Jordan Hoffman Dot Com

It may not be much of a surprise to learn that, as a general rule, I am hardly a fan of any product in its “reduced fat” or “reduced sodium” or in any sort of blanket “lite” version. It is often a decent enough facsimile of the original food, strained through a “suck-in-ator” device.

All except one: Reduced Fat Cheez-Its are a far superior version of their original progenitors.

Cheez-Its, of which I have long been a fan, are, let’s face it, a little gross. That slick, slimy feel that gets on your fingertips — that awful heartburn that inevitably comes after eating too many. This is all gone with the Reduced Fat version. They are dryer, less greasy, but equally flavorful. They are better in every way.

I’m not idiot enough to think that Reduced Fat Cheez-Its are health food, but, hey, opting for this iteration is better than nothing, right? Would that all snacking products could take a page out of the RFCI book.

Lastly, I don’t know who this psychopath is, but I agree with her on her Cheez-It policy. God bless the Internets.

1987 – Eveready Energizer – Jacko

I came across Jonah Levy’s student film on the Internets. It made me miss being a tour guide a little.

Thanksgiving

I believe that when God invented the blog His primary reason was so that independent filmmakers could crow about their moderate success. To that end, I would like to congratulate Mr. Kerry Douglas Dye, Mr. Robert Gomes, Ms. Leslie Kendall, Mr. Raoul Germain and myself for being prized with the Audience Award for Best Feature at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

I still think awards for films are a dumb idea. . .for established filmmakers. For we insurgents still struggling to get our voices heard, they are a blessing.

For those keeping score, this is award #5 at our third fest. The biggie is in 2 weeks, though — Montreal. We’re not in competish (dastardly French!) but we’re hoping we get reviewed. If anyone knows anybody we could bribe to make that happen, please get in touch.

These are a times of miracles and wonders…

You know, life is pretty good as it is. I have a place to sleep, a caring woman and feline waiting for me there, I have ten fingers and ten toes, I wear Klingon T-shirts to work and say things like “stop being a dick” to my boss when he’s being a dick — there isn’t much to complain about. I’m a happy guy! Who knew that just like THAT (I just snapped my fingers) my life was going to get exponentially better?

Today I had to go to the Rite Aid to pick up some crap & I called Ann to see if we needed anything around the house. “We’re running low on toothpaste.” The toothpaste aisle is overwhelming with choices – I usually get so flustered I go for the blandest, basest selection I can find. But today this one called out to me: Crest Whitening Expressions – Lemon Ice. I don’t want to sound like a freak or anything, but I can’t stop brushing my teeth!

“It’s like Lemon Marangue Pie!” Ann shouted, as we both hovered over the sink bowl. “Greatest toothpaste ever!” I countered.

I know my grampa used to clean plaque from his mouth by swishing a handfull of gravel in his mouth, and my purchase of this product makes me tout de wuss, but I can’t hide my feelings. O! You geniuses at Crest and parent company Proctor and Gamble — I love you from my molars to my incisors!!

I’ve made no reference at all to the passing of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. I’ve read a lot of good obits and remembrances out there in the usual places. I did, however, write something the day the news about Ingmar broke for UGO.com.

In a strange way I am very proud of the idiotic piece I wrote. You can look at it here. If I do say so myself, I think it manages to walk a nice line between intelligent respect and moronic lowbrow nonsense.

If you find this sort of thing entertaining, you should be popping over there once in a while. I’m writing at least one column every two days — and peppering much of the other movies content with jokes. If you really search hard, you can find video of me there, too. And that’s the last plug they’ll get out of me for a while.

More Bergman.

I’m as interested in design as the next guy, but check out this article concerning the modest revisions to the Coke can. It isn’t the article so much as the pages and pages of impassioned commenting that is so striking.

I rarely blog from work, but I just discovered that Film Forum will be showing La Chinoise from Oct 10 – Oct 18.  In the depth of my initial Godard-mania (Freshman/Sophomore year of college, natch) the only copy of La Chinoise I could find was in French with no subtitles.  And I watched it!

My French skills, while not at a Griswald level, are hardly adequate to follow a feature length film.  But I sat through the whole thing, ’cause, that’s what you do when you are that guy at that age.  Anyway, I’ll be thrilled to see (and hear, and understand) this for the first time in a theater.

The Man was in full force this weekend.

Trying to swim at the same damned beach I swam at the week before, but I guess because it was July 4 weekend, The Man had to give me a hard time.

The Man, incidentally, is a 15 year old punk-assed punk!

- You can’t swim here!

- Huh?

- You have to swim in front of the lifeguard!

- But I swam here last week?

- You have to go over there.

- But everyone else is over there. I want to be over here.

- You can’t swim here.

- I’m not even swimming, I’m standing.

- You are up to your waist.

- It’s okay. I’ll be okay over here.

- But you can’t swim here.

- I absolve you. If I drown, my relatives won’t sue.

- You have to go by the lifeguard.

- But I can see the lifeguard from here. So she can see me. I’m okay over here.

- It isn’t that far over, just go over there by the lifeguard.

- Right it isn’t that far over.

- Right!

- Right! So go swim by the lifeguard.

So I went by the lifeguard. And then, a little later, I went back to where I was. And then had the same conversation with a different 15 year old punk. This went on for two days. I think it is a New Jersey thing. Should it happen the next time we go down (not for a few weeks, as we’re going to North Carolina) I will bring either a baseball bat or Jason Rozger.

Incidentally, I am a putz.

For the first time in my life, I lost a bag.

I know why it happened, too. I was heavy in thought, my mind occupied by my new job.

I was at lunch, at Two Boots on Bleecker, and I left my backpack hung on the back of the chair. When I remembered this four or five hours later, it was gone.

In it: my perscriptions sunglasses (obnoxiously expensive, not to mention awesome,) my iPod, my asthma inhaler, one or two CDs that I’d just bought, a copy of “The Devil in the White City,” which I was greatly enjoying. (It wasn’t even my copy, I borrowed it from my mom.)

I’m really, really annoyed with myself. Next thing you know I’ll be leaving my cell phone in a cab.

I awoke to find close to 1000 spams on JordanHoffman.com. I have therefore set the terror alert to yellow — comments can still be left, but there are extra measures being made for security. So if you leave a comment, you won’t see it immidiately — I have to “approve” it.

The Spam has gotten noticeably more vulgar. What was once a mere invitation to play Texan Hold ‘Em is now promises for bizarre porn. Start your own blog and see what I mean.

It seems like Jordan isn’t blogging much these days. What’s up with that?

There are a few reasons for this.

Reason number one is that I have a new day job and that is a major life change. I haven’t had a desk job in six years. My commute is about 40 minutes of subway time and I need to get there at 9 (ish). So this is a major life change. Also, there are a lot of new systems I am learning, new programs, and I am deep in the learning curve.

The other big reason is that my apartment is currently a black whole of technology. Dig: on Tuesday, my phone stopped working. It isn’t a Vonage or FIOS or anything – it is a regular phone. Allegedly, phone people have tinkered with it, sent men to climb poles and, as of late Friday anyhow, it still wasn’t working. In addition to this, I cannot access JH.c, its administrative page, or read its email from home. I can do so from work and on-the-road (I am in Long Branch, NJ right now) but from home, no go. (This is why some of the blog is in italics right now. I don’t know how I did this or how to change it, but I don’t care enough to worry about it.) No one knows why. I even had an IM session with the woman who runs the server JH.c is on and she is stumped. Kerry thinks it is a DNS problem, which means “wait it out.” The baffling question is: why, of all the webpages, is it that the only one I cannot access is mine? Until this is fixed, blogging will understandably be sparse.

Lastly, despite taking ever-increasing doses of asthma medicine, my asthma is getting worse — which means I have less energy to do exciting things and blog about them. I’m still doing exciting things, but my museum and car trips will not be photographed or blogged about until this and all of the above gets straightened out.

. . .and even then you’ll need some help.

Nevertheless, I wrote this one yesterday on the rock trail at the New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx and I’ve been repeating it nonstop.  So here goes.

Q:  How did one geologist greet the other?

A:  Gneiss to see you!

Ba dump bump.

I’m a little awed that there is a “public outcry” about the last episode of the Sopranos. It makes me think that plenty of alleged fans of the show were missing the point all these years.

I thought this last season was terrific, and the now notorious “diner sequence” in this final episode was absolutely brilliant. I could expand on that and explain why, but if you don’t see for yourself you probably won’t understand anyway. I watched this sequence again and caught something I thought I saw the first time: a direct reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey (This shot, basically.)

Also amusing was the Gray Line bus, only they don’t drive down Mulberry like that.

Evan sent me this. Very entertaining.

Who knew an elfin vegetarian from Ohio could land a ten foot tall redhead with a British accent?

Elizabeth Kucinich

And for those who really want to stalk her, you can check out her MySpace page (which is just as annoying as anyone else’s MySpace page.)

It’s been months since I’ve last taken a toke of that horrible, masochistic drug I used to be addicted to: Fox News. Those that know me know that I’ve struggled with this problem off and on for years. . .the need to subject myself to hours of O’Reilly, Hannity, “Studio B” with that asshole with the eyebrows, or that other show with the dude with the white hair (John Something.) Like a junkie on smack it leaves me ill. Like, really ill. Sweaty, itchy, stomach lining and esophagus burning. No, I’m not making this up. And yet, I can’t turn away. The worst is Hannity, no question, but O’Reilly is a close second.

Anyway, I binged tonight and now my head is throbbing. Probably ’cause it’s been so long since I’ve had a little taste. But I realized something tonight.

Like many of you, I’m not all that thrilled with Hillary Clinton. She’s just. . .she’s not my favorite, let’s leave it at that. Of the candidates out there, I am most impressed with Edwards; Richardson and Obama are close behind him. Any of those three and I’d be a happy guy. Would I prefer Kucinich or Nader? Sure, but President Edwards or Richarson or Obama works just fine. But to them. . .to them, the people that’ve so harmed this country, this planet. . .the evil duo of Cheney and Bush. . .the horrible, horrible black spot on our collective souls that we’re so in danger of never repairing. . .to the Hannitys and the Hannity-lovers. . . .I realize this: there is no one they hate more than Hillary.

To that end, a vote for Hillary is a vote to poke in the eye anyone who stands up and says “I love Cheney, I love Bush. I love Alberto Gonzales and his band of email obfuscators. I love Karl Rove and his band of Plame-leakers. I love Rumsfeld and Rice and Powell and the whole sick crew of satan-worshiping mongrols who are wiping santorum off their chins with the United States Constitution.”

So why the hell not support Hillary? I’m not foolish enough to think that Edwards/Obama/Richardson/Any Other Dem is going to be that much different. They’ll all take their cues from the Clinton (Bill) playbook. And, for those that knew me back then, I was ranting and raving about how awful Bill was! (Oh, what a fool I was! I never knew how good I had it!) The defense of marriage act, invading Serbia, bombing al-Shifa, pardoning Marc Rich over Leonard Peltier. And while I was certainly more annoyed at the yutzes like Henry Hyde and Orrin Hatch who were making a big deal about it, I was damned pissed that Clinton had jizzed all over that blue dress and embarrassed us all in the first place. Oh! Oh, what I’d give to have such problems again!

Anyway, while I am brightening your day, keep in mind that there are two “Virginia Tech”s in Iraq every day. Or 24 a day if you factor in for population equivalencies. You can argue the specifics.

Sorry, don’t know why I am so angry. Or, conversely, don’t know why I’m not this angry more often.

I don’t know if I told you, but Body/Antibody is basically done. When there’s more to tell I’ll tell it, but for now simply know that we’ve basically stuck a fork in it.

Earlier today I was looking for someone’s address and found this piece of scrap paper underneath a pile of crap on my desk. It is the last round of notes Kerry & I took on our last viewing of the penultimate sound mix. Scribbled down around 1 AM before we went back to make final tweaks, it basically represents, I think, the last piece of actual tactile work on the production or post-production of the film. That is until some big distribution company calls and tells us to reshoot and add a talking pie.