Abraham Lincoln says...

"Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control mans' appetite through legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not even crimes... A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our Government was founded."

Just for the record...

I thought The Hangover was stupid. I'm not opposed to stupid humor in general, but this movie was too dumb for me to enjoy it very much.

The script was written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the same writers responsible for Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, so I obviously went into the movie with certain expectations. I figured that it would be juvenile and gimmicky, and that any female characters would be depicted as simplistically and cartoonishly as possible.

I did my best to enjoy the movie, anyway, but I just didn't didn't find it particularly funny. I think that Lucas and Moore are good at coming up with a high concept premise, but they always go for the cheesiest and most obvious jokes, and they suck at creating characters. I prefer comedies in which even the antagonists are interesting and likable. Lucas and Moore write comedies in which even the protagonists are uninteresting and unlikable.

I was relieved that there were barely any women in the cast. The fewer opportunities these writers have to portray women, the better. Unless they want to hire me as a consultant, they should just stop trying to write women characters at all.

Also, I don't understand why they think it's so funny to use the words "gay" and "fag" as immature insults. I mean, in The Hangover, whatever, I guess you expect that kind of thing, but they did it in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, too, which is a PG-13 romantic comedy! What's the point of using those words and alienating a significant portion of the audience, for no comedic payoff? I really resent the smug, privileged attitude that pervades the work of certain straight, white, male writers.

The couple of times that I did laugh, it was in response to Zach Galifianakis's delivery. I did enjoy "Tigers love pepper!" (Although I liked Zach Galifianakis better at Comedy Death Ray, when he was making fun of my job and looking for magic mushrooms.)

Ed thought it was stupid, too.

It's exactly what I hoped and expected it to be.

Having watched all five seasons of The Hills and a few scattered episodes of Laguna Beach, I have developed a certain impression of Lauren Conrad.

She is nice, but not exceptionally nice. She is pretty, but not exceptionally pretty. She is fashionable, but not exceptionally fashionable. She seems reasonably bright, but has never indicated any interest in academic or intellectual pursuits. Lauren Conrad is, above all else, average. She is exceptionally average. And that's what makes her so eminently watchable.

We, the audience, relate to Lauren, not because we share traits in common, but because she is so abnormally normal. We can generally expect her to behave and react in a way that we would consider normal. We can project our own personalities on her. All she has to do is silently widen her eyes, and we fill in the missing dialogue ourselves. We know what she's thinking, because we know what we're thinking.

I have never watched Jon & Kate Plus 8. But if Jon and Kate had, literally, 2.5 children, I would probably tune in. Because to be so literally average is both rare and interesting.

I want to believe that Lauren wrote L.A. Candy herself. Of course, I assume that an editor or editors helped her plan and outline the story. And that there were editors providing assistance and support along the way. And that those editors polished the final draft with a heavy hand. But I think that L.A. Candy is informed by Lauren's thoughts and emotions and expressed in what is essentially her voice.

Lauren has never appeared to have a literary bent. It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to expect her to know how to structure a novel, or to have a developed literary voice. If L.A. Candy were competently written, I would be forced to conclude that a ghostwriter was responsible. Fortunately for me, it is not competently written.

The narrator shifts from one chapter to another. Stylistically, there is no differentiation between the five different narrative voices. Whenever possible, nouns are modified by clichéd adjective pairings. On the first page alone: "white silk nightie," "loose blond curls" "chocolate brown eyes" "white silk sheets" "strange, sweaty guy." The verbs are distractingly precious and are often modified by the most obvious possible adverb. Again, on the first page alone, the protagonist "[smiles] mischievously," and her hair "[cascades] softly." She slinks into bed, slides onto the sheets, and nestles next to her dream guy. Naturally, said dream guy gazes into her eyes. More than anything, Lauren's writing voice reminds me of my own early creative writing attempts. I imagine I'm not the only one who recognizes this earnest, overly descriptive style. And once again, by reminding us of ourselves, Lauren endears herself through mediocrity.

The story and characters do not explicitly mirror the stories and characters we already know from Laguna Beach and The Hills. If they did, the book would be very dull, since we are already excruciatingly familiar with those stories and characters. And nobody who pays attention should have expected Lauren to fling dirt and catty judgments at thinly veiled versions of people she knows personally. Overt bitchiness would be utterly out of character, and it would undermine Lauren's overall appeal. But I think any attentive reader should be able to glean a great deal about Lauren's feelings and opinions.

The expected, behind the scenes perspective on camera men and body microphones and MTV producers would be fairly entertaining on its own. Of course, we are all so savvy and we know that there are camera men and body microphones and MTV producers, and it isn't hard to guess what those things are like. But since most of us have not personally experienced that life, it is still interesting to hear it described by someone who has. There is more to L.A. Candy than just that, though.

Although the characters are not explicitly familiar, their characteristics are. We learn exactly how Lauren feels about girls who come to Los Angeles in search of fame, who gradually devolve into bleached, bronzed, surgically enhanced clones. We learn how she feels about tabloids, and clubs, and celebrities, and orchestrated relationships with fellow cast members, and backstabbing friends. We learn how she feels about being exploited, about how being on television simultaneously expanded and limited her life, about how she resents being misleadingly edited. We learn that despite her resentments, she enjoys the experience, or at least she did in the beginning.

For me, the most fascinating aspect of L.A. Candy is the characterization of the protagonist's best friend and roommate. You might expect this character to resemble Lo, or Heidi, or perhaps Audrina. But while she shares a few minor qualities with Lo and a few with Audrina, this character seems to be, for the most part, a figment of Lauren's imagination. The protagonist, whose name is Jane Roberts, has known her friend Scarlett since kindergarten. Scarlett is depicted as a strikingly gorgeous, sexually liberated intellectual. Scarlett only wears jeans and t-shirts. She refuses to brush her hair, which is very long and very dark, and she doesn't wear makeup. She's "a rebel with off-the-charts SAT scores who never [hesitates] to say whatever [is] on her mind." Jane is docile and cheerful and naïve, but Scarlett is bitchy and insightful. Scarlett seems to represent everything that Jane is not and, by extension, everything that Lauren Conrad is not. There is a pronounced wistfulness in the depiction of the contrast between this pair of BFFs. While Lauren is not academically or intellectually inclined, she expresses a great deal of admiration and respect for those who are, and she seems envious of women whose dispositions allow them to be sexually confident and free. She also seems acutely aware of her own banality, which comes across even in her choice of character names.

L.A. Candy is just barely adequate as a novel. But as a cultural text, it's fantastic. And it's pretty entertaining. Perfect for reading on the beach.

Lauren Conrad isn't a good actress, nor does she try to be, and yet she's extremely watchable. She isn't a good writer, nor does she try to be, and yet she's extremely readable. That alone intrigues and impresses me.

Jerry Garcia says...

"To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. . . .

When you break down the old orders and the old forms and leave them broken and shattered, you suddenly find yourself a new space with new form and new order which are more like the way it is. More like the flow."

Getting old.

Today is my 24th birthday. I have yet to experience any aging-related angst, since I am continuing to get decidedly hotter and just generally more awesome with the passage of time. At this rate, I may begin to resemble an adult by the time I'm 30.

Is it possible to spontaneously die of despair?

Sarah Haskins sold a screenplay with essentially the same logline as my spec script. I pretty much want to die.

She might be Internet famous, but now Haskins is hoping to branch out. She recently sold a screenplay with her writing partner, a friend from college. It’s called Book Smart, and chronicles the two overachieving girls who realize in the middle of their senior year of high school that they don’t have boyfriends and haven’t had enough fun. They decide to put their minds to getting boyfriends by prom and “hilarity ensues,” says Haskins, adding that it just might be inspired by real life. “I'm not going to spoil the ending but you can see it in 2017.” [The Daily Beast]

My screenplay, Those Girls, chronicles one day in the life of two overachieving girls on the verge of graduation, who realize that their high school memories consist entirely of homework, extracurriculars, and college applications. On this particular Friday, they're determined to create some new memories involving drugs, alcohol and boys, so they buy a bag of weed and crash the popular kids' party. Of course, hilarity ensues, and of course, it is inspired by real life.

So...anybody want to buy a screenplay? Superbad meets Gilmore Girls? Please? It's good, I promise...

FML.

Advice for little sisters.

Society bombards teenage girls and young women with implicit messages about how we should live our lives. I don't mean to contribute to that bombardment, but to offer the following words of wisdom as an antidote to some of the unhealthiest messages that we receive on a daily basis.

• If a guy insults you, demeans you, or attempts to capitalize on your insecurities or vulnerabilities in order to make you feel bad about yourself, he is not worth your time. Do not flirt with him. Do not hook up with him. And definitely do not date him!
• Any guy who revels in behaving like an asshole is just trying to distract you from the fact that he does not have an interesting personality. People who are clever and interesting do not need to be obnoxious or rude in order to get attention.
• Guys will not always treat you the way you deserve to be treated. But they will often treat you the way you expect to be treated.
• You are not a princess. You should not expect to be treated like a princess. You should demand respect and consideration, and in turn, you should treat others with respect and consideration.
• Your value as a person is not determined by male attention, or lack thereof.
  
• Being in a relationship will not automatically make you happier.
• Being skinnier will not automatically make you happier. Being healthier might.
• Your appearance will always impact how you are perceived. But it does not and should not define who you are.
• Other girls are not the enemy unless you make them the enemy.
• You are in charge of your own happiness, so live for yourself, not in deference to other people's demands and expectations.
  

Some of these are obvious and self-evident. In fact, I hope they are all painfully obvious and self-evident. But unfortunately, when I look at advertising and fashion magazines and celebrities and movies and television, this seems not to be the case.