Current

This is a new habit. Current.com - available from most cable providers. This is the TV/news organization fronted by AlGore. If I watch standard news - either msnbc, fox, whatever - then watch this, the comparison is huge. Best news-type channel available. The investigative journalism is real, a bit unnerving at times, exciting and provocative. This thing is way ahead of the curve - music, news, life. Plus some of the viewer-created content they play is great. It's like superior quality public access.

Where the Wild Things Are

Some books are just too good to mess with. Others have a genuine potential to be something more. M Sendak approached a virtually unknown Spike Jonze ten years ago about doing something with his classic. Finally it's been done. Sendak, S Jonze, D Eggars and perfect use of an Arcade Fire song. This is too good to not be great.

Here's the trailer:

Leslie Simon Is Awesome

I guess I've seen this name somewhere. Probably Alternative Press magazine. But she's the real deal. She's smarter than me about music - so, so much smarter, and I'm a total musical snob. So I appreciate, and am annoyed by, those smarter than me. Reading through her first book, Everybody Hurts. It's funny, insigtful, quirky and fun. Looks like she blogs from time to time as well, Leslie-Simon.com. I'll get to her second book soon enough but I'll read anything this cat writes. Leslie Simon, check her out.

Lack of motivation, lack of mental jewelry

I love thinking I'm smarter than others, knowing exactly that I am not. A couple words or a small phrase from a film or song you think is obscure but the sadder issue is thinking it's obscure, when someone smarter - everyone - knows the subtle little nugget, knows it, forgot it, has already nothing-ed it. Bugger.

I seldom write here because 1) It's just a diary really and those are girly and silly; 2) I simply haven't anything to say/write/type, which is dangerously close to assuming I have nothing to think/share/give. Hmmm.

Still it's difficult pill to swallow, knowing there's maybe four, five people on the planet with less sense than oneself. Odd, sad, interesting, and simple, that's the beauty of it.

Gregory Barsamian, artist

href="http://www.gregorybarsamian.com/media/start.html">

This guy is amazing. I saw an installation 10 years ago, saw it 4 times. Impossible to forget. The link shows tiny video clips of many of his works.

the ugly shirt

Here's one. I love "the ugly shirt". I have 12 or 14 shirts I'd consider "the ugly shirt". Can't get enough of them. Many are silk, most are very loud. Some are from the 70's, most from thrift stores, many likely cost someone over $100, while I get them for under $5 at cheap secondhand shops. Some are orange, pink, vivid bright colors. Others are more subtle in their ugliness. Some stripes, some paisley, even a pink polkadot number I cannot wear in public. I do love the ugly shirt. So very comfortable inside and out

importance of seeing live music

It's ironic (or maybe just silly and pitiful) that I'd write this tonight, the night after a good show I bailed on. Wouldn't have been a life changing or great event. But that's the point. You force yourself to do this. And it's almost always worth it. Even if the band or the music is subpar, the effort and intention always makes it worth your two hours and usually ten bucks or less. As a music lover, you feel a good show in your heart. The music hopefully is good, but it's the live performance that's the necessity. Seeing them on a stage, doing what they do. And standing in the crowd, beer in hand, slowing headbopping and shoegazing and thinking this really is important to be here. To experience that, well, you either love it or you don't. A good show is just what we must do. Once in a while. It hits a tiny part of your being that otherwise sits dormant. Touching that tiny part of you, it makes other things so much more beautiful. Passion breeds more passion. Yes, this is lame. But my aim is true.

sigur ros - von

This one just gets me. It's the song. The performance. The people in the cafe in Iceland watching and listening and being. The facial expressions. The emotion. The lack of lyrics. The lack of hurt.

Sigur Ros, Von, from Heima:

August 5

Today was a day like any other. Only it wasn't. It's been four years since my brother passed on. "Passed on". That's supposed to be a kinder, softer way of saying someone died. Passed on. Four years. Seems like a day. Seems like a lifetime. Seems I have to see August 5 once a year. Death. A brother's death. I still lack closure most funerals provide. Time helps but it does not heal. August 5. A day like any other. Only not at all.

New Death Cab For Cutie EP

This one will need to grow on me a bit. Which it will. The past several of their releases didn't hit me like the first one. That first one was special though. Monumental. Here's a recent performance on Conan: http://www.deathcabforcutie.com/news/. Yes, The Open Door EP is good. In time might be something more. More guitars, less piano. Haven't digested the lyrics yet but Ben G is very good with words. And DCFC just can't make bad music. Damn them. So predictable and hip.

west wing quote

And speaking of The West Wing:
From Toby, to Will:
When you get home tonight you're going to be confronted by the instinct to drink alone. Trust that instinct. Manage the pain. Don't try to be a hero.

achievement, or the purpose thereof

We can do more. We all can. Ever watch an uplifting episode - whether well written or cheesy or anything in between - of a thoughtful television show? West Wing for instance, or any Sorkin-written script can have a little thoughtful insight. Something to make you stand up and think you can make a difference. And then the feeling fades and you work and play and waste more time doing absolutely nothing. Until of course the next thing you see or read or watch or hear. It's endless and it leads to nothing good or nothing really at all but nothingness. Is it just me?

That's oddly melodramatic. Still true though.

Time Traveler's Wife trailer, finally

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809937231/trailer

Enjoyable book. Nice idea for a movie, but doubtful it can bring the sparks and emotion of the novel.

2wd8avgm7s

further thoughts on blogs and blogging

Blogs have been around barely ten years. Some before then but few, even fewer were the beginnings of weblogs back before AlGore invented the Internet. By mid 2009 there are more than 100 million existing blogs and growing each second worldwide. The majority of these blogs will quickly drop - like this one I'm certain - become internet waste due to fleeting interest, loss of initial romantic notion of having a blog, maybe a forgotten password or two. Plus it's very difficult to continue to maintain anything on a consistent and regular basis. It's like doing the dishes or cleaning the basement - things you have to do and will do, but not daily. Right? Well, dishes is bad example but you get the idea. It's very difficult to commit to a task that does not include a salary, involve the betterment of your family or give a clear or intangible benefit of some sort.

But they will continue. With each lost and forgotten weblog, another two and three will take its place. The interesting part is finding a solid voice of words, a consistent source of entertainment, news, culture and enlightenment, and knowing it will continually give to the reader fortunate enough to have come across such a thing. The blog.

why blog

I'm confused. Why do this. Such a solitary thing, writing. Why write and post, for whatever nut or bored malcontent who happens upon an unknown site to find. Seems ridiculous. Words and thoughts are private. I speak as little as possible but write as much as possible. Nothing leaves my password protected computer. Granted, I'd never post anything of reasonable consequence on a random weblog but why would anyone? Why would I or anyone else. Self gratification, boastful intentions, whatever the case may be. I'm baffled yet intrigued. A weblog is nothing more than a diary with no key. My sister had one of those little Holly Hobby or Strawberry Shortcake or whatever the hell it was diarys with the goofy little plastic lock. But I don't recall ever reading it. I probably did, just because I could. But the point is, I wouldn't remember anything if I did, just that I did. And I don't even remember that. More to the point, it's not what is said, it's the fact that it can be said. Think I'll write some more though.

The Road

new trailer, finally. for now, here: http://movies.yahoo.com/premieres/13468916/standardformat/.

Anticipating this one. Tried 5 (that's five) times to read McCarthy's tome, to no avail. It's just too good. Dark, depressing yes, but that's not it. It's painfully beautiful, more so than any pages I've known. Maddeningly poignant and touching. And again, I never advanced past page 40. Some day I will get to it, when the pain and beauty wear off a touch.

the wait, the chase, the lacking

I've read several times lately of kids about my age - I'll say mid-thirties, which is true but appalling - going through a bit of a mid-life crisis sort of thing. Maybe not "mid-life crisis" mid-life crisis but something of the sort. Most of the occurances, whether real or in my little premature mid-thirties head, seem to be to the effect of post divorce, past even the beginnings of a second career, getting that third degree or second masters and essentially getting one's shit together.

Not to mention names but I've heard of more than a few of these sick little instances. I mean, good for them and all, but I haven't yet experienced the first one. These folks had it together, or even didn't but they had something, got wise, got out and begun again. What in hell have I been doing? That's what concerns me. That's what keeps me up at night, while wasting more time. Melodramatic? A bit, yes. More to come. More whining, more of the same.

favorite movies

picking favorite movies is dangerous business. no way can you think of an accurate top 5 or top 10. something will always hide from memory. that said, here's a few necessary ones.

godfather, both of them ("part 3" shouldn't count)
kicking and screaming (baumbach, not farrell [not that there's anything wrong with that])
four weddings and a funeral
true west (s shepherd filmed play with malkovich/sinese)
lebowski

a half step below:
vanilla sky, which hurt on a number of levels
jesus' son, also which hurt and then numbed and then forgot what all the fuss was about
true romance

an intro to the tame and neurotic

I recall a napkin from about years ago. bar nap. lynaugh's pub. it said on the back twenty four years old and still stupid. no, i didn't write it. i was stupid, but was twenty-two at the time. was likely a whiskeytown show, maybe early wilco, when they were still playing little clubs. maybe it was the v-roys. but i remember that napkin and what it meant. to think, we had the knowledge that we were stupid in our early to mid twenties. but that knowing meant something. it was a look to the near future. a telling glance that we had certain things to offer - certain things, any things like art, passion, music, poetry, ability to hurt another, to mold another, to reach another, to collect and gather, to create, to destroy. and that was fifteen years ago. i remember that napkin, remember it well.