tragedy plus time...

so, happy 2011???

i tell you, i slept right through it.

sometimes i feel like pulling an anna karenina.

but enough of the maudlin. really. i did recently watch get him to the greek, and not two days later, my favorite year, and really, aren't they quite similar? russell brand playing the inebriated, washed up rockstar, peter otoole playing the inebriated, washed up screen idol. that jonah hill guy's character, no different really from the guy from perfect strangers whose name i can't recall at the moment...

ghttg doesn't hold a candle to my favorite year though. watching peter otoole leap onto the policeman's horse in the park, or swinging down from the balcony at 30 rock... really, just wonderful performances. why can't they seem to make movies like they used to? have they really run out of ideas?

BUT OH MY GOD. OMYEFFINGGOD. Sam Riley as SAL PARADISE. I cannot fucking wait.

i've been staying in quite a bit. i also was able to catch scott pilgrim vs. the world (decent), 500 days of summer (sad), singin' in the rain (can you believe i've never seen it before? oh, gene kelly, how have i never appreciated your beauty?!), and this wonderful movie with cary grant and his at-the-time wife, where they adopted two children, in addition to the three they already had... can't remember the name but it was really quite sweet. also roman holiday, for the hundredth time, and walk the line... i tell you, some movies are just like comfort food to me.

i also just finished honey, by honey bruce... the sordid story of lenny's 'shady lady'... it's really sad, what did you expect? i think lenny had a lot in common with another lonely junkie soul, johnny thunders. incapable of coping neither with real life, or with the stratospheres of success, they chose to selfdestruct, leaving behind snippets of brilliance in their wake. its unfortunate, the pull of the old push-and-pull, what the fuck makes people think it's something to be glamorized or sugarcoated? have you not SEEN, i mean REALLY TAKEN A GOOD LOOK at keith richards lately??? if you want to know the true ravages of narcotics, LOOK AT HIS FACE.

oy vey. there's your antidrug.

'what part of an inverse tangent approaching an asymptote don't you understand?'

I was ridiculously happy to hear that industrial outfit VNV Nation was coming to town, only to find out it was another one of their halfhearted DJ sets. Not that their performances are half-assed; infact I'm sure they're quite good. However, i just cannot justify shelling out the big bucks to watch a (relatively) famous person spin records that my local DJ spins week in and week out. I don't know. Maybe they do have an edge on us with their access to otherwise unknown foreign acts, but still, it's nothing I want to spend exorbitant amounts of money for. If I'm going to pay to see Ronan Harris, I expect to see Mark Jackson there as well, along with their synthesizers and wicked backdrops. Hah.

AND while I'm on the subject, why haven't Steve Naghavi and/or And One returned to the United States?

Granted, Mr. Naghavi could take the stage in nothing but a towel and proceed to perform the greatest acoustic hits of ABBA, and I would still be front row. But that's neither here nor there...

It just irks me that these great, underappreciated artists are getting the shaft because apparently, it costs too much to tour the states. Or they get stuck playing venues like VFW Halls and whatnot. In Europe, they can sell out clubs three times over... it;s just frustrating, really.

Then again, it can't be the bands' fault. At least not all the time. Maybe their record labels just don't see the potential of it. Bastards.

Oh but speaking of record labels, Wax Trax! founder Dannie Fleischer recently passed away. So sad. If you read the tributes below this article found in the Chicago Tribune, as well as the posts on their Facebook fan page, it's actually quite touching.


Bonus Astronomy Awesomeness: For the next few weekends at the Cernan Earth and Space Center (part of Triton College) in River Grove, they will be running a planetarium show narrated by our favorite astrophysicist, Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer. Based on his first book, the show will debunk such myths as the "faked" moon landing and explain random scientific inaccuracies... great for the space geek as well as the layperson. Clicky here for more info. Yayyyyyyy

not my bit, but still good.

You want an update?

"Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
'Hey,' Herbie said, 'Tony, can you fly?'
But Tony couldn't fly, Tony died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, 'Hey, I know it's dangerous, but it sure beats Riker's'
But the next day he got offed by the very same bikers

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Teddy sniffing glue, he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died

Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others
And I salute you brother

Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died"

Special thanks (and apologies?) to Jim Carroll.

escape velocity!

By now you all know my love for Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer. Below is a video from another smarty-pants type that I admire, Neil deGrasse Tyson:

i flipping hate that don mclean song.

This coming February marks the fiftieth year of The Day The Music Died. For you uncultured types, this was the day that Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper died tragically in a plane crash. To mark this anniversary, there are a slew of events going on in the midwest, some even at the original venues they played for the Winter Dance Party tour.

Buddy impersonator John Mueller is heading the Winter Dance Party tribute tour, along with Ritchie impersonator Ray Anthony and Jay Richardson, The Big Bopper's son. Tour dates can be found here, but I would act quickly because they're selling fast.


Fifty years... it really makes you wonder how things would be different if they had survived. If the weather wasn't so treacherous, if they'd had a more experienced pilot. I really believe Buddy Holly would have had a great career and an extensive catalog of work. Ritchie too (No offense JP). I don't doubt that Holly would have continued in music, and continued making hits. But maybe that's just the fangirl in me.

All Faith Is Autopsy.

If you have been conscious at all this week, you already know the news. And it's incredibly sad and untimely, but there's nothing more to say that a hundred news sites, blogs, and entertainment shows haven't already said before.

Yes, Heath Ledger died, but what's to become of The Dark Knight? No one was more thrilled than me (except, perhaps, my sister) to watch this film come to fruition. Every photo seen, every little snippet of film kept me in anticipation for July.

It seemed like they have been going in a different direction this time, in the way of marketing. Instead of dark, heroic silhouettes of the protagonist, we've been fed colorfully disturbing shots of the Joker. Even the film's tagline, Why So Serious? is a direct quote from our villain. No other Batman film, at least in my limited memory, so heavily promoted a bad guy.

But this was all before the tragic loss of a halfway decent actor (I would insert a "Couldn't it have been ____?" joke here, but I'm afraid of karmic retribution). Some friends will absolutely crucify me for drawing such a comparison, but at the time of James Dean's death, Giant wasn't exactly poised to be the blockbuster hit of that summer. This takes us into an entirely different realm of promotion v. media sensitivity (an oxymoron if i've ever heard one). Can they still promote the movie as they have been, without offending the memory of Ledger? Honestly I think it would be more offensive to his memory to change anything about their marketing plan. With or without his death, the film has always been about the Joker.

And what will become of our perceptions of the movie? We obviously cannot watch it unbiased anymore- in the back of our mind we'll always know that the release was posthumous, and that the role is the absolute last in his career (Unless they somehow proceed with The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, but I doubt it will even have the popularity of The Dark Knight). How many people will watch and wonder how his performance will conclude his career?

It could go several ways. If his performance is mediocre, it could tarnish his entire legacy. Or worse, it could be glorified by a still-mourning public. Either way, this is something we really haven't seen in our time. River Phoenix, another lost child of Hollywood, only had two minor releases posthumously. The Dark Knight, on the other hand, is this summer's Spiderman.

I suppose it's just a matter of time before we find out how the public reacts. Not to sound crass, but I doubt it will hurt the box office numbers. I will, however, be curious to know how the final chapter of Heath's career is played out.