what can i say? he was jks’ film TA. and then there’s that small matter of absolutely amazing everything.

oh, yeah. and neil patrick harris.

dennis hopper is doing financial investment ads.

but now for something completely different. last night i went to the opening ceremonies of the 10th dc independent film festival.^1a there was definitely something amiss with primped, polished women talking about how important it was to buck the system, follow your dream, and ignore those who told you you couldn’t do something.

and then there was alex cox.

tall, lanky, leatherfaced, orange-parka clad alex cox. who bends in ways that would make a gumby proud. who said (wittingly? unwittingly?) that digital media let you “control the means of production”¹ and waxed on (and eventually off) about the evils of american copyright law.² all this after the u.s. premiere screening of searchers 2.0 (careful, that site has music), which showcases the lyrical strength of film trivia and the weakness of production values when you don’t have studio backing.

but before alex cox, yes, even before the hysterical (and likely intended to be some sort of social commentary) animated short dust off and cowboy up by laurence arcadias,³ there was david amram.

“who,” you ask, “is david amram?”

quite possibly the freakiest (and i say that in the nicest way possible) 77 year old washingtonian i’ve ever heard speak. he scored splendor in the grass and the original manchurian candidate, worked with ginsberg and kerouac and thelonius monk. and after a hep show’n'tell of woodwinds from around the world, he performed pull my daisy (the video at this link quite fittingly filmed at the 2007 lord buckley birthday bash, but the sound is nearly inaudible), doing the intro and exit scats and managing to work in a reference to philip seymour hoffman as truman capote and other totally random bits.

david amram was awesome.
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^1a i only paid for the movie, but after making a general nuisance of myself – while honestly only trying to figure out where to go – was instructed to go up to the VIP reception (i think they sent everyone up there, as the jack morton auditorium doesn’t really hold that many people anyway) and wound up watching the entire opening ceremonies with james and justin (who tells me “amram” was both moses’ father’s name and a missile developed by israeli scientists).

¹ one of the characters in searchers 2.0, the daughter of the main character, apparently read only two books, repeatedly: no logo – which appeared yesterday on stuff white people like, and atlas shrugged. funny!

² my only gripe with this was that the 95 years + the life of the author is disney’s brainchild, not jack valenti’s. at least, that’s what i learned in my IP overview course. but i could be wrong.

³ arcadias is female. i’m pretty sure.

i don’t pay much attention to award shows, whether they be oscars or tonys, emmys or grammys. for the most part, my tastes aren’t mainstream, and don’t reflect those of whatever academy or organization is bestowing the purported honors. so while (due to a fluke of newspaper reading) i was aware amy winehouse was trying to get a visa to attend last night’s grammy awards – and getting a furlough from rehab to do so – i had no idea she was up for a whole slew of the liitle gold bookends.

now it seems to me that grammys should be given on the merits of the music, not on the artist’s lifestyle choices. after all, these are gramophone awards, not june cleaver awards (or caligula awards, for that matter). so when natalie cole goes on the record with, “you don’t get to just do your drugs and go onstage and get rewarded,” i can only wonder if she has a radically skewed view of the purpose of awards (besides putting on lavish shows to line the purses of clothing designers and advertisers) or if she’s just grouchy that her own drug years didn’t produce any quality music. it doesn’t help that cole was quoted as wanting beyonce or someone named rihanna to win because they work hard, are “great people” whose hearts “are in the right place” and are “ready to go the long haul” – without once mentioning the quality of their musical output.

what a crock. “the long haul” is what lifetime achievement awards are for – provided the artist’s music was any good.

[ed note: this will be edited when i'm on a proper computer]

scroll down to the hatches if you don’t want to read about my political unawareness.

a drawback of big news happening over the holidays when you’re stressed and working and not really paying attention to anything:

you find out benazir bhutto was assassinated the day after it happened, by chancing upon a beat-up copy of the friday washington post in the lunch room.

“it was all over NPR yesterday!” said one of my staff attorneys.

“i’ve spent the last two days listening to alice et june in the car. besides, i tend to listen to WTOP on the way in to work anyway. news, traffic and weather on the eights. but the news is mostly sports.”

“it’s all over tv!”

“television? oh, yeah. stopped watching when the writers’ strike began and the daily show and colbert report went into reruns. i suppose i would’ve found out about it there, but, well…”

“you don’t read the paper online?”

“yeah… before i started spending 12 hours a day reading other people’s e-mail for a living.”

“oh, well, then.”

well, then, indeed. unless it’s being piped directly into my brain (i.e., in front of me, while i’m awake and not in a click-coding daze) there’s a good chance i’m oblivious to it. in this case it’s rather disturbing because i always found benazir fascinating, and the fact of her had achieved a sort of cult/icon status in my worldview. that she was assassinated does not surprise me; it’s the fact that she’s dead, jim, that i can’t get my head around. odd disconnect there.

i’m not even paying attention to the upcoming primaries. can’t bring myself to care, really, political junkie that i once was. hillary looks smug; obama cadaverous. the candidates i like (kucinich and dodd) don’t have a snowball’s chance in a blast furnace. and if you think i’m going to pay any attention to the freak show that is the republican race, well, then, you don’t know me very well.

###

i did really really like sweeney todd, though.

oh! and on the topic of sweeney todd, neil gaiman mentioned on his blog,

I even loved Johnny Depp’s early-Bowie-when-he-was-still-doing-Anthony-Newley singing style.

(if you’re not sure about this, listen to bowie’s please mister gravedigger; gaiman suggests the laughing gnome.) reconsidering the movie in this light, i realized that what i found most disconcerting is how much depp-as-mister-t looks like christopher walken. talk about creepy.

seventeen years ago, my mother made us leave bowie’s sound & vision concert before it was over. she was driving, and wanted to avoid the mad rush of cars exiting merriweather. boy, did that piss me off.

at nearly one o’clock this morning, i was more than happy to leave the she wants revenge gig before the last song. (although i’ll be bummed if i find out they played ‘kidnap the sandy claws’.) it was too loud. it was too late. i was too tired. and i wasn’t even driving.

at least dc’s gone smokefree. so i can fall asleep without smelling cigarette smoke in my hair.

(opening bands: the start – a name that destines them to be nothing but an opening act (and as long as they keep the gwen-stefani-channelling-siouxsie-sioux lead singer, that’s all they deserve to be) – and kenna, who dances just like a white boy. but a bit more fluidly. with a ton more energy.)

she wants revenge singing danny elfman lyrics, of course.

(i found this while searching for a new she wants revenge video which, allan informed me, was based on the opening sequence of the hunger. what could be better than a she wants revenge video? a she wants revenge video based on the opening sequence of the hunger, of course!)

(or, if you’re a brit, mantaray is already here.) we on this side of the pond will have to wait until october 2. wankers.

and if you’re in need of a siouxsie fix (and really, who isn’t?), the first video from the album – into a swan – is up on youtube. it’s a bit swan lake meets bondage boots meets the f/x crew from an early prince video, but it seems to work.

hat tip: todd

i can see why stardust is getting compared to the princess bride, but it really shouldn’t be. about the only thing the two movies have in common is a blonde in a long dress.

and what on earth was the director/editor/producers thinking by putting a rock power ballad over the closing credits? it was as though journey and boston had an illegitimate love child with diarrhea, and then sting/rod stewart/bryan adams took the dirty diaper and wiped it all over the movie.

feh. unfortunately, you’ve got to sit through the closing credits to get the final jape. but everything up to the closing credits is, well, heavenly.

day before yesterday a spambot left a comment that read, “phentermine that accepts cod payment.” i thought it was referring to the fish. i’d been reading about the importance of salt cod, you see, in mark kurlansky’s salt.

today the spambot graced my blog with “online bingo” – and i read oingo boingo. because i’m just at that age. (the “i listen(ed) to oingo boingo” age, not the “my eyes are dimming from” age. so stop the snide comments right there.)

if the theory behind spambots is correct, having “phentermine” and “online bingo” in my blog should generate a great many hits. if it does, and someone is reading this because it did, may i direct your attention to the book and the band? they’re far more interesting…

…when there’s a video with billy idol and slash linked from warren ellis’ blog? hat tip: james.