Dolphin Center

This very well maybe the best song of the year.

Naked Man Eats Victim's Face

A Twisted, strange world. Cocaine psychosis & bath salts. Saw photos of the victim, the only clue that it was a human being's face was the one eyeball disguised in red pulp, and the remnants of a goatee.

Party Time With Barry

I think I'd still choose to have a cold one, or several, with G.W. Bush over Obama back in the day.

When you were with Barry and his pals, if you exhaled precious pakalolo (Hawaiian slang for marijuana, meaning "numbing tobacco") instead of absorbing it fully into your lungs, you were assessed a penalty and your turn was skipped the next time the joint came around. "Wasting good bud smoke was not tolerated," explained one member of the Choom Gang, Tom Topolinski, the Chinese-looking kid with a Polish name who answered to Topo.

Ted Kaczynski, Class of '62

Harvard University's alumni association has issued an apology for references made by Ted Kaczynski, a graduate of Harvard's Class of 1962, in the school's latest directory.

A spokesman for Harvard told Boston.com that Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber," submitted the entry for the directory himself.

"While all members of the class who submit entries are included, we regret publishing Kaczynski's references to his convictions and apologize for any distress that it may have caused others," the Harvard Alumni Association said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kaczynski was convicted in 1998 of killing three and injuring 23 in a mail-bombing spree spanning three decades.

The alumni report issued before the class' 50th reunion listed Kaczynski's occupation as "prisoner," "8 life sentences" under the "Awards" section and home address as his Colorado prison cell: "No. 04475-046, US Penitentiary—Max, P.O. Box 8500, Florence, CO 8126-8500."

"It's funny," Gary Peterson, a fellow graduate of the Class of '62, told the Harvard Crimson. "He's more famous than anyone else in our class."

Rolling Thunder '75

The Return of Andrew Dominick

Girls - Episode: The Return

Hannah returns to her hometown in Michigan for her parents 30th anniversary. Best show on t.v. (after treme and louie).

Artie on Louie!

Notes of Summertime in May

"Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a dodge...Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain."

The Fabulous Baker Boys / Bull Durham -- American cinema of the 1980s with a shared deft touch and relaxed charm. Timeless.

Two Hearts

"Once I spent my time playing tough guy scenes. But I was living in a world of childish dreams.
Someday these childish dreams must end...To become a man and grow up to dream again."

Jole Blon

This summer's song. Gary U.S. Bonds.


Jole Blon, Delta flower
You're my darling
You're my sunshine
I love you, I adore you
And I promise to be true

In the evening, in the shadows
I'll be waiting by the river
When I hear your sweet voice
I rejoice, I save my kisses for you

Sha la la, sha la la...

Jole Blon, Cajun angel
Let me tell you that I love you
In the spring, you
Swore we'd be married
But I'm waiting still for you

When your hair turns to silver
I'll still call you Delta flower
Pretty Blon, I'll still love you
And I will wait for you

Sha la la, sha la la...

We'll go away from this city
We'll go back, girl, back to our home
Some day I promise I'll take you
Cause so far away we've roamed

And the bells, they will ring
From the mountain through the valleys
On the banks of the river
There you will be my bride

Sha la la, sha la la...

Roger's Tattle Tale

The Lakers pull off game 3 against OKC, and Hannah belts out a killer rendition of The Darkness 'I Believe in a Thing Called Love.' A duet later on The Everly Brothers 'You've Lost That Loving Feeling.' And even some dancing in the dark.

The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark

One of my true-go-to Sunday morning albums. L.A. country rock. Lazy and relaxed.

Welcome to the Friendly Confines

When I saw the Cubs starting lineup on opening day, my reaction was: 70-92. And that was kind. A fan's generosity.
Here's another editorial taking the long standing position that if the Cubs want to win, Wrigley Field (or, the largest beer garden in the world) needs to be torn down.

I heard that this season at the park they replaced Old Style -- with Coors -- as the Official Chicago Cubs beer.

Girls - Episode: Hard Being Easy

Wild, wild. The first t.v. show I've seen forever that is genuinely subversive, risky. And uncomfortably so. Sexual situations informing character's psychology and behavior. This latest episode is lift off.

Bret Easton Ellis ‏ @BretEastonEllis

I love Tina Fey but she is completely Empire compared to Lena Dunham's hopeless transparent post-Empire fearlessness. "Date Night" anyone?

Last Days

Sunday night. Gus Van Sant's film (2005) has gained with age. One of the forgotten scenes of the decade -- Blake playing instrumental loops in the music room as the camera pulls out and remains stationary. 
Sad and quietly evocative.

One More Saturday Night

I've always wanted to do this but with a mannequin.

Cinco de Mayo

With the supermoon aglow above, and the heat of the flames of a backyard fire, a country tune on the radio fought through the buzz of the cool L.A. air. Instantly recognizable, yet I didn't know how, or who. And it rang for two joyous moments on this Saturday night. Then it ended. No one could place it. To be lost forever in the ether.

In the middle of a Monday night slumber, I woke up in a sweat. The song's chorus playing in my head, and frantically scribbled down the lyrics.

Johnny Paycheck -- "The real shit."

Hollywood Park Race Track (Friday Night)

Watched the ponies. And drank some Jack. Then came Devo.
Setlist:
Don't Shoot (I'm a Man)
Peek-a-Boo
What We Do
Going Under
Fresh
That's Good
Girl U Want (note: the show shifted gears here for the better)
Whip It
Planet Earth
Satisfaction (Rolling Stones)
Secret Agent Man (Sloan & Barri)
Uncontrollable Urge
Mongoloid
Jocko Homo
Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
Gates of Steel
----------------------
DEVO Corporate Anthem
Freedom of Choice
Beautiful World

"We are not men, We are DEVO."

The Joker

Pico Blvd aka Last Night at the Alamo. One last tequila shot. One last beer.

"It's not how it used to be, but it'll do."

Girls

I was ready to light Lena Dunham's show in effigy. But it's growing on me in engagement. There are some flaws, namely all the male characters and the Zosia Mamet character. But it's depiction of young 20s females and the small details of their lifestyle seems truthful with a warts and all mentality (i.e. ugly, narcissistic behavior) and her performance, surprisingly, is heartfelt ("I just want someone, who wants to hang out all the time, and thinks I'm the best person in the world, and wants to have sex with only me." )

Man, she's getting some unwarranted backlash. I don't even know if this comment (from NPR's Fresh Air interview comments section) is in earnest, or peppered in sarcasm.

Sean McNally (SeanMcNally) wrote:

Why isn't there Hmong representation on the show? Does Dunham believe the Hmong experience isn't a valid take on being young and female in America, and in New York City, in 2012? It's a glaring omission in the episodes that have aired thus far.

A Movable Feast

Was sitting with G. Black in the Greensboro airport this past Monday.  Hemingway's posthumous, 1964 reminiscence of living as an ex-patriate in Paris during the 20s was brought up. Specifically, the short story - 'A Matter of Measurements' - in which Fitzgerald, over a drunken lunch, confesses to Hemingway his perceived doubts of being able to please Zelda. She has broken him as a man. Hemingway gets pissed. His friend is hurting. "Zelda just wants to destroy you."

I didn't think this sounded right as the concluding statement to the memoir, and in fact, it is the penultimate piece (after consulting my old, note-ridden copy from college.)

'There Is Never Any End to Paris' is the way to go out.

"All things truly wicked start from an innocence. So you live day by day and enjoy what you have and do not worry. You lie and hate it and it destroys you and everyday is more dangerous, but you live day to day as in a war...
That was the end of the first part of Paris. Paris was never to be the same again although it was always Paris and you changed as it changed...
There is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it and you received return for whatever you brought to it. But this is how Paris was in the early days when we were very poor and very happy."

Men Without Women

Fucking Hemingway.

"He came to the hospital in Milan to see me several months after and was very disappointed that I had not yet married, and I know he would feel very badly if he knew that, so far, I have never married. He was going back to America and he was very certain about marriage and knew it would fix up everything."

Adam Yauch

His reaction to the NY Times review of 'Ch-Check It Out.' 

Magnum

Gold.

White wine & golden guns. AKA A Sunday in Asheboro NC.

Back from Asheboro.

Roger Ebert's Greatest Films of All Time (2002/2012).

Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog) Apocalypse Now (Coppola) Citizen Kane (Welles) Dekalog (Kieslowski) La Dolce Vita (Fellini) The General (Keaton) Raging Bull (Scorsese) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) Tokyo Story (Ozu) Vertigo (Hitchcock)

To add a title, I must remove one. Which film can I do without? Not a single one. One of my shifts last time was to replace Hitchcock's "Notorious" with "Vertigo," because after going through both a shot at a time during various campus sessions, I decided that "Vertigo" was, after all, the better of two nearly perfect films.

The other titles I consider the best work by their directors. I expect Coppola's "The Godfather" to be on this year's S&S list again, and it may even move higher. It is a great film. But "Apocalypse Now" is a film which still causes real, not figurative, chills to run along my spine, and it is certainly the bravest and most ambitious fruit of Coppola's genius.

I've written before how its critical reputation was harmed after he made an unwise statement at the Cannes premiere about being dissatisfied with the ending. I was there the night he said it, on a yacht while chatting with six or seven film critics. It was clear the film was a triumph. It was clear he was referring to the fact that the film's 70mm version was intended to play without end titles, which would be supplied by a brochure. The 35mm ending was as we see it now. That's all he meant. An urban legend has somehow perpetuated itself that he was referring to the entire Kurtz segment.

More critics would say "8 1/2" was Fellini's greatest work, and there is support for "Amarcord" and "La Strada." Sometimes the way you consider a film depends on when and why you saw it, and what it meant to you at that time. "La Dolce Vita" has become a touchstone in my life: A film about a kind of life I dreamed of living, then a film about the life I was living, the about my escape from that life. Now, half a century after its release, it is about the arc of my life, and its closing scene is an eerie reflection of my wordlessness and difficulty in communicating. I still yearn and dream, but it is so hard for me to communicate that--not literally, but figuratively. So the Fellini stays.

So does the Keaton. There must be a silent film, and I consider "The General" to be his best. "Aguirre" is the most evocative expression of Herzog's genius, and I admire it even more after watching him go through it a shot at a time with Ramin Bahrani a few years ago at Boulder. (Having agreed to do one of his films, it was the one he chose.)

"Citizen Kane" speaks for itself. "2001: A Space Odyssey" is likewise a stand-along monument, a great visionary leap, unsurpassed in its vision of man and the universe. It was a statement that came at a time which now looks something like the peak of humanity's technological optimism. Many would choose "Taxi Driver" as Scorsese's greatest film, but I believe "Raging Bull" is his best and most personal, a film he says in some ways saved his life. It is the greatest cinematic expression of the torture of jealousy--his "Othello."

There must be an Ozu. It could be one of several. All of his films are universal. The older I grow and the more I observe how age affects our relationships, the more I think "Tokyo Story" has to teach us. Kurosawa's "Ikiru" has as much to say, but in the rigid economy of the Sight & Sound limitations, impossible choices are forced.

That leaves only one title to be replaced: "Dekalog," by Kieslowski. This is an easy decision, because the magazine's new rules insist that if you vote for, say, a pair of films ("The Godfather" and "The Godfather Two"), or a trilogy (Ray's "Apu" trilogy or Kieslowski's "Blue, White and Red trilogy), each film counts as a separate title. Therefore, since "Dekalog" consists of ten films, averaging an hour long, it would take all ten places on my list.

At one point in pondering this list, here's what I thought I would do: I would simply start all over with ten new films. Once any film has ever appeared on my S&S list, I consider it canonized. "Notorious" or "The Gates of Heaven," for example, are still two of the ten best films of all time, no matter what a subsequent list says.

I decided not to do that--trash the 2002 list and start again. It was too much like a stunt. Lists are ridiculous, but if you're going to vote, you have to play the game. Besides, the thought of starting with a blank page and a list of all the films ever made fills me with despair.

So there must be one new film.

The two candidates, for me, are Charlie Kaufman's "Synecdoche, New York" (2008) and Terrene Malick's "The Tree of Life" (2011). Like the Herzog, the Kubrick and the Coppola, they are films of almost foolhardy ambition. Like many of the films on my list, they were directed by the artist who wrote them. Like several of them, it attempts no less than to tell the story of an entire life,

In "Synecdoche," Kaufman does this with one of the most audacious sets ever constructed: An ever-expanding series of boxes or compartments within which the protagonist attempts to deal with the categories of his life. The film has the insight that we all deal with life in separate segments, defined by choice or compulsion, desire or fear, past or present. It is no less than a film about life.

In "The Tree of Life," Malick boldly begins with the Big Bang and ends in an unspecified state of attenuated consciousness after death. The central section is the story of birth and raising a family.

I could choose either film. I will choose "The Tree of Life" because it is more affirmative and hopeful. I realize that isn't a defensible reasons for choosing one film over the other, but it is my reason, and making this list is essentially impossible, anyway.

Apart from any other motive for putting a movie title on a list like this, there is always the motive of propaganda: Critics add a title hoping to draw attention to it, and encourage others to see it. For 2012, I suppose this is my propaganda title. I believe it's an important film, and will only increase in stature over the years.

Aguirre, Wrath of God (Herzog)
Apocalypse Now (Coppola)
Citizen Kane (Welles)
La Dolce Vita (Fellini)
The General (Keaton)
Raging Bull (Scorsese)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick)
Tokyo Story (Ozu)
The Tree of Life (Malick)
Vertigo (Hitchcock)