Today & Tonight

Because I, RJ Battles, didn't sleep until 6 AM this morning, I slept until noon. I played a few songs on my computer while I scanned the news. Among the playlist were both Paul Simon's and Annie Lennox's versions of "Something So Right".

The heat and humidity of the last two days finally broke. The afternoon alternated between sunny and overcast, with dark blue storm clouds and at 3 PM exactly it poured for ten minutes. My friend and I drove to the Berkshires to go swimming indoors at her parents' time-share. Our swimming trip was bookended by two visits to different McDonalds. Mmmm. I think they're making the fries differently- it tastes like they're frying them in melted butter.

We visited a mutual friend in my hometown after, and then another of our friends picked me up to bring me home, but not before we hit up Burger King.

I'm re-reading the early chapters of Kathy Griffin's Official Book Club Selection with the TV on. It's A&E and Intervention with a pretty Dilaudid junkie. Before that it was Paranormal State, a show that bothers me. The star, Ryan Buell, is a real phoney, a 28 year-old trying to pass as a college student at Penn State who's been chased by demons since childhood.

If you've ever seen the show you remember Chip Coffey. He's the 55 year-old scarf-wearing psychic who goes into the haunted houses- or, in tonight's episode- trailer, and reads the intentions of the invading spirit. He's what you might call a drama queen, and he always seemed to me like a washed-up actor- turned theatre director. I looked him up tonight and found that he's been in over 150 stage plays.

Anyway, he'll walk around with Buell, looking dead serious and saying dramatic shit. He's the male Zelda Rubenstein. "Now tell me whatcha FEE- eelll!!"

Whenever I watch this show it always makes me think I'm wasting time and I need to come up with some bullshit idea for my own TV show.

It's nearly 12:30 AM and I really should get to bed soon. At this time of night there's less chance that I'm going to do something productive and more chance that I'm going to curl up on the loveseat and watch more trash.

Note: This post has gotten me to thinking about the old cassingle I had for "Pets" by Porno for Pyros. A great song, but it also had an awesome B-side, a cover of "Tonight", which was, I think, written by the same guy who wrote "Summertime", and I don't mean Will Smith.