August 9, 2004
Back to work this morning. Suffering from a little bit of jet lag. The main reason for this is because we flew over and back in Dave Daiss’s Expedition. I mentioned this to the staff this morning and almost everyone had a similiar story. Gus and Mike Melrose told of riding down into Phoenix with him on different occasions and he was going 85—in town! And yelling at cars in front of him to get out of the way. No wonder he’s known as Mr. Unstoppable.

Two stories: we pulled into a bus turnaround in Studio City to get directions and a LA Sheriff’s car pulls up, hits the siren and calls for backup. He immediately tells Dave to “stay in the car.” He comes up and is quite stern. I try to tell him, “Hey, we’re tourists, we’re lost, we’re in town for the Golden Boot Awards, we didn’t see the sign.” The cop says, “You’re breathin’ a felony right there.” He points at Dave’s front pocket where Dave has a folding knife sticking out. Finally, Dave pulls out the trump card. “My son is in law enforcement,” he says proudly. The lawman asks where. Dave names the schools. We got off with a warning. Now, while we’ve got two squad cars pouncing on us, across town two graffiti removers (who worked for "Homeboy Industries") have been shot dead by gangs. Does the term “priorities out of whack” ring a bell? Of course, I never said this to the lawdog.

Out on I-10 Sunday, somewhere beyond Palm Springs, a small compact with two young guys pulls up alongside. Dave looks over at them. They look straight ahead and slowly pass us. Dave looks over at me and says, “You know, I really should slow down and let them pass me. I’m older now.” About five seconds later, he says “But I can’t!” and he guns the Ford and we shoot by the kids in the right lane at 95 and he cuts in front of them, just to show who’s the Boss Man. “Dave,” I say looking at him incredulously. “How old are you?” He looks at me suspiciously, “I’m 63. Why?” I smiled. “Just wondering.”

Two more tidbits from Saturday night. Everyone in the ballroom was a tad shocked when Deadwood got the prize for best show. Last week I had heard from insiders that Open Range was favored to win and they were trying to get Annette Benning to come accept the prize. But somewhere between last week and Saturday night that changed. The audience gave the announcement a tepid response and the Texan sitting next to me said, and I quote, “I can’t stand that show.” I don’t think he was alone. When I went over to the two HBO tables and introduced myself to the hotel owner character and told him how much I like the series he said warily, “Are you sure the cussing isn’t too much?” I imagine they all got their ears full that night.

At another point one of the presenters, or maybe it was the MC, mentioned that Brokedown Mountain was coming out later this year and that it was a “gay Western.” The crowd laughed as if it was a Leno style joke. No, the Larry McMurtry based story is about two cowboys who are gay. Imagine what the audience is going to make of that next year? Whoa Nelly Belly!

Oh, and one more. There was this guy at Friday night’s pool bash who looked a bit like a young Jeff Bridges, and I have to admit I even thought he might have been him until he opened his mouth. But anyway, people were coming up to him and fawning on him and a certain Tombstone photographer took 12 rolls of film and was totally convinced it was him. When I asked her why she was so convinced she said, “When I thanked him for being here he said, ‘God Bless’.” And then she looked at me like, “what other proof do you need?” I, of course, couldn’t stand it, and told her it wasn’t Jeff Bridges and she looked hurt and told me I was wrong. And then I silently kicked myself. Why do I care if people choose to believe some goofy guy is someone he isn’t? What’s my problem?

“Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.”
—Carl Gustav Jung, who also swears it was Jeff Bridges and thinks I’m a borderline psychotic