Posts
It's fall, and this is when I thrive creatively; and an important part of it is the music that feeds the autumn vibe. Here are 10 songs that are floating my boat at the moment:
10. One and Only ~ Teitur
9. Change in My Life ~ John Pagano
The version I love has embedding disabled, so I've linked it above. But here's a better than expected version by those pesky Tulsans Hanson.
8. Volcano ~ Damien Rice
7. Even If It Breaks Your Heart ~ Will Hoge
6. God Only Knows ~ Lyle Lovett
5. Could Have Been You ~ Joss Stone
4. Soul Cake ~ Sting
3. Haven't Met You Yet ~ Michael Bublé
2. Hey, Soul Sister ~ Train
1. Hallelujah ~ Damien Rice
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Make Me Laugh Monday (Innaugural Edition)
And this did. Enjoy it, then watch it again and think, just for a second, how long this had to have taken to put together. As impressive as it is silly.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
So There Are Others...
I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me - so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught.
~Georgia O'Keeffe
Monday, October 5, 2009
I Miss Michael More Now Than I Did Four Minutes Ago...
The subtitles aren't real, I mean, obviously there are subtitles, but they're meant as a phonetic joke.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Little Packages
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Know Your Audience
or
What the Hell Do I Know?
It doesn't take a webbot to figure out that I don't post too very often. What the webbot can't figure out is why I don't post too very often. It's my blog and even I can't answer that. It probably has something to do with my own over-editing and a reluctance to put something, anything, out here that isn't what I consider worthy of bothering other people with.
Years ago, eons before blogs, back when I was borrowing her Brother word processor to type up some of my stuff at her Apartment in the Shadow of the Golden Fried Chicken, Gert described this reluctance to me, as she saw it, like this:
"You're so worried about leaving any trace of proof for posterity that every single thing that ever came out of you wasn't Joe Perfect and it's a shame. You need to get over that."
As is usually the case when it comes to figuring me out, she was right. And that was YEARS ago. And as is usually the case when it comes to working my own wrinkles out, I haven't gotten much better.
But here's a good example of why I finally should just knock it off and stop being so damn me about it. I checked my sitemeter earlier today and found some very interesting stats. Now, I'm a stat rat at heart, so I love this shit, and what I found, I guess, surprised me; though I'm not sure what I was expecting to find.
By leaps and bounds, by an overwelming margin, by, like, a 20 to 1 ratio, the most popular post of all time here on Some Things is....this silly thing.
A little ditty I threw up here without much thought, and more to be able to crow about the victory that was fixing that damn shower. Gert and I had been vice-grip dependent in the shower for far too long at that point for me to not shout its success from the blogtops.
Now, I realize that people are not going back to this post because of the prose. It probably pops up when you search 'shower stems', 'shower handles', 'shower stem socket wrench' and/or 'hardware stores', who knows? And if the people of the interwebnets come looking for step-by-step, Bob Villa-style help, I know they leave disappointed, but, maybe not. Nah, probably they do.
So, true believers, the lesson today (for me, here) is to "...(d)on't think Meat, just throw."
Years ago, eons before blogs, back when I was borrowing her Brother word processor to type up some of my stuff at her Apartment in the Shadow of the Golden Fried Chicken, Gert described this reluctance to me, as she saw it, like this:
"You're so worried about leaving any trace of proof for posterity that every single thing that ever came out of you wasn't Joe Perfect and it's a shame. You need to get over that."
As is usually the case when it comes to figuring me out, she was right. And that was YEARS ago. And as is usually the case when it comes to working my own wrinkles out, I haven't gotten much better.
But here's a good example of why I finally should just knock it off and stop being so damn me about it. I checked my sitemeter earlier today and found some very interesting stats. Now, I'm a stat rat at heart, so I love this shit, and what I found, I guess, surprised me; though I'm not sure what I was expecting to find.
By leaps and bounds, by an overwelming margin, by, like, a 20 to 1 ratio, the most popular post of all time here on Some Things is....this silly thing.
A little ditty I threw up here without much thought, and more to be able to crow about the victory that was fixing that damn shower. Gert and I had been vice-grip dependent in the shower for far too long at that point for me to not shout its success from the blogtops.
Now, I realize that people are not going back to this post because of the prose. It probably pops up when you search 'shower stems', 'shower handles', 'shower stem socket wrench' and/or 'hardware stores', who knows? And if the people of the interwebnets come looking for step-by-step, Bob Villa-style help, I know they leave disappointed, but, maybe not. Nah, probably they do.
So, true believers, the lesson today (for me, here) is to "...(d)on't think Meat, just throw."
Saturday, September 12, 2009
A Hot Time In The Old Town Tonight...
God Bless Gert and all the things she has done and sacrificed for This Year of Betterment and Future Planning.
Anyone believing that this has been a vacation year wherein she has eschewed all previous responsibilities and connections is so far off the mark, Pluto must still be a planet in their universe.
I had the experience of enlightenment tonight of exactly the toll exacted by what Gert has to deal with on a weekly basis, and it isn't pretty. And it certainly isn't easy.
Being a fly on this rough and tumble wall tonight was, as I said, enlightening. Not in the sense that I didn't believe or give credit for all that Gert had previously explained to me as the goings on at The War Bar. And believe me kids, it is-a-war-bar.
Everyone in this small, aptly described, batshitcrazy town, has a metropolitan sized amount of baggage that they bring through the buzzer-protected door each night. And every bit of that baggage goes through the same HomeTown Security shitass detector each time they hunker down at this warring bar; and they come packin'-each and every one of them. Each with their own specific and age-worn reasons for their hair triggers. And each has a reason to make sure everyone know 'why' they carry their own specific torch, if the assembled doesn't already know. Or worse, thinks they know.
Tonight I looked at the people she rightfully loves and I looked at the people that she rightfully loathes and not one of them, in my estimation, are worth one ounce of the heartache she has endured in This Year of Betterment and Future Planning-but the point is, is that she hasn't suffered any of these fools for their own sake-she has embraced each and every one of them as The Necessary Means To The Ultimate End. Nothing More, Nothing Less.
Sadly though, they have invaded that wide-open heart of hers of which we have all been beneficiaries. And their topical fleecing of her giving nature has, and continues to, strip her reserves of basic human tolerances and energies.
And the ones who presume to think they know her, I mean KNOW her, like WE know her, are the most aggregious offenders of them all.
After what I saw tonight, God Bless Gert Further, and To Hell With Them. All of them.
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Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Streisand-Sharpton Principle
No matter what side of the argument you are on, you always find people on your side that you wish were on the other.
-- Jascha Heifetz
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-- Jascha Heifetz
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Friday, August 14, 2009
Nice Work If You Can Get It...orHow I Spent My Wednesday...
This is one of the perks of being a Location Scout/Manager; quite often, I get to go see pretty places and take pictures.
Wednesday, I got to take a tour of the Northwestern and Western parts of our great state at the request of an ad agency from New Mexico that will be filming a commercial here soon. First up on the list was The Glass (or Gloss) Mountains near Fairview.
Nothing I can type here will enhance these photos, really (not because of my skill as a photographer, mind you, but because, well...this time, nature wins out). If you have any questions about any of these, ask me in the comments, and I'll gladly answer them.
Afterwards, I headed west then south to The Black Kettle National Grassland (taken care of by the United States Department of Agriculture) near Cheyenne, on which rests the site of one of the more infamous battles of the Plains Indians War.
Then, to the Wind Farms between Clinton and Weatherford on I-40.
All that, and I got paid, to boot!
Good seeing you. More soon.
Wednesday, I got to take a tour of the Northwestern and Western parts of our great state at the request of an ad agency from New Mexico that will be filming a commercial here soon. First up on the list was The Glass (or Gloss) Mountains near Fairview.
Nothing I can type here will enhance these photos, really (not because of my skill as a photographer, mind you, but because, well...this time, nature wins out). If you have any questions about any of these, ask me in the comments, and I'll gladly answer them.
Afterwards, I headed west then south to The Black Kettle National Grassland (taken care of by the United States Department of Agriculture) near Cheyenne, on which rests the site of one of the more infamous battles of the Plains Indians War.
Then, to the Wind Farms between Clinton and Weatherford on I-40.
All that, and I got paid, to boot!
Good seeing you. More soon.
Friday, August 7, 2009
The Sausage King of Chicago
Please please please take a look at this. Without a doubt the best way to remember John Hughes.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Me Lava You Long Time
-- Robert Sternberg
I wouldn't be Joe Banks if I couldn't craft a volcano parallel out of this one...
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Thursday, July 30, 2009
A Few Nice Thoughts on the Subject...
Courtesy of ScriptXray
1.“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!” - Thoreau
2.“The first draft of everything is shit” - Hemingway
3.“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” - E.B. White
4.“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wresting alligators.” - Olin Miller
5.“It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.” - T.S. Eliot
6.“Writing isn’t hard - no harder than ditch-digging.” - Patrick Dennis
7.“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit detector.” - Hemingway
8.“Read over your compositions and, when you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” - Samuel Johnson
9.“If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.” - Gide.
10.“People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.” - Emerson
11.“The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.” - Richard Harding David
12.“I shall live bad if I do not write, and I shall write bad if I do not live.” - Francoise Sagan
13.“An essayist is a lucky person who has found a way to discourse without being interrupted.” Charles Poore.
14.“If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.” - H.G. Wells
15.“The tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.” Faulkner
16.“A good writer is not per se a good book critic, no more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.” - Jum Bishop
17.“To write simply is as difficult as to be good.” Somerset Maugham
18.“The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.” - Mencken
19.“I write fast because I have not the brains to write slow.” - Georges Simenon
20.“I have tried simply to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” -Hemingway
21.“He is a writer for the ages - the ages of four to eight” - Dorothy Parker
22.“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” - Richard Bach
23.“To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.” - Truman Capote
24.“Read, read, read. Read everything- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.” - William Faulkner
25.“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.” Henry David Thoreau
1.“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live!” - Thoreau
2.“The first draft of everything is shit” - Hemingway
3.“Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.” - E.B. White
4.“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wresting alligators.” - Olin Miller
5.“It’s not wise to violate rules until you know how to observe them.” - T.S. Eliot
6.“Writing isn’t hard - no harder than ditch-digging.” - Patrick Dennis
7.“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in shock-proof shit detector.” - Hemingway
8.“Read over your compositions and, when you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.” - Samuel Johnson
9.“If a young writer can refrain from writing, he shouldn’t hesitate to do so.” - Gide.
10.“People do not deserve good writing, they are so pleased with bad.” - Emerson
11.“The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.” - Richard Harding David
12.“I shall live bad if I do not write, and I shall write bad if I do not live.” - Francoise Sagan
13.“An essayist is a lucky person who has found a way to discourse without being interrupted.” Charles Poore.
14.“If you are in difficulties with a book, try the element of surprise: attack it at an hour when it isn’t expecting it.” - H.G. Wells
15.“The tools I need for my trade are paper, tobacco, food, and a little whiskey.” Faulkner
16.“A good writer is not per se a good book critic, no more so than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender.” - Jum Bishop
17.“To write simply is as difficult as to be good.” Somerset Maugham
18.“The physical business of writing is unpleasant to me, but the psychic satisfaction of discharging bad ideas in worse English makes me forget it.” - Mencken
19.“I write fast because I have not the brains to write slow.” - Georges Simenon
20.“I have tried simply to write the best I can; sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.” -Hemingway
21.“He is a writer for the ages - the ages of four to eight” - Dorothy Parker
22.“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” - Richard Bach
23.“To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it’s about, but the music the words make.” - Truman Capote
24.“Read, read, read. Read everything- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write.” - William Faulkner
25.“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.” Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
For Gertrude, When You're Feeling Separated.
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
-- Jill Churchill, O Magazine, May 2003
I have no idea who Jill Churchill is, but she is dead on. When you miss her, remind yourself of the 'why' you are there.
XO
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-- Jill Churchill, O Magazine, May 2003
I have no idea who Jill Churchill is, but she is dead on. When you miss her, remind yourself of the 'why' you are there.
XO
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Saturday, May 23, 2009
Today...
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
-- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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-- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Monday, May 18, 2009
I never thought I'd see the day...
...when I'd be able to get myself up in the morning, especially at 3:30 am (!), to go to work. Now, staying up until 3:30 am? Pfft- I can do that like crossing a country road, especially if there's absolutely nothing worth watching on TV. But, this...this is almost against the natural laws of man. It's certainly against the natural laws of Joe.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009
My Reserves Are Legion...
-- Minna Thomas Antrim
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Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Oscar Prepicktions
or
When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
I sure don't feel like I know much these days, but, as the title vaguely alludes, write what you know.
I have five dollars and some change to my name, an expired temporary car tage begging to get impounded, a storage unit on the brink of public sale, a car payment, rent and utility bills lurking, several listings on craigslist trying to sell a few things for some operating capital to stem the tide, an interview tommorow with an employment agency that sounded much less than enthusiastic when scheduling the same.
And so, I eagerly await the Oscar nominations in the morning, approximately 7:30 a.m. CST. Here are a few hopeful prognostications based on nothing but my gut and my vision of quality entertainment (or in some cases, what I expect to be):
Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I enjoyed the hell out of this, I've never read the short story it's based on, but it felt like a Dickens novel if he'd ever really been happy
Doubt
still haven't seen it, but I expect this will make the voters feel daring to nominate it
Gran Torino
again, haven't seen it yet, but based on a couple of personal recommendations, it may well be Clint's best work ever. We'll see
Wall*E
absolutely beautiful across the spectrum. Like 2001, the portions without dialogue are the most amazing parts.
The Dark Knight
this goes far beyond the morbidity surrounding Heath Ledger. For me, this broke so many molds and rules and delivered on every single risk it took. Finally, a movie that deserved to make half a billion dollars finally did.
In Bruges
this is almost as dark horse as it gets, unless you're a superhero movie or an animated picture, but it is fan-fucking-tastic! Watch it as soon as you can.
Instead of any of my last three listed taking up the last two spots, Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road will probably make the cut. Big time surprise if Milk gets nominated, but it should. Slumdog Millionaire will get other noms, but not best picture, the Academy will feel SM has already gotten the due it needed at the Golden Globes and the otehr regional and indie awards.
I won't be as long-winded on the rest.
Best Actor
Brad Pitt The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Sean Penn Milk
Benecio del Toro Che'
Frank Langella Frost/Nixon
Clint Eastwood Gran Torino
*Dark horses-Mickey Rourke The Wrestler and Colin Farrel In Bruges
Best Actress
Anne Hathaway Rachel's Getting Married
Meryl Streep Doubt
Emma Thompson Last Chance Harvey
Kate Winslet Revolutionary Road
Kate Blanchett The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
*Dark horse-Sally HawkinsHappy-Go-Lucky
Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger The Dark Knight
Robert Downey, Jr. Tropic Thunder
Ralph Fiennes In BrugesnotThe Duchess
Phillip Seymour Hoffman Doubt
Jeff Bridges Iron Man
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams Doubt
Penelope Cruz Vicky Christina Barcelona
Marisa Tomei The Wrestler
...aw, who're we kidding? who cares?
Best Director
David Fincher The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire
Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight
Clint Eastwood Gran Torino
Sam Mendes Revolutionary Road
*Off-White Horse-Ron Howard Frost/Nixon
*Gray Horse-John Patrick Shanley Doubt
*Dark Horse-Woody Allen Vicky Christina Barcelona
*Pitch Black Horse-Martin McDonagh In Bruges
I have five dollars and some change to my name, an expired temporary car tage begging to get impounded, a storage unit on the brink of public sale, a car payment, rent and utility bills lurking, several listings on craigslist trying to sell a few things for some operating capital to stem the tide, an interview tommorow with an employment agency that sounded much less than enthusiastic when scheduling the same.
And so, I eagerly await the Oscar nominations in the morning, approximately 7:30 a.m. CST. Here are a few hopeful prognostications based on nothing but my gut and my vision of quality entertainment (or in some cases, what I expect to be):
Best Picture
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I enjoyed the hell out of this, I've never read the short story it's based on, but it felt like a Dickens novel if he'd ever really been happy
Doubt
still haven't seen it, but I expect this will make the voters feel daring to nominate it
Gran Torino
again, haven't seen it yet, but based on a couple of personal recommendations, it may well be Clint's best work ever. We'll see
Wall*E
absolutely beautiful across the spectrum. Like 2001, the portions without dialogue are the most amazing parts.
The Dark Knight
this goes far beyond the morbidity surrounding Heath Ledger. For me, this broke so many molds and rules and delivered on every single risk it took. Finally, a movie that deserved to make half a billion dollars finally did.
In Bruges
this is almost as dark horse as it gets, unless you're a superhero movie or an animated picture, but it is fan-fucking-tastic! Watch it as soon as you can.
Instead of any of my last three listed taking up the last two spots, Frost/Nixon and Revolutionary Road will probably make the cut. Big time surprise if Milk gets nominated, but it should. Slumdog Millionaire will get other noms, but not best picture, the Academy will feel SM has already gotten the due it needed at the Golden Globes and the otehr regional and indie awards.
I won't be as long-winded on the rest.
Best Actor
Brad Pitt The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Sean Penn Milk
Benecio del Toro Che'
Frank Langella Frost/Nixon
Clint Eastwood Gran Torino
*Dark horses-Mickey Rourke The Wrestler and Colin Farrel In Bruges
Best Actress
Anne Hathaway Rachel's Getting Married
Meryl Streep Doubt
Emma Thompson Last Chance Harvey
Kate Winslet Revolutionary Road
Kate Blanchett The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
*Dark horse-Sally HawkinsHappy-Go-Lucky
Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger The Dark Knight
Robert Downey, Jr. Tropic Thunder
Ralph Fiennes In BrugesnotThe Duchess
Phillip Seymour Hoffman Doubt
Jeff Bridges Iron Man
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams Doubt
Penelope Cruz Vicky Christina Barcelona
Marisa Tomei The Wrestler
...aw, who're we kidding? who cares?
Best Director
David Fincher The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Danny Boyle Slumdog Millionaire
Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight
Clint Eastwood Gran Torino
Sam Mendes Revolutionary Road
*Off-White Horse-Ron Howard Frost/Nixon
*Gray Horse-John Patrick Shanley Doubt
*Dark Horse-Woody Allen Vicky Christina Barcelona
*Pitch Black Horse-Martin McDonagh In Bruges
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