I’ve only been here in the USA for a week and all America’s stars are dying left right and centre (or: center). David Carradine, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays. I apologize for my deathly influence and will try my best to be more vital in the coming weeks.

I just read Steve Martin’s autobiography, Born Standing Up. A friend (Kasina) and I are watching Steve Martin movies. Trains Planes and Automobiles, we found, survived the years, whereas Father of The Bride seems to have quickly lost any semblance of credibility in a sludge of sentimentality and dated nineties humour. (However, the scenes in which Martin is alone and in his element remain strongest, e.g., when he loses it in the supermarket, after stressing out about the cost of his daughter’s planned wedding, demanding to have a number of hotdog buns that correlates with the number of hot dogs as they are packeted at the supermarket). Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, with Michael Caine, remains a classic.

Today we’re going to watch The Jerk, which, according to Martin’s autobiography, apparently marks the stage of Martin’s career where he was turning his back on stand-up, in preference of the more social and collaborative art of filmmaking.

Little Shop of Horrors, in which Steve Martin has a supporting role as a maniacal dentist, was one of my favourite films when I was a kid. I watched it many many times. I hope it will still stand up.

Bowfinger, I have a sneaking suspicion, will not have aged well…Even though I enjoyed it when I saw it in my early teens… And, well, don’t talk to me about Cheaper by The Dozen and its sequel, Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen, or whatever it’s called. My shock-proof shit detector (Hemingway) screened these movies out of my viewing agenda after seeing the trailers. Same goes for The Pink Panther remake and its sequel.