Fuck Jamie Foxx's Grandmother

What the fuck is with people in this country? I'm watching the Oscars last night (an annual ritual of self torture) and Jamie Foxx wins the best actor Oscar, as expected. So he says a few things about his daughter and Ray and also his grandmother. So he says some things about how she taught him to stand up straight and to act like he had some sense and that's all well and good and a nice little story about a sweet grandmother. But then he goes into this thing about when he "acted the fool" he would get a beating. And he goes on about it making it sound like he turned out as well as he did because his granny beat his ass, and this is where I get really annoyed. This has got to be the only civilized nation where people talk about being beat by parents/grandparents in such a positive way, as if it is something that makes all the difference in a person turning out to be a positive contribution to society. I got news for ya' Jamie, there's a lot of guys who got beat by their mothers who are on the corner selling crack. Hell, there are pimps out there helping to build character in lots of hookers, where's their shout-out?

My mother beat the shit out of me all the time, and I don't have any Oscars or Golden Globes. I got anger, fear, a sense of worthlessness, depression and several adolescent and college years spent talking with shrinks, but no gold statues. Why is it that this kind of violence is still tolerated, even celebrated, in this country? So these would be OK too, right? --

"And I'd like to thank my mom for locking me in the closet every night, because without that I wouldn't be here tonight accepting this honor."

"Thanks Grand-dad, for burning me with all those cigarettes so I grew up right."

"And most of all, I dedicate this to my dad. If it hadn't been for all those times you raped me, who knows how I would have turned out. I love you pop."

See what I mean? So I say fuck granny. And fuck Jamie too. I'm sure he's passing on the same legacy of violence to his daughter.

-----------------------------

More random Oscar notes:

You can always expect the song category too be filled with a lot of bad stuff, but holy shit! Something is wrong when the best performance of the night is the Counting Crows doing the most boring song in their career. And why did the Academy choose to torture me with Beyonce performing almost all the other songs? And what the fuck was with her eye shadow each time. She was a goddamn one woman United Colors of Benetton commercial. It's the Oscars Beyonce, not a 70s porn movie. The combination of her and Andrew hack Webber had to be the lowpoint in Oscar history. And damn, that song that won might be good, but how would you know, after being destroyed by a "posing is more important than singing" Antonio Banderas and Carlos Santana playing the same two long drawn out annoying notes he's been playing his whole career. In other years you would at least have someone good, like Elliot Smith or Aimee Mann, or a solid song by Randy Newman. Somebody crappy like Phil Collins for Tarzan would win, but at least there would be one or two good songs/performances. Not last night. My vote would have been Wycleaf Jean's song from Hotel Rwanda.

Jamie Foxx was good in Ray, even great. But I still would have gone with Don Cheadle out of those nominated. Biggest crime of the night, of course, was Paul Giamati not even being nominated. That's two years in a row he's been screwed.

Who the hell let Puff Daddy in? Not nearly as bad as letting him on a Broadway stage last year, but still.

admittedly, I have not seen Aviator or Million Dollar Baby yet. But this I know: the guy that made the horrible films Unforgiven, Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil, Bridges Of Madison County and Firefox has two directing and two best picture Oscars. And the guy that made Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Last Temptation Of Christ, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, The King Of Comedy, Cape Fear, and Goodfellas has none. That's just wrong. Of course he does have pretty good company. Hitchcock, Altman and Kubrick, Fellini, and Lumet are all on the never win list.

Of course the real best picture of the year was ignored in every way except for being thrown a crumb with a writing nomination. Before Sunset was by far the best movie I saw this year. Director Richard Linklater accomplished one of the most exquisite and understated movies I've seen in a long time. If you haven't seen it, rent it today. If you've seen it and didn't like it, well..., I'm sure Christmas Vacation will still delight you for the 87th time. Or that White Chicks movie. Albert Brooks says it's great.

Hair-larious

One of the best things I read today was an email sent by a woman who works at the office I'm temping at right now. She was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago (same kind that a close friend of mine was diagnosed with around the same time) and has been getting chemo, so she has no hair and has been wearing a wig. She sent it to everyone in the office. This is her email:

From: ******* *******
To: Everyone
Subject: Say hello to Cherrie

I have officially decided to turn "no hair" into "mo' hair!"

("Mo'" would mean "more" for white people, who live in the suburbs and don't rap much.)

Today, I will be showcasing "Cherrie." Cherrie was clearly inspired by Julia Roberts' lady-of-the-night look in the movie Pretty Woman. Cherrie's look says, "I'm sassy and fun. For fun, I like wearing white go-go boots to clubs and dancing on tables."

Next week and thereafter, I will be showcasing "Britney," ("I love boys, the color pink, and bubble baths."); "Tiffannie," ("Nobody knows about my wild, rock-n-roll side."); and "Ginger" ("I can go to a meeting with Bingham, McCutchen and not be mistaken for a hooker.")

Feel free to silently observe me working in my office, and then cast a vote for your favorite. ( Don't worry if you don't catch me today; due to school vacation this week, I will be showcasing Cherrie sometime next week for all who missed her.)
**Upon request, any of the wigs are available to borrow for a costume party or a special anniversary night that involves role-playing.**

******* *******, Esq
Associate Director
******* & *********, Inc.



And she's been doing it too. Today she had the "Britney" wig on. Hilarious. I can only hope I'd be able to have that kind of attitude about the whole thing. Gotta admire her.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, in case you missed it, last nights Wilco show from the 9:30 Club in D.C. was webcast live on NPR.org. You can listen to the recording here, and hear a great show which includes a cover of Blue Oyster Cult's (Don't Fear) The Reaper.

Life In A Northern (College) Town

I thought of one good thing about living in Boston the other day. Because of my lack of friends here I am doing a better job of keeping in touch with old ones. No friends except for my wife anyway. And I wouldn't trade living with my wife for anything. I just can't wait until we're living together in a town where some of my friends are too. But for now I play catch-up with some of my oldest and closest (or formerly closest) friends. And that is a good thing about living in a cold, soul-less town like Boston.

Had a great phone call with an ex-roommate from college. Well, from college and 3-1/2 years sharing apartments in Seattle. We certainly wore on each other after that much time sharing living space in our early-mid twenties. Growing animosity finally had us finding separate places in Seattle and we only occasionally chatted after that. Then I moved away. We spoke every few months or so, but not often enough for old friends. So I gave him a call the other day and had a great long conversation. Years melted away as we caught up. Good times, good times.

This sense of nostalgia maybe was sparked by some bad nostalgia my wife and I experienced Saturday night. We decided to go out for a drink in the neighborhood. Now, finding a bar in Boston to go to and not get annoyed can be difficult. Boston is flooded with so many colleges that walking into a bar can seem like walking into a frat party. Worse yet, on this night, it seemed like walking into a frat party sometime in the early 90s. Complete with blonde-dyed poofy haired sorority girls. And the music rotation coming from behind the bar, oh fuck. At one point I heard an eerie, familiar sound. It can best be described as an electronic voice sounding "woah, woah, woah....". I though I was going to go into convulsions.

"What?", my wife asked.

"Fucking Bon Jovi Living On A Prayer"

And once the song got past the pseudo-Frampton effects and kicked in the crowd suddenly went nuts and started screaming along with the song. Loud. Really really loud. And I was sure that someone had put acid in my wine and I was having a flashback to a white suburban Chicago high school circa 1987, and I wanted to jab myself in the eye with an icepick. Which is pretty much how I felt everyday in 1987.

Shrieks of "I love this song" and yelling along, off key, continued through such Gen-X faves as I Touch Myself and Like A Virgin.

The best part about this was looking over and seeing my wife roll her eyes as this spectacle as well. I love it when the same things annoy us both. Makes me feel even closer to her.

And the search for a cool, laid back neighborhood bar in Boston continues....

Bulldog

If you haven't seen this article (or this one) yet you must read it now. Be sure to scroll all the way down to the "why does this matter" paragraph to see, well, why it matters. It's a great story about that fake reporter for Talon News, Jeff Gannon, who lobs the easy questions at the president or the press secretary and will also include insults to Democrats in his questions. So it turns out that this guy was a gay prostitute who called himself "Bulldog", and that Jeff Gannon isn't even his real name. This guy uses an alias, worked as a prostitute, has no journalistic background and was given a press pass to the White House with no problem. As is mentioned in the Americablog article linked above, it took bloggers only a few days to find this stuff out. So, with the hard core vetting process the government has for getting that kind of access, what are the chance the White House didn't know all of this already?

So it seems in Dubya's world that committed gay couples are harmful to our children, but gay prostitutes are his favorite kind of reporter. Read the links, way better than anything I could say about this.

Didn't mean to turn this into gay week on my blog, but it's just been jumping out of the GOP closet lately.
------------------------------------------------------------------

A word about my Valentines Day story. While the story I told on V-Day was based on true events, I told the story in a way that would hopefully be somewhat amusing and entertaining. And it appears that because of that my lovely wife maybe came off badly in my little tale. While at some point after my beat-down she did mention that she'd been trying to tell me to stop mouthing off to people or I would get hurt someday, that was not at all the only thing she said or did. She was very scared and upset during/after the whole ordeal, and even put herself in harms way to push one of the punks off of me and scream at them to leave me alone.

Just so no one gets the wrong idea about my honey.

Peace out.

Family Values

My favorite news item today is seeing the article in the Chicago Tribune that the biggest ass-hole queer hating jerk in the world has a lesbian daughter. I was absolutely jumping for joy.
This is, after all, the man who called homosexuals "selfish hedonists". Alan Keyes has even kicked his own daughter out of his house. This is someone who professes to follow the teachings of Jesus. A man from the "values" wing of the Republican party. In his public statement about the issue he sounds like he's talking about a recently fired staffer, not his own daughter.

"My daughter is an adult, and she is responsible for her own actions," the statement read. "What she chooses to do has nothing to do with my work or political activities."

Wow. That sure wasn't the story before she came out of the closet. His daughter, as well as the rest of his family, has always been plastered on Keyes campaign and PR material. She was even the one who talked dear old dad into jumping into Michael Moore's roving mosh pit during the 2000 campaign because she said it would make him look cool. But now she has "nothing to do" with his life or work anymore.

I suppose you should expect that from a black man who, as an Assistant Secretary of State, defended South Africa's apartheid regime. Or someone who called Hillary Clinton a "carpetbagger" for running for the Senate in a state she had never lived, and then proceeded to move to Illinois a few years later to do the exact same thing.

My favorite thing I ever witnessed Keyes say was during an appearance at some Catholic university. He was challenged by a student on his views on the death penalty being inconsistent with Catholic teaching and not matching up with his views on abortion. The Uber-Catholic Keyes went on to make the argument that Jesus supported the death penalty because Jesus had accepted his own death sentence being handed down. So according to Alan Keyes, the lesson of the death and resurrection of his savior is that the gas chamber is divine right?

And now his daughter is a selfish hedonist. Forgive me the sin of laughing at others agony, but....... HaHaHaHaHa. Well I guess since I don't belong to his stupid religion I don't have a sin to be forgiven for. But man oh man do I hope that man is in serious agony. I hope it cuts through his heart like a knife to think about his daughter being a lesbian. I hope he cries himself to sleep every night. I hope he hurts worse than my gay friends hurt when they hear the kind of hateful moronic things that Keyes and others of his kind say about homosexuals. It has been making me smile all day just imagining it.

Only one thing would make this more perfect.

Maya Marcel-Keyes starts dating Sinead O'Connor.

A Valentine's Day Story

Last year my wife and I went to New York for the weekend of Valentine's Day, five weeks before we would be married in the same city. It was a multi-task trip. Wrapping up some last minute wedding details, couple of meetings about potential directing gigs for later in the year (neither came to fruition, at least where my involvement was concerned), and just a good time in the city for the weekend. Always love being in New York. One of the nice things about being in Boston is being able to take jaunts down to NYC. This was set to be a great weekend.

Saturday was Valentine's day. We started off with dinner at The Red Bamboo, our favorite restaurant in The Village. I presented my fiancee a Valentine's Day gift of Monsoon Wedding on DVD. Filled up on a delicious veggie jerk chicken and a glass of wine, and then took a leisurely stroll toward the Mercury Lounge. The Autumn Defense, a side project of Wilco members John Stirratt and Pat Sansone, was playing that night. An awesome night and the Mercury! Great show complete with a Big Star cover. And Monica Lewinski was rocking out by the front of the stage.

And a few beers.....

Entering the subway at Bleeker Street to go uptown to our hotel we find that the northbound local tracks are closed for overnight maintenance. So we have to go to the other side to catch a downtown local to the Brooklyn Bridge stop in order to catch an uptown express. The downtown side is an unmanned auxiliary entrance with floor to ceiling revolving gates instead of the typical turnstiles. When we descend from street level to the entranceway there is a group of teenager gang-banger types trying to force their way through the gates. As I walk up to the gate one of them is in my way. I swipe my card in the slot and look up to the kid holding the gate on the other side and say "Get the fuck out of the way". Now, if I hadn't had a few beers I probably would have looked around more carefully and done a better job accessing the situation. Counting the number of them would have been the first thought. Second thought should have been to remember what city I'm in. If one is in, say Duluth, then the likelihood of these being little posers and not real gang-bangy types is very high. New York is not at that same end of the spectrum. So needless to say I've got a couple of them surrounding me and getting in my face ("what'd you say muther fucker", etc.) and then I was hit on the right side of my head with, I assume, somebody's fist. My glasses went flying and I hit the ground and a started getting wailed on. Now at this point I start thinking smarter and just curl up and cover my head while I'm being kicked. Amazing my wife saw this major display of pussiness and still married me. By this time she had gotten through the gate herself and was screaming at them to stop and a few seconds later they all ran off. Seemed like a long kicking, but probably lasted 30 seconds. I jumped up as fast as I could so Lisa would see that I was OK, and to try to hold on to a little shred of my manhood.
"I'm OK, I'm OK", I tell her.
And she runs up to me and says "See what I mean about you always mouthing off to people?"

It was true. She had been telling me I was going to get myself beat up or something if I kept doing things like that (screaming and flipping off the guy who cut you off in traffic and the such...). Probably the best "I told you so" in the history of I told you so's.

The ride back to the hotel was long and quiet. Once there I was able to look in the mirror and see two huge bruised welts in my back. And I was sore as hell. It took me ten minutes to get out of my clothes.
I laid down on my stomach on the bed and considered what I could have done differently that night to avoid what happened. The phrase "excuse me young man, could I get past?" was one thing that came to mind.

And while drifting to sleep I couldn't help but think to myself "Fuck I hate Hallmark!"

Death Of A Drama Man

Random Employee walking by reception desk: Hey Deni, what's new? (or What's up?, how ya doin'?, what's the word?, etc....)

Me: I just read that Arthur Miller died last night. (Same date that Death Of A Salesman opened on Broadway in 1949)

Random employee: Who?

------------------------------------------------

This conversation has happened to me several times today. Unbelievable.

Out of respect for the Greatest American Playwright I will not spread my blathering excuse for writing into the world today. Go read or watch this instead and I'll be back after the weekend.

Ass Wednesday

So breezing through the headlines today and I come across this item that shows Virginia has jumped out front in the stupidest state in the union race. Mississippi, weakened by their approval of the 13th Amendment (Abolishment of slavery) in 1995, has been losing ground ever since and appears to have finally given up its amazing 187 year lead. Some would argue that, like the Atlanta Braves division title streak broken up by the 1994 strike, Mississippi should not be given credit for consecutive years since they were for a short few years a part of a smaller league. But I would argue that for those few years in the early 1860s they were playing against the elite teams in this particular category. It would have been the equivalent of playing in a league full of New York Yankees and Manchester Uniteds. So don't be putting any asterisks next to that streak. Mississippi earned it. But, alas, combined with Virginia's "home run" to rid their state of the scourge of ass cracks & underoos and Ole Miss' "sacrifice fly" agreeing that slavery is bad has led to the Harlem Globetrotters of stupidity finally losing a match.

So congratulations Virginia! Job well done. But beware, Alabama has been slowly and quietly building its farm system and appears ready to make a bold move in 2006 because this proven old veteran seems poised to rejoin the big club after late career trip to the DL in 2003. His strong pitching for the Alabama Supremos got them to the championship round in years past, and I'm sure with a new role as number one starter could get them all the way there again and into the big game. With this kind of "stuff" (as the scouts say), how can 'Bama lose?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poll of the day
Inspired by Virginia's brave legislating of fashion sense, what fashion faux pas would you vote to criminalize?
Mine would be black smudges on the forehead. I've been noticing today that it seems to be the new trendy thing. I can't believe there are so many people who think that looks good. Those crazy kids. My momma taught me to pull up my pants and wash my face before I left the house.

Rolling Rally

Oh boy, big celebration in Boston today. A rolling rally for the champ-een football team. What's a rolling rally you ask? Let me explain. You see the team loads themselves on a series of vehicles called duckboats (don't ask) and then starts moving at a slow pace through the city waving to people gathered on the side of the street and...oh wait....there's already a name for that. IT'S CALLED A FUCKING PARADE! Stupid fucking New Englanders can't even call something by the right name. Jimmies(chocolate sprinkles), johnnies(hospital gowns), ideer(idea) and now fucking rolling rally(parade). No one yet has been able to tell me how this event is any different than a parade, or how it is anything at all like a rally. It's like saying "I went and saw this really great song last night called Sideways. One of the best songs I've seen all year, should win a couple of Oscars easy, both for best lead actor in a song and best director. Although best song of the year will probably go to The Aviator."
And boy did these idiots come out early for the damn parade. Walking to work at 8:00 this morning they were already lining the streets to watch a group of jocks go by in old amphibious assault vehicles repainted to look like ducks. Yes, ducks. In the warmer part of the year they give tours through the city on these things. And during those tours they frequently encourage the tourists to quack out loud while riding through the streets of Bean-town. And they actually do it. I mean, who the fuck quacks like a duck because some loser who can't get a better job than duckboat tour guide tells them to? If I'm on that tour I'd be more likely to say "Hey, I'm the one who paid too much money for this, you quack like a duck, asshole.
So anyway the city is getting filled with suburbanites this morning coming into town for the rolling ra....um, parade. So the streets are getting packed while I'm trying to get to my life-fulfilling job of temp reception work. Now, the typical thing in Boston when walking down the street is no one will ever give room for you. Or say excuse me when they bump into you. People seem to go out of their way to get in your way. Even little old ladies in this town "strong shoulder" you. So today is like this times 100. I was having flashbacks to 9th grade as I tried to survive a barrage of "strong shouldering" from jerkwad jock-types wearing football jerseys and gold chains and their hoochy mama girlfriends. I really wanted to go tell the school nurse I was sick and needed to go home, to hell with the after-school drama club meeting. I'd rather lock myself in my room and listen to The Cure's The Head On The Door than go to the pep rally.

Good news coming, though. Wilco's new EP, which will be downloadable for free to those of us that own the latest album, will be coming out early next month. Two studio tracks from the Ghost Is Born recording session, and three live gems. And there are big rumors that they will be filming upcoming show(s) for a DVD later this year. Woo-hoo!

Everybody else is doing it so why...

So today I start a blog. I kind of got the idea by accident. I had seen a posting by my old friend Jose that I wanted to comment on and I had to register to leave a comment. Suddenly I'm asked if I want to post to my blog. So I started a blog by mistake. And if you are reading it that was probably a mistake as well.

I ended up here because I was catching up on reading my friend Joe's blog. A fine example of what a wretched friend I can be is that my very close friend has had a blog since last July, and he is the best writer I know, yet I read his first post after he sent me the link and never checked back in until today. I was in his wedding, and he was my best man for mine for fuck's sake and I don't take a couple of minutes out of my day to read his blog. Yet I seem to find plenty of time getting into silly arguments about why Being There is Better than Summerteeth over at the Wilco fan site with people I don't even know. Or pour over the details of Chicago's upcoming Brown Line train rehab project. I'm a crappy crappy friend sometimes. Joe, I promise to read your blog from now on. Especially since it took me about 6 hours to catch up with 7 months worth of posts and I don't want to have to go through that again. Though after reading his brilliant writing on his blog I now wonder what business I have doing this.

So here's what you can probably expect if you check in here from time to time:

I will talk about Wilco waaaaaayyyy too much. I'm obsessed. I'm aware of it. No need to point it out. But if I do it here maybe I won't spend as much time over at viachicago.org reading threads about the miscarriage of justice that Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was only #11 on Pitchfork's list of best albums of this decade. And I'm sure my wife, good sport that she is, will appreciate my getting it out somewhere else besides to her.

I will bitch about Boston all the time. It is where I am living right now. I hate it. In 17 months I will get to leave. Make that 16 months and 21 days.

Like a lot of blogs I will probably bitch about Bush, Fox News and every other right-wing agenda item that is in the news. And the Democrat's inability to do anything about it.

I will try to share things I love too, but they are not as easy to write about at things that piss me off.
With that idea in mind we'll start with this- Ossie Davis was one of my favorite people in this world. His death, not nearly as big of deal in the news as it should have been, saddened me. It also made me go out and buy a DVD copy of Spike Lee's Get On The Bus. Truly is one of Spike's shining moments. And one of Ossie's greatest performances. Go watch it today.


As I mentioned, I live in Boston. This has been an extra annoying day to live here. Everyone who walks by the desk where I'm temping answering phones keeps saying things like "Great game yesterday huh?", or "How 'bout those Pats?" Everyone assumes I watched that stupid fucking game last night. Unlike the dunderheads who watch that stupid sport, I spent the evening at the cinema with my wife watching the incredible movie Sideways. A film that moved me on so many levels. I can't imagine choosing watching a bunch of repressed homosexual Christians piling on each other for four hours instead. And don't even get me started on those people who say they watch the Super Bowl for the commercials! These are the same stupid asssholes that wear swooshes on their fucking clothes and think that's fashion and/or culture. Stupid dumbfucks.

To paraphrase George Will (no, quoting conservative columnists in a positive way will not be the norm here) - Football is the embodiment of the two worst things about America. Violence and meetings by committee.
----------------------------
Well that is my very first blog. Seems boring. I'll try to get better at it as I go. And I'll post links to people's blogs you should really be reading, like my buddy Joe's blog called hairshirt, as soon as I figure the whole linking thing out. Peace.