Idiot Savant Online

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2009-12-09T04:35:00.001-05:00

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Damn it, Dae-Su! I Was Saving That Bacon!

2008-11-20T11:47:00.002-05:00

Nothing brings people together like $584 million in worldwide revenue.

In a potential high-profile star-writer reunion, "I Am Legend" co-scribe Mark Protosevich is in early talks to pen the remake of "Old Boy" that boxoffice king and "Legend" star Will Smith is developing with director Steven Spielberg.

DreamWorks secured the remake rights from Mandate Pictures, which also is staying involved in the project. Although the studio was meeting with several high-profile writers to do the adaptation, Smith invited Protosevich to meet with Spielberg on the project.

DreamWorks declined comment. The rights deal with Mandate is not complete.

[THR]

The scary thing? There is a way a Spielberg OldBoy would work very well. And it'll be something I figure out in a few days.

Who's that Lazy-Ass North Brooklyn Writer?!

2008-10-06T14:43:00.004-04:00

From

This wonderful ad for a "freelance writer seeks intern" listing:

I am a fulltime freelance journalist.

And clearly, in need of a copy editor.

I write predominantly about music, film, books, and culture, but also politics, technology, and other topics for national and international magazines, including the London Times, Rolling Stone, the Associated Press, the Village Voice, and elsewhere. I also host a weekly radio show.

Wow, here's a doozy that'll have the three "writers" left at Gawker scratching their heads for tomorrow's blind item.

and skipping to my favorite part...

In return for your work, I will offer my 10 years of expertise in crafting pitches, finding and contacting appropriate editors and publications, writing punchy ledes, honing angles, arranging and conducting interviews, and the like. I'm also happy to help edit your writing, offer feedback, and other random bits of useful knowledge I've picked up. There’ll be other perks, as well.

Emphasis added. But let me spoil the perks for you:
-grocery shopping.
-running to the store for smokes.
-googling sources.
-being a cheaper version of HARO.

And in closing:

Please send along clips, blog links, or anything else you might have. I’m less interested in seeing resumes than hearing what you have to say. I'm predominantly interested in working with a young writer interested either in a career in freelance journalism, or finding a place in New York’s art/music/literary scene.

So, basically, the ideal candidate will be willing to trek to "North Brooklyn" (which the rest of us call Greenpoint, ~~Bushwick~~ East Williamsburg and Williamsburg Proper.)

Of course, just who is this fulltime[sic] freelancer who works--or, heh, worked at some point--for Rolling Stone, AP and Village Voice that can't rely on their interns. Well, thank god I'm too lazy to find out, so I'll just wait for the blind item tomorrow.

But if guesses are welcome.

edit: picture added when it is inevitably taken down for being too fucking retarded for any student with three bits of sense to apply to.

The Mild Mid-Day Monday Depression Job Hunt

2008-10-06T13:31:00.002-04:00

Looking for strong editor/writer to ghost-write stories with inspirational content. Publishing experience necessary, fiction/playwriting background a plus. Job includes interviewing, editing, organizing inventory and coming up with story ideas. New York-based national magazine. Mid-Manhattan location. Good salary and benefits. Send resume and clips to editjob@guideposts.org Writing samples should show imagination and storytelling ability. No phone or fax, please.

And yet, the real joke comes when you learn who the company is and what they produce.
(Hint: religion.)

Unfortunately, Brooklyn is on Mars

2008-09-12T15:25:00.003-04:00

via CL. Other Irony is that it got filed under the "Staten Island" sub-section--as if that is really on Earth.

Sumi, Clouds, Oh My!

2008-09-02T19:30:00.003-04:00

Huh. Didn't realize that Vagabond was from the same mangaka that gave us Slam Dunk. In fact, it's been ages since I've read either--mainly due to Vagabond, which follows the life of Miyamoto Musashi, having horrible delays between volumes.

Takehiko Inoue has two art books showcasing his work on the incredible ode to Musashi coming out later this month: The Water and The Sumi, which were apparently done using calligraphy brushes by BoingBoing.

Then again, BB also seems to think the manga came out translated last year, but the first "volume" was released in 2002 and one of the last Viz titles that was initially produced in a single-issue format. But we all know that if you question BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow comes to your house in the dead of night and STEALS YOUR INTERNET. And kills you. Using STEAMPUNK.

Either way, would totally not mind getting these art books from someone with more money than I. Come to think of it, what volume is Vagabond on now these days? I've been getting into MPD Psycho and Junk: Record of the Last Hero.

"I can pay but would preffer trade. "

2008-09-02T09:48:00.002-04:00

While on the job hunt, one inevitably is forced to troll the dredges of Craigslist. It isn't pretty and it normally is never fun. Despite being a great source of random hook-ups, S&M dungeons and bedbug-laiden couches, it never is a redeeming place to find a gig.

Sure, on occasion you may get lucky. Heck, even my old job went on there. But mostly, Craigslist is a haven for how not not look for work.

I present to you: "Seeking writter for SunflowerPipes.com (Union Square)"

(note: emphasis added.)

I need someone to write content for my web site SunflowerPipes.com. I need an interesting and in depth history of pipes, glass pipes, hookahs and things related to smoking. The work is for a section of the site titled Pipe School. Anyone interested in smoking is very welcome to apply I can pay but would preffer [sic] trade.

As for what Sunflower Pipes stands for, let me point you at their homepage:

Sunflower Pipes is dedicated to the experience of smoking. We highly regard the act as an art and in doing so take great care in choosing the products for our line...All of our products undergo a series of tests and are carefully selected for their unique color, shape, decor, durability and functionality.

Sunflower Pipes supplies but is not limited to the following products: Dugouts, Bats, Grinders, Pollinators, Glass Smoking Pipes (Single Glass Smoking Pipes, Double Glass Smoking Pipes and Inside Out Glass Smoking Pipes), Metal Smoking Pipes, Wooden Smoking Pipes, Water Smoking Pipes (Bubblers, Sherlocks, Hammers, Hookahs), Fifkas, Scales, Slides, and Smoking Papers (Flavored Smoking Papers, Hemp Smoking Papers, Rice Smoking Papers, Clear Smoking Papers)

And my favorite?

Our products are NOT intended for illegal drug use.

Lord knows the number of people I've seen enjoying a quiet Fifka outside of Grassroots on a breezy Sunday night. With tobacco.

Missed Blog-A-Thon Blues

2008-05-25T10:48:00.002-04:00

So like any well-meaning writer/blogger/slacker, I totally meant to do something for Ali Arikan's "Indiana Jones Blog-A-Thon" at Cerebral Mastication. I kept telling myself all week I'd sit down and write about how this would be the first time I've seen an Indiana Jones movie in theaters, and compare it as an original film to the Star Wars trilogy re-release in the mid-1990s to celebrate Lucas discovering CGI>

And I'd even use a LOLCat-ish photo.

Now, it's Sunday. There is nothing written and Ali has likely retired to his yacht staffed with serving women and monkey knife fighters.

Not to mention King Arthur, the "modernization" of a myth film that I still can't tell if I like or not, is on. On one hand, Stellan Skarsgård proves that he merely has to whisper and he's already taken charge of a film. On the other, Merlin is now a crazed forest shaman figure?

But anyway, to show my pure intentions, a completely NSFW strip from Sexy Losers:

i am the daywalker

2008-04-08T01:23:00.002-04:00

Stupid, Racist Things said by Interesting People: Ian Spiegelman's Japanese "rape-media"

2008-04-06T13:27:00.005-04:00

My column over at The House Next Door this week tried to take on, explain and--I guess--unintentionally was the obit for Otaku.

"No Country for Otaku" began:

Otaku is a dirty word. It is forever linked to Miyazaki Tsutomu, represents a culture that is uniquely and inherently Japanese, and will never translate to anyone else—no matter how hard Otakon or fans want to believe

Of course, this was mainly energized by Matt Alt and his translation at Néojaponisme of Akio Nakamori's initial column that would redefine otaku.

Lo and behold though, I got picked up on Gawker, which ultimately confirms I'm one of the Creative Underclass™ toiling in the New York area. As for why I'm just getting to this now--well, I'm also tired and passing out after work most nights.

Nick Douglas wrote:

Of course, there's a lot of room left for normalization, and most Americans seem to still view Japanese culture as a freak show. But eventually we'll realize that most of Japan's modern freakiness — humiliating game shows, gimmicky porn — are less Japanese than we think. (If you dubbed gibberish over some American TV and porn, added subtitles, and clipped the wildest scenes out context I doubt it would look that different from the Japanese culture we see on YouTube.) Japanese culture will become normal for all nerds as nerdiness becomes normal for all people. By the end of the synthesis, otaku will just be another part of the nerd in all of us.

..b..but that's wrong!

Otaku is associated with anything, any genre that one can obsess over. There can be lit-otaku, film otaku, food otaku--the possibilities are endless. And the main point being that to consider something "otaku" outside of Japan is just a lame attempt at co-opting a foreign term, especially when most Americans wouldn't demonize someone for knowing or living their lives around such a topic--even if they thought them a bit off.

Yet, with anything that isn't completely understood, there are always detractors. Like commenter and Gawker Weekend Editor Ian Spiegelman, who wrote:

If only the Japanese stuff that made it to Youtube was representative of the most evil Japanese porn, I wouldn't be so very frightened at the prospect of mainstreaming that freaky-in-a-not-all-fun-way nation. It makes Brazil say Eww!

When I first saw that, of course I assumed it was just a joke. But then, it kept coming here, here ("I'm sure if I could use Japanese characters a host of snuff clips would fill my screen. Again, a fun Hello-Kitty society on the outside. A disgusting rape-fest on the other. If I remember correctly, they signed on to an anti-child porn international agreement after the fucking Netherlands") and here:

Some would like to blame it on getting nuked. Most would recognize that Japan is the most suppressive and demanding 1st world society on earth. Squeeze people hard enough and you end up with a serial killer mentality that is everywhere in the culture. America thinks we invented serial killers because we use them as entertainment. Once the floodgates open in Japan, they will show us up as complete amateurs. When girls go missing there, no one seems to mind. Why? BECAUSE IT IS THE WORST COUNTRY IN THE WORLD AFTER BRAZIL. People know they can go there and just kill and kill. Their disgusting porn is just the first stop on a wild tour of how wretched that country is.

The rest of the world had to actually pressure Japan to outlaw child porn in the late nineties. Japan's solution? Pixilate pubic hair.

On a final note: I hate Japan.

On a final note, Spiegelman is an out and out generalizing racist. For some reason, Spiegelman assumes my column is about "Japanese porn" and that I advocate--in his terms--"rape media." Unfortunately, the shamed former Page Six-er who will clearly come to beat me up at a bar? But honestly?

"It's noy my fault that Japanese nerd shit is and will forever be linked to baby-fucking. "

Comparing all of Japanese culture and history to an Internet meme from a guro comic [nsfw]?

And honestly, "They will not sign comprehensive bills to protect kids; they will not seriously look into child rape in their own cities. Japan is garbage. A haven for baby rapists even more fertile than Thailand. And at least Thailand is trying to stop it. Japan is not.

I hate getting serious, but Japan is a safety country for baby-fuckers."

I'm just flabbergasted trying to understand how this is inferred from my otaku column. If Ian or anyone else can enlighten me--please, do.

I'll just end on the innane statement he makes that proves, if nothing more, angry racists never make any sense:

"Japanese nerd culture always leads to kid fucking. It starts with harssing women on the street, and descends from there. That's a large part of the reason why hentai even exists in the first place: to create rape-media that they can't be prosecuted for. But true lovers of the form won't pay for it if they don't feel it's based on photos of real acts. Hence, Japan is still being investigated and chastised by the rest of the world."

disclosure: I, in fact, like Spiegelman's writing and applaud him for fist-fighting Toby Young. But this is just retarded thinking.

LOL HESTON R.I.P. sidebar

2008-04-06T01:14:00.001-04:00

LOL HESTON R.I.P.

2008-04-06T00:26:00.004-04:00

Charlton Heston is dead at 84. AP calls it, while L.A. Times has the full obit running.

Statement from Heston's family here.

Good night, sweet prince.

Bang Bang Baby Bang Bang

2008-02-10T00:31:00.000-05:00

No internet and no tv make john a dull boy.

That's why I resort to making a podcast and writing about pink-haired ninjas.

have also been working at the real job.

and then, while in possession of teh interwebs for at least five minutes, i found this:

god. you'd think after years of saving ryan's privates, the da vinci load and...some other lame movie porn title i'm forgetting...that THIS would have been it.

and now to get back to work on the second episode of the podcast: ETHNOCORE.
topics include:
-my black eye.
-film.
-midnite vultures.

also, flash back to the New York Anime Festival:
it was a cold time. it was a dark time. it was a time where i was waking up on brandon's couch early friday and saturday morning--having officially given up by Sunday to finding any real lede to a piece that would morph from gift guide into "NYC-Anime" guide.

i have a personal love-hate relationship with cons. I hate them. But I love walking around and seeing what's avaliable.

But I fucking hate the entire sub-culture that revolves around it: the faux-anonymous, the GLOMPers, the screaming children, that one asshole in a Cloud outfit who can't hold his goddamn Buster Sword straight.

I also hate the fact I can run around the entire show floor in 15 minutes, decide that i cannot bring myself to:

-Spend $85 on the G1 Megatron figure that the wholesaler swears I can just remove the orange cap to make him bad-ass again.
-Talk to nice guys about their upcoming wares, but then have them try to suggest I write about their upcoming Hentai titles.
-Leap onto a random Ichigo's sword and embrace the sweet darkness that is sleep.

I personally loathed the entire thing more when I stopped to ask a seller if I could photograph her product. As I set up my camera, I looked up and realized she was adjusting her one-piece and making sure her tits were bouncy. I felt sick. I just wanted the merch. Although I guess it's all one and the same when you boil it down.

But I sort of remember this one person--or better, this roaming group of people. There were dozens videotaping their burned-out joy and attacking the stuffed Guano. Yet in my repeated circling of the entire fucking basement of horrors, I felt like I kept running into these people the most.

Imagine my shock when I checked the front page of a certain site of general amusement--and found one of the group staring back at me. it felt strange, almost like i recognized her from somewhere. And then it hit me.

YuffieBunny.

Now, do I really know her or have ever met her? Clearly no. Is that even a real name? Of course not, it's a handle. So then, how do I know that? Why was I so sure I almost recognized her and her crew from somewhere? Simple.

/cgl/.

And it was at this humble moment did I realize that not having the Internet isn't a bad thing. It means I'll stop recognizing people I should truly have no reason to ever acknowledge--like Julia Allison.

Granted, the cosplayer is better than the attention...monger.

but she's also on /cgl/. and that is like three billion times scarier than being made into a media figure by THE GREAT SATAN 2.0.

btw, happy 2/10/08! i'm going to go hide back in greenpoint and let an army of angry polish people protect me from Anon.

Idiot Savant's Guide: An Idiot's Best of List for 07

2008-01-02T11:45:00.000-05:00

Everyone likes doing lists. They're an example of proving how each and every single one of us are unique snowflakes with special designs and intricate opinions. Then, you realize that your number one is the same as 106 other critics and you're a fucking sheep.

It just so happens I'm great friends with The Sheep Man.

So without further ado and still pissed that I haven't seen Juno, Diving Bell, Assassination of Jesse James, Southland Tales and National Treasure: Book of Secrets--no, dead serious.

Brief side note. Vadim: WTF. Paprika AND Taste of Tea? Oh god, I suddenly feel like you do secretly listen to me when I discuss my Japanese film obsession and you're not just a bitter ex-Tischie.

On with the picks:

# 1: There Will Be Blood

Dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Blah, blah, blah. Best film of the year, amazingly well shot, Danie Day-Lewis and Paul Dano are incredible against each other, Jonny Greenwood score is amazing, "I Just Drank Your Milkshake," epic film, etc.

Everyone'll say the same thing about this. You just need to see it and join the sheep, man.

# 2: No Country for Old Men

Dirs. Joel and Ethan Cohen

Is it too lame to call it a "Neo-Western" ? I'm all about starting buzz words but what else can you call the film that decries humanity and empathizes the bitter realization that the angel of death has a page-boy haircut?

# 3: I'm Not There
Dir. Todd Haynes

God, this is so formulaic I should be painting by numbers. The list, I mean, not this ambitious, multi-faced take on the concept of Dylan as society's mouth piece BUT OMG DO NOT CALL HIM THE VOICE OF A GENERATION!!!!!11.

Anyway, I thought Cate Blanchett's "ground-breaking" performance was a complete bore and only worthwhile for the David-Cross-as-Allen-Ginsberg cameo. Christian Bale was far superior under Haynes'finely manicured hand as the caricature of Folk Dylan/Preacher Jack.

# 4: Zodiac
Dir. David Fincher

Aside from liking this film far more than I thought I would, it also marks the best worst first date ever.

45 Minutes Into the Film...

Date: You can hold my hand now.
Me: Shhh!

Fincher's epic look back at the Zodiac killer, those involved, the CGI shots that still blow my mind when I realize they're not just backlot...Good times.

# 5: The Host
Dir. Bong Joon-Ho

Hands down, the best modern "creature" film in the last few years. Joon-Ho had some obvious connections to Godzilla (read my interview with him at The Reeler)but it's his choice to leave the Tadpole From Hell behind and focus more on the characters than a silly rubber suit.

Also the "most real film featuring how a Korean family would act" according to an actual Korean. Actually.

# 6: Hipster Horror
Dirs. Jeremy Saulnier, Todd Orr, Ti West

Lame of me to lump them together, but again--zomg, read the feature here!

Murder Party and Blood Car are part of the lo-fi aesthetic that would make for an awesome--and much needed--creative resurgence when it comes to horror, sci-fi or genre in general. If most studios* had a quarter of what Saulnier and Orr had, you wouldn't have to remake already lame J-Horror films that were made by Miike because he was still operating on a 6-films-a-day schedule.

Trigger Man, directed by Ti West, may be the most important to the genre--as Vadim claims--because of the pacing, the opening song and the abrupt ending that leads to nothing. That is the pinnacle of "hipster." Whereas Murder Party and Blood Car are clear comedies and apply to "Hipster Horror" as an easy way to classify--and man, do I apologize for it--Trigger Man would wear such a title with pride. Hell, it even got West--or so the rumor goes--the attention of a major studio and the directing duties for Cabin Fever 2.

Which, if you saw Trigger Man, is very fucking surprising.

*Note:Glass Eye Pix excluded. Larry Fessenden 4 lyfe.

# 7: Paprika
dir. Satoshi Kon/Studio MADHOUSE

Best. Animated. Film. Of. The. Year.
And I can't believe it was snubbed for an Academy Award over Tekkonkinkreet. But then again, Kon isn't an American director, now is he?

(My feature/interview with Kon here.)

# 8: Once
Dir. John Carney

This lo-fi, Irish-without-being-Irish musical (U2-sical?) tugs the heart strings and will have you humming "Falling Slowly" and a cover of "Into the Mystic,"

The only reason you'd dislike this movie is if you're a bitter fucker with the initials "V.R." and all you listen to is Bishop Allen. Either way, there's a larger context here of whether or not Once can be seen as Irish. I know, this is lame fuckery, but Once--for purposes--is the U2 of musicals. But better than U2.

# 9: The 15 Minutes of Exiled before my Screener Broke Down
Dir. Johnny To

SCENE: AN APARTMENT IN BROOKLYN. THE IDIOT SAVANT AND HIS FRIEND, MR. SNUGGLES, SIT ON A COUCH. THEY ARE DRINKING MILLER HIGH LIFE, BECAUSE THEY ARE COOL AND HIP AND WITH "IT." IT IS OCTOBER.

IDIOT SAVANT:
hey, so i've got nightmare detective and exiled on dvd.

MR. SNUGGLES:
how?

IDIOT SAVANT:
eh, i kept the screeners from over the summer.

MR. SNUGGLES:
cool.

IDIOT SAVANT:
let's watch exiled.

THE IDIOT DOES SO, PUTTING THE DVD INTO A DVD PLAYER. THEN HE HITS PLAY. NOTHING HAPPENS.

IDIOT SAVANT:
the fuck?

MR. SNUGGLES:
* GIANT FUCKING QUESTION MARK APPEARS OVER HIS HEAD. LIKE METAL GEAR. Ya'KNOW?*

IDIOT SAVANT:
uh. let's watch robocop. wait. it's starting.

15 MINUTES LATER

IDIOT SAVANT:
fuck. why aren't they working?

ACROSS TOWN, GRADY HENDRIX SITS AT HIS SUPER DUPER VARIETY BLOG-O-TRON 3000. HE HAS A MUSTACHE HE TWIRLS, AND A LONG GRAY BEARD THAT TOTALLY MIMICS PAI MEI'S. SO HE'S ALL, "HA HA, MY BEARD IS AWESOME." GRADY SEES ON HIS MONITOR SOMEONE IS TRYING TO WATCH exiled AND THAT THEY HAVEN'T RETURNED THEIR NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL SCREENERS TO HIM. GRADY LAUGHS.

GRADY HENDRIX:
ha ha ha.

GRADY PUSHES A BUTTON. THE DVD FAILS. GRADY HENDRIX TWIRLS HIS MUSTACHE WHILE FLICKING HIS PAI MEI BEARD. IT'S KINDA IMPRESSIVE.

GRADY HENDRIX:
i am impressive.

SCENE!

# 10: Shoot 'Em Up
Dir. Michael Davis

This mindless, goofy piece of gun PR0N was everything you expect. But still sharply divided critics: note Slate's Dana Stevens (which I think is now on her driver's license) begins with, "I know I'm typing myself as hopelessly unhip by not rolling with the amoral "fun" of Shoot 'Em Up (New Line), a grubby little action spoof with a thrown-together script, a mystifyingly top-notch cast, and a body count to rival the war in Afghanistan."

Eric Kohn refers to it as "a depraved Looney Tunes episode." I like to side with Kohn's reading, but more than acknowledge Stevens: the film is an 80s-actioner slicked with CGI and made with the faintest of plots. Whether or not it was intentional will be up for debate.

It gets up on #10 (and bumped Darjeeling Limited) because it may signal the emergence of a self-aware action film. If it doesn't, I'm fucking retarded and I'll just put Wes Anderson's Daddy Issues back here next month.

And honorifics...

Best Catchphrase from a Vaguely Homoerotic Setting:
TIE
"Kneel. Kneel before Xerxes, Spartan."
-Xerxes, 300.

"RIPPER. SLASHER. TEETH IN THE NIGHT. I. AM. BEOWULF!"
-CGI Ray Winstone, Beowulf

Best Supporting Actor
Fred, I Am Legend

Best Quote by Will Smith in an otherwise awful film that cheats with CGI New York
"Aw. Aw naw. Aw HELL NAW. NO. NO. FRED?! WHAT YOU DOIN' OUT HERE FRED? WHAT YOU DOING OUT HERE! FRED, IF YOU REAL, YOU BETTER SAY SO. FRED! FRED, IF YOU A REAL, YOU BETTER SAY SOMETHING! AAAAAHHHH!!"
-Will Smith, I Am Legend

Best Intro
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters

Best Comedy
Control

Best Quote from the Best Comedy
Ian Curtis: If...if you wanted to sleep with other people. I'd be fine with that.

Ian Curtis' boring wife played by Samantha Morton: Wot?

Ian Curtis: You know, if you wanted to sleep with other people. I'd be fine.

Ian Curtis' boring wife played by Samantha Morton: A-are you...cheating on me?

Ian Curtis: *smokes cigarette.*

[beat]

*cue "Love Will Tear Us Apart," laughter, angry crowd at Film Forum who enjoys black and white film because it is SO independent and stuff. You know?*

The Year's Best Line, hands down.
TIE
"I just drank your milkshake!"

and

"I'M FINISHED."
-Daniel Day-Lewis as "Daniel Plainview," There Will Be Blood

Best Use of Jason Statham
War

Best Ex-Stripper/Screenwriter who Lou Lumenick would totally do because she's female and was once a stripper but is now a screenwriter and he'd totally do
Diablo Cody!

Best Moment I Question An Editor

Me: I feel dumber for having seen that.

STV: It wasn't that bad.

-directly after I Am Legend, WB Screening Room.

Best Most Awkward Press Event
The There Will Be Blood 35-min spectacular.

Best Response by P.T. Anderson after an inane question
*leans back. leans forward.*
"...the fuck?"

Best Reason to <3 The Pioneer Theater
The cast of Trigger Man drinking beer at the premiere, then leaving 35 minutes into the film and going to Mo Pitkins.

Worst Film Event Ever
CMJ.

Best Thing at the Worst Film Event Ever
The screening of Frank and Cindy w/ post-show Q&A featuring Ira Glass moderating.

The other Worst Thing at the Worst Film Event Ever
Totally not seeing O'Death due to crushing hangover.

Best Film with Daddy Issues
The Darjeeling Limited with Hotel Chevalier

Happy New Year

2007-12-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

...basically doing it the same way.

HAPPY NEW YEARS ZOMG EVERYONE.

Chow Yun-Fat is an old, dirty turtle hermit/pervert.

2007-12-19T10:28:00.000-05:00

"Master Roshi is Goku's mentor, helping him achieve the highest state of fighting and spiritual powers."

And just who is Master Roshi in the "shot-in-Mexico,replacing-all-Japanese-characters-with-Americans-and-two-Koreans?"

Why, that'd be:

Chow Yun-Fat. Reprising his role from Bulletproof Monk, Yun-Fat will be the first mentor for Goku who teaches him the series' trademark Kame Hame-Ha (or... Great Flying Turtle Wave.)

At some point, I imagine there'll be a bar in the tiny Mexico town they're filming in. And one day, all the actors will meet at this bar for a drink. And they'll laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh.
Because they'll realize they've started the end of the world. And they feel fine.

In other Patton Oswalt news...

2007-12-19T10:26:00.000-05:00

~~Patton Oswalt~~Neill Cumpston has seen CLOVERFIELD MONSTER GOES APESHIT.

In fact, he provides the pull quote to end all pull quotes:

The monster RIPS THE LIVING SHIT out of the city, and everyone in its path. It’s like the Iraq War and Hurricane Katrina and Kathy Griffin’s vagina combined and turned into a giant murder-beast and it’s hungry for every hip person in Manhattan.

Neill is a long-time regular at the clusterfuck known as AICN's Solicitied Reviews of Joy and Wonder.

In fact, GeekOut! has a list compiled leading up to Neill's classic 300 review, "Neill Cumpston Has Seen 300!!!!!!!!!!!" that is seperated into Cool Thing One and Two ("HEAVY METAL DURING BATTLE SCENES" and "FOES, MINI-BOSSES AND A BIG BOSS" respectively) and a Not So Good Thing ("DUDE NUDITY 'DUDE-ITY.'")

Many debate whether our boy Neill is a valid critic. In fact, if we believe the intros that DREW MCWEENY (aka moriarty) have provided for Neill, our boy is a live-at -home, mid-thirty-something who works at a pretzel shop. Or, you know, he's a certain comedian who voiced a rat over the summer.

But for serials: no one else has seen Cloverfield and considering Oswalt's love of film, hatred of critics and loathing of junket interviews (I stand by him on 2 of the 3 points. I only sort of like film,) it isn't so surprising to consider him as Neill.

Then again, when you consider the brunt of AICN's ~~plants~~ reviews, maybe Neill probably is real and just a poor man's, mockbuster Vern.

This Is How I Want To Die

2007-12-17T23:14:00.000-05:00

"If you're HAPPY about getting free beer and cheap blended whiskey for thirty-eight minutes, or SAD about NOT getting free beer and cheap blended whiskey for thirty-eight minutes, you need to die. In a plane crash. And I get to fuck your eyes while we're crashing."
-Patton Oswalt.

Patton, I will see you soon. Please use protection and make sure they serve Philadelphia Whiskey and have Arrogant Bastard as the free beer. I'll even be willing to barter and sit through various episodes of Static Shock while you get off.

thanks,
-John

Oh you devil swordsman

2007-12-16T00:11:00.000-05:00

While spending a long time writing another upcoming piece for The Reeler--it is totally in almost-final-draft form, Stu--I got sidetracked with liquor and YouTube, as I am want to do.

Another problem I've been faced with is what to title an upcoming bi-weekly column I'm writing for a certain House Next Door.

So far, working titles include:
Bukowski Bukkake
Thomas Looser's Ghost
Keith Vincent Hates You, Undergraduate.
It's Over 9000
Tamala 2012
Shonen Shoujo Pop!
Idiot Savant Japan
Vadim Rizov Is Big in Japan

Until I figure it out, here's the acoustic version of Demon Knight Garo's theme:

And the ending to Welcome To The NHK! which I'll write on in the first column and how it acknowledges the "Neo-OTAKU."*

*note:I know how fucking pretentious "Neo-OTAKU" sounds, but considering NHK's acknowledgment of NEET/hikiomori, it would be insane not to address it first. Especially with the solo/group aspects that american anime fandom switch between. Gah, that sounds so lame.

Lou Will Fuck You

2007-12-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

Karina (@SpoutBlog) seems to be turned off to the entire idea that Junowriter Diablo Cody (aka Brook Busey-Hunt) is being salivated over by the Lou Lumenicks of the world since she was totally once a (sort of) stripper and is totally in possession of boobs.

As Ms. Longworth writes:

"As if it wasn’t gross enough to think that Juno’s critical success could be the product of a bunch of journalists wanting to hang out with a sometime stripper, and all the “once a sex worker, permanently a whore ie: maybe she’ll get naked during our interview” bullshit that entails, it’s almost worse to think that these dudes are, like, patting themselves on the back for spreading the urban legend about The Stripper Who Actually Had a Brain."

HAH.
As if Strippers had brains. And seriously, who hasn't Lou Lumenick fucked, wanted to fuck or fucked in order to give them an award?

I remember that five minutes in a dark alley with promises of a screening for Ghost Rider as if it were yesterday. Since it was. Oh, Lou.

Blood Brother

2007-12-13T23:51:00.000-05:00

My profile of Paul Dano went live yesterday at The Reeler. In it, I look at Dano the actor and how There Will Be Blood is certainly his break-out film.

That said, Paul and I discussed his earlier works a bit. STV and I went through roughly 10 drafts for the final product--believe me, more my fault than his. At one point, the article ran 3,000 words and that was before I even got into Little Miss Sunshine.

So, for the sake of needing original content here, excerpts from the transcript when I ask Paul about his other roles. Do note, I did take parts and use them in my final feature. To break the fourth wall completely, we spent a half hour discussing his various roles after talking about Blood and other little things.

On Taking Lives. What did appeal to you about that?
It’s just a nine or ten minute scene at the beginning of the film. And the thing that appealed to me about that was that I got to kill somebody. I never did that before. We were filming—I smash a kid’s head in with a rock after pushing him in front of a car—I had to hold a rock over this kid’s head and had to miss. It was pretty thrilling. I could have smashed his face in. Wow, that sounds pretty sick. I liked the scene, actually. It was a fun scene, a few days of work.

Let's go to the inverse about death. Talk about The King.
Yes, to be killed. Not as fun to act getting killed. The King was something I liked for a couple years and the script was shaving trouble getting made and finally made. Gael Garcia Bernal is a great guy,a great actor. So is William Hurt. I sort of liked that character. He was just so earnest, a sweet kid and young man of principle and do good and take care of his family. That was right around—the time it made sense to do a character like that, cause I had just done The Ballad of Jack and Rose.

Anyway, I feel like it has to something to do with wanting to try and do a couple of different things: kill a person, be a guy who’s very moralistic and religion. It was a small film, I don’t think a lot of people saw it. I can’t really be too objective about the movies I’ve been in, as far as having to watch yourself. I had a good time, I guess.

note: Personally, I read into the "Paul" character into a completely different way and told him so the first time we sat down to discuss the profile. To this day, I see The King's Paul as a precursor to Eli Sunday.

Okay. So, let's move onto your experience with Jack and Rose.
We filmed up in Prince Edward Island, Canada which is off Nova Scotia. They built this commune type thing. It was really like going to a summer camp, we were just there and really involved in what we were doing. I would say that was the first journey I took as an actor where I spent some serious time with the character. I’m not sure if it was working with people like Daniel and Katherine Keener who make you want to try and be as good as you can be, but I think it was shortly before that my passion for acting was growing. I finally, literally conscious ly made a decision sitting at my desk, I know I’m in college right now, but I’m going to be an actor.—I’m going to college for literature—
I just have to work hard to satisfy myself. That film wad big for me as a person because I did get to work with some people I really admired. That just feels good, really, simply. I would say it was a big experience for me, but it was definitely the first part I did where I was like really conscious about wanting to be an actor and be a good actor. It made the experience different. That was the first time where I had a lot of the character rub off into my life. I remember I cut my hair at the end of the film, I saw myself in the mirror for the first time, it was such a strange thing.

Why I cleaned coffee off my computer today

2007-12-03T10:20:00.000-05:00

xkcd, "Trolling"

LOLTHEREWILLBEBLOOD

2007-12-02T00:21:00.000-05:00

Saw There Will Be Blood last Thursday with Vadim. Met THND's Keith thanks to the Dark Prince and was told that the word to remember at the end of Blood is: milkshake.

This is sort of a spoiler, but in the sense that it is the single greatest line of the year next to No Country's lucky coin monologue.

And just how is Blood?

IT IS BLOOD-TASTIC! BREATHTAKING. WONDEROUS. IT MADE ME THINK OF STAR WARS OR SOMETHING LIKE IT. EPIC. WONDROUS. SPEELBOUNDING.

(my attempts at getting pull-quoted aside, it is awesome. There is one required point where PTA decides to ignore the obvious plot, go off on a half-assed family side-plot and wind up with Daniel Day-Lewis digging a hole in the ground. But it swings back in time for the "Baptism" scene. And holy lord, if that doesn't make you forget the wasted 15 minutes.)

Fun, important side note: never drink three cups of coffee before sitting down for a PTA film. You're going to miss at least five minutes of dialog during the whole "wasted 15 minutes."

edit: photo is totally stolen from Glenn Kenny.

LOLNEWS

2007-12-01T18:26:00.000-05:00

Say hello to the latest AICN-review meme:
"Just saw CLOVERFIELD in a small screening in NYC. IT WAS AWESOME!"

Seriously, there's something to be said about this whole race for personal coverage when you scramble to put up a one-line "IT WAS AWESOME" review in boxquotes, remove it and then confirm the only people that saw it were Viacom employees.

In other words, to the people in that screening room earlier:
your ass is about to get SAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACKED.

Seriously 2: This is why I hate lad-mag film sites. Cough.

Why The Internet Must Solely Be For Porn

2007-11-23T17:56:00.000-05:00

This comes from the front page of Filmwad, where the following was posted by Hector as a front-page editorial:

Here is a link to a live action GI Joe trailer.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=mPP-xYkchD4

This looks incredible- why have you guys not reported on this? This is major news.

In case you don't want to cut and paste, below you can find War Machine in all of its' glory. Not a "live action GI Joe trailer."

Produced and shot by iDiC Entertainment--a not so subtle nod to original G.I. Joe producers DIC Entertainment. Then again, the production company is also a band--called iDiC.

And they make a comic: "Bring The Pain," about a...something. I'm sort of losing interest in this. I'm still floored over the incredible attempt to cash in on the live-action G.I. Joe film with a hilarious trailer and spamming Filmwad.

Seriously, you spam Filmwad. That's the Interweb equivalent of answering a Classified Ad to sell your spec script to a large Polish man in a dark alley.

And because I had to, here are the lyrics from the song, "A Broken Wing" that also happens to come from iDiC:

It's just a little,a bitta--
A little bitta this going on right here
And I can't say baby
Where I'll be in a year
Got this thing going on strong
Going on long
And if I play my game right
Then I do my own song.

If we're gonna burn,then they're gonna burn first
that's how it goes.x3

[BITCHIN' METAL RIFF! YEAH]

Don't even think about it, act upon it
Eyes open into the sweet good night.
Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

YEAH

OWWW
OWW

YEAH!! YEEEEEEAH!

[MOAR Bitchin' Metal Rifts]

C'MON.

[some beeping]

[REPETITIVE POWER CHORDS!]

If we're gonna burn, then they're gonna burn first! x2
If we're gonna burn, then they're gonna burn FIRST [PLS NOTE USE OF CAPS]!
Don't even think about it, act upon it.
Eyes open into the sweet good night.
Don't even think about it, act upon it.
Nobody gets out of here alive.
Well don't even think about it, act upon it.
They'll never take me alivvvvvve!
OW!
OW!
YEAH, YEAH!

[beeps, high-hat, merciful sweet end.]

FYI: I did add a brief note to the Filmwad post about the trailer.

LOLDBZ

2007-11-14T09:31:00.000-05:00

James Marsters is Piccolo. ~~Chumbawumba~~The Chumscrubber kid is Goku. Stephen Chow is producing. Dragon Ball is being released August 15, 2008. Oh God.

LOLHEROES

2007-11-12T21:56:00.000-05:00

LOLHITMAN

2007-11-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

Sorry, Charlie: Hitman's R-Rating is as hard as a NERF dart.

There Will Be...CHERRIES!

2007-11-12T11:57:00.000-05:00

Oh, we're only twelve days into November and already the ponies are racing for There Will Be Blood coverage!

The Gray Lady Magazine's "Westerns Are The New Black" film issue fronts a feature-profile with TWBB lead Daniel Day-Lewis. It reads well and provides a look at the actor/anti-actor that Day-Lewis has come to portray. But the piece suffers incredibly once Lynn Hirschberg hits the dreaded "food as scene setting" curse!

(Shock of shocks, Dennis Lim falls under the same spell for his talk with Noah Baumbach in the same issue! Not you too, Dennis! NOOOOOOO!!)

Choice cuts:

“Where I come from, it was a heresy to say you wanted to be in movies, leave alone American movies,” Day-Lewis continued, as he ate a chicken-salad sandwich.

-2nd Graf, first line.

Day-Lewis laughed and drank some grapefruit juice.

-3rd Graf, first line.

“It’s not that I want to pull the shutters down,” Day-Lewis said, as he finished his sandwich.

-7th Graf, third line.

“This work requires an unusual combination of qualities,” Day-Lewis said. He picked up a colander full of washed cherries and headed into a small cozy den off the large rectangular living room.

-10th Graf, first/second line.

The brunt of most profiles always involve food. It acts, as the WSN Arts Advisor once told us at an editorial meeting, as a way to show comfort and ease among the subject and interviewer. Food is a way into the inner workings of the actor/performer/random dude you be talking to.
But it adds depth: Daniel Day-Lewis washes his cherries before he eats them. He goes straight from the colander, showing an everyman quality to the intimidating and intense actor.

Of course, I can rightly care less about that, but Hirschberg plows into his history and comes out with an intriguing piece.

Over at The Last House On The Left Next Door, Ryland Walker Knight pushes THND into the forefront of running a Blood review. Questions of holding reviews and it only being November fucking 12th aside, it begins with a "Frankenstein" quote and ends with " It’s terrifying, invigorating, phenomenal. I fear I’ve said too much already."

...

Shit, this wasn't nearly as entertaining as the 2,263 word DVD review from HELL . But Knight's main points seem to be:

-Paul Thomas Anderson has seen movies from the 70s zomg!
-Punch Drunk Love is like so good, and did you know it was the last film PTA made before There Will Be Blood because it is!
-Lead characters Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) and Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) are...OMG FOILS! THEIR CHARACTERS ARE FOILS FOR ONE ANOTHER! HOLY FUCKING SHIT. PTA IS PAIRING HIS CHARACTERS TOGETHER! HOLY LORD, THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION IS SUCH A GOOD MOVIE!
-On Paul Dano: "[He]continues to prove himself a talented, if foul, young actor."

Wait, what? Dano is a "foul, young actor?" Huh.

Anyway, early reviews are shaping up enough that the consensus seems to be it could be a bit shorter, but TWBB has Oscar potential--even if it's just in the self-masturbatory Guru 2.0 mind. [j/k, j/k. Except for Kohn. I'm not forgiving you for wanting American Gangster to start with a flashback.]

I guess I'll wait and see myself. But I'll make sure to bring up to a certain interview subject what he thinks of being a "foul, young actor."

LOLSTRIKE4

2007-11-09T23:24:00.000-05:00

Neal "Alternadad" Pollack also protested for Slate. In more important news, you need to pay $2,500 to enter the WGA?

More importantly, is it scabbing if you exploit your strike for a piece in an online magazine? Of course, HuffPo doesn't count: they don't pay contributors.

LOLSTRIKE3

2007-11-09T22:28:00.000-05:00

I...can't...stop!!!!
(all images via The Best Week Ever Dude Who Doesn't Wear the Jeff Rowland shirt/United Hollywood.)

LOLSTRIKE2

2007-11-09T22:23:00.000-05:00

Diablo Cody strikes in style.

(seriously, when someone writes "You do realize that your sign is begging to be Photoshopped, right?" Well, how can someone on the Internet be wrong?)

LOLSTRIKE

2007-11-08T10:23:00.000-05:00

Steve Carell is unable to work. Why?

LOLHEROES

2007-11-06T11:15:00.000-05:00

Last time on Heroes:
-The spin-off series is indefinitely on hold.
-The WGA Strike will mercy-kill the Cheerleader, save the World (via Vulture)
-The Gray Lady Loves the Cheerleader
-The A.V. Club does not.
-This guy has no heart. Sadly, he's spot on.
-This guy wrote a 2,263 word review of a mumblecore DVD and spoiled the ending to The Darjeeling Limited for me before I got to see it. But he's rather nice in person, so I have no real gripe--except for his apartment location being above my second favorite bar in Manhattan.

Bullshit Bright Lights In Suck City

2007-11-05T09:27:00.000-05:00

This is a continuation of The Reeler's Totally Unrelated Blog-A-Thon. The rules remain:

1) Authors should either be publishers of or contributors to a regularly updated film blog (In other words: You should have something to want a break from);

2) Entries must not address subjects related to filmgoing, filmmaking, film criticism, film news or anything else film-related (television is OK);

3) Everything else is fair game.

And it is so rare I have an excuse to use one "classic" hipster-lit title with another.

Being a struggling, fresh-out-of-undergrad writer is tough. It gets tougher when one considers resumes sent, three months for a response and working jobs that pay sub-sub minimum wage. After all, isn't this how David Carr started out?

Then again, when David Carr was young, he fought communism, drank bourbon made from snake blood and smoked 30 black-tar cigarettes every day before he bedded barns filled with nubile young women. Or not. Whatever. I prefer my Journalists with a bit of mystery around them.

But just how the hell do you break into this business? I normally leave this sort of self-referential bullshit to my friend "Howard Kurtz Jr." Today, however, it's impossible not to wake up and get hit with soul-crushing depression.

Am I really a part of this "creative underclass" that is damned to online start-ups that exploit us for $.15 more than minimum wage? Why didn't the NYU J-Dept ever tell me that being a freelancer means filing quarterly taxes? Why didn't they warn me that no one hires unless your last name is Wenner-Wintour-Hearst-Graham?

I once applied to The Washington Post Internship back when I still lived near D.C. It was 2005 and I got everything in prior to deadline. My rejection was post-marked 12/23/2005. Thank goodness I was in L.A. at the time climbing backyard fences and fighting friends for a random girl.

A week or so later, I receive an e-mail stating that a WaPo Vice-President was forwarded my application and would like to help me with career planning. Personally, I thought this meant I was getting back into consideration for their internship program. As for that planning, the basic conversation went something like this:

Me: Uh, you know, thanks a lot Ms. [LADY] for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.
WaPo VP: No problem, John. Now, you work for the NYU student paper?
Me:Yes, I'm a writer and editor.
WaPo VP: Wonderful. But you know, working at a monthly paper and a daily paper are very different.
Me:Uh, it is a daily. My section comes out two to three times a week.
WaPo VP: Right, right. So, you like to do film?
Me: Yeah, you know, it's better than politics.
WaPo VP: Hm. Well, I wouldn't say that. In fact, you should think about doing something else. Like not film.

It only got better. The basic response a lot of old media types have for us young'ins is to get out of the "Big City" and go out West--Alabama, Ohio, South Dakota. We should explore the world! Cut our teeth in the country! Then, when we're aged and leathery, return to the big city and fuck over a new group of twentysomethings.

Oh and definitely go to graduate school. If you don't go to graduate school for Journalism, you're going to be a failure at life and no one will hire you since you're clearly retarded for wanting to work.

(btw, total disclosure: I am clearly retarded for wanting to work.)

Then Ms. WaPo VP brought up Jon Meacham, who had just become Newsweek's managing editor earlier that week. She told me the story about how Meacham got a lucky break, etc, etc. Unfortunately, she hadn't read the part of my resume where I said I worked with him on a Supreme Court special for MSNBC and helped to form the show bible.

But hey, why bother to read someone's application when you're giving career council?

This all comes to head over the weekend while my associate Roger Korman* and I were outside of Odessa on Avenue A. He was enjoying a smoke and I was enjoying a stomach ache. Off to the side I could hear a loud group of men chiding Chuck Klosterman, one remarking, "what a fucking douche. Look at me, I write about culture! Oooh. Fucker."

For those that see me, on a bad day with a light beard I sort of resemble the Klos-man. So for a paranoid and clearly sycophantic second, I told Roger that they probably thought I was Klosterman.

"HEY CHUCK," Roger said, "TELL ME ABOUT YOUR NEW THINK PIECE ON SUFJAN."

Roger likes to be an instigator and got us kicked out of a bar earlier when he started screaming the bartender was a whore or cunt or something quite awful when she played that theme from The Sopranos.

I finally figured that they didn't think I was Chuck, but saw they were hitting on a girl. At this point, one of them started proclaiming they were the future of journalism.

Not one to let the title of myself and my haphazard friends go unchallenged, I convinced Roger to follow me over.

"Hey, excuse me," I said. "If you guys are the future, who are you?"

Well, guy #1 pointed out. They were comprised of:

-An associate editor from Vanity Fair

-An associate editor from Harper's/contributor to N+1

-A contributor(?) to Time Out New York

-Unknown member of The New Yorker

"And the editor of N+1 is inside in the bathroom," the associate ed from Harper's said.

"Doing editor-y things," the AE from Vanity Fair replied with a sniff.

To their credit, the guys were nice. Roger and I asked about the whole Chuck Klosterman thing and them being the greatest journalists when it was revealed that they were just like us unknown, good-for-nothing writers!

They were trying to get laid. And impress someone.

Luckily, I stopped that once I found out my Nintendo DS doesn't nag me about things like distance, love or "we're sorry but we regret to inform you that you are not a fit for our publication because your name isn't Wenner-Wintour-Hearst-Graham."

Then the AE from Vanity Fair asked, "Are you guys in school?"

Roger said so, while I told them I freelanced.

"You freelance? Dude, you should work for a paper or a magazine," said the AE from Vanity Fair.

I know, but it's hard to work.

"Hey, tell you what. Hey, give him a card," AE from Vanity Fair asked the AE from Harper's.

"You should intern or see if you can intern for him."

And then, I casually lost it.

"I don't need to intern, man, I need a fucking job," I said. "Give me work."

Clearly, this rubbed the guys the wrong way.

"I've already been an intern at MSNBC, Rolling Stone and CRACKED. I need work."

"Oh, I know Jonathan Ringen. Nice guy, you know him?" the AE from Harper's said.

Sigh.

Then, out of nowhere, the "Editor from N+1" walked outside. Was told we wanted to meet him. Walked up to Roger and put his arm around him. Looked at Roger, realized he had no fucking clue who he was, and grabbed a cab.

Aside from being mocked by the established editors and writers and Roger being extremely displeased once he realized what had happened, I learned another important lesson that night. A lesson that can translate for all future journalists and writers and media elite:

I'm not your fucking intern anymore and I want to be paid a fair wage for my work, which is a higher quality than a number of your other employees. Also, to other writers: please stop agreeing to work sub-standard wages. The rest of us get fucked. If you'd like to have me write for you, my email is on the right side of this page.

But because I haven't worked in Alabama or down South or in a coal mine, I understand I have to wait until you die or stop being such a prick to get a job with your organization. I completely understand.

Thanks.

*note: Roger Korman is not his real name. If you thought so, you're lamer than a Harper's Magazine intern.

2nd note: In case you weren't aware, an internship at Harper's Magazine is unpaid.

LOLCAGE

2007-11-01T12:03:00.000-04:00

Inspired by these images and news that Nicolas Cage is starring in a remake of Bangkok Dangerous:

What's TETSUOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in English?

2007-10-31T00:01:00.000-04:00

News broke yesterday from Bloody-Disguisting that Warner Brothers is looking to fast track a live-action version of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira. The rumored director is Ruairi Robinson, whose best known credit is this short (via Warren Ellis), The Silent City:

I hastily threw the rumor on FW earlier today, along with John Brownlee's own drunken anecdote:

I did have an interesting (and completely abstract) conversation with [Robinson] the night before I moved from Dublin to Berlin about whether a live-action remake of a story as sprawling, surreal and decidedly Japanese as Akira could work as a live-action remake.

His feeling, as I recall, was that the setting could still work, but there'd be a necessity to move it to America to please studios. His idea was that a Neo-New York that had been culturally swamped by Japanese immigrants in a post-globalized future could take the place of Neo-Tokyo. In short, something like Blade Runner's futuristic vision of Los Angeles.

The other thing that he said that was interesting was that he didn't think Akira could be filmed as a single two-hour movie: the anime had tried that and failed to really convey an understandable plot. An Akira movie would need to be a Kill Bill style two-parter.

So who knows? Take our drunken ramblings with a grain of salt, since we used to talk about stuff like this all the time. Maybe the rumors are true and he has been picked up as the director of Akira.

I guess the sole thought going over and over in my head today was how can you change a line like Kaneda screaming "TETSUOOOOOOO" into the sky. Effects-wise, you'd need WETA-level production once the body-morphing begins. It would be impressive to see Akira in person, but keep thinking about it. Once you change Tetsuo's name, you'd change Kaneda. Then you'd change Akira and now the American version will be Steve.

Who the fuck will be afraid of STEVE in block letters on a masthead while a kid in a red leather jacket with a pill on the back stands in front of a city. No one.

This is fascinating to me, though, since WB is also responsible--or will be--for co-producing a live-action Robotech with Tobey Maguire last month.

I'm a massive anime fan and a bit of a nerd when it comes to the critical essays on culture, the state of apocalypse and how The Guyver is all one big allegory to teenage hormones. But would an American audience sit down for this? Will they for Dragon Ball Z or whatever it is Fox seems to be casting?

Visually and culturally, I don't think you can Americanize any of the films. It sounds lame, but segments of Otomo's manga are inherently Japanese and were removed, shortened or abandoned for the feature release. And it worked. Of course, it wasn't the full story, but what about Vampire Hunter D? The anime is the second or third story in a franchise. The Akira anime produced a streamlined and superior version to the manga, especially for an unfamiliar audience. If you can honestly say that you were--in 1988--well versed and had read all six tankobon prior to the film, you can go fuck yourself.

The visuals for all the films are another big reason. Especially in the case of Robotech, which would be laughed at the second a fighter jet turns into a bi-pedal thing with arms, carrying a missile-shaped gun. And it battles pods. My god, it was great as a child, but you seriously think this will work on film? Nah.

And goddamn it, I'm a huge fan of any series with a power level OVER 9000, but even I can recognize how awful DBZ is. Not "translated" or "adapted" or "turned into a multi-generational story that is in fact a reference to Journey into the West."

No, it's awful. It is the stereotypical "shounen" story. But it's so addictive.

Definitely unlike seeing Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter or even Robinson, whose own Silent City evokes Maroru Oshii, Kereberos/The Red Spectacles/Jin-Roh and the best use of Cillian Murphy since he was dragged off horseback in Batman Begins.

I'm kidding. The best use of Murphy remains Disco Pigs.

Hardball & I

2007-10-28T19:00:00.000-04:00

This is a continuation of The Reeler's Totally Unrelated Blog-A-Thon. The rules remain:

1) Authors should either be publishers of or contributors to a regularly updated film blog (In other words: You should have something to want a break from);

2) Entries must not address subjects related to filmgoing, filmmaking, film criticism, film news or anything else film-related (television is OK);

3) Everything else is fair game.

Therefore, I'm going to address a "dark" point in my life. Not to mention my #1 Google hit.

The common rule I always found when it comes to my second hometown of Hot Chocolate City is:

"You're either punk rock or into politics."

The basis being you either learn three shitty chords and scream, or you bite the bullet and take the Red Line to Union ~~Square~~ Station and work at the Hart/Dirksen/or Russell buildings for whoever happens to be in power at that point. I know there's the idea that if you're punk, you're already political, but I knew way too many kids who were more interested in getting wasted on glue than who the mayor was.

Then again, you try growing up in a city where there is no real representation. I got in during the good time without the race riots or extreme bigotry. I was lucky, but D.C. has a funny way of sucking out that activism and replacing it with a bottle or a bong.

If you missed it by now, I couldn't play three chords at all. I sold the guitar my parents bought me for a copy of the Matthew Good Band's Underdogs.

Anyway, I'm digressing. During the summer of 2004 I was in Spain--at summer school, natch--when I got an e-mail informing me that I had been accepted to work as a Runner for MSNBC at the Republican and Democratic National Conventions.

A Runner is fairly interesting. The job description is loose, but can be considered like this: I ran. I ran so far away...to buy shirts at the GAP for producers, to get lunch orders, to bring new scripts within the trailers, to escort guests, to hold Rob Reiner's hand, to get back to the hotel room at 3am, sleep, wake up at 10:30 am and then walk back to ~~Fanueil Square~~ Faneuil Hall ready to do it all again.

Now, it's important to note that I worked for Hardball with Chris Matthews, a show made forever famous by Matthews' ability to conduct Q&As solely by raising the ~~tempo~~ timbre of his voice. Personally, I think it's impressive. I would love to have that power.

Me: So, how'd you get interested in this?
Subject: Ah, I dunno. I mean--
Me: YOU GOT INTERESTED BECAUSE OF DRUGS. ADMIT IT. DRUGS AND CHEAP BOOZE.
Subject: [Breaks down crying, nodding. We hug. It is a powerful moment in Journalism.]

I never met Matthews while I was in Boston. I was partnered with a guy named Malcolm and we routinely had to run through the Fleet Center doing all sorts of odd things. Get signs, get scripts and be able to run constantly. During the day I'd live in Satelite Truck City with the NBC interns and even run into Paul Wright--better known as The Big Show.

The producers of the show heard I could write and were looking to have someone blog for the then-new Hardblogger about the conventions. When considering names, someone christened me The Hardblogger Jogger.

And I took this picture two minutes after finding out I'd be an "official" MSNBC Blogger for a few days:

It also didn't hurt that I was going to be in New York (thanks NYU!) for the second convention. Which was marked only by getting to see the D.C. Statehood Dragon be paraded up 7th Avenue, then lit on fire and burn to the ground during some Beastie Boys tune.

Ah, Hot Chocolate City.

But back to work in NYC, or rather a week prior. Since I lived in D.C. I asked if I could come work in the Hardball office for a week until going back to New York. After all, I wanted to see how the show functioned during regular office hours. This led to two odd moments:

1) One day, as production on the show ran late and they still did a live 5 and 7 pm broadcast, I took dinner orders and ran out for the meal around 5:30. The Dubliner is a few blocks from the (old) studio and serves a hamburger with two potato pancakes as buns. It is worth murder. I came back, distributed orders and people all commented that the burger is good, but the potato pancakes make it great. And I agreed. I sat down at the spare cubicle I was given for the week, turned the TV at my desk to FX and started watching Predator instead of the live, in-house feed.

I catch movement from the corner of my eye and turn around. First, to my meal: the fries are nearly gone. I just opened the take-out box and had a full batch. I looked up and there was Hardball host Chris Matthews sitting at his desk, eating fries and looking me dead in the eyes. This would be my first experience with Chris and food.

2) The week I was there, the whole John Kerry Swift Boat fiasco was going on. Michelle Malkin, by pure happenstance, was scheduled to pimp her then-latest book, In Defense of Internment: The World War II Round-Up and What It Means For America's War on Terror. Now, a lot can be said about her. If I learned anything from my brief time in Network TV, it's that a majority of these writers and on-air talent become obsessed with furthering their "public image" at the sake of being seen as a blow-hard, a liberal, a conservative, a wind-bag, whatever.
Most of these people are generally decent--except for politics, that's where they turn bat-shit crazy.

Anyway, I was buzzed while Malkin's interview was being wrapped and asked to deliver a book on Matthews' desk to the studio. It would be on a chair. The book I grabbed was Malkin's own copy of her book--with notes, stickies and page markers for some reason--which was left on a chair. I brought this into Matthews and he looked relatively confused at why I gave him the book. See, I assumed I was supposed to give the book to the host. Instead, Malkin fumed at the door while Matthews gave me the book back and said, "Why do I need this? Put it in my office."

Malkin stopped me at the door, told me it was her book and I handed it over. I felt bad about the mix-up, but oh well.

The next day, this popped up on her blog:

As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I’m irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who–for the first time, apparently–started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an “idiot.”

On the bright side, I got a promotion! On the other, Malkin published the "main" number, or number that rang for all producers, staff and myself. Thanks Michelle!

And now, back to New York. The convention wasn't anything special. I started blogging about it and Bo Derek--aka THE Bo Derek.

I also met Joe Trippi.

In fact, after my first blog ran, I happened upon Trippi coming out of the production trailer at Herald Square one day. I walked up to the man responsible for publicizing the net with politics during the Howard Dean campaign and said, "Uh, hi, Mr. Trippi. I'm a runner here, and I just started blogging--"

"Yeah, yeah," he said. "You're the Hardblogger guy."

"Yes! I mean, I'm new to it."

"Great, can you go get me a diet coke from the food trailer? Thanks."

That was how I met Joe Trippi. YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Aside from Trippi using me to constantly get him Diet Cokes, even so far as spending $2.50 at 3:30 am on the last night of the convention to get one for him. Seriously, it is 2007 and Joe Trippi still owes me $2.50.

Then again, he owes 90 percent of the Dean staff money too. So...guess I shouldn't complain too much.

...basically, it boils down to this. Even now, when I apply for work, people always ask me about working at Hardball and Chris Matthews. Even a freelance gig I applied to with the anime-centric Protoculture Addicts, Managing Editor Zac Bertschy asked me about Matthews as a boss, then never returned an email or call. So, for the sake of future editorial inquires, I will now relate the rest of my personal thoughts on working for Chris Matthews.

...

ahem.

He was a good boss. I worked more with the actual producers. They were great.
I also baked him a cake once. Seriously, it was delicious and the office loved it.
He can be loud, he's roughly 6'3", if not a bit taller. And no, he doesn't remember me. There is the slight chance he remembers the cake I made for him after being shouted at since I didn't bring him another cake. Hm. Wait.

4) The Chris Matthews Cake Bake Story

Apparently, this is legend around the Hardball office. And I will address it here.

Yes, I once made Chris Matthews a delicious, chocolate cake with vanilla icing.

It was the summer of 2005 and I came back to Hardball as an intern after working the conventions. On a rather off Thursday, there a was a lull in the news cycle. It was going to be an easy day, Matthews wasn't coming in until the early afternoon and the rest of us interns were just kicking around. When he did come in, the word came out that everyone was ordering coffee from Starbucks and we'd get a chocolate cake. There were hearty laughs had by all. And Starbucks orders were taken.

Then, he came out, walked up to me and said,

"Where's our cake?"

"What cake," I asked.

"...the chocolate cake I asked for."

"Oh. Oh, you were serious?"

Yes, Chris Matthews was serious. For chocolate cake. And so, at 3:45 on a Thursday afternoon, I had to find a chocolate cake. Now, I was moderately lucky that a deli nearby sold cake. Of course, they only took cash and that meant me paying $40 from my own pocket for cake. But I came back to the office, cutting him a slice only to hear:

"This tastes like raspberries."

I assured him it didn't. Matthews was adamant that, in fact, I brought him chocolate-raspberry cake. He called in his assistant to confirm this. And then no one ate any of the $40 cake. Mind you, the $40 cake I had to hustle to find on a Thursday afternoon before the 5 pm show. My only bright point came from Hardball reporter David Shuster admitting the cake tasted great.

This would lead in later years to my friends and I lauding Shuster and creating the unofficial "David Shuster Rocks Drinking Game."

You drink every time Shuster rocks during a broadcast. It became very bad when he'd take over Tucker Carlson's 4 pm slot on occasion.

But after that day, I went back home blind with intern rage. I was so enraged that it wasn't until later that night did my mother stop and ask me,

"...John, why did you bake a cake?"

And I had no memory of it. Indeed, I baked a delicious cake while furious with my boss. Bringing it in the next day, it was delicious. And Matthews ate the chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. And he too claimed it was delicious.

And so, forever more, I would be remembered as the intern who baked a cake. A delicious cake made from rage, anger and spite.

Anyway, that was the time I worked for a major cable network and in politics. It taught me important, Big-J Journalism lessons. Not to mention that Joe Trippi owes a lot of people money, despite having a very nice farm in Maryland.

Oh, and that despite your former bosses' best advice, a career in freelancing is less stressful than working for a cable network.

And Hardblogger was just like Huffington Post: they don't pay for "original" work. So, I still like freelancing more.

Edit 10/28/07, 12:58 pm: Oh, totally forgot. After working there, I found myself doing the trademark "Ha HAH!" laugh for weeks. I still do it by accident sometimes. It's like PTSD.

Edit, later: Holy christ, I've been living in New York too long. All my D.C. terminology is being mixed up.

Idiot Savant's Guide to Saw IV

2007-10-26T20:57:00.000-04:00

Thanks ~~4Chan uh...I mean~~ Ebaumsworld!

Tales of Hoe: Overheard at CMJ

2007-10-26T12:54:00.000-04:00

"She comes up to me after a panel and says, 'Your voice makes me wet.' I was like, whoa!"
-some DJ, IFC Center, screening of Flesh and Blood who then started count a stack of $20 bills as thick as my mini spiral bound 80-page notebook.

"Vince Vaughn's an asshole and the movie sucks."
-PR person outside an event, remarking on Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show

"I was just there and they don't even have a screening room."
"Really? That is odd."
"Yeah, I can't figure it out. I mean, I was down there at the Soho Grand--"
"Screening's at Tribeca."
"Hm?"
"The screening's at the Tribeca Grand."
"...I'm fucking retarded."
-me upon realizing I'm fucking retarded and can't tell the difference between the Soho Grand and Tribeca Grand. Luckily, I was at the press center on Lafayette and Houston. Very nearby the Tribeca Grand. Very not nearby, sorry.

"Oh god, and then I totally asked Will Smith what made him choose to play a poor guy. It was incredible."
-unnamed People Magazine staffer who kept his ID badge on while I ate dinner with Vadim and waited to see Control

"What band are you in?"
-a lot of drunk people to me.

"I'm Travis Morrison."
-me to a lot of drunk people.

"Who?"
-the common response. Hot Chocolate City represent. sigh.

"I work for Filmwad."
"Oh. Is that like a porn site?"
-me to MTV dude outside of Frank and ~~Cathy~~Cindy at MoMA

"GEE HA HA HA HA HA HA HA AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA. Oh, I love how he makes his father into an asshole and his mother such a junkie."
-blonde, high-pitched woman sitting next to me at Frank and ~~Cathy~~Cindy who may have been high. Or someone I know.

"CMJ sucks."
-friend of mine who is dead on.

The Mash-Up and YOUUUUUUUUUUUUU

2007-10-24T18:19:00.000-04:00

Note: The inspiration comes from The Reeler's Totally Unrelated Blog-A-Thon. The rules, as my benevolent dictator/editor states, are simple:

1) Authors should either be publishers of or contributors to a regularly updated film blog (In other words: You should have something to want a break from);

2) Entries must not address subjects related to filmgoing, filmmaking, film criticism, film news or anything else film-related (television is OK);

3) Everything else is fair game.

So, because I update as regularly as I'm employed, I figured I'll join up. And so...

It starts out innocent enough. You hear a song, tap your foot, think about all sorts of things. Maybe you grew up in a know-nothing town, maybe you're an urban punk with Ian MACK-EYE's blood/truth/doctrine flowing through your veins. Whatever, dude. It's all the same.

But this is the age of YOU. We are the children of the revolution, moblogging the march and uploading to Flickr while we drink our Aqua Velvas from the skulls of the old media.

Or something. A skull isn't much of a glass. Trust me on that one.

So you like a song. The next logical choice is--on a lark--make a "music video." This is a long-standing practice with the anime community. Fan videos are as old as gathering in your mother's basement and hitting natural 20s. In the old days they'd be compiled on tape, run close to 1 GB .wmv files and would either come from a Metalica/Linkin Park or Madonna song. (Seriously, Madge is popular. Who knew?)

That said, ever since YOU were person of the year, YOU got all uppity. No longer are there just anime fan videos, but complete re-stagings of these songs thanks to the fan video. In essence, they'd lead to the mash-up culture that's better known through music--and every fifth post on BoingBoing. For the sake of making my life easy and to kill time today, I went through YouTube using the world's catchiest song as my bait.

So, without further ado, here are some of the videos I found for Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat Soulja Boy."

The literal (and perhaps, best):

Uploader: burntpiano

It has Asian Pop Stars (and RAIN OMG RAIN OMG IT IS RAIN!)

Uploader: rimokon

...

...no.

The "Alternate Genre" Version

Uploader: Anubisgirl15

Dora The Explorer Supermans that Ho

Uploader:djtj1216

So what does this exactly explain? How does it look into a culture that is constantly reinventing itself through splicing, slicing, editing, music and other multimedia? That nothing is sacred? That anyone can fire up the ol' laptop to edit? That the Internet is made for wasting time?

Who cares. The real lesson here is to always Superman that ho.

So, does this mean I'm getting my $25?

2007-10-20T03:32:00.001-04:00

Wow.
I sort of got this tip from a friend (i.e. Google) a few seconds ago. Namely this link:

Funny they don't credit this little piece to me except at the very end--or that I never was paid for it.

Oh well. At least I'm still a contributor! Now I can breathe easy, quit my assortment of jobs and live off the land.

tales of hoe: cmj, day 2

2007-10-17T17:15:00.001-04:00

I honestly considered going to see Jimmy Carter: Man from the Plains for 20 minutes. I swear. I honestly, actually spent 20 minutes thinking about whether or not I would walk over to the IFC Center and catch a two hour, Jonathan Demme helmed PR campaign designed to showcase Jimmy Carter's book tour.

Then I read there'd be a post-screening discussion! About national politics!

And I promptly showered and kept refreshing my Gmail.

Haven't gone back to the CMJ press building after the initial clusterfuck. I hear they are out of stupid swag bags. and their wireless doesn't work, which is the only reason I'd go there--to work and then go over to IFC.

Tomorrow should be mildly interesting if just for Wristcutters: A Love Story and Anderson Cooper's Q&A.
I wonder if he'll tell us what 'G' stands for.

Probably going to see Control or ~~The~~ Trigger Man tonight. and both happen to be same walking distance. hm. decisions.

tales of hoe: cmj, day 1

2007-10-16T13:02:00.001-04:00

Ah, I'm at the News Bar up in yr Editorialiste.

I'm not there starts in an hour. then other movie tonight around 7 pm.
I am accredited as ABOUT.COM

Oh, Filmwad, will you never get the respect you deserve?

Also. I am drowning in a sea of leather and plaid. is this just soho in fall, or...wait, yes, it is soho in fall.
man, i need some sweet $55,000 blogging money.

lazy video: holy human siamese knot, batman!

2007-09-22T11:24:00.000-04:00

and to think, where did adam west get so perverted? Oh, wait, right.

My Cellibate Life

2007-09-21T08:55:00.000-04:00

Taken from AMNY.com, a part of Unplugged or Unhinged:A Tech-Free Week, 9/21/07:

(amNewYork Photo/ Lane Johnson / September 20, 2007)

As a journalist, when it comes to living without a cell phone for a week, it's all about strategy. Anyone can do it -- but it takes style to wind up with an iPhone at the end.

First, the nature of the freelance journalist means being attached to the phone and laptop at all times, ready to place desperate cold calls and inform an editor that "Yes, I will go without my cell phone for a week for a story."

And so I turned my phone off last Thursday. And you know what? It was great!

At first, losing my phone didn't seem like a big issue. I still had instant messages, e-mail and all those Web tools that supposedly let people track down where I am. For the first day, my hands were happy to be free. No need to constantly rummage in my pocket, checking for missed calls or texts.

I also had no idea what my friends' phone numbers were without my address book--in my phone.

I solved this by taking down what numbers I could into a mini notebook and carrying that around to use at a pay phone. This seemed like a great idea until a) a very angry man told me I was using "his office," and b) my friend's phone went straight to voice mail, taking my coins with it.

It became clear that I needed my cell phone -- or a fistful of quarters wherever I go. We've become so accustomed to instant gratification that even a week without one seems like social suicide.

Oh, and as for my iPhone? It's the payphone on Avenue B between 2nd and 3rd Street with "I P H O N E" scrawled on it. You take it, I'm keeping my cell.
--By John Lichman, Special to amNewYork

Miller High Life

2007-09-19T17:29:00.000-04:00

I'm being kept in an apartment until I drink a six pack of Miller High Life I bought three months ago as a "Hey, I'm in the area. I'm going to stop by" gift.

Apparently, my gift was not appreciated.

And now, I have to sit here, listen to Bright Eyes and drink the beer.

Life can be hard sometimes.

And by hard, I mean filled with the champagne of beers.

lazy video: mash-ups are funny

2007-09-19T12:11:00.000-04:00

working is fun. working is great.
working is awesome when you have this in your head. this exact thing. mmm.

lazy video: hardcore turtles

2007-09-15T19:28:00.001-04:00

nothing makes my saturday more complete than the teenage mutant ninja turtles in concert.
rocking the f'k out.

(via Idolator, via Chicago Reader)

Meeting Dr. Van Nostrand

2007-09-15T15:22:00.000-04:00

Very rarely do I find myself face to face with pure terror. I mean, sure, I've been alone on subway platforms at 5 a.m. before, and sure, I've had Donnie Wahlberg threaten me for not liking Saw 2, but pure terror?

I mean pure,unadulterated LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE terror?

That was last night.

I received explicit instructions from the honorable Dr. Reinhardt Van Nostrand to meet, alone and unarmed, under the Williamsburg Bridge at the Devil's hour. Dr. Van Nostrand has worked with (and possibly against) the Pioneer Theater since its' inception in 1302*. Some dare say he is even older than that.

Making a fool's assumption that I was early, I called Vlad the Impaler to ease the tension. But then, I heard shuffling followed by a gruff shout. Unsure of the noise, I hung up and peered around the corner.

"Dr. Van Nostrand," I meekly asked. "Is that you? Doctor?"

A moment passed, the wind howling past as oblivious drivers above and before us went by, blinded to the darkness of Manhattan.

"LICK...MON."

If it wasn't for the street lamp nearby, I wouldn't have noticed the shadow moving against the bridge's foundation. I made my way closer, creating distance in case this was not the good Doctor.

"LICK...MON?"

"Hello Dr. Nostrand," I managed to say. The fear? Crippling. The wind? Blowing. The times? A'changing.

"TURN AWAY. DO NOT WATCH ME. WALK AWAY AND WAIT."

Confused, but even more afraid, I did as the Doctor instructed. I heard rumors from STV that one could not disagree with the Doctor. To do so meant being subjected to the horrors he has spent lifetimes studying and perfecting.

I wish I could go into the interview that followed. How we discussed the many deaths awaiting Larry Fessenden, how many Wrong Turns the city has taken and how the Pioneer will undergo a massacre of epic proportions.

But I'll be honest. I can't remember any of it. Like a nightmare, I woke up in Brooklyn at Union Pool, slumped inside of the photobooth without a single idea of what happened. I wandered inside, a daze, I was told by my friend. Mumbling to myself in a language never before uttered by the crowd of Art majors, musicians and "graphic designers."

In fact, the only proof I have of even meeting Doctor Van Nostrand is the conversation on my recorder and this image, which bore into my very dreams as if to say, "Let this be a lesson! Do not cross the Doctor."

*Note: Fun historical fact. Did you know the Pioneer originally conquered the Americas? Cause they did. And they also invented the wheel. And beer. And pizza. Pioneer did a lot of things first.

*2nd Note: To find out what happened to John and read the real piece he's working on for Primetime A and E, pick up the October issue which comes out next month. And see Pioneer's full October schedule here.

*3rd Note: wtf, blogger, let me use my ampersand.

having no cell is like having no life

2007-09-10T12:22:00.000-04:00

i have learned an important lesson.
you cannot win an argument with the man sleeping standing up in a phone booth.
also: cannot make calls to long distance numbers (i.e. cell phones) for some reason. am going to explore this more today.

at least no one knows how to find me, except by email now.
which thanks to dying PowerBookG4, i need to leave plugged in.
best. day. ever.

Just Some Guy

2007-07-10T00:07:00.000-04:00

To me, Dylan was Just Some Guy. We met on some stupid message board (that became The Bored) and wrote crappy short stories and posts and at some point I bet we even discussed music. Actually, I don't think we ever did. I think we tried to critique everyone's work and did it to each other as well.

Lora told me he died because I didn't know any better and since we never met. He's one of three Canadians I admit to knowing. Lora's the second. My friend The Canadian is the third but he's in Canada now so he can go fuck off. Not really, but he's a die-hard Sens fan.

On the full circle standpoint, Dylan's now immortalized in his very own official MGBlog and I think he'd get a kick out of that. Maybe not. I didn't know him at all in real life. Our relationship existed solely on the Internet, doing grammar checks on shitty message board poetry and me pretending to be Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

In my sophomore year of college, he told me he would send me a book that would change my life. By this point, we only occasionally traded messages and I thought it was a joke. I had a rough time so far at school and did a fairly dumb thing that almost got me booted out. So I get back to the shitty midtown dorm one day and find a copy of Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting: The Astonishing Power of Feelings.

I still haven't read past p. 20 and I figure I should soon. I owe it to him for the shipping, at least.

A bit after that came the last email I'd get from him.

From : Dylan Webber
Sent : Saturday, March 26, 2005 10:28 AM
To : doc_moyer@hotmail.com
Subject : you're a real piece of shit

you know that?

I do get a kick out of your writing, though.

(I'm required to say something to this effect every six months, and I thought I'd go with the bare minimum this year)

a month before, in response to shitty poetry he wrote this:

show not tell, doc.
and
chopping up prose in little blocks fit for consumption is not poetry! it's word sushi.
which may be the trade you're better suited for.
Posted by: JSG at February 20, 2005 11:09 AM

i still say word sushi when talking about poetry. and i'm going to steal this line from takashi miike when i say thank you fuck you dylan. i hope it never hurts.

now i've got to read the rest of the book. you evil, scheming dead poet society, you. fuck.

The Most Useless Transformers, continued!

2007-07-06T11:55:00.000-04:00

Listening to John Brownlee's little cry of, "OMG, SOUNDWAVE IS NOT TEH SUX," I was reminded of a rather simple video.

Namely, Soundwave getting pwnt by his Autobot counterpart:

(I will admit that Japanese Soundwave does sound a more bad-ass than "Hello-can-you-hear-me-I-am-a-nerd-with-a-VOcorder-and-you-will-fear-me-because-I-use-a-VOcorder.")

But I got back to thinking and found I have a few more "Most Useless" Transformers that weren't used in the final, twice re-edited piece on CRACKED

In no apparent order (since no one can clearly beat Soundwave as teh lame:)

Frenzy
Transforms into a cassette(cartoon) /CD Player (2007 film)

Why's He Useless? Aside from being wholly dependent on Soundwave to be let out, Frenzy is one of the first to experience “Michael Bay”-fication. That means that even if you were slightly bad-ass in the cartoon, you become a horrid self-parody in the live-action movie. Case-in-point: since Soundwave is not in the movie, Frenzy is partnered with Barricade (the cop car) and launched out of the cop car’s grill. Later on, he turns into a Sidekick.
Oh, also, Shia LeBouf beats him up. That automatically means you’re the most useless creature ever invented by a sick, sadistic God.

Quickswitch
Transforms into a robot, a hovercraft, a laser gun, a jet, a drill tank and a flying puma.
Why's he useless?
Tough call at first, right? Here's a six-changer who sounds like he can be awesome. He's even the son of Sixshot, whose various forms delighted me to no end as a child. Of course, they delighted my parents more when I couldn't make tank mode work and he really wasn't that fun once you lost the coveted transformation manual. But back to his bastard son--and we'll ignore just how sentenient robots give birth to other robots for now.

Back to the problem at hand: how does a six-changer come off as useless? By turning into a flying puma.
Yeah, that hovercraft's handy. Sure, being a robot that fights other robots is cool. But you know what this situation really calls for? A flying puma. So he can fly around and stun our enemies into thinking they're in some weird mash-up of Hayao Miyazaki and just plain odd. God forbid he turn into something useful like...oh...maybe a flying wolf like his father. A flying wolf, mind you, that can fire missles.

Megatron (from Robots in Disguise)
Transforms into a dragon, a gargolye, a car, a spaceship and a hand.
Why's he useless?
In one of the more recent (and awful) Japanese send-ups of Transformers, everyone becomes a wide-eyed Mecha capable of unleashing the pain. Optimus Prime is in fact a fire truck who can enter "God Fire Convoy" mode and combines with Ultra Mganus to become the Dragonzord or some inane thing. But Megatron is the worst here. Sure, he turns into a bevy of things, but a hand? An ominous, floating hand that slaps things?

(the hand.)

Later on in the series, he can change into a gryphon, an elephant and a pterodactyl too.
Why? Who knows! It’s Japanese! That’s the beauty of it. I’m sure there’s some symbolism here I’m missing, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll turn into an Elephant and start doing a kabuki dance or something, or rape some little girl with tentacles and then give a victory sign.

Megatron (from the 2007 movie)
Transforms into a giant metal vagina with legs.
Why he's useless?
He's a giant robot with a metal vagina for a mouth and voiced by Agent Smith. He may as well have just had Anthony Anderson draw a big penis on his face in sharpie. See also, "Michael Bay-ification."

The Breast Force
Transforms into a fighter jet (Leozack), a "missile buggy" (Jaguary), a double-barrelled tank (Killbison), a drill tank (Drillhorn), a hypnotizing jet fighter (Hellbat), another fighter jet (Gaigawk), no idea (Deathcobra) and some sort of dragon/bird hybrid creature (Deszaras).

Why They're Useless:
Well...wait. They're named "The Breast Force' because their chest plates turn into weapons and/or other animals; they had a member named Deathcobra; they turn into a super-powerful combined robot whose name roughly translates into 'The Lion King' and they're led by a dragon.

I take it back. These guys are pretty sweet. They're the most AWESOME transformer ever since the walking T-Rex Decepticon City.

How To Get Dugg and Screwed (2,200+ times)

2007-07-05T10:02:00.000-04:00

The idea came to me in a fury of mid-afternoon depression mojitos, a can of diety coke and eating a salad.
Honestly, salad is great, especially when you replace the whole "vegtable" thing with "sausage and potatoes mixed with onions."

Salad then is awesome.

But, the idea:
"Man, Soundwave is lame."

Sure, this is the Transformer that ejected robot jaguars, hawks, tiny men and copies of "The Touch" from his chest. But when you get down to it, the giant robot that turns into a tank/tractor trailer/hot rod/fighter jet will always beat the giant robot that can play my old Violent Femmes tapes.

And then I thought about it some more. Gee golly, there are a lot of lame Transformers. It sounds odd, since TF was one of the few American/Japanese co-productions that gave us a giant robot craze (leaving out Gundam, Macross/Robotech and Tetsujin-28/Gigantor.) But why in the good name of Optimus Prime did the science officer transform into a fucking microscope? No one even explained why he became a microscope and not a telescope, or an atom smasher or an electron scale.

So, I got a hold of my friend who survived the various shakedowns and breakdowns at CRACKED and brought the idea up to him. He said to pitch one of the two remaining editors, so I did. I threw in a few other ideas about Japan, robots and one poorly worded "Lessons learned from John McClane" that I wrote as "John McCain."

I read MSNBC First Read every day. It was a slip.

He liked the Transformers idea, skipped the other four pitches. I turned it around within a week or so, shooting off 8 or 9 final profiles and letting them decide what they wanted to keep. Then, I waited.

And waited.

Two weeks later, with the "Transformers: The Movie" coming out, I was a little skepitcal why I hadn't heard back from the editor. Normally, there'd be some rewriting process involved. I know I'm a gifted savant, but I'm also fairly idiotic and normally go through at least three revisions before the final process. I asked my friend and he heard nothing, so again recomended I shoot an email off.

That got the reply of:
"Yeah John we're working with it on our end though, so you're good on this one. Next step for you would be pitching us some new idea."

Great, they liked it. So, I checked the sites on Tuesday when I woke up. First came my piece on the Japan Society's JAPAN CUTS program going on this week and next at The Reeler.

Then onto CRACKED for The 7 Most Useless Transformers Ever!

By CRACKED STAFF.

Which is odd. Since I'm no longer working at CRACKED. In fact, they don't have an office anymore. In fact, I'm fairly certain only three editors exist now at CRACKED. In fact...my name isn't associated at all with the article that's been linked on Gizmodo and currently has 2,272 Diggs.

My friend claims--and I remember from working there--that when enough editing is required for a piece, it takes on the CRACKED STAFF byline. But that was usually for a day-turnaround when I'd hear the editors complaining that the writer wouldn't, couldn't or refused to make a change. I waited for two weeks to hear anything about my edits, even offering to grab pictures and do photoshop if need be. Still no word from the editor about why my name was changed. And looking over my original draft, yeah, a lot was changed. But that's what drafts are for.

Luckily, Soundwave still sucks.

edit: And my editor says,

Hey man,
We had another outside writer come in and give it a punch up. It's usually our standard policy that we don't do attribution if two writers did substantial work on a piece as well as the editorial staff. Just gets too lengthy. I'll add names at the end of it so there's some credit given-- By John Lichman with Danny O'Brien (other writer's name).

it sucks to whine, but damn it, I'm worth it too.
or something.
whatever.
Time to get margaritas and cry in my bath-tub of shame.

The Rest of the (Worst) Best!

2007-05-25T14:02:00.000-04:00

Just because it's a four-day weekend complete with gin drinking, beer sweating, BBQ eatin', sushi swilling...wait, can you "swill" a sushi? No? Dang.

The complete rundown of other stuff I wrote this year with hilarious commentary:

-I travel to the future and see Dakota Fanning accept an oscar for coffee bukkake.

-I argue against Afro Samurai and claim it is the worst thing to happen to anime for a long, long time. Not to mention how incredibly stereotypical and racist it is.

-Reno 911! The Movie feature with hilarious podcast somewhere on the WSN site... (hint: right hand side, click the iPod)

-Review of 300 that orignially referenced Frank Miller's ex-wife Lynn Varley. That was taken out without my knowledge, so the copy staff applied it to the Queen of Sparta being the King of Sparta's ex-wife. Yep, college reporting is awesome.

-Air Guitar Nation feature with best hede ever: Air Force One!

-I interviewed Bob Saget again. But the copy staff thought his name was "Sagat" and that he could do a TIGER, TIGER UPPERCUT on the hede and photo credit. It's right in the article. Further proving the idea that college kids are high.

-Interview with "Sacco and Vanzetti" director Peter Miller and the film process.

-I explain why I didn't like Grind House.

-Feature on the Aqua Teen Hunger Force flick. (And watching porn with Dana "Master Shake" Snyder, as well as being awkward around the Venture Brothers creators.)

-Q/A with the creative forces behind Tribeca premiering Palo Alto.

as for other stuff, namely at The Reeler:

- I looked at the 2007 Tisch First Run Film Festival.

-Did a think piece on midnight movies at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival with quotes from J. Hoberman and "Black Sheep's" Jonathan King.

-A brief sit-down with director Bong Joon-Ho on The Host.

-Attended the 2007 New York Comic Con with briefs from Eli Roth, "The Spirit" movie and a crying Robin cosplayer.

-Went to the "Aqua Teen" after party".

-Interviewed Micha X. Peled about his amazing China Blue documentary.

-And followed up with "An Inconvenient Truth" director Davis Guggenheim about attacks on his film.

-Not to mention tried my hand looking at the 60s with a Peter Whitehead retrospective.

What you do, boy?

2007-05-23T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ugh.
Where have I been for the last four years? What in the name of God was that whole "degree" thing about? Why do I suddenly want to chainsmoke cloves and brunch...oh, right. Right. College.

But specifically, working.

Rather than keep up with the whole "clean-cut, omigodplsemployme!!1eleventy" thing I'm doing otherwise, here's a few fun things I've been up to since the last time I decided to write in this here online journal of joy.

-I made a Blog for the NYU student paper. It is slowly moving forward. It will be awesome soon.

-I wrote about the 2007 New York Comic Con and didn't use any of my brief interviews with R.Stevens, the Digital Pimp crew or find Mitch Clem. I did see a Robin cry, though.

-Listened to Kazuo Hara discuss film, as opposed to my own haphazard writing on his flicks.

-I made a podcast and video interview. I will link to neither. They're on the WSN website.

-Interviewed Satoshi Kon about his latest film, "Paprika," and tried to do the ol' analysis thing. Lord knows if it worked or not.

And that's about it. There's a bunch of other stuff that involves air guitar, socialist documentaries and chinese sweatshop labor.

Oh, and I interviewed Derrick. They really like hip-hop.

Honeysuckle McColl fights the dastardly Mr. Whitehorse

2007-04-08T05:13:00.000-04:00

Honeysuckle McColl was born in a lightning storm, sucking thunder from the sky with his first breath and locked it tight beneath his heart. He immediately grew six feet, gained three hundred pounds of muscle and horrible taste in clothing.
Pappy McColl realized that his son had a special gift and taught him the difference between right, wrong and just plain bad. This was accomplished through the heroes that count in a child’s upbringing: the superhero. Pappy knew it was pointless to give his boy such mediocre aspirations like being a fireman or a politician. Honeysuckle learned his goes-inta’s when he was six days old and then fought a grizzly for fun. He named the bear Boss Kitty and Pappy trained Honeysuckle’s new friend to be an expert Scrabble player.
Boss Kitty’s favorite word was “honeypants.” You may not find it in a dictionary or any book that records the written/spoken word, but Boss Kitty enjoyed it.

And you don’t ever argue with a bear named Boss Kitty during a game of Scrabble.
It’s just common sense.

Honeysuckle cared for all creatures, big and small, furry and fuzzy. Pappy’s only regret was his son found a collection of leisure suits left over from Pappy’s days at the roller disco in Dayton, Ohio, the nation’s fourteenth best roller disco city in the world and not much else.

However, Honeysuckle was far too large for a single suit, so Pappy and Boss Kitty started cutting and sewing for nearly three weeks straight. Of course, a grizzly bear and an old man aren’t the best tailors. In fact, it’s an impressive feat that Honeysuckle can even wear the mismatched, hodge podge of tacky 80s cool. But Honeysuckle wasn’t ready to save the world yet.

Now he needed his guitar.

Before we get any further, it’s easy to be confused by this point. In four paragraphs, you’ve been reading about a baby who swallowed thunder, became a giant, had leisure suits sown for him, teaches bears to play Scrabble and needs a guitar.
Well, if you were reading closely, you’d see it was Pappy that taught a bear to play Scrabble, not Honeysuckle. Also, that bear has a name. You inconsiderate jerk.

You really should be reading closer. There’s symbolism here.

And I’m sure you want to hear more about how the dastardly Mr. Whitehorse is planning to take over the world, enslave humanity and kick puppy dogs.
Unfortunately, Mr. Whitehorse is a senile old man. He runs the general store a few miles down from where Honeysuckle and Pappy live. This statement brings up a rather sore subject for the McColl clan, and explains why Pappy also taught Boss Kitty how to cook, clean, wear an apron and love.

Honeysuckle’s Mama was kidnapped 14 years ago when Pappy couldn’t afford to pay for a Charleston Chew at the dastardly Mr. Whitehorse’s general store. This brings up a number of questions, most of which revolve around continuity and timing.

We’re not going to address those since we don’t need to. You’ll find out.
Pappy and Honeysuckle spent the next ten years doing their best to live out in the woods, biding their time with cutting lumber and playing Boss Kitty in Scrabble. But one day, decked out in a fetching purple polyester number with orange trim, Honeysuckle slammed a fist into a tree. The tree was uprooted and flew thousands of miles away. It is still nursing the ass-kicking it received in Brooklyn (this is a failed attempt at making a literary joke.)

“Pappy,” Honeysuckle said with his booming voice, “how come Mama ain’t ever home?”
Now Pappy had spent nearly every waking day of his life coming up with a new lie for his son. The first time Mama was a traveling snake oil salesman, but Honeysuckle soon realized only men did that. Then Pappy told Honeysuckle that Mama was a hobo, but Honeysuckle couldn’t believe that his sweet old Mama was the root of all evil on the rails. Finally, Pappy sighed as Boss Kitty pulled up his easy chair outside.

“Honeysuckle, I’m getting to be an old man,” Pappy said. Actually, Pappy was in his mid-thirties. But you try living with a kid who became taller and stronger than you six seconds after being born.

“But it’s time you knew the truth. Honeysuckle, your Mama is being held hostage.”

Honeysuckle punched another tree. This time sending the unlucky piece of wood so high it cleared the atmosphere. But not even Honeysuckle could tell that the tree would hit a flaming space rock filled with bug-eyed aliens, thus sending it into the sun and saving the world.

“Pappy, you tell me who has Mama and I’ll go get’er back!”
And now came the hard part.

“Well, see, son, uh, Mr. Whitehorse.”
Honeysuckle spared the rest of the trees from his wrath and asked, “But where? I’ve been going by there ever since I was a kid.”

“Well, yeah,” Pappy said and trailed off. Boss Kitty went inside to fetch some tea.

“Son,” Pappy said, “this is going to be kind of difficult to take. And I don’t want you to be angry with me or anything.”

“Pappy,” Honeysuckle replied, “ I would never be angry with you. You’re my Pappy!”
Pappy sighed.
“Great, because your mother’s the Fender Showmaster with a Quilt Maple Top that Mr. Whitehorse keeps on the wall behind him.”

If you need a moment to think about the logistics that involve a man having sex with a guitar, now’s the time to do it. That’s pretty fucked up, right? Well, if that didn’t do it for you, think about this: the guitar was pregnant.

Honeysuckle took a moment to think about both of those things. Luckily, having the mind of a ten-year old means you’re not as freaked out when realizing your mother is in fact a Fender Showmaster. It’d be much worse if he was 16 or 17 and this would be a very angsty story filled with dark poetry and quoting Morrissey.

“See, son, Mr. Whitehorse once had a stack of Charleston Chews so high that it touched the moon and proved he could fly. I was a wandering guitar man, broke and hungry and desperate for a good Charleston Chew. He made me a deal. If I gave him my one true love, he’d give me all the Charleston Chews I’d ever want!”
Honeysuckle nodded. After all, who wouldn’t want all the Charleston Chews you could eat?

“But then he caught me, that charming man, in a paradox! Uh, that’s like when you continually do the same bad thing over again—you’ll learn that once you hit puberty, son. Because a man only needs one Charleston Chew to be happy, I was tricked! And your mother was taken from me!”

Now, honestly, how does a man have sex with a guitar? But that didn’t matter to Honeysuckle, who leapt to his feet and flew through the air toward old, dastardly Mr. Whitehorse’s general store to find his mother.
Pappy took a long sip of tea and put his arm around Boss Kitty.
“That’s my boy.”

Boss Kitty growled.

“Mm, quiet you or papa spank.”

Now, you ain’t lived till you seen a giant in a leisure suit flying through the air. And if you watched said giant crash through the roof of your general store, land in front of you and say “Give me back Mama” so loud that the loose, saggy skin around your face peels back and stays there—well, you’d say:

“BIG JESUS SOULMATE TRASHCAN!”

Much like the dastardly Mr. Whitehorse said, clutching his heart and falling to the ground. Honeysuckle awkwardly stood there with a dead old man in a dusty general store. Oh, and there was the guitar hanging on the wall with a tiny little sign that read, “Collateral until P. McColl pays back $.10 for Charleston Chew.”
Honeysuckle took hold of his mother and held her in the air, much like that old “Star Wars” poster where Luke is totally looking badass but is creepy because Leia is all touchy-feely with his leg. So, yeah, sort of like this moment.
“Guitar,” Honeysuckle yelled and shot forth into the air. Since then, Honeysuckle never went back home. He instead travels the land, guitar/mother in hand, playing psycho-fusion acid rock and righting wrongs. He’s also technically 12-years old now.
And he continues to fight the evil, as his bear-and-guitar fucking father taught him how.

But you can hear about that another time.

so, really, what is it you do?

2007-01-31T14:27:00.000-05:00

i figure it's about time i come back to this. and so i can generate...not content. maybe love?
yes, i will generate love. it'll make the heat in my room come back on. maybe the water too.

so here are some things i've done in the past few weeks:

Bob Saget Goes Of the Deep End
I interviewed Bob Saget for 14 minutes, thanked him for being my bastard surrogate father and then he ends on a poo joke. you really don't get much better than that. also, another great exchange,

roommate: hey, your bob saget article got picked up by [whatever name of college AP service is.]
me: oh, well. great.
roommate: you're the highest ranked article.
me: awesome.
roommate: ...at 943 hits.
me: ...

so, 943 people have claimed to read that.
i'm sorry.

In the latest piece of filth known as The Idiot Savant and I, we look at the best of 2007 and I make two jokes about penises.

Also, the original Sam Jackson dialogue should read like this:
me: Hey, Sam Jackson, what's your next movie about?
Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson: YOU MEAN LIKE MY SPIKE TV SHOW AFRO SAMURAI, OR MY ROLE AS A NARRATOR IN BOB SAGET'S FARCE OF THE PENGUINS?
me: No, no. I mean the one with the title that means your penis.
Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson: OH SHIT, YOU MEAN BLACK SNAKE MOAN!
Me: Hell yeah, Sam Jackson, break that shit down!
Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson: IT'S ABOUT ME KEEPIN' A HOT-ASS WHITE WOMAN ON A CHAIN, MOTHERFUCKER!

yep. I can't see one reason why they'd remove that.

-I rank Factotum as the top tenth best film of 06, while the acting honor goes to Tomoya Nagase and Shichinosuke Nakamura for Yaji and Kita, the Midnight Pilgrims. (And to hear the best ending theme ever from Yaji X Kita, why don't you click here and listen to "I wanna be your fuck" okay?

that's been about it.

you need the base.

2006-12-17T01:28:00.000-05:00

tobias wolfe wrote Bullet in the Brain as a two page spread within the New Yorker originally.

I read it while attending the UVA Young Writer's Program. It stayed with me for so long and I forgot the title. It came back suddenly one night while I was in the middle of something. Some alcohol fueled rant, some lonely night at a computer. Regardless of what...but I also remembered.

It was made into a film.

So I bring you both. The HTML file of the PDF is above.

The short film is here.

They're both beautiful and both make me realize that nothing says loving like realizing fault.

up teh punx

2006-12-11T01:01:00.000-05:00

this is what happens when Mitch Clem walks into a room. I swear to God I am not lying to you.

all right, maybe I am. Maybe he isn't a space man in Japan with a magical punk ray gun. but man, if I had a magical punk ray gun, I'd totally use it in opportune situations.

Have a paper due? Magical punk ray gun.
Not finish an assignment? Magical punk ray gun.
Fly's down? Magical punk ray gun.
Date not going too well? Excuse yourself, climb out of the bathroom window and go to the holiday cocktail lounge.
No window? Magical punk ray gun.

hell yeah, this magical punk ray gun thing is looking millhouse as fuck.

so, what is it you do?

2006-12-10T02:16:00.000-05:00

here's a list of things i am mildly proud of within the last few weeks.

Macho actiton drives Mel's bloody, Aztec epic
My review of Apocalypto. In hindsight, I realize that they are Mayans. Ironically, our copy editor did change my first draft to read "Mayan" instead of "Aztec." Our fact checker, who is a paid employee, then changed all uses of the term "Mayan" to "Aztec."
Either way, I am told I am an "entertaining critic" and not a "real critic." Therefore it doesn't matter a good goddamn what I actually write.

'Architect,' 'Night' top Idiot's X-mas list
This hede was written by our copy editor. I like the mild amount of spite involved.

A 'Stranger' Ferrell thrives without the laughs
My former editor/Reeler freelancer claims this is one of the worst, most pseudo-conversational pieces I've ever written. I kind of agree, if just because I liked it.

What Is Crispin Glover?
I talked with Crispin Glover for roughly 50 minutes. We mainly talked about the MPAA when we realized he was there to promote his film and slide show. He remains one of my favorite interviews if just because he knew exactly what he wanted to say and was adament I make sure he was accurately quoted.

Wires have living room appeal
My interview with Wires on Fire. I planned this interview for a week. And it basically kept failing until after they played their last show during CMJ at Bowery Ballroom, the lead guitar/singer's girlfriend got sick, and Jeff Lynn was fucking stoked to see Priestess.
Basically, it went as well as I could have expected.

Bigotry, bears and Borat
I review Borat.

Bush whacked: fake doc slays viewers
I review Gabriel Range's "Death of a President," dislike it. Andrew O'Hehir tells me he does not approve and thinks I lack my usual wit. I crawl into whiskey bottle and pray for sweet inspiration.

I'm kidding.
I get inspiration from Gin too.

Webcomic tackles movie reviews
I speak with Joe Dunn of Joe Loves Crappy Movies. This was done a long time ago, back in August or so I believe. A majority of the interview doesn't make it in since we basically just discussed Stick It and its' cultural implications.
But it remains one of the few interviews I enjoyed doing--and buy some DPO shirts. I wear my "I Love Crappy Movies" shirt with pride as I edit.

that's basically all I do.

I also wrote a DVD Haiku for the Volume Two of Ultraman.
So, I claim "Tokyo" was three syllables to just get this in. But even after I confirmed it, they changed my final word to "JAPAN." Because that makes sense.

So here's my original haiku, complete with geek love.

Men in rubber suits
excite me by destroying
Tokyo. SHUWATCH!

(if anyone asks, that exclaimation point is a syllable. i also claimed tokyo was three, when my roommate corrected me on it being two.)

this is what i hear after a bottle of cabin still

2006-12-07T00:51:00.000-05:00

i think of this while i drink.
also so i don't have to finish my review of apocalypto.

i swear to god, there's at least three lines written. and they're not just notes from last week when i saw it.

all right, it is.

this is what i hear in my head while walking down the street.

2006-12-07T00:47:00.000-05:00

i have an obsession with opening themes from japanese sentai and super-power related shows.

basically, it really helps me while i'm ordering breakfast.

why i don't sing.

2006-12-02T23:21:00.000-05:00

cause i'd rather sound like him.

why i don't draw.

2006-12-02T22:53:00.000-05:00

watched this flick for an entire morning once, during a sunday morning when i had nothing else to do. it was snowing and i rigged my VCR up on my roommate's desk. basically, my entire life used to revolve around renting poorly transfered DVDs-to-VHS and then watching them with glee.

I sat through the complete 200 minute bootleg of Takashi Miike's Agitator with white as ice subtitles and a VHS tape that had been constantly rented. taught me my first few phrases of japanese. wonderful film.

i don't do that much anymore. a real shame.

why i don't write.

2006-12-02T22:52:00.000-05:00

go ahead. just listen.

and we saw them as they fell

2006-09-30T03:53:00.000-04:00

some of them fell into heaven, some of them fell into hell.

spent the night drinking out and about, watching Doctor Who premiere a year late and say hello to people I haven't seen for nearly two years. but my nights are only complete once i laugh and sneer, pointing out the fun moments of my friends and making sure everyone recognizes the horror of party hook-ups.

that said, what better way is there than to be at home drinking and realizing Ultraman has a better love life than you?

I don't know any.

not a single goddamn thing.

all mama taught me had.

2006-09-26T01:15:00.000-04:00

that's bout all that.

wide awake and gondry

2006-09-23T21:29:00.000-04:00

The Science of Sleep came out on Friday. My friend Eric grabbed the front page of the New York Press this week with a feature on Michel Gondry. That article can be grabbed here. The unedited, "better" (in Eric's opinion) piece is here.

Personally, I dig both versions. I myself did a feature on Gondry that relied too much on his quotes and not crafted that well. I took padding over actual content, which pisses me off in hindsight. My godforsaken piece can be seen here.

So at the end of it all, what's so nifty about SoS? It's getting mostly the same review: it's nifty, but jumbled. I do agree with that, except I find that looking through Stéphane's own jilted perception helps somewhat. We have a protagonist who is so deftly afraid to leave his TV studio that he needs to sabotage his life around him.

ah, whatever. go see it. you'll enjoy it, buy the DVD and then never watch "Eternal Sunshine" again--despite that being a slightly tighter version.

transcript: steven blush, paul rachman

2006-09-22T21:27:00.000-04:00

music is the insight to how people tend to see their surroundings. we use it to examine class, love, politics and--more often than not these days--brainless fun that gives an excuse to try and get laid. But in the 1980s, it could be considered much more tribal in how bands spread and what types of music affected those truly vindicated.
American Hardcore opened on Friday in New York and LA. It's essentially the reproduction of Steven Blush's 2001 book but brought about in a style so simliar to all those VH1 specials.
Luckily, director Paul Rachman sticks to his "upbringing" and replaces all the cute graphics with a very down-to-earth design and structure, filming most interviews in homes, offices (and in one great moment, H.R. from Bad Brains has a wedding progression taking place behind him.)

I spoke to both men last Tuesday. The article that ran is here. I was rather simple with the questions, trying my best not to ask them about A7 or how cool it was to travel around in a band and play shows. And to note, Rachman's next book, American Hair Metal, comes out October 1st. I brought it up to him at the start, but he really wasn't in the mood to discuss it. Still, the hardcore tribal scribe taking on hair metal...he did say it was more a "fun" thing to do, due to it's complete turn from his passion.

And then, I start out with a little aside:

ISO: So, I never knew that you guys called [people from D.C.] "Washingflorians."
Paul Rachman: [laughs] That was just what us New Yorkers called you.

When did you guys start to collaborate for film? Back in 2002?
PR: It was actually earlier than that. I had moved back to New York from Hollywood in 1999. I ran into Steve on the street and he said he was finishing the book, and I had this instant impression in my head of what the film should be. I had all this old footage of my own, we were both there. We started shooting interviews in December of 2001.

SB: It was a very easy decision for me. I had known paul from back in the day and we had kind of an on-and-off relationship just cause he had moved to L.A. and he had originally lived in Boston. We knew each other from the scene; Paul had gone to Hollywood and made some of the classic rock videos, like Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box,” Temple of the Dog “Hunger Stirke,” Pantera “Cemetary Gates.” Not to mention all the old Bad Brains videos, so it was really a no brainer for me. And I think we made the film with the same ethic, as the music was: totally do it yourself, independent, no funding and pure artistic vision.

What I found really curious was how the film parallels how the book was structured. I heard about the bus trips..

SB: You hear about the Georgetown Punks and all that stuff. That was what inspired me. I come from the New York area, I had caught the tail-end of the punk/new wave thing. it was very urbane and artistic driven. I came to D.C. and there was this new kind of punk rock and it was made by upper-middle class kids from Northwest DC or the outlying suburbs. It took a little while to wrap my head around the fact that we had always heard of the punk model of these kids struggling on the street, and here it was the opposite. What I realized very quickly was that if you’re alienated, anything’s valid. It’s a pure vision it has nothing to do with what kind of job your dad has. If you’re alienated or a misfit, you belong in the scene. That was very powerful to me, I think that’s why we separated ourselves from the original punk movement. We were the hardcore punks, the manifestation, the most intense punk. That’s what we got from it, we took punk and made it into an American form. That’s what was exciting to me about it, the idea that I’d listen to the Clash and they’d talk about all these things that were not American and were not anything I could relate to as much as I loved the music. That’s what I think what was so important about the hardcore bands, they brought in a pure American spirit to the punk rock ideals.

PR: it was a very pioneering spirit, treading ground that had never been treaded. Coming up with music that had never been heard before, it was against all grain. It was a true movement rejecting what was around us. I’m from New York, but I went to college in Boston and I just didn’t fit in. it wasn’t the perfect fit to college life up there. When I was exposed to hardcore it just changed my life, something told me I identified with this. i felt it in my gut. I needed more, I wanted more. I needed to be part of “this,” that this was going to be a tribe I wanted to be a part of. It was very inviting.

The subtitle for the book was “A Tribal History,” but it’s that now it’s been taken off the posters.

SB: It’s funny because now it says “the history of punk rock ’80-’86,” which we never really intended to put out there but when it was put on there it actually made sense. That wasn’t really our idea. We used it somewhere else, when we were at Sundance we kind of said it--

PR: When we had a work in progress [at Sundance] we kind of sued it. Steven’s book is very, very detailed. Steven was able to take this underground, somewhat messy subculture moment in history and structure it into a chorological, historical order. He really served as a historian to the movement and that was not something easy to do for people who were within it. As much as we were a part of it, the knowledge of this national movement happening in perfect sync—we were unaware of that. Steven’s book was really able to put that into context. When we started the film, my vision for the film was to really differentiate the film from the book in the sense that the film needs to flow. When you write a book, you can edit words. You can reconstruct certain sentences, you can’t do that in film. You can’t cut—edit people in a certain way in a movie like you do for a book. I knew before we starting that the film was going to have a different flow, and we be able to hit upon moments similar to the book, like the moments about the Boston or Washington D.C. scenes. But people don’t talk that way, and the flow isn’t the same. the movie is an extension of the book, that it’s this is a first person accounting of these peoples’ own experiences set at a certain time. And that flow in a documentary, you come two [or] three years into a film and the film starts telling you what it wants to be, what it needs to be. Cause you go, “well technically THIS happens here,” but you cut that in and it disrupts everything. It was really important to create a film that just made sense in the context of what people were saying instinctually. We didn’t go in with questions that set ourselves up to get the same answers again that are in the book. There was kind of a little shift in that, that’s how the two things worked together, the book and the film work together but are different.

SB: The book is certainly for people who are fans of the music. It goes into excruciating minutia of facts and figures, times and places. We didn’t really feel that-- our film was for a broader stage. To bring to a larger audience, it’s not necessarily just for punk rock types or the initiated. We wanted the uninitiated to get what was going on, that this was more than music. It was a way of life, a defiant stand against conformity that had never been seen before.

Have you guys caught Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey at all?

PR: I hadn’t seen that yet. I know it’s been going to festivals a lot, and it had a limited release. I’ve just been so busy with this film, I haven’t seen any movies.

SB: I wanted to see that, but it’s been like 2 years since I’ve seen a movie.

It’s a weird coincidence since he uses a genealogy that the map in AH really seems to mirror, at least in terms of influence and scenes.

SB: You know, even with the book, the whole thing was about the geography of it. We were just up in Toronto [at the film festival] and people were saying “well what about the Canadian scene?” All I can say this was a purely American scene. It wasn’t like the Bad Brains could drive up in a van with no working papers and a bunch of crazy guys in a beat-up van and think you’re going to get through Canadian customs. There may have been places here and there around the world where it was kind of close to what was going on,. But it was something totally different, so the geography was key. The traditional model of music—anything that was cool, punk, underground in anyway—was New York, LA , maybe Chicago, probably San Francisco. What made hardcore different probably was the map. The idea that you could go from LA to San Diego to Phoenix to Reno to Seattle to Portland.

PR: And you had to hit all the little towns in-between to make ends meet.

You said research on the book was exhaustive, how did you work on this?

PR: It was a complete archival process. We go on the road, we’d shoot 10, 15 interviews. Come back and log them, digitize them, edit selects and find the story. Same thing with photographs: we had the archive from the book research and we found new pictures. I had a lot of footage I had shot in the early 80s when I was in college in Boston, we found a lot of footage. You reach a point where you start this film—I think 2004 was really this hard moment that now we have 80 hours of interviews—we ended up with about 120. We had 50 hours of footage, and it’s just sitting there, we hadn’t gone through it yet. We had to take the task and go through it all. When I say we made this film in a very old fashioned way, there’s a lot of patience put into it. And it was all very instinctual. We didn’t make logs, there’s no transcripts. It’s really the process of weeding out by pure instinct, we knew from the book and our own personal lives, we already knew the story. We weren’t these documentary filmmakers attacking a subject that we were just interested in and knew nothing about. We knew how to connect with the material, we knew what the people were saying beneath and in-between their words. So that was the process of making the film, it was a very, very intensely personal process. We didn’t have researchers, we didn’t have a staff. It was Steve, myself, a camera, a mike and a laptop computer at all times. We made it in the basement, locked in the closet with a big sign on it, “do not disturb until finished.” We took that cut to Sundance and the executive who actually acquired the film was the one who turned it down when I brought him the book, looking for financing. He’s the one who ended up with the film as a distributor. Sony Pictures Classics has not changed one single frame of that film.

SB: we were even, “ a few things are a little too crazy, we’ll tone it down.” And they were like, “no, that’s your art. You stick with it.” And it was very impelling to have that.

PR: It wasn’t even that. Literally, the first public screening was at Sundance. Nobody saw this film before Sundance in January 2006, maybe 5 people. It was a true, true premiere. And you just kind of second guess, but then by hearing the reaction and watching it with further audiences, it was like, “you know what? We got it.” We set out to make the film like the music was made, and we had an opportunity to keep it that way. And that’s the decision we made. It is what it is and that’s what it remains.

SB: You asked about if this was all over encompassing and how overwhelming and intense the book was to write. This was the same way. It was, maybe even more so, we both ahd to push each other.

Was it hard to go back and talk to the same guys from 2 years ago?
SB: No, you know what it is? It’s like we have their trust. It’s kind of like a fraternity or being a war veteran. You share this weird past, once you had been a part of this you were kind of accepted. All these guys that are big and scary and tough, they were our friends. It was tough--

PR: it’s a very different process, coming into a person’s home with a camera and talking about this stuff. It’s a little more intense, a little more in your face. You have body language [coming] into play, you have this presnence that comes into play. It becomes a multi-dimensional rather than a voice, it heightens the experience.

I want to come back to how you call hardcore an “American” style. And you said before that Ronald Regan is the reason why hardcore emerged.

SB: I think that’s where it coalesced. Would there have been hardcore without Regan? Probably—I don’t know. But he was the center point of everything. Like they say in the film, every flyer had a picture of him, every poster, every song [Paul] just got a phone call out of the blue from the guy from Wasted Youth—he’s the guy with the bloody face on the cover [of the book.] Thier record was called Regan’s Hymns. So everything was about Regan. I think it was like what he represented, and what he represented was all the great progress that we had made in society—women’s rights, gay rights, civil rights—they were all being eroded with his election. That’s what it symbolized. Like they say in the film, it was a return to these bullshit fake 50s values and we weren’t having it.

PR: When Regan was elected in 1980 it was a joke, it really was a joke at first. It was like, “what the hell, how did this happen?” It’s like “Bedtime for Bonzo,” it wasn’t real. It felt so phony, it felt so unreal that it was the perfect thing to make fun of. We wanted no part of those values. It really was, “let’s turn the clock back to 1955!” And we absolutely did not want that. We were very, very clear about that. There was no second guessing that, so that fueled the energy within, I think.

I found a quote [Steven] said, that “Punk is not a D.I.Y. movement. It’s a bunch of guys doing coke on tour buses."

SB: Yeah, well. The original punk bands had raised the word “D.I.Y.” There was a movie called “D.I.Y.” and there was this idea of doing it yourself. But the punk bands really weren’t D.I,Y. They were on major labels, they had big agents. I remember a moment really blowing my mind was the Clash, a band I had really embraced as—I had seen their first American show, I had every record, every single. And all of the sudden they’re on tour buses opening for the Who at Shea Stadium. And thinking this is so far removed from what it was. Yeah, they were still “sex and drugs and rock and roll,” and we were—we loved the music but we were not a part of that culture. That’s what I was talking about there.

In the same vein, now that Henry Rollins has a show on IFC..

SB: We’re friends with all these guys and I’m a big fan of Henry Rollins. But I think even Henry would admit there’s a little bit of irony that the singer of Black Flag is a major TV host. The thing about Henry Rollins speaks to the heart of hardcore: everybody looked at these guys with shaved heads and thought they were a bunch of thugs and idiots. The movie proves, and I think these guys’ careers proved that they were really brilliant. You had to be smart to be a part of this scene for as ugly and as violent as it could be, we were all pretty smart in our own way. You had to be smart enough to know that you didn’t want to be part of mainstream culture.

PR: The movie speaks of a palace and time in history, and it clearly stays in that realm. The subtext, you walk out of the movie and go “wow, what the hell has happened? Why don’t we have this kind of visceral energy anymore?” That’s exactly what we want people to think of when they walk out. the environment changes, circumstances change. All the elements that allowed for hardcore in the early 80s, those intersecting elements of this visceral energy, this new music, this conservative government and a willing and excited audience, willing to carry it worth--all those things were in perfect sync in the early 80s.
I don’t think that’s true right now. Talking about these people’s careers or Henry and why he’s on TV, the environment changes. Opportunities change, you grow up. It’s just not the same anymore. It’s so many intersecting opportunities and circumstances that allow a movement to become. And there was this fusion of it all in early 1980 and that’s why it carried forth the way it did.

Well, you talk about the movement and especially today with youtube, myspace, all these promotional things—you have no reason for flyers anymore.

SB: There’s almost too much information. One thing that made hardcore interesting was there was no information network, it was very primal, there was no radio playing--WNYU had a show that Jack Rabid was on. You really had to cue yourself in, you had to dial into tis. It wasn’t just like passively sit back and get this information. You had to really dig. I think the fact hat you had to do that is why everybody embraced it so much. It was so all encompassing, but also so tough. It was really tough to find out about a gig or know what to do. I want to the George Washington University and I was probably going to end up a lawyer. Once I experienced this music, it wasn’t going to happen. I promoted punk shows, I became a writer. Somehow I ended up where I am today. It’s a very different thing, some people said to me “oh, it was very brave of you to step out of this conventional thing and not take that path.” It was scary, I starved and I’ve gotten ridiculed. I think all these guys share the same thing. I those guys you see in the movie,, you might say they’re heroes. Talk to them about how their life was 10 years ago when nobody cared about this stuff. It was hard, the Circle Jerks get laughed at. All these bands,. It was a bad time.

PR: It was very, very hard. What it taught me was to never give up, to stick by your guns. As a career as a filmmaker, you’re going to have your ups and you’re going to have your downs. If you give up, you’re not going to have that up. It really taught me that here is this ethic of like, “this is what I’m committed to doing and this is what I love doing and I’m never, ever ever going to give up. This si what I’m going to continue doing.” There was a certain ethic back then of being part of this underground and wanting to stay that way that still resides in me. As much as I went to Hollywood and had this music video career for 10 years and directed all these music videos at a time when MTV was still playing them, it was great. But I found myself still falling back into the underground with the Slamdance Film Festival and starting that. I always find myself falling back into that because it’s not a conscious decision, it’s just what I’m drawn to. The fact that it teaches you not to be afraid, it taught me not to be afraid of my failures, not to be afraid of my mistakes. Not to be afraid of any of that. And to never, ever ever give up. Because if you even think of giving up, you’re never ever going to get there.

Wrap up: you said you never made a documentary before, and said that the doc is the new “indie film.” What did you do? Out there watching old docs.

PR: Right, well, no. my filmmaking has always been instinctual. I’ve never modeled myself on something else for some reason. It was always raw instinct, and it’s because of the way I picked up a camera—I picked up a camera because of hardcore and started shooting. When I went to Hollywood--by 1988 I was in Hollywood, I was at this company, Propaganda Films, it was David Fincher’s company. It was like ego central. It was Hollywood ego central. I always had a challenge in my career: I directed 110, 120 videos. I swear to god, there was only 11 that I like. Part of my problem was, a lot of music video directors do a video and then do 10 that look alike. And you kind of know what you’re buying, “oh, I want the video that looks like this video and that guy who makes those videos that look like this.” You work a lot, you become popular on the air more. You look at my work and none of them look the same. I always went with my instincts and I took risks. Sometimes those instincts were horrible. If you get a mediocre song with a dumb band and you think you’re trying to make them look cool, it doesn’t work. But I would take those risks. That whole thing of when I started this documentary was I really looked at what I knew about the subject and I looked my experience, my experience as a filmmaker and particularly as an editor. My editing is what got me into directing. It was all about gathering the stuff and telling the story that resided. Everything was instinctual. I stripped away everything I learned as a filmmaker. It was like back to the raw basics, don’t worry about aesthetics at all, just throw them away. How do you transition from Boston to Los Angeles? Well, you cut. You make it hard and you make it loud and it works. There wasn’t any kind of special effects or how do we bring people into this? The thought process was purely simple. I think because of that, you really tap into this inner energy and you let your subjects do all that work. You let their words, the music and the images do all the work and you’re just organizing it. I think there was a certain purity in the process that allowed this film to have this kind of inner voice, this inner message, somewhat personal. I think everybody feels something within them maybe when they watch it. You know, “there’s something here that I like and I want to be part of it but I can’t be part of it anymore.” Or something like that.it’s somewhat of the magic of picture and sound and its power. I’ve seen a lot of documentaries, just from organizing Slamdance, particularly the early years when I was really programming and stuff. I’ve seen a lot of stuff. When I look into my own films, I just become kind of inward for some reason. It’s just my instincts. I was never, ever good at executing other people’s ideas. When somebody came to me to do music videos and said, “oh we want the video like this one, some hot chicks and cool colors!” they asked me to execute that and I just really sucked at it. When I kinda came up with, when I did Alice in Chains’ “Man in the Box,” I was feeling the mood and I got this fax from the singer. That just had this scribbled fax, “ a barn with animals” and that’s all it said. And I was like, “huh, that’s interesting” and I just came up with this whole environment for the song. That’s just the way I work best, basically just trusting my instincts, not doubting them, not being afraid to fail and fuck it—just put yourself out there and take those risks. I learned that from hardcore. I learned that from being on the road in a band and not knowing where the hell you’re going. It just teaches you a certain ethic. I always perform better like that than if I try too hard to assimilate something else that’s more commercial. It’s taken me 20 years to trust that even more.

Last: the rise of “hardcore” in lexicon…how “core”
PR: We were just at the Toronto Film Festival and we get all these boxes of gifts and everything. There was a curling iron—my girlfriend opened this case—for short hair and it said “hardcore” on it with tattoo symbols. I couldn’t believe it, I said, “look, this is a hardcore curling iron!” I had never seen that before.

SB: We worry a little bit. It’s a word now in wrestling. It’s a word, we saw the sports channel in Canada, what was it called?

PR: The Hardcore News.

SB: Or this is hardcore.

PR: They sell cars with that word now. I--

SB: it’s not really about the music right now. There’s plenty of really good bands out there right now. That’s not really the issue, but what do they do with it? You have this little platform to do something or make things happen. It’s like when Ian MacKaye talks about in the film, you get signed to a label, they give you millions of dollars, do some drugs and it all becomes really disposable. So what do you do with your platform? Do you sit there and go “Waaa” and get fucked up and get laid, or do you seize the moment? Though I’m not really a fan of Green Day, I do give them a lot of props for going to all those 13-year old kids and preaching revolution to them and anti-Bush. You gotta seize it for what you have. That’s what I’d like to see more of: less bands telling me that they’re hardcore, and more bands trying to change the world in their own little way.

transcript: ahmad razvi

2006-09-17T03:13:00.000-04:00

a lot of times i'm happy with what i do. most interviews i walk away kicking myself when i'm listening to them a few days later, or transcribing i stop and say, "motherfucker, i should've followed this with..."
but not so much with Ahmad Razvi who stars (and steals much scenery) in Man Push Cart. The published article is here. I don't have a lot of what Ahmad had to say, specifically his experience at the Venice Film Festival, where MPC premiered. As always, I'm grateful when anyone takes the time to sit down and talk with some punk-ass kid who can barely put a sentence together.

Other fun fact: this was a phone interview, right after i was talking to MPC's director (Ramin Bahrani). Our office was having construction done on it. Lord knows why, since the WSN is about as modern as the Betamax. Halfway through the interview, the construction guy comes through the ceiling of the arts' office with his drill. It sounded like Satan was ready to take my horrid fucking soul and play swordfishtrombone with my spine.

some stuff's omitted or my questions are just dumbed down for the sake of me speeding through the transcript. then again, no one reads this except for me and whoever googled "space docking."

--
--for the background noise, apparently my office is being renovated today. So it’s kind of fun.
Oh yeah?

Yeah, it’s kind of fun.

…
So, first I should ask you: how does it feel to almost be Adrien Brody?
Oh my god, are you kidding me

And you’re also 99 years old and living in Brooklyn.
You checked the MySpace, that’s cool. No, man, it’s amazing. It’s the first time I’ve done something—I’m looking forward to doing something more and more. I’m very excited about the second project we just finished with Ramin, and I’m just looking forward and everything to try and move on to better and bigger things, you know?

I know the title isn’t final, but how was “Iron Triangle,” your second feature.
It was more challenging, because it was a totally different role compared to what Man Push Cart was, which I think actually was easier because Man Push Cart I hardly spoke in the movie. And I think it’s a hard and difficult thing to do—at least from what Ramin was telling me, he said it’s a more difficult role to play being silent and expressing; and this one there’s much more lines and more expression, physically and emotionally in the “Iron Triangle.” But I think Man Push Cart was a lot harder than this one; there was a lot of physical experiences in this movie with another person in contact, physical contact. It made it more exciting, but I think the next film was a lot more difficult.

Ramin says you both met at your family’s pastry shop.
Yeah, I had a restaurant and I opened it in 2002--no, 2001 of August. I just made this restaurant; I built it with my own hands. I’m an interior design contractor since I was 17, 18. I grew up with so many odd jobs in my life: I had a paperboy route at the age of 12. Since then I had been working and doing various oddjobs. At 18 I quit college, I couldn’t afford to go there so I started doing work, work, more—I started a construction company at the age of 19, I had 25 guys working for me. Since then I kept on continuing to learn more about interior design contracting, and done a lot of commercial spaces, penthouses and things like that. Residential spaces. We’ve done so many businesses and we’re very family oriented, so I built my own house, my dad’s house, I built his store, I built my brother’s store, COPO—an organization where my other brother takes care of…--when I built the restaurant I put a lot of design into it. And at that same time, 9/11 happened-- “wshew,” it just went down the next month and I couldn’t afford to do anything. I ha converted it and put more money into it, and made it a more 24 hour restaurant, then the pastry shop. First it was just a coffee shop. And I did that, then Ramin walks inside in 2003; he comes in, I serve him coffee and some food and we become friends. A year and a half later in our friendship, he’s said, “Ahmad, here’s the script. I want you to act in it.” I went, “whoa.” I said you’re kidding me. I read the script and everything, it said Ahmad is the lead actor. [laughin] I was like laughing and excited, we did the trailer, we were very sure then, with 500 dollars[?] in two days. It lead off from there. It was just amazing, an amazing experience. He knew I never acted. I think that’s what it is: a year and a half, he just wanted to see what type of person that I am and our friendship lasted and grew. He was testing me is what he tells me now.

An interesting way for a screen test.
[laughs] Yeah it was man, “did that really happen?” [laughs]

He said you had 3 days of pure hell dragging that cart up and down midtown.
Oh my God, holy shit—excuse me, but it’s like a 1000 pounds maybe, that’s the capacity of it.it stands tall, like nine feet. It’s nine by six by four . It’s steel and everything. I pull that cart in rain, in the coldest weather in New York City and everything. There’s this one scene where I did pass out because I was pulling the cart so many times. Oh my God, I just lost my energy, I lost everything, I lost control of it. I fell, and I’m about to get run over by the I remembered saying that no matter what happened you just gotta keep doing what you’re doing and never get out of character. And all I could think about was if the goddamn cart hits that sidewalk, its gonna topple over and that’s it, it’s gone. Movie’s gone, it’s finished. Oh my god, man, I run to save it. My life flashed by me, man! Like every incident in my life flashed by me when I was about to get run over by the taxi as well. It doesn’t look like it, but that’s what happened to me. As soon as I come out pulling this cart and saving it, I did not speak to ramin. I fainted right there, there was like four guys waiting for me to pass off camera. There was four guys waiting to carry me and hold the cart down cause it was coming at such speed cause I was just pulling it; and I fainted. I didn’t speak to ramin for four days

How far were you dragging ? On camera, it looked like a three blocks, but I imagine it was further than that.
It’s actually—it was a turn coming around the corner, and continuing for three blocks. We would just keep on going and going and going until we found—if the first block wasn’t good enough, then the second. I would say about four or five blocks, then repeat it everytime. I would say between three and five blocks that I was pulling this cart.

Did anyone actually come up to order food?
Of course many times when we were on the street, of course. Even when we were at the day location, I would be serving people on a normal basis as well. They would come and buy and I’d be like, “all right, this is my money guys.” Get a tip or whatever, and pocket it. I would serve the food, coffee and donuts to the whole crew. So…

You really were like a, well not a fictional--but the character of Ahmad, a true factotum.
I was trying to be. Reading the script and going over with Ramin for over a year and a half, from the day he told me about the script, since then we rewrote it. I helped him to rewrite the script, cause we would go over the story so many times. I think it had embedded in my mind about what this character is and who he’s supposed to be. In the beginning he was supposed to be an Afghanistani push cart vendor, then when he became an Iranian, when changed the script, and named “Ahmad” it became the Pakistani guy. It’s like doing everything for the film—I practically did everything. I helped him to write the script as well as the storylines, we would talk about it everyday. We would go and get locations, we would go to warehouses and see these cart vendors. I would go at 4 o’clock in the morning. At some point—in early--when I was going through the phase of different odd jobs and surviving, and supporting family and things like that. I was a push cart vendor myself for a very short period of time. I remember things, but that was like 10 years ago. Going back, and going to warehouses, is like riding a bicycle, you never forget it.

Ramin talked about an interesting style of filming, just trained the camera on you and gave you an direction once in a while.
Yeah, you know what was amazing? I had no clue about it, but then later on he had explained it to me. That this is one of the most difficult, artistic way of shooting a film, because it’s not “Cut, cut, cut. Hi, how are you? Yes, I’m fine. Where have you been? Oh, I was just working.” There’s no ‘cut’ scenes in there where a camera cuts every five seconds or dialogue. It was more like panned out in a five-minute thing, that looked like a natural thing. That’s what really I learned a lot from experiencing shooting it that way, it was a continuous four/five minute scene where you have to have perfect timing and lighting and wording and dialogue; and your partner, or the other actor has to have the same thing. I was checking myself out doing it throughout the whole thing and I was like, “wow, this is a very difficult thing.” like, It’s like a live performance of theater, or Broadway show, that you’re doing. Which is why it’s so difficult with what we’re doing, otherwise there would be two or three other cameras—besides that we can’t afford it—but that’s what it would be, and we’d be shooting at the same time and we wouldn’t have to “cut, cut, cut.” It took us a lot--This one scene took 12 hours to do, which is this four or five minute scene; and if that wasn’t complete or good enough, we’ would come back again and shoot again. In the beginning before we even started filming, Ramin and I, Michael Simmonds, “Elliot Nicholas”—the assistant director—and “Mohammed,” Charles Daniel Sandoval. Before we got him actually, we would go to a location and I would rehearse where “Elliot Nicholas” would play the “Mohammed” role and Leticia Dolera’s role. And we would rehearse for two months to do those scenes and pan it and check it out, this looks good, this looks good. It was a very difficult way of acting. I’ve seen movies and I don’t remember such long, panned out scenes. It was beautiful.

Did you have any inspiration in doing this? I’ve heard about the “don’t be fuckin’ Brando.”
[laughs] those type of inspirations, but c’mon. this was my first time doing it, I was so excited. I was trying to be really “Joe Cool” and stuff, my friends were hanging out and stuff. The first scene was a bar scene where the boy shows his scar in his stomach. That’s actually a true story, that’s my friend. When Ramin and I became friends and started sharing our friendship, he incorporated some stories of my friends into this Ahmad character. And that’s what made it feel a little bit more comfortable; those are my friends. That boy was really true, the story really happened. Instead of running to this guy Jay’s house, he ran to my house. And my brother took him to the hospital. For example the cat scene is also a true story. There’s a few things inside that are somewhat similar and true to my life, just acted out and everything. I think having that and Ramin telling me what to do, because of not going to any acting school or theater or class or any sort of experience, it was like me going to the first day of class, or first class of acting, and Ramin was the professor who just told me what he wanted. Of course in the beginning I was WAY too Bollywood because that’s what I’ve seen, those movies
I’m supposed to be a rock star, which is something I always wanted to do from an early age. But I never had the opportunity, or chance or way to follow up; I’m a damn bathroom singer, I could never be a rock and roll singer.

Thought it was funny that everything you’re about to sing, you always get interrupted.
[laughs] in the first commercial, trailer we made, the 500 dllars one, I actually start singing in it. Which is really bad cause we went to a karaoke bar, and I was like “AHHH” we were just having fun doing it.

Is that the trailer on the DVD? I didn’t see it, I shouldn’t say it…I’ve seen the film.
When did you see the film?

Yesterday. They sent me a copy.
You gotta watch it in the theater, I think you should watch it a second time around . It’s so much better

Movies in theaters and movies on your laptop are extremely different. I forget who the critic was, but he said sitting in the movie theater, you have that sense of inclosure, and you’re attention is solely focused on the screen.
And your imagination sparks and starts wondering—yeah, the theater is amazing, I love it. I love going to theaters to watch movies.

Do you have a favorite theater in New York?
Yeah, I do, the Union Square theater on 14th and Broadway. I go in there watching blockbuster movies, I’ve been to the Angelika a couple of times.

[HOLY FUCKING SHIT, THEY CAME THROUGH THE GODDAMN CEILING.]

sorry about that. You were saying, favorite theater.
Now it is Angelika cause I’ve been there a couple times and checked out some art movies. Since I made Man Push Cart, the cinematographer—Michael Simmonds—and Ramin they’re saying now I have to get more into the indie films to learn and understand and see and get educated on it. I’ve been going to Angelika theater, and just learning and watching films; renting out from Kim’s video just to see different styles of it instead of just bang bang, boom boom blockbuster movies.

Any recent favs from Angelika?
I went to see Water by Deepa Mehta which I think was a great film, wow. The storyline and everything, and something similar I think to the way Man Push Cart was done; because it’s very minimum dialogue with the lead actors. I loved it, it was a great film. I’ve seen her other films before as well, but I really liked this film as well. It’s probably one of my favorites, from all her movies I’ve seen so far, [like] Fire. I’m also watching “Cho Sha Shen,” he’s also a director; and “Boris Kurosemi”, I’m beginning to watch his films. I’m rying to get educated into this whole world of indie films.

Have you thought about acting classes or a workshop?
I wanted to, but others have told me [they] don’t think [I] should. If [you] do do it, [I] might spoil something [I] already know what to do and how to do it. [I] might not be able to do that. Then again, some others have said [they] think [I] should go for it, because it will just enhance and [I] can tune [my] talent or skill maybe more and faster. What I did was I went to take improv classes at the PIT—People’s Improv Theater on 29th Street between Sixth and Seventh avenue. I took level one classes, which was a really good intro to improv. It was a great experience, it was really cool just coming out there doing what you want to do. It becomes a little funny, and just goof around and get comfortable with yourself. The actors, it was like a 13, 12 people class. It was a really good experience that I had. Of course, I didn’t finish the whole level, because I had to trael to come back and forth for film festivals. I missed half of it; I cut out of school, man! [laughs]

On that, which college did you go to?
Queens College. Let’s see…18…that would be, two, ten…fifteen years ago. So, ’91. It was in ’91 I went to college and I didn’t have the money for it, I couldn’t afford to do it. So I went to my dad, who is a businessman. Since the age of 14 my dad’s been working. He’s a self made man. When I first came to America, my dad didn’t have a palce to stay. He owned a small business, He just came to America in 1979. I slept in my dad’s kitchen, we slept in my dad’s kitchen for the first couple of weeks until he had enough money to go on. I remember the struggles going on in life. I remember when we couldn’t afford to I had to do something, I was a paperboy at the age of 12. I had a paperboy route, I did this,I did that. Very odd jobs. When I made a construction company at the age of 18, I realized this is what I need to do. I always wanted to go to school and college and continue, I wanted to become a lawyer. Obviously that didn’t go through. That’s it. What I really wanted to do—I think, to today, I one day want to go back and continue and follow. But circumstances are changing, with lifestyle and everything. Maybe I’m a little bit too old to go back to college, but it’s never too old for education. Maybe one day I will have the means and time for it.

You said your lifestyle is, I don’t know, but I assume it’s very different—you said you’ve been around to the different festivals. How does it feel to be watching this story on screen, what with your friend the cat—which killed me, by the way.
That’s a true story, going to the vetenarian, picking the cat up and hearing my—you know, the is my uncle and he told me, “this is everyday, man. Just put it in a garbage bag and toss it inside the garbage truck or garbage can. That’s it, you’re done.” I was like, my God, are you kidding me? I was devastated. It was the first time I had a pet, I actually got it from my friend. I felt really bad about it. I was like, “this can’t be true. This can’t be it.” I’m a very sensitive man, I’m a very sensitive guy. I grew up with so much struggles in my life and experience in my family. A lot of pain and hurt, but that really bothered me a lot. Me seeing myself on that screen, I think I could’ve done maybe if not 10, 100 times better. I could’ve done a better job.

Have you been recognized around yet? I know it doesn’t come around till next Friday, but it’s been successful…
Yeha, I just was in EW. My friends, my family and everything. I’m a very down-to-earth kind of guy. I run this organization where I help kids, post-9/11 we made this organization COPO--Council of Peoples Organization[sic], where after 9/11 my community was being destroyed and I’d be pained and this and that. Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi Muslims living in Brooklyn—and Midwood—and we made this organization to help people. Now when people know I’m walking down the street in my neighborhood, they known me from day one because of who we are and making this organization. There have been some times where I’ve gone to a club and somebody South Asian or somebody in the indie industry recognizes me from a distance and they come up to me and say, “You’re the guy from Man Push Cart right?” and I’m like, “yeeah…” I’m like yeah, man, thanks.
Very few—[it’s] more of my friends recognizing me than I guess me walking down a street or anything like that. I’m not that popular guy right now, I don’t know if I will be. It’s a great experience, it’s cool. It still hasn’t changed me at all. I still continue to volunteer at my organization. I still put on my construction boots, like today I have to go put up sheet rock and start painting walls and everything, because that’s my work, my job that’s what I do. I’m not going to give that up because this is something that I like to do. Same THING with volunteering in the organization, I teach kids how to become more empowered and stronger mentally, physically. I teach them how to play basketball, I used to be a great, great player in high school. I was starting in the junior varsity teams as well, I’m still there with my community.

Were you still working in the construction business while filming MPC?
Yes I was, I was still filming , construction, doing that. I still had owned the restaurant. But I put all those things away for a month and a half actually to make this film happen, just cut everything off. Had my managers running the restaurant, my construction company my partner was taking care of it. Still today I have my construction company, but I sold the restaurant. And I didn’t know where we were going to go, we went to Venice the next year in 2005. I sold the restaurant in January 2005, and I was going to concentrate work more on construction and found out we’re going to Venice and London and this and that—whoa, it was very exciting. Going to Venice and being there, it turns out it was just unbelievable. The president of the Venice Film Festival watches the movie, and I’m so nervous. Everybody’s there; It’s like a 900 capacity theater and it’s full, it’s sold out, the first time we’re screening it. I hide a couple of beers in my pocket [laughs] and a pack of cigarettes. I sit all the way at the right end,the back, in the corner by myself in the reserve seats so I had four seats to myself. So I sat there away from everybody watching for the first time on the big screen, and I’m huffing and puffing and drinking throughout the whole thing and I’m like, “Aww, aww! This is so good, this is so good!” I walk out, there’s like empty bottles of Heineken [?] and cigarette butts on the floor. I walk out and people are like, “Hey, you’re the guy from Man Push Cart!” I’m like, whoa. I’m shocked, nervous and everything. They’re like, “please can I get your autograph?” I’m like, holy shit. And then the president of the film festival was like, “this was an unbelievable great excellent film. I loved it, I loved it.” He spoke Italian, he spoke Italian and French; he had a translator that would walk with us throughout the entire day, and take me around everywhere introducing me. He made a live show on AI TV, a Europe station, and he did a live interview. He was like, “if I was a judge, you guyswould have won.” We were an official selection instead of being in competition. So it was amazing, from there it just lead on to London and winning these awards and everything; when we went to Merrakesh I was nominated for best actor in Merrakesh Film Festival, and my competition is Daniel Day Lewis. I was like, “Whoa!Are you kidding me, [he’s] like my hero. He’s one of the greatest artists or actors I could ever think about.” I see him standing in the awards ceremony. I was like wow, I cannot believe…Of course I was so nervous and I went to say hi to him, I said congratulations he had won the best actor award—just to be in that presence and someone saying you’re nominated, what more do I want? I don’t need anymore than what has just happened to me.

What are you working on next? I heard you have a brief role in a comedy.
In an upcoming comedy? Yeah, I did Trainwreck with todd Williams and Michael Simmonds is a cinematographer in it. I got a small scene, I’m supposed to be a repo man doing a small scene with Gretchen Mol. It’s supposed to be a good comedy and everything, it’s still in the process and everything. That was a good experience too, totally different experience from Man Push Cart. [MPC] was a small crew, this was like 50 people while you’re acting. Totally something different and knew. It was an amazing experience to work with these Hollywood stars.

You are still 31…?
No, no that was a mistake. I was born Nov. 1 1972. I am 33 years old.
[A segment in Interview Magazine lists him as 31 years old. So, sucks for them.]

Final?
You asked me something. You told me something that really surprised me. You asked me how it felt to be the next Adrien Brody?

the "adrien brody" thing was something ramin told me. he claims that a producer (who remains nameless) said he'd finance MPC if he rewrote the part for Adrian Brody. Ramin said no, kept Ahmad. I brought this up to him at the beginning of the interview. I don't include the answer just for the simple fact of i didn't have time to write it into the transcript and I already questioned the response. he's damn good in MPC and better than Brody, if you ask me.
then again, no one gives a good goddamn about a punk-ass kid from hot chocolate city.

minutes from last year, still emo as fuck.

2006-09-07T23:36:00.000-04:00

12:26 am on Sunday, listening to a cd (Eisley) & I’m going back to NYC.

I miss home for the obvious reasons,
But I fucking hate this bus route.
And masturbation bites,
when nothing good’s on.

10:21 pm on Saturday, back in the huge apartment I do not own and perhaps sick.

Dom’s sandwiches are very good for $6.41
but I am sick because it was all I ate,
except for the little fudge chocolates.

All night and day I
played a video game.
Next week, I’ll play
‘welcome to the working week’ on the Metro.

But for now, I’m unemployed and don’t have a care
except for how to kill a few hours for a few days.

11:40 pm on Friday, we are confused when people we know are nameless & famous.

Saddle Creek Sara
is a model for Windows.

Moment
sells porn and whips and chains.

Horns
works 9 to 5 in a garden under the shadow of the Darth Vader Gargoyle.

Dirk
has two internships at two hospitals and works two clubs where he plays white-boy bouncer.

Girl (& Cat)
Is John Mayer’s assistant sometime soon.

I
am an intern and failed blogger.

And God only knows what next week’ll bring.

1:34 on Saturday, and I am getting older than I used to be.

The stamp used at the 9:30 Club
Is a blue rat, but
Turn it in the right way and it’s a hanged man.

I thought so, at least,
since our punk rock cabaret
was filled with pale faced kids
in stripped leggings.

Most below 16 and a few above 20.
“I bet you a lot of them had school today,” he said.
Burtless may be onto something

12:51 am on Tuesday, back in Chelsea and the NYC.
At my first planning dinner
I ate fried chicken and French fries
That cost more than KFC.

We all gawked
At the father from Alias, and
El Jefe went, “I have all your fans. HAH!”

That’s about it.

12:18 am on Sunday, and I feel very sad for Benigno the “faggot”.

In two weeks, the big question will not be
“what did you do this summer?”

It will be:
“So, have you fucked up yet?”

So far, I don’t think so.
But I’ve got two (retracted), a six pack, a handle of White Horse
and a few years worth of experience that say
the night is still young.

12:16 am on Saturday, I am surrounded by bitches and drunk on gin.

I felt lethargic with my bitches today.
They slept while I watched Godzilla’s last
Hurrah.

Now one of them, the white one, is
Sleepingon the floor while the
Blonde one snores next to me.

Who needs company,
When you have fine women llike this?
Ages 70 and 64.

No, I am not lonely. Just getting funds.

11:14 pm on Saturday, Hot Snakes & Cinco Dimaggio in the windows.

sorta explains itself, doesn't it?

9/25/06

2006-09-07T23:28:00.000-04:00

the first morning i woke up with the Sheep Man he was having a cigarette while I kept myself in the shape of a burrito. he was at the window, blinds closed, watching the dance school across the street while taking drags off his Wild 7.
I didn't know they sold those in the city.
"welltheydosogetusedtoit," he blahed.

I guess I will.
I left him to his own devices while I took a 45 minute shower. I spent ten of those minutes on the crapper, reading the free paper that the Sheep Man brought up with him. Gotti Jr. got a mistrail and New Orleans was going deeper under water. Wonderful news for a wonderful day.

While I made coffee, the Sheep Man didn't say a word. He stared out the window, smoke lingering around him. He made the effort to tape a bowl over the smoke detector, just in case. Dirk was out at class, leaving us alone for the time being.

"Sowhatareyougoingtodo," the Sheep Man asked.

I didn't rightly know at the time, nor am I really sure now. I shrugged at him.
He said, "Yougottagetaplan.Gottacomeupwithanidea.Can'tjustsitinsidealldaywiththesepeopleoutside."
He could be right. I poured myself a cup of coffee and watched as he ashed out my window.
"What about the guys below the window?"
He took a drag, barely giving me a glance, and flicked the Wild 7 out the window.

"Yougottaknowyourbattlesbetter,man. Can'tbepissyabouteverylittlething. Gottaknowwhentodanceandwhentositdown. Drinkyourcoffeeandgetmeamugtoo,please."

So, I did. We watched the morning news together over coffee.

Then, I went to class and The Sheep Man went out somewhere else.

lord knows the devil, he only talk shit.

2006-09-07T23:18:00.000-04:00

It's late and the Sheep Man is tired. He has his night cap on and his nightcap in a Dunkin Donuts mug I got a week ago. I'd swear he was drinking the finest whisky (McColl's, $14 at Liquor Warehouse, plastic bottle whisky at its finest) but I haven't had any whisky for at least five days.
A beer's another story and boy do I have stories.

"Turnoutthelightandgotobed," he says while fishing for his cigarettes. It's one thing to wear a Sheep costume, but certainly another when wearing powder blue jammies over that. Makes you wonder where comfort comes in. But I sipped my coffee and told him to just wait. I wanted to finish something. I was playing a game and I was shooting these guys who laughed and blew up if they hugged you.

Just like in real life, you goddamn hippies.

"Fine.Justdon'tgetanyideas."

Like what?

The Sheep Man pulled up one of the four chairs supplied by the dorm and sat beside me sipping rotgut whisky and now he was getting a bit peeved from the lack of nicotine because I could see this in his demeanor. He thumbed through an old Entertainment WEEKLY! and said,
"Thekindyougetafterabeer.Thebestideas,theoneswhereyou'recharmingandyousuggestamoviebecausethat'swhatyouknowandyoutrytodazzlethem.Youtrytotalkaboutpoliticsandstructureandeverythingyougrewupwith," The Sheep Man says. "You'rereallyfuckingtragicwhenyouthinkaboutit.Nolightsduringtheday,onlyhalogenatnight.Bettergetabettercoat.Winter'scoming."

The crust punk in the Villager article said the same thing. Said he barely knew why he still fought the Man while cooking the tea. They keep fighting and dancing and smiling and dying in the bathrooms of every trendy dark bar in the area. But they're living a free dream, right?

"Whateveryousay.Everyone'saslavetosomething.Yougetcaughtinthesametwo-stepjustcauseit'seasy.Can'tletthathappentoyou," The Sheep Man says as he magically reveals a lone cigarette between his fingers. He grabs the zippo on the table and lights up. A quick drag, a faster sip and a sigh.
"Mmm,s'tasty.Thinkit'soneofyoursthough."

Well, that's quite all right. Boom, head shot.

"Everwonderwhatit'dbelikeifyouwerebrave?"

Boom, head shot. Well, once in a while. What do you mean?

"Youknow.Talkingtoweirdpeople,beingsocial,thatsortofthing."

Being so--wait, what are you getting at?

"Nothing.Just,youknow,youseemlikeyoutrytodredgeyourselfinthesesituations.Couldacalledsomeone.Couldagoneoutforabeerdownthestreet.Couldagonearoundlookingforsomething."

And?

"Nothing. Justforallyourstories,youseemtostayinsidealot."

It's raining.

"Yep.WasrainingthatfirstnightattheEdge."

It's cold, too.

"Yep. Wascoldthatnightyouwenttothechristmaspartyandhadablast.Wascoldthatsamenightyousleptonacouchandsawthoseorangethingsandsuch."

I don't feel like going out. I go out enough. There are horrible and frightening things outside that command me to interact with people. I dislike people. They are loud and demand things and discuss current events.

"Youtalkedaboutshirtsandd&dlastnight."

Don't forget Magic Hat seasonal brews.

"Didn'tthinkyourememberedthatpart."

I remember all my stories. That's why I hate going outside.

"Justbecarefulwhenyou'redoingthis.Don'tgetcaughtupinthemechanics.Ifyoutwo-stepforeveryou'lllosethesoulandthenyou'rejustadork."

I'll keep that in mind.
Boom, head shot. And The Sheep Man took the last sip out of my mug, making his way to the window and flicking the filter toward the street. Boom, head shot.

drunk baby, you so crazy.

2006-08-24T10:29:00.000-04:00

Derrick is a comedy group. They are funny and make me titter at 10:30 in the morning while i'm waiting for a car to move my assortment of papers, clothing and DVDs into a smaller, shittier apartment.
I once knew one of the fellows, but have since no fucking idea what happened to him. It turns out he went to UCB, got himself a degree in funny-nomics and done graduated to a graduate degree in linking on CRACKED.

once in a blue moon, i write a fart joke for NYU's The Plague (and the website hasn't been updated since 2000 or so.)

That said, Drunk Baby makes me smile. Mainly, because I'm getting shit faced on whiskey because I have no edible food. And because I want a set of plastic car keys.

when me and my friend coffee tripped the light fantastic.

2006-08-23T10:08:00.000-04:00

once, me and my bestest friend in the whole wide world--that'd be Coffee--popped some black betties and two tabs of LSD so fine that we weren't just flying. We were making like pornography over teh interwebs we was going so fast.

So I said,
"Coffee, you're the best friend ever."

That's when Coffee forced me to make love to him and then we had to go share a Taiwanese massage down on Mott Street. It wasn't so bad, but the fact Coffee forgot his wallet and then threatened to shank the bitch made it a little awkward.

But then we all went out for green tea ice cream!
(just me and Coffee. coffee, it turns out, did shank the bitch, as he tends to do. Coffee is rather violent. it didn't help that he kept talking about slaying the shadow king and drinking his viscera. I mean, I don't know what that had to do with our green tea ice cream, but I'm sure Coffee had the whole thing under control.)

when me and my friend coffee killed bobby sherman jr.

2006-08-23T09:57:00.000-04:00

I knew something was wrong when my friend Coffee had a knife. Coffee never uses a knife. If he needs to shank a bitch, he prefers a sharpened toothbrush, a twig with a staple jutting out of it or even a screwdriver.

But that day, I knew Coffee was serious. So I said,
"Coffee. Why'd you got a knife?"

But Coffee didn't say nothin'. He just sat there, steam literally rising off the top of his dark, dark head and I could see Coffee was dead serious. Mainly because Bobby Sherman Jr., the little punk who lives down the block that tortured flies and spit at girls, was dead in the gutter with a hole so goddamn big in his chest that you could house a murder of clowns in there.

yeah, i said clowns. you got a problem with how i measure space? clown measurment is required to graduate from the university of the district of columbia. so is shanking a bitch. and pre-calc.

So anyway, here me and Coffee were in the middle of the day looking at a dead Bobby Sherman Jr. when all those nasty thoughts left my head and I smiled. Coffee had done a darn good deed for the day. So I said,
"Coffee, you done darn good. Let's go for a walk."

So I picked up Coffee--after he waved that bloody, viscous knife in my direction--and we merrily walked down the street.

Top 10 Robot Chicken

2006-08-14T22:30:00.000-04:00

so, CRACKED Magazine relaunches today and they're totally awesome.

I also wrote a piece for the website on Monday about Robot Chicken. Go clicky and watch the joy:
Click here for nut shots, Voltron, Final Fantasy and what I think is the #1 Sketch on Robot Chicken.

now, click the link and make them make me write more things that involve me watching youtube all day.

-iso.

an idiot savant's guide to: film criticism

2006-08-14T22:29:00.000-04:00

so, i am totally an important film critic. i write for a college newspaper's film and arts section. i even edit it! (read:I make sure grammar is basically right before I down a fifth of whiskey and start screaming "penis flower" around the office. Then I normally go home because I'll run out of beer, or our e-i-c will realize that i'm mixing some 8-month old red wine that's turned bad into my pepsi. I am so productive.)
and i fucking hated "Rushmore." Max Fischer isn't a hero, or even some sort of anti-hero designed to show you how to get what you want in life. He's a coniving, evil son of a bitch writer who uses those around him to further his own goals. He wants to push limits and test buttons just to get a rise out of people. In general, he's a stalwart son of a bitch.

So, for those reasons, he's the best concept ever of a film critic. Let's go down the rabbit hole.

The Idiot Savant's Guide to Film Criticism and not killing yourself

part 1: hm, i sure do write that 'not killing yourself' thing a lot. I wonder...oh, wait, right. film criticism. yeah, that'll do it.

part 2: Normally, a publicist will send out an e-mail or a letter to you or your publication concerning a new film. It includes a brief synopsis, screening times and contact information for you to give in order to RSVP.
part 2a: Sometimes, in the case of more indie films, you'll even have a DVD/VHS screener sent to you. In the case of really indie movies, you'll have the director/producer send you the film!
part 2b: Most of the time, if you're a college publication, you tend not to get bigger movies. In fact, I can proudly say tha--wait a second, I lied! Turns out we got invited to "Talladega Nights" and "Accepted." And I opened the invitations two weeks too late. So, I suck. Moving on. Oh, and we got send an electronic press kit (or EPK, if you want to sound like a douche) for Stick It. That has been nothing but fucking hilarious and now everyone has a background from the movie as their desktop. well, they did.
part 2c: Also, be socialble with your PR reps. Granted, they don't remember you but it never hurts to be nice.
part 2d: Seriously, these people get yelled at and have critics giving them shit all day. You should be really nice to them. I mean, I'd fucking buy them drinks and candies and chocolates...but I'm not that rich or famous. I mean, I'd aspire to be "Martin Sargent" level of Interweb famous. (that would be the most awesome level, because it'd mean I could hang out with dudes that know kung fu and pray to the whiskey god for whiskey rain. new york rain only tastes like crap filtered through shit, with a touch of lychee nut for flavor.)

part 2d: I am never sociable. I also masturbate to lure Domo-Kun out of hiding so I can kill both him and the kitten.
part 2e: That was a joke.

part 2f: kind of.

part 2g: but seriously, though. those EPK discs? you can glue them all together and make a disco ball. not that we have. we're just saying...it's a very inventive way to use them for something other than work. especially if you're waiting for a story to be put through copy.

part 3: attend screening, read press release. Do keep those releases handy as they drop such bits of knowledge as who the gaffers are, what music video the 2nd unit A.D. worked on and what production of Shakespeare in the Park the hot dog vendor did in that scene when Famous Male Actor walks by with Famous Female Actress/Love Interest.
part 3a: BANTER! Yes, film critics enjoy banter. They discuss everything from what new film they've seen to what films are going to tank to what bastards some production companies can be. Best of all, sometimes you'll get to hear them bitch about better-known, well established writers. There's nothing quite like hearing, "A.O. Scott is a pretentious..." coming from a random dude who goes on to discuss the intracicies of Ben Kingsley's performance in "Bloodrayne" and how he saved the movie.
part 3a: Uh, for the record, I haven't seen Bloodrayne. I'll watch it on Sci Fi in a few months, I reckon.
part 3b: Also, bring a book. Shit can be backlogged hella long and nothing passes the time better than a good book, crossword puzzle or game of Mario Kart.

part 4: FILM CRITICS ARE BAT-SHIT INSANE.

part 5: Case in point: at the recent screening of "Clerks II" (that i still wish would be 'Passion of the Clerks'), Good Morning America film critic Joel Siegel ran out screaming during a particular scene involving a donkey and a woman. (Listen to Kevin Smith, Opie and even Anthony ask Joel Siegel why he did what he did here.) and Siegel claims it was because he was offended.

now. to rant. as opposed to what most blogs do, which is bitch.

I am in the camp that you have no right to say something even remotely negative about an artistic endeavor unless you sit through it. (This, of course, does not apply to "Bloodrayne," "Passion of the Christ" and most films made by the Internet's personal bitch, Dr. Uwe Boll.)At the same time, there's Eric Snider's rather excellent story of I was a Junket Whore and his follow-up, where he finds that Tim Nasson of pretty much lied about some quotes at the Seattle junket. As a note, WAM notes that the feature is compiled from over the last year. And that's fine. But Snider shows that quotes from the junket are used and completely rewritten to serve the writer (but as I'd love to hear the original tape just to prove that's right. Or Nasson explaining the story further.)

Entertainment journalism sucks. Music writing sucks. Theater writing sucks. It's 75 percent kissing ass with 15 percent venting all those frustrations in a type-medium. Most people are cool. Most writers are as nice as writers can be (...ain't saying much, but still.) However, a good critic mixes equal parts journalistic integrity of taking an assignment and then they add their own critical input. Sometimes, this means a writer is biased toward certain films (...seriously, I'd rather watch a film about ninjas over the latest flick from Croatia) but if you go to review it, you do your damndest. I for one wasn't a fan of Agnes and His Brothers but I grew to like it over the next few days. (Yeah, and "German Sex Comedy" isn't how I would market that particular film, either. "German Drama with Darkly ironic overtones and will most likely ruin your afternoon if you thought this was a comedy" is more fitting, but too long. There is a bitchin' cover of "Happy Together" in it though.)

anyway, where was I? film critics must accept great responsibility with their slight power? junket journalism must be controlled for it is a necessary evil? i really fucking like that one screening room on broadway because it's fucking sweet and has a water cooler?

hell yeah.

/rant.

part 6: Go home and write your review. Space it out. Synopsis, Intro, Characters, what was good, what wasn't. It's weird to see that people don't comprehend structure for a while. Shit, when I first started my first reviews were like a point-by-point presentation that was in six different languages. In fact, my first editor added what I have come to think is the best line ever ("didn't completely suck king kong donkey balls") into a review i wrote. Oddly, I was reading some of his stuff earlier when I was at the office and remembered him. I think that all half-assed writers think alike when they start drinking in manhattan. He had his donkey balls, I have my penis flower. brilliance. suck on that funny-haired man from GMA...joel siegel mor somerhtoenf...no, clearly not drinking here.

part 7:submit review to editor. yell about your references to stuff you read in the Onion, YTMND and other obscure references.

part 8: see it in print. rejoyce.

part 9: repeat.

part 10: fight your writers for the plumb movie screenings.

yes, following that guide, you too can be an expert film reviewer/interviewer/editor like I am...yep. "expert." i mean, you'll be just as good as some dude with a website. Or something. I mean, where am I? Christ, i got lost on the interwebs again. I don't know what the heck is going on here anymore. I just have a copy of "Happy Hollows" and some $20 sippin' whiskey. and i'm off to watch more naruto on youtube.
-iso

hello time bomb.

2006-08-08T23:35:00.000-04:00

so, the basic question I always get is easy:
"[Idiot Savant Online], you're so funny. Wait, you're not kidding?"

but the hard one is,
"just what is an Idiot Savant Online?"

well, that's easy to answer. Short answer: it's me.
Slightly longer answer, but still pretty short: It was originally the ending to a few of Canadian musician/blogger/master-of-posterboard Matt Good's manifestos (complete list here). Good would respond to "your questions, [his] answers." Which was in fact, the first Idiot Savant Online.

I'd go on to remember that when I:
a:Needed a title for my kick-ass column (which would become "The Idiot Savant & I")
b:Decided to make a blog and "SONGOKOU069" was already taken.

Anywho, I now find Mr. Good has gone through some rather hellish times. And what better way to show support by saying thanks for all the manifestos and the music. Besides, I'm sure at least three of you (...let's see, my roommate, maybe one of my writers...uh...Mom? Mom, are you there?) wonder why I chose this name.

And now, for the youtube:

Matthew Good on art, and why we'll always choose tits and ass:

Matthew Good on the Canadian Political Scene circa 2000 [?] (personally, I forget. But I remember I brought up Stockwell Day to a random Canadian woman once, and I ruined my chanced at getting laid. So, Curse You STOCKWELL GAY! hm, wonder where that guy ended up anyway...)

And finally, Matthew Good on running away from Catholic School Children, the most dangerous of the suburbia:

godspeed you, mr. good. and may you keep kicking ass.

also, funny story: originally, NYU's Washington Square News (full disclosure: omg, i am totally the film editor leik my secret life is OUT) was supposed to "do" a story on Good. I rememember reading on one of his old blogs that he had been contacted and interviewed by the NYU paper--which, I had just become an editor at. I found this odd, considering that Good wasn't making any U.S. tours nor releasing his latest, In a Coma, in the states. I called the Arts editor and asked him about it, he knew nothing; I e-mailed our (then new) music editor, he had no f'n clue what I was talking about. Finally, we come back from Winter Break, I'm doing a meeting and I hear this girl arguing with the music Ed. I sneak in to listen. Lo and behold, she's the one who interviewed Mr. Good. And while--after asking our new music ED to check for me--she did bring up the idea for an interview with Mr. MG,she had already done so a few months prior. so everyone was dumbstruck when she brought up this big feature story about a Canadian artist with no label in the U.S. or tour dates--save for one Upstate NY show.

Now, I'd agree and say that Good is by far one of the more interesting people we'd ever get to interview. But that's like me demanding an interview with Tadanobu Asano or Jeff Rowland be front page. Then again, I really do think an interview with either of those two would make for good front page material...hm...wonder if i could convince jeff rowland to an interview if i say i'll buy him all the cabin still whiskey and crif dogs he can handle. Does that make my journalistic integrity suck? Do I even have journalistic integrity if I write film reviews and discuss drinking?

...jesus christ, where am I? am I on the internets?

Anyway, maybe one of these days, I'll get around to e-mailing Good (or Rowland for that matter) for an interview request. And this time, I'll at least be able to say an editor approved it. Of course, college journalism is about as effective as saying you're Nick Sylvester...(burn? no burn? does anyone even know what the hell that name means? Ah, nevermind.)

penis flower.
-iso.

idiot savant's guide to: beating hotness

2006-07-17T11:30:00.000-04:00

today is supposed to be one of the hottest days of the year. it is going to feel like three digits of sun-bleaching death coming down onto my whiskey-laden bones. the news feeds tell me that i should plan on staying cool.
that is why i have decided to stop wearing clothes today and walk around in a bedsheet. it is quite comfortable.
that's a lie. i'm wearing clothes.

only freaks walk around naked.

and it's easy to beat the hotness. just follow my lead.

the idiot savant guide to beating hotness and not killing yourself

step 1: put on underwear. this is crucial. you don't want to be naked and sit down and start sticking to shit. that's just disguisting.

step 2: shower. wait. fuck.

step 3: forget step 1 and 2. shower first.
step 3a: then put on underwear.
step 3b: then make coffee.

step 4: and don't be a fucking pussy. you're not going to work today. it's too hot. you make 24 cups of the blackest, most vile viscuous shit you've ever had since working at a certain music publication and you drink that. I swear to god, if I see even an inkling of leftover coffee, i'm nailing your ass faster than Russian Prime Minister Vladimir "I Pooted" Putin closes in on a child.

hm. reminds me.

i know it's late and all, but the indifference on that kid's face...

step 5: steal your neighbor's wireless network so you can play Mario Kart DS for an hour or two.

step 6: go read Burning Angel and curse self for not having functional credit card or enough indie cred to bribe way into having account.
step 6a: ...remember that Porno Tube exists. World better.
step 6b: ...so fucking hot. no, seriously, it is very humid and drinking coffee may not have been the right idea.

step 7: remember threat you made to self back in step 4. watch back.

step 8: wait for 5 pm to hit so former roommate will show up and you can both go to Tequila's awesome fucking happy hour of free beans and cheap liquor!!!1. Oh hell yes.

step 9: remember it's barely noon.

step 10: go sleep in bath tub, relive memories of cinco de mayo.

step 11: wake up when realizing "memories of cinco de mayo" were not all that plesant, but ironically involved Tequila's happy hour as well.

step 12: question all i've done in the last 7 months.

step 13: spend a moment remembering that not everything was awesome.

step 14: but throwing former roommate's girlfriend's razor into the toilet and flushing it was by far one of the most gratifying moments.
step 14a: as was stealing friend's bottle of whiskey.
step 14b: disregard the rest of the unpleasant examples.

step 15: go watch your neighbors while you drink coffee and stand in your underwear.

step 16: remember to take out recycling.

step 17: go back to waiting for happy hour.

checklist

2006-07-01T07:54:00.000-04:00

-get out of work at 3, buy some fresh turkey burgers, go home and watch Naruto on YouTube? check.
-commence drinking? check.
-drinking turns into adventure to wine store? check.
-take another adventure to see band at concert at 10 pm but leave apartment at 5:30 instead? check.
-eat sushi from what i assumed was a buffet line? check.
-find out that buffet line was in fact the salad bar in a bodega? check.
-buy food? check.
-fall asleep in local park? check.
-fall asleep because of questionable content in a large can of what surely was not beer? oh, check.
-wake up because of a child poking my face with a stick? check.
-go to local bar? check.
-try to talk to guy next to me, he nods and then leaves? check.
-have two more beers? check.
-not remember coming home and missing a show and friend in town for one night? check.
-find out i made a 40-second song? check.
-40 second song meaning i apparently found out i had garage band at some point, pounded on my keyboard and repeated the phrase "tzasle, jeezum jimble tamble, zee kee kee kee" and ending with only a single word? check.
-doing all of this before 8 or 9 pm last night? check.
-most likely banned from two more bodegas and bars? yeah, check.

that said. while i wait for the police to find me, omg invisible octopus?!

yes, spider-man, i do like buck-cake.

2006-06-29T09:19:00.000-04:00

I was watching television last night, as a lonely fellow of my social stature tends to do on Wednesday nights, and I was not impressed with Blade: the Series. Sure, it's got an angry black man who sneers and does cool sword tricks. But Blade was getting fucked up way too often by those lesser-known, nameless character actors. And I could've sworn I saw Randy Quaid. That could've also been the liquid pretzel I drank with my former roommate last night.

but this got me thinking. Blade sucks. He has to, he's a vampire.
But more importantly, Blade:the Series is an embaressment to superheroes everywhere.

so here's a guy in a Spider-Man outfit asking if I like Bukkake.

i can never disagree with you, Spider-Man.

jeezum timble tibble

2006-06-19T18:56:00.000-04:00

i believe i made that phrase up last friday while talking to my good friend, mr. snuggles. however, neither of us can be sure since he tends to not listen to any phone call after 3 am, which is when i find i have something important to say to him.
such previous great moments of post-3 am history include:
-tzasle.
-zubba zubba zubba.
everyone's favorite,
- i fucked your mom. she was tight, like a keyhole.
and last, but certainly least,
-hey, what's up? I was just seeing if...you...dirty cocksucker son of a bitch...i know it was you. you prick. anyway, want to get a drink? you can buy.

but i was reminded to make a post for my former roommate's birthday. rather than do something original, such as write about eating a tasty burger slathered in secret (human) sauces and jalepeños or talk about how i am fascinated by pink haired women and the rabbis who act as their sugar daddy, I present this.

needle anus.

happy birthday, former roommate.

i'm with ultraman on this one.

2006-06-11T17:48:00.000-04:00

so, when i was 4 or 5 I really liked Ultraman. My mom took me to this crusty t-shirt place where they airbrushed stuff. i got me my very own personal shirt with Ultraman brushed onto it. it was bad-ass.
i wish i knew where the fuck i put that thing.

dance magic dance.

2006-06-10T13:35:00.000-04:00

the first day i was in middle school, we all had a huge morning meeting in our atrium. we were welcomed. and then the school band played "magic dance" by bowie. and i wouldn't know that until today when i googled the fucking song, but i heard it during Labyrinth.

well. today. i found a new magic dance.
i call it: "jesus fucking h. christ, japan. we all dig 'funky forrest,' but this is too far."

i like the really pissed off opponent.

love is a kick. and I'm for knocking.

2006-06-04T14:08:00.000-04:00

after a night of horrid times and broken dreams, i found myself throwing up at 3 a.m. on the side of the street and quickly wondered what had done it.
Well, that was an easy answer: it was the potato I microwaved for dinner and not the few whiskey sours, lagers or the mudslide that a bartender made for me--i didn't order it. but now that i know they make mudslides, i will go back to that bar. not la caverna, another bar.

and now, for your viewing pleasure, pictures from last night:

here i am talking about my love of japanese pop punk. i also turned into jim varney, of "Ernest" fame.

here i am buying a $7 whiskey sour with six dollars. again, i turned into jim varney, of "Ernest" fame.

here i am wearing glow-in-the-dark glasses and dancing in the dark while my old roommate takes a picture.
here i am not jim varney, of "Ernest" fame.

and when i woke up today, there were dozens of delicate gnomes with bullhorns running around inside my head. and they were so excited because they got a shipment of jackhammers today. and they played and played and woke me up and forced me to dread life.
and i think i now have a husband. or wife.
i need to get that checked out.

One thing stands out.

2006-05-31T09:11:00.000-04:00

in the dull and commonplace occurences in day to day living, one thing stands out.
colt 45 malt liquor, motherfucker.

HELL YEAH, SKYDIVE JUST LIKE THAT YOU HARDCORE MOTHER FUCKER!

man, i would kill for that table.

transcript: Rian Johnson

2006-05-21T15:04:00.000-04:00

Rian Johnson made Brick, a nifty "neo-noir" flick that actually kicked a lot of ass. I had about 15 minutes with Johnson in late February when he was in town doing press. Chill, laid back dude who was fiddling with his newfound Treo when I came into the room. I had just come from doing poorly in a freshman-level math course. Printed article is here.
As a note, I originally wrote that Brick won the Sundance Grand Jury prize in 2005. Brick was nominated for the Grand Jury, but did not win. Instead, it took the Special Jury prize. The real winner of the Grand Jury was Why We Fight. I've since corrected that.
also, a lot of my stuff is written in short bursts. this was just so I could speed through my transcript. the full article has the actual questions, these were just placeholders so I knew where I was at.

If you want to read the "Pig Poem" or see "Demon Golfball," they're all on his personal website. At least, they were back when I checked.

ISO:What was the black tarp?
Rian Johnson: the black plastic? Did it freak you out? Awesome. We needed a way to do a bunch of dream-like transitions because the main character’s always passing out or getting sick. Because we had no money at all I wanted to figure out like a Sam Raimi type way of doing it all in-camera. So I came up with this weird idea of using black, plastic trash bags to create like, you know, also because there’s a body in the movie and [the titular “brick”] wrapped in black plastic. So I decided, all right, we’ll see if we can get away with it being an arty motif.

ISO: There were a lot of detailed camera shots.

You mean like [makes motion of the scene where JGL gets punched in slow-motion]…? You want to know details, like how we actually did the shot? The movie’s basically an old-school, hard boiled detective story and the plot is very dense and the language is very dense. It was important to me to have entire moments, entire sequences like that, where there’s no language at all and it’s purely visceral, it kind of jump-startles you, wakes you up and gets your blood pumping. To make this movie an exciting ride as well as this twisty, intricate mystery.

ISO: Huge amount of slang, patois. How long’d it take to get use in this setting?
You mean with audiences or making the movie?
It was tough. Luckily I had a long period, three months with Joe to work before the movie and we were able to figure out how we were going to approach the language. The first thing we tried was a very naturalistic approach to it. Just saying lines as a modern actor would say them, and they just fell totally flat. They didn’t work. We realized if you’re going to have this kind of language, you have to go back to the old-school method of performance. We looked at a bunch of Billy Wilder movies. We looked at older movies, we studied the way—it was a totally different style of performance back then. Strangely, Joseph actually reached back and found some stuff from “Third Rock” that he used to use just because of the elevated style of sitcom performance has that snappyness to it. Obviously it’s a completely different performance in “Brick.”

ISO: Very scripted.
Completely. We had a strict 20-day schedule.

ISO: I found your website…dog umbrella photo?
[Laughs] We had this beautiful dog umbrella that actually broke at the wrap party. I was carrying it around all during the [filming.] We got incredibly blessed with the weather on our shoot. Because we shot it in San Clemente, which is this little beach town in southern Orange County, which is where I grew up and we shot it at my high school. The problem I was more worried about was that it would be bright and sunny the entire time. There were lots of sequences in the movie where I wanted it to be overcast and have a darker feel. The weather totally cooperated. there were certain scenes that I was hoping for clouds to show up and there were clouds, there were other things where I was hoping for a sun flare effect and there’s the sun. There’s this great picture [on my website] of Joe lying on the field and there’s five women all around him holding umbrellas to keep [him] dry.

ISO: Blackberry/trio.
I just got this recently man. It’s great.

ISO:Benefit of special jury prize?
Yeah, I’m living the high life now, man. [laughs.]

ISO: [Living in] LA?
I’m actually in the process of trying to move to New York. But it’s hard, the whole business is back in L.A. so I keep getting pulled back for meetings and stuff.

[We talk about The Edge bar and how it sucks now.]

ISO: Into Storytelling…
Sure…ever since I was a kid I’ve been writing. It’s important for me to have some outlet of storytelling that I don’t make a living off of. There’s something vital about that to have something you do non-professionally that’s creative. Whether it’s just goofing around with music or writing something as absurd as a 100-page long poem about a pig that you know you can never make a dime off of but it’s something that means something to you personally.

ISO: Pig poem?
[Laughs] I wrote that from—it’s like a fairy tale about a pig and a boy who go on this quest to steal the moon—and I wrote it from when I was 18 until I was about 23. For me it wasreally kind of a way of making a transition from adolescent into adult hood, and having a story that evolved while I was changing. It’s a really personal thing for me. It’s something I haven’t gone back and read for a while. I’m always happy when people read it and like it.

ISO: Demon golf ball…,
Nice [laughs.]

ISO: contemp. Retelling of old stories

Well, for me, it’s not easy or hard, it’s something that, for some bizarre reason, I’m drawn to. One thing that I always find gets my juices flowing is finding the honest essence of things that are thought of as clichés. Things that are dismissed because evberyone knows so well, and thinking, “you known what, there’s a reason why these things have stuck around for so many years.” Going back to the original source material and seeing what about this is genuinely, honestly meaningful to me. Finding that and then trying to hop over this layer of lacquer that’s been put on this [genre] because everyone’s so familiar with it and make it vibrant today. There’s something about that, at least at the moment, that gets me creatively excited.

ISO: Brick? What came first?
The concept of it. It all started with getting obsessed with Daschel Hammit’s novels, wanting to do a hard-boiled detective story. It’s exactly what I just described, reading those books and feeling something really powerful coming from them. Feeling this rich, dark world this guy created and wanting to vibrantly take a stab at that. The idea to set it in high school was a way to try and hop over all the visual language of film noir that we’re all so familiar with. Some of my favorite movies are film noirs, like “the big sleep,” “the malteese falcoln” and “the long goodbye.” At the same time, today, the instant you see those images, those shadowy alleyways of men in hats, it’s vbery easy to turn part of your brain off instantly. You know where they come from. You know can place them, you file them instantly. I’m always slightly nervous of telling people the concept of “Brick” that they’re going to think that the twist of setting it in high school was some meta, post-modern deconstruction thing. In reality, it’s a set of different visual cues to take a very honest, straight forward approach to telling a detective yarn.

ISO: Hard boiled characters first? Tug? Brain?
The whole world was kind of conceived as a whole. Each of the characters in it have equivalents in the Hammit,in the original source material. The muscle, “Tugger;” “The Brain” is like an oppritive that the detective always has behind the scenes helping him out. At the same time, one of the really essential things for me about making “Brick,” was that no body making it felt like they were playing just a type. No one thought, “okay, I’m playing the Femme Fatale,” or “I’m playing the loner detective.” I wanted them to be coming at the script and the world in the script is a fresh, new thing. And to find something genuine and honest in each of those characters that they can bring to the screen as opposed to just being aware of, “okay, how am I going to do this version of the Femme Fatale after all these other versions of it.” That was very important to me.

ISO: Cast receptive to hard boiled?
Oh, very. I think the fact that they were a young cast probably helped in a way because they weren’t as familiar with the entrenched history of the genre. Maybe they were a little more free and open to embracing it on their own terms, finding something unique to them.

ISO: Story in NYC?
[Laughs] I want to do something in New York just because I want to be here and spend more time here.

ISO: Working on now?
Con man movie. It’s one of my favorite genres. It’s based on wanting to make a character-based “con man” movie,. A con man movie that’s really, one thing that I think the best con man movies do and I think is a pitfall of the genre, is that it’s very easy for the mechanics of the con to overwhelm the characters. The best of them, like “The Sting” for instance, it’s the central relationship that pulls you through the whole thing. The con just kind of goes along with that, and that’s what I’m trying to with this movie.

ISO: For the film kids, thoughts on Michael bay?
I love Michael Bay. I want to have his love child [laughs]. I do kind of wonder what kind of car he drives. I’ve never posted on his forums, I’m sure he has [laughs] Turn your thing off and I’ll tell you what I think.

-for the record, i won't write what he said.

a true pirate

2006-05-13T19:24:00.000-04:00

...no words can describe my joy.
and that angel so had it coming.

Tables I Dance On

2006-05-12T23:41:00.000-04:00

I've got a fever. And the only prescription is more cow bell. In fact, nothing's really been able to keep it in check. I've spent a good chunk of my week listening to all the E3 coverage, since it really doesn't matter whether you're watching ~~Spike TV~~ G4 or reading Kotaku.

Heck, even Kotaku has its own video.

And it only took two days, at best, for Nintendo to be declared this year's wii-ner. Heh. Get it? Because their new system is called the "Wii" and sounds like "We." It's a pun on the word "winner," since that's what we have to do when a company has poor judgment with titles. I mean, wii all have to try something.

Christ all mighty, I rarely treat this damned technology with such fervor. Might be the air, might be the whisky or it might even be the whisky-soaked air that's floating past these windows tonight. All weekend it's set to rain, rain, rain. I've got nothing to do but work, work, watch Tekkaman Blade.

Before a lovely place called Otaku Den shut down, I managed to snag a five disc set of the entire series. This has got it all: armored heroes and villains, space aliens, shoddy 80s Japanese animation, reused sound effects from at least six other TV shows, literal family feuds and gigantic crab-aliens that explode in purple bursts. What's better is that the mecha concept is given that classic time limit twist, since Blade can only stay transformed for a set period before he starts to go all wacky in the head. And by wacky, I clearly mean homicidal.

I once read in this fun book by Susan Napier that--and I paraphrase--the act of "calling armor" is supposed to represent a sexual change. It's empowering, inherently masculine. I don't have a copy of the book in front of me, but this is what she brought up when considering the cyber-punk anime, Bubblegum Crisis. In consideration of The Guyver, Napier states that the transformation is painful--it isn't a coincidence, in her view, that the character who undergoes the change is a teenage boy. Of course, she doesn't really mention the part where he snaps a monster's arms like twigs nor crushing the skull of another particularly nasty creature.

But in these Henshin shows, it always seemed like a better idea to limit the transformation period and let there be grave suffering if anyone dares go past it. A great example can be seen in my current fascination, Garo. In this lovely clip from youtube: our main character--in the white, currently being served by "Norman" from the Big O--can only remain transformed for 99.9 seconds. Afterwards, well...

but bringing this all back to Tekkaman Blade: I just really think this transforming shit is awesome. I have to go. Ed The Sock finally comes on American TV for the first time since Much Music turned into the complete pile of shit that parks itself on 7th Avenue. I just want to see if anything's changed over the last few years.
Also, I've become oddly entranced by Nardwuar over the last few days. Who knows. Maybe I should be learning a few things from him--especially when it comes to dealing with imaginary press people.

getting dirt on a centaur is easy, like Tetris.

2006-05-09T23:20:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago, my "enter" key broke off. I tried for a while to make due with this minor problem. But then I threw it away. I learned there was a nub under the key, and I became content using the nub. Every day was a rush. My fingers would dance and nail the nub and it was like a minor victory against those conformist bastards that believe keyboards are the way to life.
Fuck you, keyboard conformist manpigbear bastards!

And a week ago, the nub broke off. Now I just press a flat space where my "enter" key used to be.
This makes me think that real typists strip their keyboard of all those silly letters, instead slamming fingers onto flat spaces and hoping for the best.
This is what I do now while I have no work. And, of course, I play Kingdom Hearts.

In fact, I'd totally agree with thisif I too wasn't becoming oddly entranced by the idea that Mickey Mouse does indeed kick ass--albeit with a giant key.

Perhaps there's a form of mass cultural critique that has yet to be taken on this. The concepts of combining the RPG Final Fantasy epics with traditionally non-violent Disney characters into a setting that demands action...

and it's at this point that I realize I take this way too serial. in one of the last columns of the year I wrote, I briefly discussed EmoGirl21, YouTube and its potential to become some sort of evolution to how fads can sustain themselves, such as a certain site (like YTMND) I visit daily. I'm a hard worker.
In any event, EmoGirl21 lives on here if you'd like to continue to prove that you do know what pain really fucking is goddamn it.

I do. I watch G4 (formerly of the Tech) TV and wait for the day when,during filming, the ceiling bursts open, and during the initial shock, Kevin Rose and the Diggnation come in, hand-made potato guns a-blazin'!
Meanwhile, the front door is taken care of thanks to Leo Laporte, smiling that jovial way while he tears the arms off whatever poor fool attempts to stop him. Because you know he can, goddamn it.
And finally, what about Martin Sargent? He forms the head of Voltron, gleefully stomping around L.A. Or bouncing. I mean, the head was technically that black tiger robot with wings. I don't know where the rest of Voltron is. Probably slacking off or being cut up into parts to make the PS3 and the new MacBooks.

so remember, everytime you lose an "enter" key, this is what I think of.

recent thing i wrote that i like:
-Metal: A Headbanger's Journey. A darn fine documentary that you need to buy if only for the best timeline of Metal ever created. Drops on 5/23 on DVD.
-Following Sean. A look at the subject of an original doc "Sean," and whatever happened to him. Arlyck was a blast to speak with. I disliked this headline and made our copy chief aware of it. It's still playing at the Cinema Village in NYC as of this posting. Go see it. It's a thousand times better than "MI:3" or "Poseidon," which I can say since I'm not seeing either. I am running a review of the latter next week though.
-The Post Show. Despite the highs and lows of the show, I remain in their corner. Ironically, they told me about the fact they were going into talks about getting distribution or some sort of deal, but I figured it wouldn't happen until the end of the third season--as of now, they're on hiatus while discussing said deals.. Shows me how much of a "journalist" I am. If you want some choice skits to watch, and they're still up there for now: Sing Along, All or Nothing, Muy Bien and the aptly named Bukkake Rooster.

now to go back and prep for an interview I'll hopefully do tomorrow morning. if not, tekkaman blade.

transcript: henry rollins

2006-04-22T23:29:00.000-04:00

the main reason i decided to do this was to keep an online archive of some transcripts I've done, or pieces that people have asked me about and wondered why I only did three questions. I had scheduled this interview a few days before my birthday, figuring it was the greatest gift I could ever give to myself: a sit-down with Mr. "Hot Animal Machine" himself. And of all the things, this had to be the most troublesome of any interview I've done. Not only did I have a 5-hour turnabout for this, but the photographer wasn't allowed to shoot inside of the hotel due to a conference being given by Haliburton. Security came down on us thinking we were there to be edgy and hip and counter-culture.
The pictures we shot didn't turn out too well since it was Rollins on 6th Avenue looking a tad uncomfortable. Then again, you get a camera shoved down your throat and we'll see what you do. Best of all, I interviewed the embodiment of straight edge inside a hotel bar. I figured better than to ask about that. what follows is my rough, hour and a half of work transcript. unedited and containing all words exchanged.
Here's the article that ran. Now, for the entire thing:

ISO: The beauty is I use [the iPod] as a portable hard drive for all my pictures, media…

Henry Rollins: I never had an iPod before and I was coming back from Egypt with a correspondent, we were there with the USO, and he’s showing me photos on his iPod. I never even held one before. This was like a few months ago. I’m slow with all that stuff. I go, photo? He’s says, “yeah, it’s a hard drive. I store my photos on here just so I get my cameras ripped off, I got a file [for] photos.” He’s a New York Times guy. I’m like, wow, I should get one of these. He goes, “you don’t have an iPod?” I’m like, uh uh. He goes, this is 60 gigs. I’m like, you can put a lot of music on that. So I went out and bought a 60 gig iPod. I’ve crammed about 8,000 songs on the thing. Shit, now I have four of them. One for the backpack, one that goes in the boom box thing I take on tour, one that goes in a smaller boom box I take in hotels. I used to take a big bag of CD-Rs with me, or load everything on my laptop and listen. I live on the road. And all of a sudden, I have 10,000 songs in my hand. I’m a very happy man.

ISO: You just came back from Dublin

HR: Yesterday.

ISO: It’s a beautiful city. You’re constantly on the road, but how long goes into each show?

HR: The show takes about 4 days a month of shooting, and a lot of days of prep in that I write most of the material you see me saying. That’s time intensive. If there’s films I have to watch and make notes of, that is time intensive. If there is a “Teeing Off” segment I’m going to do where I have to do research, time intensive. Shooting the show, we’re doing 4 shows in 3 days. So we’re “interview in, interview out, move ‘em through. [My] teeing off section, we did one. We’re doing another, we’re doing another,” that’s hours and hours of teleprompter reads. It’s vigorous three or four days of work. And then the rest of the time is producer boy scrambling like a madman to whack together four episodes, get new guests, new topics, new this and new that. Finally they kick it to me, “can you Tee Off on this, this and this?” And I go, “yes, yes and no.” Start to find another one, and I go, “yes, I can do that.” Then I got to go to work. It’s constant, but as far as me in front of the box in front camera? Three days a month, but it’s actually seven days a month or more to get it together.

ISO: Have you ever refused to “Tee Off” on a subject? [Note: This is in reference to a part of the show called “Teeing Off,” where Rollins goes off on a solo free-form monologue about a subject.]

HR: Well, yeah. They throw something at me, “what about this,” and I’m like, “eh, I don’t have anything really good on that,” or it does not excite me or I can’t do “that” and make it really unique. I’ll find something else, there’s a lot of good topics.

ISO: How much prep work do you normally do?

HR: It depends on the guest. Someone like Chuck D. [of Public Enemy] is so all over the place in topics. You can talk to [him] about anything: civil rights, Bush, Iraq, rap, rock and roll, MTV, business. Any magazine you want, he can do an interview for it, except for “Cigar Monthly,” cause he’s such a worldly guy. I’ve known Chuck for many years. My research for a guy like Chuck would be , let’s hear the new album, of course, and let’s just pick what version of Chuck I want to touch base with him on. We’ll talk about the Air America for a little while, then the new album. [Werner] Herzog? Let’s watch the last two things he did. Let’s talk about “Grizzly Man.” He’s doing a cinema version of one of his documentaries. This is Christian Bale starring as a guy named “Dieter,” who was an actual viet-vet named Dieter in a documentary called “Little Dieter Needs to Fly,” which is a fascinating documentary, that [Herzog] did years ago but now he’s a dramatic version of it. So I went and re-watched the [original doc], made some notes on it. The next day I saw him, I said, “Okay Werner, let’s talk about Grizzly Man and let’s talk about this movie and the documentary that begat it.” That’s how I prep. A guy like Oliver Stone [on tomorrow’s premiere]? Since his new movie is in the editing bay, so I can’t see it. So with Oliver, well let’s talk about Kennedy and Nixon and these people you’ve done bio-pics on. How do you compare Vietnam, a war you were in, to Iraq? And he gets going on that, and it was an amazing interview. I find stuff that where the artist, or the person, will be conversive enthusiastic and interesting. Sometimes it’s their movie, sometimes they have a new movie out and we don’t get to the movie because we’re too interesting in this thing they’re doing over here. What I don’t want to ask about is their boyfriend, or their girlfriend or what car they driving or what they wore to an award show because I really, really don’t care. They’re so happy not to have to talk to that, I can’t tell you the relief. I go, look, we’re not going to ask you about whoever it is and they’re like, “oh? Oh, cool!” And I go, yeah, I know, it’s my show.

So how does “The Henry Rollins Show” differ from “Henry’s Film Corner?”

What’s different is last year’s film specific, only actors and directors on the show pretty much. We’re talking about movies, we’re reviewing them, we’re talking about, “Hey, coming up on Criterion this month, it’s gonna be the full version of ‘Ran’ finally,” whatever, but this time around it’s Chuck D. and we didn’t mention [or review] a movie. Basically IFC said to me, as they’re making up their mind whether they want another season, they said, “we figured it out. We want another season. We want to go from monthly to weekly. We want to not call it ‘Henry’s Film Corner,’ we want to call it ‘The Henry Rollins Show’ and give you way more leash to run with. You don’t want to interview some guy in a movie? Great. You want to interview the politician instead? We want you to do what you want. We like you, we support your point of view. And we want to give you the whole front yard to run around in and we want you to be around more often.” They basically said we like you, we trust you and we want to give you more leash. I was like, damn what an endorsement, it sounds like they like me. So I said okay, cause I don’t want to talk about just films all the time, Films are interesting, don’t get me wrong, and there’s lots of interesting actors and producers and directors [to talk to.] But there’s a lot of other stuff going on in the world too. Getting to talk to Chuck D. is great. Getting to talk to Werner Herzog about California and California culture, which was fascinating to me. We didn’t always talk about movies all the time. He thinks California is the most amazing part of America. I was like, “wow. Defend that one to me, because I don’t really like Los Angeles.” He goes, “I really do.” I went, “go, this is fascinating to me.” He gave me this whole half hour rap on the upside of L.A. and California. He goes, “New York has European influences, because it goes right out to the Atlantic Ocean. They’re getting London and Germany, they have for decades. California [has] Apple Computer, Hollywood--they’re dictating culture in other countries.” It was like, okay, that’s a point of view I never would have come up with. That’s the kind of thing that makes the show to me, well, hopefully, really interesting. That’s the show I’d watch, and I hope other people like it.

ISO: Let’s go back to New York, a week and a half ago we had a great institution open up and people have been going apeshit for it: Trader Joe’s.

HR: I live in California. I’ve been going to Trader Joe’s since 1981. It’s the only food I eat. In L.A., everything I have has “Trader Joe’s” on the label.

ISO: What’s the appeal?

HR: I knew that one was going to come to Manhattan a couple of years ago. The food is very, very good. It’s about 2/3s the price of the same thing is in the A&P or whatever the market is. The bag of blue corn tortilla chips is like $3.25 here; Trader Joe’s makes their own--they’re very tasty--and it’s $1.65 a bag. Their cheese is very good, apparently their wines are good--I don’t drink wine. In California, there’s like Trader Joe’s cheese popcorn. Their soups, I’m a vegetarian, [are] great, their fresh fish is amazing. Their vegetables are great. I go there every 72 hours when I’m home. I buy very little bits of food at a time because it’s all fresh. I drink a lot of carrot juice, I eat a lot of yogurt, I eat a lot of salad, fish and whatever. I buy it all there. They make their own paper products--it’s all eco-friendly. Their detergent is eco-friendly. Their paper’s recycled. It’s just cool and the food is great. It’s so nice to your wallet. I know there’re ones in D.C. now, where I come from. I used to live in New York and I used to come out with that $28 bag of groceries. It’s brutal. I think Manhattanites are going, “yeeeah!” And wait till you taste the food.

ISO: This is a personal question and I hate to preface something with that, but I’m from D.C. I used to live around Adams Morgan, but I’ve always been curious: why did you leave D.C. and stay in California?

HR: Here’s my awful excuse, and I’ve said this many times: it’s where my two milk crates, broken cassestts and cum-stained futon ended up. [Black Flag] broke up 20 years ago this coming summer. All of a sudden, I have no band,, I’m like, “Aaah!” I had a girlfriend at the time, we go out and get an apartment together for 6 months. The lease ran out, so did our romance. All that whole time I’m running around doing talking shows, pay the rent and plot my next move—it turned out to be the Rollins Band, a guitar player from D.C. and a rhythm section from New Jersey, which should have put me back on the east coast. I would kind of go on tour, live on their floors. We would go on the road, come back to Jersey to write songs and I’d live on the drummer’s mother’s floor or the bass player’s basement, then go back on tour again. My apartment in L.A. became this place I visit every once in a while. I was so busy on the road and so ambitious about that, I never had the time or inclination to pick it up and move it. Years go on, I buy property in Los Angeles, 1994, I own a home. Uh-oh, now I’ve punched tent pegs down into the ground. I get even busier. My company [2.13.61] now is a staffed corporation, with a promo department. I’m doing real salaries. It’s very stable; it’s in that house. Meanwhile I’m going out on tour. I lived for a year here on and off for years. I lived for a year at a time in the Village, renting a place on 7th and Second near the Kiev, in that little, crappy end-of-the-hallway apartment—the hotbox from hell--when they were wrecking the old Filmore. That was my soundtrack at 6 a.m. everyday, “KA-BOOM!” I wrote two books in that Starbucks on Lafayette, cause they had the air conditioning. I’d go there at night and write untill two in the morning when the kicked me out, I’d go back to the hotbox and suffer the “Trainspotting” soundtrack by my NYU-kid neighbors who insisted on playing it at ear-splitting volume through the wall, so I’m like “love the soundtrack,” at four in the morning when the bass notes are making my head vibrate. Anyway, whenever I’m in D.C., and I get there as often as possible, I miss it. I have trained myself not to miss much. My line of work, don’t hang onto people, don’t hang onto places cause you’re never going to be there.

ISO: You travel so much, you never want to hold onto something?

HR: I’ve learned don’t hang onto something you’re going to miss, cause it hurts to miss stuff. It’s like putting your hands in the fire, you know, “grasshopper, hit the board.” Now I’ve got these big, thick knuckles—mentally—and so I see people when I see ‘em. That’s why the girlfriend thing has been hard, because it’s like, “when are you coming back,” and I go, “shit, talk to the road manager.” I’m not entering into that “I miss you” thing with you, I can’t afford it. I can’t have that eating on me when I go on stage at 8. I’m going to do 100+ shows this year, and I’m not missing anything. After 25 years, there’s nothing living in my house. No one puts it’s arms around me when I come home. And at this point, I don’t want to have to call a girl and have, “how come you haven’t called me?” I’m not doing that phone call. When I am in D.C., and I do get there, I use it as the carrot on the stick. “After the tour’s over, if you’re a good boy, you get 2 days off in D.C. just to walk around the old neighborhood to see Ian MacKaye and all these people I grew up with who mean a lot to me. When I’m there, I love it, walking around the old neighborhood and I take photos of it. But my scene started happening in California and the world. I don’t miss it, like I lose sleep over it. But I really look forward to those two days in D.C. and it’s always a sad cab ride to Dulles [International] Airport, cause I really like walking. I stay at that hotel at Wisconsin [Avenue] and Calvert [Street]. I used to live in Woodley Park.

ISO: I know that, I used to walk around there. I went to Wilson Senior High School.

HR: I wish I went to Wilson, all my friends went to Wilson, like Ian MacKaye and all the Dischord Record kids…is it now “Ian MacKaye High”? [laughs]
He’s been my best friend since I was 12. That’s been one of the upsides of my life is having this long friendship with this completely amazing guy. He is the most amazing person I’ve ever met, he continually blows me away.

ISO: Were you at The Evens [MacKaye’s new band with his sister, Amanda] show in Fort Reno Park [which is across the street from Wilson]?

HR: Oh yeah, I loaded the gear. Didn’t you see?

ISO: I did, but I didn’t want to run up to you. I feel weird doing that to musicians who are just walking around.

HR: It’d be cool, it’s the neighborhood. It’s our neighborhood, you should walk up and go, “hey, man.” I love that, especially in the 202 area code, man. See, what’s really cool and it doesn’t happen very often, is that someone will walk by and goes, “Hey, man. Good to see you.” And I go, Oh, he just knows me from the neighborhood from a long time ago. I have nothing like that in my life, that’s an analog feel. Most of my life is digital, it’s like, “you’re the thing on stage at 8 p.m.” And when I go back [to D.C.] I’m just Henry from W Street. I enjoy that 48 hours, I don’t know if I could do it seven days a week because I’m a very ambitious person who thrives on pressure. I’m like, “you better be good tonight, this is an $80,000 camera shoot.” [breaths] I went on stage in London the other night at the Hammersmith Apollo, it’s a big deal, it’s big everything. And I’m back stage like [nervous breathing.] I live for that, and I went out there and killed it.

ISO: Will you ever have The Evens or Ian on?

HR; I’d love to have The Evens on. Quite honestly, I’m afraid to ask him, just because I don’t want to make him uncomfortable about saying no [laughs]. I can see him going, “eeh…it’s really not our thing.” I just want to put it out to him, and be like, “if you’re in town and wanted to play, all you have to do is let me know and we’ll film you anyway you like.” Just so I could put it out there and he can consider it. Chances are, he’d just say no thanks. I don’t want to put him in that thing where he’s letting his friend down. If he doesn’t want to do it, he’s not going to do it. I just don’t want to put the man in an uncomfortable position. He and I have had very divergent career paths, in that you can’t get him in “Rolling Stone” cause they do alcohol and tobacco [advertising.] I worship that point of view, but if you put me on the cover…I’d go to that interview on my hands, cause I want to be on the cover right now. We differ in that way where I said yes to Hollywood and all of that “hey, you want to be in this? Yeah! You want to have a TV show? Yeah!” Where Ian would go, “hm, it doesn’t pass the smell test for me.” It’s not that he’s righteous and I’m some sell-out pig, I don’t think I’ve sold out. I just think that we’ve went for different things. We agree on the basic tendency of things: say what you want, play what you want. I’ve gone mainstream in a way where he kind of applauds from the side. I bet he gets people going, “what’s up with your friend, Henry, man? That’s pretty fucking weak.” He’d never tell me, but I bet one to three times a year he probably has to stand up to me when some guy wonders why he even gives me the time of day they find what I do so repelling, that I was in a movie or do voiceovers. I don’t walk to voiceovers, I run to those. It’s employment I work for a living. I do the voiceovers so I have the time and money to do a book, which takes 18 months of “today, I’m going to write a paragraph and that’s all I’m getting done today.” It’s all for the basis of art and affording the roof over my head. I have no family. I left the minimum wage into the sea of consequence. I don't have back-up, I have me, my bank account and my balls. I rely on them heavily.

ISO: Are you going to do anything with “The Proposition,” the film written by musician Nick Cave, in May?

HR: Yeah, I want to review it. I have not yet seen it, but people I know have and tell me I have to see it. I know he’s on the soundtrack with the Dirty Three people. I have not heard one bad thing about it yet, and I am so happy Nick is making this move.

ISO:And what books are you working on?

HR: I released two last year, so it might take me a while to catch my breath. I’m working on a follow-up to a book I did last year called “Romanitarian” and I did a book last year called “Fanatic,” which is the notes from my radio show. The retail comes out with 32 extra pages of flyers, cool repros and rare shit. Every week I do the radio show, and I’m working on a travel book about my trans-Siberian express trip I just took across Russia, and my USO trips to the Army and Navy hospitals which have been very hardcore, eye-opening, pretty awful experiences to see guys [your age,] and arguably on paper I could be your dad…legs gone, faces gone, arms gone. It is the hardest damn day of my life. What are you going to do? You can’t put the leg on [for them.] And these guys are so brave, they’re like, “don’t worry sir, I’ll be all right.” You’re like, “yeah, man. Sure. Nice colostomy bag.” It’s just brutal. There’s a guy with 60 percent of his brain gone in a diaper with a photo of him and me in Bagdad on his wall. And you go back to your hotel room that night, and what do you do with it all? All three are kind of medium-to-long rang projects that I’m working on.
-end

Magic Carpet Lightning

2006-04-14T22:12:00.000-04:00

Ah, April, what a glorious month you are! The weather still sucks, tuition is hiked and [college university] raped the student body once again, not even bothering with a reach-around or dinner. I should really preface this with the fact that I’m angry. Maybe it was talking to Henry Rollins last week. I really do appreciate him making time to speak with me, but then again, I doubt most of you self-absorbed, pretentious sycophants give a flying fuck. But again, I am angry and that means I am a fucking katamari designed to burn hotter than the hell you bitches are headed for—I’m looking at you, asshole at Bowery Poetry Club who lets in underage girls and then kicks them out when they won’t dance with him.

Normally, I’m happy during April because of the Arlene’s Grocery Picture Show. You get everything you ever wanted from New York: legal indoor smoking, dancing Suicide Girls who are disgusted with the room and an awesome musical guest. In 2004, it was Joe Jackson; 2005, I wasn’t quite sure since my buddy, Mr. Snuggles, decided to projectile vomit on a door. But there won’t be a musical guest this year, since the Picture Show is on hiatus until 2007.

Now I’m really fucking angry. Instead of having my drink be ashed in by the jerk next to me while pseudo-alternative girls shake their ass at me, I have to stand in ungodly lines with screening rats (read: pretentious assholes that get a pass to a movie screening. See also: Tisch kids who pretend they’re [writers.] Thank you, Jeremiah Newton, for telling them to do that. Really helps our reputation!) No, I refuse to go to some shitty film festival and pay $10 or $20 to listen to someone talk about how bad a film that they haven’t even seen will be. That’s what I do, goddamn it.

Speaking of Tribeca, we here at [place] (that’s me, my six or so writers, and the collection of Johnny Cash and Nick Cave I keep on my iPod) have this to say to Robert DeNiro, the area known as TriBeCa and the film festival that Mr. DeNiro helped create: suck it. Suck it hard. Suck it long. But whatever you do, just keep sucking like you did in “Hide and Seek,” “Analyze That!” and when you make people bend over backwards to attend one of these films.
This festival is a farce and I’ve seen better flicks at Two Boots (ironically, where a few of the films are going after their glorious Tribeca run) and it’s bullshit that we have to applaud one of these things every year. Porn is better than watching Robin Williams struggle on screen for a paycheck.

Speaking of which, “Joanna’s Angels 2” came out on Tuesday, so you should all run to the “fantasy” shops on 6th Ave and pick up a copy. Not only are Angel and her burningangel.com awesome, but they’re my favorite form of “fuck” compared to the art-fucks that run rampant in this overpriced borough.

I should apologize about that, but the Tribeca Film Festival shafted [us] for coverage, and they can go guzzle overpriced water at DeNiro’s lackluster restaurant. Apparently that whole “we’re a neighborhood festival” vibe only relates to those that can afford the ticket prices and those willing to kiss ass—you know, they’re all outside of 721 Broadway chain-smoking their cloves and pitching how they’ll be rich and famous. Yes, just like Brett Ratner.

It has come to my attention that I average at least one or two digs at the director of “Rush Hour,” and soon-to-be-released “X-Men: The Last Stand.” Well, allow me to remedy this when I stop for a moment and think about something. Why are we letting a guy whose job it is to make vehicles for Chris Tucker direct a series that Bryan Singer has turned to gold? Now the irony that Singer is off finishing “Superman Returns,” while Ratner is lapping up his table scraps, is not lost on me. No, instead, I welcome Brett “Future of all Tischies” Ratner’s horrendous vision of a comic book film. I mean, it’s not like Ratner probably ran around the set towel-snapping half the male cast in their black leather. Poor Vinnie Jones is probably still fighting the nightmares of filming, all the while thinking, “But I kicked so much ass in ‘Survive Style 5.’”
Well, that feels much better. I think I’ve hit all my usual bases: my dislike of the administration, porn, film and saying Brett Ratner sucks as a director and as a creative talent.
Oh, one last thing:
Seriously, Samoan-looking dude at Bowery Poetry Club who checks ID, lets in underage girls and kicks them out if they don’t want to dance with him?
You’re a real brown-trout son of a bitch.