pt. 1: ma, fl, ecuador

[please to note: i am writing this from a boat surrounded, from furthest to closest, by much ocean, a ton of sea lions and shit ton of old white people. as such, reception is slow and not picture loading-friendly. images to follow when i'm back in my own country, or at least the hilton in ecuador in the major city that rhymes with vagisil.]

[sorry, ecuador, and really to all of central and south america, for a, not speaking spanish (although i can't speak french or hebrew after 6+ years of instruction, either, and lately, my english isn't so hot [last night i had to ask my mother to define the word "espouse," as in, i espouse the theory that i am a dumbshit when it comes to language]), b, not being able to pronounce the names of your major cities (or remember their names, period, except their phonetic relationship to an over-the-counter topical ointment for lady jock itch), and c, all the irritating old white people on my trip (except my parents, who are at least funny), because they're the only people who can afford a trip like this even though they're too old, stiff, and veiny to be active enough to truly enjoy it (you wanna make a boner joke? fine, i won't stop you, but it wasn't my idea). so, sorry. also, sorry for not having enough juice to look up sorry in spanish on the internationalnets, so please cut and paste my apology into google translator for my full contrition. vamos, por favor.]

[i tried.] [also, image = sounds like]

MA, FL, VAGISIL:
our flight left very early from boston after game 2 of the world series, which means nobody got to sleep very early since FOX has been working for decades in a lab to find a way to make baseball games even more drawn out and boring and are showing us the fruits of their labor.really, when you think about it, all of the jewels in FOX's crown are 8% show, 92% advertising (same ratio as merchandise:attitude/empty space at supreme, or pleasant people: white-haired-unsolicited-advice-spewing-asspains on this trip). i tried to sit through an episode of american idol during its first season, but i couldn't understand why anyone would want to watch a show that's essentially the first act of any episode star search padded into an hour where only some of the contestants actually sing and then they all get together and "act" to try to get you to buy a ford focus. and no ventriloquists, or dance teams, or real hank kingsley! but the celebrity judges on both shows are equally credible.

[image: pronounced "why-a-keel," not like it's spelled, because then it really does sound like an ointment.]

anyway, we left early, and i was exhausted and cranky (see last entry), and by the time we got to miami i was so pissed off at my sister and my mother that i called teeter to complain about them while they were next to me on the trail of tears between terminals. my mother and my

and sister are an unbreakable team, always have been, always will be. if my sister were to stab me, my mother would ask me to sit still because the more i struggle, the more time my murder takes, the last time my sister has for her work out, and she needs her workout! why must i always make things so difficult!

[please note that a, i worked out with my sister today because this boat is seemingly trying to fatten you up to sea lion size, and b, my mom actually took my side the other night, and i said that if could put a plaque on a moment, this would be it, and then changed her mind and backed becca again, but i was sublime while it lasted.]

and my dad, god bless him, is allergic to confrontation, so while he'll remain cheerful and peace-keeping, i have to get on my cell to reach someone who actually has my back. and then in miami, my brother-in-law arrived, thus making everyone cheerful, and while i like aaron, i've never been so happy to see him because he is like heroin to my sister—three seconds with him and she goes from anxious patronizer to high, flaccid (yet still insanely muscular) corpse.

we got from miami to ecuador, meet up with our tour, and then got bussed on to the hotel where we got another ten minutes of sleep before waking up at 6 for our mini-flight to meet the boat to the galapagos (not that i remember where that was-- i'm sorry!). all told, we flew about 11 hours and i watched 5 episodes of the first season of weeds (eh) and rewatched 6 episodes of the first season of friday night lights that weren't on the bravothon/the most heterosexual day of programming in the network's history (damn that show's good! and how could anyone not love matt saracen? he sang to his grandma, he knows from art, and he's a fucking adonis, and oh my god this is the official moment i have turned into blanche dubois [which i guess is better than being bea arthur.]).

[image: like football or no, like the show or no, you've got admit it's a fine piece of outerwear.]

[please note: after writing this, i realized i had confused blanches and mixed up rue mclanahan with one of the great characters of american theater. but i'm keeping it, because i'm not just turning into a creepy ol'cougar, but an insane person.]

we got off the plane to a zodiac, which is basically a giant inflatable raft with a solid floor and a motor, where you sit on the sides and exit the boat with a stripe of water on your ass. plus, getting off the bus to get the boat, our guide du jour ("the weightlifter," one of many guides, and many nicknames) warned us not to pet the sea lions, let alone get closer than five feet, because tada, right there on some benches near the walkway to the boat, 4 giant sea lions, sleeping in the sun, not giving a single shit.

[image: not the landing sea lions, but still actual sea lions we hung out with, maybe their cousins, who knows, couldn't ask, don't speak spanish.]

in case you don't know, the animals on the galapagos, evolved so far away from humans as they are (and around very few predators, period), don't have the fight-or-flight instinct, which is to say, they don't run. or more aptly, they don't move. i'll get into this more later, but to go from wanting to stab my sister to a fancy hilton buffet breakfast in central america to hopping off a bus to a huddle of sea lions was, in a word, odd.

but the weightlifter (so named for his belt-buckle of a what looks like a flexing oscar statuette, and i say looks because he's still wearing it, and always wears it, even snorkeling) got us to the boat, and a nice lady got us to our tiny room in the hull, and i managed not to kill myself when i saw that, not only would i be sharing a room with my parents, i'd be sharing a bunk bed with my father (i called bottom bunk, but don't cry for him, because i can't sleep for shit lately and he could sleep sitting up in a restaurant if the mood struck). and then they told us there'd be cookies and announcements in the lounge, and then lunch, and then more food, and blue footed boobies, also. but meanwhile, cookies. two kinds. and crackers and fruit.

this isn't some monster cruise ship tho with kathy lee gifford on the ledo (?) deck though, so don't get the wrong idea. it's 60ish (mostly 60+-year-old) person tour co-run with a legit science org (tm/google fear), and all the guides are native naturalists, and every day there's a lecture about evolution or single-celled organisms or whatnot, and so many of the passengers on this boat are so fucking smug about it i want to scream but at least the tour itself is keeping it real.

so next time i'll discuss the boobies, and the 700 calorie crackers, and the other be-nicknamed characters/shipmates like old blue bonnet, the loud molester, mr. moron, mean meanie/lesbo gym eacher, and, of course, beard papa (how we hate beard papa!). for now, i love matt saracen, i am old (but not as old as the other people on this trip), and have you driven a ford lately.

[image: this boobie is mid-mating dance. or stoked about the series win. or about to poop.]

and while i am in the middle of the ocean, many miles from my birthplace, with the sea lions etc, I AM STILL IN THE RED SOX NATION. viva (spanish!) that obnoxious terms! in conclusion, woo. not sorry!

prologue: going on a holiday

[above: what i hope to find evidence of on my trip.]

so tomorrow, i'm going on a trip with my family (mother, father, sister, brother-in-law) to the galapagos. on the one hand, who the fuck wouldn't want to go to the origin of the origin of the species, and kayak among the seals, and generally hang out with a bunch of aging nerds on an academic package trip boat that offers lectures, wifi, and fine cuisine.

on the other hand, i am a grown-ass woman going on a trip that costs more than i make in a year (on the books, anyway), so i'm sharing a room with my parents. so i'm basically going to be starring in my own very special episode of "get a life," except at sea. so i might have better hair than chris elliot, but he got to be on letterman back when it fucking ruled, and i get to bring ear plugs so i can sleep through my parents' two part deviated septum harmony.

or maybe i'm more like one of the many lovable losers on this season's primetime schedule, except instead of having a secret superpower that contrasts so nicely with my everydude loser image, i have just have boobs, an arthritic dogs, and debt. all of which i'd gladly trade for a computer brain or service to the devil or whatever horseshit i'll gladly sit through any night of the week (well, keep the dog, lose the arthritis).

anyway, i'm now in boston, where the air is cold and filled with victory (for now, at least, i know, i know). as such, we went out for ice cream, and then my father has bought a youkilis shirt to match my own (viva the jewk!). and please note that the line at jp licks was long as hell, because that's what we do in boston when it gets cold; boston fucking loves ice cream.

[ice cream with jimmies, which is not a racist term, because that makes no fucking sense. f-j care to weigh in on this one? because to make the leap from a set of discriminatory laws to those who said laws discriminated against to their race to the matching color of an ice cream topping seems like a little bit too much of a journey to me. [[and i buy confusion on the west coast when you say jimmies, because jimmy is slang for condom i guess, and i feel much better about inadvertently making people think my ice cream is coated with prophylactics than marchers on selma.]] but whatever, you want jimmies to be racist, go ahead, and also, paul is dead, 9/11 was a conspiracy, and that is the ghost of a little kid in three men and a baby. you got me, you clever genius you.]

like i said, the boat has wifi, and mom got a special waterproof digital camera, as well as uv protectant shirts, a brand new pair of those hideous foot basket watershoes, books about darwin, etc. but as mom prepared in all ways except remembering to bring a bunch of my swimming attire from my nh homestead (who's gonna be swimming in army shorts and discovering the origin of the skin rash? me me me!), the wifi might also be somewhat unreliable. so pictures of seals n'shit might have to wait. and certainly no reviews of gossip girl.

whatever tho, i have to be awake in 6 hours and still haven't packed my own youkilis shirt, cortizone cream, or application to the handsome boy modeling school. woo.

mini review: gone baby gone

[photo: the sox win the pennant! the sox win the pennant! anyway.]

this is only a mini review because a, this is one of those movies where the plot gets twisty and i don't want to ruin it for anyone like i ruined that episode of battlestar for alex where starbuck "dies" (alex i'm sorry! and look, she lived!), and b, i sat so fucking close to the screen in century city that i didn't so much see this movie as i did the inside of casey affleck's nostrils. that said, i really liked this movie.

also, in case you did not know, and lord knows i haven't mentioned it enough, i am from boston. and not that the promotional material for this movie ever mentions it, but boston happens to be where this movie is set.

it's set in dorchester, specifically, which is one town over from where i used to go to high school, where my dog will hopefully be staying when i go on my travels (next week, get psyched for not-reviews!), where the popeye's used to be on blue hill ave (rip) where i'd send my mom in to get me and my sister chicken tenders, biscuits, and a trough of spicy fries (ordered through plexiglass) if we did well on tests in middle school, where i interned at sub pop the summer before college and sent out harmacy promos and made beds in the sub pop spare rooms for the grifters and elliott smith, where the chez vous rollerskating rink is that's great except that people tend to get shot there from time to time, where the whalbergs are from (before they bought their parents a nice house near the town i grew up in) and where mark beat and almost killed some guy but who's counting.

and finally, near the quincy quarries (featured in the film!) where i used to go rock climbing with the hiking club in high school (whatever, it got me out of PE), this when we weren't "hiking" through chickatawbut, which is an indian reservation in the blue hills, but really a place where gay men meet up for anonymous sex, so nobody'd ever have a heart to tell the math teacher who lead hiking club why there were always pairs of ripped underwears by the trail.

oh! and it's also where the dunkin donuts was where my friend dave would go and always be told to "cut your fuckin' hayah, you look like a queeyah," which is why i like all the local extras in this movie so much, because they all basically have the same function-- to insult people ("fuck you, cocksuckah!")-- which essentially all i've ever heard from people in dorchester, so these were parts these locals were born to play. and kudos to michelle monaghan for a, not feeling obliged to try the accent yourself (oof, vera farmiga in the depahted), and b, being as good as you were in "kiss kiss bang bang" when you were supposed to be about the same age as robert downey jr and still made it work.

anyway, i liked this movie, and hopefully, i've ruined nothing. except maybe battlestar galactica. and popeye's.

furthermore, WE'RE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES, COCKSUCKAHS! PAPELBON, YOU MAGNIFICENT BAHSTAHD! BOSTON #1!

review: indie rock hates black people [now with addendum!]

[sure to be edited later for typos when i can be motivated to give a shit.]

[ok, still not edited, but new addendum to follow at the end.]

well, maybe less a review, more a (rambling, natch) open letter, but either way, since i'm sick of pontificating about the fall tv schedule, i thought i'd weigh in on that sasha frere-jones article in the new yorker that laments how white rock music is. my initial reaction, naturally, was something along the above/best jpg of all time.

what's next? why aren't there more black artists making rockabilly? how does kathy from the thermals sleep at night knowing the drums on the last (excellent) record were so far from funky? since racial musical fusion equals credibility why does nobody praise the insane clown posse where praise is due?

then i started wondering when sasha frere-jones (now just f-j-- i'm lazy and his name, while not his fault, strikes me as pretentious) decided to be rock crit's point man on race; let us remember a year or so ago he went after the magnetic fields' stephin merritt for alleged racist tendencies. the accusation wasn't based on stephin's music, because if you're going to equate all dry, synth-y music with racism, then you'd have to expect every erasure or new order concert to turn into a klan meeting, and this is not the case. a gay pride parade, mayhaps, but f-j has not chosen homophobia as his cause (even though that's much more rampant in popular music, across several genres, including/especially those genres considered black, but that doesn't make for a sexy new pitch).

stephin merritt was outed as a racist for making a passing comment about how much he enjoyed the music from everybody's favorite incredibly offensive disney movie, "song of the south." and while the movie is more certainly racist, the song "zip-a-dee doo-dah" isn't so much, and it happens to be featured prominently in the film (which you might not know since disney prefers to act like "song of the south" never happened).

[photo: stephin merritt, face of hate (or at least a disdainful quip)]

mr. f-j also cited an article in the times in which merritt was asked to name a handful of his current favorite records, all of which were made by white people. oh, and merritt said in time out ny that he doesn't like rap music and named some specific black artists he found distasteful. thus, stephin merritt was labeled a racist. by these standards, most people i know over 40, white or black, are racists, but whatever.

because what you'd think f-j would know, as a knowledgeable rock critic for the paper of record as well as a former professional musician in the band Ui (which reached the height of their "popularity" during the indie rock heyday of the early/mid-90s just when the magnetic fields also peaked), is that stephin merritt is a cranky, drole, misanthropic gay dude who caps every sentence with a sigh and considers himself more of a composer than a rock musician. in other words, that merritt doesn't like rap, or doesn't acknowledge the forgotten, toxic context of a classic song, isn't only unremarkable, but totally meaningless. maybe it would be interesting if he pulled a paul simon, went to the congo, and returned with a record that sounded like cole porter meets fela kuti, but his failure to do so doesn't exactly put him on par with don imus.

so now we have round two, this new yorker piece that shows the general removal of black influence from white music, and even though its general assertion is nowhere near as hollow as his attack on merritt, it still seems awfully misguided. when johnathan franzen wrote that piece in harpers attacking the modern novel, he at least through down the gauntlet for someone, namely himself, to get fiction out of its rut.

but what is f-j trying to do with his platform? arrange a sit down between radiohead and al sharpton? because what he's actually doing, at least as far as i'm concerned, is doing what every rock fan over the age of 30 does when they talk about music, whether they're paid to do it or not-- bitch about how much better it used to be, whether that means it was more "pure," more "original," or, to chose f-j's approach, more "black."

[photo: "wilco? hell no i will not!"]

and every one of those fans can reel off examples, give loads of supporting evidence by way of naming all the bands they used to love in high school. rock critics might consider themselves more objective, but at the end of the day, it's hard to pretend that you weren't once a 16-year-old who truly believed that husker du/pavement/the arcade fire saved your life. and if you're chosen rock criticism as your career, you really do buy the life saving bit, because otherwise, you wouldn't have entered a field that pays you less than a part-time gig at wendy's, but garners you even less respect.

but, while being a "serious" critic and writing about music that's maybe slightly more obscure than you're average 3 star special in rolling stone is more artistically satisfying for the author, it's also often about as interesting to read as a description of someone else's dreams. [and i'm not talking here about interviews/band profiles, i'm talking straight up criticism-- record/concert reviews, essays like the one in question, etc.]

if you're writing for what you know is a knowledgeable audience, like a review for arthur or wire, you're a, not getting paid, and b, essentially wasting your time unless you have something unfavorable or provocative to say. because a positive review will read like an effusive, flowerly shopping list of the band's equally excellent influences, and besides, if you're writing to an audience of record nerds, they're probably aware of the record already and don't really care about your opinion. unless of course your opinion is vitriolic and controversial. (but not so vitriolic as to anger the record company so they cease sending you promos, the sale of which to used record stores being your only reliable source of income since, remember, you're not getting paid.).

then again, magazines and the critical musings therein don't carry the weight that they used to, if only because it's easier to just download a cd and make up your own mind than read what some schmuck has to say before going through none of the trouble of finding a torrent. of course, some rock critics are just fun to read, or at least were, but lester bangs died a long time ago, and those who emulate his style these days often read like that high, overly-serious, talky asshole at the party who really needs you to understand why this band he just saw at that warehouse near that restaurant by where that other club used to be is the best band and how their mixture of feedback, noseharp, and a singer who wears pantyhose over her jeans (and also has big tits) will change your MOTHERFUCKING LIFE.

[photo: lester bangs-- fan of rock music, cough syrup, and prophetic garments]

f-j acknowledges the way the internet's changed music-- he asserts that easy access is part of the reason that musical strands don't intersect-- which, when you think about it, seems to be the opposite of true. while i grew up in the age of having to get tapped into a secret rock society by some elder statesman/your friend's sister in college who'd then guide you to an unrest cd, these days kids can get entire discographies in a fraction of the time it took me to hunt down "fuck pussy galore and all her friends." if anything, music is mixing at such a rapid rate that you don't even notice what influences come from where.

when the stones "borrowed" from the blues, it was innovative and exciting. 40 fucking years later, when robert johnson and muddy waters are now a permanent part of rock dna, going back to the lab and adding more blatant blackness to rock music results in korn and limp bizkit-- not only shitty, but über-white, if that's possible. but often, either because these cross overs are so commonplace we don't notice them or because these influences are coming from so many places that they aren't easy to place, the music produced these days is as much of an indiscernible slurry as the contents of your fridge put through a cuisinart.

there might not be any obvious "blackness" in the arcade fire's music (music, which, by the way, sounds a lot like 3 mile pilot/isn't music i particularly like)-- none of the heavy percussion or ye olde call-and-response that f-j refers to (and which, when singled out that like and given african roots, has a jimmy-the-greek quality to it that gives me the willies)-- but i guarantee you it's there. if they're borrowing from virutally any band from the 60s, then they're borrowing from black music second hand. or third hand, since they're canadian.

one thing f-j also fails to remember, despite being a rock critic and a former musician, is that the influences a band names and the influences you hear on their records aren't always the same thing; eg, i once read an interview with L7 in sassy where they sincerely claimed to be influenced by del tha funkee homosapien. f-j lists of a handful of black influences on Ui, but i saw this band twice in my life, and to me they sounded like yet more of the mathy bullshit that was so popular in their day, another band to put on a bill with tortoise and five 5tyle that everyone (read: critics) thought were so innovative but to me sounded like minimalistic phish, all the notes with none of the "fun." so yeah, i did not hear the meters. and at both shows, they managed to be both testy and stiff; james brown, they were not.

[photo: if you listen closely, you can really hear traces of "bob dobalina" all over "hungry for stink".]

[one of those shows i saw was when Ui opened for stereolab at nyu-- the opening opening act, it's worth noting, was dj spooky, who is not only the least funky/soulful/let's just say black djs alive (despite being black), but is also proof that anyone can call themselves a dj regardless of what they do with or without turntables, because this guy didn't spin records or even turntablize as much as spend a half-hour recreating the sonic experience of a running dishwasher (how do i remember? i wrote a review). how that's dj'ing, i'm not sure, but whatever, i made dinner tonight on a stove, so now i'm dj dinner. why the fuck not.]

[photo: Ui, although i can understand why you'd mistake them for earth, wind & fire.]

so f-j, feeling ever so deeply that things aren't as good as they used to be, truly believing his old band stole the soul, and hoping to god not to lose two of the sweetest gigs in the history of rock criticism by seeming irrelevant, has decided to take on (and in some ways create) the issue of race in (indie) rock. this despite all of the argumentative flaws mentioned above, praising dinosaur bands that actually straight-up stole from black musicians, and, most of all, the strange, ridiculous notion that indie rock actually means something; that it is a viable, popular form of artistic expression worth analyzing, applying high ethical standards to, and lamenting over in any way. in other words, i'm glad (indie) rock saved his life (and mine too, maybe), but that doesn't mean it's objectively important, especially to people who aren't white, socially retarded, and myopic (and i mean in the literal, glasses-wearing sense, but behold how it works both ways).

the irony is that there are countless writers searching to make music relevant enough to other people so they can make a living of it as critics, but they start taking it so seriously they sterilize away all the "life saving" qualities they once held so dear. in some ways, making indie rock seem important is f-j's job; in other ways, making it important in that way is what makes rock criticism suck so much in the first place, makes it seem even more arbitrary and ridiculous. like thinking your band will be the next great rock/funk hybrid when they really sound like a singing calculator.

i hope f-j's opinion serves him well-- keeps tongues wagging, gets him a raise, maybe a spot as a talking head on a vh1 special or two (and won't kalefa sanneh be pissed!). but he has to know deep down that indie rock isn't any more or less black (or just plain broken) than it was when he found it, played it, or started writing about it. rock has not forsaken you, f-j-- you needn't go to your room, put on that grizzly bear record, and hold your knees wondering why they're the only band that understands. don't kill the messenger, or whitey. rock doesn't need saving anymore than your life does. nor, i guess, if you keep writing provocative pap like this, does your career.

[below: husker du might have saved your life, but if you keep writing stupid shit that makes you sound like the president of your high school's multicultural society/annual sponsor of a zebrahead screening and discussion group, husker du are more than willing to taketh that life away.]


[addendum: please note that i did not write this to a pick fight with anyone. so then you might wonder why i did write this-- and publish it in the most public of forums, no less!-- and the answer is, i did it to amuse myself and the 6 people who know this site exists. were i good at self-promoting, and i am not (see my other co-blog, linked to the right), this would certainly be intended as a tossing of an e-gauntlet, but as it stands, not so much.

[[i used to promote shows, and it wasn't really my thing, if only because promoters have to promote themselves as much as the shows they're putting on (or at least that's what i gleaned from the half semester i spent at Sean Agnew's Institute for Promotional Technologies before i dropped out. i sometimes regret not sticking around since some promoter [not sean, who i've never met and who, during the time i was at SAIPT, was taking a sabbatical in mike mckee's beard] taught a masterclass junior year i really could have used called "not paying interns, venues, or taxes: greed as scene pride!," and for some reason it was always held in a parking lot in williamsburg and was actually a matt & kim show.]]

[[[if you didn't get any of the above references, don't worry, it just means you've never been to abc no rio/eat meat/have a life. sincerely, viva you, teach me your ways. oh, and much respek to matt & kim. and mike. and fine, everyone else i mentioned in the above tangent, whatever it takes to be able to make a joke without starting beef, especially since everybody mentioned above is probably vegan.]]]

"good" freelance writers, and by "good" i mean "not working a day job," can self-promote with ease, usually by writing articles like the one i take umbrage with above and starting fires all over town. this is not my style. getting people to hate you is a short-cut to notoriety, but i'd rather be undercover than pride myself on how much i piss people off, especially if the off-pissing is done for off-pissing's sake.

and don't think, based on the length and number of images i pulled from google, that the above essay reflects that i care a great deal about this issue or the author of issue-y essay, because i think i wrote an equal number of words about some tv show about assholes i only watched 15 minutes of and really didn't like. i once filled six post-it notes with instructions for 2 hours of dog care. mama likes to write.

don't think you have to be a fire-starting business card-giver to succeed in freelance, either-- i've gotten some of the best writing jobs i've ever had this past year, and i live like a monk right down to the robe and pretzels. and strangely, those jobs have been virtually anonymous. i'm a leaf on the wind, watch how i soar, etc.

long story short, increase the peace, but decrease the foolish notion that indie rock was, is, or will ever be a sound of blackness. i'm going to go listen to "pretty suzanne" by the monks now (the chorus is "please please love me!"-- ironic!). manatee out.]

mini mini review haikus: i'm reed fish, rockin in the free world, ryan adams

the film "i'm reed fish":
waste of baruchel
how'd this bland movie get made?
et tu, rory g?





rockin in the free world, by neil young:
fucking love this song
the lyrics are so absurd
toilet paper what?




ryan adams/"young winds" made me cry:
what a cocksucker
even more than i hate him,
hate there's songs i like

again, sick of reviews, but soon i'll have some travels to log, so there's that to look forward to. and look, LadybiRdS were in billboard! 2 legit 2 quit, bitches!

review: the darjeeling limited

[l-r: a literal 3rd generation rip-off of max fischer, dignan going through the motions, and beautiful sun dial-faced adrien brody doing his best to make his character more than "the one with the sunglasses."]

i could go off on this, and i mean OFF, like an entire separate website on the subject or a graduate thesis in cinema studies at some suspect university, but it basically breaks down like this: i love rushmore, love it like a man loves a woman (if that man isn't gay. and i guess if that woman isn't gay, either). all anderson output after that, not so much.

rushmore's chock full o'random quirk (mr. little jeans, hand jobs, budweiser swim trunks), but also cohesive quirk, little details that add up to themes that add up to lovely motifs. eg: when max first sees ms. cross, she's reading robinson crusoe, and we hear the sea. max's dad tells max he's like a clippership captain, married to the sea. then max tries to build ms. cross an aquarium. one of her students paints an octopus. then we find out that ms. cross' husband drowned. mr. blume has already done a high dive into his pool and let himself sink to the bottom. etc, etc.

that there are random slow motion moments, a supercool british invasion soundtrack, and meticulous visuals (sets, costumes, you name it) is a bonus, but they're not all that makes the movie great. there's real substance there beneath the artifice, genuine sincerity dolled up with hipster panache. it's stylish without being aloof. it's heartfelt without losing its sense of humor. it's a coming of age movie on par with harold and maude. it's just fuckin great.

and i would argue that every movie wes anderson has made since rushmore has been little more than rushmore afterbirth, because the use of quirk, music, and visuals are the same (sometimes exactly; the siblings in the royal tenenbaums basically add up to max, quirk-wise-- a better looking/more famous max fischer voltron, if you will). problem is, the heart is gone.

the characters have as much depth as the zombies song they die to in slow motion, and why wouldn't they, because nothing seems to be at stake. mr. blume explains his love for ms. cross by saying, "she's my rushmore, max," the thing he lives for, the center of his world. in these latter films, none of the characters seem to have their own rushmore. they just have mustaches, or headbands, or monogrammed belts, but those do not a compelling character/film make.

[margot tenenbaum wrote plays. max wrote plays. but he also did other things, things more substantial than wear eyeliner and enter dramatically to nico.]

so basically, the darjeeling limited is rushmore on its third trip through the washing machine. three sad brothers on a train with nothing much to do, so they say everything they're feeling about their dead dad while framed by stunning sets, fill time by walking slowly to the strains of a(nother) kinks song, and manage to have a short brush with bill murray. it's the ultimate in detached artifice, like a photoshoot for W magazine adapted for the screen. and-- symbolic spoiler alert-- when the boys finally come together at the end of their trip and run for another train, leaving their bags behind-- literally TOSSING THEIR BAGGAGE-- it's beyond shallow, it's lazy.

the darleeling limited (and the royal tenenbaums, and the life aquatic) is like max as we first meet him; too caught up in frivolities like calligraphy club and kite flying society to see what's really important, let alone risk what's really important and emerge victorious (to the vocal stylings of a young rod stewart). darjeeling has the calligraphy and the kites, but nothing of import, no risk, and no real victory. i can see max confronting these empty later characters-- "i saved latin! what did you ever do?" with no good answer for that, they'd probably just skulk away, ashamed. in slow motion. to a kinks song.

mini review: friday night lights

FYI: it was reported in the LA times last week that warner bros has officially decided to stop making movies with female leads. this is odd, considering they made "the brave one," and also because it's COMPLETELY RETARDED.

i know boycotts are often ridiculous and futile when it comes to this sort of thing, especially since i am posting this via time warner cable, but my small gesture is not going to see michael clayton (which stars a-- no-- the man, george clooney). and posting this here.

*friday night lights
i couldn't watch this show past the pilot when it came on last year, because a, it had a lot of football, and i really don't know shit about football aside from the fact that touchdowns are good, high school football players in towns where football is king are generally the biggest dbags you'll ever meet, and the biggest football player at my prep school where football was far from king (hockey was, of course!) insisted on going through finals week (in january, in new england) wearing a shirt slit down the sides that made him look like a perp on cops, and b, in the 44 minutes of actual show, there were two large, public prayer sessions to the big JC, and i know that happens a lot in almost every state that doesn't touch the ocean, but that's a reason why jews like the salty air.

what's weird tho is that the pilot of this show isn't so representative of the series itself, at least in the chunk of s1 episodes i saw on the bravo FNL-athon in m'tivo. i've seen 6 plus episodes, none of which contain actual football or a public shout out to god jr. just some interesting scenes from a marriage, some very realistic teen performances, and murderball featuring lucien from "undeclared." i don't know why they'd put a pilot out there that's so misleading about the show's content on such a basic, elemental level, but there's a lot about tv i don't understand. like, how the actor who played a goofy cad on chicago hope is now a producer/auteur. if you consider this or the kingdom "aut."

i still have trouble caring about football, especially since the show's set in texas where football is everything and i know that if i had to live in a town remotely like that i would have hated those fuckers for getting a $3k camera from their booster club while the drama department couldn't afford a stage. but i don't have trouble caring about a lot of the people on this show, at least in as much as i care about characters on a tv show i barely watch. so as long as i can ignore the football crap, i think i have a new season's pass. that is, after all, what what jesus would do.

mini mini review: i like pushing daisies, but not as much as wonderfalls (a haiku)

that "5 years, 8 hours" crap
i could live without
yay lee pace's 'brows!


seriously sick of reviewing tv, but these are weirdly busy times. until things settle down, here's a picture of chris o'dowd. enjoy.

mini review round-up: the king of kong / moonlight

*the king of kong: a fistful of quarters
i don't want to say too much about this movie, because, as much as i loved it, i worry i'd end up throwing in so many of my favorite moments that this review would turn into a detailed synopsis and then you (all 4 of you who read this) would never bother to see the film.

(not that it's easy to see-- the only theater it's playing at in LA is the $3 place on melrose where emma's sister lisa went to see a movie and had to leave midway because some guy a coupla rows over told the guy behind him to stop talking on his cellphone and the cellphone guy responded with a blast of mase to the complainers eyeballs, and even then lisa only knew about it when some employee came in and said, "everybody out, mase," in a tone that implied whatever, somebody got mased again. but then they let them in again five minutes later, but that's at least $4.50 worth of entertainment right there.)

long story short though, "the king of kong" is a documentary about two men competing for the world's highest score in donkey kong, which, according to the many aspergers-y men in the film, is the hardest of the old school arcade games. one of the guys, billy mitchell, has been a video game champ his whole life, as well as a successful hot sauce entrepreneur and husband to a woman with the fakest tits i've ever seen (and i live in LA). the other is steve wiebe, a talented guy who can't seem to get a break, who gets obsessed with playing donkey kong after getting laid off from his job at boeing.

billy is so cartoonishy douchey that you wouldn't be surprised if he appeared in a cave lair slowly stroking a cat, and steve is such a softy that at one point, despite being a grown man built like a minor league baseball player, he cries on camera. and i don't believe for a second it's just manipulative editing-- so many of the guys in this movie are so ott/on the spectrum that you couldn't make them up if you wanted to. and while i'm stopping myself from detailing any of the action, believe you me, there is action, and humor, and suspense, AND many shout outs to the funspot arcade in weirs beach, nh, which, unbeknownst to me, is the premiere old school arcade in our nation.

(weirs beach is one of my top 3 places in nh-- funspot is on the highway, but there are at least three equally amazing arcades right on the boardwalk, plus a waterslide park, plus fried dough, plus the largest annual meeting of motorcycle enthusiasts on the east coast. bikers AND nerds! AND fried foods. heaven on earth.)

[oh, that's billy, a jug of his hot sauce, and a tie that isn't the american flag (which is rare for him, believe me).]

"king of kong" is like "american movie," one of those documentaries you go to see expecting something ironic and smug that turns out to be totally earnest and engrossing. i would absolutely go to see this movie again, even under threat of mase.

*moonlight
moonlight is that new show on cbs about a vampire PI that is essentially angel except with a different overly-producted hairdo and none of the side-character fixins that made angel bareable (oh, fred, you were taken from us too soon). or that's what i thought until i sat through the first five minutes, where not-angel (don't remember his real name, don't care) is lying in a michael jackson-style freezer, imaging himself being interviewed by some lady, against a black background, cup of coffee in hand (blood and two sugars?), debunking vampire myths-- he doesn't fear crosses or garlic, he's impervious to wooden stakes, daylight makes him sick but not flamey, he sleeps in a freezer instead of a coffin, etc.

and then of course he wakes from his she-charlie rose fantasy to say something like, "i often wish i could just explain myself." i often wish writers wouldn't use such tacky, awkward expository devices, or delude themselves into thinking they can do the modern-day vampire myth better than joss whedon can, but at least moonlight reveals its true colors within the first three minutes, thus saving me many more minutes of sitting through crap.

[photo, l-r: not-wesley, not-cordelia, not-angel, not-first season blonde lady who left to be gay on law & order]

actually, i did stick around for 3 more minutes to see what jason dohring (of VERONICA MOTHERFUCKING MARS) would contribute as vampire #2, and all he did was a watered down version of logan echolls, and by watered down version i mean he played an obnoxious guy whose most interesting feature was his wacky vampiric contact lenses. and again, at least moonlight showed me that it was the writing on V(MF)M, not the (extremely scientologist) actor, that made logan such a great character. so my 8 minutes of moonlight viewing were not a total waste.

but really, what the fuck were the creators of this show thinking, changing up the rules for tv vampires that joss hath established? david greenwalt, co-creator of angel/major honcho on buffy/inventor of the term "hellmouth"/overall rad dude, was working on this show for a while, probably given the job in order to keep him from straight-up suing these fuckers for plagiarism, but i can understand why he quickly bailed. it's not just a matter of joss loyalty, either, at least for me-- the potential for being staked, bursting into flame, or seared with holy water ("it only makes me wet," claims our hero, who would then at least incurr damage to his mortal hair) is what gave angel much of its uniqueness and dramatic tension.

(because there sure as shit couldn't be any real sexual tension, at least until they created a loophole to de-neuter their star, and as i've said many times, angel had more loop holes than most crochet work i've done, except mine involve yarn, not outta-nowhere prophesies or finding holes in established prophesies or flashbacks to ireland in the 1800s were i have to wear a shirt, even tho the vampire to my right (who is actually almost 20 years my senior) does not, because i've gained so much weight over the course of my televisied vampire career and co-vampire remains lithe and bleached despite the fact that he's as old as wilfred brimely.) (and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call, "a stretch.")

so sans tension, moonlight's really another csi, but our lead detective is an immortal guy who shoots up blood (ok, even high school goths know vampires drink blood, nigga please). n'thenx. i'd rather just watch the "smile time" episode of angel or that V(MF)M from season 1 where logan gives his first righteous beating (to one of the (grown) kids from home improvement-- both of whom cameo!).

maybe some channel (NOT FOX) should just have a battle of the network stars-style show where the network stars are actually actors from beloved cult shows so that people like me can avoiding having to sit through desperate housewives in order to see nathan fillion and can instead get our fix by watching weevil and wesley compete in shotput or something. because i sure as shit won't watch moonlight again. and unlike on angel, that prophesy is rock solid.