Category: Uncategorized

it’s friday. it’s pay day. i have a party to go to tonight with some lovely friends, so to kill a few minutes before takeoff, how about a new pay day song?

the remix album: i’ve haven’t bought the d-plan one yet but i like at least two of the tracks (the free ones) and listened to it once streamed and it seemed okay. eventually i will pick it up and decide. it seemed like a novel and interesting experiment for an indie-rock band to do, partaking of a practice normally left to electronic artists like the gorillaz and such. if nothing else they get points for going out on a limb, right?

i didn’t know until just this week though about another such release back in 2001 from a band called kings of convenience, where they took basically their whole previous release quiet is the new loud and ‘reimagined’ it, or whatever you like to say. from that album, i share with you an absolutely killer remix by royksopp of the song i don’t know what i can save you from.

the funny part is, i’ve listened to some regular kings of convenience tracks, and they’re decent but not great (acoustic guitar pop); i’ve listened to some regular royksopp, and they’re just okay techno-groove (but you should check out their animated videos, they are pretty great — especially ‘poor leno’); i’ve even tested several other tracks from this remix album, and they’re alright i guess. but for some reason this one song is just fucking brilliant. maybe it’s the beat that sounds like it’s made from the sounds of pvc piping. have blue man group done a remix album yet?

party on, wayne.

[now hearing this: tracks from the my morning jacket album i ought to buy next time i swing by amoeba.]

i saw lightning last night. in los angeles! several bright flashing bolts, i could hardly believe it. rain and lightning. these people must have been freaking out, and they didn’t even have to deal with loud thunderclaps which were strangely absent. i’ll take what i can get though in terms of interesting weather. maybe it’ll snow this year?

actually that piqued my curiosity so i just looked up the fact that there hasn’t been a single trace of snow in LA county since 1962, or over .3 inches since 1949. but who knows, the world does seem like it’s ending lately. or maybe i’ll just settle for the nice crisp morning air and november sunshine.

yeah, this post pretty much sucks because it was unprovoked. nothing much to share this week except that about schmidt is a really painful movie to watch even though as a movie it’s pretty alright. i’d still advise against it. too realistically bleak and depressing. unless you want to see kathy bates naked.

a high point though is that i’ve talked to my dear old friend shannon four nights in a row on the phone and it’s hard to top that anyway. i hate it when cool girls move away; i only know like 6 of them in the world. she has some hilarious stories though and is just as fun to talk to as ever.

won’t be boring next time, i promise.

[now hearing this: am i the only one who keeps revisiting interpol and still doesn’t get why so many people think they’re so great? i want to understand but every time it’s just like, ‘ummm… i’m bored here. do something already.’]

the matrix: revolutions – 2 stars

vs.

reservoir dogs – 5 stars

i had the pleasure of seeing both these films on the big screen in the space of a week, and that proximity will make for a great comparison. i see it as huge budget gone wrong versus small budget gone brilliantly right.

first, the matrix. my primary reason for not hating it for falling so short of what it could have been, is that the opinions of everyone who saw it before i did set my revised expectations so low it actually didn’t seem all that bad. still, not a very positive review.

and you know what, it doesn’t deserve one. the primary action scenes were all cartoony fighting robots, and the ones that weren’t were too scarce, too short, or too similar to what they’d done in the past two movies to ever get me honestly excited. if the melodramatic delivery from the whole cast wasn’t making me wince, then a lot of what they were saying made me laugh at them instead of care about them. this is all really harsh i know, but the first one was groundbreaking, the second one was at least entertaining, and this one just fizzled out as far as the series is concerned. i get the sense that after the first flick the wachowskis tried to do so much with this world they created that they lost sight of making a tight sci-fi action movie that really worked not seen through the lenses of matrix fandom. there are so many plot holes and unexplained dialogue i’m wondering if they’re being vague simply so that people will pay to see the next 3 matrix movies hoping to get any clue what the hell they’re talking about. well, nice try guys, but after this i’m done.

it just kills me that they probably spent millions of dollars and hundreds of hours making action scenes with human robots shooting at evil robots and so much CGI you can’t even focus on anything on screen long enough to enjoy it; you can only sit tight and wait for it to be over. whereas you can take a movie like reservoir dogs in which the main scenes of action aren’t even on camera, made with a fraction of the cost, and have a landmark film. heck, i saw this last week on a much smaller screen, in a theatre with less comfortable chairs and much less sophisticated sound, and would still say i enjoyed myself 5 times as much. why? little things like a strong script, original dialogue, and characters that you can’t just throw away (who the hell was that little girl supposed to be? does the frenchman really matter at all? or the train man? where were the twins, or something like the twins, in this movie? do the wachowskis just keep planting seeds just in case they might want to develop them later?).

right. so the real point is that the matrix trilogy could have been incredible if they hadn’t overextended themselves story-wise and just made some creative action movies. i’m not going to say ‘don’t see this’, because you basically have to after seeing the first two. and maybe that was the smartest thing about this movie: we were all committed no matter how it turned out.

if it’s any measure, i would pay to add reservoir dogs to my home collection, whereas i would not even accept a free copy of matrix: revolutions, not wanting it to drag down the integrity of my dvd library. and i own pump up the volume with christian slater, people. think about that one.

highlights from this weekend include buying some new books (!) friday night, which as usual makes me strangely exuberant, spending quality time with jen finally (i wish i had a new sleepover buddy, but she got me there), and having an excellent party at our place saturday night. it was our first major hosting occasion involving liquor, and it was great all around. i remember losing a game of barrel of monkeys in which i only needed ONE more monkey to complete the chain, storming into my room and slamming the door, then climbing from my balcony to the neighboring living room balcony, going back in and knocking on my door from the outside telling myself to come out and not be so hard on myself. is that brilliant or what?

not-so-highlights include seeing the new matrix. i’m sorry but… well, i will write a review here in just a second.

[now hearing this: various 75 or less recommendations which i am only lukewarm about.]

weak blog week, huh. i hate when this happens. my excuse this time coincides with a recent revelation. my life is really cool and enjoyable right now, but sadly it’s cool and enjoyable in a very consistent way, where i go to my good job and enjoy that, then come home and read good books or hang out with good friends or watch good dvd’s, etc. which is all good, it just doesn’t lend itself to many stories. summation: i’m doing super well and very happy but just nothing worth retelling. i’ll try to change that in the near future.

also, instead of writing posts i succumbed to the requests of my mother and drew up a christmas wish list as well. how else are my parents supposed to know what the kids are in to these days if i don’t specifically tell them? especially weird kids like me. the answer is very apparently ‘geek stuff’.

the best night this week though was probably tuesday. walked to the new beverly cinema to catch reservoir dogs with gino and steff (review/reflection to come later today), then went from there to pinks to get pastrami dogs. heh. i didn’t realize that connection until just now. which gives me an idea for a rival stand called ‘reservoir dogs’ that will feature employees in black ties and jackets. maybe our slogans could be, ‘a real killer dog’ or ‘one delicious shot in the stomach’. and each hot dog can be assigned a color like the movie, with the mr. pink steve buscemi character being a wussy ass tofu dog or something.

why did i write that out, some clown’s gonna steal my great idea now.

anyway, that night was the best because A) that movie is amazing, B) i love that theatre, C) pink’s is delicious, but additionally because D) we did a night in LA all on foot. if you don’t live here you might not realize how rare that is, but it felt so good to be walking in the cool night and actually able to go places within walking distance. it made me feel part of the city and added to my ever-increasing love of my new location. even though it’s not so new any more, i guess, i am still excited about being in the middle of a lot of things, and this was a shining example.

[now hearing this: the hippos. man, that’s old school, what is this, 1997?]

hmm. halloween. as much as it saddens me in light of last year’s excellent halloween party, with decorations and costumes to beat the band and hundreds of people stopping by our grand old robot house, this year was a zero on the halloween scale. i didn’t have a costume. i didn’t even have a costume idea. i kept putting it off til it was too late, then, well, it was too late. you know what i did on halloween? i played video games at my friends’ place, then watched a crappy movie with my roommate and some other kids back here. i blame the fact that it was raining for the first time in months, thus zapping any motivation and spoiling my half-formed plan to go out to west hollywood and take in the freak show. ah well, these things happen. i told myself at the time that the past two weekends were so great, i shouldn’t expect a third in a row to be on that level. i was more or less okay with that.

then, surprise, it’s saturday and what do i end up doing. spencer was going to come up and chill with us, but instead spencer comes up, and we meet up with a friend of ours, mike, whose coworkers have organized a bar tour of hollywood via double decker london busses (yes, for real). so a hundred people on two busses, drinking heavily between and during (there were coolers on each floor of each bus) bus jaunts from one to another bar, and shouting at passersby and generally just having a great, belligerent, somewhat frat-guy seeming time. but i can’t say that it wasn’t a lot of fun, couldn’t say that i wasn’t stinking drunk, and won’t say i wouldn’t do it again. sometimes you have to be a jackass i think just to get it out of your system.

so that was a brilliant night after all and how about that, another good weekend. today it was gorgeous outside and we had breakfast at my favorite restaurant (doughboy’s on 3rd) and even got free dessert from the cool ass waiter named harley. then i went on a bike ride and watched amores perros with josh which was too long and really kinda boring, to be honest. now i’m sitting here relaxing and it’s sunday night and i’m happy.

happy and listening to desaparecidos actually, which for some reason i missed the bus on last year until a coworker of all people loaned me a copy of their cd. that’s some good shit, so try a taste with greater omaha if you’re like me and were just too dumb to get into them back when they were news. so there’s your pay day song. i’m off.

okay, forget the fact that i’m reading articles about marketing to teens for a minute. i know that doesn’t interest people not in advertising. i’m a loser, i know.

now, listen to this statistic i picked out of one such article today at work, from mediaweek magazine, which i’d link if you didn’t have to subscribe to read online anyway. here goes:

one thing teens today share with teens of the past is the fact that they are influenced by their favorite artists. but forget about songs that talk about the hot boy or girl at the next locker. hip-hop is a veritable laundry list of hot products. there have been 1,050 references to about 66 different brands in songs ranked in the top 20 through the beginning of october, according to san francisco-based brand consultancy lucjam…

that’s unbelievable! in roughly one month’s time? i don’t even know what to say in response, i can hardly digest that figure. so i will just tack on one of the next lines in the article which i found funny and awfully brash and sweeping as far as generalizations go:

“hip hop is incredibly materialistic, making it a good place to talk about materialistic things,” says lucien james, president of lucjam…

haha. what an ass.

[now hearing this: some surprisingly non-materialistic yet definitely hip hop tunes from el-p.]

light house – william monahan – 5 stars

a dear and darling friend of mine remarked to me the other day something about how i seemed to be awfully handy and playful with words. i can’t recall the exact phrase, but it was definitely complimentary. then she asked if i was aware of this or if it was just the way i am.

i went on to describe to her how she had actually struck the very center of a lot of my passions. how i absolutely adored and devoured words, delighted in their usages and variety; and how that drove my constant reading, as well as my desire to write this webpage. to be the verbal ninja i aspire to be, i must constantly seek out new weapons and practice my skills. which is also why i think i love the coens’ movies so much, because they seem to be high masters of wielding all forms of vernacular.

so it is too with this book, and why i loved it from start to finish. monahan swings and swishes his finely sharpened word choice through the air with the deft skill of a literary samurai. his arsenal of vocabulary is so varied and extensive that it isn’t just about choosing a suitable method of attack, but pinpointing the most stylish and exciting ways to come at each bit of dialogue or exposition, adding flourishes of language and literary reference whenever possible to make for the absolute most entertaining execution.

as only a novice myself, i will fully admit to reaching for the dictionary a number of times, and having a sense that many of the same sort of intricacies that delighted me when i did catch them were probably over my head as well — but such is the path of learning. we train with the masters that are obviously much more skilled than we are in the hopes that some day we will rise to meet them; and this was not only an adept master but a hysterical one as well, so i can’t recommend him enough. i plan to return to this one myself someday in the hopes that i come even closer to meeting its challenge, and you’d be doing yourself a very large favor to join me.

let me tell you a little bit about my weekend.

friday i went out with a bunch of fellows and a couple very nice girls. we went to one bar that got too expensive after happy hour, then left for a cheaper bar. at the cheaper bar we enjoyed a few rounds, then were offered free promotional margaritas courtesy of el tesoro (the only super-premium tequila that is still made by hand, you know), which were strong and delicious. then somehow we scammed a second round of promotional drinks out of them as well. then we walked home and had wine. then one of the very nice girls decided to crash at my place instead of on the fellows’ uncomfortable couch. it was a very lovely night.

saturday we got some good food, and i was tired. i framed some posters, which look very nice now and will look great on the wall once i buy wire to hang them with, and i was still tired. i visited the very nice girl who was staying at the fellows’ place, but promised my roommate i’d go to a party with him and eventually did so. the party turned out to be about 8 people sitting around being dull. i wished i had stayed with the very nice girl. but once i promptly returned home, i did set my clock back an hour and then sleep for 11, making up for the 3 or so from the previous night.

sunday i went to the beach. it’s late october and i was playing frisbee in the sand. i like california. later on after dinner and some relaxing, i went to say goodbye to the very nice girl, but ended up letting her crash here again, to my surprise and delight. 4 hours of sleep might not be much, but the girl was very nice and it was okay.

this morning i woke up and drove her back to the fellows’ place who would later drive her to the airport to go back home, 8 time zones away. so i said goodbye to the very nice girl and spent the rest of the day trying not to fall asleep. i watched harold and maude tonight with my roommate, which was weird, and now i think that i am going to go to bed, this time without even the slight chance of there being any very nice girls involved.

it was a good weekend. i imagine there are plenty of very nice girls in the world (and some very nice boys too, those ladies reading this), but i also imagine that in a normal lifetime, only so many of their paths will cross ours. only so many glances will be exchanged unfrivolously. only so many will really laugh at our jokes, or think we look cute in spectacles. and only so many will depart again with smiles from both sides. so tonight i think i’ll go to sleep just pleased to have shared something with someone who seemed so very nice. goodnight.

the drive in today was normal, a semi-clear sunny day. then i turned around a bend as i approached marina del rey, and drove into a wall of fog. it was really abrupt and creepy, i thought maybe there was a storm or a forest fire (yes i know there is no forest nearby), because this was some very sudden, very thick fog. so thick i could feel it when i got out of my car.

now the sun’s high in the sky, and the fog is so thick that although it’s almost the middle of the day, the sky is the color of a sunrise. it’s glowing reddish orange and making any parts of the office with windows look creepy. i stepped outside for a moment to check it out and felt a distinct twinge of apocalypse in the air. like there’s a massive fire somewhere and it’s spreading and reflecting in the sky.

i wish i could go outside and play right now.