Month: June 2010

I had a company name. I checked the trademark database and California Secretary of State to make sure the name was unique. Then I queried GoDaddy to see if it was available. I added to my cart, but didn’t buy it. That was a big mistake.

Over the next week, I designed a logo, wrote up trademark registry information, engaged a lawyer, prepared LLC documents, registered for internet sites the company will be using.

Then I notice someone has registered both domains. These are obscure names. Two different squatters (not GoDaddy) had watched the queries and bought them. Now I have to get a new name, hopefully one that matches the logo, and change all the forms and contacts I was writing.

After years of idly wondering what I was remembering, I stumbled onto a detail from a trip I made once in Japan.

I was backpacking in the early 1990s around Aizuwakamatsu, to visit the castle there. Since my trip was planned by the very helpful people at the Tokyo office of the JTB, they had scheduled all kinds of crazy stops whose purpose I had very little idea.

One of the stops was a country home of some national hero, a famous scientist or other. All the signs were in Japanese and I hadn’t heard of him before, but the guides assured me he was very famous!

Now, years later, this turns out to be the childhood home of scientist Noguchi Hideyo, who discovered the cause of syphilis in 1913, and now has his face on the 1000 yen note.

Mystery solved, almost 20 years later!

I dreamt I saw the lost pornographic episode of Captain and Tennille. Most of the episode was them on stage, singing, like they always did, but naked. It was even worse than the show usually was.

Daryl’s penis was very long and he swung it around during the songs while Tennille showed her ass to the camera while on all fours.

Another weird detail in my dream: Tennille was 5′ 11″, and Daryl was 5′ 6″ or something. While I cannot remember Daryl’s exact height, I remember people mentioning Tennille’s… looking up her bio on IMDB, that turns out to be her actual height. Did I just get lucky? Or did somehow I remember that? I don’t remember remembering Tennille’s exact height!

Later in the dream it may have turned out to be a porn spoof of Captain and Tennille, because Tennille was played by Dana DeArmond, who wikipedia says is 5′ 8″.

On Sunday I was walking to meet some people at Indian burrito place “Kasa,” from the Women’s Building where we just had a Scary Cow pitch meeting. It’s about a half mile walk. It was a sunny Sunday, and tons of people were out drinking and having a good time.

About a block away from Kasa I realized I had left my sunglasses at the meeting! I ran back, passing Sara and Susanne on the way. Once I got to the Women’s Building I found my sunglasses… in my pack I had been carrying the whole time.

I ran back. This time about a block from Kasa I saw Sara and Susanne stopped… There was an SUV embedded in Samovar Tea Lounge.

So I had walked by this accident just before and just after it happened! People were milling around in shock at witnessing the accident. All the windows in Samovar were broken, and the police were closing down the street. Susanne said she and Sara had seen a man dive out of the way of the car, and then after the event had ended, they saw a woman who HADN’T jumped clear.

5 people injured, including the girl we saw under the car has a broken pelvis and fractured ribs.

The thing I keep wondering about is: did people finish their tea?

I was just thinking about this yesterday!

From 13 Stripes and 51 Stars: A mathematician figures out the best way to jam an extra star onto the American flag.

Photographer / Filmmaker Aida Daay is driving me, DP Tom Krymkowski, and actor/filmmaker Bryan Reinero around San Francisco, collecting guerilla footage for my feature film I WORK FOR NEMESIS.

As we’re getting off the Bay Bridge on the Fremont exit, this girl RUNS TOWARDS THE CAR and up the ramp, carrying her purse. I say “girl” but really she must have been in her twenties, fashionably dressed.

As Aida takes care not to run her over, we’re thinking uh oh, is she in trouble? Should we call the police?

As she runs to our car we see she has a manic smile and starry eyes… she is feeling no pain, blasted out of her mind likely on some substance or other.

Ramp Girl then runs past us to the next car exiting the freeway… which she climbs to stand on its roof as it slows to not run her over. We speed away!

TOM: What. The. Fuck.
BRYAN: we’ve probably seen that girl’s last day on Earth.
AIDA: (locks doors)