Saturday, March 31, 2012

L.A.

I think it's starting to wear me down. And I don't know what to do.


WRITTEN BY GEOFF MANAUGH.
I got back from Los Angeles last night and my head is still spinning. I'd move there again in a heartbeat.
There are three great cities in the United States: there's Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York – in that order. 
I love Boston; I even love Denver; I like Miami; I think Washington DC is habitable; but Los Angeles is Los Angeles. You can't compare it to Paris, or to London, or to Rome, or to Shanghai. You can interestingly contrast it to those cities, sure, and Los Angeles even comes out lacking; but Los Angeles is still Los Angeles. 
No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang – or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you're fine: that's just how it works. You can watch Copsall day or you can be a porn star or you can be a Caltech physicist. You can listen to Carcass – or you can listen to Pat Robertson. Or both.
That's how we dooz it.
L.A. is the apocalypse: it's you and a bunch of parking lots. No one's going to save you; no one's looking out for you. It's the only city I know where that's the explicit premise of living there – that's the deal you make when you move to L.A.
The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.
It says: no one loves you; you're the least important person in the room; get over it.
What matters is what you do there

And maybe that means renting Hot Fuzz and eating too many pretzels; or maybe that means driving a Prius out to Malibu and surfing with Daryl Hannah as a means of protesting something; or maybe that means buying everything Fredric Jameson has ever written and even underlining significant passages as you visit the Westin Bonaventura. Maybe that just means getting into skateboarding, or into E!, or into Zen, Kabbalah, and Christian mysticism; or maybe you'll plunge yourself into gin-fueled all night Frank Sinatra marathons – or you'll lift weights and check email every two minutes on your Blackberry and watch old Bruce Willis films.
Who cares?
Literally no one cares, is the answer. No one cares. You're alone in the world.
L.A. is explicit about that.
If you can't handle a huge landscape made entirely from concrete, interspersed with 24-hour drugstores stocked with medications you don't need, then don't move there.
It's you and a bunch of parking lots.
You'll see Al Pacino in a traffic jam, wearing a stocking cap; you'll see Cameron Diaz in the check-out line at Whole Foods, giggling through a mask of reptilian skin; you'll see Harry Shearer buying bulk shrimp.
The whole thing is ridiculous. It's the most ridiculous city in the world – but everyone who lives there knows that. No one thinks that L.A. "works," or that it's well-designed, or that it's perfectly functional, or even that it makes sense to have put it there in the first place; they just think it's interesting. And they have fun there.
And the huge irony is that Southern California is where you can actually do what you want to do; you can just relax and be ridiculous. In L.A. you don't have to be embarrassed by yourself. You're not driven into a state of endless, vaguely militarized self-justification by your xenophobic neighbors.
You've got a surgically pinched, thin Michael Jackson nose? You've got a goatee and a trucker hat? You've got a million-dollar job and a Bentley? You've got to be at work at the local doughnut shop before 6am? Or maybe you've got 16 kids and an addiction to Yoo-Hoo – who cares?
It doesn't matter.
Los Angeles is where you confront the objective fact that you mean nothing; the desert, the ocean, the tectonic plates, the clear skies, the sun itself, the Hollywood Walk of Fame – even the parking lots: everything there somehow precedes you, even new construction sites, and it's bigger than you and more abstract than you and indifferent to you. You don't matter. You're free.

In Los Angeles you can be standing next to another human being but you may as well be standing next to a geological formation. Whatever that thing is, it doesn't care about you. And you don't care about it. Get over it. You're alone in the world. Do something interesting.
Do what you actually want to do – even if that means reading P.D. James or getting your nails done or re-oiling car parts in your backyard.
Because no one cares.
In L.A. you can grow Fabio hair and go to the Arclight and not be embarrassed by yourself. Every mode of living is appropriate for L.A. You can do what you want.
And I don't just mean that Los Angeles is some friendly bastion of cultural diversity and so we should celebrate it on that level and be done with it; I mean that Los Angeles is the confrontation with the void. It is the void. It's the confrontation with astronomy through near-constant sunlight and the inhuman radiative cancers that result. It's the confrontation with geology through plate tectonics and buried oil, methane, gravel, tar, and whatever other weird deposits of unknown ancient remains are sitting around down there in the dry and fractured subsurface. It's a confrontation with the oceanic; with anonymity; with desert time; with endless parking lots.
And it doesn't need humanizing. Who cares if you can't identify with Los Angeles? It doesn't need to be made human. It's better than that.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Hazing

My sister is a recent graduate, so this article caught my eye (disclaimer: haven't read it yet). The mere title and 'sensitive' photo had me puking in my mouth a little bit. The horrors and atrocities this young adult has survived attending Dartmouth. No one forced you to join a fraternity, nor stay as a member.
What a pussy.


Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Buffalo '66

This has yet to get old.

VINCENT GALLO evenings, weekends escort. 

$50,000.00 

wish, dream or fantasy with VINCENT GALLO, ladies only 

Have you ever watched a movie and fallen in love with one of the actors? The way they looked or a character they played? Afterwards you thought of them over and over. Daydreaming, imagining things, sexy things. When I was very young I was madly in love with Tuesday Weld and Charlotte Rampling. On my 14th birthday I went to see the film Rolling Thunder and had my biggest crush of all on the actress Linda Haynes. I wished and wished and wished everyday that I could meet all these girls. I thought of a lot of sexy things with Susan Blakely after seeing her in Lords of Flatbush. In my mind I could do with her anything I wanted to do. So believe me, I know and understand what it's like to wish and dream about spending time with a movie star. Doing things that couples do. Couples in love. At least couples where the guy is hot and knows how to handle a chick.

I, Vincent Gallo, star of such classics as Buffalo 66and The Brown Bunny have decided to make myself available to all women. All women who can afford me, that is. For the modest fee of $50,000 plus expenses, I can fulfill the wish, dream, or fantasy of any naturally born female. The fee covers one evening with Vincent Gallo. For those who wish to enjoy my company for a weekend, the fee is increased to a mere $100,000. Heavy set, older, red heads and even black chicks can have me if they can pay the bill. No real female will be refused. However, I highly frown upon any male having even the slightest momentary thought or wish that they could ever become my client. No way Jose. However, female couples of the lesbian persuasion can enjoy a Vincent Gallo evening together for $100,000. $200,000 buys the lesbos a weekend. A weekend that will have them second-guessing.

I am willing to travel worldwide to accommodate clients. However, travel days are billed at $50,000 per plus all premium flight fees. Scanning for STD's is required as is bathing and grooming prior to our encounter. Detailed photos of potential clients also required prior. An extra fee for security to protect me is charged on top of the fantasy fee. Security fees will vary depending on the details of an encounter and how much security I will need.

Potential clients are advised to screen the controversial scene from The Brown Bunny to be sure for themselves that they can fully accommodate all of me. Clients who have doubt may want to test themselves with an unusually thick and large prosthetic prior to meeting me. You may be surprised just how much you can handle and how good it feels
.
This service is available, but is only payable by cash, checks, and/or bank wire.  No credit card payments accepted for this item.

Please email your inquiries to info@vgmerchandise.com

Vincent Gallo's Sperm

$1,000,000.00 

Price includes all costs related to one attempt at an in-vitro fertilization. (A $50,000 value) If the first attempt at in vitro fertilization is unsuccessful, purchaser of sperm must pay all medical costs related to additional attempts. Mr. Gallo will supply sperm for as many attempts as it takes to complete a successful fertilization and successful delivery. Sperm is 100% guaranteed to be donated by Mr. Gallo who is drug, alcohol and disease free. If the purchaser of the sperm chooses the option of natural insemination, there is an additional charge of $500,000. However, if after being presented detailed photographs of the purchaser, Mr. Gallo may be willing to waive the natural insemination fee and charge only for the sperm itself. Those of you who have found this merchandise page are very well aware of Mr. Gallo's multiple talents, but to add further insight into the value of Mr. Gallo's sperm, aside from being multi talented in all creative fields, he was also multi talented as an athlete, winning several awards for performing in the games of baseball, football and hockey and making it to the professional level of grand prix motorcycle racing. Mr. Gallo is 5'11" and has blue eyes. There are no known genetic deformities in his ancestry (no cripples) and no history of congenital diseases. If you have seen The Brown Bunny, you know the potential size of the genitals if it's a boy. (8 inches if he's like his father.) I don't know exactly how a well hung father can enhance the physical makeup of a female baby, but it can't hurt. Mr. Gallo also presently maintains a distinctively full head of hair and at the age of 43 has surprisingly few gray hairs. Though his features are sharp and extreme, they would probably blend well with a softer, more subtly featured female. Mr. Gallo maintains the right to refuse sale of his sperm to those of extremely dark complexions. Though a fan of Franco Harris, Derek Jeter, Lenny Kravitz and Lena Horne, Mr. Gallo does not want to be part of that type of integration. In fact, for the next 30 days, he is offering a $50,000 discount to any potential female purchaser who can prove she has naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Anyone who can prove a direct family link to any of the German soldiers of the mid-century will also receive this discount. Under the laws of the Jewish faith, a Jewish mother would qualify a baby to be deemed a member of the Jewish religion. This would be added incentive for Mr. Gallo to sell his sperm to a Jew mother, his reasoning being with the slim chance that his child moved into the profession of motion picture acting or became a musical performer, this connection to the Jewish faith would guarantee his offspring a better chance at good reviews and maybe even a prize at the Sundance Film Festival or an Oscar. To be clear, the purchase of Mr. Gallo's sperm does not include the use of the name Gallo. The purchaser must find another surname for the child.

This service is available, but is only payable by cash, checks, and/or bank wire.  No credit card payments accepted for this item.

Please email your inquiries to info@vgmerchandise.com

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Rutger Hauer


An email from Rutger Hauer to Movieclips this morning.
Begin forwarded message:

From: rutger hauer
Subject: THE LITTLE SHIT we do and why?
Date: March 26, 2012 7:12:04 PM PDT

Hi Zach & Rich
and team.

When they call me "you are an icon,dude!" i feel like a walking undead
but it rocks like the shells from the hobo's shotgun.
Virtual reality has no blood.

I just hit onto your site here.
and see how much love and legal time  you must have spent
on all this.Fantastic & amazing.Congratulations.To all.
With honour and purpose.Hats off!

If abbot kinney is the real sweatshop.
Am i invited?

Rutger Hauer

PS On my way from charlotte
on US air.With Wifi.SKYPE IS POSSIBLE
but sound will be absorbed by the airco noise.
Is that not magic?

Monday, March 26, 2012

Wise Guys

A letter from British filmmaker Michael Powell (1988) to Martin Scorsese after reading the script that would become Goodfellas.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

War On Drugs/Sharon Van Etten

The Avalon. Hollywood. Tuesday night.

As this tour winds through the blue highways of America, each night  should conclude with a searing cover of Sister Ray -- 18 minutes of pure, primal, dirty jamming with everybody on stage.

SVE grunting, 'Sucking on my ding-dong...' over the roaring organ as she takes a step back to chug a beer. Salty. Raw. And psychedelic.

These two bands could pull it off.

Interior with Table, Vanessa Bell, 1921


Damsels In Distress

Come Sunday night, I had arrived at the right place -- the Cinefamily.
And despite Greta Gerwig's charm, an easy going narrative approach and fresh Whit Stillman dialogue, I don't have much to say about the film.

America's Poet Laureate

There's a lot of truth behind such angry rumblings as: "Sounds like up and comers Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen got a nice buzz boost from SXSW.”

And whether or not he should've accepted the invitation to speak, and perform at SXSW, there's no denying that once there, Springsteen laid down the gauntlet.

Evoking the history of rock n' roll, and the second half of the 20th century in a personal context, this is required listening.

                                      - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Open your ears and open your hearts. Don't take yourself too seriously, and take yourself as seriously as death itself. Don't worry. Worry your ass off. Have ironclad confidence, but doubt. It keeps you awake and alert.

It keeps you honest. It keeps you honest. To be able to keep two completely contradictory ideas alive and well inside of your heart and head at all times. If it doesn't drive you crazy, it will make you strong.

Stay Hard. Stay Hungry. Stay Alive.

And when you walk on stage tonight to bring the noise, treat it like it's all we have -- and then remember it's only rock 'n' roll."






Monday, March 19, 2012

Tiger Woods

This anecdote from the book The Big Miss makes me root for him even more. And is indicative that this marriage was doomed -- too different of core values.

Haney, who quit teaching Woods in May 2010, had an up-close look at the changing relationship between Woods and now-ex-wife Elin Nordegren.
"Tiger really liked her competitive streak [while they were dating] and seemed to enjoy treating her like one of the guys, needling her and even telling raunchy jokes around here, which Elin didn't seem to mind," Haney writes. "But as life became more complicated, I thought Elin changed. By the time she and Tiger married, she remained friendly but had become more guarded, even in her own home. She and Tiger developed a calm, almost cool relationship in front of other people, and conversations with them tended to be awkward and strained. I never saw them argue, but they weren't openly affectionate either."
Haney points in particular to the 2005 Buick Invitational, the first event Woods won with Haney as his coach. At the time, Nordegren was a nanny for fellow Tour golfer Jesper Parnevik, and she wanted to celebrate Woods' victory the way Parnevik would: with a major party. Woods would have none of it: "E, that's not what we do," he said, according to Haney. "I'm not Jesper. We're supposed to win."
Haney writes that Nordegren's smile grew smaller that day and many thereafter, and "in the future Elin would keep her emotions under wraps whenever Tiger won."

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

March Madness

On the eve of the NCAA tournament, my brackets are complete. Like my pseudonyms more than my picks. Here's to Billy Brown & Artie Lange!

Luck

No more. The horses safety is a convenient scapegoat. Have a feeling that all parties including HBO, Milch, Mann, and any remaining viewers are partly relieved. Just never seemed to gel fully, nor was going to. Would've worked better as a mini-series or feature film directed by Mann.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Wrecking Ball

Notes on a first listen. Track-by-track.

SIDE A.
We Take Care of Our Own
Mission statement for the album. Direct. Immediate. Grabs the ear.
Easy Money
"We're going on the town now." Rollicking. Good second song
Shackled & Drawn
One, two punch. Could've been on The Seeger Sessions.
Jack of All Trades
Change in tone, sonic tone. Change in color. Slowing it down, down shift. "We'll start caring for each other...We'll be alright."
Death To My Hometown
Irish beat. Irish drinking music (too produced, too much studio) Transform to...Death of Our Hometown.
This Depression
I've been lost, but never this lost...This is my confession....I need your heart, In this depression.
I've been without love, but never forsaken. Now the morning sun. The morning sun is breaking...This is my confession. I need your heart, In this depression. (need others to get through hard times. the worst of times -- when you need others, lean on, fall on. Haunting, revealing, and scary. especially in the absence of others, absence of loved ones, absence of community)

---END SIDE A---
(Story continues)

SIDE B
Wrecking Ball
The opener of the second side, a new side. From the economic hardship, fear, desperation, alienation of Side 1. To resolve, bring it on. Hard times come, hard times go.
You've Got It
Nebraska-era voice. Comfortable sounding. Yet a question of fitting.
Rocky Ground
Made to be the centerpiece. ? intro, then Bruce comes over drum machine, gospel choir. rap into chorus, experimental. Openness. Elevation. This is the spiritual side of the album leading into...
Land of Hope & Dreams
Continues the feel of Rocky Ground. Carries momentum. Unified. (What if this album was more raw? More raw in its production? More stripped down?)
We Are Alive.
Wake. Resurrection. Transcendence.

---End---
(To be continued)

Robert Altman's 'Modern Football' (1951)

His first film discovered at a Kansas City flea market. Sponsored by Wheaties and Wilson's sporting goods.


Monday, March 12, 2012

On The Road

So in America when the sun goes down and I sit on the old broken-down river pier watching the long, long skies over New Jersey and sense all that raw land that rolls in one unbelievable huge bulge over to the West Coast, and all that road going, and all the people dreaming in the immensity of it, and in Iowa I know by now the children must be crying in the land where they let the children cry, and tonight the stars'll be out, and don't you know that God is Pooh Bear? the evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses the earth, darkens all the rivers, cups the peaks and folds the final shore in, and nobody, nobody knows what's going to happen to anybody besides the forlorn rags of growing old, I think of Dean Moriarty, I even think of Old Dean Moriarty the father we never found, I think of Dean Moriarty.












Monday, March 5, 2012

Win Win

That rare film about responsibility. About parenthood. About sacrifice. Owning up to mistakes and then correcting them. In a way, this is the first movie that's really resounded about the recession and this particular period of American family life. Of friendship. Of taking care of each other.

Paul Giamatti is so comfortable on-screen. And Amy Ryan is a stand-out.

A friend described it -- with a heavy tone of cynicism -- as a film about white, middle-class suburbia. Yes. Exactly.

I've already watched it twice.

Teri

An oddball, indie film centering on an alienated, overweight misfit teenager. I almost turned it off after thirty minutes from the slow beginning, but am glad I stuck with it. If nothing else for the extended, awkward sequence dealing with adolescent sexuality in the 3rd act. Surprisingly truthful and vulnerable.

Big hearted, tender, and private.