Candieland

Because, I have to admit, I was actually a little disappointed when I did a double-take at the headline and found out that Japan wasn't exporting octopus excrement.

Octopus Dumplings
Quote from article:

..."When I was a small boy, it was street food that made me feel good and warm inside," Sase said at a recent interview....

This goes with my thought I had last year on my Pizza Blog...people really do find comfort in the food of their youth. Except maybe me, because I am less adventuresome with food every year, and there is stuff I ate --and enjoyed-- when I was a kid, that I wouldn't touch now.

What pops into my head at the moment is a piece of dried elk I bought at a small grocery store in rural Sweden. It was in the shape of a small tube, was hanging from a string, and when the guy cut it down and handed it to me, it looked for all the world like a dehydrated, used tampon. Don't judge me, I was hungry.

Speaking of food in Sweden, when I first got there, I kept ordering "hamburger" on the menu and bought packages of it at the store, because, you know, it's hamburger, right? Only in Sweden, if you want ground beef you order Oxfars. Hamburger is ground up horse. Forgive me Flicka, I just thought Swedish cows tasted funny. Don't tell Santa, but I also consumed reindeer in Sweden. Over there it's okay because reindeer don't pull Santa's sled, I think he can fly by himself or something.

When I was a kid in Oregon, it wasn't unheard of for my family to raise and our own food. Not dogs and cats, but we cooked up lamb, chicken, ducks, and geese, and whatever else wandered onto our plate. I have to say, I don't know if it's because it's so fresh or what, but pets taste funny.

My dad and my brother used to go hunting a lot, so I have eaten different kinds of deer and moose, and some really interesting homemade sausage. Parts of the cow I wouldn't dream of putting in my mouth today, such as testicles, tongue, and heart, were some of my favorite foods when I was a kid. Also chicken gizzards and hearts, although I never quite got into liver. It tasted too much like a McDonald's meat patty. They claim it's 100eef, but they never specify which part of the beef animal it comes from.

I won't touch crustaceans, anything that causes me to have heart palpitations while it's alive is not something I will eat. Steve used to have a pet crawdad that scared the crap out of me. Krusty got out one day and hid under some dirty clothes in the bathroom. I found him when I was cleaning up, and I did several laps around the house screaming before my four-year-old daughter brought me to the couch and calmed me down. To this day, if Steve wants to threaten me, all he has to do is make "pinchers" with his fingers and I back off. Steve's not mean though, at Elephant Bar a while back, he was quite concerned when he couldn't find the tail to the piece of fried shrimp I was eating. I thought it was a chicken strip and bit right into it, wondering why it was so crunchy.

Even though I don't eat most water creatures, I do enjoy salmon, and I've eaten a lot of different kinds of caviar --either on little crackers or straight out of the jar with my fingers--but not like my sister-in-law's grandmother in Sweden. We were at the summerhouse one day, cleaning some pike my brother had caught in the lake, and Mormar came out and collected all the pike eggs in a bowl, mixed in some vinegar and salt, and stood there chowing down on the roe while we cut off the heads and gutted. She said it tasted too good to share, and I didn't argue.

Sometimes fresher is not better. I don't want to eat something so fresh that I ever had to look it in the eye. I never did get the hang of sushi. This is a chapter from The Zach Chronicles, where I write about my first experience with sushi:
"Tuck it! Tuck it!" Kat and I shouted. It was one of our favorite activities; bursting in on Zach in the shower and making him do the Silence of the Lambs dance for us.

"Cant you go watch TV or something?" moaned Zach. "Let me finish my shower in peace!"

Kat and I obligingly left Zach alone in the bathroom and I finished getting ready. After all, this was a big event; today for the first time I was going to try sushi. And Zach, a seasoned sushi-eater, was going to show me the ropes.

Having spent most of her life as a vegetarian, Kat bowed out of the sushi-bar trip, but I was determined to go on. What is this food that everyone is making such a fuss about?

"Be sure and not tell me how it goes," Kat said as she went home.
I was a little nervous. Although I had come from a family of hunters and so had eaten a variety of hooved mammals, I had very limited experience with creatures that came out of the ocean. Lobsters and crabs are nothing more than large, freakish spider monsters, shrimp look like and have the consistency of ears, and fish should be caught while you drink beer and cooked thoroughly over a fire or in a frying pan.

Zach, and most of my other friends, assured me m that I would love sushi. So here I go, ready to brave a new eating experience.

The first thing I noticed when I sat down at the sushi bar was the fish tanks.

"Hi little fishy!" I waved to the little guy swimming around a few inches from my face. This is kind of cool, cozy atmosphere, they even had aquariums. What a nice touch, very relaxing. Just as I was beginning to bond with my new orange friend, the guy behind the bar reached his hand in the tank and scooped the little fish out. I heard some whack whack whacks behind the counter and the chef proudly handed the plate, a little lump of something pink, white, and black, to the person sitting on the other side of Zach.

"Was that the-?" I stood up and looked over the bar. Oh god, it was. "I'm not sure about this."

Zach nodded absentmindedly and looked down at the list in front of him. I picked up my list and scanned it quickly with my eyes.

"Z?"

"Yes, C?"

"Does the caterpillar roll have real caterpillars in it?"

Silence.

"Zach? Does the caterpillar roll have real caterpillars in it?" I asked a little more urgently this time. I looked to the woman on my left. She had a small purple tentacle hanging out of her mouth that she sucked in like spaghetti. "Z? Why wont you answer me?"

"Shhh, geez dont yell. Now what do you want to try first?" he asked. Zach wasnt getting, or was ignoring, my panic.

"What do you suggest?" I whispered. "Nothing with fish in it, okay?"

"Uh, okay, why dont you have an avocado roll then," Zach said. He handed our order slips to the chef and got us each a Sapporo.

"Whats that green stuff on the outside of the food?" I asked Zach, watching another plate go by.

"Oh, and wrap that avocado roll in rice paper, please," Zach told the chef. "Dont worry, you wont get any of that green stuff."

Zach showed me the wasabi and soy sauce. I tried the wasabi and washed it down with a little beer. This place wasnt so bad after all, anything spicy had to be good.

A moment later the chef handed me a plate.

"Is that my food I smell?" I asked Zach. For something that had no fish in it, it sure smelled like the underside of a dinghy.

Zach dug heartily into his plate but I stared at my little lump of food for a moment. I picked it up and looked at it carefully. Nothing in there looked like it had been swimming around in front of me only seconds before, but still...

Zach turned and looked at me, chewing.

"Whats the matter?" He asked after taking another swig of Sapporo. "Dig in".

"I dont like the way it smells," I whispered.

"Just take one bite," Zach urged.

I held my breath and brought the fork to my mouth. I felt a shaky, cold feeling in my stomach. I finally tore off a little tiny bite and moved it around my mouth.

I dont know what everyone else was eating, but I had something they found wrapped in toilet paper in the alley. There is no way this is going down, there's just not enough wasabi in the world.

I slid my plate over to Zach who quickly popped my roll into his mouth with his chopsticks. He ordered himself another round of sushi from the chef and called a waitress over.

"Vegetable tempura for the lady, please," requested Zach.

Now were talking. Veggies, all crispy-fried and crunchy, covered in nice hot wasabi.

I like sushi!
"When can we go again? I asked, two Sapporos and a plate of fried vegetables later. Zach had eaten a wide array of colorful mounds in veritable silence.

Zach waited until we got to the parking lot to light up. He didnt say anything on the way home.

When a guy yells to a woman on the street, "Nice tits!" or wolf-whistles, what exactly is he trying to accomplish?

Does he think the woman is going to be impressed by this and come running?

"Really? You think I have nice tits? Let's have sex!"

Does he think his friends will think he's cool?

The thing is, he's more apt to impress his friends than he is the woman, so I can only assume the guy is yelling to the woman for the sake of the men around him. Is he such a wimp that he can't handle a face-to-face conversation with a woman so he has to make sure that no woman will ever talk to him? I believe that many men who catcall are actually trying to cover up that they are gay.

If a guy truly wants to impress a woman, he will take the time to find out her name, and not make her feel uncomfortable and socially ackward. Even if all he wants to do is honk her titty, he can at least pretend he's interested in what she has to say.

The only woman you are going to attract by screaming rude comments about her body is one who is very stupid, a slut, and/or has horrible self-esteem. You know how some guys complain about the women they wind up with? Well, if you are an idiot, you are only going to attract idiots. Before you go complaining about women, take a good look at yourself.

If you try to impress women with your money, your fancy car, or your nice clothes, you are going to attract women who are money-grubbers. A smart woman wouldn't give you the time of day if you are so insecure that you think you have to flaunt money to get a date.

Women, if you are complaining that men only want you for your body, that may be true, but, is that all you are offering? Are you so insecure that you can't win a guy over with your personality? I don't mean you shouldn't wear flattering clothes, but there is pretty and then there is cheap whore.

Or am I terribly naive and there are people out there who are so stupid and boring that money and looks are all they have to offer? I refuse to believe that's the case, no matter how much evidence I see to the contrary.

A long time ago I was talking to a guy in a chatroom who offered to send me his picture. It was a picture of him jacking off in the shower. I told him that he's disgusting and to stay away from me. He IMed me back, "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm so embarrassed! I can't believe this happened! An old girlfriend took that picture of me and I must have sent it to you by mistake! Oh my god I could just die! Here, let me send you the picture I meant to send!" So he sends me something almost as bad, he's not wearing a shirt and he's leaning up against a Corvette with some sort of motorcycle in the background.

Wow, you have a picture of yourself with a Corvette? Want to have sex? Puh-leeze!

I signed off and came back to the chatroom with a different name. What do you know, he starts IMing me again, only he doesn't know it's me.

"Hey! Want to see a picture of me?" he asks.

"Sure," I say, wondering if, could it possibly be...

A minute later he's saying, "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm so embarrassed! I can't believe this happened! An old girlfriend took that picture of me and I must have sent it to you by mistake! Oh my god I could just die! Here, let me send you the picture I meant to send!" after he, once again, sent me the picture of him jacking off in the shower.

Wherever he is now and whatever he's doing, I'm sure that, if he actually has a woman in his life, he's complaining that she only likes him for his car.

People find what they are looking for, they sell only what they advertise, and they get what they expect. If you find yourself winding up with certain kinds of people in your life, stop for a moment and think about what you are doing to attract them.

I am at war.

The other person's identity is a mystery, but I'm fairly convinced that he or she lives in my town.

The flavored water shelf at Pavillions is our battleground.

For the sake of clarity, let's say my enemy is a guy. I'm not sure what kind of guy would share my obsession with Grape Fruit 2 O, but the fact that our Pavillions grocery store isn't far from the Disney studios might give us a little insight.

Every few days I go to Pavillions to claim my treasure, grape flavored Fruit 2 O. A lot of flavored water just tastes like tap water that was left uncovered in the fridge until it picked up the random scents from the leftovers. Not grape Fruit 2 O. It's sweet and luscious, doled out in beautiful little bottles.

More often than not, on the shelf next to the other, less desirable flavors, there is a void where the Grape used to be.

That's when I know he got there first. My head hangs low, I shuffle off in defeat, and quietly finish my shopping. Once I ordered a case from a courtesy clerk but she never called me back. I asked Ralphs to start selling it but they have yet to respond to my pleas. I have no competition at the Pavillions in Monrovia so when I'm desperate for my fix I plunder their shelves, driving home in a swell of triumphant hoots, the trunk of my Volvo overflowing with grape-flavored nectar.

When I get to the grape Fruit 2 O first at the Burbank Pavillions, oh yes, that is a fine day! I fill my cart and run before my vessel is attacked and pilfered. Who knows? He could be waiting in the produce section, ready to steal my cart before I get to the cashier.

Whether the grape Fruit 2 O is nabbed by myself, or my foe, I'm baffled as to why Pavillions still hasn't wised up and ordered Grape in larger quantities.

What baffled me more is when I went around the corner of the aisle today and saw that there was one 6-pack of Grape on the shelf. Never before have I seen one pack alone. Either he takes them all, or I do…so why did he leave one? I instinctively threw my arms up in the air while hissing a "Yesss!" but immediately became suspicious.

Is this a trap? Would he pull a string and a box would fall down over me when I reached for the bottles? Was he waiting nearby so he could ascertain my identity in an effort to knock out the competition when my guard was down?

Or was it a peace offering, a kind of truce, a hey kid, look, I know you love Grape too and, see? There is enough Grape for both of us in this crazy little town. A kind of a, I won but I'll be the bigger person and share.

My mind racing, I gingerly reached my arms around the lone 6-pack, giddy but suspicious. I began to relax when my drink was buried beneath toilet paper and bananas and deli meat, but I didn't completely feel safe until I got home. I waited until Grape chilled to just the right temperature and enjoyed the Fruit 2 Os of my labor, sharing its goodness with my family.

Sharing, yes. Soon I will have to go on another expedition to secure more of this bounty.

Soon.

My first exposure to the Internet was in 1992, right after I moved to Los Angeles, when I would get online at work to email coworkers and do research for my boss. Not long after that I got AOL at home so that I could stay in touch with my friend, Kat, three and a half hours away in Visalia.

I hadn't lived in LA very long, didn't know many people, and wasn't much of a sleeper, so getting online and chatting helped burn up the time. Besides joshing with Kat, I was able to get a glimpse into the lives of people I never would have communicated with otherwise, in a completely safe environment. I learned other points-of-view, talked about Gilligan's Island, have Is My Baby Normal? sessions with other parents…whatever I was looking for I could find it, anytime.

In the early days of AOL it cost $3 an hour to be online. A newly divorced mom with a baby, I had to ration out my online time carefully so I scrutinized every cent I spent.

At the grocery store before I would put, say, a box of cookies in my cart I would stop and think, I could spend an hour online for the same money, and put the package back on the shelf. Anything to add a little extra AOL time for those hours when my daughter was at her dad's house and I wandered from room to room wondering what to do with myself.

It was always fun to run into other AOL members out in the real world. If you heard a complete stranger mention AOL, it was so rare you would always take notice.

"Ohmigod, you're on AOL?"

"Why, yes, are you?"

Then we would exchange screen names, no matter whom the person is, just for the sheer novelty of being able to chat with someone you have actually seen in person.

When AOL switched to a monthly flat-rate fee, I thought it was a dream come true. Imagine, being able to spend time online without watching the clock!

Not long after that, the chat rooms started to fill up. The days of jumping into just about any chat room and being able to find an interesting conversation was over. When you were paying three bucks an hour, you made dang sure you had something to say. When it costs the same no matter how long you are online, I found out that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than going around screaming "WHAZZUPPP???!!!" Little by little, chat rooms became the Den of the Horny and Retarded and I gave up on them for good.

Message boards seemed like a fun place to communicate with people of a like mind, but instead I just got a startling look at the psyche of the American population. According to the message boards, the world is made up of a bunch of ignorant, narrow-minded people who never learned how to use their spell check. If you do happen to find a good conversation, there is invariably one or two people who only participate because it affords an eventual opportunity to get up on the soap box and start a preachin'!

The worst were the religious/spiritual message boards. There is always the guy that gets on there and does nothing but quote the bible. That would seem sensible except I have never visited a Christian message board. Some people feel compelled to go on alternative religion message boards to quote the bible to the members, missing the point that if someone is say, Wiccan, they probably aren't going to give a rats ass what the bible says. Apparently the Christians who are educated enough to make a good theological argument without quoting the bible aren't the ones doing this.

It's also a little disconcerting to know that there are people out there who have nothing better to do than to write quizzes. People, self-absorbed by nature, just love taking quizzes, because it's really important to be able to share with the world which Sex and the City Character you are. Not that I don't dutifully do all of the quizzes that show up in my Inbox, but who sets up the criteria? Why am I orange and not yellow? Who says my personality is a carnation?

What about the people who make up the modern myths? My friend's cousin got his kidney stolen when he was in Las Vegas, that sort of thing. Are there people out there who are typing up the newest Urban Legend while laughing maniacally screaming, "FOOLS! FOOLS!" or do they sort of build up gradually like a game of Telephone until someone actually believes it and feels obligated to warn everyone else?

I can't avoid mentioning spam here either. When we still had to pay by the hour, spam was a rare occurrence, now I'm engulfed in letters from folks concerned about my mortgage rates and penis size. Who actually responds to spam? These people must be out there, if spam wasn't lucrative then they would have stopped annoying us by now. As a rule, I will not do business with anyone who knocks on my door, calls me, or sends me unwanted email. Even if it's a Girl Scout selling cookies.

I guess it's gone forever; the Golden Age of the Internet, although I'm sure there are nice, cozy little pockets out there I will never discover. I abandoned AOL long ago when they didn't keep the Mac software updated but still kept charging us the same price as the PC users. I now have lots of friends here in LA, and if I feel like chatting in the middle of the night, I just wake up my (new) husband or call one of my insomniac cronies.

Is this an old age thing? Because if this is an old age thing just tell me now and I'll go tuck my boobs into the waist of my jeans, buy some comfortable shoes, and get it over with.

I used to be a party-all-night person; going to clubs, bars, friends' houses, and all-night diners. Sometimes I would get in my car after work and drive all night to visit friends in other cities or states or just to go to the place with the good cobbler.

Now I can't even stay up late enough to watch Leno or Letterman anymore. When I go to my friend's parties, I'm usually the first one to leave, barely able to get out my good-byes over my yawns. When I'm at home I'm often in bed by 9 -- staying up til 10 is only for when I'm feeling really saucy. The other night the phone woke me up at 8:30. My friends ask me what's wrong with me, "When did YOU get boring?"

On the plus side, I usually wake up around 4 - 5am in the morning. In past years, I would have rather died than to see what this side of the day looks like, but living in the city I really like it. There are people around constantly, but when I get up in the morning, I have the whole world to myself. I can take Snake out, sit in the back yard, go for a drive --whatever I want -- in complete solitude. This is what it must feel like to be Superman.

Today a really disturbing image flashed into my head. Twelve years ago. I'm pregnant with Cindy and had a lot of time on my hands so I decided to make myself a maternity outfit.

In the fabric store in South Pasadena I found some jersey-knit cow material. In the early 90s black and white cow prints were all the rage so I bought myself a few yards and a pattern for a one-piece maternity jumper. I even bought some matching ceramic cow buttons to hold the overall straps up.

When I got the jumper finished, I realized I had made it way too big. I went back and made a belt attached to the back so that I could cinch it in and tie it less tightly as my belly grew. I was really proud of my fine craftsmanship and wore the outfit all the time with a pair of Birkenstocks and a white t-shirt underneath.

The problem was that the belt never stayed tied and dangled behind me when I walked. Everyone wondered why I had suddenly taken to wearing a cow costume.

"It's not a costume, it's my jumper," I would say.

"Then why does it have a tail?"

Please make sure this story doesn't get back to Cindy.

Before I moved to LA for the first time in 1991, I was warned by my people back in Visalia about the shallow movie folks. I had visited Los Angeles many times and thought the people were okay, and it seemed sort of ignorant to make generalizations, so I went about my merry way. I embraced the freeways, I embraced the crappy parking, I embraced Trader Joes, and the people seemed okay too.

When I met Steve I was working as a bartender and my contact with movie people was limited to grips and decorators who liked to come in after work and have a beer, and there was a steady stream of hopefuls who were the prettiest girl in her small town in the Midwest, and she had gotten the lead in her high school play, so she was coming to Hollywood to be an actress because everyone back home said she should. Not to confuse these gals with my friends who actually came to LA because they think of moviemaking as a serious art and pursue it out of the love of acting (or directing, or whatever their thing is.)

It wasn't until I moved to Burbank, married Steve, and came into regular contact with "movie folk" that my bubble of denial started to burst.

The first time I noticed was when I was shopping. Everyone was posing. I wasn't at the mall or a clothing store, but buying groceries. In one surreal moment, I was surrounded by actors doing the "reach for the coffee" pose, the sweeping "putting apples in the basket" pose, and the stiff-backed "reading the nutritional content on the yogurt" pose. No one was just shopping; it had somehow turned into an act. I started to study my own actions. Did I stick out, just throwing stuff in the cart? My cart-pushing choreography was weak, my motivation was unclear, and I wasn't carrying a cup of Starbucks.

After that, I noticed them everywhere, The Posers. The deliberate motions of the girl pumping her gas, the self-conscious swagger of the guy at the post office. Rare, unscripted moments of humanity were glossed over or ignored.

Why do they constantly pose? Have cattle-calls made them self-conscious? I know trying to break into the movie biz can make people defensive. One time I met a woman at a bar who, when I asked her what she does, replied with, "I'm a director and YES I actually do direct!" Are the Posers practicing by playing a part in their head? Do they hope to be discovered at Ralphs?

The Posers learn quickly that it's not what you know; it's who you know in Hollywood. Therefore, they have no use for you if you can't further their career. On more than one occasion, I would be having a pleasant conversation with someone at a party and as soon as he/she found out I wasn't in the movie business, they immediately had somewhere else to be. I guess they never learned the subtler, more sincere aspect to networking.

Steve has the other problem. Even though he is low on the Hollywood totem pole, he is still on it, so he has people trying to stick their nose in his butt crack all the time. They don't realize that, if Steve could do something to further someone's career, he would be driving a better car, live in a better house, and have a hotter wife.

A typical Hollywood gathering looked just like art school to me: the ones who got things done looked like an uncool mess, everyone else had time to work on their image.

These are the people who I think are really fun: The Movie Critics. I'm not talking about people who make their living as movie critics, I'm talking about the guys who work in the movie business, but apparently loathe movies. Or maybe they only hang around town so they can let everyone know how god-like they are by putting down everyone else's artistic vision. You can always find them because you hear them loudly distributing their knowledge about what is wrong with all movies, all the time. Sometimes it's the guy at the next table in a restaurant, making sure everyone knows what HE would have done different about The Da Vinci Code, or why Finding Nemo was so flawed.

The Movie Critics' favorite activity is to announce their viewpoints on the way out of the movie theater. They always wait to start their stage-whisper conversations with their friends at the most opportune moment: when the crowd is bottlenecked tightly near the exit and the largest amount of people will find out how clever they are. I can hear that they are talking at a normal pitch, and then their voices suddenly go up about twenty decibels when they have chosen just the right moment to break into their Siskel and Ebert routine.

Unfortunately, the critical eye is contagious. I've watched movies all my life, and if they made me laugh or had a horse or a cute guy in them, I thought they were okay and didn't give them much thought. But a few years ago I found myself in Missouri yelling at an acquaintance, "You liked The Hunted? But the editing didn't flow, the character development was forced, and the dialogue wasn't believable!" You seldom have an opportunity to have such a conversation outside of LA. I felt like an asshole.

For that reason, Steve and I wait until we are out of the theater and back in the car with the doors closed before we discuss the movie we just watched.

Steve actually loves movies. Even ones that are flawed or the editing was distracting or the story had holes -- he doesn't care -- he loves them. He loves movies just because they are movies, sort of the same way my friend Kat automatically loves anything that has four legs and is furry.

Steve's enthusiasm is so infectious that he has taught me to appreciate movies as art. He loves working on movies and talking about movies and watching movies and talking about watching movies and talking about all of the creative and technical aspects and the history and everything to do with movies until a few years ago I cracked and made him start a website about movies so that he could exorcise his Movie Talking Demon and I could, perhaps, get some reading done.

If I'm enjoying a movie, I soak in it. Sometimes I get in on the dialogue, even if it's a movie I have never seen. One time when I was 12 I was watching Shirley Temple receive a present from another kid on TV and my mom chose that moment to tell me to sweep the floor so I answered her with "Thank you." Distraction while I'm watching a movie takes me out of my movie trance.

I'm marching into the detention cell trying to rescue Princess Leia before Darth Vader kills her. My heart is beating in my throat, my forehead is sweaty, but take comfort knowing that my droid, R2-D2, is safely back in the control room in case I need to reach him on my com-link. I sure hope Obi-Wan was able to find the tractor beam or else we're all going to----

"The name "R2-D2" came from editor Walter Murch while he and George Lucas were mixing "American Graffiti." Needing the second roll of dialogue for reel 2 of the film, Murch said, "George, hand me R2-D2." George thought it was a great name and wrote it down to remember it later," Steve interrupts me from rescuing the princess. The movie is lost to me now, thanks to Happy Mouth.

For the record, I bought The Hunted on DVD so I could see Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro bitch slap each other whenever I want. Honestly, they're supposed to be tough guys and here they are slapping each other on the side of the head? When they whip out their knives and start slicing I'm not really paying attention to the action, but I'm still stuck on that whole slapping thing. Couldn't either of them make a fist? Oregon is damp, maybe their joints are stiff. Gramma lived near where the movie was filmed and she would complain about her knuckles getting sore when it rained. Maybe it's some sort of special army slap-fighting I'm not familiar with. I don't think this is the journey the director intended to take my imagination on, but I got something out of it anyway.

I learned that art and commercial success are usually two different things, and it's okay to love something that's flawed.