Allan Ball to Produce the Sookie Stackhouse Series for HBO

For those few of us who so straddle the pop culture world as to have both read the wonderful Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris AND watched Allan Ball's movie American Beauty and his HBO series Six Feet Under will be shocked to discover Mr. Ball will be producing a series for HBO based very closely on the Sookie books.

In related news Tim Robbins has agreed to produce a series of NRA training videos for children.

Read Nick Hornby

Read Nick Hornby. If you need a reason, start with The Polysyllabic Spree. This collection of essays on books and reading not only artfully reminds us why we read but leaves you craving more (or in my case, leaves you wanting to run to Borders and purchase armfuls of expensive books I'll never read.)

I love Nick Hornby. He makes me want to be more British. And he has a way of making me feel better about my humble intellect while leaving me simultaniously urged to learn. He loves good music (and has shockingly good taste!). He's easy and profound and funny as hell (well funny as looking through a window INTO hell where you can watch the bad people do the lava dance.)

Are there BAD people?

Read Nick Hornby.

Sugar High 2005

Well William has done the complete Halloween routine now and the official verdict is "more, more."

Shalom my lonesome prairie dog. 

C'est Moi

I'm posting this here not because of it's gratuitous beauty, but because I don't know how else to host the photo for my profile and I'm a moron. So I'm cheating and hosting it myself and linking to it. Yes, I am below average, hear me roar!

Word Verification

Apologies to the one person who might make comments here (mike), but I've had to activate "word verification" to stem the flow of spam comments I'm getting.

Relative to nothing, peanut butter scooped up with a hershey bar is better than love or money. 

Halloween Listening

It deserves more than a passing mention...

Disintegration is the great crimson wildflower of pop despair. It is the Halloween record of the century (it's also the walking past midnight and the laying on the floor on thursday afternoon record of the century.) So much of my manic searching through record reviews and sample .mp3's is really just a vain attempt to find another Disintegration. It has not been duplicated.

There are two types of people; those who own and listen to Disintegration and retarded zombies. Luckily for the latter Halloween is the one day a year it is acceptable to be a retarded zombie... 

Halloween...

Being straight (and over 30) I really get nothing out of Halloween, so it's nice to have a family to make it into something more innocent and real.

And speaking of innocent and real, remember to listen to Disintegration today. You owe it to your children. 

Serenity

I'm not going to write a review of Serenity. It's the most entertaining movie I've seen in a long time, but every intelligent critic has raved about it so there's little point in adding more to what's been said. However the fact that Serenity has made far less money in 4 weeks than Saw II made this weekend is an appropriate post script to my Ashlee Simpson soap box.

We can do better than this, my friends. Don't spend money on bad movies. Seeing bad movies is the leading cause of baldness, bird flu, leprosy, spontaneous decapitation and divorce.

Stop the madness. Take your friends to Serenity.

#1 Album in America

We have to talk about this.

Forget about the 6 dead soldiers in Iraq today. Ignore the storms and the earthquakes. Don't worry yourself about the train that derailed in India and plunged into raging flood waters killing 120 people. This stuff just happens everyday.

But Ashlee Simpson has the #1 album in America. Ashlee Simpson. #1 album.

People, you're making it worse. We're fat, we're violent, we're boring and now we worship Ashlee Simpson and the shadowy gulf that is both her powdered cleavage and her talent.

And speaking of scabby bandaids, stop buying Nickelback albums.

We have an exposure problem in this country. I don't want to get off on a tangent here but we're waging war on the wrong dictator. Clearchannel must be dragged from it's hole. They have been given every chance to stop gassing they're own people but they have simply scoffed at our sanctions and warnings. They are hurting our children. I mean really hurting them! Ashlee Simpson! Our children no longer know the difference between music and cleavage and there IS a difference, I'm almost sure of it. Make no mistake, this is only going to get worse. It will affect those of us who still remember. They will come for us in the end.

So if a young girl walks by and you see Ashlee Simpson displayed on her iPod, stop and talk to her. Help her. If a man walks by and you see Ashlee Simpson displayed on his iPod, kick him in the junk. The life you save may just be your own...

Classical Cravings

I've been jonesing for some classical lately which is a problem for me. I bought a book to get myself some learnin' on the subject but it left me on my head. I keep returning to this simple album by Edgar Meyer. He plays Bach's beautiful Unaccompanied Cello Suites on his very capable double bass.

No doubt some would consider this a gimmick but what is a genius double bassist supposed to do? This album in no way diminishes the depth of Bach's work, it simply presents it in a different skin. I love the texture of the stringed instruments and the bass has so much silk and grit to it...I could listen to Meyer play almost anything. But this is Bach and the disc has most of what I crave when I crave classical.

I love opera too, but I've said too much already.

Luna's Brilliant Final Album

I'm making a list of the artists whose every song I like...

Yo La Tengo
R.E.M.
Luna
Otis Redding

I don't know...you can't make a list like this. Interpol (only two albums), Clap Your Hands And Say Yeah (one album), do you count these new kids? Anyway, my point is that anyone who doesn't like Luna sucks. Period. Jed was mentioning today that Luna remind him of everything he likes about his favorite Velvet Underground songs. Testify my Brother.

Luna are no more. Rendezvous is their curtain call. Buy it, put it in your car and drive away. I got lost when I did...went through it 6 times before I found my way home. You deserve this record. We all do.

Watch Good Movies

See American Splendor! Why are you waiting? Burger King will still be there when you get back. 

Bullets Over Broadway

I watched Bullets Over Broadway again tonight. We're all better for this move having been made.

Legacy photo of Angie and me in Austria

These European trips are beginning to feel like a dream I had after too much Ambien. What fun we had...