I shouldn’t be blogging right now. I should be sleeping. I feel sleepy. On the other hand, I’m always torn between giving in to much needed rest and forcing myself to write. I’ve always imagined myself as that hard-working writer who put in the hours that other would be writers would not, thus making me the successful one. Then when I collapse, gripping my chest at the premiere of my first film at age 40 I can say it was all worth it. In any event, I’ve been a writing machine lately!
I couldn’t tell you exactly why I’ve been taking on every story pitch that sounds interesting via Buzzine lately, but I have. If I had to hazard a guess it would be that I needed to pry myself away from playing video games all night and there’s nothing like knowing someone else is counting on me to make me be responsible. On the other hand, I may have overdone things. Hopefully, I can push everything back to the weekend and just spend the two days writing like a madman. We’ll see.
I still have to review Whip It, which is just for my site. I went to the screening, but found out that Press Day was today and I had other obligations – namely work. I also have to write reviews for A Beautiful Life and Peter and Vandy. I also have to write up my interview with Bai Ling as well as Peter and Vandy cast interviews with Jason Ritter and Jess Weixler. Luckily for me, with the exception of Whip It, I still have until next week to get these articles out of the way. On the horizon, however, I still have five DVD reviews, two Blu-ray disc reviews and a book review to knock out. On top of that, I also have two video game reviews as well as a bunch of little news items. I have a bad feeling I’m going to have play triage as soon as stories start going stale.
Briefly About Bai Ling
One of my major selling points that often goes unappreciated is my flexibility. I can more or less mold myself around most personalities or within most situations to make the best of them. I’d like to think this ability makes me invaluable as a friend and as an employee. Being flexible is also just plain handy on an everyday basis, because life sometimes throws you curveballs.
As my readers know, I was supposed to sit down with Bai Ling on Monday night for an interview set up by her publicist, Anthony. The plan was to have a fine meal at Mr. Chow’s in Beverly Hills. Afterwards, it was up to Bai Ling as to where the night took us. Anthony recommended Bai’s favorite dance club. Since I like to be accommodating, I prepared myself to blend in with the Hollywood fauna. I went out and got a trendy haircut, a shoeshine kit for my dress shoes and I even went to my local department store to put together an outfit that would get me past the door at whatever club Bai Ling might take me to. As much as I’d like to sling around the phrase, “I’m with her,” I couldn’t be 100% sure that that would compensate for an unhip getup. Then I settled in on Sunday night to prepare my questions for the night-long interview. Around 8 p.m. I got a call from Anthony. The plan had changed.
Bai Ling had just flew in from Toronto and wanted to meet that night instead of the following day as planned. Obviously something had come up, but Anthony wasn’t sure what it was. What could I do? I wanted the story, so I slapped together some clothes and raked some styling cream through my hair and drove out to Thai Town in Los Angeles to meet Bai Ling.
We ended up talking for three hours. You’ll have to read my interview for details when it goes live, but let me just say that my experience with her was much more favorable than how some online articles portray her. Bai Ling is down to earth, friendly and sure of herself. She can also put away a ton of food without being fazed – this coming from a guy who used to have hollow legs in his youth. Nowadays, not so much since all of my midsection fat is constraining the expansion of my stomach. Anyway, we didn’t have a glamorous night, but I think we had a better connection even if I wasn’t as prepared as I wanted to be.
On a side note, I wrote a blog post a while ago about going full circle in my writing career since I’m running into people I interviewed when I first started the entertainment journalist gig. Interviewing Bai Ling is just further progress along this new revolution climbing up the spinning spiral of my life since the founders of the first publication I wrote for wanted me to “tell Bai Ling’s life story.” Unfortunately, the publication went under before that happened.
I’m just glad I’m going to get to tell her story now.