Indiana Jones and the Palais de Cannes

So y'all may or may not know that the highly anticipated 4th Indiana Jones film premiered here in Cannes on Sunday. Harrison Ford, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg were all in the the grand Lumiere Theater. 

I was not.  

Lost in the mail? Hardly. Tickets were hot and the Palais where the theaters are were packed with people--some in tuxes with signs akin to those you'd see at Sheffield and Addison "NEED 1 TICKET", others in really cheap plastic "Indy hats", and all hoping get just a glimpse of the dynamic filmmaking duo that brought us some of the best moments in movie history.

Rumor is that if you touch Spielberg's finger you can fly. 

Anyway I tried like crazy to get in, even going as far as seeing where certain maintenance doors led to, but alas, it was not meant to be. However, I was able to catch a screening of it the following day. All I needed to do was wait in line for 2 hours, which ain't a bad deal when you have the French Riviera to look at. 

I won't say anything about the movie.......now. I may get bored in my layover in Paris next Monday and put my opinions to the keyboard. If you really care, see Indy this weekend, otherwise I have no sympathy.

Other than that been keeping busy, but the festival's winding down, which is a shame for a number or reasons, but mostly because now all the little things that bug me about Europe are starting to tick me off again. Like pigeons.

When I was in Rome in '05 I got shit on by pigeons on three separate occasions: twice in Rome and once in Venice. I hate those disgusting winged-rats and it seems that people over here have no problem allowing them eat away at this decaying continent. 

Anyway, i mention this b/c my war with the pigeons seems to have a fourth installment of its own as I got shit on a few days ago. Just the shirt-no skin contact. But what the $#*%?

Luckily this awesome French dry-cleaning woman worked on the shirt for like 5 days and finally got the stain out. Cubs Win!

After seeing Indy, my next big goal is to go to this place called the VIP room. It's some bar/club that is supposedly the location of a party to be thrown by P. Diddy. That and the whole "networking" thing. But I think that P. Diddy would make an excellent contact. 

"Yo diddy, just take my card and lets write you a f%$#*ing Oscar role"

Or i'll just go and pay 11 euros for a drink. Whatever, Chicago is just 5 days away.

allons-zi

"I wanna eat his children! - Praise be Allah!"

So I had my first celebrity sighting / world premiere experience yesterday thanks to the debonair, stylish, calm, and always cool Mike Tyson. [responsible for the quote above]

A documentary about everyone's favorite ear-biter premiered last night and I was one of the many in attendance, and Tyson not only showed his tattooed face on the red carpet but even got up and said a few words before the movie showed. A bit of a mismatch, right? But it was a excellent collision of the brute and the beautiful, the rough and the refined, the crude and the classy....(I could go on like this). 

It wasn't exactly Indiana Jones (premiering tomorrow, and tickets are harder to find than that the lost ark - "Top. Men.") but it was a pretty cool time just being there for a world premiere and having people say a few words. 

Other than that its been harder than i thought to get wi-fi (which the French pronounce "wee-fee") so penning these posts has been tricky, but like those annoying "_______Movie" spoof films spawned by Scary Movie, they will continue to be produced with little regard for the depths of good taste.

more to come....

Cannes: Day 2 (or is it Day 4?)

So there's been a lot going on, been kinda busy.  I have a bunch or cool pics to share but my hotel's lame connection is killing me.

I've started working my internship and so far it's been a lot of grunt work but the people are great and now that th festival is in full swing I think things will really get going.

This night was the premier of "Kung Fu Panda" and I swung by the red carpet after the internship to get a look. Jack Black was doin' his thing out there, horsing around with a guy in a panda suit much to the delight of the crowd. Dustin Hoffman was there too but the biggest cheer went up for the one, the only, the Brangelina. 

Angelina looked good (from what I could see on the jumbo-tron). In fact, since she's pregnant she's got a nice pair of jumbo-trons, if the fellas out there get my drift....

Things are just crazy here. There's tons of beautiful people in a beautiful setting and many speak a beautiful language. So far my French skills have allowed me to get little more than a polite smile from cashiers as they nod there head and wonder who's this guy and what does he keep saying about "le Cubs"?

Anyway, I'm tired and a bit drunk. Hopefully i'll be able to post some pics soon. 

aurevoir 

Now You're Really Gonna Hate Me...

So I'm getting to the terminal at JFK and it's boarding time and I get to the gate and hand over my ticket. The woman at the gate asks "Mr. Kosin?" and I say yes..She says "your flight has been oversold...."

Oh crap. I've been bumped off the plane.....right?

"...so we've upgraded you to first class. Is that OK?"

I quickly nodded my head "yes", and I got the hell outta there and to my seat as quickly as possible before the gods of fate ripped this away from me like a Cubs 3-0 lead in the ninth. So I flew first class. For no extra charge. To Cannes. 

I won't bore you with the luxurious amenities of sitting in seat 1F but know that in my sunday they did put the fudge on the bottom, allowing me to control my fudge distribution.

In fact, the coolest part of sitting in the not-so-cheap-seats was striking up a conversation with the baseball-hat-wearing gentleman next to me. After a bit of chatting it turns out that this particular guy is a Benet Alum, class of '99. He currently has a very nice position at a pretty good name film company and headed to Cannes. So in addition to waxing nostalgic about Mr. Schroeder and talkin' fantasy baseball, our dialogue drifted into film territory from time to time.

All I can say is that it is a good sign when you make your first contact before the wheels hit the tarmac. 

Upon my arrival in the Nice airport (which was, coincidentally, a nice airport) I was happy to find I do get some phone service out here. Rates for talking are pretty lofty though, but texting rates stay the same. So no doubt I will be txting lk a mthrfckr.

Anyway, things are awesome. Got to chill a bit yesterday and meet my fellow Cannes-enites. Today we got a tour of the area and got accreditation for the festival. It's just an awesome place and final preparations are being made for when the festival opens tomorrow. For now I'm kicking back a bit after a ton of walking and getting ready for tomorrow.

I've heard the first days of the Cannes festival described as 'being in a madhouse', 'getting hit with a tsunami', or 'crazier than the World Cup and Superbowl combined.'

Yeah, I don't know about that. I think in addition to the Palm d'Or maybe a few awards for "Most Hyperbole" should be given out this week on those comments, but then again I have yet to experience it, so we'll see. Tomorrow.

Ba-ba--ba-da-da

Start spreading the news....

I'm leaving today...

I want to be a part of it....

New Jersey, New Jersey!

Wait, that's not right. Oh, but it is, as I was greeted to the Big Apple by host extraordinaire Bill Hupp (who currently resides in Hoboken, New Jersey--hometown of Frank Sinatra).

Yes it was an exciting 48 hours in the NYC and Hupp made it possible by providing a place for me to lay my weary head Friday night. Jersey, incidentally, is not so bad. It's got the hustle of the big city but has a great neighborhood feel. 

The first night I was dead tired but I've been told this is the city that never sleeps, so why should I? So Friday Hupp and I met Mr. Manhattan himself for a few drinks (and a game or two of beer-pong, which some people call "Beruit") at a bday party for a friend. 

Saturday was a busy day also, as we rushed to get Hupp to Penn Station on time to make his flight back to Chicago (the lucky bastard), I followed that up with "the best pizza in New York" (according to the Daily News) at Bleeker Street Pizza, scotch and cigars at an awesome cigar bar that has locations in New York and Prague, some delicious home-cooked lasagna, and a visit to the Comedy Cellar where we saw the likes of Jim Norton, Mitch Fatel, and other comedians of some note. It was some funny stuff, but it really wet my appetite to see the new Second City shows.

To confess I didn't really go all out either night. I know: lame. But I am so beat from the final week of classes i don' want to be stupid and get sick before Cannes-ing it up.

Anyway, aside from a solid sandwich at a diner in Queens this morning there's not much else to my New York sojourn. I'm at JFK now, waiting to board. 

Sometime I need to spend like a week in this town and really get to know it. I like New York, a lot. Coming here really reminds me what a city snob I am and how I sympathize for people who live out in place like Nebraska or Wyoming. which reminds me....

TOM REILLY! IF YOU STILL HAVE INTERNET IN BUFFALO AND CAN READ THIS GET OUT! GET TO CHICAGO AS SOON AS YOU CAN! LEAVE THE WYO! COME TO CHI!

Sorry about that...it had to be done.

Well, that's a full lid for today. The next blog should be comin' at ya live from the French Riviera, so please, dress nice.

Say Goodbye to Hollywood

So I'm sitting in the terminal at LAX right now, enjoying an awesome mocha-bailey's-irish-cream-ice-cream shake + a cheese danish about to leave the City of Angels for almost a whole month. 

I'll give a little more love once I'm in the NYC, but I just wanna say that this has been some of the busiest, coolest, most frustrating, most rewarding, and sunniest few months of my life and though I am super pumped for Cannes I really can't wait to get back to Chicago and just hang out. 

By the way, I think this shake is gonna make me sick....oh well, it was worth it.

Now boarding Delta Flight 166 LA to New York...... 

Welcome to MacLand

Usually, MacLand references the state of being one's mind would reach after attending a Bulls game in which they scored more than 100 pts and getting free Big Macs. I've always said that there's no better feeling in the world than rolling thru a McDonald's drive thru, ordering 4 delicious Big Mac sandwiches, and then "paying" with 4 prize stubs from the United Center.

But the Bulls are sadly sitting on the sidelines this playoff season and "MacLand" describes the white-plastic, no-right-click world I have entered today as the hip and proud owner of a brand new MacBook.

Yes, with this big trip on the horizon and a growing realization that I'll be spending more and more time away from my humble Dell G5 it seemed like the perfect time to take advantage of the student discount offered a the Trojan bookstore and join the ranks of students who claim to be taking notes in class but are really watching this on You Tube.

The added bonus of me typing away on this clean, white keyboard (and there had better be a bonus, b/c I am struggling right now to use this stupid apple command key) is that I will be offering DAILY BLOGGING from NY and Cannes!!!

Daily blogging is not to be confused with Daley blogging, which would be this.

But everyday that I am overseas I will try like crazy to float some info about what's going down across the Atlantic. Even if its just what I had for breakfast. (BTW: I can't wait to get me a fucking crepe. I swear its the best thing these cheese-eating surrender monkeys have ever done good on).

This Mac computer, which I am typing on right now, is pretty sweet, I'm not going to lie. I feel like I'm part of a cool new club and should get black-plastic rimmed glasses, drink lots of soy-related drinks, and start hanging out with that girl who starred with Bruce Willis in the last Die Hard movie.

That's all from MacLand for now. Apple out.

Enthusiasms

When a man become preeminent he is expected to have enthusiasms.

What are mine? What draws my admiration? What is that which gives me joy?

Baseball!


Yes, I thought I'd throw a little Capone everyone's way today because I'd like to say just a few words about America's Pastime.

I love baseball. It seems every year I fall more and more in love with this game. And even though every year I end up getting deeply hurt by Chicago's National League Ball Club I'm usually able to spend some time with my good friend Jack Daniel's and be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and naively optimistic by the time spring training rolls around.

I guess this lovefest was spurned because of a great chat I had yesterday. I went to Santa Monica to do some stuff and I wanted to go to this big sports bar and have a beer, some lunch, and catch the Cubs-Cardinals game.

I soon found out the game was blacked out by FOX in the SoCal area, and I was subjected to Orioles-Angles instead. In the process of getting my beer I struck up a conversation with a fella next to me at the bar. He was a Red Sox fan (though 20 years in LA he roots for the Angels too) and we were soon knee-deep in baseball talk. Cubs, Red Sox, Angels, the hated Yankees, fantasy players, classic stadiums, Bill Buckner, Steve Bartman....you name it we touched on it.

It also turns out the guy is a writer for Variety, My favorite part of the conversation was when I was talking about the HBO documentary "Brooklyn Dodgers: The Ghosts of Flatbush" and he was like "Oh yeah, I wrote a review for that".

Cool town, L.A. can be.

Incidentally, the Dodgers doc is really good and is an especially good watch b/c the Dodgers prior to 1955 were a lot like the Cubs-who, by the way, just died in St Louis tonight. Plus I had to listen to that idiot Joe Morgan for 3 hours.

Anyway, I think it's just great when two absolute strangers--in a bar, on the train, in the stands--can talk for a couple of minutes or a couple of hours about this great game. It's been the link (through the Cubs and fantasy) that keeps me tied to my friends across the country. And coming home and going to Wrigley and maybe....maybe...even getting a game of tennis-baseball in on the (completely refurbished) cul-de-sac, that's what it's really all about.

Just thinking about it, we'll have to spray paint some new bases on. Man, the village of Glen Ellyn's gonna hate that. But what can you do? The game must be played.

5 days til New York.
7 days til Cannes.
21 days til Chicago.