Crummy Day.

Wow, I sort of started my homework early today, and I'm like halfway done. I don't know whether I should be proud or feel disgusted with myself.

I rewatched Amores Perros today, and I'm glad because after watching it the first time, it HAUNTED me! Now I know that the first time wasn't a fluke and that it really is a fantastic movie. Incredible. And Gael García Bernal was so good in it, I think it's my favorite of his movies.

Man, I was already feeling really anxious and sick when my (hot) professor sat like, one row ahead of me. I just stared at the back of his head like the entire time and felt even worse, but then this kid on my row (the last) started SNORING and my professor just stared at this kid like, "Wow, what a fucking idiot," and I was just glad he wasn't thinking that about me. I don't know why I even think my prof is hot though, I mean, he's sorta really fucking geeky to be honest.

But yeah, after that I just had to come home cos--well, you know.

EDIT: BTW, I listened to that Spring Awakening soundtrack and it's aight, nothing to be raving about (maybe it's different seeing it on stage?). But that one song I really like, the emo one (it's even called "Don't Do Sadness"!) is pretty damn good, like better than 90% (95%?) of emo songs and on par with like 75% of indie pop/rock songs... of course those numbers aren't scientific or nuthin'. Just sayin'.

Tacky.

Yesterday I got the new copy of Spin (with MCR on the cover and the 4-star Fall Out Boy review, LULZ), and there was one ad in particular that made me go OMGWTF. I just couldn't tell if it was real, but I guess it is! When I looked at it, it seemed like another snakesploitation movie by Samuel L. Jackson, but I guess it's more about Christina Ricci being blonde and not being fat anymore, which I actually hate! If you think about the fact that it has a February release date, it's probably not that great. Sigh.

But I'm glad they're both getting work...

Oh, and this issue of Spin is relatively great compared to some of the shit that came out last year. They even talk about music.

Oscar Noms.

I just watched the Oscar nominations. Salma Hayek is so cheesy, I swear. But she looked cute with her hair like that. AND RYAN GOSLING GOT NOMINATED. Can I get an OMGWTF?

Um, WHAT?

Maggie Smith was in Sister Act AND Sister Act II? And I didn't realize until now?!?!?! THANKS WIKIPEDIA! Holy shit, I gotta watch those movies again. I think I love Maggie Smith. Actually... yes, I think I remember her... very faintly. This is as shocking as finding out that Brad Pitt was in the classic that was Cool World.

Also, totally forgot to mention, I watched SVU last night and it was one of those Tutuola episodes and can I just say, I'm happy that a whole generation of kids now know Ice-T as that badass dude from SVU instead of as a gangsta rapper. I don't know if he was good at what he used to do, but I sure as hell know he's awesome at what he does now. The only bad thing about the episode is that there wasn't much Tutuola-Munch interaction, and not to sound like one of those kids who writes slash, but those two were sorta meant to be, huh? Don't deny!!



Ugh, I really shouldn't have typed in "Munch Tutuola" on YouTube... so many slash music vids... What's the point? Their whole schtick is that they're hilarious when they're talking shit with each other.

Oh yeah, and Kal Penn was guest starring last night. ILU KUMAR!

Krazy Glue.

I got sent out on an errand today, and I started to walk behind this dude wearing a messenger bag. The bag was slung so that the bag itself was on his back. On the bag there was a patch. For Los Crudos. I almost died. I've never met a person in real life who likes this band. I just thought, I can't see your face, but you're the hottest guy I've seen from the back!!!1!uno!!

The weird thing is that as I kept walking, a few paces behind him, he seemed to be going my direction and uh, he actually went into the building I was headed to. WTF? And we took the same elevator, but I really had nothing to say so I stayed quiet and avoided eye contact like any decent person would in an elevator full of strangers, even if one of those strangers had a Crudos patch on his bag.

Also, this video alone redeems John Leguizamo for ruining the awesomeness that is Luigi in that terrible Super Mario movie.



I love Mambo Mouth! Or at least the parts I've actually watched!!

Free Movies.

I signed up for these free movie screenings that were advertised on the NY Times, and the one I wanted to see the most was Babel, cos I wasn't gonna pay $11 to see it. They're happening this weekend. But when I signed up last night for the Babel screening, it said that one had reached capacity already. What!! I was sorta pissed. C'mon, who the hell was signing up for these? Old people know how to use the interwebs! Who'd have guessed?? Man, that's what I get for thinking no one would rush to get free tickets.

Went to my grandma's house, got a lot of money. It was all right.

I think the funniest thing that's happened to me in the last couple of weeks is that I went to Trader Joe's and this woman was asking one of the employees for wontons, but the dude was like, "Wontons? I think that's the same thing as gyoza..." UH YEAH OKAY. Not all dumplings look the same! Go to dumpling school, dude!! Okay, I'll stop being an ass about it.

I watched Britain's Next Top Model, season 2, and it was all right. The girl who won was such a crybaby. Cripes.

Set Fire to the Car on Fire.

In class today I tried to explain that the theme song to Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story is used in a shitload of movie trailers. And people stared at me blankly. HELLO? Okay, yeah, I was hardly coherent in the morning, but c'mon. Don't tell me you don't recognize this song (the most used bit starts at around 1 min):



Sorry for using someone's tribute video or whatever you call them. It was either that or a video of Elvis Stojko skating to this song at the Olympics.

Whatever, most of those bitches hadn't even heard of the movie. Dudes! That shit is classic! Like Teen Witch. Y'know.

Esquemas Juveniles.

How was my long weekend? Let us see the scoreboard.
- SEE VOLVER!!!
- Go to MoMA
- Go and see that exhibit on tropicália at the Bronx Museum of the Arts
- Go to the Palms Out Sounds store
- See Evil Dead: The Musical
- Go to Paul's and paint CDs
- Do my homework and catch up on school (fat chance with that one)

2/7 accomplished. Meh, it was still worth it.

Last Tuesday I did watch the Tony Bennett show which was really wonderful except for the part where I didn't really care for the sound of his voice. I'm just sayin', y'all. I mean I listened to a lot of Gianni Morandi this weekend, and his voice is so wonderful compared to Bennett. Like what the fuck was that song, "I Left My Heart in San Francisco"? Weakest signature song ever. Listen man, congratulations on hitting 80 years, but c'mon. When you were singing with Stevie Wonder? Yeah, the fool was kicking your musical ass. It was your show man! ON THE OTHER HAND: his song with Diana Krall was great, it really suited his voice! Oh, and Christina Aguilera was really good, except for when she got a little too loose with the melismas. Yeah, you can sing--we get it, aight? Pop and R&B stars gotta cut out that melisma shit. But still, the show was much more fun and classy and the sets were so much prettier than the American Music Awards.

The awards show was pretty drab. I'll fess up, I watched it cos I was waiting for the Fall Out Boy performance. It was terrible. Just... just terrible. Well, Trohman doing his jumps was cool. Everything else was horrific. Oh, Fatrick. The sad thing is, it wasn't nearly as bad as the new Gwen Stefani. I felt my soul die a little.

Nicole Richie was looking so cute though. Aww. Gotta eat a little more though.

The next day Gabs and I made plans to have lunch, except we ended up having early dinner and then we went to Strand's where I think she bought multiple Dave Eggers books, and she said she has a love/hate thing for him which totally made it okay that she was gonna buy two of his books. Whatevs, at least the girl reads, right? I told her I've never read anything of his but later I realized that was a lie, because I remember reading his column in Spin back when Spin was going downhill but was still marginally readable, and I remember hating his column and wishing he would just die in the ass.

Anyway, we parted ways and I was all ready to go to Volver but I didn't know it was only showing in like, three theaters in Manhattan so I went to two theaters before I was like "Jesus, fuck that..." It was all rainy and shit, too. I ended up in... Shakespear & Co. At first I wasn't sure if it was open but I figured it was just dead because everyone was busy going like, home and shit. So I looked around and I picked up The Motorcycle Diaries, only to drop it and pick up the new Marc Spitz book, instead.

I know. I know. Somehow, I own all of his books. I understand how ridiculous that is. Especially choosing it over The Motorcycle Diaries. I just... needed something lowbrow to read, okay? Don't judge, bitches. And bee tee dubs, the book's just fine. I just got to the part where a cute Jewish blogger grrrl who has "a thing for posting photos of baby animals" discovers the never-was band the intrepid protagonist was in during the 90s. Sounds like Sarah Lewitinn, huh? Haha. That's very sweet of him. The books all right, so far. I say so far cos that Smiths book was pretty fun to read, too, until the part where the main character is an adult and pathetic. But I think this is easier to read because the Smiths book was like the most thinly disguised roman-a-clef ever, so every time something pathetic showed up I would be like, "OMG Marc Spitz, you loser". I guess it's good that the second book is better than the first book, wouldn't it be embarrasing if it was the other way around?

Ugh I can't believe I typed all those words about fucking Marc Spitz. Yeah, well, less words than he spends in the book on Winona Ryder. God bless her, what's she been up to?

Thanksgiving, as I said, was weird.

Friday I went out. Or did I? I can't remember. Fuck. Honestly, I spent most of the (entire) weekend thinking it was Sunday, so I kept going to the Palms Out Sounds blog (they put up some hottt remixes every Sunday) and to check if my Audioscrobbler charts had updated. I know... I'm such a slave to the internets.

Saturday I went out and just walked around a lot. I went to the library and paid off my fine. I listened to Soda Stereo as I walked near the Junky Park and I decided they ROOOOOCK. I ended up at the movie theater to watch Volver. When I went into the theater I was surprised by the small space. 137 capacity--and most of those people were old. Damn. I loved the movie, of course. There were a few twists here and there, but they weren't revealed in an outrageous way. The acting was excellent. When I got out of the theater it was dark. I called my parents and told them I was gonna have dinner with my friends; I don't know why I lied. I do that all the time, too.

When I got home I was hungry, so I had ramen.

Yesterday my mom and I went out and there were all these fuckers like, shopping and shit, and it was so crowded in the streets. Terrible. After that I went to Paul's house, and I had a feeling I was gonna be exactly on time, and it's like, who the fuck gets there on time? There was some racket going on on the street and this old lady with a dog starts talking shit about the noise to me. I'm like, "I'm sorry, who the fuck are you and who gave you permission to address me?" I know, I'm an asshole. Anyway, Paul let me in and I painted some of his CD-Rs and I hope they turn out well. It was fun, but I've still got traces of paint on me. It looks like I was bleeding, a bit. We listened to hip-hop Christmas tunes, compiled by Paul's roommate. Then we had pizza. Then I left. I met some nice people there.

Today I had a mediocre day. I read Fametracker at work. It pretty much explained every feeling I have for Steve Buscemi. The end.

Gobble Gobble.

WTF? Volver is only playing in 5 theaters in the city? I don't get it. Who the fuck doesn't wanna see a really busty Penelope (Penélope?) Cruz? Oh, and don't you love how people sound sooooo surprised she can act? "OMG no rly, u guyz! She's assum! It's not like in her English movies!" Yeah, it would help if her English roles had actually been good. Just sayin'. I mean, Captain Corelli's Mandolin wasn't exactly her most exciting role...

Yeah, Thanksgiving was okay. It was as good as it could be with all these suburbanite Korean people. The food was right out of a Normal Rockwell painting (y'know), complete with mac & cheese made out of a box. No kimchi, but we had rice cake stuff. Haha.

After eating we just watched Elf, which was all right, pretty funny at points. There was this one part were there was a little person and Will Ferrell kept calling him an elf, and I found that much funnier than it was on the screen, because I kept thinking about that bit in The (British) Office where the boss and his employee keep talking about the difference between midgets and dwarves and it's uncomfortable enough but the gag runs for a really long time and it just makes you squirm. Don't you love how I'm describing this entire thing to y'all? By this point you must have realized I have nothing to do (read: don't wanna face the facts that I have a shitload of homework). Haha.

I have to go out to the library cos my book is totes overdue.

On the car ride to my parents' friends' house:
Suburban Dude: I feel bad for Jewish people, they don't have any happy holidays...
Me: They have Purim.
Suburban Dude: (doesn't hear me) ...It's like they're always fasting or something...
Me: They have hamantaschen.
My Brother: (doesn't hear me either) What about Muslims? They have it worse.
Suburband Dude: Oh, that's right. They have Ramadan.

Yeah, it was a weird night. My brother kept bitching at me about how he wishes he could go back in time and kill Derrida.

Altman.

Oh no!! I jsut heard Robert Altman died!! What a fucking pity. At least he had a good career before he up and died, right? RIP!

Cornetto.

HIII!

So last night I went to see Andrew W.K. do a "lecture on anything he wanted" which meant he didn't prepare anything and it was really chaotic and sure it was funny on occasion and he was super nice, and his fans were really nice, but it's like, why you gotta ask him about influences and shit? Why don't you read interviews with him? I preferred the sillier questions, like somebody asked him to tell a crazy on-the-road story. There was a singalong bit that was really cute, too, but for the most part, it didn't seem worth $4 and wasting a hot Friday night. Believe me, I was really bummed. I can't believe how boring this was, for the most part.

Like when Ian MacKaye came last year, he was amazing. Mind you, he's told some stories a million times so he really knows how to pace them and how to hit the punchline and shit, but seriously, I feel like Ian has so much to say, and I really have a love/hate (mostly hate LOL) thing for him but the respeck is definitely there for MacKaye cos he knows how to talk to a crowd. Must be daddy's preacher genes.

Anyway, I watched Amores Perros last night when I got home. It was incredibly good. I watched it late at night so I had a bit of a hard time keeping track of all the storylines and how they were connected. Also, there were a lot of bloody dogs, but I liked that they didn't really hurt the animals. Oh, and I really wanted to punch the Gael García Bernal character in the face. Except I probably would have settled for kicking his ass cos his face is so pretty. But damn, that movie. I loved it, it was just depressing enough--like don't you hate movies that make you lose hope for the world? This one, I felt like maybe the characters could move on from their adversities. Well, eventually, anyway. Also, the DVD had the video for Café Tacuba's "Aviéntame" which has got to be incredibly emo and sorta disturbing.

I also watched Shaun of the Dead and all the extras on the DVD. Well, most of them. I watched the movie with these subtitles that gave away all the references to previous zombie movies as well as the songs soundtracked. Shit, I didn't know they used so many Ash songs on there. Also, I totally saw a copy of White Blood Cells like around in Shaun's house, but it's so brief I was like, "Whoa was that what I thought it was?" and rewinded (er, rewound?) and paused it. Oh, and there was a whole bit about the 2nd albums the cast members bought in their lives.

BTW, I just finished reading Girl Trouble, which is about Gloria Trevi and her uhhh I can't explain. Like she got into deep shit, ended up in Rio, etc. The book was really good! Very well-written. At the same time I feel like Gloria should have stayed a little longer in jail. I don't know why, because it seems like she suffered a lot a lot a lot, too. I'm just an asshole. I know she's got her comeback and all, but she looks awful lately. Almost like a Latina Paula Abdul. ::shudders::

*

Okay, help me out with these lists (they're not ranked or anything):

[EDITED]

People who are allowed to be crazy
Mariah Carey
Prince
Missy Elliott (is she actually insane or just quirky?)
Cat Power

People who are NOT allowed to be crazy
Gwen Stefani
Michael Jackson
R. Kelly
Beyoncé
Devendra Banhart
Billy Corgan
Courtney Love
Kanye West
Jack White

I'm on the fence on where to put OutKast.

Here are a video of Gloria Trevi and another of SODA STEREO <3.

Forgive Me, For I Have Sinned.

Dear Chairs Missing,

Please forgive me. I take it back. I love you, I really really love you.

Regretful,

Elizabeth U.

_____

Bee tee dubs, how did y'all celebrate Native Peoples' Day? Was it good times? I went to work and this girl who works there and I gushed about the awesome that is Michel Gondry. She kept telling me to check out the Chris Cunningham DVD as well, and I was like, "Isn't it scary?" and she's like, "No no, it's not scary," but then she thought a bit more about the videos in the DVD and she's like, "YEah, okay, they're scary." And then my supervisor shows up and he's like, "Gael García Bernal" and we all gushed about how he's not just pretty, but talented as well. LE SIGH.


¡Él es un Adonis!

I Wanna Sell Out, Too.

Watched Tristram Shandy, Steve Coogan playing Steve Coogan playing Tristram Shandy as well as Tristram's father was not as charming Steve Coogan playing Tony Wilson, but I still believe he's awesome and the movie was so funny in that sort of pomo way.

I think it was Korean Thanksgiving? Either way we went to my grandma's house and I really didn't feel like going but by the time we got there the party was already over. I can't explain how fucking happy I was that everyone was gone and no one was bothering me and I didn't have to hear these suburban, normal kids talk about cars and church and top 40 music and shit.

I was watching the TV at my grandma's and this commercial came on and the song in it had a really familiar bassline and I was like, "Why do I like it so much?" It was THE OCCASION. THE OCCASION HAVE A SONG IN A COMMERCIAL. CAN I GET A WTF? KTHXBY.

"Can You Tell Me Where to Find Sex Street?"

Wednesday, the way I remember, felt pretty shitty at first. Work was terrible. A fire alarm went off and the sound was horrifying, it just pierced right through you and the flashing light was no help, either. But then things changed a bit. I got a bit of dinner and just as I finished, I saw Gabs and she joined me on the steps of Weinstein, where I eat sometimes because I like people-watching.

Gabs was like, "You wanna dinner" and I was all like "I just ate but I'll watch you eat" and she even "paid" for my non-meal and I ended up cutting my class which is just as well because all I'm really learning is that major labels are soul-sucking machines and I don't see why anyone would want to work in such an environment. Gabs and I talked for a while and it was really nice, except for the part where I found out that this girl in one of my classes is totally the girl who was sort of talking shit about Gabs (IN HER XANGA OMG TACKYXCORE) and I was so surprised cos she really doesn't seem like that when I talk to her. And then I told Gabs about my girlcrush and she's like, "Oh yeah, I know who she is," LOLLLLL.

Anyway, after dinner we parted ways and I ended up chillin' 'round. There's this movie that was being shot near Tower Records; I thought I would look around from a safe distance, so I was about to go into Other Music when I saw Grumpy Jesus Guy looking out the door and I was like YIKES and I decided not to go in this time. I ended up going into Tower and when I went in, it was almost empty. I don't know what the fuck was going on, there were as many employees as there were shoppers. Except the music they were playing was pretty cool. In fact, this song started and I got a really warm fuzzy feeling inside me and then I was like "OH MY LORD IT'S 'THE WEEPING SONG'" and I was just so so happy that I could enjoy that song blasting through the speakers with no one watching my goofy smile as I pondered the sweet romance that Nick Cave and Blixa shared at one point in their lives.

And then when I got home: my mp3 player arrived. I only tried out the video feature yesterday and I was shocked. I wasn't even planning on using it much but now I'm totally sad that most of my videos are .mov because the quality of the video is incredible!! Maybe it's for the best, cos then I would use up all my space on all the stupid videos I have.

Either way, Wednesday ended up being pretty sweet. I don't remember Thursday very well. The only thing I remember clearly is that we were in class and this fire alarm light went off, but there was no sound. We were all "WTF?" and my professor was like, "I hope none of you are epileptic"... it really would have been bad news otherwise. At first a security guard came and said it was just a test, but then he came back five minutes later and was like, "I'm sorry, we have to evacuate the building because a construction worker got into an accident," and we all got scooped out of there and we waited for a while as the chilly wind blew by and these crazy NYU fucker kids were like playing bongos and trying to dance capoeira and shit and there had been this street party that happened at school but it was over by then and people were cleaning up and there were all these balloons and this clean up person was like, "Anybody want balloons? No?" so she starts popping them.

Claudia has a fear of balloons, she hates them. This was the first time--it will probably be the only time--I was happy she was an ocean away. The sound was horrible, even I felt sorta sick watching the balloons pop.

Yesterday we had a pizza party at work. In the morning we had a small protest because a military recruiter came to do job interviews with students, and since the military discriminates against the LGBT community, everyone was in a bit of a tizzy that someone was coming on campus.

Afterwards, Boogie-Down Nicole and I met with Maria, and then the three of us met with Christina Fairy and then after dinner the four of us met with Christina and Maria's friend Marie. The five of us gots snacks at Duane Reade and then we headed to the movies, to see Shortbus. I really loved it. Where do I start?

The music was great! In particular, they used this Animal Collective song repeatedly, even in really poignant parts. It's never been my favorite Animal Collective song, hence why I can't be bothered to even look up the name, but it was interesting the way it was used. Also, JD SAMSON TOTALLY SHOWS UP IN THE MOVIE AND SHE'S SO HOT AND I WANNA HAVE HER BABIES. After the movie Maria was like, "I totally forgot to tell you she's in it" and I was like "nonono THANK YOU" cos it was such a pleasant surprise. I gasped so loudly when she showed up on screen, I can only imagine how dumb I sounded, hahaha. Oh, and Bitch from Bitch and Animal is in it too, and featured quite a bit as part of the band that plays regularly at the Shortbus party. The music the band plays is really cool too.

I really liked the animation, the miniature city.

I thought the pacing of the movie was really good, the humor was refreshingly realistic. People were howling and we were all ZOMG together, it felt really nice seeing this in the theater. It's like everyone in the movie was so comfortable together and it showed.

I didn't care much for the sex, I really didn't get it and it didn't seem out of normal. Honestly, on occasion I felt it was getting in the way of the story! Well, there was this one great sex scene! It's a gay three-some, and it has the most hilarious, puzzling, thoughtful, and weird political message. It involves our national anthem. All I can say is, God bless America!

Honestly I felt really freaked out by one line this dominatrix girl says she's scared she won't have enough money to live in the city and that made me cry because I'm scared about that too. I don't even know how to drive, where the fuck am I gonna go. I'm gonna have to learn how to ride bikes. That'll help, right? I don't wanna leave here but I'm gonna have to, aren't I. I also felt very worried when the blackout happens, but that's just me being neurotic.

Whatever, the movie was awesome, go see it, go with all your friends and have a good laugh and hug one another.

After the movie this guy came up to us and asked us where to find Sex Street, by which he really meant Essex Street. We pointed to the right direction and giggled about it.

gack.

got really mad at my dad today. he told me if i wanna see an opera i should buy a dvd. i can't explain how angry i felt when i heard that.

watched motorcycle diaries. there's one scene where they're in the south of chile and i gasped because there was snow. i heard there was snow in the south of chile but seeing it was really shocking. i didn't see snow until i was maybe five and only because we were in korea. oh the movie was good. nice to see che guevara before it all went wrong (or, if you're in that school of thought, before it all went right).

watched saturday morning cartoons yesterday. they must be cutting budgets on the children's programming because at one point it was all shit from my own childhood: babar, doug, and best of all, BEAKMAN'S WORLD! especially cos in chile we had no clue who the fuck bill nye the science guy was, i loved beakman's world so much. no offense to el señor nye, god knows any geeky scientist who plays a scientist on television who is capable of getting married is cool in my book.

on friday during lunch break boogie-down nicole and i spotted maria and we was like, "what you doin here" and she's like, "i wanted a cream puff" lolllll too good to be true.

i watched the new episode of girlfriends. it was... weird. cos you know one of them dropped out of the show? it makes me sad, i thought the four-some worked well. the tone seemed different, but we'll see how it pans out. hope it's less disappointing than grey's anatomy, oh boy that one is turning out totally mediocre.

i'm tired. and by tired i mean depressed. yesterday i learned that i may be a pomosexual.

here's something from when i was little:


and here's something else from when i was little and when gael garcía bernal was little too:

School is Cool.

Coño, y'all! When are my fucking secrets gonna show up?!?!

I heard the coolest song today in class! It almost beats the time I heard "Hey There Little Insect" in my previous music class! A note about the Richman song: my VH1-talking-head teach was all like, "LAWLZ RICHMAN IS SUCH A SQUARE" but when I heard that song I was like, "WASSUP GENIUS", etc.

Anyway, this is a reggae song called "Don't Call Us Immigrants" by Tabby Cat Kelly (yousendit link).

Class was pretty amazing, mostly because my teacher told us this crazy story about how she went undercover to report on a National Front rally and how Skrewdriver, the most famous racist Oi! band played at said rally. The National Front was (is?) the fascist, racist political party in Britain. Very conservative. Anyways, you guys don't know her name, but she's got a sorta Jewish name. So she goes to this rally and this racist dude is all like, hitting on her. She wrote about this rally in like Melody Maker I think, but I'll tell you the rest: so for the sake of her undercover plans, she's like, sure, take me for a drink, and so she and the racist dude go to a crowded bar and he starts spewing all this racist bullshit. And she was all like, "Um, yeah, so before we do anything else, I gotta tell you I'm Jewish" (!!!). And the dude is like, "Whoa". But then he thinks about it and he still wanted to hang out with her!!!!! HA.

I heard another song during the weekend, which angered me because I liked it so much. To elaborate, it's by some sensitive Swedish singer-songwriter chick and it's got cheap electronic beats in the background and it's less than two minutes long. And I TOTALLY FELL IN LOVE WITH IT. I don't want to talk about what song it is, because (1) it could go terribly wrong and everyone might hate it and be like, "Gawd Elizabeth you are a moron" or (2) everyone might love it and it might get popular to the point of ohhh maybe ending up on Grey's Anatomy or The OC or the next movie Zach Braff makes, cos it's that type of song. SIGH! It's a futile effort, as you could very easily go to my audiocrobbler and find out which song it is.

In other news, apparently yesterday there was a whole "free day at the NYC Opera" dealio. I almost died when I found out. I would have cut work for that shit!! I've only gone to the opera once in my life and I really wish I could go!!!

I had to hand in a poem for my creative writing class today and it was horrible. I almost cried in the middle of class because the workshopping on Thursday is gonna be total bullshit. We're supposed to say good things and bad things, but honestly in my mind this piece is no good, I wanted it to be one thing and I failed to bring these goals to life. It makes me feel like such a human with like, FLAWS and shit. UGH. The only thing is that at least I tried. It's a great failure, I think. And I would have been angrier at myself if I HADN'T tried to make it totally over the top.

Woohoo, I'm doing research on Touch and Go. Time to whip out my very own copy of Our Band Could Be Your Life. Oh boy, that was exciting to type. This book makes me so happy.

Bee tee dubs, I keep forgetting to mention that I watched Anna Christie in English. It was fucking great. It was my first time watching a Greta Garbo movie. She's so beautiful. The whole movie was so angsty. I loved it.

Bollywood Madness.

Dude, look at this awesome very polyester-happy Bollywood video:

The woman is Helen. Her schtick was her dancing. She was a huge, huge star, and her singing was usually done by Asha Bhosle. Here's another by Asha Bhosle, maybe my favorite of hers, "O Mera Sona"



God bless for YouTube; I missed America's Next Top Model. I feel like the girls this season are easier on the eyes than the previous one.

I was passin' by the IFC theater and they're showing Y tu mamá también this weekend!!!!! AND! THEY'RE GONNA DO A RUN OF 49 UP SOON!!!!!

I've been meaning to write about this for a while, Iggy Pop is doing a campaign for John Varvatos. I'm not used to seeing so little of Iggy's skin, lol.

12XU.

This list is dumbfounding, if only because it leaves out Our Band Could Be Your Life, which is one of my top 5 books EVER. Also, I can't believe that High Fidelity was counted in. Moreover, I wish this list wasn't about "Rock n Roll" books, cos they include Yes Yes Y'all, Can't Stop Won't Stop, and the Ego fucking Trip Book of Rap Lists. But I should mention that all three of those books are amazing; I was thinking about getting the Ego TRip book, cos even though I know nothing about rap, it's REALLY interesting!



Last night Boogie-Down Nicole, Notorious Angela and I went to a free screening of American Hardcore at school. It was pretty good and done with sincerity, but definitely disappointing in its delivery. It wasn't very enlightening about hardcore's significance; like, it was telling me a lot of things I already knew. Y'know, how it branched out from California and over the years the touring network was established and how different scenes developed their own sounds. Well, no shit!

As a documentary, I didn't feel like it was interesting visually. The editing was a bit weird. And this is totally off-topic, but the movie had weird "cigarette burns" (see 2nd definition, or watch Fight Club). Like the movie was shot in mini DV, I thought digital shit wouldn't have crappy cigarette burns in the corner? Like in real movies they have really slick cigarette burns, but these were a bit crummy. I can't believe how hung up I was about it, but after watching Fight Club I've never been able to get over it.

Anyway, the cigarette burns were still significant. Cos about half an hour into the movie, THEY MISSED THE CUE FROM THE CIGARETTE BURNS. WTF! So the movie just stopped and everyone's like, "That's so punk rock" and I was like, "Bitch, please! That's not punk rock at all! That's just fucking ghetto!!!" And it took them like two or three minutes to actually fix the stupid reels. I mean, what the fuck was the projector person doing? If you see the first burn, you have to get ready for the fucking second one! C'mon!

Back to the movie. The only things I pretty much knew nothing about: the music itself. Ha. So... it was sort of the first time I ever listen to Bad Brains and it was sort of really amazing and I can't believe I didn't check them out earlier. Hey, sorry hardcore didn't change my life and I'm a total retard about it.

I really don't understand why certain hardcore bands were mentioned but not others, y'know? Since I don't know that much about hardcore, it all sounds like shit to me, to put it kindly. So even though seeing all this old footage was nice, it makes you wonder about all the stuff that was left out. And Moby's one of the talking heads, how relevant was he to the scene? They even got Jesse Malin. (I guess Peen Wentz was unavailable.) Actually, the interviewee that annoyed me most was Jack Rabid. As soon as he showed up, Nicole and I groaned loudly.

It was interesting the way they tackled certain subjects. One thing that was cool was that there were plenty of people of color. One surprise was that there was some dude named Inouye, which sounded really familiar, and then the dude's like, "Yeah, my dad's a politician" and I was like "Ohhh that's right!" Anyways. So it was nice to see some black and Latino punkers and shit, but it was weird that only the women seemed the tackle the "women in hardcore" issue, or how only Ian MacKaye and this dude named "Straight Edge Hank" seemed to talk about sXe. I think only Ian talked about how dumb the violence in hardcore was.

I feel sorta geeky, you know you've read up on too much about Ian MacKaye when he starts telling a story about the good ol' days and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I totally know that story." Yikes. The hilarious thing, of course, is that I'm totally Team Picciotto and less Team MacKaye, and it's just cos Ian doesn't fucking shut up so of course you end up knowing everything from how he came out of his mom's womb and how ripped his own umbilical cord up to what he had for dinner last night. Hahaha. One really shocking thing about Ian in this movie: they show pictures of him with hair! And it really is toooootally curly!

I didn't realize how funny everyone's accents sounded until the New Yorkers showed up on screen (LOL!), but even then, hardly any time was spent on New York.

The really good thing about the movie was the people interviewed. So many people participated and most of them were pretty funny. Like that Straight Edge Hank guy, he's like a priest now, and he actually was interviewed saying "jackass" in church. AHAHA.

It pains me to say so, but I must confess, I was sort of touched by none other than Henry "No Neck" Rollins. He was just talking about how he auditioned for Black Flag, and how he wasn't sure whether to join, but he talked to Ian and Ian was like, "Yeah dude, join, you're gonna do great," and that's why Henry said aight, cos he just wanted to get Ian's approval on it. I was like, "Wow, they really are good friends, huh?" But then I almost threw up in my mouth when Kira Roessler showed up on screen and mentioned that she and Rollins had had a "thing". ICK!!! Even if I'd already read about this, I must have totally blocked it out of my mind, so I almost shit myself from the horror when I watched her say that... can you blame me?!?!

Anyway, don't pay to see this movie or read the book. Just borrow them out of some place or other (cough). The director (Paul Rachman) and the author (Steven Blush) were there, and you could tell they had the best intentions, but seriously, not the type of movie that would rock anyone's punk world.

To me, this is hardcore:


Oh, shit, here's a bonus vid, just cos I can't help myself, "Vowel Movement" by the Evens:

Cos the Car Commercial Thing's Been Overdone.

Um, I was watchin' some show this morning and this car insurance commercial came on for Geico. There was a song playing and I'm preeeeetty fuckin' sure it was the voice of Erlend Øye. Could someone please verify this for me?

They showed this documentary (Mambo to Hip Hop: A South Bronx Story) a couple of nights ago on music from the Bronx and how much Latin music influenced shit. One of the talking heads was Charlie Chase and I almost died from the shock to see he's like, fat and a bit old. Oh my lord. From the pictures I'd seen, he seemed mad cute, y'know? So just to see the older version of him... It was a bit traumatic.

I also watched Breafkafst (!!) at Tiffany's for the first time ever. It depressed me quite a lot. Well, more than I already am, haha.

WSN

I went to the first newspaper meeting of the year! The meeting took place in the hall because the University is supposed to be closed and we couldn't get into the actual offices. I didn't recognize anyone except for Vadim and the new editor, who I met briefly a few days earlier during an open house for WSN. Vadim is pretty much the same as before but I feel like I can tolerate him a bit better. The new kids seem nice, if a bit normal. We're writing about anti-suicide songs, and when I said, "What about that Third Eye Blind song?" a number of them piped up cheerily with "Oh, yeah!" in a totally sincere way. I'm not sure if I'll have much in common with these new kids because I didn't get to chat with them much today, but I hope they're cool.

I also got dibs reviewing the new Kinky album.

Anyway, I'm kinda bummed that most of the friends I've made in college are from the newspaper, because a lot of them are also studying abroad this semester. However, it's nice that they weren't around to scare off the new kids by being all pretentious and shit.

In other news, late last night my mind was blown away because they were showing TWO interesting movies: She's Gotta Have it and Rushmore. Dude, I'd never seen the former movie so I was pleasantly surprised to see some of it. I was primarily watching Rushmore, y'see. I didn't finish either because by 1:45 am I was getting way too tired.