Sadness but no surprise at hearing that Temple men's basketball coach John Chaney has decided to retire. He's 74 years old and has coached with such intensity for so long, he looks worn down. I went to Temple for undergrad, and Chaney has been Temple basketball for a long, long time. It'll be hard to imagine anyone else on the sidelines.
I didn't like how he sometimes overplayed the race card, especially in response to the NCAA trying to raise academic standards, but I admired his efforts to find guys who needed college for a leg up on the social mobility ladder, and then instill into them discipline and work ethic via 6am practices and staying on them about school. He helped lots of guys who likely would have not othewise have had a shot to go to a decent college (or might have gone to a place like Cincinnati and get used by Bob Huggins), and lots of these students earned a degree.
Monday, March 13, 2006
malenga! (possible sopranos spoiler)
I'm guessing I'm not the only one who said "holy shit!!" at the end of the Sopranos last night (spoilers in the linked stories...don't read if you don't want to know just yet). Interesting that they had no previews for next week.
Oh, and I found at least one death pool/betting site. I'm sure there are more.
Oh, and I found at least one death pool/betting site. I'm sure there are more.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
another rainy day, trapped inside with the train set
sunday round up...
In the middle of a massive flickr upload of a bunch of old stuff that was residing at fotolog (it looks to be a rainy day, and the soccer game was cancelled, so might as well get to one thing I've been putting off). The overall flickr interface and experience is much better. Seeing the South America photos brings back good memories of the trip.
Wow was Joe Biden ever awful on Meet the Press this morning. Normally he's an annoying over-bloviating windbag, but today he was strident and off his game. Didn't look at the camera or at Russert, mostly looked down, stumbled over his words. He stands no chance at the Dem nomination in 2008, and would be a horrible candidate in a general election. He always comes off as too angry. I don't understand why he's running. Meanwhile George Allen kept making me think of Seinfeld character David Puddy.
Went to a reading last night at Edinburgh Castle. Short story by Daniel Handler -- or as more people know him, Lemony Snicket (and Handler looks nothing like I imagined) -- and a dramatic adaptation of a Gus Van Zandt story. Preceded by wine and cheese at Hotel Biron.
In the middle of a massive flickr upload of a bunch of old stuff that was residing at fotolog (it looks to be a rainy day, and the soccer game was cancelled, so might as well get to one thing I've been putting off). The overall flickr interface and experience is much better. Seeing the South America photos brings back good memories of the trip.
Wow was Joe Biden ever awful on Meet the Press this morning. Normally he's an annoying over-bloviating windbag, but today he was strident and off his game. Didn't look at the camera or at Russert, mostly looked down, stumbled over his words. He stands no chance at the Dem nomination in 2008, and would be a horrible candidate in a general election. He always comes off as too angry. I don't understand why he's running. Meanwhile George Allen kept making me think of Seinfeld character David Puddy.
Went to a reading last night at Edinburgh Castle. Short story by Daniel Handler -- or as more people know him, Lemony Snicket (and Handler looks nothing like I imagined) -- and a dramatic adaptation of a Gus Van Zandt story. Preceded by wine and cheese at Hotel Biron.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
walking in l.a.
Some photos of downtown Los Angeles, from the March 3-5 trip mentioned recently.
I have this odd fascination with Frank Gehry. He's cleary very bold and inventive but some of his buildings, particularly the business school at Case Western University, seem so out of place for their surroundings. You can see the Case Western building from way atop the cemetery where Harding is buried...your eyes can't avoid it as it dominates the staid Cleveland scenery. The Experience Music Project building in Seattle works a bit better, situated as it is next to the Space Needle.
The Disney Concert Hall fits in perfectly to its place. It is LA, so the bold and borderline absurd are to be expected. And this building is bold. My words can't do it justice, so for more info you should go to this interesting look at the design at Arcspace.
I have this odd fascination with Frank Gehry. He's cleary very bold and inventive but some of his buildings, particularly the business school at Case Western University, seem so out of place for their surroundings. You can see the Case Western building from way atop the cemetery where Harding is buried...your eyes can't avoid it as it dominates the staid Cleveland scenery. The Experience Music Project building in Seattle works a bit better, situated as it is next to the Space Needle.
The Disney Concert Hall fits in perfectly to its place. It is LA, so the bold and borderline absurd are to be expected. And this building is bold. My words can't do it justice, so for more info you should go to this interesting look at the design at Arcspace.
dysfunction junction
Finally got around to seeing Capote last night, and for discussion purposes it's a good complement to The Squid and the Whale which I saw a couple of weeks ago. Both center on insufferably egotistical New York-based writers, albeit one with a bit more notoriety and success than the other. Both Jeff Daniels's Bernard Berkman and Truman Capote are real people, the Berkman character fictional but apparently not too far removed from the real-life father of Squid writer and director Noah Brumbach (who wrote The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which also deals heavily with paternal-filial relations and egomaniac creative types.
There's not a scene in Squid which isn't uncomfortable to watch. From the screwed up family dynamic that's set up in the first scene on the tennis court, to the pretension and smug stupidity of Berkman and his eldest son, to the mom's philandering, to the youngest son's acting out with alcohol and masturbation (and speaking of uncomfortable, the acts are portrayed fairly graphically, which is cringe-worthy as the kid {played by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates's son Owen) is all of about 10 years old..how do you direct that without self-consciousness)...the film is one big trip to the therapist's couch for Brumbauch, and entire skeletons are hauled out of the closet for the audience to examine. Plenty of films have dealt with divorce, and many from the point-of-view of the kids...none that I remember have done so in a way that either sparks instant recognition for anyone who's been through some messy family stuff or provides a "there but for the grace of god" moment for people who grew up in happy families. And speaking of child stars, or at least former ones now grown up...Anna Paquin plays a grad student who sleeps with the elder Berkman while she teases his son. Anna Paquin, the little girl from The Piano. When did she grow up?
The real-life Truman Capote doesn't come off very well. He's portrayed as a self-absorbed drama-queen who uses Perry Smith (and to a lesser extent Richard Hickock) to write "In Cold Blood". At first his affection for Smith is apparently genuine, as he thinks Smith and he are both cut from the same cloth, and Smith just had the worse luck and made the poor choices to be weak and a criminal. The worm turns when Capote realizes that Smith is as much using him to get access to lawyers and beat the rap when it's obvious that Smith and Hickock are guilty. A fantastic juxtaposition is the scene where Capote is basking in the adulation from a well-received public reading from the unfinished book while Smith sees a fellow death-row inmate be walked into the hanging warehouse and later wheeled out on a back-hoe, one arm hanging off the lip of the well. Each sees his future played out, the consequences of the murder taking their lives in starkly different directions. In the end Capote can't wait for Smith and Hickock to meet the hangman so that he can finish his book. The depth of Capote's self-absorption comes when longtime friend Harper Lee is celebrating her own success, the film premiere of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Capote can't even be bothered to offer her sincere congratulations, preferring to wallow in his own martini-induced miasma of self-pity, churlishly lamenting that the stays of execution are preventing him from being done with the book.
Regarding the Oscar-worthiness of Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance...well, it's always hard to be totally objective after the fact. I mean, I'm watching it knowing he won, how can that not affect my own view? Three of the nominees for Best Actor were for roles where the actors portrayed real people who had plenty of visual evidence left as to their mannerisms. While it's certainly a challenge to portray a real person regardless whether the actor interprets or imitates, I thought Heath Ledger's performance was all the more amazing because he had to create his character out of whole cloth. And his character was much more complex than Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash or PHS's Truman Capote.
There's not a scene in Squid which isn't uncomfortable to watch. From the screwed up family dynamic that's set up in the first scene on the tennis court, to the pretension and smug stupidity of Berkman and his eldest son, to the mom's philandering, to the youngest son's acting out with alcohol and masturbation (and speaking of uncomfortable, the acts are portrayed fairly graphically, which is cringe-worthy as the kid {played by Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates's son Owen) is all of about 10 years old..how do you direct that without self-consciousness)...the film is one big trip to the therapist's couch for Brumbauch, and entire skeletons are hauled out of the closet for the audience to examine. Plenty of films have dealt with divorce, and many from the point-of-view of the kids...none that I remember have done so in a way that either sparks instant recognition for anyone who's been through some messy family stuff or provides a "there but for the grace of god" moment for people who grew up in happy families. And speaking of child stars, or at least former ones now grown up...Anna Paquin plays a grad student who sleeps with the elder Berkman while she teases his son. Anna Paquin, the little girl from The Piano. When did she grow up?
The real-life Truman Capote doesn't come off very well. He's portrayed as a self-absorbed drama-queen who uses Perry Smith (and to a lesser extent Richard Hickock) to write "In Cold Blood". At first his affection for Smith is apparently genuine, as he thinks Smith and he are both cut from the same cloth, and Smith just had the worse luck and made the poor choices to be weak and a criminal. The worm turns when Capote realizes that Smith is as much using him to get access to lawyers and beat the rap when it's obvious that Smith and Hickock are guilty. A fantastic juxtaposition is the scene where Capote is basking in the adulation from a well-received public reading from the unfinished book while Smith sees a fellow death-row inmate be walked into the hanging warehouse and later wheeled out on a back-hoe, one arm hanging off the lip of the well. Each sees his future played out, the consequences of the murder taking their lives in starkly different directions. In the end Capote can't wait for Smith and Hickock to meet the hangman so that he can finish his book. The depth of Capote's self-absorption comes when longtime friend Harper Lee is celebrating her own success, the film premiere of "To Kill a Mockingbird". Capote can't even be bothered to offer her sincere congratulations, preferring to wallow in his own martini-induced miasma of self-pity, churlishly lamenting that the stays of execution are preventing him from being done with the book.
Regarding the Oscar-worthiness of Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance...well, it's always hard to be totally objective after the fact. I mean, I'm watching it knowing he won, how can that not affect my own view? Three of the nominees for Best Actor were for roles where the actors portrayed real people who had plenty of visual evidence left as to their mannerisms. While it's certainly a challenge to portray a real person regardless whether the actor interprets or imitates, I thought Heath Ledger's performance was all the more amazing because he had to create his character out of whole cloth. And his character was much more complex than Joaquin Phoenix's Johnny Cash or PHS's Truman Capote.
Friday, March 10, 2006
the waiting is the hardest part
HBO, Sunday, 9pm...our long national nightmare of waiting will be over. Someone, somewhere, has gotta be running an on-line Sopranos death pool, right?
Thursday, March 09, 2006
wait a minute honey, gonna add it up
Randomalia...
A few weeks ago I went to see The Adventures of Cunning and Guile, a series of dance duets by Chris Black and Ken James, and featuring art by Lark Pien. Very inventive and fun. staged in the galleries of the Cartoon Art Museum, which is worth a visit on its own.
We had a power outage last night. That in and of itself isn't weird. What was odd was that I woke up about 10 seconds before the lights went out at 2am. My eyes just snapped open, looked around, I heard the dull thud of the power stopping, and then my alarm clock went dead. Took about 45 minutes to get back to sleep. I awoke just before the electricity came back on at 6am, though it's hard to think of that as unusual since that's when I wake up every day during the week. Still, I woke up about 2 seconds before the power came back. Eyes just snapped open, and "bam", on came the juice.
Soccer season starts up again this weekend, weather permitting. The "learn to play keeper somewhat competently" experiment continues. It's a fun new challenge, and it's less wear and tear on the acl-replaced left knee.
Some good live music coming this way in the next few weeks, including various Noise Pop shows, the New Pornographers & Belle and Sebastian together on one bill, Rhett Miller, and just for the hell of it, AC/DShe, an all-girl AC/DC cover band.
Finally, did you ever have that feeling you were on the verge? That after some time treading water you were about to hit the rapids for a wild and fun ride? The last week or so, I haven't been able to shake that feeling. I'm not exactly sure why, but I can't wait to find out.
A few weeks ago I went to see The Adventures of Cunning and Guile, a series of dance duets by Chris Black and Ken James, and featuring art by Lark Pien. Very inventive and fun. staged in the galleries of the Cartoon Art Museum, which is worth a visit on its own.
We had a power outage last night. That in and of itself isn't weird. What was odd was that I woke up about 10 seconds before the lights went out at 2am. My eyes just snapped open, looked around, I heard the dull thud of the power stopping, and then my alarm clock went dead. Took about 45 minutes to get back to sleep. I awoke just before the electricity came back on at 6am, though it's hard to think of that as unusual since that's when I wake up every day during the week. Still, I woke up about 2 seconds before the power came back. Eyes just snapped open, and "bam", on came the juice.
Soccer season starts up again this weekend, weather permitting. The "learn to play keeper somewhat competently" experiment continues. It's a fun new challenge, and it's less wear and tear on the acl-replaced left knee.
Some good live music coming this way in the next few weeks, including various Noise Pop shows, the New Pornographers & Belle and Sebastian together on one bill, Rhett Miller, and just for the hell of it, AC/DShe, an all-girl AC/DC cover band.
Finally, did you ever have that feeling you were on the verge? That after some time treading water you were about to hit the rapids for a wild and fun ride? The last week or so, I haven't been able to shake that feeling. I'm not exactly sure why, but I can't wait to find out.
up on the catwalk, follow-up
Three cheers for Chloe Dao winning this season of Project Runway. I missed Daniel's collection, but saw Chloe's and Santino's. All through Chloe's I was thinking "wow", and all through Santino's I was thinking "that's, uh, nice". And again, me, not a fashion guy.
Anyway, to make up for two days running of fashion-related reality tv posts, I'll spend the next few days on baseball (the Phillies are going to suck this season) and soccer (I can't wait for the World Cup this summer) and beer and monster trucks and guns and chewing tobacco and other manly pursuits. Except that I don't really dig on anything in that list after beer.
Anyway, to make up for two days running of fashion-related reality tv posts, I'll spend the next few days on baseball (the Phillies are going to suck this season) and soccer (I can't wait for the World Cup this summer) and beer and monster trucks and guns and chewing tobacco and other manly pursuits. Except that I don't really dig on anything in that list after beer.
more cowbell
I went on a musical binge last week, and caught up with some things I'd wanted to get. Mostly catch-up of not-so-new stuff...
Johnny Cash -- At Folsom Prison: I've heard the highlights before, but the show in it's entirety is incredible. Cash is warm, funny and engaging with inmates in a Caifornia prison known for being a very hard place to do hard time. Periodic interruptions from a prison official to call inmates to see visitors remind the listener where the show is taking place. The set is full of songs about men who are in prison or should be, and Cash is often laughing in the middle of these very somber stories, probably as reaction to how his audience is responding to him putting their own experiences to song. It's especially jarring in "25 Minutes To Go", a run-down of a condemned man's last half-hour, including his watching the gallows being tested and his last meal of beans.
Wilco -- Kicking Television: Live in Chicago: Wilco have become the latest band, to me anyway, to have inherited the old Clash designation as the only band that matters. Jeff Tweedy's moved from being a No Depression hero to a pop experimentalist. I've always been impressed with his willingness to take chances, to take his songcraft beyond the alt-country scene and mix some Stax-Volt soul, Beatle-esque pop and Brian Wilson-like imagination. Kicking Television documents a few live shows taped in Chicago, and captures the band pushing the songs in all directions. To see them at work, put the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart in your Netflix queue. While not as riveting as the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster, it's worth a watch if you're a fan.
The Strokes -- First Impressions of Earth: An improvement from the last record, and a slight departure in sound. Gone is the distortion on the vocals, and in fact they're farther up in the mix this time, perhaps owing to Julian Casablancas finding out that he can actually sing (though it's a bit hard to take him seriously when he sings in his trust-fund baby world-weary voice that "I don't want to be judgemental"). They're not afraid to try different things, moving away from merely trying to repeat themselves and actually taking their sound and doing something new with it. From having seen them live a few years back I realized that drummer Fabrizio Moretti and Albert Hammond Jr. were the musical heart and soul of the band -- the best players, and the focal point for the songs. But on this record, bassist Nikolai Fraiture takes a great leap forward. His playing is very inventive, driving the songs like he hadn't before.
Belle & Sebastian -- The Life Pursuit: A while back, my friend Kieran tried to get me into Belle and Sebastian, but for whatever reason, it didn't take. A bit too fey for my tastes I guess, but I could recognize that there were some good songs there. The Life Pursuit has a fuller sound than previous B&S, and (to me, anyway) better suits the songs. Have only spun through it once, so need more time, but it's quite a good pop record. One listen to "Another Sunny Day" and it'll be stuck in your head for days.
Still to be listened to...
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals -- Jacksonville City Nights
Franz Ferdinand -- You Could Have It So Much Better
Sigur Rós -- Takk...
Johnny Cash -- At Folsom Prison: I've heard the highlights before, but the show in it's entirety is incredible. Cash is warm, funny and engaging with inmates in a Caifornia prison known for being a very hard place to do hard time. Periodic interruptions from a prison official to call inmates to see visitors remind the listener where the show is taking place. The set is full of songs about men who are in prison or should be, and Cash is often laughing in the middle of these very somber stories, probably as reaction to how his audience is responding to him putting their own experiences to song. It's especially jarring in "25 Minutes To Go", a run-down of a condemned man's last half-hour, including his watching the gallows being tested and his last meal of beans.
Wilco -- Kicking Television: Live in Chicago: Wilco have become the latest band, to me anyway, to have inherited the old Clash designation as the only band that matters. Jeff Tweedy's moved from being a No Depression hero to a pop experimentalist. I've always been impressed with his willingness to take chances, to take his songcraft beyond the alt-country scene and mix some Stax-Volt soul, Beatle-esque pop and Brian Wilson-like imagination. Kicking Television documents a few live shows taped in Chicago, and captures the band pushing the songs in all directions. To see them at work, put the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart in your Netflix queue. While not as riveting as the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster, it's worth a watch if you're a fan.
The Strokes -- First Impressions of Earth: An improvement from the last record, and a slight departure in sound. Gone is the distortion on the vocals, and in fact they're farther up in the mix this time, perhaps owing to Julian Casablancas finding out that he can actually sing (though it's a bit hard to take him seriously when he sings in his trust-fund baby world-weary voice that "I don't want to be judgemental"). They're not afraid to try different things, moving away from merely trying to repeat themselves and actually taking their sound and doing something new with it. From having seen them live a few years back I realized that drummer Fabrizio Moretti and Albert Hammond Jr. were the musical heart and soul of the band -- the best players, and the focal point for the songs. But on this record, bassist Nikolai Fraiture takes a great leap forward. His playing is very inventive, driving the songs like he hadn't before.
Belle & Sebastian -- The Life Pursuit: A while back, my friend Kieran tried to get me into Belle and Sebastian, but for whatever reason, it didn't take. A bit too fey for my tastes I guess, but I could recognize that there were some good songs there. The Life Pursuit has a fuller sound than previous B&S, and (to me, anyway) better suits the songs. Have only spun through it once, so need more time, but it's quite a good pop record. One listen to "Another Sunny Day" and it'll be stuck in your head for days.
Still to be listened to...
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals -- Jacksonville City Nights
Franz Ferdinand -- You Could Have It So Much Better
Sigur Rós -- Takk...
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
i wanna be your dog
now this is an awesome dog...born without two front legs, yet still gets around...
(link opens video...thanks to gr)
(link opens video...thanks to gr)
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
in for a penny, in for a pound
First, if you aren't listening to KEXP, you should be. Second, if you do listen but haven't pledged to KEXP, you should support the station. Fund drive's going on now. Hurry hurry -- give your dough, get your swag.
why did you build me up, buttercup?
Poor Bud Selig. All he wanted to do was stage a multinational baseball extravaganza. It's bad enough that lots of stars didn't buy into the idea, were discouraged from playing by team management, were hurt, or were worried about getting hurt before the season, and thus aren't playing.
But now the World Baseball Classic is about to be overshadowed by the mother of all steroid stories.
Two San Francisco Chronicle writers, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, have a book coming out, with an excerpt running this week in Sports Illustrated. They claim that Barry Bonds, fueled by jealousy and resentment over Mark McGwire's home-run heroics, has knowingly been taking steroids since 1998.
It's going to totally blow the WBC out of the water, be the big story as the regular season starts, and will make a complete circus of the Giants' season.
Can't wait for opening day!
But now the World Baseball Classic is about to be overshadowed by the mother of all steroid stories.
Two San Francisco Chronicle writers, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, have a book coming out, with an excerpt running this week in Sports Illustrated. They claim that Barry Bonds, fueled by jealousy and resentment over Mark McGwire's home-run heroics, has knowingly been taking steroids since 1998.
It's going to totally blow the WBC out of the water, be the big story as the regular season starts, and will make a complete circus of the Giants' season.
Can't wait for opening day!
Sunday, March 05, 2006
for a honky-tonkin' good time....
...50 cent haircut.
saw them saturday night at the knitting factory in hollywood (thanks to the band and pam for the guest listing). lots of fun...power-pop chord changes over rockabilly/honky-tonk rhythms and songs about lost love, found love, drinking, politics and life.
the other band on the bill, sacred cowboys, features w. earl brown (from deadwood and there's something about mary {franks and beans!}). good players, but overall a sound too derivative of lynyrd skynrd. though i gotta say, the keyboard/banjo player guy was pretty cool. the most genuinely rock-and-roll guy in the band.
saw them saturday night at the knitting factory in hollywood (thanks to the band and pam for the guest listing). lots of fun...power-pop chord changes over rockabilly/honky-tonk rhythms and songs about lost love, found love, drinking, politics and life.
the other band on the bill, sacred cowboys, features w. earl brown (from deadwood and there's something about mary {franks and beans!}). good players, but overall a sound too derivative of lynyrd skynrd. though i gotta say, the keyboard/banjo player guy was pretty cool. the most genuinely rock-and-roll guy in the band.
Friday, March 03, 2006
krauthammer takes on hollywood
Charles Krauthammer often comes across as your nutty cranky uncle -- writes and says things that make you laugh and shake your head at the same time. But usually he's tilting at hefty windmills, things that are important, even if he spouts utter nonsense about those things.
His column today takes on Hollywood in general, and the movie Syriana in particular. His main point is that the Oscars this year are doing a disservice to America by honoring the evils of the Middle East. He starts out with:
I think Krauthammer needs to have his perspective changed on the nature and purpose of art.
First, from everything I've read Paradise Now is not so much sympathetic as it is trying to tell the story from both sides. Art is supposed to make us rethink our world. It's ok if we come away from a piece with the same position on an issue – at the very least that work should inform us and also challenge us to see the entire picture, not just a narrow point of view. An even-handed approach doesn't mean that people will come away thinking suicide bombing is ok, but would it be that bad if the film at lest shed some light on what drives people to such extreme action? Would it kill the average American to see this point of view, even if he doesn't come away agreeing with it?
Same with Munich. Again, I haven't seen (my movie-going was sadly limited this year), but every review of the film I've seen (and this is corroborated by friends who've seen it) notes that one of Spielberg's main points was to show the psychological and emotional cost to the Israeli Mossad agents as they hunt down the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the massacre of the Isaeli Olympic athletes in 1972. I don't see how that makes the original act sympathetic, but hey, crazy Uncle Chuck's on a roll, why derail it?
Finally, he calls Syriana's creators anti-America. All because they essentially tell a fictionalized story of the interdependence between our reliance on Middle Eastern oil and a foreign policy that thus must support unsavory regimes. This isn't self-flagellating fiction, it's reality -- c.f. Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
Krauthammer outlines the plot, and then drops the dime:
Hey Uncle Chuck -- some of those intolerant, fanatical tyrants? We've been propping them up for a while. But don't let facts get in the way of a boilerplate conservative rant against liberal Hollywood.
His column today takes on Hollywood in general, and the movie Syriana in particular. His main point is that the Oscars this year are doing a disservice to America by honoring the evils of the Middle East. He starts out with:
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
I think Krauthammer needs to have his perspective changed on the nature and purpose of art.
First, from everything I've read Paradise Now is not so much sympathetic as it is trying to tell the story from both sides. Art is supposed to make us rethink our world. It's ok if we come away from a piece with the same position on an issue – at the very least that work should inform us and also challenge us to see the entire picture, not just a narrow point of view. An even-handed approach doesn't mean that people will come away thinking suicide bombing is ok, but would it be that bad if the film at lest shed some light on what drives people to such extreme action? Would it kill the average American to see this point of view, even if he doesn't come away agreeing with it?
Same with Munich. Again, I haven't seen (my movie-going was sadly limited this year), but every review of the film I've seen (and this is corroborated by friends who've seen it) notes that one of Spielberg's main points was to show the psychological and emotional cost to the Israeli Mossad agents as they hunt down the Palestinian terrorists responsible for the massacre of the Isaeli Olympic athletes in 1972. I don't see how that makes the original act sympathetic, but hey, crazy Uncle Chuck's on a roll, why derail it?
Finally, he calls Syriana's creators anti-America. All because they essentially tell a fictionalized story of the interdependence between our reliance on Middle Eastern oil and a foreign policy that thus must support unsavory regimes. This isn't self-flagellating fiction, it's reality -- c.f. Saudi Arabia, Iran, etc.
Krauthammer outlines the plot, and then drops the dime:
What is grotesque about this moment of plot clarity is that the overwhelmingly obvious critique of actual U.S. policy in the real Middle East today concerns America's excess of Wilsonian idealism in trying to find and promote -- against a tide of tyranny, intolerance and fanaticism -- local leaders like the Good Prince.
Hey Uncle Chuck -- some of those intolerant, fanatical tyrants? We've been propping them up for a while. But don't let facts get in the way of a boilerplate conservative rant against liberal Hollywood.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
glenn greenwald
Greenwald has fast become my favorite long-form political blogger. His two posts this week on the NSA scandal, the first a rundown of new info and the second an astute analysis of the Gonzales letter to Congress are very compelling reads, especially the dressing down of Gonzales.
If you're not reading him, you should be.
If you're not reading him, you should be.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
shake me, all night long
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
we're going through a hole in the sky
no matter how many times i see robyn hitchcock play, i always feel like i've seen a show made for that night, not a repeat of the same show he played the night before in the next city over. and i know this to be true because when i worked for a&m records a while back, and worked the "globe of frogs" record to retail and college radio, i saw him play a 4 times over 6 nights in nyc, boston, trenton and philadelphia. what struck me then was that each night's between-song patter was different, extemporaneous riffs on the absurd that only robyn can pull off. the set lists changed enough each night, anchored around selling the record (they were on their first major-label tour, so were playing it somewhat safe).
so seeing him at slim's tonight was yet again a new experience. his backing band this time were the minus 5, led by young fresh fellow and part-time r.e.m.-er scott mccaughey, and including peter buck on bass (during the minus 5 set) and guitar (for robyn).
i'll have to admit that i've never been a young fresh fellow fan, and the minus 5 don't really do it for me. that said, mccaughey's a good singer and a fine instrumentalist. for whatever reason his songs have never been my thing.
but robyn has always been my thing and tonight was no different. he bounded on stage with a big smile, a drink and greeted us with a hearty "hello groovers", then began an acoustic set led off by syd barrett's "gigiolo aunt" and including "one long pair of eyes" and "beautiful girl". buck, mccaughey and the minus 5 drummer then joined robyn for the remainder of the set, featuring a smattering of new and old, including "madonna of the wasps" and "if you were a priest". the between-song highlight was a 5-minute run through the plot for magnum force, the movie that inspired the song "a man's gotta know his limitations, briggs". a wonderful set, proof that i can see robyn countless times and he'll never disappoint. all that and i made a new fan for robyn.
"i wanna destroy you" was the crescendo piece of the night and though it's, what, 20 years old (?), robyn's dedicating it to george, condi, donnie et al, made it as relevant as ever.
so, a reminder...
so seeing him at slim's tonight was yet again a new experience. his backing band this time were the minus 5, led by young fresh fellow and part-time r.e.m.-er scott mccaughey, and including peter buck on bass (during the minus 5 set) and guitar (for robyn).
i'll have to admit that i've never been a young fresh fellow fan, and the minus 5 don't really do it for me. that said, mccaughey's a good singer and a fine instrumentalist. for whatever reason his songs have never been my thing.
but robyn has always been my thing and tonight was no different. he bounded on stage with a big smile, a drink and greeted us with a hearty "hello groovers", then began an acoustic set led off by syd barrett's "gigiolo aunt" and including "one long pair of eyes" and "beautiful girl". buck, mccaughey and the minus 5 drummer then joined robyn for the remainder of the set, featuring a smattering of new and old, including "madonna of the wasps" and "if you were a priest". the between-song highlight was a 5-minute run through the plot for magnum force, the movie that inspired the song "a man's gotta know his limitations, briggs". a wonderful set, proof that i can see robyn countless times and he'll never disappoint. all that and i made a new fan for robyn.
"i wanna destroy you" was the crescendo piece of the night and though it's, what, 20 years old (?), robyn's dedicating it to george, condi, donnie et al, made it as relevant as ever.
so, a reminder...
I wanna destroy you (4x)
I feel it coming on again
Just like it did before
They fill your mind with boredom
And they lead you off to war
The way we treat each other
Really makes me feel ill
And if you're gonna fight
Then you're just dying to get killed
I wanna destroy you (4x)
A pox upon the media
And everything you read
They tell you your opinions
And they're very good indeed
I wanna destroy you
And when I have destroyed you
I'll come pickin' at your bones
And you won't have a single atom
Left to call your own
Monday, February 27, 2006
Sunday, February 26, 2006
blind acceptance is a sign, of stupid fools who stand in line
the flilthy lucre tours aside, the sex pistols have pretty much always told the music industry to go screw itself, so it's no surpise to see this headline:
yes, they've told the rock and roll hall of fame that they won't be at the march 13 ceremony, and have done it with their usual sense of overly self-conscious rebellious iconoclasm.
the hand-written note on the lydon/pistols website reads (spelling/grammar errors left in tact):
johnny lydon may often be full of shit, but you gotta admit that he does most everything with some style and flourish.
"Sex Pistols Flip Off Rock Hall"
yes, they've told the rock and roll hall of fame that they won't be at the march 13 ceremony, and have done it with their usual sense of overly self-conscious rebellious iconoclasm.
the hand-written note on the lydon/pistols website reads (spelling/grammar errors left in tact):
"Next to the sex Pistols, rock and roll and that hall of fame is a piss stain. Your museum. Urine in wine. We're not coming. Were not your monkey and so what? Fame at $25,000 if we paid for a table, or $15,000 to squeak up in the gallery, goes to a non-profit organization selling us a load of old famous. Congratulations. If you voted for us, hope you noted your reasons. Your anonymous as judges, but your still music industry people. Were not coming. Your not paying attention. Outside the shit-stem is a real Sex Pistol."
johnny lydon may often be full of shit, but you gotta admit that he does most everything with some style and flourish.
it's not cheating if i'm with you
say you're eating dinner while watching a cooking show and lusting after the food being prepared...is that like making love and fantasizing about someone other than the person with whom you're in bed?
Saturday, February 25, 2006
mystery achievement
back when i was in 7th grade i wrote an essay about wanting to be an olympic athlete. something about the thought of reperesenting your country as a top athlete really got to me, even though i was a scrawny (though reasonably athletic) kid. my english teacher, mr. bundy, commended me on the piece. since i can remember, i've been entranced by the idea of the olympics, as much as the competition (and this was before i found out the the athlete's village was one giant pick-up joint, the hooking up apparently enabled, if not encouraged by the ioc and sponsors.).
anyway, i love watching them, especially sports that i wouldn't necessarily be all that into were they not part of the games -- swimming, track and field, luge, bobsled and of course, curling (and admittedly, yes, this helps). oh and moguls, but then this helps as well.
this year, though, it's been a giant bore. i watched a few hours of it during the week, and with the exception of a few curling matches, the canada-swizerland hockey game and any of the hockey games in which finland played, it's been bleh.
well, not totally. snowboard-cross was awesome, and short-track speedskating is fun, and not just for the spill-factor.
but there have been no compelling stories featuring winners. the big stories have been about the over-hyped who for various reasons, couldn't deliver and were less than sporting or gracious about it. though to be fair, weir has taken the gold for "Best Use of the Games to Become A Bigger Celebrity", narrowly edging out the flying tomato.
though come to think of it, the french guy who won men's downhill gold...that was a thrilling moment. last guy down the run, not expected to do much as he's still recovering from a knee injury, and steals the top spot with a daredevil run. that was a good story, even if it had a short shelf-life.
those surprise moments were just too few and far between. yeah, it was great that the japanese girl won her country's first gold in that sport, i mean, competition. but she did it because the favorites fell. if they'd all stayed on their skates, she's 3rd at best.
usually i find myself at the end of the games almost not wishing they were over. this year i keep wondering when they're finally gonna end.
{addendum...watching the games makes me want to go to torino. looks like an amazing place for a winter vacation}
that said, i still would love to be an olympian. 2010 is far enough away to get together a danish bobseld team, right?
anyway, i love watching them, especially sports that i wouldn't necessarily be all that into were they not part of the games -- swimming, track and field, luge, bobsled and of course, curling (and admittedly, yes, this helps). oh and moguls, but then this helps as well.
this year, though, it's been a giant bore. i watched a few hours of it during the week, and with the exception of a few curling matches, the canada-swizerland hockey game and any of the hockey games in which finland played, it's been bleh.
well, not totally. snowboard-cross was awesome, and short-track speedskating is fun, and not just for the spill-factor.
but there have been no compelling stories featuring winners. the big stories have been about the over-hyped who for various reasons, couldn't deliver and were less than sporting or gracious about it. though to be fair, weir has taken the gold for "Best Use of the Games to Become A Bigger Celebrity", narrowly edging out the flying tomato.
though come to think of it, the french guy who won men's downhill gold...that was a thrilling moment. last guy down the run, not expected to do much as he's still recovering from a knee injury, and steals the top spot with a daredevil run. that was a good story, even if it had a short shelf-life.
those surprise moments were just too few and far between. yeah, it was great that the japanese girl won her country's first gold in that sport, i mean, competition. but she did it because the favorites fell. if they'd all stayed on their skates, she's 3rd at best.
usually i find myself at the end of the games almost not wishing they were over. this year i keep wondering when they're finally gonna end.
{addendum...watching the games makes me want to go to torino. looks like an amazing place for a winter vacation}
that said, i still would love to be an olympian. 2010 is far enough away to get together a danish bobseld team, right?
Friday, February 10, 2006
lip service is all i ever get from you
For a guy who's supposed to be the guardian of our nation's secrets and intelligence, CIA Director Porter Goss seems to be out of the loop.
In this piece in today's NYT, a whinefest about intelligence leaks, he is both outright lying and disingenuously lying, committing lies of commission and ommission.
His point is:
The head-shaking comes because of an example he uses to make his point, and an example he ignores, which would have more on target.
One example Goss uses to stress the importance of keeping secrets is:
Only one problem...this story has been pretty much discredited in this WaPo story from December 2005, Goss's whining to the contrary. Moreover, it wasn't any US press agency that was responsible for the leak.
Not only that, he seems to have completely forgotten about a rather egregious leak that outed a covert CIA agent. And now it seems that Libby was ordered by VP Cheney to disclose classified info. Makes you wonder how likely it was that the Plame leak was done at the Veep's behest. Then of course there's this little gem from the Post today:
Until BushCo I was under the impression that the CIA was supposed to be above politics, not an agency at the beck-and-call of the President, not part of the army of spin doctors that the administration needs to cover its ass and make up slam-dunk certainties.
In this piece in today's NYT, a whinefest about intelligence leaks, he is both outright lying and disingenuously lying, committing lies of commission and ommission.
His point is:
Revelations of intelligence successes or failures, whether accurate or not, can aid Al Qaeda and its global affiliates in many ways. A leak is invaluable to them, even if it only, say, prematurely confirms whether one of their associates is dead or alive. They can gain much more: these disclosures can tip the terrorists to new technologies we use, our operational tactics, and the identities of brave men and women who risk their lives to assist us.
The head-shaking comes because of an example he uses to make his point, and an example he ignores, which would have more on target.
One example Goss uses to stress the importance of keeping secrets is:
Recently, I noticed renewed debate in the news media over press reports in 1998 that Osama bin Laden's satellite phone was being tracked by United States intelligence officials. In the recent debate, it was taken for granted that the original reports did not hurt our national security efforts, and any suggestions that they did cause damage were dismissed as urban myth. But the reality is that the revelation of the phone tracking was, without question, one of the most egregious examples of an unauthorized criminal disclosure of classified national defense information in recent years. It served no public interest. Ultimately, the bin Laden phone went silent.
Only one problem...this story has been pretty much discredited in this WaPo story from December 2005, Goss's whining to the contrary. Moreover, it wasn't any US press agency that was responsible for the leak.
President Bush asserted this week that the news media published a U.S. government leak in 1998 about Osama bin Laden's use of a satellite phone, alerting the al Qaeda leader to government monitoring and prompting him to abandon the device.
The story of the vicious leak that destroyed a valuable intelligence operation was first reported by a best-selling book, validated by the Sept. 11 commission and then repeated by the president.
But it appears to be an urban myth.
The al Qaeda leader's communication to aides via satellite phone had already been reported in 1996 -- and the source of the information was another government, the Taliban, which ruled Afghanistan at the time.
The second time a news organization reported on the satellite phone, the source was bin Laden himself.
Causal effects are hard to prove, but other factors could have persuaded bin Laden to turn off his satellite phone in August 1998. A day earlier, the United States had fired dozens of cruise missiles at his training camps, missing him by hours.
Not only that, he seems to have completely forgotten about a rather egregious leak that outed a covert CIA agent. And now it seems that Libby was ordered by VP Cheney to disclose classified info. Makes you wonder how likely it was that the Plame leak was done at the Veep's behest. Then of course there's this little gem from the Post today:
The former CIA official who coordinated U.S. intelligence on the Middle East until last year has accused the Bush administration of "cherry-picking" intelligence on Iraq to justify a decision it had already reached to go to war, and of ignoring warnings that the country could easily fall into violence and chaos after an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Until BushCo I was under the impression that the CIA was supposed to be above politics, not an agency at the beck-and-call of the President, not part of the army of spin doctors that the administration needs to cover its ass and make up slam-dunk certainties.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
say what you will
Though he's considered the dean of Beltway pundits, David Broder's toolery has been exposed before, most effectively by Eric Alterman.
I love how he frames this as "Rove speak, Dems jump", as if the Dems were the obedient dog. Broder puts them in the passive, reactive mode. God forbid he frame it as "Rove once again exploited national secrurity for politics, falsely accusing Dems of..."
Look, we do have issues with the party not being effective at crafting a message and for sure the party has, since the Cold War, had to fight the perception that it is weak on national security. However, reality shows us that most Dems are quite serious about real and effective solutions to protecting the country from terrorism. It's discouraging then, to read more b.s. "conventional wisdom", framed in a way that puts Rove in charge, and doesn't call Rove on this disgusting campaign tactic. I would like to think that Broder knows better, but sadly he doesn't.
Perhaps it's time for a few firm but cordial e-mails to the dean, to let him know that people are tired of lazy punditry.
So while it's a disappointment, it's hardly a surprise to read this little gem from his column today:
Every Democrat on the committee signaled in the hearing a readiness to make needed adjustments in the FISA statute, as Congress has done five times since 2001 to provide more flexibility. The Democrats clearly had heeded Karl Rove's recent speech to the Republican National Committee, signaling an intention to tag them -- once again -- in the 2006 campaign as being soft on terrorism.
They went out of their way to avoid that charge, with Ted Kennedy even applying some reverse English to the argument, by suggesting that al Qaeda suspects might beat the rap in court by their lawyers' successfully challenging evidence obtained through surveillance conducted under questionable legal authority.
I love how he frames this as "Rove speak, Dems jump", as if the Dems were the obedient dog. Broder puts them in the passive, reactive mode. God forbid he frame it as "Rove once again exploited national secrurity for politics, falsely accusing Dems of..."
Look, we do have issues with the party not being effective at crafting a message and for sure the party has, since the Cold War, had to fight the perception that it is weak on national security. However, reality shows us that most Dems are quite serious about real and effective solutions to protecting the country from terrorism. It's discouraging then, to read more b.s. "conventional wisdom", framed in a way that puts Rove in charge, and doesn't call Rove on this disgusting campaign tactic. I would like to think that Broder knows better, but sadly he doesn't.
Perhaps it's time for a few firm but cordial e-mails to the dean, to let him know that people are tired of lazy punditry.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
I’ll be what I am, a solitary man
The overriding focus of discussion about Brokeback Mountain has naturally been about the love affair between two men. To be sure, a major motion-picture telling the story of a love affair between two men spanning the 1960s and 1970s in the big sky country of Wyoming is worth talking about. But the film is not just about “gay cowboys eating pudding”. There much more going on.
Mostly I saw it as a character study of a man, Ennis Del Mar, who has a profoundly sad inability to get out of his own head and connect with other people. People are drawn to him – his lover Jack Twist, wife Alma, eldest daughter Alma Jr., bartender Cassie Cartwright. Yet Ennis struggles to reciprocate their attraction, subconsciously but overtly keeping people at a distance, never deliberately showing his true self. When he does open up and flash a bit of unabashed emotion (excitement over going “fishing” with Twist), it takes his wife and the audience by surprise.
To be sure, it is beautifully shot and the acting is first rate. The landscape shots are lush and spectacular and stand in sharp contrast to the interior scenes that Ang Lee frames in a way that's evocative of the American realism period of painting of Eakins and Hopper -- stark images conveying loneliness and empty space. Heath Ledger plays Del Mar with just enough reticence and vulnerability to make the character a tragic hero. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Twist is a bit less fully realized. He's definitely trying to be a young romantic, wanting to seduce everything in his path, but there's something about Gyllenhaal the actor...he doesn't carry the emotional weight that Ledger does, and seems small and meager by comparison.
Mostly I saw it as a character study of a man, Ennis Del Mar, who has a profoundly sad inability to get out of his own head and connect with other people. People are drawn to him – his lover Jack Twist, wife Alma, eldest daughter Alma Jr., bartender Cassie Cartwright. Yet Ennis struggles to reciprocate their attraction, subconsciously but overtly keeping people at a distance, never deliberately showing his true self. When he does open up and flash a bit of unabashed emotion (excitement over going “fishing” with Twist), it takes his wife and the audience by surprise.
To be sure, it is beautifully shot and the acting is first rate. The landscape shots are lush and spectacular and stand in sharp contrast to the interior scenes that Ang Lee frames in a way that's evocative of the American realism period of painting of Eakins and Hopper -- stark images conveying loneliness and empty space. Heath Ledger plays Del Mar with just enough reticence and vulnerability to make the character a tragic hero. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Twist is a bit less fully realized. He's definitely trying to be a young romantic, wanting to seduce everything in his path, but there's something about Gyllenhaal the actor...he doesn't carry the emotional weight that Ledger does, and seems small and meager by comparison.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
the sweat of my brow keeps on feeding the engine
The owners of the mining company should be brought up on 12 counts of negligent homicide. From the Washington Post:
**********
The media, this so-called anti-business, anti-Republican liberal media, is almost as much to blame for the deaths, and that's as much a deal as the idiotic and unprofessional reporting that told the world that the miners were all alive.
Good investigative reporting -- of the likes of Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis, Jack Anderson and pre-fame Woodward and Bernstein -- has gone the way of the rotary phone. And it's this kind of reporting that exposed a meat-packing industry that was killing people, exposed life in NYC slums, exposed corrupt politicians from Boss Tweed to Nixon. They were in full-throttle during the Lewinsky thing, but only in it for the titillation. "Reporters" dig for the next missing blonde chick but don't work to expose real problems like the Sago mine.
These miners died because of a lack of enforcement of safety codes and a lazy press. Its OSHA, the EPA, FDA and other agencies that should be there to protect us. When they fall down the Fourth Estate (the press) needs to be there to call them into account.
Let's not let the union off the hook. They're as complicit in the deaths as the mining company and the press. They should never have allowed their rank-and-file into that mine and should never again allow workers to go to demonstrably unsafe mines.
These miners died because of a business climate that falsely proclaims how burdensome safety regulations are and because the press has left its balls and vigilance at the door in a trade for access and glamour. China allows its citizens to be expendable cannon-fodder for industry and "progress" (dam failures, chemical plant explosions). The Soviet Union did the same (Chernobyl) The number of deaths is astounding -- do some research on it. The level of government complicity and the callousness of government response in these and other nations we condemn for human rights abuses is even more astounding. We should be better than that.
Time and again over the past four years, federal mining inspectors documented the same litany of problems at central West Virginia's Sago Mine: mine roofs that tended to collapse without warning. Faulty or inadequate tunnel supports. A dangerous buildup of flammable coal dust.
Yesterday, the mine's safety record came into sharp focus as officials searched for explanations for Monday's underground explosion. That record, as reflected in dozens of federal inspection reports, shows a succession of operators struggling to overcome serious, long-standing safety problems, some of which could be part of the investigation into the cause of the explosion that trapped 13 miners.
In the past two years, the mine was cited 273 times for safety violations, of which about a third were classified as "significant and substantial," according to documents compiled by the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA). Many were for problems that could contribute to accidental explosions or the collapse of mine tunnels, records show.
<...>
**********
The media, this so-called anti-business, anti-Republican liberal media, is almost as much to blame for the deaths, and that's as much a deal as the idiotic and unprofessional reporting that told the world that the miners were all alive.
Good investigative reporting -- of the likes of Upton Sinclair, Lincoln Steffens, Jacob Riis, Jack Anderson and pre-fame Woodward and Bernstein -- has gone the way of the rotary phone. And it's this kind of reporting that exposed a meat-packing industry that was killing people, exposed life in NYC slums, exposed corrupt politicians from Boss Tweed to Nixon. They were in full-throttle during the Lewinsky thing, but only in it for the titillation. "Reporters" dig for the next missing blonde chick but don't work to expose real problems like the Sago mine.
These miners died because of a lack of enforcement of safety codes and a lazy press. Its OSHA, the EPA, FDA and other agencies that should be there to protect us. When they fall down the Fourth Estate (the press) needs to be there to call them into account.
Let's not let the union off the hook. They're as complicit in the deaths as the mining company and the press. They should never have allowed their rank-and-file into that mine and should never again allow workers to go to demonstrably unsafe mines.
These miners died because of a business climate that falsely proclaims how burdensome safety regulations are and because the press has left its balls and vigilance at the door in a trade for access and glamour. China allows its citizens to be expendable cannon-fodder for industry and "progress" (dam failures, chemical plant explosions). The Soviet Union did the same (Chernobyl) The number of deaths is astounding -- do some research on it. The level of government complicity and the callousness of government response in these and other nations we condemn for human rights abuses is even more astounding. We should be better than that.
some kind of monster
i'll start this by saying that i'm not a metallica fan. have never dug their music. so why use netflix rentals for the documentary "some kind of monster", which details the making of metallica's "st. anger" album? because the reviews were pretty good and i have some experience in the music biz, including in the studio and dealing with fucked up band dynamics.
i'd read the stories about how hetfield and ulrich were major assholes -- control freaks who didn't let kirk hammett or jason newstead have much in the way of creative input, how they mercilessly hazed newstead after he took over for the dead cliff burton. if you read the rock press you read the 'alcoholica' stories, you read about the groupies. ulrich makes news going after napster. but you also read about an incredibly successful band.
so it's quite a shock that the movie starts with conflict, newstead leaving the band just before they commence recording what would become "st. anger". also, the band has brought in a $40K/month life-performance coach to help them with their issues. the sessions begin with nothing demoed, evidently a departure for them. but hey, they're rich, they can afford to dick around in the studio. also, the plan is for everyone to contribute both musically and lyrically, again a new thing.
the sessions aren't yielding much but fighting between hetfield and ulrich, with hammett playing his usual peace-maker. after a particularly bad fight, hetfield storms out of the studio. he doesn't come back for a year, going into rehab. upon his return the band slog thru recording and finish. they also hire a new bass player, rob trujillo, from ozzy osbourne's band.
the crux of the film is not the artistic process itself, but the interplay between the art and personal reconciliation. simply put, these guys have major issues in how they deal with each other. their lives having come to a crossroads of age {they're all at or near 40} and their material wealth great and musical legacy strong, they need to find out how to be challenged to create and how to get out of the dysfunctional rut that will keep them from moving forward artistically.
there are some powerful scenes from therapy sessions and meeting, scenes that make the viewer feel like an intruder. but they resonate with real pain and emotion. notable is a meeting between dave mustaine and lars ulrich. mustaine, kicked out of the band almost 20 years ago, *still* harbors major resentment towards hetfield and ulrich for the way they dumped him {though he acknowledges he deserved it, given his alchoholism..which is saying something considering how much these guys drank}. despite that mustaine's band megadeath sold millions and millions of records, he still acts like a wounded child, his self-esteem stuck at being measured in terms of his relationship to metallica's success and that he wasn't there for it.
hetfield's post-rehab change is remarkable -- he emerges as this sensitive, caring family man who openly professes love for his bandmates. the directors do a great job of developing his character.
it's a layered and complex film about real relationships. and from experience i know that being in a band is very much like a marriage or other romantic relationship. you put so much of yourself out there, you're so vulnerable and the only ting that keeps you going is your trust in your partner{s}.
so get the movie. make sure to also get the bonus disc {shipped separately if via netflix}. it's an amazing piece of work. this non-fan still doesn't like metallica's music that much, but i came away with a fair amount of respect for them, in the sense that they embarked on a risky path of personal and artistic change, and doubled that risk by letting cameras chronicle every minute.
i'd read the stories about how hetfield and ulrich were major assholes -- control freaks who didn't let kirk hammett or jason newstead have much in the way of creative input, how they mercilessly hazed newstead after he took over for the dead cliff burton. if you read the rock press you read the 'alcoholica' stories, you read about the groupies. ulrich makes news going after napster. but you also read about an incredibly successful band.
so it's quite a shock that the movie starts with conflict, newstead leaving the band just before they commence recording what would become "st. anger". also, the band has brought in a $40K/month life-performance coach to help them with their issues. the sessions begin with nothing demoed, evidently a departure for them. but hey, they're rich, they can afford to dick around in the studio. also, the plan is for everyone to contribute both musically and lyrically, again a new thing.
the sessions aren't yielding much but fighting between hetfield and ulrich, with hammett playing his usual peace-maker. after a particularly bad fight, hetfield storms out of the studio. he doesn't come back for a year, going into rehab. upon his return the band slog thru recording and finish. they also hire a new bass player, rob trujillo, from ozzy osbourne's band.
the crux of the film is not the artistic process itself, but the interplay between the art and personal reconciliation. simply put, these guys have major issues in how they deal with each other. their lives having come to a crossroads of age {they're all at or near 40} and their material wealth great and musical legacy strong, they need to find out how to be challenged to create and how to get out of the dysfunctional rut that will keep them from moving forward artistically.
there are some powerful scenes from therapy sessions and meeting, scenes that make the viewer feel like an intruder. but they resonate with real pain and emotion. notable is a meeting between dave mustaine and lars ulrich. mustaine, kicked out of the band almost 20 years ago, *still* harbors major resentment towards hetfield and ulrich for the way they dumped him {though he acknowledges he deserved it, given his alchoholism..which is saying something considering how much these guys drank}. despite that mustaine's band megadeath sold millions and millions of records, he still acts like a wounded child, his self-esteem stuck at being measured in terms of his relationship to metallica's success and that he wasn't there for it.
hetfield's post-rehab change is remarkable -- he emerges as this sensitive, caring family man who openly professes love for his bandmates. the directors do a great job of developing his character.
it's a layered and complex film about real relationships. and from experience i know that being in a band is very much like a marriage or other romantic relationship. you put so much of yourself out there, you're so vulnerable and the only ting that keeps you going is your trust in your partner{s}.
so get the movie. make sure to also get the bonus disc {shipped separately if via netflix}. it's an amazing piece of work. this non-fan still doesn't like metallica's music that much, but i came away with a fair amount of respect for them, in the sense that they embarked on a risky path of personal and artistic change, and doubled that risk by letting cameras chronicle every minute.
new year's in vegas
photo set...
for my first time in vegas, why not during the new year's holiday? if you're gonna do over-the-top sensory overload, no time like when it's as crowded as possible. it's supposed to be second only to nyc/times square in terms of number of people gathering.
anyway, first day+ was hanging with a friend who lives in henderson. mellow, just eating, drinking, watching hockey.
the vegas experience starts the next day, thursday. meet up with my friend j (knew her in miami, now she's a photography student at parson's in nyc) and get to the hotel, the excalibur. there's a medieval theme that's definitely played out in the architecture, and to a point in the entertainment and a few of the restaurant names. the rooms themselves were fairly generic. just a small faux medieval tapestry hanging on one wall, and the bedframes had vaguely gothic/olde englishe style carving.
anyway, the strip hotels, especially the newer ones (bellagio, wynn, venetian, paris, new york new york ,mgm grand luxor, mandalay bay, cesear's palace) were HUGE. some were set a good 3-5 minute walk back from the sidewalk.
each had a different vibe (theme aside). the mgm grand felt old-school/old money. dark lighting, wood paneling, chic (almost deco) design. across the street, the tropicana goes for middle-brow cheese. slot machine noise is all you hear, there's $5 blackjack with a lively crowd. played a few hands and had the coolest dealer -- a laconic and world-weary asian dude. great counterpoint to the boisterous crowd at his table. playing the same game at the $10 or $25 tables at luxor was stuffy and boring. at new york new york somewhere in the middle.
the bellagio and wynn are going for super-high end style. nice touches in each...marble flooring with cool in-lay, luxurious pool areas. at wynn it was almost defeated by this gigantic animatronic frog. the mirage (home to sigfried and roy) has a jungle theme augmented by a beautiful (live) tiger on display in a zoo-like area as you walk towards the main casino floor. felt kinda bad for the cat...smallish area, people gawking. at one point he was pawing at the door to get back to his secluded area, but the keepers must not have seen or heard him. looked just alike a housecat trying to get past a closed door -- on his hind legs and pushing/pawing.
the eating was good and (surprisingly) expensive. at the newer hotel restaurants you get good food, but for more than you'd pay at a conventional restaurant in a city. but then, this on a major holiday weekend and without any comps. but good sushi at a place in cesear's palace, and a good new year's dinner at wolfgang puck's restaurant in the mgm.
we took one day and hit lake mead and the hoover dam. awesome, especially the trails around the lake and the colorado river leading towards it. the hoover dam is an awesome engineering marvel. the design of the buildings and statues reflects its deco-era construction.
the older part of vegas, the downtown, is decidedly unglamorous. very bright neon lights flashing quickly. it's the golden nugget, four queens, glitter gulch strip joint. much more down-to-earth vibe. the fremont street experience light show is ok...more a technical marvel, but worth seeing. also, per usual, i found a good dive bar (at the art bar) and a good mexican place (casa don juan). kinda places locals go to, decidedly non-touristy.
new year's eve itself was ok. lots of events in every hotel. the strip (las vegas blvd) is blocked to traffic and people can walk on the street. by 11pm it's packed, to the point where it's impossible to walk all that far. fireworks up and down, including a synchronized display from new york new york, the mgm, and excalibur (they're each at the corners of the strip and tropicana ave).
getting anything done takes forever. it's a long walk to anywhere from inside the hotels. getting out is a chore (a design feature to keep you in) and with the crowds and the urban design it's like a quarter mile to to get from the hotel lobby to a street corner.
verdict -- worth going for the experience. i'd like to go back when it's less crowded and when room rates aren't at gouging levels (our rate for the 31st was 3x the rate for the 29th). might have spent more money on dinners and shows if the room hadn't set us back so much. but they still got lots of my dough.
for my first time in vegas, why not during the new year's holiday? if you're gonna do over-the-top sensory overload, no time like when it's as crowded as possible. it's supposed to be second only to nyc/times square in terms of number of people gathering.
anyway, first day+ was hanging with a friend who lives in henderson. mellow, just eating, drinking, watching hockey.
the vegas experience starts the next day, thursday. meet up with my friend j (knew her in miami, now she's a photography student at parson's in nyc) and get to the hotel, the excalibur. there's a medieval theme that's definitely played out in the architecture, and to a point in the entertainment and a few of the restaurant names. the rooms themselves were fairly generic. just a small faux medieval tapestry hanging on one wall, and the bedframes had vaguely gothic/olde englishe style carving.
anyway, the strip hotels, especially the newer ones (bellagio, wynn, venetian, paris, new york new york ,mgm grand luxor, mandalay bay, cesear's palace) were HUGE. some were set a good 3-5 minute walk back from the sidewalk.
each had a different vibe (theme aside). the mgm grand felt old-school/old money. dark lighting, wood paneling, chic (almost deco) design. across the street, the tropicana goes for middle-brow cheese. slot machine noise is all you hear, there's $5 blackjack with a lively crowd. played a few hands and had the coolest dealer -- a laconic and world-weary asian dude. great counterpoint to the boisterous crowd at his table. playing the same game at the $10 or $25 tables at luxor was stuffy and boring. at new york new york somewhere in the middle.
the bellagio and wynn are going for super-high end style. nice touches in each...marble flooring with cool in-lay, luxurious pool areas. at wynn it was almost defeated by this gigantic animatronic frog. the mirage (home to sigfried and roy) has a jungle theme augmented by a beautiful (live) tiger on display in a zoo-like area as you walk towards the main casino floor. felt kinda bad for the cat...smallish area, people gawking. at one point he was pawing at the door to get back to his secluded area, but the keepers must not have seen or heard him. looked just alike a housecat trying to get past a closed door -- on his hind legs and pushing/pawing.
the eating was good and (surprisingly) expensive. at the newer hotel restaurants you get good food, but for more than you'd pay at a conventional restaurant in a city. but then, this on a major holiday weekend and without any comps. but good sushi at a place in cesear's palace, and a good new year's dinner at wolfgang puck's restaurant in the mgm.
we took one day and hit lake mead and the hoover dam. awesome, especially the trails around the lake and the colorado river leading towards it. the hoover dam is an awesome engineering marvel. the design of the buildings and statues reflects its deco-era construction.
the older part of vegas, the downtown, is decidedly unglamorous. very bright neon lights flashing quickly. it's the golden nugget, four queens, glitter gulch strip joint. much more down-to-earth vibe. the fremont street experience light show is ok...more a technical marvel, but worth seeing. also, per usual, i found a good dive bar (at the art bar) and a good mexican place (casa don juan). kinda places locals go to, decidedly non-touristy.
new year's eve itself was ok. lots of events in every hotel. the strip (las vegas blvd) is blocked to traffic and people can walk on the street. by 11pm it's packed, to the point where it's impossible to walk all that far. fireworks up and down, including a synchronized display from new york new york, the mgm, and excalibur (they're each at the corners of the strip and tropicana ave).
getting anything done takes forever. it's a long walk to anywhere from inside the hotels. getting out is a chore (a design feature to keep you in) and with the crowds and the urban design it's like a quarter mile to to get from the hotel lobby to a street corner.
verdict -- worth going for the experience. i'd like to go back when it's less crowded and when room rates aren't at gouging levels (our rate for the 31st was 3x the rate for the 29th). might have spent more money on dinners and shows if the room hadn't set us back so much. but they still got lots of my dough.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
let them read cake
the headlines on the cnn website, as of 2pm today...
MORE NEWS
• Lawyer in Saddam Hussein case kidnapped
• DeLay all smiles in booking photo | WATCH
• Teen arrested in slaying of TV legal analyst's wife | WATCH
• CNN/Money: Retailers ready to bet on deep discounts
• Search resumes for kids in San Francisco Bay | WATCH
• Watch: 'The shark pulled her completely under' | Read
• Jennifer Aniston photographed kissing Vince Vaughn
• Behind the Scenes: Toppled cemeteries add to woes
• Watch: Revelry returns to Bourbon Street
*************
yes, that jennifer aniston and vince vaugh were photographed smooching is news on the order of hussein's lawyer being kidnapped and the kids thrown into the sf bay.
and cnn (and the rest of the media) wonder why they get slammed.
MORE NEWS
• Lawyer in Saddam Hussein case kidnapped
• DeLay all smiles in booking photo | WATCH
• Teen arrested in slaying of TV legal analyst's wife | WATCH
• CNN/Money: Retailers ready to bet on deep discounts
• Search resumes for kids in San Francisco Bay | WATCH
• Watch: 'The shark pulled her completely under' | Read
• Jennifer Aniston photographed kissing Vince Vaughn
• Behind the Scenes: Toppled cemeteries add to woes
• Watch: Revelry returns to Bourbon Street
*************
yes, that jennifer aniston and vince vaugh were photographed smooching is news on the order of hussein's lawyer being kidnapped and the kids thrown into the sf bay.
and cnn (and the rest of the media) wonder why they get slammed.
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
clap your hands say overrated
ok, i've tried to like clap your hands say yeah, i really have. i mean, the singer's from philadelphia, so i have a hometown stake here. they play decently melodic songs (though the vocals leave a bit to be desired for such blatantly pop material), there's the verse-chorus-verse thing that gets me every time .
but really, i can't do it.
kexp can play them all they want, the music press can jizz over them, but sorry, they just don't do it for me. i'm not worried about losing the few hipster cred points that i have, so i'll say it...OVERRRATED. they're not bad, just, i don't know, not worth the hype.
but really, i can't do it.
kexp can play them all they want, the music press can jizz over them, but sorry, they just don't do it for me. i'm not worried about losing the few hipster cred points that i have, so i'll say it...OVERRRATED. they're not bad, just, i don't know, not worth the hype.
Monday, October 10, 2005
all the news that's fit to stink
how fun must it be to be a ny times employee right now? you've just recovered from jason blair and now judith miller has shit the bed in epic style. others have already done the topic great justice, so go here and read (see in particular the linked wapo and e&p stories linked therein):
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/9/1447/51937
and then there's thomas friedman. i've held on reading him, mostly out of habit and inertia. but then we wrote this (accessed via lexis/nexis, not times select {which is another rant in and of itself}):
****
The president's speech on terrorism yesterday was excellent. He made clear, better than ever, why winning in Iraq is so important to the wider struggle against Islamo-fascism. But it only makes me that much more angry that he fought this war as though it would be easy -- never asking for any sacrifice, any military draft, any tax hikes or any gasoline tax -- and that he tolerated so much incompetence along the way.
****
ok, i know his isn't exactly a ground-breaking observation, but the depths of his toolness has sunk to new lows. this is just staggeringly shameless hypocrisy. he wants to have his cake and eat it too, only to turn around and tell you that he never had a slice of cake to begin with.
i wonder how much of this rah-rahing now is to cover his ass for his apologies for supporting the war. i'd respect him so much more if he'd just come out and admit that the premise of the war was wrong, not just that the execution has been faulty.
he is an utter tool, and is fast becoming an irrelevant read for me.
on the bright side, david brooks, who i consider a hack mainly for his, uh, hackneyed approach to dichotomizing the world has written a couple of decent columns of late discussing the role of education in the social order. it helps that he's come around to my way of thinking about the college access question in terms of "college capital", but i like that he's taking on the issue in a substantive way. i also like that he's starting to realize that even his own side is bereft of a moral center and has sold the american ideal down the river for the benefit of holding onto power. keep it up, david, you'll be a progressive liberal before you know it.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/9/1447/51937
and then there's thomas friedman. i've held on reading him, mostly out of habit and inertia. but then we wrote this (accessed via lexis/nexis, not times select {which is another rant in and of itself}):
****
The president's speech on terrorism yesterday was excellent. He made clear, better than ever, why winning in Iraq is so important to the wider struggle against Islamo-fascism. But it only makes me that much more angry that he fought this war as though it would be easy -- never asking for any sacrifice, any military draft, any tax hikes or any gasoline tax -- and that he tolerated so much incompetence along the way.
****
ok, i know his isn't exactly a ground-breaking observation, but the depths of his toolness has sunk to new lows. this is just staggeringly shameless hypocrisy. he wants to have his cake and eat it too, only to turn around and tell you that he never had a slice of cake to begin with.
i wonder how much of this rah-rahing now is to cover his ass for his apologies for supporting the war. i'd respect him so much more if he'd just come out and admit that the premise of the war was wrong, not just that the execution has been faulty.
he is an utter tool, and is fast becoming an irrelevant read for me.
on the bright side, david brooks, who i consider a hack mainly for his, uh, hackneyed approach to dichotomizing the world has written a couple of decent columns of late discussing the role of education in the social order. it helps that he's come around to my way of thinking about the college access question in terms of "college capital", but i like that he's taking on the issue in a substantive way. i also like that he's starting to realize that even his own side is bereft of a moral center and has sold the american ideal down the river for the benefit of holding onto power. keep it up, david, you'll be a progressive liberal before you know it.
Monday, October 03, 2005
sing me spanish techno
it's been a few weeks of musical excess, which is the point for right now. in a fit of conspicuous consumption that would make veblen cringe, i've bought maybe a dozen cds of late. the quick and dirty...
somewhat newer (well, newer since i last posted) stuff:
* this post's title namesake album. twin cinema from new pornographers. the best of the three np records so far debuted at #44 on billboard's album charts, a rather astonishing feat for an indie power pop record. their show a couple of weeks ago had me in a good mood for days (and reaffirmed the fact that i want to marry neko case...not only does she have a great voice and write good songs, she looks great in a short, black cocktail dress). "sing me spanish techno" is one of my favorite songs of the year
* oranger -- new comes and goes. san francisco band which has apparently been "on the verge" for a long time. bass player matt harris is also in the posies, and the bands have been touring together to support their new records. "crooked in the weird of the catacombs" and "radiowave" are the highlights, and there's not a bad song on the record. the production's a bit too clean and in the midrange...a wider sonic spectrum for the guitars would be nice...makes it seem like they're holding back. live show is a bit like that as well...good, but just a bit too clean and controlled. still, a very good record.
* the hold steady -- separation sunday. apparently a concept album about a teen girl in suburban Minneapolis, torn between the allure of drugs and sex and the pull of her Catholic upbringing. craig finn's talk-singing about the dark side of life evokes a velvet undergound vibe, but with big classic-rock power chords. the perfect soundtrack to a stroll thru the lower east side or the mission.
* maximo park -- a certain trigger. british power pop with arena pretensions. "gone missing" and "apply some pressure" stand out. between these guys, arcade fire, franz ferdinand and bloc party the 80s new wave scene lives on. i just saw a listing for a mudhoney show, so the 90s grunge revival is just around the corner.
out for a while, but for whatever reason (laziness, working too much, moving cross-country) i just got around to them now:
* joe strummer & the mescaleros -- streecore. it came out almost 2 years ago and somehow i just got around to getting it last month. listening to it is both enjoyable and depressing. "coma girl", "get down moses"
* superdrag -- last call for vitriol. last album from the knoxville band, made as john davis was undergoing a life change which included sobriety and getting religion. too bad, but probably time. only so long you can keep on making good records to little or no attention, but by this point they were starting to sound tired. "baby goes to 11" is the best of the set.
somewhat newer (well, newer since i last posted) stuff:
* this post's title namesake album. twin cinema from new pornographers. the best of the three np records so far debuted at #44 on billboard's album charts, a rather astonishing feat for an indie power pop record. their show a couple of weeks ago had me in a good mood for days (and reaffirmed the fact that i want to marry neko case...not only does she have a great voice and write good songs, she looks great in a short, black cocktail dress). "sing me spanish techno" is one of my favorite songs of the year
* oranger -- new comes and goes. san francisco band which has apparently been "on the verge" for a long time. bass player matt harris is also in the posies, and the bands have been touring together to support their new records. "crooked in the weird of the catacombs" and "radiowave" are the highlights, and there's not a bad song on the record. the production's a bit too clean and in the midrange...a wider sonic spectrum for the guitars would be nice...makes it seem like they're holding back. live show is a bit like that as well...good, but just a bit too clean and controlled. still, a very good record.
* the hold steady -- separation sunday. apparently a concept album about a teen girl in suburban Minneapolis, torn between the allure of drugs and sex and the pull of her Catholic upbringing. craig finn's talk-singing about the dark side of life evokes a velvet undergound vibe, but with big classic-rock power chords. the perfect soundtrack to a stroll thru the lower east side or the mission.
* maximo park -- a certain trigger. british power pop with arena pretensions. "gone missing" and "apply some pressure" stand out. between these guys, arcade fire, franz ferdinand and bloc party the 80s new wave scene lives on. i just saw a listing for a mudhoney show, so the 90s grunge revival is just around the corner.
out for a while, but for whatever reason (laziness, working too much, moving cross-country) i just got around to them now:
* joe strummer & the mescaleros -- streecore. it came out almost 2 years ago and somehow i just got around to getting it last month. listening to it is both enjoyable and depressing. "coma girl", "get down moses"
* superdrag -- last call for vitriol. last album from the knoxville band, made as john davis was undergoing a life change which included sobriety and getting religion. too bad, but probably time. only so long you can keep on making good records to little or no attention, but by this point they were starting to sound tired. "baby goes to 11" is the best of the set.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
the big pink
so the posies kicked off their tour here the other day, and it was quite a show.
the setlist was pretty much what you'd hope for. most of the hits and a good selection off the new record. i realized that the last time i had seen them live was at the exact same club about 12 years ago when i was in town for the gavin report music conference. how odd then, that a few songs into the set they start to list all the times they'd played at the club, and asked who had been to the shows.
ken stringfellow got ripshit drunk during the set. overdid the rock-star bit too much for a small club. spits all the time, rock star poses. at the end of the regular set he takes off his shirt and plays the last song with his pants half-way down his ass. the last song also featured him trying to smash up the keyboard.
comes out for the encore wearing only underwear, and pink briefs at that.
they had to be his gf/wife's. at least i hope. they brought up a ton of
people on stage (including scott miller of game theory/loud family) for the last couple of songs. didn't trash equipment but tossed stuff around. it was first night of the tour, and i can only imagine their stage tech guy thinking "it's gonna be a long fucking tour".
openers death ray davies and oranger were pleasant surprises. hadn't heard either band before (though a friend told me i'd like oranger) but loved them.
the setlist was pretty much what you'd hope for. most of the hits and a good selection off the new record. i realized that the last time i had seen them live was at the exact same club about 12 years ago when i was in town for the gavin report music conference. how odd then, that a few songs into the set they start to list all the times they'd played at the club, and asked who had been to the shows.
ken stringfellow got ripshit drunk during the set. overdid the rock-star bit too much for a small club. spits all the time, rock star poses. at the end of the regular set he takes off his shirt and plays the last song with his pants half-way down his ass. the last song also featured him trying to smash up the keyboard.
comes out for the encore wearing only underwear, and pink briefs at that.
they had to be his gf/wife's. at least i hope. they brought up a ton of
people on stage (including scott miller of game theory/loud family) for the last couple of songs. didn't trash equipment but tossed stuff around. it was first night of the tour, and i can only imagine their stage tech guy thinking "it's gonna be a long fucking tour".
openers death ray davies and oranger were pleasant surprises. hadn't heard either band before (though a friend told me i'd like oranger) but loved them.
Friday, August 19, 2005
on the way home tonight...
...stopped by an ostensibly normal looking guy...
him: excuse me, is there some kind of ordinance?
me: huh?
him: the squirrels, along delaware street. they're marching right down the street.
me: [quizzical look]
him: i mean, i'm from colorado and i've never -- is it some kind of ordinance, the squirrels running wild?
me: this is berkeley, everything runs wild here.
him: oh, ok.
me: [quickly walks away before he can start in again]
him: excuse me, is there some kind of ordinance?
me: huh?
him: the squirrels, along delaware street. they're marching right down the street.
me: [quizzical look]
him: i mean, i'm from colorado and i've never -- is it some kind of ordinance, the squirrels running wild?
me: this is berkeley, everything runs wild here.
him: oh, ok.
me: [quickly walks away before he can start in again]
Thursday, August 11, 2005
this is news?
Courtney Love Fails Drug Test
I figured this is a calendar entry for her, not a newsworthy happening.
It's about as much a surprise as TO's meltdown.
I figured this is a calendar entry for her, not a newsworthy happening.
It's about as much a surprise as TO's meltdown.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
because susan said i had to
updates of randomalia...
* i recently had my green card renewed, during the process for which i had to be fingerprined. by ins. now, i'm applying for citizenship. and during the process i need to be fingerprinted. by ins. why can't they just use the ones on file? the lady on the phone didn't know, but i need to go back to the ins office and have them done again. so they waste my time and their money (which is kinda my money too).
* is there anything that can make you feel more single than going (without a date) to four weddings in five months? plus the pressure of living up to the model of the owen wilson wedding crasher?
* it's a longer story in itself as to what happened, but suffice to say that when on the day of a long plane ride you get asked if you've recently had any horrible travel experiences, do not blithely say "nah, for the last 9 months or so, no problems at all...all flights on time". you're sure to that very day spend hours in a plane on a tarmac and not get home until 1am.
* in charlottesville on saturday i picked up chuck palahniuk's book "invisible monster", which came out in 1999, after fight club the book, but before the movie. i started and finished it sunday on the plane from dulles to dallas (including the *two* hours on the tarmac in dallas). anyway, i notice that mr. palahniuk seems to like jaws getting shot off (don't worry, this isn't a spoiler, it's on the back cover as a plot teaser) and other issues of double-identity. i haven't read anything else but fight club and some story excerpt, but these two things repeat in these books. kinda like how in a john irving book there's always a kid who dies or is disfigured, adultery and pets with odd habits. recurring leitmotifs are great, but please, shake things up once in a while.
i'd write more but we have a fire drill in a few minutes.
* i recently had my green card renewed, during the process for which i had to be fingerprined. by ins. now, i'm applying for citizenship. and during the process i need to be fingerprinted. by ins. why can't they just use the ones on file? the lady on the phone didn't know, but i need to go back to the ins office and have them done again. so they waste my time and their money (which is kinda my money too).
* is there anything that can make you feel more single than going (without a date) to four weddings in five months? plus the pressure of living up to the model of the owen wilson wedding crasher?
* it's a longer story in itself as to what happened, but suffice to say that when on the day of a long plane ride you get asked if you've recently had any horrible travel experiences, do not blithely say "nah, for the last 9 months or so, no problems at all...all flights on time". you're sure to that very day spend hours in a plane on a tarmac and not get home until 1am.
* in charlottesville on saturday i picked up chuck palahniuk's book "invisible monster", which came out in 1999, after fight club the book, but before the movie. i started and finished it sunday on the plane from dulles to dallas (including the *two* hours on the tarmac in dallas). anyway, i notice that mr. palahniuk seems to like jaws getting shot off (don't worry, this isn't a spoiler, it's on the back cover as a plot teaser) and other issues of double-identity. i haven't read anything else but fight club and some story excerpt, but these two things repeat in these books. kinda like how in a john irving book there's always a kid who dies or is disfigured, adultery and pets with odd habits. recurring leitmotifs are great, but please, shake things up once in a while.
i'd write more but we have a fire drill in a few minutes.
Monday, July 25, 2005
come to fibber island and strum rubber guitars
on the whim of my roommate we took in the later afternoon showing of "the island" on sunday. normally i wouldn't go near a michael bay film, mostly because he was responsible for shutting down the macarthur causeway to miami beach for an entire week, causing all manner of headaches for those of us who lived on the beach and worked on the mainland. well, that and his films are about as intelligent as a pile of steaming dog shit.
anyway, i went because it was a nice respite from unpacking the shitload of stuff that i finally had moved out of storage on saturday.
from what i'd heard about the movie, it was first offered to steven speilberg, but he was a bit busy. so it went to michael bay. now, word is the original story was a bit more brainy, more asimov than smash-em-up. and you can see thoe elements in the story -- there's some phillip dick, asmiov and other influences. and it is a good idea -- though to say much more about it would be spoiling things.
the film starts off promising enough, very character driven, ewan mcgregor is very good and scarlett johansson is not only hot, but for once her acting measures up to her attractiveness. odd that it would happen in a film like this. if nothing else, she may have learned that she doesn't have to do the laura prepon deadpan delivery with eveyr line, and should actually emote. but i digress...
after a while, though, bay's desire to blow things up and stage incredulous stunt scenes overpowers the film. how he gets his characters to the reveal is clumsy and too obvious...happens in a split second and is very forced. from there things go downhill. it's almost redeemed by a few other things, but i left feeling as if i saw something that could have been much better had the disbelief quotient not been ramped as high as it was.
there was what seemed to be a reference to terri schiavo that i won't write more about; suffice to say that it didn't seem an purposeless reference.
anyway, i went because it was a nice respite from unpacking the shitload of stuff that i finally had moved out of storage on saturday.
from what i'd heard about the movie, it was first offered to steven speilberg, but he was a bit busy. so it went to michael bay. now, word is the original story was a bit more brainy, more asimov than smash-em-up. and you can see thoe elements in the story -- there's some phillip dick, asmiov and other influences. and it is a good idea -- though to say much more about it would be spoiling things.
the film starts off promising enough, very character driven, ewan mcgregor is very good and scarlett johansson is not only hot, but for once her acting measures up to her attractiveness. odd that it would happen in a film like this. if nothing else, she may have learned that she doesn't have to do the laura prepon deadpan delivery with eveyr line, and should actually emote. but i digress...
after a while, though, bay's desire to blow things up and stage incredulous stunt scenes overpowers the film. how he gets his characters to the reveal is clumsy and too obvious...happens in a split second and is very forced. from there things go downhill. it's almost redeemed by a few other things, but i left feeling as if i saw something that could have been much better had the disbelief quotient not been ramped as high as it was.
there was what seemed to be a reference to terri schiavo that i won't write more about; suffice to say that it didn't seem an purposeless reference.
Friday, July 22, 2005
do it to me one more time, once is never enough..
rght then, how to put it....hollywood product sucks. yeah, obvious insight, i know. but really, with so many talented people capable of so much original work, what the movie-going public has had shoved down our collective throats for some years now has been a spate of remakes and movie-ized tv shows and comic books.
ok, so what't the difference between a movie-version of a novel versus a tv show or comic book? nothing i guess, though a novel typically warrants movie-making if it tells a good story to begin with. shitty novels are rarely made into movies.
but here we have product with no redeemable quality, and made it seems not to tell a story but to further a brand, sell toys, sell mcdonald's food, etc.
my roommate and i have been feasting on a bunch of movies from the 1970s recently -- chinatown, the godfather movies, the conversation, dog day afternoon, midnight cowboy, (yeah, from 1969, I know, but...) and more -- and it begs the question as to why the major studios have all but abandonded good stories for commercialized crap.
yeah, indie filmmakers are the best place to look for "good" films, but why should the market be bifurcated like this? why can't the majors make more of an effort to be original and good...movie audiences will go to see good films if those films are given the chance to find an audience. i am encouraged that box office revenues are down -- it tells me that maybe people are tired of $10 tickets to see shit movies in noisy, dirty mega-plexes. souped-up home theater set-ups are nice, but there's something powerful about seeing a good movie on a big screen with a couple of hundred or so other people. that sense of community that comes from having been witness en masse to something that moved the entire audince in collective and individual ways.
ok, so what't the difference between a movie-version of a novel versus a tv show or comic book? nothing i guess, though a novel typically warrants movie-making if it tells a good story to begin with. shitty novels are rarely made into movies.
but here we have product with no redeemable quality, and made it seems not to tell a story but to further a brand, sell toys, sell mcdonald's food, etc.
my roommate and i have been feasting on a bunch of movies from the 1970s recently -- chinatown, the godfather movies, the conversation, dog day afternoon, midnight cowboy, (yeah, from 1969, I know, but...) and more -- and it begs the question as to why the major studios have all but abandonded good stories for commercialized crap.
yeah, indie filmmakers are the best place to look for "good" films, but why should the market be bifurcated like this? why can't the majors make more of an effort to be original and good...movie audiences will go to see good films if those films are given the chance to find an audience. i am encouraged that box office revenues are down -- it tells me that maybe people are tired of $10 tickets to see shit movies in noisy, dirty mega-plexes. souped-up home theater set-ups are nice, but there's something powerful about seeing a good movie on a big screen with a couple of hundred or so other people. that sense of community that comes from having been witness en masse to something that moved the entire audince in collective and individual ways.
inmate bites the hand that feeds him
A vegetarian? In prison? ok...
**************
Inmate sues after biting into fingertip in jail meal
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
A Florida food packager that lists “convenience at your fingertips” as one of its top qualities has been sued by a California prison inmate who says that he bit into a real human fingertip when he consumed one of the company’s vegetarian meals.
The company, G.A. Food Services, said in a letter to Pelican Bay State Prison that the ¾-inch fingertip accidentally had been sliced off the right middle finger of one of its workers when the employee was cleaning a filling machine on the frozen entree assembly line on July 14, 2004.
The department manager mistakenly thought all flesh had been flushed from the machine, the letter said. When workers couldn’t find the fingertip, they assumed it had been washed down the drain.
<...>
**************
Inmate sues after biting into fingertip in jail meal
Suzanne Herel, Chronicle Staff Writer
A Florida food packager that lists “convenience at your fingertips” as one of its top qualities has been sued by a California prison inmate who says that he bit into a real human fingertip when he consumed one of the company’s vegetarian meals.
The company, G.A. Food Services, said in a letter to Pelican Bay State Prison that the ¾-inch fingertip accidentally had been sliced off the right middle finger of one of its workers when the employee was cleaning a filling machine on the frozen entree assembly line on July 14, 2004.
The department manager mistakenly thought all flesh had been flushed from the machine, the letter said. When workers couldn’t find the fingertip, they assumed it had been washed down the drain.
<...>
Thursday, July 21, 2005
i got a date with my tailor now...thanks for putting me so straight
for years i prided myself on not having jobs where i was required to dress up (save for a year or so at red cross, but that was just shirt and tie, no jacket required {ooof, accidental phil collins reference}). working in the music business, in academia...you generally don't need to do more than hipster or business casual (if that).
but now, this job...i always need to wear a tie, and generally need a jacket if not a suit.
and you know what? i like it. i like looking sharp. it feels good to look good and i'm starting to get a handle on my sartorial aesthetic.
but now, this job...i always need to wear a tie, and generally need a jacket if not a suit.
and you know what? i like it. i like looking sharp. it feels good to look good and i'm starting to get a handle on my sartorial aesthetic.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
you spin me right round baby, right round...
As seen in Howard Kurtz's Media Notes today...
Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush writes fini to the story:
"It's over, folks - there is no scandal involving Rove; and there never was. This thing was made up out of whole cloth by Joe Wilson, who also made up a story about not finding any evidence of attempted uranium purchases by Saddam. . . . I don't know if Wilson is just insane or a con artist, but in either case he's not a man anyone should be listening to. And yet, our Democrats bought his scam hook, line and sinker - and they bought it because they stupidly believe that if they just keep up the drumbeat of scandal talk that President Bush will be destroyed."
******
Ok, seriously, does he write this crap with a straight face? Wilson's credentials as a diplomat and foreign service worker are impeccable. He's served Democrat and Republican administrations. But because he's called into question the credibility of the White House he's now not worth listening to. noonan didn't just drink the kool-aid, he's got it running through his veins.
The more important question of course is why Kurtz would choose to repost the comment and only add a slightly snarky one-liner. How about, Howard, you do some actual media critique?
Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush writes fini to the story:
"It's over, folks - there is no scandal involving Rove; and there never was. This thing was made up out of whole cloth by Joe Wilson, who also made up a story about not finding any evidence of attempted uranium purchases by Saddam. . . . I don't know if Wilson is just insane or a con artist, but in either case he's not a man anyone should be listening to. And yet, our Democrats bought his scam hook, line and sinker - and they bought it because they stupidly believe that if they just keep up the drumbeat of scandal talk that President Bush will be destroyed."
******
Ok, seriously, does he write this crap with a straight face? Wilson's credentials as a diplomat and foreign service worker are impeccable. He's served Democrat and Republican administrations. But because he's called into question the credibility of the White House he's now not worth listening to. noonan didn't just drink the kool-aid, he's got it running through his veins.
The more important question of course is why Kurtz would choose to repost the comment and only add a slightly snarky one-liner. How about, Howard, you do some actual media critique?
Monday, July 18, 2005
so who brought you to the dance?
quick question...first, the situation...strangers next to each other on a plane. get to talking, hit it off. one party never mentions a significant other, leading the other party to assume that when they both get back to the city in which they live (but had not previously met) that there might be something happening, this due to a lack of any evidence (rings, the word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend" used in conversation).
is the attached person obligated to somehow weave into the conversation the word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend"?
i say yes, if only to clarify things in case there's a possibility of misunderstanding. there's nothing wrong with flirting, and there's nothing ostensibly wrong with flirting when both parties know the deal and neither plans on taking it beyong the flirting. but if there is, to borrow an economics term, an asymetry of information at work, then it's not really fair.
and yes, something like this happened on the plane to the wedding. not that it was a big deal, as the person in question is pretty cool, would make a fun friend and probably knows some cool single women. getting to know people when you're new to an area is fine regardless of the outcome. still...
is the attached person obligated to somehow weave into the conversation the word "boyfriend" or "girlfriend"?
i say yes, if only to clarify things in case there's a possibility of misunderstanding. there's nothing wrong with flirting, and there's nothing ostensibly wrong with flirting when both parties know the deal and neither plans on taking it beyong the flirting. but if there is, to borrow an economics term, an asymetry of information at work, then it's not really fair.
and yes, something like this happened on the plane to the wedding. not that it was a big deal, as the person in question is pretty cool, would make a fun friend and probably knows some cool single women. getting to know people when you're new to an area is fine regardless of the outcome. still...
goin' to the chapel
ok, maybe not a chapel, more like an historic house owned by the city. that's where my brother and his wife had their wedding. much fun, and to them, the best of luck for a life of mirth, merryment and connubial bliss.
Monday, July 11, 2005
the data grunt talks movies
a quick break from learning the data and relearning sas stuff like proc tabulate (nested tables...wooohooo).
thanks to my roommate's netflix subscription it's been an orgy of films lately at the casa. the quick rundown...
* godfather, pts I & II -- i've seen both before, many times. but never in the presence of a person who'd never seen them (as well as a person who'd only seen them once). so it was, a bringing to life of the roger ebert quote about the joy of being able to be in the room with someone seeing those films for the first time. they don't lose power for the fan, and you get to think about the films in lots of different ways while tryng to explain the various inter-connections, references, allegories, etc.
* dog day afternoon -- you forget how good this film is, even if a bit dated. al pacino in the first of his manic al pacino roles. it's clearly here where he learned how to totally chew up a scene. the late, great john cazale is his usual understated brilliance. how lucky was this guy, making only 5 films in his career (well, not lucky as he died at a young age of cancer) but every one of them amazing.
* straw dogs -- peckinpah's classic doesn't hold up. sorry, but that's the way it is. dated 1960s camera techniques, inexplicable plot turns, hoffman's character is not believable in how he moves from nice guy to asshole. most noteworthy for the trademark peckinpah-ian violence, exit wounds and all. the rape scene is the one thing worth talking about, as it easily makes for good conversation about what they meant to convey.
* motorcycle diaries -- awesome in its awesomeness. a moving picture about friendship, the awakening of a social conscience in a well-heeled young man, the real meaning of a road trip. gael garcia bernal is quite a gifted actor, as well as (and i say this with full confidence in my sexuality) pretty damn hot. if i were gay or a chick, i'd want to do him. i'm jealous of never having been able to make a trip like this. not that it would have made me into a che-type revolutionary, though.
* napoleon dynamite -- the last 5 minutes were hysterical. the 5 minutes before that mildy funny. the rest of the movie? tedious. overrated. ghost world did it better.
* anchorman -- complete and utter unwatchable shite. will ferrell wastes a good idea that goes nowhere fast. turned it off after 35 minutes. the deleted scenes made me laugh more than the movie.
* beyond the sea -- if you get past the fact that it's a total vanity project for kevin spacey (so that he could sing and dance the songs and moves of his idol bobby darin) and that it's kinda told like a tv movie of the week, it's not half bad. the musical sequences are fun, the production numbers reminiscent of 1940s hollywood. spacey can actually do a damned good darin impersonation. kate bosworth does well as sandra dee. the movie-within-a-movie opening thing takes a minute to sort out, but if you just accept it and move on, it's not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. plus, if you don't come away with at least half the songs stuck in your head for days after, well, you just don't like melody. the big-band/crooner/nightclub era was pretty cool. us indie hipsters are the logical progeny of the crooner hipsters who begat the beat hispters who begat the beatle-esque hipsters who begat the mods and so forth.
thanks to my roommate's netflix subscription it's been an orgy of films lately at the casa. the quick rundown...
* godfather, pts I & II -- i've seen both before, many times. but never in the presence of a person who'd never seen them (as well as a person who'd only seen them once). so it was, a bringing to life of the roger ebert quote about the joy of being able to be in the room with someone seeing those films for the first time. they don't lose power for the fan, and you get to think about the films in lots of different ways while tryng to explain the various inter-connections, references, allegories, etc.
* dog day afternoon -- you forget how good this film is, even if a bit dated. al pacino in the first of his manic al pacino roles. it's clearly here where he learned how to totally chew up a scene. the late, great john cazale is his usual understated brilliance. how lucky was this guy, making only 5 films in his career (well, not lucky as he died at a young age of cancer) but every one of them amazing.
* straw dogs -- peckinpah's classic doesn't hold up. sorry, but that's the way it is. dated 1960s camera techniques, inexplicable plot turns, hoffman's character is not believable in how he moves from nice guy to asshole. most noteworthy for the trademark peckinpah-ian violence, exit wounds and all. the rape scene is the one thing worth talking about, as it easily makes for good conversation about what they meant to convey.
* motorcycle diaries -- awesome in its awesomeness. a moving picture about friendship, the awakening of a social conscience in a well-heeled young man, the real meaning of a road trip. gael garcia bernal is quite a gifted actor, as well as (and i say this with full confidence in my sexuality) pretty damn hot. if i were gay or a chick, i'd want to do him. i'm jealous of never having been able to make a trip like this. not that it would have made me into a che-type revolutionary, though.
* napoleon dynamite -- the last 5 minutes were hysterical. the 5 minutes before that mildy funny. the rest of the movie? tedious. overrated. ghost world did it better.
* anchorman -- complete and utter unwatchable shite. will ferrell wastes a good idea that goes nowhere fast. turned it off after 35 minutes. the deleted scenes made me laugh more than the movie.
* beyond the sea -- if you get past the fact that it's a total vanity project for kevin spacey (so that he could sing and dance the songs and moves of his idol bobby darin) and that it's kinda told like a tv movie of the week, it's not half bad. the musical sequences are fun, the production numbers reminiscent of 1940s hollywood. spacey can actually do a damned good darin impersonation. kate bosworth does well as sandra dee. the movie-within-a-movie opening thing takes a minute to sort out, but if you just accept it and move on, it's not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. plus, if you don't come away with at least half the songs stuck in your head for days after, well, you just don't like melody. the big-band/crooner/nightclub era was pretty cool. us indie hipsters are the logical progeny of the crooner hipsters who begat the beat hispters who begat the beatle-esque hipsters who begat the mods and so forth.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
london's burning
so is this it? the one (or the one that starts the tide) which puts us into 1984-style police states ruled by leaders who play on fear? or is this an opportunity for the muslim world to finally get serious about confronting the culture of death that is a distinct minority in islam but holds inordinate sway over the direction and perception of the faith and its people?
is reza aslan correct in his thesis that the muslim world is in the final days of a century-and-a-half long struggle between the forces of modernity and the forces of fundamentalism, much like christianity was 500 years ago (and seems to be going thru again, at least in the us).
so is it fear or progress? modernity or regression?
is reza aslan correct in his thesis that the muslim world is in the final days of a century-and-a-half long struggle between the forces of modernity and the forces of fundamentalism, much like christianity was 500 years ago (and seems to be going thru again, at least in the us).
so is it fear or progress? modernity or regression?
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
no va
so the dead battery thing? yeah..well, what happened was friday morning, 5:30am no less, i find the car not starting. this is a problem as i have a 7:30am flight to seattle and it's a 20 minute ride to the airport.
the first problem is that the remote doesn't unlock the car. no lights flash, nothing. i think it's a dead battery in the remote. key into the car, put key into ignition....nothing. no click, no hum, nothing. shit. it's early, public transport is a pain for this specific airport, plus the station is at least a half mile from my apartment.
so, go back inside, call one of the cab companies listed that does credit cards and is open 24 hours..."friendly cab company". 20 minutes later a cab arrives, and the driver is pretty friendly. get to the airpot, check in, walk down to the next terminal to avoid that ridiculously long security check-in line (stretched in a long loop thru the terminal and out the door and down a ways. terminal 2 was much shorter.
anyway, get a jump from my roommate on monday, drive around a bit to recharge the battery.
apparently no long enough. had an appointment at the dmv today for new plates. have taken the afternoon off from work for the appt. come home, remote unlocks the car, i think "good sign". no so fast...key in ignition and nothing but some clicking.
have to walk to aaa office (see so much for technology) to make sure membership is transferred, come home and wait 20 minutes on hold to secure a road service call. guy comes, charges me up...i go to the firestone station around the corner and an hour+ later, i have (the) power.
and i still need the new plates that i was supposed to have done within 30 days of moving here. but at least i have a new battery (the old one was original to the car and was due to go soon anyway).
the first problem is that the remote doesn't unlock the car. no lights flash, nothing. i think it's a dead battery in the remote. key into the car, put key into ignition....nothing. no click, no hum, nothing. shit. it's early, public transport is a pain for this specific airport, plus the station is at least a half mile from my apartment.
so, go back inside, call one of the cab companies listed that does credit cards and is open 24 hours..."friendly cab company". 20 minutes later a cab arrives, and the driver is pretty friendly. get to the airpot, check in, walk down to the next terminal to avoid that ridiculously long security check-in line (stretched in a long loop thru the terminal and out the door and down a ways. terminal 2 was much shorter.
anyway, get a jump from my roommate on monday, drive around a bit to recharge the battery.
apparently no long enough. had an appointment at the dmv today for new plates. have taken the afternoon off from work for the appt. come home, remote unlocks the car, i think "good sign". no so fast...key in ignition and nothing but some clicking.
have to walk to aaa office (see so much for technology) to make sure membership is transferred, come home and wait 20 minutes on hold to secure a road service call. guy comes, charges me up...i go to the firestone station around the corner and an hour+ later, i have (the) power.
and i still need the new plates that i was supposed to have done within 30 days of moving here. but at least i have a new battery (the old one was original to the car and was due to go soon anyway).
so much for technology
three weeks after signing up i'm wondering why my health insurance cards and new member info hadn't arrived by mail yet. well, turns out that despite my following the the on-line benefits sign-up process (confirmed by the fact that the benefits portal indicated i was siged up) and despite that the money was taken from my paycheck and that my employer's share was paid, i'm not in the system. some lady in the benefits office had to send an e-mail to the company to get me in their system (a call to the company had revealed that i wasn't in the system). she also had to indicate who my primary care doc was. yes, i had made that choice when signing up.
also? aaa auto club hadn't gotten around to sending me the info that repeated e-mails confirming my on-line actions indicated was coming, this 4 weeks after i used the aaa website to switch the membership from aaa south to aaa here. necessitated a visit to the office, which mercifully is a few blocks from my apartment. no record of the switch being requested.
so why did i bother? i only ended up having to make the very same calls and visits that the on-line processes were ostensibly designed to eliminate.
also? aaa auto club hadn't gotten around to sending me the info that repeated e-mails confirming my on-line actions indicated was coming, this 4 weeks after i used the aaa website to switch the membership from aaa south to aaa here. necessitated a visit to the office, which mercifully is a few blocks from my apartment. no record of the switch being requested.
so why did i bother? i only ended up having to make the very same calls and visits that the on-line processes were ostensibly designed to eliminate.
what i've learned to learn after a month here
* when clouds gather on the hills to the east of town, it's just fog, not rain. someday it may be rain and i'll be caught thinking it's fog. but right now it's fog.
* when you want to cross the street, cars will stop for you, especially if you're at a painted crosswalk, and even if that painted crosswalk is not at a corner with a traffic light. for someone who grew up in the northeast and lived in miami, this is quite the courtesy. i'm used to drivers barely deigning to stop at red lights, and *never* looking to the right when making a right turn on red, meaing a pedestrian coming from the right is liable to bet run into. but not here.
* this town has the highest per capita numbers of cyclists and pedestrians (so says the guy at the bike shop). also has an inordinate number of cycle accidents, mainly with pedestrians. i haven't checked out either number, as they each seem reasonable.
* there's a different quality to the sunlight here that's hard to explain. it seems sharper. maybe that's due to the relatively less humidity than where i spent my previous four years (of course, the average sauna has less humiity than miami). maybe it's the latitiude (or longitude, whichever one measures how far north or south you are). whatever, it's just different.
* it's in the mid-50s most mornings when i walk to work. in july. warms up later, but damn, that's cold for july. though i don't mind it so much.
* speaking of walking to work, that means I don't drive every day. when that's the case and when i inadvertantly leave my car dome light on and it stays on then it stays on for days on end. which kills the battery. so my gas savings for june were pretty much wiped out by the new battery i had to buy today.
* people here call san fran "the city". you don't go across the bay "to san francisco", you go "to the city".
* trader joes rocks. didn't have one in sofla, have two within 5 miles of me here. la boca malbec wine for $3/bottle? awesome.
* trying to bike up the hill to the lawrence labs is a tough climb. didn't make it on try #1, may not make it on the next couple of tries. but soon...soon.
* when you want to cross the street, cars will stop for you, especially if you're at a painted crosswalk, and even if that painted crosswalk is not at a corner with a traffic light. for someone who grew up in the northeast and lived in miami, this is quite the courtesy. i'm used to drivers barely deigning to stop at red lights, and *never* looking to the right when making a right turn on red, meaing a pedestrian coming from the right is liable to bet run into. but not here.
* this town has the highest per capita numbers of cyclists and pedestrians (so says the guy at the bike shop). also has an inordinate number of cycle accidents, mainly with pedestrians. i haven't checked out either number, as they each seem reasonable.
* there's a different quality to the sunlight here that's hard to explain. it seems sharper. maybe that's due to the relatively less humidity than where i spent my previous four years (of course, the average sauna has less humiity than miami). maybe it's the latitiude (or longitude, whichever one measures how far north or south you are). whatever, it's just different.
* it's in the mid-50s most mornings when i walk to work. in july. warms up later, but damn, that's cold for july. though i don't mind it so much.
* speaking of walking to work, that means I don't drive every day. when that's the case and when i inadvertantly leave my car dome light on and it stays on then it stays on for days on end. which kills the battery. so my gas savings for june were pretty much wiped out by the new battery i had to buy today.
* people here call san fran "the city". you don't go across the bay "to san francisco", you go "to the city".
* trader joes rocks. didn't have one in sofla, have two within 5 miles of me here. la boca malbec wine for $3/bottle? awesome.
* trying to bike up the hill to the lawrence labs is a tough climb. didn't make it on try #1, may not make it on the next couple of tries. but soon...soon.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Thursday, June 02, 2005
cross country trip log
Ok, here's the nuts and bolts of the trip. More description comes later, this is just the facts.
The route:
Miami, FL take I-95 to Florida Turnpike (@ Golden Glades junction)
Coleman, FL pick up I-75 North.
north FL pick up I-10 West.
Mobile, AL pick up I-65 North to US-98 West.
Hattiesburg, MS pick up I-59 North to US-49 North.
Jackson, MS pick up I-20 West.
Arlington, TX pick up TX-360 North to TX-183/121 West to I-820 West
Forth Worth, TX pick up I-35W North to US-287 North.
Amarillo, TX pick up I-40 West.
Barstow, CA pick up CA-58 West.
Bakersfield, CA pick up CA-99 North.
Chowchilla, CA pick up CA 59/152 West.
past Los Banos, Ca pick up I-5 North, take to I-580 West to Berkeley, CA.
The route:
Miami, FL take I-95 to Florida Turnpike (@ Golden Glades junction)
Coleman, FL pick up I-75 North.
north FL pick up I-10 West.
Mobile, AL pick up I-65 North to US-98 West.
Hattiesburg, MS pick up I-59 North to US-49 North.
Jackson, MS pick up I-20 West.
Arlington, TX pick up TX-360 North to TX-183/121 West to I-820 West
Forth Worth, TX pick up I-35W North to US-287 North.
Amarillo, TX pick up I-40 West.
Barstow, CA pick up CA-58 West.
Bakersfield, CA pick up CA-99 North.
Chowchilla, CA pick up CA 59/152 West.
past Los Banos, Ca pick up I-5 North, take to I-580 West to Berkeley, CA.
| When | What | Where | Miles |
| Wednesday, May 25 9:49am | LEAVE | Miami Beach, FL | 0 |
| Wednesday, May 25 12:25pm | gas | Okeechobee, FL | 162.9 |
| Wednesday, May 25 2:32pm | rest | near Ocala, FL | 294.7 |
| Wednesday, May 25 5:20pm | gas | Tallhassee, FL | 476.8 |
| Wednesday, May 25 7:20pm (CDT) | rest | 1st rest stop in Alabama | 678.5 |
| Wednesday, May 25 8:30pm | stop for night | Mobile, AL | 733.8 |
| Thursday, May 26 7:58am | start day | Mobile, AL | 735.8 |
| Thursday, May 26 9:07am | gas | New Augusta, MS | 801 |
| Thursday, May 26 11:50am | rest | 1st rest stop in Louisiana | 958.2 |
| Thursday, May 26 2:24pm | gas | Bossier City, LA | 1117.4 |
| Thursday, May 26 5:45pm | stop for night | Arlington, TX | 1327 |
| Friday, May 27 8:09am | start day | Arlington, TX | 1329 |
| Friday, May 27 10:38am | gas | Iowa Park, TX | 1464.9 |
| Friday, May 27 2:49pm | gas | Adrian, TX | 1727.1 |
| Friday, May 27 5:45pm (MDT) | stop for night | Albuquerque, NM | 1964.5 |
| Saturday, May 28 11:45am | start day | Albuquerque, NM | 1967.4 |
| Saturday, May 28 12:55am | gas | Grants, NM | 2040.4 |
| Saturday, May 28 4:45pm (MST) | stop for 2 nights | Flagstaff, AZ | 2283.7 |
| Monday, May 30 6:57am | start day, gas, coffee | Flagstaff, AZ | 2372.3 |
| Monday, May 30 11:57am (PDT) | gas | Ludlow, CA | 2674.4 |
| Monday, May 30 3:39pm | gas | Tulare, CA | 2913.5 |
| Monday, May 30 4:35pm | stop for night | Fresno, CA | 2962.9 |
| Tuesday, May 31 9:00am | start day | Fresno, CA | 2975.6 |
| Tuesday, May 31 11:57am | ARRIVE | Berkeley, CA | 3158.3 |
Monday, May 23, 2005
and away we go...
almost all packed, movers arrive in <9 hours. despite having thrown/given away and sold tons of stuff, i still have, uh, tons of stuff. books, cds/lps of course the bane and joy of my existence.
so, what then? a route that takes me north and west thru fla, into alabama where i hope to hit mobile wednesday night. dallas/ft.worth is thursday night, hopefully with time for bbq at railhead and catch the rangers game.
friday is albuquerque...catch the isotopes and get food at frontier (sense the theme here?) and maybe wander a bit thru town. since the haul to flagstaff is a shorter one (4-5 hours per mapquest) then there's no rush to get up and on the road too early on saturday.
spend the weekend in flag, tuesday night central cal, wednesday i hit town.
this is a great opportunity and i'm very excited to move there and all, but man...packing and moving sucks.
so, what then? a route that takes me north and west thru fla, into alabama where i hope to hit mobile wednesday night. dallas/ft.worth is thursday night, hopefully with time for bbq at railhead and catch the rangers game.
friday is albuquerque...catch the isotopes and get food at frontier (sense the theme here?) and maybe wander a bit thru town. since the haul to flagstaff is a shorter one (4-5 hours per mapquest) then there's no rush to get up and on the road too early on saturday.
spend the weekend in flag, tuesday night central cal, wednesday i hit town.
this is a great opportunity and i'm very excited to move there and all, but man...packing and moving sucks.
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
road trip v2
ok, forget the great american west trip, as things have changed. i'm moving from the sweaty sub-tropics to the bay area. which means a 3,000 mile trip, a few stops here and there. trip most likely to take place at the end of may, with an arrival in ca around may 30 to june 1.
so again i ask...who's with me?
so again i ask...who's with me?
Monday, March 28, 2005
questions from a c(an)ard carrying liberal
Here's a question to which I've never gotten a satisfactory answer...
Let's say we accept the canard about the liberal bias in the media, judiciary and academe (and the piss poor definition of liberalism put forth by conservatives). Why is it that the people who make up the three institutions most pilloried by the conservative movement -- the press, the judiciary, and college professors -- are the ones who've spent their lives in careers dedicated to the production, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and information? Why is it that these people, who have spent their lives going to (generally) the best schools, tend to lean liberal? What does that say about the salience and validity of the liberal viewpoint even as defined (poorly) by Conservatives that very well educated people, the best minds in the country, lean towards liberal viewpoints?
Also? On Meet the Press, Richard Land of the Baptist Convention, started blathering on about how decisions like the Schiavo case shouldn't be settled by "unelected judges", yet if he'd done his homework instead of parroting GOP talking points he'd see that a fair number of judges in America are in fact selected or retained by popular election. Many in partisan elections, and in both red and blue states. In fact, some of the FLA judges who presided over this case were elected.
http://www.justiceatstake.org/contentViewer.asp?breadcrumb=4,277
The other dumbass thing about his point is that when judges are selected they are put there by elected officials. So ultimately the elected officals are accountable to the people for the selections made to fill the judicial benches. Which, by the way, makes ridiculous the whole threat by Bill Frist and the Senate GOP to make illegal the filibustering on judicial nominees -- putting aside the fact that the 107th and 108th Congresses approved a greater share of Bush's judicial nominees than did the 103rd-106th Congresses under Clinton, the Senate's role is to advise and consent, not to "roll over and consent".
Land's point was also undone by the fact that Scalia didn't take up the case for the US Supreme Court. So the moral and ethic dimensions of the Schiavo case aside, it was pretty clear there was no legal standing for the Schindler family. That's a shame, but is something that needs to be fixed in legislature.
Another funny thing about the whole judicial activist thing is the blatant hypocrisy...rule for a conservative and with strict adherence to statutory or constitutional law and you're praised as being a "strict constructionist". Rule against a conservative and with strict adherence to statutory or constitutional law, and you're vilified for being an activist.
So crazy.
I feel horribly for the Schindlers, but I find it sad that they lit into Jeb Bush when he, a very conservative governor, decided to stay within the boundaries of the FLA constitution and statues. It may very well be that the law itself needs changing -- IMO, if there's this big a dispute between family members over the wishes of someone like Schiavo (in her condition, no advanced medical directive) then it may be that you err on the side of keeping the person alive. How to work that out legally I don't know, but it's hard not to have misgivings about her being starved to death.
But the law's the law, and once you declare a body of government null and void and usurp powers, well, it's a slippery slope to fascism and dictatorial, unaccountable rule.
All that said, I'm getting a living will done soon.
Let's say we accept the canard about the liberal bias in the media, judiciary and academe (and the piss poor definition of liberalism put forth by conservatives). Why is it that the people who make up the three institutions most pilloried by the conservative movement -- the press, the judiciary, and college professors -- are the ones who've spent their lives in careers dedicated to the production, interpretation and dissemination of knowledge and information? Why is it that these people, who have spent their lives going to (generally) the best schools, tend to lean liberal? What does that say about the salience and validity of the liberal viewpoint even as defined (poorly) by Conservatives that very well educated people, the best minds in the country, lean towards liberal viewpoints?
Also? On Meet the Press, Richard Land of the Baptist Convention, started blathering on about how decisions like the Schiavo case shouldn't be settled by "unelected judges", yet if he'd done his homework instead of parroting GOP talking points he'd see that a fair number of judges in America are in fact selected or retained by popular election. Many in partisan elections, and in both red and blue states. In fact, some of the FLA judges who presided over this case were elected.
http://www.justiceatstake.org/contentViewer.asp?breadcrumb=4,277
The other dumbass thing about his point is that when judges are selected they are put there by elected officials. So ultimately the elected officals are accountable to the people for the selections made to fill the judicial benches. Which, by the way, makes ridiculous the whole threat by Bill Frist and the Senate GOP to make illegal the filibustering on judicial nominees -- putting aside the fact that the 107th and 108th Congresses approved a greater share of Bush's judicial nominees than did the 103rd-106th Congresses under Clinton, the Senate's role is to advise and consent, not to "roll over and consent".
Land's point was also undone by the fact that Scalia didn't take up the case for the US Supreme Court. So the moral and ethic dimensions of the Schiavo case aside, it was pretty clear there was no legal standing for the Schindler family. That's a shame, but is something that needs to be fixed in legislature.
Another funny thing about the whole judicial activist thing is the blatant hypocrisy...rule for a conservative and with strict adherence to statutory or constitutional law and you're praised as being a "strict constructionist". Rule against a conservative and with strict adherence to statutory or constitutional law, and you're vilified for being an activist.
So crazy.
I feel horribly for the Schindlers, but I find it sad that they lit into Jeb Bush when he, a very conservative governor, decided to stay within the boundaries of the FLA constitution and statues. It may very well be that the law itself needs changing -- IMO, if there's this big a dispute between family members over the wishes of someone like Schiavo (in her condition, no advanced medical directive) then it may be that you err on the side of keeping the person alive. How to work that out legally I don't know, but it's hard not to have misgivings about her being starved to death.
But the law's the law, and once you declare a body of government null and void and usurp powers, well, it's a slippery slope to fascism and dictatorial, unaccountable rule.
All that said, I'm getting a living will done soon.
Saturday, March 26, 2005
gotfuggingdamnit
twice i had a very long entry wiped out thanks to some oddity of trying to copy and paste or whatnot. i'm debating whether or not to recreate a third time. maybe i'll have a beer and watch the ncaa game while rewriting it. or maybe not. i should be outside, it's gorgeous...but too much work.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
ok, who's with me?
the situation...july 2, big social event in seattle. july 16 big social event in denver. barring change in circumstance i'll be still living on the east coast. do i want to fly back and forth and back and forth? if this doesn't scream out for a 2 week road trip/sojourn/kerouacian adventure thru the great american west, i don't know what does.
so i ask...who's in? who wants to play neal cassady to my jack (or maybe i'll play neal to your jack)? all or part of the trip? do you know people who've got space where i can crash? grand canyon, bryce, arches, rockies, vancouver, redwoods, vegas (baby), tahoe...all there for the taking.
so again i ask...who's with me?
so i ask...who's in? who wants to play neal cassady to my jack (or maybe i'll play neal to your jack)? all or part of the trip? do you know people who've got space where i can crash? grand canyon, bryce, arches, rockies, vancouver, redwoods, vegas (baby), tahoe...all there for the taking.
so again i ask...who's with me?
wouldacouldashoulda
scuba, salsa, key west, x, fairchild, the screenplays, day tripping, judo, any of 2 dozen books, every great idea i've ever had.
history never retreats
another year on the market, another year left on the shelf. or maybe not? switch of focus, from faculty to admin jobs, albeit admin jobs with a research angle. maybe a stretch but hey, my first face-to-interview in a while. and omens? four years ago i go to an interview on my birthday and in that cycle get a job. this year i'm flying on my birthday to an interview the next day. maybe something from this cycle? and for this interview i have homework! (and fuck me, why am i blogging when i should be working on that assignment?) but man, a cross-country flight for a one-hour interview. and while there are worse places to spend a day than ********, on my b-day? whatev. would be better if m could come up from mountainview, but she had to pick that day to fly to hawai'i with her parents. why is it i went 0-for every faculty job i went for? why did i go 0-for dc? why am i worried about it? next week? fuck it, it's go time, it's game on. westward, ho. i mean, westward ho!.
the list at the moment? lost; split enz; ****** (even mentioning the name would cause me to worry about fucking it up); spring training; getting outta *****; realizing i'm not as good at the **-******* thing as i used to be (not because i'm growing attached more like because i'm not i'm finding i'm not into it).
the list at the moment? lost; split enz; ****** (even mentioning the name would cause me to worry about fucking it up); spring training; getting outta *****; realizing i'm not as good at the **-******* thing as i used to be (not because i'm growing attached more like because i'm not i'm finding i'm not into it).
Monday, February 14, 2005
grammy musings
It was an entertaining show. One of the better Grammy shows in a long time, and excellent as awards shows go. Yes that may seem like damning with faint praise, but it was an entertaining few hours.
Queen Latifah? Excellent hostess.
The scripted stuff for presenters? Typically forced and not funny.
Adam Sandler? Dude, dress up a bit. Just a bit.
Melissa Etheridge? As annoyingly overwrought as I find her singing style, I dug that she had the guts to not wear a wig. At first I thought she was doing a Sinead O'Connor impersonation. I had forgotten she has cancer. An interesting moment came during the pre-show thing on E...she was being interviewed and along came Lance Armstrong with Sheryl Crow. So the whole cancer-survivor kinship thing was kinda cool.
Lesbians? Clearly the new music chic, as witnessed by Etheridge and her partner holding hands on teevee, Ellen DeGeneres sitting front row with Portia, and the Queen hosting the event.
Franz Ferdninand? Rawk. What a great fucking record that is. I hope they don't become one-hit wonders, but given that they ape the sound of so many 80s one-hit wonders, it would be poetic if they did flame out.
Kanye West? Who is this guy? 9 nominations? Never heard of him. But I loved the brain pattern of his hair cut.
J-Lo and Marc Anthony? Eh. He seems soulful. She seems too showbiz, even singing with her husband.
Loretta Lynn and her escort? (who was that?) Hysterical, and clearly unrehearsed.
Alicia Keys? Ahmagah....voice, hot. Wow.
The pre-awards show on E? Gawdawful. Kathy whatshername (Griffin?) is a no-talent whose schtick seems to be asking innane questions and saying mean things about celebs. Mean things that are supposed to be funny but aren't and make her sound jealous that she has no talent. And Star Jones? WTF? (close to) actual quote "the young people today, doing their own thing...it's great". And like 5 times talks about how music genres are mixing, as if it's never happened before.
The Southern rock thing? Well done. Only version of Freebird I've ever heard that I liked. And that redneck chick (forget her name) who sang the opening verses of the song...wow.
The Tsunami relief song? Not bad for a star-studded tribute thing. interesting means of making it go...very 21st century, rather than have them all gather at a studio afterwards (c.f. Live Aid). Why the hell is Velvet Revolver the backing band? Were Asia not available? The bass player (Duff McKagen) was hysterical, clearly stoned. Brian Wilson looked like the crazy uncle who crashed the family talent night. Nora Jones needs to wear a bra. Or at least more flattering dresses. The chorus, "nothing's gonna change my world" was oddly unsuitable for the point of the song, though they did switch it up a bit at the end.
Queen Latifah? Excellent hostess.
The scripted stuff for presenters? Typically forced and not funny.
Adam Sandler? Dude, dress up a bit. Just a bit.
Melissa Etheridge? As annoyingly overwrought as I find her singing style, I dug that she had the guts to not wear a wig. At first I thought she was doing a Sinead O'Connor impersonation. I had forgotten she has cancer. An interesting moment came during the pre-show thing on E...she was being interviewed and along came Lance Armstrong with Sheryl Crow. So the whole cancer-survivor kinship thing was kinda cool.
Lesbians? Clearly the new music chic, as witnessed by Etheridge and her partner holding hands on teevee, Ellen DeGeneres sitting front row with Portia, and the Queen hosting the event.
Franz Ferdninand? Rawk. What a great fucking record that is. I hope they don't become one-hit wonders, but given that they ape the sound of so many 80s one-hit wonders, it would be poetic if they did flame out.
Kanye West? Who is this guy? 9 nominations? Never heard of him. But I loved the brain pattern of his hair cut.
J-Lo and Marc Anthony? Eh. He seems soulful. She seems too showbiz, even singing with her husband.
Loretta Lynn and her escort? (who was that?) Hysterical, and clearly unrehearsed.
Alicia Keys? Ahmagah....voice, hot. Wow.
The pre-awards show on E? Gawdawful. Kathy whatshername (Griffin?) is a no-talent whose schtick seems to be asking innane questions and saying mean things about celebs. Mean things that are supposed to be funny but aren't and make her sound jealous that she has no talent. And Star Jones? WTF? (close to) actual quote "the young people today, doing their own thing...it's great". And like 5 times talks about how music genres are mixing, as if it's never happened before.
The Southern rock thing? Well done. Only version of Freebird I've ever heard that I liked. And that redneck chick (forget her name) who sang the opening verses of the song...wow.
The Tsunami relief song? Not bad for a star-studded tribute thing. interesting means of making it go...very 21st century, rather than have them all gather at a studio afterwards (c.f. Live Aid). Why the hell is Velvet Revolver the backing band? Were Asia not available? The bass player (Duff McKagen) was hysterical, clearly stoned. Brian Wilson looked like the crazy uncle who crashed the family talent night. Nora Jones needs to wear a bra. Or at least more flattering dresses. The chorus, "nothing's gonna change my world" was oddly unsuitable for the point of the song, though they did switch it up a bit at the end.
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