Still Not Meeting With the Needs

Resolved:

Either quit my bitching or find a new mo'betta job.

Get off my ass once in a while. Geez.

Outta town more. Nature and shit.

Revive that freelance thang, get totally out of debt, buy mo'betta crap. Or actually, you know, save money.

Emulate the dog. He knows the score.

A new, improved 2007. Also, U.S. outta Iraq. I'm sick of watching the count. Bring 'em home.

Must. Try. Again

Round two seems much more profound.

How does the world see you?
“Better Days,” Bruce Springsteen

Will I have a happy life?
“You’re the Voice,” Heart

What do my friends really think of me?
“When God Made Me,” Neil Young

Do people secretly lust after me?
“Midnight Rider,” Allman Brothers Band

How can I make myself happy?
“Lady Sings the Blues,” Billie Holiday

What should I do with my life?
“Come On, Let’s Go,” Los Lobos

What is some good advice for me?
“Sour Milk-Cow Blues,” Elvis Costello

How will I be remembered?
“Lucky,” Radiohead

What is my signature dancing song?
“Josephine,” Tori Amos

What do I think my current theme song is?
“I Love the Dead,” Alice Cooper

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
“Pray for the Girls,” Frank Black

What song will play at my funeral?
“Pack it Up,” The Pretenders

What type of man do you like?
“Reasons to be Beautiful,” Hole

What is my day going to be like?
“I Will Dare,” X

iPod iChing

Yes, late as per usual. Courtesy of radosh's spreading of the meme, I was moved to shake the virtual magic 8ball for my own self.


ipod ching

How does the world see you?
“Original of the Species,” U2
Nice. I’ll take it.

Will I have a happy life?
“Summer of Drugs,” Victoria Williams
Uh oh.

What do my friends really think of me?
“Downtown,” Neil Young
Hmm.

Do people secretly lust after me?
“Under the Boardwalk,” The Drifters
Yikes.

How can I make myself happy?
“What’s Going On,” Los Lobos (Live)
Got it. Pay more attention.

What should I do with my life?
“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles
Oh yes. And form a marching band.

What is some good advice for me?
“In Your Eyes,” Peter Gabriel
Hmm. Laser eye surgery? Duets with Kate Bush? The spirits, they are mysterious.

How will I be remembered?
“Baby Can I Hold You,” Tracy Chapman
Aww.

What is my signature dancing song?
“Love for Sale,” Fine Young Cannibals
You know, I could take offence to that.

What do I think my current theme song is?
“Imagination,” Harry Connick, Jr.
Self-deluded? Probably.

What does everyone else think my current theme song is?
“Texarkana,” R.E.M.
Oh, come now. Everyone?

What song will play at my funeral?
“Play for Today,” The Cure
Nice. Whiny. Funereal.

What type of man do you like?
“Oregon Hill,” Cowboy Junkies
Two words: As. If.

What is my day going to be like?
“Faces and Names,” Lou Reed and John Cale
Eerie. That was, in fact, my day. Except for the part where I can never actually remember anybody’s name.

Hater. Check. Doubter. Check. Ranter. Double Check.

I'm so furious over this James Frey thing I can barely sputter. And Oprah should know better. Girlfriend! Words matter. Novel is different than memoir. It's not up to the publisher to decide how to classify a book, the writer bears primary responsibility. And little weasely wanker Frey up there on Larry King parroting his talking points made me want to start drinking heavily and get in a fist fight and punch a hole in my cheek. Instead I just watched shifty-eyed wanker boy talk about the "essential truth" of his book and "18 pages in dispute" and blahblahblah.

Look, my unpublished novel was at least 95 percent memoir, and I never, ever considered shopping it as a memoir. I'd compressed a few people into one, didn't have verbatim recall of conversations that happened 20 years ago, changed names, etc., so therefore, ergo, ipso facto, it was a novel. Guess I should have shopping it as a memoir, since apparently those are easy-peasy to market to publishers.

And why is it that Frey needed to make himself seem like more of a badass than he actually was? Why, because of the glamorization of thuglife, that's why. So he couldn't be a little rich boy who went ot a pricy private college and got sent to Paris apparently when he got in trouble in the US and have his memoir sell, instead he had to invent a bunch of crap to make himself seem dangerous. I'm so mad I could just spit.

A commenter here said it pretty well:

"i think james frey's book is indefensible, whether it's true or not. we're talking about a spoiled rotten rich kid glamorizing himself for getting sent to a residential rehab facility on his corporate lawyer-dad's nickel. he's just a suburban poser pretending that he's bukowski or burroughs, and he's a really, really bad writer to boot. the fact that he is also a bullshit artist comes as no surprise."

I'm reading AMLP because I might need to write about it, but I'm so skeptical when reading it that I can barely get through 2 pages before having to set it aside. For those looking for a good novel based on true life, i recommend "Prep." Also the harrowing memoir "Jesusland."

Oh, and one last not-insignificant thing: AMLP is supremely annoying to read on a totally different front. You see, the Author has an affected and oh-so-preciously-Eggerseque habit of picking random Nouns and capitalizing Them. The Copyeditors must have Hated him So Very Very Much.

As do I. Very Very Much.

Jesus of Suburbia Video

Yeah, I know. It's overblown, it's all broad strokes, it's teen angst squared. But hey, contrived as it may be, I think it's a pretty good depiction of the quintessential bored teenager, no matter the era.

When I was 14, we didn't have anyplace to go but the 7-11 and the canyons, and much trouble was gotten into (although we wouldn't discover the uber-cool of punk for a while yet).

So check it out here. It's director Sam "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Bayer, it's the Thumbsucker kid, it's that rubbermouthed girl who steals every scene she's in, and it's epic. I have no idea where one would watch this on TV; as far as I can tell, MTV simply doesn't air music videos anymore.

Plus I got to watch them film a few days of this shoot (it's scary under that bridge! people live there and shit!), but even though I managed to wander into a shot, get yelled at by the director, and feel like the world's biggest dork, I still love me some Green Day.

Plus we had such awesome tickets to see them play it was silly. Proverbial front-row center stuff.

Being a writer rawks sometimes, even for us been-a-long-time-since-I been-cool sorts.

F is for Family

... Ring ... Ring ... Ring

"Hello?"

"We were just watching 60 Minutes ... "

"Uh huh."

"And, uh, this Valerie Flame thing ... "

"Yeah?"

Pause.

(In a rush) "You shouldn't joke about your brother being in the CIA. People could think ... "

Head hits table, thunks quietly.

"You just shouldn't even ... "

Sigh. "Fine. OK. I won't."

"I mean, don't even joke about it!"

(Louder, as if to a deaf or retarded person) "All right. Got it. Won't joke about it."

Pause.

"Well, I just think ... "

Head hits table harder, stars appear, head begins throbbing.

(Brightly) "OK! Talk to you later!"

"Oh, uh, well, just ... "

Click.

Sigh.

Sound of liquid gurgling into glass.

Heavy sigh.

(Half-whispered) "Jeebuz."

Family Fun

The setting: Patio of nice restaurant. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, chit-chat has been had between myself, my mother, her husband. Ominously, the talk turns to current events.

Him: So where are the other countries? We gave them money for their tsunami, where's the money from them?

Me: Does it really matter? It's just such a shame that in a country that's supposed to be the richest and most powerful in the world ...

Him: I'm sick of it. I'm sick of you bashing America.

Me: Wha? Me, personally?

Him: Yes, you. You never have anything good to say. I'm just sick of all this America bashing.

Silence.

Mother: Isn't it marvelous how those trees grow so tall?

Required Reading

"For along with much of New Orleans, the hurricane has swept away, at last, the shameful American era of the fearfully buttoned lip."
-- Simon Schama, The Guardian

Real Journalism

Is, in fact, occuring, and has been throughout this Katrina debacle.

"Another Bush aide described the atmosphere inside the White House as "strangely surreal and almost detached." At one meeting described by this insider, officials were oddly self-congratulatory, perhaps in an effort to buck each other up. Life inside a bunker can be strange, especially in defeat."

[From Newsweek's current article, "How Bush Blew It."]

When the Levee's Breached, You Must Impeach

Shame, shame, shame. There is none of it in Washington, but there sure should be.

Didn't this used to be America?

If We Had a Real President ...

Perhaps he would respond to Katrina's aftermath by saying something like this.

Instead, we get inappropriate smirking, vows to have "zero-tolerance" with all looters, and flyovers.

Good lord, we are screwed.

RIP 6FU

Sniff.

Salon's take on the finale struck a familiar chord with me. I too came to feel like I knew these characters, that I'd been them at times; and I found myself dreaming about them more than once. It would be a nice epitaph if other networks would see HBO's rising of the bar as a reason to try to match Six Feet Under's level of writing and acting and chance-taking.

Yeah, right.

Best. Song. Ever.

And not just because it's getting all sorts of radio airplay on incongruously poppy stations all of a sudden.

I swear, Green Day have turned into bona fide Rock Gawds when no one was looking.

Just in case you get too blown away by the awesome hook and the most excellent chorus to pay full attention to the lyrics, here they are:

Holiday

Hear the sound of the falling rain
Coming down like an Armageddon flame (Hey!)
The shame
The ones who died without a name
Hear the dogs howling out of key
To a hymn called "Faith and Misery" (Hey!)
And plead, the company lost the war today

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday

Hear the drum pounding out of time
Another protestor has crossed the line (Hey!)
The line, the money's on the other side

Can I get another Amen? (Amen!)
There's a flag wrapped around a score of men (Hey!)
A gag, A plastic bag on a monument

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday

"Hey!"

"hey!"

"The representative from California has the floor"
Seek out to the president gasbag
Bombs away is your PUNISHMENT
Pulverize the Eiffel towers
Who criticize your GOVERNMENT
Bang bang goes the broken glass bag
Kill all the fags that DON'T AGREE
Triumph by fire, sinning buyers
Is that a way that's MEANT FOR ME?

Just cause, just cause, because we're outlaws, yeaahhh!

I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives

This is our lives on holiday...

____________________

(And is that the voice of Jello Biafra I hear, nasaling, "the representative from California has the floor?" Don't know, but it sure sounds like the Jellster.)

Bored With My Own Self

Posting even though I've got nothing new to say, mainly because I'm bored of seeing that months-old post about Mexico up there. It seems so long ago that I went that it may as well have happened to someone else.

It was fun, though.

Never Really Been So I Don't Really Know Except that's a lie. I have been, and I'm going again on Monday. There'll be hot breezes, jungles, crystal water, pools with swim-up bars, and five glorious nights (four fabulous nights) at Casa Amorita.

Whew. I can't friggin' wait.