You can travel the world, but nothing comes close to the petroleum coast.

[wolfpangs]

• I was literally feverish last weekend, rushing through my True Blood recap for The Boob so I could get a bit of sleep on Monday before leaving for Atlanta and Conan. The fever meant that everything about the experience--the oppressive heat, Reggie Watts's act, the beach balls, the giant inflated bat, Evander Holyfield, Jack McBrayer--was very surreal. The fact that the Fox Theatre's auditorium is built to look like an Arabian courtyard under a night sky with actual twinkling stars and moving clouds did not help. There was an additional odd element in Conan's singing--well, anything for that matter but especially "Poke Salad Annie," since there were probably a few people in the audience that have actually eaten poke salad. I'd be surprised if Conan has. But we had fun and I think Coco and crew did, too.
• I finished reading Drood finally. Drood, by Dan Simmons, is a 800-page spooky story and I'm not sure I understand the ending totally. I'm not sure if I don't get it or if I'm willfully not getting it because doing so would involve accepting that the end is a few streets over from "it was all a dream." I'm just going to pretend that it's about purgatory. But I do have one question, which was not answered to my satisfaction: Wilkie, what was in the servants' staircase?!



• I saw some movies:


Mother's Little Helpers--How to make me watch anything:



The description of the movie sounded like some sort of Loverboy sex comedy from the 80s, but the tone was different from what I was expecting and there were some great performances in this. Gallner was perfect as always, but also good was Sarah Hyland, among others.

Splice--There is a certain part that has upset some people, I know, but I found an earlier part, when Elsa tries to cure Dren's "species confusion," much more upsetting. I thought the characterization was paper-thin. One of Conan's writers said that you can always tell when a comedian bombed a joke because they bust out a "shit's crazy, though." That's what the idea that Splice provokes discussion about genetic engineering or abortion or family is like to me, in that it provokes discussion only so far as "Genetic engineering...shit's crazy, though." It may refer or allude to these things but when we get there, it doesn't seem to have very much to say. When we have a discussion, the audience shouldn't have to provide all the conversation. TL;DR: I wasn't very impressed by this.


• Personal life stuff...is personal. I have some stuff going on. Legal stuff. Idk, I can't really talk about it, for legal reasons. But anyway, in the actual personal part, as in my feelings, let me just say that I've seen and read and heard from some of you about your feelings--feelings of despair, feelings of sadness, etc--and in the manner of the famous bit from The History Boys, consider this part as my hand taking yours.