More Eric Johnson

Yeah, OK, so I'm obsessed at the moment. But I did find that Eric was on NPR's Weekend Edition in August. There's also a few RealPlayer files of his performance, as well as three files from his most recent album, Bloom.

Johnson is God

In almost every successful musician's career, there is one legendary show that puts them on the map and gives them the necessary buzz for their breakthrough. For Eric Johnson, that show happened to be televised. In 1988, Johnson appeared on Austin City Limits and proceeded to tear the roof off, blowing away the audience and taking up the sceptre as his generation's greatest guitarist. Tapes of that show are much-coveted and hard to come by, so thankfully, ACL has released it as part of their recent series of CDs and DVDs. I've been a fan of Johnson's since 1990, when I first heard his song Cliffs of Dover on the radio. At the time, I was just starting to play guitar, and I bought a book of songs from Johnson's first two albums, hoping to teach myself to play like him. I remember the guy behind the counter at the guitar store wishing me good luck at figuring anything out, saying he had been playing for 20 years and couldn't make heads or tails of a lot of the songs. 15 years later, I understand why: human beings aren't supposed to be able to play the guitar like this. That is just sick fretwork. But until today, when I bought Live from Austin, TX, I assumed that much of Johnson's incredible sound could be attributed to studio trickery and overdubbing. Despite having seen him live way back in November 1991, I was still unprepared for this recording. Onstage, he is constantly dancing on his effect pedals to switch them on and off, but effects can only do so much. A lot of what he does with the instrument can only be appreciated by someone who plays, but even non-guitarists have to be blown away by this disc. This is the result of sheer, unadulterated talent. The speed, fluidity and tone that he's able to get playing by himself is unbelieveable, and it's made even more so by the fact that he doesn't limit himself to one genre, blowing through rock, blues, jazz and country styles, often in one song. Aside from cementing my belief that Johnson is from another planet, listening to this CD has managed to both make me feel incredibly untalented and also convinced me that it's time to buy an electric guitar. Hope my neighbors are tolerant...

London Day by Day

First off, my photos are posted at Shutterfly. I apologize if anyone tried to get in and ran up against pasword protection. That should be disabled now. Email me if you're having any problems. Now on to the travelogue.

This trip came about because Todd works for a major airline and is able to fly anywhere they go as long as there are empty seats on the flight. So he suggested we try to go to England for a soccer game, and I, never having been out of North America, thought this was a fantastic idea, since he can also bring friends for a very cheap price. So we decided to try for last weekend so that we could see the Fulham-Blackburn match and get to see several American players plus Ryan Nelsen, a Kiwi who used to play for DC United. My trip began on Thursday night:

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Thursday
Drive to Chicago. Arrive around 8:30 Central Time. Look at flights with Todd. There are 5 possible flights, 3 from O'Hare and 2 from Washington-Dulles. Based on flight loads, we decide to try for the Dulles flights. Am a little apprehensive, because we could potentially sit in Dulles for 10 hours and not make it to London. Sleep very fitfully. Toss and turn while imagining all the things that could go wrong. I hate being a Type-A.

Friday
Up at 5:00 CT. Leave for Midway at 5:50. The El station is freezing. Begin the "Day of Airports". Check in for flight to Dulles, which is a fairly easy process. Get on the flight, departing at 8:30 CT. Arrive at Dulles at 11:45 Eastern. Go to gate for first flight to London, which doesn't leave for over 6 hours. Terminal is dark, crowded, and under construction, so we take a tram to a different terminal. Eat lunch, play cards, read the manual for my new camera, and do sudoku puzzles until 5:00 when we head back to gate and register for the flight. Lots of nervous nail-biting ensues. Todd checks at desk several times. Things seem to be looking good, but when all the passengers have boarded and it's only us and 8 other standby passengers left, the woman at the desk says she won't be able to add us to the flight due to weight restrictions. Crap. This means another 3 hours of killing time in the hot crowded international terminal. After dinner, we head back to the gate and begin talking to a couple who had also tried to get on the first flight. The man is a pilot for Todd's airline and tells us that the weight restriction is due to a fire at a fuel depot in London which has raised fuel prices and caused the airlines to want to conserve as much as fuel as possible on flights to London. He tells us that the flight we couldn't get on went out with 30 empty seats. We begin to feel very negative about our chances for the second flight, which is a smaller plane. This leads to more nail-biting, stress, and adrenaline rushes, but when the plane is only halfway boarded, the woman at the desk calls our names. We're on! We're seated in business class. I sit next to a Simon Cowell look-alike who's apparently on the Atkins diet, since he refuses to touch anything containing carbs. I attempt to sleep for most of the flight, but again sleep fitfully, waking at every small bump of turbulence and imagining the plane falling 30,000 feet into the icy cold North Atlantic. I hate being a Type-A.

Saturday
Arrive in London at 9:50 Greenwich Mean Time and are whisked through Customs. Stop to withdraw pounds at an ATM and purchase a 3-day Tube card, and then we're off to Covent Garden and our hotel. As the announcements say, we "mind the gap" as we "alight" at Covent Garden station, where it's only a short walk to Seven Dials and our hotel, the Radisson Edwardian. Check in, dump our stuff, wash up, and then head out again. Lunch at the White Lion pub. I have sausage and mash and drink London Pride. Yum. Then back on the Tube for the 20-minute ride out to Fulham, followed by a 10-minute walk along the river to Craven Cottage, home of Fulham FC. We take in the atmosphere and squeeze our way into the club shop, then enter the stadium, drink a quick pint, and take our seats. The stands quickly fill in. Only two Americans are playing, Brian McBride for Fulham and Brad Friedel for Blackburn. No sign of Carlos Bocanegra or Ryan Nelsen. After a quiet first half, Fulham scores just before halftime, soon after halftime, and gives up a late goal. According the diehards next to us, this is typical of the season, as is the referee's horrific mistreatment of Fulham (which neither Todd or I have noticed). These same guys also teach us several colorful new phrases. After the game, we go down to field level to take some pictures and notice a group of kids and parents being escorted onto the field. We surreptitiously attach ourselves to the group and soon learn that the pitch is laid down on a base of sand which allows them to control blah blah blah. In between yawns, we notice the players jogging on the field for their post-game cooldown, and at that moment, Brian McBride passes by. Todd flags him down and we go over to chat. This is the second time we've met (not surprisingly, Brian doesn't remember), and he is just as classy this time. In fact, we think he was inviting us to Fulham's Wednesday match if we were still going to be in town. We talk a bit, snap a photo with him, and then let him finish his cooldown. Todd and I leave the stadium, stopping at another Fulham store before taking the Tube back to the hotel. We set out in search of a pub where we can see highlights from all the other matches of the day, but after a long search through Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, we end up at an American-style sports bar, where we're able to see the last 15 minutes of Manchester City-Birmingham City as well as the New England-Tampa Bay football game. We eat dinner, but the food and beer are somewhat disappointing, so we head back to the pub across the street from our hotel, The Crown. I drink something on tap called Bombardier. Not bad. After drinking, we go to the hotel and crash. My Type-A neuroses take the night off, and I fall asleep within moments of lying down.

Sunday
Have croissants and coffee at a French bakery on the circle. Best latte I've ever had, hands down. We set off for a day of sightseeing. Weather is cold, but bright sunshine. So much for London's famous rain and fog. Start by taking the Tube to St. Paul's where I try to get in touch with my mate Neil. Can't figure out the stupid English phone numbers. A recorded woman keeps telling me the number can't be recognized. Sorry, Jamo. Take pictures of St. Paul's. My new camera rocks. Walk down to the Thames and cross the Millennium Bridge. See Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the house from Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, and the site of the Clink Prison. Cross back over the river on London Bridge and walk along the river side to the Tower of London. Take a walking tour guided by one of the Royal Yeomen. Take lots more pictures. Finish our tour around 2:00 and decide we're hungry. Take the Tube to The Blackfriar Pub. I have fish & chips and mushy peas and drink some kind of bitter whose name I forget. Am surprised at how much I like mushy peas. Interior decorations are terrific in this place. While we're inside, clouds roll in and the weather becomes more what you would expect from mid-December London. After eating, we head to Big Ben and Parliment. Take more pictures. Am really loving my camera now. Walk past Westminster Abbey, but it's not open on Sunday. Head back to hotel, pausing on the way to do a little shopping around Covent Garden. Then back on the Tube to the Tower of London again where we meet Leslie, our guide for London Walks' Jack the Ripper tour. She's cute and has a great Irish accent. Grrr. She takes us (and 30 other people) through the East End, stopping at several murder sites and giving us an insane amount of detail about the murders and the case. Very enjoyable. I'm surprised again by how many buildings from the time of the murders are still there, in basically their same form. The tour ends at the Ten Bells Pub, where apparently the Ripper stalked several of his victims. It's too crowded, so we set off in search of dinner. End up in the Spitalfields Market at a place called Giraffe. It's a cafe offering fairly healthy food and is apparently partnered with the Putumayo music label, so we had our first healthy meal of the weekend accompanied by a great soundtrack. I order a Coke, which comes in a bottle and somehow tastes different, which puzzles me until I look at the ingredients. Aha. No high fructose corn syrup in English Coke, only pure sugar. After dinner, we're wiped, so we head back to the hotel. Watch highlights of the Tottenham-Middlesbrough and Arsenal-Chelsea matches from that afternoon and some kind of crazy English talk/game-show with a surprisingly funny Robbie Williams as the guest. Type-A is still on vacation, and I crash again.

Monday
Back to the French bakery for breakfast. Second latte is just as good. Spend some more time in the shops around our hotel. Pick up some gifts and find lots of shoes and clothes I'd like, but stop myself from buying anything by mentally calculating the prices in US dollars. Nearly give myself a heart attack on several items. Check out of the hotel at 12:00 GMT and head to the Tube for our last ride to Heathrow. No problems with the flight this time, as we only wait five minutes for our boarding passes. We're in first class for this trip. Beginning to get spoiled. We take off about 4:00 GMT. Spread out in my spacious chair and watch Crash (excellent) and Bewitched (utter crap) on my personal movie system. Eat the delicious 5-course meal, then play rummy with Todd for most of the rest of the trip while watching the progress of the flight on the map available on our video screens. Land at O'Hare at 6:10 Central. Slowly make our way through Customs, hop on the El and meet Cynthia at the other end. Show her my pictures from the trip, then load up the car and head back to Indy. Arrive home at 12:30 Eastern. Have been gone exactly 4 days, 6 hours. Feels like a month. Wish I could go back (although maybe minus the day of sitting in the airport). I may be wiped, but it was totally worth it.
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So that's the trip. I should pause here to say Todd is The Man. I would never have been able to take this trip without him, and I owe him big time. I loved London, and despite what several people told me to expect, I didn't find it dirty at all. Certainly the Tube stations were much cleaner than the New York subway. All the English we interacted with were very polite and helpful, even the ones who weren't in the service industry. I loved that London has so much history and yet feels very young. I can't wait to go back sometime.

The 77-hour tour of London

I'm still recovering and will have more details tomorrow when I'm not so groggy, but suffice it to say that in just over three days, Todd and I managed to see one Premier League match, Big Ben, Parliament, the Tower of London, a bunch of famous bridges, St. Paul's Cathedral, Piccadilly Circus, the site of three Jack the Ripper murders, the house from Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, and the inside of several pubs.

I also got to try out my new camera with great results, and hopefully will be able to post a link to a Shutterfly album tomorrow. For now, enjoy my Clark Griswold shot.

Killing time

Well, I resisted it for a long time, but I've finally been seduced by Sudoku's wily ways. If there's still anybody out there who's been living under a rock, Sudoku is a Japanese number puzzle somewhat like a crossword. As you can see in the image, it's a 9 x 9 square, divided into nine 3 x 3 squares. The object is to get each 3x3 square, each vertical column and each horizontal row to contain the numbers 1-9, used only once in each sequence. I know a lot of people who have doing these puzzles for a while, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to try it. I've never been much of a puzzle guy. But I went to Borders today looking for something to read on my upcoming flight to London, and the first thing inside the door was a display of various sudoku books, all on sale at 3 for the price of 2. So after playing around with a sample puzzle, I ended up leaving with three books. So far, I've done five puzzles today, and I've already bookmarked WebSudoku.com. I forsee a lot of my time getting eaten up by this game, but I don't mind it as much as say, playing XBox. At least this way I'm using my brain cells instead of killing them.

Joy and pain

The stars aligned in my favor today when I went by the library to return a book. I decided to take a pass through the CD section, and it was a massive success. Lots of stuff I've wanted to hear for a while, coupled with stuff I'd forgotten I wanted to listen to. Here's what I found:

Sufjan Stevens, Seven Swans
Maxïmo Park, A Certain Trigger
Pedro the Lion, Achilles Heel
Madvillain, Madvillainy
Paul McCartney, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
Matt Pond PA, Emblems
Aimee Mann, Lost in Space
Johnny Cash, Unchained
Various Artists, Dressed in Black: A Tribute to Johnny Cash
Neko Case & Her Boyfriends, Furnace Room Lullaby
Danny Gatton, Hot Rod Guitar

As I've been ripping, I mean, uh... listening to these CDs, I've been watching more of Arrested Development: Season One. What an utterly criminal waste to cancel this show. I guess because it's not dumbed down to the level of Two and a Half Men or Joey, the Average American doesn't get it. Hopefully HBO picks Development up and it takes its proper place in the best lineup of shows on television. Imagine a night of back to back eps of Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm...

Sigh. My dream world is a nice place.

My new toy

Christmas came a little early this year. Yesterday I bought a new digital camera (a present from Mom and Dad—thanks, you guys), the Canon Powershot S2 IS. It's a little fancier than your standard point and shoot, with a 12x optical zoom, image stabilization, and a variety of shooting modes, but not quite at the level (or price) of an SLR model like the EOS Rebel. I have yet to read the manual, but I was still able to take the picture you see below (Indy's War Memorial, covered in today's still-falling snow) and get it to the point where I can upload it to my blog, thereby proving I am at least as smart as a chimpanzee. Pretty, shiny, silver thingy make picture. Once I actually do open the manual, imagine the fun I'll have! Look for more original photos in this space soon as I continue to experiment.

I think we got 8 inches of snow over 3 or 4 hours, and of course the usual Midwestern chaos ensued. Everyone rushed to leave work "before the roads got bad," thereby jamming every road in town and causing thousands of commuters to be on the snowy roads much longer than they normally would. A typical 30 minute commute to the northern suburbs seemed to be taking about 2 hours. It's days like this that make me appreciate walking to work even more than usual. I didn't even mess with the grocery stores, but I assume they're running rather low in the bread and milk sections. Luckily, most of this mess will be gone tomorrow, and then everyone can stop complaining about the snow and go back to complaining about how cold it is.

It's OK. Judge a book by its cover. It keeps Chip Kidd in business.

I had a pleasant surprise today when someone at work told me that Chip Kidd would be speaking at the Herron School of Design tonight. Kidd is the name in book cover design, and as close as it gets to a professional "hero" for me. He has worked for Alfred A. Knopf Publishing for 20 years, and after designing for such diverse authors as David Sedaris, James Ellroy, Augusten Burroghs and Cormac McCarthy, you probably have at least one of his covers on your bookshelf. Being a bit of a superhero/comic freak, Kidd has also designed hardcover collections of Charles Schultz's Peanuts and DC Comics's icons, and as I learned tonight, revamped the Superman and Batman logos for DC's new line of All-Star comics. And finally, Kidd is also the author of a novel, The Cheese Monkeys, a vaguely autobiographical account of his experience in design classes at Penn State and one of the only books I've ever read where the design takes an active role in how you read the book.

Kidd's talk tonight was pretty enjoyable, especially since Indy is pretty starved for appearances by designers (or important artists of any sort). My friend Michael (who's also my boss) and I grabbed this rare chance to get our collective design nerd on, and it gave me my first chance to see the inside of Herron's new digs on IUPUI's campus. Pretty sweet, and a far cry from the old Army barracks where I began my collegiate art classes. As a speaker, Kidd was everything I expected from a well-known art director: he was witty, self-deprecating, a little nerdy, and an arrogant bastard who managed to offend most of the audience at one point or another, but still had us all laughing most of the time. He was alternately instructive and dishy about subjects like the diva-ness of certain authors (I won't name names, but she recently switched topics from vampires to Jesus), and I was happy to hear that book publishing is not all that different from magazine publishing in terms of the cause of their headaches. Despite his rock star status, Kidd is the #2 art director at Knopf and has no desire to be #1 and take on all the administrative duties and direct flak involved. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who feels that way. But most of all, I enjoyed seeing some of his current work, and I came away feeling refreshed and wanting to try new things at work. Not a bad evening.

If you'd like to learn more about Chip Kidd, Jason Santa Maria has a similar post. Only with less rambling and more information. And nicer design.

Breathtaking

My friends Nikki and Tom, being the adventuresome couple that they are (you may remember them as my hosts on our Alaskan Adventure back in August and September of '04), recently took a trip to Churchill, Canada to see polar bears in their natural habitat.

It sounds like an incredibly interesting trip, involving several days on a tundra buggy that sounds like it was like a moving camp bunk, but it led to some amazing photos by Tom. As I've mentioned before (and as anyone who's checked out the links on the right side of the page will know), Tom has his own website and is a rather accomplished nature and aerial photographer, but these polar bear photos are some of the most spectacular I've seen from him. But don't take my word for it. Take a look for yourself. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. I'm particularly in love with "Peace on Earth Vertical". While you're there, please take the time to check out some of his other albums as well.

Grab bag

Miscellany time again:

I'm trying a new downloading service: eMusic.com. To start, you get 50 free downloads, and after that, you pay a monthly fee for a certain number of downloads (for instance, $9.99 for 40 downloads per month). I've had no trouble finding things to download. So far, I've gotten a Johnny Cash track, Coldplay's first EP they ever released, the latest New Pornographers disc, and several tracks from a Daniel Johnston tribute disc by artists like Beck, Death Cab, and Bright Eyes. So far, not a bad deal, but I'm curious to see if it will be worth continuing. So far, the searching I've done turns up a lot of current music and popular albums, but not much in the way of back catalog for more established artists.

My dad turned me on to Pandora.com, a site that creates a radio station for you based on music you already like. You type in the name of an artist or song and Pandora creates a playlist of similar music and explains each selection, going so far as to break it down by tonality, beat, instrumentation, and overall feeling of the lyrics. It requires a free registration after the first 7 songs, but it seems like a pretty good system. I tried Andrew Bird, a fairly obscure violinist influenced by Radiohead that my brother Jeff got me into, and Pandora did a decent job of coming up with a playlist I really enjoyed:

"Action/Adventure," Andrew Bird
"For the Moments I Feel Faint," Relient K
"Cayman Islands," Kings of Convenience
"Road Trippin'," Red Hot Chili Peppers
"The Happy Birthday Song," Andrew Bird
"Who Will Walk in the Darkness with You," The Black Swans

I own music by all of these bands except The Black Swans, so Pandora read my tastes pretty well. But I'm curious as to why I got two Andrew Bird songs when I already told Pandora I like him. Also, this seems a little similar to the way the streaming radio on my Last.fm account works (it chooses music based on what I listen to), and I'm already pretty invested in that. But Pandora might be good if I'm traveling somewhere without my music collection or in the mood for a specific type of music.

I just finished reading Carter Beats the Devil, by Glen David Gold. It was on everybody's best-of lists back in 2001, so I'm a little behind, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the book immensely. The story follows Charles Carter (a real magician in turn-of-the-20th-century San Francisco) through a series of fictional adventures, during which he encounters many other real-life people including Harry Houdini, the Marx Brothers, and President Warren G. Harding. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.

And finally, I think this was on the Today Show this morning, but this has got to be the pinnacle of garish Christmas decorations. Can you imagine living next door to this? Honestly, I don't think any jury in the world would convict a neighbor who burned this house down. (And of course it's in a suburb of Cincinnati.)

Any wrong you do he's gonna see

I would never consider myself a fan of either email forwards or the crapfest that is Walker, Texas Ranger, but this list may be one of the funniest things I've ever read. It was the first time in my life I've actually had tears come to my eyes from laughing so hard, and to my dismay, it occurred to me that the Tall Tale has become a lost art in this day and age. Thanks to Liz for passing this on. (Little known fact: people often compare me to Chuck Norris because of the similarity in our manly beards.)



Why I'll buy the boxed set of "Walker: Texas Ranger"
1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
2. Rather than being birthed like a normal child, Chuck Norris instead decided to punch his way out of his mother's womb. Shortly thereafter he grew a beard.
3. Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
4. Chuck Norris sold his soul to the devil for his rugged good looks and unparalleled martial arts ability. Shortly after the transaction was finalized, Chuck roundhouse kicked the devil in the face and took his soul back. The devil, who appreciates irony, couldn't stay mad and admitted he should have seen it coming. They now play poker every second Wednesday of the month.
5. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
6. Chuck Norris built a time machine and went back in time to stop the JFK assassination. As Oswald shot, Chuck met all three bullets with his beard, deflecting them. JFK's head exploded out of sheer amazement.
7. Chuck Norris's girlfriend once asked him how much wood a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. He shouted, "HOW DARE YOU RHYME IN THE PRESENCE OF CHUCK NORRIS!" and ripped out her throat. Holding his girlfriend's bloody throat in his hand he bellowed, "Don't fuck with Chuck!" Two years and five months later he realized the irony of this statement and laughed so hard that everyone within a hundred-mile radius went deaf.
8. Chuck Norris smoked 15 cartons of cigarettes a day for 2 years and acquired 7 different kinds of cancer, only to rid them from his body by flexing for 30 minutes. Beat that, Lance Armstrong.
9. Chuck Norris once ate three 72-ounce steaks in one hour. And he'd spent the first 45 minutes having sex with his waitress.
10. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
11. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wise Man. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard." Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day. The other Wise Men, jealous of Jesus' obvious gift favoritism, used their combined influence to have Chuck omitted from the Bible. Shortly after, all three died of roundhouse kick related deaths.
12. If you can see Chuck Norris, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck Norris, you may be only seconds away from death.
13. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".
14. There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.
15. Filming on location for Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris brought a stillborn baby lamb back to life by giving it a prolonged beard rub. Shortly after, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the animal, breaking its neck to remind the crew once more that Chuck giveth and Chuck can taketh away.
16. Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
17. When Chuck Norris plays Oregon Trail, his family does not die from cholera or dysentery, but rather roundhouse kicks to the face. He also requires no wagon, since he carries the oxen, axles, and buffalo meat on his back. He always makes it to Oregon before you.
18. Chuck Norris frequently signs up for beginner karate classes, just so he can "accidentally" beat the shit out of little kids.
19. Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his dad did.
20. After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane."
21. One day Chuck Norris looked in the mirror and said "No one outstares Chuck!" He is still there to this day.
22. Chuck Norris won 'Jumanji' without ever saying the word. He simply beat the living shit out of everything that was thrown at him, and the game forfeit.
23. Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris
24. Chuck Norris owns neither microwave nor oven. When he is hungry, he simply shouts "BAKE" to his food, and out of fear, the food instantly catches on fire.
25. When Chuck Norris's wife burned the turkey one Thanksgiving, Chuck said, "Don't worry about it, honey," and went into his backyard. He came back five minutes later with a live turkey, ate it whole, then threw it up a few seconds later, fully cooked and with cranberry sauce.
26. Chuck Norris can eat a Rubix Cube and poop it out solved.
27. Chuck Norris doesn't understand why you should consult your doctor if your erection lasts for more than 4 hours. His erections have been known to last for up to 15 days.
28. Before each filming of Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris is injected with five times the lethal dose of elephant tranquilzer. This is, of course, to limit his strength and mobility, in an attempt to lower the fatality rate of the actors he fights.
29. When Chuck Norris has sex with a man, it is not because he is gay, but because he has run out of women.
30. Those aren't credits that roll after Walker: Texas Ranger, they are actually a list of people that Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked in the face that day.

Gone to the Movies

I'm thankful for five straight days off of work, providing some much-needed rest, a good visit from the fam, and a chance to get caught up on a bunch of stuff. While my parents and brothers were here, we went to see the Lord of the Rings Movie exhibit, which turned out to be really enjoyable. Basically, it was like watching the bonus features on the DVDs with props. Lots of costumes, weapons, and scale miniatures that were actually used in the movie, and videos in each section that explained filmmaking techniques like how they created the armor or how they composited an effects-heavy shot out of four different sets. The videos were a lot of the same info that you get on the special edition DVDs, but there was some new stuff in the exhibit I hadn't seen before. Plus, it's a completely different experience when they describe how two guys hand-glued 200,000 rings together to make the chain metal armor, and then there's samples of the chain-metal you can touch. But the coolest thing to me was the production art: throughout the exhibit, there were framed and matted sketches and watercolor studies which eventually led to what you saw onscreen. In some cases, the earliest pencil sketch was almost exactly what ended up in the movie. By the time we left, we had been there for more than two hours, and I hardly even noticed.

In between eating, shopping and watching football throughout the rest of the weekend, I watched a variety of movies. The first was Walk the Line, which I liked a lot. I didn't know much about Johnny Cash's life going in, so I didn't get hung up about what the film skipped or glossed over. Joaquin Phoenix did a pretty good job. I enjoyed the way that his voice changed during the course of the movie, so that by the end I was hearing the voice I associate with Cash. But my brother and I both came away most impressed with Reese Witherspoon. She was the driving force in the this movie, and turned in a stellar performance. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see her nominated come Oscar time.

Next was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I've read a lot of negative reviews. mostly focusing on what was left out. Well, I hate to break it to the Potter nuts out there, but there's no easy way to trim a 730-page book down to 2-1/2 hours and keep everybody's favorite parts. I felt like most of what got cut was justfied—do we really need to see Hermione's quest to liberate the house elves? My biggest objection to this movie was that it felt rushed. Despite so much being cut, the filmmakers were still trying to cram a lot into the time they had, and so they lost the ability to explain what was happening. Even having read the book, there were still a few times where I was left scratching my head wondering what just happened. Plus, I was a little disappointed in Voldemort. Note to Ralph Fiennes: in the future, a little less chewing of scenery and a little more menace exuded, please. Think Darth Vader in the original Star Wars.

Speaking of which, next I watched Episode III on DVD. It's getting less offensive each time I watch it, but I still feel like in an ideal world, the prequels would have combined Episodes I & II into one movie and fleshed the events of Episode III out into 2 films. This is another one that feels way too rushed. And I'm sorry, but Darth Vader is not Frankenstein's monster. No matter how many times I watch that movie, I'll never get past that scene. It is just completely wrong for the character.

Finally, I had Shrek 2 from Netflix. Cute, I guess. I didn't like it as much as the first one.

I may try to watch some of the Lord of the Rings movies today. After going to the exhibit, I'm excited to watch them again. Although right now, I'm more interested in watching the bonus features than the movies themselves.

Anticipation

Ever get that feeling when you're watching a TV show that they're building up to something really big? That's the way I've felt about Smallville this year (except for that idiotic episode where Lana became a vampire). Besides the big sweeps stunt of revealing James Marsters' evil master plan, there's been all kinds of portentious hints and sly references to the movies dropped this season, Lex is starting to slip into a supervillain's shoes, and Clark is slowly but surely embracing his superpowers. All of this seems to be leading to something very exciting at the end of the season. Will we finally see Tom Welling as Superman? It would make a lot of sense, since a stunt like that during May sweeps would coincide with what's likely to be a huge bout of Super-hype due to the summer release date for Bryan Singer's Superman Returns. In fact, DC and Warner Bros. already have the synergy thing going, premiering the teaser trailer for the new movie during this past week's Smallville episode. Looks like they really have tried to keep the tone of the first two Christoper Reeve films, even down to the music and using Marlon Brando's dialogue as Superman's birth father, Jor-El.

So what is in store for the show and the movie? Well, I could probably find out after 5 minutes on Google, but I think I'll just exercise restraint for once and enjoy the anticipation...

Development Hell

So Fox has done it again. From the network that couldn't figure out how to get people to watch critically acclaimed shows with cult followings like Wonderfalls and Firefly (or just didn't care), we now get the cancellation of Arrested Development. Granted, AD was given a little bit more of a chance than either of the other two shows mentioned (2-1/2 seasons for AD as opposed to a half-season between the other two), but burying the show at 8:00 on Monday night in between baseball playoff games wasn't exactly going all out to help it find an audience.

Last year, when Fox reduced the episode order of Arrested Development, the cast and writers had a little fun at the expense of the network. This year, with cancellation looming, it seems like they're taking the same tack... only this time, they're not pulling their punches. Check out David Cross's analysis of the situation. If this ever airs, there will be more bleeps than dialogue.

And before the characters are blown from our short-term memory by whatever crap Fox replaces them with, figure out which one you are.

Save some time for me

Busy, busy, busy. Between work, going to Chicago last weekend, and getting ready to host Thanksgiving, leisure time's been at a premium lately. I haven't even watched last night's extended Lost episode yet! However, I can't completely ignore pop culture. Here's what I've been occupied with lately:

Holiday movies. I feel like I've hardly seen any movies in the theater lately, mainly due to lack of interest in anything out there. I mean, I see more 50 Cent than I ever need to in the 20 minutes of MTV I watch each month. However, my moviegoing frequency is due for an upswing now that the holiday season has arrived. Harry Potter, Walk the Line, and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang are just a few of the earliest group of movies on my list. Luckily, with 5 days of Thanksgiving vacation rapidly approaching, hopefully I'll get to catch a few of what seems to be a promising crop of holiday films. And with event pictures like King Kong and The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe looming on the horizon, I have a feeling there will be plenty of reviews in my near future.

Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. OK, I admit it. I am way late to the party on this one. This is arguably the most influential comic of the last 25 years, andhere I am getting around to reading it 20 years after it was published. After hearing how great this book is for decades and reading Entertainment Weekly's recent article on the far-flung influence Watchmen has had on popular culture as a whole, I finally got around to checking the collected series out of the library. Well, I'm on board. Alan Moore is a god. It is worth every bit of hype it gets, and I haven't even finished it. Aside from setting the template for pretty much every superhero comic written since 1985, it's also a great story, and one of the first to really examine what drives a man or woman to put on a mask and risk having the crap kicked out of them every night. Much like Moore's equally excellent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, once I got around to reading Watchmen, I regretted having waited so long.

"Perfect Situation", Weezer. When I first picked up Weezer's latest, Make Believe, I was a little underwhelmed. It just seemed a little too bland and harmless. But lately, Weezer's made frequent appearances on my iPod, and it's led me to reconsider some of the hidden pleasures on the new disc. "Perfect Situation" happens to be one of them. There's something about this track that hits me the right way. And they made a great video featuring Elisha Cuthbert as the band's orginal lead singer. My only question is, what did No Doubt do to earn this not-so-subtle jab?

Star Wars Battlefront II for the XBox. And finally, the real reason my free time has been so scarce. This game managed to incorporate more strategy and depth while retaining all the "blast the stormtroopers, Ewoks, Jawas, and pretty much anything else that moves" of the original. Totally addictive.

Caaaable Guy!

It's amazing how much you can get done while waiting for the cable guy to arrive. Thanks to my DVR hard drive having an "unrecoverable write error", I've been sitting in my living room since 9:00 awaiting what will likely be a 5 minute visit. In that time, I've been able to pack for my weekend trip to Chicago, go through all my mail from the past week, pay my bills online, file a bunch of papers, clean my kitchen, carry on two email conversations, check in with work, and play a few rounds of Bionic Commando (one of the many games on the Capcom Classic Collection that I got for my birthday). Maybe I should be trapped in my apartment more often. Apparently, I'd get a lot more done.

Great. Well, at least I had a productive morning. The f@%#ing idiots at Bright House are telling me they can't get here because one street downtown is blocked off for the Veteran's Day parade. Glad I burned a vacation half-day for this. Morons.

Sex sells?

I am, and have always been, a believer in the power of suggestion. After all, it was just last night that those McDonald's ads I kept seeing during all the football I watched convinced me that I needed a greasy Quarter Pounder and some limp, lukewarm fries. No persuading that advertising works necessary here. And of course, should there be a good-looking woman connected to the product being sold, I'm a lot more likely to pay attention. I'm not proud of it, but it's an undeniable weakness of American... OK, all men, that advertisers have been preying on for years.

But sometimes, the sexy spokesmodel strategy can backfire. Case in point: if you've watched any TV in the past three months, you've likely seen Mercury's ad campaign with Jill Wagner (pictured). Now, I would probably never buy a Mercury anyway, but every time one of these commercials comes on, I am so distracted by the extreme hotness of the spokesmodel, I barely register the product. For instance, I couldn't tell you the name of a single Mercury model (likely repeated several times during the ad), yet I know Jill Wagner's name (never once mentioned in the ad). The only thing these commercials motivated me to investigate further was who she is. I cared about it enough to Google "Mercury spokesmodel" (which led me to discover that I'm not the only blogger who's suffering from this minor problem: Wez Says..., Jalopnik, and Population Statistic all feel my pain), but have absolutely no interest in checking out a single Mercury vehicle. So advertisers, here's your lesson: sex may sell, but make sure it doesn't overshadow your product. Instead of being perceived as a boring car company for old people, you'll become the boring car company with that hot girl in their commercials. Not really sure that's gonna have people flocking to the dealerships.

Lazy, lazy, lazy

Well, I wanted to post something, but I'm too tired to think. So here's a bunch of links to some humorous/quirky/cool stories, and one funny use of editing.

ABC and ESPN paid $100 million for the rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. But the big news is that they were one of five American network groups bidding for the rights. That's a huge step forward for soccer.

Wide receivers in the NFL are wearing non-traditional numbers. And ESPN.com is writing non-traditional NFL articles.

According to Chinese scientists, there's a black hole in the middle of our galaxy.

You can buy a semi-pro indoor football team on EBay. For the low, low price of $100 grand.

And finally, a video editing house in Seattle had a competition to see who could recut a movie trailer to make it seem like something it was not. This is the winner. I warned these Hollywood types once already about overusing "Solsbury Hill," and now these folks have showed how that song's power can be used in horribly wrong ways.

If you're a fan of the Adult Swim shows on Cartoon Network and you haven't heard Danger Doom's The Mouse and the Mask yet, run right out and get yourself a copy. Hi-class underground rap interspersed with bits by various Adult Swim characters. Sweet.

Truly, truly outrageously hot

Tonight was the final concert in my 17-day stretch of shows: Jem, the Welsh producer and singer who will one day be having my children.

Opener was Josh Kelley. We arrived in the middle of his set, so I can't give a full report, but his set was a little too polished for me (his band seemed to be a bunch of session players assembled by his label). He seems to have some potential, though. In his best moments, he sounded a bit like a young Billy Joel. If he ends up with half the longevity of the Piano Man, Kelley should be happy.

Sadly, Jem only played for about an hour. She's still touring in support of her first disc, Finally Woken, so she really didn't have many songs to draw from. She played most of FW as well as a new song and a cover of Coldplay's "In My Place". I stood right up against the stage and managed to have some quality eye contact going before I collapsed in a puddle of drool, because my girl is smoking hot in person. Plus, she has this cute little hip-hop thing going on when she sings (she's got the rapper's side-to-side hand motion and that little bend-at-the-knees dance down), and an accent that can even make words like "Indianapolis" sound interesting. Hopefully, the new song was an indication that she'll have a new disc out soon. She really has a terrific singing voice, although you wouldn't have know it from the sound system tonight. If I hadn't been so distracted by staring at her, I might have been really disappointed by a muddy mix. After an all-too-brief set, Jem was quickly whisked off to her bus, so I'll just have to wait until the next time she comes through town to run away to Wales with her. *sigh*

High Volt-age

Tonight was band #3 in my Four-Band Fortnight (thanks, Putz): Son Volt. For those of you who don't know the history, Jay Farrar (pictured) used to be in a band called Uncle Tupelo with a guy named Jeff Tweedy. When Uncle Tupelo broke up in the early '90s, Tweedy went on to form Wilco, and Farrar started Son Volt. Both bands have had their lineup issues through the years, but while Wilco (after one disc of roots rock) went the experimental route with their music, Son Volt stayed pretty true to the alt-country format of Uncle Tupelo. Long story short, SV basically broke up at the end of the 90's, and Farrar released several solo albums. But towards the end of 2004, he reformed Son Volt with a new lineup and recorded Okemah and the Melody of Riot, forever ensuring the band a place in the Weirdly-Named Album Hall of Fame. This album has a much tighter rock sound, and their live show reflected that.

Tonight was the first time I had been to The Vogue. They clearly need a new booking agent, because the place is a very cool old theater, and I can't believe that bands wouldn't enjoy playing there. We stood on the floor and were about 10 ft. from the stage and nearly at eye level with the bands. My only complaint is that after three concerts in non-smoking venues, I forgot how much I hate being engulfed in smoke during a show. And they opened the doors during Son Volt's set to let in some air, which managed to simultaneously put me in a tunnel of cold wind and yet not alleviate the cigarette smoke. I fuckin' reek right now, and my throat hurts. Wah.

Tonight's opener was Chicago's Fruit Bats. I have a couple of their albums, which are rather sedate acoustic affairs. Good for a certain mood, but not something I can listen too very often. But I found I liked them a lot better in concert, where it appears they have a tendency to rock out a bit more. Good stuff.

This was my second time seeing Son Volt, having previously seen them at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC way back in 1996. Can't say I remember much about that show other than they played a lot of slow acoustic songs. Tonight's show was a lot more high energy and probably did a lot more damage to my hearing. They opened with 4 straight songs from the new disc, and eventually played just about the entire album. Throughout the 100-minute show, they played songs from their entire catalog, getting the biggest response for the new songs and songs from their first disc (and my personal favorite), Trace. At one point or another, I have owned every Son Volt album, but I only recognized one song that wasn't from either Okemah or Trace. Not much in the way of stage banter from Jay & Co. (as my friend Will remarked, there was no indication they had ever met each other), just a few Thank You's and All Right's thrown in between songs. Even so, I wasn't disappointed. It was an enjoyable show, I heard everything I wanted to hear, and even got a nice surprise when they dusted off Uncle Tupelo's "Chickamauga" for the last song of the encore.

Three-part Harmony

Tonight: band #2 in my current stretch of 5 concerts in 15 days: Nickel Creek. (Actually, it's 17 days, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.) Anyway, this was my third time seeing Nickel Creek, and the first time they've been a true headliner. Openers were the Ditty Bops, who I'd seen once before on an ill-fated night when I came to hate their fans. Tonight was much better. They've really got this weird 1920's lesbian/flapper girl thing going for them, and it seems to work. Although, both times, I've come away with the impression that Tim Burton needs to use them on a soundtrack.

Then on to Nickel Creek. I've seen them in support of each of their three albums, and it's been an interesting process for me to watch them grow up with their music. Their current album, Why Should the Fire Die?, is the most mature collection of songs they've produced, and their show is beginning to show some of that maturity. NC has always been a literate band, (in the past, I've heard them cover everything from Beck to Bob Dylan to Bach) and tonight was no exception, as we heard The Band's "Cripple Creek", Kings of Leon's "Milk", and a crowd-pleasing cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic". Yes, you read that right. It's amazing what someone who can actually sing can do with that song.

And with that, I come to my point. The initial appeal of the group was that they were these three young virtuoso instrumentalists making bluegrass music beyond their years. But as they got older, (ha! they're in their 20's) their music began to change, mixing rock, pop and jazz into their repertoire. As they've experimented, they've figured out that their voices are instruments as well, and used them as such, building layers of vocals into the songs that carry just as much weight as their fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. Tonight's set leaned pretty heavily on songs from the new album, and it really allowed them to showcase how they've begun to rethink singing together. And that, to me, shows their maturation as performers more than anything else. Very, very satisfying.

Oh yeah, and Sara Watkins is still wicked hot.

If you're interested in hearing some Nickel Creek as they currently sound, check out this group of songs from Reg's Coffee House, including a cover of Radiohead's "Nice Dream" from The Bends. Again with the cover songs. (Click on the Nickel Creek photo on the right side of the site to bring up the music player.)

Jingle Jingle

Well, I suppose since department stores have had their Christmas decorations out for almost a month, I shouldn't be surprised that the holiday movie hype has already begun. Here's a new preview for one I'm really looking forward to: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (You need to have Quicktime to see this.)

Freddy acts his age

So, Freddy. You're not happy on the bench. Good for you. Welcome to the big leagues, kid. I guess when everyone's been telling you how great and special and phenomenal you are since you were five, eventually, you're going to act like a spoiled brat when you don't get your way. But here's something to consider, Fred: even if you could go play for one of your dream teams like Chelsea or Real Madrid (which you legally can't until you're 18, so just relax), you'd just be sitting on the bench in a different country. If you can't win a starting job over Ben Olsen and Christian Gomez, do you really think you're going to start ahead of Zinedine Zidane or Arjen Robben? And, yeah, maybe next year you could switch teams in MLS and start for the Metrostars or Real Salt Lake or the Colorado Rapids or the Columbus Crew, but trust me when I say you're going to miss playing for a championship team. Oh sure, you may get a few more goals and a lot more attention, but when you're surrounded by mediocre players on a team that's trying to rebuild instead of the veteran guys who started ahead of you in DC (some of whom have 4 championship rings), you'll appreciate what you had there. Even high-profile columnists like Michael Wilbon agree with you, although he's more interested in taking MLS' marketing department to task for false promises than "helping your career". But not all is lost. Despite your teenage outburst, Bruce Arena is still going to call you into National Team Camp. If you won't listen to your club coach, maybe your National Team coach can teach you the importance of being a team player.

Meanwhile, DC United has to put aside your distraction and start the MLS Playoffs tomorrow night. If Coach Nowak lets you on the field after your public airing of dirty laundry, try to put your money where your mouth is and score another goal like this. The more you do that, the more you'll get on the field. And then you won't have to cry, to the press or anybody else.

UPDATE: Good grief, kid. Do you really want the "troubled superstar" tag at age 16? Apologize already.

U2 x 2

When a band has been making music for 25 years, including 11 studio albums and what is widely considered to be one of the top five live albums of all time, they've got a pretty heady reputation to live up to. Since I've been a fan for about 19 of those 25 years, but these two shows were to be my first live experience with U2, I had very high expectations. For the first show on Sunday night, Andy and I arrived about 25 minutes before U2 came on. Our seats were in the lower bowl, about 20 rows off the floor. The stage was set up at the opposite end of the floor, but there was a large oval walkway (referred to as "the ellipse") that extended about halfway out across the floor, creating a pit area that encompassed about a hundred lucky fans and bringing various band members closer to us throughout the night. The view from our seats looked pretty similar to this. The Wachovia Center filled in pretty quickly, and by the time U2 took the stage, the place was full. But despite the packed house, the show was, I have to say, a disappointment. I don't know exactly what it was: the sound was tinny, the band seemed sort of lifeless, and the few moments of real excitement tended to come during Bono's political rants (which ran on a bit too long). They did in fact lean pretty heavily on the newer stuff, with songs from their last two albums probably accounting for 2/3 of the setlist. A few big ones were in there (Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride (In the Name of Love), With or Without You), but the hits were overcome by some odd choices (Miss Sarajevo?) that really brought the mood down. I thought it was a decent show, but was left preparing myself to be disappointed again on Monday night.

Well, I needn’t have worried. We arrived much earlier the second night, due to the fact that we had general admission floor tickets. When we arrived and had our tickets scanned, we were informed that they were randomly selecting people with floor tickets to go inside the ellipse, and Andy and I had been picked! After receiving two wristbands apiece to identify us as members of the elite, we got beers and proceeded to the floor to stake out our spot. As we made our way into the pit by passing under the ellipse framework, we realized that our position was going to give us a vantage point equivalent to seeing U2 in a tiny club. At the farthest point, we were probably 20 ft. from the stage. We took a spot towards the back of the pit, but just in front of the farthest point of the ellipse, where the night before members of the band had camped out during different songs. (This picture is good for reference: the people in the spotlight on the floor are right about where we stood.) Since we arrived early, we got to see the opening act, Bob Marley's son Damien. It was a decent set, mostly marked for me by the fact that at one point, there were no fewer than three Marley offspring onstage singing one of their dad's songs together.

By the time U2 hit the stage, the arena was again packed, but unlike the night before, the crowd was electric (although this may have had something to do with the fact that instead of being towards the back of all the shouting, I was basically standing in the epicenter where the crowd sounded thunderous). The Edge appeared onstage, followed by Larry and Adam, and then suddenly Bono passed within 6 inches of me as he was ushered to his starting position at the tip of the ellipse by a phalanx of security. From the very first song, it was clear this night was going to be different. The band seemed much more awake and energetic, and the crowd responded, which in turn fueled Bono to take his performance to another level. I lost count of how many times he turned the mic to the crowd and let us sing, and I must say, we were in fine voice. It's been a long time since I've shouted and sung myself hoarse at a concert, but as anyone who spoke to me today can attest, my voice is gone. They basically followed the same setlist from Sunday until they got to the encores, but each song seemed to have that little more on this night. The sound problems from Sunday were solved, as Bono's vocals had a lot more bass, and he tightened up his speeches and kept them short. You expect some politicking from the man, and as long as it's not at the expense of the concert's flow, it's fine.

So the show was going well, the crowd was into it, the band was feeling good, and just when no one thought things would get any better, they did. Several songs into the encore, the stage crew set up another microphone and a guitar, and from behind the stage, up pops Bruce Springsteen himself, looking, as Andy remarked, like he'd just woken up from a nap. Bruce (and wife Patty Scialfa, after some coaxing from Bono), joined the band to cover "People Get Ready," with Bono making up lines as The Edge and The Boss traded solos. And the place went completely apeshit, for lack of a better word. If U2 were trying to endear themselves even more to their fans in Philly (not something that appears necessary), they did it with this guest appearance. After a long jam, the Springsteens left and U2 finished with three more songs, leaving me about as satisfied as I could get.

Talk about a save. I went from being pretty bummed that one of my all-time favorite bands (for whom, I might add, I had paid a lot of money for tickets and flown halfway across the country) was losing it, to being ready to re-crown them as the world's greatest band, all in 24 hours. But it was also a learning experience. I discovered two things about U2 from these shows. One, as goes Bono, so goes the show. Sunday, he seemed disconnected and listless, and the show was a disappointment. Monday, he was on and loving his audience, and the show reflected it... which brings me to point two. Not surprisingly, it's the fans that really drive this band. At the risk of sounding cheesy, on Sunday night, we saw a U2 show. On Monday, we were part of the show. Watching the band feed off the energy of the audience was a pretty incredible thing. During "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," an emotional song dedicated by Bono to his deceased father, the crowd sang the line "You don't have to go it alone" back to Bono. And at that moment, you could see by the look on his face that he knew it was true.

Here's some links:
u2.com's review of Monday night
Monday's setlist
Sunday's setlist

The City of Brotherly Love meets the City of Blinding Lights

I'm off to Philly in the morning to visit my friend Andy and see back-to-back U2 concerts. This will be my first (and second) U2 shows, and I'm pretty fired up. I'm in the midst of listening to their entire catalog on shuffle, and that's only increasing my enthusiasm. I've heard they're leaning pretty heavily on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in the setlist, but throwing some older gems in there as well. And they've been changing the set from night to night, so we don't have to worry about seeing the same show twice. Should be a good time, and as always, a welcome excuse to get out of town for a few days.

Serenity Now

OK, it's an obvious headline, but gimme a break: you come up with a better one using the word "serenity". Anyway, I just got back from seeing Joss Whedon's pet project. It was entertaining, and on a Tuesday night, that's pretty much all I need. The thing I enjoyed most about this movie is that it doesn't fall into the trap of most sci-fi these days: it isn't trying to be Star Wars. It exists in its own world, and that's pretty refreshing. Granted, that world may have been a little more confusing to me if I had never seen any episodes of Firefly, the very short-lived TV show this movie was based on, but other than fleshing out the supporting cast a lot more, there wasn't a lot from Firefly that I needed for Serenity to be a good experience. In some ways, Serenity felt very much like TV (everything wrapped up pretty neatly at the end), and in some ways, a lot like it was meant to be an "event" (Joss has never been shy about maiming or killing his main characters, and this movie's no exception). And like all good sci-fi movies, it's a lot heavier on the "fi" than the "sci". I'll sum it up like this: in the 70's there were a string of mediocre, dime-a-dozen post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies which you can now sometimes find showing on Saturday afternoons (they usually feature Charlton Heston fighting humanoid apes or zombies or some such). If you've ever seen one of those movies, you have a reference point: Serenity is in the same vein, although with much better production values, special effects, and a better overall experience. So at the very least, 10 years from now it will make good Saturday afternoon viewing.

Burn, baby, burn

Been a while since I assembled a mix CD, mainly because I haven't used my car all that much lately, But after logging some driving time this weekend and realizing I'd listened to all of my mixes too many times, I decided it was time for something new, so I've been shuffling tracks all evening while doing laundry. I've had a massive influx of music lately, so it took a while to sort through everything, but it was pretty easy once I opened my Recently Played playlist in iTunes and took a look at what's been in heavy rotation lately: lots of current Brit rock, an oldie-but-goodie from Echo & the Bunnymen, the new Death Cab tracks, and Beck's most recent album that I finally gave some serious attention. The final tracklist comes down rather heavily in favor of our neighbors across the pond, led by Bloc Party with three tracks. I started the mix with "Like Eating Glass," the same track that they chose to kick off Silent Alarm. I've had this song stuck in my head for two days, and it's so damn catchy it hasn't bothered me a single bit. Here's the complete list:

Like Eating Glass, Bloc Party
Marching Bands Of Manhattan, Death Cab for Cutie
E-Pro, Beck
Bandages And Scars, Son Volt
The World Turned Upside Down, Coldplay
Picky Bugger, Elbow
Wasteland, Maxïmo Park
Forever Lost, The Magic Numbers
Set Yourself On Fire, Stars
Soul Meets Body, Death Cab for Cutie
So Here We Are, Bloc Party
The Killing Moon, Echo & The Bunnymen
I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Kaiser Chiefs
In This Home On Ice, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
My Very Best, Elbow
How You See the World No. 2, Coldplay
Girl, Beck
Someday You Will Be Loved, Death Cab for Cutie
Blue Light (Engineers' Anti-Gravity Mix), Bloc Party

Zzzzzzz...

Here's a little note I just dropped to the folks at ESPN:

Dear ESPN,

It's Sunday at 9:27 pm CDT, and I'm watching your channel for one thing: football. Please save the highlights of other sports for Sportscenter. Aside from the fact that you're running the risk of losing half of your viewership by putting them to sleep, if you must show bore-ball highlights during halftime of Sunday Night Football, put them at the end of the halftime show so that those of us who couldn't care less might use that time as a snack break and not have to worry about missing any of the good stuff: namely, the NFL highlights. When is the media finally going to realize that America's pastime's time has passed? Give me cold weather, beer commercials, and a full Sunday slate of NFL action 'til I die, but please don't interrupt to waste my time with the only sport in this country that can cure insomnia.

I'll tip my cap to baseball's memory, but enough is enough. The sport gasped its last breath when Cal Ripken hung up his spikes. The sooner everyone realizes it, the better.

Strange Brew

Watched a couple of very weird movies this weekend, with mixed results: Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. I couldn't make it through Time Bandits, and that’s led me to abandon my attempt to watch all of Gilliam’s movies. Aside from Holy Grail, I just can’t get into his mix of British humor, sci-fi, and social commentary. Taken separately, I like all of those things just fine, but his early films just don't do it for me. At least I can say I tried.

On the other hand, there’s the work of Tim Burton, in its own way just as weird, but somehow much more up my alley. Sleepy Hollow is a great movie for this pre-Halloween time of year. It’s more bloody than I remembered, but just creepy and odd enough to unsettle the viewer. And what a great cast: Besides Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, you've got Albus Dumbledore, Uncle Vernon Dursley, Emperor Palpatine, Saruman, Ed Rooney, and Mr. Bruce "More Cowbell" Dickinson himself making appearances. Some of the acting seems a little stilted, but that just serves to add to the sensation of everything in the movie being slightly off. I’ve never been disappointed when Depp and Burton get together, and this is one of my favorites.

Elbow Room

Man, I am slipping. One of my favorite Brit bands, Elbow, has had a new disc available on iTunes since September 27th, and I just discovered it today. Granted, the physical CDs won't be released in the U.S. until October 18th, so technically, I haven't really missed the release date, but the fact that I didn't even know they had something new in the pipeline worries me. Am I slipping in my old age? Luckily, I was clued in today by two things: an ad in the latest Paste magazine, and a glowing review from Frank at Chromewaves. Since he and I seem to have similar taste in music, I downloaded Leaders of the Free World right away. I haven't gotten through much yet, so the jury's still out on whether Frank's effusive praise was warranted, but so far so good. One thing I agree with right away: the Peter Gabriel influence is front and center on this disc, especially on the third track, "Picky Bugger." With a little reworking of the backing instrumentation, it would fit right in on a number of Gabriel solo albums.

Frank's Radiohead comparison also prompted me to do something I've been thinking about for a while: complete my Radiohead collection, which meant finally purchasing Kid A, Amnesiac, and the live disc, I Might Be Wrong. All three discs have some good songs, but mostly listening reminded me why I was so happy to hear Radiohead's compass point swing back towards a more traditional rock sound on Hail to the Thief. I still maintain that had Radiohead combined Kid A and Amnesiac, they could have produced one great album and had some solid B-sides left over.

Golazo! and Godzilla! (or what might as well be a scene from one of his movies)

The Kid has done it again. Freddy Adu (left) may not be the most prolific goal scorer in MLS (or even on his own team), but when he scores, he does it right. This is hands-down the best individual goal I’ve seen in MLS play since Clint Mathis dribbled 75 yards through five defenders back in 2000. Watch the move Freddy makes to free himself at the beginning of the sequence. You don’t teach that, folks.

So apparently it’s common knowledge among Washington Post staffers that the Everglades has a python problem, but it came as news to me. Check out the results when a Burmese python and an alligator duke it out for swamp supremacy. Thanks to Todd for the link.

The Washingtonian

Spent the weekend across the river from DC at my cousin Brian's wedding and visiting my friends Matt and Katie and their 10 month old son, Conor. It made me a little homesick to be back in the DC area. It really is beautiful at this time of year. Warm, but without the summer humidity. Great walking weather, and rather nice for a wedding as well, especially since the reception was held at a library along the banks of the Potomac.

But enough about all that. On to more important things. Like the fact that I got to watch my first NFL game in hi-def this weekend (and even better, the Redskins managed to pull their usual late-game choke but still won the game in OT). After just a few hours of HDTV, I've decided I gots to get me one of those things. You could see every blade of grass on the field, and the color was so real, I might as well have been sitting in FedEx Field. Fantastic.

Ticketmaster sucks

So I went to the Ticketmaster website tonight to get tickets for Jem’s latest attempt to play Indy on November 1st. (I’m hoping the third time’s a charm and she manages to perform her show instead of cancelling.) Anyway, I started pricing it out, and once Ticketmaster adds in all their fees and service charges, two $12 tickets end up costing $35. Now I’m no math whiz, but it seems to me I would basically be paying the price of a third ticket just to buy the tickets online instead of driving to the venue where there’s no service charges. Well, thanks for the "convenience" Ticketmaster, but you can bite me. Gas prices may be bad and it may be 20 minutes out of my way, but I think I’d still prefer ponying up for the drive to getting raped.

A History of Violence

Well, I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it either. I’m still trying to decide exactly what I felt overall, but my first impressions were: it was a little predictable, none of the actors blew me away (except maybe Ed Harris), and Howard Shore’s score was very disappointing. Certainly didn’t seem worthy of a standing O at Cannes, but hey, the French are the French. I definitely didn’t hate it as much as the people one row behind, who called it “the dumbest f---ing movie ever.” In fact, I didn’t feel strongly about it either way, and I think that’s what bothers me. Sure, it was a more interesting way to spend an evening than sitting around my apartment, but I feel no compulsion to see this film again. I was really hoping for a lot more.

On movie etiquette: here’s a couple of tips for when you head to the theater. Do not, I repeat, do not bring a four-year-old to an R-rated movie, even one that starts at 7:30 pm, and expect them to sit quietly. Setting aside the fact that you’re an incredibly irresponsible parent for exposing them to some very graphic violence, you can’t get upset when they ask questions like, “Why is he hurting her, Mommy?” during a sex scene. You’re not allowed get upset, but the people sitting around you sure are.

And for the love of God, if you have a persistent cough that produces enough phlegm to fill a large cup, don’t come to the movie theater and ruin the experience for everyone else. Take a night off. Cough up your lung in the privacy of your own home, take some Nyquil, and wait a few days until you’re better to go see the movie. It’ll still be there next weekend.

More music

Ahh, the library. So much free music, so little hard drive space... Made a run through the CD section on Saturday, and I was apparently in the mood for some completely different sounds, because everything I checked out ended up being either rap or jazz. Still processing a lot of it, but it made for a nice change of musical pace this weekend. Here’s what I picked up:

Atmosphere, Headshots: Seven
Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Both Sides of the Brain
Blackalicious, Nia
Lyrics Born, Same !@#$, Different Day
Latryx, The Album
Thelonious Monk, Thelonious Himself
Charles Mingus, Ken Burns Jazz
Charles Mingus, Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus (remastered)
John Scofield, Works for Me

Got passes today to a preview of Viggo Mortenson’s new flick, A History of Violence, tomorrow night. I’ll have a review later in the week. I’ve got high expectations for this one. The preview looks great, and it was very well-received at Cannes.

Desert island discs

So between all the Lost buzz and the news that someone may have discovered Atlantis, I’ve had islands on the brain this week. Being slightly music-obsessed, that got me to thinking about the age-old question, “If you could only have five albums with you on a desert island, what would you take?” Well, three of these are no-brainers for me. The other two I had to think about a little more, but not too much. Despite the fact that I’m nearing 15,000 songs in my iTunes collection (which roughly translates to 1,500 albums), I can still pretty easily pick my five most-precious discs. As a side note, it’s weird how my thinking has changed over the past two years. For a long time, I measured my music collection by how many CDs I owned. But since I’ve gone almost completely digital, now I measure in songs and gigabytes. Anyway, here’s my list:

Riverside, One
Four guys from small-town Pennsylvania get together and create the best album of British shoe-gazing mope rock that I’ve ever heard. This is, quite simply, the most beautiful rock album I own, and every time I listen to it, it puts me in a good mood. Every song follows pretty much the same pattern: textured vocals and chiming guitars, sometime with underlying strings. The tempo may change from song to song, but the quality doesn’t. This is an easy choice as my all-time favorite. Sadly, Riverside broke up in the early 90’s before making a follow-up. I’ve heard they reunited recently and may have finally recorded that next disc, but I’m afraid to listen to it. I don’t want to taint the purity of One.

The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out!
Outside of the Sesame Street Christmas Album, this is the first strong music memory I have. My dad had this record, and I remember being absolutely haunted by the opening strains of “Take Five” every time Dad would spin the disc. To this day, the opening bars with the cymbal and brushed snare give me chills, especially when the bouncy piano line comes in. Dave Brubeck made this album to experiment with different time signatures, and as I’ve gotten older, I've come to appreciate it on that level (and many others). But there’s something in these songs that just hits me in exactly the right spot, and I can’t imagine never being able to hear it again, so it’s an obvious desert island choice. Someday, when I get around to writing my will, I’m going to ask that “Take Five’ is played at my funeral. After the bagpiper’s done playing “Amazing Grace,’ that is.

The Beatles, Revolver
It’s impossible to imagine being stranded without the Fab Four. The only way to improve this selection is if I could make it a double album by adding Rubber Soul. Fantastic songs straight through, with lots of different moods. “Taxman.” “Eleanor Rigby.” “Yellow Submarine.” “Good Day Sunshine.” Just the thing for when “I’m Only Sleeping” the day away on a deserted beach.

John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra, Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace Soundtrack
Sometimes when I go for a long run, I load my iPod Shuffle with nothing but this album, because I know I’m guaranteed at least 6 or 7 adrenaline rushes during the course of my run. Far and away the best part of this movie, this soundtrack is the pinnacle of John Williams’ work for me. He takes 20-year-old themes that are some of the best-known pieces of music in the world and manages to make them sound fresh and new. The introduction of choral passages makes for some pretty powerful music, but the ultimate geek moment for me is the self-referential introduction of a few bars of “The Imperial March” at the end of “Anakin’s Theme,” an ominous musical hint of what’s to come at the end of a light and airy piece of music. Every time I listen, I hear something new. And that, to me, is the mark of a masterpiece.

Fountains of Wayne, Utopia Parkway
And we’ll close with some power pop. I suppose I would say FoW are my favorite band, and this album has it all: upbeat rockers, power ballads, love, loss, and snarky, self-deprecating lyrics. But best of all, it's a concept album about growing up in New Jersey. Chris Collingwood and Adam Schlesinger lyrically create a perfect snapshot of summers during high school. It’s impossible for me to hear “It Must Be Summer” or “Prom Theme” and not instantly be taken back to my last days of freedom before heading off to college. And if I’m going to be stuck in a moment of my life on a desert island, there are worse times I could think of.

What came very close to making the list:
AC/DC, Back in Black.
Guns N’ Roses, Appetite for Destruction.
The Connells, Ring.