FORTY TWO

This is pretty wild -- a homage to the number 42 and its appearances here there and everywhere...

Oh yeah, the blog is in Frenchy, so you might need a translator...

The guys get shirts...

Once and a while you get a great glimpse into the giant egos of "stars" -- here's a glimpse into the dark side of the immortal Paul Anka.

There is also a good clip of Buddy Rich doing a similar thing to his band on their tour bus, but I can't find a link to it...

Warning: course language...

"That's just the way it is"

Update: I found the Buddy Rich clips -- he makes Anka look like a rank amateur ranter...

Dock of the Boggs 

All you good time people...

So what are the odds of landing in a new job where your workmates just happen to spin Doc Boggs tunes to keep themselves in a peaceful state of mind? I figure the odds are about 5,000 to 1.

Last week I walked out of my office to the strains of "Country Blues" -- with my co-workers adding their best Boggs-voices to the song every time "good time people" was delivered by 'ole Dock. I almost fainted.

I spent almost eight years at my previous gig just getting the folks there to not poke their heads into my office and make contorted faces when I put Dock in the office airways... now I have a gig where the cohabitants freely listen to Dock of their own will and completely independent of my prompting.

I knew this gig was meant to be mine. If anything proves it, Dock Boggs music does.

Wilder is better

Took a couple hours out of my Sunday afternoon to watch Billy Wilder's masterful Sunset Blvd. for the first time. It was spectacular.

I like several of Wilder's better known films, but this is clearly his best effort. On countless occasions throughout the film, I found myself unsuspectingly laughing at humor so subtle that I wasn't sure if it was intended.

I know that most movie critics consider Sunset Blvd. to be film noir, but I think it actually has more akin to his film, The Apartment -- albeit Jack Lemmon is trolling for laughs in that film, where William Holden relies more upon the absurdity of the situation to deliver the yuks.

I've seen it called satire and I think that may nail it.

And I have to say, Erich Von Stroheim ("The man you love to hate") is mega-eccentric as the film director turned husband turned servant -- who dreamed up that career path? Classic stuff.

Gloria Swanson turns in what has to be considered as simple one of the best leading actress performances, EVER.

I think this film is ripe for a quality remake, maybe with a modern twist -- I think maybe Robert Altman could do it justice.

My little speed demon

A bit of bragging is in order today as my daughter had quite the track meet last night -- she took the defending state 400m champion to the wall in a virtual dead heat and was dominating in her other sprinting events...

Bonner County Daily Bee

Dark City

I watched Robert Ebert's commentary on the film "Dark City" today and it reminded me why I found the movie so intriguing when I first saw it.

Made in 1998, the film presaged many of the elements used in the similar film "The Matrix" in 1999. Both are stories about humanity being controlled by unseen and unknown (to most, but not all) jailers -- in The Matrix the prison is the human mind, in Dark City it is a planetoid.

Both films make extensive use of rain, green tinting and fetishistic attire to convey an artificial feeling. Both films have a hero that possesses qualities that can interfere with the plans of their oppressors -- qualities that the oppressors possess, as well.

The main difference is The Matrix's directors decided to use an ultra-modern mileiu and the Dark City director used a noir 1940s setting.

The similarities between the two films are striking, so much so that many Dark City diehards were calling The Matrix a ripoff the 1998 film. Ebert said he believed Dark City was going to be seen as one of the most important and influential science fiction films ever -- he would've probably been right had The Matrix not come along a year later and garnered all the praise for being visionary.

Myself, I see visionary qualities in both films, but the use of stylized futuristic combat fx in The Matrix propelled it into a higher class than Dark City. Still, Dark City is a very sharp and deliberate film and I recommend it highly for those Matrix fans that haven't seen it...

The good doctor... 

Gonzo from a cannon

I read earlier this week that the writer who influenced my writing the most would be shot from a cannon -- well, his ashes will be shot from a cannon...

I really can't say that it is at all shocking to me. What amazes me is the size of the cannon they are going to use -- it's going to be part of a 53-foot structure... Oh mama...

It took me a bit to get over Hunter Thompson's death, especially when I mulled over the influence he had/has on my own writing. My commitment to first-person voicing and the value of personal experience would never be without the Gonzo roadmap. Anyone who ever read my old column, Twang!, should be able to see the bare evidence.

So I wrote this following piece for Hunter:

4HST
If the time to resist is past
and
Gunbarrels are glinting hollow locks
to be
Opened by the will to cheat God
while
All the while
drawing conclusions
that
There aren't any more crusades
no more
Fear
No more
Loathing
no more
Words doing cartwheels
Everything I make is in
debt...
It took me two minutes to
pen this
It took me two weeks to
sit here,
however

3/14/05

Supersuckers, take me away...

I'm glad I got an infusion of rambunctiousness from The Supersuckers last night, lest I wouldn't survive the media gulag of the next 24 hours -- so far in the least hour and a half I've fielded seven calls from reporters, with a TV interview coming up in a half-hour.

Thank you Ward Churchill.

Anyhow, back to The Supersuckers, a.k.a. The World's Greatest Rock and Roll band.

You know, they were in the ballpark of living up to that self-proclaimed title last night, as Eddie and the boys really ripped it up in their Spokane show opening for The Rev. Horton Heat -- who wasn't too shabby hisself...

I can tell you this with certainty now, psychobilly is The Devil's music -- it makes people do insane things, like treat other people like a stripper's pole... Midway through one of The Supersuckers' numbers I found myself crushed up against the railing I was leaning on with a psychobilly grrrl grinding all over my backside -- naughty grrrl even snuck in a quick grab of my posterior and then without a word melded off back into the crowd.

Such is the life of a Tip-Top Daddy like me, I guess...heheh...

Anyhow, who could ask any more from a Rock and Roll show? Supersuckers, The Rev and low-level sexual assault...

The never ending Churchill...

As I am 20 minutes from going on TV yet again as the EWU/Ward Churchill saga drags ever on, I thought that maybe I might direct the TV reporter to this article and have him ask Churchill about the thoughts therein when the Wardster holds media court here at EWU on Tuesday...