For Christmas this year, I received:
- Bacon Wallet (from mother and father)
- Bacon adhesive bandages (from mother and father)
- Superman: The Dailies 1939 - 1942 (from mother and father)
- Moleskine journals (from elizabeth)
- A photo album (from elizabeth)
- The Man Who Fell To Earth: Criterion Collection (from elizabeth)
- Monty Python's Life Of Brian: Criterion Collection (from elizabeth)
My Top Six Christmas Songs:
- Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley
- A Charlie Brown Christmas - The Vince Guaraldi Trio (I am aware that I have immediately broken the parameters that I, myself, established not three lines above by naming an album instead of a song. I do not care.)
- Christmas On The Moon - Troy Hess
- Christmas Party - The Walkmen
- Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis - Tom Waits
- The Christians & The Pagans - Dar Williams
In Carrie Underwood's crossover hit "Jesus, Take The Wheel", recently named country music's Single of the Year, a young mother "running low on faith and gasoline" hits a patch of black ice and delegates piloting duties to her own invisible superhero.
Since we're outlawing the use of cell phones while driving, can we also pass laws against allowing Jesus to take the wheel? I don't have the numbers to back it up, but I'd wager that statistically, those who allow their personal savior to drive wind up in more fatal accidents than those who drive while talking on the phone. I'd even bet that it's more dangerous than driving while completely wasted.
For my sake, and the sake of all the other human beings with whom you share a planet, please keep your hands on the wheel, and try to control your own fucking automobile.
Thanks to everyone for awesome L.A. song suggestions in response my last post. You are all champions of life. Writing on the internet is like screaming into a well, so it's nice to hear people screaming back. In terror, of course.
Quick music recommendation, for what it's worth:
Like The Hold Steady's Seperation Sunday, this new Thermals album is angry and loud, and deals pretty exclusively with religious faith. I think.
I love these furious records by bands who seem so mired in American faith, so terrified of a world without that structure (I forgot I needed God like a big brother), and yet are deeply aware of the absurd evil of the whole institution (I might need you to kill). Was that Pitchfork enough?
I don't know. It seems perfect for Christmas.
I'm leaving Los Angeles. It is not because of the bum who told me he was going to stab me in the throat today, or the fact that my car was broken into last week. Though these things did not help matters.
It's been a nutty year and a half or so, filled with surreal celebrity encounters, evenings at the Arclight (huzzah) or Grove (boo!), some of the best food of my life (oh Porto's, how I shall miss you), and engagements to ladies. OK, one engagement. To one lady. Whatever.
I am apathetic about the prospect of once again picking up my life and taking it elsewhere. Perhaps it is because Los Angeles has brought my ambitions and passions into more vivid focus, that focus having little to do with Los Angeles. While working with the (usually very cordial) folks of reality TV is amusing for a time, it is the bottom rung of a ladder I have no interest in climbing.
That said, I love lots of things about Los Angeles, and by no means subscribe to the notion that it is inherently more shallow than Manhattan or Paris or Austin or Duluth or any place, really. You can find shitheads anywhere you go. It just so happens that our shitheads belong to the entire world.
And so what follows is a list of songs about Los Angeles, most of which are not particulary affectionate.
* Why You'd Want To Live Here - Death Cab For Cutie
Man... they really hate this place.
* L.A. - Elliott Smith
He killed himself here, so... there's that.
* L.A. Is My Lady - Frank Sinatra
Definitely Frank's worst song. Perhaps the worst song. Ever.
* California - Joni Mitchell
Sure. Whatevsies.
* I Love L.A. - Randy Newman
Often used in montages. I don't think those music supervisors ever listened to the verses.
* Heartattack And Vine - Tom Waits
Tom Waits has many L.A. songs. This is the best. Also full of rancor.
"Don't you know there ain't no devil, there's just God when he's drunk."
* Los Angeles, I'm Yours - The Decemberists
Awww, they love it here. Wait... "an ocean's garbled vomit on the shore?" Oh, it's another sarcastic one.
* Blue Jay Way - The Beatles
Drugs.
* Screenwriter's Blues - Soul Coughing
Hateful.
* California - Rufus Wainwright
Wow, he's composed this really peppy song that feels good to sing along to, but if you listen to the lyrics they're about how awful L.A. is. Sarcasm, how novel! ...Sorry for getting "meta".
* Straight Outta Compton - N.W.A.
The song that most directly speaks to my experiences here.
* Hollywood Bowl - Adam Green
Quite possibly not about the Hollywood Bowl at all. How could one tell with lyrics like "Leave me alone, Nobody home, You've a new brand blue magic cold wedding gown"?
* Celluloid Heroes - The Kinks
Fine. Kind of easy, but fine.
* Beverly Hills - Weezer
In the tradition of every L.A. song ever, tongue is planted firmly in cheek.
* Hollywood Freaks - Beck
Perhaps the most sincere song on the list, which is saying something since it comes from an album that was concieved as a post-modern experiment in fakery.
And finally...
* Fuck Hollywood - Quasi
There are more than a few songs about "California", either in the literal sense or as a vaguely inviting concept, the most beautiful of which is Wilco's "California Stars", with lyrics by Woody Guthrie. But, as much as I might wish otherwise, it has little to do with this list.
I refuse to include that damn Phantom Planet song. Ryan Adams has a few L.A. songs, but he's too drunk for them to mean anything. Steve suggests Jackie Green's "Hollywood", Lyle Lovett's "L.A. County", and R.E.M.'s "Electrolite", the last of which he says is genuinely affectionate. I wouldn't know.
Perhaps my favorite song about Los Angeles, or at least that's what I'd like to think it's about, is Neil Young's "Out On The Weekend". It's haunting, and there's something quietly optimistic about it.
But I think it's also about male prostitution.
Consolation arrives in the realization that my car contained nothing worth taking.
So there's that.
I don't care what people say. I liked "A Prairie Home Companion". But my favorite Altman films are probably "Gosford Park", in which his loose patchwork is actually a cover for a well oiled machine, and "The Long Goodbye", in which Philip Marlowe truly comes into his own.
I'm glad that there are many Altman films that I have not seen, including some big ones, and I look forward to spending time with them in the future.
From "Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters" #2 (October '06), by Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray.
Click and enjoy.
This week marks Fox's token run of Idiocracy. Mike Judge's highly anticipated (by me) follow-up to Office Space has been given no (NO) marketing money, which means no posters, no trailers, no press, and no TV spots. It is not being released in cities like New York. And it will be pulled quickly (perhaps by Friday) so that it can be shipped off to Fox's home video people, who will promptly bring in oodles of cash for their evil corporate overlords by printing "FROM THE DIRECTOR OF OFFICE SPACE" next to Luke Wilson's mug and the sentence "AND YOU LIKED THIS GUY IN OLD SCHOOL, RIGHT?" on the packaging.
Wilson is a regular schlub who, as part of an army experiment, is frozen for centuries, and awakens to find that he is the world's smartest man. The film is clumsy, often ugly to look at, and hilarious. There are jokes crammed into the mise-en-scene at every turn, and considering the film's budget it's really an accomplishment. I was wary of a distasteful elitism that never showed itself, and though the film pretty much falls apart in its final act, it's still, in the end, a comedy that is funny. Really funny. So it's got that going for it.
In a lot of ways, Idiocracy is made that much more beautiful because of its corporate flogging, which may or may not have something to do with its elegant depictions of where Carl's Jr., Starbuck, Costco, and Fox News are all heading. At the end of the day, I get to feel like I discovered this movie, just like everyone feels like they discovered Office Space, another unassuming studio comedy, and one that turned out to be a huge DVD cash cow for Fox.
It's a case we should all be watching in the age of Napoleon Dynamite and, especially, Snakes On A Plane, whose marketing robbed its audience of that discovery in the hopes of making a quick buck on the backs of YouTubers and "clever" blogs everywhere. I assure you, Idiocracy has a half dozen lines or jokes that are better than Samuel L. Jackson's "motherfucking snakes" bite, which you could catch on any one of Jackson's talk show appearances anyway. I'd write about which jokes really worked and which didn't, but I would want to ruin anyone else's discovery.
Also saw The Quiet (Jamie Babbit, 2005), which blew, and last night we watched What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (Robert Aldrich, 1962), which is incredible. What a couple of crazy bitches. Really.
On the way to the grocery store today, we found the house where the exteriors were filmed. It was underwhelming, especially since it is completely different forty years on. Boo. I was hoping that Bette Davis would be singing "I've Written A Letter To Daddy" on the roof while Joan Crawford dragged herself around the lawn, begging passersby for help.
No luck.
THE TRAGEDY!
On Monday, August 14th, a truck fire in New England claimed the lives of sixty puppies. The AP story was picked up by hundreds of local news affiliates, each with a unique one-line interpretation of the horrible accident's soul devouring essence.
RELEVANCE TO YOUR LIFE!
None.
TOP FIVE HEADLINES!
[as of 08/15, as presented by Google News's response to the query "dead puppies)
5) Hunte Truck Burns; 60 Pups Die
Neosho Daily News, MO.
The cigar chomping editor of the Neosho Daily News doesn't want to get morbid. "For the love of God, shorten it to 'pups'. We don't want to get phone calls."
4) 60 puppies from southwest Missouri die in trailer fire
News-Leader.com, MO.
Let's be clear. These sixty puppies were from Missouri. The News-Leader really wants you to remember that these were hometown pups. And I'll bet they missed their hometown.
[Note: Research reveals that Missouri is one of the better states for breeder oversight and the like. Still, I stand by my snark.]
3) 60 puppies headed to pet stores die in tractor-trailer fire
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN.
Well... when you put it like that, it sounds like the puppies got the better end of the deal.
2) Fire in truck kills 60 puppies
WREG, TN.
I thought that perhaps this was the least flowery of the descriptions of puppy death, and then I read...
1) Pets Killed
KSNF, MO.
I admire the effort, but... if you want to get technical about it... they weren't really anyones "pets" yet. Sure, they were "on their way to... loving New England families." But they didn't quite make it. It really should read "Lonely And As-Of-Yet-Unloved Bundles Of Cute Burned Alive". Still, A+ for pulling no punches.
Really, it is crazy how many local news outlets thought this was worth their readers'/viewers' time. Because nothing else happened on Monday.
