Language

When I was younger, I thought in shorter sentences; possibly because I was in a hurry. I drove fast cars and frequented fast women long before fast women became mainstream. As the years passed, the sentence structure of my mental processes became increasingly populated with adverbs, adjectives and even prepositional phrases. I continue to use the subjunctive, which is an anachronism; the vestigial toe of the English language. I recognize that my time has come and gone.

Still, it pains me to see that, "Dude!" has replaced, "My dear fellow, how perfectly wonderful to see you!" as the salutation of our time. I began to reflect on how different life is here in Paris where language is ferociously guarded by academics intent on maintaining the dignity and elegance of the most beautiful language in the world. They are justly proud of their native tongue and I practice it with the reverence it is due.

It was after savoring these reflections in a somewhat self-congratulatory mood that I decided to take 'Oscar' out for a quick run around the périphérique. As the valet handed off the six-litre Ferrari to me, a Frenchman with a tete d'aristo admired my car with an approving smile. He looked at me while marveling at the car and said, "Putain !"

Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren gave as elegant an acceptance speech last night as I've ever heard. She first captured my imagination in 'O Lucky Man!' and won me all over again in 'The Long Good Friday'. I almost spoke to her as we passed each other on the street in Cannes during MIPCOM a couple of years ago, but I chose to respect her privacy.

The Chad emailed me to rant about Andy Garcia getting the Lifetime Achievement Award. Later he retracted after realizing it was, in fact, just a Cadillac commercial he'd been watching.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm getting tired of seeing actors slouching over their notes during acceptance speeches as though delivering the obituary of someone they'd never known. It was quite nice to see Helen Mirren speak with conviction and without notes.

And the Oscar goes to...

...me. Today, I am picking up my 'Oscar', which I ordered a little over nine months ago. It's a 'Lifetime Achievement' award which comes in the form of a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano. It's my way of rectifying an oversight on the part of the Academy's nominating committee. I thought long and hard as to what color my Oscar should be--platinum, or gold like the statuette? In the end, I settled on red. All my Ferraris have been red; why change now?

Au bar du Georges V

Johnny Hallyday has moved to Switzerland where he has applied for Belgian citizenship so he can live in Monaco under optimum circumstances.

Felipe Massa is showing faster lap times than Kimi Raikkonen in the Ferrari camp.

Paris and Berlin are trying to get their stories straight on how many Airbus layoffs are in the works.

Wikipedia needs five million dollars.

Conjugal harmony is pure illusion.

I learned all this reading a copy of Le Figaro in Le Bar downstairs. I don't know if it was the news stories or my inability to smoke a Cohiba whilst reading them that caused me a minor aggravation.

La salle fumeur est maintenant non fumeur.

Happiness

I sent this off today:

Dear (famous name deleted):

It has been well established that money does not buy happiness, and this would certainly apply to the three hundred thousand dollars you paid me for the re-write on your property bearing the title "I Only Hit Her Once". For that reason alone, I find that I am not inclined to address the many issues you've enumerated in your long and, if I may say so, incoherent email to me on the subject of your discontent.

The new paradigm calls for you to first love yourself before you can then move on to love others and, for that matter, the re-write I did on your reprehensible project, which I attempted to inject with some civility. I am still in the opening phase of loving myself and, consequently, have no capacity for engaging in any consideration for you at this time.

Best regards from a fellow artist,

Ray D. Shosay

There is an exception to every rule and I now expect to buy a little happiness of my own with the proceeds from the re-write referenced above by taking delivery of something I ordered a little over nine months ago. More on this later.

MSNBC

Man's body found in front of TV year after death
Television was still on, authorities say; body partially mummified

I guess he must have had automatic debit on his cable TV account.

Sex Lives of Mannequins

I got on to my computer this morning to find no less than a dozen emails telling me about a photo exhibition by Charlie Evans Jr. that just opened at the Earl McGrath Gallery in Los Angeles. When he's not producing movies, Charlie takes exceptional photographs. His Burning Man shots look like 70mm frame captures from a movie Fellini would be shooting if he were in his prime today. From what I'm hearing, Charlie has imbued his mannequins with a surreal, life-like presence--something I could have used his help with in regard to a former girlfriend.

Apparently Robert Evans was in evidence, which got me to thinking about what makes a great movie producer. It's probably the ability to serve a really effective cross-complaint.

I also missed out on a cello concert given by Daniel Rothmuller with Bernadene Blaha at the Alfred Newman Recital Hall. Los Angeles is the new Prague.

The Grammys

I think I need to ask for another room. The only thing holding me back from putting forth the request is that it would focus attention on me and I would rather not give management the occasion to raise certain issues having to do with my recent liaison of a disruptive nature--friendship doesn't quite describe it--with Désespérée. Yes, she has disappeared without warning or apparent motive, which is not to say she won't return--equally without warning or apparent motive.

The last couple of days have been spent recovering from the hours leading up to her departure, which caused me to miss the Grammys on television amongst other things. I asked what had drawn her attention to me that evening at Alain Delon's party. She affected not to know who Alain Delon is, to which I responded that it was just my luck that she was capable of forgetting Alain Delon whilst remembering me. She took this badly.

It occurs to me that if I say I lost my magnetic key card, the hotel will give me a replacement that has been re-coded thus rendering the one she took with her unusable. I should probably offer to pay for the window, as well.

Iran

A former US Ambassador to a country vying for the title of Identity Theft Capital of the World confided to me that he thought the US solution to Iran would involve the same technology that was used to resolve the problem with Japan at the end of the Second World War. It's one thing to hear this opinion from a fellow in a bar, tanked-up and pissed-off because his team just lost. It's quite another to hear it from a man who can get Kissinger and Negroponte on the phone.

President Bush assures us that the U.S. has no intention of attacking Iran. This message has been delivered with great conviction, which is the reason I am worried. It's been my observation that the greater the conviction with which a political statement is made, the less likely it is to be true--Bush assertions of WMDs in Iraq weren't exactly flippant asides.

Frankly, I'm more interested in looking into how all of this may have precipitated the onset of the dreaded Restless Leg Syndrome that now plagues our nation. I have a feeling there's a connection.

Johnny Hallyday

The désespérée is now Désespérée. It was her idea after she discovered that's how I think of her. Far from being angered by my less-than-flattering characterization of her, she was quite taken with the description; enough to adopt it as her new prénom.

Il y a des Aimées, des Désirées. Pourquoi pas une Désespérée ?

What pleased her far less than her new name was the fact that I had to take time out from my day to actually work. People don't realize how much work is involved in just being me. Add to this the effort required to put words to paper--forgive the anachronism--and it can be an all-consuming task to make it through the day.

She was very keen to talk politics, which encouraged me until I understood that meant an endless discussion--monologue, actually--on Johnny Hallyday and how she saw his new relationship with la Suisse as being the loss of innocence for la France. Getting an explanation of this view from her would have been like getting General Ripper to explain his Purity of Essence credo. I simply nodded sagely, which she appreciated to such a degree that she immediately led us back to the sleeping area of my (junior) suite.

Another day completely lost

I spoke too soon.

At six this morning, I heard a polite knock at the door. I felt safe ignoring it. Had I been in a deep sleep, I wouldn't have heard it. Then, she opened the door; not all the way as I'd slipped the safety latch on.

Tu dors, cheri ?

I held my silence. To utter even one syllable would give her hope where there was none. I tried not to breath lest she hear me.

Ouvres la porte, mon amour.

I kept quiet. For all she knew, the room could have changed hands since her departure. No, the magnetic card wouldn't have opened the door in that case. I know that, but did she?

Ouvres cette foutue porte !

She knew it. The volume with which she screamed this last request motivated me to leap from the bed and open the door before half the inhabitants of the seventh floor called the police. I pulled her inside and closed the door with both of us inside this time.

Before I could fully explain to her that being importuned in this manner was highly compromising to my good standing with the Direction of the hotel, she had slipped to her knees and, to quote Madonna:

I'm down on my knees,
I wanna take you there,
In the midnight hour I can feel your power,
Just like a prayer you know Ill take you there

And that is exactly what she did; until about a half hour ago.

The New York Times

Today's headlines that caught my attention:

A Presidential Also-Ran, Kerry Adjusts to What Passes for a Normal Life in the Senate

Yes, but a man with this level of brilliance can be expected to get anything he wants. It was a stroke of genius for him to have his wife scold the Edwards' child on stage during a photo op in order to...well, you know.

Familiar Face, but a New Tone to the Message

Yeah, I noticed that Mr. Edwards is holding onto the microphone with both hands this time.

Internet Boom in China Is Built on Virtual Fun

Wait a minute. Are they referring to porn?

Iraqis Fault Pace of U.S. Plan in Attack

It's so easy to blame the US for everything happening in Iraq. What about the rest of the Coalition? Funny, I haven't heard that term in awhile.

Late Interceptions Seal Sloppy Win Against the Bears

Credit the Times with a take-away.

On another subject, there are moments in life that arrive without any reason or explanation. They threaten potentially dire consequences but then the moment passes as though nothing had ever happened, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Complete havoc

It took me this long to get back into my hotel room. Yesterday when I awoke, the désespérée was still sleeping. In a gesture of courtesy, not to mention appreciation for the early morning antics to which I was treated, I decided to let her sleep and have my coffee downstairs in the salon since it was too cold to sit out on the courtyard. When I returned to the room, I found her dancing to Manu Chao and learned that she'd already sent back the room service coffee three times, finally offering the kitchen a note on how coffee should taste. If M. Soutric learns of these shenanigans, I'll be back to paying rack rates so fast it'll make your head swim.

When I tried to point out to her that this was not a venue where the staff was in need of tutorials from her, she started screaming and the only way I could get her to stop was to leave the room. She promptly bolted the door preventing my return as well as any form of lucid discussion concerning the living arrangements.

As a consequence of all the above, I spent the night in the bar--and later the salon, where the staff was gracious enough not to ask if there was a problem--making overseas phone calls to people whose time zone made it practical to receive my calls. It was during one of these calls that I learned that one can no longer order a Ramos Fizz in the Sate of Arizona. This is totalement anecdotique, but it seems that the egg in its natural state is a proscribed substance.

Having regained access to my suite--well, junior suite--I intend to get sufficient rest, if not sleep, so as to be in shape to watch the Super Bowl later on.

John Kerry

As the presidential election of 2008 bears down upon us and the memories of the 2004 campaigns fade, I thought we should give credit where due to John Kerry for having lost the election to George W. Bush. No matter how low GW's poll figures fell, Kerry was able to do him one better. I mean to say, this jockey was pulling so hard on the reins that the horse's head was turned around entirely in the wrong direction. It was no easy task, I can assure you, and Mr. Kerry is deserving of an acknowledgement.

She's still here.

Service d'étage

At about two this morning, there was a knock at my door. I made the mistake of answering it thinking that it must be the hotel staff anticipating my need for additional bottles of the Widow. They are very good about these things. Surprisingly, it was not room service but a désespérée whom I had seen, but not talked to, at Alain Delon's party earlier in the evening.

She slipped past me and into the room before fixing me with a wounded regard and in an urgent tone explained how she wanted to go away with me. I replied in a most diplomatic fashion that I had only just arrived a few days ago and that, for reasons best left to the imagination, I needed to remain in Paris keeping a low profile in the process. Her response was to remove all of her clothing and climb into my bed, whereupon I called room service to find out how quickly they could replenish my supply of Veuve Clicquot.

Berlusconi 's 'Brad Pitt' moment

Berlusconi is at a turning point in his life. I call it a 'Brad Pitt' moment. Already he has issued his written apologia in the La Repubblica, which I would have countermanded had he thought to call me, which he didn't. People have yet to comprehend that we now live in a Showbiz world governed by the principals, or lack thereof, of Showbiz. Whether it is a 'Sweet 16' party, the purchase of a new car or a burglar ransacking a jewelry store, everything we do now days is caught by the camera and the rules established long ago by the old Hollywood studio moguls for how life on screen should look and sound still apply.

I was reminded of this last night when a fille sympa I'd met as she approached to ask Vincent Cassel for his autograph was setting up her Canon XL2 at the foot of the bed.

"Tu peux pas déplacer la bouteille de Veuve Clicquot vers la droite, si'il te plait?"

"Comme tu veux, ma belle."

She was thinking in terms of product placement for what she ostensibly intended to be a home movie. You've got to admire someone so attuned to the modern realities.

Taking this into account, Berlusconi needed to ask himself, "What would Brad Pitt do?" I think the answer is abundantly clear. Imagine the ramifications if only he had gone off to an African coastal resort with Mara Carfagna whilst denying that any attraction had preceded the event. That's entertainment! It would have catapulted both their careers while, at the same time, opening up new horizons and public sympathy for Veronica. Having parted with the conventions of the Silver Screen, Berlusconi has subjected her to the role of the vindictive wife should her smile be less than ebullient in her upcoming public appearances. He's also deprived the rest of us of the illusion that anything is possible--the mantra of our time.