My Other Blog is an Old Prospector

Youtube Suggestions

2010-05-06T22:39:00.000-07:00

Wow. For once Youtube knew exactly what I wanted to hear. This song is beautiful.

Willie West & The High Society Brothers - The Devil Gives Me Everything Except What I Need

Trivia Night

2010-02-02T01:10:00.000-08:00

This isn't a blog post so much as a first draft.

Tonight our trivia group was accosted by no fewer than four drunk/unstable people. I just want to list them so I can remember them all later.

1. The guy who approached us, pointed to the table and asked if we minded a mug. It took a while for us to pick up on the fact that he was asking if he could sit on the small corner between Taylor and Lily. Request denied.
2. The exceedingly drunk ("but who gives a fuck?! Am I right?!") girl who kept telling Lily how much she looked like her friend Megan, whom she loves. This girl then proceeded to make out with one of the guys at her table and then gave a lap dance to a different guy, the latter of whom she left with/was kicked out with.
3. The creepy older (50 going on 75) gentleman who sat at drunk girl & co's table and kept placing himself in Rachel's line of sight.
4. My favorite: The African gentleman who kept telling me I was a handsome motherfucker. So handsome that he hated me, but also loved me. He then complimented Rachel on her smile and told her she was terrible at frowning. He then spent a long time trying to remember who Taylor looked like. The rich guy from Hollywood with the bad hair (it was Donald Trump). He told us how he loved his 16 and 14 year old daughters more than anything and how he was from "stupid motherfucking Africa," and how in Africa you could never say "motherfucker," but here, it's great. He loves our mothers, but we're motherfuckers. He shook our hands each about a dozen times, and then he kissed mine and Lily's. There was some serious handwashing going on afterwards.

Also our food order got screwed up, which is unusual for this particular pub, but the strangest part was that these people seemed to be leaving everyone else alone. Just kidding, those other things were stranger.

My favorite other team of the night was called "I don't pull out but my sofa does" because they were all very young-looking college kids who kept loudly chortling at the fact that #2 girl was leaving with a different guy than who she was making out with earlier. Also, the name.

The Washington Ballet

2009-12-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

These are absolutely stunning.

See more here.

Who William Shatner is Following on Twitter

2009-11-16T18:22:00.001-08:00

Did you know that William Shatner is on Twitter? He is! Not such surprising news, I suppose. He almost uniformly begins his tweets with "Friends," and ends with "My best, Bill," which is probably as good a way to spend 21 characters as any other. And they're decent enough tweets. Straightforward, informative, occasionally wishing someone a happy birthday.

As is the case with most celebrities, he's followed a lot more than he follows. Specifically, he's currently following 12, and he is followed by 124,841 (10,000 times as many!). Obviously the twelve caught my eye. Who are these chosen twelve that William Shatner has deemed worthy of his feed? Well:

1. Carrie Fisher - This is like Romeo following Juliet and it can only end as badly.
2. Henry Gibson - The recently, regrettably deceased comedic actor. Actually check out his page, that guy was a card and clearly (probably) did his own tweets.
3. Twitter's Spam Watch - Riveting stuff, I'm sure.
4. Wil Wheaton - The actor who played Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation (as well as Gordie in Stand By Me). I guess it speaks to Shatner's somewhat difficult reputation that the only Star Trek castmember he follows is one who never worked with him (not counting that episode of The Weakest Link : Star Trek Edition).
5. Dame Elizabeth Taylor - Sure. Why not?
6. Arnold Klein - Michael Jackson's doctor, and a pioneer in the cosmetic uses of Botox. Well, this at least fits with the Elizabeth Taylor thing.
7. Leslie Shatner Walker - His daughter. I bet she's got some stories.
8. Giorgio Tuscani - An artist I have never heard of, but that's certainly not any slight on his legitimacy. He is in turn following someone called "Gay Spock." I now like him.
9. The Priceline Negotiator - Himself.
10. Paul Camuso - A guy who "work[s] with actor William Shatner on his online internet project The Shatner Project." Kind of a redundant sentence, but okay. A guy with a cool (I hope) job.
11. Fran Drescher - Huh?
12. TrekMovie.com - He's probably still mad about not being cast in the first reboot, but also wants to keep that window open just in case the sequel needs an "Old Man Kirk." It's plausible with this new timeline set-up, after all.

All in all a wild bunch. A regular Jesus and the Twelve Apostles. TrekMovie of course being the Judas that betrayed him. Camuso being Peter for building his online internet Shatner church project. Spam Watch being Doubting Thomas for always being on the lookout for tricky business. The Priceline Negotiator being James the Less because of his inferior heroic qualities compared to those of James Kirk. Okay, the analogy gets a little thin past there, but if I knew more about the apostles I think I'd be all over this.

Netflix Inventory Oversight #14753

2009-10-17T16:32:00.001-07:00

I have waited 16 years to see Candyman. This additional "short wait" is almost too much.

Healthcare Riots

2009-08-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

It's 7:36am and this is probably the best thing I will read all day (via NYTimes):

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they "oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care." Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.

PS. Lily and I are celebrating our four year anniversary! Mostly apart!

More Youtube Comments

2009-08-04T11:52:00.000-07:00

From Beyonce's Single Ladies video:

I think the song speaks about girls who didn't got married and their boyfriend broke up with them and now they miss him, and the "if you liked it then you should've out a ring on it" means that if they didn't marry him then they have no right to complain, and now it's too late to repent... Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it

Sundance

2009-07-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that I'm about to be able to act really superior about having seen Humpday back in February. I really can't wait.

Best Casting News of the Year

2009-06-22T18:40:00.000-07:00

My days as a hack movie news reporter are long past me, but you must be told: Abel Ferrara is making a modern re-imagining of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with Forest Whitaker and 50 Cent in the lead roles. Is Lorne Michaels producing this or something? What's going on?

In other Abel Ferrara news, Werner Herzog is doing a remake (an extremely loose one it would appear) of Ferrara's "Bad Lieutenant" that looks NUTS.

I'm in a Slumberous Reverie of Grain

2009-06-20T00:53:00.000-07:00

We've been all out of cow milk for the past three days. We've got Rice Dream, but I can only drink it in shots, and my face when it's down is pretty similar to the one I wear after scotch but with more shuddering and less rugged bravado.

The Tonight Show with a Wax Sculpture of Conan O'Brien

2009-06-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

I'm looking forward to seeing Conan's first show tonight. There's been some naysaying as far as whether or not he can be as edgy or absurd at 11:35, but I tend to think as long as he's using most of the same bunch of writers and performers who've served him this well this long, the proverbial chuckleboat should be sailing on smooth gigglewaves. Until of course the writers get into their 50s and lose touch with contemporary issues, technology, and the ever-renewing touchstones of youth pop culture. So I figure we've got at least five years until that really kicks in.

That said, the banner ads (click the image for larger picture) that NBC has been using to promote the new Tonight Show are terrifying. Surely an actual photograph of Conan couldn't have been the basis for that illustration. It looks like carefully molded plastic with a few laugh lines at the sides of the eyes to humanize it up. Thoroughly weird-looking.

Politics and Psychology

2009-05-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

I read an Op-Ed piece this morning over a bowl of Honey Bunches of Oats (okay, Star Trek cereal) called "Would You Slap Your Father? If So, You’re a Liberal." All right, that's a good hook. I'm listening.

The premise of the article is that studies show that in general liberals and conservatives think and feel differently on more subjects than just "the issues." If you want to find out where a new acquaintance's political sensibilities lie, Nicholas Kristof (an occasional topic kicker-offer around this blog) suggests you ask them questions like "Would you be willing to slap your father in the face, with his permission, as part of a comedy skit?" and "Does it disgust you to touch the faucet in a public restroom?"

"Studies suggest that conservatives are more often distressed by actions that seem disrespectful of authority, such as slapping Dad. Liberals don’t worry as long as Dad has given permission.

Likewise, conservatives are more likely than liberals to sense contamination or perceive disgust. People who would be disgusted to find that they had accidentally sipped from an acquaintance’s drink are more likely to identify as conservatives."

I guess it makes sense that as a Democrat raised by Republicans I'd been fine with slapping my father in a sketch but I can't help but be mildly disgusted by public restrooms and sharing drinks with people who aren't romantic partners. But I think the latter just makes good health sense. If being a true liberal means loving getting sick, then count me out.

Best Exchange This Week

2009-05-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

Lily: A man on the street just told me that white people are becoming a minority and that as a white female it's my job to have a lot of babies. He gave me some GREAT literature and then walked past a young and pretty Latina girl in favor of a 60 year old white lady. I don't think she's gonna help

Dave: Save the lit, want to read. Also fyi, that text was split into 2 where you said "he gave me some"

Woodstock and Cannes

2009-05-18T18:33:00.001-07:00

IMDb's WENN can at times have about the most shallow and content-deficient reporting imaginable, but occasionally a headline will catch me and I'll read the story. Here's a recent article in which they describe the lukewarm reaction to Ang Lee's new film Taking Woodstock.

After skimming some negative reviews, they quote writer-producer James Schamus, who said that it was difficult to cast young people today who looked like the hippies you see in the old Woodstock footage.

"When you think about it, a generation of people who weren't fat, who weren't staring at themselves in the mirror all the time, and not shaving everything off down there, it captures the difference of 40 years right there."

So Schamus wanted people who were not image-conscious, but also, no fatties?

Ah the glorious 60s. When America's beautiful youth stood for something and stopped showering and got wasted every day to prove it. But in all fairness they did have better popular music.

Restraint

2009-05-01T18:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I find it very difficult not to (try to) use humor as a defense/deflection mechanism. Recent example: Someone from my elementary school who I haven't spoken to in ten years just posted on her Facebook feed:

_______ is glad to be home with the family, back to ____ College tomorrow....R.I.P. Uncle Mike

I will not say "I like this." I will not say "I like this."

Books and Meaningless Coincidences

2009-04-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, I read "Chronopolis" by J.G. Ballard, the first and to-date only story I've ever read by him. At the end I thought, "Hey, this guy's pretty good. Too bad he's probably been dead for a decade." More like two days; the same day I bought the collection of short stories at the library's ENORMOUS $.50 book sale. Stranger things have happened, but not to me this week.

Morning musing

2009-04-10T11:20:00.000-07:00

Tuthill loves the paper strips you peel off Netflix envelopes more than any toy we've ever bought her. Good thing we watch so many movies.

Taxes

2009-04-04T23:12:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my taxes tonight using TurboTax, and I have to say, I prefer the H&R Block method (which I pursued last year). Sure, it costs about $200 more, but there's something relaxing about telling a stranger about the year you've had and letting them do the incomprehensible paperwork. It's like therapy mixed with civic duty and laziness.

March Post

2009-03-31T20:51:00.000-07:00

It disappointed me that neither I nor Lily had anything notable to write for the whole month of March, so I thought I'd just add these unnecessary words to the internet, whose ratio of unuseful words to useful words is already about 84367103254785379:1.

One exciting thing about March is that I think our team has gone undefeated at the weekly trivia night at Jabu's Pub for the past four or five weeks. The other regular teams are beginning to resent us, which is an odd feeling since even though we're winning, we each only end up netting a few dollars after drinks and what have you. So we're basically provoking the ire of dozens of people for about ten dollars a week. Worth it? I guess.

Books

2009-02-22T00:48:00.001-08:00

I'm wanting to read like crazy (thanks library!) and I want more and more! Recommend books please! I may have killed the laptop, leaving us with one computer, but that should give me more reading time!

List your favorites please!

Dancing in the Dark

2009-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

I only saw this fairly recently and I can't figure it out. What made Springsteen think this dance was cool? Up until this point he'd been putting out some of the best and most accessible stuff of the previous decade, and even this number is a fun little pop gem, but then he made a music video that's goofiness is matched only by how boring it is.

If blame for the former belongs to the Boss, we can pin the latter on the video's director: Brian De Palma. Did they really need to hire the guy who had already made movies like Carrie and Scarface to direct a straight-forward concert video like this one? And can you believe that this is the gig that launched the career of a twenty-year-old Courteney Cox? She blushes twice and then awkwardly does the Bruce dance as the camera pulls away. Let's put this girl on sitcoms!

It's also strange to me that the official Bruce Springsteen Youtube channel thinks that this song came from the nonexistent album Dancing in the Dark instead of the real and famous Born in the U.S.A. Does the official Bruce Springsteen Youtube channel even like Bruce Springsteen?

And yet... I can't stop watching.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk8VZgJkpeg
(embedding disabled by request)

"Can't Believe It" Acoustic Covers: A Brief Showcase

2009-02-12T03:16:00.000-08:00

I was listening to T-Pain and Lil Wayne's... excuse me... T-Wayne's hit song "Can't Believe It" not long ago and thought it would actually work really well as an acoustic song. I said to myself, "Sure, white folks doing self-conscious acoustic covers of rap songs has been done to death, but I bet no one's thought to do this one yet!" As per usual, Google burst my bubble*.

(beat boxing in this one)

This is but a small sampling. Well, at least I don't need to learn the guitar and develop a better voice now. I wonder if anyone's gotten around to a bluegrass rendition of "Ghost Ride It" yet...

*Another disappointment rendered upon me by Google is that I did not officially coin the term "in-between drink," meaning a beverage that would be more likely to be consumed with a snack or on its own as opposed to with a proper meal (sodas, lemonade, and other juices for example, though these are not hard and fast rules). Apparently a 1935 article in Coca-Cola Nachtrichten (or at least the English translation) deserves the credit on that one.

Little Dizzle Trailer

2009-02-04T03:50:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that about sums it up. It also just got into SXSW, so the hits just keep coming. I would highly recommend checking it out if you have an opportunity. And I think I would make that recommendation even if I hadn't worked on it in a few small and humble ways.

Notes on Facebook

2009-01-30T01:25:00.000-08:00

1. My 91-year-old grandmother is now my friend on Facebook. A little weird, sure.
2. She is listed as single. A little weird as well, but "widowed" is not currently a marital status option (but certainly will become one in time).
3. Every day in my feed I get the report: "Gladys is now single." So either Facebook has a glitch specific to her, or she's really actively trying to put herself back on the market.

Link Parade

2009-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

Things I've been enjoying lately, so you all don't get bored we go out of town next week! Although, in all likelihood, we would not have updated next week even if we were going to be here.

Worst Poetry Book Covers of 2008
Some of these are truly awful!

One time I got a crackerjack prize that was a little square of cardboard emblazoned with the words "Fold Up Corners and Flick For Far Out Fun". It was not fun. These people were luckier.

We Heart It is a "visual bookmark" where you can store images you love. My Heart is turning into something I really love looking at. I'm glad I can have these things stored in one place.

Free cosmetics next week! All the details you'll need are in there.

Not a link but this is the outfit I want to wear for Sundance:

Sundance Premiere Outfit by lilyface

Sadly, it appears I own absolutely none of that*. Back to the drawing board!

And finally, this entry as a Wordle. Because I think it's kind of fun.

*Lie. I own the perfume. And I have some Moleskins around. I lie to you guys all the time.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-01T01:32:00.000-08:00

Don't let R. Kelly in your kitchen...

Best comment on the Youtube page:

"at leat(sic) Kelly didn't start a war over oil like G.W."

Real talk.

Schadenfreude

2008-12-28T18:14:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or has the word schadenfreude become unusually popular recently? I hadn't heard of it, not consciously anyway, before October of this year in an interview the AVClub had with Simon Pegg, and since then I must have seen it pop up in half a dozen different contexts online and elsewhere (Slate, The Stranger, NYTimes, for example).

I've heard it related to the economy, the election season, the holidays, interpersonal internet cruelty. Schadenfreude the term seems to have become as commonplace as schadenfreude the practice. So use it while it's hot!

A Message from Your King

2008-12-17T01:40:00.000-08:00

I was reading an article on Slate.com about the waning popularity of NASCAR when I came across these ads in the middle of the text. I now understand that they are advertisements for the TV show Kings, but initially I misread them as messages from the King of Georgia (rather than the fictitious "Gilboa").

I was at first surprised that Georgian royalty had bought ad space on Slate, and then secondly surprised that this Eastern European democratic state had a king. The point of this story is that advertising has finally beaten me (I'm not counting the time Geico's "Tiny House" tricked me, that got everyone).

Soothing Voice

2008-12-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

On a night like the one that's just ended, when I've gone to sleep at 3, been woken up by the cat at 5:30 and been unable to resume natural slumber behavior, it'd be nice to have somebody like this around:

Betsey Johnson

2008-12-10T22:50:00.000-08:00

This is a design that Betsey Johnson put forward for Michelle Obama to consider for the Inaugural Ball. Dang.

I love how she appears to have drawn herself but black. That hair! And the notes! You're a nutter, Betsey.

No words

2008-12-07T16:50:00.000-08:00

Little Dizzle Goes to Sundance

2008-12-06T02:05:00.000-08:00

It was announced Thursday that The Immaculate Conception of Little Dizzle, a film I've been working on (as post-production coordinator, assistant editor, volunteer coordinator, etc) for the past few months, will be part of the noncompetitive slate at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. I'm pretty excited about it.

The Grand Guignol

2008-12-04T11:52:00.000-08:00

"The Grand Guignol theatre closed its doors in 1962. 'We could never equal Buchenwald,' said its final director, Charles Nonon, on the theatre's decline and fall. 'Before the war, everyone felt that what was happening onstage was impossible. Now we know that these things, and worse, are possible in reality.'"

Sure, blame your theater's closing on the Holocaust. Hack.

Wishlist!

2008-12-02T15:32:00.001-08:00

December means wishlists!

A Grittier Planet for a Grittier Time

2008-11-30T15:31:00.000-08:00

You know what superhero I'd really like to see get the Frank Miller treatment? Captain Planet. Wheeler would have a drug problem, Linka would have become a prostitute, Captain Planet shoots polluters in the balls, etc.

Hold on a minute. A quick Google search reveals that my idea is not wholly new to the internet. I have to concede that adding Al Gore to the equation makes it even better.

Ever the Optimist

2008-11-21T21:41:00.000-08:00

What an exciting time to be alive.

Chorus Line of Blind Orphans

2008-11-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

Silhouette Masterpiece Theater is wonderful. They're so beautiful but quirky and silly as well. I want to paper our bedroom with these and have lazy days with breakfast in bed giggling over them.

All of these lovely pictures and more can be found here.

Personal Moons

2008-11-16T00:51:00.000-08:00

I still love this. It's one of the loneliest and most beautiful ideas I've seen well realized.

Joe Biden Booed

2008-11-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

Vice President-elect and Pennsylvania-born Joe Biden was booed yesterday during the Eagles game. CNN says that he "whispered" to reporters that he and his wife watch most Eagles games but that he also liked the Giants, citing this as a potential reason for why he would be booed. But this theory rests on the assumption that Eagles fans are remarkably informed about politicians' personal lives. I think the real reason is a combination of these three sub-reasons:

A. Football fans tend to be more conservative than the general population of the country.
B. The Democrats in the crowd mistook him for John McCain.
C. Philadelphia can be a cold, aimlessly angry place when the team is down.

President Barack Obama

2008-11-05T02:34:00.000-08:00

The next few weeks are going to be full of exclamations and extravagant cheer (as the past few hours have been), but it's truly been the kind of great day that history books just aren't going to be able to fathom. Someday it will just be a matter of fact that Barack Obama was the first (of no doubt several) African-American Presidents. There will be colorful sketches of our President-elect (probably standing, smiling with his arms crossed) that will come in educational packets along with the visages of Martin Luther King, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, and others. Kids will simply memorize that he was the first black president like they know that George Washington was the first white president. It won't seem surprising or even unusual that a guy named Barack Hussein Obama Jr. was elected president in a landslide. In time, the radical emotions we're feeling now are going to be replaced with blase acknowledgment. But this is a good thing. I'd rather our society be one in which it is accepted as a given that a black man can be president, than live in this euphoric bubble for the rest of history.

I remember starting a discussion in 2003 with some friends at Penn's dining hall about who would be the first person of "minority" status to break the Christian white man streak. Would it be a woman (not technically a minority), a Jewish American, an African-American, a Latino-American, an Asian-American, or other. Ultimately the consensus was that it couldn't be someone of predominantly Hispanic descent because of tension over Mexican immigration, and it wasn't likely to be an Asian person due to the relatively small portion of the population they represent. A practicing Muslim certainly seemed out of the question at that point. Joe Lieberman had almost been a heartbeat away from the Presidency only three years before, but even so, the conservative Christians didn't seem likely to go for a Jewish commander-in-chief, and Jews only make up about 1% of the US population. So we figured the safe bet would be a woman (there had been female executives in other countries, after all), or if the President died, his/her Jewish Vice President. Even five years ago, a black president seemed like something to strive toward in 2020 or 2024. I'm so rarely glad to be wrong.

In our defense, we couldn't have seen a candidate like Barack Obama coming from a mile away. Joe Biden famously gaffed when he called Obama an African-American candidate who is "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" but after the shock wears off, you get what he's saying. I don't think "clean" is meant to suggest an opposition to a supposed group of average, less-hygenic African-Americans. I think it's a contrast to politicians, who are known for being corrupt and for having sex scandal skeletons lurking in their closets. You know, dirty. And "articulate and bright" could draw a comparison to some current presidents. As for"nice-looking," well, Obama's handsome probably by most standards. And let's face it, as far as the personal histories of politicians go, Obama was squeaky. If Ayers, Rezko, and Wright are the worst characters they can associate with you, you know you're virtually bulletproof.

There are so many things I'm looking forward to during the Obama Presidency, but maybe most of all I'm looking foward to his Supreme Court appointments. Finally, 88-year-old liberal Justice Stevens can retire in peace, knowing that his seat won't be given to a right-wing idealogue. 75-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg is probably feeling the same way. Even Stephen Breyer and David Souter, hovering on either side of 70, might want to consider calling it a career. How great would it be to get three or four fresh liberal faces on that court after such a long haul? I almost suspect that Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt have been carrying Stevens around Weekend-At-Bernie's style just to keep his seat out of Bush's hands.

And on top of it all, what a week to be a Philadelphian Democrat. Jeremiah Wright is going to have to change the punctuation and emphasis of his now-famous chant to, "God damn, America."

I'm sure things won't turn around overnight, but I'm more optimistic about our country's future than I've been in a long, long time.

I love love

2008-10-31T02:01:00.001-07:00

WE'RE CARVING A PUMPKIN! IT'S SO ADORABLE!

Brett Favre

2008-10-30T18:45:00.001-07:00

Headline from the front page of NYTimes.com:

Here Goes Nothing
Brett Favre, freethinking huckleberry in the N.F.L., tries to make something happen one last time.

What does "freethinking huckleberry" mean in this context?

Also, exciting about the Phillies, eh? I rarely wish I was back in Philadelphia, but that would have been pretty sweet to take part of. Has Ryan Howard ever run faster in his entire career than when he was the first to tackle Brad Lidge and Carlos Ruiz?

"But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?"

2008-10-23T15:14:00.000-07:00

I'd like to think of this recent NYTimes Op-Ed Column discussion as a bookend with DMX's prior interview with XXL magazine:

Rebranding the U.S. with Obama

By Nicholas D. Kristof

The other day I had a conversation with a Beijing friend and I mentioned that Barack Obama was leading in the presidential race:

She: Obama? But he’s the black man, isn’t he?

Me: Yes, exactly.

She: But surely a black man couldn’t become president of the United States?

Me: It looks as if he’ll be elected.

She: But president? That’s such an important job! In America, I thought blacks were janitors and laborers.

Me: No, blacks have all kinds of jobs.

She: What do white people think about that, about getting a black president? Are they upset? Are they angry?

Me: No, of course not! If Obama is elected, it’ll be because white people voted for him.

[Long pause.]

She: Really? Unbelievable! What an amazing country!

***

Kristof then rationalizes his friend's perspective by reminding us "that the one thing countless millions of people around the world 'know' about the United States is that it is controlled by a cabal of white bankers and Jews who use police with fire hoses to repress blacks. To them, Mr. Obama’s rise triggers severe cognitive dissonance."

So they're familiar with the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s (even if some details regarding Jewish involvement are off) but they haven't heard of the great successes of African-Americans over the past forty years? What an oddly selective memory. The ascendancy of Oprah alone would be hard to miss, I would think.

CB I Hate Perfume

2008-10-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

I've been wearing CB I Hate Perfume for months now and I love it more than I ever expected to. I never really enjoyed perfume before (not to mention that my profession frowns on it) but what I wasn't enjoying was the headache inducing, synthetic smelling scents. The perfumer, Christopher Brosius, sums it up far better than I ever could in his manifesto explaining why he hates perfume.
They're very unusual scents, my favorite is called Winter, 1972, and it's described as a field of untouched new fallen snow, hand knit woolen mittens covered with frost, a hint of frozen forest & sleeping earth. It smells exactly like that. I would never have imagined I'd want to smell like cold dirt but I do. I love it. They're very personal, intimate scents; they don't accost everyone around you and leave headaches in their wake. And there is certainly something for everyone, the scents range from the smell of tomato vines (another favorite) to the absolutely spot on scent of burning maple leaves.
If there weren't enough reasons for me to love this line already, he has a scent called In The Library. Described as English Novel taken from a Signed First Edition of one of my very favorite novels, Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, worn cloth and a hint of wood polish, it is very nearly the scent I've been looking for. Unfortunately, it's slightly too sweet for me, more vanilla and pipe tobacco. Having experienced so many of Christopher Brosius's scents and finding almost all of them very accurate I can only imagine that that favorite novel of his smells like that. His gallery in Brooklyn sells many more accords (single note fragrances) than the website and among them is one called English Novel. I can only hope that a trip back East is in the works for me so I can stop by and smell what is possibly the scent of my dreams. Of course, if I should be feeling particularly flush anytime soon (or not so soon) he does custom scents.
HOWEVER, (this is surely a novel by now) the real reason I need you all to know about this line is that I think everyone would love it but not enough people are familar with it. This fact was confirmed by me when I did a Facebook search to see how many people had it listed on their page and the answer came back as two; me and the perfumer himself.

Less Cowbell Please

2008-10-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

Come on Rays, that sketch aired almost a decade ago. It's like the team is owned by Michael Scott.

My Quest

2008-10-20T00:35:00.000-07:00

It has become my personal mission to find a perfume that smells like books. I've been trying everything people tell me (and by people, I mean internet reviews) smells like paper and it's been very frustrating. Apparently, I am the only one with this desire.

I'll keep you all posted since I know you're just chomping at the bit to see how this works out.

Subterranean Homesick Blues

2008-10-19T03:51:00.000-07:00

It really grates me when people call Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" "a forerunner of rap and hip-hop." It's a fine song, and I know some rappers have in fact been influenced by Dylan's style, but it's rather ignorant to say a white folk singer was doing rap before anyone else was. I'm sure the long (and largely African-American) traditions of blues, jazz, and soul had a little to do with the development of hip hop, after all. Not to mention the longer tradition of poetry in general.

The Distinguished Alumni of Central High School

2008-10-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

Reverend Jeremiah Wright went to my high school! Barack Obama and I are now separated by two degrees. Here's hoping he closes the gap and gives me a cabinet seat. Secretary of Veterans Affairs would be fine.

First order of business: Put the apostrophe back in the department. I bet the Secretary of Education gives him shit about that all the time.

Palin Porn

2008-10-05T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hustler: Political discourse we can all get behind.

Fame

2008-09-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

Yes!

And my STARmeter is up 130% from last week! What?!

UPDATE: And today, March 31st, 2009 just over six months since I first got my IMDb profile page, my credit as "post-production coordinator" on TICoLD has arrived. Better late than never. Now to add DLL.

RIP Thinkpad

2008-09-25T04:29:00.001-07:00

My five year-old laptop is on its last legs. I'll be impressed if it makes it through the rest of the month. Expect even longer periods of silence from myself and the lady.

I hear there's a new line of Macbooks coming out soon, I just hope it's soon enough.

The Late Yul Brynner

2008-09-18T23:02:00.000-07:00

"Now that I'm gone, I tell you: Don't smoke. Whatever you do, just don't smoke."

Creepy. Good message anyway, I guess.

Quoted in The Stranger

2008-09-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

Sort of. The Stranger reviews the city's monthly happy hour, and quotes a line I wrote for the Office to promote the event. I'd re-quote it here, but then this would come up in my former boss's Google Alerts and I think he frowns upon such blogging (and I still need a letter of recommendation).

Scrapplefest

2008-08-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

Here it is, at long last. I suggest going to the actual Youtube site and watching it in "high quality" but to each his or her own. I'm a little embarrassed by how slapdash I threw this together, but there's no point in second-guessing (or making excuses for) 22-year-old me.

Interesting

2008-08-18T18:12:00.000-07:00

This map, from here, makes things even more confusing for me. I've always said soda and so has everyone I know but on this map it's the least popular of the big choices. I appear to be situated firmly in pop territory but I never hear that! Am I hanging out with the wrong people? Don't even get me started on the ridiculousness of "Coke".

What do you all say?

Contemplating Credit

2008-08-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

For the past week or so I've been working as the assistant editor on this film. So how should I go about getting myself on IMDb? Should I submit myself now or should I wait for the film to hit the festival circuit? Will someone else update the listings in a few months and I'll just be confusing the system? Oh the anxiety.

Beatlemania

2008-07-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

The one time in history that hordes of hysterical 14-year-old girls were right about music.

Chaplin on Relevance:

2008-07-19T00:01:00.000-07:00

"I am surprised that some critics say that my camera technique is old-fashioned, that I have not kept up with the times. My technique is the outcome of thinking for myself, of my own logic and approach; it is not borrowed from what others are doing."

-Charles Chaplin, 1966

I'm still deciding how I feel about this. On one hand, yeah, why should he have to ape Godard to be relevant? On the other hand, how can you communicate with an audience when you refuse to innovate on the advances made by your peers and likewise refuse to speak the cinematic language of the time? If Chaucer had lived into the 21st century, but never learned to speak modern English, who would read his new books? That is, assuming the books weren't titled "How I Got to Be 700."

Count Barackula

2008-07-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

Here's something to consider next time you want to make a joke/slogan/catch phrase out of Barack Obama's name: It's all been done. Google can confirm this for you:

Obamarama

Barack O'Bama

Barack & Roll

Between Barack and a Hard Place

Obamanation

Maraca Kabob

Count Barackula

Seriously. TRY and come up with something original. If he's elected, I estimate that by February 2009 creating name-inspired puns for Barack Hussein Obama will be literally impossible.

Clear Channel's 166 Inappropriate Songs for Post-9/11 America

2008-07-09T23:42:00.000-07:00

I find this list truly fascinating. (Sorry if this is very old news to some people.) The list clearly wasn't paid much credence, as 3 Doors Down's revenge-themed "Duck and Run" was ubiquitous around that time.

Some of the connections to 9/11 are obvious (Bruce Springsteen's "I'm Goin' Down"), others (Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World") not quite as much. But I like the fact that ALL of Rage Against the Machine's songs are inappropriate.

Old Man from "Abbey Road" Dies

2008-07-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

This actually happened back in February, but the old man in the background on the cover photo for Abbey Road passed away not long ago in Florida, at the ripe old age of 96. This article about how he wound up in the photo and how he found out about it months later is pretty funny:

On a London vacation with his wife, [Paul] Cole — then a resident of Deerfield Beach — declined to enter a museum on the north London thoroughfare.

"I told her, 'I've seen enough museums. You go on in, take your time and look around and so on, and I'll just stay out here and see what's going on outside,'" he recalled.

"I just happened to look up, and I saw those guys walking across the street like a line of ducks," Cole remembered. "A bunch of kooks, I called them, because they were rather radical-looking at that time. You didn't walk around in London barefoot."

About a year later, Cole first noticed the "Abbey Road" album on top of the family record player (his wife was learning to play George Harrison's love song "Something" on the organ). He did a double-take when he eyeballed McMillan's photo.

"I had a new sportcoat on, and I had just gotten new shell-rimmed glasses before I left," he says. "I had to convince the kids that that was me for a while. I told them, 'Get the magnifying glass out, kids, and you'll see it's me.'"

Metropolis

2008-07-04T12:26:00.001-07:00

I LOVE it when this sort of thing happens! But especially for Metropolis, easily one of the best silent films ever made.

From IMDb:

Lost footage from cult sci-fi film Metropolis has been discovered in Argentina.

The director's cut of Fritz Lang's 1927 classic, featuring an extra 30 minutes, was believed to have vanished forever after it was cut by Paramount bosses because of bad reviews.

However, the curator of the Buenos Aires Film Museum discovered a copy of the movie in his archives - and a projectionist noticed it was longer than all other versions of the iconic film.

Film restorer Martin Koerber, who is one of the few people to see the lost footage, says, "No matter how bad the condition of the material may be, the original intention of the film, including all of its sub-plots, is now once again tangible for the normal viewer. The rhythm of the film has been restored."

Musing

2008-07-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

Man, it was fucking cocky of us to eat hamburgers on the last day of the blog contest before we'd posted.

Free!

2008-07-01T23:59:00.001-07:00

It's nice being free from the confines of a blog contest.

This post was just to make sure...

Burger Time!

2008-06-30T22:14:00.000-07:00

Today we went to McCormick's for their Happy Hour because we heard they had $1.95 burgers. Indeed they did, and the burgers were a good size if a touch overcooked. The drinks were considerably more expensive.

Apparently, McCormick's also boasts a raffle every weekday the Mariners have a home game. Though we had six complimentary raffle tickets between the two of us, the couple at the table next to us were the lucky pair for the night, winning a $50 gift certificate to McCormick's, two tickets to tonight's Mariners game, and a cab ride from McCormick's to Safeco Stadium.

This couple happened to have plans, so they gave the tickets to us! Then McCormick's changed the dessert menu without telling us and they gave us free dessert for the inconvenience!

The Mariners lost in a rather uneventful 2-0 game against the Blue Jays (whose supporters really turned out for them in a way I've never seen before), but for free, it was pretty hard to beat.

So this ends the blog contest. Congratulations to our co-winners, a nod of the head to our conquests, and medium rare to our burger cook, please.

It's been fun,
Dave and Lily

Bad Lily

2008-06-29T17:27:00.001-07:00

You know, I think people who order meat well done deserve everything we do to it.

Postcards from Portland

2008-06-28T15:15:00.000-07:00

The past few days were so fun that they can only be summed up by the soreness in my arm from so much air hockey and the fullness in my belly from so much pork.

Hooray for Complimentary PC Workstations!

2008-06-27T16:20:00.001-07:00

Did you know that a third member of the cast of Predator is seeking political office? He has considerably less chance of winning compared to his co-stars, governors Schwarzenegger and Ventura, but he's running as the Libertarian candidate against the House minority leader, I believe? I'm sorry, I'd research this more, but this complimentary PC workstation won't allow me to open more than one window at a time. Still, what was it about that cast?

Employment

2008-06-26T01:21:00.000-07:00

I need some new jobs. The ones I have right now are about to run dry and I'm still going to need to pay rent. But what do I want to do?

"Dick" and "All the President's Men"

2008-06-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm impressed by how much the filmmakers of "Dick" made it look like "All the President's Men." I wonder if they used the same sets. It's also interesting to watch those movies now that we know who Deep Throat is.

Speaking of Deep Throat, do you even remember his name? I didn't. I just looked him up again. Man, what if we all forgot who Deep Throat was? It'd be a mystery anew!

Almost There...

2008-06-24T20:13:00.000-07:00

"If you wish to inflict a heartless and malignant punishment upon a young person, pledge him to keep a journal a year."

-Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad Vol. 1, Ch. 4

What Should I Ice Carve?

2008-06-23T14:06:00.000-07:00

I really want to go to Switzerland and Denmark. I also really want an Otter Pop. These aren't really related.

IMDb Top 250

2008-06-22T02:30:00.000-07:00

I've seen all of these!*

*It changes somewhat regularly, but as far as today's list is concerned, I've seen it all.

What Commenters on Digg Have Taught Me

2008-06-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

Every article that's ever been written is "pointless."

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

2008-06-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

Can you even imagine a time when this would be breaking news?

Kevin Bacon's on everyone's lips

October 25, 1996
Web posted at: 7:50 a.m. EDT

From Correspondent Paul Vercammen

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Kevin Bacon's name is being thrown around a lot these days in places you wouldn't expect.

"Let's link Paul Newman to Kevin Bacon," begins a conversation you may hear at a cocktail party or on a college campus. "Paul Newman was in the 'Color of Money' with Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise was in 'A Few Good Men' with Kevin Bacon."

That's how you play "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," a cultural phenomenon that's taking the nation by storm.

1996: BORING YEAR.

Close One

2008-06-19T23:49:00.000-07:00

We're playing with FIRE now.

Speaking of fire, Lily and I had dinner at a Greek restaurant tonight with some friends from Philly and the Greek waiters spontaneously lit a dish on fire (flambee?) right behind me. All I could see were Rachel and Taylor's faces glowing a yellowy light as I felt the heat blasting my neck. Not knowing if this was it, I ducked down near the table and probably looked like a bit of a coward. The good news is that in that (potential) near-death situation I neither shrieked nor soiled myself, and that felt like a good test to know I could pass.

Nappy Boy

2008-06-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

Dave is working on another movie tonight which means my sister and I just watch T-Pain videos and eat pizza. It's great but it's been several days since I've really spent much time with Dave. In fact, I'm sure I've spent more time with Susannah this week than Dave. And when you sleep in the same bed that's kind of a feat.

Burning the Candle at Both Ends

2008-06-17T18:30:00.000-07:00

I need an extended vacation but life doesn't agree with that assessment.

Long Weekend

2008-06-16T20:05:00.000-07:00

I worked on a short film from 5pm until 10 on Saturday night, and then from 7am until midnight on Sunday. We shot on the second and fourth floor of a building that's been abandoned for over 80 years. It was a long shoot complicated by cast rescheduling and an uncomfortable (and arguably somewhat unsafe) environment. But it was awesome.

At the end of the day we finished loading the U-Haul and started saying our goodbyes. The last person I got to was the DP, with whom I had worked most extensively. We shook hands and said "Good working with you" and then stopped and looked at each other for a moment. We were both moving our mouths as if we each wanted to have the next word, but were too tired think of it. After about three seconds, he blurted out, "It's like joining the circus!" It's a comparison that's been made before, but it seemed appropriate at the time anyway.

It wasn't necessarily a funny thing to say, but I laughed quite a bit anyway, possibly out of sheer fatigue.

Happy

2008-06-15T22:45:00.000-07:00

It's days like this, when I've had a great and simple time all day that I really don't have anything to say here. I don't feel at all connected to the internet or to this blog, just content and happy about intangible moments. Nothing feels urgent or compelling about writing these words, I just want to think about things. I haven't fully realized enough thoughts to post about them, I'm only caught in emotion.

But I really want that hamburger.

Cheap!

2008-06-14T15:46:00.001-07:00

We're not sure when time we'll be home from our respective tasks (cooking, filming) tonight so this is a little placeholder.

Low

2008-06-13T01:36:00.001-07:00

I've been listening to David Bowie's Low lately and it's fantastic. I don't usually go for electronic, instrumental stuff, and it's clearly not as fun as some of his more radio-friendly albums and songs. But just about every track I find myself thinking, "Wow, that's really beautiful."

"Be My Wife"

I would embed the Songza version, but for some reason it isn't working right now. Here's the music video on Youtube, which I think actually detracts a bit from the song because it's so visually boring. Well, you be the judge.

I Can't Lie

2008-06-12T18:28:00.001-07:00

I really don't understand people that don't like mayonnaise. What's that about, mayo-haters?

Reader of the Year

2008-06-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

Found this over at the Slog. The picture was taken about half a block away from my building downtown.

http://www.omnivoracious.com/2008/06/reader-of-the-y.html

In the photographer's words:

"This lady has it FIGURED OUT. She likes to read, she likes to smoke, she lives in Seattle (where it's 50 degrees and rainy in June), she works in some hulking office building downtown: what's the solution? You see it before you. (I should note, since it's not quite clear, that she's actually standing in the street, in a quiet little spot between parked cars that puts her out of foot traffic, far away from the smokers-area ennui, and even deeper in her own little umbrella world."

Most Boring Job in the World

2008-06-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

I know that's a hefty title to fill, but listen to this internship opening at the Seattle Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs:

Street Banner Internship

Deadline to Apply: Open until filled

Working as a member of the City's Banner Process Improvement team this position is responsible for locating and identifying street poles eligible for banner placement. This position will conduct a physical inventory of light and other street poles that could be used for hanging banners (including commercial district, event, cultural and art-related banners). The intern will travel Seattle neighborhoods and business districts identify eligible street poles, map their location and enter this information into a computer database. Additionally, the intern may assist the City's Public Art Program in mapping public artwork locations around the City.

The last sentence almost saves it, but WOW. People with histories of depression need not apply.

Choke

2008-06-09T18:34:00.000-07:00

I recently saw Clark Gregg's adaptation of the Chuck Palahniuk novel "Choke" at SIFF. In a word: Mess.

In more words: Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston try their damnedest to save it, but just can't. The tone and pace shifts without rhyme or reason (though not in the interesting ways that the book does), Kelly Macdonald is uncharacteristically bad (and she was recently phenomenal in "No Country!"), and the film is even surprisingly ugly from an aesthetic point of view.

The weird part was that as I watched it I thought, "Man, I wish they'd gotten a better cinematographer. Somebody who knows how to make an independent film look like it cost $10 million more to make than it actually did. Somebody like Tim Orr." Much to my surprise, Tim Orr was the cinematographer of this monstrosity. My brain can't compute the fact that the guy who shot "Choke" also shot "George Washington" nearly ten years ago.

The film has some merit here and there (some jokes from the book that translated well to the screen), but overall, not worth anybody's time.

I Might Be Late

2008-06-08T00:33:00.000-07:00

But this is really cool. I always need something to help me hear the songs that are stuck in my head.

And this is the song that is in my head recently:

Spike Vs Clint

2008-06-07T18:44:00.000-07:00

I'm loving the Clint Eastwood vs Spike Lee argument. Basically, Spike brought up at a press conference at Cannes that Clint had left African-American people out of Flags of Our Fathers, saying that to Clint Eastwood, black men played no part in the battle, when in fact they did.

Clint Eastwood's response was that there was only a small munitions detachment of black soldiers on Iwo Jima and the film was primarily about the three men (two white, one Native American) who raised the flag on Iwo Jima and survived the war. He also said that Spike Lee gave him shit in 1988 when he (as a white man) made a film about jazz legend Charlie Parker (noted black man), and should "shut his face."

Now Spike Lee says, "the man is not my father and we're not on a plantation either... I didn't personally attack him, and a comment like `a guy like that should shut his face...' come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man."

To be fair, Clint Eastwood does sound a bit like an angry old man, but for Spike to say that Clint left African-Americans out of Flags, deliberately or through a lack of research, IS a personal attack, and an angry response should be expected.

As much as I enjoy the bickering, I wish these two very talented men would put aside their differences. Surely there must be some way for black people and white people to get along...

Parent Whereabout Roundup

2008-06-06T17:19:00.000-07:00

NO TIME, DAVE'S PARENTS LEAVING, MY PARENTS ARE NOT BUT WHATEVER.

LOVE,
L

Vinyl vs Digital

2008-06-05T13:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in Plato's Cave Allegory. I've been told several times in the past few years that vinyl is widely accepted as the superior medium quality-wise, but it makes me not want to listen to vinyl, lest my CD and MP3 collection be forever tainted by the knowledge that I am listening to mud. I don't want to buy a turntable and LPs, I just want the highest quality recording to also be the most convenient. GET ON IT, SCIENCE.

The Horror: Making a Film in Seattle Can Destroy You

2008-06-04T22:04:00.000-07:00

I started reading this article at work and I have every intention of finishing it, but with midnight approaching I figured I'd just link to it without knowing how it turns out.

The Making of Cthulhu

I PAed a bit on a short by this director (Dan that is, not Grant).

Poles Reversed

2008-06-03T21:22:00.000-07:00

This is an old article below, but Lily and I only recently heard some guy talking about the potential of Earth flipping its polarity (North becoming South). I guess it can't be too big of a deal or you'd think it would be in the news more.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/space/04/07/poles.reverse/index.html

Gadzooks! Look at this site. We've only got four more years left to live!

'Swounds! Now watch this! I can't tell if this is serious or just a fine bit of comedy.

Oh What a Feeling!

2008-06-02T00:03:00.000-07:00

We found three CDs in my parents' rental car. One was Garth Brooks, and the other two were decorated with maple leaves and the words "Juno 3" and "Juno 4" in tiny letters. We started listening to them, and only after skipping through fifteen or so extremely different tracks did we come upon Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" and realize that it was a compilation of Canadian artists. Check out the track listing (it's the 1996 release).

As you can see, the selection seems to be entirely random, with no regard for tone or flow from one song to the next. As for the individual tracks, well this song, for one, is ridiculous.

Cathy!

2008-06-01T00:26:00.000-07:00

Ack!!

Happy Birthday, Lily!

2008-05-30T08:17:00.000-07:00

We're likely to be busy all day, so this will be all you get, blog. I'm very happy to finally be spending Lily's birthday with her and I look forward to making it a tradition.

Busy Week

2008-05-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

Dave and I are going to see my little sister in a play about Irish terrorists with a penchant for killing cats tonight, so this is a just in case post (albeit, one that might turn up some interesting google searches).

O'Douls

2008-05-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

I don't know why Olde English doesn't just become a full-time musical group. Their sketches are great and all, but the recent music videos have been on another level entirely.

The Downswing

2008-05-27T22:38:00.000-07:00

The unfortunate thing about Memorial Day is that I don't have any less work to complete this week, just less time in which to do it.

My parents and brother will be here in a matter of days, which is... fine. I don't know. I'm looking forward to seeing them as I do sincerely miss them, but the phrase "worlds collide" hardly ever holds a positive connotation to me.

I Have Snowman Ones!

2008-05-26T16:12:00.000-07:00

With my 21st birthday fast approaching my friends and family have been asking me for wishlists and desires. I want to help, I really do, because I can be quite picky about things; but all I can think about is how much I like juice glasses. I love juice glasses. Love them.

And because I love them we have maybe too many of them in our tiny apartment. There are only two of us. This is not helpful.

What do I like besides juice glasses?

My Effortless Brilliance

2008-05-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

I saw this last night, in a packed house that included the director and most of the cast and crew. It was a mostly-improvised local independent movie about being dumped by a very close platonic friend and trying to get him back. As improvised movies are, there were some rough patches but also some patches of brilliance, for lack of a better word. The main character is played by Sean Nelson, lead singer for Harvey Danger, who is actually a pretty darn good comedic actor. I highly recommend it if it ever comes to your town.

Here's the trailer:

Lily and I are going to spend the day cleaning in preparation for my family's visit next week. I just have to see if I can wake her up.