If you thought I wasn't arrogant enough to do a "Best of Keanuvision-2002" entry, you'd be wrong...I'm actually pretty proud of what I've managed to do with this silly little fan site in the past year.

So here's a little look back at some of my favorite entries of 2002, one for each category...I've added new comments on them each explaining why they're special to me.

It's been an amazing year and I hope that I can keep it up for another one.
Of course, it would all be meaningless if not for all of you.
Y'all make it so fun, both bloggers and Keanu fans.
You all rock.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your comments and laughter, your emails submitting links and news and general warm fuzzies.

Keanu remains my inspiration, but my motivation is fueled by all the good friends I've made this year.

2003 is gonna fuckin' rock....

Trust me. I have, like....3 or 4 really amazingly spiffy posts rattling around in my head, but they'll have to wait...I keep sticking a fork in them, but they're not done.
My eyes are sure watering, though....

Here's a little something to make your monday a little dreamier...

The pictures above are from April 24, 1997 - the night Dogstar kicked off their Little Visionary tour at the Dragonfly club in Hollywood.
According to the schedule I found at KeanuNet, the band had over 50 gigs in just under four months.

I tried to find something about the show on the web, but had to wade through too many bad Kevin Costner movie articles, so I gave up.
Anyone out there at that show? I'd love to hear about it.

I don't expect them to do anything like the Visionary tour ever again, But I'm still hoping we get a few shows by spring.

...the fact that sometimes I am completely enamored by Keanu's feet.

Also, watching the cooking show line-up on PBS today, I find myself with an overwhelming desire to bake him scones....

Thanks to Dave, I just discovered that you can get a DVD box set of Sports Night.

Rob appeared as J.J. on four episodes of this great show.

Looking at his IMDB page, I see that Rob also appeared on the short-lived series "The Tick".
Dude, you can't imagine what I'd give to get hold of a copy of that.

Bwah! Not even....

Too bad I don't have a "SO NOT KEANU it's not even funny" category.

How special that the money made will go for breast implants.

People scare me.

I just found out that Sharon T., a member of a couple of the groups I belong to, has passed on.
I don't know the circumstances.
I didn't know her well, only from her posts and emails, but I just got through crying, and I will probably cry some more. For her and particularly for myself, because I didn't know her as well as I would have liked to. And now she's gone.
It's amazing how people touch your life and don't even realize it. Sharon posted frequently, usually with spunk, sometimes with a counter-opinion...always with brilliance and thoughtfulness.
Here are her words in response to the question "What is a Keanu?" in one of the groups...

"By the way, I actually know the answer to this because it's one of the first things I read on the Internet. A Keanu is a cool breeze over the mountains.

Party on,
Sharon

PS. Ok, ok, ok. Lest you chide me for lack of effort, I will elaborate.

Keanu is a breath of fresh mountain air in the parched desert of conformity. Keanu is a refreshing breeze of hope that enables us to continue bearing our burdens under the hot sun of stress. Like the wind clears the air of pollutants, Keanu clears our minds & reinvigorates our senses. As Cole Porter pointed out, hot weather is not conducive to romance, but Keanu is the evening breeze that stirs our desires with the fragrance of summer blossoms.

Keanu is a natural phenomenon, seemingly a gift from God. As with the elements, he cannot be contained or controlled by the petty & small-minded who contrive to do so. He remains something of a mystery despite diligent attempts to understand him, like the wind that last week defied the careful study of meteorologists & neglected to blow a storm our way as predicted."

Her passing comes as an unpredictable blow to those of us that knew her, even just through her words and appreciation of Keanu. My deepest sympathy goes to those that were closest to her.

She was a hell of a lady.

Goodbye, Sharon.
You will be missed....terribly.

You want some o' this?????!!!

Ha! You can't post HTML in my comments, so I thought I'd show you what Skits and Cheyenne just tried to do to me.

From skits:

from Chey:

Bitches.

I'll get you.....*wink*

I wanted this!
*wink*

I may have to pay through the nose and secure a SKIF sweater somehow.

I actually have a sweater that would probably fit right in on the Neb, but I totally covet an authentic one.

Joe Strummer, dies at 50.

"Lost in the Supermarket"

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

I wasn't born so much as I fell out
Nobody seemed to notice me
We had a hedge back home in the suburbs
Over which I never could see

I heard the people who lived on the ceiling
Scream and fight most scarily
Hearing that noise was my first ever feeling
That's how it's been all around me

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

I'm all tuned in, I see all the programmes
I save coupons from packets of tea
I've got my giant hit discoteque album
I empty a bottle and I feel a bit free

The kids in the halls and the pipes in the walls
Make me noises for company
Long distance callers make long distance calls
And the silence makes me lonely

I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

And it's not here
It disappear
I'm all lost...

(edited to add these lyrics....because.....ah, fuck it.)

Death or Glory

Every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world
And ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl
Love 'n' hate tattooed across the knuckles of his hands
The hands that slap his kids around 'cause they don't understand

How death or glory becomes just another story
How death or glory becomes just another story
'N' every gimmick hungry yob digging gold from rock 'n' roll
Grabs the mike to tell us he'll die before he's sold
But i believe in this-and it's been tested by research
That he who fucks nun will later join the church

From every dingy basement on every dingy street
I hear every dragging handclap over every dragging beat
That's just the beat of time-the beat that must go on
If you been trying for years-then we already heard your song

Right-click and take this little wreath to your own blog. Link back to the site you took it from. Please, leave a message in the comments if you use it so we can see where it goes!

I got it from julie.

It's not on stands yet, (or it wasn't at the Borders I went to) but I might have a type-up for you later.

You will please to be noting that I SO CALLED the "year of the Matrix" thing on the calendar page.
I almost put it on the actual calendar but it was getting too gaudy as it was.

Whoa, I have periodical precognition.

UPDATE: Rhonda and Keanuette rock for sending me this link:

*SPOILERAGE***Consider yourself warned*

The Matrix Makers
One year, two sequels and a revolution in moviemaking. An exclusive look behind the scenes of 2003's hottest flicks. (click to read story)

Go now! there's groovy pictures.

Thanks Rhonda for the heads up about this little riddle posted yesterday over at theMatrix.com

December 21st, 2002-------------------------

In the spirit of the holidays, and on the Saturday before Christmas, we present a riddle:

What is not a trailer, or a forthcoming Animatrix episode, or the new poster, or a video preview of the multi-platform game Enter The Matrix, or even a site update, but will have everyone talking about THE MATRIX on Sunday, December 22nd?

The answer tomorrow. ["Which is now today" --krix]

TheMatrix.com

[daffy duck]"ooooh, I hate not knowing what it is![/daffy duck]

It can't be these, which I've already seen and decided that I do not want one.

I don't suppose I can cancel Christmas plans with my mother and brother to keep and eye on the breaking news page, eh?

Somebody call me if it's really good..
You know, something like:
"The Matrix.com has decided to give an all expense paid trip to the premiere and dinner and dancing with Keanu Reeves to one very lucky, kooky webmistress whose name starts with a 'k' and ends with and 'x'..."

I thought I'd go ahead and get January's calendar up.

Do you think I can get the phrase "Happy Neo Year" to catch on??

And here's a little retrospective of the calendars for 2002, remember all of these will be removed from the server at the first of the year....

2002 Calendars
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August (my personal fave)
September
October
November
December

Lemur love to Elsinore of The Daily Thud for many of the great scans and images used.

It's been a pretty good year, I'm sorry to see it come to an end in some ways, but looking forward, too.

Hold my calls.
Tonight I will be curling up with a glass or two of wine (thanks Rhonda!)
and Tony Pierce.....

OK, ok.....it's actually Tony's book, "blook", I will be curling up with.

A girl can dream, can't she?

While Bret and Rob are off doing their shopping, my sim puts the "Ho" in Ho-ho-ho....

And what do you want for christmas, little big boy?

Mistletoe? Krix Kringle don't need no stinkin' mistletoe!

Is that a candy cane in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Ooooo, a little something for Santa, too!
Fa-la-la-la-rwowrrrr!

I swear, if I'd thought about it, these pictures would have gone out as my cards this year.

It's raining here, and while there are no big waves to be had, I thought that Johnny Utah would be nice for today's Ass Friday pic.

Surfs Up!!!!

Oh, and EVE ROCKS!!! I'm sporting the rad "Slackers®" beanie in the office today, thanks to a suprise package. *smooch!*

I finally received the package I was sweating for my gift list.
Hopefully priority mail will get MY packages to the giftees on time.

I told the seller I would give her a nice mention on the blog, but I don't want to spoil the suprise for someone, so...
If you are still trying to find something unique and funky for someone on your list, leave a comment (with a valid email, put something in the URL box, too if you want your email to stay private) and I will email you back with her eBay store info.

I think the first magazine I bought after really immersing myself in Keanu fandom was this Rolling Stone.

It's a really great interview. All sorts of little treats to be found, like what Rob Mailhouse says about Keanu and his bass...Bret talking about him drinking wine from a coffee cup.
Nice. Chris Heath is a good interviewer, too. Good stuff.
Read on....

The Quiet Man
Interview By Chris Heath - August 2000
While Keanu Reeves chose the most public of professions, he lives the life of a loner. Here he reveals his physical and family scars.

Keanu Reeves' first big spill came in the spring of 1988. He was a twenty-three-year-old Canadian actor, living in Hollywood, who had already shown an odd, edgy presence in River's Edge. The motorcycle accident, on Topanga Canyon Boulevard, one of the twisting links between the Los Angeles Valley and the Pacific Ocean, would leave him with a thick scar rising vertically up his stomach, out of which his damaged spleen was removed. There are many things Keanu Reeves simply will not discuss, but this is not one of them.

"I call that a demon ride," Reeves now reflects. "That's when things are going badly. But there's other times when you go fast, or too fast, out of exhilaration." He was doing about fifty when he hit a hairpin turn. "I remember saying in my head," he says, "'I'm going to die.'"

He lay on the pavement for half an hour before help arrived: "I remember calling out for help. And someone answering out of the darkness, and then the flashing lights of an ambulance coming down. This was after a truck ran over my helmet. I took it off because I couldn't breathe, and a truck came down. I got out of the way, and it ran over my helmet."

What did the experience teach you?

[Dryly] "I should have gone on the brake, released the brake a little bit, leaned into the turn."

No more abstract moral lessons?

"Now I know that if I want to take a demon ride and I don't want to die . . . then I shouldn't take it."

Did that stop you from taking demon rides?

"Yeah. Well, I had to get a couple more out of my system." Reeves smiles. "And I probably have a couple more left."

A conversation with Keanu Reeves is not always easy. He is not overtly obstructive, and he seems to make a huge effort to be polite. But there is an agony involved. For example, I ask him why he acts. For forty-two seconds, he says nothing. Not a word, a grunt, a prevarication, or a hint that an answer might come. For most of that time, his head is angled at ninety degrees away from me, as if that's where the oxygen is.

"Uh," he finally says, "the words that popped into my head were expression and, uh, it's fun."

A few minutes later, I lob a vague question about whether he ever wants to write or direct. He lets out a kind of quiet sigh. At its worst, it's like this. You ask Keanu Reeves a question and . . . just wait. Out in space, planets collide, stars go supernova. On earth, forests fall, animals screech and roar. People shout and rant and weep with anger and joy and just for the hell of it. And, all this time, Reeves sits there, entirely silent.

On this particular occasion, the silence lasts seventy-two seconds. When the answer arrives, it includes no complete sentences and adds up to a vague, unremarkable, "No, not really."

Keanu Reeves has been busy. He has four movies awaiting release and will make one more before committing himself to nearly a year and a half's work on two Matrix sequels. His band, Dogstar, has also just released an album. The first of these movies to appear, The Replacements, is a part-comic tale of some replacement football players loosely based on the 1987 NFL strike. He says that he has not seen the completed film.

"The script that I originally read and the film that was made were very different," he notes.

He agreed to it because he liked his character, Shane Falco.

"I felt like he was a good hard-luck character who gets a second chance," Reeves says.

He reminisces about a scene in the original script where the principal female lead beats up two hookers who were trying to rob Shane Falco. He really liked that. But they didn't even film it. "Didn't win that one," he says. "Tried, but . . . just didn't." He nods. "In the spirit of collaboration, the film went the other way," he says. "There's not much you can do."

I ask about one scene in which he and his teammates are in jail and begin dancing to "I Will Survive." I point out that he seemed a rather reluctant participant.

"That scene wasn't in the original script. You know . . . it was a tough one. Does it work? Is it OK?" He begins asking questions in a slightly mocking voice: "Is it romantic? Is this a slapstick? Or is the dr- . . . It's a dramedy! The new synthesis! Synthesis of form . . ." Later he points out, quite accurately, that "it feels like a period film . . . like an Eighties kind of picture. It's very traditional, the way it looks, the colors - I think it helps the film, actually, because it's like old-time good movie entertainment." As that, the film may work, but watching it, I can't shake off the feeling that Reeves is always at the film's edge, staring off into the distance, trying to find a slightly stranger and more beautiful film that never got made.

When I ask Keanu Reeves - in one of these many failed invitations to conversation - to tell me some things about him that are true, his single reply, after a certain amount of delay and discomfort, is, "I was born in Beirut, Lebanon." Back then, in the mid-Sixties, Beirut was a thriving cosmopolitan city. His mother, Patricia, was British, his father, Samuel, Chinese-Hawaiian, and this was where they lived for a while.

I ask him what he was like when he was young.

"Private," he says. "Probably a pretty private kid."

Private how? Kids are usually pretty social.

"I was pretty social, too," he says.

Private but pretty social?

"Yeah." He half-smiles. "It's a particle, it's a wave."

For his first seven years, the Reeves family moved around: Lebanon, Australia, America. By the time he was seven, he had settled in Toronto with his mother. That's where he lived until he moved to Hollywood to make it as a young actor. By then, his mother had become a costume designer. He remembers meeting Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris. "There were musicians around," he says. "I was going to music-recording studios and hanging out." Up the road, Alice Cooper was recording Welcome to My Nightmare. "I was forever trying to use their pinball machine," he recalls.

Who did you think Alice Cooper was? I ask.

"A friend of my mother's," he says.

But he looked weird and he had a weird name. . . .

"He didn't look weird to me. Not the way I grew up, man. Shit."

What do you think that kid back then wanted? Or cared about?

"Oh, gosh," he says. [When he says, "Oh, gosh," it usually marks a kind of incredulity that the preceding question has been asked.] "That's one I'll keep to myself."

Well, pulling back, what sense do you have of why you wanted to do, or ended up doing, what you did?

"Oh, I don't know. There are things I have thought about it and things I have perspective on, but for some reason I just don't want to speak about them."

Later, after communication has become easier but after he has just paused again for an eternity, I ask this: When you take a long time to answer a question, what are you thinking about?

"How to answer it," he says. "In a way that you can understand. In a way that I want to express it."

Reeves' father dropped out of the picture sometime before the move to Toronto. Reeves has previously said that they have not spoken since he was about thirteen. In 1994, his father was arrested with large quantities of heroin and cocaine, and sentenced to ten years in jail. He was released in 1996. [When Keanu and I talked nine years ago, he'd said: "Jesus, man. No, the story with me and my dad's pretty heavy. It's full of pain and woe and fucking loss and all that shit."]

Were you very conscious of not having a straightforward father figure?

"Uh, yeah."

How do you think that affected you?

"Gosh. In so many ways. I'm not filling that in, man. I'm not."

Do you have no ongoing relationship with your genetic father?

"I don't, at this time. No."

How do you deal with the trouble he gets into?

"Has there been a lot of it? I know there's some. I've heard of some."

Well, he's been in jail.

"It's his life, man. I hope he's well. Whatever that means."

Does it bother you when all that tangentially becomes part of your life?

"I feel bad that his life is affected by it, if it is. For him, it must be a drag."

People have assumed that it's you it must be a drag for.

"Oh, gosh. Not that. (Raises his voice, as if addressing the wider world) Leave him alone! Let him do his thing."

After a while, we take a rest from this dark San Francisco hotel bar and go outside so that he may smoke a cigarette. His hair is short, and he's looking smart: a black suit jacket, black everything else. Occasionally passers-by shout comments: "The Matrix! Point Break! You take care!"

He scratches his right leg, lifting his trouser to reveal a wide, curved scar. Another motorcycle accident, this one in 1996. "It's my hook, or my question mark," he says, fingering the scar tissue. "Maybe it's both. It depends on how you look at it."

How do you think of it?

"Both. It's a particle, it's a wave."

One of Reeves other movies awaiting release is The Gift, co-written by Billy Bob Thornton, a semifictionalized account of Thornton's mother's life as a small-town psychic. Most characters Reeves finds himself playing have a fair chunk of innocence at their centers, but in The Gift, which is directed by Sam Raimi, he plays a nasty wife beater called Donnie Barksdale.

"It's a part I don't get to play that often," he says. "It was a great experience." In preparation for life as a wife beater, he spent three weeks in Georgia learning how to be a redneck. "You know," he says, "Donnie motherfucking Barksdale." He got a truck, and he ended up borrowing a white-fleeced Levi jacket from a guy in a bar who told him he didn't look nearly redneck enough in his jeans and shirt. "I wanted to find out the thinking," Reeves explains. "I met this one guy, and he ended up by the end of the night beating up his girlfriend. In front of the bar."

Didn't you feel like stepping in?

"Of course. The way it happened is a long story that I'm not going to tell."

I suppose you must have been thinking, "This is great, this is just what I needed"?

"Yeah, sure."

Does that make you feel guilty?

"We're all guilty. [laugh] Do I feel guilty? I wish that didn't happen. I didn't punch her in the head. I wish he hadn't."

Reeves had been told by therapists that people who wife-beat can't access themselves emotionally, so they move straight to anger. "And that's what he did: He blew up. But then, what she did...it's a whole sick dance." Onto this train of thought he immediately appends the following oddly phrased sentiment: "But, you know, in the movies there's fake punches, and you get real feelings. It was interesting to feel that. And there was something about it. To me, it was just fun it's a really childish kind of power thing." It's a testament to Reeves; strange openness and innocence that in the same conversation where he struggles to share the most simple biographical details, he will trust that a listener will know that he means nothing too weird or offensive when he refers to acting out the behavior of a wife beater as "fun."

"We had this wonderful improv," he says. "It was Sam and I and Hilary [Swank, his wife in the movie]. Sam was, Let's figure this out in this little trailer." Reeves talks through the events in a scene in which Donnie eventually accuses his wife of lying to him, until he reaches, "And I'm, You're lying, and Sam says to me, Every time you say 'You're lying' to her, just hit her. I was like, OK. And we just started. And that's the fun of it. The exploration of what that is you're investigating the impulse of what that is and what comes out. So I'm rubbing her face, I'm choking, she's talking, we're getting in there, I'm pushing her against a wall, I'm like, 'Don't fucking look at me', and all of those things that come up, and all of those things that come up, and all of the ways that it goes, and everything that comes out for her, and the way that we bond and bind, and what we are as a couple that starts to bloom."

That must be weird, I say both fascinating and uncomfortable.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah."

As yourself, do you express anger in active ways?

"Well, that was one of the things that came up, just figuring that out: OK, wow, I don't show anger like that. But then it comes out, and you go, Wow, I am an angry guy."

Away from acting, where does that anger stuff go in you?

"Well, you can ask that question for any emotion. With anger, it depends on the day. Why I'm angry, how I'm angry. I'm not like Donnie Barksdale. Donnie Barksdale's pretty direct, and he's someone who would use his physical aspect. Which was fun sometimes. I called it getting my Donnie on." These last four words he then repeats. "Getting my Donnie on," he says.

"I remember when we did Devil's Advocate," says Charlize Theron, who co-starred with Reeves in that move and in the one he is currently filming, Sweet November (a strange romance in which a woman announces to a man that he will spend a month, and a month only, with her). "He was living in a hotel. When we started this movie, I asked if he was still living in a hotel, and he said, No, I'm ready to put some roots down somewhere.I think, joking, he said something like, You know, the kid, the horse, the dog and the wife. The wife last. I said, I think you have it all turned around you gotta get the wife first. But I think he has changed. Before, I think he liked the idea of living out of a suitcase I think he's now learned you can be a free spirit and have the other things."

Reeves says he is looking for a place in Malibu but that he mostly stays with his sister Kim in Los Angeles, where he has his own room. (She has been fighting cancer for some years. We do not discuss this.) "I don't have anything on the wall," he responds wearily to my questions.

"Bookshelves. She gave me a desk, so I do have a desk, bottles of wine, pictures." When I inquire further, he says, "I don't really want to tell you." As for the other stuff of settling down, last year he was expecting a baby with a girlfriend. At full term the baby was found to have died in the womb.

Here in San Francisco he is staying in a hotel while he shoots Sweet November. In his room he has music: Archers of Loaf, Built to Spill, Hüsker Dü, Joy Division, Elvis Costello, Dean Martin, Bobby Darin, Dinosaur Jr, Stravinsky, Sonic Youth. And he has books. He just finished one about string theory and the origins of the universe. Now he's reading one about Alexander the Great.

After the cigarette break, we retreat to the hotel bar. Reeves requests the chair facing the wall. "I'd rather be in the dark," he says. He talks quietly, so I push the tape recorder across the table, closer to him. He pushes it back toward me. I push it back toward him again, and this time he lets it stay there.

How easily did you navigate through adolescence?

"I don't know. I didn't end up on the rope."

On the rope?

"Swinging."

After moderate success as a teen actor in Toronto, Reeves moved to Los Angeles in the mid-Eighties."The day I landed in L.A., they wanted me to change my name," says Reeves. "A studio executive called his agent," recalls Erwin Stoff, his manager for seventeen years, "and said, That's a name that will never appear on a marquee." They brainstormed a few options and eventually settled on his initials: K.C. Reeves. (Keanu's middle name is Charles.) "It only lasted for a couple of months. It's so not who I am," he says."One of the lessons."

The lesson being?

"I don't know. Other people say, 'If you want to do what you want to do, you have to do this.' And the lesson being, You know what? You don't. You don't."

It was 1989s "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" that first made Reeves notably famous and also sparked talk of Reeves as the Western world's dreamy hot new pinup. I suggest to him that he never seemed comfortable being a sexually attractive icon.

"Really? [Sarcastically] In Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure I was a sexual icon?"

You know the weird thing: I believe so. Even then.

"Perverts."

For a while, it was often assumed that Reeves would be forever typecast as the affable, spacey, dump California teenager and, more worrying, that anyway he had more or less been playing himself.

"That's frustrating," he says. "That's very frustrating."

A further twist was given to all this when, early in the surf-and-sky-dive thriller Point Break, Reeves character was referred to as "young, dumb and full of come," a line that was often subsequently used with glee as though it referred to Reeves himself. Asked how he felt about this, he says, "What do you think?" then free-associates: "There's something good about it, something bad, something happy, something sad. There was also another great term. What was that? Himbo.Bimbos and himbos" He laughs.

"I get no respect!" Then, with heavy sarcasm: "It drove me to drink. I was insane with grief. I would drive endless miles along Mulholland highway. It was terrible and frustrating and awful, but there was nothing I could do." At the end of this I tell him I have no idea what level of sincerity he is now talking on. "4.5," he says. Out of ten? I ask. "That I don't know," he replies.

In mainstream movies, Reeves often looks uncomfortable, as though someone has tricked him into getting out of the car right there and just driven off. Whatever the result, he has usually seemed happier when he veers away. In 1991, he made Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho, with River Phoenix, and you can still feel his pride in it. "It's a beautiful film," he says. "And lonely. The way he ends up in the street. His shoes. A stranger picking him up."

He and Phoenix became firm friends: "I enjoyed his company. Very much. And enjoyed his mind and his spirit and his soul. We brought good out in each other. He was a real original thinker. He was not the status quo. In anything."

Then I mention Phoenix's death, and Reeves looks at me as though I am the kind of person who will always spoil everything.

A month after our conversation in the hotel bar, I return to San Francisco to visit Reeves on the set of Sweet November. Today's scene is being shot in a small bay just south of the city on a wooden jetty where fishing boats dock. There are three of those cloth-backed personalized film-set chairs lined up in a row. Reeves takes the one that says liam aiken, the ten-year-old kid in the movie. He gestures for me to take Charlize Theron's, which is next to it. The chair bearing the name 'Keanu Reeves' remains empty.

He enthuses about Klaus Kinski's autobiography, a book he had previously raved about during our last meeting as "like Hemingway meets Georges Bataille. It's fantastic!" Since then, I've read it, too. And he's right. It's terrific: the most preposterously explicit, heartfelt, revealing, self-crucifying book about an actor's life one could imagine. I quote back to him one passage, in which Kinski writes, "I wish I'd never been an actor! I'd rather have been a streetwalker, selling my body, than selling my tears and my laughter, my grief and my joys."

"I love that," he hoots. "It's so funny."

[Does a deep theatrical voice] "I'd rather be a streetwalker! selling my Is that what a streetwalker does? Isn't that what an actor does?"

Could you imagine ever revealing yourself like that?

Reeves pauses, nods to acknowledge the question, then speaks.

"I imagine we reveal ourselves no matter what we do."

In the early nineties, Reeves career drifted into the doldrums. "There was a period when he really ran out of juice in terms of playing the young innocent," observes Stoff. His performance in Francis Coppola's Dracula was widely derided, by himself as well as others. "I think he just sort of lost interest," Stoff says.

When the script for Speed turned up, Reeves didn't want to do it. "I didn't understand it," he says. "I didn't quite get it." Stoff says he spent an entire twelve-hour flight between Los Angeles and France trying to persuade him. "His argument was, So what, it's a bomb on a bus. Who cares?" When they arrived in France, Reeves cracked.

"He found a reason to do it," says Stoff. "He actually fond beauty and a simplicity and grace in that character. None of that existed in the script. But he found it. What I remember him saying to me is, 'You know what, this is a guy who gets up every morning and means to do good in the world'. And I think that's what people responded to."

Though Speed was at the time, his most successful film, he seems a little uncomfortable with the attention it drew. When I ask him which of his films he feels most proud, he offers the following list: "River's Edge, Permanent Record, Bill and Ted's, I Love You to Death, Little Buddha, Tune in Tomorrow, The Last Time I Committed Suicide, The Matrix, The Devil's Advocate. I like a lot of Johnny Mnemonic. I like the version of Feeling Minnesota that's not in the movie." Speed is conspicuous by its absence.

It was not, in terms of acting, his most challenging role?

"No. While I was making it, I learned Hamlet."

Because you had room in your head?

"Yes. I had room."

So what does that tell us about Speed?

"It ain't Shakespeare."

Reeves feels strongly about his Shakespeare. There is a real boyish gusto in his voice when he talks about it. "I tend to throw out a little Shakespeare once in a while," he says. "I do love it It's like this kind of code that once you start to inhabit it with breath and sound and feeling and thought, it is the most powerful and consuming and freeing at the same time. Just, literally, elemental in sound, consonants and vowels."

He says that he knows a few sonnets and soliloquies by heart, and that he brings Hamlet with him when he travels. He has a copy here in San Francisco, presumably somewhere near the Archers of Loaf. He likes to recite parts of it out loud, alone in his room. "I love the melancholy, I guess, perhaps, of it," he guesses, perhaps.

Reeves had acted in some Shakespeare when he was younger and attended some workshops. His first high-profile brush was a Don John in Kenneth Branagh's version of Ado About Nothing. Then, in 1995, he agreed to play Hamlet onstage for a month in Winnipeg. "What I learned," he says, "is that as far as you can go, Hamlet just looks at you and goes, How about here? It's beautiful and terrifying. I feel that Hamlet is one that even great actors." He mentions, as he puts it, "Mr. Daniel Day-Lewis." Day-Lewis pulled out of Hamlet midway through a run in London, partly, it is said, due to the emotions it stirred up about his recently deceased father.

You're not a man without father issues.

"Right. What I found out in doing the play was that it brought up for me all the anger that was inside me for my mother. I mean, it surprised me, just what was there, and I hadn't seen that before."

In 1987, Keanu Reeves went down to Sunset Boulevard and bought himself a bass guitar. "I wanted to learn to play bass," he says. "I liked the sound of the bass I found my ear following it in music." He was most influenced by Peter Hook's playing in Joy Division: "It's kind of a bass line but a melody line. And kind of romantically epic, in a gothic kind of way." (Reeves Joy Division favorites: "Love Will Tear Us Apart," "Ceremony,""Atmosphere.")

A while later, he went up to a guy in a grocery store near his house, because the guy was wearing a hockey shirt, and Reeves wanted to find a local hockey game. The shirt wearer was another actor, Robert Mailhouse. The two of them started playing hockey together and then music. "He lived right under the Hollywood sign in Beachwood Canyon," Mailhouse recalls. "He had this great garage; you opened these doors and it overlooked this hillside." They would jam, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. "I'd never met anyone who loved his bass so much," says Mailhouse. "Actually walked around the house with it." Reeves would blow up amps trying to duplicate Peter Hook's bass tones. Their first public performance was in a friend's bar. Mailhouse filched the name Dogstar from Henry Miller'sSexus. A new guitarist, Bret Domrose, joined and soon became their singer and principal songwriter. "One of the first things I remember about him," says Domrose, "is that I thought he was eccentric in a sense that he was drinking a real nice bottle of wine out of a coffee mug. Probably it was a hundred-dollar bottle of wine. It was a Montana State Highway Patrol mug."

When Domrose first suggested that they try to get a record contract, the other guys in the band said they weren't interested. Three months later, Reeves said that they were ready. A first album, Our Little Visionary, came out in 1996, though not in America. Their first American album, Happy Ending, has just been released. In Dogstar, Reeves mostly keeps his head down and plays the bass, but he also helps write the music. "He's really the most creative, melodic bass player," says Domrose. "He comes in with what he calls the Reeves ditties."

I ask Reeves: Is it just a hobby?

"I don't know. We play in a band. We fucking make music. We try to make records. We hang out. Is it a hobby? I don't know. We get paid, so isn't that professional? So, OK, I'm a professional hobbyist."

"I think he enjoys getting on the bus and traveling," says Mailhouse. "You get on and just do whatever ten guys will do on a bus. He really likes that."

"As the tour goes along," Reeves says, "one becomes more and more of a pirate. You lose a little of the civilization of it."

What are the signs that piracy is imminent?

"You start wearing a parrot on one shoulder, and a patch, and going, Arrrrrrhhhhh! Saying, Aye, matey. Thar she blows. Oh, wrong book."

"He's a really giving person," Mailhouse says.

"He'd give you his last shoe. Really smart, too. He's incredibly booksmart. He's a really interesting person who doesn't talk a lot of shit."

I ask Mailhouse how Reeves has changed in ten years.

"I don't worry about him as much," Mailhouse says. "I used to worry about him. Because I think of him as one of my best friends in the world was he going to crash his motorcycle, or this or that. We did some wild things. I guess it's just growing up. I don't know maybe it had something to do with River Phoenix, maybe. Losing someone close to him. But now I'm just proud of him. He's getting to do it the right way."

A conversation about drugs:

What role have drugs played in your life?

"One of them is, they certainly helped me to see more or have the sensation of seeing more. I guess part of the hallucinogenics of psilocybin the hallucinations or feelings one has. Sitting in a field, hearing and feeling and looking at nature, seeing what comes out of oneself. Having parts of the psyche revealed. They've certainly given me the sensation of an enrichening aspect, appreciating."

Did you ever discover any drugs you weren't prepared to take that chance with?

"No, I never had that cliche'd bad trip. But I haven't done that many drugs."

Are they ruled out of your life at this stage?

"Um, once in a blue moon."

He talks about the relationship between drugs and the government, how experimentation could be allowed without people risking harm by doing "too much of a good thing."

Have you ever felt you were doing too much of a good thing?

"Yeah, I've had a couple of days when I've been, OK, time to chill out. But that has also brought about catharsis. That is one of the human emotions to go to the dark side, to go to the light."

When Reeves was sent the script for The Matrix, he was immediately interested. He had long been a fan of comic graphic novels (Frank Miller's in particular), and he recognized that sensibility. He also liked his character's search, and the phrase "What truth?" And then there were the martial arts.

"I dig kung-fu movies," he says.

Why?

"It's just fun. Fake fights are fun." He repeats this last sentence. "Fake fights are fun. Okey-dokey."

The film's directors, Larry and Andy Wachowski, said they were looking for a maniac who would do what they needed: "And," Larry said, "Keanu was our maniac." They gave him some books to read: The Moral Animal, about evolutionary psychology; Simulacra and Simulation, by Jean Baudrillard ("Oh, it's fun! It's fun!" says Reeves); and Kevin Kelly's Out of Control, a book about machines and social systems.

"They just said, Go read, go read, go see what it does," says Reeves. "I think they gave me the phenomenal world, the internal words and the simulations that occurred in that."

In preparation for the film's unusual physical demands, which required considerable agility and skill, the actors were supposed to train for four months. For much of that time, though, Reeves was hampered. He couldn't kick because he was recovering from neck surgery. "I have a two-level fusion," he explains. "I had one old compressed disk and one shattered disk. One of them was really old, ten years, and eventually one started sticking to my spinal chord. I was falling over in the shower in the morning, because you lose your sense of balance."

Soon it will start all over again, the filming of the second and third Matrix movies in one stretch: four months of training and a year of filming. He swears that even now he doesn't know what happens in the movies. "They're devilish with how much they give out," he says. "Capricious."

Presumably they told you enough that you know it's not some incredibly weird thing you wouldn't want to be involved in?

"No."

It's totally on trust?

"Faith and trust."

So you might be wearing a pink tutu through the whole of the second movie?

"Maybe. Who knows. Hopefully."

What he does know is that the Wachowskis want the character's fighting skills to progress, hence all the new training. "Before, we fought one at a time, and I know that they want me to do five," he says. "Which is master. Thats the real deal. If you can fight five people, that's Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee stuff. So you need a whole other technique for that. You need a whole other level of proficiency, to be able to film close to real time and to be consistent and to have power on blows and to sell the punches. I'm sure theres going to be much more wire work, because the characters can fly." And he wants to learn to fight on three vertical levels: "Basically, our fights were really one level. Eye-to-eye fighting, or me going low to do a leg sweep, or me jumping in the air to kick you, that would be three levels. So I could fight low, fight middle, fight high. Then, with this one, I'll fight in the sky."

We sit side by side at the bar counter of an old fishermen's shack where they've been filming. And I ask.

Obviously it's a difficult question, but how do you feel about fatherhood now?

"I miss it."

At the end of my first visit to see Reeves in San Francisco, the uniformed man who works the door at Reeves hotel hails me a taxi. He has seen us talking and tells me, unbidden, about the man who has just left us. "He's a nice man. A nice man. You don't see him with no ladies. He's a loner. He likes his privacy. Rides a motorcycle."

Keanu Reeves still rides his bikes, and he has one here in San Francisco. That's what he likes to do when he has time off, when Hamlet and melodic bass lines and whatever other strange diversions he finds to take up his time simply aren't enough. Day or night, he'll roar out of the city. "Seeking catharsis," he'll explain. "Getting it out of the system. It helps change things."

What's the joy in going too fast?

"Too fast? Liberation."

Liberation from what?

"Going too slow."

Here's what Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology says for this week...

VIRGO (Keanu's sign): Happy Holy Daze, Virgo! I've been meditating on the perfect holiday presents for you. What might inspire you to be in closest alignment with the cosmic currents in 2003? One recurring vision I have is of cheap gag gifts like whoopi cushions, fake ice cubes containing plastic flies, metal cans that purport to contain shelled peanuts but erupt with spring-loaded toy snakes when you open them up, and pencil sharpeners shaped like a human nose. Why these? It's not so much that I think you need to liberate your inner child in the coming months, though that would be beneficial. What I'm even more interested in is inspiring you to be a bit more mischievous and a lot less literal. You'll be amazed at how much your chances
for success will improve if you don't follow the rules quite so strictly.

And I really don't intend to get in a habit of posting mine, but they go together so nicely:

ARIES: Happy Holy Daze, Aries! I predict that you will be more lighthearted about love in 2003. I see you taking yourself less seriously as you seek riper versions of romance and intimacy. I envision you injecting more humor into your sexual experiences. Here, then, are my suggestions about what holiday gifts you should give yourself: 1. a bumper sticker that reads, "I am no longer looking for the perfect partner. I am my own perfect partner." 2. Steve Penny's booklet, "How To Have Great Laughing Sex." 3. White boxers or silk panties on which you've used a felt-tip marker to write a goofy prayer or love spell.

So, you see Keanu, we really should get together next year...

Just for laughs.

Still don't know what to get the Keanu fan in your life? Want to treat yourself to a nice reward for getting all your shopping done already?

There's still time to get something from the keanuvision store and have it delivered by December 24. Cafepress is upgrading its standard shipping to make it so.

They've run out of ornaments, but there's still bears and thongs and jerseys and beanies so you can proclaim your Keanulove.

I've never been much of a Hobbit-fancier.

I see that all sorts of people are going to see the new LOTR movie today.

Even Keanu went to the premiere (link via keanuette).
Me? I haven't read the books.....maybe once all three LOTR movies are out on DVD I'll watch the whole thing.
You go you crazy Frodo fans, you. Rock on. I'll be in the same mindset this May. I'm so pathetic, I'm starting to think about what I'll wear to opening day of Reloaded. Do I go with a PVC trinity look?...Probably too squeaky in the seats. I'm leaning toward a nice Neb/real world look....comfy cotton sweater...yoga pants...I think that's the way to go since I'll most likely be sitting in a theater half the day.

Of course, that's right out once I get my invite to the premiere at Mann's Chinese.
Call me, Warner Brothers, Wachowski Brothers, Mr. Silver.
Mr. Reeves, even....you know you want to.

I'll need to hear from you soon, as you see, there are wardrobe plans to be made.

And the plane! Fuck! Poor Mason! And who were those other guys? With the needles in the neck and....aughhhh!
God, I love this show.

I can't think right now. So much going on.

I'm upgraded, thanks to kd. I'll have to play with all the new features tomorrow.

7 shopping days left, and I just realized all I've got for my mother so far is a freaking electric can opener, which she needs,....but still.
I hate to give her money, but it's that or get something that she'll just take back anyway. Why add to the traffic and pollution, right?

I got the perfect present for a couple of hard-to-buy-for friends.
They don't read here often, but I'm not saying just in case. It's very geeky, though.

I'm also starting to panic about some things that I've ordered that have not come yet. Gifts for my niece and nephew, and for some of my cohorts.
I got so stressed trying to figure out the perfect gifts this year, especially for the men in the family. I finally reached a point where I said "fuck it, everybody gets sweaters".

Except Roi. Roi gets liquor.

I got Keanu a copy of Tony Pierce's book. He won't get it until the next Dogstar show, though.

Speaking of books, I got my copy of Thumbsucker today.

See? See what happens when I don't blog all day?
I need to go to bed.

Thank you to Kelly for sending me this link to
Worth1000's Celebrity GenderBender Photoshop contest.
Funny, funny stuff.
Scroll down, you'll barely recognize our guy ;).
That's some mad photoshop skillz goin' on there, dawg.

I think that Batgrl would enjoy the last one.

edited to add:
Bwah! They got Kiefer, too!

In other news, there are SEVEN cases of See's candy sitting in my office.
Just call me the Duchess of self-restraint.

And because I love this little furry thing so fucking much.

He's uncharacteristically snuggly and attentive today.
He also has fishbreath.

Don't worry. I have a very Keanu post for you tomorrow.

The new photos that Morpheus promised us are up at TheMatrix.com

I'm so glad that the Matrix' web team is so on it. The hype is really going to start to gain momentum in the next few months and I can't wait to see what they come up with.

In other breaking news, Tesseract of KeanuSluts.com (GREAT name!) reports that A&E is doing a Biography program on Keanu next year.
So go check that and the rest of the KeanuSluts site out.

Also, Keanu was at the premiere of Sandra Bullock's new film with a very cute young lady the other night. You can see the photo and over at Yahoo news. Thanks to Margarete for that link.

Good grief! It's been a big birthday week, eh?

Today is Dogstar's Bret Domrose's birthday, so of course I had to throw a little Sim party.

Birthday hugs all around!

Keanu brings the fun and does a little birthday puppet show for Bret.
He's so multi-talented! Look out, insult comic dog!

Hee! So cute!

And of course, the party ends up in an all night birthday jam.
Complete with drunk groupies!

I must be out getting more beer.

Hmmm, seems like I'm forgetting something.....

Oh Yeah! It's a special Ass Friday featuring the birthday boy at House of Blues!

I hope someone got him snugger jeans as a gift this year, because the Domrose tush really deserves it.

If you're registered you can wish Bret a happy birthday over at the Official Dogstar Message Board or you can go sign his guestbook.

I received an email update from TheMatrix.com today, CLICK HERE to read it.

Along with the updated philosophy section and Trinity Game, there is a new section of articles by The Matrix Crew.

Also they say we should be expecting some new photos soon.

Happy birthday to the most fabulous woman in all of blogland.

10:45 pm-

and the party continues....

I wanted to post an amazing tribute. Why I didn't work on it yesterday, I don't know. But right now anything I write seems terribly inadequate for such a great friend and amazing person.
And the thing about kd is, she'd totally understand that.
And that's why I love her so damn much.

Oh, you can go sign her card if you'd like.

And this probably won't work but I'm trying anyway:
MANUAL PING

Now you can have fierce-in-leather santa and his special holiday treats on your desktop.

800x600
or
1024x768

(edited to add)
Oooh, and here's how Keanu rates on Santa's naughty or nice-o-meter (via kat)

Keanu Reeves: "Nice, with a few naughty marks. Neatness needs improvement. Behavior has been good sometimes, not so good other times. Manners could still use some attention. Was very nice last Monday. "

and me?

krix: Overall, niceness outweighs naughtiness. Was good a lot last month! Politeness often good, but has room for improvement. Could help around house more instead of watching so much TV. Expected to move even higher up "nice" list.

That's actually a little scary, she thought as she dug through the pile of laundry on the foot of the bed looking for the remote ...

What does Santa say about you?

First off, thank you to Rhonda for sending me a tape of MTV's Movie House.

I love watching him do that stunt work...sigh.
Good freaking gawd, this movie is going to rock.

And speaking of which, this article seems to indicate that the big premiere will be at Mann's Chinese Theater in Hollywood.
Hmmmm, I'm starting to think once again that I'd really like to go. Wonder who I need to suck up to for that?

The Club-Keanu board has a translation of the Thailand interview with Dogstar, thanks to Wickysis.
How cute and suave is Bret Domrose, huh?

Suave? Did someone say suave? I got yer suave right here, baby. Fansites.com's gallery has some more pictures of Keanu from last Friday's Cinematheque ceremony (thanks Sharon), and if you head over to KeanuWeb, I believe you'll find some more links to some photos as well.

Beautiful girls need beautiful blogs so I'm going to be hosting Bea for a while so she can get a feel for Movable Type.

Go say Hi.

It's come to my attention that a few of my friends are experiencing a bout with the December blues/grumpies/raging bitchosis and that makes me wish I could wrap you all in a great big eddieshirt and give you warm fuzzies.

Alas, I cannot.
But I can share a part of myself and those that I love in the form of song.

Last week, when Eric was in town; he, I and Roi went over to Dave's and hung out. Had some pizza and beer and also had some fun.

The following is a result of some good friends improvising for a few hours that evening.

Liberace.mp3 (*was here, has since been removed to save embarassment and space...sorry. Trust me, you aren't really missing anything*)

Yeah, it's a big file, sorry to those of you on dial-up.

That's Roi on vocals and guitar, and me throwing in some (horrible) background vocals after much coaxing.
Dave on lead guitar and Eric on keyboard, bass and drums.
Dave did the mixdown.

It's dedicated to the Peppers (Kim and Keefe), who are up in Reno now, but should have been there.

So "ah-chee, cah-chee, Liberace I LOVE YOU".
And don't you forget it.

Big wet sloppy lemur kisses to Jena for sharing this US Weekly, Dec. 16, 2002 article.

"Lately, Keanu Reeves and George Clooney have been tooling around town on their beloved motorcycles looking awfully a lot alike. How are they different? Read on."

Keanu Reeves vs. George Clooney

The Hog
Keanu: Black 1974 850cc Norton Commando (worth up to $11,500 today)
George: Military-green 1,442cc Indian (about $24,000)

Memorable Ride
Keanu: A 1988 collision with a mountain during a "demon ride" (no lights at night)
George: A three-week tour of Italy with five friends in 2001

Organ Most Affected by Cycling
Keanu: Spleen - he ruptured his in the crash and has also broken an ankle.
George: Heart - he promotes the Running Heart Foundation, which uses cycles to rush medical help to heart-attack victims

Biker Quote
Keanu: "I don't know if I'm getting better at riding them, but I definately know I'm getting better at crashing," he said after a 1996 accident.
George: "It wouldn't have been fun to buy just one," said Clooney, who gave five friends Indian motorcycles for Christmas in 1999. They ride together every Sunday.

The US Biker Personality Assessment
Keanu: A bad boy - organ damage says macho!
George: A sweetheart - we'd take a ride any day!

Yes, George sounds like a helluva guy, but I'll take a dangerboy any day.

And I bet I don't have to tell you which of my organs would be affected by a ride on the Norton....

I came home from a hectic day to a lovely suprise from Keanuette!
My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE Keanu movie, Feeling Minnesota on DVD.
Thank you so much!

Thanks to skits, I found another Keanu for the s!ms at this site.

So what else could I do but install him, name him Chuck Spadina and stir up some trouble?
Exactly.
I love me some bad boys and my sim is no different...

Actually, it was all very innocent.
Just dinner with a new neighbor. Gotta make him feel welcome, eh?
Plus it's always nice to have someone that understands my intense loathing of watercraft.

But how creepy is this?
Keanu's not too happy to see me enjoying a nice Cobb salad with another guy.

I've never seen someone eat a steak so harassingly.
You'd think he'd be flattered.
After all, Chuck looks like he could be his long lost brother.
Or you know.....evil twin.

After devouring his red meat, Keanu gets all riled up and there is a rather ugly confrontation.

"Hey man, you're a jerk!"

"No, dude. YOU'RE the jerk."
"Don't you shove me!"
The boys scuffle a bit and the word 'cockblock' is used much to the dismay of the other diners.

Chuck has enough, calls me a bitch and makes me cry.
Man, he is a jerk.

I run to Keanu and try to explain, but he gives me an earful of what a tramp I am.

But I'm wiley (and great in bed and he knows it).
I turn on my feminine charms and whisper something saucy in his ear.
Eventually, I am forgiven.

We decide to go home, but on the way to catch a cab, Keanu stops at a fountain and makes a wish...

"I wish my girlfriend wasn't such a complete HO."

We'll see if it comes true....

I KNEW there was something I was forgetting to do today....

Go wish Fair Beatrice *mwuah!* a happy birthday! There's still time!

And while you're there, read her blog. She has the most fascinating life of anyone I know, and she writes about it so charmingly. I swear they'll make a movie of it someday.

They'd just better not cast Keanu as Victor.
I'm not fond of this Victor character *wink*.

To the person that paint-balled my car last night...

I realize it's unlikely that I will ever have the pleasure of exacting revenge on your sorry ass, but this I do know: You're a JERK.
And one day, someone is going to realize what a complete and utter fucknugget you are and they're going to teach you a lesson.
And as I wash my car today I'm going to fantasize about that lesson.
In my mind, it involves you getting shot repeatedly with those same bright pink paintballs.
Right in the crotch.

I could have left the office an hour ago.

Instead I've been putting candy canes down his pants.

At least I'm in the holiday spirit~*

(p.s. assorted PSP tubes I used for decorating can be acquired at a1emporium.com. if you use PSP they have a lot of lovely holiday stuff.)

This is Keanu last night in Beverly Hills at the 17th American Cinematheque award dinner honoring Denzel Washington.
(from Yahoo News Photos)

He's not half bad all decked out in formalwear.
*ahem*

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go sit in a tub full of ice and browse bridal magazines....

"If I gave you a dollar, you could keep most of the change, 'cause all I really want is a QUARTERBACK"

There is a transcript of Keanu's MTV Movie House interview up at mtv.com. Plus, there's a little slideshow available with some Smith/Neo fight pictures. As always, he looks exquisite when captured in motion.

This is all slightly spoilerish for the purists out there, but I just couldn't stand it. I had to look, and thanks to Rhonda, I'll catch the interview on tape.
I believe that it may be replayed later tonight so if you missed it, you should check your listings.

Also, thematrixonline.com has some news, uncluding an update to the official site. A 68.2MB hi-res version of the teaser trailer is now available, and there's a new Trinity Game.

There are these nasty little "bots" that search page code for email harvesting. I've started getting more stupid spam emails recently. So much that I've removed the email links on most of the site and am considering changing my address soon. It's a pain in the ass. I've made posting your email optional for the comments and I'd like to suggest that those of you that do use the email field, go ahead and put a spamblock of some sort in it, i.e. boytoy@NOSPAMhotmale.org. Or use a "throwaway" addy.
Also, if you'd like to keep your email private you can put something in the URL box and that will show instead. Just remember to start it with an http://
I should have said something about this a while ago, and apologize if anyone gets some of the junkmail I've been getting. I don't even want to know what a "zoogirlie" is.
Viva la Delete key...

The captioned picture above is from EW.com's version of the lastest news on the three movies that Keanu has slated for 2003. The caption just struck me as a bit bizarre. Does EW always put stuff like that? LUFF? Sounds like the copy writer has a crushy-wushy.

Not that that's a bad thing.....

Also, has anyone else noticed that since you've gotten a computer that your handwriting sucks? I'm trying to write some holiday cards and I'm appalled at my own scribblings.

I don't have cable. Here is your assignment.
At 4:30 today Keanu is going to be on some new MTV show, Movie House, talking about The Matrix Reloaded. If anyone happens to catch it, please let us know in comments how it was. Thanksverymuch.

And here's Keanu's horoscope from FreeWillAstrology.com:

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The choice between seeking mere survival and stalking interesting success will be thrust in your face again and again in 2003, Virgo. I'm sure you're already getting a taste of the intensity. Here's my suggestion for what you can do to get yourself in good shape for it: Become very clear about your deep inner definition of success, as opposed to the
superficial, inappropriate, and deceptive definitions that various people have tried to foist on you over the years. Here's your future rallying cry: *Be your own genie in 2003.*

And although I don't usually post mine (I always read it, Breszny rocks) I'm going to this week, because I really want to heed it.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Expect the unexpected or you won't find it." That's an epigram formulated by the ancient Greek sage Heraclitus; it's also the name of a book by creativity expert Roger Von Oech; and now it's the centerpiece of your horoscope, Aries. As smart as you are, your steel-trap mind sometimes
closes prematurely. And you can't afford to let that happen now. Open your expectations as wide as they'll go. Be as fresh and innocent as you can stand to be. Make yourself fully available for the novel fun that's brewing at the frontiers of your world.

I finally got around to getting the s!ms Hot Date expansion pack.
It's totally worth it just for all the new kisses.

Don't tell Bret.

Thank you to Miho of 999.squares.net for posting a link to some wonderful pictures from Dogstar's Thailand show on the Dogstar Board.

Go look.
Pretty colors.....need coffeee...

Oh, joy.
Guess who is the #1 result in the search for "Keanu Reeves Naked"?

Yep. That would be me.
For all my attempts at cleverness and eloquence....it's Keanu Reeves Naked that brings them to my doorstep.

But wait! It's because of this article.
Man, do I get the hits on that page. I get the exit stats, too. Basically, most people get there, realize that there are no filthy pictures and move on in their search for naked-er pastures.
MOST people...not all, and that gives me hope. I hope that the eight people out of 187 that didn't click that "X" actually read the Sky Magazine article in that post. It's a good one.

And I hope that they maybe poked around the site a bit more and gleaned a greater appreciation for Keanu Reeves, Naked or not.

Here's a little tip for those of the quest for some Reevesian Nudeness:
As far as I know, the only real naked pictures of Keanu would be the famous ones taken by Greg Gorman. Nice ones, too. Nothing full frontal.
Tasteful.
Artistic.
Definitely sexy.

Now, I've *cough* heard of some more revealing pictures, alledgedly of Keanu and it's *ahem* possible I may have even seen one (though no fault of my own....I swear they just showed up in my inbox....really) But I assure you, it's a fake.

No, I'm not going to show it to you. Haven't you been listening?

I swear, it's like I don't know who you are anymore.

There's no naked Keanu here.
Broaden your perspective of appreciation or go away.

Yes, today is D-day. D being for dental. I think today they're just going to peel my face back and scrape on my skull or something.
I don't know...I'm going to try and be "someplace else" while I'm there.
I'm sure I'll walk out feeling like a really bad goalie.
I'll be fine though, thanks to all the love and wishes I've gotten lately. Thanks.

Wowsers, I woke up today and my inboxes were overflowing and all abuzz with news of three, count 'em, THREE movies that Keanu has signed on for in 2003.

(from Yahoo)
Keanu Reeves will fill out a love triangle with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in an untitled comedy that marks one of three films he will shoot next year. Reeves will also star in 'Thumbsucker,' an indie adaptation of the Walter Kirn novel, and then move on to the previously announced 'Constantine,' the adaptation of the DC-Vertigo comic 'Hellblazer' at Warner Bros.

So, are we sure now that the Constantine is the Hellblazer story? Freaking Variety got me all confused last week. I hope that they were just wrong and that Keanu is going to play that right bastard, John Constantine, and not the religious historical figure. Because you know we're going to have dirty thoughts about him, and that's a little icky.

I don't have much to say about the Thumbsucker one, but I just ordered the book it's based on. According to IMDB, Elijah Wood is cast as the lead, so we can kiss our oral fixated Keanu fantasy goodbye. It's an indie so it's bound to be my favorite of the three. I know I'll like it more than the untitled Nicholson/Keaton film. I'm not a big romantic comedy fan. I know that lots of fans are and are extremely excited about it, though. It's the older woman thing. I'm happy he's getting to work with Jack.

Here's a couple links to the stories at Yahoo:
"Reeves Joins Nicholson, Keaton in Triangle"
"Dr. Reeves treats Meyers-helmed comedy for [Columbia Pictures]"

And there's some matrix stuff over at Film Force, too. Mostly about the philosophy section at the official site and the soundtrack.

move along

This cute boy with flowers is from Elsinore's Daily Thud.

Still no news on new Dogstar shows, but here's link to some photos of Dogstar during the Thailand show and press tour. Some really nice concert shots there. Thanks to Jena.

Lastly....Keanu appeared vividly and briefly in a dream last night. He kissed me on the stomach.
I have no idea what it means.