Thanks to Rich Roesberg for letting me know about this.

I’ve adopted the voice and speaking style of the Dowager Countess from “Downton Abbey” in all communications with my 9-year-old. Give the kid credit: He’s playing along.

My friend Joe is a really really great guy. So tomorrow I’m going to withdraw $189 million from one of my accounts and buy him these Titanic artifacts.  I do hope that no one goes up to $190 million in this auction, though, because Joe is a big Titanic fan, and $190 million is a little out of my reach.

And, actually, maybe I shouldn’t have posted this here, because now you might beat me to it.

Some years ago, by the way, I bought Joe one of the Titanics shown in the video below. I’m sure its sinking was every bit as memorable as the one shown in the video, and while it could in no way capture the tragedy of the original, it had one distinct advantage: as a tub toy, it was sinkable again and again and again.

In which Sammy Davis, Jr. hums up some new song in a period video for Suntory.

Quick quiz: Which made Suntory seem more hep? a) Getting featured as the product Bill Murray’s character endorses in “Lost in Translation”? b) Sammy Davis, Jr.’s sweat stains in this video?

(Or not.)

For years, I have been a fervent admirer of the zine called Duplex Planet. In each issue, David Greenberger interviews old people (originally, the residents of the Duplex Nursing Home) on subjects they seem to have little understanding of. You haven’t truly lived until you’ve heard the aging and the baffled debate the qualities of chipmunks vs. squirrels (both real and animated).

I just stumbled across this interview by a man determined to share his love of comic books, but coming square up against someone with perhaps the world’s foremost comic-book phobia. The depths of his man’s antipathy for the four-color printed page cannot be fully plumbed; suffice it to say, there is something darkly Freudian down there. After the interviewer easily strips away all his protests with the force of logic, the refusals become increasingly determined as well as (I can’t resist) wonderfully comic. Here’s the interview. It’s so bizarre, it seems straight out of Duplex Planet.

And what did I do after reading this? Read a comic book, of course.

I have a friend in his 80’s who was a CIA spy. During the Korean war, the agency dropped him behind enemy lines to do field reconnaissance. He hasn’t shared much more of it than that, but I’m hoping he’s going to. With the recent release of a new filmed version of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” I got what I thought was the brilliant idea of taking him, and some other friends, to see the movie, and then out for a drink afterward where we could hear from an actual former spy what it was like to work for a spy agency during the Cold War. The only thing is, this event is proving impossible to schedule; my friend and I are both available, but we can’t seem to get a night that works for our other friends. One guy is president of his school’s PTA and has a meeting on Tuesday night; I’m watching my kids on Monday night; someone else doesn’t have Wednesday night — I don’t think James Bond ever had these problems.

Speaking of Mr. Bond, it’s worth noting that my friend has none of the qualities cinematically associated with spies. Rather than a roguish charm, he has the demeanor of an affable shoe salesman. Which, I would think, would make for a better spy:  someone who could really blend in. (Not, I realize, in North Korea.)

More to follow on this, perhaps, assuming we get to see the movie.

Several thoughts on New Year’s Eve:

1. I think New Year’s resolutions are dumb. If you’re going to resolve to do something, you shouldn’t have to wait for a particular day to do it. Either do it, or don’t. And if you don’t want to do it, then really don’t. Breaking an oath to yourself seems as misdirected as belief in astrology.  (And whining about it later just compounds the impression.)
2. Taking stock, though, is a good thing. Milestones are good for marking time. Here are three of mine:  in 2012, it’ll be 20 years since I started my theatre company; 25 years since my wife and I got married; and 50 years since I was born. I’ll be taking stock all year long.
3. Since having children, I’ve spent most of my New Year’s Eves writing. That’s because my wife usually has to work the holiday, so we don’t have a party, and I stay home with sleeping children. Two years ago I took my youngest and my friend to an event hosted by the Burbank parks department that ended with about 40 of us scaling a mountain in the dark at midnight to toast the new year. That was pretty good. Last year, I said I was going to do nothing, then I had a friend say that he had nothing to do, then another friend, then a friend who was getting off work at 10 p.m. or so, and then I wound up with a small impromptu party of people watching intentionally bad movies I’d recorded. (Case in point:  “Slither.”) Basically, the event turned into an evening of some friends and I, and my 8-year-old, sitting around poking fun at not-good movies and having drinks. (Martinellis for the kid.) This year, I’m back to the writing mode.
4. A friend from my college days reminds me how we used to celebrate New Year’s Eve, before the mundanities of adulthood and responsibility. This sounds all too typical: “Do you recall the NYE party at the home of someone for whom Duane  was house sitting ? You and Jack  amused yourselves by filling a frisbee collection that hung on the wall with flour. When that task was completed you called dial-a-joke for a very long time, handing the phone to everyone who walked past you…Of course I was a stellar party guest myself…Paul  brought me to the party. I went to say goodbye to the rest of the guests, leaving Paul standing at the door holding my coat for no less than an hour, having another drink…and saying goodbye as though I wasn’t going to see any of you ever again..When surely I was going to see you then next day or the day after! I also recall that Duane was apoplectic!” Yesterday I was complaining that someone in my house keeps leaving the door to outside open, and therefore the $65 increase in my heating bill. Now I’m confronted with this vision of myself, 27 years ago, running up some innocent people’s phone bill and placing “clever” traps around their house.
5. Peel back the surface, and New Year’s Eve is a ludicrous holiday. What precisely is the message? Do we celebrate because we survived the year; is that it? Or are we making the statement every year that we’re just glad it’s over? Or is it just another excuse for a party? I honestly don’t know what it’s about. Please explain it to me.

I’ve been playing “Skyrim” since the early hours of 11/11/11, when it came out. Yes, the night before, just shy of midnight, there I was, standing outside the videogame store inside the otherwise shuttered Burbank Town Center mall, eagerly awaiting the game’s release so that I could run home and play it until early morning. I had scheduled the entire next day free and clear and had warned my kids:  “Get all your enjoyment out of the xBox now, because come 11/11/11, you won’t be getting near it for months.” Given their experience of me with the game’s predecessor, “Oblivion,” no one thought I was kidding. At the mall, awaiting the game’s release were late-40’s me and four dozen pimple-faced boys in black clothes. While waiting, I won a used “Batman: Arkham City” poster in a free drawing. I did momentarily light up when I saw a man who by appearances was older than me — his hair was white — but then I realized he was there because he was his son’s chauffeur for the evening. So, really, it was just me among the gamers who could have stopped on the way home and bought whiskey if he wanted.

I took the game home and started playing it and have been playing it ever since. I’m happy to report that I’m now a Level 31 Imperial with a solid mix of fighting and spellcasting abilities, and I no longer die every three minutes or scream for my 9-year-old to come grab the controller and save me.

A few weeks ago, I had lunch with my friend Victor. Victor is roughly the same age and mindset as me. Over lunch, we discussed various books, the joys of comic books, a little current events, how our kids were doing in school, and our love for games and gaming. I got perhaps a little too whipped up discoursing about “Skyrim,” but he did seem interested — honest! — and said it was on his Christmas list. I told him that if he did get it, not to worry, that while the adventurer’s path begins shakily, eventually he would become stronger and more able, and not to worry about dragons in particular because with a little practice they’re actually quite easy to kill and to bask in the triumph of sucking their souls into yourself. You know how sometimes when you’re in public other people will overhear and join in with a comment or a question? In this case, no one did.

Yesterday, I emailed Victor to see if he had indeed gotten his Christmas wish. Here’s what he said, and this is what makes me feel again how under-appreciated and exploited some of us men may feel this holiday season:

“I did get Skyrim and can say definitively, my kids really enjoy it.  They watched me play for an hour and then in the days since Christmas have logged in countless hours playing and I have played for about 3.  I have not played long enough to decide if I really like it or not. I’m still more caught up in  learning the interface than enjoying the story.  I am looking forward to a few hours of playtime over the long weekend.

I have not yet read that Julian Barnes book–that was co-opted by my wife who is reading it slowly.

Have a Happy New Year.

I should add that as my kids sat fuming and watching me play “Skyrim,” I thought their combustion would rise to the level of explosion. Finally, I started cycling in play times for them, too, on the xBox:  45 minutes each, as scheduled on the kitchen timer, and then it was back to me. This may have made it worse — “I just need five more minutes to finish this quest!” — but it seemed a good primer for life, where hopes are often forestalled, and time is of the essence. It’s also a good lesson in power:  money usually triumphs, and I paid for the game and the electricity that runs it. In this way, I’m encouraging them to do well in school and in life, so that some day they can shut out their own kids at a whim.

Finally, in the early hours of yesterday, I caught the nasty illness everyone had been passing around my house. After many many hours of vomiting and diarrhea and chills, the sort of sessions that definitively prove your faith in God because you find yourself bargaining with Him, I fell in to a previously unheard-of 11-hour sleep.

I woke up this morning feeling wonderfully refreshed:  It was all behind me. I went downstairs to fix myself some breakfast. My mother-in-law asked how I was feeling, and I said, “I feel great!”

Then I leaned over to pull on my boots and threw out my back.