Archive for March, 2006
Friday, March 31st, 2006
The Boy Least Likely To has about five sounds that are all over their album – simple kick, one-man band jangly snare, glockenspiel, bendy synth, and doubled vocal – and it’s perfect for walking in the morning.
I was dumb and went out last night even though I was very tired and still kind of sick, and I got in late and woke up early for work. But walking the length of Spring Street this morning in just a hoodie with my headphones on was very nice. Spring is here, I think. Many thanks to Sarah, who went out of her way to get me past burlysecurityman last night because dumb old me forgot my ID at home.
A series of e-mails sent back and forth between me and my co-conspirator about that film as I was writing about it yesterday:
HER: It’s Will Oldham, not Mike.
ME: Todd?
HER: Right, Gary Oldman.
ME: Gary Numan?
HER: Yeah, Julie Newmar.
ME: Genevieve Bujold?
HER: Yes, like I said, Jenny McCarthy did the music for Drawing Restraint 9.
ME: Candice Bergen’s father’s ventriloquist dummy?
HER: Yup, Edgar Winters.
ME: Shelley Winters cut her own foot off?
HER: Yes, just like I said, Shelley Duvall wore a giant fur kimono.
ME: Shirley MacLaine and Robert Duvall drank amoeba tea and are made out of fishflesh?
HER: Yes, [anon #1] and [anon #2] are blowfish.
Thursday, March 30th, 2006
I was recounting last night’s movie to Trent and came up with so much that I figured I might as well turn it into a real review. Here is the draft. A shorter version with some fix-ups is going to be shopped around.
Wednesday, March 29th, 2006
I’m still not feeling well, but it’s been downgraded to one of those situations where I have some good hours in the middle of the day, while mornings and evenings are sore throat and achy body hell. Also, all of my skin is really sensitive, which is the most annoying thing in the world to me. Why do our bodies react so that even wearing a t-shirt is painful?
After spending yesterday in bed, I was feeling a little better around dinner time, so I popped some pills and made use of my photo pass at the Editors/Stellastarr* show at Warsaw in Brooklyn. We all know I love Stellastarr, but I wasn’t a huge fan of Editors until I saw them play live. It was a fantastic show, and now I have much more appreciation for Editors’ recorded material. Even the opener was good. Mobius Band, I think their name was.
See a bunch more here.
After work today I am going to see Matthew Barney’s new film Drawing Restraint 9 (starring Bjork) at the IFC Center just a few blocks away. That’s where we saw Steve Buscemi talk about his new movie last week, and tonight Matthew Barney is going to be there to do a Q&A. If the trailer is any indication, this is going to be very strange.
Update: Very strange. And I spied Sufjan Stevens in Row One.
Tuesday, March 28th, 2006
Last night I got so sick I was shivering under blankets with a fever until 1am. I fell asleep until 3am, and then was up until daylight feeling horrible. I woke up in the middle of the night speaking Spanish while Jacques Cousteau’s son narrated a PBS documentary about the ocean and its “wild weefs” (he has a spech impediment). Kathy brought me tea and stayed with me for a while. This morning I had every intention of going into the office, but when I stood up it felt like every vein in my body had been injected with the kind of quick-setting latex that I imagine Kai and Andrea will one day put into some unwilling innocent’s bloodstream. I went back to bed and woke up in the afternoon. I’ve been taking pills, eating cookies, and watching Queen Latifah movies and BBC shows on DVD. I’m feeling better as the day goes on, but I hope it’s not just because it’s my strong hours. I have things to do tonight! Let’s hope I don’t start shaking again when the sun goes down. If I do, have me hold some cans of separated paint.
Friday, March 24th, 2006
If you follow this blog, you’ll know that I have been in love from afar with a Starbucks barista for the better part of a year now, and that he’s been absent from the corner oasis for the last couple of months. Where did he go?, I’ve wondered every day. He’s been replaced by a gaggle of wonderful (and more efficient) ladies – one of whom insisted on going out of her way on her break to make a special order drink for me while I was at the very end of the line, and then didn’t even charge me for it! – but each morning I can’t help but miss his shamelessly beautiful, calm, suave and dirty-clean, green-aproned presence behind the counter. He liked my gloves.
This afternoon, after months of tundra and several manuscripts sent to production, I saw him. FUCKER WAS HEADHUNTED. At least, I can only assume he was. Let me explain.
On the left side of my office building is Starbucks. The Starbucks in which my barista boyfriend from afar worked maybe three mornings a week. On the right is an Aveda salon, one in which it appears that hair students practice and learn for a semester at a time. The Aveda façade is all windows, and you can see the entire space from the outside. On my way to lunch today I peered inside and saw him – dressed all in black and looking better than ever – sitting at what appeared to be a reception desk.
Now, it’s been suggested that perhaps he had always been affiliated with Aveda, and, tragically hip as he is, needed a second job at Starbucks to pay the bills. But I don’t buy that. What I think went on can best be described in an imagined dialogue:
Barista At the ‘Bucks Everyday (BABE): Good morning, how can I make your life a little more magical today?
Aveda Scumbag Scout (ASS): I’d like a grande half-caf white light mocha with cinnamon jimmies served in a clean, glazed terra cotta elephant whose trunk I can drink out of.
BABE: No problem! I’m amazing!
ASS: Say, you are amazing. If people saw you sitting in our window over at Aveda in a black button-down shirt and black pants with your possibly eyelined eyes and divinely tousled pillow hair, we’d double, maybe triple revenue!
BABE: Really? Well, I love my job here. I get to serve people from all over the neighborhood and show them all my perfect smile!
ASS: It’s settled. You’re going to work for me starting now, and if you don’t, I will kill each and every one of your beloved customers.
At this point things got weird and there were some bystander injuries and I think a woman dressed in a habit who may or may not have been an actual nun got burned by Cynthia Nixon’s girlfriend’s tall (“small”) Komodo Dragon blend. But it’s clear, based on my happenstance discovery this afternoon, that Starbucks Barista Boyfriend has been stolen.
Rise, all ye who pay $5 daily for hot filtered dishwater at the corner of Spring and Varick; our sunrise prince has been kidnapped! Aveda will pay dearly for what they have done. I know someone who knows someone who knows Reverend Sharpton, and we will absolutely get him in there to start a ruckus about those suburban white kids with blue reverse-mullets not knowing black hair from grape nuts.
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
An online interview with yours truly, in which I manage to mention throwing up all over the place.
What originally inspired you to make music and when did you start?
My cousin Nicole and I used to make songs on my keyboard when we were little kids in the early 90s. We’d record them with a handheld tape recorder and play them for the family. One of them sounded very much like a song we heard on “Saved By the Bell.” My grandfather once yelled out in the middle of a playback, “What the hell is this?”
…read more
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
Got this from my friend Becca and thought it was worth passing on. Click to see it larger:
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
Hanging out with my favorite musicians.
I talk about it and post a million pictures because I can’t believe that this is my life, and I want to remember these moments and allow my friends across the country and around the world to see. There’s no way for me to do that without coming off as a “name-droppy, self-involved doofus,” I understand.
When I say good things about these people, like that Rufus Wainwright is flawless when he sings, or that Michael Stipe is a very nice person, I’m not just kissing ass into the breeze in hopes that it will get me points. Nobody cares but me and, apparently, you. If I was just hungry for attention, it would probably come quicker and larger if I said mean, interesting things instead.
And calling any blogger “self-involved” is rather like shooting fish in a virtual barrel, isn’t it? Am I self-involved when I blog about my life and the things that happen to me? Does the Pope shit in the woods?
Yesterday I deleted a comment that called me a worse name, and now I regret it. It’s the only time I’ve ever deleted a comment that someone left on my blog, and I did it because it made me unhappy. But, I’m sorry to the person who left it. I do believe that everybody should be allowed to think what they want to, whether or not I think it’s correct.
Though, I’ll direct you to this and this and this, which are three of many very recent examples of me blogging about mundane bullshit. We all can be selective when it comes to proving our points.
Anyway,
1. I don’t know these couple of critics,
2. They don’t know me,
3. My very good friend John Stamos is always on my side, and
4. I’m gonna keep posting pictures every time I dance with someone who’s put out an album that I’ve had on repeat in my bedroom for years on end.
Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006
My head feels like someone put a waterbed inside and won’t stop jumping around on it. But I promised Adrian weeks ago that I would come see him become Amnesia Sparkles at tonight’s WYSIWYG thing, so Kathy and I got there and sat up front. Amnesia certainly helped me forget my worries for a little while.
Diana Eng (from this year’s Project Runway) read also.
I desperately want to buy one of her Fibonnaci scarves. Maybe you could just pick one up for me.
Later, undressed, Adrian’s face burned.
On Saturday morning I read Eudora Welty outdoors in TriBeCa (am I more of an asshole if I capitalize the B and the C, or if I don’t?) – a borrowed book from someone I like very much – the cover of which I would like to have made into a wall-sized poster. The night before was the opening of a film called Lonesome Jim that Steve Buscemi directed. He was there to introduce it. He seemed tired. It was very good, with Casey Affleck and Liv Tyler, but I never want to see it again.
