Because you don't live in Boulder.

But I used to and I met one of my best friends there, in grad school, which apparently took quite a while to germinate for us.

(Eight?) years later, he has his first novel out, Girls For Breakfast, which you might have seen me shamelessly hawking here.

But the Dirt people--Jennie Dorris, specifically--loved the novel and were nice enough to put him on their cover this week. And they included him on the inside, too--pretty funny interview.

(He also got a great review in Publisher's Weekly recently, by the way, and a string of newspapers pubs around the country, which I've been too lazy to get around to posting.)

hennyway. You'll prolly be wanting a sample from the interview. OK:

d: You mentioned answering phones. Are you talking about doing temp work?

DY: I temped for five and a half years. My specialty was reception work. I would get those one-day-a-week-for-six-months reception jobs. The first year or two, I would befriend people, and everyone thought I was a rock star - I was a cool guy that writes. By the time I was 29, I was the creepy old guy that writes stories at night.

d: A lot of the issues in the book revolve around growing up Korean American. Did the gawking in your hometown of Avon, Conn., continue in white-bread Boulder?

DY: It was old hat by the time I got there - I've always been an 'Asian sighting' wherever I go.

d: Did you enjoy being Boulder's only Asian?

DY: Actually, when I was there my hair was about 30 inches long, and because it's so sunny out there, I used to be tan. So I'd hang out at the Catacombs, and at least once a week some guy would come up and ask me what tribe I was in.

d: And what tribe were you in?

DY: I used to tell everyone that I was an Apache.

d: So you have a novel from Random House and two official interviews under your belt. Is your life completely different?

DY: My life hasn't changed at all. It's a weird thing, my life is no different than it was two years ago. And two years ago I was an abject failure.

d: So, with four rejected novels it must have taken a lot of perseverance to keep on writing. Did you have any mantras to keep you going?

DY: From ages 25 to 30, every birthday and every New Year's Eve, I would say to myself, "This is the year I'm going to write and sell a novel." Every year I thought more and more that I should start wishing for something I could get, like a pizza coupon.

That's pretty much what he's like in person, too. She did a good job of capturing him.

And if you found that even mildly amusing, you're going to really enjoy the tone of the novel.

Hey. If you read the interview, the pix from various stages of his life are pretty funny, but click here, to see the cover for an idea of what he looks like now. Very different. (It's an artist's rendering, but nails him.)

we're tryin'
we're hopin'
we're hurtin'
we're lovin'
we're cryin'
we're callin'
'cause we're not sure how
this goes

The real test of how deeply a scene moves me is how long it lingers on my Tivo. I don't know what I think I'm going to do with it. How many times can you watch the same scene.

Enough, I guess. Six or eight times so far on this one, I guess. Even more than that final OC Hallelujah sequence. Because it's not quite that powerful. Yeah, the deeper it hits, the harder to watch. I have really steal myself for that one.

This one feels more comforting. Although when I do watch it, it tends to tear me up.

It's from that mortician show, Six Feet Under. About three weeks ago. When the mom's sort-of friend dies and all the old hippie ladies gather and the cranky old mom actually smokes pot with them. And then they slowly mumble their way into and then erupt with Calling All Angels.

(Hmmmmm. Angels? Hallelujah? OK, don't go looking for a pattern just yet. Except perhaps desperate characters looking in the direction desperate people are sometimes wont to look.)

Like all great filmed song sequences, it feels written especially for the scene at hand, until the cutaways start, and you think, God, no, it was written for those.

And this show has no shortage of broken, hurting, tragic, borderline pathetic characters trying to fumble their way through a preplexing existence to cut away to.

Which makes me feel a lot better about the show, suddenly.

Becasue this planet sure has no shortage of broken, hurting, tragic, borderline pathetic characters trying to fumble their way through a preplexing existence to cut away to.

Hmmmm. This prolly wouldn't be the best time to dump on this show. Let's just say it has disappointed me a bit. Since I moved up from indigent status and splurged on an HBO subscription, and actually started Tivoing the show.

I had caught scattered episodes from previous seasons, and the last handful from the end of last season, but this is the first season I've been able to watch in sequence.

Not sure what all the fuss is about. I kind of like it. I love a lot of things about it. But I can't say I love it.

Has it faded? Am I tuning into the waning years? Or the years never intended to stand on their own, firmly rooting in the developments of the previous several seaons?

I have this weird anticipation/annoyance reaction to a new episode approaching. Part of me can't wait to see the next development, but an equal half is eager to see something else.

Because not that much does usually develop, and 90% of what does is a real downer. Sad material I'm fine with, but these people can just be so whiny! Especially Nate. I just want to slap that guy.

(That guy, especially. He's the only one I'm not sure I actually buy. He's not just whining all the time, he's kind of perplexing. Almost arbitrary in his actions, except they have the one thing in common that they are always certain to undo him.)

But it definitely has its moments.

At least twice an episode I find myself smiling hard, the kind that just keeps radiating long after the show has ended.

And then the Calling All Angels sequence. God. I could watch an entire season of a show just for one gift like that.

It's a kd lang song, by the way. Couldn't even remember where I knew it from, until I googled. Ahhhhhhhhhh. The Until The End of the World soundtrack. (Quite the soundtrack.) Sung by Jane Siberry.

Another taste:

calling all angels
calling all angels
walk me through this one
don't leave me alone
calling all angels
calling all angels
we're cryin' and we're hurtin'
and we're not sure why...

We're not sure how. And we're not sure why.

Hmmmm. Obviously, she's been peeking in on my life.

Wednesday Update:

Nice piece on the show, and specifically Nate, and his possible heart attack/stroke, today from Salon's brilliant Heather Havrilesky.

She nicely capsulizes much of what bugs me about the sortof central character:

Nate has always been an ingrate. What's brilliant about him, as a character, is that he embodies the very worst of the so-called sensitive, liberal, enlightened, privileged white world. He has a cushy job, a smart, beautiful wife, a reasonably sane family, and an adorable daughter who never babbles on tediously like most toddlers. So what does Nate do? He goes crawling off to screw a relative stranger and tricks himself into believing that his infidelity is a piece of some greater search for meaning.

In other words, Nate embodies all of our selfish urges and all of our pathetic rationalizations for indulging those urges. He's a big, sad child who finds it impossible to connect with those who actually matter to him, who are in his life, who care, and instead goes running after wholesome-seeming strangers whose complicated needs aren't apparent to him yet.