Andy & I watched a really terrible Doris Day movie last night on cable. It was so bad that it was a scream. Very fun. “Julie.” She has to dodge her psycho husband who is trying to kill her (Louis Jourdan, about 20 years before “Swamp Thing”). Heh. Robert Osborne said in his little intro that it was the lowest-budgeted film that Doris made in her entire career. I suppose she could do that kind of dreck now and then because she was so big that people would go see anything she was in.

Saw the new Criterion Edition DVD of Tarkovsky’s “Solaris” and … at the risk of being beaten up by film purists out there, I have to say that seeing the original for a second time now, I prefer the Soderbergh verion. Not only is Soderbergh’s film more concise (which, in all fairness, Tarkovsky was never concerned with), it manages to have more philosophical and psychological depth with fewer words. Tarkovsky’s film is so talky! And the characters just aren’t as interesting. Granted that Soderbergh & company had much better resources and technology, but really Soderbergh’s script is just better. For Tarkovsky I much prefer “Stalker,” an ideal match between story, execution, and director.

I have not been called back about the DJ gig but it’s just as well. I sorta decided that I wasn’t interested. The interview went well and everything. the job itself would be a quite an opportunity and probably fun, but a lot of responsibility and commitment. They told me I’d have to undergo a 3-month ‘apprenticeship’ in the beginning, shadowing DJs for training and during gigs. And this would all be unpaid. Then, once finally ready to do a gig on my own, the pay starts at $15 an hour. Advance set up time (meetings with the client, set list work, etc.) is unpaid, transportation to and from gigs is unpaid. And seeing as how I’d hafta take a taxi everywhere …

I’d be forced to get a cellphone finally. I really could manage to do the job if I was so committed, holding onto the research job to pay the bills and adding in the DJ thing. But it would take a whole year of DJing before I could really start to live off it. And all my writing projects for the year 2004 would get shafted in a hurry.

I’m 27. If I’d heard of this job maybe 5 years ago, I might be more excited. But, as they told me, “weddings are our bread and butter.” And wedding DJing means basically only 4 kinds of music: 80’s, disco, Motown, Top 40. That’s what people want to hear. I could play that stuff, but …

O it’s a moot point anyhow. I haven’t gotten a call back. They must have assessed my misgivings.

Que Sera Sera.