On Demand

I have a new favorite day of the week.

It’s Monday.

Sure Friday starts the weekend. And Sunday is the Lords Day or whatever. And Wednesday is referred to as Hump Day, which is always fun to say. But Monday trumps them all. I know this is a controversial position to take, but allow me to explain:

Monday is the day the HBO changes their On Demand offerings.

Wow, that was actually a rather short explanation.

Now you may think that HBO changing their On Demand offerings hardly qualifies as the highlight of a week. That it hardly is worth looking forward to the way one would look forward to Christmas. That one should not lose sleep the night before because they are too giddy with anticipation. But then clearly you do not have HBO on Demand.

Now on the other side, there are perhaps some of you who have advanced beyond HBO On Demand and moved onto the orgiastic ecstasy filled utopia that surely is TiVo or DVR. For those lucky few of you I must say that I envy you with every fiber of my being. I might soon join your ranks if only I can find a way to afford to pay for food and also DVR for you see I am a poor starving artist who despises any form of work which thus means I will forever be trapped in my current financial plight. Plus I do have serious concerns that if I ever got DVR I would never leave my house. For real. So as my life stands now, my only on demand experience with TV is HBO On Demand. And it has forever changed my life.

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Many of you have probably been complaining loudly to your friends and family recently about how I never write anymore. Well I have a very good excuse: I’ve been watching TV.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the past few years you’ve probably heard the argument that we are currently living in the golden age of TV. People always lament the fact that music, and movies and the world in general aren’t as good as they used to be. That we missed out on all the best stuff, and that art today isn’t what it used to be. And that my be all well and good, but what they are neglecting to mention is that television today is better than its ever been. People in the future will look back on TV of the '00s the same way they look back on movies of the '70s or music of the '60s. This is because finally, after fifty years, TV’s potential as an artistic medium is for the first time being fully realized.

Quick: name the first great TV drama from before 1990. One that you have actually seen and marveled at and that holds up today. Can’t think of any? That’s because they didn’t really exist. TV was the home of great comedies, not great dramas. Now I’m sure they made good dramas before the '90s, but for they didn’t make great transcendent ones. And they didn’t make ones that stand the test of time. Comedy ran TV not drama; and the dramas that did exist were intended as mass entertainment and not “art”. Because TV was an entertainment medium not an artistic one. But in the past ten years TV has rapidly shed its long held reputation as an artistic ghetto, a place where second rate actors and directors worked because they couldn’t crack the movie business. Sometime in the not so distant past, as the line dividing TV and movies began to blur and artists were able to cross between the two with greater ease, great minds begin to see the medium's true storytelling potential. The ability to tell drawn out complicated stories filled with tons of characters and that could unfold slowly over weeks, months, and even years. You could do things, tell stories, create emotional connections with characters that you could never do in a two to three hour movie. Creative people finally realizing and taking advantage of the potential of television as a dramatic storytelling medium has allowed TV to stop being seen as the redhead stepchild to movies and, in many ways, become equal to movies, if not superior.

I read an interview the other day with Jason Lee in which he claimed he didn’t watch TV and it made him sound like an ignorant backwater ingrate who needed to get with the times. People didn’t have those kinds of reactions to non-TV watchers even five years ago. But as some guy might have said at one time or another, the times they are a’changin. A-list actors now turn down movie work for TV work. Quentin Tarantino directs episodes of CSI. David Mamet writes The Unit. And most of the biggest stars in the world regularly appear on TV shows or even attempt to star in or produce their own. The divide between TV and film is disappearing to the point of insignificance.

People are lamenting the death of the sitcom and to some degree it has “died’ because TV is now shooting for art and not entertainment. It’s being used as a storytelling medium and not a diversion. TV is now ruled by drama. As is TNT apparently. Many of the “comedies” (Entourage, Desperate Housewives, Weeds, ect.) today are ostensibly dramas with some levity mixed in. Reality TV now plays that role that sitcoms used to. And for cheaper. And even it has complex storylines to follow and a huge cast of characters to keep up with. And sure you can still “veg out” in front of the TV, but more and more television is something that requires intense thought and commitment. And, as has been well documented, HBO has played a huge role in all this.

I remember when The Sopranos came out years ago and the press went on and on about how the freedom from having to break for commercials and the ability to say and do whatever you wanted allowed for a rich, realistic quality of storytelling that TV had never been able to achieve before. And that episodes of The Sopranos each had the quality of hour-long films. The popularity of The Sopranos and other HBO programs then led to an explosion of other cable networks creating their own original programming and soon the competition was so fierce that the broadcast networks realized that they couldn’t just put on the same old crap anymore and expect people to watch it. They had to improve the quality of their shows if they wanted people to watch because now people had options. The reason TV has been so good throughout so much of our lifetime is that, as they say in business, increased competition leads to increased quality for the consumer. And now as a consumer, there’s so much quantity that its easy to find some really great quality. There’s so much great TV on today that is impossible to keep up with it all. Luckily TV on DVD has helped with that problem. But even better than that is TV on Demand. I’ve been paying for HBO on Demand for almost two years now but it wasn’t until about six months ago that I realized I even had it. At first I didn’t use it much, but then slowly Entourage become my gateway drug of sorts and now my life literally revolves around it. I’ll watch anything they put on Demand. I swear if they put a show called Watching Paint Dry on demand I would probably give it a shot. And it has interfered with my regular TV watching now too. I now get angry when watching non-On Demand shows that I can’t fast forward or rewind them. And if I have to sit through that Nick Lachey Clix Body Shots commercial one more time I will seriously kill someone. And it seems completely unreasonable to expect me to watch shows only at the time and date that they are aired. I mean who do they think I am? Someone with no life who can just plan his schedule around what time certain shows air?
That question was intended to be rhetorical.
Anyway, as someone who has now become an official TV addict I thought it was time to share with you some thoughts on the shows I waste my life with. Most are on HBO but some are on regular old TV. And it’s worth noting that some of the shows I mention as being On Demand are no longer there. I made some of these notes like a month ago, but it’s too hard to tear myself away from TV to actually write. If you’d like to hear from me more, find me a day job where I can sit at a desk with a computer. In the meantime you’ll have to deal with thoughts about shows you probably didn’t see and now can never see. Nothing like reading pretentious drivel about stuff you’ve never heard of before. Well except for reading reviews on Pitchfork. And yes that was just a convoluted excuse to take a dig at Pitchfork. But seriously though, Pitchfork sucks.

Entourage:
-Unfortunately they just took the most recent season of Entourage off demand and replaced it with the first four episodes of the series. If you’ve never seen the show before I would recommend not using the first four episodes as your introduction to it. They aren’t very good, compared with the most recent season and they might potentially sour you on the series as a whole. Plus Entourage is really not a show you need to start watching from the beginning to appreciate or understand. And I say that as someone who is insanely anal about not coming in on TV series midstream. But I came into Entourage halfway through Season 2 and was able to appreciate it just fine. If you have the intelligence of a mildly retarded chimp you should be able to pick up on the characters, basic premise and all the major storylines just from watching any random 5 minute segment of any random episode. So if you’re new to the show just wait until they switch up the On Demand offerings and give some more recent episodes. But for those of you who DO watch Entourage:

-I buy Vince being a huge Ramones fan about as much as I buy him as a believable human being. Or as much as I buy that he would actually be friends with “E”. Which is to say I don’t buy it at all.

-If I told you that if Martin Landau doesn’t get nominated for an Emmy next year that I will personally go the Emmy Headquarters and just start opening fire, would that be something that you would be interested in?

(As a side note if you have never seen Martin Landau in Ed Wood do yourself a favor and rent it tonight. One of the most well deserved Oscars of all time.)

-You know you might watch way too much Entourage when your first reaction upon seeing Matt Dillon interviewed is, “hey that guy looks just like Johnny Drama”.

-HBO seems to really specialize in great shows with terrible acting.

-And on that subject, yes I am conflicted about the fact that I love Entourage and yet it is basically the male Sex and the City and that I loath Sex and the City with every fiber of my being and think that it is the cause of all that is wrong with the world. It’s hard to reconcile or even understand this hypocrisy within myself. It’s actually hard to understand why I like Entourage in the first place. Its two leads are probably two of the worst actors ever on TV. In fact, everyone except Turtle, Drama, and, of course, Ari, are dreadful actors. I mean where do they find the god awful actors for the bit parts for that show? The BA program at Marymount? (Oh, stop with the hate mail, I kid because I love.) In addition, the show is shallow and not that well done. And, I don’t know if I mentioned this, but it’s the male Sex and The City. And yet I know that the first thing I did after coming back from New Hampshire, before even unpacking, was to watch the new episodes I had missed of Entourage. What can I say; this past season they really perfected the whole cliffhanger at the end of every episode thing. And the writing was actually really strong too. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself to help myself sleep at night.

-Has anyone ever been more valuable to a show than Jeremy Piven is to Entourage? I don’t think Martin Short is as integral to the success of Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me as Jeremy Piven is to Entourage. Without him the show is literally unwatchable, but with him, it’s must see TV. I know I’ve said it before but it bears repeating. No one has ever deserved an award more than Jeremy Piven deserved his Emmy.

-Whether it’s TV on the Radio or Queens of the Stone Age, Entourage always has the most kick ass music to end the show. It’s like the testosterone version of Greys Anatomy. It’s becoming to new music today what The O.C. was to new music four years ago. And even though its not new, might I suggest “Begging You” by The Stone Roses as closing credit music on an episode next season? You can thank me later.

-Seth Green’s posse is/was like my favorite thing ever. Thought that was worth mentioning.

Real Time With Bill Maher:
I don’t think its possible to be more conflicted about someone than I am about Bill Maher. I think he’s a smug, misogynistic, unlikable prick who is to the left what Fox News is to the right. He’s an extremist who is not actually that smart or well informed but don’t you dare try and argue with him. And yet I love his show. I think it's great. It’s some of the best political discourse on TV and it's always informative and entertaining to watch. I think my feelings are best encapsulated by this: I finished reading an interview with him in Rolling Stone recently and I thought "wow, I really hate that guy", and then immediately sat down and watched two episodes of his show back to back.

-Why do we consider unreasonable yelling extremists on the right to be wacko evil nut jobs, but unreasonable yelling extremists on the left to be brave geniuses who "tell it like it is"? Something to think about.

-If you want to see Bill get put in his place and also watch a lesson for how to be an effective conservative guest on his show then watch the episode with Christopher Hitchens. After seeing it, Hitchens is my new favorite person. I even found myself siding with him against Bill at times. He made some great points which, although I may disagree with, I still respect and think are valid. It’s what political discourse should be like. But instead Hitchens got booed mercilessly and wound up walking out of the show at the end. Of course that might have something to do with the fact he flicked the audience off, but still.

-On the opposite end of the spectrum on the “how to be a conservative guest on the show” is Sandy Rios. Watching her and Bradley Whitford shout over each other was just painful. And she came off like an insane wacko. Which she is. But that’s beside the point. The point is, two people shouting over each other for 30 minutes is not good TV.

-I think the way to solve a lot of this would be if they would remove the studio audience. I think the same thing applies to The Daily Show. I feel very strongly that the quality of both shows would improve if there wasn’t a highly biased audience there to applaud every remotely liberal comment and boo every remotely conservative comment. It makes it hard to have a real conversation about anything because the conservative guest feels uncomfortable and on the defensive the whole time and the liberal host is given a heightened sense of superiority.

-New rule: don’t cut to the shots of the panelists laughing during New Rules. They’re always fake over-laughing. It’s like going to a comedy club with Tom Cruise.

The Comeback:
-Has there ever been a good show that was less enjoyable to watch? I mean if you thought the British Office was painful to watch at times, that show makes The Comeback look like, I dunno, something unpainful to watch. The level of embarrassment you feel for Valerie is just off the charts. No wonder the show only lasted one season. I can’t believe it even lasted five episodes. Who would possibly want to watch a show where the likable main character is so constantly embarrassed and humiliated in such a painfully honest way? Unlike David Brent, Valerie was such a good person and so likeable that I would often find myself having to fast forward through almost entire episodes because they were too hard to watch. But yet I kept watching episode after episode. I guess I just like pain. That’s should have been their slogan. “The Comeback: The show for masochists”. I kept coming back though because it is a really great show. Lisa Kudrow did an absolutely outstanding job. And it gave some great and brutally honest insight into the acting world. I just don’t know who at HBO ever thought this would find an audience. It definitely has to be one of the least commercially viable shows ever to be put on the air. But props to HBO for doing so.

Lucky Louie:
-I know everyone in America and in the television criticism industry piled on this show and said it was the worst thing since Homeboys in Outer Space or whatever, but I really don’t see what the big deal was. Sure the acting was dreadful. Sure Louie C.K. made Jerry Seinfeld look like Laurence Olivier and Jerry Minor made Adrian Grenier look like Marlon Brando. And sure there was always the sense that the show wasn’t living up to its potential. And sure it was rarely laugh out loud funny. But I liked what they were trying to do. And there were some really smart moments. The characters were just regular folks like you almost never see on TV, and their problems were incredibly honest and true to life. It was like Seinfeld in the way as it dealt with flawed characters and the minutia of life, but only the minutia of life for a lower class working family instead of rich New Yorkers. And some of the episodes, like "Flowers for Kim", dealt with relationships as honestly as anything I’ve ever seen. But ultimately none of this really matters because it’s canceled and chances are you never saw it. And despite all its virtues it’s not really worth renting or seeking out. So just forget we ever had this conversation.

When the Levees Broke:
-As someone who has seen more than my fair share of documentaries I think I can safely say that this is the best and most important documentary of all time. It’s a big statement I know, but I don’t know what else to say about it. After seeing it, it only deepens my belief that Katrina is as big and important a tragedy as 9/11 and yet was not, and has not ever, been treated as such. Just watch this movie please. You’ll be glad you did.

Dane Cook: Vicious Circle:
-Watching Dane Cook is like stepping into some alternate universe.
See I barely know who Dane Cook is. If I fell on Dane Cook in the street I wouldn’t recognize him or care. I mean last I had heard of Dane Cook he was the fourth guy mentioned in the ads for Dave Attell’s Insomniac tour. And then I watch his stand up special and there’s like 10,000 people going insane over his every non-funny utterance. Its like theyre in some cult or something. They even have their own hand sign. It’s like some crazy world where Dane Cook is the most popular and talented man in existence. I mean he was getting a standing ovation after every line! And, here’s the key part, none of the lines were remotely funny. Who are all these people who like Dane Cook? Where did they come from? How did they get here? How, why and when did he get so popular? And for the love of God could someone please explain to me how anyone in their right mind could find him funny? With so much great standup out there how does this guy get two HBO shows in three months? I feel like I would be angry about this if I could at all comprehend it.

(By the way, if through some freak accident you have never seen Ellen DeGeneres: Here and Now, it’s currently available on HBO On Demand. I cannot urge you strongly enough to watch it. Other than Bigger and Blacker it is definitely the stand up special I quote most often. I would do the whole thing for you myself but Ellen’s delivery is like 60% of the humor. So watch it. Now.)

Wait ‘Til Next Year:
-This is the Cubs documentary that’s currently available and I encourage you to check it out. It’s really great, and that’s coming from someone who thinks the Cubs are the Antichrist. But seriously, if you’re anything like me you’ll cry (during the end of the ’84 collapse segment), you’ll laugh (at the old blind guy at the end because he’s probably going to die without ever seeing the Cubs win the World Series) and you’ll realize that you’re probably going straight to hell. I just have two other things to say on the matter: 1.) They kind of rushed over the ’03 saga which was one of the best memories of my life. 2.) While watching the documentary you may start to feel sorry for Cubs fans and that’s okay. It’s only human. But just don’t forget, there’s a reason the Cubs haven’t won in 98 years and that’s because the Cubs don’t deserve to win because they are a terrible team and their fans are terrible people. And yes I do take baseball a little too seriously, but we all already knew that didn’t we?

Three non-HBO shows:
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip:
- We can all agree to just call it simply Studio 60 now right?

- If you thought I wouldn’t have some comments about Studio 60 then you must have never met me. So here they are: I think it’s a great show. I really enjoy it. But it’s no West Wing. At least not yet. I don’t even know if it’s Sports Night, but that’s slightly unfair because this is the only Sorkin show I’ve ever had to wait a week for new episodes of. Not being able to watch the whole season on DVD in 3 days makes it feel harder to get into. Still though a late night TV show doesn’t have the same gravitas as the fate of the free world. And while we’re at it a late night TV show somehow doesn’t seem to have the gravitas as a cable sports program. Speaking of which…

-So it seems that complaining about the quality of the show within the show on Studio 60 has replaced complaining that Sam’s Town is no Born to Run as the new hipster pop culture complaint du jour. And I have to say I agree. Although I don’t know how much the poor quality of the show within the show actually bothers me and how much I’ve just been influenced to think that it bothers me. But nevertheless it is a problem. The show within the show on Sports Night was what a sports show in an ideal fantasy world would be like. The president on The West Wing was what the president in an ideal fantasy world would be like. The show within the show on Studio 60 is what a sketch comedy show on a third rate CBS would be like. And that’s a problem. But not as big a problem as…

-Amanda Peet, I have seen Allison Janney, and you my friend are no Allison Janney. Nor are you Felicity Huffman. Hell, you’re not even NiCole Robinson. In fact, you may be the worst actor to ever appear on a Sorkin show. And remember, Dule Hill was on The West Wing. If Studio 60 has a fatal flaw, Amanda Peet is definitely it. I just honestly can’t figure out how she got cast. I mean how could the man who wrote and perfectly cast six of the greatest female TV roles of all time (C.J. Cregg, Donna Moss, Ainsley Hayes, Dana Whitaker, Natalie Hurley, and, especially, Amy Gardner) possibly make such a huge mistake. On the bright side I can now do at least one really good celebrity impersonation. And so can you. Ill teach you how. Open your eyes wide, give the slightest of smiles humanly possible, and stare completely blankly ahead into space no matter what happens. There, you’re doing a spot on Amanda Peet! Congrats!

- If there was ever a network show that should probably be on HBO instead, Studio 60 is it. I’m already worried about its ratings. I’ve never gotten attached to a show that got canceled before, but really how in the hell does NBC think this is going to find a mass audience? The lighting alone should alienate like 3/4th of America. Does this show take place in the dark ages or something? And no I’m not complaining, I’m just saying.

-One of the strengths of Sorkin shows is how good all of the characters are. Every person on screen is somehow interesting and unique. On Studio 60 so far we have two outstanding hall of fame characters, one decent if slightly one dimensional character, and one good character with nothing to do. Everyone else kind of seems a bit like dead weight. And as outstanding as Bradley Whitford and Mathew Perry are, the show really suffers when they’re not on the screen. And I don’t know if the charisma and chemistry of two characters is enough to carry an entire show, especially one with a cast this size. Hopefully they’ll give Timothy Busfeld or Nate Cordry more to do soon. Or bring in Joshua Malina.

-After having Felicity Huffman in the pilot I’m praying they’ll bring in more people from previous Sorkin shows. Its not like they have a shortage of actors to choose from in that regard. I feel like if/when Janel Moloney ever pops up I might just wet myself. Wait, did I just admit to that out loud?

-And since it seems like I’ve been doing a lot of hating I do have to balance that out by saying that Mathew Perry is fucking FANtastic. He’s the Jeremy Piven of Studio 60. To take nothing away from Bradley Whitford, but Matthew Perry’s work is making his other “Friends” look like Peter Scolari to his Tom Hanks. Before all is said and done he might just be my new favorite person ever.

Greys Anatomy:
-Speaking of unappealing lead female characters…
Has there ever been a show before where the main character was the least likeable person in the cast? Meredith Grey isn’t just setting women back 50 years, she’s setting all of humanity back 50 years. It’s really just becoming embarrassing at this point. Plus now her face looks plastic. Literally plastic. I guess the mildly attractive version of E.T. look from last year just wasn’t working for her anymore. And no it’s not even remotely plausible at this point that two guys would be fighting over her. But whatever.

-Speaking of implausible….has there ever been a less believable couple than George and Callie? I mean, besides the fact that they’re completely incompatible and have absolutely no chemistry, she’s like three times his size. And when did George go from being likable to a mildly annoying whiner?

- I worry that the Friends syndrome is already starting to happen. And by that I mean that the characters are starting to become slightly one-dimensional caricatures of themselves. And don’t tell me you don’t already see it starting to slightly happen. From a cast that did such phenomenal work last season I would really hate to see it occur.

- To put this as nicely as possible: I don’t think Chris O’Donnell needs to worry about preparing an Emmy acceptance speech.

- They really should give Alex Chambers more to do. He seems like a really good actor, but it’s hard to tell because he’s being severely underused.

- Speaking of underused, can they hurry up and get Izzie back the hospital again? If there are Meredith guys and Izzie guys I’m 180% an Izzie guy. Of course, assuming that there are guys who are fans of either, assumes that there are straight guys other than myself who watch Greys Anatomy. And that might be assuming a little much.

The Daily Show:
-I don’t think anyone has ever tried to push anything that the American public was completely indifferent about as hard as The Daily Show is pushing John Oliver. I thought John Hodgeman was supposed to be the new Cordry? What happened to that? And where’s Demtri Martin? I mean I get excited now for a fucking Jason Jones piece. That’s how bad the correspondent situation has gotten. Seriously, nothing against John Oliver, but he’s just so mediocre it gets old seeing him every single night of your life.

-I think its about time to put an end to all this The Colbert Report is better than The Daily Show nonsense. Seriously what is with all you hipsters? Cut it out. You’re wrong. Sure The Daily Show is going through a bit of a rough patch, but The Colbert Report is not a very good show. You know what my reaction is when The Colbert Report comes on? “Time to go to sleep”. The other night I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep and wanted to keep watching TV after The Daily Show went off, and I was only able to watch The Colbert Report for about five minutes before changing the channel. I wound up watching a show about turtles. And I don’t even like turtles! So seriously people stop with all this Colbert Report nonesne. Colbert is a great and funny guy and his speech at the Correspondants Dinner was one of the greatest moments for comedy in my lifetime. But saying The Colbert Report is better than The Daily Show is like saying the news show on the public access station is better than CNN. I just hope The Colbert Report backlash starts soon.

And finally I think it’s worth noting that I finally took the plunge and now have in my possession Season 4 of The West Wing. I’m not even halfway through it yet but it’s thrilling to be back in the world of The West Wing again. I have a few parting thoughts on it:

-Winnie Cooper! Someone should have told me she was in this! And Amy Adams was in the first episode of the season as well! This show really has the greatest casting of all time. It’s unreal. I’m speechless.

-I would say something about how much I love Amy Gardner but I can’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me sound like an insane stalker. I think at this point its probably worth noting that Amy Gardner is a fictional character and that Mary Louise Parker isn’t actually like that. Or at least that’s what my therapist keeps trying to tell me. But still, if I ever run into Billy Crudup on the street it would be seriously hard for me to restrain myself from punching him in the face while yelling “Claire Danes!?! Claire fucking Danes!?!? Are you out of your goddamn mind!!!” I mean I know he was Russell Hammond and all but COME ON. Who the hell dumps Amy Gardner for Claire Danes? No one who doesn’t deserve to have their ass kicked that’s for sure. Maybe Ill scrounge up the money go see Coast of Utopia after all.

And speaking of intelligent women: here’s my new favorite quote courtesy of Bruno Gianelli: (in reference to female voters) “Anyone who has a five point majority and still doesn’t control the agenda might be spending a little too much time too much time reading about how to get a man to get over his fear of commitment.”
Amen to that brother. Sometimes I don’t know if I feel like such a feminist BECAUSE most of my friends are girls or DESPITE it.

Anyway, until next time, stay classy San Diego.


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) THE DEPARTED!!
2.) Did I mention The Departed yet?
3.) Time Out New York
3 & 1/2.) NetFlix

Thought of the Week:
If you were Patrick Wilson in Little Children how could you possibly choose between Jennifer Connelly and Kate Winslet? That like making Meryl Streep choose which child she wants to save and which one she wants to let die in Sophies Choice. I mean its just an impossibly hard choice.

Live Free or Die

As some of you may know, but as most of you probably don’t, "Live Free or Die" is the motto of New Hampshire. Although I think “We’re like Vermont only totally lame” was probably a close second when it came time to vote on the issue. But really you can’t be totally lame with an awesome state motto like that. Why do I bring this all up you ask? Because I like geography and want to educate you about our states? Well yes, but that’s not the main reason. Because I like random trivia and meaningless minutia about shit that doesn’t even remotely matter? Well yes, but that’s not it either. No, its because I recently came back from spending three weeks in apparently the newer of the two Hampshires. And by “recently” I mean “almost a month ago”.
So why has it taken me this long to update the journal you ask? (Boy, aren’t you full of questions today!) Well the answer is that I’ve been quite busy. And by quite busy I mean “not busy at all”. But better late then never I always say.
Actually I don’t know if I’ve ever said that before.
But I’m saying it today.
Or whatever day you’re reading this on.
Wow this is really off to a terrible start. You know what? I think I’m just gonna start typing in Spanish. I mean no one still reads this thing anyway. Reading Fred is like SO six months ago. Mi gusta tacos. Mis zaptaos es roja. Donde es el bano? Shakira.
……
Okay, now as a way to shed my few remaining readers who survived that, allow me to tell you a little about life on the road in New Hampshire.
Before I went to New Hampshire I used to always get it confused with Vermont. And when I would confuse them I would think, “well who cares, they’re basically the same place anyway”. This could not be further from the truth. Although they are a pair in many ways Vermont is FAR better than New Hampshire. New Hampshire is like the Garfunkle to Vermont’s Simon. The Alex Winter to its Keanu Reeves. The other guy in Wham! to its George Michael. Vermont is full of hippies, hipsters, and gay people. So basically it’s just like New York only in the mountains and beautiful. New Hampshire was full of motorcycle wearing hillbillies. When I was shopping at a New Hampshire area Wal-Mart there were so many rednecks there that I was literally in shock. And keep in mind I spent the fist 18 years of my life in Texas. I takes A LOT of rednecks to shock me. And I was shocked. Severely shocked. So that pretty much sums up New Hampshire. Rednecks, motorcycles, and shopping at Wal-Mart. Oh yeah, and vanity license plates. Can’t really explain that one. But whatever.

Enough about the state itself. What was it like to travel around it and bring the magic that it Shakespeare to its denizens? Well in all seriousness it was wonderful. But it also exposed me to a lot of things that I should never be exposed to for prolonged periods of time. Besides rednecks this list also includes the radio, free time, and other people. What follows are all the results of over exposure to all three. You have been warned.

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*There are few worse than riding in a car on a long road trip with people who have terrible taste in music. Perhaps the only thing worse is riding in a plane on a long rip with people who are snakes.

*If you have ever told someone that you are “really into independent music” then you might be a douche bag. Same goes double for anyone who is really into stage combat.

*“The Great Salt Lake” by Band of Horses is definitely the best song ever written about The Great Salt Lake. Somewhere, in whatever neighborhood in Brooklyn is trendy this week, Sufjan Stevens is very jealous.

*If you’re going on a road trip anytime soon might I suggest the Elizabethtown soundtrack as musical accompaniment? Shocking that it would make good road trip music, as it’s the soundtrack to a movie about a guy who takes a road trip. And yes I realize the term “guy” pretty loosely as I am in fact talking about Orlando Bloom.

*While we’re on the subject of Cameron Crowe I would just like to state for the record that comparing Singles to Reality Bites is like comparing Bio Dome to The Godfather.

*After being turned onto "Behind These Hazel Eyes" by my sister I think it is now safe to say that Max Martin and Kelly Clarkson are to pop music what Martin Scorsese and Robert DeNiro are to movies. And yes I did just say that.

*I’m feel pretty sure I might be going to hell for saying this, but that new Jessica Simpson song is pretty catchy isn’t it?

*I think it’s interesting now in the K-Fed era to consider the fact that Britney Spears’ biggest song was called “Hit Me Baby One More Time”

*On a more serious music note I have an apology of sorts to make. I know over the years I have made many, MANY jokes about Beyonce. And make no mistake I still hate her with a passion. But I now firmly believe that her and Jay-Z are the Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward of our time. I know Jay and B aren’t even married yet but if I had to wager on which current celebrity couple will still be together in 40 years I would put all my money on those two. And I’m basing all of this on a Rolling Stone interview I read with him, a 5 second clip of them on stage together from the Fade to Black DVD, and her new song "Déjà Vu". Granted that’s not much to go on, but yet I could not possibly feel more certain about this issue. Sometimes you can just tell. So I guess in a round about convoluted way that’s an apology of sorts for all the mean things I’ve ever said about Beyonce. So there.

*On an even more serious musk related note I present:
This Week’s Sign of the Apocalypse
or
Reason #2135 That We’re All Screwed
What the People Riding in My Car One Night Thought About the Following Radio Selections as Judged by Whether or Not They Changed the Station Immediately or Continued to Listen to Said Selection (A Side By Side Comparison)

Note: I swear I am not even remotely making this up. I only wish I was.

Not Worth Listening To
The Beatles
“Dani California” – The Chilli Peppers
“American Pie” – Don McLean
Marvin Gaye
The News

Worth Listening To
Natalie Imbruglia
“Dont Cha” – The Pussycat Dolls
Some electronica song that sounded like Satan vomiting
Cher
Two guys arguing about who left a porkchop on the coffee table

*I have never been more wrong about anything than when I said that Will Farrell was making a big mistake leaving SNL. And if you didn’t see Talladega Nights in theaters you really should have. It may have only been the second best NASCAR themed movie this summer, but any movie that can be good and still have John C. Reilly in it is a pretty good movie. Although I feel it won’t work nearly as well watching it on video at home by yourself. Still, if there were Oscars for comedy, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress would already be wrapped up tight by Will Farrell, Sasha Baron Cohen and Amy Adams.

*Speaking of Sasha Baron Cohen, I had never before gone from having absolutely no interest in seeing a movie to wanting to see it at the first showing the night it comes out in the span of 2 minutes before, until I saw the Borat trailer for the first time. I mean this looks like it has a more than good chance to enter the comedy pantheon with Holy Grail, The Jerk, Spinal Tap, The South Park Movie, and Wet Hot American Summer. It might be the funniest trailer of all time. Here, I’ll even provide a link so all you have to do is click on it. That’s how much I care about you seeing this trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq_fzdEk0r8
November 2006. Learn it, love it, live it.

*On the flip side I had the complete opposite reaction upon seeing the Tenacious D: Pick of Destiny trailer. My love affair with Tenacious D might prove to be VERY short lived.

*Why does Hal Ashby not get more respect? I mean outside of Coppola no director had a better or more consistent body of work in the 70’s. Harold and Maude, The Last Detail, Shampoo, Bound for Glory, Coming Home and Being There. Granted not exactly blockbuster mainstream films, but all of them classics in their own right and all of them except for Harold and Maude nominated for multiple Oscars. And then after those films, he died. Meaning he never made film that wasn’t a classic. He’s like the John Cazale of directors. And plus without Hal Ashby there would probably be no Wes Anderson. And without Wes Anderson there would be no Noah Baumbach. And without Noah Baumbach there would be no The Squid and the Whale. And without The Squid and the Whale there would be absolutely nothing redeeming about Laura Linney. So I think it’s about time we all gave Hal Ashby his due.

*And finally, the word the day: vituperative.
Does it even really matter what it means? It just sounds fucking cool to say. And sometimes thats all that matters.

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Thoughts had after coming BACK from New Hampshire That I Would Like to Share Now As Well:

*Has a movie ever made literally made zero dollars?
Well if one hasn’t the Apocalypto will be the first. I mean it s almost like the plot from The Producers come to life. Could you possibly come up with a less marketable movie than a movie with no stars, completely in Ancient Mayan, and written and directed by Mel Gibson? I honestly don’t think it would be humanly possible to come up with a movie the general public would less like to see. I think more people would buy tickets for Adolph Hitler Strangles Kitties at this point.
And if Apocalypto DOES somehow manage to make a single dollar, then Infamous is the next best bet to achieve the $0 total gross. All I can think is that this must have been the way it was pitched to the studios:

“If there’s one thing I know about the average American movie goer its just they cant get enough of Truman Capote. And Capote was such a smash hit that it left most Americans clamoring for a nearly identical movie to be released almost immediately! Only they wanted this version to be even gayer. Well their prayers are about to be answered answered. Now they can watch an inferior retelling of the events that Capote covered only with some dude they never heard of playing Capote AND they get to see him make out with Daniel Craig. Just what America has been waiting for!”

*You heard it here first: Eddie Murphy will be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Just trust me on this one. And I’m also gonna say that Helen Mirren is NOT going to win Best Actress. She’s peaking WAY too early. My money is still on Annette Benning. Not that you even remotely care about any of this.

*I already miss the World Cup.

*I think the time has come for me to weight in on the “What album of the past does Idlewild best compare to” debate. Now I’ve read the comparisons to Tusk and of course In Utero. And my roommate wisely compared it to “The Secret Life of Plants, only good”. And I have to say, although it seems like a cop out, it really is a little of all three.

*Where exactly did sexy go to? I was unaware that it had left. And is it just me, or was anyone else hoping "Sexyback" would was a song about the sex appeal of backs. I mean backs are highly underrated as far as the sexy goes.

*I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned my love of the movie Primary Colors before, so I will do that now. I love Primary Colors. It is not only one of my top 10 favorite movies it is probably the best political movie ever made. It is to political movies, what the Spitzer for Governor ads are to political ads. They just blow the competition out of the water. Primary Colors sheds light on the whole political system, provides hope and inspiration in these dark times, and makes me profoundly sad that I missed out on the Clinton years. And as an actor I love the movie too. Adrian Lester is great, I'd argue its Travolta’s best post-70s work, and Kathy Bates’ final confrontation scene is some of the best acting ever committed to film. And I say this as someone who generally thinks Kathy Bates sucks. But its really profoundly good work. So if I had to pitch the movie here’s what Id say- “Primary Colors: The move that shows what the best of politics and acting are all about”.

*If there’s anything I enjoy more than Primary Colors its cereal. And that being said let me just tell you that Strawberry Delight Frosted Mini-Wheats are the best thing to happen to cereal since Yogurt Burst Cheerios.

*I have much more to say about Bill Maher at a later date but I just wanted to throw this out there now: his guests for this week include both Pat Buchanan and Gloria Steinmen. I don’t think I’ve ever been literally scared to watch a TV show before.
You have been warned.
(And if you don’t think I have lots to say about Christopher Hitchens’ appearance on the show two weeks ago then clearly you don’t know me)

*And finally (for real this time)
As you should hopefully know, Chuck Klosterman’s new book Klosterman IV came out this past week and you should go pick up a copy. Ill share my thoughts on it later but since we’re on the topic of Bill Maher I thought I should direct you attention to an interview he did with Klosterman for Amazon.com.
Here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.com/Chuck-Klosterman-IV-Curious-Dangerous/dp/0743284887/ref=pd_sim_b_5/103-3147617-4613409?ie=UTF8

Some great points are raised of course:
1.) I swear to God I was going to write something similar about Britney vs. Christina myself
2.) So true about Lou Reed
3.) I think I side with both of them regarding the Rolling Stones if that’s possible.

But most importantly, after watching the interview, click on the link for his music recommendations. Read it not so much for the recommendations themselves but for how ridiculously well written they are. I guarantee you Dostoevsky couldn’t have written a list of music recommendations that well.

*Until next time…live free or die

Arbitrary Title

There is a long list of reasons why I havent updated the journal recently. This list begins with "Con" and ends with "Edison". And in between there are other non-electricty related reasons inlcuding "Being in a play" "Training for/starting a new job" and "Fighting with my landlord". And if all those things werent enough, Im now leaving for New Hampshire. Thats right, in case you didnt get the memo, Im leaving for three weeks to tour with the New England Shakespeare Festival. Tommorrow I leave for that theater mecca of Deerfield, New Hampshire and I will stay there until August 14th, pursuing fame, fortune, and probably scabies. I also hopefully will finally at long last be able to determine for myself which state is New Hampshire and which state is Vermont.


Im very excited.


But the point of this story as it relates to you is that I might be out of commission for a while. I know I will have internet access while on tour but I dont know if Ill have any time to write. Its a shame because I have a lot of things Id like to discuss with you in a semi-humorous and self important manner. But I dont know if this will be possible until after the 14th.


And whle Im on the subject (or not on the subject as the case may be) if you see anyone walking around in a Con Ed uniform, punch them in the face for me. Seriously, the Queens blackout made the transit strike seem like Christmas. Who is the head of Con Ed? Michael Brown? And let Bloomberg know he's lost my vote. If he can even run again that is.


Okay enough with that. On to the rejected columns.


What rejected columns you ask? The two I'm about to give you. They were two colums written for other sites but rejected by those sites and so now they end up here. Well one's more of a list than a column, but whatever. Theyre both rejects.

Anyway, If I dont talk to you again have a great early August. And Ill be back soon with great new stuff. I promise. (Wilmer Valderamma consider this your warning.)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
How The Name Of The Band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Would Be Different If It Had Been Named By Specific Other People

P. Diddy: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Remix)

Lil' Jon: Clap Your Hands Say YEEEEEAAAHH
Ice-T: Clap Your Hands Motherfucker

Dolly Parton: Clap Yalls Hands Say Ye-Haw

Phillip Glass: Clap Your Hands Clap Your Hands Clap Your Hands

Jewel: Clap These Hands Which Are Not Yours They Are My Own

Marilyn Manson: Chop Off Your Hands And Sacrifice Them To Satan

Sufjan Stevens: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!!! or The Strange Tale of the Moving Hands and the Resulant Exclaimations of Those People Involved

Prince: &

--------------------------------------------------------------
The Disembowelment of Our Heroes

A few short years ago we all experienced one of the greatest tragedies in our nation’s history. At the time we all agreed that Hollywood should never try to make the events of that day into a film. But now they have. And I for one say it’s too soon. The wounds are still too fresh. The emotions still too raw. And for some of us, like myself, the pain and grief such a film would cause would be too much to bear. Because I, like so many others, lost a loved one that day. My brother was aboard that flight. And it is in his name I say we must prevent Hollywood from tainting the memory of that day with the stain of commercialism. We must stop them from tarnishing the legacy of the heroes aboard that flight. We must stop their blasphemies and lies. We must stop Snakes on Plane.

See, lost in the hype about Snakes on a Plane is the fact that’s its just another in a long line of movies Hollywood has made to exploit and profit from real life tragedies. In that way it’s just like Schindlers List.

Only instead of Nazis there are snakes.

And instead of the Holocaust it’s an airplane.

But that doesn’t make it any less real. Or any less tragic. I mean those weren’t just an ethnically and culturally diverse group of stereotypical one-dimensional characters aboard that plane. They were real people. Real people who fought back against those snakes. And my brother was one of them.

He was a brave man. A noble man. A courageous man. A man who ultimately had his bleeding entrails ripped out of his body by motherfucking snakes. And he deserves better than to have his heroic deeds and good name sullied with the stain of Hollywood commercialism. We just can’t trust Hollywood to do his story justice. I mean, even though his last words he said to me over the phone were “I’m getting my entrails ripped out by motherfucking snakes” it is impossible and irresponsible to try and guess what happened aboard that fateful flight. But has that stopped Hollywood from doing so? No! They have no respect for anything. Look at their casting choices for example. Samuel L. Jackson? As a hero? Anyone who has ever seen a movie knows that black people can only be villains, drug dealers or wise all-knowing narrators. But a hero? I don’t buy it. And Julianna Margulies? She’s too closely associated with her unforgettable and iconic character from ER to ever be believed in another other role. Her presence in the film will surely shatter the audience’s suspension of disbelief. It’s a shame to see her agree to be in such garbage. O, how the mighty have fallen.

But alas, despite all of my qualms with the film Hollywood will not listen to me. So that is why I ask you to join me and boycott this exploitative film. Together we can make sure it never sees the light of day. Sure you can stand by and allow it to be released, but it’s a slippery slope my friend. Today its snake on a plane, tomorrow it’ll be hamsters in a Honda Civic. And soon no animal/form of transportation combination will be sacred. And the memories of all of our country’s greatest heroes will be forever tainted. So stand up against this exploitation and this shameless commercialism.

Don’t even think.

Just do it.

Rock Is Dead, Long Live Rock

Almost exactly a year ago I got Kanye West’s Late Registration. I remember listening to it for the first time late one night in the subway station after work. I still remember hearing "Heard ‘Em Say" for the first time and just being amazed. And then after it finished "Touch the Sky" came on and I was even more amazed. They sounded like nothing else I had ever heard before. So original, so fresh, so incredibly good. And as I sat there listening the realization hit me. Rock is dead. Kanye has killed it.

Another story: About a month ago Dave Chapelle’s Block Party came out on DVD. I had seen it in theaters but watching it again on DVD I felt a vibe I had missed the first time around. It reminded me of something; something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. The love and positive energy, yet passion and activism seemed familiar in some way. And then a few days later as I was rewatching No Direction Home I realized where I had seen that before. The rock festivals from the 60’s. Newport, Monterrey Pop, Woodstock. Only this was our generation’s version. The difference was that these weren’t rockers, they were rappers and hip-hop artists. And one of them was Kanye. But he wasn’t alone. He was part of a movement. Kanye hadn’t killed rock, hip-hop had.

Now people have been declaring rock dead since almost the minute rock was born. There’s the famous speech Lester Bangs gives William Miller in Almost Famous about how rock in its last throes. And that was set in 1975. But much like Cheney’s assertion that the Iraqi insurgence was in its last throes, reports of rock’s demise were greatly exaggerated. Now sure, rock’s golden age was done by the late 70’s. It was in a slow but steady age of decline. And there was a moment when disco legitimately threatened to killed it off entirely. But even at the height of disco - 1977 the year of Saturday Night Fever - great rock was still being made and consumed by the mainstream. That year saw the release of such classic rock albums as The Clash, Never Mind the Bollocks, Bat Out of Hell, Rumours, Marquee Moon, and My Aim is True. The next year traditional rock albums The Cars and Van Halen each sold more than 5 million copies and launched two major careers. That same year The Rolling Stones and Blondie took disco and successfully integrated into their sounds while still making hit music that was clearly “rock and roll”. Along with The Cars, Van Halen, and The Clash the late 70’s saw the emergence of a host of other iconic and groundbreaking rock acts including The Ramones, The Police, The Talking Heads, AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, The Sex Pistols and many more. And sure the 80’s have long been considered less than stellar years for rock, but hair metal dominated the early years of MTV and U2 was arguably the biggest musical act in the world. Sure there was Prince and Madonna and Michael Jackson but they were more isolated artists than part of any musical movement or trend. During all of these years when rock was supposedly “dead”, other than disco, (which even in its heyday was largely derided) nothing had come along to challenge rock’s supremacy as the dominant and most popular form of mainstream music. While people were declaring that rock was dead, there was still important, relevant, and groundbreaking music being made by rock artists and it was being played on the radio, consumed as part of the mainstream culture, and selling millions of copies. Rock was shooting off in different directions, but punk, post punk, grunge, and the like were keeping the soul and essence of rock alive and ensuring that it was still in some form the dominant force in mainstream music. It might not have been as good as it once was but it was still very much alive.

Fast forward to 2006. There is only one rock album in the top ten and only two in the top twenty. Of last year’s best selling albums, only two of the top ten were rock albums. This is better than the year before though, when only ONE of the top ten best selling albums was a rock album. Albums are doing better than singles though. Of the top ten songs on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart none of them are rock songs and of the top twenty only two are. This still is better than the Radio Airplay chart though, where none, NONE, of the top twenty songs are rock songs. This is probably largely due to the fact that there are less than twenty modern rock radio stations left in United States, including NONE in the nation’s largest market New York City. There are now more Tejano music stations than there are rock stations in the United States. And to make all of these numbers even more bleak, nearly 20% of all rock music sales over the past four years have been concentrated in the hands of four acts – Green Day, U2, Coldplay and The Killers. And Green Day and U2 are both comprised of guys over 40 years old. If rock today isn’t dead, I don’t know what dead is.

So after years of people crying wolf about rock’s demise, why is it now finally time to start actually crying? How did we get to this place? What happened?
Well, hip-hop happened.

Throughout history, art and music have grown and changed and evolved. And popular tastes have grown and changed and evolved right with them. Two hundred years ago, “classical” and opera were the dominant forms of popular music. Then it became big band and swing. And then Tin Pan Alley and crooners like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. And then rock and roll hit and somehow everyone thought that it was the be-all and end-all of popular music. That nothing would ever supplant it. But as anyone who knows anything about history and human nature could have told them, that was an absurdly ridiculous idea. Eventually something else would come along that would be more popular, and rock would fade into the background, becoming a popular form of music, but not THE popular form of music. Much like jazz or blues or country it would still be a vital music force with a large following, but it would not be the dominant type of music in term of sales, airplay and/or cultural significance. And sure enough that is exactly what has happened right before our very eyes. For 35 years rock reigned unchallenged at the head of the music table. Of course there was “pop”, but pop isn’t so much a type of music as a title to assign to music that has no “type”. Pop is after all simply short for “popular”. But then in the mid-90’s as the last real rock movement – grunge - was dying off, rap, the young upstart, started to pull even with rock in terms of sales and popularity. The mid-90’s for me were spent in junior high and if your junior high was anything like mine (Im sorry) then hip-hop was by FAR the preffered and most popular type of music. People that liked rock, at least in Texas, were seem as somewhat weird, and troubled. The first song I knew all the words to was "Ice Ice Baby" and I think its safe to say I am not alone in that regard. Nearly all of my junior high memories are attached to rap/R&B songs, as are, I would wager, most people’s my age. Whereas we associated rock with our parents, rap was OUR music. It had loads of profanity, violence, and graphic descriptions of sex. It was dangerous and rebellious. It was fresh and exciting. It was the common denominator in my ethnically and finically diverse junior high and high schools. Even the people who listened to rock were familiar with rap, whereas the inverse was definitely not true. And this is where Block Party comes in. Rap is a uniting force and a legitimate social movement like what rock was in its early days. And most importantly to our multi-cultural world today it is something that everyone can and does listen to. Not to generalize, but rock will never be fully embraced by the majority of black, Hispanic and other minority groups. It doesn’t speak to them like rap does, which is understandable. But white kids are all familiar with rap as it represents the rebellion, youthfulness, and good times that rock used to. And sure rap is largely seen as being about bling, blunts and bitches; but what is rock and roll linked to if not sex and drugs? And underneath both stereotypes there is much artistic relevancy in both types of music. This is where where rap has succeed where other challengers to rock's throne have failed.

For years rock was able to hold off rap because it was still far artistically superior. The playing field began to level out in the 90’s but rock was still able to produce important, classic, big selling works like Nevermind, OK Computer, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, Ten and countless others. But as the new millennium dawned, hip-hop began to take over. Since 1998 only twice has a rock album won the Pazz and Jop year end critics poll and one of those was an album deemed so uncommercial by its label that they refused to release it (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot). And the other one was by Bob Dylan. In that same span, a rap album has come in first four times. And in that same time period, only once has the first place single not been a rap song.

So clearly rap has caught rock artistically. But is it artistically superior? Well here’s where I start getting the angry letters, but I say yes. And this is where Kanye comes in to back me up.

First though let me say that in many ways rock is doing better artistically than it has in a very long time. In terms of the amount of exciting, fresh new music being produced, rock is quite healthy. But a closer examination tells a different story. For all this great music being produced how much of it isn’t clearly derivative of someone (or “someones”) else? But who is Outkast derivative of? Or Wu-Tang Clan? Or Kanye? And sure there are truly original rock bands, but how much are they selling? When was the last time you heard a rock song and thought simultaneously “I’ve never heard anything like this before” and “this song is gonna be a huge mainstream hit”. "Float On" and "Take Me Out" come to mind but not a whole lot else. But I got that feeling twice in the first two songs off Late Registration. And that’s just one album. So sure there is great original rock music being made, but if a tree falls in a forest and non one is around does it make a sound? Well not a sound like a tree in a crowded forest makes. And rap is that crowded forest. Kanye was not only nominated for the Album of the Year Grammy the past two years, and not only did both of those albums win the Pazz and Jop as the most critically acclaimed album of the year, but they both were among the best selling albums of their respective years. They both spawned multiple instant classic hit singles. They spanned ethnic, age, gender, and national boundaries. How many current rockers can say the same about their first two albums? And the past 10 years have seen the rise of countless artistically relevant rap superstars other than Kanye. Jay-Z, Eminem, Outkast, Missy Elliot, and Lauryn Hill could all legitimately be called superstars who also are among the very best at what they do. Name a rock act that has released their debut since 1996 about whom you could say the same thing. Coldplay and The White Stripes - that’s about it. And Coldplay has more haters than Kobe Bryant. (And don’t tell me The Strokes, because as great as they are I don’t know of a single person who bought their latest album. And if I as a 20-something living in New York City don’t know anyone who bought their album, then you can’t say that they are superstars by any stretch of the imagination.)

And that’s what’s most troubling about rock. While rap seems to be churning new stars out of the woodwork, rock has only been able to create two superstar bands in ten years. Most of the biggest bands in rock have been around since the 80s (U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers) or the early 90s (Pearl Jam, Green Day, Radiohead) and are getting old. And no one is coming along to replace them. And with rock radio dying out and record labels signing fewer and fewer rock acts every year, there’s little hope on the horizon.

So where is rock headed? Well it will never completely die. There will always be a market for rock and great rock songs will always find a place in the national consciousness. In the past few years rock bands like Evanescence, Fall Out Boy and The Killers have all released hugely successful CDs. (Although notably all of them have yet to release a follow-up). There will always be a market for rock and great rock music will still be being made when we are 80. But as rock’s old guard dies out something dies with it and that is its spirit. It gets me thinking that in our accelerated age maybe art forms only have a life span as long as their founders. Because in many ways rock has run out of places to go and has started to double back on itself and eat its young (or in this case its “old” I guess). If you need proof, look no further than the biggest rock song of the moment, "Dani California". It’s clearly a recycled version of Tom Petty’s "Mary Jane's Last Dance". Pretty much everyone agrees on this. Meanwhile look at the hottest hip-hop song of the moment “Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley. (And if you want to say it’s not a hip-hop song, well Cee-Lo is a rapper and Danger Mouse is exclusively a hip-hop producer so I fail to see how you could call it anything else) What other song in the world could you even remotely compare it to? None. When I listen to old rock albums from the 60s and 70s like Blonde on Blonde or Pet Sounds or Abbey Road or Dark Side of the Moon, I try to imagine what it must have been like to live back then and hear those albums for the first time and to have never heard anything like them before in your entire life. Well that’s what rap is like NOW. Listening to The Marshall Mathers LP or Speakerboxx/The Love Below or Late Registration for the first time recaptures what it must have felt like to listen to those classic rock albums of the 60s and 70s for the first time. And like rock back then, hip-hop is still young, and still has places to go. Like early rock, it has started incorporating other types of music. There is jazz/rap, soul/rap, disco/rap, techno/rap, country/rap and of course, rock/rap. Most things in rap today you can find equivalents or parallels for in the early days of rock (Speakerboxx/The Love Below is The White Album, Cee-Lo is Van Morrison, The Marshall Mathers LP is John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, etc.) Watching Block Party is like watching Woodstock. The sense of community, of passion, of being able to change the world is all there. All the things that rock stood for in its infancy can be found in rap today. I think its safe to say that rap IS rock from 30 years ago. Rock today may be dead, but hip-hop is just getting started. It is the new rock. It has picked up rock’s soul and made it its own. So mourn rock’s demise, but at the same time rise up your glass and gimme a cheer. “Rock is dead, long live rock!”


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) Smoothies
2.) Cee-Lo
3.) John Hodgeman
3 & 1/2.) Realizing that "Mr. Blue Sky" is a take off on Paul's part of "Day in the Life"

Thought of the Week:
Friday the 14th is the birthday of your favorite online journal author. You should buy him a present. Like a life.

Border Patrol

Note: Originally written for Dutchwest. And maybe the shortest thing ever posted here. Nevertheless, enjoy. Ill have something longer soon.

Border Patrol

I’ve been hearing a lot recently about the immigrant debate going in this country. Illegal immigrants are fighting for their rights while other people are fighting to get them out of our country. These people claim that the immigrants are stealing our jobs, using up our resources, and threatening our very way of life. And I must say I agree with them 100 percent. Like them, I think that a wall should be built along our border.
Because we must find a way to keep out all these fucking Canadians.

Sure they do jobs Americas don’t want to do, like play hockey, watch Blue Jays games and be Mike Myers. And sure some of them are fine people. But most of them are dirty, lazy Canucks

Not that this is a racial thing.

Because it isn’t…

Not in the least bit.

It’s just that these people aren’t true Americans. I mean what’s with that “eh” crap? If you want to live in America learn how to speak proper English already! And if it wasn’t bad enough that their music was taking over our airwaves (thanks Celine and Alanis), now I come to find out that they have their own version of The National Anthem. It’s called “Oh, Canada”. “Oh, Get Out Of My Country” is more like it!

And its not just Canadians that bother me either. It’s all immigrants of Anglo-Saxon heritage. The Welsh and the Australians are coming over here every day on their homemade rafts or as stowaways on cargo ships. And they’re all alike. They look the same, they talk the same, but yet when you call some guy “Canadian” he has to correct you and say, “actually I’m British”. Who cares? I mean like it really matters. What’s the difference anyway? They’re all fucking “sticky backs” in my eyes. (So named cuz of, you know, all the maple syrup in Canada.)

So listen up Canucks. There are three and only three things you’re good for:
- your incredibly sexy entertainers like Rachel McAdams, Neve Campbell, and John Candy
- your food and drink which consist of syrup, Labatt Blue, and apparently something called fiddleheads
- and your vaguely American seeming cities where underage Americans can go party, get drunk, and obtain illegal goods and services.

If you notice, nowhere on that list was “populate Vermont”. So get your dirty, syrupy, hockey-loving asses out of my country right now and don’t ever come back. Or as you would say in Canada, “get your dirty syrupy, hockey-loving asses out of my country right now and don’t ever come back, eh?”



Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week:
1.) HBO on Demand
2.) Lucky Louie
3.) British music magazines
3 & 1/2.) Astoria Park


Thought of the Week:
I know it might be called myspace, but somehow I dont feel a very strong sense of ownership about it.

Feast on Scraps II

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Stained Concrete

Hey, its an update! But I didnt actually write this one. But you should still be excited. Because its actually better than the drivel I churn out. Now, Im not going to make a habit out of posting other peoples stuff here, so dont send me the essay you wrote about your feelings on life or the sate of the world. Because I think we all know that I dont care. But, that being said, I wanted to post something this week that my good friend Lauren Morelli wrote awhile back for Vanity Fair's writing contest. The topic was something to the effect of "what's on the minds of America's youths". The results came out this week and her entry didnt win, probably because it was actually written by a member of America's youth (the three winners were all in their 30s. Yet another reason why you shouldnt let Graydon Carter judge writing.). Anyway, Ive had a copy of her essay on my hard drive foir a while and now that it wont be published by Vanity Fair I would hate to see her effort go for naught and her work go unread. And so I present it unto you. Enjoy.

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Stained Concrete

I had a panic attack this morning. I was on the subway, on my way to work, and it just happened. It started in my heart-- a twinge of disquiet-- and quickly spread towards my lungs and knees. No amount of deep breathing stopped the nausea from creeping up my neck. I began contemplating the reality of puking in a subway car, of being the person that my rush-hour companions would tell their husbands and friends about over dinner. “You won’t believe what happened on the subway this morning…” Or, perhaps worse, I will pass out onto the germ-ridden floor without anyone to protect me from the rush hour cattle call. I will be left, forgotten, trampled.

The ultimate miracle occurs. The car doors slam open and a voice of static sighs “66th Street- Lincoln Center.” The rush of victory floods my pores. I will make it to street level sans vomit!

This has become my public transportation ritual, this self-induced panicked frenzy. Every backpack carries a package of suspicion, each bump and delay in the ride speeds my pulse.

I had lived in New York City for exactly two weeks before two buildings came falling from the sky. I was eighteen-years-old, a legal adult who thought she was the pinnacle of maturity and was actually only a child. A banner was hung that read “We will never forget.” Four years later I still get chills every time the shadow of a plane covers me.

It was 1999 and I was sixteen. America watched in horror as two students killed twelve of their classmates and one teacher. Suddenly parents understood the magnitude of what their children endured everyday at school. We were so tortured, so abused by our peers, that we could be driven to murder. We were capable of hate. For teenagers across the country, alienation was no longer about the separatism that our parents’ generation had fought against. It was about money, clothes, and cliques. And you could die for choosing the wrong ones…or at least want to die. Parents clawed at the air, hoping to catch something, anything to blame. Music and videogames were offered as the obligatory sacrifice. Things are easier to accept if there’s a reason for it.

Perhaps we would be a different generation if we could turn our cheeks against the abhorrence at school and look outward instead, toward a common goal or promise held just out of reach. Instead though, I look out the window and face bombs and men being dragged behind trucks. I watch fellow Americans throw around hatred as if it were a favorite pastime. “Nigger.” “Faggot.” “Cunt.” These words are spat off tongues and left to pollute the air around my head. They fall like concrete onto the street and leave dark red stains that I will walk on tomorrow and the next day.

In our short lives we have already learned so much. We know that being with loved ones is more important to us than taking to the streets. We have taught ourselves to cling desperately to our families. We hold our friends close. And it’s not that we are selfish. It’s just that we honor every day as if it will be our last. Because you never know when a plane might land in a skyscraper. Or when a bomb will go off during your morning commute. Or if one of your classmates will bring a sawed-off shotgun to your 4th period class. In the 21st Century, you just never know.

We are not without hope. We celebrate individual triumphs instead of generational victories. We throw ourselves into SAT tests and advanced degrees with an all-encompassing ferociousness. And by god, we have succeeded. We play sports, pluck violins, speak five languages, and volunteer when we have time. We apply for jobs that will pay us less than a living wage but will make a difference to someone instead of making six-figures in corporate America. We work hard. We believe in ourselves.

What we don’t believe in is our immortality. We know first hand that you are no longer safe, not even in the great impervious land of America. We are vulnerable and tired of pretending otherwise. We know that no amount of protesting will stop a bomb stuffed with hate from exploding. And we are too smart to think that we will be the ones to stop a war, which doesn’t mean that we don’t have opinions about it.

The world that I grew up in doesn’t resemble the war-torn yet hope-infused environment of the 1960s. We are the reality generation. As a pre-teen, my mother forbade me from watching MTV. This, of course, goaded me into secret soirées in my father’s den where I could hide away with the VJs. It was during these stolen, sinful half-hour increments that I first met Julie, Kevin, Becky, Eric, Andre, Heather, and Norman. Known to some as the first cast of The Real World, I was lucky enough to count them as close, personal pretend friends. I was a decade old at the time and I could feel the immediate “longing-to-be-18” seep into my consciousness. If only I could dance like Julie and be self-important like Becky and get to flirt with Eric! The glamour! The fights! The unbearable reality of it all!

Now in its 16th season, the show continues to provide a much-needed escape for teenagers across the country. How far the distance is between The Real World and the real world, and how much we adore those thirty minutes that masquerade as real life. When it is all too much and we find ourselves becoming overwhelmed, we turn on MTV and wrap ourselves in the unreal Real World characters. We frolic in their perfect bodies and shocking behavior. We cavort with fake reality because real reality is just unbearable sometimes. We have found an unauthentic actuality, a method of escape from our actual hyper-reality. Why seek out the minimal war coverage when you can bask in the onslaught of celebrity news? Why listen to the violence outside when you can drown it out with videogame gunshots? Why should we deal with the pain when there is a constant morphine drip to soothe the sting?

I hadn’t heard about the bombings until I got to work. Reading the news, I could feel the blood fall through my body, spilling out through my palms and the bottoms of my feet. I felt weightless, open, quiet. I scoured the BBC website obsessively for the next few days, searching for answers, for a reason, just as the parents of America had six years before. And then I read the sentence that would irrevocably steal my youth. “This is our 9/11.” People shouted it: journalists, pedestrians, politicians. Anger filled the places in me that had felt so empty for days. How dare they? How dare they compare their loss to ours and assume to know what that day was for us? And then I realized it. The world was turning against itself, and I was at the front of the angry mob. My instinct had been to rank these horrific attacks—how dare I? Reality swept over me, as it never had before.
Please allow us our few indulgences. And understand that just because we are doing things differently, doing things our way, does not mean that we aren’t doing. Our generation is mourning the loss of a childhood. We lost our naiveté that day in September, so have patience with us. We do care. And we are worried. We aren’t indifferent. We aren’t lazy and self-absorbed. We are scared as hell. We’re just too caught up in our fear and panic attacks to mobilize right now. In the meantime, we will spend our evenings with friends and our weekends with family. We will take advantage of the daylight to work as hard as we are able and take pride in our effort. We will revel in every day. And we think you should too. It might do you some good.

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(Me again)
Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) The World Cup
2.) Being anti-text messaging
3.) Sam Adams
3 & 1/2.) "Baby Got Back" (cover) - Jonathan Coulton

Thought of the week:
"O gentlemen, the time of life is short;
To spend that shortness basely were too long"
-Big Willy

Thoughts on Music From the Last Year and Half, or, An Entry Slightly Longer Than the Average Sufjan Stevens Song Title

As you might have noticed, it’s June of 2006. As you also might have noticed, I never got around to doing my year in review for 2005. I don’t know how you have been able to live these past five months. This has made the wait for the Pazz and Jop results seem brief by comparison. And after all this wait will you finally get a full fledged year in review? No you will not. Because at this point that would be REALLY lame. Even lamer than having an online journal. Or still calling your blog an online journal. Yes, it would be THAT lame. So in place of that, I’ll give you my musings on music from the past year and a half. After all, I think I covered my views on the movies of 2005 pretty extensively back all my Oscar “coverage”. And besides movies and music what else is there?
Okay, I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear your answer to that question, as it was intended to be rhetorical ….

Thoughts on music January 2005 – June 2006
Say what you will about Odelay, but I think Guero is by far Beck’s best album. Listening to it one time made me go from not really “getting” Beck to paying money to see him in concert. That’s a good album. I still say "Girl" should have been the first single though.

(Of course no discussion of Beck would be complete without mentioning the fact that he once wrote and sang the immortal lyric “flashdance asspants”. A fact that still remains simultaneously the best and worst thing you can possibly say about Beck.)

After much scientific research I have concluded that Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm is the official soundtrack of sitting alone in a subway station in New York City at 2:30am both hyped with energy from a night of activity and falling asleep at the same time.

Kanye West, Rapper: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly:
The Good: “The rock stand tall and you aint never believe it / Take your diamonds and throw em up like you bulimic”
The Bad: “You tellin me if my grandma’s in the NBA / right now she’d be okay / but since she was just a secretary working for the church for 35 years things supposed to stop right here”
The Ugly: “Maya Angelou, Nikki Giovanni / turn one page and there’s my Mommy”

Memo to Kanye: Maybe I’m a little confused but it would seem to me that you are actually in fact saying that she’s a gold digger. But maybe it’s just me.

Did Common call his new album Be because it’s the de-facto B-side to Late Registration, or because he wants to be Kanye? Either way it’s a great album.

(Also after seeing John Legend on Real Time with Bill Maher I am only further convinced that the Kanye/Common/John Legend/etc. posse is by far the greatest hip-hop posse of all time.
Followed closely by The No Limit Family of course…)

I think we can all agree that the best lyric of the year is Jay-Z’s “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” In fact his whole verse on “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” is some of his best work ever. (Props to Nas’s verse on “We Major” while we’re at it) And since I’m on the subject of Jay-Z I think it’s worth mentioning that even though he’s dating Beyonce, I really love and respect the Jigga Man. His career has been amazingly long and consistent, especially considering that 50 Cent’s is already over. And after watching Jay-Z on Centerstage on YES (don’t ask) I even sort of understand the whole Beyonce thing.

(On a semi-related note I really think 50 Cent should open a sandwich shop called Gangsta Wraps. It would instantly become my favorite restaurant of all time.)

Has anyone ever sold out as completely and shamelessly as The Black Eyed Peas?
Yes I see you raising your hand Liz Phair…

Someone alert the Pulitzer committee – there’s a new Red Hot Chili Peppers album!
I kid because I love.
No but seriously, “Hump De Bump” really speaks to me lyrically.

With Stadium Arcadium the Chili Peppers have pulled off one of the hardest feats in all of music – making a double album that actually warrants being two discs long. That’s something that even The Beatles and Bob Dylan couldn’t really pull off. So congrats boys.

For anyone who thinks rock is dead (that would include me...but more on that some other time) listen to “Turn It Again” off Stadium Arcadium. I don’t know if it proves the rock isn’t quite dead yet or just that John Frusciante and Flea are perhaps the most underrated musicians of all time, but I do know that it’s a damn good song.

(I really think Flea and John Frusciante should team up with Bono and Tre Cool from Green Day to form the greatest rock super group of all time. They could rule the world!)

(On a less exciting Stadium Arcadium related note: sadly “Wet Sand” is not a sequel to “I Like Dirt”. But I guess it at least establishs that Anthony Kiedis does still enjoy soil-like substances.)

I cant verify this for sure but I have a sneaking feeling that the guys in Wolfmother might have possibly listened to some Led Zeppelin at some point in their lives.

Some reviewer somewhere described Thunder Lightning Strike by The Go! Team as the soundtrack to the best day of your life. I would say that is a perfect description. And if you haven’t heard “Ladyflash” yet, your life is not complete.

This has nothing to do with anything but were you aware that the Canadian nickel has a beaver on it? Just thought that was worth noting.

I don’t know what’s sadder - that the Best Buy on 5th Avenue didn’t carry Morph the Cat or that I’m under the age of 40 and I made a special trip to Best Buy to get a solo CD by one of the members of Steely Dan the morning it was released.

Does Jenny Lewis have a younger sister? If so, does anyone have her number?

Separated from all the hype and expectations X & Y isn’t as bad as you remember. It’s not great, but go back and listen to it again. You’ll be glad you did.

(Plus, besides being one of my personal favorite songs in a long time, “Fix You” really makes the whole Gwyneth / Chris Martin thing make perfect sense doesn’t it?)

Before I forget, how about a moment to discuss my favorite music related “thing” of ‘05 – Sufjan Stevens’ song titles. Much like the great !!! (Chk Chk Chk) problem of ’01, only not completely lame, we need to come to a consensus on how one should refer to specific Sufjan Stevens’ songs. Let’s take “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!” for example. Now if one wanted to tell their friend they should listen to this song how would they tell them the song’s name? Would they use the whole title? If so, how would they deal with the “Ahhhh”? Would that just consist of them yelling? Now the obvious answer would be that the person would just use the first part, “They Are Night Zombies!!”, but unlike Polyphonic Spree or Billy Corgan, Sufjan didn’t put the rest of the ridiculously long title in parenthesis, which means he considered the whole thing to be the title and not just the first part. And if one did disobey Sufjan’s intentions and just refer to it as “They Are Night Zombies!!” that still leaves the issue of the punctuation. Its clearly there for a reason, so does that mean that when saying the title out loud you must exclaim it? What if the location where you are telling your friend about this song is in a library? What then? And don’t even get me started on the problems raised by others songs like “The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders, Pt. I: The Great Frontier/Pt. II: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now” or “The Black Hawk War, or, How to Demolish an Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You’re Going to Have To Leave Now, or, ‘I Have Fought the Big Knives…’”. See why we really need to, as a nation, come to some sort of consensus about these.

(While we are talking about “They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!” I think its worth considering the fact that if that song title is accurate then that means that the zombies could clearly give Andre 3000 some sugar.)

I think its quite possible that when Sufjan gets around to making his album about Texas it will be the greatest album of all time. And I’m not just saying that because I’m from there. Which brings us to…
Top 3 & 1/2 Most Anticipated Sufjan Stevens Albums:
1.) Texas
2.) California
3.) New York
3 & 1/2.) Alaska

(Rumor has it his next one will be about Oregon which somehow feels completely appropriate)

(It’s been said many times but it bears repeating that the fact that Sufjan Stevens could make a graphic song about a serial killer (“John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”) both moving and somewhat sympathetic is a sign that he’s a ridiculous talented songwriter. I think equally impressive though is the fact that he could make the phrase “Stephen A. Douglas was a great debtor / Abraham Lincoln was the Great Emancipator” so catchy that it was stuck in my head for two days straight and there was absolutely nothing I could do to get it out. Oh no...I think by even typing it I just got it stuck in my head again…AHHH!)

I think its safe to say that “Come On! Feel the Illiniose!, Pt. I: The Worlds Columbian Exposition / Pt. II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In a Dream” is the best song ever written about the World’s Columbian Exposition and/or Carl Sandburg.

I couldn’t come up with anything clever to say about them, but they’re worth mentioning anyway: My Morning Jacket, Broken Social Scene, The Hold Steady

On to the awards…

Album of the Year 2005:
Late Registration – Kanye West. Although if you didn’t already know that then I wonder where exactly you spent your 2005. To take nothing away from Kanye but it was a pretty weak year for music overall. In fact you could make the case that although Late Registration was the best album of 2005, that it isn’t even the best Kanye West album from the last 24 months. College Dropout is better in almost every category: massive ubiquitous single (“Jesus Walks” over “Gold Digger”), 7+ minute song with spoken segment (“Last Call” over “We Major”), family song (“Family Business” over “Hey Mama”), number of hit songs, skits, etc., but somehow Late Registration just FEELS like the better album. College Dropout felt like a great commercial hip-hop album, but Late Registration feels like Outkast-level art. Its more adventurous, more socially conscious, less commercial and hit driven, and you can literally feel Jon Brion’s influence. After all, he’s “on the keys right now”.

(Does anyone else find Kanye’s apparent obsession with Fiona Apple a bit strange. And why has more not been made of the fact that Jon Brion produced the best rap album of the year and Mike Elizondo produced the best Fiona Apple album of the year? Am I the only one who thinks about these things? Probably.)

Single of the Year 2005:
I think we all know the best song of the year is “Since U Been Gone”. There’s really no point to even discussing this fact. I think the only real debate is: is it the best song of the decade? I don’t know if it’s quite on level with “Lose Yourself”, “Hey Ya”, and “Jesus Walks”, but the fact that it’s even in the discussion is pretty good. And the fact that a song by Kelly Clarkson might be the clubhouse leader for non-hip-hop single of the 00’s is pretty astounding. (See, told you rock is dead).

(On a side note, since this decade is almost half over can we figure out how to refer to it sometime soon? I mean are we really destined to be watching “I Love the Aughts: 3-D” in 10 years? Is that the best we can come up with?)

(I can’t mention singles of the year without also acknowledging “This Modern Love” by Bloc Party. I only wish Id written it first.)

(On the opposite end of the spectrum: “Laffy Taffy”, “My Humps”, “Had a Bad Day”, “Don’t Cha”.)

Most Underrated Album of 2005:
Almost as undebatable as Best Single of 2005, is Most Underrated Album of 2005. That tile indisputably belongs to Ben Folds for Songs for Silverman. It a huge leap forward and a radical and unexpected shift in tone and direction for a critically respected and commercially successful artist and yet it wasn’t in Rolling Stone or Spin’s Top 40 Albums of the year. I don’t understand how really. “Landed” is by far one of the best singles of the year and its probably not even one of the top two songs on its own album. Those would be “Late” and “Jesusland”. All of the songs, but especially those two, take simplicity and understatement to magical new places. Instead of wallowing in sentiment or taking a song about his daughter, or Jesus and the hypocrisy of his followers, or the death of Elliot Smith to the places 99% of artists would take them to, he scales them back to almost nothing, leaving unique, personal and deeply felt songs that are infinitely better for their stark minimalism. Listen to Ben talk about “Late” on the DVD that came with the CD and you can really grasp the song's brilliance. He didn’t even really know Elliot Smith but he enjoyed his music and had heard that he played a dirty game of basketball, so he wrote a song to him using that information and nothing more, and it’s one of the best tributes a person could receive. It’s only a shame Elliot isn’t around to hear it. Coming off his three EPs and, well, his whole prior ovure, hearing such grown up, stripped down, simple songs from Ben was starling and completely unexpected. And its only a shame more people didn’t hear it.

(You should also check out Ben's songs from the Over The Hedge soundtrack. Although its what Jeff Daniels' character from The Squid and the Whale would call "minor Folds", it's still worth checking out. Although the less said about the "Rockin the Suburbs" remix with William Shatner the better.)


Top 3 & 1/2 of the Week
1.) No Direction Home
2.) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium (album)
3.) Quiznos
3 & 1/2.) Tenacious D – “Wonderboy” (why I am the last person on earth to get into Tenacious D, and how come no one exposed me to them sooner?)

Thought of the Week:
Apparently Mike Nichols is directing Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts in a film written by Aaron Sorkin, and Spike Jonze is directing an adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are written by Dave Eggers. It’s hard to know which project to be more excited about.