Mary-Louise + Costello = Healing

Elvis Costello turning the table on his Sundance Spectacle show: he's the one being interviewed this time and by no other than Mary-Louise Parker.   Mary-Louise is a Costello fan?  I didn't think I could be more infatuated with her but apparently I can.  I do believe that I'll head to NYC right now and start my new career as her personal stalker (I hope the position is open).  I didn't know Mary-Louise was a music journalist in addition to her award winning stage and screen talents.  She writes a semi-regular column for Esquire.  I'll be checking out her work at once!  And we share the same favorite Elvis album (Imperial Bedroom).  The close up of her swaying to Elvis singing Town Cryer is almost enough to make me ... well, I'm only human (and I think I'm Turning Japanese, I really think so ...)

I needed this shot in the arm.  Because apparently other shots in the arm I've received were a bit less than effective.  Specifically, I refer to the flu shots I got in August and again in November, both received while in the depths of the flu.  The end of February and I've been knocked out with influenza once again, just now climbing out of the shit tank.  Perhaps I should have gotten an anti-flu shot instead or at least one that lasts more than a few days. Thanks, Dr. Nick!  I can't wait for spring to get here.  As one who hates the sunshine and flowers, I never thought I'd hear myself saying that but there it is.  Say goodbye to sickness and snow.   He says with another half foot of snow on the way tomorrow ...

In the meantime, I'll throw Imperial Bedroom on the stereo and a re-run of Weeds on the screen and veg myself to sleep in my recliner ...

All Play and No Work makes for a Confused Boy

Saturday. January 16th, 2010.  High noon.  I left the safety of full-time employment yesterday to dip my toes back into the world of consulting, this time as an independent.  I've had a lot of folks asking if I'd been laid off but in fact it was quite the contrary: my now-former employer is looking for and hiring technology folks with my skill set pretty extensively these days and were thoroughly disappointed to see me leave.  The follow-up questions are the same once folks hear I left of my own accord without a guaranteed job and with the national unemployment rate still hovering around 10%:

• So why'd ya do it?  Life's too short.  Enough said.   
• In this economy?  I'm lucky in that the market's pretty active for my particular niche and I have several interesting consulting engagement possibilities on the horizon as well as a couple short-term gigs in the bag.
  
• Are you insane?  Yes, on multiple levels.   
• What you did is like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane and then searching the sky for a parachute on the way down.  That's not really a question and the analogy isn't completely apt.  From my perspective, this particular aircraft has major structural defects and several of my fellow passengers look disturbingly dangerous (in fact, so does most of the crew).  That said, I do have a standing offer to climb back into this particular plane if I so choose.  Besides, the sky seems filled with functioning chutes I can reach out and touch.

So I'll be okay.  And I feel a giddy sense of freedom.  But I also feel a bit empty today.  I tend to be a workaholic and am going through withdrawal as I take the rest of the month off.  I need a fix or something that'll take my mind off this "no work and all play" thing staring me in the face.  Books, movies, exercise, withdrawing all my savings and going to Atlantic City, coming up with a sure-fire get-rich business plan, writing a novel, fixing up the house to sell.  All are possibilities I've contemplated.  My A.D.D keeps getting in the way of going further.

Perhaps baby steps are in order.  Finish reading the six books I've started over the past several months. Watch at least a few of the flicks that sit untouched on the DVR or in unwrapped DVD/Blu-Ray cases next to the tube. Writing?  How 'bout I write a whole short story instead of the fragments/"moments" I've churned out to date before tackling my War and Peace tome?  Just a thought.  Fix up the house?  I did call a roofer, who'll be here Monday for an estimate.  That's a start.  And I did go for a run just a bit ago to (try and) make up for the Girl Scout cookies I bought - and ate - this morning.   The kid at the door was adorable and I was hungry.  Now my feet hurt from the run and the downside of the earlier sugar rush is catching up with me.  But one run does not my "regular exercise" New Year's Resolution make.  So why not devise a daily regiment?

Things to ponder.  Meanwhile, I've been catching up with some music.

Elvis Costello at Hollywood High came out on CD/MP3 this week and I'm loving it.  Recorded in 1978, it catches Costello and the Attractions at the height of their craft.  They were a great live band and this is grand evidence of that fact.  I also picked up Graham Parker and the Rumour live in San Francisco 1979 which was likewise recently released (last month).  Parker and company are equally wonderful. Perhaps I'm showing my age just a bit, but the best of first generation punk and new wave circa 1976 - 1979 is likely my favorite era in music, certainly the best of the eras I experienced first hand as a music consumer (the heart of the "60's era" roughly book-ended around 1964 - 1968 is my other fav period but I was just a toddler then and only later enjoyed the tuneage in reruns).

Well, this post has been meandering, unfunny, and thoroughly boring.  Not altogether to be unexpected given my track record, but it's sub-par even when compared to that.  Better luck next time, dear reader.

And so I'm off for the evening, fighting a cold - a parting gift from my employer - while flipping between play-off football and Closer, one of my fav flicks of the 00's (I discovered it today sitting there in my DVR fresh from a recording off IFC earlier in the week).  Ahh, Leon's sweet young Mathilda all grown up.  Natalie's just a notch down from my all-time pantheon of Hollywood crushes but climbs higher every year.  She took a big leap up with the one-two punch of Closer and Garden State stuck in the middle of the "Noughties" decade.

And so it is
Just like you said it should be
We'll both forget the breeze
Most of the time
And so it is
The colder water
The blower's daughter
The pupil in denial
I can't take my eyes off of you ... I can't take my mind off of you ...

'Why so Serious, Son? Let me put a Smile on that Face of Yours!'

I figured that I should slip in a somewhat more coherent post in the midst of my goofy drivel.

I'm sure those inane attempts at satire or slapstick are likely positively confusing and confounding to those that aren't familiar with my particular sense of 'humor' (which I fully understand might not qualify as such to many).

I figured if anyone happened upon this blog and were either confused, bored silly, or offended by any of my scribblings, they've long since gone away never to return.

Then I said to myself, 'Well, there are likely a lot of masochists out there in the wide, wide web of sports. Maybe they stuck around. And I don't know their safety words.'

So, for you all ...

Know that my literary gods are Hunter Thompson and Lester Bangs and I regularly rip off both of them in equal measure as they spin uncontrollably in their graves.
[I have quit attempting to emulate their extra curricular activities once I figured out that a.) those things did not, contrary to popular belief, fuel their writing and b.) I might like to stick around on the planet a few more years and maybe even write a little if only for my own amusement.]

That should frame pretty much anything I write. Be forewarned.

I also admire (and therefore attempt to steal from every chance I get) a number of other writers F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Kennedy Toole, Chuck Klosterman, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Maureen Dowd, Joseph Heller, Kirsten Bakis, Truman Capote, Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Tom Wolfe, John Irving, Martin Fowler, Bob Woodward, Joseph Conrad, Samuel Clemens, James Frey and Ralph Ellison come to mind. Some of these guys are very prolific but several only popped to the surface with one or two amazing pieces of work.

From the world of screenwriting, I'd add to the list David Mamet, Diablo Cody (Juno is the start of something special I think), Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Wilder, the Cohen Brothers and Woody Allen. And the Marx Brothers. And Orson Welles.

From the world of TV writing: Larry David, all the writers associated with the Simpsons through the 1990s, Michael O'Donoghue, Tiny Fey, Christopher Titus, John Stewart, David Chase. And Chris Carter, David Lynch (Twin Peaks! Yeah, he's done movies too, but ...), Ernie Kovacs, and Danny Arnold. And perhaps most especially Rod Serling.

From the world of music specifically as it relates to their words, see Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Liz Phair, Velvet Underground (Lou Reed), Clash and Gang of Four.

Why list all these folks?

In the spirit of full disclosure.

Disclosure of what for godsake!?!?

Disclosure that I'm a thief and a sponge (an absorbent crook). The Depends of Bloggers. Somebody else's Depends. Get the picture? No, not that one. Don't be so literal - the analogy. Geez.

Oh, and speaking of crooks, I forgot one of my biggest 'influences': Richard M. Nixon. The biggest Dick the world has ever known. I'm sure he's looking up at us now and smiling. Throw another log on the fire, Beelzebub, looks like Dick is gettin' chilly!

Anyway, primarily a thief. In case you vaguely recognize something but it just doesn't seem right - like maybe it might be an overripe version of something from someone of note but that it's now past its expiration date and there's a faint odor emanating from the general direction of your browser.

So, primarily a thief and not to be taken seriously. Or taken at all.

I relate perhaps most of all to that Groucho Marx line, "I would never want to belong to a club that would have someone like me as a member."

Finally, Congrats to the newest Supreme Court Associate Justice, Sonia Sotomayor! Here's hoping that Scalia and Thomas for some reason opt for early retirement in the next couple of years. And Roberts, isn't it time you left? Come on, it's been over three and half years now!

Seventeen Years Past Due for "Carousel"

iPod Random Shuffle - 8pm on a Sunday. Only a couple of songs recorded in the last 20 years and very few artists that debuted after 1985 (actually, very few after 1979). God I'm a fossil.

• Sulphur to Sugarcane - Elvis Costello
• Rain - Beatles
• London Calling - Clash
• 5ive Gears in Reverse - Elvis Costello
• I Love a man in Uniform - Gang of Four
• Live Through This (are we there yet?) - Groovelily
• Dancing Queen - ABBA
  
• Galileo - Indigo Girls
• Please Mister Postman - Beatles
• Sixty Eight Guns - The Alarm
• Los Angeles - X
  
• The Boys of Summer - Don Henley
• Sleeping with the Television On - Billy Joel
• Backstreets - Bruce Springsteen
• Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival
• The Blower's Daughter - Damien Rice
• That's Entertainment - The Jam
• I Melt with You - Modern English
• Private Idaho - B-52s
  
• Dress Rehearsal Rag - Leonard Cohen
• Pale Blue Eyes - Velvet Underground
• Desolation Row - Bob Dylan
• Soul Corruption - Graham Parker
• You cannot Win (if you do not Play) - Steve Forbert
• New York, New York - Nina Hagen
• Gimme Shelter - Rolling Stones
• Gloomy Sunday - Billie Holiday
• God - John Lennon
  
• Parting Gift - Fiona Apple
• Heroin - Velvet Underground
• Suzanne - Leonard Cohen

I realized that I was getting very old after I strained my back into the second mile of what I thought would be a relaxing jog on a mild summer evening. Christ, my body is falling apart, I thought - just a few weeks shy of 47 years. It's the new 27, though, right? Right? Who I am kidding? I'm not jogging, I'm running from the sandmen. When I finally limped up the stairs into the house, I shuffled back through the songs I'd been listening to and it only confirmed what my body had been saying: dinosaur. I couldn't even tell you what passes as 21st century popular, or cutting edge or even shitty music these days.

Gosh - quarter to 9 - almost time to put my dentures in the glass for the evening and tuck into bed ...

And enough entries into this #!)# blog, for crying out loud. You won't have anything left to scream into your pillow.

Anyway, bedtime for bonzo,

Yours truly,
Dorian Gray