Blowing kisses across the room

Blogging the Academy Awards.......

I'm so psyched that The Rock is hosting. I'm hoping he'll come out and be silent for about 30 seconds and just look around, left to right, up and down. The crowd would be going nuts and then he'd raise his eyebrow and be all like "finally..........The Rock will announce the jabroni who's gonna win supporting actor." Oh wait - it's the other Rock. His monologue - does it seem loud? I swear when I turned on the television the volume was low, but as soon as Rock came out, it seems way louder. All in all, a fairly tame way to start. I love the reference to Pootie Tang, though. I believe, sadly, that with the very mention of the words "Pootie" and "Tang" at the Oscars, we might have already hit the peak of the show.

Oh, but wait! The first award is for Best Art Direction and check it out! They have all the nominees right there on stage behind Halle Berry. Oh boy, I sure hope beyond hope that they do this for all the awards! Can you imagine? That could get really nasty, but it would be awesome to see Annette Benning sneak up on Hilary Swank and hit her with a chair or something.

Morgan Freeman won! I feel like this award is not just for Million Dollar Baby, but for all the great movies this guy has been a part of. This award was long overdue and the ovation he got seemed so incredibly genuine. I bet he's a great dude. It would have been really funny, though, if, when they announced he won, he didn't show up on stage and they just focused the camera on the microphone and the his acceptance speech was just him narrating. The microphone would be there, but nobody would be on camera and you'd just hear his voice, accepting the award. "It was a gorgeous Hollywood night and inside the Kodak Theatre, a group of my counterparts were gathered......."

Oh, they didn't line all the nominees up on stage. Damn.

Drew Barrymore looks a lot like Madonna in the "Papa Don't Preach" video from like 1986. I bet you anything all those teen boys who are lined up behind Beyonce and like "whoa, look at that ass."

Robin Williams is kind of like the Patriots. You kind of forget about him on the big stage, but when it's time to perform, he delivers the goods. All....the.....time. It's a good thing they didn't let him to too long, though. Remember that HBO special when he ended up sweating off about 42 pounds and drank like seven cases of Poland Spring water? Geezus.

Do you think Scarlet Johansen was really honored and privledged to host the Scientific & Technical portion of the awards? As a sidenote, this portion of the awards were held last Tuesday morning at approximately 3am. If she really felt that way, that's totally righteous. But I doubt it. She's actually a reader of this blog, so I hope she chirps in with her answer. I am also the Easter Bunny.

The Aviator has already won a few awards. I get the feeling that this movie is going to end up as one of those "won-a-bunch-of-technical-awards-but-that's-all."

Chris Rock brilliantly introduced Tim Robbins by claiming "he's always boring us with his politics." I love it! Robbins presented the award for Best Supporting Actress and hot damn! Cate Blanchett won for "The Aviator." I revise my prediction: The Aviator will be one of those movies that wins every award except Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Actress.

So it's only 9:22 and I already don't care about the rest of the awards until the big three, which will come tonight around 4:12am. Now what do I do?

OK, It's 9:28 and I've already been proven wrong - the Johnny Carson tribute was excellent! Some of the highlights from his days hosting the awards were fabulous, especially his lines like "I see a lot of new faces out there, especially the new faces on a lot of the old faces" and "in case you were wondering, this is day 164 of the Oscar telecast, Jimmy Carter has been alterted and is working on your unconditional release." I need to get that Carson DVD. I bet it's awesome! Carson was the Michael Jordan of one-liners.

It looks like they only bring all the nominees on the stage when it's an award nobody cares about. Damn.

A film about Tupac is nominated for Best Documentary, although it didn't win. Tupac is very quickly becoming the Jimi Hendrix of the new century - he's now in that rareified air of having approximately 97.4% of his work released after his death. I think, collectively, Hendrix and Tupac only released 6 albums or somethings, yet, wait - let me check Amazon - yep, there are 7,323 different albums for purchase today.

Another one for The Aviator.

Counting Crows on the Oscars! I haven't seen these guys on TV since I was in college (1992?). Terrible song, too. What the hell is that on Adam Duritz's head? Wait - I have just received confirmation that he does actually have a gigantic tarantula on his head! He kinda looks like that dude from Kid'N'Play.

With that bald cranium of his, Jake Gyllenhall suddenly looks a lot like Freddie Prinze, Jr. You think Gyllenhall's agent is freaking out about that? Hmmmm.....he announced some award that Spiderman II took home the statue for. zzzzzzzzzzz. One notable: parts of Spiderman II were actually shot on the roof of our office in New York City. Neato.

Okay, go pee. Open the fridge and stare in there for roughly three minutes, check your oil or download some music: that old dude from the Academy is about to start in now about how they take bribes, er, I mean how they judge and decide the awards.

Al Pacino looks drunk again. He said "mezzur" instead of "measure" and it looks like they had a bed set up for him backstage and he was napping when they nudged him and said "get out there, jackass, you're on!" I'm expecting him to just stop at some point and say something that makes absolutely no sense, like "I like to eat band-aids because they're beige," and then just fall over.

It's 10:03 and I'm sprawled out on the bed now. The last 30 minutes have been bad. Like Mike-Tyson-morals-bad.

No......more.........Beyonce. Falling............asleep. Blood.....rushing...to my head. SOS. SOS. Mayday. Mayday. Beyonce has more makeup on than Tammy Faye Baker and Grace Jones (circa 1981) combined. For the record, I just did an image search on Google for "Grace Jones makeup" and I got one result - a picture of Mia Hamm. No lie. Just to be fair, I asked Jeeves, too, but got no results at all. Yahoo had a single result that I don't want to discuss. Suffice it to say, I believe the Ask.com result is the better of the three.

Chris Rock introduced Jeremy Irons as a "comedy superstar." I love it. Irons actually had the best improvised line of the night so far when, after a loud noise in the hall, he said "I hope they missed." But the most amazing part is that they're announcing a set of nominees for Live Action Short Film and one of the dudes who was nominated had actually fallen asleep! His date had to elbow him in the ribs to wake his ass up - classic! He didn't win, but the person who did actaully said "this is the dog's bollucks." Huh?

I think we're entering another dimension. They just introduced the leader of the Academy Awards Orchestra and I could swear, seriously, that he gave the "fuck off" sign by placing his left hand on his bicep and raising his right arm. I swear it.

I think it would be totally awesome if they gave out an award for Worst Film. I'd kinda be honored if my movie won Worst Film.

Rock says "You won't be able to take your eyes off these four presenters, Penelope Cruz and Salma Hayek." Nyuk nyuk nyuk. I'm glad he's sneaking in a little sophomoric humor here. That line just lowered the falling asleep meter from 98% to 82%. For the record, I like Penelope better. Whoever did Hayek's makeup and hair for this should get the award for "Best Work in Making An Actress Look Like A Coke Whore."

10:26: meter back up to 98%. Painful.

OK, Antonio Banderas is singing in Spanish. I'm now offically on suicide watch.

Mark it down - I just cycled through the stations for the first time tonight at 10:35 and found out we're due for nearly a foot of snow.

99.4%

It's time for the roll call of the dead. This usually means the big awards are coming right up. As The Rock might say........."finally."

Oh, for god's sakes, a song performance from "The Bi-Polar Express," and can you freaking believe this? They're letting Beyonce perform again! I'm watching and hearing Josh Groban for the first time in my life right now (he's actually singing with the monopolistic Beyonce) and I'm nauseous. Groban has Rick Astley disease - looks like a meek, white high school sophomore, but sounds like a mature African-American man. What the hell? This is utter dreck. 11:00 on the nose right now and the sleep meter actually went down to 90% because I'm so offended.

Prince is presenting, only it sounds like they're playing "Carry On Wayward Son" as his entrance music. Am I right? He's presenting the Best Song From A Film. Normally, there's a good song or two in here (recalling Elliot Smith's sore-thumb appearance a couple of years ago), but this year they're all horrific. It would be great if Prince just announced his furstration with the crappy nominees for this and just proclaimed himself the winner in this category for 1984's "Let's Go Crazy." Now the guy who won is singing his acceptance speech in Spanish. I have nothing to say about this.

I think they're announcing Best Actress, because Sean Penn has just come out. I think Penn is dissing Chris Rock about his Jude Law comment from earlier when Rock said Law was in every single movie. It's true. Anyway, Hilary Swank won it, which isn't a big surprise. Good for her, she was quite incredible in that movie, even if she looks like a dude in real life. They started playing the music on her when she was talking! I'm bored.

Chris Rock puts a smile on my face when he introduces Gwenyth Paltrow as the only woman in history who has breast fed an apple. Genius. I think Rock might be the best host in the last couple of years. Paltrow presents best Foreign Film in the best way she can and using her most skilled attribute - her snottiness. Her claim that she wasn't allowed to introduce the nominees in each of their native tongue due to time stinks of prep-school-rich-girl whining.

Oh, Charlize, please please please change the hair color back to blonde. Here we go with Best Actor. I'm kinding pushing for Ben Cheadle, only because he seems like the more genuinely nice dude out there. He was on The Daily Show a couple of weeks ago and Jon Stewart asked him, "so, how did this role come about," and Cheadle said "I don't know. They told me the role was mine unless Will Smith wanted it." I'm already finding myself getting tired of Jamie Foxx. He looks really nervous. They just announced that he won and he hasn't started speaking yet, but I guarantee he's gonna sing a part of a Ray Charles song and then cry when he talks about his grandmother. Let's see.....yep! There's the singing! I'm a genius (not really)! Now....where's the crying? Come on, now......come on.......here it comes......the grandmother talk.....and the tears have arrived! Nonetheless, a good acceptance speech. I also find it satisfying that black men have taken both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor tonight. Somewhere out there, Dooley Wilson is smiling.

I predict it will take about 14 minutes for people to start comparing Martin Scorsese to Susan Lucci.

Well, they've just announced that Million Dollar Baby has won Best Picture and yet again, I feel like this is three-and-a-half hours I'll never get back. It's a lot like watching football, actually - you watch it all day and then realize you've truly wasted an entire day on absolutely nothing. Although I'm happy to say I did finally get one right when I predicted it. I almost never do.

I promise no more postings will be as long as this one. 

Cue The Jefferson's Music

Settling into new cyber-digs here. These large scale changeovers seem to get easier and easier each time I do them. Of course, the design I have to do is pretty minimal, as Blogger takes care of most of it, but I'm diggin' the new look. 

Tonight will be a somewhat bittersweet night for me. I'm going to see Gary Louris & Mark Olsen perform in Somerville, MA. Louris & Olsen were the lead singers in a Minneapolis-based band called The Jayhawks. They launched their band in the late 1980s in the Twin Cities, swimming very much against the current of that city's music movement - the messy, brilliant Replacements were arguably at their peak on the rock side and Prince still mattered on the R&B side. First Avenue had room for all.

The Jayhawks, though, cut their own path, playing beautiful roots-based rock and in their earlier years, adding small twists of country influence. The country thing was more like a subtle trick, though - the rock crowds loved it. It was almost like the band was pulling a fast one on people who detested country music. An inside joke, maybe. I loved it. Through it all, Louris and Olsen were two simply unforgettable singers when they sang together. They shined on ballads and really thumped it on rock songs. Their de facto album, Hollywood Town Hall, has been a constant and easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Critics have hailed it as masterpiece of American songwriting and both Rolling Stone and Spin list the album as one of the essential albums of the 1990's. Gary Louris probably said it best when he described it as "like folk music, but really loud."

The band made many more great records over the years, even after Mark Olsen left the band in 1995 and the band took a decidedly left turn into pop/rock territory. I do believe The Jayhawks crafted some of their best *songs* after Olsen left the band, but they never put together anything like "Hollywood Town Hall" in terms of a full album's worth of stunning material.

Anyway, tonight marks the first time in ten years that Louris and Olsen have played and sang in public together. In fact, it almost marks 10 years to the day since I last saw them perform in Austin, Texas, shortly before Olsen left the band. Needless to say, I'm psyched. The bittersweet part nudges its way in tonight because The Jayhawks recently announced their breakup. Strange - in a way I'm experiencing both a reunion and breakup of a band at the same time.

My favorite headline from yesterday: "Jews Protest Natalie Portman." Isn't that funny? I don't know why, it just is. I can only say this: unless Natalie Portman harms my family or something, I promise I will never protest her. 

Wait - does this mean that I can sue him for "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves"? Or for "Rising Sun?" Or "Dragonheart?" Or "The Rock?" Or "Entrapment?" Or "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?" Because all of those made my life a living hell.

This is one reason why blogging will only get more powerful in the coming months and years. 

I don't know. Maybe it's my age, but I never got the whole Hunter S. Thompson thing. They called him a "gonzo journalist" but all that was ever gonzo was myself when I saw his byline. I rarely read his stuff, but when I did, I barely made it through an article. It just all felt like babble to me. Thompson seemed to have hit his apex somewhere in the early '70s, when I was still just a foot tall, drooling and helpless, so maybe I was simply born too late to really comprehend what he might have meant socially or how exactly he contributed to pop culture in a meaningful way.

Don't get me wrong, either, I don't discount pop culture pioneers just because of their age. It's just that I feel like Thompson's modus operandi was more fueled by drugs and excessive verbosity than real, actual ideas. Of course, this can be said just about any '60s or '70s icon, especially in regards to music or writing. So my admiration for, say, Gram Parsons, might seem hypocritical to many, but it's not to me. I believe Parsons had the ideas before he inhaled and the substances, perhaps, enhanced the results. What do I know? Maybe Thompson was a genius. He sure got the description of Nixon spot-on when he described him as "that dark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character."

However, I believe the biggest clue in why he wasn't a genius lies in the methodology of his demise. Like most of his work, it simply doesn't make sense.

The Boston Globe ran an excellent article in their Sunday Magazine this past weekend about video games and the now age-old question: do they or do they not effect children's behavior now and/or later in life? The article didn't really try to solve the equation, instead it just tried to see both sides of the issue. I'm not really sure where I fall in the two camps. I've been a video gamer for over twenty years now, albeit not as crazed or addicited as some people I know, and I've barely engaged in the kind of games where blood spatters everywhere or you have to carjack someone and hit them with a baseball bat or something. In fact, most of my gameplaying has revolved around either sports or, in my younger years, engaging in battles with enemy spacecraft. Personally, I don't feel like I'd be any more or less aggressive had I not played a single video game in my lifetime. The same goes for laziness. Again, I don't feel like I'm the best test subject here, but I'm a good one.

But I will say this (and this is addressed in the article): I think there's something to the argument that it has an effect on children and I believe it's more physical than mental. Obesity is the big buzzword these days and it doesn't take a PhD to see it with your own eyes every day - kids are fatter. Period. Video games certainly cannot solely take the rap for this, but it has to be a part of the equation. I guess, once again, it all comes down to good parenting, a topic which I know very little about, seeing as though I do not have children. I suspect if I did, I might keep video games out of my kids hands entirely until they're old enough to realize and be taught that it's not the focus of their lives. I've seen many, many kids already - young kids, like four and five - who are just mesmerized by video games and that, frankly, scares me. It will be years before we can gauge the mental effects of this, but the article makes a good point when it addresses these young children in school and how normal, everyday events like class and recess don't even move fast enough for them. Even television shows don't move fast enough for them. That can undisputably be attributed to video gaming. It continues to be an interesting sociological movement.

UPDATE: see another interesting article on video games posted at CNet here.

I know I've mentioned Harp Magazine before at some point, but I've just finished digesting the April 2005 issue and with each passing month, my feelings grow stronger - this might be the best music magazine of today. This month's feature stories include Kings of Leon (whose new album I will get immeadiately upon release), Kathleen Edwards, Beck, Ray Lamontagne and Robert Pollard and author Nick Hornby provides answers in a Q&A section. Now, it is my belief that if you asked me to define my taste in music by citing artists, this could very well be the closest a magazine could come today. As as added bonus, there's never an issue where I don't circle 6-8 album reviews that sound good enough to go sample. I hope they stick around for a while.

I wish I could just write all day, every day. Blogs, books, magazines, newspapers....you name it. 

They don't much deserve my space (and they won't get much of it), but the NHL got what it had coming. As if the league didn't have enough challenges already:

- a dreadfully boring game
- too many teams
- sagging attendance in previously strong markets
- a laughable TV contract

Now it's "chairs-on-your-desks" for the season, amidst many shoulder shrugs and a big "whoop-dee-doo" from the majority of people. Even my dad, a hockey fanatic in his own right, could care less. "I see enough hockey. I don't care," he told me the other day. Of course, he runs an arena, so maybe that's a bad example. But you get the point.

I find it hard to take sides with the owners or the players. They're all a bunch of foolish swine, really. You can't even tip the scales one way or another in terms of blame. The owners were the ones who doled out the cash in the first place, but at least they admitted their mistake and are now intent on cleaning it up. The players. Hmmm. Well, how would you feel yesterday morning if you were a rank-and-filer in the NHL, making at or near the league minimum, knowing that a) your union essentially admitted on the last day of negotiations that it's been wrong the last 3 years and b) the average career-span of an NHL'er is four years? Well, you'd feel like this could have been wrapped up last summer and more importantly, you've lost 25% of your career earning potential, maybe 50% if they don't clean it up next season. Top of the morning to ya, rank-and-file. Fresh squeezed OJ?

To hell with it all, I say. I haven't missed it since they flipped the lights off back in September and I'm sure as hell not going to jump for joy when it's back. Unless, of course, there's 10 less teams, 15 skaters per roster and goaltenders who don't look like New England snow-plows. Too much other stuff for me to do. Bye. 

I may have mentioned here recently that I received one of the world's best board games, Scrabble, for Christmas. Back when I was single and living in a 5-bedroom house in Allston, Mass., we used to try and play Scrabble every Sunday night. In fact, evidence of these games actually still exist. Bless the web. I miss those games and it was fun getting together with a group of people to play. Making fun of people's attempts at clearly fake words and laughing with roommates made for some memorable evenings. I always remember one particular time when our Italian born roommate tried to get away with the word "Wopen." Maybe it was the way he pronouced it (hi, Guilio), but I'll always remember it. Of course, it wasn't allowed.

Anyway, Steph and I have been busy since the holidays, so we finally unwrapped the new game last weekend and gave it a go. It was a very close game with the lead bouncing back-and-forth each time we played a word. It pretty much came down to the last three turns. After playing a word, I reached into the bag and my hand emerged with both the Q and the K. What a thrill. Luckily for me, I also had an S and a U on my rack, which means I could probably drum up something with Q. So I started moving tiles around, desperately trying to come up with something, when it hit me. I actually had the word "Squawk" on my rack! If I were able to play this word, it's game over, baby!

One turn went by. No place to play it. Believe it or not, there were no words I could make plural on an already crowded board, so I took three points by tacking an N onto an I to make "in." Surely the next turn would open things up for me. Not to be. I looked at the word Squawk on my rack, just begging to be used, for 3 turns. I couldn't use it anywhere and ended up losing by roughly 15 points. Tough break, but Steph's a good player and she's definitely smarter than I am. I look forward to many more years of down-to-the-wire games. 

So.......I was all set to construct a comprehensive diatribe about the Grammy Awards on Sunday night, but lucky for me, my friend Paul already took care of that for us. Thanks Paul! Saved me some time! Bonus: If you click on that link, you're actually treated to an impressive summary from a professional writer, unlike myself.

However, I can't resist - I do need to make a few quick observations. First off, Green Day's performance just crushed it. They were so far and above any other live act on the bill last night that it wasn't even fair to the others. Nobody even came within a sniff of them. I was just graduating from college when their first major label work was released and I was already well on my way to obnoxious music snob-dom. My feeling at the time was "hey, innocent, fun, punk rock for the suburbs. yay! They'll be gone in two years." I am certainly man enough to admit I was wrong. Last night's dominant performance and their latest record, American Idiot, has me thinking that they might very well have advanced theirselves to the point of being, um, important. Great record.

One more thing or two: if there's anything I dislike more, it's when recordings are heaped and slobbered over with awards simply because someone died. It could not be any more clear to me that the Ray Charles, how should I describe it, frontlash (?) is alive and screaming. Now, I love Ray Charles. Here's a guy whose nickname certainly is deserving - the man was a genius, maybe not for any particular song, but for the way he gently introduced genres to unsuspecting masses. But for the latest work to be recognized as it was last night, that's probably undeserving. Definitely undeserving, in fact.

Also, the embarassing love-in of several music superstars sputtering their way through "Across the Universe" was only made more insulting by the fact that they didn't let the best singer of the group utter a single note! Alison Krauss was there, maybe harmonizing or whatever, but her job was largely to play the fiddle. An utter travesty.

Finally, I just cannot agree more with Paul's comments on Alicia Keys. My gosh, she's an overblown, melodramatic windbag. I won't go near her records for fear of instant acid reflux disease. It's that bad.

OK, so I ended up writing more than I wanted to about the Grammy's. Sorry. Paul's summary is much better.

Over the weekend, Stephanie and I did manage to see two of the five films nominated for Best Picture this year. Finding Neverland was way better than I thought it would be. In fact, it was one of the more touching movies I've seen in quite some time. I don't want to get overly verbose in my descriptions here, for I realize that many of you don't want me to ruin things. All I will say about Neverland is this - the sad outcome is somehow washed over with a feeling of unbridled hope. See it if you can.

I have not seen the other three that are nominated yet, but I can almost guarantee you that Million Dollar Baby is your winner for Best Picture. An absolutely terrific movie. I really cannot say more about it because enough infomation is sneaking out - just get yourself to the theatre asap and have at it. 

A few weeks ago I had hitched a ride to one my hockey games with a teammate and on the way home from the game, the topic du jour was trying to find meaning or some kind of redeeming value in what we do every day for a living. It wasn't anything deeply philosophical, just mostly some back-and-forth on how neat it would be to have more meaningful or impactful relationships with people on a daily basis instead of via email and IM.

The next day, I received an email from him recommending a (fiction) book he had just finished by author Sam Lipsyte. The book, called Home Land is the story of Lewis Miner, a 33 year old middle classer who discovers that after fifteen years, there's a newsletter which updates the goings-on of his fellow high school classmates. The updates, as one might expect, are filled with the typical class-A personalities and detail the cheerful successes of a doctor, a lawyer, a professional ballplayer, a popular musician, etc. So when Lewis begins submitting his updates it sets off a chain of events which I can't really get into here for fear of ruining the book. All I can say, in Lewis's own words, is that he didn't "pan out." The updates he writes are slightly spiteful towards others and cover his mundane life. In some cases they are quite explicit, but always manage to be more interesting than those of his boring but fast-tracked classmates. Suffice it to say, it was a very funny, compelling read and dialogue penned by Lipsyte was masterful.

So you know what's coming, right? Yup. In my first attempt to expand the boundries of Item Five, I sought out a published author to see if he'd be interested in being subject to my interviwing. Surprisingly, Sam wrote right back to me, ready and willing. Seems authors actually do follow-through on commitments, unlike most musicians, who say they will, then don't. Anyway, off to the races.....

1. When I was growing up, they would always show writers in movies or TV crumpling up and discarding pieces of paper in frustration. There would just be piles and piles of crumpled paper all over the room. I would imagine if you thought a piece of your own work sucked, there might have been some immense satisfaction in ripping paper out of the typewriter and just stomping on it - kicking its ass. Nowadays, though, I assume you and other writers peck away on computers. Is there any satisfying way to destroy something of your own that you don't like? I mean, does highlighting and hitting delete really do it for you?

Well, I really hate it when an actor is playing a “writer” in the movies. There’s nothing worse than watching somebody pretend he is doing the most boring thing to watch somebody do on Earth. When it’s some movie star, it’s even worse. Why is he slaving away like that? Why isn’t he doing coke off a starlet’s ass or something? But, yes, I write on a computer and I delete a lot of shit. And then I print stuff and cross out lots of sentences and eventually crumple the paper up and throw it away, too. I do all of those things constantly. It’s purgative. I enjoy it.

2. "Home Land" is a terrific idea for a book. Never before and never again can a book get away with the very last line being someone getting punched in the face. Clever. Can you share with me how the idea for the book was born?

I was reading somebody’s high school alumni bulletin. I wondered what it might be like to write a true confession for that kind of built-in audience. Then a few days later the voice of Lewis Miner started welling up in me.

3. Have you ever been punched in the face? Explain.

Yeah, once, repeatedly. I stood there and took a half dozen shots to the chin. I was playing possum because the guy also had a gun, which he put to my head. His friend pulled him away, said, “He’s not worth it.” I’m pretty fucking glad I wasn’t worth it. My jaw throbbed for weeks. This was back when I was a moron.

4. Home Land contains such great diction that I could ask 100 questions. But I won't. Here's a clip, however:

"She wore this faraway look as though she were conducting some kind of inner fire drill, evacuating the premises of herself in a quiet and orderly fashion."

Now tell me something, Sam. Is that a line you stuff into the back of your brain and tell yourself you're going to use someday or did that just come to you? It's quite impressive. The book is full of this stuff.

Thanks. My short-term memory is pretty, well, short-term, and I’m a terrible note-taker, so it has to come to me in the moment. I approach writing as a performative act, and there’s a lot of improvisation.

5. Is any of this story autobiographical? I'm really hoping some of it isn't.

I’ve felt sad and glad and bad, as Dr. Seuss put it in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, so in that sense it’s autobiographical. But I make up the particulars. For instance, nobody ever called me Teabag and I don’t have a fetish for legwarmers.

6. The ending is quite interesting - was there another ending at any time?

No, that was the ending. But I had to get to it. When I got there I knew I should stop.

7. What was the last thing that really made you laugh hard?

The mid-nineties UK television series Brass Eye. Also the plays of Will Eno and certain stories by the writer Gary Lutz.

8. Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?

Are you referring to the museum of fluorescent art in Amsterdam?

9. Would you mind telling us how you got to be an author, how many books you wrote before this one (published or unpublished) and how satisfying or difficult the life is?

I’ve published two other books. Venus Drive was a collection of stories. The Subject Stevewas a novel. How I got to be an author was by writing them, I guess. The life is just any life, with all the wonderful things and the shitty stuff, too. The work is sometimes difficult, but the act of writing, when it’s going well, can be euphoric, trance-inducing. I’d make a something closer to a decent living doing something else, maybe, but I don’t want to.

10. We're you ever able to do a cartwheel?

No. But I once benched three hundred pounds. I don’t think I could do fifty now.

11.Can you tell when people say that they liked your book, but you know they really didn't? Do you care? Wouldn't you rather they be honest and just tell you why they didn't like it?

I can tell when they haven’t read it, or read it well. Sure, I want people to like what I do, but I can’t take that with me into the work. I’ll listen to thoughtful critique, but I’m not hanging on the judgment of every idiot, professional or otherwise.

12. You into music? What do you listen to?

I tend towards rock. I really liked the last Nick Cave. I’m a fervent Frank Black fan. When I was younger I listened to lots of Husker Du, Dinosaur, Jesus Lizard, Mission of Burma, Birthday Party. Typical, maybe, but still transcendent by my lights. I can’t name a Faust album or anything. I’m no rock scholar. Six Finger Satellite was a great band from my time. I haven’t heard tons of new stuff. LCD Soundsystem, the Juan MacLean, and the Hold Steady are in heavy rotation. I listen to more blues and classical music lately, too.

13. Are you working on anything currently?

It’s hard to tell. I think so.

14. Who would you rather be: Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice or Jose Canseco?

Jose Canseco. At least he tells the truth.

I love that last answer. Thanks a lot to Sam Lipsyte, keep an eye on this guy - some very good stuff. 

This headline, which appears on Boston.com this afternoon, says it all:

"The victory parade for the World Champion New England Patriots, winner of three of the last four Super Bowls, has ended. Pitchers and catchers report to Ft. Myers in 9 days."

In short, I'd take one World Series victory over three Super Bowl's. Any day, any time. Would you?

Still getting caught up after vacation, I feel the need to comment on the death of Johnny Carson. He didn't invent The Tonight Show, but he was late night TV. He made it what it is today and nobody did it better. In fact, nobody even got within a sniff of doing it better. In my eyes, Carson's greatest talent was in his self-deprecating, everyman ability to poke fun and to not do it at the expense of others. Leno can't hold Carson's jock strap, not that he ever aimed to. Leno's schtick is almost always aimed at making mean jokes at the expense of others (see: Jaywalking), while Carson just made us laugh - at him, at the world, at anything, really, but he never made you feel like you had laughed at anyone's major shortcomings. A huge talent.

There are dozens of great Carson moments that I don't need to get into - surely you've either experienced them firsthand or read about a lot of them last week, so I'll tell a personal story:

The only time I've ever been woken up by the sound of laughter was during the Carson show. I was probably 11 or 12 years old and I remember it, for some reason, like it was yesterday. I had woken up because my dad was laughing so loudly and for so long that it could have woken up a hibernating bear. I could hear Carson in the background, saying something now and then, but it was mostly just silent on the television. I didn't get up, but asked my dad the next morning what could have possibly been so funny and he told me it was some juggling act that Carson had had on. Nothing major, just really funny - Carson's modus operandi in and of itself. As the years progressed and I got old enough to stay up that late, my dad and I would watch Carson together quite often and raid the 'fridge once or twice during the show each night. It's those kinds of memories I will remember Carson by. Great stuff at home and on TV.
 

Our wedding photographer has a neat story. She was doing the whole corporate thing a few years back, and when the shit hit the fan (see: economy, circa 2001), she bailed - laid off, quit, whatever - she got out. She was interested in photography, so she went off to photography school and now takes pictures for a living. Both Steph and I were a little jealous. I'm too much of a capitalist pig, really. Right now, the corporate thing is probably as lifeless and soul-crushing as it can get (not a dig at my company at all - in fact, they do their best to combat such travesties), but since we've recently swallowed a mortgage, the job is the job, I accept it, I put an effort in. My judgement on corporate life is a broad blanket assumption. Anyway, back to the story at hand.....

Back in high school and sometimes even today, I've always thought that being a photographer would be an excellent occupation. There are an infinite amount of times when I am driving around or walking and I see something and think to myself, "damn, that would make a great picture." So I try to carry my little 2 megapixel digicam around to try and capture those. Sometimes they come out, sometimes they don't. Of course, the life of a photographer, particularly of one who's passion is shooting everyday life or scenery, is not one of riches or comfortable financial security, I make no bones about it. Only a select few live to see such green. So you'd better love it. I mean really love it.

All that aside, the island of Kauai (Hawaii) stuffed the belief into my brain that I can make it as a photographer. Admittedly, the island giveth. Holy shit, does it giveth! I suppose any moron with a camera could take some amazing shots of that place - it just gushes jaw-dropping beauty. Pictures are readily available for you, no matter which way you turn. I would even argue that it's a place like no other on Earth, if I could claim to have visited every place on Earth.

Finally, the single reason for my post today: a 37 picture slideshow taken during our vacation. It's really hard to describe each and every one, but you'll see some general scenery, a few highlights of a cheesy luau we attended, a waterfall we swam in, a canyon, some wildlife (I about cried when I saw the baby seal sleeping on the beach), a reflective bird and some very interesting trees. There's more. In fact, I took roughly 115 pictures. It was very difficult paring that down to just 37, but I think any more than this would be a bore.

Would love to hear feedback. And dammit, get yourself on a plane to Kauai - there are no words to explain how beautiful that place is. The pictures are a start, but it barely does it justice - it must be seen.
 

Yes, unfortunately I had to come back from Hawaii. MUCH more to come, of course, but two highlights about the trip that I need to point out right away, before anything:

1) Bob Eubanks was on the plane ride with us from Los Angeles to Kauai.

2) We were sitting having lunch in Kauai a few days into the trip when I overheard the gentleman next to me say, and I quote, "dude, I just bought this ukulele yesterday and I've already learned a Queensryche song."

That's all for now.
 

He's baaaaack...

Pal Jeffro is back, healthy and very happy after his belated honeymoon in Hawaii. It's bittersweet for me. While I'm glad my friend is back, I now have to move out of these beautiful digs I've been blog-sitting for the past ten days. It's been fun. Well, I have this file called "blog ideas" that I'll just have to dump here and now:

Looking for a big screen HDTV? Research tells me to spend the extra dough and buy an LCD by Sharp or LG. Plasma is cheaper, but LCD is the future. Due to some size limitations in my home, I've been looking at 37? models. In my opinion, the LG DU-37LZ30 is slightly superior to the Sharp Aquos LC37GD4U in contrast ratio and brightness, plus it's about $1,000 less on average. Unfortunately, I can't fit the LG because it has built-in speakers. Sharps are detachable. I'm going to wait a bit to purchase, though. LG is brand new to the market and will create pressure on other vendors to lower prices uh, sharply. Plus the worldwide manufacturing capacity for LCD screens is increasing dramatically. By summer, these things will be $2,500 or less.

Rock notes:

The sad death of the pop single

Rock is Dead, They Say?

Long Live Rock.

Water will become more contentious than oil in the next twenty years. China won't have enough. You do the math.