Frank Chu was on the corner of New Montgomery & Market this morning. I noticed he has a newly printed sign. No single letter-sticker overlays on it yet. And the sponsor on the back of the sign has changed to some cafe that claims to have the "best crepes in all the 12 galaxies."

I'm glad we have Frank Chu around as it's always fun to spot him, but the fun wears off the closer you look. You notice his limp and wonder what drives him to walk his San Francisco route every day. His voice is low and hoarse. And anyone caught in a conversation with him, hoping for a few funny conspiracy theories, finds out that once he gets started, he won't stop.

And the more obvious his mental illness becomes, the more the kitsch wears thin. Still... it usually brightens my day to see him parading down the street, tourists' eyes widening as he stomps past them, heads turning to watch him disappear.

I'm so excited at hearing about the release on DVD of Cronenberg's Naked Lunch I can hardly contain my urge to snort some bug powder.

It took me several reads to parse the phrase, "has been tough-guy actor Danny Aiello."

Interestingly, Josh& co at Cyan began blogging from the set of ILYW, but with all the publicists and talent in the kitchen, they ran into political problems and suspended it for a while. Glad to see it hasn't slowed them down, though. Their own site's enlightening enough.

M, I definitely hear you. Some time back, Andrew Sullivan, one of GC's managing partners sent along this story in the SF Chron. Part of the problem, too, goes back to the Reagan era when institutions for those with mental illnesses were shut down and the patients chased out onto the streets - a catastrophic mistake that's never been corrected, even throughout the 8 years of the Clinton administration.

Seems odd to segue from that to Naked Lunch, but yes, GEvans, I'm looking forward to the release and all its extras as well. It's been too many years since I've seen the film - and that was on VHS.

Greg, I was going to point to the ILYW site but saw that it was pretty much on hold. Regardless, wouldn't it be enlightening if more companies were that open and generous.

From some of the stories the Cyan guys have told me, it'll be a while before celebrity publicists will allow blog-level coverage.

They all fought to declare their talent off limits for blogging, literally leaving the hired bloggerwoman to cover the grips and the craft services truck guy.

Similarly, I've had a publicist at a party I threw come up after I chatted up some celeb guest tell me they have to give "double approval" of any posts or photos on my weblog. hi-larious.

It is. And yet why am I not surprised. There's more coverage of celebs than ever (remember when a single interview with De Niro was all but unthinkable? And now...), but less and less of any interest precisely because handlers have raised the walls so high. But of course, I'm pounding away at a dead horse.

You saw a way of getting around that with Sofia Coppola: don't act like a reporter. Show ads on your laptop. Come up with something fresh, and then, do more than transcribe; set the scene.

But back to the subject at hand. Remember when the Baghdad blogger was anonymous? Someone within the industry could pull off something pretty interesting if it weren't mere gossip and if it were meaty enough and believable enough to be trustworthy.

That'd be a lousy thing to do, though, wouldn't it. How could I even think of such a thing.

[g]

Patricia Highsmith published a grim story in her 1987 collection TALES OF NATURAL AND UNNATURAL CATASTROPHES about turning the mildly insane out onto the streets (entitled SWEET FREEDOM! AND A PICNIC ON THE WHITE HOUSE LAWN). The context is fiction but it reads rather prescient here in San Francisco.

In regards to dwhudson's September 10th 2003 commentary on David Cronenberg's "Naked Lunch". i was writing with the hopes that the crtierion release of "Naked Lunch" would not simply be vanilla, but would finally have a director's commentary for his adaptation. I think, and my colleagues agree, that without this commentary, the commentary of the academic is as interpretive as the adaptation itself. "Naked lunch", on DVD should work to clarify alot of the arguements pertaining the film that are coming out of academic ingroups.