The Midnight Cafe

The Office: Season 5, Episode 3 - "Baby Shower"

2009-03-08T03:35:00.000+01:00

"Baby Shower" is the third episode of the fifth season of the television series The Office, and the show's sixty-eighth episode overall. The episode aired in the United States on October 16, 2008 on NBC.

Plot
The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (January 2009)

Dwight acts out the process of birth with a watermelon, as Michael wants to be prepared for Jan's baby. Dwight eventually goes into "labor" and drops the watermelon from his apron. The watermelon breaks on the floor, and Michael congratulates Dwight for his help.

The Party Planning Committee is planning Jan's baby shower, and collects money for a present, which many employees are reluctant to donate to. Angela makes a "guess whose baby picture" game for the shower, and she is angered when Andy unintentionally makes fun of her picture.

Jim and Pam feel awkward trying to communicate with each other throughout the day, with Pam telling the documentary crew that the two of them were having an off day.

Jan arrives with her baby girl, Astrid, already born, much to everyone's surprise. The shower ends up taking place anyway, and Michael tries to pacify Jan by being cold to Holly, which makes her uncomfortable despite being foretold by Michael.

The present the office got for Jan ended up being a stroller, which was unnecessary as she already had a more expensive $1200 Orbit stroller. Dwight found this a ridiculous price to pay, stating that his bomb shelter cost that much, so he goes out to test the durability of the stroller as the shower continues. He straps the watermelon front the beginning of the show into the stroller and goes out to a dump-like area to throw the stroller into fences and off of small cliffs. He also ends up tying the stroller to the back of his car for his "bumper test."

Michael holds Astrid, only to find no connection, so he seeks advice from another "baby-daddy," Darryl. Darryl mocks him, as the baby is not even Michael's. Jan acts coldly to Holly when they have a conversation, being direct when Holly attempts humour. Jan then retrieves her daughter from Angela and Andy, who were setting up a photo of the baby amongst vegetables. She leaves soon afterward, telling Michael in the car park not to date Holly. Michael hugs Holly when he goes back into the building and feels a connection he did not feel with Astrid. He then asks her out on a date, which she accepts, visibly moved.

Jim and Pam call each other at the exact same time and leave each other messages that are extremely similar, hinting that perhaps they are not as disjointed as this day has made them feel but highlighting the difficulty they are both having with being apart.

Ratings

In the 18-49 demographic, Baby Shower earned a 4.1/10 ratings share. The episode was watched by 8.07 million viewers.

The Office: Season 5, Episode 2 - "Business Ethics"

2009-03-08T03:34:00.001+01:00

"Business Ethics" is the second episode of the fifth season of the television series The Office, and the show's sixty-seventh episode overall. The episode aired in the United States on October 9, 2008 on NBC.

Plot
The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (January 2009)

In the cold open, Pam is talking to Jim on the phone, and Jim reluctantly reveals their engagement to the office, to no congratulations and much insulting commentary (Oscar thought they were already engaged, Angela brings up Roy, Andy acts irritated that Jim is intruding on his own engagement even though Andy unknowingly intruded on Jim's engagement in "Goodbye, Toby," Dwight points out Pam's not a virgin, and Creed forgets Jim's name, calling him "the tall guy"), except Michael, who tackles Jim with a flying hug when he hears the news.

Following Ryan's recent actions, corporate wants Holly to set up a seminar regarding business ethics, where Michael invites the office to tell her about their personal time-theft stories without fear of consequence (by providing them with "immunity"). This seminar eventually escalates into a confessional orchestrated by Michael in which the staff admits to dishonesty in the workplace. However, when Meredith mentions that she has sex to gain discounts for the company and coupons to Outback Steakhouse, Holly feels that she should take action.[1]

At the seminar, Dwight claimed that he never takes personal time during work, so Jim uses a stopwatch to count even the smallest distractions that befall Dwight, such as yawning, sneezing and using the restroom. As a result, Dwight never stops working, restraining himself from speaking when Jim spreads misinformation about his favorite show, Battlestar Galactica, urinating in a soda bottle, rather than using the bathroom, and somehow managing to sneeze with his eyes open. Dwight finally stops caring about Jim's antagonism when he comes back into the office, having sneaked away to have sex with Angela. Dwight does admit that he is not as ethical as he claimed, and Jim appears happy to hear this and stops using the stopwatch.

Michael, upset by Holly's feelings, takes her to the local seafood restaurant, Cooper's Seafood House, to smooth things over, and also try to start something with her inconspicuously. After Holly states that Dunder Mifflin is not a family, it is a workplace, Michael becomes bitter towards her and treats her with the kind of contempt he previously reserved for Toby Flenderson. Later on a conference call, corporate turns a blind eye to Meredith's unethical behavior due to the discounts but scolds Holly for forgetting to collect the signatures of all the employees who attended the business ethics seminar, causing Michael to feel sorry for her and let things go. He stands up for Holly when the rest of the staff is reluctant to participate in the rest of the seminar by ordering them to finish it. This in turn, seems to improve their relationship once again.

Meredith provides Outback takeout to the entire office, so she is no longer the solo beneficiary of the "tip", as seen in the ending.

The Office: Season 5, Episode 1 - "Weight Loss"

2009-03-08T00:15:00.001+01:00

"Weight Loss" is the first episode and season premiere of the fifth season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's sixty-sixth episode overall. Written by Lee Eisenberg and Gene Stupnitsky, and directed by Paul Feig, the episode first aired in the United States on September 25, 2008 on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).[1] The separate parts of the episode first aired on November 27 and 28, 2008, both after airings of The Incredibles.

In this episode, the whole Office participates in a company-wide weight loss contest. Pam goes to New York City for art school, causing her and Jim to have to adjust to being temporarily apart. Also, awkward tension is created between Michael and Holly after she accepts a date with another man, and Angela and Dwight continue their secret relationship, despite Angela's upcoming wedding with Andy.

Plot
The plot summary in this article is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the content. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (January 2009)

The Scranton branch participates in a weight loss competition to see which branch can lose the most cumulative weight, with a prize of three extra vacation days (which later changes to five) for every employee in the winning branch. Although the branch is enthusiastic at first, the competition begins to take a huge toll on many of the employees, particularly Kelly Kapoor (Mindy Kaling), who stops eating and tries various kinds of diets. As a result, corporate sends a memo insisting that the staff need not resort to drastic measures to lose weight.

Pam Beesly (Jenna Fischer) begins her three-month stay in New York to attend classes in graphic design at the Pratt Institute, leaving Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) to adjust to her being away. Pam is temporarily replaced by Ronni (Dale Raoul), an older woman, but is quickly replaced by Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak) who was recently fired by Dunder Mifflin for fraud. Ryan, who is shown to be planning to rise again in the company, tries to make-up with several workers he had treated badly. He apologizes to his former girlfriend Kelly, and asks her out, only to be rejected, and is mocked by Jim when Ryan apologizes to him.

Michael Scott (Steve Carell) successfully continues his casual bonding with Holly Flax (Amy Ryan), with Jim noting that his success is due to Holly being "kind of a major dork". However, when Holly catches Michael talking in his office with a pregnant Jan Levinson (Melora Hardin), she asks Oscar Martinez (Oscar Nunez) to set her up with his yoga instructor. Michael learns of this and gets frustrated with Jim because he did not ask Holly out months earlier, which he wanted to but Jim told him not to. At point, Angela Martin (Angela Kinsey) chastises Kevin Malone (Brian Baumgartner) for improperly accounting for sales numbers. Holly, who thinks Kevin is mentally retarded, yells at Angela for treating Kevin so rudely, but when she refers to him as "mentally challenged", Kevin awkwardly reveals that he is not. Embarrassed, Holly apologizes and walks away.

Phyllis Vance (Phyllis Smith) takes over the Party Planning Committee after catching Angela cheating. Andy Bernard (Ed Helms) makes plans for his wedding with Angela, who irritatedly vetoes all of his ideas. Meanwhile she is revealed to be secretly having an affair with Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson). After Andy gives a heartfelt speech about not caring where they marry because he wants to be with her forever, Angela warms up to him a little. However, later in the episode Angela's disinterest resumes after Andy's persists in bringing his old a cappella band to be their best man, causing her and Dwight to resume their intimate affair.

Jim, having an unsatisfactory summer due to not being able to see Pam, asks her on a last minute lunch date at an interstate rest stop in between Scranton and New York City. At the rest stop, Jim finally proposes to Pam, and she happily accepts. Holly buys Counting Crows tickets as a surprise for the yoga instructor, but he never calls. Michael berates the yoga instructor in front of her for not calling her back, much to her apparent pleasure. He then offers to buy the tickets from her, only to tear them up in front of her.

The Scranton branch loses the competition to the Utica branch, much to the disappointment of the employees. Stanley Hudson (Leslie David Baker), however, is pleased with the fact that he personally lost seven pounds and decides to take an extra five days off anyway. In the last scene, Toby Flenderson (Paul Lieberstein) is seen in a hospital in Costa Rica, having broken his neck due to a malfunctioning zip-line harness on the third day of his new life and been subsequently hospitalized for five weeks.

Ratings

In the 18-49 demographic, Weight Loss earned a 4.9/11 ratings share. The episode was watched by 9.1 million viewers.

Lost: Season 5, Episode 1: "Because You Left"

2009-03-08T00:14:00.002+01:00

"Because You Left" is the television season premiere of the American Broadcasting Company's fifth season of the serial drama television series Lost.[1] The episode is the eighty-fourth episode of the show overall. It first aired on January 21, 2009 on ABC in the United States and was simulcast on A in Canada.[2] "Because You Left" is the first original Lost episode to be aired on a Wednesday (in the US) since the third season.[3] It aired immediately after a clip-show that recaps the first four seasons and aired back-to-back with the next episode, "The Lie".[4] The episode was written by executive producers/show runners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by co-executive producer Stephen Wiliams

Plot

The episode begins in the late 1970s, when the Dharma Initiative has begun to build stations on the island. Dr. Pierre Chang (François Chau) begins to film the orientation film for the Arrow Station, when he is informed of an incident at the construction site of the Orchid Station. Upon arriving there, he realizes that the workers have found the "unlimited" energy source that the Dharma Initiative has been looking for, which will enable them to manipulate time. As he leaves the station, he bumps into Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), who is dressed as a Dharma construction worker.

On December 30, 2004, following the island being moved in "There's No Place Like Home", the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, the freighter team, and Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) begin to erratically jump through time, while the Others are unaffected. The first jump takes them to the day when the Beechcraft carrying Mr. Eko's brother crashes onto the island. John Locke is shot in the leg by Ethan Rom (William Mapother), who has not yet met him and therefore does not recognize him, while trying to help. Meanwhile, James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), Juliet and the freighter team head to the Swan Station in order to determine when they are. A second jump brings the group forward in time to after the destruction of the station, saving Locke from Ethan in the process. When pressed for an explanation by Sawyer, Daniel Faraday likens the experience to a record skipping. Locke is approached by Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), who recognizes Locke and treats his wound. He informs Locke that they will be strangers at their next meeting, and thus gives him a compass to get his younger self to trust Locke. He explains that the only way to stop the erratic movements through time is to bring back everyone who has left the island, and to do that Locke will have to die. At the Swan station, which is now intact, Sawyer attempts to make contact with Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), who he believes is inside. When no one answers and Daniel explains that the past can not be changed, everyone heads back to the beach. However, Daniel stays behind and talks to Desmond (in a hazmat suit), telling him that if Desmond's future self and the survivors of 815 made it off the island on the helicopter then he should go to Oxford University and find his mother, in order to help the survivors. Another jump occurs just before Daniel can give his mother's name.

In 2007, following Hugo "Hurley" Reyes's (Jorge Garcia) breakout of a mental institution, he and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) go to a safehouse, which has been infiltrated by two armed men. Sayid kills the men, but not before one of them shoots him with two potent drugged darts, knocking him unconscious. In London, England, while en route to Los Angeles, Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) is confronted by Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) at the airport. She tells him that she wants to kill Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson), a desire they seem to have in common. Back in Los Angeles, two lawyers visit Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and serve her with a court order for a maternity test for her and Aaron, Claire Littleton's (Emilie de Ravin) son, whom Kate is raising as her own, but they refuse to reveal their client's identity. Meanwhile, Ben and Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) have left the funeral parlor with Locke's body. They discover that Hurley has broken out, hindering Ben's plan to reunite the Oceanic Six. On a boat in an unknown location, Desmond wakes up, having remembered what Daniel told him, and sets off for Oxford.

Production

Following a writing "mini-camp" to map out the fifth season,[5] the premiere's script was written and filming began on August 19.[6] The season premiere is the first Lost episode to not only be filmed in high definition, but also edited in it.[7]

As of "Because You Left", Emilie de Ravin and Harold Perrineau,[8] who respectively play Claire Littleton and Michael Dawson,[9] are no longer included in the main cast. In the fourth season, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Ken Leung as Miles Straume and Rebecca Mader as Charlotte Lewis were credited in the main cast in the on-screen episode credits, but billed as guest stars in news releases and other media; in the fifth season, they are now billed fully in the main cast. As part of a three-year deal that began with the fourth season, writing team Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz now receive the executive producer title.[10] Staff writer Brian K. Vaughan is upgraded to a producer with this season[11] and Paul Zbyszewski and Melinda Hsu Taylor join the writing staff.[12]

Co-creator/executive producer/head writer/show runner Damon Lindelof has stated that "When season five starts, you won't know when or where you are. And the way we tell stories will be different too." Lindelof also confirmed that the "whooshing sound" effect will continue to be used as the transition for the new storytelling device.[13] When asked if episodes continue to focus on specific and different characters, actor Jorge Garcia, who portrays Hurley Reyes, replied that "It's not as clear cut as it's been in the past. We don't have the moments where someone stares off into space and then we cut to something that happened in their previous life. They've gone in a slightly different direction as far as how they're telling the story and they're definitely trying to show what's going on with more people in every given episode."[14]

In regard to what Lindelof described as "the Zodiac boat with Faraday and the five people that have never spoken a line on show", executive producer/writer/show runner Carlton Cuse said that "I'd be a little bit more worried about the non-line speakers than Faraday", while Lindelof added that "things are looking up for Faraday" and "there is a monsoon coming."[15] Regarding the background survivors in general, Carlton Cuse has responded that there is "a very tragic event that happens this season."[16] According to Lindelof, Neil "Frogurt" (Sean Whalen), a background survivor who has appeared solely in the Lost: Missing Pieces mobisodes,[17] "will rise up this season in the grand tradition of Dr. Arzt [Daniel Roebuck] to let his feelings be known."[18] The character of James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) is shirtless throughout the episode. Holloway kept fit in the summer break before shooting and noted this as "really disturbing. Coming after a hiatus, that ain't fair!"[19]

"Because You Left" introduces a character who was named during casting as "Martha" and described as an attractive, smart and capable Asian scientist who is taking a break to raise her baby.[6] "Dan" is a friendly yet villainous, successful attorney with a "real menace lurking below the surface".[20]

Reception

The fifth season of Lost was promoted with a music video for the song "You Found Me" by The Fray intercut with new Lost scenes and the tagline, "Destiny Calls".[21] Television critic Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune has deemed the latter an "endlessly mockable slogan";[22] Don Williams of BuddyTV gave a more positive review, summing it up as "a fitting way to describe the upcoming season."[23] The staff of TV.com ranked the fifth season first on their "Most Anticipated of Early 2009" list.[24] Christopher Rosen of The New York Observer went so far as to deem the return of Lost a "bigge[r] event" than other happenings in that week, specifically the unveiling of the 81st Academy Awards nominations and the United States presidential inauguration of Barack Obama.[25] "Because You Left", as well as the following episode "The Lie" averaged 11.347 million viewers in the US[26] and 1.195 million in the UK.[27] The episode, aired by itself, brought in 405,000 Australian viewers.[28] "Because You Left" and "The Lie" were uploaded to ABC's media website—ABC Medianet—on December 29, 2008 to be viewed by members of the press for advance reviews attached to limited confidentiality agreements.[29] Aggregate review website Metacritic assigned a metascore—weighted average out of 100 based on impressions of fourteen critics—of 77.

James Poniewozik of Time thought that "Because You Left" provided a good balance of characterization and mythology and commended the character of Faraday, partially "because a perfectly-cast Jeremy Davies has turned him into a likeable, flawed, brusque, slightly-in-over-his-head nebbish-god."[30] Matt Mitovich of TV Guide stated that the premiere "offer[s] compelling twists … the foundation is laid for a pivotal penultimate season … it sends the mind reeling and uncorks infinite possibilities."[31] Robert Bianco of USA Today wrote that "it's hard to name a series that is as engaging, surprising and flat-out gorgeous as Lost, or one in which every effort and penny expended seems to be put to shimmering good use. This is an epic big-screen adventure done for the small screen—and done in a way that makes most big-screen versions pale in comparison." Bianco also commended the characterizations, noting them as realistic and compelling.[32] Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune praised the opening sequence, calling it "really, really great … nerd-tastic for [the] hardcore Lost fan; it's full of shout-outs and callbacks to classic Lost moments and trivia." She concluded that the premiere is "quite good" (three and a half out of four stars) with "a lot to like", specifically the expanded screen time for Faraday; however, Ryan expressed difficulty in understanding the use of time (travel) in the show and felt that one to two more viewings were warranted for her to give a better review of that aspect.[33] Verne Gay of Newsday summed up that "The season's premiere represents pig-in-the-python storytelling—there's so much to work through, so many details, stories, characters and time dimensions to attend to, that after a while this all starts to feel like a very full meal. A bloated feeling may result."[34] Among other pieces of praise, Tim Goodman of the San Francisco Chronicle was impressed by the "parallel plotting" of the characters on and off the island in different times.[35] Despite deeming the premiere "riveting" and the script "tantalizing as ever", Matthew Gilbert of The Boston Globe had a mixed response, for he worried that he would not be able to handle a season's worth of time travel, stating that "I may be alone in this, and I hope I will be proven wrong, but I expected the solution to "Lost" to be more metaphysical, and more original, than simply people being unstuck in time."[36] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger deemed it "really good, in terms of keeping the momentum from last season going, servicing the characters and their emotions, and providing an appropriate number of 'Whoa's per hour."[37] In a three out of four stars review, Thomas Connor of the Chicago Sun-Times stated that "the time-travel training wheels are coming off—and the path thus far seems blissfully free of the usual stumbling blocks", due to the previous four seasons of "baby steps" that set up the science fiction driven fifth season.[38] Caryn Kunz of the Honolulu Advertiser said that "This was a great episode to get back into every aspect of our favorite show: relationships, mythology, reunions/cameos, and enough whoa moments to keep me on the edge of my seat throughout."[39]

Jeff Jensen of Entertainment Weekly summed up the entirety of the premiere as "pretty cool" and "worth the wait". He wrote that "Lost's tradition of opening the year with a killer, capture-the-imagination sequence is honored and upheld, though the thing I loved most was how it was brazenly frank (and engagingly funny) about the heady high-concept conceit that will define the season."[40] Brian Lowry of Variety concluded that "Lost … approaches its twists with what appears to be a greater degree of intellectual rigor than almost anything else on primetime. Even when it's difficult to keep track of the myriad connections, a sense lingers that somebody knows—which is strangely reassuring."[41] Despite being more interested in the romantic aspirations of the show's characters, Jennifer Godwin of E! remarked that "the Lost mythology is a miracle to behold. It's grandiose, compelling, gaspworthy and, despite what the haters would have you believe, altogether satisfying".[42] Katherine Nichols of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin enjoyed the opening scene, "but the rest of it didn't capture [her] as [she] hoped it would", citing high expections due to the eight-month hiatus after the fourth season finale and a possible "yearning for more character-driven stories over machinations revolving around time travel, however clever they might be."[43] John Kubicek of BuddyTV said that "the opening scene itself will leave your mouth wide open and you'll probably forget to close it for a few minutes." He also wrote the premiere episodes "are vintage Lost, full of some unbelievable twists and a whole lot of groundwork".[44] H.T. Strong of Ain't It Cool News said that "Because You Left" "is a corker, aggressively advancing the story in all kinds of directions."[45]

Lost: Season 5, Episode 2: "The Lie"

2009-03-08T00:13:00.002+01:00

"The Lie" is the second television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[1] The eighty-fifth episode of the show overall, "The Lie" aired on January 21, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[2] It aired immediately after the previous episode, "Because You Left" and a clip-show that recapped the first four seasons.[3] "The Lie" was written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, who were named executive producers prior to the start of production on season five;[4] and directed by executive producer Jack Bender.[1]
Contents

Plot

On the island, the remaining survivors are back in the past, attempting to start a fire, when they are attacked by a barrage of flaming arrows. Most of the survivors are able to escape; however, Neil "Frogurt" (Sean Whalen) and a few others are killed, and James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) and Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) are separated from the group. Lost in the jungle, they are captured by a group of armed military men who demand to know who they are, asserting that the island is theirs. The men are about to cut off Juliet's hand to extract information, when John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) ambushes them, helping Sawyer and Juliet free themselves.

In 2007, following the events of "Because You Left", Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) part ways, with Ben taking Locke's body to a butcher (Mary Mara) for safe keeping. Ben tells Jack to collect any personal items he really wants and meet up with him in six hours. Meanwhile, Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and Aaron Littleton (William Blanchette), her adoptive son, have fled their home to escape lawyers demanding a maternity test. They meet up with Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) at a hotel, who implies that Kate should take whatever measures are necessary to protect Aaron. Sun forgives Kate for leaving her husband, Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), on the freighter when it exploded (as seen in "There's No Place Like Home").

Meanwhile, Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) are on the run after they are attacked at their safehouse; Hurley drives the unconscious Sayid, who has been hit by two potent drugged darts, to his parents' house. On the way, Hurley hallucinates deceased Oceanic Flight 815 survivor and former police officer Ana Lucia Cortez (Michelle Rodriguez), who gives him advice on how to avoid the real cops. Upon arriving home, Hurley's dad, David (Cheech Marin), covers for them when the police show up and suggests that Hurley take Sayid to the hospital. Hurley refuses, and David ends up taking Sayid to Jack, who is successful in reviving him. At home, Hurley confesses to his mother Carmen (Lillian Hurst) that the Oceanic Six have been lying; she believes him, though doesn't understand his disjointed story. Later, Ben suddenly shows up at the house and tries to convince Hurley to go with him to meet up with the rest of the Oceanic Six, saying they all want the same thing -- to go back to the island. Hurley wavers for a moment, then runs outside and turns himself in to police watching the house, having been advised by Sayid to do the opposite of whatever Ben asks. Later, Ben visits Ms. Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan), who tells him she has found the island and that Ben only has seventy hours to return with the Oceanic Six.

Production

"The Lie" features the first appearance of main cast member Michelle Rodriguez since the second season episode "?".[5] Rodriguez's character, Ana Lucia Cortez, was written to have a one season arc and was subsequently killed off at the end of the second season of Lost.[6]

Reception

"Because You Left" and "The Lie" were uploaded to ABC's media website—ABC Medianet—on December 29, 2008 to be viewed by members of the press for advance reviews attached to limited confidentiality agreements.[7] Matt Mitovich of TV Guide stated that "[t]he first hour is the stronger of the two", and that the "showstopper [is] one of Lost's most electric and intense action scenes ever."[8] "The Lie", as well as the previous episode, "Because You Left" was viewed by 11.347 million in the US,[9] and by 1.195 million in the UK.[10] In Australia, the episode was aired separately to "Because You Left" and brought in 516,000 viewers.[11]

Lost: Season 5, Episode 3: "Jughead"

2009-03-08T00:11:00.000+01:00

"Jughead" is the third television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[1] The eighty-sixth episode of the show overall, "Jughead" aired on January 28, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[2] The episode was written by supervising producers Elizabeth Sarnoff and Paul Zbyszewski and directed by Rod Holcomb.[1]

Plot

The episode opens with a flashback of Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), in the Philippines, searching for a doctor to help his wife Penny Widmore (Sonya Walger), who is giving birth to their son, Charlie. In 2007, Desmond and Penny arrive in London, where Desmond plans to look for the mother of Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), who is believed to be at Oxford University. However, the school has no record of either Faraday, even though Daniel was a professor there. Desmond searches Faraday's lab and meets a janitor who tells him that Faraday conducted experiments on a woman and provides an address for her. At her house, Desmond finds that the woman is in a vegetative state after experiencing temporal disassociation, similar to Desmond's experiences on the freighter (as seen in "The Constant"). He learns that Penny's father, Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), is not only paying her medical expenses, but also funded Daniel's research. Desmond confronts Widmore, who gives him the address of Daniel's mother in Los Angeles. Desmond returns to Penny, who agrees that they must travel to Los Angeles.

In 1954, following the events of the previous episode, "The Lie", Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell), John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) interrogate the two men they have captured. Juliet deduces that they are members of the Others because they can speak Latin. One of the men, a younger Charles Widmore (Tom Connolly), kills the other when he agrees to help Juliet, Sawyer, and Locke, and flees to his campsite to warn Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell). Locke follows him and meets with Alpert, using Jacob's name and the compass Alpert gave him to gain his trust; however, Alpert is not entirely convinced. Locke tells Alpert to visit him after he is born in 1956 (a visit depicted in the episode "Cabin Fever", during which Alpert shows a young Locke the compass), but cannot convince Alpert to show him how to leave the island before the next time jump occurs.

At the same time, the freighter team, consisting of Miles Straume (Ken Leung), Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) and Daniel Faraday are captured by another group of Others, led by Ellie (Alexandra Krosney). Faraday deduces that the American military has come to the island to test hydrogen bombs, and that the Others are in possession of one which is leaking radiation. He convinces Alpert to let him defuse the bomb, confessing his love for Charlotte as proof that he won't detonate it on purpose. Ellie leads Faraday to the bomb (the titular Jughead), and after an inspection he advises her that the bomb should be buried and will not go off for at least 50 years, inadvertently revealing that he is from the future. Ellie doesn't believe him, but Juliet and Sawyer show up and disarm her. The time jump occurs and the group is safe, but Charlotte suddenly collapses with a nosebleed.

Production

"Jughead" is the first episode of Lost to be co-written by Paul Zbyszewski, who joined the writing staff prior to the start of production on season five.[3] Elizabeth Mitchell learned as much Latin as she could for the episode. Mitchell said she could not "just learn it phonetically", so she spent the "whole weekend" trying to learn the language on the phone with a Latin professor.[4]

Lost: Season 5, Episode 4: "The Little Prince"

2009-03-08T00:10:00.001+01:00

"The Little Prince" is the fourth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[1] The eighty-seventh episode of the show overall, "The Little Prince" aired on February 4, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[2] The episode was written by producer Brian K. Vaughan and newcomer Melinda Hsu Taylor and directed by Stephen Williams.[1]

Plot

The episode opens with a flashback of Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) on Penny Widmore's (Sonya Walger) boat, following their rescue in early January 2005. Kate convinces Jack that once returning home that they should claim that Aaron (William Blanchette) is Kate's biological son, while in fact his mother is Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin).

In late 2007, Kate leaves Aaron in the care of Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) in order to confront attorney Dan Norton (Tom Irwin), who is pursuing a maternity test for Kate and Aaron. Norton tells Kate that he is going to meet his client later and Kate decides to follow him. Meanwhile, Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) meets up with Jack and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) at the hospital. An orderly attacks Sayid, but Sayid overcomes him, and when he finds Kate's address in his wallet he, Ben and Jack, suspect Kate is the next target. The three decide to split up, with Jack going after Kate, and Sayid and Ben going to the prison where Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) is being held, following his arrest in "The Lie". Jack and Kate follow Norton to a motel where he meets with Claire's mother, Carole (Susan Duerden). Once Norton leaves, Jack confronts Carole, who is only in Los Angeles to collect on a successful suit against Oceanic Airlines and has nothing to do with the maternity test. At the prison, Ben meets with Norton, who is also acting as Hurley's lawyer and is confident that he can have Hurley released the following morning. Ben and Sayid meet up with Jack and Kate, where Kate figures out that Ben has hired Norton to do the maternity test, while Sun, armed with a gun, watches the conversation from a car with Aaron.

On the island, following the latest time jump at the end of the previous episode "Jughead", Charlotte is still unconscious. She eventually wakes up and the group of her, Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), Miles Straume (Ken Leung), John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) and Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell) leave to travel to the Dharma Initiative Orchid Station, where Locke believes he can find a way to leave the island. During the course of the episode several others begin to show similar symptoms to Charlotte's. The time jump has brought the group to November 1, 2004, the day of Aaron's birth, an event that Sawyer witnesses, and the death of Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder). Another time jump brings them to the future. At their beach camp, they find a canoe which they use to paddle to the other side of the island. They are attacked by unknown assailants and another time jump brings them to 1988, in the middle of the storm that caused a pregnant Danielle Rousseau (older: Mira Furlan; younger: Melissa Farman) and her research team's boat to run aground on the island. In their emergency raft, the science team, led by Montand (Marc Menard), find Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) unconscious floating on flotsam from the freighter that exploded in "There's No Place Like Home". They land on the island and question Jin after he wakes up.

Production

"The Little Prince" is the first episode of Lost to be co-written by Melinda Hsu Taylor, who joined the writing staff prior to the start of production on season five.[3]

Lost: Season 5, Episode 5 - "This Place is Death"

2009-03-08T00:09:00.000+01:00

"This Place is Death" is the fifth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[1] The eighty-eighth episode of the show overall, "This Place is Death" aired on February 11, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[2] The episode was written by executive producers Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and directed by Paul Edwards.[1]

Plot

In late 2007, following the events of the previous episode, "The Little Prince", Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) confronts Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) during his meeting with Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews). She intends to kill him; however, he reveals to her that her husband, Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), is still alive on the island. She reluctantly agrees to go with him and Jack to another location, where he can substantiate his claims. They go to a church, where Ben shows her Jin's wedding ring, which Ben took from Locke as proof that Jin is alive. Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) arrives at the church, in his search for the mother of Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies), Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan). The four go inside the church, where Eloise is disappointed that Ben did not bring the rest of the Oceanic Six.

On the island, following the latest time jump which has brought the survivors to 1988, Jin and Danielle Rousseau's (Melissa Farman) science team go in search of a radio tower that is broadcasting the Numbers. They are attacked by the smoke monster, which drags Montand (Marc Menard) into a tunnel that leads to a temple, severing his arm in the process. The rest of the team, except Danielle, follow him into the tunnel and another time jump brings Jin forward two months in time. He first encounters the recently killed bodies of two of Danielle's crewmembers. He then witnesses Danielle kill her lover Robert (Guillaume Dabinpons) because she believes that the rest of the team became infected while inside the temple. Danielle also attempts to kill Jin, however another time shift occurs and Jin is reunited with the other survivors: James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell), Miles Straume (Ken Leung), Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) and Daniel Faraday.

The group is on their way to the Dharma Initiative Orchid Station, where Locke believes he can find a way to leave the island in his attempt to bring the Oceanic Six back to the island. Several time jumps occur and Charlotte becomes so ill that she must stay behind, with Daniel choosing to stay with her. She tells Locke to look for a well, if the Orchid Station is not there. Later, she confesses to Daniel that she grew up on the island and that before she left a man told her never to come back or she would die; she believes Daniel is that man. She dies shortly thereafter. The other survivors arrive at the location of the Orchid and find the well. Jin tells Locke to tell Sun that he died and gives Locke his wedding ring as "proof" because he does not want Sun or their child to return to the island. While descending the well, another flash occurs and Locke falls and injures his leg, resulting in a compound fracture. Arriving in the frozen chamber with the wheel that Ben used to move the island in "There's No Place Like Home", Jack's deceased father, Christian Shephard (John Terry), greets Locke and tells him that he meant for Locke to move the island in the first place. Locke then pushes the wheel and leaves the island.

Production

Rebecca Mader, who plays Charlotte, found out that her character would die when she was negotiating contracts in June 2008. When Mader originally started on the show in August 2007, she was only supposed to do eight episodes, but due to the writers strike, she ended up doing twenty. Mader said: "I was on the show a lot longer than I thought I was going to be. A lot of it has to do with the writers strike. Less episodes in season four meant back stories were compromised for the new people. I think that's why my character carried into season five." When she found out about her character's death she was "disappointed". "When I got to the end of season four and found out Charlotte had been born on the island, that was huge. So when I found out I was leaving, I was disappointed. Like all things, it's for the best," she said.[3]

[edit]

Lost: Season 5, episode 6 - "316"

2009-03-08T00:08:00.002+01:00

"316" is the sixth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[2] The eighty-ninth episode of the show overall, "316" aired on February 18, 2009 on ABC in the United States, and was simulcast on A in Canada.[3] The episode was written by showrunners and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Stephen Williams.[2]

Plot

The episode begins with Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) having returned to the island, three years since they left it in "There's No Place Like Home". The narrative then shifts to 46 hours previous where the previous episode, "This Place is Death", left off. Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) takes Jack, Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) and Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) to a Dharma Initiative station underneath the church called the Lamp Post, which was used by Dharma to find the island; since the island is constantly moving, they developed a way to predict where it would be at a given time. When Eloise mentions that the group only has 36 hours to get on Ajira Airways Flight 316, in order to return to the island, Desmond refuses to join them and leaves. Eloise then tells Jack in private that he must bring something that belonged to his father Christian Shephard (John Terry) with him on the flight and also gives him John Locke's (Terry O'Quinn) suicide note.

The next day, Jack gets a call informing him that his grandfather Ray (Raymond J. Barry) has attempted to escape his nursing home. Jack goes to the nursing home and finds an old pair of Christian's shoes and decides to take them with him. Later, Jack returns to his apartment, where he finds Kate sleeping in his bed. He wakes her and asks where her adoptive son Aaron is, but she refuses to answer. They kiss passionately and fall into bed. The next morning, Jack receives a phone call from a severely beaten Ben, who tells Jack that he must go to a butcher shop and retrieve Locke's dead body. Jack does so, putting Christian's shoes on Locke's feet in the process. He also leaves the suicide note in Locke's pocket.

At the airport, Jack, Kate, Sun, and Hurley all board Flight 316. Hurley was informed by someone other than Ben, and bought all the remaining first class seats on the plane, in order to spare the lives of potential passengers. Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) also boards the plane, in police custody of Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson). Ben is last to board the plane, which momentarily disquiets Hurley. Also on board is Caesar (Saïd Taghmaoui). During the flight, Jack realizes that Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) is piloting the plane and Frank realizes that they are going back to the island. Jack, who has been given Locke's note by a flight attendant, reads the note, which says, "I wish you had believed me." The plane hits turbulence and there is a flash of white light similar to that caused by the time shifts. The first scene replays, following which, Jack, Kate and Hurley are found by Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim), who is driving a Dharma van and wearing a Dharma jumpsuit.

Production

This episode and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" were written at the same time by executive producers Lindelof and Cuse. "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" was originally meant to be aired first, but the order was switched because they felt it made more sense and was "cooler" and "there is probably some good information to get in “316” before."[1]

Lost, Season 5, Episode 7 - "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham"

2009-03-08T00:08:00.001+01:00

"The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" is the seventh television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[2] The ninetieth episode of the show overall, "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" aired on February 25, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[3] The episode was written by showrunners and executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by Jack Bender.[2]

[edit] Plot

The episode begins an unknown amount of time after the crash of Ajira Airways Flight 316, which took off from Los Angeles in the previous episode, "316", and has crashed on the small island where the Dharma Initiative Hydra Station is located. One of the crash survivors, Caesar (Saïd Taghmaoui), searches an office in the Hydra Station, finding several documents and a sawed-off shotgun. He is interrupted by Ilana (Zuleikha Robinson), who informs him that a man no one remembers seeing on the plane, has been found: John Locke (Terry O'Quinn). Locke explains to Ilana that the last thing he remembers is dying.

The narrative shifts into an extended flashback of Locke's time off the island, since he left it in "This Place is Death". In late 2007, Locke awakens in a desert in Tunisia, where he is brought to a local hospital and visited by Charles Widmore (Alan Dale). Widmore tells Locke that he led the Others until Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson) took over and tricked him into leaving the island. Widmore pledges to help Locke reunite the Oceanic Six—Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews), Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) and Claire Littleton's (Emilie de Ravin) infant, Aaron—in order to bring them back to the island. Widmore gives Locke a fake identity, Jeremy Bentham, and assigns Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) to assist him.

Sayid, Hurley and Kate all refuse to go back to the island after being visited by Locke. Locke also visits Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley), but decides not to ask him to return to the island because he has been through enough already. Meanwhile, Kate's conversation with Locke leads him to look for his old girlfriend, Helen Norwood (Katey Sagal), who he discovers has died. While visiting her grave, Abaddon is shot and killed; Locke gets into a car accident after he flees the scene in a panic. He awakens in Jack's hospital, where the two once again argue about the island. Before Jack leaves, Locke tells him that his father, Christian Shephard (John Terry), is alive on the island. This greatly upsets Jack, and he leaves. Locke then goes to a hotel, where he attempts to hang himself. Ben, however, shows up and talks Locke down. He admits to shooting Abaddon, claiming it was to protect him. After learning of Locke's plan to seek advice from Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) on how to return to the island, Ben kills Locke, making it look like suicide. He then takes Jin-Soo Kwon's (Daniel Dae Kim) wedding ring, which Jin had entrusted to Locke. The narrative returns to the present on the island, where Locke discovers an unconscious Ben among the injured passengers of Flight 316.

[edit] Production

This episode and "316" were written at the same time by executive producers Lindelof and Cuse. "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham" was originally meant to be aired first, but the order was switched because they felt it made more sense and was "cooler."[1]

Lost, Season 5, Episode 8 - "LaFleur"

2009-03-08T00:07:00.001+01:00

"LaFleur" is the eighth television episode of the fifth season of ABC's Lost.[1] The ninety-first episode of the show overall, "LaFleur" aired on March 4, 2009 on ABC in the United States, being simulcast on A in Canada.[2] The episode was written by co-executive producers Elizabeth Sarnoff and Kyle Pennington and directed by editor Mark Goldman.[1]

[edit] Plot

Following the events of "This Place is Death", a time jump briefly brings the remaining group of survivors — James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell), Miles Straume (Ken Leung), Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) — to a time when there is an ancient statue standing on the island. They are only able to see the back of it before John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) turns the wheel, bringing the survivors forward to 1974, at the peak of the Dharma Initiative's presence on the island. Now that John has pushed the wheel, the time jumps have stopped and they are stuck in the past. The group comes across a pair of Dharma Initiative members who have been captured by some of the island's native inhabitants, known as the Others. Juliet and Sawyer kill the two Others and free Amy (Reiko Aylesworth), but her husband has been killed. The group returns to the Barracks, where Amy resides; however, she tricks them into walking through the sonic fence which surrounds the Barracks, knocking them unconscious.

Sawyer wakes up and is confronted by Horace Goodspeed (Doug Hutchison). Sawyer tells him that his name is James LaFleur and that he and the other survivors were part of a shipwreck on the island, and that they are still looking for other members of their crew. Horace informs him that they will have to leave the next day on the submarine because they are not "Dharma material". Meanwhile, Daniel sees a young girl he believes to be Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), but decides not to say anything to her. That night, the spokesman of the Others, Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), enters the Barracks to determine why his treaty with Dharma was broken. Sawyer convinces Alpert not to attack Dharma, because he is the one who killed the Others. Alpert is further convinced when Sawyer shares knowledge of the events that transpired in 1954 in the episode "Jughead". Because Sawyer has successfully defused the situation, Horace allows the group to stay and look for the other crew members of their ship, when in reality they are waiting for Locke to return with the survivors who left the island.

Three years later, the survivors have joined Dharma and are living in the Barracks. Sawyer is the head of security, while Jin continues to search for those who left the island. Amy is pregnant with Horace's baby and due to give birth in two weeks. Following an argument between them, Horace gets drunk and Amy goes into early labor; Juliet successfully delivers the baby. Horace believes that Amy is not yet over her deceased husband, however Sawyer reassures him by stating that three years is enough time to get over someone, referring to his relationship with Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly). Sawyer returns to his home, where he lives with Juliet, with whom he is in love. The next morning, he receives a call from Jin, who has found Kate, Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) in the jungle (as seen in "316"). Sawyer secretly meets them far from the barracks, where they are reunited.

Check out what happens at NIGHT on Animal Planet

2009-03-08T00:00:00.000+01:00

Why is it human nature to be afraid of the dark?

Is it because we can't see the dangers that lurk in the shadows? Or maybe it's the element of surprise of what might happen after the sun goes down?

From the shivers that travel down our spine upon hearing a coyote howl to the uncontrollable urge to run when confronted with bright beady eyes, Animal Planet taps into our most primal fears with NIGHT, an all-new series that explores the phenomenon of the animal kingdom after dark.

Hosted by animal expert Brandon McMillan, NIGHT goes on a global search through jungles, deserts, forests and frozen tundras to capture the rare wildlife activity that happens only in the dark. During his quest, Brandon utilizes a range of technologies that include night vision, thermal imagery, parabolic microphones, infrared beacons and other custom-designed devices that help him actively observe animals in their natural habitats. Journeying into their nocturnal environments, Brandon shows us why these creatures frighten us so much.

NIGHT premieres Wednesday, April 8 at 10 PM (ET/PT) on Animal Planet.

Ryan Leslie Self-Titled Debut In Stores TODAY!

2009-03-06T19:46:00.000+01:00

Ryan Leslie's debut album hits the shelves TODAY!!

"What took Universal Motown so long to release this attractive body of work? That's the question R&B aficionados may find themselves asking after one listen to Leslie's much-delayed self-titled debut. With its smooth melodies ("Just Right"), fresh beats ("Diamond Girl") and effortlessly suave lyrics ("Quicksand"), the album satisfies from beginning to end." - Billboard

Purchase the album from your local music retailer or online at iTunes or AmazonMP3.

Album Tracklisting

1) Diamond Girl
2) Addiction feat Cassie &Fabolous
3) You're Fly
4) Quicksand
5) Valentine
6) Just Right
7) How It Was Supposed To Be
8) I-R-I-N-A
9) Out Of The Blue
10) Shouldn't Have To Wait
11) Wanna Be Good
12) Gibberish

*All Tracks Written &Produced By Ryan Leslie

Ryan Leslie
Self Titled Debut Album In Stores Today!
Universal Motown / NextSelection
http://www.ryanleslie.com/
http://www.myspace.com/ryanleslie

Skold vs. KMFDM Streets 4/7/09 :: Tim Skold And Sascha Konietzko

2009-03-06T19:45:00.001+01:00

Tim Skold And Sascha Konietzko Unveil Trans-Atlantic Collaboration
To Bring Industrial, Metal And Goth Fans Worldwide
A New Album Titled
Skold vs. KMFDM Street date is April 7, 2009
http://www.myspace.com/skoldvskmfdm

Los Angeles, CA, February 10, 2009 KMFDM Records together with The Bicycle
Music Company are proud to announce a new full-length album titled Skold vs.
KMFDM. The release date is April 7, 2009. Distribution is through KMFDM
Records worldwide. Distribution for the album¹s digital release is through
IODA. Skold vs. KMFDM was performed, engineered, recorded and mixed by
Sascha Konietzko at KommandoZentrale in Hamburg, Germany and by Tim Skold at
The Unabomber Shack in Studio City, California.

This collaboration was conceived in June 2008 and completed by early
October. Notably the entire album was recorded without the two artists ever
being on the same continent, much less in the same room. Konietzko explains
"We constantly bounced stuff back and forth over the [FTP] server, and with
a time-difference of nine hours between us, it turned out that one of us
slept while the other one worked and vice-versa, and thus we got two full
days of work done in just 24 hours.²

Before they began exchanging files, Konietzko and Skold agreed to some
ground rules for the album, which included a no-guitars proviso and a ³no
real drum kits² stipulation. Skold elaborates "This is a very electronic
album but the majority of the instruments used are actually analog and many
of them are not even electric. What we decided to intentionally avoid this
time was the traditional electric guitar. This was done to confuse and
bewilder our fans. We like to keep them on their toes and many of them
appreciate the challenge.²

Tim Skold is a Grammy-nominated multi-instrumentalist, writer and producer
that has played with Shotgun Messiah, Skold (his self-titled solo-project),
KMFDM, MDFMK and Marilyn Manson (where his credits, besides songwriting
include bass, guitar, drum and synthesizer programming on the albums The
Golden Age of Grotesque, Eat Me Drink Me and Lest We Forget).

Skold¹s production credits include the three Marilyn Manson albums he played
on, Skold, Shotgun Messiah, MDFMK and KMFDM. Remix credits include Prong,
KMFDM, Rammstein, Lords Of Acid, O.N.A., Bloodhound Gang and Kidney Thieves.

Sascha Konietzko, the mastermind and frontman of KMFDM, is a vocalist,
synthesist and bassist as well as a composer, audio-engineer and producer.
His production credits include KMFDM, Treponem Pal and Sister Machine Gun.
Konietzko¹s remix credits include Metallica, White Zombie, Rammstein,
Combichrist, Mindless Self Indulgence, Kittie, Love &Rockets, Megadeth and
Flotsam Jetsam.

Together Skold and Konietzko also co-produced Peter Murphy (Bauhaus).

KMFDM (which included Tim Skold as a full member from 1997-2002) have
influenced artists ranging from U2 (see ³The Fly² on Achtung Baby) to bands
like Korn, God Lives Underwater, Kittie and Rammstein.

Top rock critics and metal magazines internationally praise the work of Tim
Skold and KMFDM. On KMFDM Keyboard Magazine wrote "...the 23rd year of
creating signature, ultra-heavy beats, and Sascha (Käpt'n K.) and crew seem
to be going as strong as ever." And in Revolver Brian Stillman opined "The
band rails - with its patented mix of anger and irony - against political
and social establishments..." Paul Gargano at LiveDaily adds "KMFDM have
been doing it longer than many of these bands have been alive, and
"Tohuvabohu" offers a convincing argument that they may still do it better."

The duo has been featured in Mix Magazine for their MDFMK album
(Republic/Universal, 1999). Bass Player Magazine featured Skold (June 2004
issue). All Music Guide wrote ³Š[MDFMK have] solid programming that reveals
a surprising pop sense.² Los Angeles Times scribe Greg Burk has often sung
Tim Skold's praises. In a 2007 review of the Marilyn Manson album Eat Me,
Drink Me, he wrote ³Previous Manson guitarists will envy the solo space
allotted Skold; a number of exceptional ax workouts perfectly reflect the
moods that range from mounting pride to roiling anguish to moaning
abjection.²

Skold vs. KMFDM is Tim Skold on vocals, programming, live percussion, synth
bass and Sascha Konietzko on vocals, programming, analogue synthesizers and
sequencers and bass. The twenty-two tracks on the self-titled album, Skold
vs. KMFDM, are 1. ³Why Me² (4:29), 2. ³Bloodsport² Interlude (1:07), 3.
³Antigeist² (5:13), 4. ³Alkohol² Interlude (0:52), 5. ³Bloodsport² (5:06),
6. ³Error 404² Interlude (1:58), 7. ³Love Is Like² (4:07), 8. ³Antigeist²
Interlude (1:07), 9. ³It's Not What² (4:14), 10. ³Love Is Like² Interlude
(1:01), 11. ³A Common Enemy² (4:59), 12. ³Porn, Kitsch And Firearms²
Interlude (1:40), 13. ³Error 404² (3:36), 14. ³All Or Nothing² Interlude
(0:57), 15. ³Porn, Kitsch And Firearms² (4:36), 16. ³It's Not What²
Interlude (1:22), 17. ³Gromky² (5:17), 18. ³A Common Enemy² Interlude
(1:29), 19. ³Alkohol² (5:28), 20. ³Gromky² Interlude (1:43), 21. ³All Or
Nothing² (5:03) and 22. ³Why Me² Interlude (2:25). Total playing time is
67:58.

Skold vs. KMFDM have no plans for live appearances at this time. However
KMFDM will be performing at noted music festivals across Europe over the
summer including Wave Gotik Treffen (Leipzig, Germany); Expohall Gothic
Festival (Waregem, Belgium); Dynamo Festival (Eindhoven, Netherlands). KMFDM
will tour the U.S. from late September through October 31, 2009. For exact
tour dates and appearances please visit the website for details:
http://kmfdm.net/

The Bicycle Music Company is based in Beverly Hills, California, with
offices in New York City. The company controls publishing rights to many
prominent song catalogs, including that of Dwight Yoakam, Dave Peverett
(Foghat), Marty Balin (Jefferson Airplane/Jefferson Starship), Jim Peterik
(Survivor, .38 Special), Kevin Cadogan (Third Eye Blind) and Night Ranger,
as well as cutting edge songwriters such as Tim Skold, Jose Gonzalez,
Michael Brook and Money Mark. Visit The Bicycle Music Company online at:
http://www.bicyclemusic.com/

KMFDM Records was founded by Sascha Konietzko on February 29th, 2004 -- the
20th anniversary of the band KMFDM. The label is based in Houston, Texas.
Artists on the label include KMFDM, Excessive Force, KGC and Skold vs.
KMFDM. Visit KMFDM Records online at: http://www.kmfdmrecords.com/

Bobby Valentino 'The Rebirth' In Stores TODAY

2009-03-06T19:44:00.001+01:00

Bobby Valentino wants you to witness his growth and maturity as an artist and businessman with his third album, The Rebirth. In stores and online today!

"I have been blessed to be in the music industry for over 10 years, and my past endeavors have been great learning experiences. Now I have the opportunity to step out on faith and use the knowledge and experience that I have gained to take my career to the next level..." - Bobby Valentino

Buy the album on iTunes | Buy the album on Amazon.com

Tracklisting

1. The Rebirth featuring Dottie Peoples
2. Make You The Only One
3. Hands on Me
4. My Girl
5. Butterfly Tattoo
6. Just Me &You featuring Raphael Saadiq
7. Beep featuring Yung Joc
8. 3 is the New 2
9. Make You Say
10. Be My Love
11. Dance The Night Away Interlude
12. On The Edge
13. You’re Not Alone
14. Stay With Me
15. Another Life
16. Give Me Your Heart

Bobby Valentino
The Rebirth I In Stores &Online NOW
Blu Kolla Dreams/EMI
www.myspace.com/bobbyvalentino

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears

2009-03-06T15:46:00.000+01:00

Just in time for the Valentine's Day festivities, Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears are offering up their charismatic new single to help fans to express themselves with "Bitch, I Love You" Valentine E-Cards (parental advisory recommended!)

When flowers and candy aren't enough, say it from the heart and tell your significant other, friends &family just how much you love them!

Create your own specialty E-Cards here: www.blackjoelovesyou.com

Or spread the love on everyone's favorite social network, Facebook: www.blackjoelovesyou.com/fb.html

If you’d like to post a banner on your site there’s an assortment of sizes here:

http://losthighwayrecords.com/blackjoelewis/banners/index.html

Artist: Black Joe Lewis &The Honeybears
EP: Black Joe Lewis &The Honeybears EP
Label: Lost Highway
Release: OUT NOW
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?id=302762241&s=143441

O+S To Make Live Debut On Tour + Stereogum Premiere

2009-03-06T15:43:00.000+01:00

O+S TO MAKE LIVE DEBUT ON TOUR; STEREOGUM PREMIERES "WE DO WHAT WE WANT TO"

LOS ANGELES, February 10, 2009 - Orenda Fink and Scalpelist, known collectively as O+S, may have created most of their patchwork-esque debut in separate states but the two will merge their dynamic synergy once again when they reunite in March for their first-ever tour. Timed perfectly with the release of their self-titled album, due March 24 on Saddle Creek, this jaunt alongside fellow stargazers Great Northern, will kick off in Seattle and snake its way down to SXSW.

O+S is the culmination of a long-standing friendship turned musical project between Fink (Azure Ray, Art In Manila) and Scalpelist (aka Cedric LeMoyne of Remy Zero), who first met in Birmingham, Alabama as both were exploring individual musical endeavors. Having never worked together prior, this album reveals a union that was destined to be birthed. The seamless fusion of haunting, ethereal soundscapes and looped noise samples results in cinematic art-pop, showcasing an obvious affinity for David Lynch soundtracks.

Stereogum inducted O+S into the blogosphere with their premiere of track, "We Do What We Want To," calling it a "bittersweet go-between, building acoustic guitar, keyboards, silken coos, and whirling samples into a subtly anthemic strain of dream-pop." Take a listen: http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/new-os-we-do-what-we-want-to_051431.html

O+S ON TOUR WITH GREAT NORTHERN

March 11- Seattle, Wash. @ Sunset Tavern
March 12 - Portland, Ore. @ Holocene
March 14 - San Francisco, Calif. @ Hotel Utah
March 16 - Los Angeles, Calif. @ Silverlake Lounge
March 17 - Tucson, Ariz. @ TBA
March 18 - Austin, Texas @ SXSW
March 19 - Austin, Texas @ SXSW
March 20 - Austin, Texas @ SXSW
March 21 - Austin, Texas @ SXSW

Columbia Records: Beyoncé & Raphael Saadiq News

2009-03-06T15:41:00.000+01:00

Check out the
dance mixes to Beyoncé's "Single Ladies" and "If I Were A Boy" on iTunes Now!

If I Were A Boy - Dance Mixes Volume 1
iTunes Link here: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=CTiugamq7cM&u1=columbia-website&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A//itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum%253Fid%253D303141043%2526s%253D143441

If I Were A Boy -Dance Mixes Volume 2
iTunes Link here: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=CTiugamq7cM&u1=columbia-website&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A//itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum%253Fid%253D303140449%2526s%253D143441

Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) Dance Remixes
iTunes link here: http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=CTiugamq7cM&u1=columbia-website&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A//itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum%253Fid%253D303751275%2526s%253D143441

Also....
Check out Raphael Saadiq tonight on

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Performing “100 Yard Dash"

from his album

The Way I See It

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno can be seen on

NBC channel 4 at 11:35pm EST

Check your local listings

RYAN LESLIE, LONG-AWAITED SELF-TITLED FIRST U.S. ALBUM

2009-03-06T15:40:00.002+01:00

RYAN LESLIE, LONG-AWAITED SELF-TITLED FIRST U.S. ALBUM,IN STORES TODAY

NYC Virgin Megastore Impromptu Meet &Greet sells out album in 7 minutes

Producer, songwriter, marketing entrepreneur Ryan Leslie – who discovered Cassie in 2006 (“me&u”) – begins new chapter in successful career as Artist

Single “How It’s Supposed To Be” ft. Jadakiss on radio now as next from RYAN LESLIE album – follows up “Addiction” and “Diamond Girl” single and video

(New York, NY)- February 10, 2009 Platinum-selling producer, songwriter, label entrepreneur – and now recording artist – Ryan Leslie, releases debut US album the critically acclaimed RYAN LESLIE in stores today! After announcing an impromptu meet &greet on www.ryanleslie.com at NYC Times Square Virgin Megastore his album sold out the store in just 7 minutes. Critically acclaimed USA Today remarks “On his solo debut, his beat-making prowess serves him well on these exuberant tales of the single life. With his smooth voice &savvy lyrics, he makes the most of the spotlight.” The hitmaker has been scoring hits for everyone from Sean “Diddy” Combs to Britney and Beyonce, now he’s entered the next phase of his career with the hot new single “How Its Supposed To Be” off his long-awaited debut album, self-titled RYAN LESLIE, out February 10th on Next Selection/Universal Motown imprint.

Fresh off his 2008 Sundance Channel &Grey Goose “The Next Garde” 8-city national tour, the new single, “How It’s Supposed To Be” has been all over radio and virally online where fans have been flooding his Youtube page(16+ million views/1.1million channel views) and unprecedented website www.ryanleslie.com which migrates all of his fans with up to the minute Twitter updates, direct messages straight to Ryan’s blackberry and other communities encouraging them to keep in contact by taking down his personal cell phone and email, and entering their contact into his blackberry via Ryansblackberry.com. “How’s It’s Supposed To Be” is the follow up to R&B hit “Diamond Girl” and “Addiction” which features pop singer Cassie, the young singer discovered by Ryan in 2006, and signed to his Next Selection label, via Bad Boy/Atlantic. Cassie’s debut single, “me&u,” also written and produced by Ryan, turned into one of the biggest hits of that year – #1 R&B and #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, certified RIAA platinum for digital sales and at the time was the #1 most played record at radio for 7 weeks..

Along with promoting his debut record, Ryan has been all over radio with hits by LL Cool J(”Like A Radio”), Slim of 112(“Good Lovin”), Jim Jones (“Precious”)and busy in the studio with everyone from J-Lo to 50 cent to Omarion and his newest Next Selection signee Krys Ivory. Ryan has amassed writing or productions credits (often both) with Beyoncé (“Keep Giving Your Love To Me”), Britney Spears (“The Answer”), JoJo (“Like That”), New Edition (“Hot 2Nite”), Snoop Dogg (“Heavyweights”), Danity Kane (“Touching My Body,” “Ooh Ahh”), Cheri Dennis (“I Love You”) and many others.

In 2003, he was signed as an artist to Universal/Motown and began recording his debut album, Just Right (a Europe-only release). With his international fans loving his Europe release, Ryan has packed venues across the world from Germany to Dubai, Netherlands and Sweden growing a fan base that appreciates live orchestration and a great performance.

The self-made businessman, who lives in Harlem, took his media marketing savvy one step further when he launched his controversial YouTube channel RyanLeslieTV which serves as a living documentary of Ryan Leslie’s journey over the past five years as well. The channel serves as a living documentary of Ryan Leslie’s journey over the past five years, as he shares video content ranging from production clips to live performances – and welcomes his fans to contribute to the site as well.

Nine Inch Nails and the Industrial Uprising: METAL MACHINE MUSIC

2009-03-06T15:40:00.001+01:00

METAL MACHINE MUSIC

Nine Inch Nails and the Industrial Uprising

The fascinating history of an often overlooked, but vital, contemporary musical form

Available on DVD

April 7, 2009

Through MVD Visual

Providing inspiration for the title of this DVD, Lou Reed’s 5th solo album split opinion dramatically upon its release in 1975, but while many saw it as a contractual obligation designed to shock the listener, its long term influence has been nothing short of startling.

The likes of Genesis P.Orridge and Throbbing Gristle in London, Cabaret Voltaire in Sheffield however, were concurrently performing a UK brand of what would soon be termed ‘industrial’, and these seeds collectively not only assisted and influenced the rapid rise of that period’s Punk assault, they also moved electronic music into a new era. This new era would run its own course and influence greatly an American drift in the mid-1980s towards a home-grown, danceable variety of electro-industrial rock, with the remarkable Nine Inch Nails at its heart and soul.

This film traces fascinating and reviews the fascinating history of industrial music, via its 1970s origins, through its enormous rise to prominence in America in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s with NIN as the focal point, to culminate with the current activities of Trent Reznor as he uses marketing and promotional initiatives in a manner just as creative as the music he continues to compose.

FEATURING: Brand new interviews with; Genesis P. Orridge, Nine Inch Nails’ Chris Vrenna and Richard Patrick, NIN Biographer and Classic Rock journalist, Tommy Udo, Jon Wiederhorn from Revolver magazine, Chemlab’s Jared Louche and many others.

Also features rare footage and music from Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Depeche Mode, Ministry, Skinny Puppy and, of course, Nine Inch Nails ....plus numerous archive interviews with Trent Reznor, seldom seen live performances, news clips, photographs from private collections and much more.

EXTRAS include:

Extended interviews

Featurette - "The Genesis of Industrial"

GPO on his personal ‘roots’

Digital Contributor Biographies

and more!

"ROCK ON THE RANGE" 2009 LINE-UP

2009-03-06T15:39:00.001+01:00

ROCK ON THE RANGE 2009:

ROCK FESTIVAL RETURNS

SATURDAY, MAY 16 AND SUNDAY, MAY 17

TO COLUMBUS, OHIO’S CREW STADIUM;

FEATURING

SLIPKNOT, MÖTLEY CRÜE,

ALICE IN CHAINS, AVENGED SEVENFOLD

AND KORN;

MORE THAN 35 ACTS TO PERFORM

ON THREE STAGES

“ROCK ON THE RANGE” 2009 LINE-UP INCLUDES MÖTLEY CRÜE, SLIPKNOT, ALICE IN CHAINS, AVENGED SEVENFOLD AND KORN

-America’s premiere destination rock festival--will return to Columbus, Ohio’s Crew Stadium Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17. The 2009 line-up for the nationally renowned festival centrally located in the heart of the country will be highlighted by performances from some of rock’s biggest artists including Mötley Crüe, Slipknot, Alice In Chains, Avenged Sevenfold and Korn.

“We try to listen to our fans and they've been saying for years that we should play at Rock On The Range,” said Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe. “We're really excited to play one of America's great rock festivals.”

SLIPKNOT’s Corey Taylor says, “Being asked to headline Rock on the Range is an absolute pleasure! Columbus, Ohio has always been very good to us. The line-up looks great; the shows look fantastic. And I personally think it will be an absolute blast for everyone. See you in May!”

Presented by Right Arm Entertainment, AEG LIVE and Crew Stadium, the two-day, multi-stage music and lifestyle event will feature a potent line-up of more than 35 bands. This year’s well-rounded mix of rock’s top artists also includes Shinedown, Buckcherry, The Used, Atreyu, Chevelle, Flyleaf, Saving Abel, Saliva, Blue October, Hoobastank, Black Stone Cherry, and many more.

This marks the third outing for the annual event, which drew 30,000 people in its inaugural year in 2007 and more than 55,000 people in 2008. Event features this year include the addition of a third stage, the Jägermeister Music Stage, on-stage fan platforms--for contest winners--and an expanded vendor village.

In 2009, ROCK ON THE RANGE will also increase their “Go Green” initiative via ROTR “Go Green,” an online portal that allows fans to recycle old cell phones and mp3 players for free tickets and ROTR memorabilia and official festival merchandise. ROTR is the first festival to have an on-line recycling trade-in rewards component. More information can be found at www.rotrgogreen.com.

Tickets for ROCK ON THE RANGE, as well as VIP Packages that include festival tickets, hotel accommodations and festival merchandise, go on sale Saturday, February 21 at 10:00 AM (ET) via www.rockontherange.com and www.ticketmaster.com, all local Ticketmaster outlets and at the Crew Stadium box office. Two-day ticket packages will start as low as $99.50.

For up-to-the-minute information on ROCK ON THE RANGE 2009, visit www.RockOnTheRange.com or www.myspace.com/rockontherange.

ROCK ON THE RANGE: WHERE ROCK LIVES! 2009 LINEUP (subject to change): MÖTLEY CRÜE, SLIPKNOT, ALICE IN CHAINS, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, KORN, BUCKCHERRY, SHINEDOWN, CHEVELLE, FLYLEAF, SALIVA, SAVING ABEL, BLUE OCTOBER, HOOBASTANK, ATREYU, BLACK STONE CHERRY, TRAPT, STATIC X, SICK PUPPIES, THE USED, BILLY TALENT, ALL THAT REMAINS, CROOKED X, POP EVIL, STATE OF SHOCK, CAVO, FRAMING HANLEY, ADELITA’S WAY, BURN HALO, THE LEO PROJECT, HALESTORM, X FACTOR 1, CHARM CITY DEVILS, DRIVE A and EARLY PEARL.

"Don't Let It Bring You Down" - Neil Young

2007-09-25T02:06:00.000+02:00

From BBC studios, February 23 1971

More Webspace Junk

2007-09-24T10:39:00.000+02:00

During the last 12-16 months I have increasingly thought about have my own little web space. For what they are worth, I dig Blogger and Wordpress, or at least their free versions. I have used them and enjoyed them for going on three years now.

It is just that I want a little more.

I like the idea of having a url that doesn't also involve those companies names. I like the idea of looking more professional. I like the idea of having a place that is mine, and mine only. I really like the idea of creating something unfettered by the various rules and regulations those companies add to their free accounts.

The main, basic problem was the time I was ready to commit to such a thing I was also jobless. Sure I had a nice severance package from the place that laid me off, sure I had a few temporary jobs in between, but there was nothing full-time and permanent that told me I could go ahead and make a monthly commitment to something I was basically already getting for free.

It is only now, here in China that we have a steady income and works and thus I am buying the space.

I don't really ever expect that the Midnight Cafe will ever turn me into a rich man. I don't think that I'll ever be able to quit a day job and be a full time blogger. I'll be overjoyed if the new site ever makes enough money to pay for itself.

I have a slew of ideas for the new blog - ways to fill it up every day, ideas to be creative and interesting and draw an audience - and I think I am going to be able to make it a place to go to everyday.

Friday I ordered the space. I got it through Cyberwurx, which comes recommended by friends and starts with a very reasonable plan. I swear the paperwork said that they'd have me going and even load up Wordpress into my space for me within 24 hours.

Well here I am two days this side of Friday and still I've gotten nothing - not even a welcome e-mail. It is driving me crazy. I got all excited about what I was going to do, what I was going to say and how it was going to look. And here I am still waiting.

As it was the weekend I've tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. It is easy to think internet companies are gigantic and provide 24 hour service, but in truth they may be small and they may not be staffed on weekend. So I'm trying to wait until the middle of Monday. This is also hard because here it is Monday evening, but in the States it is still early I will have to wait until Tuesday morning before I begin sending question e-mails.

So hopefully, dear readers, you will have something new by weeks end.

The Listening Room - Sept 23 2007

2007-09-23T13:59:00.000+02:00

72 Simpsons Movie References

2007-09-23T04:16:00.001+02:00

The Adventures of the Acordian Guy has set up a little Simpsons movie reference post. It works like the above pictures where he has the Simpsons scene on the left and the exact scene from the actual movie on the right.

I say scene like it shows a clip, but it is really just a picture. It is definitely cool to see all the classics (and a few I didn't know were actual parodies) but I do kind of wish it did include some clips. It would also be nice if it listed which Simpsons' episode it came from and the title of the movie.

Oh well, it is still a fun exercise.

Great Shanghai Picture

2007-09-20T10:15:00.000+02:00

I didn't take this picture, and I'm afraid I don't know who did, but man, that's a nice shot.

(If you do happen to be the copyright owner, and don't want me posting it, or would like credit, drop me a line or make a comment.)

A Few Worlds On Margaret Atwood's The Robber Bride

2007-09-19T10:08:00.000+02:00

I am a strange reader. At any given time I will be reading 3 or 4 or 10 books at a time. Often, without warning, right in the middle of a book I will stop reading it. Not intentionally mind you, for I don't think I've ever just put down a book and said "this is not worth my time," but I do often get distracted by something more interesting and then never return to the older book.

There is really no rhyme or reason to what books I read, or which ones I actually complete. I just go where my interests are at the moment. Nothing more.

A long time ago, call it the 90s, my first ever online friend kept recommending to me Margaret Atwood. Or, rather she kept asking me if I had read any of Atwoods books, and she often ended her e-mails with an Atwood quote. Still I never picked her up.

Sometime since then, and long after the friendship died (or withered away) I did pick up a copy of Atwood's The Robber Bride.

Still, it sat on the shelf for years.

Sometime before China I picked it up and began to read. I liked it. I liked it a lot and told my wife to read it. She did and she liked it a lot.

But because we were moving to China, and I was busy and I was reading other things, I went slowly through it.

Now, some three months after I picked it up, I finished it.

Brilliant. Amazing. Fabulous are words I might use to describe it. I don't really want to do a proper review, as I'm not sure I'd be able to do it justice, but I did want to say how much I really liked it.

It is part fairly tale and morality play and part meditation on what it is to be a woman and to be a friend. She splits the book into big chunks telling three separate yet similar stories in a variety of ways. It is the story of three very different women, who all have their men stolen from the by a singular woman.

It is not so much the stories that are interesting, but in the way that they are told. It is never written in the first person, but we see the world, at different times from the perspective of the three women. And the man-eater, Zenia is nothing more than a shadow, a shape-shifting witch, full of lies that rest on her own, unspecified whims. Each story tells us a little more about Zenia, yet we are never sure which parts to believe, if any at all.

I love a good yard. I adore a good story. But I get all drooly when a story is told in a different and interesting and imaginative way. Atwood does this to perfection.

Really, go read it. It's all worth it.

Interesting No Smoking Ad

2007-09-18T04:53:00.001+02:00

This is apparently from a UAE paper which has been running a lot of interesting anti-smoking ads. Be forewarned some of the picks in the link may be slightly offensive to some.

Very Cool Picture Of The Night Sky From Death Valley

2007-09-18T04:51:00.000+02:00

The pic is too big for me to show here, but click over and be amazed.

NY Times Giving Away 20 Years Worth Of Content

2007-09-18T04:48:00.000+02:00

They've ended their pay program and decided to give their archives away! Now if I could just figure out something I wanted to look for.

View Of The Earth From Mars

2007-09-16T08:58:00.000+02:00

That little dot is our little planet as seen from Mars. It's a small world afterall. Picture completely ~~stolen~~ borrowed from Nasa.

I've Finally Started Watching "Heroes"

2007-09-15T10:14:00.000+02:00

But first a little on the whole blog situation. I know I promised that I'd be getting some real webspace soon, and I will, it is just taking a little longer than expected. The whole money thing here is a little wacky. Amy gets paid once a month, but it gets split down the middle and poured into two accounts.

There is the Chinese one which has locations here in Shanghai. This is in RMB which is Chinese money. For this we have an ATM card and we can use it at many local merchants.

The other half goes to Hong Kong and is in US dollars. We do not have an ATM card, there aren't any branches in Shanghai and so getting to that money is difficult. Basically if we want to use it, we have to transfer the cash into another account. To do this we have to send faxes. There is a way that we can do it online but that takes more faxes and time. At this point we're in that process, and so our money isn't available.

Amy's first pay check was also for half a month and as half of that went to Hong Kong, it is more like half of a half that we're living on. Thus money is slightly tight still.

We do have an account in Oklahoma with some cash in it, but we're trying to keep that to pay our still outstanding US bills.

However, we're in the middle of selling our car and when that goes through we should have some extra cash to throw around. It is at this point that I plan to get the real web space going. On a side note there, if anyone out there is anygood at making banners, let me know for I need one.

Wow! that was a long tangent that should have probably gone in a secondary post. Oh well.

All last season I kept hearing how wonderful Heroes was. As it came on before Studio 60 I also kept catching bits and pieces of it. But since I missed the first couple of episodes I really didn't want to start in the middle. Plus the bits I did see had me completely confused as to what was happening. Though I suddenly had the urge to start saving cheerleaders.

Just got the full season on DVD and watched the first two episodes last night. I hate to say it, but I'm not yet impressed. The Pilot got bogged down in having to spend all of its time trying to set up its many characters, their places, and some mythology. Unfortunately this didn't leave much time to make me actually care for any of the characters or give me that much interest in what those characters were going to do.

Don't get me wrong, it did keep me entertained, and there was enough there that made me immediately watch the second episode, its just that it didn't really hook me the way a show like Lost has.

There was also plenty of what I'll dub "pilot-itus" in that it has to give me enough exploitation to keep a big enough audience to keep going. Thus we get a cheerleader who seems to only wear cheerleader skirts, a mom who makes extra money stripping on the internet, and lots of bloody gorey goodness.

I understand that a TV show has to pretty quickly gain an audience, I understand that a show of this magnitude costs a lot and thus needs a bigger audience. I understand that sex and violence sell. I can't blame the producers for doing it, it just kind of gets tiring. And I like sex and violence. But it seems like nearly every big show now gives us a little (safe for TV) T&A mixed with some ultra violence.

The second show was better as they could calm down the introductions and give us a little more information on making me care. Plus they through in the bad guys and started making connections that added some needed "oooh" factor.

So, yes, I was a little disappointed, but am still very much looking forward to seeing more.

Music Review" Easy Tiger By Ryan Adams

2007-09-13T08:00:00.000+02:00

Writing a review of Ryan Adam’s latest album, Easy Tiger is proving to be impossible for me. Though it came out several months ago, and though I bought it the day it came out, I am just now able to put words together about it.

Even now I have struggled, as this is my third draft.

Ryan Adams runs me ragged, emotionally speaking. He has a way of piercing right through my guts with his voice and his words and his music like nobody else this side of Gillian Welch. No one else can manage to lay me down in a puddle of weeping like this man.

Add to his songs some intimate, private, personal baggage and you get me staring at my computer saying once again “I just can’t write about this yet.” And still I find myself compelled to get it out.

Easy Tiger is a good, and possibly great album. It has been called his most consistent album in a long while, and you can quickly see why. The songs stay clean and fresh, daring not to venture into electrified jambandedness, or New Wave punkishness and steering clear of Adams’ usual erratic self.

On tour behind this album Ryan and the Cardinals sit on simple stools in a semi-circle playing acoustic instruments in a close-knit round. The album retains that friends in a living room vibe. It is laid back, and warm, and mostly really really good.

Though it is not billed as such this is very much a Ryan Adams and the Cardinals record. In fact at this point, you might as well just call Ryan a Cardinal, for no longer is the group just his backing band, but a central part of Ryan’s overall sound.

It is not entirely a new album, as at least two songs appear in unofficially released albums, that have long since found their way into bootleg circles. Though this has been decried by some fanboys, I find the slightly different arrangements pleasing and their inclusions non-distracting.

One slight problem with the consistency here, or at least with the consistently laid back sound is that I find the album sort of blending into itself about the half way point. When paying attention with my listening via the headphones I find all the songs appealing and interesting and just swell. But if say I have it more in the background while I’m doing dishes or whatever, nothing in the back half stands out.

I find myself wondering what song it is on, and how much longer there is to go. As background music, it is great, but it still remains kind of unremarkable in that setting.

Sheryl Crowe makes an appearance in the beautiful, haunting “Two” though you wouldn’t know it if the liner notes didn’t mention it. It is billed as a duet, but she is actually pushed back to singing back up lines in the chorus. There is no solo versus for her or even a sweeping swoosh like Emmylou got in “Carolina.” Still it is a pretty song and her voice helps it along, it just isn’t too noticeable to these ears that that voice belongs to her.

The album is a good one, and I find myself turning to it more and more often when I reach for my Ryan Adams fix. Even if I do find myself in an emotional stupor after the fact.

Dream: The Bible Says 'Tennessee Sucks'

2007-09-10T02:17:00.000+02:00

I had a very brief dream last night. I was sitting somewhere reading the Bible, Psalms specifically. I turned to the 95th Psalm and noticed something weird in the 94th one.

Above that particular Psalm the title read "Tennessee Sucks." I thought this particularly interesting because Psalms was written well before Tennessee existed as a state, and it certainly has never quoted Ryan Adams lyrics (Tennessee Sucks is the title of one of his songs.)

I began to read the Psalm and found that it was full of strange, vulgar rants against Ryan Adams and various other musicians and celebrities. It was very poorly written, full of random bold type and every other word was an obscenity.

Not something you typically find in the Bible.

The rest of the Psalms were ok, it was only this one that went off the track. I started to think it must have been created by some disturbed clerk a the printer.

The rest of the dream consisted of me e-mailing all my friends to tell them about this oddity.

Dream: Friends With John Cusack

2007-09-10T02:07:00.001+02:00

I had this dream about a week ago, but it is still in my memory banks so I'll share.

It started out like I was in a movie with John Cusack. Or, rather, I was on the set with him, while he was working, but I myself was not in the film. He was in a diner, that was very long. At the back of the diner, farthest away from us were some men who looked like they were shooting at John.

They made all the motions of shooting big guns and things, and John moved like he was dodging bullets, but the thing was there were no explosions on our end. It was as if they were shooting the action scene and would later add the explosions.

Anyways during this I was talking to Cusack, or actually kind of chastising him for making so many crappy movies. In reality I really like John Cusack 0 I think he is very talented and has made some really good films. Yet he is such a paycheck actor. In between interesting films he stars in rotten romantic comedies and horror/thrillers with good concepts and interesting moments spoiled by bad writing and plodding directing.

So there I am in the dream, yelling at him for doing such things. John finds this fascinating (I guess because a fan would be so harsh, or something) and wants to talk further. So we finish the scene and move to the next room, which is like a green room or something.

I begin telling him about the movies I liked and the ones I don't. He argues some points but agrees on others. We then become fast friends and start talking about all sorts of things.

I mention that we wrote about him in a facebook group (which is real - I am in a facebook book based on the Top Five concept found in High Fidelity and whose first questions was "what is your top five John Cusack films?)

He finds this utterly fascinating and goes in and reads the question. Then he joins the group.

Then I wake up.

---

I believe this came right after I had watched Cusacks most recent film - 1408 - and me and my sister had a discussion about Cusack and his tendency to make rotten films.

The Top Five: Desert Island Books

2007-09-06T07:09:00.000+02:00

Back on wordpress I created a little post called the Top Five. This was actually a rehashing of a little group I have on Facebook, also called the Top Five. Basically each week I ask a question consisting of your top five choices of something. Friends and family respond at their leisure. I think it makes a great blog post and thus I shall be posting them here too.

Mat: ou have been charged of a crime so heinous, every governmental agency is after you. There is no place to hide, save for one lonely island in a remote corner of the Pacific. You have chartered a private Oceanic plane to take you to this island, where you will spend the rest of your days. The island is already stocked with enough food and supplies to let you live to a very old age. Unfortunately, the plan is very small and will only allow you to take a few frivolous items. You can only take five books, which you must hold on your lap until you arrive at your destination.

You may choose fiction, non-fiction or any other type of book you choose. I will even allow you to choose a series as one book, if you can prove that the series has already been bound as one volume somewhere. Thus the Lord of the Rings trilogy counts because many places have bound it as a single book. However, to my knowledge Harry Potter has not been bound as such, and thus each book counts as one.

Choose wisely.

Monica: I’ve given this subject quite a lot of thought. And I decided that if I could only bring 5 books, including omnibus editions, to a deserted island to live out the rest of my life, I want fiction/fantasy books. I don’t want to do a lot of deep thinking. I want to be entertained. What’s the point of life changing books if my life isn’t going to change anymore? So here are my picks.

1. Dragonlance Chronicles Special Edition: Includes the original trilogy by Margaret Weis and Tracey Hickman, “Dragons of Autumn Twilight,” “Dragons of Winter Night,” and “Dragons of Spring Dawning” for a total of 3 books. I know this may sound silly, but I love reading these books. I could read them over and over and over. And I have.

2. The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide by Douglas Adams: Includes “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”; “The Restaurant at the End of the Universe”; “Life, the Universe and Everything”; “So Long and Thanks for all the Fish”; “Mostly Harmless”; and “Young Zaphod Plays it Safe” for a total of 6 books.

3. Jane Austen The Complete Novels, includes “Pride and Prejudice,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Mansfield Park,” “Emma,” “Northanger Abbey,” “Persuasion,” “Lady Susan.” For a total of 7 books. I confess that I’ve only ever read P&P off this list and that only once and several years ago. I started, but did not finish, S&S a few months ago. But if I’m gonna spend the rest of my life on a deserted island I’ll have time to read Pride again (and since I won’t actually be able to watch the 6 hour version, reading about it will bring wonderful images of Colin Firth to mind and that will be enough.) As well as finish Sense. And when I get tired of all the fantasy novels I’m going to need something else to read.

4. The Magic of Xanth: An Enchanting Fantasy Trilogy by Piers Anthony: Includes “A Spell for Chameleon,” “The Source of Magic,” and “Castle Roogna,” the first three novels of the ongoing Xanth series. For a total of 3 books.

5. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Life on a Deserted Island by Tom Hanks, Matthew Fox, and Dominic Monaghan: I thought and thought about this list and I kept thinking “I should take some kind of Self-Help book” and I don’t think that books on relationships would be helpful and would probably only make me miss my relationships, and people in general, so I decided that this book would be the most helpful. However, I don’t think this book actually exists so I may have to go with “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Surviving Anything,” which does exist, but may or may not actually help me any. So if I peruse this one and decide it’s not helpful and would only be a waste, I’d like to take “More Magic of Xanth” also by Piers Anthony, which includes the next three books in the Xanth series, “Centaur Aisle,” “Ogre, Ogre,” and “Night Mare.” For a total of 3 books.

Let’s see, by taking only five books, and not taking the Idiot’s Guide, I can actually take 22 books. That’s not bad, in my opinion. I think I could live happily with those 22 books.
I actually own Choice #2, and I can assure you that the others are available on Amazon.com.

Mat:

1. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck: Quite possibly make favorite book of all time. It's histerically funny, and brutally sad - often on the same page. Plus it's about Okies, and I be one of them. Plus plus, it's about a family traveling to California to pick fruit, and my very family did that very thing, though in the 50's not the 30's.

2. The Collected Novels of Dashielle Hammett: I adore the classic detective fiction writers. I'll probably miss Raymond Chanlder, but I know for sure Hammett's novels are collected in one volume, so he gets the nod.

3. Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkein: I'm kind of a poser Rings fan. I've read them all and really liked them, saw the movies too, but I'm not obsessive over them. Still there is a lot of depth there, with some fun reading. I really dig that Tolkein put so much time into developing his little world, and tht's enough to keep me occupied for a long time.

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: If I could be half the man Atticus Finch is, I'd live a full life.

5. Unnamed World History Book: I'd have to do a little research on this one, because while I really like history, I've not done much reading on it. I'd want the fattest, coolest volume I could find though, encapsulating all countries, people and time.

Holly:

1. Till We Have Faces, C.S. Lewis. It's my favorite book ever, and one I have to read every so often anyway to remind me of myself.

2. A big fat poetry anthology. Poetry is why I became an English major. I especially like the modernists. And the Romantics (most of them, most of the time, anyway). And the Victorians.

3. Walden, by Thoreau. I'll have to figure out how to build my own little hut--and actually enjoy living in it by myself. The sun is but a morning star.

4. An atlas/dictionary/encyclopedia combo. I haven't found such an animal yet, but I'm sure it exists. I'd want to keep my brain sharp and continue learning, and I just like looking at maps anyway. They would fuel my dreams.

5. Ulysses, by James Joyce. I've still only read the first half of it. Maybe after an eternity stuck with it, I'd finish the rest. Maybe after another couple of eternities, I might start to understand it.

Erin: Well, if we are in an Oceanic plane, we will crash just like the LOST cast (and the show, unfortunately). In such a situation, I think it would be wise to have "Worst-Case Scenario", "The Divine Comedy", Norton Anthology of Modern Literature, the Complete Eugene O'Neill, and Lord of the Rings Trilogy. That's what I got--nice long books with a combination of poetry, prose and drama. They will inspire us as we forge our own new civilization and provide practical tools for not freaking out and finding fresh water.

Amy: An Austen anthology is tempting. Of course I’d be looking around my Mr. Darcy all the time, but not having to make a face to society about it—since no one would be there.

I’ll feel like I should include something French. Perhaps a big anthology of works, but not excerpts. There’s little worse than excerpts of novels if you’re stuck on a desert island. What if you liked it? What if you wanted to understand the character’s motivation for acting this way in chapter 3? Much of my college French literature was in anthologies—I understood little, remember little, and still find the excerpted editions frustrating! Alas, I do not know if such a book exists. I think I must give up and select instead Volume 1 of Sebastien Japrisot’s collected works. He wrote A Very Long Engagement and other thrillers made into films.

Rodney Lee’s Moving toward balance: 8 weeks of yoga practice. If I’m sentenced for life at least I can perfect my yoga practice (lots of time to do it in!) and this text has sample practices to follow (because I’m still a beginner). I’ve checked it out from the library, but didn’t get to much of it.

Eudora Welty—a complete works edition would make me so happy. But I have to choose between Complete Novels and Collected Stories. I think I’ll take the novels, but I’ll miss Stella Rondo, the petrified man and Lilly Daw.

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. If I can’t watch the movie, I can read it outloud to myself and do the voices.

Jason: Okay here goes my selections and yes you all do smell, horribly bad, like sheepherders or something. Anyway on with my Top 5 books:

Drum Roll Please......dadadadadadada

dadadadadadadadadada (okay I am tired of typing da)

1. The Princess Bride (how could you not take a book that includes Pirates, sword-fighting, giants, a six-fingered man, and true love!?)

2. Worst-Case Scenario - I am not creative enough on my own to think of answers to these problems so I am taking a cheat-book

3. Walden by Thoreau - If I am going to live in seclusion away from everyone else why not have a book that talks all about someone else doing the same thing and stealing ideas from it (plus when I am rescued I can then write my own book with a little help from my friend!)

4. Biggest Book of Grilling - so I can know how to cook my fish and fruit and other things in like 400 different ways (never grow tired of eating the same thing again and again). Plus there are really nice pictures in there and should it come to it, I can always use the pages as excellent ways to start fires (416 pages!!!!).

5. The Big Book of Sudoku (not sure it really exists but there must be something out there along this lines) - for those days when I get bored and laying in a hammock between two coconut trees just is not fulfilling anymore. Also to take my mind off the fact that I am trapped on a deserted island all by myself.

There you go my Top 5 list. Hope you enjoyed this Top 5 list brought to you by the wonderful folks of Bazooka Joe gum. Gum the entire family can enjoy and nobody provides better comics and jokes then the folks at Bazooka Joe!

And that's this weeks edition of the Top Five! Sorry for the formatting errors, but I left most of the answers as is.

Molding Young Minds And Suchlike

2007-09-04T17:05:00.001+02:00

Tomorrow morning at 9 in the am, I will be teaching two young boys in the ways of History and English.

Seriously, how did this happen?

Many years ago I used to think that I wanted to sculpt young minds in the ways of the world or some such nonsense. I felt I could help the lads and lasses get through the awkwardness that mixes childhood and teenagedom. It seemed like a great career. I could find meaning in that work. I could make a difference.

What a crock.

I haven't the slightest idea what I am doing, how the crap am I supposed to help others through?

The gig is a British woman is here with her two boys, who are somewhere in the preteen years. For whatever reason she wants the to be privately taught instead of going to school. Thus she's hiring private teachers, one of which will be me.

I got the gig through a friend. I am in the land of teachers, as my wife is one and that is her job here. That's all we know around here. It seems like I should have landed a small job as a street sweeper or typists or even creating english language tapes. Or something. Anything. But teaching.

What the crap?!?

I have to admit I am scared. I am nervous. I am freaking out. I have no idea how to teach kids. I don't know how to relate. I've forgotten any grammar I ever learned and I sure don't know my history.

I guess I'll just have to stay one page ahead of them. And figure out some way to present the material. Or something.

I'm going to have a panic attack now.

Edit: Sorry for my little freak out last night. It all came crashing down on me. Not only the teaching situation, but we're trying to sell our car and we finally found a buyer last night so I had to coordinate between two banks and continents and all of our accounts. Plus prior to finding out all of this, I had been listening to my iPod's playlist full of Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams - and if you know those artists you know they can be full of heartache.

I met everyone this morning and it was fine (well I got lost first and wandered around the streets for fifteen minutes first, but then it was fine.) She lives within walking distance which is great and her two boys are rambunctious but nice kids. The mom has all sorts of books to use for the classes so it shouldn't be difficult to work out lessons.

Tomorrow I will freak out a little more, but like all my culture shockings I will push through and come out the other side.

Dream: A Double Shots of Toilet Humor

2007-09-03T07:19:00.000+02:00

I had two dreams Saturday night, both having to do with using the toilet (I know, I know my only two posts in ages and they are both scategorical, that's what Chinese food will do to you.)

In the first dream me and Amy were at a fast food type place, I believe it was Braums, but I wouldn't swear to it. At any rate I have to use the bathroom and head to the mens. There was one urinal and one stall and everything was in bad shape.

I can't remember the specifics but there was something wrong with the stall - what I do remember is that there was a large window in it and I was worried that people might walk by and see me (true story when we went to do some official Chinese Visa business one of their stalls really did have a big window with no shades - gross!)

Sure enough as I'm about to do my business, in comes the Jones family - Ted (the patriarch) Jeff (the eldest son) Tad (the youngest son) and Ted's wife (whose name I have forgotten. The Joneses go to my parent's church and I grew up with Tad.

This freaks me out and I try to duck in order to let them see me. A moment later in barges my wife - into the mens, into my stall! I yell at her to get the crap out and pull up and zip up as I can no longer take care of my need.

The Jones' are now in the restaurant, all seated at two seat tables, except that each of them is a their own table. They are all in a row and all of them have an empty chair next to them. I take this to mean I am to talk to them and proceed to sit at each empty chair and chat with each member of the family.

--

In my next dream me and Amy had been some where (I can't recall where or what we did, if this information was ever in the dream) but were headed home. We expected to meet the Canfields on our way home (the Canfields are my wife's husband's sister's family, and are also here in Shanghai.)

Turns out our "home" was in the educational building of the church where my parents attend (I also attended there as a kid.) Before we arrive me and the wife are chatting about the new girl that the Canfield's have adopted (in reality they did just adopt a little Chinese girl.) We ponder whether or not she will have the same receding hairline as the other Canfields.

As we approach home we do meet the Canfields and sure enough little Emma has a receding hairline (she is also a Caucasian girl instead of Chinese.) I the look to Caleb, the Canfields boy who is maybe 13 - I'm guessing there as I'm terrible with kids ages - and he has a big receding hairline. Then I look to the father Canfield - Buster - and he has the same hair. Truth is none of the Canfields have a big receding hairline, but here they do.

Caleb and I discuss our recent hair cuts and he seems to not like his, though I am satisfied with mine.

We enter our new home and now the interior of the building matches the interior of the main church building in reality. The Canfield's go to their room and we to ours. My room turns out to be in the same location where my mother used to teach kindergarten.

Once inside Amy begins passionately kissing me. At the very same time my belly tells me I need a restroom...immediately! So there I am enjoying the passion but still feeling the need in my belly.

I try to tell my belly to buzz off, but eventually I have to run away. I then wake up to find that need in my belly to be real and I rush off.

--

What this means other than my body incorporated its need to use the restroom into two dreams I don't know. It is interesting that Amy appeared in both of them and that two sets of friends did as well. There is also the recurring theme of either people or the building of my old church in there as well.

The Boy Who Cried Explosive Diarrhea

2007-08-30T10:17:00.000+02:00

Bowels are a funny thing in a new culture. There is new and interesting food that must be tasted, and tested out on ones internal system. There is new bacteria to encounter and all sorts of nasty goodness that plays tricks on the old digestive system.

I have been in China now for nearly a month, and a lot of that time (more than I'd ever care to discuss at length) has been spent on the toilet. It attacks frequently and without warning.

--

This week I began tutoring a middle-aged Chinese woman in the fine skills of the English language. It is boring, tedious, and hot work (as she rarely turns on the air conditioning.) We do four hours a day and rarely take a break. The other day I was there and along about hour three I was feeling an undying need to get the freak out of there. Our lessons basically take the form of me reading a sentence and her repeating it back to me, with perhaps a break to discuss vocabulary.

Don't tell me that isn't the best way to learn a language because I know, but there is no changing this strategy with this woman.

So there I was bored out of my mind, hot, tired and still with an hour to go. What could I do? What I did was pretended I needed to go to the bathroom. I went in, washed my face, and noticed in their three mirrors that I could see the back of my head.

My noticeably balding head, thank you very much.

Then I did a fake flush and went on my way.

Maybe fifteen minutes later I felt a flutter. A pain. An immediate and incredible need to use the restroom for real. I sat for a minute feeling the massive pain in my belly thinking maybe I could wait it out. There is only one need for a man to use the toilet so quickly after he just used it and that reason is kind of embarrassing to admit.

Like the boy who cried wolf, I had pretended to use the bathroom, and now was stuck with a real need to go.

Surely I could make it half an hour until I went home. Surely I wouldn't have to admit I was having this trouble. Surely I Must Go Now!

And I went. The bathroom is located right next to the room we were studying in. That means very little privacy for what I was about to do. I don't want to be gross but what I did do can only be called explosive an drawn out. In my desire not to make too large a sound or mess I tried to reign in the business at hand, which only served to make the problem last longer.

Eventually I decided to screw it and have at it. It is a natural function and frankly I'm quitting the tutoring gig next week so who cares what she think.

And there it was.

Dreamin' Songs: Norah Jones - "I've Been Thinking About You"

2007-08-29T02:36:00.000+02:00

The move to Shanghai has, in more than one way, messed up my blogging. Obviously I have moved back to blogger, which isn't so bad in itself except that it leaves all the words I wrote on Wordpress back at that blog. Also that blog had built up a good following and had a 6 grade on the Google scale. Unfortunately, I cannot log into that account to direct that traffic to here.

Frankly it is a bit of a pain in the butt to deal with the whole Chinese internet anyways. So many sites are blocked, and the ones that aren't are so often very slow I often just give up. Some of this may be the filtering through the firewall, some of it may be that there are 18 million people in this city clogging up the bandwidth. There are also several hundred in the Living Quarters of the school where I live and my guess is they are working off the same line.

Add all that to the fact that I am still culture shocking and trying to adjust, plus writing another blog all about my experiences here and you get a lot of neglect to this blog.

I am trying to remedy that, but it is difficult. Last night I listened a great deal to a Norah Jones bootleg that I hope to add to the Bootleg Country series real soon. It is a gorgeous, beautiful thing and I very much enjoyed listening to it.

I am quite sure this is why I woke up with "I've Been Thinking About You" in my head this morning. It is one of Norahs more jaunty songs, which means it almost makes it to mid-tempo. It has a Beatles-esque bass line banging it out and of course Norahs beautiful voice.

I could think of worse things to wake up to!

As It Turns Out, I Kinda Like 30 Rock

2007-08-25T11:53:00.001+02:00

At the beginning of last season, had their been a vote or a contest on which behind-the-scenes show loosely based on Saturday Night Live was better or would come out on the top, I would have hands down bet on Studio 60. No wait let's rephrase that. In the middle of the season, I would have bet on Studio 60. At the beginning of the season I'm not sure I knew that both shows even existed, nor would I have cared too much.

But by mid-season I was very much a fan of Studio 60 while I just sort of frowned and stuck up my nose at 30 Rock. Truth is, I haven't watched Saturday Night Live in about a decade. The last sketch I remember watching was the whole Jeopardy parody with Will Ferrel. While that bit was quite hilarious, I only happened to watch that bit. If I recall correctly my sister was home and she still liked SNL and thus I watched that bit before going to bed.

What that really means is that Tina Fey and Tracy Morgan were unknown to me. Or, rather, I knew the names from what to me were irrelevant and unfunny seasons of SNL. I saw no reason to watch uninteresting actors parody a show that no longer interested me.

And so I skipped it entirely.

Well, as it turns out, I was wrong.

My sister has the first season on DVD and as she lives right down the path, and as I kept coming over to subdue my culture shock, and as she kept watching episode, I kept watching them too.

Well, as it turns out, it is funny. Really rather funny.

Tina Fey is funny and smart and, well kind of a hottie. She wrote many of the shows and helps produce it and it seems like the whole show is kind of her baby, and darned if she doesn't do a great job with it.

Alec Baldwin who I sometimes love and often despise is brilliant too. I never would have thought he'd do so well at a sit-com, but he nails it every time. Tracy Morgan is kind of pompous and annoying, but that's pretty much his character. The rest of the cast is lovely, too.

So there you have it. We borrowed the set and we've just about watched it all in the last few days.

I wouldn't have thought it to be true, but I'm now a 30 Rock fan.

Brewster's Millions Is Back To Blogger

2007-08-21T14:24:00.000+02:00

Ok, here's the deal: Way back when I started this blog, right here on Blogger. It was almost a fluke as it was all about France, but then it turned into crazy pop culture stuff and I was hooked. I was a real blogger.

Then I messed with the template and everything failed. I couldn't see or read anything here. So I switched to a Wordpress blog. I liked it there. Things weren't perfect, but I dug the scene.

Well, mostly.

Then I figured out what was wrong with Blogger and fixed it. But by then I was well established on Wordpress and stayed. Well, recently I moved to China and China has this gigantic, nation wide firewall. The government blocks out all the websites they find to be unacceptable. Apparently both Blogger and Wordpress fall into that category. I guess there are too many wild folks with itchy typing fingers and a blog that lets them spill.

The strange thing is that I can still use Blogger for the actual blogging process. I can type and edit the blog, I just can't actually see the finished product. Weird I know. Wordpress, however, is kaput. I can't do crap on it.

Thus here I am again, back to blogging on Blogger. I'd call it a circle of life thing, but I'm still kind of pissed all my old posts are stuck on Wordpress, and I can't tell the world to come back here.

I'm Back

2006-06-13T12:49:00.000+02:00

If you were a regular visitor to Brewster's Millions but not someone I know how to contact personally, well you must have thought I died. I didn't, but my blog did. Something got screwed up in the template, rendering my blog useless. I just now figured out how to fix it.

I had to choose a new template, erasing all of my modifications in the process.

In the meantime, I moved. You can now find my blog at https://midnightcafe.wordpress.com/.

Wordpress is proving to be a decent place to live. I love their ability to categorize all of my posts. They have some built in feeds that are super cool as well. However, I have yet to figure out how to modify my template, so it all looks rather boring. Plus, some of the formatting for posting totally sucks.

I'm actually looking at a more permanent solution with my own server and url. For the meantime, come on over to Wordpress to see the new me.

A Freak Happening

2006-04-28T23:40:00.000+02:00

On my way home from work today I’m stopped at a red light at an intersection between 2nd street and highway 37. Both streets are always very busy, and on Friday afternoon just after 5 o’clock, they are crammed with traffic.

So, there I am waiting at the red light amongst all the other saps trying to get home for the weekend, when out of nowhere this big, fat tire comes flying out of the sky. It was a good twenty feet in the air at it’s peak and came crashing down right onto the back windshield of this little silver car.

SMASH!

The window went out with an explosion of shattered glass and panic. The tire then leaped back into the air, crashing down onto the trunk of the next car then rolled across the rest of the road resting at a curb.

Looking around I couldn’t see any car crash or anything else that would indicate where the tire came from. It wasn’t like there was some wheeless auto lined up on the exit ramp, or a big truck hauling tires. Absolutely nothing around that could have lost a tire.

The lady in the car was unhurt and pulled to the side of the road. The rest of us drove off quietly, stunned into silence at the sheer oddity of it all.

Calendar Movies: North by Northwest

2006-04-27T12:18:00.000+02:00

Recently, I had lunch with the human resources director at my place of employment. Both she and the chief operations officer were down to my office for the day and I invited them out to Cracker Barrel (it was a cheap maneuver as my boss was out of town, and I knew they’d pay for the food.) I needed the COO as a buffer between me and HR because last time I had lunch with Human Resources I got drilled on my opinion on everything from our company values to how the janitorial staff is doing.

It worked perfectly, I got a good meal paid for, and the COO kept us distracted by trying to win that little triangle peg game all Cracker Barrels leave on the table. It’s quite a thing to see your boss’s boss’s boss cursing at a children’s game because it says he’s an “ignoramous.”

The toughest question I had to field from HR was about my favorite movie. I chose Casablanca much to the surprise of my questioner. Now, at 30, I’m not anywhere near a young whippersnapper, but I guess I’m still pretty far removed from an ancient classic like that.

The thing is, I really dig the old movies. I’m the kind of guy who goes to Blockbuster and heads for the center rows, not the outside aisles with new releases. I suppose this is a strange thing, where kids today haven’t even seen Star Wars much less The Third Man.

Seriously, the first time I found out someone at work had never seen Star Wars I nearly fell out of my comfy office chair. It is as bewildering to realize that a film that means so much to me and my generation could be a relic to a new generation.

But maybe this is just me. I prefer Turner Classic Movies to HBO. I’d rather watch Humphrey Bogart than Tom Cruise. Black and white is much sexier then high definition super color.

Watching a movie like this month’s Calendar Movie, North by Northwest I’m struck by the notion that it’s not so different from your summer Hollywood blockbuster these days.

You’ve got one of the biggest stars working at the time, Cary Grant, working with an A-list director, Alfred Hitchcock; that’s like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg working together. The story is full of big action, lots of laughs and brimming with sexuality. It would play perfectly in today’s multiplexes

It’s the sex that struck me in this viewing. No, there isn’t any nudity, or hard core action. There isn’t even any soft core action, or anything more than some kissing. But the dialogue is boiling over with innuendo and double entendres. And if you’re going to have double entendres, who better than Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint to do it?

Beyond the sex there is more action and twists than a porno staring Gumby and Pokey. The famous crop duster scene still excites beyond what most CGI adventures can muster in an entire film.

So I ask myself again, why do brilliant, solid pieces of filmmaking like this get left on dusty shelves to be replaced by boring, repetitive, unimaginative showcases of mediocrity? Is the movie going public so stuck on adrenaline pumping, computer generated eye candy, that the classics are above their threshold of understanding?

Partially I think that it is part of our cultural existence to get the newest, freshest product. We buy the new models of cars even though our old one rides just fine. We purchase the top of the line, brand new computer products because our 6 month old lap top is “outdated.”

No one stands around the water cooler talking about Hitchcock or Billy Wilder. We talk about box office receipts, and the new weekend releases. Hollywood asks us to. They can’t afford for an audience to sit around watching worn out VHS copies of Ninotchka when they just spend 100 million dollars on the new Vin Diesel picture.

Kids don’t get hip credibility by wearing t-shirts with Peter Lorre on them. That’s not the kids fault, for if they had the chance to watch Lorre in M his picture would be right out there like Al Pacino in Scarface.

I can’t help but think if more people were exposed to classics like North by Northwest there would be no surprise when a young man stated his favorite movie was Casablanca.

Random Shuffle - 4/24/06

2006-04-24T14:43:00.000+02:00

“When Stars Go Blue” - Ryan Adams
from 05/07/05

I mentioned last week that Ryan Adams writes a lot of slow tuneless sad songs, this one is actually one of his sad songs that I really like. The reason why? He actually writes a melody. It’s a lilting little melody that floats like a paper boat on a lake. It’s a beautiful song, really. This version is with the Cardinals, his most recent touring band. This band rather rocks and so even this ballad has some loudish guitar noise with it. I like the earlier version with the acoustic guitars and the sadness.

But this is a nice version and the electric guitar solo here is quite fine. The Cardinals remind me in some ways of the Grateful Dead, and they are obviously fans since on this last tour they covered several Dead tunes. They also keep Adams expanding on his songs improvisationally, giving this tune a real jam. Something it has never had.

“Hole in the Backyard” – Keller Williams
from Grass

Keller Williams is generally a one man jam band. He tours as a solo artist, but creates a thick, layered song with just him, a guitar and a looping machine. With the machine he can record a quick guitar lick or vocal sound and then continually play it back over and over, while he creates new music on top of it. Add more layers and you get a sound that is unique in the business.

This is one of the better songs off of his latest bluegrass disk, Grass. It’s full of clever, pun filled lyrics about what they’re going to do with a giant hole in the back yard. The music is foot-tapping, shake-your-hips marvelous. It’s the kind of song that means absolutely nothing, but is still a joy to crank up and boogie to.

“Midtown” – Tom Waits
from Raindogs

This is Tom Waits that I can dig. It’s an instrumental electric jazz number that sounds like it could be an outtake off of one of Miles Davis’ later albums, or part of a movie score circa 1970 detective stories.

It is only about a minute long, so I’m sure it’s part of a larger whole that I have yet to really listen to.

“The Man Who Would Be King” – The Libertines
from The Libertines

As I start to listen to new music again (as opposed to my countless bootlegs) I find my musical tastes migrate across the sea to the shores of the United Kingdom. This is either because we’re experiencing another British invasion or that several of my writing buddies are from the UK.

These days Pete Doherty gets more press for his narcotics arrests than for fronting Babyshambles or previously, the Libertines which is a shame because he’s responsible for some of the best indie rock to hit the airwaves in some time.

This is a pretty straight out rock number that takes some interesting changes in the bridge, and some impressive “la la la’s” in the chorus. And who doesn’t like la las?

“Train Under Water” – Bright Eyes
from I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning

I swear I’ve written about Bright Eyes in Random Shuffle before, but looking through the archives I see nothing. Age is creeping in faster than I thought.

Bright Eyes is basically Ohioian Conor Oberst’s band with various side players thrown in when he wants. He writes painfully beautiful lyrics with a generally acoustic, folk laden musical background (although Digital Ash in a Digital Urn is his attempt at Radiohead inspired electronica).

Bright Eyes are one of my new favorite bands out there. Their lyrics are so often incredibly raw and honest to make one embarrassed while still being inspired. “Train Under Water” is a nice acoustic number with Conner whisper whining right along with the strums of the guitar. But there is enough of a melody and changes in the chorus as to make it head bobbingly terrific.

How Did I Get So Fat?

2006-04-23T20:21:00.000+02:00

Planning to ship a couple of boxes to some friends in France, my wife asked me to help her weigh them to get an idea of how much this would cost. Having only a bathroom scale and the boxes being to big to fit on it; we decided I would weigh myself, and then I would hold onto a box – the difference between me and me with the box should be the weight of the box.

I stood on the scale and looked down.

200 pounds!

How can I weight 200 pounds?

It’s true I have been weighing in at about 190 pounds for the last several weeks, but where did the extra ten pounds come in?

Like so many others I have a job that keeps me sitting sedentary for most of the day. The hours of sitting are moved along with mouth fulls of junk food: carbonated soda, salty chips, chocolate bars and doughnuts.

I have a moving and rather odd shift that doesn’t allow for too many daylight hours in which I can be active. By the time I do get home, I’m often so exhausted that all I want to do is sit on the couch and vegetate.

Even on a day like today when my shift gets off early and I start the day with plans of eating right and maybe hitting the gym on my way home I am sabotaged by the local vending lady and her pies.

As a way to say thank you for using her services, she brought in a dozen or so lovely, delicious pies. Chocolate pies, lemon pies and scrumptious, coconut cream pies.

How could I resist?

It’s like this all the time. Folks go to Steak and Shake and pick me up a caramel vanilla milk shake. The boss brings in pastries for a Friday morning meeting. One of the supervisor orders pizza for her meeting. On and on it is a steady stream of sugar, salts and fats paraded in front of my useless will power.

I used to live on the other side of town and so would bring my lunch to work. I’d spend the rest of my lunch hour taking power walks down the sidewalk. I now live about a mile away and take the five minute drive home for lunch. Which means I go home, check my e-mail, and play a quick game of Zuma ending my hour with a quick meal and absolutely no exercise.

200 pounds of this and I have got to find a better way. I have vowed to take my lunch to work each day, a sandwich or a salad. I’m ordering an i-Pod which I plan to fill with good tunes and some audio books which will motivate me to walk again. Then I’m swearing off sodas (again.) Sodas are killer. I despise coffee so soda has become the method of choice for my caffeine addiction. If I can manage to get over the three day hump of no caffeine and convince my body I wake up better, and healthier with a glass of juice or some herbal tea.

I’ve always known I’d never make a good muscle bound stud. I don’t have the personality for it. Seeing that scale tip the 200 mark has punched me in the solar plexus. If I can’t be on the cover of Muscle Magazine, I hope I can at least lose a few pounds and become healthier.

Bootleg Nation: The Rolling Stones 02/24/73

2006-04-20T03:53:00.000+02:00

Sound quality is always an issue with bootlegs. We’re not dealing with official studio recordings here. The music isn’t mixed separately, onto individual tracks. A record producer isn’t standing over a mix board going through the music note by note painstakingly manipulating the sound to produce the optimal sound.

This is in the moment, live music. A singer’s voice is unfiltered and raw. Guitarists hit wrong notes, strings break, and a myriad of other problems can affect the final product. Soundboard engineers must make decisions on the fly to get the best possible product to an audience.

Bootleg sound comes in all shapes and sizes. The best come straight from the soundboard, mixed for the band. Many bands record their concerts so they can be played back later, and the performance can be reviewed by the musicians – much like a sports team will watch game tapes.

Other times concerts will be recorded with the intention of a later, official release. These tapes are sometimes leaked into the fan base, or stolen and slipped into trading circles. The sound quality is pristine and the tapes are treasured by fans and collectors.

FM radio is a treasure trove of concert recordings. Live music has been a staple of radio since the first transmitter released its madness. It is also an easy method for fans to get their first bootlegs. Landing a pre FM version of the same show makes it even more stellar for the sound must be compressed a great deal before it makes the airwaves.

Taper friendly bands will often allow their fans to patch straight into the soundboard allowing phenomenal recordings of the show, recorded on DAT machines and then traded to the masses.

The worst sound comes from audience recordings. These come from microphones set up by fans smack dab in the middle of the audience. Depending on the equipment used, and the ability of the recorder these tapes can either give an excellent feel of what it was like to actually be there, or give an intimate portrait of the stoned out, screaming fan sitting next to the taper.

There are also mixes between audience and soundboard recordings called a matrix recording. This usually consists of a soundboard patch with an audience mike filtered in. When done right this can produce the remarkable sound of a soundboard tape with the live feel of being there on the ground with the rest of the audience.

The Rolling Stones
02/24/73
Western Australia

I only recently would consider myself a fan of the Rolling Stones. All I ever really knew of them were the radio hits. Tunes like “Honky Tonk Women,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” are classics songs and I would never have knocked them (though for my buck, Otis Redding blows the Stones out of their own water on “Satisfaction”). But, they are so overplayed by classic rock and oldies stations as to make them tired and old.

For reasons I can’t remember I started making my way through their catalog and was blown away by the sheer magnitude of their collection. I’ve still not found an album that I love all the way through, but there is enough incredible music on albums like Exile on Main Street to make me put them on a Beatles like level. I’m amazed that the radio only plays a handful of hits, when songs like “Rocks Off” and “Dead Flowers” are rolling out there all by their lonesome.

Watching the Stones at the Superbowl at what must be their twelfth final tour makes me roll my eyes in disgust. Mick Jagger working the crowd like a teenager in his 60 year old body just isn’t a pleasant sight. Keith Richards can still pack a power punch, but I still want to scream “Retire!” over and over.

This shows from 1973 shows the boys at what they could once do. This is a band at the top of their game, knocking the rocks off our collective socks. It is balls out thick and dirty sex rock. You can hear the lust oozing out of every pore of Richards proud lips.

They produce a rumble straight out of Thor’s gut.

The sound is from a soundboard, but you can tell it’s passed through a few generations. It’s a bit muddled in the mix and some external tape hiss is present, but what it lacks in sonic quality is made up for in the ferocity of the playing.

My copy is actually a liberated bootleg. Which is basically an illegal bootleg that has been released from its illegal bonds and passed through trading circles. Some punks got a hold of this music, threw a cheap cover on it and sold it for way too many dollars. Smart traders, and self-appointed police of the legal bootleg world, took the recording out of the thieves’ hands and passed it along freely through trading circles.

Because of this it is only a partial show, official set lists include four songs not included in my bootleg. What is included are scorching renditions of some hits, and those that should have been.

Concert Review - Wilco (April 17, 2006)

2006-04-19T03:24:00.000+02:00

The last and first time I saw Wilco in concert I walked out. That’s right, walked right out the door on one of the best bands playing rock and roll today. This was just after A Ghost is Born came out, so it was well into all the hoopla over Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Frankly, at the time I wasn’t much of a fan, I had only heard the Being There album and attended the show more out of something to do, than any real relationship to the band or their music.

They were playing a club way too small for them at the time. It was standing room only, and within a few songs into their set, the place was swelling. Everyone was jostling for position, pushing, squishing, and elbowing in every direction. It was more than my wife, and our friend could take.

The final poke was from an enormous young man who was not only pushing for the front row, but talking obnoxiously loud on his cell phone right in front of us. My two companions moved way to the back of the small club. I moved to a friendly section of the crowd but knew my time was coming. After a few more songs I found my people and we decided to walk out. The band was good, but not knowing any songs and the rotten crowd overruled anything our ears were hearing.

Fast forward to last night, I have since become a convert to the Wilco idolatry religion, and am very excited to see them again. Hoping to finally rid myself of the stigma of having once walked out.

This time the venue is much larger and more fitting to the band’s status. The IU Auditorium is a medium sized auditorium with lots of seats and space.

The opening band was local and an odd mix of the Meat Puppets, “Space Oddity” era David Bowie and Radiohead. They started promptly at 8:00 to a crowd at less than half capacity.

Opening acts are an odd thing to me. They say they are there to get the crowd jazzed and loosened up, but the crowds I’ve seen are usually bored by an opener and keep looking at their watches hoping those fools will get off the stage so the headliners will appear.

I guess it’s a good opportunity to hear bands you might not have heard before.

The opening band played a good 40 minute set. After a long 40 minute pause, Wilco finally took the stage at 9:20.

The crowd now at full capacity gave the auditorium a good holler.

They opened with a rumbling version of “Airline to Heaven” followed by a scorching “Kingpen.”

The crowd was pretty tame. My section of the balcony was half standing, half still in their seats. Songs from Yankee Foxtrot Hotel got the biggest cheers of the night, but songs from all of their other albums got noticeably less participation in the sing-alongs.

Actually my realization for the night is that Wilco has very little in terms of sing along lyrics. Sure, they have a few good belters such as the hillbilly bluegrass chanter “Forget the Flowers” and the nonsensicalness of “I’m a Wheel” is a hoot to scream a long with, but so much of their music has these sorts of odd tempos and changes that render any typical sing-along too difficult to enjoy.

They more than make up for this with the music. There are so many great hooks in their songs as to get lost in them trying to count. The quiet beginning of “At Least That’s What You Said” followed by the loud, pounding rhythm which is then followed by a louder, more pounding rhythm is a slice of pure rock and roll heaven.

More than once I reached the point of ecstasy where my body shook to the beat as only a white boy can, my eyes closed and my smile took over my whole person. Surely the sign of a great rock concert.

Lead singer/guitarist/primary song writer Jeff Tweedy goaded the audience by saying we were acting rather mild for an audience he had been pre-warned would be rowdy. This was the beginning of Little 500 week at Indiana University, the loudest, most party-rific week at a school which has often won the title of “#1 Party School.”

The audience responded by jumping over the rails at the front row and cramming right up against the stage.

The band closed a second encore with “California Stars” and we walked out into the cool spring night under lovely Indiana ones.

Setlist:
1. Airline To Heaven
2. Kingpin
3. Handshake Drugs
4. A Shot In The Arm
5. At Least That's What You Said
6. Hell Is Chrome
7. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
8. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
9. Forget The Flowers
10. War On War
11. Jesus, Etc.
12. Hummingbird
13. The Good Part
14. Walken
15. Heavy Metal Drummer
16. Theologians
17. I'm The Man Who Loves You
18. Monday

Encore 1:
19. The Late Greats
20. I'm Always In Love
21. I'm A Wheel

Encore 2:
22. California Stars

DVD Review: Millions

2006-04-18T15:35:00.000+02:00

In many of the reviews for Millions, critics have discussed how director Danny Boyle has departed from his usual violent, bloody, adult fair into a whimsical children’s story. It is a fair discussion since Boyle’s other work include stories of greed and murder, heroin addiction, and a modern take on the zombie movie (and yes I know the villains in 28 Days Later weren’t technically zombies, they were infected. But if you look like a zombie, eat flesh like a zombie, and smell like a zombie, then you’re a zombie in my book).

That’s a far cry from your normal kids' flick.

Upon closer look at this film, Boyle has not stretched that far from his normal themes than you might suspect. He is still dealing with greed, the darkness of the human soul, and the things that make us human, only in a manner more childlike and full of wonder than usual.

The story involves two young brothers, Damian (Alexander Nathan Etel) and Anthony (Lewis Owen McGibbon), who chance upon a bag full of British Pounds, when it literally falls from the sky and onto Damian’s playhouse. The boys must quickly spend the money for Britain is only days away from converting to the Euro, thus making the Pound worthless.

Boyle creates a fantasy world that is effervescent and joyous. It is a joyful film that is alive with buoyant colors and so unique in its ability to remain enjoyable to children as well as adults as to render it uncommon in today’s everything must be a blockbuster world.

The two brothers differ greatly in how they see fit to spend the money. Anthony, being a bit older and perhaps more world wise, spends it at his new school bribing his classmates into a kind of mini-mafia, purchases the coolest new toys for tikes, and looks to invest in real estate to parlay his fortune a little farther.

Damian is something of a dreamer and often is visited by famous saints such as St. Peter and St. Francis of Assisi. The saints point Damian to a different road where the money can be put to better use than selfish gain. So he sets about giving the money to a homeless man, a group of Mormons, and other charitable organizations -- much to the chagrin of Anthony.

This sets up the moral of the tale, where nearly everyone is affected by greed. The boy’s father finds himself trying to spend the money even after he has learned it is stolen property. Boyle tends to wear his morals on his sleeve a bit too much -- especially at the end -- but it is told with such jubilation it is hard to knock him for it.

It is a lovely family film, one that is well made and neither panders to the kids, nor is too insipid for adults.

Random Shuffle 4/17/06

2006-04-17T03:41:00.000+02:00

“I’m Lonely (But I Aint That Lonely Yet) – The White Stripes
from Get Behind Me Satan

There was a period of about 3 years where my live music lust pretty much blocked everything else out. I had no interest in new music. The stuff I periodically heard on the radio was trash. Boy bands and Britney Spears, my life can totally live without that.

The thing was, live music moved me in ways that the typical studio album didn’t. Plus it was a lot cheaper to buy a blank CDR at about ten cents a pop, than spend $18 for a studio album I wasn’t even sure was any good.

Slowly, I began coming out of my hibernation, and came around to the idea that there was some good music out there that wasn’t live, that was produced in a studio, and that was worth my $18.

It is during this reemergence that my sister’s husband, Brian asked me if I had heard the new White Stripes album. I replied I hadn’t and he said I should check it out, that I would like it. I’m always a little annoyed when people tell me I’ll like something – whether it’s a song, or a movie or book – most people have no idea what I really like, and to presume I’ll like something based on whatever is annoying. But Brian is usually pretty spot on with his recommendations (well except talking me into seeing Shallow Hal, for which he will never be forgiven).

So, I got a copy of Get Behind Me Satan and freaking loved it. I had been hearing about the White Stripes for awhile, about how they were the saviors of garage rock, but had pretty much ignored them. The album was so much more than garage rock, or punk, or just loud guitars. These were well thought out tunes, with insight into melody and song craft. The band could use a little filling out from their trick 2 person lineup. The songs needs little more than guitar/drum, piano/drum, solo piano. Would it kill Jack White to hire a bass player, and maybe a rhythm guitarist?

“I’m Lonely (But I Ain’t That Lonely Yet) is a nice little piano ballad. It is a far cry from the pumped up boom of “Seven Nation Army.” It’s also one of my least favorites from the album. There just isn’t enough to it. It’s got sad little lyrics, but it’s just pling pling on the piano and mopey singing from Mr. White. This seems to be a trend in ballads these days – write moody, poetic lyrics and a bland, unmelodic bit of music to go with it.

“So Alive” – Ryan Adams
from Rock N Roll

Ryan Adams came to me in this same musical awakening period as the White Stripes. I forget when I actually started to dig him. I absolutely loved “New York, New York” that got all sorts of air play just after 9/11 what with the timely lyrics and the video on the bridge just overlooking the Manhattan skyline.

But after that song I looked no further into the Ryan Adams play list. All the cool people seemed to dig him. I think I couldn’t get past that sloppy hipster hair. But slowly, somewhere I heard another song and another and became a fan.

Adams is the king of the no melody, just pluck on your instrument while singing super sad lyrics ballad. He’s drives me crazy with that stuff, especially since he can write a darn fine piece of pop music.

“So Alive” is a rather upbeat, lively piece of tunage. It’s actually a bit U2ish in it’s grandiosity, albeit with a Morrissey kind of vocal thing going. The results are interesting. It’s a good song, something that could easily blare out of my car speakers on a warm sunny day. It’s not really what I expect, or want from Ryan Adams though. He has the ability to write a real hook. His best songs keep me singing them for hours after I’ve heard them, this one leave my head soon after the last note is played.

“Hello in There” John Prine
from Souvenirs

God bless John Prine. He’s been writing songs like a mystic sage living on a mountaintop since he was but a young man. His lyrics are some of the most beautiful, moving words sung this side of Bob Dylan. He likes to say that he is an old rock and roller who has made a living writing folk songs. We are better people because of it.

Souvenirs is Prine covering himself. It is a collection of songs he wrote some 20 years before, reworked for a voice that is much more mature, and a man who has lived enough life to live in lyrics written by a man to young to know better.

“Hello In There” is a song written for old people. It’s a sad, beautiful thing that makes you want to call your grandmother after a listen. I have to admit, this new version nails the song in ways the original just couldn’t. Prine’s voice, while never smooth and pretty, has taken a rougher edge, with a maturity that fits the loneliness of old age perfectly.

“I Am Mine” – Pearl Jam
from Riot Act

Speaking of Brian turning me onto music, he’s one of the last few die hard Pearl Jam fans out there. Like a million other teenagers I fell in love with the band with their first release, Ten. The music was straight out of the 70’s hard rock box, with lyrics that spoke of alienation and hard times. It was perfect for a long haired, mixed up 17 year old.

I listened to their second album Vs for several weeks straight, without playing any other album. This was my band.

Then I went to college, met a girl who was too punk for grunge, and Pearl Jam left me behind. There very different, and ungrunge like third album Vitalogy didn’t help much. Periodically I heard a new single from the band and had a brief thought that I should get back into them, but never got around to it.

As stated, Brian is one of the last of the die hards. The boy loves him some Pearl Jam. His enthusiasm for the band always gets me and always makes me want to listen to the band fresh again. So, I buy an album, or download a single and dig them for a little while.

“I Am Mine” is fairly typical of what I’ve heard from new Pearl Jam. The hard rock edge is lessened by a better melody. Eddie Vedder’s deep baritone sweeps the song along. The lyrics are mysterious, sounding vaguely political and meaningful yet difficult to decipher and make sense of, yet remaining anthematic and full of sing-along ability.

“Not Fade Away” - Grateful Dead
from Dicks Picks 4

My first time seeing any member of the Grateful Dead was at a Furthur Festival in Atlanta. This was a couple of years after Jerry died, and the surviving members were just starting to play music again. Bob Weir played a set with his band, Ratdog. Mickey Hart played all kinds of worldly drums with his ensemble, Bruce Hornsby had his band, and a few other Dead like bands were invited along as well.

At the close of the night all the bands joined together for a jam session. They closed with this Buddy Holly classic, and Dead staple. . As the song ended the musicians left the stage one by one, while those still onstage kept up the beat. Lastly, there were the drummers, banging out the bop, bop bop-bop back beat. As they, too, left the stage the entire audience kept rhythm with hand claps and their own voices. I stood there in the hot Georgia night smiling in the knowing feeling that I’d just had the time of my life. Even if the band had played that song a million times, and a thousand other audiences had sang along in the exact same way, I felt special. I felt a part of something. It was magic.

The Grateful Dead did play this song a million times. It was a concert staple from their early years. This version, taken from a show in February 1970 exemplifies the Deads ability to take a very simple pop song and elevate it to something far more. It is some 13 minutes in length and never has a misstep or a dull moment. The Dead never take it to the cosmic heights of say “Dark Star” but it is transcendent just the same.

Random Shuffle - 4/10/06

2006-04-11T04:08:00.000+02:00

“Willin’” - Linda Ronstadt
From Heart Like a Wheel

My perception of this Little Feat ode to truck driver’s comes from the James Cameron underwater sci-fi flick, The Abyss. It is the Linda Ronstadt version that plays when the underwater oil rig crew is shown doing their blue collar work. The song plays as background music to the scene, but is also part of the action, being lip synched by nearly everyone in a joyful montage that defies explanation.

It is a great sing-along song. The lyrics are all about being on the road for too long, with nothing but drugs and alcohol to keep you moving to that next stop, that next destination somewhere down the road.

The music is pure outlaw country. Ronstadt has that rock n roll vibe, with the country girl twang that just fits the song perfectly.

“One From the Heart” – Tom Waits/Crystal Gail
From One From the Heart

This is from the soundtrack to an unseen (by me) Francis Ford Coppola movie of the same name. Waits actually sings with a croon, rather than the drunken hobo ran over by a train voice he usually sings with. He’s accompanied by the sweet voice of Crystal Gail.

It’s all soft porn smooth piano and saxophone musically. It’s slow and sad, and probably romantic, but I’d have to see the movie before I let my vote out on that one. There isn’t much to it for me, honestly. It’s Waits with a better voice, but not much of his lyrical poignancy. At least that’s what I get from the casual listen I gave it.

“I’m Gonna Live Forever” – Highwaymen
From 06/04/96

The Highwaymen were country music’s version of Mount Rushmore. With Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristopherson and Waylon Jennings in their own super group, it’s too bad that most of their albums were only just ok.

It’s like the Beatles effect in reverse. Where John and Paul continually pushed each other to strive harder and create an even more perfect song, the Highwaymen seem to play yes men to each other creating music that while not bad, isn’t up to any expectation they create. Instead of Abbey Road we get something more akin to McCartney’s post Beatles solo work.

This is a pleasant Billy Joe Shaver tune, performed quite nicely with all of the Highwaymen trading versus and harmonizing on the chorus.

“Wendy Time” – The Cure
From Wish

A lively, upbeat song from the master’s of gloom. Well the music is fun and frilly, but being the Cure the lyrics are all sad and depressing. It is the story of a well meaning lass trying to cheer up the gloomy singer by offering to be a friend or sister. Being Robert Smith, the singer continues to push her away to mingle and drown in his own misery.

I mentioned in a previous Random Shuffle how this album reminds me of a specific time and place. It is amazing how music can transport us to places. I would never call my high school years happy ones, and yet I am often drawn to that time, filled with nostalgia.

The intensity of emotion I felt during those years is something I’ve never come close to in the 10 odd years afterwards. Those days it seems like every moment was filled with incredible highs of joy or immensely lows of sadness. The perpetual word days of drudgery keep me on a pretty even keel in these times. Oh, I’m not nearly as depressed as I was then, but I rarely feel as completely free or happy as I did on those good days either.

Wish reminds me specifically of a girl named Elise who I used to sing songs from this album to. It reminds me of sitting in my room (having lived in 20 odd houses as a kid, it is a very specific room, but one I am unable to describe here) arguing with my sister about whose month it was to get the TV in their room and feeling all those emotions on my sleeve.

“Ride Into the Sun” – Velvet Underground
From Acetate Demos – 1969

Speaking of nostalgic memories the Velvet’s always remind me of my first love, Candy Sizemore. If my feelings were worn on my sleeve, if I felt things with more passion then, she felt them 100 times more.

She was a lovely girl who taught me it was ok to believe in God and listen to wild music and live outside the cookie cutter. We used to write long, passionate letters to each other with the margins filled with song lyrics.

She loved the Velvet Underground. We spent many an hour lying on a bed listening to Lou Reed sing about love, drugs and the underground. We’d play “Heroin” over and over and see who could get every lyric, every note exactly perfect.

This is a sloppy, loose demo version of “Ride into the Sun” off of their Another View album. It’s really for completists only, of which I am not. I got this along with other demos and live tracks from a download a few weeks back. I’m addicted to downloading perfectly legal live music and the like and so when I see a Velvet Underground set, I simply have to have it, even if I haven’t been much of a fan since high school.

The Hot Topic: Foreign Language Films

2006-04-10T04:32:00.000+02:00

From the ardent minds of loudish gawks comes the suddenly fairly often meanderings on the current topics of the day.

Sharpen your pencils, and sprinkle your thoughts with lighter fluid, for this is the Hot Topic.

From: Mat Brewster

To: The Hot Topic Team

Re: Foreign Language Films

“I don’t want to read a movie,” said my mother.

“But it’s a Kurosawa marathon,” I replied. “They’re showing the Seven Samurai, The Hidden Fortress and Throne of Blood. That’s like the greatest movie ever made, the movie that inspired Star Wars, and a bloody Shakespeare adaptation!”

“I don’t care if it is Jesus nailed up on the cross, I don’t want to read a movie.”

“Jesus nailed on a cross? No, mom that was The Passion of the Christ which by the way was in a foreign language with subtitles, and you saw it.”

“Oh, whatever,” she replies, “that movie was all blood and guts and birds pulling out eyes. There was hardly any talking in it, just a lot of screaming. And it don’t matter what language you’re screaming in, it’s all the same.”

“Fine, what do you want to see?” I ask.

“How about that Pink Panther movie? That looks funny, and you like Steve Martin.”

“Fine, we’ll see the Pink Panther.”

I have had this same argument with my mother countless time. She refuses to watch any foreign language movie because of the subtitles. She says she doesn’t want to read a movie and all the writing keeps her from watching the action on the screen.

Repeat this conversation with literally dozens of coworkers, friends, and acquaintances.

I continually ask myself why this is, and I cannot come up with a reasonable answer. Sure, it’s true that by reading subtitles you do miss some of the visual imagery of a film; you might miss an important bit of action. But that’s why god invented the rewind button.

Sometimes I want to mention that most foreign language films are dubbed into English. But that’s just sacrilege. Dubbed movies are crap. The voice actors are about as good as porno actors.

This argument is senseless to me anyway. By not watching the film you miss all of the imagery, you do not see any of the action. You are missing some of the greatest films ever made.

By not watching foreign language films, you’d never see the Seven Samurai, my all time favorite movie. What with the stunning action, the comedy, the romance, the Toshiro Mifune, it’s really freaking brilliant.

No foreign language films=no 400 Blows, no Wild Strawberries, no Seventh Seal, no 8 ½, no Band of Outsiders, no…

Is this an American thing? An English language thing? Is this just something with the people I know? Why are so many afraid of subtitles?

What do you guys think? Do you watch foreign language flicks? What about you fellas across the pond think about this? Is the UK more enlightened when it comes to foreign language flickery, being so close to foreign languages and all?

From: Bennett Dawson

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

I'm really with Mat on this one. If you refuse to do subtitles, you miss a lot of great films. It works for me because I'm a speedy reader, and quickly fall into a mode where reading the text is just part of the experience. It stops bothering me about two minutes in.

That said, my wife is French Canadian, and English is her second language. She would love it if the films with heavy English accents or Irish accents (Snatch) were subtitled in English so she could figure out what the hell everybody is yacking about.

I vote 'Yes' on English subtitles for anything from Scotland, Boston, or New Jersey...

From: DJRadiohead

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

Books are work, movies are easy and I am a lazy cunt.

I don't want to work hard when I watch a movie. Two hours and I am done- that is the appeal. Movies are, in that sense, like poetry. Condensed. Tell the story of a man's life in two hours. Tell the story of 12 hours in two. Great films stick around with you longer than that but still only take two hours to revisit.

That movie watching is so easy makes me even less willing to put any kind of effort into watching one. If the movie is two hours and the first 30 minutes blow, I am probably out of there. I have little invested and the chance for redemption drops with each passing minute. Fuck a lot of that noise. I will go do something else.

It might sound to you like I don't like movies. Not true. I did, during the dark days of college, work at a video store. For a few years, I got to see everything. I guess I got burned out on it all. I still watch more than a few each year but I generally get less and less excited about them. You will probably be able to guess what I think of foreign film viewing.

Movies are moving pictures. Every picture tells a story. I don't really want to try and read and watch the movie at the same time. I admit it. I have been told by people all my life I am terrible at concentrating. I can't focus. Ever. I mean, let me tell you about this time when I was in a play in college and- see what I mean? Do remind me to tell you that story sometime. Anyway, I do find it disconcerting to watch a film I also have to read. I have done it. I have seen some Kurosawa and a few others in my life. I just do not enjoy the experience.

Movies are also sound. They are aural experiences and I apologize in advance to the denizens of hypersensitive PC fucks everywhere: foreign tongues sound foreign. Sometimes they even sound funny to my ears. It can be really hard to let myself get sucked in to an intense scene when I hear those sounds. The dramatic use of facial expressions, other visual scenery, and the score in the background are cannot always overcome the fact those sounds can sometimes make me laugh. Even when they don't, there is something lost in translation.

Harkening back to my college days, I learned in my nonverbal communication class 93 percent of meaning is transferred by nonverbal means. I guess the 7 percent I have to read rather than hear is the difference between loving foreign films and waiting for Hollywood to take them and fuck them up in English.

From: Mark Saleski

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

The whole foreign film/subtitles thing seems to be a love it/hate it phenomenon.

Personally, I've always loved foreign movies. And while I don't love subtitles, I'll put up with them because the films themselves resonate with my inner-directed self.

Kurosawa being one exception, most of the foreign language movies I love are full of dialogue and not much else. Subtitles? Ah, I don't care. There are just too many great films out there to allow some text on the screen to make the decision (to watch or not) for me.

Interestingly enough, my favorite foreign movie—indeed, my favorite movie of all time—combines moments of highly nuanced character development with segments of heart-stopping action. It's a French film called Diva. A Parisian courier's love of a particular opera singer gets him wrapped up in a white slavery and drug ring, plus some other creepy underworld types. The characters are so interesting, the plot so engrossing, and the music so beautiful, that I completely forget about the subtitles.

Oh...as for the sometimes proposed "solution" to subtitling: dubbing? That's more distracting than subtitles. That I hate.

From: Aaron Fleming

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

Ah the old `foreign films with those word things on screen' topic, an
area close to my sensitive parts for sure. A subject worthy of many
fucks flung, as they often are, but perhaps this time with a
fuck-catapult built out of the flaming phalluses of a group of
Mahavishnu Orchestra-obsessed Pharisees.

But with a slight restraint in the flinging, maybe some put aside for
the time when the new Paul W. Anderson flick slides out his back
colon. This is due to our good fellow DJRadiohead's comments regarding
this here discussion, which are quite antithetical to my own views,
albeit at the same time being very honest and pleasant.

Of course, it doesn't matter where the film's from, what the hell
language it is in, whether the characters are speaking in the finest
and most expressive of the queen's English, or in something more akin
to Microsoft Word's Wingdings font. It doesn't matter. Plenty of crud
encrusted French movies out there. And best remember, not all foreign
language movies are the high-end of culture, where's the art-house
praise for Banlieue 13? All that Parkour and elbows to groins not
titillating the pretensions of bereted and bearded critics? I guess
not, I thought it was fun though.

But to restrict yourself to only English language films is to miss out
on so much brilliance, not just the aesthetically glorified cinema of
a Tarkovsky or a Bergman, but great entertainment pieces like Ong Bak. I'll admit to emitting a plethora of sneers towards the "subtitles? Fuck that, I'm going to watch rugby and get drunk" crowd, it's a shame.

My occasional moonlightings as a video store clerk have brought me
many painful moments related to this very topic. Like that time
someone brought back Ong Bak complaining it was in "Chinese or some ol' gibberish" and demanding nothing short of a refund. I of course corrected his erroneousness by blasting back with a negating stare and mouth movement forming "it's actually Thai, cunt." Then I told him to fuck off and how my day would have been better if he had been born still.

What can you do? Only attempt to spread the good word of Chan Wook
Park by recommending his flicks at every opportunity; maybe, some day,
one person might say, "by Mike Patton's very beard thing! This is
actually quite brilliant, now I must track down every Godard I missed
while I was watching the latest mass-produced offering featuring The
Rock, what a fool I have been."

From: Mary K Williams

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

You know, there is SO much good art out there – be it music, graphic (oils, watercolors), literary, or film – that what I’ve experienced could fit in a wee thimble. Sure, now I blame my lack of art exposure on trying to raise a family and all, and well that’s as good excuse as any I guess. But lately I’ve felt so deprived – so lacking. I know my life is continually being enriched through my home life experiences, and as much we can all cram in as a family. Yet, I hear tell of these interesting quirky films, or offbeat but breathtaking musicians – and I think – ‘Wait, stop, the world is going much too fast, I’m going to miss it all!’

I do know that in the imaginary perfect world of not having to earn a living, not having anyone depending on you, a person would still be hard pressed to go out and manage to ‘do it all’.

A thought ocurred to me today - that I consider foreign films complete with subtitles like delicious fancy food. A little intimidating at first, but then quite delicious if prepared well, and if you have the right attitude.

But you have to be in the proper frame of mind for the likes of Crouching Tiger, Hero, or The Passion of the Christ (These being the few I’ve seen and enjoyed). If not. you may not be able to really appreciate the subtleties of flavoring, or the magic of lighting and direction.

Sometimes, when you feel like I did today, exhausted after a very busy week, and with a cold on top of all that – sometimes you just want comfort food. And sometimes too, you just want comfort flicks. A movie that you don’t have to have all eight cylinders cranking for – like my picks of the day, Lethal Weapon 2, Scary Movie 2, Sixteen Candles and Two Weeks Notice.

From: Duke de Mondo

To: The Hot Topic Team

Subject: Foreign Language Films

Ah, the old “Balls! It’s subtitled!” hollering.

How many times have I heard this? Far too many to be bothered thinking about.

…The lass in the video-store who, with rather lovely yap all twisted up the jaw, handed me Amelie with the cautionary aside; “This is subtitled, y’know. Is that alright?”

…The copy of Irreversible tossed back at my mug, fella tutting, “Watched five minutes. Fuckin’ all that writin’ an stuff, the hell kinda shite’s that?”

…The ex-girlfriend lamenting my choice of viewing material for the evening. “The Seventh Seal!” I cheerily announce. “For God’s sakes!” comes the anguished reply. “Can’t we watch somethin’ normal? Somethin’ without subtitles!”

…The mate all high on the beery-brew, eyes all uncertainty couple minutes into Funny Games. “Is it like that all the way through? With the subtitles?” (He did watch it mind, and quite enjoyed it. I thought it was shite and threw a shoe at the telly.)

Aye. Who knows why, or for what reason, but plenty folks who wanna be sat front the screen for a couple hours, most likely they wanna see something doesn’t piss all o’er their ears wi’ some gabble they can’t understand and a buncha text they can’t be arsed reading. This isn’t to say that folks who don’t like subtitles don’t like film, that right there is a horrendous misconception. I know people got the damn house comin’ down with 1940s comedies, for example, but it’s rare they’ll bother with anything ain’t got English as the primary language.

It’s easy to get all sortsa snobbish regarding viewing types who’d puke their faces raw if’n they had to sit front a Bergman for any length of time. But it’s also incredibly easy to get ones own perspective fucked just as bad.

There is, whether or not we care to admit it, a consensus among certain flickology types that runs along the lines of; A foreign film is inherently superior to a Hollywood number.

This is bullshit, of course.

I remember a conversation with a lady way back when, was asking her if she’d seen Pale Rider.

“No” she said. “I don’t watch those kindsa films. I only watch World Cinema.”

There are, of course, a number of reasons for why a fella might wanna claw his own ears off after hearing such a statement. For one thing, it’s fuckin’ Pale Rider. For another, fuckin’ Pale Rider was made in America, which, last time I looked, was part of the World. Also, World Cinema? What horrible ghettoised mindset has done gone soured your very arse, m’dear, for to have you using terms like World Cinema. Like “World Music”, World Cinema ain’t nothin more than a wretched, patronising, elitist-yet-incredibly-ignorant half-arsed nonsense.

Bein’ the kind of fella who cums himself in five at the thought of a couple extra minutes of Manhattan might be hidden away in a vault someplace, i.e, a Flick Geek, I’ll watch anything, and if it’s good, it’s good. Subtitled or otherwise, horror or romantic-comedy or documentary about some goof made a record one time and some folks liked it, whatever, if a fella wants to find the gold, he can’t go lingerin’ round a handful o’ rocks.

Wonderful flicks are a universal phenomenon, as is guffy ol’ shite.

Also, it ain’t necessarily the fault of the audiences that they don’t watch these flicks. Time and again, it’s been proven that a subtitled flick can be incredibly successful provided the studio flinging it screen-wards puts the effort in. The Passion Of The Christ, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Life Is Beautiful. Three flicks right there that proved enormously popular theatrically and on video / DVD. If folks could see, say, Paradise Now as easily as they could see Munich, I’d wager they would. They have done.

Studios tossing brilliant films into horrible ghettos like World Cinema, marketing them to select audiences and ignoring everyone else, well, they’re as much to blame as the fella sat front the telly choosing Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels over Ikiru, or Anchorman over La Cage Aux Folles. More so, in fact, because most likely the fella would go with Ikiru, had he ever heard of it.

A flick they’ve heard about, they’re more likely to watch. Stands to reason. How many flicks do we ignore, us enlightened cinema-fiends, on account of we don’t know shit about them? Plenty manys, is how many.

Market these things right, and it’s more likely folks’ll take the chance.

Folks take the chance with that one, there’s more chance they’ll opt for La Cage Aux Folles next time.

They’ll probably still enjoy Anchorman more, though. And they’d be absolutely right to do so. Anchorman fuckin’ rocks.

Bootleg Nation: David Nelson Band - 07/21/01

2006-04-09T22:51:00.000+02:00

For years I have been collecting what I’ll call bootleg CDs. Though the term bootleg gives all kinds of wrong impressions, as if I’m selling cases of scotch under the table during Prohibition.

The bootlegs I am referring to are not only legal, but highly condoned in some circles. I’m talking about live concert recordings unreleased by the studios or the bands.

People have been recording concerts since there has been portable recording equipment. Alan Lomax was traipsing around the country recording folk and blues artists in the 1930s. Today, some bands allow fans to patch directly into the soundboard with pristine, lossless DAT machines.

The Grateful Dead were pioneers of bootleg trading. Instead of spending thousands of dollars trying to hunt down thieves and bootleggers selling live recordings of their performances, they killed the opportunity by giving their live recordings away. They set up a special taper’s section in the audience allowing anyone with a portable mike to set up shop and record every note. On many nights they would allow fans to patch directly into their soundboard. They always recorded their own shows, and often “leaked” copies to fans and allowed everyone to make copies, as long as it wasn’t sold for profit.

It became a profitable marketing adventure. Fans would turn on others to the band by sharing the live music, thus creating other fans who would then buy the bands albums and pay to see their concerts in person. Through the years other bands have seen the wisdom in this policy and have followed suite.

There is a whole underground movement of fans trading live concert recordings. It is quite an addicting hobby, let me tell you. I’ve been trading for about 8 years now and have well over 800 hours of live music CD.

My collection is more live music than I could ever listen to, and yet I am continually in search of more. With the advent of cheap, fast broadband connections there is more live music available than ever before.

Live music feeds weary ears. With the decline of actual music on the radio, and the rising prices of studio albums, finding mind moving, completely legal music available for the price of your time to download is an absolutely beautiful thing.

In Bootleg Country, I will attempt to go through my collection of live music and review every note.

David Nelson Band
07/21/01
Honeydew, CA

A few years back I worked with a guy named Bob. Bob was somewhere in his middle fifties, with a nice beer gut hanging over his belt loop and long, curly gray hair. He was a throwback from the 1960’s summer of love. He was a genuine hippy, and remained true to those ideals even into the year 2000.

The David Nelson Band reminds me of Bob. They are still waving their freak flags, and playing music as if it could save our souls.

A David Nelson Band show is like a picnic on a sunny day. They mix old time country music with the folk wisdom of 1960’s San Francisco and sprinkle it with psychedelic jams.

You can picture yourself sitting in a city park, spread out on a blanket, belly fully of fried chicken while listening to this band. They have the homely feel of any small town local band playing songs that you’d sing to your kids. Although they have the chops to blow any local players through the roof, they maintain that intimate, down home feel to their concerts.

It’s a band that can make a medley of “All You Need is Love” and “Put a Little Love In Your Heart” and play it without a twinge of irony.

Songs like “Panama Red” and “Ragged But Right” start off the show and they are just the type of songs I’m talking about. They are blue collar songs with the kind of lyrics that truck drivers, hippies and grandmothers could all sing along with and smile. The music is country swing that would feel at home anywhere the grass is green and the sun is shining.

As the set carried on, some of the songs mixed in try way to hard to be meaningful. Songs like “Last Lonely Eagle” just have cringe inducing lyrics like

If you go down where the lights push the nighttime
Back far enough so you can't feel the fear
Remember the boy who you left on the mountain
Who's sitting alone with the stars and his tears

The second set really scorches it up with some very stellar improvisational jams. The music jumps into interstellar overdrive with a sweet instrumental jam of the Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain,” sending the grandmas to the snack shack and the rest of us into twirling heaven.

The third set brings us back down to earth with the aforementioned “Love Medley” and some more silly, hokey hippy music.

I don’t suspect the David Nelson Band will ever make onto MTV, or Billboard’s Top 40 list. You won’t see them headlining a world wide stadium tour in this lifetime. But as they continue to travel the country, small venue tour at a time, they’ll continue to play real music from the heart, with the chops to back them up and keep audience of all sizes smiling and dancing through the night.

If you’d like a copy of this show, leave me a comment, and I'll try to work something out for you.

Random Shuffle - 4/3/06

2006-04-03T05:48:00.000+02:00

“I’ll Be Your Mirror” – Velvet Underground
From a live show in Paris on 1/29/72

This is off some live Velvet shows I got in a vine a few days ago. I’ve not really given any of it a real listen yet, so I don’t know if it is any good.

The song is an absolutely beautiful one. Nico sings lead vocals and she’s got the voice of a broken angel. It is a simple, lovely song about seeing the best in someone. I’ve put it on numerous mix tapes for friends and lovers a like. It’s that kind of song. One that’s simple message of love speaks to anyone of any size, sex or creed.

This live version is nice, a little unpolished, but still sweet. Nico’s vocals are still sparkling, but the backups from the Velvet’s are a little rough. I’m a sucker for the in studio, soft and fuzzy sound for love songs. They never sound the same live.

“Your Mother Should Know” – The Beatles
From Magical Mystery Tour

A throw away song on a throw away album. Ok, that’s sacrilege; there are tons of great singles on the album. Maybe that’s just it, Magical Mystery Tour sounds like a collection of singles instead of a cohesive album. It’s like a greatest hits package, and “Your Mother Should Know” is the new song added to give real fans a reason to buy it.

Really its not a bad tune. It’s actually pretty good, but when it’s a Beatles tune I expect greatness and this one just doesn’t live up. I mean, which would you rather listen to, “Strawberry Fields Forever”, “I am the Walrus”, “Hello Goodbye”, or this? Not a touch choice, is it?

“Lay Lady Lay” - Bob Dylan
From Hard Rain

Rough, ragged, and ready to rock is how I would describe Dylan’s live album from his 1970’s Rolling Thunder Review.

I’ve never been a fan of the studio version of “Lay Lady Lay.” Bob Dylan on the make is just kind of creepy to my ears. This is a balls to the wall, sweat drenched rocker. The vocals are out there, the whole band singing back up, nearly screaming every refrain.

If the studio version is a crooning, slick, sleazy Dylan trying to cajole some lady of the night into his bed, then this live version is the command of a rough and tough bastard keeping his lover for seconds after a long night of sexual activity

“I Know Your Married” – Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglass and the Bluegrass Sessions
From the Strawberry Mountain Festival – 09/05/99

From an absolutely scorching show at a bluegrass festival. This is master’s of newgrass pickin’ and sangin’ for the sheer joy of it. You can hear how much these boys are enjoying themselves throughout the show, and trying to show each other up a bit.

This is a slow, old timey song towards the end of the show. It’s a front porch in the middle of summer kind of song. Something to sing along with your pa on a family reunion. They boys goof it up in the middle and everybody laughs a long.

On my version there is a couple of minutes worth of banter after the song that is priceless. Sam Bush ripping on Bela Fleck and Bela ripping right back. This is true, real music. Not the processed, stylized junk you hear on the radio these days.

“That Feel” – Tom Waits
From Bone Machine

I’ve never been much of a Waits fan. They guy can write some brilliant music, but that voice just gets me every time. He sounds like he needs a really good hacking cough. I know it’s styled that way, I know a lot of it is purposeful, but I just can’t get past it.

I’m not really much of a lyric man. I mean there are thousands of songs with great lyrics that I love, that move me to my very pancreas. But as a general rule I don’t pay much attention to them. My mind concentrates on the music, the instruments and melodies. If the lyrics are clear and understandable I might catch on and enjoy them. However, most songs I just don’t understand what the heck people are singing about.

Start naming songs, and I can probably hum the melody, maybe sing the chorus, but after that I’m at a loss. Add to it a singer who mumbles, or mutters or distorts his vocals and you can forget it. I just won’t hear a line of it. This is a good example of that. I looked up the lyrics and they are actually kind of movie. But after multiple listens, I couldn’t gel what I was reading on the page to what I was hearing.

The melody here is pretty simple, its kind of a slow dirge, and Waits does his usual garbled garbage disposal vocal take which pretty much ruins the song for me. Find a sweet soul singer, add a couple of flourishes and this could be something amazing.

My Love Affair With Doc Martens

2006-04-02T20:16:00.000+02:00

For my 30th birthday a very dear friend gave me a pair of shoes. They were dirty and ripped, the soles were completely worn out and they smelled of fifteen years worth of feet. In fact they used to be my shoes before I gave them to this friend. Yet as he passed these old, degenerate shoes to me I couldn’t help but beam with appreciation.

This is the story of my love affair with Doc Martens.

Rewind about 12 years to 1994, I was a senior in high school. Nevermind had been out for a couple of years, Grunge and Alternative were still all the rage. My wardrobe was full of flannel, t-shirts, baggy pants and sneakers. At the time I was well into a pair of skater styled Vans. The hair was long, the attitude sullen.

Enter Doc Marten. I had eyed many a pair of those brown leathered beauties many a time. But at over $100 a pair neither my wallet nor my mother was willing to shed that kind of dough.

Ah but my brother, the savior of footwear, the beater of siblings, tormentor of all things me, came through like a mackerel in cheese. He gave me my first pair of Doc Martens, and he didn’t even charge me a dime, or a wet willie.

It seems my brother had received the shoes as a gift from a buddy. The buddy had bought them and worn them for a year or so before he decided to buy a new pair. My brother, likewise, wore the shoes for another year or so before decided to buy his own new pair.

I loved those shoes. They fit so well with my whole style in those days. They were comfortable, wore well, felt great on my size 11 feet, and looked pretty stinking cool.

I wore them every single day. No kidding, for 3 years those shoes were on my feet everyday, with the rare exception of really special occasions like weddings, proms, and the odd couple of months right before I got rid of them, that I finally decided to start donning sandals.

I have a picture of me wearing the Doc Martens, black socks, a pair of plaid checkered shorts and a horizontally striped shirt. Besides the slacker, Generation X grunge look, I had the I don’t give a flipping flop how people think I look look. And those shoes didn’t leave my feet.

After three years, I finally decided to get myself a new pair. I did the loyal thing and promptly gave the old pair to my roommate.

He wasn’t quite so dedicated to the now 5 year old, 4th generation shoes as I was, but they were donned by his feet at least once a week for the next year.

Yes, he liked them so much he bought himself a new pair of Doc Martens. Yes, he gave the old pair to a mutual friend.

At this point I lost touch with the shoes. The new owner split the heat of Alabama to the hills of Tennessee. He tells me he wore them often and with love. He dropped me a note of sorrow when, while playing a game of football with buddies, the shoes scored a large rip through the toes, rendering them unwearable.

When I opened the bag that was my birthday present and found those shoes, I couldn’t help but get a tear in my eye. Once the smell of 6 pairs of feet over many sweaty years wafted away, I got a big grin on my face and knew I was looking at the best present ever.

Coming home to my little den, I placed the old Doc Martens next to the pair I bought in their stead, some ten years prior. A pair I still wear to this day.

Random Shuffle - 3/27/06

2006-03-28T03:29:00.000+02:00

“Boots of Spanish Leather” – Nanci Griffith
From Other Voices, Other Rooms

I first discovered Nanci Griffith on a whim. I was involved in one of those BMG get 8 CDs for the price of one kind of deals. I needed to buy a few albums to finish out my contract and her Blue Roses from the Moon album sounded very interesting. I was just starting my infatuation with folk music and so I ordered it. I quickly became a fan.

Other Voices is Nanci covering all her favorite artists and songs. “Boots of Spanish Leather” is a slightly obscure Bob Dylan tune off of The Times They Are A- Changin’. Nanci’s sweet, country voice and plaintive guitar picking turns a mournful song into a gorgeous dirge. Dylan plays harmonica on the track simply, understated so that the music is bettered by it without having to make some kind of statement of notice. If it weren’t for the acknowledgement in the liner notes, I wouldn’t even know he played on the track.

Bridge Over Troubled Water – Paul Simon
From MTV – Unplugged

Unlike say Eric Clapton, I don’t believe Mr. Simon ever released an album from his Unplugged performance. There might be a song or two available out there on some of their packaged disks, I don’t really know. It is a shame though because the disk is quite nice, and well worth seeking out from traders.

Being this is Simon without Garfunkel this song had to be reworked a little bit. Naturally, Paul sings it a little lower and the “Sail on silver girl” part get a little bit funky. It’s still a cool version, and while not as touching as the original it is nice to hear it a little different angle.

“A Little Less Conversation (Radio Remix)” – Elvis
From 30 #1 Hits

I’m somewhere in the middle of the Elvis fence. While I would fall greatly on the Beatles side of the Beatles/Elvis question, I still dig the King a good bit. I really dig some of his very early rockabilly tunes, but there is a special place in my heart for the big Elvis via the come back specials.

This remix of a slight classic was a pretty big hit for Elvis a few years back. I dig the crap out of it. It’s got a nice dance groove while still maintaining that Elvis cool.

“A Letter to Elise” – The Cure
From Wish

Like a lot of unhappy, mixed up, gloomy teenagers I too had my Cure phase. Wish was released during the post Nirvana everybody’s Alternative years of the early 90’s. I believe it is there highest selling album ever.

I listened, obsessed and loved every note. “A Letter to Elise” is a sad, heartbreaking affair that became a favorite of mine from the album. I used to dream of singing this song on those lonely nights after a painful break up. The problem was always I never had a girlfriend, much less a painful break up. After 10 years, a few loves and a couple of hard break ups, the songs stands up quite well.

I hate to admit that I cheated a little for this weeks Random Shuffle. Wilco’s “Jesus, Etc” came up in the shuffle again this week confirming what I had previously believed. My MP3 player’s shuffle ability really sucks. I’m working on a method to keep that from happening in the future, but for now we’ll have to settle with a 6th choice.

“Got My Mind Made Up” – Bob Dylan
From Knocked Out Loaded

I know, I know more Dylan. Man, what can I say, I have nearly all of his albums on my hard drive and they come up a lot. (see the aforementioned suckiness of the shuffle function).

This track was cowritten by Tom Petty (the Heartbreakers backed Dylan up on the album and a tour during the same late 80’s early 90’s era). It’s a decent rocker but pretty much a throwaway as far as Dylan is concerned. The album is often considered one of Dylan’s worst and I’ve never managed to give it a real listen.

The Hot Topic: Kleenex or Adreneline - A Look at Chick Flicks

2006-03-27T14:00:00.000+02:00

After a long hiatus, the Hot Topic is back...and this time we've invited a girl to kick things off.

Within the Sinister Cabal that is Blogcritics.org, there exists a Double Secret Society of Men. Manly Men, who wear plaid, spit, swear and scratch private parts. These are the Manly Men of Mondo. Their existence has been whispered about and speculated upon and soon, a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks will be released to show the world the truth behind the Mondo Myth. To get to the kernel of that truth took cunning, bravery, and a decidedly feminine touch. I took on the task to infiltrate this conclave, this cabal within a cabal. I brought coasters, doilies, chamomile tea, and a case of beer. Ingratiatingly charming but ready to fling the fucks with the best of them, I am - The Gurl.

From: Mary
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

So, here I am, yakking about movies. A gurl at that, in the midst of the Boys of Mondo, talking about movie preferences based on gender. Well, do I go to see a movie based on the stud appeal of the leading men? No, that's not the driving force. There are a lot of hot leading men out there that I like to look at, but it takes more than that to earn my crumpled, sweaty dollars. So, assuming I'm not seeing a movie for my kids, assuming I'm seeing something just for me, what turns me on? Ah, I dunno. I have been thinking of my favorite movies, and why they remain favorite movies.

Some I like purely for the talking. Tons of dialogue, doesn't have to be witty (though, I love witty too), just deep. Dialogue that provokes conflict, which speaks to some dark part inside me. Take The Anniversary Party. Although some of the more interesting dialogue occurs after the characters have taken ecstasy, I enjoy this kind of slow moving film. Maybe part of the allure is the fine cast, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Alan Cumming (both also wrote and directed the flick) Jennifer Beals, John C. Reilly, Jane Adams, and Kevin Kline. Or maybe I just like talky movies with Kevin Kline. The Big Chill hit me in a big way when that came out. Tons of talking! That's all they did! Oh they had a little sex, did some drugs and played football. Or maybe I just like the movies where they take drugs. Who knows?

But hey, I like action movies too. I don't know if they are just fun to watch, or because it's what you do when you're in a house full of men. The technology has advanced in film making that for me anyway, watching today's Batman Begins or Mr. and Mrs. Smith can be so jaw-dropping. Of course, not to discredit some older action flicks, 1981's Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark was incredible. I remember seeing it with a girlfriend, and the momentum of the movie stayed with me as we left the theater. I wanted to drive very fast afterwards.

A recurrent theme that flows throughout my favorite films is music. I wonder if The Big Chill would have been as great if there were no Motown beats running through it. Would the church scene have been as good without the Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want"? A little film that made it big at Sundance 2004 and across America - Napoleon Dynamite - was a success not only for its writing, acting and directing, but also for its musical scoring. The instrumental "Music for a Found Harmonium" is a piece I have fallen in love with. "Harmonium" is good music on its own, but now, when I hear it, it's forever colored by the sweet last few scenes of Dynamite. And then a decidedly more masculine view is how much I love "Down With the Sickness" by Disturbed in Jet Li's movie, The One.

And that brings me to another point. It seems as if my yang (masculine) is more predominant than my yin (feminine). Or maybe they are equal, but I'm maybe more in touch with my masculine side then other woman? Would that explain my martial arts interests? My propensity for vulgar comedies? My desire to cuss?

Yet there are plenty of typically girly things that I like, movies included. Filmsite.org lists a bunch of 'chick-flick' movies. I read through them and to me it could just be a list of any movies with no special gender connection. My reactions ranged from, "eh" to "Yes - LOVED it", to "since when is Lara Croft just for chicks?"

Ultimately, I have movies I like, and movies I don't. A favorite film, You've Got Mail, has some lines that eloquently express the combination of hope and vulnerability of the lead character, Kathleen.

What will NY152 say today, I wonder? I turn on my computer. I wait impatiently as it connects. I go online, and my breath catches in my chest until I hear three little words: You've got mail. I hear nothing. Not even a sound on the streets of New York, just the beating of my own heart. I have mail. From you.

Girly stuff? Yes. Good stuff? Definitely. And I'll beat up any boy who disagrees!

From: Mark Saleski
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

I love "chick flicks". Honest. I really do. They...are...awesome!

OK. OK. That was just a transparent attempt to not get my ass beaten by Sir Mary, resident black belt of the House of Mondo.

Still, the movies that I like to tend to share some of your basic chick flick tendencies: emphasis on relationships and character development, lots of dialog, not so much action.

Some of this, to be sure, comes from my contrarian nature. Working in the software industry, I'm just supposed to be into things like Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings. Nope. Nothing there for me.

Similarly, the "guy movie" is often full of action and violence. Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti any of this stuff. It's just that it's kind of, well, boring. Seriously. When I see a movie trailer and somebody pulls out a large gun, or maybe a building explodes into a ball of flames...I'm just not interested. Why that is, I'm not sure. I guess it's just that none of it feels like it's got anything to do with my life.

Of course, there are counter-examples. What? You want internal consistency? Dirty Harry. Apocalypse Now. Blue Velvet. Terminator II. Pulp Fiction. A Clockwork Orange. Is there a line to be drawn through all of those films? Maybe "purposeful violence." Dunno. It seems to me that you can lose yourself inside the characters in those movies, no matter what kind of ugliness they're experiencing.

Relationships and dialogue: The Big Chill is a good starting point. Add to that Ruby In Paradise, Babette's Feast, Manhattan, Fandango, High Fidelity, and Paris, Texas. The one thing that links all of these completely different movies together is their memoir-ish nature. I love this stuff. Some folks enjoy flinging the label "navel-gazing". To me, observing how others make a way through their lives is endlessly fascinating.

So why do most guys not care about this kind of thing? Or is that a stereotype?

From: Mat Brewster
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

Chick flicks? Quotes from You've Got Mail? Man, who let the girl in here? What kind of Gentlemen's Club lets girls in? Wait, don't answer that question.

So Sir Mary wants to hang with the men of Mondo, and we let her right in the front door. I guess that's okay. I mean we're all enlightened men here. This is the twenty-first century. And it's not like this club is full of big burly men anyways. I mean we're all aspiring writers (and ain't a one of us look like Hemmingway) who sit around debating the merits of organic food, Ryan Adams and Asian cinema.

At least Sir Mary curses like a boy, unlike that girlish Aaron Fleming chap who cries when he chips a nail.

Okay then, so movies are the subject at hand. I can't really say I like flicks that get labeled for chicks or dicks. I'm not really hip to the Norah Ephron romancers or the gun toting, action packed testosterone packages from the Governor of California.

I want to say that I'm an indie film kind of guy, but truth be told, all too many indie flicks are just rotten. The budgets are miniscule, production quality is shoddy at best, the acting is about as good as you'd get in community theatre, and the stories are bloated, convoluted messes.

The heart of my film life lies in directors. Where many people follow actors around, I pant over directors. Let's face it the controlling factor of a film lies in the director's hands. A great cast, and script, and special effects team will still go limp without a good director behind the camera.

Kurosawa, Welles, Truffaut, Scorsese, Bergman, these are the words that tell me a film has potential. Not over boiled marketing terms like "romantic" or "heart warming" or "action-packed" or "thrill ride."

But I'm digressing from my digression. What I'd really like to say is that labels and generalizations don't mean anything. Are there women who love the collected works of Steven Segal? Surely. Are there men who love to sit in a dark theatre with Meg Ryan, Audrey Hepburn and a box of hankies? Most definitely.

I like good movies, whatever that means. I want something interesting and well made. If that takes a story about a group of commandos fighting an alien in the jungle, then fine by me. Or if it means a three-hour drama about a homosexual AIDS patient dealing with the loss of her cocker spaniel, then so be it. In the end I don't care how they market a film, or what labels they throw on the DVD box, as long as the cinema moves, excites, and changes me.

From: Bennett Dawson
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

I'm not much of a "guy flick" kinda guy. I enjoyed the hell out of the Terminator series, but have never had much interest in Rambo or anything starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. I need more than blood an' guts an' fast action to keep my attention, I need PLOT, and intelligent DIALOG, and crafty camera angles that add to the overall feel of the scene.

That said, some flicks are SO girly that I won't even give 'em a chance. My lovely wife has no chance at all of getting me to watch such sappy crap like Bridges Of Madison County or Little Women or An Officer And A Gentleman (gag). Ya gotta draw the line somewhere!

But there is a middle ground in film land, and it's filled with gems that appeal to the inner me, my unique mix of mach-emo, the yin-yang of my center. Borderline stuff like Fried Green Tomatoes, Ghost, Chicken Run, Forest Gump, Little Big Man, True Lies, American Beauty, The Shawshank Redemption... Okay, not all of those were borderline examples, but I do love 'em all.

I believe that truly Great films have scenes that lodge somewhere in your brain forever and ever.

It's funny, but one of the best chick-flick/macho-flick comparison scenes comes to you courtesy of Sleepless In Seattle. One of the ladies is weepingly describing how romantically tragic An Affair To Remember is, and the guys in the room use the same weepy, sobby descriptions to tell the story of The Dirty Dozen.

"...An' then (sob) OJ gets shot (weep weep) an' before he (choke) dies, he (sob sob) drops the (weep weep) hand grenade down the (gasp sob) chimney." It's a scene worth watching, even if it comes from an admittedly classic chick flick. Guys, bring a hanky.

But what I really need is more flicks like Fight Club. A masterpiece what grabbed me by the sack with the hottest 15-second sex scene ever printed to celluloid, great acting, amazing screenplay, and masterful cinematography.

Is that too much to ask?

From: Aaron Fleming
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

Hmm, is film taste connected to gender? Stereotypically it is of course, ya know, guys (that is, real men with their hairy chins and...vests and stuff) like the kind of movie that features males with heaving musculature brawling with other males of similar dimensions, and the ladies like it when a mother and daughter have a soul-bonding trip across middle America involving massive increments in Kleenex's profits. Is that indeed the case?

I don't know. Generally I'd sneer off a floating projectile of `meh' in the direction of each of those sub genres. True, if it were a toss up between explosion-laden action flick and weepy true story, I wouldn't waste any time announcing the declaration of "bring on the Lundgren!" At least there'd undoubtedly be a collection of moments where one inept actor is forced to express emotion but fails miserably due to that inextricable lack of talent, or we find ourselves embroiled in some sort of drunken dancing shimmy, where our very essences have been refracted onto the screen in a flash of hand canons
and gatling guns.

I don't envision any such happenings in the weepy, or in the relationship film. When was the last time Meg Ryan decided she would break up with her man (Peter Gallagher or someone) by spouting an assortment of biting one-liners? Or Sandra Bullock went into training under some mystic in order to woo her male conquest? I don't think it happened I'll tell you that much!

As for my own tastes, I'll have to align myself with Mr. Mathew Brewster's inclinations to give more credence to a film's director than any cluster of genre buzzwords. Stick a wonderfully embolden Cronenberg on that flick and I'll be sycophantically wandering around telling all the infidels about how it'll be the film of the year and how it'll blow the metaphors out your very analogies. Look at the symmetry on the `v' in Tarkovsky, or the wonderful shadow below the
`i's in Miike, it's a veritable orgasm of class.

So whether Jean-Pierre Jeunet makes a film about nasty cannibals hanging around a butcher, or a film about how some lovely lady touches the lives of her neighbours, it's all good to me.

From: DJ Radiohead
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

I have all the stereotypical aversions to chick flicks most guys would likely have. Of course, I think most of the action films aimed at men are rubbish as well. A movie whose main ingredients are former wrestlers and giant fucking explosions are about as likely to be shit as a Julia Roberts movie.

Johnny Cash summed up what is wrong with most love songs and love stories whether written or filmed in the liner notes of his Love, God, Murder box set:

What has happened to our love language? We have brought it down to three-minute sound bites - sandwiches in cute words that rhyme. And it's a shame that those love songs are played everywhere with no follow-up kisses to seal the words.

So many of these movies have cheapened the experience and feelings of love. Hollywood makes movies about immature love. I am all for escapism in films. I am all for seeing love and humanity portrayed as it should be or as it could be. However, real love and the love Hollywood depicts are about as different as a wank or dry hump is from making love: the entire time you are going through the motions you find yourself wishing and yearning for the real thing. Your loins will settle for a dry hump but your heart, mind, and soul are not so easily fooled.

Titanic tells the story all wrong and it won thirteen fucking Oscars! Kate Winslet meets Leonardo DiCaprio on a fucking boat and mistakes those intense feelings of infatuation and lust for undying love. The love story of Titanic is not the three hours we spend watching Kate and Leo run around on a sinking-ass boat. The love story is the lifetime Kate Winslet's character spends with the man she later marries and the family they raise together.

Even on the rare occasion when the stories being told are less insipid than the characters telling them, they do not seem real or even believable. I do not know the people in these movies. I love Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer as actors and have enjoyed many of their films. Al Pacino looks only slightly more like an ex-con turned fry cook than Michelle Pfeiffer looks like a waitress trying to escape the pain of an abusive relationship in Frankie and Johnny. Should that matter? Probably not, but it does to me. In what parallel universe is Janeane Garofalo so repulsive she would need Uma Thurman to fill in as her body double to get her a man (The Truth About Cats and Dogs)? Granted, Uma Thurman ain't too bad ugly, but you get the idea.

I guess I sound bitter and I suppose I am. I can attribute this bitterness to a lifetime spent developing well-honed neuroses. I never fancied myself much an object of desire in the eyes of the fairer sex and this was one area where most of the fairer sex seemed to agree with me. Watching a load of beautiful people decry their lack of sex or how they could never meet anyone interesting went up my ass sideways.

I used to feel bad when I watched chick flicks during my single years because they fanned the flames of those well-honed neuroses. I did not feel inspired or touched or moved. I felt cheap and bad and lonely. I do not know why I continued to watch them. I guess I was just bored or I really was that lonely. Caricatures would profess undying love in dramatic language and I was just positive no one would ever feel that way about me.

I was wrong about that. I met the Wife to Whom I Am Married while in college and I experienced love "Hollywood style." Then we grew up and our love grew up and we grew together. That is what Hollywood leaves out and that is what Johnny Cash meant. Love gets so much better than the acrobatic sex acts (not knocking those, by the way) or the roller coaster ride where each and every moment feels 1,000 times bigger and more intense than it actually is. The flames die down but the heat never does.

Maybe that does not make for such a good film but then someone in Hollywood approved the script for Can't Hardly Wait.

From: The Duke
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: Chick Flicks

It might be that I'm a big ol' poof and a ponce and a nancy-boy girly-girl, but the fact of the case is as follows:

I adore the very sodden guts out "chick flicks".

Or at least the good ones. Because here's the thing, like everyone has said, pretty much, a good film is a good film, whatever genre it fancies itself a part of.

But if we are to assume, as Sir Fleming did, that two flicks are being presented to yours truly, and that I know nothing about them save for the fact that one's called some shit like Zero Degree X and the other's called Two Folks Love For A Time, I'm gonna go with the fella meets the lady and the lady likes the fella but woe! He's married to some filthy whore treats him like a bag o' busted bladders. Dump that ho, I'll say, and get with that woman writes you songs and then sings them to you but pretends they're covers of Sheryl Crow b-sides cause she knows you got a ring on yonder finger.

Also, such a motion picture is more likely to feature Kirsten Dunst and be written and directed by Woody Allen.

I don't think it's a gender thing; it's just a taste issue. It's a damn filthy lie that folks are more likely to wanna see Steven Seagal (with Vinnie Jones as "Henry") blowing shit out a freight-train if'n they've got a willy twixt their pegs. You either dig the smush or you don't, I dunno if a hoo-hah makes any difference.

As Sirs Saleski and Dawson pretty much said, guns and explosions just bore the shit out my belly-pipes. But a shot of two folks holdin' hands side the river, well, most likely that'll have the tears carvin' trenches 'long my jowls and a smile size o' Kansas on my yap.

But if the rest of the flick sucks, well, don't matter how many montages it's got all about he misses her, she misses him, maybe they should put their differences aside and get filthin' again, it ain't gonna save it

2006-03-22T03:39:00.000+01:00

The trip to Alabama was lovely for many reasons, one of which was the beautiful spring like weather. Though it was overcast a bit, the temperatures were quite warm and the trees and flowers were all full of blossoms.

Today, the second day of spring mind you, we received several inches of snow. Not exactly the welcoming home present I had in mind.

An Ominous journey

2006-03-20T04:32:00.000+01:00

My wife and I spent this past week in Montgomery, Alabama visiting old friends (which explains my absense here). It was a lovely visit, but the travel was quite a thing.

There is a bit of a long road leading out of our home that curves and twists just before reaching the main highway. It is a very dangerous intersection that is desperately in need of a traffic light. Pulling closer to the intersection I noticed a city bus pulled over to the side of the road. The angle was a little off and I couldn’t make out if it was stopped in the road, thus blocking my way, or far enough to the side to allow me space.

As I approached, I could see that it was out of the way, and by looking underneath the bus I could see a rather damaged mini van on the other side of the bus. Realizing there must have been an accident, I approached with caution.

Riding past the bus I rubbernecked to see the damage. I wish I hadn’t. Lying just to the side of the road was a rather large person in blue sweatpants and a red t-shirt. Face down and not moving I couldn’t tell whether this person was alive or badly injured. A man and a woman were both standing near by beginning to attend to this person. Seeing that the paramedics were on there way, and knowing there was nothing I could do I drove on feeling sick and bleak towards a rough start to our trip.

Miles down the interstate I saw another accident. This time it was well after the fact, as the police and ambulances had taken care of any injured, leaving only smashed up vehicles to the side.

After our vacation we headed home Saturday evening. Somewhere in northern Alabama I gave my wife the driver’s seat so that I could get a little rest. I normally do most of the driving on our trips, but she is very helpful when I need a break and does some excellent driving.

Around 9:30 in the PM driving on I-65 in southern Tennessee with virtually no traffic about a dog ran straight in front of the car.

My wife jammed the brakes and veered sharply to the left. The anti-lock brakes locked up and we skidded sharply into the left lane, missing the dog.

My initial thoughts were there’s a dog. As the brakes locked I thought we should have just hit the dog.

The car skidded off the road into the medium between the highways. There had been a rain recently and we slid quickly through the muddy grass.

My wife excitedly cursed and called out to me.

I remained rather calm, taking the wheel while I tried to remember if you are supposed to turn into the swerve or against it. At this point I remember thinking that my wife should let her foot off the brake and pump it instead. Yet I knew that if I said anything to her it might cause her to panic even more and cause more harm.

Instead I held the wheel and kept saying that it was going to be ok.

The car fishtailed to the left and then turned 90 degrees facing our end of the interstate. We climbed the embankment and stopped just short of entering the interstate again.

A kind off duty fireman stopped to ensure we were ok. We check out the tires and checked underneath to make sure nothing was leading or broken. We drove the car back onto the interstate and made the rest of the trip a bit shaken, but unscathed.

Thinking back on my reactions I’m kind of proud of myself. I remained very calm. I wasn’t ever worried that we were going to cause serious harm to ourselves. I took the wheel and helped steer, I didn’t shout which would have cause my wife to be more nervous, but calmly spoke to her that it would be ok. The only concern I really had was that we would blow a tire, which would cause us a long delay in our return home.

We’re now home, safe and sound.

CD Review: Keller Williams - Grass

2006-03-13T00:44:00.000+01:00

Interesting covers are nothing new in the bluegrass world. There are bluegrass covers of Prince’s “1999”, Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart, Hayseed Dixie did a whole album of AC/DC covers, and who can forget Dolly Parton singing “Stairway to Heaven?”
The ubiquitous one man jam band Keller Williams has teamed up with Larry and Jenny Keel for an all bluegrass album titled “Grass.” It is an interesting mix of original tunes and covers from the likes of Pink Floyd, Tom Petty and the Grateful Dead, amongst others.
Keller Williams solo is a something of a minor miracle. Playing a variety of instruments including a 12 string guitar modified into a 10 string instrument, bass and synthesizers he creates a rainbow of sounds by looping them all together on delay system.
The Keel’s add some nice flavors to the music creating a more organic sound than Keller normally creates as a solo player. The pickin’ and a grinnin’ is nothing but sunshine. The trio play some mean bluegrass and are obviously having a great time doing it.
Keller, being the smart arsed clown that he is, just can’t stop himself from tweaking the covers he chooses. So we get “Mary Jane’s Last Breakdown” which is a creative mixing up of the two Tom Petty tunes, and a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Loser” bookended by the chorus of Beck’s song of the same name. Both work better than they have any right to.
The low spot is the Pink Floyd cover “Another Brick in the Wall.” While the playing there remains solid, gone is the dark cynicism of the original version. Pink Floyd play the song with a sneer towards the horror of elementary school. Keller plays it with a wink and a smile at how clever he is for doing such an interesting cover but misses the soul of the song.
The standouts are the three original Keller Williams tunes. The album opener “Goofballs” is a fast, hilarious ode to the drug induced road trip. With lyrics like

Rockin' it, never stoppin' it,
Cap'n Kirk and Spock'n it
Transforming the road into the holodeck
Crunchin' it and punchin' it, casually lunchin' it
Doin' what you can to avoid the wreck

it’s hard not to smile like a freight train.

The other two self-penned tracks, “Crater in the “Backyard” and “Local” contain the same type of smart-allecked lyrics and jubilant melodies.

“Dupree’s Diamond Blues” might just be better than the original Grateful Dead version. There is a lightness of touch and buoyancy in Keller’s version that the Dead could never muster.

“Grass” is a jubilant touch of newgrass that for the most part will satisfy my bluegrass needs until the next summer festival.

Concert Review - Railroad Earth (March 10, 2006)

2006-03-12T04:54:00.000+01:00

It has been over a year since my last real concert, something unheard of in Brewsterland. Sure, over the years my ability to go out and hear live music has decreased, but I’ve always managed to see a show at least once every few months.

I did go to the Strasbourg Music Festival last spring, but it was more about the madness and chaos of walking the densely populated city streets than really sitting and listening to one band play. Ah, a mad scene that was with local bands of all flavors playing on every corner, alleyway and sidewalk. You couldn’t hear one band for the three others playing down the road.

But other than that it was the summer of 2004 since I caught anything live or musical. Wow, just reading that makes me sad.

There is nothing like live music. With all the technical wizardry and beeps and gadgets they come up with in the studio, as amazing as some of it is, it just can’t beat the magic that comes from hearing a band playing live for all they’ve got. Standing in a crowd of people moving in one groove as the sounds pump right through your insides is nothing short of awesome.

I once saw Phil Lesh one hot Thursday afternoon in Oklahoma City. It was well over a hundred degrees and I was standing in a patch of ground that had been baked into dust. I came home drenched in sweat, sun burned beyond recognition and caked in dirt, dust. It was one of the best times of my life.

So, it was with great anticipation that I waited for Friday night to come and my chance to see Railroad Earth at the Bluebird in Bloomington, IN.

My wife laying low with a migraine I invited my friend and coworker to tag along.

Arriving I was a little trepidacious, having never been a part of the press corps, or guest list. I approached the ticket counter (actually a burly young man sitting in the first booth for the bar.)

“Do you have tickets?” he asked.

“Um, I should be on the guest list. It’s Mat Brewster.”

Scanning the two pages of guest list he asked me again what my name was. Peering at the same list I could see a Mat Hutchins listed with Blogcritics next to it.

“Yeah, that’s me, I’m from Blogcritics. “

Both relieved that I got in, and a little annoyed that they got my name completely wrong we went inside.

The Bluebird is an old country bar that saw its best days around a couple of decades ago. It is old and worn and best seen through a smoky haze, something you don’t get anymore since the city has outlawed smoking pretty much everywhere.

The stage has grown since the last time I visited. A couple of years ago I saw Sam Bush and his band could barely fit on the tiny platform. I’ve always loved the stage, though. It stands about waist high and is set up so that you can get within inches of the band.

I first came to know Railroad Earth, oddly enough, through a t-shirt of syndicated radio host, David Gans. After hearing him rave about them again on the Grateful Dead Hour I downloaded one of their shows on archive.org and found there really was something to rave about. Those boys can cook!

They are a hard band to describe. They play bluegrass instruments (banjo, fiddle, dobro, mandolin, etc.) but have a drummer and everything is plugged in and amped up. You can hear influences from bluegrass to jazz to straight up rock and roll.

In an age where musicians get more hype for their clothes than their songs it is refreshing to hear a band really getting off on music, without even a glance at the bottom line.

Even with six musicians on the stage I could clearly hear each instrument. The band came to jam, and the improvisations often extended a song out for more than 15 minutes. Yet unlike so many jam bands their jams never turned into noodle fests. They were unique and interesting extensions and transitions of the songs, while still maintaining the integrity of the melody.

At the beginning of the second set, another fellow coworker showed up with some buddies, drunk off their arses, all three. Suddenly, I was in the middle of what I absolutely despise at concerts – a group who would rather talk, and make loud, dumb comments than listen. I hate those people, and now I was one of them.

What could I do, what can you do when you’ve got three drunks shouting at you that the place smells like a toilet and that there are no cute girls? Thankfully, they left after a couple of songs.

The crowd was fairly small, with the venue about half full. South-Central Indiana is a bit far off from their normal fan base. But those who were there were full of smiles and white boy dance grooves. It was an odd mix of frat boys, middle aged couples and neo-hippies.

God bless hippies.

Several beautiful young hippy ladies were dolled out in flowing, blowing long skirts. They danced, whirled and twirled on the second tier floor oblivious to everything and everyone but the songs.

My drunken friends returned and I had to swear that I was on my second beer (though I had only taken a few sips of my first) to keep my coworker quiet and calm. At this point they were so zonked they pretended to dig the band so they could hit on the girls.

Ignoring them I continued let the groove move me to other worlds. The psychedelic outings of “Warhead Boogie” and “Like a Buddha” left me more than emotionally erect, and fully satisfied. On these songs the band was so tight, so connected they moved as if they were a cohesive whole of one organism rather than six distinct individuals.

We headed home at 1:30. The band played a full 2 and half hours of joyful, mind blowing music. I made it home exhausted, but completely satisfied.

Calendar Movies: Ben-Hur

2006-03-10T03:48:00.000+01:00

“What are you doing this weekend?” a fellow coworker asked.

“I have to work Saturday and then I’m going to a maple syrup festival and then on to my in- laws in Palmyra, Indiana.”

“Oh, that’s nice.” Came the uninterested eye-rolled reply.

The thing is, it was nice. My days of going to the clubs, to the bars, enjoying the scene are long gone, if, in fact, they ever existed.

An enjoyable evening to me anymore is a well made, home cooked meal, a good DVD on the TV and a nice book to tuck me in at night.

I turn 30 years old on March 25. A fact that both announces itself with every breath I take, and sneaks up on me every day.

With each passing day I feel more the recluse, more the anti-social hermit. It’s not that I don’t like people, for I enjoy a number of folk’s company. I like to laugh and tell stories and hang out. It’s more that I don’t feel the need to meet more people. The spark of excitement I once got at a room full of fresh faces is gone. Give me a small gathering in a familiar cozy setting and I’m much happier.

When I started this concept of Calendar Movies I had visions of lavish parties where my guests would dress up as characters from this month’s film and eat and drink and have the times of their lives. Yet the reality has become that the parties are small affairs. Three or four people come for a simple dinner and sit quietly throughout the films.

Several times, I’ve gotten bewildered faces upon invitation to the party. As if why anyone would want to watch an old movie is simply beyond them. For The Wizard of Oz, I was even laughed at.

So, it is fitting that I watched March’s Calendar Movie with my in-laws, in their little home in small town USA.

For as long as I can remember I’ve had itchy feet. I just can’t seem to stay in one place for very long. For this, I completely blame my dad. He is a home builder by trade and as a child he would build a house, move us in, then sell the house and move us into a rental. Then he’d build another one and start the vicious circle all over again. He built entire subdivisions over the years and I think I lived in every house on the block.

I have never, ever lived in one home for more than a few years.

This constant moving has stayed the same in my grown up years. Since moving out 11 years ago I’ve lived in 9 cities, 6 states and 2 countries.

Though in many ways this has been exciting, I’ve also lost any sense of home. My life is packed away into boxes, always intending to be unpacked, but never settled before its time to move again.

In the five years I’ve been with my wife, her parent’s house has become my home. No, I’ve never truly lived there, but it has become all of those things I think of when I think of home – stability, warmth and comfort.

When my wife (then girlfriend) spent one summer in Montreal and our relationship, along with my career and life, were up in the air, I spent a few days in that little house in Palmyra. It was there I felt like things might be ok. It was there I found some sense of myself.

It was there again that I sat last Saturday night watching Ben-Hur. And though the kids at work will continue to roll their eyes and laugh at me, and I know I’ll never make the society pages, I’ve come to realize that it is there that I belong.

Random Shuffle

2006-03-07T04:09:00.000+01:00

Rolling Stones - Everybody Needs Somebody to Love
The Rolling Stones, Now!

I recently got my hands on a number of earlier classic Stones albums. In fact, I’ve only recently gotten into the Stones again. I’m continually amazed at their vast amount of really great music. It’s easy to listen to their “hits” collection played over and over on classic rock radio and overlook what amounts to one of the greatest mass of tunes in rock-n-roll.

This song is from their 1965 album of covers, which makes it their third album released in the US. You can still here the early 1950’s rock-n-roll influence and even some doo-wop slipping in. It’s a catchy little number, but something of a novelty throw-away in the pantheon of Rolling Stones music.

Bob Dylan – I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)
Biograph

Apparently a live version of the song originally on the Another Side of Bob Dylan album, though I wouldn’t have guessed it had I not read the fact while researching the song. Not a favorite song of mine, but as with many Dylan songs, even when their not great, their pretty stinking good.

Ryan Adams - Elizabeth You Were Born To Play That Part
05/01/05

This comes from a five disk compilation of live shows from 2005 called Bedhead which I assume comes from Ryan Adams generally disheveled coif. This is a quiet, beautiful piano ballad from the third of Ryan’s releases in 2005, 29. Like many of Ryan’s ballads this song is so quiet it’s hard to actually hear what’s going on. But if you can manage to remove all distractions and really get into it, there is a song of heartbreaking proportions.

Grateful Dead – Drums
Dicks Picks 5 (12-26-79)

The Dead always dug their drummers. So much that they hired two of them. By 1979 Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann had created a monolithic beast of every sort of drum and percussionary instrument. At 4 minutes 22 seconds this is a relatively short (and tame) version of “Drums” but still manages to create an interesting snake chasing menagerie of rhythm.

Wilco – Jesus, Etc
6/28/05

By now Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has been praised, lauded, magnified more than any album deserves to be, and yet it remains a masterpiece – a freaking glorious album. This is a pretty spot on live version with some nice keyboard action.

A Bad Day At Work

2006-03-07T03:20:00.000+01:00

I get to work at about 7:20 in the AM and start my normal duties of opening the office. One of the supervisors is out on vacation so it is quite a busy morning. Nothing really strenuous, but very busy.

Due to a couple of meetings I work straight through my lunch.

By five o’clock I am more than ready to go home. At this time, one of my part time reps starts asking me about her PTO. She believes that she should have more time off than her file is showing because, she says, she made up some of the hours.

Part time reps often have the availability to make up hours they have taken off in any given week. For example, they could take off a scheduled Monday and work the same hours on that Friday, when they are normally scheduled off.

Though exhausted, I go through her file and do find a couple of things that are out of place. I find my boss and start chatting with her about it.

The thing is, Human Resources made major changes to our attendance policy at the New Year, and now none of us really know how it works.

After fifteen minutes or so we are still very much hashing it out. Another supervisor, Millie, walks into the boss’s office and turns in some paperwork.

Now, for whatever reason this happens to me a lot. I’ll be sitting in the boss’s office discussing some issue, and someone else will walk in, completely ignore the fact that I’m sitting there and start talking to the boss. Normally it is a quick question and I’m not bothered, but sometimes it is a longer conversation and I’m forced to sit there and wait so that I can finish my discussion.

I’ve talked to my boss about this before and she has always apologized and said she’ll try to make others wait. But she’s kind of like me, with no attention span, and gets distracted by others easily.

So there I am again in the middle of a discussion with my boss and Millie does it to me again. She turns in a review, that was due last week by the way, and my boss starts looking at it.

There is a little discussion about it because Millie has written her review in the third person instead of the first. This is no big deal because it’s kind of funny and is only taking a moment.

But then Millie whips out some other forms and sits down to discuss them with my boss. She has completely pushed me aside. At this point I start to get mad. I wait, and wait for several minutes waiting for the boss to get back to me.

After about 5 minutes I get up and walk away. I go talk to some folks and clear my desk off. After about 10 minutes I walk back into the office and stand staring at Millie, willing her to shut up and leave.

I want to scream. I want to punch her in the face. I stand there another minute and walk away.

Finally about 5:30 I get to sit down with my boss again and hash everything out.

It’s not really that I’m still mad at Millie or that what she did was particularly heinous. She just became that final straw. What is it about me that everyone seems to think they can push me aside?

To me that is incredibly rude. If I have something super quick I’ll jump in front of someone and ask the boss. Otherwise I either wait, or leave and come back later. I really don’t know how to do otherwise. I truly didn’t know what to do with Millie.

DVD Collection

2006-03-04T03:11:00.000+01:00

12 Monkeys
24: Season 1 (6 disks)
28 Days Later
400 Blows
2001
Abyss
About Schnmidt
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Volume 3 (2 Disks)
Adaptation
Alien
Amelie
And God Created Woman
Animal House
Army of Darkness
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
Band of Brothers (Disks 3-6)
Barton Fink
Basic Instinct
Batman
A Beautiful Mind
Bed and Board
Being John Malkovich
The Big Lebowski
The Big Sleep
The Birth of a Nation
The Blair Witch Project
Blue Velvet
Bonnie and Clyde
Brazil
Breakfast at Tiffanys
Bride of Frankenstein
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Bridget Jones Diary
Bringing Out the Dead
Broadcast News
Brokeback Mountain
Broken Flowers
Bulletproof Monk
Buster Keaton Collection (2 Disks)
Caddyshack
The Cameraman
Cape Fear (1961)
Capote
Carnage
Casablanca
Casino
Catch Me if You Can
Charlie Chaplin Collection
Cheers: Season One (four disks)
Cheers: Season Two (four disks)
Cheers: Season Three (four disks)
Cheers: Season Four (four disks)
The China Syndrome
Chinese Ghost Story
City Lights
City of God
The City of Lost Children
Cleo From 5 to 7
Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Le Corbeau
Conspiracy Theory
Constant Gardener
The Corpse Bride
Crash
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
The Decline of the American Empire
The Deep End
The Deer Hunter
Desperado
Die Hard
Do the Right Thing
Dog Day Afternoon
Donnie Brasco
Dracula
Dracula (Spanish Version)
Dracula's Daughter
Duel
Edward Scissorhands
El Mariachi
Erin Brokovich
Escape From Alcatraz
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Evil Dead
Evil Dead IIThe Exorcist
A Farewell to Arms
Father Goose
Father's Little Dividend
Le Femme Nikita
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
A Few Good Men
Fight Club
The Fighting Caravans
Finding Nemo
Five Easy Pieces
The Fog (1980)
Fox and the Hound
Fudoh: The Next Generation
Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Yakuza
Frankenstein
Free and Easy
Gaslight (1940)
Gaslight (1944)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Ghost of Frankenstein
Ghost World
Ghostbusters
Gladiator
Go
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
The Godfather Part III
The Good the Bad and the Ugly
Goodfellas
Goodnight, and Goodluck
Gone With the Wind (2 disks)
Gosford Park
Grand Hotel
Grand Illusion
The Grateful Dead: Anthem to Beauty
The Grateful Dead: Ticket to New Years
The Great Dictator
The Great Escape
Gremlins
Groundhog Day
A Hard Day's Night
The Haunting (1963)
High and Low
High Fidelity
High Society
A Hole in the Head
Hostel
House of Dracula
House of Flying Daggers
House of Frankenstein
House On Haunted Hill (1959)
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
I Heart Huckabees
The Ice Harvest
In the Bedroom
In the Name of the Rose
Indiscreet
Intolerable Cruelty
It Happened One Night
The Italian Job (1969)
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
Jaws
Jumanji
Key Largo
Kill Bill Vol 1
King Kong (1933)
King Kong (2005)
The King of Comedy
La Dolce Vita
The Last Time I Saw Paris
Laurel Canyon
Lawrence of Arabia
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
Life of Brian
Little Ceasar
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Looney Tunes Golden Collectin Vol I
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings
Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
Lord of War
Lost In Translation
Love on the Run
Maltese Falcon
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)
The Man Who Wasn't There
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Master and Commander
Mars Attacks!
The Matrix
Michael
Midnight Cowboy
Miller's Crossing
Millions
Modern Times
Monster's Inc.
Mr Deeds Goes To Town
Murder (1930)
My Fair Lady
Nibelungen: Siegfried
Nibelugen: Kriemhild's Revenge
Nightmare on Elm Street
Number 17
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the Old West
Out of Sight
Panic Room
Patton
Persuasion
Petits frères
The Philadelphia Story
Pi
The Pianist
The Pink Panther
The Pink Panther Strikes Again
Point Blank (1967)
The Polar Express
The Poseidon Adventure
The Princess Bride
Princess Mononoke
The Professional
Punch Drunk Love
Raging Bull
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Rashomon
Rear Windwow (1954)
Resevoir Dogs
Revenge of the Pink Panther
Road to Perdition
Rocky
Roman Holiday
Royal Tenenbaums
Rushmore
Sabotage (1936)
Samurai I
Say Anything
Schindler's List
Secret Agent(1936)
Seven
Seven Samurai
Sex, Lies and Videotape
Shaun of the Dead
The Shining (1980)
Shrek
Sideways
Silence of the Lambs
Silverado
Simpsons: Season One
Simpsons: Season Two
Simpsons: Season Three
Simpsons: Season Four
Simpsons: Season Six
Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror
Small Change
Son of Dracula
Son of Frankenstein
Spirited Away
Spite Marriage
Star Wars: Episode One - The Phantom Menace
Star Wars: Episode Two - Attack of the Clones
Star Wars: Episode Five - The Empire Strikes Back
Superman
Sunset Boulevard
Swimming Pool
Swingers
Taxi Driver
Three Amigos
Three Kings
Time Bandits
To Be and To Have
To Catch a Thief
To Die For
To Have and to Have Not
Umbrellas of Cherbourg
A Very Long Engagement
Victor/Victoria
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbitt
What About Bob
When Harry Met Sally
Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
The Wild Bunch
Wizard of Oz
X Files: Season 1
X Files: Season 2
Yojimbo
Young Guns
Young Guns II
Young Frankenstein

The Continuing Sage of the Runaway DVD Burner

2006-03-03T04:45:00.000+01:00

Read the history of my DVD burner here.

I received my burner back from the shop today. I was kind of hoping they would either give me a brand new burner or store credit. After talking it over with a coworker I decided that I would do better with a Plextor DVD burner than the Iomega I got for Christmas.

The store I bought it from does not have any external Plextor drives for sale. So I thought if I got store credit I could buy something else or even if I got a new Iomega burner I could Ebay it and get my money back.

Nope, I got my old one back; with a note from the shop saying they found nothing wrong with it. They also noted that the software that came with the burner was useless, but I should have no problem with the Nero software.

I sighed recalling the fact that I had already tried Nero.

Deciding to give it one more shot, I plugged everything back in. Opening the burner drawer, I noticed a copy of Bulletproof Monk inside.

Well, I thought, there is something for my trouble and the cost of shipping it to the shop.

But then I thought some more. If they had a DVD inside the burner, then they must have used it to rip the DVD as well. On all my previous tries, I ripped the DVD using the internal DVD player on the laptop.

I inserted Bulletproof Monk back into the burner and tried to rip it. Nope, that didn’t work. I immediately got an error. Persistency was my friend, and I tried another DVD. The Polar Express worked just fine.

I ripped it clean, and held my breath as it went to the burning stage.

5% 10% 15%

I couldn’t watch. I knew at any moment it would kick the disk out and give me an error.

30%

I was farther than I had ever gotten before.

I nervously kicked back with a rerun of the Simpsons.

100% Successfully completed!

Rock the Kasbah my good man we have victory!

Thank you and goodnight.

DVD Review: Sleuth

2006-03-01T02:35:00.000+01:00

Rating: ***1/2

A delightful plot-twisting mystery starring Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier and nothing but Michael Cain and Laurence Olivier – albeit in two roles for Michael Caine. It is essentially a showcase for both actors, and it is quite a show they put on.

The plot gets complicated, but essentially Olivier plays a mystery writer in the vein of Agatha Christie. He is the jilted lover where Michael Caine is lover to Olivier’s wife. The two meet at Olivier’s house to discuss the state of things. Fiendish plot point after another and things get sinister and fun very quickly. There isn’t much more to say, for letting the twists and turns come as they are is half the fun.

Director Joseph L Mankeiwicz manages to adapt what was originally a successful stage play into the cinema very well. He uses his set pieces as supporting actors. There are dozens of games lying about Olivier’s house, and nearly all of them play some part of the plot.

Though the DVD seems to be out of print, Sleuth is well worth tracking down at the local library or video club.

DVD Review: Father's Little Dividend

2006-03-01T00:18:00.000+01:00

Rating: **

Like many of my generation I am more familiar with the Steve Martin remakes of the Father of the Bride series than the original Spencer Tracy versions. The original is less flamboyant (there is no Martin Short counterpart), more realistic (the mother is not also pregnant) and more notable for its 1950’s sensibility (Tracy is shocked – shocked – that his daughter would think of having a baby naturally) than its general film qualities.

It is a cute, well made picture. The jokes are mostly funny, if not all that memorable or hilarious. The cast (including a very young Elizabeth Taylor) plays its parts well. The direction is adequate, if again not all that memorable.

There are a couple of particularly nice moments including a card game played while Elizabeth Taylor’s character is bursting at the seems. She squeals at a bad hand forcing a reaction out of everyone else as if she was having the baby on the table.

Overall, the picture is a harmless, enjoyable viewing, but nothing that will last much past the night. It’s the kind of movie to watch with your grandparents on a lazy Sunday afternoon that you can feel warm and pleasant after watching.

Calendar Movies: The Wizard of Oz

2006-02-27T05:25:00.000+01:00

For Christmas I received a brilliant calendar with movie posters from the classic age of cinema. Each month I have decided to have a dinner party culminating in a viewing of that particular month's movie.

The continual beat of the baby drum has been getting louder and louder at Chez Brewster. I will turn 30 on March 25 which means my wife will turn the same six months later. With an empty crib and old age coming quickly, the old biological clock is drumming out all other sounds. No matter how much cotton I stick in my ears, in my ear I hear the ever constant shout of my wife saying,

“Let’s have a baby. Let’s have a baby. Let’s have a baby…now!”

I finally relented. I finally gave in and…I got her a cat. That softened the drumming a little. The relentless chanting of “BABY – BABY – BABY” slowed down to a whisper. It was still there, but I could at least drown it out with an old episode of Moonlighting, or Ryan Adams’ excellent, never released album Destroyer. For a little while anyway.

Really, I know I’m on the losing end of an argument. Sooner or later I must give up and agree to have a child. In fact, I want to have children, just not now. I don’t know when, and certainly I must admit the time is quickly becoming now, but the thought of how much I’ll have to give up, at how much work children are makes me want to wait a few more years.

The other day, without provocation, and without discussion, in a nonchalant manner my wife mentions that we’ll start trying this summer. I was too shocked and too tired to attempt an argument. At this point I’ve pretty much given in to the idea.

My friend, and coworker, Tim, keeps telling me to take his three children for the weekend.

“Two days with my kids and she’ll never want any of her own,” he says.

February’s classic calendar movie is the Wizard of Oz. This, I thought, was the perfect opportunity to invite Tim and children over to test his theory. For $20 he promised to bribe his kids into behaving badly.

In our typical, wait till the last minute approach we hit the stores on Friday night in search of a copy of the movie. $50. That’s what they are asking for some new whiz bang 4 disk version of the Wizard of Oz. Fifty freaking bucks for a movie. We ran all over town looking for an earlier, cheaper version. Found a 2 disk special edition for $20 at Best Buy. Still more than I wanted to pay, but what can you do when you’ve invited guests over to watch a movie and it’s too late for Netflix?

Also invited were my co-supervisor Christina, her husband, and seven month old boy.

Everybody arrived and Tim collected his $20 bucks. We had a very lovely lasagna dish with salad and breadsticks.

None of the children were particularly bad behaved. Tim’s kids range in age from about 5 to 11, and while they were not hellions at all, they were full of energy. What with the excitement of our cat and the 6 month old baby they didn’t know what to do. They ran around, wrestled and told me jokes.

You know the ones about the fat kid named Chubby, who you mimic by pressing your hands to your cheeks making them fat.

After eating and some good chatting, Christina and family had to leave.

The movie was put in and we all settled down to Dorothy, the Witch and Oz.

“Where’s the color?” Tim’s oldest, Brennan asked. This was followed by a continual, perpetual inquisition on why the film was in black and white.

At first I thought this was some kind of complaint that the movie was in black and white. I remember being a kid and not wanting to watch old black and white films. After a minute, I realized the chanting wasn’t some annoyance at old movies, but was in anticipation of Dorothy’s arrival in Oz, where the film turns into a Technicolor dream.

The Wizard of Oz is, of course, a classic. It is one of the world’s most beloved films.

My oldest memory of the film is watching it at my grandmother’s house one summer. This was back in the days when it was shown annually on television. I was playing Twister with my cousins in the living room and watching the movie simultaneously. Whenever a scene with the Wicked Witch of the West would come on I run to my mother and close my eyes. Only opening them when my mother said it was safe.

The new DVD transfer looks marvelous. The contrast from the dreary, weary land of Kansas and the wild, swirling whirling colors of Oz is more vivid and amazing than ever before.

After we got color, the kids mostly settled down, except for the occasional wisecrack from Brennan and a peculiar desire in all the kids in seeing a darker, horror version of the picture, where the Tin Man is a robotic vampire.

The movie ended, delicious peanut butter pie was eaten and everybody when on their merry way.

“Let’s have a baby,” my wife said as we shut the door.

Tell Tim I want my $20 bucks back.

Random Shuflle

2006-02-25T05:07:00.000+01:00

Inspired by Dave Nalle’s Blogcritic post, Take Cover, My iPod's on Shuffle! I have provide my own list of 10 songs that randomly shuffle into my MP3 player (sorry I don’t have an iPod).

Road to Joy – Bright Eyes
Thanks to the Duke de Mondo, I have become quite a fan of Bright Eyes. This is one of the better song off the mostly excellent I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning album.

You Never Give Me Your Money – Beatles
One of my favorite songs, from my favorite Side B of any album anywhere. From the Angelically sad beginning to the schoolboy chanting of the end, I absolutely love this tune.

Desolation Row – Bob Dylan
From the underrated Unplugged album. Not my favorite Dylan tune by a long shot, but that still puts it far above half the songs ever written.

You’re the One – Paul Simon
One of about three decent songs on his last album. A song that will forever remind me of my wife, for it came about during the beginning of our heavy dating stage, and she really dug it.

I Thought You Were My Boyfriend – The Magnetic Fields
A peculiarly great song from a peculiarly great little band.

Graceland – Paul Simon
Out of the 1000+ songs sitting in my WinAmp right now, what are the odds I would get two Paul Simon tunes? Or how about two songs from the MTV show Unplugged?

Lengths – The Black Keys
A song just sent to me by my sister’s husband, Brian. It’s got a nice laid back blues kind of feel to it, but I haven’t heard it enough to decide how I really feel about it.

Greensboro Woman – Townes Van Zandt
Honestly, if you don’t know Townes, then you really have no choice but to seek him out. Truly one of the great American songwriters of my time, or anyone elses. A great, lovely song full of sadness and heartache.

You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome – Bob Dylan
Really, what are the odds? Maybe it’s my shuffle mode. I do notice WinAmp tends to play a lot of the same songs, while leaving out some other choices.

Well, there it is. I’m not sure what to make of it, honestly. Maybe I’ll make this a regular feature. Maybe I’ll never visit this again.

DVD Review: The Eye

2006-02-17T04:35:00.000+01:00

There is an old horror story about a normal law-abiding citizen getting a transplant from a psychopathic killer. Seems that body part still has the memory of its former owner and wants to take up the killings again.

This premise has been aped in countless movies and TV shows, most notably in Body Parts starring Jeff Fahey (or is it Fah-hay?) and that Simpsons episode where Homer has Snakes hair transplanted to his bald head. It is a pretty tired premise; one that has been done so many times all the originality has been drained from it. I’m waiting for the day when Hollywood green lights a picture about a little girl who gets a toe transplant from Charles Manson.

Chinese directors, the Pang brothers try to breathe some life into the concept with their 2002 feature, The Eye. Unfortunately, it is the first of the so called Asian Extreme pictures that I’ve seen that I’ve found to be rather lackluster.

It isn’t for a lack of trying. The Pang brothers bring an eye of originality to the premise and create an atmosphere that is quite creepy and interesting. At least in the first half.

In this case, the transplanted body parts are eyeballs. A young blind girl, Wong Kar Mun (Angelica Lee) receives an eye transplant and thusly begins seeing dead people, a la The Sixth Sense.

The Brothers Pang introduce this concept by having the dead show up in shadows. Visually the first half of the film is stunning. We see the world through Mun’s adjusting-to-sight eyes and there are creeping things lurking just about everywhere. In an impossible to explain in words, but absolutely must see series of scenes Mun comes to understand that what she sees with her eyes is beyond the realm of the natural. As a viewer I was knocked up side the head with the brilliant display of imagery

There is no “I see dead people” revelation here. The revelations come slowly, building tension along the way. Having no concept of vision, Mun has no understanding of what is real and what may be supernatural. By allowing the audience to understand quickly what Mun must slowly learn, the film is quite effective in creating a sense of horror.

The camera pans slowly around corners as the music builds anticipation to what could be hiding just out of sight. There are nice jolts of music as the camera reveals a new surprise. Here it seems the Pang brothers have taken a page out of the American scary movie pages instead of the Asian counterpart. Scare the people with jolts instead of developing actual creepy situations.

In the second half, the film begins to truly unravel. With only a few conversations, Mun manages to have her psychotherapist, fall in love with her and be willing to drop everything and travel to Thailand to investigate the donor of her dead seeing eyes.

From horror the movie now travels into a melodramatic mystery. The doctor and Mun find dark secrets in the story of the young lady who had Mun’s eyes first. Of course they are forced into setting things right, and the movie pretty much falls apart.
Oh, it’s nothing terrible or cringe inducing, but it is formulaic and not nearly as interesting as the first two thirds of the film.

I found The Eye in the foreign section of my local Blockbuster. It was well worth the five dollars I laid down for it, if just for the glorious visuals of the first half.

Movie Review: Walk the Line

2006-02-12T02:03:00.000+01:00

Rating: ***1/2

Since being married going to the cinema has become a rare thing. Pre-marriage (or really, pre-dating the woman who became my wife) I was going to the movies once, twice a week. Now, I’m lucky if I get to the movies once a month. I’d like to blame this solely on my wife (and in fact often do) but the reality is that it’s not really her fault.

I’m older. I have responsibilities. I can no longer spend every weekend in a darkened theatre watching the old celluloid. The wife is in graduate school, she teaches classes, she does adult learning at the library, and she can’t spend every weekend watching the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Put us together and it is difficult for us to spend a meal in each other’s company much less actually get out together.

When we do make it to the movies, I’m always very excited. Movie going is an almost spiritual experience for me. As a teenager my family and I bonded through movies. We might fight over everything else, but the cinema was shelter. To this day when I travel to Oklahoma to see my folks we inevitably go to the movies. It’s just built into our psyche. Family = movies.

So my wife and I went to the Johnny Cash biopic, Walk the Line the other day.

Worst audience ever.

But first we’ll talk about the theatre itself. It is an older one, made before the new wave of super-ultra theatres with 20 screens and stadium seating all equipped with your own personal Laz-E Boy.

The floor was pretty much flat. The walls were covered with ugly, green curtains circa 1972. The floors were sticky and unclean. The chairs were moldy and uncomfortable.

I go to the movies early. My preferred buffer of time is 30 minutes. This ensures I get the best seat (middle row, middle seat spaced between the speakers) and don’t miss a moment of the film. It’s also allows for things like traffic, and large crowds.

So, the movie starts, and of course there are two or three groups of people coming in late. Late! How hard is it to get to the movies on time? They have a schedule; it’s posted a week in advance for crying out loud. If you can’t show up on time, catch the next flick or stay at home.

These late comers come in, talking of course, and rudely continuing a conversation started in the lobby. There big heads get in the way of the screen while they shuffle into their seats.

The staff forgets to shut the door to the theatre so I can continually hear everybody in the aisles and hallways talking through the whole picture.

Oddly, a group of four, young, Asian girls sitting right in front of me get up and leave 10 minutes into the picture. Their spots are immediately taken up by a group of three middle-age to old ladies all wearing those floppy toboggans. Toboggans they do not take off and that all have the little fluffy balls on top. Little fluffy balls on top that get right in my line of sight.

I always get anxious before a film starts because of all the talking. But as the movies starts usually people shut the crap up. It works out this way for most of Walk the Line. Well, until old lady a couple of rows up gets a phone call on her cellular. Gladly, I don’t hear a ring, but she sure enough picks up and starts talking in the theatre.

“Hello. Who is this?”

She looks around a bit trying to decide if she can explain to the caller where she is and that she’ll call this person back. Nope, I guess she can’t because she gets up and continues chatting, loudly, as she walks out.

Really, who is that important that they have to answer their phone at every moment?

Cell phone lady leaves. Filmatic enjoyment continues. On the screen Johnny Cash begins to sing “Folsom Prison Blues” for Sam Phillips. Dude sitting next to my wife begins singing along. Not in a silent, toe tapping kind of way, but a belting it out for everyone to hear manner.

Ruins the cinematic moment.

Loud singing guy continues to talk through entire film. Just random stories about Johnny Cash’s life and what’s going on in the film.

Beyond the audience, there actually was a movie playing, and that a rather good one.

The film follows the life of Cash from childhood up until he marries June Carter. Joaquin Phoenix gives his usual wonderful performance as the Man in Black. It took me a little while to adjust to thinking of Joaquin as Johnny Cash. Cash was such a larger than life icon any actor would have difficulty portraying him. Yet after an initial adjustment period, Joaquin sinks right into the Cash skin.

Reese Witherspoon is an actress I enjoy, but have never really appreciated as a “real” actress. With films like Legally Blonde and Sweet Home Alabama under her belt it is difficult to take her seriously. She’s like Meg Ryan in that her bubbly enthusiasm is hard not to get swept up in, but as a serious actress she’s rarely had the chance to prove herself. At least in my experience.

She plays June Carter in the same exuberant manner we’ve come to expect from Reese. It is a June Carter I’ve never seen before. I know the June Carter Cash of the last few years of her life: a reserved, loving wife; a kindly woman, and lovely singer. It was a strange thing to see her full of the zestful energy reserved for young country stars. Not that this isn’t an accurate portrayal of Ms Carter during this part of her life, it’s just a part of her life I’ve never seen before.

All is not bubbles and fun though, and Reese brings a weight to the character that is smart and well performed. We can see the difficulties of being a young woman carrying on the legacy of her family and still trying to be a modern woman. We can understand the heartache she feels as she both loves Johnny Cash and abhors the life he is living. It is a fine performance all around.

It is a fine film that doesn’t really cover any new ground, biopic wise. There is the troubled childhood, the rise to stardom, the hard fall with drugs and pain and the redemption through love and a little concert amongst hardened criminals.

For Cash fans there isn’t any new ground dug up, but it’s a lot of fun. The leads perform to perfection, and the songs are classic. For non fans the story is a good one and the performances are enough to make a few new fans along the way.

The Hot Topic: Writing Ambitions

2006-02-12T00:56:00.000+01:00

From a half-mad ragbag collective of high-minded but low paid bloggers referred to in hushed tones in speakeasies across the land as the Mondo Gentleman's Club comes the Hot Topic. Watch slack-jawed as the panel dissects the critical and cultural issues of the day! Wince as it sinks in a frenzy of angsty whining and barefaced self-promotion.

Mind your heads as you enter, readers, and stick to the path...

This issue: What are your writing ambitions?

From: Mathew Brewster

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

I got a BA in English not because I love grammar and such, but that I love to read and figured talking about literature for a living wouldn't be such a bad thing. Plus English degress have minimal math requirements. I got sidetracked in graduate school and now my degree is little more than a $15,000 wall hanging, but I digress. Along with the grammar and the literature I took some writing classes. Loved 'em.

Writing was (and is) tiresome, frustrating and difficult, but extremely rewarding. I remember sitting in a poetry class getting a big ovation for one of my readings and feeling completely elated. Thus began the whispers of hope that maybe someday I could be a writer.

I'm much too practical to take that whispering too seriously though. Go to your local Barnes and Nobles and count the books on the shelves. A very small minority of these books are best sellers. And these are the ones that actually make the shelves of a big giant book chain. How many books never see the light of a booksellers shelves? How many writers never get published? That's a lot to fight against.

The blogging phenomenon has suddenly made writers out of all of us. Instantly I can publish my latest sublimely written piece to the world. Millions can read my work with the click of a mouse. I remember publishing those first few pieces thinking about the hordes of fans that would be entranced with my every word. Fan sites would pop up, groupies would be knocking on the door. Then I got a site meter and realized that there were exactly two people reading my blog. Me and my mom. And even she doesn't stop by that often.

There might be millions of potential readers out there, but there are also millions of writers vying for attention. Even with a site like Blogcritics, bringing thousands of people to my words on a regular basis, there still isn't enough to make anything like a living out of it.

So, no I have no plans of becoming a professional writer. As for goals, I don't have anything really specific in mind either. I enjoy the process of writing. I dig that Blogcritics comes with a plethora of eyes to read my writing. I hope I'm entertaining and once in a while thoughtful, or at least halfway intelligent. If I make a couple of fans along the way, then all the better.

And hey, if the perfect writing gig comes up, then I can split my day job like *that*.

From: Eric Berlin

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

I was a writer long before I ever thought of myself as a "writer." That label has all kinds of wonderful and grandiose and even pompous connotations, smoking jackets and rubbing elbows with intelligentsia and jumping in the Seine with a bottle of wine strapped to your abdomen, a platter of cheese plastered to your trousers and so on.

Writers tend to not be like everyone else. We're weird, we see things differently. Looking back, it all kind of makes sense. I was a kid who was lucky enough to be part of a much-smarter-than-me crowd, but other than that I never fit easily into any "scene." I liked sports but wasn't much of an athlete. I adored music but turned out to be merely competent on the double bass. As I stated, I had friends but was by no means Tall Man on Campus.

I was shy among those I didn't know well. I observed, sucking in the world and often making up detailed lives about strangers that I saw (often some combination of bizarre and comedic) without consciously realizing I was writing in my head. I concocted fantastical scenarios where I would swoop in to save the damsel in distress (always the pretty popular girl sitting across the classroom) from grave peril.

Moving on, I have clear memories of realizing, some time in my early 20s, "Dead God, I'm a writer!" and had all the rushing feelings of power and creative destruction and terrible ego that comes along with that at such an age. However, I was also cursed with a terrible laziness that went along with that ego and clearly decided that traveling and partying and getting kicks and avoiding responsibilities were far more the way to go.

You see, it was just all so hard! I had decided that to be a writer absolutely meant that you wrote novels -- and not just a novel, it had to be huge teeming piled stacks of tomes, dust billowing off the thousands of pages that you whipped off in a month's Benzedrine and instant coffee pan-dimensional muse-lock, pages that would clear the world's concerns off the map in the built up ecclesiastical mania to read my work, yes My Work, the Novelist's Grand Vision Made Real.

But how do you that? Where do you start? I wrote short stories, a few that were pretty good, made awkward forays into all different kinds of styles and modes of thought. Eventually, I realized that I must delve into the novel game or die trying. I made it a bit further each time: 10,000 words about saving the world before time ended, inspired by Stephen King's The Langoliers; 40,000 words about a bizarre and updated ode to Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

Then, in 2004, I was close, by golly. Strengthened by the wisdom of Stephen King's On Writing, I was writing every bloody day. Didn't care how hard it was, how painful, how awkward the words or stilted the plot ties. 600 words, 1,100, 588.

And I finished a first draft, all 85,000 reeking words of it! And yes, there's a story in there too, a surreal (yet) comedic thriller based upon my experiences playing rugby and my Animal House-esque final year of college. Upon completing, I realized that the very best parts of the story were the real parts, the actual anecdotes and scenarios and pitfalls and mania of that wonderfully debaucherous year spanning 1995 and 1996.

Sometime in late 2004, as a lark and to to rest my brain while thinking about the next phase of the novel, I started blogging. It was so... easy. Easy and fun. And the instant feedback. My God, I said to myself again (not to say I am my own God, that's an entirely philosophic brain-shaker that I won't deem to get into right now), there are people who read my stuff. My shit. My gold, and all in between!

And I was hooked. After a brief spout of soul doubt, I realized I had come to where I always was meant to be, cheerfully spouting off into the electronic heavens about politics and music and television and life-things, all with the Big Picture perspective I've come to see things with and, one hopes, enough comedy and interesting bit-ends to keep people along for the ride.

So I take myself less seriously these days, or at least I try to! I sure do have a lot of fun though. It turned out that blogging was the place for me where "working" wasn't work at all, that my need for creative outlet and instant feedback and the occasional e-pat on the head saying, "Well my, aren't you so clever then!" could be met anytime I wanted, rain or shine, daytime or the darkest reaches of the vast electronic night.

From: Greg Smyth

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

Okay, so I lied. I'm a great big faker. Sorry.

You see, the original post to the Mondo Group stated quite assuredly that, yes, I, Greg Smyth, had really quite obvious writing ambitions that were easily spelled out and that left me feeling quite good about myself. "I'm a do-er", I thought to myself, "and all the multitude of plans and schemes I have are currently paying off."

What a fool I am, because, as soon as the teeth of the Mondo Chattering Classes began chewing over the various novels and poems and the like that the great and good of this collective have in the backs of their minds or sitting, unedited, on their various hard drives, I felt somewhat foolish. All I wanted to do was write music reviews.

Sure, I'd love to write a novel but there are two things that either put me off or prevent me from churning out the Great Masterwork. The first is that, really, I'm not sure I have the patience or concentration span to stick with one thing for so long. Second, at what point do you realise you've got sufficient inspiration or ideas to begin such a huge undertaking? That's the beauty of music writing, and I'm sure I've said this before, you're espousing on one of a thousand objects that will pass over your desk in that year, each one for both a limited amount of words and always with some ready-made frame of reference or backstory. Never, really, are you as a critic faced with the purely blank page and the very specific Fear that instills in the writer. And particularly in one who doubts his own dubious level of talent.

Both Eric and Mat mention the liberation that blogging brought them. That, to me, is a whole hornet's nest that could be saved for a future Hot Topic - is blogging proper writing/journalism? But let's give it a spin here in the meantime. Blogging has meant that, when I'm sufficiently on the ball to do it regularly, I have an outlet for the finished product regardless of whether the commissioning editor of the magazine I'm pitching the samples to likes them. Prior to my introduction to blogging (and, perhaps more crucially, prior to getting a laptop and associated internet connection) I had a box file with old printed samples into which would go the latest attempt at getting a writing gig. I'd send out samples much less frequently and, so, a real lack of momentum developed and I wrote less and less. Since blogging properly, I've produced much more, and crucially, better content. Coupled with the ease of approaching editors via the likes of the internet (and, to my surprise, MySpace) I've begun to foster links with a range of publications. Hopefully one day I'll meet one who'll start to pay me!

So yes, initially, my goal is to write for (and, crucially, earn money from) mainstream music publications. Ideally, I'd like to write fiction in one form or another but the question of just how inspired you need to be before you can sit down with a novel on your mind is one that vexes me. Is a germ of an idea enough, with everything coming out in the wash eventually? Will the twists and turns that your imagination will invariably take you on be reliably frequent so that you can do the high-wire without the safety net of some sort of roadmap (mixing metaphors there, but you get the drift)? Hopefully, one day I'll have to balls to find out.

From: DJ Radiohead

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

This is, quite seriously, the 11th or 12th draft of this. I beg forgiveness from whoever has to edit it. Just know it's late and the caffeine stopped working hours ago. I must go sleep now. Feel free to replace my scribblings with an excerpt from the Latvian translation of The Book of Mormon. I won't be offended.

I have written, re-written, and re-re-written my contribution to this edition of the Hot Topic. In the process of trying to describe my ambitions and goals for my writing and podcasting I came to a surprising conclusion: fuck all if I know.

What the fuck do I do all day and why do I do it? I can't explain it. I can't make it make a whole lot of sense.

In some ways, my ambitions and goals have already been achieved and exceeded. I write pieces for Blogcritics and record a podcast. My work has been read and downloaded and listened to by people in Red states and Blue states. I have an audience. That blows my mind. "I'm bad, I'm nationwide." The real mind fuck is knowing people in Canada and the UK have downloaded and listened to my humble podcast. I am international! Holy shit.

Here's the kicker: some of them liked it. The hell you say! I've written and recorded works and other people have liked them. The praise of strangers has meant more to me than the encouragement from family and friends. My mom is supposed to laugh at my jokes. When someone else does, my feet don't touch the ground for days.

Want to hear something more amazing than that? I have actually liked some of my own work, too. I have been annoyingly and sometimes intolerably insecure about the quality of my own work. I am often my harshest critic. I don't like everything I do but even I have taken some satisfaction in what I have been producing as of late despite a predisposition not to see any of my own growth or improvement.

Could I hope for anything more than that?

Finding someone to pay me to do this would be great. Maybe some day that will happen. Maybe some day I will chase that dream and find that opportunity. There was a time when I thought anything short of that was a failure and a waste of time. It turns out I was wrong. I do not need the cash or the fame (although I will still take it) to feel fulfilled. I never would have believed I would feel this way. I am having fun doing what I am doing now. I enjoy it. It pleases me.

My goals and ambitions and hopes and dreams have changed a lot just in the five years since I graduated college. Maybe someday this won't be enough. I might wake up one day and decide it's not worth it or I want more. Who knows? Hell, someday we'll all look back on this and plow into the back of a truck.

Has any of this made a damn bit of sense to any of you? Me neither. I guess I am just putting one foot in front of the other, gratefully plugging away for another 24 hours.

From: Mark Saleski

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

I see "ambition" as a funny sort of word when it sits in such close proximity to my name. Not that I'm a slacker or anything. It's just that things like ambition and career and success... they're sort of foreign to me.

Does that mean I've been doing nothing all of these years? Of course not. Twenty-something planet-revolutions of CAD/CAM, pre-press, and various flavors of control system software. Lots and lots of bytes. Still, it never had inertia, if you know what I mean. Or... maybe it used to.

But... this writing thing kind of snuck up on me and, maybe for the first time, ambition isn't such an odd concept.

A few years ago I started writing music reviews for Blogcritics. Yeah, there's some inertia there. Plenty of it. The funny thing is that the source for this transformation, the push, the cause... has origins from my teen years. Many nights of scouring issues of Creem magazine cover-to-cover. Hours and hours spent in the University of Maine microfilm lab looking at old copies of Rolling Stone (Did you know they used to give out roach clips to new subscribers?!)

I lived for this stuff. But.. I just could not write. Not at the age of nineteen, anyway.

So what has changed 25 years later? Good question. I don't really know. Maybe I needed to read a thousand or so more books. Maybe I needed to go to a bunch more concerts. Maybe I needed to discover jazz. And Kerouac. Maybe I just needed to live.

All I know is that this feels right... and I'm determined to make it work. It feels weird saying that. Good, but weird.

From: Duke DeMondo

To: The Hot Topic Collective

Re: Writing Ambitions

Is there a thought more potent with regards stirrin' the sour waters a' insomnia than the notion that, at 63, a fella will be as far forward, career-wise, as he is at 23? (It's nothin' short a' shameful, an' a touch ironic, that I couldn't grasp a better word than career just now.) Not a day passes that I don't get myself wound up twenty shades a' mental with regards When Will Stuff Happen?

When will a fella be paid to write, that he might spend his days thinkin' a' new jokes involving "fuck" an' not have to worry 'bout also, seems I'm starvin' an ain't an ounce a' chow.

When will sympathetic ears light on mine net records an say "Oh, how 'bout we give you the money for to play this nonsense an also survive"?

When!?

The thought that, as far as statistics would suggest, never is the answer, well, that's a mighty cripplin' mind-fry right there.

Getting older an' closer to the age when a fella has to say "Right then. Looks like it's the Civil Service till I end up dead 'hind a spreadsheet an' no one notices till the death-stench starts fuckin' wi' the pot-plants."

The glory of the web-net is that anyone can fling words an' songs an' images up yonder an' have folks read, hear an' watch. The terror of it all is that, yeah, anyone can.

"Yeah, he's a writer an' some sorta song-flinger."

"Wow, that's great."

"Yeah, posts it all on the internet."

"Oh. I thought maybe he was a proper one."

It's surely not enough to produce, cause we all do that, look here, can't move for screeds an' melodies an' prose an' poetic fuckery. Some blockage up yonder, somethin' keeping a fella from slinkin' that bit further 'long the line, from the Amateur to the Professional.

There's only so many lovely words a couple eyes can read before they start toyin wi the brain-glands, sayin "But if it is so very pleasant, how come The Real World remains oblivious?"

What the blog tomfoolery provides is the finest tools thus spawned for grabbin' an audience, if'n a fella puts in the time. When the veil slides off the yap though, an' the realisation hangs there cross the screen, the fact that however many hits yon page gets a day, it hasn't made much difference in the ol' Life, that can be enough to stomp any ambition to globs a' frazzled shite.

So we keep on keepin' on, an' the hope remains. Those bloggers done got book deals, those Arctic Monkeys used the web to kick themselves up top the Record-Breaking Debut Record Sales ladder, these things are possible.

An' try not to think how tiny, tiny, tiny that percentage is.

Okay people, so that's what our panel of selected bloggers had to say, now it's your turn. Do you find yourself locked in turmoil between the job you have and the job you want? Have you learned to find a happy medium that works for you? What are your creative ambitions and how do you express them? Has blogging helped you find a method of creative release or just led to niggling haven't-posted-in-a-while tension?

Let us know!

Connecting With Maps

2006-02-07T14:28:00.000+01:00

Written by Diana Stubblefield

Recently some friend and I were discussing how we connect with our Dads. Some confessed how they connect over music, or books, or going to the movies. I thought about how I connect with my Dad tonight after a phone conversation with him.

He and I connect with maps.

I remember when I was a little girl, I would crawl in his lap and he'd show me the way to Disney World on the Atlas. Or he'd show me how to get to Papa's house, or even just back home. I remember the night of 9/11, he and I spreading the atlas on the bed, and mapping out where it happened and in relation to what. Even though he and I are very close and have often been all we've got, sometimes there are just no words. Sometimes you have to say it with a map.

I got a call tonight from my biological mom saying that my Grandmother is very sick and will probably die within a few weeks. We talked a while about when I can come see her, what her condition is, and other little tidbits. As soon as I hung up, I called my daddy.

"Hey there!"

"Hey Dad, you're not watching the Super Bowl are you?"

"No, I just turned it on to see who was winning."

"Oh, you don't usually I just wanted to make sure."

"Did you see halftime? It was the Rolling Stones."

"No, sure didn't. Were they good?"

"I don't know, I didn't watch."

I told him about Grandma. He said he was sorry, saying he had thought about her recently and wondered how she was. He asked if I was going to see her and I said yes. He told me I maybe shouldn't just because she's out of it and it will just upset me and I should remember her how she was. I said I know, I've thought about that, but I feel the need to go.

"I get off at 6 on Saturday so I should get there about 11."

"Which way do you go?"

"501, 38, 9, 52. But isn't there another way?" (Help me daddy I don't know what to do.)

"Yeah, there sure is, get on 38, but don't get on 9, just keep going." (Don't worry sweetheart, everything will be fine.)
"Like you're going to Rockingham?" (I'm really scared of what she will look like, but I need to go.)

"Exactly, and then go west on I- 74 and then go north on 220. That will turn into I-73" (I wish you wouldn't go)

"Uh huh, uh huh." (I know but I felt bad when I didn't get to say goodbye to Grandpa.)

"And then get on 64 at Asheboro." (And I'm glad because he got really sick in the end; I was just trying to protect you.)

"Oh, ok." (Thank you, Daddy.)

"Well, you know what, just go north on 73 until you get to Greensboro and then get on 40." (I understand, I just don't want you to be hurt.)

"That's looks good. Thank you so much!" (I know, I'll be ok.)

"Call me tomorrow at work." (So I can talk to you without your step-mom listening.)

"Ok. I love you Dad." (I love you bigger than the house.)

"I love you too." (I love you more.)

Calendar Movies: Anatomy of a Murder

2006-02-01T02:56:00.000+01:00

Rating: ****

For Christmas my wife bought me a 12 month calendar of classic movie posters. It is a lovely thing with large, full color photographs of some great movies. I immediately decided that I would have to watch all of the movies featured. Then I decided that each month I would throw a party around each film.

I’ve continually got ideas running through my head about throwing parties in which to watch a bunch of movies. Call them my own personal mini-movie festivals, like Sundance in my living room. The idea of getting a bunch of people together to watch Kurasawa films, or movies set in space, or the Evil Dead and Reanimator series back to back to back sends me into orgiastic spasms.

The problem is I just don’t know enough people willing to sit still for 8 hours to watch multiple movies. This is especially true when my idea for a festival includes Wild Strawberries and Cannibal Holocaust.

The only thing I’ve ever managed to do is get some folks together for a semi-regular horror movie festival in October. And even then most folks don’t make it past movie number two.

I believe I’ll have more luck with my classic movie poster festival, for I’m only asking the audience to watch one movie. And indeed, I had a fine turnout for the January movie, Anatomy of a Murder. Well, if three people can be considered a fine turnout – but everyone seemed to have a swell time.

Truth be told, half the problem with my movie festival ideas is that they never get past the idea stage. I’m great at thinking up themes for movies to watch and really terrible at actually planning the parties. I always wait until last minute and by then everyone already has plans.

This month was no different. I mentioned to a few people my idea for a regular monthly gathering to watch a classic movie, but didn’t nail down the details. The day of, the wife and I made a few phone calls and got a few folks to agree to come over for pizza and a movie.

I have come to realize that all of my social skills have deserted me. There was a time when I liked nothing better than sit and converse with acquaintances. I loved to enthrall an audience with a good story. But somewhere over the years this skill has gone away. I now tend to allow the awkward silences run into infinity. It’s not that I can’t think of anything interesting to say, it’s that I don’t want to. It all seems so pointless anymore.

Being married is part of it. I’ve got a woman, so chatting up women into a flirtatious frenzy is beyond the question. But even just making more friends seems tiring and not worth the time. Maybe I’m just getting old and curmudgeonly.

I’m being hard on myself, I’m a friendly enough chap and can still hold a room’s attention with a good story, and nail the perfectly timed joke. One of the invitees, Daniel, a somewhat friend of my wife, and I got along smashingly. The wife has told him that I’m a big fan of the film buying so he brought over three DVDs to borrow, and a list of all the DVDs he owns. I quickly printed out my list and my wife had a good laugh over what freaks we were to even have lists.

As the film started Daniel and I both let out a grown over the DVD being in the Pan and Scan format. Then we sounded off in excitement over Duke Ellington having created the film score.

At the first scene I suddenly realized that I had, in fact, seen this film. Though all I could remember was Jimmy Stewart and something about fish.

It is a delightful film with marvelous performances from Jimmy Stewart, Lee Remick and George C Scott. Stewart plays a Paul Biegler, a recently ousted DA who is enlisted to defend Lt. Frederick Manion (Ben Gazzara) who is on trial for the brutal murder of a man who raped his wife.

For a film that deals with wife beating, rape and murder, it is a very lighthearted and enjoyable picture. The script snap, crackles and pops out of the actor’s mouths, trading one wise crack for another.

It is notable, now, for its controversy back then. It was banned in Chicago and Jimmy Stewarts own father took an add out in a newspaper deeming it a “dirty picture.” What seems immensely tame to modern audience, was highly controversial for its time, for the film uses such words as “bitch,” “contraceptive,” “panties,” “slut,” and “sperm.”

Today what stands out is not the use of dirty words, but a tightly directed story with nuanced performances by some of the world’s greatest actors.

Remick slinks and broils across the screen. There is a marvelous scene in which Stewart asks her to take off the hat she’s wearing in court. She is dressed ultra conservatively to appear the ever happy and straight-laced house wife for the jury. But as she takes off the hat and swizzle her hair loose you can feel the lust of every warm blooded man and woman in that court room from 45 years away.

Stewart plays the cornball country lawyer with his usual aplomb. A very young George C Scott nails the role of a slick, big city lawyer. His reaction to an unexpected answer in the courtroom towards the end of the picture is absolutely stellar. Simply perfect acting from a great actor.

It is a great movie, and it was a great beginning to what will hopefully be 12 fabulous months of classic movie festivals.

A Vaguely Remembered Dream

2006-01-30T17:03:00.000+01:00

I was some kind of ambulance driver or medic. At any rate I was inside an ambulance although it was a kind of stage ambulance because the way the visuals were set up it was as one side of the ambulance was missing, thus allowing me to see inside from afar.

A dead Jennifer Anniston was inside.

Somewhere, somehow she got decapitated. I’m a little vague here, but it might have been me who cut it off.

Anyways there was this discussion between me and my nurse about whether or not you could sew a head back on and keep the patient alive. I said yes, but it had to be done quickly.

I got distracted by something and did not return to dead Jennifer Anniston for a few hours.

When I did return she was covered in some kind of sticky goo, like the gunk that covers sliced ham when it has run past its expiration date. A thin sheet covered her body and I removed it to reveal her chest. Because….well because she’s Jennifer Anniston and I wanted to see her boobies.

The eyes were open on the decapitated head and they kept staring at me. In a panic I closed the eyelids and began to realize that I just couldn’t save a dead Jennifer Anniston whose head had been cut off for the last several hours.

I awoke wondering if they’d still make a Friends reunion special.

DVD Review: The Long Goodbye

2006-01-23T03:46:00.000+01:00

Rating: ****

During a documentary extra on the DVD version of The Long Goodbye, director Robert Altman says they called Elliott Gould’s version of Phillip Marlowe “Rip Van Marlowe” because it’s like the iconic 1940’s detective character fell asleep for 30 years and awoke in the 1970s.

True to form, the opening scene shows Marlowe being jolted out of a deep sleep. Gould plays Marlowe like he has stumbled out of hibernation and is completely baffled by everything going on around him. He does, however, take it with a 70’s stoned indifference.

The film opens with interconnecting scenes between Phillip Marlowe and Terry Lennox (Jim Bouton). The soundtrack plays the same song through both scenes, but in completely different styles. Over Marlowe’s scenes the music is soft and jazz like, while when Lennox is on screen it becomes more edgy, more rock influenced. It is a brilliant way to introduce characters and give us a sense of who they are.

This is not Howard Hawk’s Raymond Chandler. Gone are the dark shadows, and production code of film noir. The sex and violence is no longer hidden under innuendo and suggestion. Here Marlowe’s neighbors are drug ingesting nudists. This is Altman’s subversion of a genre.

This is definitely a Robert Altman picture. There are plenty of trademark long shots, and overlapping dialogue. He is less interested in the Chandler story, than in a sense of style and the juxtaposition of classically moral 1930’s detective in the amoral times of the swinging 1970s.

The story loosely follows Raymond Chandler’s novel. Marlowe drives his friend, Lennox, to the Tijuana border only to return home to an apartment full of cops ready to arrest him for aiding and abetting Lennox, who is suspected of murdering his wife. Meanwhile Eileen Wade (Nina Van Pallandt) hires Marlowe to find her alcoholic husband who has disappeared. Between the cops and the missing husband Marlowe is accosted by local gangsters who want the money Lennox owes them. The three stories meet and interconnect in an ending that is vastly different from the novel.

There is a wonderful scene after the cops arrest Marlowe and are interrogating him. It begins as the standard interrogation scene with Marlowe in a small room being slapped around by tough cops, while others watch through a two way mirror. Altman invigorates the scene by inter-cutting the two rooms together. While the camera is in the interrogation room, the two way mirror is always in sight. When the scene moves into the outer room, we see through the mirror and can hear the Marlowe conversation as it overlaps with what the watching cops are saying.

Elliott Gould is brilliant as Phillip Marlowe. He seems completely amiss from his surroundings, oblivious to all the things going on all around him. He keeps the Chandler wisecracks going, but sends the tough guy gumshoe routine packing.

Though not a film for noir or even Chandler purists, it is a brilliant piece of cinema. In subverting a genre Altman has created a new kind of detective drama. One that is humorous, thrilling and cinematic.

CD Review: Railroad Earth - Elko

2006-01-18T04:54:00.000+01:00

To make a great live album takes several things. First, you’ve got to have pristine sound. I need to hear all the instruments playing clearly, and the vocals need to be right up front. I wanna hear the crowd cheering, but only sometimes. Give me audience noise between songs and if there is a particularly brilliant bit of playing, otherwise keep the crowd in the far, far background. I really have no need to hear that guy screaming his request for “Free Bird”.

Next I want a great set list. Nothing sucks the life out of a concert like bad song choices. For me, this means not playing every song from the newly released studio album. If I haven’t had time to absorb the new songs, what can I sing along to? Man, I dig that you’ve gotta promote the new stuff, just mix it in with the old. A perfect set list includes some new songs, the greatest hits, some obscure b-sides and a few choice covers.

Yeah, I dig covers. Nothing perks up a concert like hearing a cool cover of something you just weren’t expecting to hear. You get bonus points if the cover song is something totally off the wall or from a different genre even. Like Sam Bush covering Bob Marley, or bluegrass band Hayseed Dixie doing “Hell’s Bells”.

Bonus points go to reworking the melody of one of your old songs. Who can forget the laid back version of “Layla” on Eric Clapton’s Unplugged?

Of course all of these things mean bupkis if the music sucks. An absolute must for any live album is that the musicians have to be playing at the top of their game. I’m an old school lover of improvisation. I dig the crap out of long, interesting jams. Nothing is more boring than an uninspired noodle fest, but a good band can turn a song on its head and create something inspiring out of the air. And if you can’t jam, then crank up the energy and give me something raw. If the song sounds exactly like the studio cut, then why am I paying for a concert ticket, when I can just stay home?

To release a live album takes a certain amount of balls. It’s expecting the audience to pay more money for songs they already have based on your ability to play in the moment. On the road there is no studio enhancement, no overdubs or producers tweaking every note, every sound. It’s just the band, and their songs.

To release a live album after only three studio albums and 5 years together as a band takes a lot more than balls. Yet that’s just what Railroad Earth has done with their latest album, the double live disk Elko.

Railroad Earth is something of a cross between the Grateful Dead and Sam Bush. It’s bluegrass through a jam band funnel. They are old school songwriters who think nothing about jamming a song out for 15 minutes.

On Elko they meet all of my criteria for a live album except playing covers. Every song is an original Railroad Earth tune, and it doesn’t hurt the album one bit. Honestly, I’m not overly familiar with any of their studio work, but there is enough improvisation and jamming here to make each song unique and certainly different than anything you’re going to find on a studio album.

Together the sextet plays over twelve instruments including the banjo, dobro, mandolin, pennywhistle and flute (and that’s just Andy Goessling!) which come together to form a whirling, swirling soundscape. It’s music to get lost in, and get up on your feet and boogie to as well.

Out of the twelve songs on this album five of them clock in at over 10 minutes. Improvisation is the name of the game. Mostly the boys carry it off. In songs like “Seven Story Mountain” and “Colorado” the music stays fresh and remarkable throughout its long ride. Occasionally, the jamming gets a little repetitive, yet just as I’m about to get bored they bring it back get my feet a tapping and mouth smiling.

If I have a real complaint here, it’s that some of the songwriting isn’t all that strong. For sure many of the songs evoke a lovely rural image and a real joy for life. Songs like “Railroad Earth” and “The Old Man and the Land” create lovely images and evoke a sense like a warm sunny day. Yet a few of the tunes, like “Like a Buddha” or “Bird in a House” neither catch me in their lyrics or their melody. A song like “Warhead Boogie” is even quite silly with lyrics like:

They’re building lots of warheads/building them all around
They’re loading them up on pads/loading them up on subs
Flying around on airplanes/driving around on trucks
Driving around on trucks

Though, it must be said that the warhead certainly does boogie. With one of the strongest jams on the album, the music there, more than makes up for its flighty lyrics.

And in their defense, even the Beatles wrote a few less-than-stellar tunes. Railroad Earth is proving they can write some strong songs and be able to put on a live show worthy of a two disk album. As a lover of live music, Elko is a welcome addition to my collection.

Hot Topic: FM is Stereo

2006-01-17T03:28:00.000+01:00

Due to time limitations and a general lack of anything to say of late, I did not participate in the most recent edition of the Hot Topic. And as is the way with these things, this weeks edition became the Editors Choice for the week.

From the occasionally troubled minds of this disparate flock of bloggers, the question of whether technological advances weaken our senses is tossed about, and I revisit the lost art of installing car stereos.

Plus, The Duke discusses the medical retraction of jewels, Eric admits he knows not what he does, and Mark ponders the value of internet-savvy refrigerators.

From: Bennett Dawson
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

My lovely wife and I were talking about those "Top-Ten Hit CDs" from the sixties and seventies. You know, the ones that get hustled on those 30-minute late-night infomercials. Me saying that they're really cool because "...those are all the songs that buzzed out of my candle wax-covered AM clock radio when I was a teenybopper..."

Back in 1970, dig?

My wife looked puzzled, trying to absorb a stone-age concept. AM clock radio?

Before I could explain, a sideways brain connection fizzled through my synapses, and I started wondering about "when did FM start broadcasting?" and "Do I actually remember that historic event?"

Yes folks, it's sad but true. In 1970, FM was just like HDTV - meaning I didn't have it.

This led to a brief discussion about the difference between AM and FM, and to my surprise, my wife couldn't tell me the profound difference between the two. Now let me say that my wife is brilliant in her field of expertise, and knows many things that I haven't a clue about. But she had a slightly different upbringing (she's a girl), and was eight years further down the timeline than me. That being the case, FM radio was all she ever listened to.

"All the music was on FM, and AM was all talk radio and traffic and weather."

She knew that FM stations "sounded better" in her car, but that's about it. The "stereo" in the house sounded good because it had two speakers and besides, we paid more money for it than the clock radio, so it had to sound better.

She never truly realized that with stereo, each speaker has slightly different music coming out of it, two distinct tracks. I have no idea what she thought about the sound system in her relatively new Jetta, with speakers every few inches in the doors and body panels. 'More speakers = better sound' is what I'd suppose. Understanding that AM is one track and FM is two tracks was not part of her grip on aural reality.

She protests. "That's not true!" she says. "My CD Walkman has different sounds for each ear, I just never wondered why or how."

Lemme tell ya, my generation was intensely aware of "stereo" and knew exactly what it was. Dammit, we wanted stereo! Our first used cars (junker cars from the fifties and sixties) had an AM push button radio with one speaker in the dashboard. NOT cool.

So we installed a new FM radio under the dash (possibly a cassette or eight track tape player... woo hoo!) and two speakers in the rear window deck. We cut holes and ran wires and hooked up fuses, and then we cruised down the road grooving to 'stereophonic sound'.

Nowadays, everything is pre wired with stereo. Teenagers don't know how to run speaker wires, what channels are, or how a noise suppresser gets rid of the clicking sound coming from the ignition system. Hell, let's be real - nowadays, kids don't even know what an ignition system is. Technology has moved on and the inner workings of a car are as mysterious as the inner workings of a nuclear reactor. If your car breaks down, you use your cell phone to call a tow truck!

What other basic knowledge of 'how things work' has dropped from our pop culture? The home fuse box? Batteries? Pilot lights?

Have we morphed into an icon driven world, with no understanding of what lies beneath the shiny plastic logo-embossed surface? Is it really possible to take stereo so much for granted that folks have no understanding of what they're hearing? Are we being blinded by science?

Or is this just yer standard progression of technology - unfortunately revealing that I'm one old, and somewhat obsolete fella?

By the way, while I was writing this piece, my 21 year-old stepdaughter called, and she has no idea what the word "stereo" means. "A synonym for sound system" was her best guess.

From: Aaron - Duke De Mondo
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

This is all the intriguing in the world. Maybe we ARE those icon-driven hordes ain't got a clue how the torch works but sod it, it's sleek an' white an' the ladies wanna touch me when i got it in the paw.

I'm a software sort, yes, with nary a clue about hardware. I'm gonna go ahead an' reveal the age, bein' 23, an' i can assure you i ain't got the faintest a faints regarding how you might wire a plug. They TRIED to teach me, but imma go play a tune or two, if'n it's all the same. Ain't got a clue how the amp works, or the guitar, but i don't especially worry.

Anecdotal aside - way back when, i remember my ex-fiancee tellin' me that her then-ex-boyfriend used to come 'round to help her dad wire electrical stuff. I think most likely my nuts disappeared somewheres midst the liver (still in there, too, fish the fuckers out wi' a coat-hanger is all a man can do). Felt like i was no kinda MALE if'n I couldn't fix the telly.

Maybe it's cause a buncha youngster-types, far more than used to, are headin' in the direction a university an' theoretical based stuff, as opposed to learnin' trades an so on, which is where this kinda knowledge is handed down, i suppose. Maybe that's not the case at all, maybe i'm just justifyin' my bum-fluff an no-nuts.

Regarding stereo, it all made sense to me when i played Sgt. Pepper's in the car stereo back when i was 13 or so, and realized i was only hearin' half the record. Until that point i probably assumed somethin' similar, that stereo just meant Better Sound. I suppose there comes a point when a society can forget about stuff like Mono and Analogue. The differences 'tween these things probably only have any worth to the folks who live through the change-over.

From: Eric Berlin
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

I think we've entered the age of the super-user, where we run every aspect of our lives -- from brushing our teeth with an electric tooth brush to laying down with an electric blanket of an evening, and all the server-happy Internet play and work-related electronic tomfoolery in between -- via technology of which we haven't the foggiest notion.

Take the words I'm typing right now that cause letters to magically appear on my computer screen. I have a notion that when I type a "v", a "v" appears, or that when I want to say "ultra tubular with consecrated cream cheese linings for upshot adornment of life-melted dude-scape" I can get that message across and feel quite certain I've made an ass of myself in the process.

However, I have no idea how the inner workings go. I imagine there are ones and zeros and electronic processes involved, but I don't even have a fundamental understanding of the mechanical function behind an activity I sometimes spend 12-15 hours a day hacking away at.

And don't even get me started with the mouse!

Sometimes I think about the Roman Empire and the descent into the Dark Ages. About how the art and technology devolved from one generation to another because everyone basically forgot how it was done before. Obviously, we're not in that phase. We're in a phase of astounding innovation and bedazzling art and sights to behold that would blow the mind (a la Scanners) of an 8th-century hombre right straight.

But what if we lost those folks who know how stuff works? What if they end up on the island in Lost (pushing that damned button every 108 minutes) or get herded to the Manhattan of Escape From.... fame?

It's an interdependent world with all the good and bad trimmings of it, I suppose is the upshot.

That, and it's utter gold to know a good mechanic who won't rip you off.

From: Mark Saleski
To: The Hot Topic Team
Re: FM Is Stereo

Ah yeah, so here we have another discussion where technology is concerned. More specifically the effects of "the march".

It's interesting that it's mostly taken for granted that advances in technology are a "good thing". For the most part, I suppose that they are. But then I hear about events like the recent Consumer Electronics Show where concepts such as "digital lifestyle" are touted. Sure enough, we get all of these home devices interconnected and talking to each other. But do we really want to?

This reminds me of back when I used to watch The Jetsons, where dinner consisted of a food pill. Gross. Perhaps even sillier than manufactured food is the very real Internet-enabled refrigerator. Oh yes, it'll keep an inventory for you. It'll notify you when it's time to buy more eggs.

You've got to be kidding me.

Some of this is an extension of what often happens during software development. Engineers, being the tinkering sort, can't resist adding features and/or extra layers to things. The result? Bloatware. Sometimes useful, sometimes not. Ever notice how things like "digital lifestyle" are almost always promoted by men? I don't think this is a coincidence.

Don't take any of this to mean that I have the fear that these new technologies are going to complicate my life. They won't, mostly because they're not comin' in my front door. No, I don't need a digital book to take on vacation because the books that I do own work just fine. I can figure out when to refill my refrigerator using the analog method: the notepad attached to the freezer door. Music is still played through tubes and wire, because these nice digital files sound like crap.

So what do we lose when nobody knows how any of this newfangled stuff works? I'm not sure. In some cases, particularly when talking about media (books, music, etc.), it puts the consumer at one more remove from the artist. I don't think that vinyl records are the 'perfect' medium, but the expansive liner notes allowed me as a fan to get to know the person at the other end. Sure, this can be done in the digital realm, but is it?

Ah, maybe Bennett's right. Maybe I'm just old and obsolete.

P.S. In the middle of typing this, the guy in the cube next to me was 'attacked' by his Instant Messenger -- he floated his mouse over it and it started playing a ringtone-y version of "My Humps". Now that is an advance.

These bloggers have had their say, now it's your chance to chip in!

Do you remember an "old way" of getting things done that seemed superior to the "newfangled" way? Do your friends sneer at your approach to fixin' stuff, amazed that you've not a clue? Or are you one of those folks totally comfortable letting "specialists" deal with the inner workings of 90% of your world?

Tell us the truth, are you completely happy being a "user", with no idea how these damned things actually work?

I Dreamed Last Night...

2006-01-11T12:53:00.000+01:00

That I was in high school, but still the same age I am now. The dream started with me leaving my locker and headed to the first class. It was close to starting time and everyone was in a rush because if you weren’t sitting in your seat when the bell rang you were tardy.

The building I was actually in was my old Middle school building. As I’m walking I pass the library and there is a sign in front that reads:

Today’s Musical Country:
Argentina

And I wonder when they are going to pick a country that I like.

I rush to my classroom, grab a seat and just as I sit the bell rings.

There is a teacher’s aide at the front of the class doing roll call. The class is filled with students, some are people I went to high school with and they have aged appropriately. Some look like they should be in high school now and are strangers.

The roll call is odd because several students are missing and they come with explanations. Like I remember specifically one male was gone because he finished up last semester and quit to go elsewhere. This “student” was actually a guy who used to work for me but recently quit to go back to school full time.

During class I take off my shirt so that I am bare backed. This isn’t abnormal to the class but I start to feel awkward so I put it back on.

At some point somebody laughs at my math skill and I explain I haven’t had math class in 12 years.

Suddenly the dream shifts. I am no longer I class, but in my car driving in my apartment complex, except the complex is now enormous.

Oh and I’m completely naked.

I stop at my mailbox and check my mail, and find nothing. I’m aware that I’m naked so I’m looking around to ensure nobody is around to see me. I decide to make a dash to my apartment, but I can’t seem to remember where it is.

I started walking quickly up and down the complex looking for my apartment. Finally I decided I have walked to far and start to back track. Sure enough, I find it. However, my next door neighbor is out in the lot, blocking my way home.

I now have a short, white t-shirt on that I pull down to cover my boys. I decide it will be best to go back to my car and drive to my apartment. That way I might be able to make a short dash to my door before the neighbor sees me. That, or I can sit in my car until she goes back inside.

As I get into my car I realize there is a bag full of old clothes that I can put on.

My alarm then went off and I got up.