One of the defining moments of my early childhood — my life, really — happened when I wasn’t quite three years old, or sometime in the late summer. My mother and I were roaming up and down the Asbury Park boardwalk in the early evening, and one of the highlights (in my mind at least) was the merry-go-round. We gradually made our way south about two miles, give or take. Then I somehow slipped my mother’s grasp and disappeared. Gone. She freaked, of course. She found a couple of cops and asked for their help. They looked, searched, asked all the merchants…no luck. They finally made their way back to the merry-go-round and there I was — staring, bedazzled.

The incident put the fear of God into my parents. From then on they decided I had to be kept on a short leash and monitored very carefully. The result is that I began to feel that my life was being lived in a gulag. Rules, repression, “no”, time to go to bed at dusk, “because I said so,” “you’re too young,” etc.

In a 6.25 comment thread for a piece about Rose McGowan’s tussle with Innovative Artists, George Prager ungraciously posted some personal information about LexG. He deleted it soon after but Lex freaked, closed his Twitter account and hasn’t been heard from since. This morning I wrote “Prager” (his actual name is even more Irish) and suggested that he apologize to Lex and pledge to never again “out” his info. He said he “feels badly” about LexG’s disappearance and would definitely write and apologize. He said he was bombed when he mis-posted but was “tired of his bullshit…I felt like he needed an intervention of some kind, but it was wrong of me to do it.” I passed this along to Lex and repeated what I told him on 9.25, which is that he crumbles too easily and that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that he should just shrug it off. He replied that (a) he’s “not sitting around fuming about any one person or dwelling on any one thing” but that (b) he’s just “found the internet in general to be unpleasant and not helpful to my happiness for quite some time…just enjoying some time away from it.” He indicated a willingness to return to the conversation before long.

The original “Hot Hot Hot”, recorded by the late Montserrat musician Arrow (aka Alphonsus Celestine Edmund Cassell), popped in ’82 but it became a bigger hit in ’87 with a version by Buster Poindexter, aka soloist and former New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen. I listened to “Hot” this morning for the first time in ages — a pleasure. Poindexter/Johansen once told NPR’s “Fresh Air” that “Hot Hot Hot” was “the bane of my existence” due to its pervasive popularity. The David Johansen Group played at that 1977 Save The Whales concert that I co-produced with former g.f. Sophie Cabot Black. I remember chatting with Johansen at a bar about the booking and liking him — jazzy, good humored. The big DJG songs of the moment were “Not That Much,” which I also hadn’t listened to in ages until this morning, and “Funky But Chic.”

I’ve been a small businesman for almost 11 years now, as Hollywood Elsewhere became a stand-alone, self-run site in August 2004. This meant, of course, no more salary paychecks but checks for HE advertising runs. Which has meant, of course, that some people would occasionally pay late and that I’d eventually have to send them emails that said “ahem!…we’re a little late here!” If I don’t do that they’ll just pay even later or possibly stiff me the next time. I’ve always had this little voice telling me to not only use the voice of Mickey Mouse (“Hello!…hah-hah-hah!…hi!”) but adopt a Mickey Mouse-like attitude when I write advertisers. Or maybe I really mean Minnie Mouse…I’m not sure. Just imagine my Mickey Mouse voice saying “Will you please me? I’m just a mouse with a smiling face and big ears and a little black tail, but I’d very happy if you did the right thing…hah-hah-hah!”

There’s this one advertiser who should have paid by last March or thereabouts, and now we’re past Independence Day. Hello, August! My ad guy and I have been Mickey Mouse-ing it, as usual, but a couple of weeks ago I began to feel the stirrings of a Donald Duck attitude. So I wrote letters to the person whom I feel is primarily responsible for payment and delivered them to (a) a production company, (b) an attorney’s office and (c) a home on Blue Jay Way. Last weekend we were told that the lower-level person directly responsible for payment was “committed” to making things right (that word means next to nothing) and would get in touch with us before last Friday. She didn’t. We all know that honey works better than vinegar, but what do you do when honey doesn’t work for months on end? I was asking myself this yesterday. How do I play this? I don’t want to go ballistic but I don’t want to be a jellyfish.

In a 7.2 Grantland piece called “Across the Universe: How World-Building Blockbusters Have Changed the Art of Screenwriting,” Kevin Lincoln discusses (a) the game of universe-building and (b) continuity in the service of a franchise with screenwriter John August (Go, Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie). Lincoln doesn’t quite ask why the scripts for almost all franchise blockbusters (with the curious exception of the two Captain America films) are spiritually suffocating, reprehensibly robotic and generally awful in terms of delivering intrigue or any kind of unusual flavor or humor or sliders or curves or palmballs. Pretty much everything that happens in these moronathons is a straight, over-the-plate fastball, but the main problem, story-integrity-wise, is that none are meant to be stand-aloners. Yes, old news — August is mostly re-stating things for the slowboats.

August observation #1: “So it’s this weird blend of wanting to create the best two-hour movie you possibly can and having to sort of function as a TV showrunner, charting out the whole series, even though as a screenwriter, you’re only going to get paid for that one movie.” August observation #2: “The more that has come before you, the tighter the circle of expectations is on you. Often the expectations the studio has are expectations the audience has. They’ve created this very small window of what they feel is a reasonable acceptance of an idea.”

A little less than eight years ago, and I’m afraid it’s fading. Should I give it a re-watch?

I’m sorry but Marielle Heller‘s Diary of a Teenage Girl (Sony Pictures Classics, 8.7.15) is a movie about the sexual intrigues of someone I’d rather not contemplate in a sexual light, no offense.

Set in the mid ’70s and based on a graphic-novelish, diary-like tale by Phoebe Gloeckner, it’s about an artistically gifted if somewhat homely girl in her mid teens (Bel Powley) who has an affair with her mom’s boyfriend (Alexander Skarsgard).

It’s a fairly absorbing coming-of-age, finding-your-voice tale with a striking use of pop-out illustrations in the latter stages, but I simply had no interest in the sexual stuff. Some affairs are interesting and even fascinating; others simply are not. Powley is a fine, skilled actress with presence, but she probably needs to stay away from romantic material for the foreseeable future. Skarsgard is fine as the pathetic, oozy boyfriend, and Kristen Wiig does well as a fatigued, downbeat-attitude mom.

I’ve already mentioned this but here goes again. No matter how fast Paul Rudd‘s Scott Lang can dash around, he can be flattened by any bad guy with fast reflexes. Peyton Reed and Kevin Feige‘s Ant-Man will, of course, go to the moon to make us believe otherwise, but the trailer shows us that Lang’s running speed is roughly that of a fly with a purpose. The bottom line is that Lang is definitely vulnerable, or more to the point swattable.

There comes a critical-mass point with certain commenters when you realize that their toxic comments and foul attitudes are infecting everyone and everything in an awful way.  That’s why I deep-sixed the former Doluoz Gray (later Black and most recently White) this morning. With election season around the corner I’ve been thinking about flushing out the more ardent righties anyway. If Peter Clemenza was around he’d say, “These things gotta happen every couple of years or so. Helps to get rid of the bad blood. Been four years since the last one.”

You think Noam Chomsky gets all misty-eyed on the 4th of July? I feel proud of the achievements of the great American artists, writers, thinkers and doers. That’s my kind of patriotism. I feel immensely proud that I come from the same country as Mark Twain, Hoyt Wilhelm, Jack London, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Allen, Amelia Earhart, Marilyn Monroe, John Coltrane, Bobby Kennedy, Muhammud Ali, Brian Wilson, Bob Dylan, Walt Whitman, Meryl Streep, Gene Hackman, Frank Sinatra, Jimi Hendrix, Martin Scorsese, Oliver Stone, Chris Rock and David Fincher. And especially Bernie Sanders. A few years ago I wrote that I haven’t felt “patriotic” in ages. Except lately Sanders’ candidacy has romanced me into feeling semi-patriotic, which is unusual for a “beyond borders” leftie like myself. Hillary is fine but she puts me to sleep. Bernie has my heart beating.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner got into trouble yesterday on Twitter after sharing a sexist remark (or what sounded like one to Megan Ellison and others) during an interview with Goldie Hawn at the Aspen Ideas Festival. No one’s arguing that Eisner, 73, is an enlightened feminist, but what he said, however clumsily put, wasn’t entirely divorced from reality.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner during Thursday night’s discussion with Goldie Hawn at the Aspen Ideas Festival.

“In the history of the motion-picture business,” he said, “the number of beautiful, really beautiful women — a Lucille Ball — that are funny, is impossible to find.”

What Eisner should have said, first of all, is not that it’s “impossible” to find really beautiful female comedians but that for the most part they’re few and far between. (I know — that sounds dismissive in itself but I’m trying to modify here.) And then he should have explained himself a bit. But now that the milk is split and outrage is spreading, allow me to explain for him.

Innately talented people, including comedians, don’t tend to develop their gift unless life has instructed them to do so or else. He meant that if you’re doing pretty well on your good looks or trust fund you’re probably not going to develop your potential as much as those who aren’t grade-A beauties or who don’t come from a rich family. Every creatively successful person has been goaded early on by disappointment and frustration in life. They’ve been told that if they want a bountiful career or a big income or if they want to meet interesting people they’ll have to develop their creative potential or, in the case of would-be female comics, learn to be fucking funny. Because if they don’t they’re going to be driving a cab or waiting tables or doing telemarketing.

Ava Duvernay has said in an Essence interview (posted today) that she won’t be directing Marvel’s Black Panther movie. So much for the dream of Ava scarfing up a fat Marvel paycheck while mapping out the kind of films she really wants to do.

Duvernay: “I think I’ll just say we had different ideas about what the story would be.” Most Likely Translation: “I was a dramatic indie-level director when I made Middle of Nowhere but since Selma I’ve transformed. I’m now a political-minded…make that a revolutionary-minded director who makes bold statement films about proud, gutsy, self-defining African-American characters, and those Marvel guys didn’t want Black Panther to exude too much of that — they more or less wanted a generic superhero movie with some African-American seasoning.”

DuVernay: “Marvel has a certain way of doing things and I think they’re fantastic and a lot of people love what they do. I loved that they reached out to me.” Most Likely Translation: “What a bunch of greedy, formula-following, white-ass cyborg assholes.”

Obviously Jenny’s Wedding was made well before the Supreme Court’s marriage equality decision but I’m getting a little…well, not tired of it but…okay, ease up and take the movie on its own merits. Calm down. I’m just starting to feel a tiny bit fatigued about the whole LGBT commissar mentality. I know that doesn’t sound right and that I’ll probably get beaten up today by Twitter goons but my first reaction when I saw this trailer was “another one?” And I’m saying this, of course, as a huge, huge fan of Carol.