I just happened to catch Taps on TCM this week. I hadn’t seen the movie in quite some time, but I vividly remember most of it. Apparently it was released at Christmas 1981 which would mean that I was 10 when I saw it in the theater. I probably saw it with just my mother, but it might have been a family outing. My sister would only have been 7 so not sure if she was also there or not.
It pre-dated me being enrolled in an all boys school but just by a year. There are a lot of parallels between a military academy and a Catholic school. The movie opens with a mass. I remember being impressed by Timothy Hutton and identifying with Charlie and the younger boys. I had just seen George C. Scott in another movie that nobody knows but is still a great ghost movie, The Changeling. Upon re-watching, I already knew it was an early Sean Penn and Tom Cruise movie, but it also stars a young Giancarlo Esposito as Pearce who is the cadet who gets injured in the generator mishap. Ronny Cox is also in it and he went on to some pretty memorable roles in the 80s. Young Charlie’s friend is the actor who plays Rusty Griswold’s (Anthony Michael Hall) cousin in Vacation (“Ya ever bop your baloney?”).
This time around, I noted that it rains an awful lot in the film. Apparently that was a real problem for them filming in Valley Forge. It required them to run elaborate filming schedules to get the right shots. It’s interesting to hear the themes about military and civilian considering how politicized that has become in the last 25 years. Anyway, if you haven’t checked this movie out, you should. It’s worth a viewing.
My dad passed away on Valentine’s Day this year. There’s a lot wrapped up in that but one of the results of it was that I’ve inherited his 2010 Honda Civic Si since it’s a manual transmission and I’m the only one in the family who’s got experience with one. It was fortuitous though as we were going to get my daughter a car for college so this meant that I could let her take my car and I’d take my dad’s. Other than finding out that I needed to completely replace the AC system, I’ve also missed the Sirius XM that I had in my car. 2010 is the year before hands free (bluetooth) and satellite radio became more standard issue in all cars. I’m also missing the hands free. ANYWAY, my point is that I’m back to listening to KUT a lot more again. In particular, the Sunday lineup is pretty good. Last month….or maybe it was May, there was a great story on This American Life about Phantom of the Opera musicians and then a really interesting series on COVID tracking and the Fed’s response to the early pandemic on Reveal. Part of the reason for this post is my blog is one of my many electronic memory / brain supplements.
As with the DID post, I was hoarding these in a custom MySQL database with some formatting and delusions about keeping images along with the Amazon links with my kickback URL. I can still do that, but keeping it outside of WordPress seems stupid at this point since I have a bunch of other data here. And given the death of my father this year, it’s clear that if you want things to be remembered and accessible, you need to make that easy and in one place. How’s that for old man morbid…but realistic?
So here’s my DIM list as it was in the early 2000s. As with the music, I don’t think I’d change it. I just might add / comment. Which means it’s a pretty good list. There are only 7 because I included the X-Files first season, the Monty Python entire disc set and Beastie Boys anthology and, in retrospect, I think that’s cheating. I need to stick with movies. So I’ll do an addendum post with these 7 and some worthy additions.
Jacob’s Ladder – Adrian Lyne – 1990 – This movie works on many different levels. It’s a horror movie but with a spiritual theme. I like that it takes more than one viewing to absorb. The DVD has some cool extras. I consider extras a requirement to be a DID unless I REALLY like the movie.
To Kill A Mockingbird – Robert Mulligan – 1962 – One of the few examples where the movie is at least as good as the book. The new collector’s edition includes some nice goodies.
Casablanca – Michael Curtiz – 1943 – I don’t think I really need to explain this choice. Bogie is the coolest.
Raising Arizona – Joel and Ethan Coen – 1987 – Totally hilarious. I love the Coen brothers. Unfortunately, I can’t include Miller’s Crossing in my list (and it certainly would be included) as it isn’t available on DVD.
Unforgiven – Clint Eastwood – 1992 – Eastwood’s final word on westerns. There’s a reason why this won best picture. There are several other westerns that I’d love to include, Wild Bunch, Once Upon a Time in the West, High Noon among others, but I’ll live with this one.
The Great Escape – John Sturges – 1963 – This is an epic WWII movie that has been one of my favorites since the first time that I saw it as a kid. Steve McQueen is so cool in this one that they had to work it into his nickname in the film, “The Cooler King.”
The Player – Robert Altman – 1992 – Robert Altman’s return after a string of forgettable work in the ’80s. A wonderful satire of the film industry. It’s fun just to watch all of the cameos. I also really enjoyed Short Cuts and Gosford Park.
Current movie follow up.
Miller’s Crossing is available on DVD. I’m not sure it ever wasn’t, but I’ll give myself a break. I’d put that on the list. The Big Lebowski is also up there.
I’ve been keeping these in a separate MySQL database back when I was trying to code my own PHP website and WordPress was a new thing. I was using PHPNuke and that site got hacked due to a vulnerability in that platform which pretty much pushed me to no more custom coding and trusting WordPress. So anyway, in the interest of keeping things searchable and in one place, I’m going to just do this as a blog post. Here’s the DID list that I made about 20 years ago and to its credit, it hasn’t changed. I’d certainly add to it but I don’t think I’d remove any of them. And some of my comments are dated given what happened later. I’ll add a few footnotes at the end given 20 years of insight.
The Shape of Punk to Come – Refused – 1998 – This album is the total package. It’s too bad they broke up before I could see them live. The singer moved on to form International Noise Conspiracy.
California – Mr Bungle – 1999 – I had to have something with Mike Patton on it, so I decided on this one. It has a diverse enough sound that I wouldn’t get bored over repeated listenings. As with most of my choices, there’s not a bad song in the bunch.
Bone Machine – Tom Waits – 1992 – Again, this was tough. I might have picked Swordfishtrombones or Mule Variations.
The Low End Theory – A Tribe Called Quest – 1991 – One of the best hip hop albums ever. Like many other albums, it blended jazz with the rhymes and pulled it off the best, in my opinion. I might have picked the Roots – Do You Want More?!!!??!
Blue Train – John Coltrane – 1957 – If I’m gonna be stuck, I’m gonna need something mellow. There are several that I might have chosen, but this is my favorite.
Spiderland – Slint – 1991 – One of the many musicians that I played with while living in NYC turned me onto this album and Shellac’s At Action Park. I’ll be forever grateful.
In On The Kill Taker – Fugazi – 1993 – This was a tough one. I’d really like to have the entire Fugazi catalog with me. They’re truly an amazing band. Probably one of my top 3 favorite artists.
I Against I – Bad Brains – 1986 – This one combines hardcore with reggae and other influences. Can’t compare to anything at the time.
The Fat Elvis – Big Boys – 1993 – This is a compilation that was released along with The Skinny Elvis. It encompasses three of their later albums. The greatest band to come out of Austin. Ever.
OK Computer – Radiohead – 1997 – Most people seem to pick The Bends as their favorite. This one is mine. I don’t particularly care for the earlier stuff.
As I said, a lot has changed since I wrote that list but it still holds up. I’ll comment on each now that I’m posting them again in 2023.
I did end up seeing Refused reunite at Fun Fun Fun Fest with Henry. My YouTube channel has video from that show
Mr Bungle is back with Scott Ian and Dave Lombardo in the band. How cool is that? I haven’t had a chance to see that combo live. Tomahawk was probably happening at that time too but they’re amazing. And then that Dillinger Escape Plan album with Mike Patton is genius (Irony is a Dead Scene)
Not much from Tom Waits lately, but Mary and I drove to Houston to see him on the Glitter and Doom tour. Totally worth it.
Tribe being my hip hop choice is hard to defend because I’m only allowed one. Paul’s Boutique might win now. Or one of the Roots albums. Not sure. Or Madvillain
I’ll just say that I like The Bends better than I did at the time that I wrote this but it’s still not better than OK Computer and they did a bunch of great stuff after that.
I ended up getting a tattoo of the wolf spider from Spiderland on my right forearm so that tells you how much I like that album. It was a good sign that the guy that I picked to do the tattoo is also a huge fan of Irony is a Dead Scene
Fanboy related to Fugazi and Slint, I’ve had social media / email interactions with Ian MacKaye and David Pajo. My photo from the last Fugazi show in Austin at Emo’s on Sixth is the shot that comes up when you google them due to my Creative Commons attribution and wikipedia picking that up. I’ve also contributed to Fugazi’s live archive with ticket stubs and photos.
This started out as just a story about a link I discovered but it turned into its own post. Despite what a shitshow Twitter has become, I still find really good links via the people I follow.
YouTube surfaced that Chad Gracey, the drummer from Live, has been posting solo performance play along videos with various Live songs. I wondered why he’d be doing that since it seems a little odd even though I enjoy them. He’s posted roughly 3 songs a month. Turns out that he isn’t in the band anymore and this Rolling Stone article, A Tale of Two Chads, gets into the reasons.
I had stopped following the band with the release of V in 2001. I just wasn’t into it. I was aware of them in the early 90s. A co-worker at Sound Warehouse would play Mental Jewelry at work and I didn’t like it much. Throwing Copper was released when I was living in NY and blew up. I liked “Selling the Drama” which was the first single. Later, I bought the album and realized the entire thing was good in addition to all of the singles that were being played non-stop. I went back and bought Mental Jewelry and played that all the way through for several months. This was just after I moved back to Austin in 1995. They released Secret Samadhi followed by The Distance to Here. I saw them live at Southpark Meadows back when it was a music venue. That might’ve been the last live show I saw there before it got turned into a massive shopping area. I loved both of those records and would listen to them all of the way through. V was the first one where I didn’t do that and that’s where I pretty much stopped following them. They played a show in 2000 or so at Waterloo Park and we brought H. It was just before the release of V and was also a mediocre show. They played ACL in 2017 and I watched the live stream from home. I think I noticed the second drummer but didn’t realize that was the beginning of the end for Chad. I’ve always really liked his drumming so I’m sad to see him part ways with the band under such poor circumstances even if I’d lost track of them after 2000. I always though Ed was a little pretentious but you can’t deny his presence or his songwriting. I have to say that I dig the videos that Chad is posting and hope he lands on something else if he wants to keep playing.
The implosion of Twitter since ElMu took over has been pretty epic. I had set a deadline for myself of March 19 to move off since that was the day they decided to force us to switch off of SMS 2FA. I was getting prompted frequently in the Twitter app. I’ve been pulling up Mastodon side-by-side with Twitter to try to add people in Mastodon (my Mastodon user name is in my Twitter profile). It’s a slow process. Mark Cathcart pointed out correctly that Mastodon is not a sure thing since you’re at the mercy of the owner of the server that your data resides. I need to look into that some more. It’s another reason I haven’t completely left Twitter. The death of 3rd party API access to Twitter has meant that Tweetbot is dead and that was a big reason I still used Twitter. It was light years better than the Twitter mobile app. Tapbots has created a mobile app for Mastodon called Ivory, but it’s a subscription model that I had avoided with Tweetbot by staying on an older version prior to the subscription model. I’m basically straddling both apps right now for all of these reasons. I joined Twitter during SXSW 2006 and had a pretty good experience even now which I attribute to curating a good list of people to follow from early on and then ignoring the algorithm tabs like “For You”. I end up picking “Following” on Twitter and Instagram to just see the people I follow and not the bullshit the algorithm picks for me. I’m really getting fed up with Instagram. I’m closer to bailing there than Twitter. But so many businesses use it as a platform for notifications that it’s hard to quit it completely.
Much has been said about this movie over the years. I recently read a review of the new insanely expensive book that came out about it. It sounds like a very definitive guide and I might consider purchasing it if they ever make a reasonably priced copy. The article is a nice mix of how it influenced Pixar’s Lee Unkrich, someone I already follow on Twitter and his busting of some of the myths about the film in the course of researching the book. I have previously posted a link to the film that Kubrick’s daughter made during the making of the Shining. I remember seeing it in the theater with my mother and some family friends. I’m pretty sure I was the youngest there and probably shouldn’t have seen it at my age (a recurring theme if you know me). It came out in the summer of 1980, so I was 8 years old. The actor who plays Danny is less than a year younger than me. And to show what a rabbit hole the Internet can be, in double checking Lloyd’s age on IMDB, I was introduced to another documentary called Filmworker about english actor Leon Vitali who was an assistant to Kubrick for 30 years. Now I need to watch that. Apparently it came out in 2017 and I completely missed it. In general, I’m a Kubrick fan at least of the visuals. The actual movies can be hit or miss. The Killing is amazing. I can really only sit through parts of 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut. Same with Clockwork Orange. It’s too much.
I didn’t read Stephen King’s book until later but my mother told me that the book included animal topiaries that came to life that were left out of the movie (presumably because that was going to be too difficult to pull off in the late 70s). It was that one and The Stand that I learned about from her early on.
This was from March 21, 2021 and I never published it. Again, some decent things here but unfinished. We’re about to enter our second winter post snowpocalypse. And not enough has been done to improve things so I guess we’re all just crossing our fingers that it goes well? The Republican party still has a hold on Texas whether that’s due to stupid rednecks or redistricting/gerrymandering. Abbott successfully defeated a challenge from Beto. At least I’m about to be rid of Chip Roy as my representation in the US House.
The last twelve months have been the most stressful of my nearly 50 years on this planet. I’ve had a few extra stressors on top of the ones that everyone else has had. But this post is not about me. This post is about what we want and expect from our government. It’s not a shock to anyone who knows me or has read the intermittent posts on here or my more frequent posts to Twitter that I tend to lean more progressive and therefore Democrat. However, I try to remain open and consider the other side on many issues. Given the last twelve months though and particularly the last week in Texas, it’s undeniable that the Republican party and leadership in Texas are solely to blame for the severity of the situation that we all faced with this unprecedented winter storm.
This wonderfully helpful article on the Texas State Legislature and the wikipedia page on Texas Governors back up what I suspected. The Republican party has had control of the state House since 2002, the Senate since 1996 and the Governor since 1995. So that’s control of all three since 2002 or 19 years.
I wrote this on Jan 14 2021 and never published it presumably because I wanted to get all of the songs finished on the ratings / commentary and I probably had other things to say, but it’s clear that’s never happening so I’m posting it as is from then because I think I had some good stuff here anyway.
I don’t normally listen to the Talk is Jericho podcast and I honestly don’t have a very high opinion of him (and it wasn’t improved by this episode), but since the topic was comparing Anthrax’s Spreading the Disease with their subsequent Among the Living, I have to weigh in. I feel I owe it to…whoever. He had Charlie and Scott from Anthrax and Eddie Trunk who I didn’t know it, but was working at Megaforce when Among the Living was released.
The premise of the episode format is that you take each track head to head and pick the winner. Scott and Charlie acknowledge at the start that they’re biased. I think it’s kinda arbitrary to use the album order to compare the tracks, but I don’t know the history for this particular idea. I’ll bet you’re shocked but I have opinions. First, I have some back story to relate to what the “panelists” also shared.
My introduction to thrash metal started with Metallica’s Master of Puppets. I remember buying the album. I’m pretty sure I was in Arlington and might’ve been on my way to a Rangers game with my father. I was already haunting Bill’s records (RIP Bill) by that time, but the store I remember was similar and I must’ve found it via liner notes. We didn’t have the Internet in 1986, kids. Anyway, up until Master, I had been mostly into bands like Ratt and Iron Maiden. Master of Puppets blew me away and I, of course, read the liner notes to that record which led me to Anthrax’s Spreading the Disease. Much like Eddie who mentions this in the podcast, I was blown away by Joey’s vocals over the thrash. I’ll save my opinions so I line them up with the ones from the podcast.
Track
Me
Chris
Eddie
Scott
Charlie
A.I.R. v. Among the Living
Lone Justice v. Caught In a Mosh
Caught
Madhouse v. I Am the Law
Law
S.S.C. / Stand or Fall v. N.F.L.
N.F.L.
Enemy v. Skeletons in the Closet
Skeletons
Aftershock v. Indians
Indians
Armed and Dangerous v. One World
Medusa v. A.D.I. / Horror of It All
Gung-Ho v. Imitation of Life
Separate from the decisions comes the commentary…
I always wondered why they used the preacher from Poltergeist II to represent Randall Flagg from The Stand. I thought it worked on the album cover but it was a little odd. Jericho had no idea. It also sounds like nobody came after them about it.
I love that Eddie Trunk is the one who bought the original headdress for the Indians video
The talk about I’m the Man being safe as a b-side to I Am the Law in the UK and being obscure if it failed is hilarious in retrospect. Also, I own that 12″ and we fucking loved it when it came out. I need to digress to the Z-ROCK and Arcadia theater live recording that ended up on the I’m the Man EP
Scott translating all of the acronyms was great. Adolescence in Red was supposed to be a clever update of Rhapsody in Blue? I NEVER would have guessed that.
I’m as torn as Eddie on the Lone Justice / Caught match up. I LOVED Lone Justice and how on top and out front Joey’s vocals were but I have to give it to Caught. That was by far the hardest choice.
I wrote this in March 2021 and never published it. I have no idea why. It’s not just about COVID and now it’s sort of dated as I have watched a lot of other things since. Maybe this should be a recurring theme. And given the implosion of Twitter, we should all go back to blogging anyway. So, here’s the original post unchanged:
I’ve had some life changes that have meant that I have more time and control over evening television lately. It’s meant that I’ve had time to watch more of what I want instead of compromising with the other three members of the household.
Here’s what I can recall watching over the last month or so:
Fargo
I hadn’t finished the first season on FX but I thought it was great at the time and always wanted to go back to it.
The subsequent seasons (3) have been a mixed bag but it’s all generally pretty good. I think season 2 was my least favorite of the four so far.
Gonzo
Learned some things about early Hunter that I didn’t know, but he sure did become a victim of his own success. I didn’t know about his Jimmy Buffett connection
Speedwalking
Europeans generally do a much better job of coming of age movies than Americans. This is another example.
Haunting of Bly Manor
Henry Thomas does an interesting British accent
It’s appropriately creepy. Waiting to see if my daughter wants to join
Cobra Kai
First season was great. We’ve stalled on the second season. I don’t think it’s as good. In fact, now that I’ve watched the entire season, the finale was really just terrible. Even my 11 year old agreed. I don’t think we’ll watch the third season.
Ozark
First season was great. The exchange in the car between Bateman and Linney when he describes his take on her lover’s demise sold me on it or they might’ve lost me. It’s a mixed bag but still recommended. I’ll watch the fourth season when it arrives
El Camino – interesting add on to Breaking Bad. I shouldn’t have waited so long to watch this.
Gits – I ended up re-watching some of Hype because that’s where I remember seeing the most about Mia Zapata. I was not into them at the time. Super tragic about her and how that affected the band. At least they caught the dirtbag who killed her.
I’m Now – Mudhoney – confirmed my love for this band.
Mentors – legendary from t-shirts of people like Scott Ian and James Hetfield. Who knew El Duce could actually play.
Rambo – Last Blood – super violent and not all that great.
D.O.A. – covered most of the Sex Pistols US tour including the Dallas and San Antonio dates
Skinhead movie with Tim Roth
Game of Thrones
Squid and the Whale
I forgot that he also did Marriage Story which I watched in March as it became clear I was about to embark on my own divorce (the catalyst for all of this freedom to watch what I want for the first time in as long as I can remember)
The dad is insufferable but Jeff Daniels does a good job.
Various YouTube things. Mostly:
First We Feast (aka Hot Ones)
3 Years Apart
Two Minutes to Late Night (with Gwarsenio Hall)
Ratched
Lily convinced me to watch this one. She’s an American Horror Story fan and it seems like stylistically, they’re related
It’s supposed to be a prequel to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it’s very loose in my opinion. Very Kubrick influenced in the visuals
Great British Baking
This is the one that I and both younger kids can watch together. We just finished the most recent season where Peter won. We’ve watched a few other seasons in the past. I miss Sandy. I can’t imagine anyone other than Prue and Noel.
