Yes, that was a lame attempt at text speak. I'm horribly out of touch when it comes to phones. I still own a "dumb" phone, and have no desire for an app. I don't text, and don't use the quasi-Princetic graffiti abbreviations that texters do.
What I am up-to-date on, of course, is other aspects of our Pop culture. So, yes, the past three weeks have been crazy busy, so not as much from me on the blog front. However, I've still been driving, still need to decompress, and still have a sweet tooth when it comes to books, movies and music.
The easiest is what I've been reading- I'm reading both the Bob Mould/Husker Du biographies- both "See a little Light" and "The Story of the Noise Pop Pioneers who Launched Modern Rock". Both, I've read before, but I'm reading then together, trying to alternate so that the chronologies match , making it like a conversation. Like a he said/she said type of arrangement? Call me harsh, call me biased, but I think I mostly side with Bob. He seems much more ready to admit flaws, and is much more coherent, making me think that I'm getting a more measured, sober analysis. Operative word being sober- I get the feeling that Grant is still using, and some of his quotes remind me pretty much of junkie-speak, and no, kids, you should never trust a junkie. Bob is prone to the typical AA exagerration- for example, he describes spiking coffee with "crystal meth". Quite frankly, I'll bet they spiked the coffee, but I'll bet it wasn't crystal meth. In 1982, Crystal meth was a lot harder to come by, and less refined- it wouldn't have worked as well, wouldn't have been as available, and wouldn't have been as easy as dumping a bunch of cross tops in the coffee- basically, the same kind of biker speed that Husker Du were used to. But, having been to enough meetings, I know how it goes. The stories get embellished so that you can top each other with "I was the worst". I can trust that kind of exaggeration. I cannot trust a minimized version like Hart's when he describes a 45 hour recording session and 40 hour mixdown as "We just worked very expeditiously because of having the experiences of {recording before}". That's Junkie-speak for "we did stuff that I don't want to tell you, because I don't want any trouble".
Anyway, it's an interesting thought experiment. Next, I think I'll alternate between Dick Cavett's book and Mickey Leigh's "I slept with Joey Ramone". After that, I might read Robert Rodriguez's "Rebel without a Crew"
Movies, too, are easy. I've been watching my usual TV shows, and the series finale for "Rescue Me" was awesome. I liked several things very much, plot-wise. Tommy remains haunted, remains a firefighter, and remains troubled. That's true to life. Things like having massive numbers of deaths around you just don't get resolved, ever. I know. I'm around Tommy's age, and I've had about as many deaths. I spent many years trying to deal with that. Now, I'm like Tommy- I'm accepting that this is how it is, and I'm not OK, and that doesn't matter, I've still got to live, somehow. I'm fortunate that it's not like my kid died, like his did, nor did my brother, like his did. Had either one died, I probably would have done exactly what Tommy did, and lose my damn mind. However, the reason why I liked this isn't because it was a bummer. Far from it, it's because they finally gave us the reason Tommy holds on- his ghosts are literally his best friends and family. He's not ready to become a ghost, himself, because he has things to do, like deliver his own son, but he won't give up those things that haunt him because he cannot give up his life. That's reality for you. This was no "Sopranos" cop out with a "did he/didn't he"? Ending. It was a basic admission- some things cannot be resolved, but those things that can be resolved, were resolved.
I also re-discovered "Killing Zoe" which is a great Caper flick, with a Tarantino-esque twist of- the caper goes bad. Yes, it has Eric Stoltz doing an early incarnation of his character in Pulp Fiction, and Julie Delpy being, well, french. But, for me, the movie is all about Jean Hugues Anglade as Eric. Eric is, by turn, scheming, suicidal, swaggering and suspect. He's completely believable as a criminal, and, by far, the best representation of a diabolically insane, yet charismatic bad guy. You know, the kind of role that John Travolta, Nic Cage, and Quentin Tarrantino, himself, have been trying to capture for half of each of their careers? Anglade nails it down. Seriously, if you don't both like and fear him by the end of the movie, you must be high. That he didn't get all the roles assigned to Peter Stormare in America, and every villian Travolta played is a sure sign that Hollywood must have blackmail photos owned by Scientologists...
