Things I Liked Last Week 071810

01: R.E.M.: The Athens Demos: "Life & How To Live It" [mp3] Once more for the record - Fables Of The Reconstruction is my favorite album by my all-time sentimental favorite band, R.E.M. Capitol Records has just reissued Fables in a very deluxe kind of way, although once you move beyond the poster and postcards, and the packaging in general, one is left with a remastered version of the original album, and a second disc of demos from the sessions for the album. These demo recordings probably only hold interest for a serious and longtime fan like me, especially of this particular album, and the quality and progress of the songs are all over the place, but that only helps to illustrate just how great the Fables album ended up being. Producer Joe Boyd does an excellent job fashioning the moodiest album in REM's catalog, and the album that has come to best represent the "classic" R.E.M. of their IRS Records years, at least for me.

02: Lego Architecture: Seattle Space Needle: We're quite literally right in the middle of moving our offices over to the other side of town, into a smaller, but fancier, building. Since I'm one of only 4 people in the Operations Department, I've been busting my ass for the past two weeks, and will be busting my ass for a couple more. I'm going to miss the old place - for the last ten years we've had a fantastic view of Lake Mendota, and now, for at least the next five years, we'll be able to see the West Beltline Highway. Which is almost beside the point except to say that I bought myself this Lego model for my new workspace. I can see a Starbucks from there. I've never been to Starbucks, though I've been to Seattle three times, and I've been to the top of the Space Needle twice. Fuck, the West Beltline might as well be Omaha or Jacksonville.



03: The Good Guys [Fox, Mondays 9/8c]: Colin Hanks plays Jack Bailey, a cop as straight as his name, and he plays the character well, or at least wears the hairdo well. But he doesn't wear that square, lacquered hair as well as Bradley Whitford wears his moustache, which is my way of saying this is Whitford's show, and so far, he's doing alright. He plays Dan Stark, an aging, seemingly washed-up detective who still manages to show the guts and tenacity that made him a golden boy once upon a time for the Dallas PD. Of course, Dan Stark is a fool unafraid to rush into stupid, often unavoidable danger, and this is why The Good Guys is an Action-Comedy. Dan Stark has a lot of balls and just enough brains to be dangerous, and so far, Bradley Whitford is making the character come alive, and really carrying the show. For his part, Hanks is doing a solid job as Stark's straight-laced partner, Bailey, who's function, obviously, is keeping Stark's bravado in check. As actors, Hanks and Whitford play this typical good cop/loose cannon buddy cop dynamic well. Add the lovely and radiant Jenny Wade as Liz Traynor, an assistant DA with a "complicated" romantic past with Jack Bailey, and well, a show like this pretty much writes itself. A loud, funny and action-packed show that's currently eating up an hour of my life these past few weeks. Will it last? Will Whitford continue to make Dan Stark a brash and bold character worth watching? Ach, who fucking knows?

04: Wu-Tang Pizza: This one is pretty self-explanatory, I think. Black olives rule everything around me and those jalepenos ain' nuttin' ta fuck wit'.

05: 66 Mailboxes: I took this picture somewhere in Marin County, California, circa 1996. (As always, click to enlarge) I've counted 66 mailboxes, and I know there are more.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 062710

01: JAWS FFFUUUU: I was never a big fan of the FFFUUUU internet meme that began, as these things usually do, over at 4Chan. It's not the meme itself that I don't like, but rather its execution by most internet morans. But I do like this particular piece, which captures the essence of FFFUUUU so succintly, so brilliantly...Yeah, yeah, this is probably old and you've probably seen it already, but...

02: This Perpetual Teen strip I did a while ago wherein Rageman auditions for vocalist (naturally) of Kieth's band, Peppermint Dildo. And then Jack Cactus makes the scene. Dinger Jockey! Classic.

03: This Week's Obligatory Cat and/or Squirrel Picture: Nuff said? Ayup.

04: Gus Van Sant: Gerry [2002]: I watched Gus Van Sant's Death Trilogy completely out of order. Gerry was the first made, so naturally I watched it last. I'm not sure if it matters what order in which Van Sant's three films should be watched, as they're all different kinds of the same thing, death. Elephant concerns murder. Last Days is about suicide. Gerry explores what I'm calling "organic death" - literally a body's organs shutting down (nevermind the ending, because Gerry was dead long before he died). I suppose you could call it a "natural death" because nature is the cause of death in this film. My point is, there may be a million ways to die, but I'm of the belief that these three kinds (organic, murder, suicide) are the only three, into which those million ways can be categorized. If I believed in God, I suppose his hand would be the fourth, and Van Sant would have to make one of those four-part trilogies.

Like the other two death films, Gerry tells it's story mostly through visuals, and here there are long stretches of relative silence, the sounds of the desert, with short bursts of dialogue between the two Gerrys (Matt Damon and Casey Affleck), who get seriously lost while hiking in the desert. But mostly this film is about the beauty and grandeur of nature, and the scenes here are awash in pastel skies stretched over a rugged and jagged terrain, equal parts adventure and danger. As the film progresses, the situation becomes much more serious for the two Gerrys, much more bleak, and here, in the third day of their undoing, the last reel, we see them slowly and painfully shuffling across white salt flats like they might be walking on the moon, or maybe heaven. Despite the pace of the film, I found myself riveted. Like Elephant and Last Days (and life itself) we know the inevitable end of Gerry, and that pulled me along quite effectively. Van Sant once again handles the subject of death with a sort of grace and an even hand, without really passing judgement on characters in any of these films. Death happens. And once again, his secret weapon in Gerry is certainly cinematographer Harris Savides, who's shots linger and shimmer like dreams. I like.

05: Bill Griffith: Zippy: "Four Frame Game" [2000]: Comic stripping and death come together, and Mr. Toad explains the meaning of bowling. If I haven't mentioned this before, Zippy is my favorite comic strip of all time. Hmm...One of these days, maybe I should rank 'em...



06: Kingsford Charcoal Fascination: I've been seeing this commercial around the television lately. That song is Rob Crow's (Pinback) interpretation of "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" by The Human League. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about this, but then I figured "fuck it" - I thought the '80's were a great decade, "Fascination" included.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 060610

01: Last Days [2005]: Writer and director Gus Van Sant goes out of his way to inform us that Last Days is NOT a Kurt Cobain biopic, but rather a "meditation on isolation, death and loss", but one only needs look at the poster to know this is mostly bullshit. Michael Pitt (as Blake, the protagonist of this film) has an uncanny resemblance to Cobain, helped in great part by the cinematography, in which we rarely see Blake close-up, and almost never see his face full-on. Instead, we see him stumbling around the large wooded estate surrounding his decaying "castle" in the woods, or shuffling aimlessly around the house, always on the verge of passing out. While we never actually see Blake doing drugs, the heroin use is certainly implied. Aside from the stumbling, Blake is nearly incapable of speech, and what does come out of his mouth is muffled and largely incoherent. Drugs or not, Blake is obviously a man with a serious, likely undiagnosed, mental illness. A mental illness that presumably doesn't matter to anybody else in the film because Blake is a huge rock star, and all those people around him have something to gain from his fame, whether it's bandmates needing him for a huge European tour and the wealth and fame it provides, his sycophantic housemates, who need him for money or lyrical help for their own songs for their own demo, or even the Yellow Pages salesman who simply needs another account, completely ignoring the near-catatonic Blake who sits across from him in the decrepit house. Yet somewhere beneath Blake's surface incoherence, it's quite obvious that he's aware of these leeches, because the entire film is really nothing more than a snapshot of Blake attempting to ignore, avoid, and escape them all, and when a friend brings a private eye hired by Blake's wife to find the rockstar, recently escaped from a drug rehap center, suddenly Blake doesn't stumble, but quickly and effectively escapes the house and evades the two. In the end, what Van Sant presents us is a portrait of a ghost, whether by choice or circumstance, who seemingly moves in a parallel world where everyone around him is incapable of seeing him for who he truly is, and more literally, often can't find him at all. It's a slow, haunting film, with little dialogue or plot, a strange audio track full of sounds that have absolutely nothing to do with what we see on the screen (ghosts, again), and even in the end, as the police stand over Blake's dead body in the greenhouse, one can't help but think he was gone long before he took his life.

02: Girl Eating Hotdog: Is it wrong that this photo turns me on? Yeah, it probably is.

03: Wolfguin: They can't fly, but they waddle rather fast. Long story short, you may want to laugh at the wolfguin, but once they clamp onto your leg, the joke's on you.

04: Whoomp! There Obama is!: The big question/conspiracy this week is that President Barack Obama appeared briefly in Tag Team's 1993 video for their hit, "Whoomp There It Is". True or not, the likeness is certainly uncanny, and I, for one, hope it's true.



05: Music & Lyrics by Stewie Griffin: I must admit, I don't like Family Guy all that much, but I happened to catch a syndicated rerun of this particular episode. "Things are a little more complicated than they seemed at first." Indeed, Stewie, life is often a stone-cold bitch, and yes, writing songs isn't very difficult, although writing good songs is something else entirely.

06: Milios' "Charlie The Tuna" Sub: Milios is a midwest-based sub shop chain, and aside from the absolute best French bread rolls I've ever had anywhere, their sub sandwiches are second to none. Now, usually I go with their Italian Club, but sometimes, as I did this past week, I opted for their Charlie The Tuna, which is most excellent for two reasons - Milios' secret gourmet sauce, and the fact that they don't use too much tuna. That might seem counter-intuitive, but think for a moment of a tuna sub that had too much tuna salad - it's dry, chewy, and ultimately, not very satisfying. The fine folks at Milios have found the exact right amount of tuna for their sandwich, and it makes all the difference. Just make sure to hold the bean sprouts. Sprouts suck.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 053010

01: LOST: "The End" [S6EP17]: Pop culture is mostly irrelevant. Television is a mere distraction. LOST was/is a red herring in this thing we call life. Indeed, when all is said and done, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the producers of LOST, gave us a series finale that ought to be a hard slap in the face to all the hardcore fanboys who were demanding, are still demanding, answers to so many of the the mysteries of the island, the characters, the show itself. Cuse and Lindelhof were all but literally telling those fanboys that all those mysteries, those puzzles, were red herrings when it came to "the meaning of LOST". There would be no reason for all that Hanso Foundation stuff. Walt's superpowers will have to remain unexplored and unexplained. The numbers were apparently random and held no great powers. So much time wasted on Eko. The books Sawyer read had no deep meaning, really...Or did they? Widmore's motives would remain unknown. Etc. Etc. Etc. In the end, LOST was steeped in death, or rather, the intermediate state between life and death, called "bardo" in Buddhism. It is here, in the "sideways universe" of season six, that Jack Shephard's soul must connect with the souls of all those from Oceanic flight 815 so that they can move on. In season one, Jack Shephard gave us the first big catchphrase of the show, which ultimately came to define the entire series. Simply put, "live together or die alone", and here at the end of the show, they needed to live together through the plane crash and all the weirdness of The Island, so that they could forge strong enough bonds to find each other after death, in Jack's bardo. And here we are, fanboys obsessed with the trivial minutae of LOST, and all six seasons of that stuff, the meaning of all that stuff, is irrelevant, and some of it makes sense, and plenty of it doesn't, and some of the questions got answered, but others never will, but none of that matters. What matters is that we watched the show, shared in that experience, and then we got together around the watercooler, or in discussion boards on the internet, to talk about all those red herrings, those distractions. So many puzzles, so many theories, so much discussion. And now even more discussion about this series finale. Love it or hate it, Cuse and Lindelof brought us all back together again, their show a spark to connect us in this waking dream we call life.

02: Commodore Pumpkin: You might suspect some photoshopping going on here, but I'm not so sure this picture isn't real.



03: SNL Digital Short: "Great Day" [NBC]: In general, I really like the Digital Shorts put together by Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, and Jorma Taccone (The Lonely Island) for Saturday Night Live, and this one, from last week's season finale, is a trim and fantastic thrillride from start to finish. Just remember kids, drugs are fun until they're not.

04: Royal Crown Cola: I'm not much of a soda drinker. Aside from the can of Mountain Dew I pound down first thing every morning at work, I just don't drink all that much of the stuff these days. Having said that, I always have some Royal Crown Cola in the fridge. Compared to the big two (Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola) RC isn't as sweet as Pepsi, and doesn't go flat as quick as Pepsi (seriously, Pepsi is shit), and RC is slightly sweeter than Coke, holds its carbonation almost as long, and in general, I find Royal Crown to be a creamier and tastier cola than the other two. Also, there is the Pair Of Kings cocktail to consider. I typically like my whiskey served neat, but if I'm going to drink a whiskey and coke, it seems only right that it be made with Crown Royal and Royal Crown. The Pair Of Kings! Thank goodness my boss gives me a bottle of Crown Royal every Christmas...
05: Wise Beard Man: If I'm not mistaken, beards in all their glorious variations, were the status quo in civilized (to say nothing of uncivilized) American society right up to World War I. It would seem head lice became a serious problem for our military men in the trenches of Europe, and shaving off all the hair on one's head was the first step in getting rid of the little buggers. And because society held soldiers and soldiering in much higher regard back then than we do now, soon it became fashionable for civilian men to go clean shaven. And here we are. Aside from some short-lived fads (moustaches in the '70's, goattees in the '90's) the clean-shaven look has remained the status quo, especially in the business world, since the 1920's. Take it from me, a dude who's worn a goattee every single day since the autumn of 1986, there are alot of uptight dicks in the corporate world who might appreciate an expensive blue suit, but will not take you seriously if you've got any sort of facial hair. You might be the smartest person in the room, but to these people, you'll always be a neanderthal. BTW - this post obviously doesn't have anything to do with Mark Bunker and Xenu TV, Scientology or 4Chan...Once in awhile I just gotta represent. I like beards.

06: FUCKING METAL: Is it possible that the infamous "duck face" craze popularized by plasticized celebutards and "real housewives" got its start in Fucking Metal?

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 052310

01: Dan Nelson: All Known Metal Bands: I don't even remember what I was searching for when I ran across this book at Amazon, but the minute I saw it, I knew I had to have it (used, of course) in my life. Quite simply, this is a list of 51,000 Heavy Metal bands, in alphabetical order, as of 2008. Yes, it is fucking awesome. Kudos to Dan Nelson and this singular, epic compulsion. Godwaffle. Satanic Sega Genesis.




02: Janelle Monae doing "Tightrope" on Letterman: This was the absolute shiz. The new Godmother of Sci-Fi Soul/R'n'B/HipHop/Funk, perhaps? Implied. I Coulda done without the Diddy, but he did bow down to Ms. Monae...So, um...Read that last part back to me and watch the vid...

03: Bananajesus: It's called Pareidolia, the phenomenon of seeing faces in ordinary, everyday objects, or my favorite, seeing the Virgin Mary in things. Longtime readers of Hot Poop might know that when I post pictures like this, I like to paraphrase the Dead Milkmen and write, "you'll pray to anything". Yeah, it's a jab at nutty Christians, but I must admit, as a "hopeful agnostic" (which makes me the wishy-washiests of people) there have been periods in my life when I was seeing the face of Jesus in the strangest places - an arrangement of gravel on my cousin Chico's driveway, in the leaves/branches of the silver maple in the front yard, two evil squirrels adding a depth to the beard. The more spiritual friends and well-wishers of mine would always say things like "It's God, showing you his truth." Ugh.

04: This moshpit pic: If one looks long enough, one might imagine God and Satan in this image. BTW - is this a photo, a painting, or a photoshopped monstrosity somewhere in between?

05: Fritz: [as always, click to enlarge] My sister assures me this kid's name if Fritz. I went to school with a kid named Fritz. Fritz lived on a farm. Now, I love my sis, but I'm pretty damn sure she's pulling my leg on this one, because I'm pretty damn sure she doesn't know any kids named Fritz. Fritz.


06: 30 Rock: "I Do Do" [S4-EP22] : This excellent season 4 finale, which broadcast last Thursday night, features Matt Damon as Carroll, Liz Lemon's new love interest. Carroll, a dashing pilot who is seemingly and believably Liz's soulmate. True. Love is also in the air for Jack, who is torn between two lovers and feeling like a fool. Meanwhile, Jenna's new beau, a Jenna Maroney impersonator, also reveals himself to be a Cher impersonator as well. Another triangle. More decisions. Kenny gets fired, but really, this show is all about Liz, possibly finding happiness, and Matt Damon's fantastic cameo. Which I'm hoping is more than just a cameo. I'd like to see Damon come back next season in a semi-regular role. Let Liz be happy in love and spend season 5 making that funny as an antidote to four years of unlucky Liz. Anyways, what's most valuable here - Damon is a very good comic actor. The sort of actor who creates funny characters through subtle mannerisms and affectations, wigs & facial hair, a good wardrobe, who then delivers improbably funny lines with such earnestness, and sometimes with a well-played accent. Damon was Oscar-worthy in last year's The Informant! And as much as I love Terry Gilliam, The Brothers Grimm was a messy film that didn't quite work. But that wasn't Damon's fault. He and Heath Ledger gave their usually solid-to-great performances in a middling film that had it's fair share of humor throughout (from clever wordplay to nutty slapstick). In fact, I'd say there's a boyish wink lurking under most of Damon's characters. Like Clooney, just not as dashing. Blather. Tina Fey!!!!!

07: The Rusty Nail: Also known as a "Donald Sutherland", this sweet stinging cocktail is 5 parts scotch (make mine Dalmore) and 2 parts Drambuie, poured into an ice-filled highball glass. Stir slowly and gently until the glass gets nice and frosty. Finish it with a lemon twist. It's good medicine in warm weather.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 051610

01: Kitty, The Hiking Cat: Two people hike from Miami to the southernmost tip of South America. Somewhere in Louisiana, this stray cat (simply named Kitty, as far as I can tell)starts travelling with them, making the entire 9000 mile trek. Cats rule.

02: Chuck Klosterman: CK IV: A Decade Of Curious People And Dangerous Ideas: I love Chuck Klosterman. I also hate Chuck Klosterman a little bit because he makes me hate myself a little bit. You see, Chuck Klosterman essentially has the career I long dreamed for myself, but never had the confidence or skill to pursue in earnest, or actually attain if I had pursued it. Chuck Klosterman is also an unabashed Billy Joel fan. So am I. Chuck doesn't believe in the idea of guilty pleasures. Neither do I. Chuck likes hair metal. Me, not so much. Chuck is an engaging writer. Very likeable words. He asks as many questions as he answers, which is probably for the best as far as pop culture is concerned. Distractions worth talking about. In this collection of (mostly) magazine articles, Chuck writes about Britney Spears, his McNugget diet, Goth Day at Disneyland, the Fargo-Moorhead music scene circa 1994, among many other other things "of the moment" throughout his career. Anyways, love or hate, I like this Chuck Klosterman book, though not as much as Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs...

03: Drop Dead Gorgeous: Well, it took me eleven years to finally watch this 1999 mockumentary-style comedy, and I'm sorry it took so long because it's a hilarious gem of a movie. The subject is teen beauty pageants, which is the biggest reason I resisted the film for so long. Another reason for my hesitation is that among it's rock-solid ensemble cast, Kirstie Alley and Denise Richards feature prominently, and I do not like either of these actresses on a personal level. The thing is, they play the mother-daughter villains of the film, and as villains, they're not only palatable to me, but are damn easy to root against. Now, as much as I dislike Kirstie Alley, she's a great comedic actress, and I only wish I could say the same about Ms. Richards, who is easily the weakest link here. Elsewhere, Kirstin Dunst takes the lead role, and does a great job, and once again I'm wondering why there are so many Dunst-haters on the internet - she's cute and talented, what more needs be said? Then there's Allison Janney and Ellen Barkin, playing two boozy, chain-smoking, trailer court MILFs, and are certainly two of the stronger characters of the film. Amy Adams and the late Brittany Murphy ably play two of the other pageant contestants, and Ms. Murphy in particular gives a fine performance that only makes her untimely death all the more tragic to me. And here's a sentence I never thought I'd write - this movie would have been even better with more Will Sasso. Ayup, the lumbering MadTV veteran here's plays a paint-huffing moron of epic, absurd proportions. Anyways, the film is set in Minnesota, I would have to say that the classic, nasally midwestern accent, as popularized in Fargo, is one of the few elements of this film I didn't necessarily love, if only because I always feel Hollywood is too quick to equate the accent with bumpkins and rubes, as if the midwest is nothing but simpletons as far as the eye can see, and exist only to be ridiculed. Finally, I'd like to note that Drop Dead Gorgeous was written by Lona Williams, who's showbiz career has been one of production assistant on The Simpsons, and story editor for The Drew Carey Show. And here she is, writing an absolutely hilarious, and sometimes charming film, one of the funniest films I've seen in quite awhile. Sadly, she's done almost nothing else in showbiz since, save three uncredited producer jobs. This woman needs to write more films that actually get made. In any event, Drop Dead Gorgeous is an excellent comedy that has somewhat flown under the radar since it's release, and really doesn't deserve it. A MUST!



04: Brian Posehn: "More Metal Than You" video: A friend of mine once said that I look like the indie rock brother of Brian Posehn. I'd maintain that the flannel I fly makes me more of a Grunge cousin, but whatever...I would also maintain that I'm more metal. Just kidding - I would never name my cat "Manowar" and I certainly wouldn't let Gene Simmons anywhere near my weeping Eisenhower. I would lick Lemmy's wart. Then again, I used to work with a guy named Sal, who once got punched in the gut by Henry Rollins at a house party in Green Bay. That's hardcore, and pretty fucking metal.

05: This picture [as always, click to enlarge]: I'm one of those people that thinks we should all just shut our fucking mouths when it comes to Tiger Woods and any other celebrity who cheats on their spouse, because it's none of our business, and none of us are without sin, so we should stop casting stones. That isn't to say that I condone extra-marital affairs, but what I always say is these people really ought to "know themselves". In other words, Tiger Woods biggest "sin" was getting married in the first place. He KNEW he was a horndog long before he got married, so why would he? If Jesse James liked banging tattoo-covered party girls, why the fuck would he even think about settling down, especially with Sandra Bullock, widely considered one of the nicest women in Hollywood, the antithesis of Bombshell McGee? Whatever. My other point is that all this hand-wringing and moral outrage is a bunch of bullshit. A goodly percentage of us are duplicitous and hypocritical, and I always operate on the assumption that the more a person feigns outrage at somebody else's actions, the more likely they are to partake in those actions themselves. I mean, consider all those Christian Conservatives who are always getting caught in their own sex scandals. All those moral leaders who preach that homosexuality is an abomination while sodomizing rentboys behind closed doors. Let's all just shut the fuck up and let each other live our lives.

06: Djeep Lighters: They last longer than Bics, never break before they run out of butane, are shapely, are made in France, only cost $1.29, and do not burn your fingers during the power ballad portion of yr favorite hair metal band's concert. Yet I do not know a single smoker, whether it be cigarettes, weed, meth or crack, that uses Djeep lighters. Their loss, because these are easily the finest disposable lighter on the market today.

07: Madison Gas & Electric: Yesterday morning I was sitting in my easy chair, reading some Murakami (After Dark, if you must know), when an extremely loud explosion from somewhere in the neighborhood came through my open windows and caught my attention. A second later, all the power was out. It seems that a transformer box on one of the lightpoles up the street and around the corner had suddenly and inexplicably exploded and caught fire. After the firemen secured the scene, in came several MG&E trucks to replace the box and the pole, fix some of the powerlines in the neighborhood, and restore power. I just assumed we'd be without power for the better part of the day, considering the extent of the damage, but lo and behold, we had power again about 90 minutes later. Now, I'm more than willing to bitch about the amount I'm billed each month for gas and electric, but all things considered, MGE's repairmen were effective and efficient in this instance, and I liked that.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 042510

01: MOJO 198, May 2010: By far the best general interest, all-purpose music magazine in an era when the magazine is dead, MOJO is one of those rarest of magazines - still worth buying at the newstand. The current issue features a Paul Weller cover story, a deep look at Lowell George, a satisfying interview with Steve Albini, and the How To Buy column focuses on Frank Zappa this month, and while I disagree strongly with the ranking, any Zappa love is greasy goodness, and MOJO has loved Frank alot over the years. All in all, a particularly outstanding issue of a magazine that never disappoints.

02: Granada TV's Sherlock Holmes: I'm one of those Sherlock Holmes freaks that believes Jeremy Brett's portrayal of the illustrious detective is the best ever and for all time. Brett captures the bitchiness of the Holmes character, his restlessness and impatience, and plays those traits for all their worth. The Holmes we get here isn't always the most likeable of fellows, but it's a brave and faithful portrayal, I believe (he does cocaine!), and Brett makes us love the flawed man anyways. There are detractors of this version of Sherlock Holmes, of course, and they've called Brett's performance heavyhanded, ham-fisted, and the like, but I like the brashness of it all. Holmes as a drama queen. Holmes as diva, not to mention his dear Watson. And if you can't get with all that, there are still the stories themselves, and sets and locations that are quite good for a television production. Anyways, I've got the complete series on DVD, and this past week I started watching again from the very beginning, and will go through it all, all 12 discs, however long that takes. And then a year or two later, I'll start all over again at the beginning, just like road construction up and down the East Wash corridor.

03: The Informant!: Director Steve Soderbergh has made a very engaging and funny film (one might say Coenesque) about price fixing at Archer Daniels Midland in the 1990's and the whistleblower who tries to take 'em down, as played with a fine, nimble touch by Matt Damon. From the very start, we see that there's something peculiar about Mark Whitacre, as nice and likeable as he seems to be, and as the film progresses, the man simply unravels, oftentimes to absurd levels. He's seen to be a bit dumb and delusional, and it would seem a big fat liar (his delusions turned outward), but he's a genuinely nice and personable guy, and Damon makes us like him and keep on liking him, even as he fucks up over and over and over again, even as he creates spy games real and imagined, and both with heavy consequences Whitacre is all but oblivious to. Aside from Damon's excellent performance (Oscar-worthy, really), Soderbergh gets Marvin Hamlisch to do the film's score, and the music is the kind of music hall and ragtime stuff you might expect in a silent film perhaps, but works quite wonderfully here because it makes Whitacre's words and deeds just that much more comical and absurd, and the long line of lawyers and cops and accountants that he dupes looks like a bumbling collection of clowns in cheap grey suits.

04: Bunny Tracks Ice Cream: "Blue Bunny's signature flavor wins everybody over! This creamy vanilla ice cream comes loaded with plenty of your favorite goodies - chocolate-covered peanuts, peanut butter-filled chocolate bunnies, a thick chocolate fudge ribbon and a peanut butter caramel ribbon for a delicious ice cream treat!"

05: Final Draft 7: This past week I changed the working title of the screenplay I've been writing and re-writing in spurts for the past several years. The titular character is now named Scott instead of Todd, and the new title is The Legend Of Warlord Scott. Final Draft made it quick and painless to make the needed changes throughout the 11 completed scenes I've got right now in this latest version. Anyways, Scott is now the fourth name of the warlord in the history of this script, and it probably won't be the last. Ultimately, it has to be a name that was popular for 20 year old dudes in the 1980's and yet isn't a too-obvious homage/rip-off of Life Of Brian.06: Echo & The Bunnymen: "Never Stop" [mp3]: Another note about Warlord Scott - This song has found its way onto the "unofficial soundtrack" that I listen to while working on the script. It's a great song, and considering the story is set in 1984-85, I think it really captures a certain kind of sound and song that has come to generally represent the 80's two decades later - notably that big, bombastic drum sound - the gated synth snares and all that. Elsewhere, the song has synthetic strings offering propulsive stabs, a thin white metallic guitar splashing a bit of color here and there, plus a xylophone and congas. Add Ian McCulloch's dramatic voice and it's very much a song unmistakably of it's era. Stop.

07: Sydney The Shark: You are a shark. You swim and you dive and you leap in and out of the water and you eat anything and everything that crosses your path. You eat killer whales with three easy bites. You eat packs of dolphins scuba divers with less. You breach the surface and come crashing down on pirate ships and jet-skis and motorboats and yachts and helicopters...ETC... Everything explodes or gets eaten. You pull a jumbo jet out of the sky. That explodes too. This game is LOUD and FRENZIED with a bigger kick (and more reddish-brown liquid) than 128 ounces of Cherry Coke. You've been warned.

Hotcha! Hank