I just watched the new Wes Anderson short Hotel Chevalier billed as Part One of the forthcoming The Darjeeling Limited. Natalie Portman gets fully naked and has bruises on her body. The short is good, not great, and I am certainly looking forward to the full release.

Link to the free iTunes download of Hotel Chevalier.

Did Grandma just sing the N-Word?

I saw Patti Smith at the Santa Monica Pier last night. I went with HW and LP and we had wine on the beach and listened for awhile, before being totally renegade and jumping the fence to get closer to Patti. The concert was free it was just too full, hence the fence jumping. You would think Smith’s fans would be peace loving aging baby boomers, but a lot of people there were dicks. I accidentally stepped on a womans toe and she wouldn’t accept my apology; she was super pissed (if you happen to end up here via Google, lady, I would like to retract my apology and offer a “Fuck You” in its place). LP had her arm grabbed by a woman who asked her to “please stop talking” after she whispered three words to me. And then a self-deprecating short dude got extra self-deprecating when HW got in front of him. But the music was amazing. I’m not a Red Hot Chili Peppers fan, but Flea was playing bass for Smith which I thought was sweet of him.

While drinking wine on the beach, we discussed the usual things; mostly that Miranda July is more productive than all of us, Miranda July’s connection in the Jeremy Blake / Theresa Duncan deaths, and how I didn’t really like Me and You and Everyone We Know but I do appreciate it. So, yeah, mostly we just talked about Miranda July, who is coincidentally one day older than me.

After the beach we took a cab to a bar in Santa Monica. I don’t know what is happening to me lately. Twice in the past two weeks, I have had a glass of Scotch and the next thing I know I am completely shitcanned. I don’t remember anything from the bar aside from signing up to karaoke Maps and not having my name called… then I woke up on LP’s sofa this morning without a shirt and no sign of the shirt I wore the night before.

Cheers.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcFBOsfoWxU[/youtube]

Looks like it releases in September.

About once a year I see a good French New Wave film and go through a little phasething. Today I saw Tati’s Playtime so I think I am gonna restart the phasething again. Maybe I should just watch the entire collection of FNW films and just be done with it. And damn you Netflix for not having Jacque Rivette’s Céline and Julie Go Boating / Céline and Julie Lose Their Minds (which I actually don’t even know if exists on DVD in America, and I am too tired to do a simple web search).