Hot tickets and trigeminally yours

Hello everyone. I'm still alive. I was directing an ad and then a new music video, which will be out in a few days. But the shoot for the video happened over the holidays so I spent the period around Christmas traveling between three cities and shooting which didn't leave me with much time for anything or any of the woolgathering that leads me to blog.

If you live in New York though, you still have time to buy tickets to a second Joanna Newsom show in which she'll be performing with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

In the meantime I have to go on a little sabbatical as I have an illness to contend with; nothing threatening or permanent. I have to give myself a shot every day which is pretty horrible for someone who is afraid of needles. I've been through it before and it will pass. But it is very difficult at the moment to focus on much, even books or computer screens, so I'm bad Internet company. You don't need me anyway, you've got Tom Cruise and Primaries and Bird Flu in India and coming recession fears; all things that don't need my commentary or blog pleasing snark to go along with.

On that note of things that are in the news, I do want to say earnestly that Heath Ledger's death was immeasurably sad. I can only recall the deaths of Kurt Cobain or River Phoenix as having the same sort of heavy sadness. It's weird, the moment it became news it was something that everyone needed to remark to their friends about. But it obviously wasn't a national tragedy. I think it's just sad to realize that there was so much more promise and work to come from the guy. It's also sad to note the rapidity with which it all moves now. There was live streaming web of the removal of his body, for the sake of fuck. One thing I do want to say from the haze of non narcotic medication... And as it's looking like his death was merely accidental.. My trip to the pharmacist today was nightmarish. Getting accurate information about my medications was nightmarish - I had to correct the pharmacist on a dosage issue. The last time I was in hospital it was nightmarish. The one and only time I took Ambien it was nightmarish. Being ill can put you in a frame of mind that may not be capable of seeing the throwaway ease with which medications are thrown at people. No one knows what happened to the guy yet but if it was an accidental death - as it's looking like now - then it's an even greater tragedy. Take care.