Tuesday's Fortune: 26 June 2012

MEAL:  2 Vegetable Spring Rolls + 1 small order Pork Lo Mein = $7.05 + $1.95 tip

Hotcha!  Hank

2011 LAMINATED LIST #1

Surprise, surprise! My adoration and lust for Winona Ryder is neverending. What else can I possibly say about her that I haven't already said? She is my hope.

Hotcha! Hank

HOT FIVE: Winona Ryder Films And/Or Grunge Albums

05: A Scanner Darkly: A Philip K Dick novel turned into an animated disassociative disorder full of bright colors and a dull sense of dread. Plus +++ Winona's animated boobs.

04: Lucas: Winona's debut film at 15, as tomboy Rina who has a crush on Corey Haim's Lucas. It's possible that Winona Ryder (or maybe actually Goldie Hawn) shaped my preference for women with shorter hair.

03: Heathers: Teen angst illustrated. The film that ended my infatuation with Molly Ringwald, and put the '80s to rest. What's your damage?

02: Mudhoney: Superfuzz Big Muff Plus Early Singles: I considered In Utero, Ultramega OK, and Melvins' Lysol, before deciding that for my purposes, Superfuzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles is the definitive Grunge album. Touch me, I'm sick.

01: Night On Earth: My favorite Jim Jarmusch film, and therefore one of my 10 favorite films, wherein a 19 year old Winona kinda mostly holds her own with Gena Rowlands in the first 20 minutes of this hilarious and oftentimes poignant film about five cab drivers in five cities around the world during one night on earth. Plus +++ Scored by Tom Waits.

Hotcha! Hank

My 2011 Oscar Picks

BEST FILM: The Social Network
BEST DIRECTOR: David Fincher, The Social Network
BEST ACTOR: Colin Firth, The King's Speech
BEST ACTRESS: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christian Bale, The Fighter
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:Melissa Leo, The Fighter
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Christopher Nolan, Inception
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
BEST FOREIGN FILM: Biutiful [Mexico]
BEST DOCUMENTARY: Inside Job
BEST ANIMATED FILM: Toy Story 3
BEST SCORE: The Social Network [Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross]
BEST SONG: "I'll Rise", 127 Hours [Rahman, Dido, Armstrong]
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHER: Matthew Libatique, Black Swan
BEST COSTUME DESIGN: Colleen Atwood, Alice In Wonderland

Well, I was 10 of 15. Not great, not horrible.

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 1

James Joyce's ULYSSES is the one book in my collection that I'm 100% certain I will never actually read all the way through...When I think about what little I know about this novel, I imagine WINONA RYDER as Molly Bloom. And in the winter months, when my beard is full-blown, I imagine myself Odysseus, trying to make my way home to my beloved Penelope, as played by my beloved Winona... I've read plenty of Joyce, but I'll never read this book, front to back. Maybe back to front, but that seems like more of a Finnegan's Wake maneuver.

This particular picture looks like some sort of Great Gatsby scene...Winona as Daisy Buchanan. I've read Fitzgerald's novel. It's okay. Fitzgerald lucked out with that novel, that's for sure - assuring himself a permanent place in American letters on the strength of one fairly mediocre novel. Whatever.

Now, supposedly Winona is a smart, literate person. She's read plenty of good and important books, supposedly, if we believe the interviews and bios, so I assume she's read Gatsby as well. I bet she's never read Ulysses, though she's probably read The Odyssey. Either way, she remains the dearest to my heart, atop the laminated list in my mind for the past two decades.

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 2

Way back in May of 1998, when I moved back to Madison, some of my mail got lost/misplaced/delayed along the way, including that month's QPBC (Quality Paperback Book Club) catalog. The featured book in that particular issue was Infinite Jest... And because I didn't send back the order form with the appropriate box marked to inform QPBC that I did NOT want Infinite Jest automatically sent to me, they automatically did. And so I came home from work one day about two weeks after moving into this place only to find a fairly large cardboard box lodged between my doors. Before I had even unpacked the beast within, I was pretty damn sure I was never gonna read it. 1079 pages! If I didn't have the juice to conquer a tome like that when I was 32, you can bet yr ass I've got less juice now. Now...Now I could have simply sent the book back (free shipping) for a full refund, but I felt like the title of the book was the true jest for me - new city, new home, new job, new friends - a full-blown load of unknown. Twelve years later, and I can once again say Paul Simon is a prophet, because the more things change, the more they stay the same. Infinite Jest sits square in the center of my main bookcase in the living room, as it has for twelve years so far. I have read its spine countless times, every day. I've got my own ideas about God's sense of humor, the nature of fate, and the fortune of DNA, but don't ask me what this book's about. I'll never know.

Scanning Infinite Jest's character list at Wikipedia, I'd have to say if they ever made this 5 pound book into a movie, maybe they could get TINA FEY to play Joelle Van Dyne § (aka "Madame Psychosis" aka "The Prettiest Girl Of All Time")...I'm willing to say Tina is crazy pretty, and sometimes pretty crazy. There's also the acid-scarred face of this character, and the scar on Ms. Fey's face to consider. Whatever. I'm 99% sure I'll never read David Foster Wallace's magnum opus...Alas, poor me.

§ Joelle Van Dyne is the primary figure in the deadly Entertainment. ¶ In the work, which is filmed through a wobbly "neo-natal" lens, she is seen reaching down to the camera, as if it were in a bassinet, and apologizing profusely. This is said to trigger an addictive pleasure complex in the viewer, which makes even partial viewing of the Entertainment suicidal. She wears a veil to hide her face. She is a member of the "Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed (U.H.I.D.)", she may be disfigured; based on an account by the unreliable Molly Notkin. It is not made clear throughout the novel whether in fact she is disfigured; she herself states that she wears the veil because every man who sees her flawless face falls in love with her. Although it becomes clear that she was indeed disfigured by an acid attack, it is possible that the acid attack post-dates her adoption of the veil. She tries to "eliminate her own map" (that is, commit suicide) in Molly Notkin's bathroom via massive ingestion of freebase cocaine, which lands her in the Ennet House as a resident. [1]

¶ The plot of Infinite Jest partially revolves around the missing master copy of a film cartridge, titled Infinite Jest and referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat". The film is so entertaining to its viewers that they become lifeless, losing all interest in anything other than viewing the film. The video cartridge was the final work of film by James O. Incandenza before his microwave-induced suicide, completed during a stint of sobriety that was requested by the lead actress, Joelle. Quebec separatists are interested in acquiring a master, redistributable copy of the work to aid in acts of terrorism against the United States. The United States Office of Unspecified Services (USOUS) is seeking to intercept the master copy of the film in order to prevent mass dissemination and the destabilization of the Organization of North American Nations. Joelle and later Hal seek treatment for substance abuse problems at The Ennet House Drug and Alcohol Recovery House, and Marathe visits the rehabilitation center to pursue a lead on the master copy of the Entertainment §, tying the characters together. The text indicates that Hal and Gately dig up the grave of Himself (under the supervision of John N.R. Wayne) in search of the master copy. The novel ends in the Year of Glad (the first chapter of the novel), during which Hal's physical deterioration is made evident. [2]

§ Wallace's working title for Infinite Jest had been A Failed Entertainment. [3]

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

Sideways Shade Of Maneuver

Here the Bangles cover "Hazy Shade Of Winter" by Simon & Garfunkel for the Less Than Zero movie soundtrack. While the movie wasn't horrible, it certainly didn't do justice to the Bret Easton Ellis novel, one of my favorites from the era.

Hotcha! Hank

2010 LAMINATED LIST # 5

Sugar Street is the last book in Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. To get to Sugar Street, I'd first have to make my way through Palace Walk and Palace Of Desire - that's 934 pages, babycakes! Add Sugar Street's 309 pages, and that's an infinite jest... That's entertainment I most likely will never read...

I had picked up a like-new trade paperback edition of this trilogy for $9 at a rummage sale last summer. How could I, or anyone who reads, not snatch up a Nobel winner at that price? 1243 pages about three generations of the Gawad family in Cairo from 1919 to 1944...

Three books, 1243 pages, that might as well be laminated. Might as well be sealed in plastic because I'll most likely never read them. I think there will always be other, more interesting and relevant books for me to read.

Sugar Street, and the whole Cairo Trilogy, are not unobtainable to me, of course. They're well within reach, unlike Rosario Dawson.

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 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 050910

01: Kanellos The Greek Protest Dog: The Greeks aren't afraid to protest, and even riot a bit, when their government fucks them over. As an armchair anarchist, it makes me sad that the American people have been, by and large, taken advantage of by our government and big business time and time again, but we're too fat and complacent to do much more than bitch about it with friends and coworkers. Nobody is taking it to the streets except the Tea Partiers, and I'm fairly convinced their entire movement is built on a solid foundation of racism, because the tax rates under our current black president is pretty much in line (and in many cases lower) with the tax rates under every other president over the past 50 years. In other words, where were these white, middle class people during the Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Carter and Nixon years? The top marginal tax rate during the Reagan years (their beloved political hero) hovered around 50%, while it sits at 38% under Obama? But now I'm getting wildly off-topic. Follow the link, and see 14 pictures of Kanellos, perhaps a more "involved" citizen than most of us.



02: Community: "Modern Warfare": S1-EP23: As the season has progressed, Community has grown into its own, and has grown on me. At first, I thought it was a fairly good comedy - good enough to kick off NBC's Thursday night comedy block, but not as strong as the three shows which follow. Well, sad to say, The Office has been quite underwhelming this year, and may be ready to head out to pasture, while 30 Rock is still great, but not as insane as it was last season. Parks & Recreation is currently the strongest of the four comedies, but I believe this "Modern Warfare" episode of Community is a welcome indication of just how good this show can be. Every week we can count on the writers to sneak a number of sly movie references into the show (via the character of Abed), but this particular episode is simply remarkable in that respect. Plus, it's just plain funny.

03: Screamo Kitty: I believe this picture speaks for itself.

04: Sherlock Holmes: I didn't love this movie, if only because I'm rather protective of the character and stories of the creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and this adaptation is not only a non-canonical story, but the illustrious detective, as played by Robert Downey Jr., is painted with rather broad strokes. As I mentioned two weeks ago, I'm partial to Jeremy Brett's portrayal in the Granada TV series of the 1980's, which showed Holmes in all his bitchy, egotistical glory, to say nothing of the homosexual undercurrent running throughout, which I believe to be one of the more important aspects of the original character. Is he gay, or merely asexual? Doyle leaves us guessing. Here, with the introduction of Irene Adler, as played by Rachel McAdams, there is no mystery, and that's a shame. Having said all this, I'm still a sucker for the characters of Holmes and Watson, a sucker for London circa 1890ish, and dammit if Guy Ritchie doesn't know how to make superb action films. This movie might not have been what I wanted, but it is damn entertaining nonetheless.

05: EVERYTHINGATHON! v101: Hats off to Dan Dierdorf, who tells a horrifying story of his trip to Burning Man several years ago, mixing a bunch of great heavy metal into the podcast for good measure. Check it out for the rest of this month.

06: Super Kohinoor Indian Food: I love Indian food, and thankfully there are a couple of very good Indian restaurants in Madison. However, I do not eat in restaurants very often because it's hard to justify the cost, and while I'm a pretty good cook, Indian cuisine is one of the more difficult to do well, I believe - I'm certainly not very adept. That's where the Super Kohinoor brand comes in. You might laugh when I tell you that this particular line of products (among many other Indian foods made by Kohinoor) is nothing more complicated than boil bags - boil the bag for 5 minutes, and then simply pour over rice. So simple, even a caveman (such as myself) can do it, but considering the nature of this product, it more than satisfies my Indian food cravings when they arise (I always keep a few of these Kohinoor products in my pantry). They make about 8 different "dishes" in this line, but I'd have to say Awahdi Aloo Mutter is my favorite of the bunch, which is really nothing more than peas and potatos in a vibrant curry. Available in most supermarkets, I'm sure.

Hotcha! Hank

Things I Liked Last Week 050210

01: Owls. As much as I fear and loathe squirrels, I trust and adore owls. Owls let you know when bad shit is afoot in yr back yard in the middle of the night. Owls also hunt and eat varmints like mice and voles. Some of the bigger owls eat squirrels. I love those owls the most. Now that spring is here, I've been sleeping at night with the windows open, and it would seem there is an owl living in one of the back yards on my block. I like this.

02: Scorpions: "Robot Man" [mp3] There's a theory floating around out there called "option paralysis", the idea that as we are given more and more choices, the harder and harder it becomes for us to make a choice, and that when a person is ultimately faced with unlimited choices, s/he is unable to make a choice at all. Now, I have a very large music collection on my hard drives, and with every passing month or year, with every new album folder of mp3s ripped or downloaded, it becomes harder and harder for me to choose what to listen to. Sure, new releases and acquisitions get a fair hearing or three, but in general, I have a hard time deciding what to listen to on any given day, and so often I just hit RANDOM on my MediaMonkey Player, and resign myself to the software's choices, rather than deal with my own brand of option paralysis. Anyways, last Wednesday the Scorpions' In Trance crossed my path, the first time I've heard the album in years. As much as the Scorpions began to disappoint me in the 1980's, their early years, those first five or six albums fucking ruled, and this one might be the best of the bunch.

03: My Alfredo Sauce Recipe: In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, add 1/3 cup BUTTER, 5 cloves MINCED GARLIC, 5 MINCED SCALLIONS, 1/4 cup FLOUR, 1/3 cup MUSHROOMS. Sautee until scallions are translucent and soft and any flour lumps are melted away, adding 1/4 cup wine (optional) in the last minute or so. Then slowly whisk in 2 cups HEAVY CREAM and 1 cup WHOLE MILK, 1/2 tsp NUTMEG, 1/2 tsp BLACK PEPPER. Continue stirring until everything is warm and smooth, then begin stirring in 3/4 cup grated PARMESAN CHEESE, and 1/4 cup RAY ROMANO CHEESE. Keep stirring until it's 100% hot and luscious. Serve with FETTUCINI, or my preferred SPAGHETTI noodles. I also like using this sauce with pan-seared SCALLOPS, and lately I've been throwing the dish (pasta, sauce, scallops) under the broiler in the oven at the end to make it absolutely golden.

04: Modern Family: In it's first season, this ABC comedy has been hitting on all cylinders from the very start. It has a wonderful cast of great characters, but my favorite has to be Cam (played by Eric Stonestreet), the flamboyant half of the show's gay couple. In this clip, he's trying out for the rock band led by his partner's niece's boyfriend, and it illustrates some of the great, understated comedy that runs throughout the show.

05: This. Sometimes, when I'm trying to work on Kieth The Perpetual Teen™ and I get stuck, I like to take other people's comic strips and write my own dialogue or captions, like I did with this Far Side™ cartoon. It's juvenile, yes, but I think it works.


06: This Jim Jarmusch quote [click to enlarge]: I've long been in agreement with Shakespeare that there is "nothing new under the sun", a phrase he took directly from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. I'm also reminded of Pablo Picasso, who once said "good artists copy, great artists steal".

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

Filler, 3 AM...

Ben mentioned this Natalie Portman video in this Tuesday's Tuesday's Fortune post, so I figured I might as well post it...More filler, if nothing else...

I responded that my feelings for Ms. Portman are conflicted...

If I were ten years younger, I suppose Natalie Portman might be my Winona Ryder, you know? But I'm not, so she isn't...

Adorableness aside, I generally don't like most of Ms. Portman's more notable roles and films...I do not like Leon - The Professional...Her character in Garden State annoys me beyond belief, in a film that annoys me in general...The Star Wars films? Pffft...

But I must say, I really like Beautiful Girls quite alot, and her role as a Lolita in the film is a good one, and Portman's performance stands out in a big cast full of good actors giving good performances themselves.

Anyways, here's 7 minutes of Natalie on Letterman, being smart, being cute, being a bit snarky...

Hotcha! Hank

EVERYTHINGATHON! FEBRUARY 2010!

Wherein TAPE JAZZ MASSACRE mix dialogue from the film Das Boot with all sorts of dark ambient music to create a dense, watery longform mix of nearly epic proportions. Available until March 1st...

http://www.everythingathon.com/podcast.htm

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 152

Hank Mohaski: Moist & Tender Favorites: "No Returns" [mp3]

I wrote and recorded this song exactly ten years ago today. How do I know this? Because despite the Psilocybin mushrooms I ingested that evening, which may very well have blurred my memory, it was my birthday. It's hard to forget one's birthday, even while under the influence of hallucinogens.

This song is called "No Returns". It's a play on the old playground saying "girl germs - no returns", but more to the point, it's meant to represent the forward movement of our lives, the idea that we cannot recapture the past. Thus, the sounds of kids playing, and underneath, the slow mechanical sounds of time forever moving forward.

On the surface, it may sound as if this song is nothing but 5 minutes of repetition, but if you listen closely, you will hear new instruments and new melodies continually being introduced to the song - the sounds of experiences constantly being acquired as we age. It may seem that we never really get anywhere in this life, but in reality, nothing ever quite stays the same.

So, here I am, ten years later, and at first glance it may seem that my life hasn't changed very much since then - I still live in the same house I did then, I still work at the same job, I still have the same two cats and many of the same friends - but in reality I've travelled in the past decade, I've made new friends and lost old friends. I've had alot of new experiences, I've shared my bed with new women, read new books, seen new movies, heard new music, written and recorded new songs. I've accumulated knowledge and forgotten other knowledge. Memories have slipped away, only to be replaced by others. In some respects, I'm still the same man I was in 2000, but in many other respects, that man is a stranger to me now. And so it goes...

Hotcha! Hank

Disturbing And/Or Arousing?

I don't know whether to look away, or unbutton my pants...A more disturbing and/or arousing animated gif can be found here: http://i.imgur.com/ksll5.gif

Hotcha! Hank

Don't You (Forget About Sideways Maneuver)

One possible anthem for Generation X.

Hotcha! Hank

Something 4 The Weekend # 148

The Style Council: Cafe Bleu: "The Whole Point Of No Return" [mp3]

I did the math. I crunched the numbers. I analyzed the playlists, and my conclusion is this - "The Whole Point Of No Return" was the most played song in my life, 2009 edition.

I believe this is because I have been working (again) on a screenplay called True Tales Of Warlord Todd, and this Style Council song gets used in a scene in which the camera moves through the crowded hallway of a high school circa 1985, in slow motion, showing the different cliques and classes of teenaged life - jocks, nerds, cheerleaders, heshers, freaks, speaks, Thurstons - which illustrates a more modern American interpretation of the old British classicism Paul Weller is singing about here.

Blather...

For the record, the second most played song in my life this past year was "The Blood" by The Cure...

Another song for another scene...

Hotcha! Hank