Klosterman on White

Saw Royce White on Real Sports this past weekend and didn't think much of it. Houston took a risk drafting him and it didn't pay off. The arc of this article on mental illness with Chuck Klosterman is pretty interesting. And I think there's some truth behind it which is scary. (Saw the article originally posted on publicmusings.blogspot.com)

 According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 26 percent of Americans over the age of 18 suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in any given year. I ask White if he thinks that stat carries over into the NBA. This was the subsequent interaction (make sure you read all the way to the end, when the conversation shifts unexpectedly):

Do you believe 26 percent of the league is dealing with a mental illness, or does mental illness prompt those dealing with it to self-select themselves out of the pool? Are you the rare exception who got drafted?

The amount of NBA players with mental health disorders is way over 26 percent. My suggestion would be to ask David Stern how many players in the league he thinks have a marijuana problem. Whatever number he gives you, that's the number with mental illness. A chemical imbalance is a mental illness.

So, wait … if somebody has a drinking problem, is that —

That's a mental illness. A gambling addiction is a mental illness. Addiction is a mental illness.

Well, then what's the lowest level of mental illness? What is the least problematic behavior that still suggests a mental illness?

The reality is that you can't black-and-white it, no matter how much you want to. You have to be OK with it being gray. There is no end or beginning. It's more individualistic. If someone tears a ligament, there is a grade for its severity. But there's no grade with mental illness. It all has to do with the person and their environment and how they are affected by that environment.

OK, I get that. But you classify a gambling addiction as a mental illness. Gambling is incredibly common among hypercompetitive people. The NBA is filled with hypercompetitive people. So wouldn't this mean that —

Here's an even tougher thing that we're just starting to uncover: How many people don't have a mental illness? But that's what we don't want to talk about.

Why wouldn't we want to talk about that?

Because that would mean the majority is mentally ill, and that we should base all our policies around the idea of supporting the mentally ill. Because they're the majority of people. But if we keep thinking of them as a minority, we can say, "You stay over there and deal with your problems over there."

OK, just so I get this right: You're arguing that most Americans have a mental illness.

Exactly. That's definitely correct.

But — if that's true — wouldn't that mean "mental illness" is just a normative condition? That it's just how people are?

That doesn't make it normal. This is based on science. If there was a flu epidemic, and 60 percent of the country had the flu, it wouldn't make it normal … the problem is growing, and it's growing because there's a subtle war — in America, and in the world — between business and health. It's no secret that 2 percent of the human population controls all the wealth and the resources, and the other 98 percent struggle their whole life to try and attain it. Right? And what ends up happening is that the 2 percent leave the 98 percent to struggle and struggle and struggle, and they eventually build up these stresses and conditions.

So … this is about late capitalism?

Definitely. Definitely.

It is not that Royce White thinks he has a unique problem. It's more that Royce White believes society has made everyone slightly insane. And this helps and hurts his argument at the same time.

The Sopranos -- Pine Barrens

Christopher: Russians? They're not all bad. 
Paulie 'Walnuts': How 'bout the Cuban Missile Crisis? Cocksuckers flew four nuclear missiles into Cuba, pointed them right at us. 
Christopher: That was real? I saw that movie, I thought it was bullshit. 

Kerouac's Map : 1947- 48

Jack Kerouac drew this map tracing his travels during 1947-48 that would become the first part of his novel On the Road.

Soderberghian

An extensive interview with Steven Soderbergh.

Two Highlights:

What do you think people mean when they call a film Soderberghian?
I have no idea. But never use that word to describe your movie in a pitch meeting because it won’t get made.

Really? You just made a $7 million film about strippers — Magic Mike — that has earned something like $167 million worldwide.
So pitch the movie as Magic Mike. Otherwise, if you’re using my name, you could mean The Good German.

Before shooting began on Magic Mike, Matthew McConaughey says he sent you two e-mails full of painstaking details about his character. The first e-mail was nine pages, the second was ten. Your responses were “Sure” and “Go for it.” Is that true?
Matthew understood the part so well and had such good ideas that I had no desire to box him in. So I just said yes to everything, which turned out to be the right way to go. I think the only note I gave him, when I first pitched him the part on the phone, was that his character believed in UFOs.

The Moviegoers Episode 11

DJANGO! DJANGO! and a little bit on Amour and good airplane movies in this episode.

Django, have you always been alone?
Django, have you never loved again?
Love will live on, oh oh oh...
Life must go on, oh oh oh...
For you cannot spend your life regretting.

Django, you must face another day.
Django, now your love has gone away.
Once you loved her, whoa-oh...
Now you've lost her, whoa-oh-oh-oh...
But you've lost her for-ever, Django.

Brett Easton Ellis's Real Art Form

A companion piece of sorts to the Lindsay Lohan/Paul Schrader article a few weeks back.

This profile left me with a depressed feel. Los Angeles as a dark underbelly of loneliness much like Mulholland Drive.

Day 23

Drizzling on a Wednesday night. Album: Chet Baker, Blues for A Reason.

Holy Cow!

On Twitter, Pearl Jam just sent out this photo with the caption "Looking Good!" #Stay Tuned.

Kobe on QT, Pumping Gas, & Dog Shit

Kobe loved Django Unchained. Tarantino should've cast the Black Mamba as Django instead of that hack Jamie Foxx. And he hates dog crap. (Note to self : the Black Mamba can endorse Phil Davis's platform for the Mayor of Santa Monica.)

A few choice excerpts from the interview:

When was the last time you pumped your own gas? 

Yesterday. I do all of life’s daily tasks. The other day my wife and I stopped at 7-Eleven and I pulled up to the pump and I started to pump some gas. She went inside to buy something and was waiting in line. The guy in front of her sees me outside but doesn’t see her. He says, “Man, there’s Kobe Bryant pumping his own gas.” My wife says to the guy, “He wipes his own ass, too.”

What do you do when you can’t sleep? 

Sometimes I take an Ambien. But if my mind is racing, I may get up and do something. The other night I was in my hotel room and couldn’t sleep, so I got up and went across the street to see "Django [Unchained]." 

What did you think? 

It was genius. Absolutely incredible. Everything by Quentin Tarantino usually is, but this took it to another level. It’s the way he tells a story and the kind of characters he creates. It was crazy violent, but the story is so strong and that’s what you remember. 

I know you’re a big Robert Rodriguez fan. He’s from the same maverick filmmaking school as Tarantino. Would you want to work with Tarantino? 

That would be incredible. Can you imagine one of my commercials with him? 

What’s your biggest pet peeve? 

I hate dog s---. I won’t go near it. So pissed when I step in it. I’ve got four dogs and I just don’t do dog doo. I’m a diva when it comes to that. Back in the day when I was in Italy, I used to order shoes from Nike all the time. I had to have all the fresh joints. I ordered the Elephant Print Jordans that were amazing. I went to the park to play and stepped in a huge pile of dog s---. You wouldn’t believe how mad I was. I was breaking off sticks to try to get it out of the crevices. I smacked them together and scraped the soles on the curb but couldn’t get it all out. Ever since that day I just can’t stand dog crap. 

Day 15 - Mattress Men

Finally grabbed a queen box frame and spring (already had a foam mattress waiting in my room for the last two months). A bit shady some could say. Saw a hand written sign in the alley outside the warehouse where I work advertising Queen mattress P-top set for $150. Called up and went to a makeshift office on Venice Blvd. Room filled with box springs and mattresses. "Going fast," said Xavier.
Figured they already ripped someone off to have these truckloads of surplus beds, so they wouldn't rip off the customers as well by not delivering paid for goods. Paid up and delivery happened an hour later.  Box spring in the bedroom. Success.

War on Drugs - Philadelphia 12.30.12

Bar band rock n'roll. It's the ties that bind...

Stern on Dunham

Haha! Howard Stern adding into the zeitgeist moment of Lena Dunham & Girls.

"Good for her. It's hard for little fat chicks to get anything going."

UPDATE: Stern apologizes.  (The show lost it when Artie went away. Haven't listened to it since.)

Day 13 - Funny or Die

Sunday morning freelance job shooting a 'Funny or Die' skit at St. Nick's on 3rd St. Ted Griffin directed, Oscar Nunez was the main comedic lead. Skit was a spoof on Argo. Nice people, easy day's work.
Patriots hold off Texans 38-28 to advance to AFC championship.
At night watched the Golden Globes at my place. Rotisserie chicken & salad, cherry pie a la mode on the menu.

Day 12

Record the Django episode of The Moviegoers in Silverlake. Then caught the epic game between Broncos/Ravens over in Echo Park. Ravens win in OT after Broncos give up a 70 yrd TD with 32 secs left in regulation. Worst defensive play I've ever seen -- horrendous mistake by two defensive backs.
At night, briefly hit up Hannah's pre-party in Koreatown.

Hunter S. Daily Schedule

Oh my.

A Hot Mess (aka Still in Love With Her)

Here is what happens when you cast Lindsay Lohan in your movie.

Some excerpts:
*Schrader goes over some ground rules; no trailers on set and one contractually obligated, four-way sex scene. Oh, another thing, Schrader adds: he will not try to sleep with her. This was probably a more relevant point in 1982, but no matter. Lohan stands up and says goodbye, telling everyone how excited she is to be working with them. She leaves the restaurant, followed by her mother and the mysterious man with the presents.

*Schrader is convinced he can manage Lohan. He thinks he has seen it all. Thirty years ago, he directed an alcoholic George C. Scott in “Hardcore.” One day, Scott wouldn’t come out of his trailer. He called Schrader into his booze-soaked sanctuary.

“You’re a great screenwriter but the world’s worst goddamned director,” Scott said. “Promise me you’ll never direct another movie, and I’ll come out.” Schrader dropped to his knees and promised. A few weeks later, Scott read in the trades that Schrader was going to direct “American Gigolo.” Next time he saw Schrader, he bellowed, “You’re a liar.”

*Meanwhile, Ellis, Pope and Schrader battled over the film’s final cut. Pope screened a rough cut of “The Canyons” for Steven Soderbergh. Intrigued, Soderbergh offered to do an edit of the movie if he was given the footage for 72 hours.

Schrader said no.

Oscars - Monday A.M. Quarterbacking

I didn't even no they were being announced today 'til I woke up and heard the news. Afghan Sam!  (Buzkashi Boys for short film)
Quick missing in action: Leo D. (or Sam Jackson) for Django, McConaughey for Magic Mike/Killer Joe, Jason Clarke for Zero Dark Thirty, Dennis Lavant for Holy Motors. Cinematography : The Master and On the Road. Makeup: Holy Motors. And no Bigelow for Zero Dark?

Day 7

Back at the warehouse at Movieclips/Zefr. Jogged in the early morning.

After the national championship watched a screener of Friends with Money. Oops, meant Friends with Kids. Second time I've made that mistake. It's with Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig. It was fine for DVD viewing. Certainly, more truthful and emotional than other films in the genre. White people.

Screener season in full effect. Films that weren't worth it to spend the time and/or money at the theater but accessible at home.

National Championship - Bama/N.D.

Easy money on Alabama. Notre Dame hadn't experienced anything like that this season. Nor in such a big, new setting. Bama plays games like this year after year. N.D. beat up the likes of Boston College, Michigan State, a last second victory over Pitt.
My only regret: didn't have enough money to properly wager on the game. Wish I had $500. Feels like I lost. Sports betting/gambler's logic.

N.Y. Post - Boozed-up Plane Passenger Duct Taped to His Seat to Stop Rampage

"There's a snake on my leg."

A Million First Dates: How Online Dating is Threatening Monogamy

Picked up the Jan/Feb issue of The Atlantic before taking off (my traditional flying magazine) to LAX. This article caught my eye and was the first one I read... Ahh, online dating... 

The thesis summed up in this one sentence, "Online dating is, at its core, a litany of alternatives."

An excerpt:

The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?

Also, this guy Jacob is great. An inspirational figure.

Since Rachel left him, Jacob has met lots of women online. Some like going to basketball games and concerts with him. Others enjoy barhopping. Jacob’s favorite football team is the Green Bay Packers, and when I last spoke to him, he told me he’d had success using Packers fandom as a search criterion on OkCupid, another (free) dating site he’s been trying out.

Many of Jacob’s relationships become physical very early. At one point he’s seeing a paralegal and a lawyer who work at the same law firm, a naturopath, a pharmacist, and a chef. He slept with three of them on the first or second date. His relationships with the other two are headed toward physical intimacy.

He likes the pharmacist most. She’s a girlfriend prospect. The problem is that she wants to take things slow on the physical side. He worries that, with so many alternatives available, he won’t be willing to wait.

One night the paralegal confides in him: her prior relationships haven’t gone well, but Jacob gives her hope; all she needs in a relationship is honesty. And he thinks, Oh my God. He wants to be a nice guy, but he knows that sooner or later he’s going to start coming across as a serious asshole. While out with one woman, he has to silence text messages coming in from others. He needs to start paring down the number of women he’s seeing.

Best of 2012

1. Zero Dark Thirty
2. The Master
3. Magic Mike

Notables:
Django Unchained
Holy Motors
The Grey
Killer Joe
To Rome with Love

Day Four

Welcome back to L.A. And it feels good.

Day Three

Drove back to dreary Indianapolis.

Song:
Florence & the Machine, Dog Days are Over

Day Two

Drove to Highland Park. Grandpa passed away on New Year's Eve. And Dad slipped on the stairs at night on New Year's day.

Notable songs on the road:
Fixing a Hole, PT Gazell (heard while driving on I-65)
I'm Trying to Break Your Heart (Wilco cover), JC Brooks and the Uptown Sound (driving through downtown Chicago, of course)
Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay, Otis Redding (parking at the funeral home)

Italian restaurant Hole in the Wall at night with Mom and Dad.
Grab one dollar Old Style's with Dan at a bar in the middle of nowhere named Griffs (?) Laura the Bartender bounces around, rest of the clientele possibly on crystal meth.

Day One

1113. A new start. Let's do this!

December 31st, 2012

What a shit year. Glad it's done.

2666 - The Part About The Crimes

Excerpt (421):
Around this time, Juan de Dios Martinez was still sleeping with Dr. Elvira Campos every two weeks. Sometimes the inspector thought it was a miracle the relationship survived. There were difficulties, there were misunderstandings, but they were still together. In bed, or so he believed, the attraction was mutual. He had never wanted a woman the way he wanted her. If it had been up to him he would have married the director without a second thought. Sometimes, when it had been a long time since he saw her, he began to mull over their cultural differences, which he saw as the main hurdle. The director liked art and could look at a painting and say who the painter was, for example. The books she read he had never heard of. The music she listened to just made him pleasantly drowsy, and after a while all he wanted was to lie down and sleep which, of course, he was careful not to do at her apartment. Even the food the director liked was different from the food he liked. He tried to adapt to these new circumstances and sometimes he would go to a record store and buy some Beethoven or Mozart, which he would then listen to alone at home. Usually he fell asleep. But his dreams were peaceful and happy. He dreamed that he and Elvira Campos lived together in a cabin in the mountains. The cabin didn't have electricity or running water or anything to remind them of civilization. They slept on a bearskin, with a wolf skin over them. And sometimes Elvira Campos laughed, a ringing laugh, as she went running into the woods and he lost sight of her.

Chicago Bears - End of the Season

Kind of a heartbreaking way for the season to end yesterday. The Bears pull out a 26-24 victory against the Lions at Detroit, but Green Bay falls short in their comeback against the Vikings who kick a last second field goal to win the game.
One more week of games to start off the new year would have been nice.

Update: Lovie Smith was fired this morning after nine seasons. 10-6 this season. Super Bowl in 2006.

Indianapolis Museum of Art

The Seashore, John Metzinger (1905). Oil on canvas. European modernism.

The Flageolot Player On the Cliff, Paul Gaugin (1889). Oil on canvas. European.

Landscape at Saint-Remy, Vincent van Gogh (1889). Oil on canvas. European.

Winter Landscape, Rockwell Kent (1909). Oil on canvas. American.

The Artist's Party, Joseph Delaney (1941-43). Oil on canvas. American.
(Delaney is shown with his back to the viewer talking to a man believed to be the Abstract Expressionist painter Jackson Pollock.)

New York, New Haven, and Hartford, Edward Hopper (1931). Oil on canvas. American.

He Is Risen (The Passion of Christ Series), Romare Howard Bearden (1945). Oil on gessoed board.

Head of a Clown, Georges Rouault (1920). Oil and gouache on paper mounted on linen. French.

Self-Portrait, Rembrandt van Rijn (1629). Oil on wood. Dutch.

Green Apples with Gray Curtain, Walt Kuhn (1943). Oil on canvas. American.

The Moviegoers Episode 10

It's a very festive holiday episode with bloody mary's and brunch. We also talk the film of the year, Zero Dark Thirty. Greg sings a few bars from Les Miz, Andy kills Killing Them Softly, and I finally go On The Road Walter Salles-style.

Zero Dark Thirty (Dir. Kathryn Bigelow)

I went to see the hunt for Bin Laden to take my mind off a woman.

The need of cinema for total immersion. To get out of your own head. And in that theater, it delivered. You don't need popcorn. You don't need soda. You'll just sit there riveted. Frozen. Without blinking. Sustained tension from minute one to the final moment. When it ended I could have continued to sit there for another hour. Finally, a real movie.

And it seems to usher in a new genre of cinema. Something I'll label for right now 'new journalism.' A sprawling narrative tale that jumps years and time, yet effortlessly so, without becoming disjointed. Fabric and small details throughout. Kind of three films in one -- a political thriller,  a procedural, and the final one being an exhilarating men on a mission. A huge New Yorker piece adapted for the screen. I put this film alongside Zodiac.

Jason Clarke and Edgar Ramirez have worked themselves to become my favorite actors. 

(A couple brief notes: Camp Chapman sequence -- I knew what was going to happen from hearing about it on Fresh Air a year ago and was still tense/and then angry for the security breach to be allowed, and the tracking of Bin Laden's courier in the market place should be remembered. A question: If they're able to track his phone, can't they listen in on the info he's providing and know if UBL is giving orders for Abbottabad?)

Two words: Fucking Awesome.

A great,  grand American film.

Django Unchained

Thoughts TBD on Christmas or on podcast.

The Moviegoers Episode 9 - Lincoln

We get heavy into Lincoln. It's well done, but Greg loves it. Also Anna Karenina, Silver Linings Playbook, some Life of Pi 3D. And ask the important question regarding the filmmaking of Holy Motors -- is that a stunt cock?

Happy Holidays from Bob Dylan & Harry Dean Stanton

The Moviegoers Episode 8 - Cloud Atlas

We're talking Cloud Atlas, Skyfall, some Holy Motors, Romanian cinema, and the delightful drunken antics of Dudley Moore.

Instructions On How to Party and Have a Good Time

This was a company email prior to a party.

If you're tweeting or instagramming tonight's event please make sure to use the hashtag #ZEFR on all tweets/photos from tonight.

also check what others are posting using the hashtag #ZEFR and like/comment/share those tweets/pics.

You can @mention ZEFR on both Twitter and Instagram.  Our username is @ZEFRinc on both!

Hope

Officer gives boots to homeless man.

The Thanksgiving Album

Wednesday night:
Crossfire Hurricane - the new documentary on the Rolling Stones. Surprisingly well done. Focused on the great period of the Stones, later '60s/early '70s. A lot of unseen footage and capturing a little of the fiery intensity of the band. Fun watch.

Thanksgiving:
Head over to Brower's with Tracey, Chaffee, and Kat. Play some records in the afternoon.Put on American Beauty. Feast & dessert, then musical Ipod trivia.

Friday:
Take the Santa Monica bus to my car. A depressed day. See Silver Linings Playbook with Tatiana in Culver City.

Saturday:
Head out apple pickin' to riley farms. Some pics.

Liz & Dick

Finished the Thanksgiving weekend by going over to a friend's house for a group get together of Lifetime's big event, Liz & Dick. It is Lindsay Lohan after all. And Lohan can make an ABC family film like Labor Pains charming and watchable. But not so for this t.v. movie of the week. Not as salacious as it needed to be, not as cheesy as it needed to be. Sleeping for two hours would have been better time served.
(On the favorable side, I did have two slices of pie a la mode.)

An excerpt from this review which chronicles Lohan's exile period.

"She is so unwatchable, the film doesn't even have camp value...Lindsay just doesn't work hard enough, and the whole world watched the hyped-up post-ironic Happening for the sake of schadenfreude."

Happy Thanksgiving

Make sure you don't forget "some girl meat" to bring to your feast. And I hear bath salts are the perfect addition to any cranberry sauce recipe.

The Rolling Stones - Cocksucker Blues (1972)

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War on Dogs

Bit by a big dog this morning. Ripped pants. Owner became catatonic. Fun times. #NewCatPerson

War on Dogs. They must be put down. #MayorOfSantaMonica 

I've got a fever for dog meat. #DogBiteVictim

Quentin Tarantino

The Playboy interview. Didn't think I could get any more excited for Django Unchained. I was wrong.

David Simon

I just discovered that he has a blog/website called "The Audacity of Despair." A lot of content. He even writes an in memoriam to Levon Helm.

Oliver Sacks

His new book is about  Hallucinations. 
Excerpt:

"I had been reading about the color indigo, how it had been introduced into the spectrum by [Isaac] Newton rather late, and it seemed no two people quite agreed as to what indigo was, and I thought I would like to have an experience of indigo. And I built up a sort of pharmacological launchpad with amphetamines and LSD, and a little cannabis on top of that, and when I was really stoned I said, 'I want to see indigo now.' And as if thrown by a paintbrush, a huge pear-shaped blob of the purest indigo appeared on the wall.

"Again it had this luminous, numinous quality; I leaped toward it in a sort of ecstasy. I thought, 'This is the color of heaven.' ... I thought maybe this is not a color which actually exists on the Earth, or maybe it used to exist or no longer exists. All this went through my mind in 4 or 5 seconds, and then the blob disappeared, giving me a strong sense of loss and heartbrokenness, and I was haunted a little bit when I came down, wondering whether indigo did exist in the real world.

"I would turn over little stones. I once went to a museum to look at azurite, a copper mineral which is maybe the nearest [to] indigo, but that was disappointing. I did in fact have that experience again, but when I had it the second time, it was not with a drug, it was with music — and I think music can take one to the heights in a way comparable with drugs."

Record Club Volume.15

Hosted at 507 Hill St., Santa Monica CA.

Record Club/Vol.15/11-10-12
aka 'Brower Birthday Bash'

6:41pm
Patton - "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack" - Side 1 - The House
Allah-La's - Self Titled - Side 1 - Brower
Warren Zevon - Excitable Boy - Side 1 - Chaffee
The Bud & Travis - Latin Album - Side 1 - Greg J.
Jerry Lee Lewis - I'm On Fire - Side 1 -Tarik
Billy Joel - The Stranger - Side 1 - Schuchinski
Guns & Roses - London 1987 - Jake
Supersuckers - Motherf#$%ers be Trippin' - Side 1 - Tarik
Huey Lewis & the News - Sports - Side 1 - Tracey
Lilacs & Champagne - Self Titled - Side 1 - Clay
Lonerism - Tame Impala - Zoe
The Quick - Mondo Deco - Zoe
The Replacements - Tim - Side 1 - Pia
The Donkeys - Living on the Other Side - Side 1 - Phil
Genesis - Selling England by the Pound - Matt
Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' - Hannah
Gene Simmons - Kiss - Side 1 - Charlene
Whitney Houston - Whitney - Side 1 - Becky Chaffee
The Four Doorsmen - Barbershop Ballads - Bob
Gary Stewart - Out of Hand - Side 2 - Phil ("Happy B-day, Brower")
Hank Jr. - Hank Jr. & Friends - Side 1 - Brower
Gary Higgins - Red Hash - Side 1 - Clay
Donovan - The Hurdy Gurdy Man - Side 1 - Pia
Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight - Zoe
Al Green - Call Me - Side A - Brie (Cindy Gardner) ("first time played in 25 years")
Randy Newman - Good Old Boys - Side 2 - Phil
Rolling Stones - Tattoo You - Side 1 - Brower
Lee Hazelwood & Nancy Sinatra - Some Velvet Morning - Zoe
Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup - Side B - Charlene
Neil Diamond - Hot August Nights - Side 4 - Chaffee
...
Sunday, 11am
Bob Dylan - New Morning - Side 2 - Chaffee

The Best Fans in the World

I've never been prouder to be able to call myself a Chicago Bears fan.

Holy Motors - Leos Carax

AFI Fest in Hollywood. Egyptian theater. Wild French film. A love letter to the cinema and also about the death of cinema. Carax introduces the film. And like the l'enfant terrible of his reputation, walks on stage with sunglasses and sporting a moustache and says : "I hope you like my film. Or not." Then drops the mic, and walks off. Brilliant.

Neil Young - Psychedelic Pill

The opening track Driftin' Back is almost a complete album unto itself. That could be Side A, with Walk Like A Giant Side B. Good album to listen to while hiking.

Wake In Fright

Checked out this 1970s Australian movie at the Cinefamily with Jake and Tarik. The outback as a drunken wasteland. Hits a delirium state halfway through seldom experienced in the cinema. But still can't say I liked the experience.

The Donkeys

Hit up the Satellite on a Thursday night to see this band from San Diego. And that is exactly what they are...a band. No more, no less. Just a bunch a guys who play music. A bar band. Like "Louie, Louie" It was refreshing. A straight-up good time rock and roll.
They didn't play their great song "Dolphin Center" despite numerous howls from the audience when returning for the encore. Their normal bass player was out. So they launched into a raucous version of "Gloria."
The type of band that has one great record and aren't heard from, and years later you pull out the record from the dust bin and remember how good it is.

Ain't In It For My Health: A Film About Levon Helm

It's official. A long time coming.

The Moviegoers Episode 7: Argo

Two of us really like Argo, one of us thinks that 'average' just doesn't cut it.

Bears Vs. Lions - Monday Night Football

The Bears, more or less, dominate the game throughout at Soldier Field. Though it was 13-0 for most of the game, it seemed like 28-0. Sure enough though Detroit gets a meaningless TD with thirty seconds left for another dismal backdoor cover. Final score : 13-7.
The spread was 6.5. I'm seemingly on the unlucky end of all these backdoor covers this season from Pack/Seahawks to Niners/Seahawks to Bears/Lions, and so on.

Then I tried to watch the final debate between Obama/Romney. Fell asleep in ten minutes.

Dawn of the Dead - Hollywood Forever Cemetery

Three things I'll remember from viewing George Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

1) The strange purple sky. It never get fully dark. The cloud cover emanated the lights from Los Angeles, felt like early morning.

2) The film is more of a satire, than horror. Two best scenes: the opening scene in the television studio with a ratcheted tension and panic. And constant drone thumping on the soundtrack. Wasn't even sure quite what was going on, but there was a heightened energy. The other notable scene: The Woodstock of rednecks gunning down zombies walking the countryside while drinking beer.

3) The three quasi-models sitting next to us snapping a hundred photos of themselves prior to the movie, then on their Iphones throughout the film, then leaving twenty minutes before the end.

Working Man's Blues

Charles Bukowski on the fear of "emptying out."

In 1969, publisher John Martin offered to pay Charles Bukowski $100 each and every month for the rest of his life, on one condition: that he quit his job at the post office and become a writer. 49-year-old Bukowski did just that, and in 1971 his first novel, Post Office, was published by Martin's  Black Sparrow Press.

15 years later, Bukowski wrote the following letter to Martin and spoke of his joy at having escaped full time employment.

     8-12-86

Hello John:

Thanks for the good letter. I don't think it hurts, sometimes, to remember where you came from. You know the places where I came from. Even the people who try to write about that or make films about it, they don't get it right. They call it "9 to 5." It's never 9 to 5, there's no free lunch break at those places, in fact, at many of them in order to keep your job you don't take lunch. Then there's OVERTIME and the books never seem to get the overtime right and if you complain about that, there's another sucker to take your place.

You know my old saying, "Slavery was never abolished, it was only extended to include all the colors."

And what hurts is the steadily diminishing humanity of those fighting to hold jobs they don't want but fear the alternative worse. People simply empty out. They are bodies with fearful and obedient minds. The color leaves the eye. The voice becomes ugly. And the body. The hair. The fingernails. The shoes. Everything does.

As a young man I could not believe that people could give their lives over to those conditions. As an old man, I still can't believe it. What do they do it for? Sex? TV? An automobile on monthly payments? Or children? Children who are just going to do the same things that they did?

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: "Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don't you realize that?"

They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn't want to enter their minds.

Now in industry, there are vast layoffs (steel mills dead, technical changes in other factors of the work place). They are layed off by the hundreds of thousands and their faces are stunned:

"I put in 35 years..."

"It ain't right..."

"I don't know what to do..."

They never pay the slaves enough so they can get free, just enough so they can stay alive and come back to work. I could see all this. Why couldn't they? I figured the park bench was just as good or being a barfly was just as good. Why not get there first before they put me there? Why wait?

I just wrote in disgust against it all, it was a relief to get the shit out of my system. And now that I'm here, a so-called professional writer, after giving the first 50 years away, I've found out that there are other disgusts beyond the system.

I remember once, working as a packer in this lighting fixture company, one of the packers suddenly said: "I'll never be free!"

One of the bosses was walking by (his name was Morrie) and he let out this delicious cackle of a laugh, enjoying the fact that this fellow was trapped for life.

So, the luck I finally had in getting out of those places, no matter how long it took, has given me a kind of joy, the jolly joy of the miracle. I now write from an old mind and an old body, long beyond the time when most men would ever think of continuing such a thing, but since I started so late I owe it to myself to continue, and when the words begin to falter and I must be helped up stairways and I can no longer tell a bluebird from a paperclip, I still feel that something in me is going to remember (no matter how far I'm gone) how I've come through the murder and the mess and the moil, to at least a generous way to die.

To not to have entirely wasted one's life seems to be a worthy accomplishment, if only for myself.

yr boy,

Hank

Argo

A perfectly adequate film. Neither pleasing, nor offending. If an average movie is your thing, then this  will certainly suit you. But when I go to the cinema, I'm looking for more than just average. If that's naiive or unrealistic so be it. People say glowingly that this is Ben Affleck's best movie, well Gone Baby Gone and The Town were bad and mediocre so I guess...
Congratulations Ben Affleck!

October Baseball

Post-season baseball is just so good, and the drama so much more heightened than the endless, regular season. Each pitch matters, the nuances of fielding and base-running becomes magnified.

On Saturday night, Detroit is cruising against the Yankees in New York. 4-0 in the ninth. Valverde pitching. First, Ichiro hits a two run shot. Then Raul Ibanez comes up with a man on, and sure enough blasts it in the seats. Tie game. Ibanez only hits home runs.
Extra innings. The Yankees give up two runs, and Derek Jeter goes down, breaking his ankle. The end of the Yankees
On Sunday, they look like they know they are done even though it is only game 2. ARod smiling because he made contact, instead of the usual strikeout. They're spent, long gone.

And Raul is on juice.

Hejira (2007)

Here's to autumn.

Sponsored by no one.

Harris Savides

Read the unexpected news that he passed today. For a little while I remember going to the theater and the film would have a striking look, but not show off. Then I'd learn that Harris Savedes shot it. The Gus Van Sant death trilogy, Zodiac, Greenberg, Somewhere.
I like to think of him as a gourmond. And I mean that in the best possible way.

From Indiewire:
"Zodiac" (2007)
Savides’ first collaboration with David Fincher was the wildly over-the-top “The Game,” a kind of hyper-intelligent fuck-you puzzle-box thriller about a very rich man put through his paces by a shadowy organization under the guise of an elaborate role-playing game. For their next feature together, Savides and Fincher went the complete opposite direction, not wholly abandoning the stylistic flourishes that made Fincher such a beloved film world figure, but stripping back much of the bullshit to present a just-the-facts-ma’am look at the decades-long hunt for the notorious Zodiac serial killer. What Savides accomplished with “Zodiac” is mind-blowing – this is a movie with scenes spread across locations and time periods, each requiring a different historically representative look, and often with the Fincher-approved embroidery of intricate visual effects (many of which go undetected they’re so seamlessly integrated into the frame). What’s even more astounding is thinking about how this was the first time that Fincher had used digital -- up until this point his films were all shot with celluloid -- at a time when the format still looked, in lesser hands, crunchy and flat. This wasn’t some bedroom chamber piece; this was a rich historical epic, and needed to look appropriately grand. Savides did it all. There are so many amazing shots running through our minds right now – one of the opening shots from inside Darlene’s car, fireworks exploding behind suburban roofs; the tracking shot of the cab (whose driver would meet his fate at the corner of Washington and Cherry), which pivots as the cab turns; the way Savides captured the droplets of water that dot Jake Gyllenhaal's face as he knocks on Mark Ruffalo’s door at the end of the movie. These are moments that contribute to the emotional and intellectual heft of the movie, not showy shots that are dissected in film class. Fincher and Savides, with “Zodiac,” made stylization subtle, which of course makes it all the more effective. “Zodiac” is an American masterpiece; unthinkable without Savides’ significant contribution. 

On Writing: John Steinbeck (1962)

Dr. Dog -- John Anson Ford Theater

October 5, 2012

Beautiful intimate venue nestled up in the hills. Cinematic and majestic.

Opener: Cotton Jones.

Setlist
The Rabbit, The Bat, and The Reindeer
Stranger
Do The Trick
The Ark
I Only Wear Blue
These Days
Hang On
Heavy Light
The Beach
That Old Black Hole
Shame, Shame,
From
Vampire
Shadow People
Heart it Races (Architecture in Helsinki cover)
The Way the Lazy Do
Lonesome

Encore:
California
Worst Trip
Oh No

One of the more great, fun nights in a while. Buzzed.

Las Vegas -- 9am

Outside a liquor store.

Fresh Air -- Neil Young/Steve Martin

Had one of the more soul crushing days at work. One where you just feel drained, spent, and empty. With nowhere to go.
Decided to watch the first debate of Obama/Romney at a friend's house. The first debate is always the introduction, with the opponents just feeling themselves out. The second and third debates typically become more colorful and feisty.

On my way over I listened to two podcasts -- both creatively inspiring. And lifted my spirits, even if only for the moment.

Neil Young

Steve Martin

Monday Night Football -- Bears/Cowboys (Week #4)

Bears crush 34-18 in Dallas. Thank you Tony "Homo" Romo and Dez Bryant. They were the MVP's of the game. Romo with 5 int's. Two of them just disastrous pick sixes. One to Charles Tillman that was so easy Tillman almost dropped, the other a shovel pass to Julius Peppers run back for 60 yards. Dez Bryant was high. He dropped so many passes, a couple for sure touchdowns, and crucial drops on 3rd downs.
Jay Cutler and the Bears are too pass happy right now. Cutler's arm is so strong he tries to throw it anywhere, sometimes it works. It will lead to disaster. The Bears are strong when they have twenty-five pass attempts, and a balanced running attack.

Klown

Sweden's version of Sideways mixed with some of the outlandish raunchiness The Hangover only wish they could achieve. I laughed hard and for an extended duration for probably four scenes, maybe more.  Perhaps some of the toilet humor was raised to higher level because of the European elegance cloaking the behavior -- I'm thinking early on of the 'pearl necklace' discussion.

"Tour de pussy."

Record Club V. 14

Saturday, September 29th, 2012

Log and photos to come...

Monday Night Football Degenerates

Russell Wilson throws a game-winning interception!
And how much money did the ref who called the int a TD, and ignored the offensive pass interference call, have on the Seahawks?

Treme - Season 3, Episode 1 - 'Knock With Me - Rock With Me'

It's back!  I'm the only one watching. And that's fine with me.

First scene ( indicating the core theme of this season)  --  second line for a passed, local musician, "I'll Fly Away." Cops bust it up. Anger stews. Antoine Batiste gets arrested. The feelings for the show, and New Orleans all flood back...
Final Scene -- Terry on a quiet French Quarter Street, worried that his F.E.M.A trailer is contaminated. Ruminates on his ex-wife saying maybe N.O. isn't right for him. Afterall, 'only dreamers and drunks' stay in New Orleans. He takes a look at a local street urchin sharing a taste for a po-boy, "Don't ever change."

Favorite line: "What's there to do that's fun in Indianapolis?" -- Lt. Terry Colson
Second favorite line: "I'm not an adult, I'm a musician." -- Antoine Batistte

Here's a New Yorker review.

And some words from David Simon on the themes percolating in Season 3:

"Everything comes with a cost," Simon says. "That doesn't mean you don't take it. That doesn't mean that you walk away from the money at all points. Money is in neutral. It's the way in which it wraps itself that you have to struggle with and debate.

"A lot of the people who have had the most successful and influential musical careers in America came from New Orleans," Simon continues. "They had to leave New Orleans to do it. Nobody knew who Louis Armstrong was in New Orleans; he had to go to Chicago for that. Staying has its beauties and delights but it also has its costs."

"When you are living in a town that has a retrograde police department, and a disastrous school system, and one of the most corrupt civic governments in the history of the republic, and you still don't want to live anywhere else, the town is doing something right," he says. "Katrina led a lot of New Orleanians to reflect on ... why they can't live anywhere else. It led a lot of people to think about what it is they value in life as part of this community and to hold on to that and do everything possible to serve it and maintain it.
"That's the affirming thing that I find fascinating," Simon continues. "In my opinion, what saved the city, to the extent the city has been saved, has been the city's culture. Not its political leadership. Not the money that was ostensibly directed or misdirected. It's not economics. It's not political. It's community and it's cultural. That's the one thing that New Orleans has gotten right in such a firm and unequivocal way."

Bill Fuckin' Murray

And he's from the suburbs of Chicago.

The Value of a Liberal Arts Education

How Liberal Arts Colleges are Failing America. This isn't just recession babble I bring up but, if I had a graduating high school child, I would seriously offer them the possibility to take a year, two years, or even more to enter the real world before attending college. See the work involved with earning a dollar. And then attend college.  They may appreciate the courses more at that point. Why be in school for 18 years and then automatically go to college for another four? All you know of life at that point is school. And being sheltered.

Episode 5 - Paul W.S Thomas Anderson Go Big or Go Home

The Master (P.T. Anderson) and Resident Evil:Retribution (Paul W.S. Anderson). With special guest Stephen Brower.

Happy Birthday, Bruce

Springsteen turns 63 today. And he ushered it in by playing a show in Jersey that went 'til 2am last night. Here's a letter from the late, great Joe Strummer singing his praises.

Fuck It.

Smokin' Jay Cutler

Smoke 'em if you got them, Jay.

(And this is an exceptional use of the tumblr format.)

Ken Kesey

A letter to his old time friends following the death of his son from a bus accident.

One icy morning in January of 1984, as the University of Oregon's wrestling team headed to their next tournament in Pullman, Washington, the driver of the bus on which they were travelling lost control of the vehicle on a mountain road and could do nothing to stop it tumbling through the guardrail and over a 300-ft cliff. One boy, Lorenzo West, was killed on impact; another, 20-year-old Jed Kesey, was left brain dead. He passed away within days.

Shortly after Jed's funeral at his family's farm, his dad, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest author Ken Kesey, wrote the following letter to five of his closest friends

(Source: CoEvolution Quarterly; Image: Ken Kesey, via.)

Dear Wendell and Larry and Ed and Bob and Gurney:

Partners, it's been a bitch.

I've got to write and tell somebody about some stuff and, like I long ago told Larry, you're the best backboard I know. So indulge me a little; I am but hurt.

We built the box ourselves (George Walker, mainly) and Zane and Jed's friends and frat brothers dug the hole in a nice spot between the chicken house and the pond. Page found the stone and designed the etching. You would have been proud, Wendell, especially of the box — clear pine pegged together and trimmed with redwood. The handles of thick hemp rope. And you, Ed, would have appreciated the lining. It was a piece of Tibetan brocade given Mountain Girl by Owsley 15 years ago, gilt and silver and russet phoenixbird patterns, unfurling in flames. And last month, Bob, Zane was goose hunting in the field across the road and killed a snow goose. I told him be sure to save the down. Susan Butkovitch covered this in white silk for the pillow while Faye and MG and Gretch and Candace stitched and stapled the brocade into the box.

It was a double-pretty day, like winter holding its breath, giving us a break. About 300 people stood around and sung from the little hymnbooks that Diane Kesey had Xeroxed — "Everlasting Arms," "Sweet Hour of Prayer," "In the Garden" and so forth. With all my cousins leading the singing and Dale on his fiddle. While we were singing "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain," Zane and Kit and the neighbor boys that have grown up with all of us carried the box to the hole. The preacher is also the Pleasant Hill School superintendent and has known our kids since kindergarten. I learned a lot about Jed that I'd either forgotten or never known — like his being a member of the National Honor Society and finishing sixth in a class of more than a hundred.

We sung some more. People filed by and dropped stuff in on Jed. I put in that silver whistle I used to wear with the Hopi cross soldered on it. One of our frat brothers put in a quartz watch guaranteed to keep beeping every 15 minutes for five years. Faye put in a snapshot of her and I standing with a pitchfork all Grantwoodesque in front of the old bus. Paul Foster put in the little leatherbound New Testament given him by his father who had carried it during his 65 years as a minister. Paul Sawyer read from Leaves of Grass while the boys each hammered in the one nail they had remembered to put in their pockets. The Betas formed a circle and passed the loving cup around (a ritual our fraternity generally uses when a member is leaving the circle to become engaged) (Jed and Zane and I are all members, y'unnerstand, not to mention Hagen) and the boys lowered the box with these ropes George had cut and braided. Zane and I tossed in the first shovelfuls. It sounded like the first thunderclaps of Revelations...

But it's an earlier scene I want to describe for you all, as writers and friends and fathers...up at the hospital, in cold grey Spokane:

He'd finally started moving a little. Zane and I had been carrying plastic bags of snow to pack his head in trying to stop the swelling that all the doctors told us would follow as blood poured to the bruised brain. And we noticed some reaction to the cold. And the snow I brushed across his lips to ease the bloody parch where all the tubes ran in caused him to roll his arms a little. Then more. Then too much, with the little monitor lights bleeping faster and faster, and I ran to the phone to call the motel where I had just sent most of the family for some rest.

"You guys better get back over here! He's either going or coming."

Everybody was there in less than five minutes — Chuck and Sue, Kit and Zane, Shan and her fiance Jay, Jay's dad Irby, Sheryl and her husband Bill, my mom, Faye...my whole family except for my dead daddy and Grandma Smith down with age and Alzheimer's. Jed's leg was shaking with the force of his heartbeat. Kit and Zane tried to hold it. He was starting to go into seizures, like the neurosurgeon had predicted.

Up till this time everybody had been exhorting him to "Hang on, Old Timer. Stick it out. This thing can't pin you. You're too tough, too brave. Sure it hurts but you can pull through it. Just grit your teeth and hang on." Now we could see him trying, fighting. We could see it in his clenching fists, his threshing legs. And then aw Jesus we saw it in his face. The peacefully swollen unconscious blank suddenly was filled with expression. He came back in. He checked it out, and he saw better than we could begin to imagine how terribly hurt he was. His poor face grimaced with pain. His purple brow knitted and his teeth actually did try to clench on the tubes.

And then, O my old buddies, he cried. The doctors had already told us in every gentle way they could that he was brain dead, gone for good, but we all saw it...the quick flickerback of consciousness, the awful hurt being realized, the tears saying "I don't think I can do 'er this time, Dad. I'm sorry, I truly am..."

And everybody said, "It's okay, ol' Jedderdink. You know better than we do. Breathe easy. Go on ahead. We'll catch you later down the line."

His threshing stopped. His face went blank again. I thought of Old Jack, Wendell, ungripping his hands, letting his fields finally go.

The phone rang in the nurses' quarters. It was the doctor, for me. He had just appraised all the latest readouts on the monitors. "Your son is essentially dead, Mr. Kesey. I'm very sorry."

And the sorrow rung absolutely honest. I said something. Zane picked up the extension and we watched each other while the voice explained the phenomena. We said we saw it also, and were not surprised. Thank you...

Then the doctor asked a strange thing. He wanted to know what kind of kid Jed was. Zane and I both demanded what he meant. He said he was wondering how Jed would have felt about being an organ donor. Our hearts both jumped.

"He would love it! Jed's always been as generous as they come. Take whatever you can use!"

The doctor waited for our elation to ease down, then told us that to take the kidneys they had to take them before the life support was turned off. Did we understand? After a while we told him we did.

So Faye and I had to sign five copies apiece, on a cold formica countertop, while the machine pumped out the little "beep...beep...beep..." in the dim tangle of technology behind us. In all my life, waking and dreaming, I've never imagined anything harder.

Everybody went in and told him goodbye, kissed his broken nose, shook his hand, squeezed his big old hairy foot...headed down the corridor. Somebody said it might be a good idea to get a scrip for some kind of downers. We'd all been up for about 40 hours, either in the chapel praying like maniacs, or at his bedside talking to him. We didn't know if we could sleep.

Chuck and I walked back to the intensive care ward to ask. All the doctors were there, bent over a long list, phoning numbers, matching blood types, ordering nurses...in such a hurry they hardly had time to offer sympathy. Busy, and justly so. But the nurses, the nurses bent over their clipboards, could barely see to fill out the forms.

They phoned the hotel about an hour later to tell us it was over, and that the kidneys were in perfect shape. That was about four in the morning. They phoned again a little after six to say that the kidneys were already in two young somebodies.

What a world.

We've heard since that they used twelve things out of him, including corneas. And the redwinged blackbirds sing in the budding greengage plumtree.

With love,

Ken

P.S. When Jed's wallet was finally sorted out of the debris and confusion of the wreck it was discovered that he had already provided for such a situation. He had signed the place on his driver's license indicating that he wanted to be an organ donor in the event of etc., etc. One man gathers what another man spills. 

Bears Vs. Packers (Week #2)

The worst that Cutler has to offer. Yes, there was pressure on him but it was as if he'd reverted to his ways of three seasons ago. Throwing against the grain, forcing balls into covered areas, frustration getting the better of him.
And Brandon Marshall was no help, dropped two touchdown passes.

Louie - Late Show Part 2

There was an eerie David Lynch quality with Louie in the waiting room talking to the receptionist. And then he meets Jack Dahl. And who is Jack Dahl? None other than David Lynch. Despite the Lynchian undertones breathing throughout, this episode is about when an opportunity presents itself one needs to fight for it. And fight for yourself. Not shying away, but believing. Not cowering, but getting strong.

Bears Vs. Colts (Week #1)

And so it begins. The Bears first possession is an utter mess. Bad snap, dropped ball, going backwards. Ugly. Second possession -- Cutler's first pass of the 2012 season -- pick six. Cutler didn't even see the linebacker. I think to myself, maybe I should get the NFL audio package, and not waste all this time at bars at 10am in the morning. Listen to the games (removed a bit from the emotion) and get some work done. Be productive.
The first quarter really is no better. Cutler starts 1 for 10. To break out of the rut, and gain some rhythm, Cutler begins going to newly acquired Brandon Marshall. The two can count on each other. Cutler needles some passes where there's essentially no opening, and completes them. This is dangerous farther down the line this season. Making passes he shouldn't risk because of his arm strength. He goes 10 for his next 10. The field opens up. The Bears win this game handily against an inexperienced Colts team
Final score : 41-21

NFL Week # 1

Picks as of Thursday, Sept. 6 (sportsbook.com). Going heavy dogs for the first week.
Cowboys +4
Bears -10
Browns +9
Bills +3
Redskins +10
Titans +7
Jags +5
Texans -10
Rams +9
Falcons -1
Packers -6
Bucs +3
Cards +3
Broncos pick
Ravens -6
Raiders +2
Chargers/Radiers Total Points 44

The Moviegoers Episode 4 (Lawless/The Ambassador)

We're talking Shia LaBeouf's acting chops, the season of Megan Ellison, and pygmies.