Category: Uncategorized

the LA film fest is going on around the city pretty much without me. sure, it would have been cool to catch before sunrise or garden state a month early, but all the good stuff is sold out anyway i think.

which makes me wary about trying to get into one that’s been labelled a ‘free screening’ on their site. it could be because they don’t expect the filmgoers will want to go to more than one strongly political documentary, and everyone cool already went to the michael moore screening tuesday. i hope that’s the case, since i will be attempting to show up for the hunting of the president instead tonight at the regent showcase down la brea. let’s see that right wing attack machine at work! how dare our (intelligent, capable) president have sexual indiscretions. who wouldn’t much rather have an (inarticulate, damaging, fundamentalist) good ol’ christian boy running the show?

it’d sure be a shame if it was already full; i’d have to walk the whole five blocks back to my apartment like a chump.

[now hearing this: air america.]

last night was great for a tuesday. drove out to westwood to see my friend justin’s band augustus play their first show as a full band now that they finally have a drummer. it was pretty damn good for a group of guys just starting to perform together. i’m not really into that ‘new rock’ sort of kroq genre and it was still really decent. it’s great to see someone who’s been your roommate and friend for years up on a stage slamming on a bass guitar and totally enjoying himself.

then i jetted back to mike’s for a bit of a beer-tasting in preparation for the next keg for his kegbot. that was excellent too. some day when i’m older and have money to drink quality instead of quantity, i hope to be some sort of beer connoisseur who can use words like ‘hoppy’ and ‘malty’ when describing beers and actually know what that means. this was a decent first step. bring on the delicious dark porters!

also finished a book about a dragon the other night. i’ll give you a piece of my mind on that later.

speaking of focusing on the positive . . . who likes music?

piebald – all ears, all eyes, all the time – 3 stars

i’ll be honest, when i first popped in this cd, i was pissed. after falling utterly in love with this band after hearing their previous cd we are the only friends we have a few years ago, and going to a half-dozen fantastic live shows since then, i expected more. where was the same poppy goodness? where was the fun? where were the great hooky riffs? where was that simple addictive pleasure in every song?

so i was let down. it hurt at first but i didn’t give up on them. i listened over and over and started imagining them playing these songs during a live show. i’d always enjoyed what they did with their other material, how would it be to see them perform this stuff?

and so from there i decided the album was salvageable, because the 4 or 5 tracks that would work great live were actually pretty decent songs, even if the album isn’t great start to finish like the last one. i even saw them last week, and they did what i thought they would do, which is play the highlights from this album alongside a string of unstoppable classics. the show at the troubadour gets 5 big bright stars then — i haven’t danced around that much at a concert in a long time. the album, however, would be best suited to those who already own their better titles and want to complete their collection and/or sing along to those great new songs they’ll be playing at the shows. just means you get a few tracks you can do without.

for an example of what they did right, check out haven’t tried it — featuring travis on piano! i love this song even though certain people insist it sounds like carny music. sure was fun to sing along to, that’s all i have to say.

the biggest event of this weekend will go without elaboration here, because i’m not like that. i prefer to focus on the positive; you could say i’m an optimist no matter how cynical i can be. sometimes things that are great for a long time just can’t stay great forever. endings are unfortunate but inevitable, as we can probably all agree. this is why we remember the good times instead of dwelling on the fact that they’ve passed. and why i hope that no connections were permanently and completely broken, because cool people are hard to come by, plain and simple.

holy shit, over a week with no updates? that’s not very prompt of me.

so in brian news: i spent the last week mostly broke and avoiding expenditures. lots of time at home reading away — finished another book which i will tell you about soon. also watched a lot of sopranos i obtained by various unsavory means, and i think i’m addicted. watching 3 to 4 hour-long episodes of a single show in one day seems almost creepy for some reason.

but the easy highlight was going to see a show on friday put on by uncabaret called the other network. it’s a series they’re doing all through june and july at the knitting factory where they show great TV pilots that the geniuses of network television never saw fit to actually pick up and put on the air, with introductions by the writers. in the coming weeks there are various projects from the likes of bob odenkirk, robert smiegel, and conan o’brien, to name a few. what a great idea! maybe i’ll see you at one of the future shows.

this past friday though, they showed the amazing heat vision and jack, which you may or may not have heard is the story of jack black as the super-intelligent astronaut (he gets his powers from the sun) and his talking motorcycle, voiced by owen wilson. oh how i wish this had been a real show, but just having the chance to see the single half-hour pilot was amazing. i strongly suggest you take to your favorite P2P network and try to track this down, it is well, well worth it. shouldn’t be hard either, i had it myself for re-viewing the very next day. you, however, won’t have the pleasure of hearing dan harmon’s hilarious anecdotes, but you have to take what you can get.

a story from today. let’s call it “the decision“.

took a trip to the men’s room like i probably do half a dozen times a day — small capacity i guess. step up to the plate, as it were, and as i unzip there’s a small pop. what?

so i look down into the urinal and see the button to my pants sitting there on top of the blue rubber urinal mat. apart from the fact that i’ve never really understood what those are for — do they aid in stream dampening maybe? — i stand there simultaneously very aware of three things. one, it’s only two thirds of the way through the work day and i just lost my means of keeping my pants up. two, i still need to pee, but i also need that button back. and three. there’s a guy next to me.

so my split second decision making may not be sound in this situation, but my first concern was saving face in front of the guy next to me. in typical male restroom fashion, i had already made the hundred percent conscious effort not to turn toward him in even the slightest way while approaching, and therefore had no idea who it was. could have been the president of the company for all i could tell. so the ‘reach in and grab it quick!’ option was out. but so was the ‘pretend nothing happened’ route, because of reasons 1 and 2a above. tricky.

in my wisdom and due to what i saw as the fortunate circumstance of the button being on the upper left of the sloping urinal bowl mat, i settled on a plan. aim far right and minimize button infection while maintaining composure next to the possibly-important fellow at work next to me. stall, maybe shake off a little longer than normal, and wait for him to finish before me. flush, rinsing away the contaminants and relying on the urinal mat to keep the button from going down the drain — maybe that’s why it’s there? — and hope upon hope that i can grab it and wash it and my hands very thoroughly and quickly, not to mention before anyone else comes in or my pants fall down.

proving myself a lucky and intelligent strategist, that phase of the plan went smoothly and according to my scheme. of course, i still had to walk back to my desk with my hands in my pockets to prop up my jeans, and with the button in my pocket to be dealt with later. not having a needle and thread handy back there either, which perhaps i should bring to keep in a drawer in readiness for the next trouser incident, i was forced into using a binder clip to fasten the waistband closed for the next few hours, and subsequently hoping my untucked shirt wouldn’t drift up and give away the fact that my pants were being held together the same way as the monthly report i was carrying back from the copy room. thusly, i made it through the rest of the day. and with a few more washings of the hands, to be extra safe.

naturally, though, once home to my seamstress tools and the privacy needed to remedy the problem, i realize a small tragedy. the problem wasn’t the threads coming undone as i had assumed, but the plastic center of the button itself having broken (hence the popping sound i gather), rendering it completely useless and my unsanitary misadventure completely unnecessary. not to mention i’ll have to steal a button off some old coat from my closet before wearing these pants again.

good decision, brian. real good. plus, now i have a strange urge to look up the real purpose of urinal mats.

it’s a sweet afternoon here at my place. cubs are wailing on the pirates at the moment, there’s a perfect breeze blowing through my apartment, and i’m thoroughly enjoying the next book i picked up, the big sleep by raymond chandler. and the day’s just started.

the other night i got all political-geeky and stayed up late watching the al gore speech for moveon.org on my computer. i must have caught them at the right time because then they still had the full length video up, now it’s just lots of clips (which you should still check out). i thought it was a really moving speech. i don’t want to go on a diatribe or cover something that’s already been covered to death already, but i will say this: how great would it be to have a president who could not only use but understand the phrase ‘faustian bargain’? and we were so close. check out the page, it was a great speech.

the funny thing was i decided to watch it at around 1am wednesday night, when the apartment was all dead and quiet. i felt like a little kid staying up past his bedtime to watch scary movies — only it was me at my computer watching an hour-long political oratory. how far we’ve come, eh?

oh, and saw the shins last night at the wiltern, which was pretty great. they seem like a fun bunch of guys, and they sounded dead-on. i think i’m just burned out on them after listening to chutes too narrow non-stop for basically all of april. and those goddamn fiery furnaces opened for them, which i will never understand. why do they get so much attention? their singer can’t sing and their songs have no melody. as far as i know, that means your band sucks. except if you’re just trying to make an art-rock statement or something, in which case your band still sucks, you’re just trying to impress the staff at kcrw so some nerd can get up and rave about you while giving your intro. *coughbullshitcough*

ps: anyone know why the shins’ website is ‘darkcoupon.com’? that’s creepy.

pps: CUBS WIN 6-1! EAT THAT PITTSBURGH!

[now hearing this: some hey mercedes mix madness.]

underworld – don delillo – 4 stars

underworld, for me, was a bit of a glitch. normally i go crazy for books with great writing, but only when it’s used to tell a great story. i’m a huge fan of style, but only when it’s used substantially. or at least in a way that propels you forward through a good plot.

the thing about this book, though, is that it isn’t exactly plot-driven at all. after the prologue, the point farthest back in time, the rest of the book is spent going back and back in time until you reach where you started. so it’s less of a plot line than a gradual uncovering of memories and nostalgias. and while this factors heavily into the meaning of the work — which i will refrain from writing a critical essay on here — the story’s theme wasn’t a huge factor in my opinion of the book.

but while i wouldn’t say the story was profound in any life-changing sense, i think the thing that made this 827 page paperback worth lugging around for a month was its truthfulness. no, it didn’t reveal to me as a whole some hidden meaning of life. but in every passage delillo describes honest living details that make each individual page worth reading, and then turning in favor of the next. it’s not so much a style of flourish and flashiness as it is a general skill at insight.

so if you asked me ‘what was that book about?’ it would take me a long time to craft a response, and even then it probably wouldn’t really entice you. instead, i would probably ask to answer the question, ‘what was that book like to read?’ and i would say ‘i’m not sure i fully get the big picture, but i enjoyed it all the way through.’ and if you like long, challenging but rewarding books i would also say you should read it so we can decode it together.

memorial day weekend to me has meant sit on your ass weekend. i managed to get out of the house saturday night for a get together and some drinks at jen’s, and last night to go see godfather part II at the new beverly, but otherwise i have been here, relaxing. it’s been fantastic. even finished a book finally.

the best part for sure though was the back to back concerts thursday and friday night. i feel bad that my regular concert buddy joe was busy this week, because he missed the best two shows of the year so far. now that’s bad timing.

the cursive show thursday night at the troubadour was probably the fifth or so time i’ve seen them, so i knew they’re always good. i just love their sound so much and they really play a powerful show. now maybe tim was drunker or more energetic than usual, maybe a little of both, but they layed into their songs that night with some definite fury. even though the set included a higher-than-usual percentage of older songs i didn’t even know, it was top form start to finish and i could not get enough. lucky for me then that they also played way longer than usual, maybe over 90 minutes even. they’re still on the road with the plea for peace tour, so i’d say catch them if you can.

then friday, the sweet sweet sounds of the mountain goats, who i’d never see play live before. since tallahassee came out i’ve been seriously in love with this guy though, so my eagerness had been growing all week. the two opening bands pretty much wasted my time, so that didn’t help, but as soon as the mountain goats (i.e. john and his bass playing accompaniment) started i was fully engaged and energized. with a catalog of hundreds of well-written ballads to choose from i don’t know how that man writes a set list, but i was in heaven. the songs from we shall all be healed sounded great, and the dozen tunes i’d never even heard before all pleased me just as much. when he played an extra-soft version of “shadow song” i almost wanted to cry, and when he came back out for an encore of “no children” i cheered pretty loudly. maybe it’s a little pretentious that they left stage three times and came out again for more encores, but i wasn’t about to complain at getting to hear more songs. the best of which was probably the ‘HAIL SATAN’ chant-along in ‘best-ever death metal band out of denton’.

sadly, i think that pretty much wrapped up his tour for this year so i can’t encourage you to go see him in the near future, unless you will be in chicago on june 4th, in which case GO! DON’T MISS IT! NOW’S YOUR CHANCE, DON’T SCREW THIS UP!.

but for the rest of you, i recommend instead you check out the pay day song, a new track they played called dance music, recorded here from a live spot on kexp. most excellent.

happy memorial day all, i’ve got some grilling to do.

can i possibly list all the reasons why today is great? honestly, things are looking really good going into this weekend.

firstly, i spent all last night bowling and drinking with coworkers (and as usual, for free) and rolled 116, 130, and 107, which are all respectable. i figured out that you have to keep the right beer-to-bowl ratio going to get optimal scores. after a couple my second game got really smooth; but then i had a few more in too short a time and my aim was off and i couldn’t pick up spares anymore. i was so proud of myself for getting in the hundred club all three times though — now that’s athleticism. i didn’t even have much of a hangover.

and tonight’s the cursive show at the troubadour! i am excited. especially since i missed them at coachella knowing i would get to see them again so soon. i’m even wearing an especially hip shirt so i fit in with all the emo kids. then tomorrow is the mountain goats at spaceland. shit man, and that’s all before the long weekend gets into full swing.

in other fortunate news, i got two lovely gifts today as well. remember the story about the odd but pleasant surprise of the free sneaker booth at the coachella party we went to? well they came in the mail today, proving it wasn’t a hoax that was too good to be true. they even sent the right size and color, and they look and fit beautifully, meaning good things do happen to people who wait in lines without knowing why. and at lunch, justin handed me his irock ipod adapter, meaning i can finally listen to the bri-pod in the car again. mine had shorted out a while back and he got a stereo that makes his unnecessary, to my benefit. i ought to buy that man a cheeseburger, he made my day for the third time.

now if only it were 5:30 instead of 3:30 and i were sailin’ out of here, i’d be in the best mood of all.