Wednesday, June 18th 2003


Good call, bad form: Ashton "Yo, Diddy. We're running low on model punani" Kutcher dating Demi Moore. Our tapped-in friend Court Star comments: "Remember back in St. Elmo's Fire when she was fat?"

Bad call, good form: Kutcher spotted last week at The Standard Hotel lip-locked with ex-gal Brittany Murphy unbeknownst to new flame (read: much older career-obsessed girlfriend with three demanding kids and early morning yoga classes.)

Gossip like this is why we haven't moved to Reykjavik yet. The scoop came by way of a US Weekly knockoff we were perusing while waiting in the magazine section at the Park Slope CVS for a heavily-tattooed film delivery guy to arrive (twenty minutes late) with my prints.

The CVS Photo Clerk informed us she was not authorized to call in a complaint until the Film Delivery Guy was an hour late. The way she said it, unprompted, with one eye on the photo lab phone, we imagine she's been waiting, patiently, very patiently, for that day to come.

When the Film Delivery Guy did show, she made no mention to him of the fact he was late at all. It was painfully cordial on both ends.

Back before Blue Box, when we were in the uptight and wanky mode of our twenties, living inside our own heads, contemplating our monumental failure at life, sinking under the weight of desperation, we were headquartered in West Hollywood, the LA Season for those fond of using Real World parlance.

Under blue sunny skies, we would cruise down the Sunset Strip in our sexy-white Subaru Forester and pull up to the front of The Standard, minus turbo-nitrous button or Devon Aoki. Forgoing the underground valet parking, we'd park on the street, directly in front of the swanky white-concrete building.

Taking from the car with us our towel, our cellphone, and a swim-truck pocket full of quarters, used to fill the parking meter, which we had to dash from our chair poolside, through the shag-carpeted lobby, slaloming the inflatable sofas and beanbag chairs, past the barely-dressed women in the display case behind the check-in desk, and across the blacktop driveway to fill every hour.

We developed a highly-attuned mental power to know when the meter was on the verge of running out - a critical skill to possess as the LA Parking Cops are the most elite ruthless force working in the transportation enforcement industry.

The Standard pool area was our "offices" for daytime networking, i.e. make two or three going-nowhere phone calls to industry contacts and nurse the iced tea we felt obliged to order so that the aggresively blonde waiter in bright-white shorts wouldn't give us the boot.

The rays were easy to catch by the pool where bikini-clad scenesters and starlets (think Marlboro Lights, Gucci sunglasses, night-shift starts at 6:30 PM, pseudo-mod friends play in pseduo-model band) sun their organic-fed bodies next to manicured-messy sk8ter dudes chomping on french fries too pricey for industry toejam like us.

It's kind of a hard-to-swallow story -- the Ashton/Brittany backslide hook-up at The Standard. On the other hand, easy access to a moderately expensive hotel room, plus word has it Winona "Bright Eyes is so much more tapped-in than Coldplay" Ryder religiously attends the all-day rooftop service offered every Sunday.

And we'd like to think Kutcher is the kind of guy who is going to mix-it up. The world is all but getting on it's knees and begging him to display good form with a few bad calls - we only pray he knows it. Thankfully we get the sense he does. Playing it safe would be his worse call -- his job is to embrace the joyous chaos that the universe is begging him to surrender to. And joyous chaos, thy name is Brittany.