A Drinking Song

Mr. Middlebrow, Esq. or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Pass the Bar

2011-04-20T21:29:00.012-04:00

Hello, Internet. Yeah, it's been a while. Not much, how 'bout you?

So, for those scoring along at home in their lucky souvenir programs, I sat for my state's Bar Exam on July 27 and 28, 2010.

True to the predictions of Snag and some others who went before me, I came out of the exam absolutely certain that I had failed. In particular, my performance on the second day, the Multistate Bar Exam (MBE), felt so abysmal that I was ready to book a room at the Ramada Inn where I stayed; I was that sure I would be coming back to retest in February. But, I'm pleased to report that (again, as Snag had forseen) I passed. I was admitted to the State Bar in late August.

So now I'm a bona fide esquire. Given the dismal employment picture, I've decided to hang out my shingle; I've even got a TV commercial:

My current job, while not perfect, meets the minimum criteria that I established for myself when I graduated: it doesn't involve me asking, "would you like that with regular or skim milk?"

Actually, I've been working as a part-time clerk and sometime associate--a "clerksoicate," if you will (which makes me the legal equivalent of Dr. Tobias Fünke's "Analrapist"?) for a solo lawyer whose practice consists mostly of bankruptcy and insurance subrogation debt recovery. On the one hand, it's not exactly the kind of law I'm interested in practicing; on the other hand, it meets the minimum employment criteria that I established for myself when I graduated. Namely, it doesn't involve me using the phrase "would you like that with regular or skim milk?" In other words, it's a real lawyer job. Mostly. And, along with showing me the basics of civil procedure and litigation, he's been helping me get my own practice going. Which means that, in between filing (and occasionally arguing) motions, I'm networking and generally doing what I can to scare up copyright and trademark clients.

My plan now is to get an IP blog going and establish myself as a go-to source for innovators--start-ups, small businesses, and artists--who have IP issues. I suspect half the battle is making them aware that they have issues in the first place. In any case, any and all referrals and leads are welcome and appreciated.

What this means for the future of this blog is uncertain. It's always been a struggle to maintain it and the advent of Facebook and Twitter has removed even more of the incentive to keep it up. I do hope regular readers of A Drinking Song will check out my new digs as they come online. Also, please friend and/or follow me if you're so inclined. I'm also on LinkedIn, though I haven't found that to be of much use, either for networking or entertainment/goofing off.

No Longer a Law Student; Not Yet a Lawyer.

2010-06-23T15:17:00.011-04:00

It's official: on May 9, 2010, I graduated from law school. Three years come and gone without so much as a By Your Leave, or so it seems. For about two weeks, which felt more like 48 hours, I luxuriated in a nice little buzz of accomplishment, soaking up all the congratulations and well-wishes from classmates, professors, friends, and family.

Gradually, though, it began to dawn on me that, however significant and worthy of celebration earning a J.D. might be, until I’m licensed to practice law it’s really just a very expensive wall-hanging. In other words, my little good-job glow very quickly gave way to the startling realization that I have to take and pass the bar exam. And to do that, I have to study. There are, I have heard it rumored, people who start working full time after graduation and study for the bar in their “spare time.” These are likely the same people who would say of crucifixion that it’s a dawdle; at least it gets you out in the open air. They’re either legal savants who sailed through their law school classes and exams with nary a care about the difference between reses ipsa and judicata, or they’re severely deluded. I, however, fall into neither of those categories. Which means that I have entered that dreaded fugue state known as bar prep.

My first thought was, "This is all so straightforward and clear. Why didn’t our professors teach it this way?"

At present, there are basically two brands of bar-prep course to choose from, Kaplan/PMBR or BarBri. Apparently, this is a relatively recent expansion of the competitive field, at least where state-specific content is concerned. I signed up for the Kaplan course, not least because it was several hundred dollars cheaper than the more established (read: former monopolist) BarBri, but also because, if my time in the ad game taught me nothing else, I know desperation when I smell it. See, e.g., the BarBri posters sporting a giant Guinea pig or the dire warnings about no one ever having passed the NC bar using the Kaplan course. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt much?

When I began my course, which consists of a three-hour lecture each morning, followed by an afternoon of practice questions and review—my first thought was something like This is all so straightforward and clear. Why didn’t our professors teach these subjects—torts, property, and especially constitutional law—this way? Why didn’t they just lay out the various rules and tests and elements and principles of law from a nice, succinct outline? But the reality is, without the three years (or at least the first year) of Socratic method applied to a vast body of case law, I wouldn’t have the first clue about what lecturers are saying. For the big topics, they condense a semester’s worth of material into about 12 hours of lecture and a 40- to 50-page outline. But the only way this works as a teaching and test-prep method is if the student knows the shorthand lingo. Law school might not prepare you to practice law, but it definitely trains you in the peculiar patois of the profession, so much so that you aren’t even aware of your fluency. Before law school, I didn’t know strict scrutiny from Shine-ola. But now, I can quote Cardozo and balance equities with the best of them.

The problem is that, while the presentation of the information is relatively straightforward, the volume of substantive, black-letter law being presented is truly staggering. Ultimately, this just reinforces an idea that I started to appreciate around the end of my first-year summer: law school and, I suspect, law practice are really less about substance than it is about process. It’s not about what you know, but do know where and how to find out, and do you know what to do with it once you find it? But what’s occurred to me now is that in bar-prep land, substance--and how much of it you can take in, process, and recall--is the process. In purely practical terms, three years of law school is the mental equivalent of prepping for one of those competitive-eating contests; bar prep is simply an exercise in seeing how many intellectual Vienna sausages I can stuff into my cranium between now and the end of July. Waiter, set me up with another plate of 33 MBEs.

Right Now, We're Just Using "Junior"

2009-12-02T19:29:00.006-05:00

As many of you know, my wife and I have been anticipating the birth of our second child, whom various reliable authorities—including an ultrasound—had led us to believe would be a girl, and whom our son, (a.k.a. the man-cub) had given the pre-natal sobriquet “Pinkie Snickerdoodle.” He was very excited at the prospects of having a baby sister, and we had invested considerable (read: all) our brainstorming into girl’s names. Well, Pinkie was born Friday morning, November 13, 2009, at 8:19 a.m. in the bathroom of our palatial student-housing apartment, attended by yours truly, guided via cellphone by the inbound midwife who arrived around 8:25. Truly, it was like Cyrano de Bergerac meets Airport ’75.

"Salt Lake, something hit us.
There's no one left to fly the plane. Help us!"

The baby was and is perfect: ten fingers, ten toes and—wait for it—one penis. HELL-oh!. Yes, “Pinkie” is a beautiful, nine-and-a-half-pound, twenty-one-inch-long boy-child, much to his older brother’s consternation. Beyond the loss of the lone condition under which he was willing to accept siblinghood, we’re left in a bit of quandary: we had a great short list of girl’s names and had even settled on one we really liked. But we never gave any thought at all to what we’d name a boy. Not that it’s not big problem, all things considered. Friday the 13th will now and for all time be the day I had the extraordinary, once-in-a-lifetime good fortune to catch my child at the moment he came into the world.

Over the last few weeks, whenever I’ve told this story, the assumption, almost to a person, is that labor came on so fast that we didn’t even have time to get to the hospital. When I explain that we’d actually planned to have the baby at home, the reaction turns to some variation on bemusement and suspicion: Oh, you’re one of those couples. If by that you mean people who don’t take as gospel every bit of wisdom and insight that comes from somebody with an M.D. after his name, then, yes, that’s who we are.

Pretty much since the day after our first son was born (in a hospital, attended by a truly excellent and extremely supportive OB) my wife has vowed, if only to herself, that if she had it to over again, she’d have a home birth, attended by a midwife. About halfway into this pregnancy, she showed me “The Business of Being Born,” produced by and featuring Riki Lake. Yes, that Riki Lake. The film really throws back the curtain on the myth that has grown out of the “modern” approach to child-birth, namely, that the only responsible choice is to march in lockstep with the conventional wisdom and have your baby in a hospital, with an epidural, pictosin, if not an “emergency” C-section.

The movie presents some pretty alarming statistics about the kinds of problems that have grown out of this uniquely American concept of birth as some kind of medical malady requiring lots of high-tech expertise and intervention rather than a natural process that works out best for the mother and the baby when facilitated by a midwife in comfortable, familiar surroundings. After watching it, and weighing all the other factors, I was on board with the idea of a home birth. Now that I’ve actually gone through it, much more first-hand than I ever would have expected, I’m actually a zealous convert to the belief that babies, absent some kind of extenuating circumstances, should be born at home. Or more correctly, wherever and however mothers are the most comfortable giving birth.

This is not to sell short the role and the value of OBs, “birth centers” and the expensive machines that go "bing!" when employed under the appropriate circumstances. I’m not dissing women who go this route, and neither, do I think, is the TBoBB, despite a lot of criticism that's been leveled at the film. What I find the most troubling—what the movie pointed out, and our experiences validated—was how irretrievably mainstream this attitude has become, such that now, anyone who questions it is branded as fringe or heretical: “Who dares to challenge the great and powerful OB?!” Granted, as an episode of Mad Men all too aptly demonstrated, the hospital births of today have come a long way from what it was when I was born. But I still think there’s a serious, polar imbalance in play there. Especially when mothers and fathers don’t exercise the same degree of conscientious inquiry about the birth of their children as they do in deciding which kind of TV to buy.

Having been there and done that both ways--in the hospital and at home--I'm here to tell you the latter is so vastly superior. Consider this comparison of our experiences between the first birth and this one: Labor started about the same time--around 6:00 in the morning, maybe earlier the first time, but she didn’t deliver until almost 4:00 in the afternoon, after something like four hours of pushing. (This is where I have to credit our OB with really advocating on our behalf by letting my wife push and not pressuring her into a C-section.) Truly, the day was like a siege; so much so that I was kind of dreading this birth. This time around, though, it was maybe two hours from first contractions to cutting the cord. In my wife’s estimation the difference this time, aside from the general tendency for second/subsequent children to come quicker, was that there was no hopping into the car and driving to the hospital, being admitted, etc.—while she was in transition—to put the brakes on labor. She also was able to birth in a way that was much more, well, instinctual. And I guess that's my point. I'm not trying to tell anybody how they should have their baby. I'm just saying that it's worthwhile to recognize the range of options and consider which ones really will be the best for you and your baby.

I have a very good feeling about this...

2009-10-15T21:34:00.003-04:00

So, have you heard about the brainchild of Casey Pugh, a.k.a. The Chosen One? It's something called Star Wars: Uncut, wherein fans of the original Star Wars choose and remake up to three :15 segments of the 1977 classic. Here's the trailer:

How apt that the subtitle of Star Wars: Episode IV is “A New Hope.” A big ol’ digital quilting bee like this is exactly the way we shall realize the full promise and potential of the Internet. Lawrence Lessig has foreseen it:

Search your feelings; you know it to be true. This will restore balance to the universe, return us to the days of democratized content creation, where there was a lot less difference between those who make art and those who consume it. Things will be like they were—before the dark times, before the Empire.

Fortunately, I understand that, while Lucas has legions of underlings whose sole job is to maintain continuity among all the various narrative threads of the Galaxy Far, Far Away, he’s also said to be pretty tolerant of the fan creations his works inspire. In any case, this is really more parody than unauthorized derivative work; as such it would probably be easier to assert a fair-use defense. On the other hand, if it turned out that Lucas were to prevail in an infringement action, the statutory damages would be, well, more than you could imagine.

Open Daily until 11?

2009-08-05T12:29:00.006-04:00

There’s something about this image that just makes me smile. Of course, it also makes the future IP lawyer in me cringe a little, but, on the other hand, it’s got just the right amount of rock-and-roll, bird-flipping attitude that any self-respecting axe purveyor needs to establish its street cred. And really, as long as they’re not hawking counterfeit Strats, I can’t imagine Fender would get too up in arms over (what I assume is) the unauthorized use of its trade dress. Even if they did, I think the shop would have a good shot at mounting a nominative fair use defense. On a related note, do you suppose Christopher Guest would consider his copyright infringed if they actually made each of the dials go to 11?.

The only downside I can see: you get the full effect only when the place is closed.

A Paternal Level of Zen to Which We Might Aspire

2009-06-21T20:50:00.004-04:00

Or, "Songs I Never Hated, Volume II: Father's Day Edition."

SSN#: ____-____-_____

When the sun comes up and you stare your cup of coffee, yup,

Right through the kitchen floor

And you feel like hell, so you might as well

Get out and sell your smart ass door-to-door.

And the missus wears her robe slightly undone

As your daughter dumps her oatmeal on your son

And you keep it hid

Just like your dad did

So you go to work just to watch some jerk

pick the perks you were in line to get

And the guy who hired you just got fired

And your job’s expired, they just ain’t told you yet

So you go and buy a brand-new set of wheels

Just to show your family just how great you feel

Actin’ like a kid

Just like your dad did

(Bridge)

And you’re a chip offa the old block

Why does it come as such a shock

That every road over which you walk

Your dad already did?

Yeah, you’ve seen the old man’s ghost

Come back as creamed, chipped beef on toast

Now if you don’t get your slice of the roast

You’re gonna flip your lid

Just like your dad did

Well the day was long, now supper’s on

The trill is gone and something’s takin’ place

And the food is cold, the wife feels old

and all hands fold as the two-year-old says grace:

She says, “Help the starving children to get well

But let my brother’s hamster burn in hell!”

You love your wife and kids

Just like your dad did

Boldly Going Where Many Have Gone Before

2009-06-04T22:33:00.003-04:00

So, I finally caught the new Star Trek. The word that comes to mind to describe it—the thing that really makes it work—is verve. And verve covers a multitude of sins. In fact, on some levels, this the most satisfying interpretation of the well-traveled Trekkie mythology. JJ Abrams has managed to bring a freshness and a vitality to the proceedings that no other of the Enterprise’s many creative captains has been able to match.

At the outset, I should make it clear that I’m no fanboy. I’m a moderately geeky sci-fi consumer generally, with a slightly higher than average interest in and knowledge about Star Trek. As a kid, the original series was part of the regular weekday afternoon menu (bereft of much nutritive value) that included The Brady Bunch, The Partridge Family and Gilligan’s Island. I’m definitely not one of those people who got all exorcised about the “reimagining” of Battlestar Galactica. Starbuck’s a woman? Fine. Boomer’s a Cylon? Whatevs. As long as it makes for good storytelling, I’m on board; there are no sacred cows in my entertainment universe. I just want to be engaged and entertained with intelligence and wit. In that regard, Firefly was pretty nearly perfect, and, thus, doomed to fail.

To me, the Star Trek franchise peaked with The Next Generation and got less relevant/more cheesy with each subsequent iteration. One unintended consequence of this latest installment is that it renders all Star Treks almost unwatchably dorky, no matter how much Shakespearean thea-tuh credibility Patrick Stewart brought to the bridge. I think, though, that’s as much a function of timing and evolution—for its time, TNG was not only a great improvement on the original but a really strong sci-fi series in its own right. One thing that really drew me to the latter-day Battlestar Galactica was how deliberately un-sci-fi it was. But it also had the benefit of being higher up the evolutionary ladder in terms of creative and audience sophistication. So to give credit where it’s due, one big reason Abrams’ Star Trek works so well is that some of that BSG attitude—including a premium on plausibility that underlies other recent “reboots” from Bond to Batman—has rubbed off on it. Given how Abrams really made his bones reinventing the 1-hour TV action/drama, I’d love to see what he could have done with Enterprise. Talk about promise squandered right out of the gate.

I read somewhere how Abrams fretted over not alienating die-hard fans while not scaring away the (non-costumed members of the) mainstream audience. Happily, there’s no genuflecting to orthodoxy here. Abrams very shrewdly jettisoned most everything unnecessary, though he retained some fun atmospheric touches—the little ping-pew-ee-oo sonar on the bridge, a hover-cycle that sounds for all the world like George Jetson’s car, and a sick-bay nurse rocking a mini-skirt smock—as a comforting nod to nostalgia. Abrams succeeds by according the Star Trek myth just enough deference to function as setup for some pretty hilarious in-jokes. The film’s buoyant charm and winking humor even won over my wife—quite possibly the galaxy’s biggest sci-fi anti-fan—whom I’d dragged along almost caveman-style, but who emerged from the theatre gushing about it. I thought I’d gone through a worm-hole, let me tell you.

A few things don’t work—Scotty’s inadvertent beaming into the giant tube of otherwise harmless water was by turns reminiscent of Willy Wonka and Galaxy Quest. Never a good sign when your references point to a parody instead of the original thing. And the Delta-Vega monster chase/dénouement was rather baldly “Obi-wan scares the Sand People out of the Hoth Snow Cave.” Also, the time-travel crutch has become tiresome, but who can expect a guy like Abrams to leave that alone? In other words, none of these is a deal-breaker, given how irresistible and enjoyable the whole experience is. It’s as if Abrahams said to the writers and actors, “I need more fun!” And they all answered back, “Captain, we’re givin’ ‘er all she’s got!” Mr. Sulu, ahead, verve factor nine. Engage.

Songs I Never Hated, Part I

2009-06-02T22:31:00.001-04:00

If it's good enough for Snag...

A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Gauze

2009-04-24T22:01:00.006-04:00

Something quick and dirty to mollify Bet. As Barry Levinson said to Mel Brooks in High Anxiety: "Happy now?!"

This mix brought to you by the Fender Telecaster, official twang provider of A Drinking Song.

Shortest song in your collection—comb through iTunes and find the shortest song in there.

Penis Song – Monty Python

Not to be a size queen, but so far my “shortest song” (at 43 seconds) is the second longest of all the other mixers. I feel I should point out that this is not the shortest song I own, but it's the best piece of musical brevity for starting a mix. Call me a pragmatist, but I think the quality of the mix has to trump the strict consturciton of the category description.

Color my world: song that has a color in the title—no blue. It’s too obvious.

Little Green Bag – George Baker

Good song from a rotten movie—thanks to Duke for this one.

Super Duper Love (Are You Diggin’ On Me?) – Joss Stone, from Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Sincerest form of flattery — Song that steals (or borrows, if you prefer that terminology) from another song

Stare it Cold – The Black Crowes

Pretty much any song from the Crowes could be considered a knock-off any song from the Faces’ “Ooh La La” LP; in particular, though, I was thinking of Silicone Grown. It’s interesting to me how others interpreted "steals/borrows" and picked song that sampled another.

I have to ask my fellow-mixers: do you consider sampling “stealing?”

Me, I went with more of a “stealing” in a copyright infringement, My Sweet Lord/He’s So Fine sense. Or more topically, Coldplay vs. Joe Satriani

Song about a character you don’t like—this one is from Bet: any song that is about someone who is a jerk, or obnoxious, or violent, or has some other quality you don’t like.

She’s No Lady – Lyle Lovett

Family Act: Song performed by artists who are related—brothers, sisters, husband & wife, etc.

Keep on Walking – Spanic Boys

Astute pop-culture historians might recognize father Tom and son Ian Spanic from their 15 minutes of national fame gained standing in on Saturday Night Live when Sinead O’Connor refused share the stage with host Andrew Dice Clay. Does liking them make me a misogynist?

Song about sex—I don’t think this needs any explanation. If you’re not sure, ask Mike.

Be My Girl, Sally – The Police

The more of these mixes I do, the more I’m convinced that Sting’s biggest creative misstep was going solo. The Police rocked so much harder, and clearly didn’t take themselves too seriously, and for the most part, early on at least, managed to avoid self-indulgent, pseudo-intellectual wankery. They were a helluva lot more fun to listen to.

Department of Redundancy Department—song with repetition in the title

Hold On, Hold On – Neko Case

“I leave the party at 3 a.m., alone, thank God . . .” Need I mention that I loves, loves, loves me some Neko?

Song about the time of day—can be a specific time, or a general time like morning or nightfall.

12:51 – The Strokes

A song that “takes you back.” This could be either a song from your childhood or whatever, or it could be something recent that makes you think of days gone by.

Bottle of Wine – Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs

The video has the added takes-me-back effect of authentic, late-60s wow and flutter. This is of the same vintage, at least in my memory, of Henson Cargil's Skip a Rope, In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans (which I might have used for track 9, if I owned it), One by Three Dog Night, and So Happy Together by The Turtles .

The funny/sad thing about music in the post-Napster age is that the visceral sense memory you associate with a particular song--that way it takes you right to a particular moment--is dissipated by the easy availability and over-use in beer and cell-phone commercials.

Spoken word—a non-song! Any spoken word piece—a comedy bit, short story, whatever. These can sometimes be pretty long, so beware.

A Little More Gauze – Mike Nichols & Elaine May

Alternate version—a demo, acoustic, live, or alternate take. Bonus points if it’s an alternate version of a song you’ve used before (no covers, though)

A Little Less Conversation (JXL Remix) – Elvis Presley

SAT vocab song—Song whose lyrics include a fancy two-dollar word.

Vitriol – Bluejuice

Epic—Song that would make a good feature-length film

Trudy and Dave – John Hiatt

Ironically, the song I'd most like to make a movie out of is not available as a video. Maybe it's a sign... As any John Hiatt fan will tell you, he's a stellar songwriter--and storyteller--not least because he really understands character development and "show, don't tell." To wit:

"Well, Davy lit a match to a Lucky Strike

and the smoke curled up 'round his head how he liked

made him feel a little mysterious, 'til Trudy said,

"David, honey, what about us?"

So he thought about them, and those shots ringin' out

and other things he shouldn't be thinkin' about

Like how it wasn't them at all, just life that was mean

And how a twenty-dollar pistol made him feel so clean..."

This song, more than most of his, is especially cinematic because it (probably by design) uses character motivation to build tension over narrative arc that finishes with a fun little twist.

Nonsense—Song containing gibberish

Doop-doo-dee-oop – Blossom Dearie

Song about first love—self-explanatory

Fat Bottom Girls – Queen

The improbability of Freddie Mercury's affection for the ladies--lardy or otherwise--notwithstanding, he really sells it in this vocal performance (though not so much in the video: patent-leather pants, suspenders, and no shirt. Really?) Oh, and Brian May's guitar is simply a force of nature. Hearing this song makes me want to start a band in my folks' garage.

Kick-ass cover song—the old standby

Time Won’t Let Me – The Plimsouls

Song you wish you had sung backup on.

Loves me like a Rock – Paul Simon

Carving out an exception to my own "no superlatives" rule, this really is my absolute, all-time favorite song to sing backup with. In fact, I only ever sing along the backup parts. Dirty little secret: I’ve used it on a previous mix, but after the Never Say Never incident, I figured no one will be the wiser the wiser. Heh.

Amnesty song—as in past mixes, any song you wanted to use (in this or any past mix) but couldn’t find a place for.

Sweet Sweet Baby (I’m Falling) – Lone Justice

Two-fer amnesty qualification: repetition + wanna-be backup singer

Revelation from this mix: My love for Neko Case has deep roots in my love for Maria McKee. To say more would fall under “if I have to explain it, you won’t understand.”

Greatest song ever written, period.

Moon – Fossil

Maybe not the greatest song, when considered in a vacuum, but the best fit for this mix. Cole Porter can suck it. Actually, I'm pretty much in the "Way You Look Tonight" camp, but I couldn't put my hands on a copy in time. And, I'm a firm adherent to the Totality-of-Circumstances approach to mixes. See also Track 1, supra. Law school will do that to you.

Trapped near the Inner Circle of Thought

2009-04-17T10:28:00.004-04:00

With two weeks of exams coming up, I'm having to pencil in bathroom breaks, so posting will be minimal.* I'll try to get a basic track listing up for The Penultimate Mix soon. In the meantime, please enjoy this little bit o' vitriol... (My "SAT vocab. song.")

*Not that it's been much of a going concern anyway.

Our Germans are better than their Germans

2009-02-02T21:42:00.004-05:00

All the hype around the new Audi spot got me thinking. They must really be banking on the evanescence of the average viewer’s pop-culture memory.

It strikes me as a bit of a strategic misfire to try beating up on their competitors’ brand images, especially BMW.* Especially given that Jason Statham drove a BMW 7-series in “The Transporter.” Moreover, that film, fun as it was, played like an extended version of one of the BMW “Hire” films, with Statham taking over the role of taciturn Brit from Clive Owen.

In my opinion, BMW did a much better job at establishing and maintaining its authenticity and credibility as a high-performance marque. Without a doubt, BMW was inspired by John Frankenheimer’s “Ronin,” which featured a jaw-dropping chase scene with—wait for it—an Audi A8. Indeed, Frankenheimer went on to direct the first installment of The Hire, “Ambush.”

My personal favorite of the Hire films, “Star,” was directed by Guy Ritchie, who was by then kind of a big deal for having made “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” notable for many reasons, not the least of which was introducing the world to a bald, beefy British badass named . . . Jason Statham.

Instead of trying to convince me that a new Audi is better than a 20-year-old Bimmer or a 30-year-old Benz (which only makes me wonder what’s the German word for “duh”?) Audi would be much better served by playing to its strengths: all-wheel drive innovation, racing and rallying heritage, etc. They won Le Mans a few years back—in a diesel. That might not mean much to the average Super Bowl viewer, but at least it's a story--their story--and not some lame retread of something BMW did better almost a decade ago.

*Full disclosure: I am a lifelong BMW fan, former owner of a Euro-spec 1979 323i and a 1970 2002, and future owner of a cherry Atlanikblau 1972 3.0CS, which is what I would get were I in a position to choose among the latest offerings from Munich, Ingolstadt, or Stuttgart. Plus, I’d have enough left over for a parts car, a 2002 project, an E3 sedan and an ‘80s vintage 535is--like the red one in the Audi spot--for daily flogging.

Oh, Happy Day...

2009-01-22T08:44:00.002-05:00

Some thoughts on the Inauguration...

Dick Cheney in a wheelchair = Old Man Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. Pure, unrepentant evil on wheels, right up until the very last. If only there were a way to sub in Cheney for the SNL "Lost Ending" version.

Joe Biden will be the administration’s go-to guy for (occasionally unintentional) comic relief. See, e.g., him snapping digi pics just as the Navy chorus is starting the National Anthem. I say this will total affection; he’s like the country’s funny, eccentric old uncle. Looking forward to lots of laughs with uncle joe.

Warren’s invocation was lame—beyond the help of even Jesus. All false piety and neo-evangelical (a.k.a. hipster Christian) bluster. Obama’s only real misstep so far. It was totally redeemed by Rev. Lowery’s awesome benediction, though. Getting two million people to offer up an Amen! is what it’s all about.

The speech itself.
Some people have a way with words; others, well, not have way, I guess.
Took me back to Stephen Colbert’s address to the National Press Club; loved how pointedly he basically, but eloquently, said, “What these jokers here have been doing the last eight years, yeah, we’re not doing that anymore.” Science, justice, engagement, inclusion.

Chief Justice Roberts is a bit of a tool.

Was Scalia rocking a Kangol? I wish more men today wore hats—and NOT baseball caps.

Everything is showbiz.
I loved the Simple Gifts airs. For me, Aaron Copland is the de facto composer of the American Soundtrack, even more so than Souza. I liked the idea of a simple, four-part arrangement, (including a clarinet seemed like a nice nod to Gershwin). But something about it—maybe just the fact that we had to hear that it was a special arrangement BY John Williams—seemed counter to the humble themes of the work itself. Also, Yo Yo Ma looked really cold; I wondered if playing in 17-degree weather improves your vibrato . . .

Listen to the children while they play

2008-12-05T23:12:00.009-05:00

It's CD Mix Challenge 8! Enjoy...

1. Title track: Any song that is also the title of the album from whence it came, such as “Piano Man” from the album Piano Man.

"The Globe," Big Audio Dynamite II

2. I Command You A song title which is a command in the grammatical sense, such as “Don’t Stop” or “Please Please Me.”

"Skip a Rope"- Henson Cargill

I have intensely visceral memories of this song from childhood, not so much of the subject matter, but the actual 45s that my dad had, which included “In the year 2525” by Zager & Evans, and “Bottle of Wine” by Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs—right down to the little yellow spindle adapter thingies.

3. Human Anatomy 101 A song about a part of the body, whether it’s the eyes, the heart, or the toe. Any part of the body at all.

"Black Tongue," Yeah Yeah Yeahs

4. Song about waiting Self-explanatory, surely.

"I’ve Been Waiting," Matthew Sweet

Love the jangling, Byrds-esque guitar here.

5. Novelty song:

"eBay," Weird Al Yankovic

Growing up, we had a couple of K-Tel compilations (Goofy Greats et al.) on 8-track, which provided a steady diet of Ray Stevens and Nervous Norvis. I went a little more new-school this time, not least because I’m right out of 8-track players. BTW: the future copyright lawyer in me isn’t convinced this song qualifies as a parody under Campbell v. Acuff-Rose. Though, if pressed, I could come up with a decent rationale why it might be. I can promise you that, it's most certainly not a market substitute for the original. Then again, the future copyright lawyer in me should be thinking of a good rationale—fair use or otherwise—for these little enterprises.

6. Great song on a shit album Again, that’s obvious enough. A song you like from an album you don’t.

"The Way," Fastball (All the Pain Money Can Buy)

Not really a shit album, just one I never listened to except for this song. Then again, maybe this song isn’t really “great,” so it kind of evens out. From that post-vinyl/pre-iTunes no-man’s land we call the 90s

7. Song from 2008 Yes, it’s time for you people to get current again. Any song that was released this year.

"Antarctica," The Weepies

Pretty much the only music from 2008 that I have. Thanks to Stennie for turning me on to them.

8. Song about school:

"Playground," XTC

Reminds me of high school, as it should, and not in a good way. Especially “Some sweet girl playing my life runs off with a boy whose bike she’ll ride . . .” Seems like there was a preponderance of songs about British schools and how awful they are.

9. This & That A song with a title using the conjunction “and” . . .

"Bulldozers and Dirt," Drive-By Truckers

Sometimes the simplest, most elemental pleasures in life are the most sublimeI love the slow accretion of production elements, as if the song were an ever-enlarging sonic stalactite. It’s the lesser known inbred cousin of Phil Spector’s signature, The “Mound o’ Sound.” Also, the vocal harmonies call to mind a bunch of ‘coon hounds baying on a big-ass front porch of an old farmhouse

10. Dedication: dedicate a song on your mix to someone!

"The Look of Love," Dusty Springfield

Dusty’s voice like a satin teddy slipping off an alabaster shoulder, the strings unabashed in their urgent yearnings, and that sax. Good god, y’all. If there’s more artfully rendered ode to the physical act of love, I can’t begin to imagine what it would be, Mandrake. Dedicated, of course, to The Mother of The Man Cub (who must never be referred to as ‘Mrs. Middlebrow’). Track 16 is dedicated to the both of them.

11. Favorite song from the year you graduated high school.

"Never Say Never," Romeo Void

Wasn’t sure if this should this be favorite at the time, or favorite from that year now either way, it’s a bit of a cheat: the song came out in ’82, but I didn’t discover it until ’84 (in the movie Reckless) so I figured I could split the difference. This really captures the essence of what (I’d like to believe ) the early 80s were about musically.

12. Song you are most surprised to discover in your CD/MP3 collection. Alternate category name: “That’s not mine, officer.”

"More Than a Woman," Bee Gees

What surprised me was that I didn’t stop it or FF to the next thing. It was the Bee Gees—and I liked it! And why not, what with the Fender Rhodes tinkling like ice cubes in a tall glass of sweet tea. Very sweet tea. If I’m dedicating the mix to the MotMC, I might as well include a song that owes its presence in my iTunes to her: she or her mother bought the Bee Gees’ 2-CD best-of set and ripped it into my iTunes so they could each have a copy. So, really, this could have been any Bee Gees classic.

Had I chosen using Stennie’s criteria (musical kryptonite), you would all have been subjected to "The Wind Beneath My Wings," by Bette Midler (shudder), the mere thought of which makes me want to jam an icepick into each ear. It got into my iTunes because I was helping a former client, unschooled in the ways of the Interwebs, who wanted to make a mix CD for her daughter who was headed off to college. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. Reminds me of the guy in High Fidelity who came into the shop to buy “I Just Called to Say I Love You” for his daughter. “Oh, is she in a coma?”

13. Kick-ass cover The old favorite.

"We’re not the Jet Set," John Prine & Iris Dement

I know it’s fashionable on these things to pick a genre-bending or ultra ironic cover. This one kicks ass because it’s such a heartfelt homage to the George Jones / Tammy Wynette original. And if there’s a bigger Iris DeMent fan in the world than me, it’s probably John Prine.

14. Song with your name in the title You can use your middle name if you can’t find anything for your first name.

"Alles Roger!," Sportfreunde Stiller

Yes, I had to go buy it. I had really hoped to find a song that not only had my name, but used its verb form: to roger, a good rogering. Given how rusty my German is, they very well might have. Bonus/two-fer: they also refer to my middle name: Atomic Kitten

15. Smoking song—a song about smoking, what else?

"The Wildwood Weed," Jim Stafford

Thought I’d save you the trip to Branford, MO. “Y’all come back now, y’hear?”

16. Song about magic

"Three is a Magic Number," Schoolhouse Rock

A bit on the nose, but truly a great song. The compilation album should be called “That’s Edutainment!”

17. Next song Heidi should learn on the guitar (a.k.a. While Stennie’s guitar gently weeps)?

"O Marie," Daniel Lanois

This is assuming Stennie’s disdain for U2 doesn’t extend to their erstwhile producer. I’ll leave it up to her if she wants to learn it in French.

18. Introductory song: Song you would like to have played by Paul Schaeffer and the CBS Orchestra if you were a guest on Letterman.

"Are You Gonna Go My Way?," Lenny Kravitz

Damn, I knew I should have held on to “Play that Funky Music . . .” My variation on the question is, What do they play at the stadium while you’re walking to the plate: “Now batting, number 14, Misterrrr Middlebrrrrooooooowwwwww!” You just know Paul would arrange a smoking Hammond B3 part for himself, which would just make it all the sweeter.

19. Amnesia: a song about forgetting

"Don’t Forget About Me," Nanci Griffith

Stennie, if this song inexplicably makes your fillings hurt, it might be because one Larry Mullen, Jr. is playing drums. I’ll probably never put a U2 song on a mix, but they might invariably find a way via their cronies and compatriots.

20. Amnesty song As always, a song that you would have liked to use in this (or any other) mix, but couldn’t seem to find room for.

"Don’t Wait for Tom," Over The Rhine (imperative + waiting)

You Say ‘Godless’ like it’s a Bad Thing.

2008-11-03T19:18:00.006-05:00

So Liddy Dole ran this ad trying to disparage Democratic challenger Kay Hagan for having taken “godless” money from an atheist group.

I think this might be beyond what Woody Allen had in mind when he wrote, “If Jesus came back and saw what’s being done in his name, He’d never stop throwing up.” I have no pretensions to divinity, but I gotta tell you: I’m having a hard time keeping my dinner down at this point.

I’d just like to crib off Colin Powell and say that the correct answer is Kay Hagan’s not an atheist, she’s a Christian. But the bigger question is, So what? Why can’t someone ‘godless,’ but in all ways able and qualified to hold office, dream of being president or senator? Or for that matter, pretty much anything other than Pope?

Frankly, I’m much more comfortable with an intelligent, well-educated, intellectually inquisitive atheist than an evangelical like Bush or, god(s) forbid, Palin. And not that I have anything against Jesus, per se. It’s just that there nothing empirically Christ-like about the yahoos who try to claim Christ as their running mate. We sure as fuck don’t know they’re Christians by their love. Moreover, an atheist's interests are in the here and now, not the hereafter. No atheist is going to influence policy for the sake of prophecy. The only mission from God an atheist is likely to support is the one undertaken by the Blues Brothers.

I have a buddy* who’s an evangelical, a member of one of those big-ass mega-churches. Last time, he voted for Bush because Bush would govern by “biblical principles.” The problem there is two-fold: first, that approach treads a slippery slope toward a theocratic / American Taliban model; but, second, one who applies biblical principles over constitutional ones is likely too blinded by zeal and, frankly, arrogance, to know it. (Setting to one side for the moment all the not-especially-democratic principles like slavery that the bible has been used to justify.)

There’s also a preemption problem. The trouble I have with people like Palin and Bush is that, for them, the Bible trumps the Constitution. Bush answers to a higher authority. But god doesn’t have jurisdiction in this country, no matter how many batshit judges try to keep the ten commandments on display in their courtrooms. In Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Scalia, writing in dissent, warned against imposing “foreign fads and moods” on the American body politic. By that reasoning, I’m pretty sure the “fads and moods” of a wrathful invisible man in the sky would have to be ruled out as well. Not that I’m necessarily averse to the teachings of the Bible. But if you want to govern by biblical principles, here’s the test: is your pet principle one codified into Constitution or the criminal code or the common law? If it’s something like proscribing murder or stealing or, oh, I dunno, lying through your teeth for the sake of your political agenda, you’re good to go. Constitutional kismet. But if the Founders or the Congress for whatever reason decided not to provide for death by stoning for eating shellfish after sundown on Friday, and/or a man lying with another man, well, you’re out of luck. Move along, have a nice day, thanks for playing, we have some lovely parting gifts for you.

I know this is pie in the sky, my dreaming of a day when reason triumphs over caveman logic. In this regard, shows like Firefly and Battlestar Galactica get it right, if somewhat depressingly so. No matter how advanced technology becomes, no matter how overwhelmingly the scientific evidence undermines and debunks its fairy-tale foundations, religion will never go away, and it will always try to ingratiate itself into politics and policymaking, in various guises—“tradition,” “values,”—as if whatever particular brand of mythology somehow has a corner on the market in those concepts. Technology and enlightenment are just no match for cognitive dissonance. People will always believe the thing that makes them feel better. For most of us, blessedly, we are more comfortable with the empirical.

If I learned anything last year, it’s that legislation by small-d democracy is hard—by design. Conversely, theocracy is just too easy. It’s a fucking cop-out is what it is. So while I applaud Senator Hagan for calling Dole on her skeeviness and setting the record straight, I'd just like to add that I'm pining for the day when I can vote for a candidate who runs on a platform of godlessness.

In the name of the Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary. Amen.

*UPDATE: I'm pleased to report that my pal not only voted for Obama this time, but voted for Hagan, too, citing Dole's smear as "the last straw." Consider my faith--in human intelligence--restored.

I reveal my Inmost Self

2008-10-10T10:05:00.004-04:00

For some reason*, I've decided to allow the seal to be broken on the crypt containing artifacts of my past life.

Here's a sample:

The rest can be found via the link above or at "My TV Reel" under LINKS.

So, was I right to cut my losses and get out, or should I have stayed the course, a la Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove?

*There seems to be a fine line between self-loathing and self-aggrandizement. Either way, at least I'm getting something on the blog.

The Recording Industry, Disingenuous? Inconceivable!

2008-10-01T18:15:00.011-04:00

When a recent Recording Industry of America (RIAA) court filing repeatedly used terms like “vexatious,” “good faith,” “frivolous,” or “integrity,” I couldn’t help but be reminded of the great swordsman-sage Inigo Montoya, whose response to a similarly questionable word choice was, “I do not think it means what you think it means.“

And isn’t it Ironic? A Little Too Ironic?

In the latest episode of unintended irony from the mouthpiece of the world’s musical Pentavirate, the RIAA has moved for dismissal without prejudice (.pdf) of their claim of copyright infringement against defendant Marie Lindor. Asking the court to sanction Lindor and attorney Ray Beckerman, the record-industry lobby describes such action as “appropriate where pleadings are filed without legal basis and for the improper purpose of supporting a bad faith public relations campaign . . . .“

To anyone who’s followed the RIAA’s litigation juggernaut, now entering its sixth year, a “bad faith public relations campaign” might sound oddly familiar. The record companies try to characterize Beckerman’s efforts as bad-faith PR in part because he posts “virtually every one of his baseless motions on his blog seeking to bolster his public relations campaign and embarrass Plaintiffs.” Not to take anything away from Mr. Beckerman, but when it comes to undermining its public image, the recording industry seems to do just fine on its own.

You say “awareness,” I say “harassment”;

Let’s call the whole thing off.

One thing you have to give the RIAA credit for is being experts on vexatious litigation and sketchy faith. Over the last five years, they have sued an estimated 30,000 people as part of an effort to “increase awareness” that downloading is illegal and that they will go after anyone they suspect of illegal file-sharing, be it a college student or a little kid, an old lady or a dead person. Hoping to avoid litigation, the RIAA’s standard approach is to offer a non-negotiable settlement of $3,750—a Hobson’s choice for the overwhelming majority of defendants for whom litigation is simply not an option. As a fallback, however, the RIAA fights tooth and nail against awarding attorney’s fees to those who decline to settle and eventually prevail.

The industry resorts to tactics that Beckerman calls “extortionate” in part because many of their cases are turning out to be less than a slam-dunk on the merits. First, the courts seem disinclined to find that “making [content] available” constitutes infringement without the “actual transfer” of copyrighted material. In fact, the Judge in Capitol Records, Inc. v. Jammie Thomas declared a mistrial after determining that he had incorrectly instructed the jury on that aspect of the Copyright Act. There’s also the problem of how the record companies find out whether a computer has copyrighted content available for downloading. The RIAA has contracted with a group called MediaSentry which “investigates” suspected computers by logging onto and downloading music via a P2P network, then taking a screen shot of the folder the songs came from. The Michigan Department of Labor recently notified MediaSentry that it could not “perform regulated activities” (.pdf) without a private detective’s license. Whether or not actions like this rise to the level of “vexatious,” they are without a doubt skeevy, to use a term of art.

Give the People What They Want.

While it’s possible that the court could find for the RIAA in this particular case, it doesn’t change the fact that, in the eyes of average consumers, the language the RIAA uses to excoriate Beckerman here applies too readily to their M.O. over the last five years. As courts continue to call them on playing fast and loose with procedure and discovery, and diminish the deterrent value of threatened litigation by setting aside high-dollar judgments and distinguishing consumers from corporate, piracy-for-profit defendants, the process will cease to be economically worthwhile. If the industry really wants to elicit support and sympathy for the legitimate bases of its position—that unauthorized downloading of copyrighted works is wrong, and that content owners should be able to protect their rights and their profits—it needs to stop acting like frustrated parents threatening to ground a petulant child. In any case, one hopes that the prevailing necessities of survival and relevance will ultimately compel the RIAA to replace tactics of intimidation and alienation with engagement and innovation. Or is such a hope so far-fetched and unlikely as to be—what was that word again?

Hey, I know that dude...

2008-09-09T09:00:00.006-04:00

So, didja hear the one about the DHS drone who thought Wikipedia was good enough for government work? Anybody who's as big an "Arrested Development" fan as I will no doubt find it strangely familiar:

Bluth family attorney Barry Zuckerkorn ("He's very good"), counseling his clients on their position in a stock buyout:

Barry: So, basically, you’re about 2,000 shares short of being the majority stock holders. Now, unfortunately, it’s a private stock so you can not just buy up the shares unless someone is willing to sell.

Michael: Are you sure?

Barry: That’s what it said on ‘Ask Jeeves.’

Funny, right? Apparently, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals didn't think so.

A mutual friend of the blog has more to say about it here.

Common Ground

2008-08-31T13:02:00.005-04:00

In general, I sometimes fret that Sesame Street suffers from a surfeit of pop-culture savvy. It's not Choo-Choo Soul, but the hip-hop syncopation of the "updated" theme makes me pine for the innocence and simplicity of the old-school version. I'm not completely deluded--I fully expect to hear "Your music sucks, old man!" echoing across the generation gap at some point. I just didn't think it would happen before the man-cub had mastered the alphabet.

Fortunately, here's one instance where I think the furry hands at the Children's Televsion Workshop got it right. And even better, the man-cub is down with it, too.

My Epitaph

2008-08-01T11:43:00.002-04:00

"Oh, shit; that was today?!"

What's yours?

White like me

2008-07-29T19:13:00.000-04:00

While riding my wife’s Batavus to the local farmer’s market, I stopped off at our local food co-op for an iced Americano. When I got home, while I was stepping out of my Keens, as is the custom in our house, my wife mentioned that the lesbian couple who live down the hall, both of whom are grad students, would like to have us over [presumably for a dinner party] sometime. “Sounds good,” I said. “Let’s try to do it before 2L year gets too crazy.”

Gaius, Zaius; Zaius, Gaius.

2008-06-18T09:08:00.004-04:00

Was anybody else secretly hoping that net-wielding gorillas on horseback would come riding out of the rubble at the end of last Friday's BSG, or is it just me?

Couldn't you just see Adama, screaming through clenched teeth at a ruined Statue of Liberty: "Gods damn you all to hell!"

Oh, well. Season ain't over yet.

What wouldn't I give to be spat at in the face?

2008-06-13T20:08:00.003-04:00

My answers to the latest SLIFR pop-culture query: “PROF. BRIAN O'BLIVION'S ALL-NEW FLESH FOR MEMORIAL DAY FILM (AND TV) QUIZ.”

If you love movies and love talking about movies with people who love movies, and you haven't found Dennis' brilliant blog, you're missing out. Follow the link to take the quiz yourself and read other responses (after reading and commenting on mine, natch).

1) Best transition from movies to TV (actor, actress, producer/director, movie/show)
Alec Baldwin, on “30 Rock.” It’s like everything he’s done up to this point has been in service to this.

Runners-up: The troika of Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonnell, and James Callis, on “Battlestar Galactica.”

Martin Sheen was one of the great things about “The West Wing.”

2) Living film director you most miss seeing on the cultural landscape regularly
I would love to have seen more from Paul Brickman.

3) Eugene Pallette or Charles Coburn
Pallette purely on the strength of his addled patriarch in My Man Godfrey.

4) Fill in the blank: “I pray that no one ever turns _____________ into a movie.”
Any Geico TV commercial. Don’t scoff, it could happen.

5) Jane Greer or Veronica Lake
Lake. Better still: Kim Basinger playing a hooker “cut” to look like Veronica Lake in L.. A. Confidential.

6) What was the last movie you saw in a theater? On DVD? And why?
Theatre: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; how could I not? The first half hour was a pure delight—everybody was loose, having fun. Lots of great hot-rodder moments straight out of American Graffiti. The rest was pretty serviceable, but eventually it got kind of sloppy (who said “P-O’d” in the ‘50s?) and didn’t really hold up very well. I had to admit after a while that they either A) didn’t write Marion’s part very well, or B) Karen Allen isn’t much of an actress. By the end, I mostly wanted to see Shia LeBouef cast in something as Russell Crowe’s little brother.

DVD: Out of Sight; This is cinematic comfort food for me. Having just completed my second semester of law school, which included a course in criminal law, I’ve been jonesing to rewatch it with an eye toward all the possible instances of accomplice liability and applications of the felony-murder rule. It’s a testament to the movie’s greatness that I had stopped thinking about law school by the time it got to the first freeze-frame.

Tivo: Tristram Shandy, A Cock and Bull Story: For some unexplained reason, we’ve started getting IFC instead of TCM, and Tivo thought I would enjoy this. I did—especially the way it utterly disabuses the viewer of any thought about the “glamour” of being an actor. Makes kind of a good companion piece to Shakespeare in Love. I’d still rather have TCM, though.
7) Name an actor you think should be a star
Nathan Fillion. I’ve been unconsciously appreciative of him ever since he played the cad boyfriend in Blast from the Past; now, having thoroughly enjoyed his performance in Waitress and recently discovered “Firefly,” via Hulu.com, I consider him and grievously undervalued asset.

8) Foxy Brown or Coffy
Jackie Brown

9) Favorite TV show still without its own DVD box set
“The Six Million Dollar Man.” If the glimpses of similar childhood faves that I’ve gotten from Hulu are any indication (“Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”) I’m probably much better off with my memories of the show as seen through the uncritical eyes of a ten-year-old.

10) Jack Elam or Neville Brand
Big Jack.

11) What movies would top your list of movies you need to revisit, for whatever reason?
Given the number of answers that I’ve had to pass on for this quiz, it seems like I have a lot of catching up to do before I do any “revisiting.” In another year or two, my son will be old enough to start watching movies, and that should make for some pretty interesting revisitations.

12) Zodiac or All the President’s Men
It’s been a million years since I saw the latter and I have yet to see the former, though given all the praise that’s been heaped on it, that should be rectified soon.

13) Using our best reviewer-speak, what is an “important” film comedy? And what is to you the most important film comedy of the last 35 years?
An “important” film, regardless of genre, is one that challenges the status quo. An “important” comedy would be one that has all the wit and intelligence of a respectable drama, but gets authentic laughs in unexpected ways. Even though it wasn’t a film, I thought this was what made “Arrested Development” so great (if fatally misunderstood and underappreciated). Generally, it seems the most “important” comedies are probably satire and/or black comedies, a la Dr. Strangelove, Three Kings. ‘Course, pretty much everything the Coens have done has defied conventions, proving (at least to me) that even a just-for-kicks comedy can earn a place in the canon. Even though it didn’t quite live up to the hype, I thought Borat went fearlessly where film hadn’t before, though I doubt you could have Borat without This is Spinal Tap. And Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind definitely felt like a paradigm shift to me.

All that said, I think it has to be Monty Python’s Life of Brian (See question 22, infra)

14) Describe the ideal environment for watching a movie.
Not to get too curmudgeony, but it’s really not fun to go to the movies nowadays. Between the general discourtesy that pervades and the fact that my home theatre 5.1 system is pound-for-pound as good or better than the average multiplex, the answer is: My sofa with my wife, some really great cheeses and pâtés, and a glass of Italian red (that, ironically, probably costs less than a coke at the theatre).

15) Michelle Williams or Eva Mendes
Anne Hathaway

16) What’s the worst movie title of all time?
C.H.U.D.

17) Best movie about teaching and/or learning
Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Talk about “everything I need to know I life I learned . . . “ Now that I think about it, this might be a contender for #13.

18) Dracula (1931) or Horror of Dracula (1958)
Pass

19) Why do you blog? Or if you don’t, why do you read blogs? (Thanks, Girish)
I like to think of my blog as a virtual water cooler, around which I and anyone who cares to join me can hold forth on whatever pop-culture ephemera seems noteworthy. I read blogs for mostly the same reasons, though many of my regular blogs have more of a political bent to them. I wish that I spent more time blogging and less time reading blogs, but I have reconciled myself to the reality that I’m a deficit blogger—I will always consume more than I produce.

20) Most memorable/disturbing death scene
Adam Goldberg being slowly stabbed in Saving Private Ryan.

21) Jason Robards or Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw. Robards is no slouch, but was he Quint and a Bond baddie? Didn’t think so. Oh, and Doyle Loneghan. And The Taking of Pelham 123. Yeah, Shaw was a total badass.

22) A good candidate for Most Blasphemous Movie Ever
If “blasphemy” is “an irreverent or impious act, attitude, or utterance in regard to something considered inviolable or sacrosanct,” then my answer is Pearl Harbor. Get thee behind me, Bruckheimer and Bay.

I find it curious how people answered with Monty Python’s Life of Brian. If you really watch it, there’s noting against God or Jesus or even any of Jesus’ teachings. It’s a 90-minute riff on that old bumper-sticker chestnut: Dear Lord, save me from your followers. I like to think that if God exists, and if we’re made in his/her/its image, then a sense of humor is essential to the creator’s divine nature. Jesus would totally get this movie. Seems to me, too, that JC, surveying the landscape of modern religion, politics and pop culture would have much greater quarrels with the self-anointed arbiters of holiness than mischief-makers and gadflies like the Pythons. I suspect God is far more indulgent of fools than hypocrites.

Now, if you want to talk about the most heretical movie ever, Life of Brian is surely a contender. And God bless ‘em for it.

23) Rio Bravo or Red River
Yikes. This might be in the running for #31 . . . I’ve seen snatches of both, but never really sat down and watched either.

24) Werner Herzog is remaking Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage—that’s reality. Try to outdo reality by concocting a match-up of director and title for a really strange imaginary remake.
David Fincher’s Mary Poppins

25) Bulle Ogier or Charlotte Rampling
I have no idea who Bulle Ogier is, but it’s immaterial: it would pretty much be Charlotte Rampling, regardless.

26) In the Realm of the Senses— yes or no?
No strong opinion, so . . . sure, why not?

27) Name a movie you think of as your own (Thanks, Jim!)
Apparently, any movie from the ‘80s that begins with the letter R:

Risky Business came out the summer after I graduated high school and quickly established itself, at least to me, as something more than another teen-sex romp. It had some pretty keen insights into the priorities, anxieties and insecurities of 17-year-olds in the early ‘80s. It certainly struck a chord with me.

The Right Stuff was and remains a perfect synthesis of my boyhood passions—the space age and the movies. It eventually unseated Star Wars as my favorite movie (even though it took a few years for me to acknowledge as such). It also turned me on to the idea of film as literature, complete with themes, allusions, and tropes. “Hey, Ridley, you got any Beemans?”

Raising Arizona was my first date with my then hottie girlfriend (now hottie wife). It also introduced me to a whole new way of thinking about what movies, especially comedies, could be.

A Room with a View was something we saw for the first time while living in Italy. I was astonished that it was recently remade for PBS. What’s the point of remaking perfection?

28) Winged Migration or Microcosmos
Haven’t seen either. I have a feeling I’d be more of a Winged fan.

29) Your favorite football game featured in a movie
I’m tempted to say The Longest Yard (the original), and call it a day. I feel like I should throw Heaven Can Wait some love, even though the actual games are pretty tangential to the whole affair.

30) Wendy Hiller or Deborah Kerr
Kerr for Eternity.

31) Dirtiest secret you have that is related to the movies
Hanover Street and assorted crimes of omission too, too numerous and grievous to mention.

32) Name a favorite film and describe how it is illuminated and enriched by another favorite film.
Monster’s Inc.’s nod to Feed the Kitty. That’s not exactly the question, I know.

Equally lame but more to the point: High Anxiety (which I first saw as a young teen having only seen The Birds) became considerably funnier as I worked my way through the Hitchcock oeuvre. How about the way The Hudsucker Proxy riffs on Cool Hand Luke? “Lose a blue card, and they DOCK ya!”

33) It’s a Gift or Horsefeathers
Can’t say.

34) Your best story about seeing a movie at a drive-in
Best I can do is one of the typical “hide under a blanket in the back,” from the days before they charged by the carload.

35) Victor Mature or Tyrone Power
Man, I really need to get my TCM back.

36) What does film criticism mean to you? Where do you think it’s headed?
Right now, it doesn’t mean much. I’m pretty ambivalent about where it might be headed, though I’m thankful for the role that blogging generally, and Dennis’ blog especially, has played in letting regular Joe movie lovers participate in the conversation.

Living with the law

2008-06-03T21:08:00.003-04:00

There’s a good nature-vs.-nurture discussion going on over at Oklahomeless about the problem of the lawyer personality. Namely, Goldie wondered whether the profession attracts anti-social miscreants, or transforms otherwise decent, conscientious people into the argumentative, ass-clown caricature that populates the collective consciousness when people hear the word “lawyer.”

When I started applying to law schools, I liked to joke that I was going to single-handedly solve the legal industry’s P.R. problems by not falling prey to those forces that reduce young idealists to grizzled, cynical misanthropes and soulless corporate stooges. Based on my experience last year, I get the feeling that a lot of my classmates had the same idea. Maybe my law school attracts a kinder, gentler sort. I figure I’m either incredibly lucky or naive, but I really didn’t see a lot of the stereotypical sharky-gunner mentality at my law school. It’s competitive, sure, but in a collegial way. I was more acutely aware of the curve during the second semester, but it certainly never prompted me or anybody I know to withhold help in studying or understanding the concepts. What it’s like at other law schools, I can only wonder, based on what I see in movies and T.V.

As I wrote on Goldie’s blog, I don’t think of myself as having a (stereo)typical lawyer temperament. My first year was a revelation in that regard, prompting no small amount of hand wringing as to whether I was really cut out for the lawyer life. I’m not especially adversarial or aggressive; but what worries me more is whether I can really develop the ability to 1) spot issues and 2) form a decent argument on the basis of something other than a vein throbbing in my temple.

I can honestly and happily say that, much as I’ve enjoyed shows like “L.A. Law” and “The Practice,” they didn’t really inform my desire to become a lawyer. I sure as hell didn’t decide to chuck my former career to live the “Law and Order” dream (dun-dun!!) If I had to attribute my “I’m going to get a JD and change the world” ambitions to a pop-culture influence, it would probably be “The West Wing,” along with the usual noble suspects like To Kill a Mockingbird and Inherit the Wind. In other words, role models with almost not basis in reality, if I’m to believe the accounts of “real-world” practice that are beginning to filter into my consciousness.

I actually like that the profession demands precision and ordered thought. My goal, once I master the basic process, is to be able to combine precise reasoning with the kind of pithy verve that makes for compelling, persuasive advocacy.

I can’t say that any of my first year classes or pro-bono experiences got me especially hot to specialize in tort, property, contracts, criminal or constitutional law. Coming to law school from advertising, though, I did have a vague interest in Intellectual Property. Then I read this. It’s basically a guy who, as it turns out, chucked his legal career to start an online audio/video cable concern. And when the big bad wolves at from Giganticorp started huffing and puffing, he called bullshit and told them, with badger-like verve and chutzpah, what they could do with their little licensing-fee shakedown. Reading the letter was intensely satisfying—like watching a couple of muggers getting their asses handed to them when the little dude they start hassling turns out to be Bruce Lee. Wa-Pow! Justice, baby. Come and get you some.

Here’s a taste:

I have seen Monster Cable take untenable IP positions in various different scenarios in the past, and am generally familiar with what seems to be Monster Cable's modus operandi in these matters. I therefore think that it is important that, before closing, I make you aware of a few points.

I am "uncompromising" in the most literal sense of the word. If Monster Cable proceeds with litigation against me I will pursue the same merits-driven approach; I do not compromise with bullies and I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds. As for signing a licensing agreement for intellectual property which I have not infringed: that will not happen, under any circumstances, whether it makes economic sense or not.

I say this because my observation has been that Monster Cable typically operates in a hit-and-run fashion. Your client threatens litigation, expecting the victim to panic and plead for mercy; and what follows is a quickie negotiation session that ends with payment and a licensing agreement. Your client then uses this collection of licensing agreements to convince others under similar threat to accede to its demands. Let me be clear about this: there are only two ways for you to get anything out of me. You will either need to (1) convince me that I have infringed, or (2) obtain a final judgment to that effect from a court of competent jurisdiction. It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind. If you sue me, the case will go to judgment, and I will hold the court's attention upon the merits of your claims--or, to speak more precisely, the absence of merit from your claims--from start to finish. Not only am I unintimidated by litigation; I sometimes rather miss it.

In other words: Bring it, bitches.

For me, this is the inspirational equal of any movie, book, or Cardozo opinion. It’s really the first thing I’ve come across that made me say that’s what I want to do; that’s the kind of lawyer I want to be. If I can do that as a lawyer, I’ll know I made the right decision. I find it particularly encouraging that this is a real-world legal confrontation, not something distilled into a casebook illustration.

I’m eager to know what you all think of it, lawyers and civilians. Actually, let me amend that: I’m eager to have my (quite possibly naïve) take on the situation validated. So if my lawyer friends or more astute classmates think this guy is just another part of the problem Goldie describes, all I ask is that you me down easy.

Bunch o' carrots and little sweet peas

2008-05-13T06:58:00.005-04:00

UPDATED with links and Video!

Time for another CD Mix Exchange. This being the seventh of these done by Stennie and the Gang, it's been dubbed "007: License to Mix. But for some reason, I had to really work to keep it from being License to Twang. I’m usually ambivalent about including alternates, but I’m providing them here so you can see just how many twangy bullets were dodged.

1. Kick-ass cover—of a song someone else has used in a previous mix.
“Stand by Your Man” – Lyle Lovett

(Covering Tammy Wynette’s classic, which Stennie used as a “favorite song you completely disagree with,” on CD Mix 1)

This category kicked my ass. My initial problem was twofold: everybody (else) who does these mixes A) uses a lot of kick-ass covers and B) chooses original songs for which there are no covers. But then I received River Selkie’s mix, including an entire disc of covers, which pretty much called bullshit on the second prong of my argument. Fortunately, I remembered I had this great little chestnut. What it lacks in opening-track energy, it more than makes up for in smirking irony.

Alternates:
“(We’re Not) The Jet Set” – John Prine and Iris Dement
“Every Day” – James Taylor (Mike’s “song he liked when he was 5” [Buddy Holly original] from Mix #1)

“Ragg Mopp” – Lionel Hampton (Bet’s spelling song on Mix 5)

2. Song that gives you goose bumps.
"Have a Little Faith in Me" - John Hiatt

A testament to the power of simplicity. I’m consistently blown away by how few elements there are here. It’s not particularly melodic, just a piano and a voice, but what a voice. Not the prettiest, but easily one of the most expressive and affecting.

Alternates:
“Hallelujah” – Jeff Buckley
“Miami 2017” (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)” – Billy Joel

3. Song about the state you live in.
“Lone Start State of Mind” – Nanci Griffith

Given that JT's ode to the Old North State was my only alternative (not bad, but not as interesting--though NC is vastly superior to TX, IMO), and this was the album that introduced me Nanci Griffith, I decided on a more conceptual direction. For what it's worth, I may have been alone in Denver sipping a California wine at some point.

Alternates:
“Carolina in my Mind” - James Taylor

4. Parenthetical—a favorite song with parentheses in the title, such as “(Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes.”

“Desafinado (Slightly Out of Tune)” – Ella Fitzgerald

Alternates:
“(I’m Gonna) Love, Love, Love You” The Derailers
“I Don’t Care (Just As Long As You Love Me)” – Buck Owens and His Buckaroos
“(Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall in Love” – Ella Fitzgerald
“Ruby (Don’t Take Your Love To Town)” – Kenny Rogers and the First Edition
“I am Weary (Let Me Rest) – The Cox Family
“Forever Young (The Wild Ones)” – The BoDeans

5. Therefore I Am: song about thinking
“Let the Mystery Be” – Iris Dement

Iris's voice tends to elicit a love-it-or-hate-it response from most people. I'm completely enraptured by it. Hope y'all are, too.

Alternates:
“What Was I Thinkin’?” – Deirks Bentley
“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” – Bob Dylan

6. Alliteration—song with alliteration in the title, that is, the words start with the same letter, like “Lonesome Loser.” (Remember the Little River Band? Sure you do!)

“Spiral Staircase” – Kings of Leon

I love the pure unadulterated filth of the guitars on this. Anybody else get a little whiff of Bon Scott from the vocals?

Alternates:
“Readin’, Rightin’, Rt. 23” – Dwight Yoakam
“Hillbilly Highway” – Steve Earle

7. Favorite song from year you were born.
“It’s Not Unusual” – Tom Jones

How pathetic is it that to satisfy the category I suggested, I have to go buy songs off iTunes? That’s what I get for going all literal a couple mixes ago and using “Tiger by the Tail” as song that should have been playing when I was born. Honestly, I have no trouble rationalizing the $1.98 I spent, given my big, shameless soft spot for Tom Jones. I actually saw him perform live in Vegas (where else?) in the early ‘90s. It was 90 minutes of every Tom Jones in Vegas cliché you can imagine. In other words, perfection. It purged any questions of him being past his prime. Apparently, he’s still on the road, going (relatively) strong.

Alternates:
“What’s New, Pussycat?” – Tom Jones
“Flowers on the Wall “ – The Statler Brothers
“A Very Good Year” – Frank Sinatra

8. Song about an animal
“Maybe Sparrow” – Neko Case

My main criterion here was to avoid using a “kids music” song. This one is definitely not for the ears of innocents. Mean ol’ hawks. Go pick on some pigeons why dontcha?

Alternates:
“Sheep” – Zoe Lewis
“Dolphin Dance” – Herbie Hancock

9. Song performed by non-traditional musician—such as an actor, athlete, weatherman, plumber.

“Harriet!” – Mike Myers

I’ve made my affection for “So I Married an Axe Murderer” plain many times in this space. This was too irresistible. Also, any song that uses the lyric “hard-hearted harbinger of haggis” automatically goes to the front of the queue.

Alternates:
“Ringo” Lorne Greene
“Teddy Bear” – Hank Hill (Mike Judge)

10. Grammatically Incorrect
“Ain’t Found Nobody” – The Mavericks

I’ve been wanting to include a Mavericks or Raul Malo song for a while now; I was determined to get one on this mix. I had originally planned to use “What a Crying Shame” for the Why So Sad category, but I thought this was a better showcase of Señor Malo’s toffee-coated tenor. Plus, I just love the arrangement with the plinking honky-tonk piano and the fiddle. This could easily have been a country-politan hit in the ‘60s.

Alternates:

“Ain’t Even Done with the Night” – John Cougar
“The Salt in my Tears” – Martin Briley
“It Don’t Mean a Thing (If it Ain’t Got That Swing)” – Duke Ellington

11. Song with your favorite guitar or instrumental solo.
“La Lola” – Café Quijano

I considered lots of obvious guitar-hero anthems from the usual suspects (AC/DC, Aerosmith, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Van Halen), but found them all a bit predictable, honestly, lacking sufficient “wow” factor. I ended up aqui because the slide guitar is so . . . lurid. Like a musical version of Chris Kattan doing Antonio Banderas on SNL: “Es hote in here, no?”

“Walk this Way” – Aerosmith
“The Waiting” – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
“The Breakdown” – Los Lobos
“I Need More Love” – Robert Randolph and the Family Band (Lap steel + Hammond B3)
“Beaujolais” – The BoDeans (Accordion)

12. War! What is it good for? Song about war. Good God, y’all!
“Generals and Majors” – XTC

I hope this isn’t one of the XTC songs Bet finds pretentious. I think it’s a ton of fun. The guitar riff is hypnotic.

Alternates:
“Sink the Bismarck” – Johnny Horton
“The Battle of New Orleans” – Johnny Horton
“Sunday, Bloody Sunday” – U2
“Brothers in Arms” – Dire Straits
“Sam Stone” – John Prine

13. Song about Sex
“Anything Can Happen” – Was (Not Was)

Back when I was the very model of a modern major West Wing fan—before Aaron Sorkin became* insufferable with the meta-narcissism—there was an episode with a running gag about Gilbert & Sullivan. Ainsely Hays, unable to recall the name of a particular G&S operetta, refers to it as “the one about duty.” To which several other characters in turn respond, “They’re all about duty.” That’s what I thought when I first saw this category: what rock and roll song isn’t about sex, having sex, trying to have sex, or lamenting the lack of sex being had? The genre owes its existence—and its name—to physical act of love, as Gen. Ripper put it. Still, it was fun to find one that was overtly about gettin’ some.

*It might very well be the case that he was always insufferable, but I failed to find him so until halfway into the first (and blessedly only) season of Studio 60. I almost dread re-watching my DVDs of TWW for fear of finding that’s the case.

Alternates:
“Red Morning Light” – Kings of Leon (At least I think it’s about sex. Does “giving all your cinnamon away” mean what I think it means?)=

“The Wheel and the Maypole” – XTC (“I’ve got the plow if you’ve got the furrow/I’ve got the rabbit if you’ve his burrow home”? Doesn’t take Fellini to figure that one out.)

“Memphisto” – John Prine (not exclusively about sex, but it any song that includes the lyric “they humped each other like they had no shame” merits consideration.)

“Hotter than Mojave in my Heart” – Iris Dement
“I Need a Lover” – John Cougar

14. Song about Drugs
“Sam Stone” – John Prine

Let me ask you something: once you know what this song is about, how many words into do you get before you find yourself emotionally obliterated? I’m pretty much done by the time he gets to “home” in the opening line. Would also have made a good song about war, I think. (“Good” as in “apt”; not as in “Yay, war.”)

Alternates:
“The Wildwood Flower” – Jim Stafford (“I didn’t know what happened, but I knew it beat the hell outta sniffin’ burlap”)
“Out of Habit” – BR-549

15. Song about Rock ‘n’ Roll
“Play That Funky Music White Boy” – Wild Cherry

A lifelong favorite that turned out to be just the right funkalicious palate cleanser to follow “Sam Stone.” The guitar solo in this one is no slouch, either. (Say, does anyone know where I can score a sweet bell-bottom unitard like the keyboard player is rockin' here? Also, is it just me or is that a young Bill Lumberg on rhythm guitar at about 3:45?)

Alternates:
“American Band” – Grand Funk

16. Why so sad? Song about the blues, a broken heart, crying, etc.

“The Salt in my Tears” – Martin Briley

A longtime favorite, going all the way back to the TBS / poor man’s version of MTV (Night tracks? Super tracks?) show. Not surprisingly, it also has a pretty kick-ass guitar solo. I especially like how he refuses to give the heartbreaking tramp the satisfaction. You go, Marty.

Alternates:
[redacted]

17. Bonus/hidden track
“Maybe Everything” – The Silos

A bonus track on the CD version of “Cuba,” an album I bought when dinosaurs walked the earth and vinyl was still an option.

Alternates:
[redacted]
18. Perchance to Dream: song about dreams/dreaming
“Dark Angel” – Blue Rodeo

Another band I’ve been trying to get onto a mix. My wife (my very own dark angel--awww) and I saw these guys play at the Tractor Tavern in Ballard, the Seattle neighborhood name-checked by Mike’s #3 Song. How’s that for synchronicity?

Alternates:
[redacted]

19. Famous title—song with the same title as a famous book or movie.
“Husbands and Wives” – Roger Miller

I’m going to assume it’s supposed to be a coincidentally common title; that the song has nothing to do with the movie or book. For some reason I felt it was important to choose a song that was the artistic equivalent of the movie or book, but a million miles from it in terms of genre and style. Renaissance Man cred, I reckon. Look at me and my world-class eclecticism: I appreciate Woody Allen and Roger Miller.

Alternates:
[redacted]

20. Amnesty song—as with past mixes, this is for any song that you wanted to use in this or a previous mix but couldn’t find room for.

“Hotter than Mojave in my Heart” – Iris Dement

I’ve decided that a song has to be at least a two-fer to be granted amnesty. I may repeal that by the next mix. This one could have worked as number 6 or 13.

Alternates:
[redacted]

21. Bonus Amnesty song
“(Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall In Love” – Ella Fitzgerald

Maybe the sexiest use of parentheses evah.

22. Bonus Encore Two-fer Video:

The Mavericks doing a kick-ass cover of a song that was a hit the year Raul Malo was born.

Brevity!

2008-05-06T13:20:00.005-04:00

Snagged with a one-word answer meme. Perfect.

Yourself: Addled
Your Partner: Abiding
Your Hair: Unkempt
Your Mother: Neglected
Your Father: Atavistic
Your Favorite Item: Tivo
Your Dream Last Night: Feverish
Your Favorite Drink: Espresso
Your Dream Home: Lego-less
The Room You Are In: Fluorescent
Your Fear: Carnies
Where Do You Want to be in 10 years: Solvent
Who You Hung Out With Last Night: iTunes
What You Are Not: Chill
Muffins: Carrot
One of Your Wish Items: Time
Time: Up
Last Thing You Did: Lunch
What You Are Wearing: Codpiece
Your Favorite Weather: Tomorrow’s
Your Favorite Book: Bluebook
Last Thing You Ate: Sammich
Your Mood: Indigo
Your Best Friends: Virtual
What Are You Thinking About Right Now: Pork
Your Car: Insatiable
Your Summer: Externiffic
What’s on your TV: Patina
What Is Your Weather Like: Carolinian
When Was the Last Time You Laughed: Sunday
What is your relationship status: Feisty

Next: Goldie, Monica, Bet

Let's Get Pissed!

2008-05-01T22:01:00.005-04:00

It's official: as of 5:39 p.m., I am a 2L.

It would be only necessary and proper that I have two litres of Guinness to celebrate. But being a man of moderation, I made due with two pints. If the first year of law school has taught me anything, it's to "manage expectations."

You'll understand if after three three-hour exams over the last two weeks, I'm kind of at a loss for words. I suppose I could try to write all the things I wish I had thought to put in my exam essays, but I am, to appropriate another memorable Mike Myers line, spent.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to bed. I only hope I don't dream of their Honors, Messrs. Cardozo or Scalia.

More than we can handle.

2008-04-09T13:24:00.007-04:00

Twenty years ago this weekend, my wife and I went on our first date: a screening of Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Raising Arizona.” We had actually been working together for about three months before I finally screwed up my courage and asked her out. I had seen the movie several months before, and chatted her up about it to no end. When it came back for another engagement, that was all the pretext I needed. It turned out to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship between not only my eventual wife and me, but among us, the movies in general, and Coen brothers especially.

So I didn’t know quite what to make of it when I read a bit in Entertainment Weekly where Owen Gleiberman alleged that Raising Arizona is the movie that let the “quirky” Genie out of the bottle, leading a path to Juno, which is, you guessed it, the last movie we saw together.

Now, you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger connoisseur of the offbeat than me. Nor do I mind Raising Arizona being labeled the progenitor, or even the godfather, of quirky movies, whatever that’s supposed to mean. Yes, it uses language that pushes well past probability that the people saying it would be saying it, but for the fact that they’re in this Coen-verse of a film. But RA never flashes its badge of quirk as proof of its hipster bona fides. It’s a treasure trove of quotable lines, but no one says anything that’s going to make you wish you were guy saying it. And that’s where I think the genetic relationship with Raising Arizona parts company and Gleiberman’s comparison becomes one of apples and orangutans. What bugs me, is the implication that somehow by starting the quirky snowball rolling, Raising Arizona is to blame for the sins of Juno. And let me tell you: Juno has a lot of atoning to do.

In case it isn’t already clear, Juno drove me just batshit crazy. There was plenty to love about it; and I would even go so far as to call Oscar-worthy in places: the characters, rather than being extruded from some Hollywood pasta machine, were complex and three dimensional. The casting was outstanding; the actors turned in first-rate performances. But the best, most emotionally rich and authentic moments were those where nobody was speaking. And ironically, it’s the things for which it is the most loudly praised—the dialogue and the look-at-me quirk (for its own sake)—at which Juno fails fatally. Though I’m sure they exist, I can’t for the life of me think of a more egregious case of the emperor’s new clothes than Juno getting an Original Screenplay Oscar. Clearly, no Academy screenwriting voter wanted to admit, even to him/herself, that s/he wasn't hip enough to appreciate Juno.

I can’t help but wonder how painful it’ll be to watch Juno in five years. Don’t think so? I’ve got three words: The Breakfast Club. I know pop culture is by nature ephemeral, but this is severe, debilitating myopia of Magoo proportions. It certainly doesn’t help when Diablo Cody drops all the same references to Dario Argento et al. in her EW column that the precocious heroine does in the movie. Diablo? Seriously? You're obviously very bright and have a great gift for observation. But stop trying so hard. Chillax, as the kids say. Not every line has to end up on a bumper sticker. I appreciate the attempt to authentically capture the zeitgeist, or show just how dialed into it you are. But you have to spread it out a little. Or temper it with some self-effacing irony. I know it can be done. John Hughes figured it out somewhere between TBC and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I'm sure you can too.

When I started, I had hoped to make this a meditation on the amazing relationship my wife and I have, and how it all started. For that, you'll just have to tune in again next time.

May it please the court...

2008-03-29T15:20:00.004-04:00

Add a line about how likely damages must be difficult to ascertain at the time of contract formation and the stipulated sum must be a reasonable estimate of probable damages or reasonably proportionate to actual damages, and you have my Oral Argument performance.

I'm hoping that next semester I'll get to defend the Whizzo Chocolate Co. in a products liability suit.

Whither Shamus? And other mysteries of the blogroll.

2008-03-13T22:01:00.004-05:00

For several months now, I’ve been puzzling over a few things.* Namely, what’s become of some of my erstwhile favorite blogs, and how/why have I been getting traffic from sites I’ve never been to or heard of until I started getting traffic from them?

M.I.A.:

Bad for the Glass
The Shamus was one of the greats. Formerly known as That Little Round-Headed Boy (alias Jack, alias Jackie!) The Shamus had impeccable taste in movies, music, and pop culture generally. That doesn’t mean I always agreed with him, but then he also had an uncanny knack for defending or supporting what from anyone else would seem like questionable judgment, entertainment-wise. I especially enjoyed, and will miss, his kooky lists like “75 reasons to love Burt Bacharach on his 75th Birthday.”

Though incredibly disappointing, his suddenly vanishing without a trace is not that unexpected. He was the unofficial Lord of Evanescence. Hated archiving. Constantly changed his layout. If anyone knows of some new iteration or incarnation, or the story behind his decision to stop enriching the quality of discourse in the blogosphere, please leave a link in the comments.

Look at Me. I'm So Important That I Have a Blog.
Done by Darren McLikeshimself, this was one of my favorite slice-of-life blogs. Every post—whether meditating on the foibles of being a 30-something Hoosier trying to make it in NYC, the sublime joy of guacamole at Chipotle, or the merits and pitfalls of sporting J.E.B. Stuart facial hair—was sharply observed and shot through with enviably wry wit and charming self-deprecation. Last I heard, he and Nabbalicious had loaded up the truck and moved to L.A. He did one post about Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles, and then . . . crickets. Maybe he got a book deal.

NEW:

Deutschland Über Elvis
I occasionally get hits from this site, but there’s no apparent link or reference to me or my blog anywhere that I can find. The only thing I can figure is that that “Next Blog” random thing seems to think that anyone who enjoys reading the observations of an expat, gay, globetrotting marketing guru working out of Munich would like this one. Seems logical.

Wie sagt Man auf Deutsch: Faaabulouuuussss!

Clean Green Slate
Near as I can tell, this blog is relatively new and one of several done by a young attorney from the Midwest who’s getting married in a few months. I have no idea (okay, some) why she linked my site. We don’t seem to have much in common beyond law and an appreciation for The Weepies (abiding in her case; newfound obsession in mine). But I’ll take what I can get and be glad for it.

*Puzzling in tiny little 10- to 15-second bursts. It’s not like I was trapped in the inner circle of thought worried about these things. I’m a 1L with a 3-year-old for crying out loud. I’m lucky if I get to sit down for a meal.

I'm World-Famous in Stennieville.

2008-03-06T11:06:00.007-05:00

My friend Stennie is the doyenne of DIY Web 2.0. She's got a slice-of-life blog, a movie blog, a daily trivia page and, as if that weren't enough, a podcast. She's what the kids call "media savvy."

After the last CD Mix Exchange (which she also proctors) she was gracious (desperate?) enough to invite me to sit in on a segment of The Hucklebug to discuss alternate tracks with her and co-Hucklebugtrix Bet. It was quite High Fidelity-esque. I felt like the fifth Beatle. I guess that means Bet and Stennie are two Beatles each. I'll leave it to them to decide who gets/has to be Ringo.

In case you're not familiar with the HB (or the Hizzle-Bizzle as its known in some quarters), it's essentially a virtual gathering around the water cooler* for an hour of Stennie and Bet holding forth on assorted pop-culture ephemera, with a dusting of earthy invective. One segment is called "Fuck-offs," so it's definitely not for those of dainty constitution. I never miss it and I can't recommend it highly enough.

*Bonus points for extending that metaphor by listening to it on the sly at work. Good luck explaining away the smirks, snorts and guffaws that are likely to ensue.

A Snag is as Good as a Goose to a Blind Moose

2008-02-21T22:41:00.004-05:00

I was snagged with a (mercifully short and simple) meme. It goes a little something like this:

Look up page 123 in the nearest book.

Look for the fifth sentence.

Then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.

At home there is, shall we say, a paucity of books with 123 pages and at least eight sentences per page. Fortunately, I always keep a copy of by “Antlers in the Trees,” the epic limerick by Hugh Goost Thamoos handy for just such an occasion:

“[The] Court appears to reason that the placement of local activity in a comprehensive scheme confirms that it is essential to that scheme.

If the Court is right, then Lopez stands for nothing more than a drafting guide: Congress should have described the relevant crime as “transfer or possession of a firearm anywhere in the nation” [or attached] the regulation of intrastate activity to a pre-existing comprehensive (or even not-so-comprehensive) scheme.

[If] the Court always defers to Congress as it does today, little may be left to the notion of enumerated powers.”

I am, as always, emotionally obliterated. You?

And now, because sauce for the moose is slaw for the gander, I nominate/incriminate the following gaggle:

Goldie, Tammara, Stennie, Ed, and Duke

Creative Lawyering

2008-02-17T23:04:00.008-05:00

Ever since I started telling people I was giving up the ad game for law school, I’ve gotten variations on the same question: Why would I leave the hip, happening, and creative world of advertising for the dour drudgery of law? Recently, a lawyer from one of the firms that I interviewed with for a summer job asked me that. Which doesn’t bode especially well. I mean, it’s one thing for people outside both industries to assume that advertising is sexy and law is dowdy. But this guy kind of confirmed the latter, right?

Anyway, I’ve started to develop a theory: a good lawyer needs to do just as much—if not more—creative thinking as any Madison Avenue soap huckster. First, though, you have to accept the premise that, as Jack Foster put it in How to Get Ideas, “An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements.” Actually, I think he borrowed that from an even older book on idea generation, by an author whose name escapes me at the moment. But that’s the whole upshot: Creative thinking is really the process of making connections and associations—recognizing how otherwise disparate things go together to make something special.

This has probably never been more true than in our post-modern, meta-savvy culture where everything is a reference to an association with some other in-joke from 15 minutes ago.

Still, the only way to make those connections is by being receptive to possibilities that aren’t obvious. And a willingness to actively wonder “What if . . . ?” It occurred to me while I was doing a fairly fundamental research and writing exercise that maybe this ability is part of what separates the effective lawyers from the also-rans.

Here’s the thing. My performance on fall exams didn't exactly blow the top off the curve. I did fine with multiple choice and short answer, but I kind of crashed and burned on longer essays where I had to identify and sort out multiple issues and apply the appropriate rules. And as any 1L from north of the mean will tell you, there’s more than one way to skin a tortfeasor. You have to be able to see and explain all the ways the rules might apply to a given set of facts, not just the most obvious one.

Back when I was a no-talent ass-clown copywriter aspiring to be a pretty good copywriter, I went to Tom Monahan’s Ad Hell Camp. One of the things I learned was: Don’t stop at the first good idea you have. Keep going. Keep asking “what if . . . ” until you have a dozen ideas that might be something. But what you should never do is delude yourself that your first decent idea is enough, because chances are, it's a fairly obvious one that pretty much anybody could come up with.

This, it seems, is the very thing that hobbled my exam performance. And the reason I'm likely, as Al Franken/Stuart Smalley would say, to die homeless, penniless and twenty pounds overweight. I have a tendency to be what we in the law biz call “conclusory.” In other words, once I see a solution, (particularly under the fairly intense time pressure of an exam) I stop thinking about other possibilities. This is bad in advertising, but it can be fatal for a lawyer. In advertising, assuming you operate at fairly high level of conceptual sophistication to begin with, your one good idea might turn out to be the best solution and get you fame and awards and a coterie of nubile co-ed interns. And if not, no harm done; it’s probably still a serviceable solution and it moves the needle* for your brand. But for a lawyer to focus on just that one idea, he’s leaving himself (and his client) vulnerable to the other side by not seeing other ways an issue can be argued or the facts construed, not seeing how the other side can defend against his idea. I'm sure there are other possible permutations of prospective doom, but I'm too tired to think them all through just now.

Now, I know, by and large, that lawyers can't bill for "concepting" time. And I imagine that a good amount of legal work is fairly straightforward application of rules to facts. But I think there's something to the notion that writing ads and writing briefs—done properly—is more alike than different. And if anything, creative thinking—at least the kind that exhausts all possible approaches and solutions—is actually more essential to a lawyer than a so-called “creative.” At least that's my hope.

*Another idea appropriated from Mr. Monahan.

A Funky Groove To Funk To

2008-02-02T15:11:00.001-05:00

Time for another CD Mix Challenge from Stennie and the gang—now with video!

Along with not repeating any songs from past mixes, I managed to stick to my pledge to not repeat artists. Or at least no Patty Griffin. This time around I I happened onto music that I didn’t even know I had. Thanks, friends, for forcing me out of my musical ruts.

Like River Selkie, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how it turned out. Songs you love/hate, what you think of the choices, how it flows overall, etc.

On with the countdown:

1. Sellout (Mix #4)—a song that is used (or has been used) in a TV commercial.
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, “Somewhere over the rainbow”

I first encountered this in the “Wizard of Oz” episode of “Scrubs.” It’s since been used in an ad for some heinous Clorox wipes. I would imagine everybody’s pretty burned out on it by now, but if you can get past the overexposure, it’s a really lovely reading.

2. A song that’s in a foreign language (Mix #1)
Mohammed Rafi, “Jaan Pehechaan Ho”

Given the song’s Johnny Rivers/surf guitar energy, and the fact that everybody in the video is sporting a Lone Ranger mask, I can only assume that the title translates as “Secret (South) Asian Man.”

While I doubt anyone would think I have some vast reserve of early-60s Indian show tunes, I must immediately cop to the fact that this came from the soundtrack for “Ghost World.”

3. A song about cheating (Mix #3)
Amazing Rhythm Aces, “Third Rate Romance”

This is one of my all-time favorite songs, near the top of my nostalgia heap. I suppose it could be argued that He and She are having a one-night stand—it never explicitly says they’re cheating. To which the more cynical/pragmatic side of my brain says, “Bollocks!” Anybody who hits it at “The Family Inn” is cheating on whoever’s at home, which is why they’re not going there.

4. Song that makes you cry (Mix #2)
Nanci Griffith, “Gulf Coast Highway”

It’s the bluebonnets and the blackbirds’ wings that do it.

5. B-side (Mix #3)
Donna The Buffalo, “Tides of Time”

This is the category I struggled with the most. As I wrote to Stennie, who the hell buys 45s or singles anymore? (not me). She suggested any kind of outtake or bonus track would suffice. I got this from a compilation CD called “Crowd Around the Mike,” a series of in-studio recordings done when bands visit WNCW. The CD itself was, I think, a premium for being a station member. The funny part is, I had literally never even opened the jewel case until I started working on this mix--and I've had the CD since, like, 2002. So, for all I know, this could be DTB’s biggest “hit” ever, the utter antithesis of a B-side. Still, it’s a cool song, I think.

6. Kick-ass cover song (all)—no restrictions on the kick-ass cover song this time, as long as it is a cover song and it kicks ass.
Stan Ridgeway, “Ring of Fire”

This would have been a good “answer” song, had the question been along the lines of “What do your nether regions feel like after a night in Tijuana eating barbequed iguana?”

7. Earworm (Mix #2)—a song that gets stuck in your head.
Carol King, “One Was Johnny”

Combine the fact that it’s Carol King, one of the all-time masters of the pop hook, with the fact that it’s a kids song with a putative pedagogical imperative, and voila: Earworm Extraordinaire!

8. A favorite live track (Mix #1)
Barenaked Ladies, “If I Had A Million Dollars”

If you are not grinning like a jackass by the time this is over, you are clearly dead inside. Ironically, I have never actually been to a BNL show.

9. Title out of nowhere (Mix #5)—a song in which the title does not appear in the lyrics at all.
Live, “Selling the Drama”

I have a theory: there are not now, nor will there ever be a country song that fills this category. Although "The Weight" by The Band comes close.

10. A favorite song you have discovered since our last CD Mix (Mix #4)
Kaiser Chiefs, “I Predict A Riot”

The trouble with this category: with very few exceptions, the preponderance of new-to-me music comes via these mix exchanges. But somebody loaned me a compilation of stuff the kids are into nowadays (or two years ago) and this happened to be on it. I like their happier take on the XTC sound.

11. Favorite artist duo collaboration (Mix #1)
Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton, “Last Thing on my Mind”

12. Geographical location song (Mix #3)—any song that mentions a geographical
The Jam, “A Town Called Malice”

Bet's use of "That's Entertainment" got me thinking I needed to use The Jam on a mix.

13. Musical question… (Mix #4)
The Producers, “What’s He Got?”

In retrospect, I would have liked a bit more stylistic distance between this and #12, but, oh well. One of my favorites from the “Golden Age of MTV.” I call it that because it was a time before anyone gave a damn about “heavy rotation” and they played, literally, any videos they could get their hands on. These guys should have been at least as big as the Romantics.

14. And answer! (Mix #4)—track #13 is a song with a question for its title, and track #14 has a title that answers that question.
Sarah Vaughan, “Whatever Lola Wants”

Funny how this sets up a little triptych about sin, souls and damnation. Another happy accident . . . with dire consequences! (Hey, Stennie!)

15. Four-letter word (Mix #5)—a song whose title consists solely of a four-letter word.
Squirrel Nut Zippers “Hell”

“Teeth are extruded/and bones are ground/and baked into cakes/which are passed around.”

Consider yourself warned.

16. Seven Deadly Sins (Mix #2)—a song about any one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Franz Ferdinand, “Fabulously Lazy”

An ironically energetic paean to sloth.

17. A song you wouldn’t play in front of your Mom (Mix #1)—and again, if your Mom isn’t the type to object, feel free to choose a song that you wouldn’t play in front of my mom—if you know what’s good for you.
Tenacious D, “Sex Supreme”

18. Song about violence and/or death (Mix #3)

Lyle Lovett, “L.A. County”

But for the lyrics, would you ever guess that this is a song about death and grief and sorrow and murder?

19. Guilty pleasure song (#2)
Pink, “Just Like a Pill”

20. Amnesty Song - with a twist! A song that fits any two of the categories above. (Mixes #2-5, minus twist) I prefer to call this the “two-fer” category.
John Prine & Bonnie Raitt “Angel from Montgomery”

This is, like, a “five-fer” (a cover, a duet, a live track, about a place, sometimes makes me cry.)

Charlie Wilson's War

2008-01-01T20:53:00.000-05:00

I have to admit, going in I was lukewarm at best about the prospects of "Charlie Wilson’s War." I like Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Mike Nichols well enough, though not to any kind of completist degree. Julia Roberts, on the other hand, tends to be a deterrent.

The real wild card here was Aaron Sorkin.

I was an avid enthusiast of Sports Night, which at the time seemed like a revelation to me, and a huge* fan of The West Wing. But all the meta-wanking on Studio 60 really soured me on Sorkin, to such an extent that it actually began to retroactively affect my appreciation for TWW and SN. Turns out my apprehension was misplaced. I’m happy to report that adapting a non-fiction book about a skirt-chasing Washington nobody who undertakes on a personal quest to fund and arm the Afghani mujahideen against the Soviets is a perfect platform for Sorkin’s style.

The script crackles with the dialogue that made The West Wing sing, but the self-righteousness is kept to a low simmer, and the irksome self-referential shenanigans that plagued Studio 60 are nowhere to be seen. The writing is just what it should be—lean, forceful and evocative, deftly blending pathos and humor without ever sounding too pleased with itself. The final upshot of the film has just enough of a “hate to say I told you so” message to be satisfying (in a vexing way) without forcing you to acknowledge what a preternatural alchemist of politics and pop culture the screenwriter is.

The performances range from outstanding (Hoffman is his usual tour-de-force self) to serviceable to just plain maddening. Can someone please explain the Julia Roberts mystique to me? I don’t mind that she plays herself—in fact, I kind of liked her in Erin Brockovich (though I prefer to think of it as a Steven Soderberg film more than a Julia Roberts vehicle). But it’s when she adds a accent so half-assed and straight from the Foghorn Leghorn Big Book of Dialects that it becomes off-putting. It’s like watching the Bizarro World’s Meryl Streep. And I don’t understand why otherwise astute and capable directors don’t catch it. I suppose it has to do with the whole drawing power of a name like hers above the title, but it seem counter-intuitive to me to use a movie star to get people into the theatre, only to piss them off with an annoying performance that undermines the overall effectiveness of the film.

In any case, I was able to get past it and enjoy the film (no thanks to the septuagenarian chatty Cathys all around us). I'd love to see Sorkin get a nomination for adapted screenplay, though the award would and should go to the Coen's for "No Country for Old Men." "Charlie Wilson's War isn't in that league, but it was a perfect afternoon matinée/getaway with my wife.

*Anyone of appropriately sufficient TWW ardor will know this is properly pronounced “yoodj”

Fish was my father's name. Please, call me Mr. Middlebrow.

2007-10-28T21:20:00.001-05:00

So there’s this crazy-ass meme going around. My erstwhile blog pal and mentor Fish named me as a successor.

Pharyngula Mutating Genre Meme

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

— You can leave them exactly as is.

— You can delete any one question.

— You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…" to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is…", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…".

— You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…".

You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable.

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

My great-great-great-great-grandparent is Flying Trilobite
My great-great-great-grandparent is A Blog Around the Clock.
My great-great-grandparent is Shakespeare's Sister.
My great-grandparent is Excuse This Mess...
My grandparent is Saying Yes.
My parent is Really Small Fish

My siblings are Scott and Plover.

1. The best drama in scientific dystopias is: Battlestar Galactica.

2. The best sexy song in rock is: “You Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC. A bit obvious, even by Beavis and Butt-Head standards, but still. Plus, it promotes good hygiene an/or proper operational, uh, maintenance: "She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean..."

First runner-up is “Sex Supreme” by Tenacious D (the slightly cleaned-up version they did on SNL was actually funnier than the uncensored one. Whoudathunk that “patch” could be funnier than “snatch”?)

3. The best cult movie in absurdist fiction is: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. “I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I deny them my essence.”

4. The best dead comedian in American comedy is Phil Hartman.
The closest I ever came to crying about the death of a celebrity. He was one of the greats. "My name is John Johnson, but everyone here calls me 'Vicki.'"

5. The best moment in live television was: Neil Armstrong stepping onto the surface of the moon or Christopher Walken catching a fever for which the only cure was more cowbell (tie).

6. The most erotic of all the salt-cured meats is pastrami.

Now it’s up to my progeny to go out there and make me proud:

Stennie, Irene Done, Tammara, Goldie, Shamus, Ed

Is enough enough?

2007-10-05T11:15:00.000-04:00

Time for another of Stennie’s CD Mix Challenges. One of the things that nagged me about my last mix was that it was maybe a bit too nostalgic and mainstream. And some of the choices were a little too obvious and “on point.” So this one came out a little, uh, darker. (esp. #9 and #17)

I’m happy with the overall result; it’s a modest improvement over the last one. Still, I worry that it’s maybe too homogeneous, stylistically speaking. Or, worse, maybe I’m being forced to confront the difference between my perception and the actual reality of my musical eclecticism.

1. Song that has the same title as #18: (see note at track 18)

"Evangeline" - Matthew Sweet

If showing a girl you love her with distortion and fuzz-tone guitar is wrong, Matthew Sweet don’t wanna be right. Just for fun, I like to believe that this and #18 are different paeans to the same girl.

2. Song about the moon:

"I Wish I was the Moon" - Neko Case

The grammar geek in me, who wishes the title and the lyrics were actually "I wish I were the moon" is currently being told by the music geek in me to shut the hell up and enjoy having his heart lacerated by Neko's amazing pipes. Maybe we could get her to sing The Elements of Style. Oops, gotta run. The grammar geek in me has to change his pants.

3. Fashion police: a song about clothes, or an article of clothing

"In These Shoes?" - Kirsty MacColl

4. Song about one of the seasons:

"Summertime" - Peter Gabriel

5. “Title out of nowhere:” a song whose title is not mentioned anywhere in the lyrics.

"so. Central Rain" - R.E.M.

6. Spell it out: a song which includes spelling out a word or words as part of its lyrics.

"Posh!" - Lionel Jefferies

I almost made this my four-letter song, but I couldn’t bear to lose RUSH. My second favorite song (nipping at the heels of “Me Ol’ Bamboo”) from the greatest musical ever based on an Ian Fleming story.

7. New song: a favorite song released in 2007.

"Juliet" - Royal Wood

I blogged about this guy a while back. Still riding the buzz.

8. A song that says goodbye:

"Long Road" - Patty Griffin

Yes, another Patty Griffin song. What can I say? I’m an emotional masochist and Mistress Patty is my favorite chanteusinatrix, who wields a guitar instead of a riding crop.

9. Home: a song about home, or a song that reminds you of your home, wherever that may be.

"White City Fighting" - Pete Townshend

For the record, this does not remind me of my (childhood) home. By that standard, maybe it’s not really that dark after all. :^\

This song—the whole CD, really—is one that I played constantly after I bought it. Over the years, it sort of calls to me and I get to appreciate how enduringly great it is.

10. A song that makes you sad:

Honestly, I can’t think of a song that makes me sadder than Sufjan Stevens' “Casimir Pulaski Day,” courtesy of Bet’s last mix. But since that’s out, how about:

"Johnson’s Love" - Dwight Yoakam

One thing I’ve always liked about Dwight is that he writes most all his own songs. And, boy, does he know how to write and perform a country song. Dwight Yoakam just gets it: a proper country song, almost by definition, is supposed to be sad.

Steve Martin once said that it was impossible to not feel happy when you hear the banjo. The same is true, in reverse, of the lap steel.

11. Psycho: a song with the word “crazy” in the title, or “psycho,” or “nuts” or “looney” or any variation thereof.

"Psycho Killer" - Talking Heads

12. Song everyone hates except you:

"I Saw the Sign" - Ace of Bass

Seems like the intent here is to get a song for which one is the unabashed champion in the face of withering scorn and derision. That’s not me. I barely acknowledge the existence of this song; I certainly don’t defend it, at least not to people whom I’m trying to persuade that this is some overlooked gem worthy of consideration.

13. Four-letter word:

"Rush" - Big Audio Dynamite II

It’s not everything, singing, you know. The only important thing these days is rhythm and melody.

14. Thanks: a song that says thank you, or that you would use to thank someone.

"Thank You, Girl" – John Hiatt

Look, Ma—no irony! Also, I want to thank you, John, for featuring the mighty Ry Cooder on slide guitar.

15. Song that you think should have been playing when you were born

"I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail" – Buck Owens & His Buckaroos

Forgive me for being hyper-literal here, but this song was a number-one hit in the early part of 1965. Combine that with my dad’s love of country music and cheap beer, and there’s a decent chance it was playing on the jukebox of the whatever smoky dive the old man was haunting on a July night that year.

More importantly, of all the pop and country hits from 1965, it’s one of my all-time favorites. I know the logic here is a bit circular, but if this song were playing when I was born, that might account for my unabashed love of twangy Telecasters and (the music segments on) Hee Haw in general. Never mind the fact that Dad’s “my house, my rules” edicts were in effect whenever a question was raised about what we were watching on Saturday nights at 7:00.

A more interesting category, though more cringe-inducing, might be “song that was playing when you were conceived.” Stennie, whatchathink?

16. Kick-ass cover redux: a cover song of an original you have used in a past mix.

"Flip Fantasia (Cantaloop Island)" - US3.

I’ve actually participated in only one previous mix exchange. The only original song from that mix for which I have a cover version is Three Dog Night’s “One.” But the one I have (Aimee Mann’s excellent reading) came from—wait for it—one of the participants of the last CD exchange. I don’t think that person is playing this round; still I figured that adding new material to the pool is preferable to recycling a song that at least half the participants already have. So I offer the above. FWIW, I do have the Herbie Hancock original (Cantaloupe Island). Mostly though, I just really dig the idea of segueing from Buck Owens to li’l hip-hip/jazz fusion sump’n-sump’n.

17. Song about the sun:

"Ain’t No Sunshine" - Bill Withers

When everybody else zigs, I like to zag. This is just over two minutes of pure concentrated dread. A man retreating to a place where the sun don’t shine. On a side note, this song, along with the opening theme to Perry Mason, used to scare the bejeesus out of me. I still get shivers from this one.

Also, I’d love to be able to say that this doesn’t represent a trend of every mix having a Bill Withers song, but I can’t. I am the human K-Tel compilation.

18. Song that has the same title as #1: For tracks #1 and #18, choose two completely different songs that happen to have the same title.

"Evangeline" - Los Lobos

A bit of sorbet to cleanse the bitterness from the palate. I thought this would make a good opening track, but I it actually works best as the closing-credits number. Almost an encore of sorts. Can you imagine a better way to be played out than accompanied by David Hidalgo's dulce de leche vocals?

Still idealistic after all these weeks

2007-09-24T16:18:00.000-04:00

One of my classmates sent this to me. It's pretty amusing, but a little darker than my experience so far.

Some of it spot-on. I definitely relate to the legal-concepts-pervading-my-dreams thing. (I actually woke up one morning this weekend with "fee simple determinable" and "fee simple subject to condition subsequent" going at it like Godzilla and Mothra in my head.) But I'm nowhere near as jaded as that dude.

The material is hard, the reading relentless, and any vestige of a social life has been reduced to an abstraction. But, honestly? I'm loving it. In fact, going into my fifth week, I don't think a day has gone by without my having had the following thought: "Holy shit, I'm in law school. How cool is that?"

At least my odds on Jeopardy! should improve.

2007-08-26T16:27:00.000-04:00

Well, now I've really gone and done it.

Actually, it's been in the works for quite a while; now the whole story can be told: I'm chucking the ad game and embarking on what I like to call my second act. (Suck on it, Fitzgerald!) I'm going to be a lawyer.

I had been working on a clever post, wherein I liken myself to someone whose lover (advertising) just isn't that into me. Obviously, it never quite gelled (kinda like my ad career--oh!). Suffice it to say that I just didn't see things going anywhere as a copywriter. We had some laughs, some good times. But I knew if I stuck with there were really two options. Either I'd never advance professionally, which would suck. Or, if I were to advance, that would bring with it its own special set of suckitude, seeing the machinations my supervisors went through, of which I wanted no part. A Nagainan dilemma, if you will.

For some of you, this is not news. Goldie, Tammara, Ed, and Stennie--thanks for your support, encouragement, and confidence. For the rest of the regulars, I'm curious about, and would love to hear, your reaction.

What this means for my blogging life, I can't say. Along the rest of my pop-culture consumption and zeitgeist surfing, I'm either going curtail it severely or learn to get better about popping off a quick post whenever I have the chance. I hope it's the latter; we'll have to see.

Like all my 240-odd 1L classmates, I could cite many inspirations for pursuing a legal career--a landmark civil-liberties case, a compelling bit of courtroom drama immortalized on stage and screen, or a bit of political theatre. But as I stand at this precipice, the wisdom that resonates most strongly comes from Mercury Astronaut Alan Shepard's launchpad prayer: "Dear Lord, please don't let me fuck up."

What are you people—on dope?!

2007-08-01T17:21:00.000-04:00

The results of the OFC 100 Best Films survey are in. Overall, it’s a pretty good list, and it does what it set out to do—namely, recognize some cult and offbeat favorites that tend to get overlooked by the likes of the latest AFI list. It’s a noble ambition; one I’m proud and grateful to have participated in. Real film fans know, for example that "The Empire Strikes Back" is the best of all the "Star Wars" movies; we not only voted it onto the top 100 but ranked it above "Episode IV: A New Hope." Balance has been restored to The Force. Yet for all its iconoclastic intentions, the OFC list seems to have ended up, in some ways, as parochial as the AFI list.

While ironic, this is hardly unexpected. Any time you have a group of rag-tag outsiders trying to take on an established (and some might say elitist) entity, the outsiders invariably take on an elitist pall all their own. It’s simply the nature of an exercise like this. Even when the process is a result of backlash and outrage getting it on under the upturned nose of the AFI.

Nocturnal Omissions
Now, I know everyone is going to have his (or her) own little shit-storms of righteous indignation about things that didn’t make the list. But that’s one of the great things about blogging—whether it’s about films or quilting or whatever: you can participate in a discussion where, even if your opinion is in a statistically insignificant minority, your voice is still heard (if only by random blogosphere passers-by Googling the lyrics to drinking songs from movies). All that said, I can’t help but be appalled by the absence of films that deserve inclusion among the 500 greatest films ever made.

How is it possible to recognize "Silence of the Lambs," but not "Manhunter"? "Field of Dreams" but not "Bull Durham"? And how is it possible for "Die Hard" to finish at #30, but "A Room with a View" doesn't even rate a nomination?

Actually, I have a theory about that. The 502 nominees on the OFC list were compiled by about 50 Web site writers. Some are paid professional critics, but most are simply avid film enthusiast bloggers like me (with a few rather glaring differences in appreciation for the movies mentioned above). To be nominated, a film had to be included on at least three contributors’ lists. If you look at the list of contributors, it’s pretty easy to see how an Edwardian-era comedy of manners is not likely to get on the radar of two other mostly male movie watchers whose tastes apparently tend more toward, well, people punching each other (Raging Bull, Fight Club) and shit blowing up.

I guess what I’m saying is that I know—and truly appreciate—the genuine enthusiasm that everyone brought to the table, blind spots* and all. It really does make up (mostly) for the slights. And I long ago learned to live with the reality that The Right Stuff never seems to make the final 100.

Here’s my official ballot. One final note: because the final tally was based on the number of times a film was mentioned and how highly it was ranked, I tried to give some of my personal underdogs a boost. I don’t actually think that "Out of Sight" is objectively a better film than, say, "The Godfather." But "The Godfather" doesn't need any help topping the OFC list. Just like it did on the AFI list.

The Middlebrow OFC 100:

Right Stuff, The (Kaufman, 1983)
Young Frankenstein (Brooks, 1974)
Out of Sight (Soderbergh, 1998)
Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
Bridge on River Kwai, The (Lean, 1957)
Raising Arizona (Coen, 1987)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Mulligan, 1962)
Risky Business (Brickman, 1983)
Lone Star (Sayles, 1996)
Last of the Mohicans, The (Mann, 1992)
Princess Bride, The (Reiner, 1987)
Glengarry Glenn Ross (Foley, 1992)
Life of Brian (Jones, 1979)
Jackie Brown (Tarantino, 1997)
Alien (R. Scott, 1979)
It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946)
Boogie Nights (PT Anderson, 1997)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Hill, 1969)
L.A. Confidential (Hanson, 1997)
High Fidelity (Frears, 2000)
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, 1980)
Sideways (Payne, 2004)
Day the Earth Stood Still, The (Wise, 1951)
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Kubrick, 1964)
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (Hughes, 1986)
Shawshank Redemption, The (Darabont, 1994)
Blade Runner (R. Scott, 1982)
Groundhog Day (Ramis, 1993)
Election (Payne, 1999)
Cinema Paradiso (Tornatore, 1988)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (A Lee, 2000)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Spielberg, 1977)
Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994)
Usual Suspects, The (Singer, 1995)
Shining, The (Kubrick, 1980)
Silence of the Lambs, The (Demme, 1991)
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (Lucas, 1977)
Annie Hall (W. Allen, 1977)
Graduate, The (Nichols, 1967)
Tootsie (Pollack, 1982)
Eternal Sunshine of theSpotless Mind (Gondry, 2004)
This is Spinal Tap (Reiner, 1984)
Aliens (Cameron, 1986)
Jaws (Spielberg, 1975)
Three Kings (Russell, 1999)
Incredibles, The (Bird, 2004)
Toy Story (Lasseter, 1995)
Monsters, Inc. (Docter/Silverman, 2001)
Office Space (Judge, 1999)
Untouchables, The (De Palma, 1987)
Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Heckerling, 1982)
Sullivan’s Travels (Sturges, 1941)
Fargo (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1996)
A Fish Called Wanda (Chrichton/Cleese, 1988)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Ritchie, 1998)
Fifth Element, The (Besson, 1997)
Godfather Part II, The (Coppola, 1974)
Godfather, The (Coppola, 1972)
Blow Out (De Palma, 1981)
Goodfellas (Scorsese, 1990)
Great Escape, The (Sturges, 1963)
Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, 1987)
It Happened One Night (Capra, 1934)
Jurassic Park (Spielberg, 1993)
Lost in Translation (Coppola, 2003)
Field of Dreams (Robinson, 1989)
Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944)
Casino Royale (Campbell, 2006)
Brother, Where Art Thou? (Coen, 2000)
Cool Hand Luke (Rosenburg, 1967)
Almost Famous (Crowe, 2000)
My Man Godfrey (La Cava, 1936)
Royal Tenenbaums, The (Anderson, 2001)
Amadeus (Forman, 1984)
Blazing Saddles (Brooks, 1974)
Apartment, The (Wilder, 1960)
Conversation, The (Coppola, 1974)
Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam/Jones, 1975)
Bonnie & Clyde (Penn, 1967)
Departed, The (Scorsese, 2006)
Laura (Preminger, 1944)
Planet of the Apes (Schaffner, 1968)
Bourne Identity, The (Liman, 2002)
Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988)
Goldfinger (Hamilton, 1964)
His Girl Friday (Hawks, 1940)
In the Heat of the Night (Jewison, 1967)
Lady Eve, The (Sturges, 1941)
Lord of the Rings, The: The Fellowship of the Ring (Jackson, 2001)
Miller’s Crossing (Coen, 1990)
Notorious (Hitchcock, 1946)
Das Boot (W/ Petersen, 1981)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Leone, 1968)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Verbinski, 2003)
Saving Private Ryan (Spielberg, 1998)
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (Altman, 1971)
Some Like it Hot (Wilder, 1959)
Terminator, The (Cameron, 1984)

*In the interests of full disclosure and a willingness to acknowledge my own blind spots, here’s dozen films that I’ve resolved to see with all possible speed:

All About Eve
Army of Darkness
Days of Heaven
Dog Day Afternoon
Point Blank
The Professionals
On the Waterfront
Ride the High Country
Stalag 17
The Wild Bunch
Something by Bergman
Something by Fellini

Got any recommendations for the last two? In the name of building/restoring goodwill with my fellow movie bloggers, I really would love to hear some suggestions.

Who could ask for anything more?

2007-07-07T19:06:00.001-04:00

Contrary to what I’ve said about being in a curmudgeony, "turn that crap down and get off my lawn" rut, I’m feeling very new-musicy lately. I'm even thinking of getting one of those new-fangled iPod dealies.

Royal with no cheese.
A coworker friend of mine recently came back from a week-long lox-and-kimchi bacchanal in Nova Scotia. Along with a pleasing redolence of back bacon, she brought with her a CD called “Good Enough Day” by a guy named Royal Wood. Wayne and Garth-esque snickers aside, this guy is teh awesome, eh.

As with most new music discoveries, I’m trying to resist being overly analytical and just enjoy the visceral pleasures. Even though I’ve acknowledged that pop music is a palimpsest, I try to avoid The Player-like comparisons (“It’s ________ meets ________ with a dash of __________.”) when describing a new artist’s style. Still, the gear-head/gourmand in me (who once rhapsodized about the buttery cinnamon toast of Nora Jones’ voice) can’t help himself:

Royal Wood’s music is like a Ferrari V-12, forged of applewood smoked bacon and fine-wale corduroy, loping along at about 6,000 RPMs on a brisk but sunny October day.

For those who insist on citations of influences and comparisons, I can hear bits of early Billy Joel infused with latter-day Finn Brothers harmonies—particularly in the way he layers his voice against dense, resonant piano chords. Some artists just manage to be appealing on a level I can’t quite define; that’s certainly the case here. Whatever it comes from, I’m pretty hopped up on it lately. Especially Juliet. Not least because his lyrical chops are just as impressive—in virtuosity and variety—as his musicianship. Check out his myspace page for yourself and see if you don’t agree.

“Oh, irony! We haven’t that here since about ’83…”
In other new-music news… you might recall that I participated in Stennie’s CD Mix Challenge. One of the categories was “kick-ass cover,” for which I offered up Prince’s “Kiss” by Tom Jones and the Art of Noise.

After listening to the eleven other mixes, I noticed that covers seem to fall into three categories. There’s the basic credible cover: Tina Turner’s version of “The Bitch is Back” or Joe Cocker covering “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window.” Then there’s the really cool/interesting/off-kilter readings of an already great song: Guster doing Talking Heads’ “(Nothing But) Flowers,” the Bad Livers drenching Iggy Pop’s “Lust for Life” in a deliriously viscous twang and Nouveau Vague’s fun, supper-club send-up of “Dancing with Myself.” Then, just around the corner, lurking in doorway waiting to bonk you on the head and steal your dignity, there’s the third, more subversive category—the ultra-ironic cover.

At face value, these seem innocent enough:
Oh, Robbie Fulks, you clever bastard, you. The way you do Cher’s “Believe,” that’s just too funny. And you, Tobias Froberg, of the dry Scandinavian wit, making Justin Timberlake’s “What Goes Around” uniquely your own. You guys are a riot. Well, I’m here to tell you that a riot can sometimes be, as Inspector Kemp would say, an ugly sink. Because, no matter how much hipster cred you imbue it with, when people hear me humming or whistling or, god forbid, singing one of these shiny-cheesy earworms, they don’t know that I’ve got your version in my head. All they see/hear is me diddy-bopping past their cube going “Do you be-LEEEEVE in life after lo-uve?” When they whip around, eyes wide with horror and disgust, it’s pretty hard to say “No, no, I was doing the Robbie Fulks version. See, uh, it’s ironic…” Still, I don’t mean to complain. A little discreet tongue biting is a small price to pay for such musical nutty goodness.

“Well, then, I guess I am tellin’ you what you want to hear.”
Finally, a quick plug for the third prong on the new-to-me musical trident: Pandora internet radio. Even though it’s essentially the blank-meets-blank approach, it works well. You type in an artist or a song you like, it breaks it down to determine a profile, then generates a playlist of music with elements in common. Unlike the “you might also like” feature on iTunes or Amazon, you get to hear the entire song. Which is nice. And you can tweak the “stations” you create by giving a thumbs-up or -down to each song, which the program uses to recalibrate it’s offerings. It’s pretty neat.

The circle is now complete.

2007-07-06T16:21:00.000-04:00

You might have heard about a Best of the Blogosphere poll that’s going around. It’s kind of a response to the most recent AFI 100 Best Films. As I was compiling my nominees, a thought occurred to me (or recurred, really) about how all the great movies are connected somehow. Like George Clooney is in Steven Soderberg films and Coen Brothers films. And the Coens used Barry Sonnenfeld as a DP before he started directing. And Barry Sonnenfeld directed an Elmore Leonard adaptation, as did Soderberg. And on like that.

So here are 100 of my favorite movies, starting with my favorite, The Right Stuff, arranged such that each film has something in common with those that precede and follow it. A director, a star, a writer, a featured player, a composer. Of course, 100 connects back to number one. In some cases, the connection is pretty remote or fuzzy, though they're mostly all legit. Some of the them are downright inspired, if I say so myself. I tried not to have the connection be the same for more than two movies in a row. Yes, there are some glaring omissions, as well as some filler. Or what I like to call “mortar.” I’d much rather have gotten Ferris Bueller’s Day Off on the list than Test Pilot, for example. But Clark Gable, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy weren’t around when John Hughes started making movies. I can honestly say that there are no two “mortar” movies in a row. And these are all movies that I genuinely enjoy watching again and again.

Anyway, take a look and see if you can guess the connections. I’ve posted the leftovers at the end. If you can figure out how to work them in, I’m all ears.

The Middlebrow 100, Zen Edition:

The Right Stuff
Aliens
Working Girl
Three Kings
Out of Sight
Defending Your Life
Men In Black
Full Metal Jacket
Dr. Strangelove
Blazing Saddles
Young Frankenstein
Tootsie
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Star Wars
The Bridge on the River Kwai
The Great Escape
Once Upon a Time in the West
The Lady Eve
Sullivan’s Travels
Oh Brother Where Art Thou?
Raising Arizona
Moonstruck
In the Heat of the Night
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
The Lion in Winter
The Silence of the Lambs
Manhunter
The Last of the Mohicans (Mann)
A Room with a View
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Lord of the Rings
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Collateral
Risky Business
Jerry Maguire
High Fidelity
Bull Durham
The Shawshank Redemption
Stand By Me
This is Spinal Tap
A Few Good Men
The Princess Bride
The Incredibles
Jurassic Park
Get Shorty
Blowout
The Untouchables
Goldfinger
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Casino Royale (2007)
Shakespeare in Love
The Royal Tennenbaums
Groundhog Day
Lost in Translation
The Godfather
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Godfather, Part II
Goodfellas
Jackie Brown
The Fifth Element
Pulp Fiction
So I Married an Axe Murderer
Glengarry Glen Ross
Mr. Roberts
My Man Godfrey
The Thin Man
Test Pilot
It’s a Wonderful Life
It Happened One Night
Run Silent, Run Deep
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Hud
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Graduate
Jaws
Marathon Man
Rebecca
The Jungle Book (1967)
Night Shift
Cars
Cool Hand Luke
The Hudsucker Proxy
His Girl Friday
The Awful Truth
Notorious
Casablanca
The Usual Suspects
L.A. Confidential
Eight Men Out
Lone Star
The Bourne Identity
Ocean’s 11 (Soderberg)
The Limey
Boogie Nights
Fargo
Miller’s Crossing
Monsters Inc.
The Empire Strikes Back
Blade Runner
Alien

The Island of Misfit Films:

Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Clueless
Blast from the Past
Annie Hall

Breaker Morant
Black Robe

Sideways
Election
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Amadeus

A Fish Called Wanda
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Time Bandits

Toy Story

Laura

I'm world-famous in Blogastan

2007-06-18T16:31:00.001-04:00

I don't like to brag or anything, but yours truly is about to be published in a very prestigious journal. Competition was quite fierce. Ferocious, in fact.

McSweeney's, Plowshares and The New Yorker can suck it! (Scroll down until you see my sobriquet.)

Our Germans are better than their Germans.

2007-06-05T09:40:00.000-04:00

I know this continues what might seem like a preponderance of surveys, quizzes and memes, or as I like to call them, Blogburger Helper^®. But this one is a bit different. Instead of getting tagged by another blogger and answering the same inane questions as the great, heaving masses of the blogosphere, you ask to be interviewed and they come up with five questions tailored especially to you. In other words, you bring it on yourself.

Tammara did it on her blog ~~a few days, weeks, months ago~~ recently and I was intrigued. I've been an increasingly avid reader of Something Mighty and Sublime for well over a year now, and I'm a devoted fan. And she’s been a reciprocal reader, commenter and linker—one of the original ADS Drinking Buddies—for almost as long. So it was a challenge, however tacit, I simply couldn't let go unanswered. Here, though, I have to offer an apology for taking so long to get this posted. I don’t know what the exact etiquette regarding these things is, but I’m pretty sure they’re supposed to be answered during the same geological era in which they were asked.

It will come as no surprise to anyone who keeps up with SMAS, but be advised: when you tell Tammara to bring it, she brings it.

1. When you imagine the man-cub at 18, what do you see? What are his likes and dislikes?

There are lots of things I’m eager to share and do with him—riding roller coasters, watching and playing baseball, wrenching on old BMWs, as just a few examples. But I really look forward to watching and quoting movies with him. He already has a burgeoning aesthetic (“I don’ like dat song!”), a terrific sense of humor, and scary-amazing recall. Whenever we’re getting dressed to go out, I’ll say “Ready, Heddy?” in a not-so-subtle prompt for him to respond with “That’s Hedley…” This draws disapproving eye-rolls and admonitions from his mother, who really should just be thankful I’m not introducing him to the campfire scene. All in good time.

Without being one of those dads who needs to live vicariously through his son, I must cop to a not-so-secret hope that he appreciates mechanical things, words/language, music, history, and food. Though not necessarily at the same time. (The first time we get to screen The Right Stuff together, we'll be able to check off half the list in one three-hour fell swoop.)

His current expression du jour is “How dis work?” He always asks for stories about trains and cars. When I’m pushing him on the swings at the park, he’s constantly demanding to “go fast!” So I think he’s inherited the car-guy/flyboy gene. Honestly, whatever he’s into is fine, so long as his interest is genuine and passionate. I’m not saying he can’t be capricious; I just don’t want him to be a little trendoid. He’s got a really independent spirit now and I hope he never loses that.

His dislikes will be processed food, cheap laughs at the expense of others, and everybody who had anything to do with putting W in the White House. (Ideally, that last point will be expressed by quoting Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High: “What are you people, on dope?!”)

2. What popular movie of the last 5 years do you loathe so entirely that it makes you grind your teeth when you are reminded of it? (And sorry, btw, that I'm reminding you now.)

Actually, there are three.

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith
I don’t even know where to begin with this one. There was so much praising with faint damnation about what an improvement it was over the preceding two. Which was really just a not-so-subtle way of lowering expectations to the point where all anybody cared about was going through the motions and seeing how the two trilogies connect. Just get on with it, already. I suppose it’s possible that Lucas could have been more perfunctory about it, (Bail Organa? Check. Blockade Runner? Check. Luke and Leia? Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru? Check, check and double-check.) but I can’t begin to imagine how. The upside is that it inspired one of my all-time favorite Anthony Lane quotes from one of his best reviews:

“The general opinion of Revenge of the Sith seems to be that it marks a distinct improvement on the last two episodes, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones. True, but only in the same way that dying from natural causes is preferable to crucifixion.”

Frankly, I shouldn't have been that surprised. People have been using computers to facilitate onanisitic pursuits for years. But leave it to George Lucas to define a new state of the art. A while back I read a comment on the IMDb about SW III:ROTS. Some breathless gushing about how “this really makes you want to immediately go and watch Episode IV…” Yeah, I thought. Kinda like when you take a swig of sour milk expecting fresh. Anything to purge this dreck from your mind and try to remember a time when Star Wars didn’t suck ginormous, asteroid-dwelling phallus-monsters.

Roger Dodger
This doesn’t properly count as popular, because it was limited to the art-house circuit where it promptly (and quite deservingly) tanked. Even so, it pissed me off. I’m a fan of Campbell Scott. And based on the fact that I share a name and an occupation with the title character, I was really looking forward to this movie. Maybe that was my problem—mismanaged expectations. But, man, what a fetid pile this movie was. About two minutes in, it went from cynical and misogynistic to outright, guns-blazing misanthropic and just never looked back. You know that bitter, burning sensation you get in the back of your throat when you almost throw up? It was like that—non-stop for 90-odd minutes.

Ocean’s 12
This felt like a betrayal by a good friend. Not just because Steven and George and the rest of the Hee-Haw gang basically phoned it in, but because they based the entire teeth-gnashing third act on the Achilles heel of the otherwise outstanding first film—Julia Roberts.

Fortunately, those guys have built up a deep well of good will over the years. I was reminded just how deep when I watched Out of Sight the other night. So, we’re cool. In fact, I’m counting on Ocean’s 13 for a bit of redemption. I know—fool me once, can’t get fooled again. But having read some interviews with Clooney where he as much as cops to them not bringing their A game—and acknowledging the need to get back into everyone’s favor—I’m willing to spot them the benefit of the doubt.

3. Do you imagine a rich and full early retirement like they show in investment company commercials, or do you imagine a career you will continue doing as long as they'll let you do it?

I’m going to go with the latter, with the proviso that if some windfall were to enable the former, I wouldn’t turn it down. I could make a very long and happy career out of my leisurely pursuits, which I'm sure would include still not blogging often enough.

I think I’m a like a lot of people of our generation. Unlike our parents, we expect some minimal level of personal satisfaction/fulfillment from a job beyond punching the clock and paying the bills. That said, it’s still pretty rare that someone lucks out and makes a really good living doing something they’d do for free. I like the work I do, but if I pick six lucky numbers this weekend, I’m not going to spend my days writing ad copy.

4. What in your secret heart of hearts do you most wish people to envy you for?

My first thought when I read that question was, “Nothing. Envy doesn’t interest me. Sure, there are things I’d like people to appreciate or admire...” But if I’ve learned nothing else reading SMAS, it’s not to confuse Tammara’s comfort with language for a casual approach to its usage.

So after much hand-wringing and soul searching, I’ve narrowed it down to either:

A) My impeccable table manners

B) My ability to belch the alphabet

5. When you see yourself on film (video), do you think, "Hey, yeah, not so bad," or do you think, "Crap, I've gotta do something about (fill in the blank)" ?

Depends. If the photo is from ten or even three years ago, it’s the former. More recently though, I start wondering how Brian Dennehy or William Shatner got in the shot.

All right, that’s our show. Thanks for tuning in. If you think you can handle five rounds of Middlebrow interrogation, leave a note in the comments.

89% Pure Junk

2007-05-25T22:02:00.000-04:00

Anyone who knows me knows I love lists. I love movies. And I love a good trivia challenge. So what he have here is one of those trifecta moments that I simply can’t resist.

I got 89% right. A pretty solid B+; maybe an A-, depending on generous you want to make the curve. I had a nice long unbroken streak between 91 and 67, and finished strong down the homestretch from 29 to 1. Plus, I didn’t miss two in a row. Not too shabby, right?

Of the eleven I didn’t get, I had seen only one (99). There were a few I guessed at based on actors (47, 48, 33, 34) or the setting and context of the scene (89), and a couple that I needed a little help from the IMDb. But I think 89 is pretty respectable.

I had #11 from the moment I saw it. But it really couldn’t have been anything else—if you’re even remotely aware of movie ephemera, you know what it is just by the number. Of course, I was giddy at 91.

Three cheers for "Agent Mosley." The complete answer key is here. My scorecard is below.

100: Night of the Living Dead
99:
98: Dead Poets Society
97: Blade Runner
96:
95: Ocean’s 11 (2001)
94: Star Wars
93: Midnight Run
92:
91: The Right Stuff
90: The Fugitive
89: The French Connection (?)
88: Back to the Future
87: Cast Away
86: Quiz Show
85: The Silence of the Lambs
84: Titanic
83: The Magnificent Seven
82: Rain Man
81: Galaxy Quest
80: Harold and Maude
79: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
78: The Day the Earth Stood Still(?)
77: The Apartment
76: The Great Escape
75: The Hustler (?)
74: Ed Wood
73: The Jerk
72: Raiders of the Lost Ark
71: When Harry Met Sally
70: Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
69: M*A*S*H
68: The Breakfast Club
67: The King and I
66:
65: The Princess Bride
64:
63: Network
62: Mr. Roberts
61: Singles
60: Gone with the Wind
59: His Girl Friday
58: Goldfinger
57:
56: It’s a Wonderful Life
55: The Blues Brothers
54:
53: Midnight Express
52: Waking Ned Devine
51: Roman Holiday
50: Cool Hand Luke
49: The Taking of Pelham 123
48: The Adventures of Robin Hood (?)
47: The Big Sleep (?)
46:
45: The Hudsucker Proxy
44: Magnum Force
43: Monty Python
42: Finding Nemo
41:
40: Superman: The Movie
39: The 39 Steps (a gimmie!)
38: Aliens
37: Men In Black
36: Clerks
35: Harvey
34: Marty (?)
33: The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean
32:
31: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
30:
29: Young Frankenstein (It’s pronounced “Fronk-en-steen”)
28: The Bridge on the River Kwai
27: The Usual Suspects
26: North By Northwest
25: Sunset Boulevard
24: Escape From New York
23: The Wizard of Oz
22: Casablanca
21: The Lion in Winter
20: Boogie Nights
19: The Shawshank Redemption
18: Almost Famous
17: The Maltese Falcon
16: The Natural
15: Being John Malkovich
14: The Professionals (IMdB)
13: Lawrence of Arabia
12: Ghostbusters
11: This is Spinal Tap
10: Citizen Kane (?)
9: 12 Angry Men (?)
8: Office Space
7: To Kill a Mockingbird
6: Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Chill, Winston!)
5: The Godfather
4: Fargo
3: L.A. Confidential
2: Once Upon a Time in the West
1: The Lord of the Rings

So, how'd you do?

Negotiations and Love Songs

2007-05-13T22:28:00.000-04:00

One of my cyber pals, Stennie, who’s got her shit so together that she maintains not only a superfabulous regular, slice-of-life blog and an extra crispy one devoted entirely to movies, concocted this little CD Mix Challenge. Actually, this is the fourth of these she’s done, but the first I’ve noticed and participated in since I started reading her blogs with any regularity.

Unlike other pop-culture memes I’ve done (mostly Dennis’ movie quizzes), which involve answering questions with actual written words, Stennie’s takes a different tack. She challenges participants to respond in song. And while I like reading other people’s memes, this bumps the entertainment value of the experience up to a whole new level, ‘cause, you get a bunch of CDs—each chock full of an interesting assortment of new music—in the mail.

One more caveat before we get to the show. Due to the peripatetic nature of my life over the last two years, all but a handful of my CDs are packed up; only the essentials have found their way onto my iTunes. In fact, the majority of my library is stuff I’ve downloaded or come by through some other means. And a hella kids music (which is another post entirely) Still, I’m pleased with the final result, even if it’s not as eclectic as I would have liked.

CD Mix Challenge 4—The Revenge!

1. Song with a day of the week in the title.

“Sunday Morning” by No Doubt

I had a few other choices, but I like how the energy of this sets the tone.

2. A song you disliked as a youngster that you like now.

“Highway to Hell” by AC/DC

To paraphrase Bono (sorry, Stennie): “Evangelicals stole rock & roll from my adolescence. Now I’m stealin’ it back.”

3. Sellout - song from a TV commercial.

“Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone

Even though “sellout” is probably intended as a pejorative, I picked one that, when used in a campaign for Sony Video a few years ago, actually reawakened my appreciation for the song such that I went and bought it off iTunes.

4. Kickass cover song.

“Kiss” by Tom Jones & Art of Noise (covering Prince)

To be properly kick-ass, a cover should somehow improve upon the original, right? No mean feat when we’re talking about Prince, but this gets it done. Not least because nobody steps up and owns a song like Tom Jones.

5. Musical question...

“Who is he and what is he to you?” by Bill Withers

Another great ‘70s AM radio staple. Not my favorite Bill Withers track, but it serves its purpose.

6. And answer!

“Steve McQueen” by Drive-By Truckers

Who is he? What is he to me? He’s the coolest goddam motherfucker on the silver screen! Bonus: it’s also a nice little shout-out to the movies, which seems only fitting considering how I found Stennie’s blogs.

7. Third person song

“Wedding Vows in Vegas” by Was (Not Was) featuring Frank Sinatra, Jr.

From one of my all-time top 10 favorite albums, What Up, Dog?

8. Uplugged - a favorite acoustic song.

“Rain” by Patty Griffin

Not sure if this was supposed to be an acoustic version of an originally electrified/amplified song (I got the impression that we were trying to avoid that) or something that has always been acoustic. In any case, this is what I call an NSFW song—because it’s rare that I can get all the way through it without welling up. Which also makes it NSFD (not safe for driving). A lot of the songs on Patty Griffin’s 1000 Kisses have that effect, but this one is just extra poignant for some reason. Maybe it’s my Oregonian roots.

9. A song about food.

“Jambalaya” by Hank Williams

One of the few songs about food on my iTunes that isn’t from the kids’ music file. Why is that? Why do we stop singing about food when we get all growed up?

10. Trains, Planes and Automobiles: song about a mode of transport.

“City of New Orleans” by Arlo Guthrie

This was hard because I could easily do (and have done) entire mixes around transportation (see #14). No idea why. It’s not like I set out to amass transportation-themed songs. The fact that it continues the geographic theme from the song that precedes it is a very happy accident. Also another indelible artifact of my ‘70s childhood soundtrack.

11. A song that cheers you up.

“Loves Me Like A Rock” by Paul Simon

Easily my favorite Paul Simon song (and that’s saying something). The visceral sense memory of it never fades, which makes it kind of the inverse of #2. I loved it as a kid; my appreciation for it has only deepened as I’ve gotten older. I also like that it’s from the same era as the previous track, so it’s possible that it might have been the day-brightening bit of sonic sorbet in real life that it is here.

12. Media - songs about radio, TV or other type of media (newspapers, magazines, whatever)

“Centerfold” by the J. Geils Band

And I thought coming up with a non-kids food song was hard. How is it that I have 427 songs about transportation but only one about media? (I have more, surely, if only I could get to the CDs.) Speaking of media, remember way back in olden days when MTV used play videos? This and a few other tracks come from that time I like to call the Golden Age of MTV (1981-84).

13. Add it up: Song with a number in the title...

“One” by Three Dog Night

14. Plus another song with a number in the title...

“Six Months in a Leaky Boat” by Split Enz

15. Equals third song with a number in the title.

“Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes

16. Banned! A song that is, or was in its day, controversial.

“Without Me” by Eminem

17. A song about a family member

“Oh Daddy” by Adrian Belew

This is an 11^th-hour sub, for sake of fitting everything onto a single CD. We’re all about value here at Middlebrow Industries, Inc. Or my name ain’t Nathan Arizona!

18. A favorite song that you have discovered since our last CD mix.

“Chariot” by Page France

I actually blogged about these guys (and a gal) recently. Nice to have a another chance to spread the word about them.

19. A song that reminds you of an old friend.

“Amanda” by Waylon Jennings

In this case “old friend” = My mom’s 1973 Mazda 808 station wagon. On nights when my dad was working graveyard at the mill, she bundled my brother and me into the backseat and the backidy-back at O-dark-thirty, tune the radio to Rockin’ Country KPOK or 62 KGW, and deliver The Oregonian to homes in the hinterlands of Clackamas County.

20. Amnesty song As with the last mix—a song you wanted to include in this or any past mix that you didn’t find room for.

“The Mayor of Simpleton” by XTC

This was a contender for #11. It’s not only one of my all-time favorite songs, but quite possibly the perfect pop song. It’s a nice little call-back to Sam Cooke’s “What a wonderful world,” but with so much winking self awareness that it ought to be subtitled “I was meta when meta wasn’t cool.”

I weep for the future.

2007-05-05T20:20:00.000-04:00

Glancing at my site meter referrals, I came across this link. Being from neither a known associate or the ubiquitous Google search for the song from Jaws, my curiosity was duly piqued.

Turns out, it’s a message board used by the faculty to mete out class assignments at Paramus Catholic High School.

While I’m glad to be getting traffic for something other than sea chanteys and tips on pork brining, I’m not sure I’m ready for the responsibility that comes with being an quasi-legit academic resource—for Catholics. Either the teacher is too pressed for time to vet every site, or he’s big into the whole free will thing. ‘Cause, seriously, did he even look around?

I feel like I should do a quick review of Dogma. Or link to the “Every Sperm is Sacred” song from Monty Python and Meaning of Life.

So far, none of the kids has followed the teacher’s link (to be fair, he posted it on May 2, and they have a lot of Shakespeare and Milton and Lewis Carroll to get through). But here’s the odd thing: the traffic that came so far was from the EPA office in Research Triangle Park, here in Cack’lacky. Also, careful readers and conspiracy theorists will no doubt recall that Paramus is the location of our holiday adventure to IKEA. Curiouser and curiouser, indeed.

I find it more than a little quizzical that of all the places to find a W.B. Yeats poem on the interwebs, Mr. Kirschmann chose my humble watering hole. My guess is that, while loaded with distractions, A Drinking Song is otherwise free of anything a kid could crib in the way of poetic analysis. Still, I love the idea that some latter-day Mary-Catherine Gallagher is going to conflate Yeats with Messrs. Quint, Brody and Hooper. Probably a long shot, I know. But then, isn’t that I what real faith is all about?

A Small Fortune

2007-03-29T13:27:00.000-04:00

In the man-cub's fortune cookie from P.F. Chang's the other night:

I just hope this doesn't involve my life insurance policy.

An awesome piece of awesomeness*

2007-03-02T11:32:00.000-05:00

Along with being pretty cool in general, I like this as an opportunity for my movie geek peeps and my ad-biz peeps to all join hands and sing "Misirlou" around the campfire. I believe the font used here is Royale with Cheese, bold condensed. Please feel free to correct me if I've gotten that wrong.

The motion-graphics artist who created it is Jarratt Moody. Thanks to AMG for the link.

*A possibly recurring feature that will showcase category-defying bits of pop-culture ephemera.

As an aside, can anyone tell me how to embed a quicktime movie into a post without uploading it to YouTube or another video hosting service? Is that even possible in Blogger?

I need more glockenspiel!

2007-02-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

You might not know it from the movie-heavy content here, but music is a major deal in my life. Like fresh breath to The Geek in Sixteen Candles. Maybe some day, in the not-too-distant future, I’ll be able to talk about music (or food, or cars, or the appalling dearth of enlightened political discourse in 21st-century America) without involving movies. Though I can't imagine why I'd want to.

Anyway, the source of my current ersatz tumescence is Page France. And not just because keyboardist / glockenspielerin / cowbellist Whitney McGraw is such a cutie. I really dig their sound. And the video is about as perfect a moment of pure rock-and-roll bliss as I can remember seeing. It’s literally a bunch of kids who decided to get a band together and put on a show in somebody’s basement. Which isn’t to say it’s trifle. Frontman Mike Nau clearly has something to say and a way with words. And I’ve always had a soft spot for twangy, nasal angst that’s equal parts humable and intellectually ingratiating.

Now, here’s the thing about me and music: at this point, I’m well beyond trying to keep up with every new band of the moment. My idea of a hot new act is Franz Ferdinand or Neko Case. I’m just now discovering The Coral, if that tells you anything. Thanks to an Entertainment Weekly subscription and a job that forces me to interact with tragic hipsters ten years my junior, I’m obliquely aware of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and various indie flavors of the month. And every once in a while, I take an interest. But my dance card and my iTunes is mostly full of artists that provided the soundtrack for my youth, peaking at about age 25. Lots of 80s pop and punk. Lots of old-school country. A big ol’ dollop of something loosely defined as “Americana” (which includes the likes of Lyle Lovett, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, The Derailers—basically anything played on WNCW). There’s also a dash of mainstream hip-hop (Outkast) and the occasional guilty pleasure (Pink).

That said, I’m probably a lot more open to new music than people my own age (extremely late 30s). In any case, me taking a shine to a new band—that I didn’t read about in EW or The New Yorker—is a pretty big deal, relatively speaking.

Thanks to Paul at Hee-Haw Marketing and his Tune In Saturdays feature for hipping me to Page France.

"Doesn't anybody fucking knock?!"*

2007-02-21T16:53:00.000-05:00

Last week, the Onion A.V. Club, my go-to source for pop-culture insight and commentary, did one of their Inventory features: 15 Pop Songs Owned by Movie Scenes. As the name suggests, it’s a handful of pop songs not originally written for a movie with which the song has become inextricably linked in the collective consciousness. Follow the link to see theirs—along with some fun suggestions in the comments section. But first, check out mine and share yours below.

“Puttin’ on the Ritz” from Young Frankenstein bends the rules a bit since, while it is a pop song in the best sense of the word, it’s actually being performed by characters in the movie, not being played over the scene. Still, if the definition of “owning” the song is “scene that comes to mind when you hear the song,” then this is the reference standard, at least for me. Frankly, (or is it pronounced ‘fronkly?’) anyone who can hear "Puttin' on the Ritz" and not think of YF is clearly not of this earth. "Oooh-pah doo-pah!"

This one actually came to me out of the ether—before I had seen the OAVC feature: Nina Simone's "Sinnerman" from the latter-day Thomas Crown Affair. Probably a knock on the limits of my musical experience, but whatever. A great song that really elevates an okay movie.

Speaking of Pierce Brosnan...time will tell if it can claim permanent ownership, but the way The Matador uses “It’s Not Unusual” proves the old saying about possession being nine-tenths of the law.

The Isley Bros.’ "It's Your Thing" is currently in the possession of Out of Sight, especially the blue-filtered Detroit cruising montage. Even though it, along with the redoubtable Robert Forster, wasn’t enough to save the doomed “Karen Sisco” TV spin-off that used it as a theme song.

Risky Business is of course the sole and irrevocable holder of Bob Seger’s “Old-Time Rock and Roll.” But for me, personally (and maybe this betrays how musically sheltered I was at the time I saw it) the pure, libidinous, harmonica-and-guitar grind of Muddy Waters’ “Mannish Boy” will always bring to mind Joel’s “I concentrated on sales” montage. “You know what he said, afterwards? He said the lady had knowledge. And he was glad to get that knowledge. Because college girls can smell ignorance—like dog shit.”

I know I’m stuck in the ‘80s here, but I have to give credit to Reckless for introducing me to Romeo Void’s “Never Say Never.” For those scoring along at home in their lucky souvenir programs, this is also the movie that I came out of, smitten with the leggy blonde lead and, after trying to crib her identity from the one sheet, declared, “That Aidan Quinn is hot!” ‘Cause, seriously, who the hell names a girl Daryl? For that matter, who names a boy Aidan? Remember, these were the early ‘80s and I was still quite the naïf.

Finally, just for fun and under the heading of classical adaptations/appropriations version, I must include "Ode to Joy" (Beethoven's 9th) from Raising Arizona. Among classical tunes yodeled, whistled and rendered on banjo, it has no equal. “Or my name ain't Nathan Arizona!”

*This is of course the denouement line from the scene in Fast Times at Ridgemont High that proves the concept of song "ownership." At least if you're a heterosexual man. It's not the Cars’ “Moving in Stereo.” Oh, no. That song belongs 100% to sweet Phoebe.

Goldie's Got a Gun

2007-02-21T15:27:00.000-05:00

Be advised: I've added Oklahomeless to ye olde blogrolle. It's the online home/journal of my pal and fellow old-BMW enthusiast Daniel Goldberg. Or, I should say, 1LT Daniel Goldberg, given his current gig as a "Baby JAG" in the Direct Commission Course at Ft. Sill, near scenic Lawton, OK.

Like everyone on the blog roll, he's witty, erudite and prolific to a frightening and envy-inspiring degree. Check him out and cheer him on.

Give the people what they want, YouTube edition.

2007-02-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

About a year or so ago, I did a post wherein I marveled at the number of people who happened by while searching for drinking songs. Actually, given the title of my blog, that wasn't so surprising (Yeats be damned). What was surprising--and remains so--is that easily half the drinking song questers were/are looking for the song(s) from Jaws. My ham-fisted analysis of these data suggests that of all the people looking for drinking songs, half of them are shark hunters. And most of them are completely hammered.

Last year, in the interests of cultivating a little good will on the interwebs, I posted the lyrics and a couple lame photos, for the Jaws bit and (because we're all about value) the lyrics to the Monty Python Australian Philosopher's Drinking Song as a special bonus if you click and comment before midnight tonight.

This year, I'm adding moving pictures and sound. Next year, who knows? Could be 3-D holograms or neural receptors that let you taste the beer. You just have to keep checking back. Because we here at A Drinking Song pride ourselves on providing cutting-edge entertainment technology.*

Enjoy!

Show Me the Way to Go Home

Show me the way to go home (bum, bum),
I’m tired and I wanna go to bed,
I had a little drink about an hour ago
and it went right to my head.

Where ever I may roam, (bum bum)
by land or sea or foam,
you can always hear me singing this song,
show me the way to go home…

The Philosophers Drinking Song

Emmanuel Kant was a real pissant
who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
who could think you under the table
David Hume could out-consume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.

There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ye
‘bout the raisin o’ the wrist
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

And John Stewart Mill (of his own free will)
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away:
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart:
“I drink, therefore I am!”

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed:
A lovely little thinker
But a bugger when he’s pissed!

*Actually, we're just shameless whores for visitors and comments.

Just when I thought U2 couldn't get any cooler.

2007-02-01T12:22:00.000-05:00

When he picked up his best original screenplay Oscar for Almost Famous, I remember Cameron Crowe describing the movie as a love letter to music and his family.

That's what U2 has done with the "Window in the Skies" video: unwrapped a Whitman's Valentine sampler to pop music and everybody who loves it. Leave it to Bono and the boys to take oh-so-postmodern concepts like sampling and mashups and turn them inside-out, revealing their gooey, nutty center. I love how they connect the dots from Louis Armstrong to Jay Z, with stops at Johnny Cash, Keith Moon, Franks Zappa and Sinatra, and Elivses Costello and Presley to prove what we've suspected all along: Rock and roll is a palimpsest.

After half a dozen viewings, I gotta say the Flavor Flav "To love I rhapsodize" moment is my favorite. For now. What's yours?

Thanks to Dennis for the link.

UPDATE: Turns out the clip's director, Gary Koepke, is an ad guy. For an agency that, IIRC, works on Hummer. But whatever.

A little paint, a few flowers, coupla throw pillows...

2007-01-31T09:58:00.000-05:00

It’s no secret that I am a huge procrastinator. If my ability to procrastinate were a physical feature, like a goiter or a isthmus, you could see it from space. It’s not just that I put things off, it’s that I find clever little rationales for avoiding things I should be doing. Even when I find a few precious moments that I could spend on a post, I tend to fritter it away reading blogs or commenting on blogs, which I've deluded myself into believing is a pretty good substitute for actual blogging.

Then, just when I think I’m getting a handle on it—I’ve culled the number of blogs I read every day down to a very manageable 15 or so—two of my favorite wastes of time*, Todd and Fish, sent around a list of unsung and under-appreciated blogs. That’s how I discovered [added to my collection of drug paraphernalia] Hee Haw Marketing, Freelance Genius and Circle Jerk at the Square Dance, which lead me to How I Learned to Love the Bomb.

About this same time, I noticed I was getting visits via a link on The Wrong End of the Telescope, a lovely little cyber salon presided over by a woman whose eclecticism is right in my aesthetic wheelhouse. TWEOTT also makes the third or fourth blog I link to with Francophile tendencies. Zut alors! Light my Gitanes and pass the brie, mes amis!

Returning visitors will note that I finally caved and took up the Blogger folks on their offer of switching to the new format. It's nice, right? Still not as cool or sophisticated as the TypePad blogs, but an improvement over the previous edition. It also seemed like a good time to update and reorganize the blog roll. Along with the above mentioned newcomers, I'm adding Ross and Lizzy, whose blogs I've been reading/lurking on for a while but never got around to linking.

For some reason, I've avoided linking ad industry sites and blogs. There are exceptions to this aversion, though, namely the aforementioned Todd and the lovely and enchanting Irene Done, proprietrix of NotBillable. I include them because they're basically great blogs done by people who happen to work in advertising. Sometimes they blog about the biz, but they're not ad blogs, strictly speaking.

I've also added metacool to the links. It's a blog by design guru Diego Rodriguez. It overlaps with a lot of advertising/branding theory that interests me. Mostly though, I go there for a recurring feature called Unabashed Gearhead Gnarliness. If you're any kind of car guy**, DIYer or mechanics geek, it's pretty much guaranteed to give you a full-on robot chubby.

*and I say that with all due Sheryl Crow-esque affection.

** Non-gender-specific use. Anyone who appreciates cars, motorcycles, airplanes, and the things that make them cool will experience a general tingling in his/her bikini area.

Jag hjärta IKEA

2007-01-29T16:32:00.000-05:00

There we are, trolling down Route 17. The World’s Ultimate Mother-In-Law, Queen Maeve, The Man-Cub and I guiding our craft through that quadrant of the retail galaxy known as Paramus, New Jersey. Suddenly, the opening strains and ballistic tympani of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” begin to drown out “Wheels on the Bus.” That’s when I see it. At first it’s just a dark area in the corner of the windshield. But gradually the entire view ahead is overwhelmed by an enormous yet strangely comforting monolith of pure perfect blue.

We have docked with the mother ship. We have arrived at IKEA.

If it isn’t already obvious, I have to cop to an irrational (okay, borderline obsessive [fine, totally banana-cakes]) affection for IKEA. I feel about IKEA the way Darren does Chipotle. The difference is that, unlike Mr. McL’s twice- or thrice-weekly forays to his shrine of guac, my pilgrimages to Valhalla with slipcovers happen with the frequency of Mr. Spock’s booty calls. Which in some ways makes it all the sweeter.

I’d like to say that IKEA is Swedish for “nirvana.” Except that nirvana, if I remember correctly from my undergraduate Eastern philosophy class, actually means “a breathing out,” a final and complete lack of want. Which as everyone knows is the exact opposite of the feeling you have when you walk into IKEA.

It's not just that I love the clean lines and the cool Nordic aesthetic. The marketing wonk in me also admires the evil genius that is IKEA retail merchandising. It’s as if they’ve taken the tactic of putting the candy bars and the tabloids in the checkout aisle and extrapolated it out until it applies to, well, everything that makes life worth living. It’s a 500,000-square-foot impulse buy. I’d probably resent it deeply if anyone else were doing it, but I can’t think of another big box retailer who could pull it off. Even my beloved Target is bush league by comparison.

It works so well, I think, because the IKEA experience (shopping is a woefully insufficient term) manages to awaken and appeal to everyone’s inner Ingvar, regardless of actual ethnicity. I’m a quarter Swedish, (Dalarna represent!) so I can’t say for sure; all I can tell you is that I long ago drank the Lingonberry Kool-Aid and have never looked back. And if you’re somehow immune to the Scandahoovian charms, they get you with the idea that you can—and should—be better organized. And tastefully so, while you’re at it. Oh, and for not so much money, dontchaknow. The entire IKEA business model is based on the philosophy that has inspired home-improvement and car-restoration projects (and their associated liquidation of nest eggs) since the beginning of time: “While you’re in there you might as well…” Honestly, I’ll consider it a harbinger of the apocalypse the day someone walks into an IKEA, buys a single item and walks out.

We went in ~~thinking~~ fully deluded that we knew what we wanted and just had to decide between “a couple of things.” Five hours later, we were on the road back home—with easily twice as much Swede swag as we’d intended on bagging. But it all worked out; we actually ended up spending less than we budgeted, on account of a TV stand that not only cost less than the one we were considering, but was on sale. It's called BENNO, which I believe was the Norse god of two-fers. Also, I have to acknowledge that the whole mission would have been a wash without my mother-in-law and her preternatural capacity for toddler engagement. To say it helped that TWUMIL watched the baby would be like saying NASA gave Neil Armstrong a hand getting to the moon. There’s just no way we could have done it without her.

If Disneyland is The Happiest Place on Earth, IKEA is the Magic Kingdom for people who nest. I had this thought not during our five hours in the ~~park~~ store, but on the drive back to TWUMIL’s. Unless you share at least the first three numbers of your zip code with an IKEA, you just can’t do it all in a day—you need at least two. They already have a restaurant in the store, why not add a hotel? I’m sure they could get a deal on the furniture.

As we wended our way home, exhausted and exhilarated, the hold of our aptly named Odyssey laden with birch-veneered treasures, another thought occurred to me. I couldn’t help but wonder how William Carlos Williams*, were he inclined to revise his epic poem “Patterson**,” might have waxed rhapsodic over IKEA and the way it reduces every other nearby home goods store to an impotent ash pile. Yes, Bed Bath and Beyond, I’m lookin’ at you and your crap-tastic drawer organizers and your puny 20% off coupons.

*Obligatory middlebrow reference.

**I realize that this would require cellular reanimation on the order of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and/or Claire from Heroes. If I were truly worthy, I’d do a riff, a little homage/parody on some passage myself. But lately I’ve had to spend all my free time assembling furniture. Ain't life grand?

It’s a fair cop.

2006-12-19T19:50:00.000-05:00

Fish tagged me. Or, more precisely, fouled off a pitch he’d already been thrown and showed yours truly one of the perils of box seats behind the dugout. His heart was in the right place, though.

So. Five Things About Me You May Not Already Know (and Have Never Before Revealed on This Blog).

1. My first live “rock” concert was Styx at Veteran’s Auditorium in Des Moines, IA. I think it was the Paradise Theater tour. “Tonight’s the night we’ll make hiiiissssstoreeeeeee…”

2. I have congenitally crooked pinkies. (Imagine a little finger that’s a little too needy-clingy with a ring finger.) The left more than the right. The person in my family who had them before me was my maternal great-grandmother. But I passed them to my son. Go figure. So far, this genetic mutation has yet to translate into anything resembling a super power. Although it’s good for one-fifth of a blog post, and that ain’t nothin’!

3. I was an Armed Forces Radio DJ. Yes, like “Good Morning Vietnam” only 15 years later and about 85% less funny. I must've done something right, though; I managed to woo my wife, who applied for a work-study job at the station so she could stalk me. So far, it’s worked out pretty well. I have to say that being a military broadcaster is (or was) about the least military job you could do and be in uniform. What attracted me to the Army life, you ask? The thought of moving around only once every year or three was somehow strangely appealing. Maybe it was because...

4. I went to five high schools in four years. One in Oregon; four in Iowa. Go ~~Millers!~~ ~~Rail-splitters~~! ~~Indians!~~ ~~Cardinals!~~ Tigers! My sophomore year, I was the new kid three different times. Which blew every bit as much as you can imagine. But wait, there’s more: I also went to five middle schools in two years. The fact that not one had the Nomads as their mascot is, I think, a sign that the universe has no sense of irony. It just enjoys fucking with me.

5. I’m pretty handy in the kitchen.* When we lived in Seattle, I came up with a recipe for salmon with blackberry sauce that got me into the finals of in the first Sunset Salmon Cook-off. The magazine flew five finalists and their guests to Palo Alto for a weekend of food, drink and conviviality that remains a gustatory high-water mark for me. Still, I can’t believe I came in second behind a guy from Phoenix. The shame! The ignominy! Don't get me wrong. It was a really good dish, but still. Phoenix!

*Actually, ADS regulars and pork-loving googlers know this, but I thought some elaborating evidence might be nice. If you ask nicely (maybe in the comments section [nudge, wink]), I’ll consider sharing the recipe.

As I understanding these things, this being my first tagging and all, I'm supposed to spread the love to five other unsuspecting fellow-~~rubes~~bloggers. So I nominate:

Ed, who despite being an old friend and a founding inspiration for A Drinking Song, is always good for something unexpected.

Tammara, who's probably weary of these things and will be hard pressed to come up five things she hasn't already blogged about with great eloquence and wit.

That Little Round-Headed Boy, the hardest-working, most underrated arbiter of the zeitgeist.

Irene Done, about whom I know only that we share the same job title and the same shameless zeal for Battlestar Galactica.

Mr. Seed, who seems to be having a little trouble getting out of the gate.

And, as a special holiday bonus, I'd love to know more about Aunty Christ, the second coming of one of my all-time faves.

Well, duh.

2006-12-13T11:30:00.000-05:00

Your Movie Buff Quotient: 92%
You are a movie buff of the most obsessive variety. If a movie exists, chances are that you've seen it. You're an expert on movie facts and trivia. It's hard to stump you with a question about film.

Are You a Movie Buff?

Ok, so not exactly setting the world on fire in terms of original-content creation, but it's something, right?

To quote Bill Murray as the titular Bob: "Baby steps."

For what it's worth, I am not the all-but-indiscriminate celluloid whore this would make me out to be. I have seen a lot of movies, and I have a borderline-freakish level of recall for quotes and other details. But I also have standards.

I'm Thinking...!

2006-12-11T15:44:00.000-05:00

So there's this old Jack Benny bit, where he's accosted on the street:

Mugger:
“Your money or your life!”

Benny: (after a beat)
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”

That’s me. Not because I’m cheap (though I am, a bit). It’s because I’m an over-thinker. A hyper-analyzer. A hand-wringer.

This is harldy news to anyone who's tuned into this space over the last year. It's painfully obvious to even a wayward visitor or would-be drinking-song-singer who might have popped by during the the marathon cricket concert that comprised the last three months: I'm more thinker than doer.

It's taken me a while to figure that out, but there it is. I'd rather read than write. What's worse, I'd rather read pop-culture critiques that write them. I mean, I love the idea of writing them; I have the ideas and the inclination. Somehow, though I just can't seem to pull the trigger. Consequently, I tend to consume far more than I produce when it comes to anything creative. Not atypical for the average joe, but shameful for someone whose ostensible job title is "creative." And now that every other average joe has a blog--and blogs more reliably that I--it's all the more shameful.

One of the reasons I started this blog (as if it were some great calculated move in the first place) was to rejigger my thinking/doing ratio. To be just a little more impulsive and shoot-from-the hip on whatever I found interesting and noteworthy--movies, TV, music, the ad biz, politics, punctuation, food and drink, you name it. It was supposed to be a virtual watercooler where I could talk about the things that interest me with IRL friends and vitual aquaintances. Trouble is, instead of busting out with a post whenever I had a thought or observation to share, I somehow got it into my head that every blog post had to be this epic multimedia thing.

I blame Ixtab. And Dennis. And TLRHB. Ed shares some of the responsibility. Oh, and fish--that miracle of evolution who eats and blogs and makes little fish--he's crazy culpable. In fact, my entire blog roll should now be regarded as a kind of rogues' gallery. All those people, those witty, prolific, insightful blog-o-maniacs who started out as glorious inspiration are, I now realize, the cause of my ignominious cranial constipation. They're just too good; they set a standard I simply can't reach.

Now, the last three months have been something of an aberration, even for me, in part because I'm (wait for it) thinking seriously about a fairly major course change. (More on that later. Maybe.)

So, in an effort to jump-start (maybe defibrilate is a more apt metaphor--CLEAR!) this electronic beached whale, I'm going to try something a little bold and daring: Seven consecutive days of blog entries. I figure if I can just get some forward momentum built up, I can overcome the fear or the need to edit on the fly or whatever it is and just blog.

I'm just going to warn you now: It's not going to be pretty. My guess is that, over the next week, things around here resemble something between a car wreck and the inside of a sausage factory. If nothing else, it should be entertaining. I think.

We appreciate your patience while on hold.

2006-12-07T15:27:00.000-05:00

That low-frequency rumble/creaking/grinding you might have noticed is just the Middlebrow Industries, Inc. maintenance staff trying to get the old Blog-a-matic 3000™ to crank over.

Think Samuel L. Jackson in Jurrassic Park.: "Hold on to your butts!"

All of which is simply an exhortation to the faithful few who've checked in over the last few months for any sign of life to keep coming back; your quest shall not have been in vain.

And since we at Middlebrow Industries pride ourselves on being both timely and topical (and ironic!), please enjoy this nice bit of YouTubery with our compliments:

It's Kevin Smith holding forth for a very entertaining 20 minutes on the pleasures and pitfalls of taking a swing at the Man of Steel.

He's not dead; he's resting.

2006-08-23T17:19:00.000-04:00

I'm here, honest. Just temporarily (if five weeks can be considered 'temporary') overwhelmed by a perfect storm of work, family and work commmitments.

Did I mention that I've been working a lot lately?

Until our regularly scheduled programming resumes, please enjoy this brief diversion:

Don't pay the pizza man; don't even fix a price.

2006-07-07T14:54:00.000-04:00

Making pizza is easy. Not as easy as dialing the phone and getting the door, maybe. But way more satisfying. Or maybe I'm an inveterate food geek who's lost all perspective. Either way, it's just pennies a serving!

Here's all you need:

Lukewarm water, honey or sugar, yeast, all-purpose flour and a stand mixer (with a dough hook) or a stout food processor (with a plastic dough blade). Or you could, I suppose, mix it all up in, like, a bowl and knead it on the counter. Like they did in olden days.

While I've always pined for one of those crinkle-black, mac-daddy industrial-strength (600w) KitchenAid stand mixers, I find the white, uptight and outtasite KitchenAid food processor to be a bit more versatile. And way easier to rationalize than a machine I'd lay out three bills for, just to make pizza dough. Pennies a serving or not.

It also helps if you have a baker's peel (one of those flat wooden dealies with a handle; sorta looks like a big scary paddle--and works as one in a pinch, or so I hear.) It's it's not a deal-breaker if you don't. You just need something to get the thing in and out of the oven. A good sized cutting board served us for years before it finally broke and we broke down and got the peel. A baking stone is also a worthwhile investment. (Remember, pennies a serving!) If you're an exceedingly cheap bastard, as I once was, you can slide four 8"x 8" unglazed terra cotta tiles (~$1 apiece at Home Despot) together on your center oven rack. It gets to be kind of a pain after a while, scraping them clean and keeping them together. And they chip easily. YMMV.

So, here's what you do.

Put about 1 1/2 cups of lukewarm (~85 degrees F.) water in a big-ass measuring cup or mixing bowl. Stir in about 1 tablespoon of honey or sugar. (I like honey because it dissolves more easily and seems less processed--but that's just kooky, semi-crunchy me.) Then stir in two packets of yeast and let it sit until the yeast starts to foam up a bit, which usually takes about 10 minutes.

While the yeast is getting its sugar buzz on, combine the dry ingredients--4 cups of flour, and a tablespoon of salt--in the bowl of the mixer or food processor. Since we have a few minutes before the yeast solution is ready, here's a thought about flour: The higher the protien and gluten content, the better the dough and crust will be. I think that's right. If you're an accomplished (notice I didn't say 'master') baker, please feel free to square me away. In my experience, organic (natch) unbleached all-purpose white or bread flour seems to work best.

If you want more whole-wheat flavor, just substitute no more than one cup of whole-wheat flour for the all-purpose. Half a cup seems to be ideal. You might be tempted to use more, but you must resist this urge. Unless you like hard, chewy, non-elastic dough that, when baked, resembles pickup truck bedliner in texture and appearance. Ask me how I know.

I've also read recipes that recommend using 1 cup of cake or pastry flour. I've tried it a couple times with less-than-ideal results. I might try it again though. 'Cause, you know, what have I got to lose?

Okay, now fire up your mixing machine and slowly drizzle the yeast/water mixture into the flour. It should start setting up and begin to form a large, slightly sticky wad of dough. If you're one of those lucky bastards with a stand mixer, it'll probably form the dough into a lovely ball for you. The rest of us have to pull the wad out of the FP and form first into a ball, then a cylinder, which we divide in half and form into two smaller balls.

One thing I've found is that the longer you mix the dough, the more elastic it turns out. So, once the flour is thoroughly mixed with the water, let it go for another 30-60 seconds. And you know what? If it all goes pear-shaped, non c'e male--we're talking pennies a serving here, raggazzi.

Drizzle about a teaspoon of olive oil into a smallish mixing bowl/largeish soup bowl. Roll each dough ball around in the oil to lightly coat. Then cover the bowls with a damp paper towel or plastic wrap.

Wait a few hours.

Once the dough has risen and you're ready to roll it out, sprinkle a liberal sprinkling of flour on the work surface. (A countertop for poor schmucks like you and me; a butcherblock island top for you lucky bastards with your trophy kitchens.)

Also, now is the time to start pre-heating your oven. You want it as hot as it'll go, which on most home units is 550 degrees, F.

I actually prefer to roll mine out just a little, then finish it off by hand. (There's got to be a way to say that that doesn't sound like something you'd hear in a rest-area men's room).

The idea is basically that you want to stretch (rather than flatten) the dough unil it's the size and shape you want. And by stretching it, you get a little ridge of crust around the outside edge, which is nice.

Once you've shaped the dough into a relatively round crust, sprinkle some corn meal on your peel and transfer the crust to it. Give the peel a little shimmy-shake to make sure that the corn meal is keeping it from sticking. Repeat the shimmy test periodically while you're applying toppings. If it starts to stick, try lifting the edge of the dough and tossing a few more grains underneath.

Now you're ready for sauce and toppings.

Sauce can go one of two ways--red (the traditional tomato sauce) or white (garlic and olive oil with maybe some chili flake and/or dried herbs. Me, I've been opting more for the white lately, not least because it's easier and faster, and also because it doesn't soak into the dough like the tomato sauce.

I like part-skim mozzarella as the main cheese, which can be niceley alloyed with lots of other cheeses--pepper jack, provelone, etc., and occasionally punctuated with bits of goat cheese, crumbles of feta or gorgonzola (a little of which goes a long way, AMHIK), or dusted with Parmiggiano or Pecorino Romano.

As for toppings, there are three themes I come back to: Hawaiian (ham, pineapple, and onion), Amatriciana (pancetta [Italian bacon], fresh tomato, and onion), and SMORRP (sausage, mushroom, onion, roasted red pepper). Regular readers will no doubt be shocked to see that each of these features some form of the magical animal. Although sometimes I substitute lamb sausage on the last one.

Once it's topped, slide it off the peel and onto the baking stone. It should be ready in 8-10 minutes, or whenever the crust starts to turn golden-brown.

Pull it directly onto a good sized cutting board. If you like, brush a little olive oil around the edge.

Slice and serve with copious amounts of your favorite dago red.

Between bites, practice saying the following:
Ieri, non portrei ortografare "pizzaiolo"; oggi, lo sono!*

Buon appetito, amici!

*Yesterday, I couldn't spell "pizza-maker"; today I are one!

The Force Is Strong In This One.

2006-06-20T13:11:00.000-04:00

Despite being unrivaled in pop culture as The Coolest Thing Ever when it debuted in 1981, MTV has long since fallen off the radar (mine and, I suspect, everyone who was mesmerized by its novelty). Needless to say, I haven't looked at the channel since sometime in the late '90s; I know for sure that I’ve never seen a minute of any MTV Movie Awards telecast, either.

So I’m all the more grateful to Amelie Gillette at The Onion A.V. Club for posting this on her blog, The Hater.

I really can’t explain what I find so appealing about this. Or why I’ve been replaying it like some kid with a 45* of “Saturday Night” by the Bay City Rollers. It’s a terrific neo-soul pop song, sure. And the Star Wars costumes are a delight, not least because they're all old-school, Episodes IV-VI characters. Thank god they resisted the urge to put Cee-Lo in Mace Windu garb.

Mostly, I think it’s the complete lack of acknowledgement that they’re in SW gear. I love how, instead of Look at us, we’re so cool with our Wookie drummer and our Rebel backup singers, it’s just, Listen to us, we’re a really tight band channeling Sam Cooke by way of Was Not Was. If the song were anything less than the real deal, the whole thing have come off as desperate and cheesy. Y’know, pretty much what you expect from the MTV these days.

While this hasn't done much to revive the stature of MTV (in my eyes), I will say unequivocally that Gnarls Barkley, Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse all have a new fan.

*For all you whippersnappers out there, this is a reference to a cultural artifact that pervaded in the early days of the republic. Before the dark times. Before the empire: A grooved, double-sided vinyl record, or “single” that played on a “turntable” at 45 RPM. An elegant medium for a less digitized age.

I love the Internets

2006-06-07T10:52:00.000-04:00

NOTE: The blogoshpere's most hotly anticipated event,
Mr. Middlebrow's long-awaited recap/digest of the
Overlooked/Underrated Movies survey is up: Scroll down.

Click on the image to see it animated
(and please forgive my Neanderthal HTML skilz)

This has to be just about as perfect a pop-culture mash-up as I've seen. Okay, it's not quite the Charlie Brown 'Hey Ya!' but it's pretty damn funny.

From Planet Dan, by way of comment dit-on?