I thought this morning that my Omicron condition might be improving somewhat. No such luck as it turns out. Today it just stayed in the same draggy place. I feel so vaguely weak and fatigued right now that the idea of going outside and visiting my local CVS seems like too much of a challenge. I don’t feel miserable — I feel “okay” but drained.

All day long I’ve been trying to write some thoughts on the passing of the great Joan Didion, whom i began worshipping as a young buck (particularly due to “Play It As It Lays” and “The White Album”) but whom I never quite befriended or even met, despite a good phone-interview rapport with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, whom I regarded as an excellent fellow. And despite running into her at a “21” press luncheon seven or eight years ago.

But I don’t seem to have the energy or something. I don’t like this at all.

Three writer-producers are quoted in Richard Rushfield’s latest Ankler column. They’re basically asked “how bad are things now?”, “did anyone in Hollywood accomplish anything good this year?”, “how negatively has streaming affected bare-bones creativity?” and other questions in this vein.

Writer-producers #1 and #3 sound like smart, attuned, reasonably cool people, but writer-producer #2 is an absolute woke Torquemada. He says Netflix should have thrown Dave Chappelle under the bus, for heaven’s sake. Talk about a geyser of woke vampire saliva and an absolute absence of X-factor, clear-light consciousness…seriously, this guy is scary.

Here’s an observation about award shows from writer-producer #3:

In other words, if the Academy wants to bury itself even deeper in the hole of irrelevancy and over-ness, do four things: (a) Double down on the Steven Soderbergh mindset (woke Tony Awards) behind last April’s Union Station debacle; (b) Make certain to only award films with shitty Rotten Tomatoes & IMDB audience scores and which did next to no business theatrically; (c) choose winners based on woke-driven political narratives; and (c) completely ignore the phenomenal audience reactions to Spider-Man: No Way Home

Bruce Feldman, the seasoned publicist who founded Clein + Feldman (with late partner Harry Clein) and who later battled it out as Universal’s vp publicity during the Waterworld era of the mid ‘90s…it was Bruce who suggested that Maggie and I might want to name our first-born son Jett, drawing upon the lore of James Dean’s Giant character, Jett Rink.

Here’s Bruce holding Jett sometime in the late summer or fall of ‘88. Just below is the latest shot of Jett and Sutton, who’s now four and a half weeks old.

This environmentally friendly email from director-writer Adam McKay [below] is part of an overt virtue signaling tendency that sinks “Don’t Look Up”.

Imagine “War Games” if only Matthew Broderick’s character were the only smart one and everyone else was labeled as a shallow, one-dimensional idiot. “Don’t Look Up” would have worked if the deck weren’t stacked, if Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence weren’t so earnest and portrayed as unable to get their message out in a very real world as opposed to an SNL sketch where vacuous talk show hosts are oblivious, libidinous and banter with showbiz patter.

The portrayal of the president by the world’s greatest actress [Meryl Streep] sank the movie. Peter Sellers’ president in “Dr. Strangelove” is STILL a president — analytical, seeking answers, striving for calm in the midst of chaos, and that’s part of what makes the escalating madness distressing and funny. Imagine Sellers’ president taking the McKay approach and talking about approval ratings and contending with an idiot son. “Don’t Look Up” negates verisimilitude in every scene, offering a polemic and not a satire.

Sketch characters, as a rule, have a single trait, not dimensions. If DiCaprio and Lawrence were forced to seek out a vacuous media personality to front them, yet another music star or media influencer, in order to get on a talk show, or engineer some stunts to get their message out to a fatuous populace, then you’re dealing with Sellers’ impassioned RAF officer who’s begging for spare change and sanctioning the shooting of a Coca Cola machine.

Without verisimilitude, the exaggerated personas from “Don’t Look Up” turn wearying and cutting from idiots to the sanctified liberals feels forced and preachy, which it is. Leonardo’s portrayal and rants are pitch perfect, but he’s playing the intention of the piece… not what’s on the page.

Faye Dunaway‘s “Network” executive is a very real person, as are all the characters in that 1976 film, but McKay only shows legitimacy towards the characters he personally sides with and that’s his biggest mistake… along with not having good jokes.

This is a bigger budgeted “An American Carol” and saddens me as I love McKay and satire.

The Omicron variant is still in my system, of course. But I can feel it fading — weakening — in slow, incremental ways. Tuesday and to some extent Wednesday were the bad days.

Today (12.23) will be spotty (still a tiny bit achey) but I won’t sleep as much. I should be mostly out of the woods by Saturday. I might even be 70% back to normal by Christmas Eve (Friday, 12.24).

With a regular, old-fashioned flu I always start sweating when it’s about to give up the ghost. This hasn’t happened yet with the big “O”. Perhaps it never will.

“I ain’t so tough” — James Cagney’s Tom Powers in William Wellman‘s Public Enemy (‘31).

12.23, 1:20 pm update: Still feeling vaguely shitty, but my temperature has dropped to 98.8.