Defining what isn't art

(Yeah, I’m sorry about last night’s post. It was pretty bad. That’s what happens when I try to write and watch a football game at the same time.)

A bad joke to start things off…

“So, did you go see King Kong over the weekend?”
“Hell no. You think that I’m going to sit through a three hour movie about gay cowboys?”

Amazingly, that’s my own joke. You’ll hear it in all of the monologues this week though trust me. But it does give me a segue into a topic that has been in the press where I could add my ten dollars Canadian and that is whether the themes in movies are reflecting the morals of modern society.

This is starting from something I heard on CNN this morning. Obviously, there is some controversy regarding Brokeback Mountain, which, let’s face it, actually is about gay cowboys. This means that there are the typical protests on how horrible it is that there is this embracing of homosexual culture by Hollywood and that while liberal cities (defined as New York, LA and Chicago) may embrace it, the rest of the country will not. Tied to this is the argument that Hollywood should make films that are more in tune with the morals and viewpoints of mainstream society.

It is that last point that is really sticking in my head because of what it implies. If you follow that to its logical conclusion then all art should be what the average person would agree with and enjoy. Defining art is incredibly difficult but I’m pretty sure that the opposite of art is “something that the average person would agree with and enjoy.” The entire point of being creative is to address stories on the fringes and to use uncommon situations to expose universal truths. It is not to present some bland, lifeless, uncontroversial material. Sure, that might make money but it is not art. Plus, as long as we still live in a capitalistic society (and hopefully a democratic one) you get to vote with your pocketbook. If you find a movie about cowboys who spend a little too much time together offensive then simply don’t go. Everyone gets to make their own choice even if you might not agree with it. I wish that more people could understand that principle.

The same segment brought up the rise in Christian imagery in film. Or at least the realization of such imagery. This was all started by The Passion (which really shouldn’t fall under imagery given that it is The Passion) and is brought up now by The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. It’s interesting hearing a critic state “I didn’t know there was religious symbolism in the story.” Wow, so the lion sacrificing itself and then being reborn had no resonance with you whatsoever? I caught that and I was nine at the time. I actually support this trend not so much in that there should be religious symbolism in films but that people really need to recognize it. In really good works of art, in most creative efforts, at the core there is often symbolism. If this causes people to look beyond the surface I am all for it. Let’s face it, within the Bible is the basis for basically every plot ever written. Except for the one about the magical pair of jeans that is passed amongst a group of friends. That may be the first original idea in a thousand years.

Braving the crowds

Are you kidding me? They delayed Family Guy for twenty minutes for the president’s speech? What type of country is this? I mean, we really need to get our priorities straight. They should have had the speech at 8:30 because no one would be that upset that American Dad is delayed. But Family Guy? That goes against everything that this great nation has been built on.

(Yeah, I watched the speech in parts. The Bears game is also on so I’ve been torn between stations. I figure it was the usual, “We’ll win the war though ‘win’ and ‘war’ have been really poorly defined. And if you disagree you are an unpatriotic communist.” That’s probably the gist of it.)

Not much going on this weekend. Took care of almost all of my Christmas shopping this weekend, which is good since Christmas is technically coming up pretty soon. I was able to avoid most of the crowds but I still had to brave the mall in December. Maybe this is a guy thing, maybe it is just me, but I just can’t stand crowds at the mall. When I go shopping it is a well organized process. I have primary and secondary objectives. I will go to these three stores, I will pick up these five items, if opportunity presents itself I may attempt to acquire three tertiary items. There are timetables, routes, everything is prepared to the nth degree. Then I hit the mall and everyone is just wandering around, looking at a tree like it’s the first time that they’ve ever seen one, and I just go bonkers. Thank God for Amazon and Ebay.

(But it did give me time to listen through the Paula Cole CD. A painful, painful experience. I’ll admit that it is horrible that I own this disc but it’s not like it was unpopular. Apparently a lot of people were idiots in the mid-90’s.)

Since I am completely out of material right now (and I don’t know if anyone would want to read play by play of the Bears game) I’ll hit on one of my housekeeping issues that I am going to bring up between now and the end of the year. As we near the year anniversary of the five random CDs I’ve decided to continue with the effort. It is a lot of fun and I get to hear music that I haven’t listened to in some cases over a decade. But there are going to be some changes made. First of all, starting on January 1 I will be implementing the “no repeats” rule. Given Excel’s random number generator isn’t this is what I have to do to ensure that I don’t have to listen to the same disc three times. Also, I’ll try to give a mini preview/review as I go along. Consider it to be like putting your iPod on shuffle, except you don’t actually get to hear any of the music.

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Laura Minor “Salesman’s Girl”
2) Old 97’s “Early Tracks”
3) Waco Brothers “Do You Think About Me?”
4) Gillian Welch “Revival”
5) Bruce Springsteen “Human Touch”

Highs and lows...

First thing, check out the following article http://www.suntimes.com/output/entertainment/cst-ftr-neville15.html. This is basically my worst fear brought to life. If Cyril Neville is giving up on New Orleans then I have to feel that the city that I know and love is lost. There is a strong possibility that it is simply going to become a Vegas on the Bayou with everything being a façade. That is a horrible fate for one of the last real places in America. I hope that someone has the foresight to create a city in which the original melting pot of citizens can return but in the end I fear that what we are going to be left with is not the place where I felt most at home but a movie set.

Ok, very fun story from tonight. Decided to play trivia tonight and made my way to the bar a few minutes ahead of gametime. Because I am someone who is in control and on time and prompt. Or at least I would be if I knew that they changed the start time from 8 to 7. Whoops. So, with the first round winding down I’m pissed that I showed up and can’t play. Grab a beer and see that no team has that many points and at the in between round break decide to enter the game, picking up teammates along the way. My new team name: Inanimate Carbon Rod.

(Which is one of my favorite Simpsons references ever. I know that switching from Cobra Kai is probably bad form but a) I probably used up all the luck associated with that team name in fantasy football and b) following Mr. Miyagi’s passing I felt that it was best to retire the name for the time being out of respect for our vaunted adversary. Of course, I still would like to use Dr. Wang and his Medical Staff as a name but I’m continually told that it’s too long. And let me tell ya, that happens in a lot of aspects of my life (insert rim shot here).)

So, we are down some pretty serious points to the other teams when the categories are revealed. “Classic Nintendo games”, that should be good. “20 Minutes of Fame” about minor celebrities, well that one is right up my alley. “Flashback” on questions from previous games, the photographic memory should be helpful there. And “Python Sings”

There are very few things that I am an expert on and all they have in common is a) I’ll never make any money from my knowledge and b) no girl will ever date me because of how much I know. These subjects are pro wrestling, Uncle Tupelo, and most specifically, Monty Python. I have all of the episodes on DVD. I have all of the movies on DVD. I have all of the specials. I have copies of the scripts of every episode. And I have compilation tapes of every song ever recorded. Yes, I know that this means I will never, ever have a girlfriend. But it also means I am damn well going to clean up this category.

Which I do, including nearly breaking into the “Eric a Half a Bee” song. I even argued, correctly I might add, that the answer to “What was the Lumberjack in the Lumberjack’s song profession” is barber and not weatherman. I checked the scripts and I’m right (I think in one of the stage versions it may be a weatherman). Running that category got us back into the game and the other categories allowed us to catch up so that at the end of the round we had actually taken the lead. This is kind of unheard of, not even playing the first round and leading at the end of the second. And what is our Final Jeopardy category? Literature.

At this point I thought that I was money. I mean, it’s literature, how the hell am I going to miss this question. If I knew who was the captain of the Exxon Valdez and that the brightest star in the night sky was Sirius I am certainly going to get this one right and take home a nice profit and enter trivia lore. This was a sure thing.

Until the question was what book had four characters that I had never heard of in it. And I knew that it was a children’s book that I hadn’t read and none of my teammates knew it so we threw out a wild guess and were wrong. It was Watership Down, which basically everyone else got right. I’ve never read Watership Down. You want to know why? Because it’s about friggin rabbits! That’s not literature, that’s agriculture or horticulture or one of those other ‘ures. You know, if it was about Ulysses I could have gotten it but no, it had to be on a book that kids are forced to read in school that I somehow avoided all my life.

So after starting out in last, fighting our way up to first, we end up back in last. If there is ever a metaphor for my life, that very well may be it. Oh well, I’m going back out to the bars to drown my misery (don’t worry, I’m not working tomorrow. It’s Friday, no one should ever have to work on a Friday). Have a good weekend everyone.

Coming to Kansas City...Last Night...

Several topics without a theme tonight…

Topic 1: I’ll admit that I go to an awful lot of concerts, including a number that I go to simply because I think it would be funny. And I am rather easily entertained as my continual watching of pro wrestling indicates. But just so I have it on record, no, I did not attend the Neil Diamond concert last night. If you could build a time machine and send me back thirty years I wouldn’t catch Neil Diamond in concert. (I would however make sure that Dubya got the baseball commissioner’s job so that the world would be a much nicer place.) But they filled our basketball arena for Neil Diamond last night. Are there that many people who need to hear “Sweet Caroline” one more time? Is there a level of irony that I have not yet reached at which this becomes a valid entertainment choice? Help me out here.

Topic 2: Picked up David Foster Wallace’s latest collection of essays “Consider the Lobster” over the weekend. DFW is one of my faves, a MacArthur genius grant winner who at the time was an associate English professor at Illinois State, which really is the high school after high school. He writes the way I would like to think that I would write if I dedicated my life to the task and was given an injection of talent along the way. This is a collection of non-fiction, which is where he is at his best or at least most accessible. Basically what he does is write these in depth, clinical, detached highly intelligent stories of common but bizarre situations. Like one in which he attends the Illinois State Fair and discusses the socio implications of the fair. Or in his latest book, he attends the adult film awards and writes about it with such a critical eye and in this post modern manner that you don’t notice that you end up reading through forty footnotes along the way. If you want to read something that is the polar opposite of The Da Vinci Code, pick up some of his work.

Topic 3: This might come as a shock to a lot of people, but I actually missed the finales of both Survivor and The Amazing Race this week. I know, I know, I should probably forfeit my vote in the annual Reality Awards as a result. This is only the second time that I’ve missed the finale of Survivor and the only one where I didn’t have a really good excuse. This season just never really did anything for me other than really hoping that Stephanie would lose again so I could just get her off my television. The Amazing Race was fun but the four member family teams were just too many people to keep track of and you didn’t have the same dynamics. Plus, they mainly stayed in the United States and part of the fun of the show is watching people go to places you’ve never even thought of visiting. Hopefully I’ll get back into the swing of things next year.

Topic 4: Ok, is it bad that I don’t have any Christmas decorations up in my apartment? I mean, I am a single guy so the fact that you can see the floor is actually an accomplishment but is there a minimal level of decorating that I am supposed to attempt here? Maybe what is missing from my life is a festive holiday atmosphere. Imagine that all of my searching could have been avoided by simply hanging up some colored lights. Yeah, this is what goes through my head late at night.

Production completed

I’ve got a lot of really good news today. First of all, the Battling the Current: Volume 1 CD is finally complete. Sorry for the month delay, which wasn’t entirely due to laziness. In listening to my original track list I came to the realization that the first half of the disc simply didn’t work so that meant that I had to rethink things, rerecord some tracks, and all in all just start from scratch. But, it is still a free CD along with six pages of liner notes for those who feel obliged to read those sorts of things. Expect them to be coming your way in the next few weeks. (You can still request one, just drop me an email.)

Just as importantly, tonight I am celebrating earning the Wild Card berth in my Fantasy Football league. Yes, Cobra Kai after starting off the season a rather sad 3-5 goes on to win five of its last six and claim the fourth and final playoff spot, ensuring that I actually make a profit this year. Nice to see Peyton Manning come through for me at the end of the year along with the most unlikely starting running back tandem of LaMont Jordan and Thomas Jones. I don’t know if I have much of a chance this week as my opponent has Edgerin James and Larry Johnson but I’m just happy to make the playoffs. See, you don’t have to pick a running back in the first round. Or the second round either.

Here is my fun work story for the day. So I’m sitting at my cube this morning, which is on the main aisle of my floor right next to a conference room. As you can imagine, that is a position of great honor and prestige. Or more accurately, a position where I can’t look out the window and see if it is raining outside without walking thirty yards. Anyway, I’m sitting in my cube messing around with spreadsheets and I start smelling food. Like about ten boxes of pizza worth of food. Being set up right next to my cubicle for the meeting that was taking place in the conference room. Do you know how cruel that is? “We’re going to set up lunch five feet from you but remember, you can’t touch anything. Now go back and make sure those rows and columns sum up correctly.” Oh well, one day I’ll have a cube with a window and the world will be a much better place.

For those wondering I didn’t make my way out to see The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe just yet. It is nice to see that they’ve apparently done a nice job with the film given that they could have easily butchered it. There just isn’t much that would drive me to go to the theater to see it, especially in an opening weekend. In my mind, they won’t be able to touch the book or the cartoon version of the book that I remember watching a dozen times in the early eighties. As much as I push nostalgia sometimes I like keeping those memories as just that, memories. It’s like how I prefer to remember watching The Wizard of Oz once a year with my family as opposed to watching it now where I would be tempted to synch it up with Pink Floyd and pay attention to how Dorothy’s hair changes length four times in the same scene.

Last thing, in the weird news story of the day: Pregnant woman skydives, chutes do not open, hits the ground and lives. Which raises the obvious questions: 1) Why are you skydiving while pregnant? and 2) Is there a videotape of this? To which the answers are 1) She’s from Arkansas, that might be explanation enough and 2) Yes there is. This is the strangest part of the story. The woman (who landed in the parking lot going 50 mph and suffered some pretty hardcore injuries) has actually watched the tape of herself skydiving and having the chutes fail. She said that it doesn’t bother he because “She knows how it ends.” I’ll let someone with a psychology degree explain if that is a good idea or not.

Top of the charts

Willow from Buffy: “Hello beautiful. Oh wait, that’s just me reflected in your shirt. It’s shiny”
Doogie Howser: “Which is item # 8 on my list of the twenty three ways that women are like fish: they are both attracted to shiny objects. You really must start reading my blog.”

Yes, “How I Met Your Mother”, once again stealing something from my own life. Including hitting on coat check girls. If you’re not watching this show and it ends up getting canceled I am going to hunt each and every one of you down and well, give you the biggest guilt trip ever. (Sorry, I’m not good at physical threats). I’m telling you, there are very few shows about Gen X but this is a great one.

Ok, I’m not one to toot my own horn but I found out something today that is just astounding. While messing around with my cel phone I decided to see if I could call up the blog. Which I can, meaning that no matter where you are, you can always read my ramblings. But that isn’t the coolest part. I discovered that if you type “battling the current” into Yahoo this site shows up #1 out of over four million possibilities. That was the best news I could get on a Monday. I have created a site where if you type a phrase, and not an entirely uncommon one at that, into a search engine it states that my site is the most appropriate out of the entire internet. How awesome is that? I guess I have at least one accomplishment this year.

Completely changing subjects. For those of you with VH1 Classic you may have heard about the fact that they were allowing you the viewer (for a charitable donation to hurricane relief efforts) to pick the videos that they would air. This has turned out to be an awesome programming decision culminating in the showing of the Y Kant Tori Read video. Yes, the video from the incredibly bad rock band that Tori Amos was in before she was known. I didn’t even know a tape of this existed and man, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen an incredibly young Tori Amos rocking out. I am so pissed that I didn’t record it.

I do feel like explaining why I have no problem with having a number of Tori Amos discs in my collection while the fact that I own a Paula Cole CD fills me with shame and disbelief. First of all, Tori did make my original top 10 perfect mate list so that explains a lot of it. But more than anything, she was groundbreaking in the early 90’s. When I first saw the video for “Silent All These Years” as a freshmen in college I went, “Whoa, that is different.” At a time where Nirvana was just breaking and MTV still had Def Leppard and Aerosmith in heavy rotation here was this girl playing piano with lyrics that could best be described as stark and direct. In my eighteen year old mind, there was no reference point for that type of music and I certainly couldn’t imagine it getting major airplay. In retrospect, it wasn’t as earth shattering as I thought (Tori is basically a much more easily accessible version of Ani DiFranco) but I was definitely made a fan by the fact that I’ve seen very few artists go to the edge without blinking like she did.

Paula Cole on the other hand… That was just a mistake. I must have bought it for my Canadian girlfriend and forgotten to give it to her. Or maybe I was just really drunk one night while ordering music on Amazon. That certainly wasn’t a decision made by someone of sound mind and body.

Weekend update

We’ll start off with the sad news from the weekend on Richard Pryor’s passing. With the possible exception of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor was the most influential comedian of the twentieth century. He completely changed the fabric of the genre, he influenced topics, language even just the tempo of a stand up routine. Basically anything that you see in stand up today is a direct result of the work that Richard Pryor did in the seventies. He was incredibly funny to boot (and it all holds up. If I pulled my Live on the Sunset Strip 8 track out of storage it would still be hilarious). There are only a handful of people who you could say have completely altered popular culture in the past forty years and Richard Pryor is one of them. All that from someone from Peoria.

Had a pretty quiet weekend. All of the snow has already melted, which saddens me. I know that no one in this town likes snow but having snow on the ground is a much better alternative to looking at brown grass and dead trees for months at a time. If we’re going to suffer through winter it should at least look nice out. Anyway, it just seemed like an odd weekend. I went out on Saturday night and there was just no one out. Seriously, at 11:30 there were more bartenders than people sitting at the bar, which would be beneficial if it wasn’t for the fact that they now let me serve myself (it’s more efficient that way). Maybe people in this town are afraid of melting snow as well.

There is a new bar opening up in my neighborhood this week. Don’t have an over/under on how long this one will stay in business but given that the white trash/biker bar that it replaced didn’t last a year I don’t know how much faith I’ll put in this enterprise. Plus, I don’t know if opening a bar in December is a bright idea. It’s been a little tough for businesses in my neighborhood, we’ve had a sandwich shop go out of business after three months and I don’t know how the hot dog stand is staying open. And it does look like the Westport Flea Market with its really good burgers and music on Sunday nights will eventually be turned into a Hooters. Which means that I will be living next door to a Hooters. Remind me to rethink my life one of these days.

Oh, and if there is anything that describes my fractured personality it is this. Before going out last night I was flipping channels and came across Book TV on C-Span. This is one of those bad habits of mine. Instead of heading out to the bar I sat and watched a guy talk about the Peloponnesian War for an hour and was fascinated by it. Then I make my way out to a night on the town. Does anyone else on the planet do this? Or can equally discuss Shakespeare and pro wrestling? I know that I have made it a stated goal of my life to never be typical but sometimes I wonder if I am too interested in way too many subjects.

(Request to the readership. As you all know the New Year is coming up and I have historically spent January reading a challenging book. That’s usually defined as a book that either a) appears on several top 100 books of all time lists or b) is listed on the back of Cliff Note’s. In the past this has included Ulysses, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Faust, and On the Road. If anyone has any suggestions I’d really like to hear them.)

The five random CDs of the week:
1) John Wesley Harding “Awake”
2) Anders Osborne “Living Room”
3) Aaron Neville “The Grand Tour”
4) Tori Amos “To Venus and Back”
5) I’m not going to admit this one…
5) No seriously, I don’t want people to know this
5) Why? Because once I write it down it means that no one should ever take what I write about music seriously again.
5) Oh well, rules are rules
5) Paula Cole “This Fire”
5) I often wonder what I will have to do to atone for all of my sins. Having to listen to “I Don’t Want to Wait” over and over is probably high on the list

It's nostaliga-rific

Oh no, it’s time for another list.

1) Just made it back from my monthly poker night. Tonight was a rather respectable third place finish with a couple of tough losses and some incredibly lucky hands in the mix. Actually, third was about where I should have finished so I have to say while I am not overjoyed with my play at least it didn’t suck this time around.

2) Yes, I own Reality Bites. I think that came up earlier this year when I went on my spree of creating the ultimate Gen X’er DVD collection. Even though a lot of the movies just aren’t worth a second viewing. I mean, how many times does one need to see the movie Singles and reminisce about the Seattle scene. Beautiful Girls on the other hand is definitely worth having just to see Natalie Portman outact everyone in the cast at the age of 14. She might be the only person able to break the child star curse. Though the Star Wars curse may raise its ugly head as well.

3) I’m pretty sure that the latest comments means that we are now at the point where there are even no good retro television shows to mine for movie ideas. Is there anybody yearning for a Chips movie? Seriously, does anyone care? That’s my problem with the entire TV remake genre. Just because a few movies hit it big doesn’t mean that we all want to see television shows. It’s just that we are so attached to shows like The Brady Bunch or The Addams Family that we hear that they are turning it into a movie and go “Awesome.” But otherwise we really don’t care. I could just buy the show on DVD. Hell, for the same cost I could hire Erik Estrada to come over to my place and read some of the old scripts.

4) That said, good to see Wilmer Valderamma is still getting work. He’s a modern day Scott Baio. Which means that I hope that Wilmer has a really good investment strategy in place right about now.

5) If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I did pick up the MTV DVD of Beavis and Butthead last weekend, even though I own some of the other released DVDs. I mean, there are some videos on this one that I don’t have (including Wilco’s Box Full of Letters which I have only seen on Beavis and Butthead.) They do include the classic Pantera video in which they keep on saying things like “Oh, are you going to cry Pantera” and “You’ll treat your stepmother with respect Pantera.” Trust me, it’s funny on a Friday night when you have nothing to do. I’ve been making my way through some of the older episodes and you really discover how much the show improved over time.

6) Sadly, I think we need to officially remove the Simpsons from the must watch television roster. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time but the quality is just falling farther and farther. We’re at the point where I can predict the jokes now. Like you’re watching it and going “Now they’ll cut to the crazy cat lady” and it happens. That’s just a sign of lazy writing and trust me I am an expert at it. Still a decade and a half is a pretty respectable run.

7) I’m calling it a night. Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Let it snow

Well, we are having our first snowfall of the year out here on the Great Plains, where the buffalo roam and I end up sounding more and more like I’m writing for A Prairie Home Companion every time I start a blog entry. As sick as this might be, I really enjoy this weather. It’s not winter unless you have a lot of snow on the ground and it’s so cold out that when you get inside you keep your coat on for fifteen minutes because you’re afraid to take it off. Those are the things that make you feel alive. Plus, the world just looks better with a blanket of snow on it. Everything is a little purer, a little more serene.

Everything other than traffic, of course. We are picking up about six inches of snow today and tonight, which meant that the drive home was a killer. Actually, other than two spots my drive was actually pretty easy. I do need to state for those in the area who somehow forget every year that it does so to please follow the next few steps in order to make everyone’s life easier. 1) Wipe the snow off of your car before you leave. A snow scraper costs three dollars and come in a number of festive colors. Buy one. Use it. Incredibly, it allows you to see through your windows. 2) Wipe the snow off of the roof of your car. Ever wonder where that snow goes when you drive? It hits the windshield of the guy behind you. No one in this town apparently knows that whereas in Chicago we will pull over and beat you over the head with our snow scraper for not doing it. 3) Use a lower gear. There is a reason why automatic transmissions have those gears labeled 1, 2 and 3. Please use them, it really helps to keep you from spinning your wheels. Do these things, take a little more time and driving through snow really isn’t that bad. I’ve been doing this for half a lifetime now, trust me, I know.

(I will say this, and it counters last night’s post, you do learn interest things from snowstorms. Like the fact that there is a school named after Vachel Lindsay in the area. Maybe there is some hope after all.)

One other local story that I want to bring up. There are rumors going around that the Mets are looking at trading Kris Benson to the Royals. I am all for this trade if only because it will mean that we get Anna Benson along for the ride. Yes, Anna, who publicly stated that she would sleep with the entire Mets organization (including ballboys and Mr. Met) if her husband cheated on her. Who appears on Howard Stern all the time. Who has appeared in certain magazines dedicated to fine automobiles, high end cartoons, and, uh, detailed analysis of the human anatomy. You think I spend a lot of time making fun of this area? Imagine if Anna Benson was here. She’s a spoiled, upper class privilege brat with access to major media outlets. I think the comedy potential would be off the hook. Plus, I enjoy the fact that I would almost certainly run into her at a bar at some point during the year. So please Royals, we know the team is going to be horrible next year, at least provide us some entertainment value.

Morning difficulties

(Pittsburgh. Ohio. Same difference. I just remembered that he was from one of those Rust Belt states. I’ll still stand by my claim that Timmy is one of the most successful members of the Real World / Road Rules cast. He’s hosted a good number of television shows over the years, including a great college sports one. He still ranks behind Jacinda and Judd from the Real World but otherwise, he’s the only one who has gotten an actual career out of a few weeks on MTV.)

I’m a fan of science almost all of the time, except for when I read stories like I did today. On the advice of my doctor, I gave up caffeine five years ago. That happens when you hear words like “heart” and “explode” in the same sentence. As a result of going cold turkey I had to give up the pot of coffee I used to drink every morning. Well, not entirely as I just switched over to decaf. That was fine and for the most part no one noticed that I had switched (other than the fact that I could now put my hands on the table and keep them still).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Checking CNN I saw a news story about how decaf coffee is bad for you. It seems that it increases the level of cholesterol in your blood stream and contributes to heart disease. But the doctor said, “It’s nothing to worry about unless you are having like six cups of decaf a day.” To which I replied, “Oh crap.” Yes, the step that I had taken for my heart’s benefit has in turn increased my cholesterol level.

So for the past few weeks I have been trying to greatly reduce my coffee intake. I’m just trying to get to one cup of decaf a day while simultaneously drinking a lot more water. That would be good for me right, no coffee and a lot of water, right? Wrong. According to the latest scientific study, coffee drinking helps to reduce liver problems caused by alcohol and obesity. Great, now I can either a) drink coffee and hope that my heart doesn’t give out or b) not drink coffee and accept the consequences. What a choice.

(Sure, I could give up coffee, cut back on the drinking and lose some weight but let’s be honest, at the end of the day I would like to have a life that is actually worth living.)

On the whole, it hasn’t been a good day for science out here in the Great Plains. There is a fun story out of Lawrence that has hit the wires that you may have read. Now as you all know, the state of Kansas (latest tourism slogan: Celebrating a decade of plumbing) recently decided to teach Intelligent Design in schools. A professor at KU then decided that he would teach a class basically devoted to making fun of Intelligent Design, I want to say to the point that he was going to call it mythology. It was pretty anti-religion, even for my tastes. (Like I’ve said before, Intelligent Design isn’t bad science, it’s plain wrong. It’s insulting to God to promote a theory that is so bad.) Anyway, he was driving through Lawrence a few days ago and found himself being tailgated by two guys in a truck. He pulled over to let them pass and they stopped their truck and (allegedly) beat him up while mentioning the class. For those of you who wonder why I always seem to be at wit’s end it’s because when I wake up and turn on the news this is what I hear. And then, in that haze that you get in those first few moments of being awake, I realize “This is where I live.” How I get out of bed some mornings I truly do not know.

Throwing down the Gauntlet

Author’s note: Originally, I was going to review every cast member on the show. In order to save my sanity, I’m now just hitting the high points. Of course, I’d already written a page when I made this decision so if this is disjointed, that’s why.


If it’s a day that ends in a Y then it’s time for yet another MTV Real World/Road Rules Challenge. This time it’s The Gauntlet 2 in which the teams are separated into “The Rookies” and “The Veterans”. Who is playing? Who apparently has a real job now? And how many comments can I make about a show that is ten years old? Let’s find out (and thanks to my good friends at Reality News Online, who did most of the legwork for me.)

The Rookies:
Alton (Real World: Las Vegas): There was no greater reality television idea than setting the Real World in Las Vegas. I mean, after the third season they realized that all the good footage came from when the case was drunk so let’s have them live in a casino. I mean, the producers are probably going to hell for doing it but it made for great television.

Ibis (Road Rules: X-Treme): I actually now remember the X-Treme edition because of Ibis. Well, it’s tough to forget people with names like Ibis. What happened to parents twenty years ago? What drove people in 1983 to name their kids Ibis? I was around back then and I certainly don’t remember any Ibis’ in my grade school. We can’t even have people on the Real World named Mike any more, they have to be The Miz.

Jamie (Real World: New Orleans): Who according to his bio is now living in a Buddhist monastery. And apparently, competing in a game show is a key stepping stone on the path to enlightenment.

Jo (Real World: San Francisco): Wow, this is someone that I never expected to see on television. For those of you who are really behind on your reality trivia, Jo was the girl with the killer London accent who replaced Puck. She is also responsible for one of my favorite reality put downs ever. As the cast is having dinner in Hawaii, Jo freaks out because the butter has touched the vegetables and are now tainted and Judd goes “And that was the vegan straw that broke the carnivores back.”

The Veterans:
Beth (Real World: Los Angeles): How in the world is she still getting work? May be the biggest miscast in the history of the show. She was a struggling actress (who you could never figure out how she would ever get a job as an actress) who was also supposed to be the nice girl in the cast (like Julie in the original show). Which would have worked except for the fact that she was a conniving brat with no discernable talent.

Ruthie (Real World: Hawaii): Wins the award for most improved reality show contestant. Has gone from actually having been forced into an alcohol awareness program by the producers to being a really heroic figure in these challenges. She’s just unstoppable and fearless in these things with minimal attitude. One of the few people who seems to have matured in the history of these things.

Mark (Road Rules 1): Dude, get a job. Seriously. What are you now, 35? Even Eric Nies has a regular gig now. Of course it involves a jump rope but at least it is honest work.

Montana (Real World: Boston): Forever known as the chick who gave the kids wine. Legacies come in all shapes and sizes. From a competitive standpoint I don’t expect her to last more than five minutes in this game.

Julie (Real World: New Orleans): She’s a mormon living in New Orleans. She’s thrown out of BYU because she was on MTV. She’s a psycho who tried to kill Veronica (not that anyone was really complaining). She hosts a show on G4TV. If anyone knows what is going on insider her head please let me know.

Timmy (Road Rules: USA): My favorite guy ever on one of these shows. RNO is off base in saying that he isn’t funny. Timmy and Christian were the absolute best comedy duo on reality TV. You have your funny jock from Ohio (I think) and the Norwegian wandering around the country and laughing at everything. I would so pay to have that season on DVD.

Who is missing: The Miz, Coral, Veronica, Sarah from the original Gauntlet (who I think decided to do the Jim Brown routine and retire at the top of her game), Eric Nies, Tonya, and a few other regulars. Should be an interesting season nonetheless.

Desert Island Discs

Let’s say I find myself stranded on a desert island. If that concept sounds a little too clichéd, imagine that I find myself abandoned in a cornfield in the middle of Kansas. All I have to comfort me until I’m rescued or I grow so sick of corn that I don’t even bother waking up in the morning is my CD player and five CDs (and a really, really large pile of batteries). What five CDs make the cut?

This is a classic music geek question and my answer always changes. I have three constants, one that usually makes the cut, and a fifth that changes daily. Here are my answers for today.

R.E.M. “Murmur”: Their first album and the one that really showed that a bunch of college kids in a garage in Georgia can change the face of the music industry. My main reason for picking this album is that even though I have been listening to it for, I don’t know, fifteen years now, I still don’t know what half the songs are about. I could spend days just trying to figure out just what in the world is Michael Stipe saying and then figuring out what he meant. For example, Radio Free Europe is this great rocking song that I could listen to every morning to get going and in the evening spend hours trying to understand “What do you mean ‘Calling out in transit?’” No question that this makes the cut.

Jeff Buckley “Grace”: There’s going to be a lot of long dark nights on the desert island. This is an album to listen to in the dark with the music washing over you. Jeff easily had one of the best voices that I ever heard and this is the one full album that he released in his much too short life. I could spend days just listening to the first three songs (Mojo Pin, Grace and Last Goodbye) over and over again. Interestingly, if I could take a DVD with me and only listen to it Jeff’s live show in Chicago makes the cut without a second thought. Let’s put it this way, I had that on in the background before every test of business school and basically before every major decision of my life in the past five years. It will travel with me.

Uncle Tupelo “Anodyne”: Life wouldn’t be complete without having a copy of “Chickamauga” around. Despite the fact that as I learn more about the politics of the band I can now see all of this subtext about the band breaking up in the song lyrics this is still the best example of the Americana/No Depression/Alt Country/Whatever You Want To Call It genre. Steel guitar and fiddle enter rock songs at the perfect moments and for a moment you are transported to another world. I know that most people say it is my fandom speaking when I call this the best album of the 90’s but at the end of the day that is what my heart tells me.

Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”: This is the disc that usually makes the cut but sometimes doesn’t. Part of it is because of the fact that this is one of the many albums that has protected me through difficult times in my life. You know how there are times when the world just seems to be against you and the only thing that keeps you from curling into a ball and hiding in a corner is knowing that you can listen to a song and feel that there is some brightness in the world? Well, when I had a few months like that it was this disc that never left my CD player at work. The backstory is great as well, an artist says screw you to Nashville and makes one last album on her own just to have one shot at having her own legacy and having it find major success. (Oh, and there is a small fact that Kelly is beautiful and there are lots of pictures of her in the CD booklet and look, it’s going to get pretty lonely on that island after a while).

Jack Johnson “On and On”: This is the spot that constantly changes. Honestly, I had to look through my collection to figure out what disc I would place here because it really changes all the time. But if I am on a desert island I’ll need some music that would be fitting and the Hawaiian surfer turned guitarist is fitting. Also, this is such an incredible collection of songs. It’s one thing to say that Taylor or Rodeo Clowns have great hooks, when you sit down and actually look at the lyrics you find that there is a striking amount of depth there. Just one of those discs that you can play and know that nothing can go wrong in the world for a little while.

(Of course, if I really was on a desert island what I’d really be looking for is a boat. Or an Xbox 360 with a really long extension cord.)

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Chris Mills “Every Night Fight For Your Life”
2) The Frames “Burn the Maps”
3) Robbie Fulks “South Mouth”
4) Gillian Welch “Hell Among the Yearlings”
5) Kelly Willis “One More Time: The MCA Recordings”

Limbo the night away

An apology in advance. I know that last week I promised to write about a) my five desert island discs and b) my preview of The Gauntlet 2, both of which never made the topic list for this week. I’ll get to them next week. As most of you know, or at least have figured out by now, towards the end of the month my posts become more disjointed than usual. That’s because I send out a monthly email to my friends in which I describe my life in such mind numbing detail that I am often surprised that I have any friends at all. Since there is only so much creativity in my body at any given time, one side of my writing has to suffer. It’s not a great excuse but it will have to do.

I’m also kind of pissed because I lost at trivia tonight. My defeat came for two reasons: 1) apparently Swatch does not stand for Swiss Watch but rather Spare Watch, which I still don’t believe and 2) I didn’t know what the record store I shop at weekly was called twenty five years ago. Actually, I did no it, I just didn’t know it was tied to the name of the local alternative weekly. However, I did gain props from my competitors for a) playing as a lone wolf, b) knowing that Neal Stephenson wrote Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon (come on, it’s in my profile) c) knowing that the bass player for the Pixies was Kim Deal and d) in the easiest question of the night, knowing that the mechanical butler Kryten is a character on the show Red Dwarf. I mean, how do people not know that one? Oh well, I’ll win it one of these days.

A few news headlines to close out the week. We had the first successful face transplant this week. It’s always been my dream to see movie ploys become reality. Somehow the Cage-Travolta classic Face/Off wasn’t the one I had in mind. It’s interesting in that all the articles I read raised the ethical questions of the procedure. There is a more practical question in my mind: does this mean if I hunt down Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt that I can have his face? How about Ben Affleck? He’s not using it for anything important, can I have it? These are the types of questions that CNN should be asking.

Also, apparently the Catholic church is considering getting rid of Limbo. Which for those of you who know your theology means that we have a lot of unbaptized babies to relocate in the theological landscape. I’m actually bummed about this. See, in high school I had a teacher assign over winter break that we should write our own version of Dante’s Inferno. That was the assignment, no page limits, no style rules, do whatever you want to do but reinterpret Dante’s Inferno. Most people wrote three or four pages. I handed in a detailed twenty five page manuscript that included a dedication page, an illustrated cover and maybe the most romantic ending I have ever written in my life. (It involved Meg, the first love of my life, the girl who my novel will be dedicated to, and my biggest regret but that is a story for another day). Anyway, in my story my main character (me) makes my way through all nine circles of hell. The first is Limbo, which is where all of the virtuous pagans go. In my view, this was the coolest spot in the entire afterlife. Here is what I wrote back in the day


The elevator lurched and after a short trip stopped. The doors opened and to my surprise I found a large amount of departed souls eating and drinking and having a good time.
“What is this place, I thought you said we were in hell?”
“This is Limbo and yes we are in hell. This is where all the virtuous pagans go and some of the nonvirtuous too.”
I was amazed by who I saw. Aristotle, Plato and Socrates were having an animated discussion on the meaning of life. Gandhi, Buddha, Mohammed and Moses were discussing the uses of organized religions. For our musical enjoyment there was Bob Marley, with dreadlocks still intact, singing his heart out.
“If this is hell, what punishment do these people get?” I asked.
“Actually, none. See, a few years back their punishment was that they would never see God. However, God discovered that most of the greatest people who had ever lived were down here so he decided to come and visit. Every once in a while he shows up, has a few beers and jokes around with everyone.”


You just can’t get rid of Limbo. There has to be someplace in the next life that is fun but harp free. But not Harp free, that’s no afterlife that I want to be a part of.

Back on Monday. Stay warm.

Lost in Cleveland

They announced the latest batch of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this week. As always, I am upset that the J. Geils Band was passed over once again. One day the rest of the world will understand the immense lyrical mastery of the song Freeze Frame. And I still don’t understand how they can call it a Hall of Fame if the Monkees are not a part of it. I am one hundred percent serious on that last part. Name me one other television event (other than maybe Kiss on 3-2-1 Contact) that has resulted in more guys wanting to be musicians? It just doesn’t exist. The Monkees are the origins of music video as well as mainstreaming alt-country music (lots of Byrds influences in their later work). But I thought I should talk about who made the cut.

The Sex Pistols will be inducted and I for one will stand and cheer this announcement. Sure, there is no redeeming quality to their music. It wasn’t even good music. Heck, Sid Vicious could barely stand half the time, much less play bass. But they are one of the most influential and powerful acts ever. Here’s my explanation. Saturday night I was at a bar watching this band The Elders play. The Elders are this awesome Irish band with a killer live show. For some reason, the bar also had one of those punk documentaries showing on a tv set. Given a choice between an awesome live band and watching Johnny Rotten without sound my eyes were just naturally drawn to Johnny Rotten. Just that look in his eyes of mischievousness, where you can tell just how much he despised the establishment, and you can not look away. For making rock and roll dangerous again, for basically being banned for a time for being a threat to the social order, they need to be in the Hall of Fame. And I want to see if John Lydon even shows up for the ceremony, since it is against everything he has ever stood for.

On the other had we have Lynyrd Skynyrd. This one is probably a little tougher and that is because time has been both kind and unkind to the band. They have had a legacy that has lasted longer than almost anyone else in existence but in the process the band has become a caricature of itself. I don’t know if I can see past the cliché of people yelling Free Bird. That discounts a lot of good music in the process and they did bring about a Southern Rock revolution. Well maybe a revolution is too strong of a term but they did open the doors for bands like Alabama. On second thought, maybe they don’t belong…

Probably the other really interesting choice is Blondie. Now from my perspective they had a few hits, one of the first rap songs of any mainstream prominence, and I know they were big in the punk and new wave scenes but they don’t seem Hall of Fame worthy. Which is probably the biggest problem with the entire venture, there are no stats that you can work from. You don’t want to focus on album sales since so many incredible acts were never hugely popular and those that were popular weren’t very good (remember that one of the most popular albums of all time is Boston’s First Stage). But there is no qualitative measure of artistic greatness either. So saying that Blondie is in the Hall of Fame means that a good band should be in the Hall of Fame, which would open the doors to everyone. Or at least everyone who wants to make their way to Cleveland.

Overcharged and underappreciated

(To continue on the theme from last night, I realized that this means when I get old I will apparently turn into Bob Saget. You know, I used to look forward to the rest of my life. Now, not so much.)

I went to see Freakwater in concert last night. You’ve never heard of Freakwater and probably for good reason. Jim DeRogatis, one of my favorite music critics on the planet, once described their music as “sounding like a couple of cats being tortured.” But they play this really neat Appalachian hill country music despite the fact that everyone in the band is from Chicago. Anyway, there were three things that I had to mention about the night. One is that in a crowd of about thirty I knew a good third of them because they were all in local bands that I’ve seen. The second is that the bass player smoked with such a passion throughout the set that he has is own personal fog on stage. I mean, this guy played bass with a cigarette in his mouth and another one lit in the frets just so he wouldn’t have a nicotine free second. That was quite impressive. And I would like to thank the Grand Emporium for the following. On a Monday night, in an empty bar, they charged me six bucks for a beer. And it wasn’t even a good beer. And while I should thank them for limiting my drinking on a school night this officially places the management of the Grand Emporium alongside Ticketmaster as the people who will be first against the wall when the revolution comes.

Have a few other odds and ends to mention here. I know that I constantly rip on personalized license plates but on occasion I am pleased by them. Like the one I saw on a Mini Cooper that had a Union Jack painted on its roof. MIMINI on a car like that is appropriate, you can show off your pride in a unique vehicle. I’m just sick of people with MYTORUS and other statements of attachment to extremely pedestrian vehicles.

Also, I need to give a shout out to my Fighting Illini who went out and beat North Carolina tonight. Just a few months later than I had originally hoped. This means we are national champs now, correct? It’s like boxing, they had the title but we won the rematch so the belt is ours, right? Let me dream at least for a moment. This was the first chance that I’ve had to see Illinois play and they looked pretty good. The team doesn’t have near the talent or chemistry of last year’s squad but they look like a solid top 25 team, which is all that I am hoping for out of this season. If we can turn last year’s run into the formation of a perennial Big 10 powerhouse I will be overjoyed.

Last note, I would like to be the first to publicly welcome Martina Hingis back to the world of professional tennis. I now have a reason to watch Sports Center again. Awesome.

That's me on the tv...

Those of you who read the blog regularly and take copious notes on the details of my life will remember that I am currently writing a novel called Until We Say Goodbye. Those of you with even better recall know that this wasn’t the original title, which was My Life as a Sitcom until I decided that it was a) too much of a rip-off of the movie My Life as a Dog and b) stupid. Well, tonight my life officially became a sitcom. The show How I Met Your Mother has apparently obtained the rights to my life.

You think I jest? Let’s just run through the opening of tonight’s show. Our hero is at a bar with friends as they try to convince him that he thinks way too much and that is why he fails with women. He needs to stop thinking and just do. Sound familiar yet? It gets better. Well, they end up with a plate of shots and our hero embarks on my fabled Level of Optimal Drunkeness experiment, as he does all of the shots to reach the point where he is loose and relaxed and the life of the party. The name of the shot? Red Dragon. Which just happens to be one of my nicknames.

At this point I was officially freaked out.

Somehow it seemed to grow even more similar from there. There was the playing of Cheap Trick on the bar jukebox (check), there was the rampant repeated drunk dialing (sigh, check) and there was the writing full sentences in pen on various body parts (which technically wasn’t me but I was at a bar where we did this one night). There was the talking to friends the next day to try to determine exactly what had occurred because no one could remember everything that occurred. Other than the fact that the guy ended up back at his apartment with a pineapple (something that I don’t recall ever happening to me but may have) and at no point did people start watching Beavis and Butthead episodes this was basically a retelling of my life. We even have Doogie Howser acting as the mentor to get our hero out of his shell and enjoying life. I don’t know if I am supposed to be ecstatic that there is finally a show that I can relate to or upset that my life is apparently a sitcom cliché.

(There were a few problems with this episode. First off, the hero was speaking much too coherently and moving much too quickly for someone who was apparently out of his gourd the night before. Technically, he should not have been able to leave the couch until three in the afternoon. And typically you do not have witty conversations when you wander into the wrong restroom. But the buddy sleeping in the bathtub and the waking up wondering “How in the world did I sprain an ankle?” were spot on.)

Now, I know that like most people I believe the universe revolves around myself (actually, I’m amazed that everyone doesn’t think that the universe revolves around me. Seems perfectly logical). So before I go off trying to find this camera crew that is apparently tailing me around Kansas City providing plots for a sitcom in which Allyson Hannigan can only get a minor role I need confirmation. Will someone please (especially Erik and Super) watch this show and let me know if I am completely out of my mind? Yes, I know it means watching CBS but sometimes you need to suffer for the sake of science. Plus, this is one of the funniest shows around. But that might not be an unbiased opinion.

Job hunting...

As always, life is so much better when it is organzied in a numbered list…

1) One day I will figure out which of these is the more amazing event: that I actually posted on Thanksgiving night, that someone posted a comment on Thanksgiving night or that instead of writing about the importance of being with family or the traditions of the day or even how Roy Williams’ meaningless touchdown helped clinch a win for my fantasy team I instead spend a page writing about Jessica Simpson. I guess I really know what is important in the world.

2) Just so people will stop asking me: no, I am not the guy that Jeff Tweedy is yelling at on Wilco’s new live album. Sure, I have picked up a bit of fame in the Chicago and KC music scenes and the alt-country scene in general but basically all it’s resulted in is “Hey, you’re that guy.” Part of me really wonders what would happen if I decided to become Beatle Bob and spend the rest of my life just following bands. Somehow I would place that as one of those “I’ll go broke but it will be fun getting there” experiences.

3) Started reading Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch” today. Note: this is the original book and has nothing, I repeat nothing, to do with the movie. I refuse to be associated with Jimmy Fallon in any way, shape or form. Anyway Nick Hornby, who also wrote High Fidelity, apparently lives my life better than I do. Or at least we are living the same life and he just writes about it much better than I ever will. Seriously, I should just give up now and let him take over. For instance, here is his discussion on being a fan “The truth is this: For amazingly large chunks of the day, I am a moron.” No matter how hard I try, I don’t think that I will ever be able to touch that.

4) The following has to be the greatest help wanted advertisement ever written. I was flipping through the back pages of The Pitch (the local free weekly newspaper) and came across one of those ads that you find in the backpages of your local free weekly newspaper. You know, the back pages where if you actually read them you find out that there is no way in the world you could in any way be considered strange. So, the fine establishment Legs has placed the following help wanted ad. And I swear I am making none of this up. “Dancers wanted. No house tip out. No D.J. tip out. No house mom tip out. Minimum wage guaranteed. Receive check every week. Health Insurance. Dental Plan. 401K. Profit Sharing. Legs (an equal opportunity employer)

5) I’m just going to let that set in for a little bit.

6) Ok, what does it say about your life when a strip club is apparently offering better benefits than your employer? And is this the most progressive strip club in the existence of the planet? I mean, they are offering a 401K for crying out loud. Of course, this just means that corporate beuracracy is now encroaching on every aspecet of our existence. In all honesty, that is a better deal than Wal-Mart offers its employees and they are the biggest employer on the planet. I saw the ad and didn’t know whether to laugh or cheer.

The five random CDs of the week
1) Mike Doughty “Haughty Melodic”
2) Howie Day “Australia”
3) Cowboy Junkies “200 More Miles”
4) Buick MacKane “The Pawn Shop Years”
5) Dave Matthews Band “Under the Table and Dreaming”

But they were perfect together...

So the big news today is that Jessica Simpson and that guy she married (Nick something or other) are getting divorced. I don't know about you but this sure has put a damper on my holiday season. I had to hold a moment of silence at Thanksgiving dinner in response to this tragic occurrence. Or not.

What I really want out of this is MTV to go all out on the reality television bandwagon. I mean, the only, and I mean only, reason that anyone on the planet cares about this is that they had their own show Newlyweds on MTV. For some reason that hit the cultural zeitgeist, mainly because people liked seeing how stupid Jessica was, and became a hit. Well, let's continue with this theme. Let's have a show called "Divorce Hearing" and "Alimony Settlement." Let's show what happens as you argue over who gets to keep the blender. This is exactly the type of entertainment that I need in my life right now.

(Oh, sometime in the next week I will give my predictions for MTV's The Gauntlet 2. Or at least take some time to rip on the cast members who apparently can't find a real job. How long can you live off of getting thrown off the Winnebago in Road Rules? Is this now considered a legitimate career path?)

Oh well at least this will give me something to think about when I get up at five in the morning to do my Christmas shopping. I am kidding about that, as someone with a real dislike of crowds tomorrow is the one day I really avoid shopping. But I have to give props to someone who will get up at that hour just so they could take care of their shopping a few days earlier this year. That's a level of dedication you just can't find in other aspects of American life. And that is a really, really sad statement.

Have a good weekend everyone.

H2G2

So I finally got around to watching the DVD of The Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy this week. And the two commentary tracks. And the making of documentary. And have developed what most people would probably define as a very unhealthy attraction to Zooey Deschanel in the process. (What can I say? I just think that it would be really cool to date a girl named Zooey.) And as a guy who has read every word that Douglas Adams ever wrote five times over, as someone who figured out how to retrieve the Babel fish in the Infocom game, as someone who was genuinely saddened by his death, I have my final verdict on the film...

It's not that bad.

Ok, it certainly is not a great film. In fact, if you are not familiar with the source material I wonder if it would make much sense at all. If you are familiar with the source material you'll find a lot of things that you don't like and a couple nice additions. Let me discuss.

First, let's look at the cast. Martin Freeman makes for a different Arthur Dent than in the previous versions. Previously, Arthur quickly resigns himself to the fact that none of this will ever make sense and decides that his mission in the universe is to find a nice cup of tea. In the movie Arthur is driven by the fact that they finally decided to make Trillian his love interest (something that was hinted at in a couple of the different incarnations). I know that some of the H2G2 traditionalists didn't like this but from a character and plot standpoint it works much better. And Zooey does the best job anyone has ever done on Trillian. Mos Def is a cool version of Ford, though this is the character that probably least resembles the different incarnations (mainly because there just isn't time to explore his character). Sam Rockwell makes a rock star Zaphod Beeblebrox and they finally, after 25 years, figured out how to do the two head, three arm bit and not have it look incredibly stupid. And Marvin the depressed robot was spot on, really hitting Douglas' vision that this should be a state of the art, fantastic machine that just happens to be terminally depressed.

So why wasn't I jumping up and down when I first saw the film?

Because you basically can't turn a 6 hour radio series, a 3 hour television series, 5 books, a computer game and a towel into a 100 minute movie without losing a lot of good lines. It's really obvious at the beginning of the film. The entire opening with the Earth being destroyed has some of my favorite writing on the planet in it and so much was cut because it just wouldn't work unless you wanted a 4 hour film. Plus, a lot of the great parts were these side comments that had nothing to do with the characters or the plot and were just a convenient point for Douglas to start discussing philosophy. Those has to fall by the wayside because film narratives can't allow it. I think that once I realized that on the second time through I really began to understand and enjoy the film a lot more. I stopped looking for what was missing and started seeing what was actually there.

Some good new material as well. The point of view gun is classic as well as the Vogon planet. And John Malkovich plays another extremely freaky character. Or, to put it another way, John Malkovich plays John Malkovich.

I also want to say that the Jim Henson folks did a great job on the creatures. This ties to what I wrote yesterday. This film was actually improved by the fact that all of the aliens were puppets, which gave them a three dimensional weight. I really feel that it worked better than if they had gone out and done everything in CGI. It honestly made everything feel more real.

So, if you are like me and are a huge fan but avoided the film in the theater because you were frightened that it would be awful and ruin your memories of the books, don't worry you can go ahead and watch the DVD. If you've read this far and have no idea what I am talking about, make your way to the science fiction section of your bookstore and pick up The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. You'll finish it in a day, if you can stop laughing long enough to finish it, and then see the film. And then read the rest of the books and catch the radio series. There's always something new to find.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Too much realism

I still have a few news stories from the weekend to comment on. Christina Aguilera got married to which my local morning news said “Sorry guys she is off the market.” To which I replied, “For the sake of basically all guys out there I would like to thank the guy who jumped on that grenade.” Seriously, I can’t see an attraction her in any way, shape or form. I’ve got to go with the Peter Griffin from Family Guy statement “I find you offensive to all five senses.”

However, it is important to note that she married a record company executive, which just proves my point that I am so in the wrong line of work. Have you ever noticed how many times this happens. Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, every other week some record exec or producer is marrying the new hot voice. That never happens in my job. And unless being able to calculate the present value of a cash flow stream becomes a really, really attractive trait, I really don’t expect it to happen any time soon. Just another example of how the world is conspiring against me.

On a completely different note, there is an incredibly good article on ESPN’s Page 2 about the new Xbox 360. I’d link to it but come on, like I need to give Disney any more income than they already have. Anyway, the entire gist of the article is that as video games have become more and more realistic they have become much less fun to play. We’re at the point now that you can see the stitching on the uniforms but that has actually made the characters become more unreal and more difficult to relate to than 10 years ago.

It’s actually a really interesting question in robotics and graphics. When images are primitive it is actually easier to humanize the images and relate to them. Case in point: Yoda. Which Yoda do you connect more to the brilliantly animated fighting Yoda or the puppet? It’s the puppet by a huge margin. You feel sad in Jedi when Yoda dies, even though you know it is simply a puppet. The animated character, while much more realistic, never has that emotional tie. It’s like that in video games as well. You look at the new generation games and all you notice is how they are not quite human. In the year of my life that was spent playing Dr. J vs. Larry Bird One on One I never asked that question. All I wanted to know was how to shatter the backboard. I really think that this is going to turn into an important point for the gaming industry. We can produce high definition games, the problem is will anyone really want to play them.

I think that is going to be it for the night. The CDs are being made, for those who are still interested. I’ve had a little bit of an issue in the manufacturing process: apparently the plant decided that The Best of Night Ranger took priority over my work. I tried to explain to them that Sister Christian for twelve consecutive tracks technically doesn’t constitute a best of disc but they weren’t buying it. Oh well, seriously if you’re interested let me know. Sharing music will help out my karma. Of course, doing something for good karma is actually bad karma so I’m screwed either way.

My life really is a sitcom

And away we go…

1) Ok, I really need to get this on the public record. How I Met Your Mother has totally stolen one of my characters. The Doogie Howser character is exactly what I had planned for my novel. Which actually was just taking long-time blog contributor Super Dave and turning up the volume slightly. I’m telling you Super, you really should sue here.

2) That said, any show that features characters in a strip club on Thanksgiving is so going on my Tivo always record list. That is just brilliant.

3) Saw this news story come across the wire last week. Apparently, Oprah Winfrey got the advice on how to go into syndication and become richer than God or Microsoft while on a date with Roger Ebert. The news story focused on the advice and how this created a media empire. No one bothered to imagine the visual of Oprah and Roger on a date. I mean, I can’t say anything bad about fellow Illini Ebert but my God, that visual is going to be stuck in my brain for a couple of decades.

4) Another news story was that there are lawsuits against Match.com and Yahoo Personals for unfair practices. According to the lawsuit, both companies were paying women to go on dates with guys whose contracts were about to expire. Which might be a combination of the most immoral yet extremely logical business practices that I’ve ever heard of. And could you actually sue one of those places for false advertising? Wouldn’t that make 90 percent of the people who place profiles out there felons?

5) Why no, my profile is perfectly accurate. I actually am one half of the former world tag team champions. It was a few years back of course and the records are spotty but I swear that it is true.

6) Was at Best Buy this afternoon and already saw people camped out for the Xbox 360. No, I’m not camping out with them. I hire people for stuff like that. (Yeah, I know that not camping out really hampers my geek credibility. Somehow I feel that I have enough lifetime experiences to allow myself to keep it real from a geek perspective)

7) On a comment from last week on my claim of R.E.M.’s “Automatic for the People” as their best album. Understand that I consider “best”, “favorite” and “desert island disc” to be three completely separate categories. My favorite R.E.M. record is Reckoning, which tends to stay in my CD player for a month at a time. On my list of five desert island discs (which I really must write about someday) is Murmur, mainly because you could listen to that album for years and still never figure out what every song means and you would still want to find out. But from a critical viewpoint, Automatic is their best work. It’s strong lyrically (and actually has words in it, which puts it above their early work) and has some musically grand moments in it without getting overblown. It is the minor songs like Nightswimming that make the album. It might not be the disc you play the most often but in my mind, it is their most complete offering.

8) By the way, Juliana Hatfield’s “Become What You Are” is an incredibly awesome disc to listen to on a Monday morning. I think when we talk about how great music was in the good old days we are really referring to discs like this. There were about a hundred great albums in the early nineties and most of them were never hugely popular. That’s why a lot of people never throw out their old CDs, they just know that they outpace the current supply.

Catching the blues...

(Quick comment on Family Guy tonight. Two quick gags that had me on the ground laughing. First off was the triumphant return of Soundwave, the coolest Transformer ever. The second was the full minute spent on the “It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time.” That was off the charts funny. Seriously, I hope I didn’t imagine that sketch because if I did then it means I really, really, really out to lay off the absinthe.)

So, I went to see Blues Traveler on Friday night. Ok, technically I went to see Carbon Leaf, who was opening for Blues Traveler. Carbon Leaf put on their classic, extremely sufficient show. I do like these guys, I’ve seen them three times this year and they’ve never disappointed. I’m just not sure if they’ve ever appointed, either. They just put on a really solid show with really solid songs and when they leave the stage you go, “Those guys were really good” and then you immediately forget about them. Not sure if I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.

Anyway, before I even got to see the bands I had to make it to the venue, which was the Voodoo Lounge at Harrah’s Casino. For those of you who were witness to my two week long rant about the venue that didn’t exist and how that was proof that the universe is against me, this is that venue. So, that was a bad sign to begin with. But the bigger problem is that this is in a casino and I’m just not a casino person. Especially when it means that I have to walk past the dinner buffet to get to where I need to go. I’m walking to the show and looking around at the crowd going, “Wow, this is like the saddest thing that I have ever seen.”

Which is probably a very arrogant statement on my part. I mean, everyone there was there for a good time or a cheap meal. It’s just that from my perspective, casinos and lotteries are simply taxes on people who are bad at math. Doesn’t matter how you spin, how much you say, “But you have to factor in the entertainment value”, all I ever see are people losing money they really don’t have to lose. And I have a real hatred of buffets for deep seated psychological reasons that no one other than my therapist would care about (and even in that interest he tends to go, “Oh no, not this again.”) Let’s just say that this doesn’t put me in the best of moods when I actually got inside the venue.

And couldn’t get a drink to save my life. Seriously, I think they had three bartenders for five hundred people. Other than that, it was a pretty nice place. It is built like the House of Blues, which means that it has a really nice stage and a good soundsystem. It lacks all of those little interesting touches that House of Blues puts on the side of the stage to make it feel like you’re in a roadhouse. On the plus side, you get rid of that fake feeling you get in HOB where you know that you are in a place owned by a multinational comglomerate. On the other hand, now it is just a stage, reinforcing in your mind that “I’m watching a band in a casino and if I wanted to do this I would have just gone to Vegas.”

Blues Traveler put on their usual show. John Popper just isn’t the same now that he has lost all that weight. Sure it probably saved his life but part of the fun of the band a decade ago was that they had this big fat guy playing harmonica. Now it’s a slightly overweight guy who doesn’t even wear that ammo vest holding his harmonicas anymore. It was a good show, don’t get me wrong, but the entire night just felt off to me.

All I can take from this is that I may be so accustomed to seeing bands in small venues where half the time I know the owners of the place that I am completely spoiled when it comes to seeing music. Maybe I’ve just become so much of a music snob that even the hint of corporate influence sends me off the deep end. Or maybe the thought that I had during the encore sums it up best, “You know, I’ve got a Kasey Chambers CD in my car right now and I’d much rather listen to that.”

The five random CDs of the week:
1) Jimmy Buffett “Off to See the Lizard”
2) Jump, Little Children “Magazine”
3) The Polyphonic Spree “Together We’re Heavy”
4) The Juliana Hatfield Three “Become What You Are”
5) Cowboy Junkies “Studio”

Bowling in KC

It looks like we are going to make it through another week. Just a couple more thoughts that have been running through my head the past couple of days...

One of the goals behind the random CD project has always been to uncover those hidden gems that had been sitting in my collection unopened for years. Came across one today in R.E.M.'s 'Automatic for the People', which I would always claim to be the band's best disc and one that I hadn't listened to in years until today. There are just some seriously good songs on that disc. You forget how good "Drive" or "The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight" really were. "Everybody Hurts" has been overplayed for sure but the rest of the disc has aged extremely well. It was a nice listen this afternoon, it was like I was 19 and sitting in a dorm room at Illinois again.

Of course, one of the reasons behind the random CD project is I tend to buy a lot of CDs with only a minor interest in ever listening to them. Like the new Liz Phair disc, which is still sitting on my coffee table in my living room. I've at least unwrapped it but still haven't obtained the courage to actually play the darn thing. Is fear an emotion you should have when playing music? How about dread? I really don't want to play this and find out that one of my favorite performers, someone who ranked very high on my original perfect mate list, has just devolved into pop fluff. Sadly, that is where my expectations lie right about now.

(Ok, for the record I am now incredibly pissed at either Blogger or AOL right now. The damn thing just ate half my post and I wrote it in Blogger itself. Something is really goofing up my posting. Here's a retry of the last section).

So there was a really big Kansas City news story today. We are apparently in line to get the Super Bowl next decade. If we pay $600 million to add a retractable dome to the existing stadium. And double the amount of convention space in the city. But other than that it is a done deal. I'm sorry but this is a really bad idea. First of all, adding a dome to a stadium that wasn't built for it always is a turn for the worst (see Olympic Stadium in Montreal). It's better to just build a new stadium from scratch. Second, it's not like we would be added to the rotation of Super Bowl cities. We would join the ranks of Minneapolis and Detroit as places they play once every 20 years at which point they realize how damn cold it is and decide to go back to playing in LA or Miami or (someday soon) New Orleans. There's just no way that having the game one year would justify the huge expense for a stadium that is used ten times a year. We don't even have concerts out there. So, as much as I would like this place to be a big league city (as opposed to the AAA feel it often has), this isn't the way to do it.

One last note before I call it a night. I got an email from a publisher about my blog! Well, more like a form email from someone who got a hold of my email account. Who wants to charge me an awful lot of money to see my work in print. Still, it is a publisher and I'm going to take my victories wherever I can.

Reality bites back

Ok, I'll try to explain what I think happened to my last two posts. For the past year I've been using the same method to post: write the post in Word, completely ignore the spell check and grammar capabilities of Word and fail to edit the post, copy and paste the entry over into Blogger and post. This has worked perfectly fine for a year. For some reason I can't do that now, even though there is text in the post it completely ignores it. There is an add-in that I'll have to download to post from Word (though that still leaves me copying everything over to my writer's journal at the end of the day anyay) but until then I'm going to use a couple of intermediary steps. Just consider it a good thing that I keep multiple copies of everything that I ever write.

(I'm thinking about my response to the comment on religious bumper stickers. Not quite sure where to go with this one. There's a really deep question at the heart of it "What type of billboard does God require?" I'll let you know when I figure out the answer.)

Of course, there was a very serious matter in the news today that I must address. And that is E! has given the greenlight for a new reality series featuring Lisa Loeb as she reenters the dating world and attempts to find a mate. (I swear, cnn.com had the phrase "find a mate", which might be the most clinical description of dating that I've ever come across) You remember Lisa Loeb. She was that girl who had the single "Stay" on the Reality Bites soundtrack. The one with the video that was shown ever ten minutes for all of 1994. You know, the one with the girl with glasses in the empty apartment all shot in a continuous take. So now it's your chance to date the girl in the glasses in that video you saw in college.

Obviously, I need to find a way to be a part of this show. Just think of all the great conversation topics. "What was Ethan Hawke really like?" "Have you ever thought about contacts?" "Where the hell were you from 1996 to 2004? Seriously, was there like a prison stint that no one ever knew about?" But of course the show is being set in New York, which shows a complete lack of creativity. Wow, a show about being single in New York, haven't seen that before. Let's make this more interesting. Let's have her tour the country, going from town to town on a big tour bus and dating along the way. Sometimes it's a big Friday night in Chicago, other times it's a two bit coffee shop in Peoria. Much more interesting concept.

So I must ask you my faithful reader(s), to help me in my efforts at being a part of this show. I am calling for a demonstration in front of the E! headquarters demanding my participation. I want signs reading "Lisa shouldn't just "Stay" in New York." At the very least, I want a human barricade formed that will not be broken until Taradise is returned to the air. It falls to all of us to drive this change. If they want reality, let's give them reality.

Come On, It's Tuesday... (reboot)

I’m not even going to try a topic today…
1) License plate of the day: NVR2OLD. Ok, that one was actually a pretty nice thing to read at the end of the day. Not all of them are horrible.2) Sometimes you have to hand it to your local news crews for really getting to the heart of the story. Earlier this week there was a news story about a school’s playground equipment going up in flames in the middle of the night. The announcer very dramatically intoned “possibly arson.” Thanks for keeping the possibility of it not being arson out there, which would be a much bigger news story when you think about it. I mean, “Children’s slide spontaneously bursts into flames” would definitely be a lead story.3) So I watched How I Met Your Mother last night for the first time in its entirety. That show is just being carried by Doogie Howser. I mean, he’s stealing every scene. Which much be pretty disconcerting to the rest of the cast when you find out that the former child star is stealing your thunder. Plus, any show about single guys trying to figure out what the hell they are supposed to be doing with their life is worthwhile in my book. Well, other than the fact that they will probably steal entire sections of my novel for episodes. Can you charge someone with plagiarism over something you haven’t even written yet?4) One other thing, you have to congratulate a show that gives Bob Saget a job. I mean, the guy had to suffer through Full House and America’s Funniest Home Videos. Would you want to go through with the rest of your life knowing that those two shows would be your legacy? The guy has to do something with his life or otherwise he is going to spend the rest of it dreading his obituary.5) I watched a good portion of the Duke game last night. Team looked ok, but definitely wasn’t playing like the number one team in the country. Of course, complaining about a team’s play in mid-November is being rather harsh. It’s nice to see J.J. Reddick back for his twelfth season as a Blue Devil, originally sharing a backcourt with Bobby Hurley if I remember correctly. For those wondering, my immense fandom for Duke, which has been chronicled here before, isn’t as strong as it used to be. I no longer live and die over the results of a basketball team from a school that I technically never attended. I guess this means that I am really growing old.6) Oh, and reason number three hundred and fifty seven why you should watch G4TV: nightly reruns of The Man Show. Add that with the video game reviews and it is the network that I would have programmed when I was 19. Or 29. Or maybe even 39.

Belief as a bumper sticker (try 2)

The comment from last night has really left me thinking. After two years of living in a red state I have a horrible feeling that I have this conception and possibly misconception of the world. I’ll try to explain.
First, I certainly don’t remember any Phish stickers on the car with the PYITE plates. At least nothing that stood out as a jam band follower. It doesn’t surprise me that I may have missed that sort of reference. I’ve never claimed any great support of that scene. Heck, I’m on record as saying that the Grateful Dead are the second most overrated band of all time (just behind the Doors). But the thing is, it never even crossed my mind that there might have been any other purpose than the following: the person was trying to spell piety and either a) couldn’t or b) there already was one so they were going towards an alternative spelling.
The reason that I was so convinced of this is the sheer number of similar license plates and bumper stickers that I’ve seen in the past two years. I’ve seen plates that read URLOVD. I’ve seen the fish symbols (which I am perfectly cool with) and the fish symbols with the word Truth in them eating a fish with legs with the word Darwin in them (which I have a bit of an issue with). And I’ve seen numerous cars with the bumper sticker “In case of rapture, this car will be unoccupied.” After two years of this, I just assume that everyone is trying to make a religious statement with their car.
It’s tough to explain how unusual this is to me. It’s not that I grew up in some pagan side of the planet. I’m from the Chicago suburbs with twelve years of Catholic education (plus two years in graduate school). It was the type of area where you asked people what parish they belonged to. The thing is, even though religion was a common facet of everyone’s life it was never an advertised point. My favorite line from the Bible is that one should pray in a closet, that faith is a personal connection between you and God. It’s not something that you should make a show of, to proclaim on a bumper sticker your certainty that you will reach the promised land. That’s the one thing that has always bothered me because that always seems to assume that you know what the ineffable plan is and if you do, it isn’t much of an ineffable plan now, is it?
So for those of you who may wonder at times why I seem critical on conservative Christianity that might be the explanation, there style just doesn’t mesh with mine. I don’t question their beliefs, in fact, all I ever ask of people is that they have thought about their beliefs. Believe in something or not, just be able to give a reason other than “This is the way it has always been.” Examine your life at the very least. But to me, I never want my faith to be a saying on a bumper sticker. That is one matter not to trivialize.
(Of course, if we wanted to trivialize things I could take this second to talk about the Aeon Flux trailer, which might not be a good movie but might be a great excuse to watch Charlize Theron for an hour or so.)

System screw ups...

Note to everyone: Ok, I have no idea what happened to my last two posts. Apparently Blogger ate the text that I pasted into the system. I'll repost them when I get a chance. Seriously, I have written and posted the last two nights so I will consider my streak to be intact. I'll fix all of this later.

Come on, it's Tuesday...

Belief as a bumper sticker

Reality never lives up...

CD Update: The above picture is the cover art for “Battling the Current: Volume 1”. It’s called “Play That Funky Music” by Tom Everhart and as some of you may know, it is a painting that I picked up in the French Quarter in June. Honestly, while walking down the street I looked into a gallery and saw this hanging on the far wall and went, “I just have to have that one.” If this doesn’t describe my life I don’t know what does. Also, here is the official playlist

1) Blue Mountain “Generic America”
2) Waco Brothers “See Willy Fly By”
3) Uncle Tupelo “Chickamauga” (live at Lounge Ax)
4) The Frames “God Bless Mom” (live in Dublin)
5) Jeff Buckley “I Woke Up in a Strange Place” (live in Sydney)
6) Alejandro Escovedo “Baby’s Got New Plans”
7) Josh Rouse “Carolina”
8) Neko Case “Train From Kansas City” (which was possibly recorded about me)
9) Beth Orton “Best Bit”
10) Julie Delpy “Mr. Unhappy” (only available on a French import disc)
11) Kelly Willis “What I Deserve”
12) Ryan Adams “Monday Night” (super-ultra rare track)
13) The Shins “The Past and Pending”
14) Josh Ritter “Lawrence, KS” (as close to a theme song as this blog can get)

So please, please, give me your information so I can send this out. Where else are you going to get an entire hour of music delivered for free to your home? I mean, without illegally downloading the tracks, of course. So please get in touch, otherwise I’ll think that no one is reading this and that would make me sad…

A couple of random notes from the weekend…

1) An addition to the weird license plate category. Driving home from my Thursday night poker game I was behind a car with plates that read “PYITE”. Sound it out. I’m telling you, it’s drivers like this that really worry me because they know, deep in their hearts, that if anything goes wrong that they are going to heaven. I much prefer to drive behind the guys with Slayer bumper stickers on their cars because they are betting that this is their only existence so you know they have their hands at 10 and 2.
2) If you’re not watching The Boondocks on Adult Swim, you are really missing one of the best things going right now. We might have a new winner for best social commentary on television. It’s based on the great cartoon strip and it is really well done. It isn’t madcap comedy like Family Guy but it still gives you a couple of laughs. Plus, Adam West provided a voice in tonight’s show and you can’t beat that.
3) That said, great Family Guy episode tonight. If there is a character on television that I relate to it is Brian. Yes, the only character on tv that is like me is a talking dog that drinks martinis. That probably says a lot about me. Still, love the Rocky IV reference tonight and a running A-Team reference.
4) Ran a little bit of a sociological experiment last night. Went to Kelly’s at the start of the night and started keeping a tally of the number of guys I saw wearing untucked striped shirts. The results were astounding. I mean, it’s not that big of a bar and I think I counted two dozen in about ten minutes. This leads me to an interesting quandary. I read over the weekend that the untucked striped shirt look is out of style and for 2006 you should really be going with the solid color, prim and proper look. But the thing is, I live in Kansas City. It is going to take about two years for that to be in style here. So, do I go out and be a trendsetter (i.e. look out of place here but look completely average in the rest of the country) or do I stay in the past?
5) If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the highlights of the Bears game, in which the Bears win on a 108 yard field goal return. Yes, a field goal return, there is such a thing, you just almost never see it. One of those plays of the year and just emblematic of the Bears season. They are winning in ways that you didn’t even know were possible.
6) Have to comment on one piece of sad news from today. Wrestling lost another great today as Eddie Guerrero was found dead in a hotel room at the much too young age of 38. First of all, Eddie was one of the best wrestlers on the planet and I am going to miss his incredible talent. But most of all, I would like to hope that one day people would notice how many wrestlers die young and think that maybe we should do something about it. The numbers that have died in the past few years are really staggering and I would like there to be at least some regulation in the industry or at least for McMahon to show some interest in the welfare of his employees. This just leaves me shaking my head.

The five random CDs of the week
1) Kasey Chambers “Wayward Angel”
2) Robbie Fulks “Couples in Trouble”
3) Lorena McKennitt “Live in Paris and Toronto”
4) R.E.M. “Automatic for the People”
5) Rufus Wainwright “Want One”

One Year and Counting!!!

(Photo of EC as he once again realizes that he has dedicated much of his life to discussing fighting robots)

It’s celebration time!!! And everyone is getting a present! But you’ll have to read to the end of the post to find out what it is.

Beyond all belief and contrary to all predictions, the blog is still up and running one year after I made the first posting. Even I’m surprised about this. I’ve been chronically my misadventures in this world for a long time now and typically I will always hit a patch where I write nothing for about two months and somehow I have avoided it this time around. That is worth celebrating in and of itself.

A couple of days ago I went back and looked at my first post because I remembered that I listed some goals for this site as the ground rules of what I wanted to accomplish. Here’s what I hoped to achieve a year ago.

1) Daily updates composed of whatever interests me at the moment
2) Have people actually read this
3) Have people I don’t know actually read this
4) Finally do something significant so that I’m not lying when I say that I’m a writer

Amazingly, I went four for four. I really want to thank everyone who has read the postings and commented on them. Especially those people who have never met me, it really is a thrill to realize that someone has stumbled across your page and felt compelled to enter a comment. I have some new goals in mind for the next year but I am going to wait a little bit before I post them. Have to make them actionable and measurable and all of those fun MBA terms. I will promise better grammar (an ever popular request) and thanks to my acquisition of one of those handy dandy picture phones, more pictures. The focus is still going to remain the same with equal doses of music reviews, pop culture analysis, philosophical musings, and making fun of Kansas. I mean, why fix what isn’t broken. As always, I am more than open to requests or ideas.

I really do want to thank everyone who has ever taken time to read this site. When I started this it truly was a lark and I doubted that I would be writing it past New Year’s. Now I wonder if I’ll ever be able to stop. So, since reading thanks doesn’t really carry much weight in the world I’ve been wondering how to best show my appreciation. While I still want to do t-shirts at some point in time I didn’t think that really tied to what this site has been about over the past year. If there has been one constant theme throughout it is how music shapes and defines my life. And as a result, I would like to offer everyone reading this “Battling the Current: Volume 1”.

If you enjoy my taste in music, this disc will be for you. If you ever wonder “who the hell are these bands that he keeps mentioning”, then this disc will definitely be for you. It is going to be a sampler of a lot of the songs and bands that have been referenced over the past year. A partial listing is The Frames, Josh Ritter, Neko Case, Uncle Tupelo, Jeff Buckley, Kelly Willis, Julie Delpy (yes, she actually has a CD), Ryan Adams, the Waco Brothers, and many more. I’ll post the full track listing on Sunday and hopefully the image of the cover art. Yes, this is going to be a full CD with cover art and liner notes and everything. Because if Battling the Current is anything, it is a high class organization.

All I need from anyone who is interested is an address. Send an email to kcgatsby@aol.com with your information and it’ll be on its merry way in the next week or so. For those of you who know me personally (or at least know my other email addresses) feel free to get in touch with me anyway you feel like. This is my way of celebrating and hopefully introducing people to a lot of great music to boot.

I’ll close with this. I’ve had a couple of people ask me why in the world I am writing a blog, that it seems like an awful lot of effort with no real purpose. As always, Kurt Vonnegut put it best:

“The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

That’s all I’m trying to do out here, create something. Maybe what I write is enlightening, hopefully the postings are at least funny, but the one thing that no one can take away from me is that they are mine. Thanks everybody and have a great weekend. I’m off to Harry’s for a toast…