic book movie “Avengers” has broken all kinds of records.  Its domestic gross topped $523 million in less than four weeks.

“Battleship,” a film based on a board game is hot, too.

“Men in Black 3” about aliens sold $70 million in one week.

Where I live these are the kinds of movies the cinaplexes play, nothing art house.  For that it’s a long drive into the city.

That’s pretty much why I don’t go to the movies anymore.

I’m not a snob, but I have to have a film shake me emotionally and not with special effects.

…This quote says what I can never come up with when people ask me why I don’t write happy things:

"I've been asked why such a happy person like me writes such unsettling dark novels and I think the answer if because it helps me be happy in my real life to explore all the darkness.  I do ruin lives in my novels, but I try not to end them.  I try to give people some sense of hope, though I never have people walking off into the sunset with everything solved." -Caroline Leavitt