A while back, my good friend Amissa in LA was nice enough to send me NIGHTS OF CABIRIA. She said it was the best thing she’d ever seen. Well! I finally watched it tonight and man . . . it is incredible. I cried at the end!

Seriously: y’all gotta watch it. And don’t look up what it’s about! Just go in blind like I did. It’s so much better that way.

I can’t remember if I ever told the full version of how I met Amissa, but it’s wild. The shorter version is that, having only known her online for a year, I finally ended up meeting her in person at a karaoke bar in Koreatown in LA. She and her friends had rented this huge dark room in the back, and there were a bunch of uppers and downers, and everyone was dancing around dressed like disco moms. It ruled. Afterwards I drove half of her friends in my rental car to this apartment complex, and we screamed songs on the LA freeway the whole ride there. Upstairs we got drunk and hung out. Everyone was so nice to me even though they didn’t know me. I remember she let me crash at her place that night, and I met her French bulldog Peach, and we watched NIGHT ON EARTH on what was then FilmStruck. She was one of the only people I knew who had it, so I figured she was real cool. Some time later, I went to buy a Datsun 280zx in LA, and the car broke down 20 minutes later in the middle of the highway on my way back up to Oakland. It was a disaster. I got stranded on this gravel lot on this piece of shit day, and the highway patrolman yelled at me for some reason, and I had to have the car towed, and so on. I texted all of my LA friends asking for evac, but only one person replied, and it was Amissa. She came and picked me right away and we got pizza and hung out at this cool bar and then went back to her place and watched THE LOVE LIFE OF THE OCTOPUS. It was a horrible day but Amissa took good care of me.

I don’t mean to get all sentimental! It’s just that while I was watching this movie tonight, I remembered that Amissa had liked it so much that she sent it to me because she knew I would like it too. She was right! We always like the same things like that.

Amissa has always been so kind to me and expecting nothing in return. She’s my friend and I love her a lot. Thanks Amissa!