That concert DVD sucked the biggest hairy balls ever. First of all, let's note the title: Top of the World Tour. So Top of the World is a Patty Griffin song I've always loved and the Chicks do a great version of it. One might expect to actually hear it in the concert even. Ah, no. But they did include the music video. Um, I have You Tube, thanks guys.
But you know why it really sucked? And I can see how this sounded great on paper, but each song had a jillion cuts, each shot from a different concert. Meaning: different outfits, different backdrops, different hairstyles, it really ruined the whole point of watching the conert. No intimacy, no connection, it was the worst idea ever. Avoid that DVD.
Long, long day. Have to maintain sanity til D gets home and can make us honey chicken...working early ASS hours tomorrow morning so I'm off to unplug my brain and watch Dixie Chicks: Top of the World.
I'm mad at work letting the chicken defrost, in case you're wondering. Hard times.
Not terribly crazy about my new hours. Plus as winter sets in it will be dark when I leave the office. Always a cheer.
Yesterday I was trying to remodel the bathroom cabinets. They're wood so naturally I attempted to strip the varnish and then stain them. This did absolute jack shit. I painted them instead and they look just I like I wanted. (If I had tried the easy way first, it would have never happened).
I also ripped up 1/3 of the tiles in there and laid some new ones, which match both the cabinets and walls more than I could have hoped. So much nicer than the horrendous patterny shite that was in there previously. But this morning, Bourdain had to deal. He always runs in post-shower to lap up all the tub water (he's not really the classiest of cats) and he was very OCD about the tiles, only touching the old ones, even if it meant walking on the edge pieces. I set him on the new tiles and he left.
He does things in baby steps, tomorrow is a new day.
I need to finish up October's movie trivia for the theatre. Now that I've been doing the trivia for over a year it gets a little trickier when it come to holiday months. Halloween is no biggie, as I've resorted to 50s and 60s monster flicks, of which D and I know plenty. (All that MST3K background, you know, in my case). Bert I. Gordon to the rescue! Check out this cool site, they have all the posters from the films of each MST3K season, I just now stumbled across it!
So October's a breeze, but I'm dreading November's batch. Thanksgiving movies run on the terribly thin side to begin with. I'll have to do some brainstorming for that month. More than usual. I expect it to hurt.
It's Stephen Tobolowsky day! He co-stars (very memorably, as always) in two very cute older favorites I've revisited lately:
Groundhog Day. I know I really like this movie, but I hadn't seen it in ages. D ran across it for about $5 and knew I was wanting to own it. Finally sat down to watch it the other day. It's one of those rare movies that starts out and you think you know where it's going. Kind of predictable, kind of lame. And holy shit, it actually picks up steam along the way and doesn't let you down.
Surely everyone knows the story by now--Bill Murray's character is stuck in the same day over and over ('cause he's an asshole and there's really never an explanation, which I also love). Sounds pretty awful when you try to describe it to someone. I can't believe it got made, actually. Anyway, just when you start to object because you think the point is for him to get it right with Andie MacDowell (an actress I've really never liked, yet always enjoy in several movies, go figure), you see that's not the point at all. Really has some great things to say; I should probably watch this at least once a year (presumably around New Years or birthdays or other potentially depressing times). It's a really great upper, also full of terrific scenes and lines.
Next, we bring you Sneakers. Talk about an incredible cast, River Phoenix included.
This movie has a ton of great lines and moments. Suspenseful and funny. Definitely a reliable favorite. It still makes me laugh and holds my interest each time. It's all about espionage and government secrets, betrayal, and it's a little silly. So I love it. And I'm really not shitting about the cast, you could watch it strictly for the performances. And the charm, ooooh the charm.
And on a last, completely different note, we have this. D heard about it on the radio and we watched it tonight. Wow. Just...wow. I have nothing to add whatsoever. That is some kind of special. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Miss South Carolina.
This lady is coming to town this November. Count me the hell in.
Regina Spektor was on everyone's top ten 2006 albums lists, but I didn't get into her til about four months ago. That's just how I roll.
What a great song. I'm currently introducing D to her stuff (so that I can sweet talk him into hitting The House of Blues come November...)
And the next person to compare her to Tori Amos get slapped. I get the impulse (chick with a piano, omg!), but she does strike me as quite different. (And so maybe it did cross my mind as well, for a fleeting second, but still.)
It wasn't the amazing thing so many have made it out to be, but The Lives of Others was still a really great film I muchly enjoyed. Sure, there weren't any surprises, but it was very well executed with great characters and quite engaging. Definitely going on my top 10 for 2006 (eeking closer and closer to something resembling '10'). Doesn't mean it's going into the all-time favorites, but it's still the best of what I've seen in ages.
Followed that up with Avenue Montaigne, recommended by my dad. It was very cute, a sprawling story in Paris. It started out by following a girl who gets a job as a waitress, but it spent equal amounts of time on the people she encountered. It was interesting and also showed the city through her eyes. It didn't make things look easy, but it did come off as interesting and certainly worth being there. It was a rare moment when Paris didn't strike me as intimidating. (Which is odd because the waitress never had money to sleep anywhere or do anything). Very enjoyable.
But I digress. Somehow it comes out that she's "one freaky chick." Like she likes to have her hair pulled during sex. Okaaaaaaaaay, says I. Well no, he says, he gets that request all the time. But she REALLY likes to have it pulled. Like he thought he was going to rip her hair out. She wanted to have a headache the next day because she liked knowing where the headache came from.
Ok, first of all, who the fuck is this man sleeping with that all these girls want their goddamn hair pulled? I get pissed if D leans on my hair at night. Granted, his girlfriends were all born between 1984-86, so maybe it's something these young chicks are into, I really don't know. I did not find out what else she was "into," that was enough for one call.
(I mean really, if nothing else, wouldn't it wrench the ever-loving hell out of your neck? It hurts just thinking about it.)
CHOICE B: We watched The Colbert Report last night where they cut off Colbert's wrist cast and then put it up on ebay for bidding that will go to the Yellow Ribbon Fund. D and I watched as, within about four minutes, it went from $2,000 to $35,000 to $75,000. For a fucking cast. And you know, as neat as a trinket from the show may be...uh, a cast? That's actually...kind of gross.
In any case, upon viewing it now, some of the bids have been canceled. My guess is Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were dicking around on ebay. (You have to be specially registered for the bidding beforehand). But even now it's in the thousands of dollars (single digits at least) and still has nine days to go.
I'm forced to conclude:
1). People are into some stupid shit. 2). Many, many people may indeed have too much money.
Neither conclusion is new, but having concrete examples always sheds a fresh light.
So I didn't get that job, but they want to train me for it anyway. "It was a really difficult decision." Like so often in most of my jobs, they'd like to give me more responsibility, but I can probably rest assured that won't be readily obvious on my paycheck. I already envision myself talking about Krispity Krunch and "Synergy!" nine times a day anyway, so I couldn't help but think of the "wingman" line from In Good Company.
And speaking of Scarlett Johansson, I'll just come out and admit there is a dark place in my soul I prefer not to discuss too often that just might not resist if I were forced to watch The Nanny Diaries. But WAIT! Don't judge just yet. I mean, I know it'll be a poor man's Devil Wears Prada (it's so the hip comparison all the reviews are making, it must be so) and DWP as a film was flaming vomit, so, you ask, why the hell would I watch it?
I can't help you there, why does my husband keep watching shit horror films he knows are bad? These are questions best not answered. I am occasionally drawn to shit, that's all I can conclude. And in this case, at least I wouldn't even watch it for Scarlett; I've actually been really disappointed with her acting abilities lately and the New York Times NAILED it today:
But Ms. Johansson’s Annie, who narrates the movie in a glum, plodding voice, is a leaden screen presence, devoid of charm and humor. With her heavy-lidded eyes and plump lips, Ms. Johansson may smolder invitingly in certain roles, but “The Nanny Diaries” is the latest in a string of films that suggest that this somnolent actress confuses sullen attitudinizing with acting.
Nailed it, I tell you. But you know who'd be worth watching it for?
This lady is so underrated. And she really kicks a ton of ass in everything she's in, even I have only recently realized I'm probably missing out on more of her stuff. Laura Linney, in my experience, has always been worth watching.
Scarlett? Not so much. Her recent films have really fallen short. And not just the ones she phones in mostly starring The Johansson Twins (*cough* The Prestige); I found her painfully miscast in The Black Dahlia. (Total POS, so no big loss, regardless). Not that her new L'Oreal ads don't secretly make me wish I could pull off Nuclear Platinum Blonde and really, look at this photo and tell me you don't hate her just a teeny tiny bit:
Ok, so I was curious (and apparently without anything better to do), since everyone seems to get a totally different animal, what animal I would be with slightly different answers. Fuck you, stupid quiz. I should have been happy with my original "lion" score...
Sadly, it's kind of accurate.
You're a Stuffed Animal!
Everybody loves you, though most of them are truly ashamed to admit it. You love children most of all, though you're not really all that expressive of your emotions. You're not terribly active, and end up spending altogether too much time in bed, although most people secretly suspect that you really love to take trips and travel around. A kid at heart, you'd be a lot better off if no one ever grew up. You are most annoying when stuffed into the back of a car.
I'm not saying it wasn't a dick move on Branson's part, but I'm also not saying I didn't laugh. I guess having billions of dollars makes it hard to grasp the norms of society, I wouldn't know.
Not having been there for the taping, it's impossible to gauge the real emotion of the "trainwreck" Branson interview, but it was certainly less painful than I was expecting. Infact, it was actually shocking and funny (even though you knew what was coming). I'm sure they've worked their editing magic and made it look as friendly as possible, which it really did.
Everything was going well until Branson started bitching when Stephen Colbert went in for the handshake wrap-up, and while Branson bitched, Colbert leaned back and put his feet up, doubtless the impetus for getting water tossed across the table at him. The retaliation on Colbert's part (having his own bottle brought to him for a return dousing) was funny, and however irritated he may have been, he hid it remarkably well.
Even though the segment was not recorded along with the rest of last night's show, he still wore the same tie, a sneaky way to smooth it out. Actually, recording two interviews at the same time still seems odd, but maybe they do that all the time...kind shortchanges the audience who just gets a taped interview, you know?
Also watched the latest Film Crew: Killers From Space, which had some really great commentary.
Jesus what an awful film. Loved the aliens' eyes. What isn't intended to be funny is appallingly so. And I'm getting used to not having the silhouettes, it just took some time.
There's a bathroom to remodel, dishes to wash, and a yard to weed...however, I'm sort of thinking Inland Empire, Avenue Montaigne, and The Lives of Others. Just that kind of day. I should probably cook something sexy just so I'm not completely worthless...but I can't promise anything.
I'm slow (ok, REALLY slow), but you knew I was going to blog about it. And you know I'll be watching tomorrow night (when it airs).
Considering they usually shoot in the afternoon and broadcast at night, I'm not sure what they did that night if this segment didn't air? I saw the episode but I honestly can't recall how they filled it out; (I also take just about anything in stride so it's not like I noticed anything awry).
Taken from Boing Boing: (But Richard Branson "cool?" Really? I'm going to go with TOTAL PENIS, but hey, I'm not biased or anything.)
Richard Branson dumps mug of water on Colbert and vice versa
Two of the coolest guys in the world, Sir Richard Branson and Stephen Colbert, apparently poured water on each other's heads in an unfriendly manner during a television segment taping that will likely never air.
BoingBoing reader George W. says,
Ian Bogost appeared on the Colbert Report on Tuesday, August 7 to discuss his [book and website] Persuasive Games. He mentions in his post, paragraph 7, that there was a segment filmed with another guest that went not exactly as expected. This guest was Richard Branson, presumably on to discuss one of his Virgin America planes being named in honor Stephen, the "Air Colbert." [Editors's note: Hey, I saw this plane chillin' on the SFO tarmac on on August 8! So cool.]
Apparently Branson got upset he wasn't able to advertise as much, and poured his mug of water on Stephen.
Here is a recount from a member of the studio audience that night. He posted this comment on a Stephen Colbert fan site under the name Rocktimus Prime (Link):
"I haven’t posted a recap anywhere else, but I’ll spill it here first. Branson was apparently upset that he wasn’t able to give a direct plug to the new Virgin service and doused Colbert with his guest mug of water. Stephen was DRENCHED. He took a beat, then signalled for his own “ammunition” for about twenty seconds until Alison (Silverman) ran and gave him her bottle of water, and Stephen retaliated. The two of them sat for a VERY uncomfortable second looking like two wet cats. Then Stephen thanked him for coming. I really don’t think it was planned, since Stephen had another bit to introduce (the American Samoa Better Know a Protectorate) and a full interview left to do. They had to get him a new jacket and even broke out a blowdryer. Everyone in the crew had a “WTF?” reaction."
Also of note, during the interview with Ian Bogost, there is a visible crushed poland spring water bottle sitting on the mantle. After approximately 1 minute the cameraman on Bogost adjusted to a different odd angle so the bottle was out of shot. There is a screenshot of Bogost with the bottle behind him in his blog posting, the first link.
I realize since this segment hasn't aired, and may never air, it might not something you would all normally post, but it is a very interesting turn of events.
Colbert Vs Branson To Air: Best Awkward Water Fight Winner During a taping of the ‘Colbert Report’ last week some audience members reported that Sir Richard Branson, the eccentric rich British dude from Virgin Airlines and that space flight billionaire joy ride, dumped his mug of water on Lord Stephen’s head. Either the scenario was brilliantly set up, or there was some true tension between the two. We don’t know for sure. What is clear is seeing Colbert and Billionaire Branson get into a wet suit coat contest makes for great television.
Attendees had alerted BoingBoing to the shenanigans, and it was assumed the producers of the ‘Report’ would not allow the water fight to air. That seems incorrect on a number of levels. First of all, Colbert himself would insist on such golden television to air. He’s certainly not shied away from the controversy with his show and ‘The Daily Show’ making the rounds on Youtube. Not long ago he explained a broken wrist as an accident off-camera to work up the audience, at the end of the bit Colbert moans, “Please don’t put this on Youtube.” So yeah, Colbert and his rapist wit are fully prepared to air the Branson fight.
The altercation itself seems like either a poorly designed bit, or Richard Branson proving that rich and crazy doesn’t quite equal funny. After being denied the chance to name his new budget airline (a tactic Colbert uses to great effect in his parody of guys like Bill O’Reilly) Branson doused the host with water. Colbert retaliated with his own version of American justice, but during the break was reported to look angry and ruffled.
Whether scripted or not, the good news is that the taping is set to air on Comedy Central as planned on August 22nd.
So I was about to start writing a script not too long ago (with nothing special in mind, it was more of a writing exercise) and I realized it had been eons since I'd really perused a script and felt I should spend a little time looking at one to get back in the format.
So for the past couple days, I've been reading Kevin Smith's double feature of Clerks and Chasing Amy (I guess they just didn't feel like including Mallrats, don't ask me) in my down time at work.
(The best part of this is that if someone were to pause by my desk while I've got the book open to the side, they might very well read, WOULD YOU LIKE SOME MAKING FUCK, BERSERKER??, especially with that nice easy-to-read layout scripts do have...)
I'm intrigued by the drastic ways in which my feelings on the Smith trilogy (which I guess it's not anymore) have changed over the years. I think there was a time I nearly got tired of Clerks and all the annoying fuckwits who nearly ruined it by trying to glom onto its "indie coolness" or whatever. But now that more time has passed, it is still near and dear to my heart, however shoddy the quality (part of its charm, says I) and the best of all Smith's stuff.
Mallrats has really grown on me. It could hardly be more juvenile and it clearly falls short of whatever Smith was going for. (Little too much slapstick, if you ask me).
At the end of the day though, I find it cute and charming, complete with great dialogue.
Chasing Amy surprises me most, as I used to really love that movie. I can barely watch it now.
It feels so forced and awkward, like when someone writes about themselves and turns it into bad "fiction" and you really wish they hadn't because now they've asked you to read it and you know it's about them so you can't knock it but it really does suck. It's like that. Still has some great lines and Jason Lee nearly makes the whole thing worth it. And I'm not even bitching about Ben Affleck here, how crazy is that! I honestly don't have a problem with him in this, it's like the only time.
But Clerks, despite having like, four people in it (and fifteen roles), a $5 budget and some really shitty acting (I'm looking at you, Veronica) still resonates with me by far the most. And reading that script, you know what I totally forgot? I totally forgot that in the original ending, Dante gets killed! Jesus, what a downer of an ending! After Randal leaves in the end, someone blows Dante away while he's closing, then a customer comes in moments later and tries to get served.
I am so glad that got nixed. Talk about ruining the movie!
I realize Dogma and Jay & Silent Bob may be part of the View Askewniverse, but I really just don't care. Clerks II was a blast, but it'd be goofy of me to reminisce on something that came out last year.
Two more days til my weekend, woohoo! It's only a one-day weekend but with the new shift kicking in, I actually end up having my new weekend a mere two days later. Shittier hours, but there will be the plus side of not having to wake up at the insane hour of five am. Always a good thing. I can actually make it through the Colbert Report without passing out exhausted...(god getting older sucks donkey balls).
And now for something completely different.
You're a Lion!
Wherever your particular jungle might be, you are considered king or queen. With a noble yet relaxed air, you are able to control those around you by implied threat of force. There are those that would attempt to tame you, or even call you yellow, but you know that you're far too bold for that. You've often been seen hanging out on the steps of public libraries. Your favorite US state is Maine.
Yeah, I don't know about that. Maine? Wtf? I did have a picnic in Maine once, so it could be true.
Wow kids, really got nothin' today. But for some reason I feel the need to post, I'll list the things I'd like to do one day. My job occasionally leaves me with not just the longing for more but sometimes, the time to actually write down what. And then get depressed about it. Good times. Needless to say, it's in no order.
1. Venture out on a sailboat 2. Live in NYC for one year 3. See a Kenneth Branagh play live (preferably one he's starring in, not just directed)
4. Eat oysters from somewhere I don't fear them 5. Master the art of strumming and singing guitar (yes, at the same time) 6. Finish my goddamn backyard so it doesn't look abandoned 7. Stay at the Bear Hotel in Wales again and write like crazy 8. Take a decadent mudbath (at a snobby spa if possible)
9. Do SXSW again (music *and* movies) 10. Take a hot air balloon ride (somewhere pretty please) 11. Visit Calgary and/or Alberta, Canada (both so beautiful, I'll take either) 12. Go back to Les Halles in NYC for that bearnaise sauce with my steak, have another damn digestif and take four fucking hours to eat my meal just like last time 13. Have an olive oil tasting party like Fine Cooking suggested once in one of its reminiscently snobby moments
14. Go to Comic-Con in San Diego 15. Master the art of budgeting and restraint (this is too radical, really) 16. Re-learn the left hand of the piano 17. Get back into video editing (hahahaha) 18. Visit the rainforest in Central America (see? a new place, already done the one in Thailand) 19. Take D to Koh Samui (in Thailand...just when you thought I was done re-doing stuff); also hit Swenson's, the only one left in the world (ok, maybe not) 20. Go to Greece. Totally random, I know. Why the fuck not? 21. Go to the Twin Peaks marathon in Oregon or Washington or wherever the hell they hold it. 22. Learn how the hell the stock market works 23. See Patty Griffin in concert again and she won't play lame shit this time 24. See Common Rotation again and it will be just as much fun 25. See Madonna live (playing only old hits, of course)
26. Eat at another restaurant where 'digestifs' are an option 27. Drive one of my favorite bitchin movie cars (I'll take the Streets of Fire or Supernatural car and that's about it)
28. Own a 35mm print of Streets of Fire 29. Exercise again and have Holly Hunter arms 30. Spend 1-2 months in Italy and actually utilize those two years of college Italian already obliviated 31. Own my (our) own repertory theatre (details of this would be its own other post, frankly) 32. Audition and do more plays (writing them, even, would be just dandy) 33. Have a Japanese-esque toilet seat in my home, complete with heater and bidet 34. Have my own gory death scene in a horror movie 35. Write a full script 36. See Simon & Garfunkel again (didja see that? "again." Better seats this time, please).
Ok, that's quite enough. 36 is a fairly random enough number, especially for vapid ramblings. I'm sure there are things I forgot to include that would be far worthier of my time and efforts, however, these are really just off the top of my head.
And fuck it:
37. Have a cameo on STNG in which I get to nod at Picard on my pass down the hall (who says realism has to enter into this? can I help you?)
Wow, thank god for YouTube. I can have a really shitty day and come home and dig up the treasure of (the real) Stephen Colbert on Charlie Rose. Good times. The morons were out in droves today. It was a very funny, charming break from the endless fuckwits of my day. It was also the only time I've heard him speak about his father's and brothers' deaths.
But don't worry, my blog's not going to get too serious. On the flip side, everyone has to start somewhere:
Speaking of TOTAL SHIT, D and I watched a random episode of Grey's Anatomy TiVO taped recently. Ok, so maybe I suggested to TiVo to tape it. Maybe. I'm always on the lookout for guilty pleasures, shoot me. WOWZERS. What a fucking spectacle. I hope to one day teach a scriptwriting class just so I can show this episode. This will be my prime example of GROTESQUE PAINT-BY-NUMBERS MELODRAMA. It was the second of a two-parter, and I hate to judge a whole series on one episode, but mother fuck. We started yelling out dialogue towards the end and you know what? We nearly always got it right.
Grey had her finger on a bomb in some dude who was bleeding out and she couldn't even wiggle her finger but they still rolled the whole gurney down the hall to get away from the main oxygen line and then she pulled the whole bomb out and gave it to some dude who walked it down the hall and blew the hell up. Where the bomb squad was (seriously, they'd milked this for hours, the bomb squad should have been there) was apparently of no concern. This was so gloriously awful I almost want to watch more. With beer.
Hope I didn't give anything away there if you're a fan and you haven't seen that episode (it was old, I presume), but it was such a schlocky buildup it gave itself away. If you didn't see it coming, I really can't help you there.
(I checked, it's season two, so I'm not ruining anything).
It's much appreciated. I'm just so happy when people don't hit their heads on their monitors from boredom. In turn I would say the same
to both Veloute and Triana, both blogs I love reading whenever they get the chance to update. It may not be often but it's usually good for a much-needed laugh.
So this past week I watched three movies with which I was mostly unimpressed. The first was Peeping Tom.
It certainly was icky, I'll give it that. I found everyone in it just...icky. The object of his desire especially, and I don't think that was the intended effect. It's about a guy with voyeur issues who actually kills people with his camera. Like, with the tripod, no shit.
Nothing like a topless lady slathered in blood getting crazy in a sword fight. Totally silly and 70s and sexploitatious. Don't need to see again. Obviously a Tarantino favorite.
Easily the weakest Jan Svankmajer I've seen. I'm a huge fan of Alice and you may also be familiar with Little Otik or Faust. He does lots of stop motion animation; this was all live action with stop motion meat scenes throughout the scene breaks. Bizarre, good fun, but the movie overall was weak. I still enjoyed the look at the different perspectives on treatment for mental illness and the inevitable ending one hopes wasn't supposed to be a surprise. And I never thought I'd see severed tongues humping, so that was a first. Svankmajer can always be counted on for the disturbing.
And speaking of disturbing I do have Inland Empire waiting. Lynch's bratty insistence on having no chapters inspires my bratty reaction to deliberately watch the movie in chunks and just fast forward to my last stopping point. I'm thirty minutes in, I admit it.
I'm pretty sure I got the Pity Look on my way out of work tonight from one of my interviewers. No word on the job, not til next week. It was, I imagine, the look an ex would give you once you've been dumped and are now "just friends." Not that I would know that look. *cough*
That's ok, I'm totally going to apply for some other jobs tonight in my preemptive retaliation against being passed over. So there. (I probably shouldn't go on about this interview, because it's all leading up to that pathetic "so I didn't get that job," post). Eh, so be it.
On a good note, I figured out how to digitize my audio tapes last night. I've been meaning to get it set up for a while, but then I find out (after) that one song I'd really like to digitize is nowhere to be found. And then Veloute finds it on iTunes for me, even though I check iTunes constantly for this song and they don't have it. I mean, why would they? Who the hell knows about Those Who Dig who didn't live in Austin in the early 90s?? (Or had sisters who did, whatever). But now they do. And at least I can digitize my cassettes now, regardless.
See? There, there, all better. Like the ass never happened. (Unless you scroll down, of course).
Thank fuck tomorrow's my Friday, that's all I can say. I need to weed my jasmine. There's this WEED thing that has invaded it and continues to throttle it. And the bitch of it is that it has clearly staked out JUST the area of the yard containing the jasmine. GO AWAY, UGLY WEED THING. It's probably something the previous owner deliberately planted. They planted a lot of ugly shit.
And why do they sell stuff here they KNOW won't survive? My wandering jew is definitely on the way out. It's really trying but I'm afraid it's a lost cause. August has really turned nasty, so much for a mild summer.
Way more importantly, what came out today, boys and girls? Why, only
!!
Don't tell anyone, but not only have I yet to see it but I forgot to time my Netfux to get it shipped on Monday. Now I have to wait like all the other bastards. I'll get to it. Then I can have a big Inland Empire night. I'm actually afraid I won't like it. It will be another Lost Highway. I try so hard every three years to like Lost Highway. It starts out great and then...the last third is just the worst. The only movie I've tried harder to understand is probably Raising Arizona. At this point I still want to like Lost Highway but I accept (welcomingly) that RA is just not my thing and never will be.
D is making me one of my favorite things he makes for dinner, some honey chicken, as I had an interview today. (What a nice husband). I think it was an exercise in futility (the interview), as it's within my own department and some people's lingering farts have been there longer than I. So while I think they *had* to interview me, I suspect a far more "experienced" worker (read: someone everyone knows and loves) will end up with the job. But the interview did help pass the day. How upbeat is that.
It is ri-goddamn-diculous how long it's been since I sat down to watch a proper movie. Netfux is probably going to send a courtesy patrol car any day now.
And hey, on that note, do you all have the option to buy DVDs on Netflix? They totally don't offer me that tab. My old supervisor used to tease me because he had it and I didn't; then I noticed someone else had it as well. Seriously, I've learned the hard way that you can only queue up 500 movies at a time and what, they don't think I'd want to buy their stinkin' movies? I mean, I don't, not if they're selling the same shitty discs they send me, but still. One likes to keep her options open. One likes to be offered these things. Sheesh. Fuck them.
Time to watch movies, at any rate...oh, but first...
Alex got this via Dooce; seriously, it's the cutest thing I've seen in ages. I'm betting the lion knows them.
(Seriously, it could have been so much worse...there was one that made me laugh out loud but I thought it best that a BUTT not be the greeting photo on a blog).
So Jean tells me spring '08 will see Equus hitting Broadway with both Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths. Any suggestions on how to casually mention to D we're going to NYC next spring? If only I could swing Colbert tickets for the same time (of course then my head might explode from so much yumminess crammed into so few days).
And don't get me wrong, Equus is already disturbing. Putting Harry Potter in it makes it exponentially disturbing. Good times.
"So, honey, I was thinking we could go back to New York, you know, just for fun," she mentioned casually as he was on his sixth beer. "Oh, and I got some tickets for Equus, you know, they were just lying around and I thought why not."
Yes, that is my plan.
[Editor's Note: I actually brought it up while he was sober and he thought it sounded neat...squee!]
He was superb (like that was a surprise), but the skits were vaguely amusing for about 1/3 of their length. Each skit was a fairly lame joke stretched waaaaaay too thin. And the NEWS??? Omg, I made D fast forward. I suddenly realized, upon watching it, that I don't think I've really seen SNL's news since the inception of The Daily Show, even back when Craig Kilborn was doing it. It was gut wrenchingly painful.
There was also an average skit made abysmal by the girl in it staring at the teleprompter THE ENTIRE SKIT. Good job, girl. No, people never make eye contact in real life, it was totally realistic. Learning your lines? So five minutes ago.
Beck was a cool musical guest, even if Loser is still the Absolute Worst Song of All Time I Will Never Forgive. (I actually would like to one day own the 2006 album, The Information...)
And I'm already planning, when we go back to NYC, to make sure that this time it's on a weekend so I can see Black 47. Last time I was under 21 and Jean and I had to beg the doorman and promise that Jean would drink twice as much to make up for my underagedness. I'm still shocked he let us in, being NYC and all. And it was a totally bitchin' show, vividly ingrained in my mind (and my ears, holy shit).
D and I have an agreement. He takes care of the roaches (we've been SO LUCKY with their rarity, considering the weather) and I take care of the spiders.
I was just out in the sunroom running the hose to the sprinkler. It's dusk and the light wasn't on in the room. I startled something on the floor and it was goddamn big. I thought it was a goddamn roach.
That was the biggest fucking spider I ever saw. It was like a baby tarantula. I always give D shit about all his "it was huge," bullshit and surely I'm just as guilty when it comes to those filthy bastards whose name I hate having even written up there.
But seriously, man. This was the biggest goddamn spider ever. It was one of those thick bastards, too, no skinny legs here. No Daddy Long Legs or anything simple like that. It blows my mind to even imagine what would have happened to D's brain had he encountered it. I killed the shit out of it. I'm sure it was doing great work out there in the sunroom but we have a rule about size and you have absolutely no business being that big and existing in my sunroom.
If your size nearly makes me shit myself, you get to die.
I'm really not a dog person, you know, but our friends Joe and Jean (my dad was best man at their wedding; Joe is also responsible for the design of one of the newest nickels and Jean works at the Smithsonian in one of the coolest jobs ever) have THE CUTEST NEW PUG PUP. It's obscene how cute he is. Meet Guido:
I want one. In the meantime I may be content in visiting them in DC. What a gorgeous puppy.
On a completely different note, I forgot to mention I was impressed with a new anthology series ABC is (begrudgingly?) putting out, called Masters of Science Fiction. I heard about it on NPR's Fresh Air, and it airs Saturday nights at 9pm. Talk about sweeping shit under the rug. But I enjoyed the one episode I've seen so far! The critic featured on Fresh Air really liked it, too, and was highly miffed at ABC for its time slot. He really found it to be in the vein of Amazing Stories and The Twilight Zone and hoped it would fare well (unlikely in its slot).
Speaking of Saturday nights, D and I decided it's about time to give SNL another go (worth a shot every few years) after Tuesday's interview with Andy Samberg. I asked TiVO to record this Saturday's show, which appears to be a re-run of Hugh Laurie's show. This is nauseatingly cute because Hugh Laurie hosted SNL the night D and I got married. So clearly this will be a night for staying in and watching TV! (We only caught the last 30 minutes at the hotel as we realized we'd just paid $300 for everyone else to eat bitchin' smoked pig and we were suddenly ravenous and in need of room service...and as you know, the last half hour of SNL always sucks balls, but Hugh Laurie made it tolerable, as of course he could...)
And here is Jean at King's Cross, platform 9 3/4! They even saw Equus! Grr! (They like to do 10 plays in 10 days...needless to say, I'm speechless with envy).
Back home again, even after the hellish rains Tuesday night/Wednesday morning that flooded everywhere but Manhattan (and since my airport was in Queens that was something of a bitch). But our flight was not til 1:00, so by late afternoon things seemed to be up and running, albeit slow as shit.
One gem during the trip to the airport was the aggressive and terrifying large black woman who got on the bus and nearly had an altercation with the driver, the details on which we're fuzzy, but it ended with her making her way back (and sitting behind us, joy!) and muttering loudly, with lots of "Fuck him!" and then the occasional, "'Scuse me, doll," as she got to a seat.
She had a friend with her, and even though she was right behind us, we only got the gist of the conversation, (98% of which was her), something about her son doing eight years for attempted murder and she told him, "If you're gonna shoot, shoot to kill the motherfucker, then throw the motherfucking gun in the river, shoot the motherfucker..." and on and on. With a brief intermission of how she tells her son to talk to God and God's watching him and he should have conversations with God.
I found it vaguely baffling. How does God feel, after all, about killing motherfuckers?
She finally got off the bus (ah, after yelling at the driver at one point, when the bus was getting very full, to "give me and my girl our money back!" and muttering about how she had her pistol on her, etc etc) and I was a little surprised when no one applauded at her departure. And then another woman stood in front of us and I had a really hard time not staring at her boobs, which were pretty much just not in her shirt at all, really, including a nipple. I was delighted to get to the airport.
And then there was this LINE at the airport. The kind that, the moment you see, you know it will be your doomed fate as well, even when you don't know what the damn line is for. You know in your heart, "We will have to stand in that in a moment." And we did. And it actually moved quite rapidly, even though its length was such that it made the whole airport appear as if it had been fucked about eight times with a chainsaw. Naturally people were freaking out.
We got through the line, through security, and actually made our flight. It was a fuckin' miracle.
But more importantly, we got to see Jon Stewart! It was a lot of fun. We got there an hour before their suggested "arrival time" and I'm so glad we did. The interns stationed themselves outside and handed out free bottled water for everyone and the early birds got popsicle things, I am unfamiliar with their exact name. But they were tasty.
Shitloads and shitloads of people showed up. Security was ridiculous, I even got wanded--though it should be noted the security people had actual personalities and were nice, something I suspect that may have to do with payscale.
We were seated directly across from the desk, halfway up, very awesome seats. Everyone was told that if you took out a phone, a camera, even looked at it, it would be taken away (and given back at the end, they said, unless it was an iPhone). A man stood in front of the desk and watched everyone as we all waited for the seating to finish and things to get rolling. It was really bizarre and I can only assume this is what he was looking for.
We got a "warm-up monkey," as he called himself, a guy who came out and got everyone to cheer and applaud, blah blah, and then threw in a fifteen minute comic routine, which was actually hysterical. Shortly thereafter, Jon Stewart came out and did a brief Q&A, something I think he is a very good sport to do, considering that people are morons. I even told D before we went in that I would probably end up hating people just a little bit more after the Q&A, and hey, I did! I won't bore you with some of them, but let's just say the man has skirting and dodging down to an art. I'm not sure he actually answered a single question (and rightly so) except the ONLY vaguely intelligent question, "What do you do the last half hour before the show?"
Jon Stewart strikes me as someone who is very nice and whose niceness has been hugely abused by stupid obsessive asshole fans and he's clutching to his last shred of patience. His discomfort of doing the Q&A was nearly tangible.
The show was lots of fun, our correspondent was John Oliver and sadly, Jon Stewart did not check in with Stephen Colbert at the end as they sometimes do. In a very strange way, watching the show from the audience was a little like watching something in a glass case. Watching the show on TV, it always feels like there is a rapport between Stewart and the audience, but we felt very removed from the whole process, as if we were just there and this show was also going on. It's a small studio (waaaay smaller than on TV, of course), and yet there was very much a feeling of a fourth wall.
Regardless, it was entertaining as hell. Our guest was Andy Samberg, star of Hot Rod, and the SNL performer who, as I understand it, is behind the writing of "Dick in a Box", "Lazy Sunday" and the Natalie Portman rap. He was a funny enough fellow.
(The Natalie Portman Rap, NSFW)
The rest of the time in NYC was also plenty of fun. Drew had to work nearly the whole time we were there. We navigated our way around the city and the subways with shocking ease. We went back to Battery Park to relax and look around, ate in Little Italy, and went to the Museum of Sex.
They had a really great photography exhibit called Disability & Sexuality. The other two galleries showcased a vast range of fetishes and sex in media throughout the years. I didn't even realize some fetishes were so narrow in scope as to have their own name. One involved sitting on cakes (sploshers, NSFW, duh, which I think is more food), one involved mudbaths and then there was pony play, altogether different from BDSM or furries. Clown fetish. Balloons. And adult babies, one of my absolute favorite disturbing things of all time.
And now to return to the daily grind of a shitty job...
