Category: Uncategorized

little tough to get on a computer here in illinois hopping from one family function to another, but today i’m out with the old high school crew and having a hell of a time. drunken bowling rarely disappoints, no matter how you feel the next day. although i think the highlight so far was christmas day, where a great holiday wrapped up with some family beer pong. that’s right, it sounds too good to be true but look how far my little cousins have come, and how quickly the uncles jump on when there’s fun to be had.

if you miss me the rest of the week check out my guest post over at jame’s great mp3 blog. i may not be on the level of his usual grean pea-ness, but i try and the song picks are solid.

hope your break is as good as mine!

i’ve been on two plane trips since i last wrote and am of course going on one more to head home for christmas in a couple days. that’s three round trips in seven days. i’m a flying machine! that is, i wish i was, so i wouldn’t have to keep taking airplanes, which are a hassle.

this weekend past i went to three christmas parties in only two days, with others last night and tonight. i am also a party machine, which i have no problems at all with except that i don’t get to do enough sleeping the morning after, so i feel somewhat spent. can someone get me ‘energy for partying purposes’ for christmas? do they sell that anywhere?

looking very forward to the holidays that are practically upon me. can’t wait to do the illinois family thing then the san fran new years thing in a quick, fun-filled succession. if i won’t be seeing you any time in the next few days before then (come ooooon, FRIDAY!), then consider yourself merry xmas-ed and happy new yeared.

slow day at work so though i’d jump on for a minute.

partially because of the fact that it’s popping up on 9 out of 10 best of ’06 lists i’ve seen so far this year, but also because the song “black” kicks all kinds of ass, i recently picked up the okkervil river album black sheep boy, and i’m still working on digesting it enough to decide if it’s worth all the hype. however, their video “for real” is sure worth the time. probably the second best song off the album, at least as of my first half-dozen listens.

also, holiday fever has hit me full on in the last few days. i don’t say ‘holiday’ because of that war on christmas crap, either. i mean i’m now officially super-excited about the two coming holidays, each on their own. first my initial wave of christmas presents came in the mail monday, so i wrapped them that night and put up my little tree with lights to place them around, then went off last night to buy another armful of gifts. now i’m close to done with my shopping and getting that warm feeling of generosity that comes from knowing you’re giving fun stuff to a bunch of people you love. on top of that, we’re planning our new years revelry and it sounds like everyone is in and ready to go for the gold. watch out san francisco, a large group of drunk and clever kids will be wandering the streets yelling at strangers in just a couple weeks now…

good night, and good luck – 5 stars

watch the trailer. again, if you’ve seen it already. i wanted to myself, to get a taste and help me remember the feeling i got watching the whole thing over thanksgiving weekend. and the only reason i’m still bothering to write anything about it now is because i realized it came out over a month ago and if i don’t act quickly, my millions of readers might miss out on the opportunity to catch this in a theatre.

because it really deserves to be seen that way, for several reasons. one is that black and white was absolutely the only way this film should have been put on a screen, because it’s full of light and dark and fantastic in its contrast (not in a stark sin city kind of way, but in a great, rich, textured way that gives it character and seriousness), and those silhouetted shots pop so much better in a big, dark auditorium. another, because in a way it’s a quiet movie. they didn’t soundtrack the hell out of it to give it weight, but let the silence of certain moments speak its own piece; let the sounds of the newsroom be its own music when things get singing in those halls. sure there was some excellent period music used appropriately, but the kind of stillness you need to get the most from certain scenes is only possible in the wide open blackness of a theatre.

and most of all is murrow’s voice. if david strathairn — who’s been in a ton of movies but may as well have been debuting in this role — doesn’t win an oscar nomination for this i’ll eat this keyboard i’m typing on. his steel expression and confident monotone give murrow’s eloquent newscasting a quality someone my age probably can’t even fathom from a televised broadcast: unshakable integrity. i walked out of that theatre wanting to be that man.

most of all, though, i have to hand it to clooney and the writers and producers (mark cuban? nice!) for making a movie that doesn’t feel it has to slow down for an audience that isn’t smart enough to follow. i haven’t been so stimulated by dialogue all year. a room full of crack newsmen, whipping ideas back and forth, overlapping, intertwining, and not stopping to breathe or crack a joke for our benefit, finally got me excited to be watching six people talking in a room. can there be more movies like this, please? ones that challenge me to follow them instead of leading me down a gentlly padded path to an obvious conclusion?

overall this film will almost certainly be one of my top two of the year (move over wedding crashers!…i kid), and i just couldn’t wait for that wrap-up list to make it known — so that hopefully someone else might benefit from my boredom one afternoon in texas as much as i have.

i’m going to blog more this week. it makes me happy to write to the imaginary people that read this (plus my 10 friends and mother who i know for a fact do because they regularly start conversations with, ‘i saw on your blog that…’). two days in a row shouldn’t be such a freak occurrence if i have my way.

a quick shoutout from yesterday’s post: check out james’ blog, green pea-ness. he was with me on saturday at club bootie when we heard the white stripes vs. jay-z mix, and as soon as we both vocalized our agreement that it was fairly kickass, i felt confident it would reside shortly on his mp3 blog. which it does, along with a jillion other good songs such as a taste of the new strokes album, a new song by the futureheads, soon-to-be-released belle and sebastian, and tons of killer brit-pop i never will understand how he keeps track of.

referring back to that mashup again though real quick — how killer would it be for dangermouse to learn nothing from his past exploits and take on another full-album mix project that could easily be called the red, white, and blueprint… or alternately, get behind me, hova? i’m telling you, if i were a better man (or, for example, had protools), i might even try it myself.

even though it’s monday i’m feeling pretty good. it seems like the kind of busy day where i feel charged up by it instead of dragged down. besides, there’s a lot i’m excited about today all up and down the board. not least of all that USC finished a perfect season and beat our rivals for the seventh straight year. they get to go to the rose bowl, we got to gather in my crowded apartment and eat nachos. a victory all around.

the same night, and still riding the afternoon beer buzz, we ventured out to bootie LA for shaun’s birthday. it was my first time to the now-monthly night, and i’m totally sold on it. i had a blast and the music was consistently great. say what you will about mashup music, but that was a hell of a dance party, and isn’t that what counts? like some of my friends are fond of saying, maybe it’s better to listen to the original songs instead of two classics (sometimes more or less skillfully) layered on top of eachother, but in the club the mixes were tons of fun. i especially loved the a white stripes ‘doorbell’ vs. jay-z ‘encore’ bit they pulled fairly early on. also really digging this breeders vs. kelly clarkson mix which was on the free cd they handed out at the door, done by one of the night’s hosts. i think somewhere in my deep subconscious there is a kelly fan trying to get out because i’ve always really liked that ‘since u been gone’ song too, covered by ted leo or otherwise…

elsewhere musically, i just found out about pandora today, or rather actually went there and played with it, and it’s brilliant. probably the whole world has already blogged this and i just don’t know that because i haven’t had time for writing or reading the web lately and when stumbling upon some minutes today i chose the former. but how can you not love a web-bot that picks out music you’ll like based on broken down analysis of your favorite bands’ musical qualities? i’ve only used it a little so maybe it takes the spontaneity out of loving a random band, but it sure seems smart.

and so does this movie brick. i heard great things back around sundance time and i guess it got picked up by focus and now they have a trailer finally. check it out — how can a high school noir film not be at least worth checking out just to see if they can pull it off or not?

[oh yeah, last edit to this post: this video of some kids performing super mario themes makes me very happy. i want to play the marimba too now.]

thanksgiving was so restful and great that i was almost too relaxed when i jumped back into work. i’m not sure if i’m up to full speed yet in terms of mental capacity for productivity, but luckily the stimulating passtime of blogging might be just the kickstart my old cranium needs.

[note: it’s taken me about 15 minutes to write this post so far, because i am also listening to tracks up the tree and apparently i can’t listen and write at the same time, having obviously not accomplished the aforementioned kickstart in any way so far. but we press on.]

things i am thankful for this year include the usuals, family and apparent good health and career success and etc. but more immediately and specifically to this year i am grateful for: having had 7 days off; guitar hero, the best video game ever invented and biggest time sink of the month of november; great books and great films i polished off over the break (soon to be reviewed), the last samurai and good night and good luck; and my new netflix obsession, six feet under, which is totally wonderful.

things i am not so thankful for: allergy season which dares to challenge the good health mentioned above; the completely average new harry potter film, which i gladly saw for free with my siblings over the break but found to be totally like every other harry potter thing already made; my current hangover.

luckily that last one wasn’t on my list when i was actually at home with my parents eating holiday dinner, it just so happens mike was down from SF for the night yesterday and we got a couple too many pitchers at ye olde cat and fiddle. it was a rollicking good time, but today — ugh.

[note: think i just hit the 40 minute mark on this puppy. SO not kickstarted.]

sorta torn this week on the pay day song i should choose. it’s between a track by the long winters that’s popping up on the main barsuk records page right now, that i first heard on a podcast over at donewaiting.com (whew, that was a lot of links), and a track off the dangerdoom album that has been kicking ass on my commute for like a month now.

ultimately i think i’m going to have to go with the former, because it’s just one fantastic song, where as the doom stuff works better as an album… although the standout track that springs to mind will make a great one next month i’m sure. so you should download ultimatum, a wonderfully sweet little melody that gets about 10 plays a day since i found it. thank you podcasting for miracles such as this.

now i’ve got to get to amoeba soon and buy both these albums so i can stop feeling guilty about spending all my cash on beer on football saturdays instead of supporting career musicians. i’m ethical!

not to be crass about congratulating the industry of my chosen profession, but every once in a while they do manage to pull off something that totally amazes me. this one’s a british tv/cinema ad for new hi-def tv’s that could have been boring and evoke no emotional response.

instead, they send a quarter million colored superballs down a san francisco street. it’s set to a beautiful song so it’s more of a music video than an ad if you watch the full extended version, which i would recommend even though it’s 3 minutes and might take forever to download. totally mesmerizing.

last night’s grocery store challenge: is that a woman with a moustache and a bad dye job, or a man with a wig and bad fake breasts? of course a real genius would not think about it and just walk quickly away before your appetite for the delicious deli sandwich you bought is totally ruined.

so it looks like tonight after a few quick birthday beers to honor a coworker, i will be going home to rock out with this, which i picked up during lunch today after obsessing about it all weekend. tell me that playing this thing in your living room along to ‘more than a feeling’ (among others) does not sound like a shitload of fun.

and no, i am not gay.

this shit looks AWESOME.