Still Tangled Up...

How I Love That Girl
iPod segue of the week.

Brian Wilson - Our Prayer / Gee ==> Belle and Sebastian - Stay Loose

Cool.

Shaun of the Dead > Zombieland

That is all...

Current Music: Belle and Sebastian - Stay Loose

You Love Gives Me a Thrill / But Your Love Won't Pay My Bills
I actually tend to believe capitalism is the best economic idea for most goods and services.

Capitalism, however, needs true, free competition.

In America, where most commodities are dominated by two or three companies, that just isn't happening.

Throw in inheritance, which is and always has been one of the deadliest foes to capitalism around, and you have a mucked up system that isn't really working as it should...

The funny thing? Most so-called free market conservatives encourage less competition and love inheritances...

Current Music: Richard Hell & The Voidoids - Blank Generation

In a Certain Light / He Looked Like Elvis / In a Certain Way / He Feels Like Jesus
My goodness, when did all these movies sneak into my town? You leave for another state for a mere weekend or so, and...

The coolest? Well, if you have already seen District 9, The Hurt Locker, and (500) Days of Summer...

...you can catch the late John Hughes' best film, Ferris Bueller's Day Off at the AMC!

I plan to catch 9 and Extract at the full-price theater, and I may see Public Enemies at the dollar joint.

I was really hoping Soul Power would hit the AMC (I saw the trailer for it there enough times!), but alas... Is this one good enough to qualify as my now only-occasional Circle Cinema venture? Probably not. We'll see... after I catch the other films listed above.

(If I do catch it, I promise you it won't be on a Wednesday night!)

I hope everybody has a great weekend, and if you haven't seen one of the films I listed in the second paragraph above, get on it! They're all terrific and still in town!

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So far, I'm favoring the Purple Chick editions to the official remastered Beatles CDs. Drats...

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The Costello concert was good, but not quite as great as his last Tulsa appearance. Double drats!

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The second episode of Glee was better than the first. Yay!

Current Music: Zero 7 - Destiny

All I Wanted was a Pepsi / Just One Pepsi / And She Wouldn't Give It to Me
I had a fantastic weekend, and I am now back at work. Everything that rises...

In the Loop is exactly the sort of film I once would catch at the Circle, but now, it doesn't quite clear the dam (Hello, NetFlix!).

Extract, however, will wiggle onto my must-do list.

I confess I'm quite interested in the season premiere of Glee tomorrow night.

Yeah, deal.

I also hope FlashForward, V, and at least one of the new comedies (maybe The Middle or Modern Family) prove tubegrooveworthy...

My beautiful, brilliant girlfriend has a birthday Thursday night!!! Now, what to get her...

Current Music: Lily Allen - LDN

Do I Have to Draw You a Diagram?
Forget Paul McCartney, I'm seeing Elvis Costello tonight!

Current Music: The Supremes - Love Child

I've Got Hate Mail Coming to My Door Via Federal Express
A weekend away approaches, now grown large enough to absorb Friday and Monday. Who could complain?

The cool damp grey weather is being too too kind to me.

I'm going to watch a friend sing at the library today during lunch.

I'm eating homemade pasta salad for dinner tonight.

I still have ten toes.

Amateur is still my favorite film, although I haven't seen it in a score of blue moons.

My girlfriend is so much more than your significant other.

Hillbilly elitism still annoys me when I forget to laugh at it.

What else could you possibly want to know about me?

Current Music: LaVern Baker - Tweedlee Dee

They Say I'm Walking on Freedom / This Is Freedom / Now I Know / Now I Know
I admit it. I am no longer a fan of Circle Cinema on Facebook, and I'm probably not going to be attending movies there quite so often.

First, it seems to be drowning in its own success. Ever since they started selling advanced tickets, cool events sell out long before the big day. Those of us who don't want to buy our tickets over the internet get the shaft.

From time to time, they have interviews with directors and actors. Now, though, every star fucker in Tulsa who never steps foot inside the place swarms the theater at the chance to see somebody famous. Again, events sell out. Us faithful few are shut out.

I don't even bother going to Skype interviews or midnight movies any more. Chances are too good I'll be turned away at the door, even if I show up early by my usual thirty minutes.

(I think they should save at least ten or so tickets at the box office for people who actually show up wanting to buy them, but what do I know?)

And, to top it off, the woman at the ticket counter Wednesday night was incredibly rude to me. Again. She's always mean to me. What have I done to her? Not a damn thing.

Seems the joint is doing well enough to not care about its original fans.

I still have the ticket stub from the very first film the place showed since it opened as an art theater.

So, I'll still go there for a movie now and again, but I think the place has gotten a little too cool for the likes of me, and they seem pretty happy with that.

Current Music: Paul Weller - Shadow of the Sun

I Got This Feeling / That It's Later Than It Seems
O'Horten was good, Beauty in Trouble was better, and (500) Days of Summer topped them all!

I woke up Saturday morning looking the lion from The Wizard of Oz or that boy from Mask. Pink Eye puffed half my face up and made me a freak!

So I bought some shades and went about my day.

I merely look bloodshot now, but my, the light in my office is killing my eyes!

During this summer season, I've been sampling True Blood and Battlestar Galactica and enjoying both. (No, I don't have cable...)

I think we're heading to Austin for the Labor Day weekend for no reason in particular but to relax and to explore... :)

Current Music: Gun Club - Sex Beat

Gonna Set My Watch Back to It / Cause You Know That I've Been Through It
I've rejoined the TulsaTime community. I left because of a pest, and that pest now seems to have flow off somewhere else. Damn bloodsucking mosquitoes...

I've some great news. It looks like Josh Kline has taken over movie duties at the Urban Tulsa from the borderline-illiterate movie moron Cory Cheney. This is terrific. Mr. Kline can write, knows about movies, and has taste.

When did they start allowing people like that to write for Urban Tulsa? Who cares? Let's hope he sticks around. Tulsa is in dire need of good movie critics.

(One minor quibble, though; never start off your position declaring a new film perfect...)

Food, Inc. was pure propaganda but still not bad. The information presented could be picked up in much better detail in any number of books, and the presentation itself wasn't very creative or well-organized. Still, the film was fairly good, hitting hard with the uncomfortable truth. It certainly made me happy to be somebody who doesn't eat meat.

Even better, though, was The Hurt Locker. This is probably the best movie showing in town at the moment. See it, even if it isn't quite perfect. :)

I've finally found some audio freeware that does what I desire, so I'm even more happy with our newish computer. Replacing a computer nearly a decade old with a super-fast new machine is a delight. How odd not to have programs crashing or out of memory errors. I'm starting to really love Apple. The company has moved beyond being a hype machine worthy of loathing to a great producer of great computers.

Apple and the movie page at Urban Tulsa getting my praise?

I love it when improving situations force me to change my tune...

Current Music: Interpol - Evil

I Get Tired of DJs / Why's It Always What He Plays?
Damn, I'm getting old.

The power went kaput last night, right after Sally Bowles screamed under the bridge, actually, so we chose to cool our heels over at Border's Books and Music. We browsed the mags on the first floor, and then we held hands while ascending the stairs, she to look at the craft books and I to browse the CDs.

Egads!

The music section is now all of four or five aisles. This is somewhere less than a tenth of its previous girth.

I know. People are downloading. CDs don't sell. Really, I know.

I knew the day was coming. I just wasn't ready for it to be last night.

And yes, I hate not being able to relive some of my favorite lazy teen nights flipping through music racks looking for that gem of a forgotten album or that obscure T Bone Burnett album, but that's not the worst of it. We noticed the entire bookstore had less stock that it once did. People aren't going to the bookstores much nowadays.

See, we're losing our social spaces.

People hate going to the movies; why deal with other people when you have a nice TV and a surround sound system at home? We don't hit up Tower stores to find fellow fans of our various cult medias. We don't even respect public spaces as much as we once did.

That nice patch of pedestrian-friendly benches and shade trees downtown Tulsa? It was yanked up and became a street again.

I've no wonder why we're all getting fat. We're quickly getting to where the only places we leave our homes to hang are where we shove our faces full of food and drink.

For those of us who try not to do either to excess, it hurts a bit.

Staring at the few aisles of CDs, I was surprised how sad I felt.

Damn, I'm getting old...

Current Music: Pink Floyd - Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2

There are Ten Commandments of Love! / When Will You Realize?
The good news always rolls in with some bad, eh?

The gospel?

The worst film critic in the nation, Urban Tulsa's very own Cory Cheney, is retiring from writing movie reviews. Glory, be!

The bad news?

The new G.I. Joe movie looks like a huge steaming pile of suck... :(

Current Music: Mazzy Star - Blue Light

They Do It All the Time / Do It All the Time

This man hates free speech.

Jon Ketcher, you've earned the middle finger and the FUCK YOU of the month - congratulations!

(And don't worry, Sgt. James Crowley, we don't like you either, racist asshole!)

Current Music: Chuck Berry - Brown-Eyed Handsome Man

Love Me Love Me Love Me / Say You Do / Let Me Fly Away with You
I woke up to lightning, thunder, and rain this morning. I guess I enjoyed that hazy-grey twilight state so much that I'm now refusing to leave it.

I probably should be fully awake at work, though. T'oh, well.

Tonight is the Sonic Youth concert, and I'm taking a vacation day tomorrow. No, I'm not really sure what I'll do that day yet. Globetrotting? Spelunking? Serendipity-mining?

Or reading and movie watching? Yeah, probably more likely.

Is it so terrible that I think less of people who slight the Oxford comma or who go to Mexican restaurants and only talk about the margaritas? In fact, drinking a margarita has become one of my least favorite cliches of 2009, probably partly because I don't particularly like them (but only partly).

I've been finding people entirely too predictable lately, and it rubs me the wrong way. This despite my own routines, natch.

Today, I should be looking out the window of a little cafe in Paris, writing poetry while the rain slows the world down and infuses the banality of habitual sun-soakings with the sublime subtlety of the mellow and the understated...

Current Music: Nina Simone - Either Way I Lose

I Hope It Works Out My Way
So, refusing to give up, I busted open the locked shredder box and rescued the Sonic Youth tickets!

Thursday, here we come! :)

Current Music: The Staple Singers - I'll Take You There

I've Had It / And You Can Have It
*gulp*

I just made a horrible, horrible discovery.

I made a big boo-boo.

If you'll excuse me now, I have to go ram my head into the wall a few times...

Current Music: Grandmaster Flash - Freedom

Soon Everything We've Known Will Just Be Swept Away
Hey, it is Movie Friday! (There's a holiday involved; leave it alone...)

The most exciting new film this week by far is Michael Mann's latest, Public Enemies!

John Dillinger robs banks!

The Circle is showing Buffalo '66 free on the Green (3rd & Boston) this Wednesday around 10:30, and the theater is holding over Chéri, starring Michelle Pfeiffer in a Stephen Frears (The Queen, The Grifters, High Fidelity, Dangerous Liaisons) film based on two Colette novels.

Running low on dough? The dollar theater has two good films, Duplicity and State of Play.

Films I've seen and recommend include, from least to best, Up, The Hangover, Drag Me to Hell, Star Trek, and, especially, Easy Virtue and Away We Go.

(At the dollar theater, I still need to see The Soloist and Monsters vs. Aliens.)

Have a great long weekend!

Current Music: Bjork - Cocoon

I Fell in Love With You / Before the Second Show
Hey, who is that movie star smack dab in the middle of the front page of the Tulsa World?

Why, the beautiful brilliant

lilbrigid, that's who!

;)

Current Music: Stevie Wonder - I Was Made to Love Her

Death of the Ringtone / This Ain't for iTunes / This Ain't for Sing-Alongs
Monday Morning's Ten Tunes

With my iPod on shuffle, these are the first ten songs of my work week...

1) Radiohead - Exit Music (For a Film)
2) Todd Rundgren - Marlene
3) Radiohead - Climbing Up the Walls
4) Green Day - American Eulogy
5) Bruce Springsteen - You'll Be Coming Down
6) Radiohead - Lucky
7) Kanye West - Stronger
8) Kanye West - Celebration
9) Todd Rundgren - Black Maria
10) Amanda Blank - Might Like You Better

(Again, the ol' shuffle ain't quite cutting it, eh?)

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Did you know I'm dating a film star?

Oooo la la!

Current Music: Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love

You're a Vegetable / I'm Gonna Eat You / You're a Vegetable
It is Movie Friday!

Not much new. If you're a moron, there's some new movie with robots. Otherwise, there is Away We Go.

It has slackers, pregnant women, John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhall, director Sam Mendes, and a script co-written by Dave Eggers. Obviously, this is something of the anti-Transformers, thank goodness.

Need a decent blockbuster? The midnight movie at the Circle Cinema tonight and tomorrow is Back to the Future.

They also have a free showing of Mad Hot Ballroom Thursday at 2 PM. Stupid work!

Films hanging around I recommend, in reverse order, include Up, The Hangover, Drag Me to Hell, Star Trek, and, especially, Easy Virtue.

The dollar theater has Monsters vs. Aliens and The Soloist, and the IMAX has, aw, never mind...

Current Music: Gwen Stefani - The Sweet Escape

I Can Feel Very Clearly / But No Longer See
I finally finished it last night, and now

lilbrigid has a one-disc Sonic Youth sampler to ready her for the concert next month.

I agonized and finally worked it to the following track list. Song title is followed by the album where the tune made its debut, and any title after that is the actually disc I used as a source. If the two albums are different, it is because I think the second has a sonically superior version... I'm a nerd.

1) Death Valley '69 - Bad Moon Rising ( Postpunk Chronicles: Going Underground )
2) Shadow of a Doubt - EVOL ( Screaming Fields of Sonic Love )
3) Into the Groove(y) - Ciccone Youth's The Whitey Album ( Screaming Fields of Sonic Love )
4) Schizophrenia - Sister
5) Catholic Block - Sister
6) Teen Age Riot - Daydream Nation ( Left of the Dial: Dispatches from the '80s Underground )
7) Silver Rocket - Daydream Nation
8) The Sprawl - Daydream Nation
9) Kool Thing - Goo (Mobile Fidelity gold disc of Goo )
10) 100% - Dirty
11) The Diamond Sea - Washing Machine
12) Incinerate - Rather Ripped
13) Malibu Gas Station - The Eternal

Thanks to long songs, the compilation is over 76 minutes but merely 13 tunes long...

Before you complain too much, let me tell ya, that was tough. I determined it had to be chronological to give a sense of the band's evolution, and I wanted to include the few major singles the outfit has scored. Additionally, it had to flow like a good album. Give it a shot - it can drive you bonkers, especially if you already live in the neighborhood!

I'm off...

Current Music: Sonic Youth - Silver Rocket

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