I was bored at lunch and decided to check and see if there was any more news on what Page Hamilton of Helmet is up to. It appears that he’s finally gotten his act together and formed a new band called Gandhi (horrible name, wonder if there’ll be any lawsuits?). Anyway, there’re samples of three of the songs on the site. I can’t wait for the album.
The La’s officially two weeks old now. We didn’t get much sleep last night or the night before. She’s been very tempermental between 11pm and 2am for some reason. Looks like I’ll have to start going to bed when The Boy does if I want to be functional at work next week. I posted another new picture of the week for La. It’s from last weekend.
Fall is officially upon us. I don’t think we’re going to get out of the mid-60’s today. It’s still raining here. We’ve had at least some rain everyday since a few days after La’s birth. I’ve had enough rain now, thanks. There’s at least a 30% chance through the middle of next week as well.
I’m going to check out Jackass tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse with some of the guys. My father in-law is in town to see La, so the rest of the family will be at home watching DVDs. Not a bad deal for me.
For all you Helmet fans out there, there’s apparently still hope that Page Hamilton will eventually release something in the not too distant future. I found this article about Charlie Clouser (Nine Inch Nails) from April. He’s not only been working with Page, but he’s also involved in the much rumored Tapeworm project that includes Maynard from Tool among others. No idea when that’s ever going to see the light of day. The beginning of the article is here.
I went to see Fugazi Saturday night at Emo’s. Since they’re gracious enough to allow anyone to take photos at their shows, I decided to take my digital camera this time. Feel free to check out the results.
The shots are pretty good, although I wish the camera had a better zoom. I couldn’t get much closer without risking getting kicked in the head by crowd surfing jerks. I think the arrival of the new baby in October will warrant an upgrade. The camera does have a small microphone built-in, so I recorded short snippets of two songs, “Rend It” and “Epic Problem”. I’m actually pretty impressed with the recording quality.
It was a short 1.5 hour set. They did play a lot of old stuff, including “Suggestion” and two of my favorites, “Sweet and Low” and “Long Distance Runner”.
Some random thoughts…
Best Actress: Halle Berry was overly emotional. I watched some of the Barbara Walters special beforehand. It showed her winning a few beauty pagents. Apparently, no one told her that you don’t act the same way winning a beauty pagent as you do winning Best Actress. What was with all of the special mentions for her lawyer? Seemed kind of tacky. I can’t comment on whether she deserved it as I haven’t seen the movie. No matter how overemotional, she’s still hot. Of the nominees I did see, Sissy Spacek was amazing in In the Bedroom
Supporting Actress: While Halle Berry was over the top, Jennifer Connelly seemed way too subdued. Perhaps she had to concentrate too much on reading. She’s still hot even though she’s going for Calista Flockhart skinny.
Best Actor:I didn’t see Training Day or Beautiful Mind, so I don’t have much of a leg to stand on here. I’m glad Russell Crowe didn’t win. He may be a great actor, but he’s an a-hole. I’ll definitely be checking out Training Day. Denzel should have been denied for agreeing to star in John Q. They were making up for snubbing him for Malcolm X. Tom Wilkinson also deserved the nod for In the Bedroom. I think he was passed up because he’s an unknown and the academy hates downer movies.
Supporting Actor: I didn’t see Iris, but Ben Kingsley was the front runner in my opinion. If you haven’t seen Sexy Beast, you should rent it. Broadbent, the winner, was pretty amusing in Moulin Rouge. McKellan should have won four years ago for Gods and Monsters.
Best Picture/Director: As I mentioned, I haven’t seen Beautiful Mind. Ron Howard is a nice enough guy and he does a lot of guest spots on the Simpsons, so I’ll let him have it. Peter Jackson will get it for the whole trilogy at the end of LOTR. Even though I didn’t see Mulholland Drive (sensing a trend here?), I would’ve given it to David Lynch.
Best Adapted Screenplay: Akiva Goldsman? This is the guy responsible for Batman and Robin.
Best Original Screenplay: I actually think Gosford Park was pretty good, but Memento was snubbed. I imagine Royal Tenebaums was deserving as well, although that’s another one I’ll have to rent.
Whoopi is better than Billy Crystal, but I’m not too fond of her either. She’s got to go. They should bring back Steve Martin or perhaps go with Ben Stiller or Jon Stewart. My personal choice would be Joe Rogan or David Cross. Like that’ll ever happen.
Overall, the ceremony was pretty good. I liked most of the pre-prepared shorts. I missed the Cirque De Soleil stuff and the music performances. Both of the honorary oscars were good. I’m not a big Redford fan, but he gave a good speech. Poitier rocks.
Best Moment: Jello Biafra channelling Mommie Dearest in the Erroll Morris directed montage at the beginning of the show.
Worst Moment: Britney Spears talking about how great Pretty Woman was.
P.S. What the hell happened to Will Smith? He was there at the beginning, but when it came time to announce his category, they had to show a still from earlier in the evening.
P.P.S. Could they have shoved Josh Hartnett down our throats any more? Anytime they mentioned Pearl Harbor or Black Hawk Down, they showed him. I think he got more screen time than some of the nominees.
Check out this highly amusing take on last night’s proceedings.
All times are central.
| Tuesday | 03.05 | 8pm | 24 | FOX | This show is above average and getting more interesting. May be difficult to get into if you haven’t been watching |
| Tuesday | 03.05 | 9:30pm | The Osbournes | MTV | Ozzy in a reality sitcom. Nothing could make me miss this. |
| Friday | 03.08 | 8pm | Kursk: Disaster at sea | TLC | What caused the Kursk disaster? |
| Saturday | 03.09 | 7pm | Laramie Project | HBO | Debuted at Sundance this year. Deals with Matthew Shepard case. |
| Sunday | 03.10 | 8pm | 9/11 | CBS | Naudet brothers documentary footage of WTC collapse. Narrated by DeNiro. |
Unfortunately, 9/11 conflicts with X-Files, which was actually decent last night. Not only that, they’re showing the first trailer for Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones in between Malcolm in the Middle and X-Files on Fox. Because of my cable/VCR/TV setup, I don’t think I can tape one thing and watch the other. Damn, damn, damn. I watched the Kursk thing last night. It was very good.
I was reading something today that mentioned a quote by Jerry Seinfeld in an episode of his show. I had forgotten about it and it struck me as funny today.
All fathers are intimidating. They’re intimidating because they are fathers. Once a man has children, for the rest of his life, his attitude is, “To hell with the world, I can make my own people. I’ll eat whatever I want. I’ll wear whatever I want, and I’ll create whoever I want.”
It’s from the episode with Lawrence Tierney as Elaine’s father. Most people know Tierney as Joe, the gruff mastermind of the heist and Fast Eddie’s father in Reservoir Dogs. He died this week.
I was reminded of this quote from Abe Simpson earlier today. Thought I’d share the love.
“We can’t bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell ’em stories that don’t go anywhere…like the time I took the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new
heel for my shoe, so I decided to go over to Morganville, which was what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time.
Now to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days nickels had pictures of bumblebees on them. “Give me five bees for a quarter,” you’d say. Now where was I? Oh yeah…the
important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt…which was the style at the time. You couldn’t get any white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could
get was those big yellow ones… ”