I always file less whenever I have an event to attend. (Naturally.) When I have two events within six or seven daylight hours I’m barely able to post more than a story or two. Yesterday was the Gandolfini funeral plus a press conference at the Crosby Street Hotel for The Way Way Back. Plus there was such an avalanche of bile and toxicity in response to the Gandolfini thing that I felt as if I’d been infected by a flu virus of some kind.

The poison that coarses through men’s souls! All I did was soberly and respectfully attend the funeral of an actor whose performances I worshipped. My hands were clasped and I said my amens and I took Holy Communion and even gave a hug to two people sitting nearby, but because I had the temerity to use the term “funeral crasher” and talk about Altoid mints I was all but stoned to death. I love you too, guys. Fucking piranhas.

I don’t give a shit if the public was invited. I wrote and asked the right people about attending and they didn’t fill me in. All I know is that there was a platoon of black-clad women checking names at the door when I came in, asking for spellings and whatnot. And then I faced another group of women wanting to know what my deal was. Okay, so as a result of my crashing I was seated farther forward than the hoi polloi and I didn’t have to wait as long to go inside. You think Paulie Walnuts would have given a shit one way or the other?

This morning I attended a memorial service for the great Bert Stern, and during the service I behaved in exactly the same way as I did yesterday at the Gandolfini thing. I’m not a friend of the family so I wasn’t “invited” per se, but it too was open to the public and I’m a rapt admirer of Bert Stern: Original Madman and so I felt compelled to drop by.