From Maureen Dowd‘s “AOC and the Jurassic Jerks” (7.25):

After decades of putting it off or not caring or whatever, Hollywood Elsewhere finally visited San Diego’s Hotel del Coronado today. Which for me has always been the “Seminole Ritz” of Some Like It Hot fame. My first time, yes, but I felt as if I knew the place like the back of my hand.

Tatiana and I stood on the exact same spot where Tony Curtis‘s “Joe” (masquerading as a Shell Oil heir called “Junior”) and Marilyn Monroe‘s “Sugar Kane” (pretending to be a rich girl whose family has threatened to cut her off, wink wink) first flirted. The hotel, built in 1888, has been modernized quite a bit since Billy Wilder‘s classic shot here in the summer of 1958, but…let’s just say that the 19th Century mystique hasn’t been totally eradicated.

What disturbed me (as usual) were the low-rent, low-tide tourist visitors. The creme de la creme of 20th Century society used to stay here — U.S. presidents, movie stars, industrialists — and now the place is crawling with…I don’t want to use the same old epithets. What I am I supposed to do? Applaud the fact that not one visitor today even began to resemble Osgood Fielding III, Spats Colombo, Sweet Sue or “Beanstalk”?

Posted on 12.29.19 after visiting San Francisco’s Top of the Mark: “A time-traveling anthropologist comparing the differences between 20th and 21st Century clientele would be struggling for the right politely descriptive phrases while conveying an honest assessment, as I am now. The truth is that over the last 60 or 70 years certain aspects of American culture have not only gone downhill but sunk into the swamp. We’re talking about the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire here.”

I think I shall never despise a driving-aid app as much as I do Waze. Waze’s driving instructions are competent as far as they go, but I hate how the vocal Waze friendo never tells you what street or boulevard you’re turning on to — he/she just says “in one tenth of a mile, turn right.”

Most of us like to drive with the whole equation in our heads — heading south, approaching this or that major intersection or turn-off, X number of miles until the final destination, etc. WAZE ignores all that, treats you like an idiot. “You may think you want to know street names and mileage estimates and stuff like that, but you don’t need to,” the software says. “Just follow our cretin-level directions and we’ll get you where you want to go.”

Today Waze made a colossal mistake that I’ll never forgive it for. We were driving south on interstate 5, 15 minutes north of San Diego and just south of Torrey Pines. Our hotel (a Holiday Inn Express on Ash between Sixth and Seventh) is right smack in the middle of downtown, and there was only one way to get there — stay on the 5, which goes right through to central San Diego.

Did Waze tell me to stay on the 5? Of course not. It told me to take the 805 south (a loop highway for people looking to bypass the city), and then go south on the 163, which very gradually led me to the right address. But what an asinine suggestion. The best route between two points is the most direct, and not the most roundabout.

HE to Waze: I loathe your simpleton voice directions. As far as I’m concerned you’re equally confusing as helpful, and from time to time (like today) a hindrance to sensible driving. I’m a Google Maps guy all the way. I don’t want to hear your name again…ever.

Variety‘s Manori Ravindran has posted an exclusive about Tenet possibly opening theatrically in Europe in late August. If I were flush I would fly to Madrid or Paris or Berlin to see it, but aren’t Americans barred from European travel?

Ravindran: “Warner Bros. is reaching out to international exhibitors about a possible late August launch for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. If it takes place, it would mean that the twisty spy thriller, which was expected to be among the highest-grossing summer releases, will have some sort of popcorn season debut.

“Exhibitors in the U.K., France and Spain have been told by the studio to plan for an Aug. 26-28 launch. The dates are not confirmed, though sources indicate that talks are positive. It’s understood the studio is also aiming to release the film early in Asia, with exhibitors in the region expecting to receive a new date in the next few days.

“It’s worth noting, however, that given the fast-changing nature of the global health crisis, these plans could change if the situation worsens and more hotspots emerge.”

I felt happy and soothed last night as I began reading Oliver Stone‘s “Chasing The Light.” It’s basically a series of hopscotching biographical sagas, partly about his family but mostly about the glory years and the making of his major early-stage films (the best of them being Platoon) and written with his usual applications of passion and brio and naked honesty.

The Joe Rogan interview clips are choice appetizers. It’s really too bad that Stone never made his Martin Luther King biopic, which would have partly dealt with motels, white women and sex — a focus that all but guaranteed it wouldn’t be made. It was also too bad that Pinkville, Stone’s My Lai massacre project, never went before the cameras.

Tatiana and I are driving to Mexico this morning so I’ll be off the radar until mid afternoon and possibly not until dinner hour.