My favorite football player, Jake Plummer, got benched this week. I'd put this on the sports blog, but I don't have much to say. I didn't create the picture above, I google image'd it, but i agree. I'll cheer for whatever team hires you.
Coolest football player ever. Jake the Snake is way cooler than Cutler the... , or Tony Homo.
Click here and vote for Jake.
(Please excuse the crappiness of the layout. It looks just perfect in the preview, and so crappy in real life. If you have some tips about this Blogger crap, help me out.)
I've been sort of trying to keep track of some of the more impressive album covers this year. I'm a sucker for packaging.
Here's a very few of my favorites:
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
I love this one. Some pretty building in Lisbon, shot very nicely. Green and mossy. The album too is quite beautiful, live ambient. But, you'll probably never give it a chance.
Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies
Also among my favorite albums of the year musically, Rubies reminds me of the picture on the back side of Leonard Cohen's Songs From A Room. I kinda wish the photo had been used alone, without the ruby header. It just fits, right? That dude in a room with one pretty woman and lots of books. He's a cool dude.
Thom Yorke - The Eraser
A bit disappointed by The Eraser? Me too. Especially after seeing the artwork months earlier. I don't know if this artist has worked on any of the Radiohead stuff, but I really like their artwork usually also. There are 3 or 4 songs that are kick assers on here.
Benoit Pioulard - Precis
I haven't heard this album, but I want to own it on LP. It just looks so neat.
Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
This guy is awesome. I haven't heard this yet either, but I'm working on it. He made one great album with Pulp, Different Class, and one album with a great cover:
Actually, Hardcore is pretty interesting too.
<----------But that's funny.
Right on. There are lots more cool ones, so please feel free to drop a comment with links to some that you like!
1. Take many naps. One per day, at least.
2. Read much, if not all, of the book I've been reading for the past month.
3. Sleep in every morning, but workout (not very hard) when I get up.
4. Stay coherent; make a good impression. Last year I may have overimbibed and made a fool of myself. Clif doesn't remember that. I don't remember much, sober or drunk, but I think Gav called me a "mean drunk." This year I will be a gentleman.
5. Watch some good movies. At the top of my list: Dead Alive and The Stranger.
6. Make a good effort at using the hot tub at least once daily.
7. Write a little bit. Post some updates here.
8. Check in with Kelsey. Make sure she is well and is taking good care of Beu.
9. Listen to some good music. I want to take stock of this years albums. See if I can come up with a top 4 or 5. Also, listen to some good old ones.
10. Be Owen's favorite uncle. Spoil him and make his parent's look bad when they tell him "no".
I ordered two Orson Welles movies this weekend: The Stranger, 1946 and The Trial, 1963. I've never seen either one and I'm looking forward to it. I hope they get here before Friday so Gav, Clif, and I can watch them on our annual trip to AZ.---------------------------------------
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These movies are really pretty obscure, I think, and that fact got me thinking: Isn't it strange that a character as big and iconic as Orson Welles has only two works, Citizen Kane and War of the Worlds, that are well known "Orson Welle's Features"? Both were created by the time he was 25, and I doubt many of you have actually heard his production of War of the Worlds. But Orson Welles is the "movie director" to most, right? Only Hitchcock is more famous as a "Filmmaker." So what happened to him as an artist? I'm only to age 15 in the bio (which is great), so I can't go deeper right now than the obvious and trite "He got screwed by Hollywood." He did, for sure.
Hollywood didn't know how to handle him. Like the French New Wavers, who worshipped Welles, said, he was an auteur before people thought of directors in that way. Some studio in Hollywood gave him a contract promising "complete artistic control" over two films. They didn't realize that he was a weirdo who was concerned with more than just making them money. It may seem hard to believe now, but I think a director who asked for control, and then took liberties with that control, was something the studios hadn't dealt with before Welles. He was a powerful figure who made a lot of demands. He delivered, artistically, with Citizen Kane, but financially it was a big time flop. Hearst, a man whose influence must have surprised even Welles, blocked the film from theaters and from the press, in effect destroying whatever faith the studios had in him.
FACT (unless Welles was lying, which apparently he often was): He lost his virginity at 9.
Tonight is Ping Pong night. I am playing in my first table tennis tournament. I'm nervous. I just know I'm gonna blow it. Wish I had a nice paddle. Just wanna win one or two. Wanna play ping pong with celebrities.
I'm kinda hoping Gav and I meet somewhere near the finals. He's been whompin' my butt lately though. Lots of old men play ping pong. Hope i can beat them. Tonight is actually sort of a qualifying round; real tournament is tomorrow. Utah Table Tennis Open. Big time. Come watch and heckle our opponents. Ping Pong night.
That's Rita Hayworth playing. She was married to Orson Welles in the fifties or something. She was in Lady From Shanghai, a weird noir movie Welles made.
Ping Pong Night.
