stylo

Gorillaz is back!



I want to buy the Blur No Distance Left To Run dvd (it comes with the Hyde Park reunion concert on a separate disc), but it's almost $40 here in the US, and the UK version is PAL. Should I wait?

peril jam

It has come to my attention that life is full of perils. Sometimes I feel like I spend more time dodging the pitfalls of life than I do just living life. Here I list some of life's perils:

- H1N1
- Earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and other wraths of Mother Nature
- Golddiggers
- Backstabbing coworkers
- Jehovah's Witnesses and other religious ambushes
- Mothers (both your own and other people's...oh you love them but man, sometimes they can crush you as much as they can lift you up)
- Cancer
- Cell phone-using drivers
- Tongue-burning hot soup
- Speed traps
- Whore houses disguised as hair salons
- Jay Leno and NBC
- Insecurity (or maybe not - I don't really know. Maybe this list is really a waste of your time, or mine...)
- Cynicism
- Ladies who cut queues in Chinatown
- Girl scouts selling cookies (Don't f*cking make me feel bad for not wanting to help! I can't help it if you don't sell healthful snacks, and besides, I'd rather feed an African kid than to send you spoiled brats to summer camp.)
- Serial killers
- Catholic priests and creepy uncles and neighbors with tool sheds
- Advertisements that make you think you need things
- Love (see Mother above)

last night a jd saved my life

Sometimes I ask myself, how did I come to like mopey British pop songs from the Smiths and New Order? Was it because I was already mopey, or did liking those songs make me mopey? Same question for Vonnegut, Lynch, Murakami, and all my literary, musical, cinematic heroes. How did I become this hard-boiled, nostalgic, agnostic, sarcastic, cynical, sentimental, irreverent, sensitive, hopelessly romantic, and infinitely sad person?

J.D. Salinger passed away this week. I first read Catcher In The Rye in high school, probably tenth grade. It was the singularly most influential novel of my youth. Like Holden Caulfield, I too wanted to just walk away from all the phoniness of the world around me. That feeling has regrettably never left me. The world is still phoney, and I still want to hit ctrl-alt-del all the time. I don't know why, but I can always relate to fictitious people more than the real people I know. Again, maybe it's not so much that I can relate to them, but that I just want to be like them, so I adopt these world-weary views from these brooding characters. Inside my head, I am Holden Caulfield, I am Toru Watanable, I am Chow Mo Wan. In this way, you can say J.D. Salinger has ruined me for life.

Another important thing about reading Salinger at that age is that it made me think I could write. And it made me want to be a writer. Some teacher, somewhere in college, had commented on the Salinger-feel of my writing. (Just like someone in film class had said my Super-8 was very Lynchian.) It's not copying; it's influence. You see, writers like James Joyce and Dostoevsky made writing seem impossible, whereas Salinger made writing deceptively effortless. It's just putting your stream-of-consciousness on paper; it's just arranging words til they mean something. A teenager can do that, I thought. So I was never afraid of writing. Of course, I know a little better now, but I still don't think it's such a mystery. It's not Mount Everest for me. It's a craft you need to hone. A craft that you don't need fancy tools for, and a craft that lets you express yourself when you can't talk about it with real people. In this way, you can say J.D. Salinger has saved my life.

city of ruins

Eddie Vedder is just plain amazing. You can buy this off iTunes to help Haiti.



As is Thom Yorke and Radiohead. This is Lotus Flower, at another Haiti benefit.



Justin Timberlake, Matt Morris, and Charlie Sexton doing one of my favorite songs of all time - Hallelujah - at the Hope for Haiti Now telethon. Not quite up to standard of Jeff Buckley but always love hearing this song.

goodbye, coco

Conan O'Brien, his last night as host of The Tonight Show:

“Before we end this rodeo, a few things need to be said. There has been a lot of speculation in the press about what I legally can and can’t say about NBC. And this isn’t a joke, to set the record straight, tonight I am allowed to say anything I want. And what I want to say is this: between my time at Saturday Night Live, The Late Night Show, and my brief run here on The Tonight Show, I have worked with NBC for over twenty years. Yes, we have our differences right now and yes, we’re going to go our separate ways. But this company has been my home for most of my adult life. I am enormously proud of the work we have done together, and I want to thank NBC for making it all possible. I really do.

Walking away from The Tonight Show is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Making this choice has been enormously difficult. This is the best job in the world, I absolutely love doing it, and I have the best staff and crew in the history of the medium. But despite this sense of loss, I really feel this should be a happy moment. Every comedian dreams of hosting The Tonight Show and, for seven months, I got to. I did it my way, with people I love, and I do not regret a second. I’ve had more good fortune than anyone I know and if our next gig is doing a show in a 7-11 parking lot, we’ll find a way to make it fun.

And finally, I have to say something to our fans. The massive outpouring of support and passion from so many people has been overwhelming. The rallies, the signs, all the goofy, outrageous creativity on the internet, and the fact that people have traveled long distances and camped out all night in the pouring rain to be in our audience, made a sad situation joyous and inspirational.

To all the people watching, I can never thank you enough for your kindness to me and I’ll think about it for the rest of my life. All I ask of you is one thing: please don’t be cynical. I hate cynicism — it’s my least favorite quality and it doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you’re kind, amazing things will happen.”

I am rotted with cynicism, but yet somehow I honestly believe this. I really will try to be less cynical and work harder and be more kind to people.

Goodbye, Coco. I'll miss ya. See you at the 7-11.

here comes the feeling

10. Out Of The Walls - Tom McRae
9. Heaven Can Wait - Charlotte Gainsbourg
8. Please Don't - David Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Santogold
7. The High Road - Broken Bells
6. Cousins - Vampire Weekend
5. Bluish - Sondre Lerche
4. Great Big Mind - Josh Ritter
3. One Life Stand - Hot Chip
2. Bloodline - Matt Morris


#1. Horchata - Vampire Weekend

Oh how much do I love this song!

in rainbows and in denial

Come on, who doesn't love a rainbow? It's been raining dogs and cats here in Northern Cal for days now, so yesterday it was nice when we got a small break and I spotted this rainbow one block from my house:


By the way, I haven't commented on the Haiti apocalyptic disaster because I cannot stand to watch coverage of it. I am in denial of how bad things are there and how destructive an earthquake can be. I swear, sooner or later, I am going get out of earthquake country and go somewhere where the ground doesn't shake below me. And yes, I have been gathering emergency supplies, like water, canned goods, portable power pack, etc. I even bought a tent, but that might go back to Target. Not that I don't think I need a tent, but I think I just need a better tent.