Fun

What happens when your brother comes to visit because in the next week or two he's taking the big leap and moving to Florida to begin going to school to become a radiology technician and the two of you shared something incredible over the past year?

You go to a great restaurant, catch MEET THE ROBINSONS in digital 3D at the local theater where you nab some cool 3D shades, and come home to play hours of GUITAR HERO 2 with him and your wife, making crazy faces, laughing, and generally remembering how great it is to have a family you love.

And take some silly pictures to boot.

Man, you can really start to see my bald spot there...

The Missus, pregnant belly and all, is not embarrassed to look like a total dork, as long as her husband looks more like a dork...

Oh, and apparently playing guitar for over 12 years is not as much help as you would think playing GUITAR HERO 2. However, it makes losing all the more fun for the Missus, who didn't stop chanting for an hour after beating me on the Rolling Stones' "Can't You Hear Me Knockin'".

BOTM for March

I don't think I'm going to finish my current book, Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan in time to make it for March, so the Book of the Month winds up being a tie - The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold and Eyes on the Prize by Juan Williams.

I admit at first I wasn't too keen on The Lovely Bones; although word of mouth kept saying otherwise, I had the book chalked up to a sappy, 5 People You Meet in Heaven kind of thing. But I was pleasantly surprised - the book wisely keeps the focus on the after-effects of Susie Salmon's murder on the family and killer, and it's treated with sensitivity and a believability that is at once haunting and ultimately affirming. In fact, I enjoyed the family episodes much more than Susie in her "Heaven." Every once in a while in the middle of a paragraph Sebold throws out a great line or two to hook you right back in the book. My only complaint would be an ending that felt a little too wrapped up (killer gets his just desserts, there's a marriage and everyone seems to be happy). A real winner nonetheless, and I look forward to seeing Sebold try to stretch herself on her next work.

• Eyes on the Prize: The Civil Rights Movement 1954-1965 by Juan Williams - This book, the companion piece to the award-winning PBS documentary, opened my eyes to an entire era that I still feel woefully ignorant of. The primary reason for this book's greatness in my eyes is that, although read about many of the major and well-known players such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and Thurgood Marshall, much of the book places greater emphasis on the unsung heroes of the Movement. From Charles Houston, who turned the Howard Law School into a lean fighting machine that began tearing down the walls of the early Jim Crow laws in the South to the Freedom Riders who risked their lives on the bus lines from Birmingham to Montgomery. Just a great picture of what was going on. Heartbreaking and uplifting to know that in our lifetimes this kind of strength and sense of justice lived and breathed.
• Whores for Gloria by William T. Vollmann - This was my second book by Vollmann, a true "fever dream" of a war vet slumming through the seedy alleys of San Fransisco looking for his wife, Gloria, who may or may not only exist in his imagination. During Jimmy's travels, he comes into contact with many of the city's prostitutes, pimps, and degenerates, and Vollmann's strength is portraying these characters as they truly are, but at the same time giving an almost fable-like air so that everything comes across slightly dreamy. The characters are all treated with a sense of grace that serves to elevate them out of the filth of the street and into a parallel quest where they search for things they may never find, much Jimmy in his search to find Gloria, the Queen of the Whores.
• Lynch on Lynch, edited by Chris Rodley - I'm fascinated by the work of David Lynch. It isn't that I find him hard to understand (except for ERASERHEAD, which is still completely mind-boggling); it's that I find that someone who is able to tap so perfectly into pieces of my fears and nightmares, and can express them so eloquently on screen has got to be a great interview if you can get him to open up. And Rodley does, over the course of years he gets Lynch to talk about every from his childhood to the stories behind each of his gloriously twisted little films. He talks about his horrible disappointment over what happened with DUNE, his initial fear of working with Dennis Hopper in BLUE VELVET (apparently he was afraid Hopper was too much like Frank Booth, his character in the film), and of course the town and characters he's most known for, TWIN PEAKS. It's fascinating for someone who's interested in a great filmmaker, but perhaps even more essential for someone who loves the true pursuit of that elusive thread called Art.

One of my favorite things in the world is finishing a book, and then taking a few hours to scroll through all the new books laying around and choosing what to read next. I have a business trip coming up beginning next Monday, so I have to choose a few picks to bring with me. After such a great book month, I can't wait to see what April brings.

Peanut Butter

That's the color of the living room and dining room now. Peanut Butter. It's not as silly as you would imagine. The rooms have a much warmer feel now, although that may be because you feel like you're wrapped in creamy peanut butter goodness. I don't have any pictures yet - the room still needs to be swept and stuff put away, but I'll post one tomorrow. The rooms are still pretty sparse in the decoration department, though - no pictures or window treatments yet. The Missus may be taking care of that while I'm away in sunny Florida next week for work.

Man, I hope that's 100 words. My fingers and arms are sore, and I can't think of anything else to say right now. Tomorrow a couple reviews and some closings for the other blogs - I decided that I really don't like keeping up three blogs at once that only contain specific items (books, movies) - I much prefer to throw everything up hodge-podge on this site.

In the meantime, here's an odd picture of a cat I found.

Tagged

Oh my. I just received my first "tag" courtesy of J over at Vicarious Rising. 7 songs I'm groovin' to at the moment. Then tag 7 more people. In order to have this qualify as part of the 30 posts in 30 days stint, I'll add a few comments as to why these songs make this particular booty move. Away!

1. Clutch - Power Player: Blues-drenched rock and roll with a swagger and a beer gut. My car does not perform as well unless there's a Clutch CD either in the player or sitting on the seat.
2. Iron & Wine - Sunset Soon Forgotten: I've been on a big Iron & Wine kick lately. And although I really like the expanded sound pointed to in the Woman King EP, I keep coming back to the more sparse, Nick Drake-sounding arrangements off of Endless Numbered Days.
3. Aereogramme - Barriers: Take the slower songs from Coldplay and Athlete, add a dash of Anathema and Isis, and you get this. I love it.
4. Jimmy Hendrix - Message to Love: Over the weekend I had to drive to 3 different Home Depot/Lowes stores to pick up various things for the house. The sky was blue and warm, the windows were rolled down, and this is what was playing as I enjoyed the drive.
5. The Fratellis - Flathead: Yeah, I could have picked a more obscure track from the album or the EP. But the truth is ever since I heard the song on that iPod commercial, I've played this track constantly. It makes my wife dance. 'Nuff said.
6. Grateful Dead: Morning Dew (Live) - I love the Dick's Picks series of bootlegs. I think the only way to listen to the Grateful Dead is to listen to them live - the studio albums leave me cold and limp. That said, the opening track from Volume 14 is fantastic, and features some incredibly tasty Jerry Garcia soloing to boot.
7. Funkadelic - Cosmic Slop (Live): Great guitar, great band. And the live version off Hardcore Jollies is so much better than the studio track off the Cosmic Slop album.

And that's 7.

Sean, Victoria, Jason, Mindy, Mike, Slacker, Reverend...you're it.

Media

Clutch: From Beale Street to Oblivion

Whaddya mean, who's Clutch? What have you been smokin'? Clutch is only the greatest frikkin' rock band on Earth right now. And by "rock" I mean "RAWK!" as in beer drinkin', sweat flyin', beard growin' rock & roll that punches you in the face and then buys you a cold beer. Rock that's not afraid to go out in a pair of ratty sweatpants with a hole in the crotch and a Neil Young shirt that looks like it was bought during the '71 tour. This is rock that makes the womenfolk kick off their sandals and dance in the rain, folks. It'll make your car go faster, your hair grow longer, and make you smell like you've been working in the yard for 10 hours on an August afternoon and then jumped on the ground for some freaky lovin' with your partner. It's got organs and cow bells and it'll make you grin from ear to ear.

You Don't Love Me Yet: A Novel by Jonathan Lethem

Whaddaya mean, you haven't picked up the latest book by Jonathan Lethem yet? What do you do all day: sit on your lazy ass readin' nothing but your Oprah Book Club and your Bridges of Madison County? Don't you know Jonathan Lethem is one of the best writers we've got out there right now, and ever since Motherless Brooklyn has been carving a trail of originality and passion that's not only literate but actually readable? Jeesh! Lethem writes short fiction, long fiction, science fiction, nonfiction...they guy writes, and that the best thing you can say about a writer sometimes - he writes like it's his sole purpose in life. His characters are at once completely unique and capable of expressing our most inner desires. They fight crime, they fly, they find love, they lose love - they speak to a harmony and a spirit that pushes the boundaries of what literature is supposed to accomplish. Fercrissakes already pick up some Lethem (I would suggest Motherless Brooklyn, The Fortress of Solitude, and As She Climbed Across the Table) today!!!

Dust Devil: The Limited Collector's Edition (dir by Richard Stanley)

Whaddaya mean, you have no idea what the heck DUST DEVIL is? For shame!!! Don't you know that DUST DEVIL is the, the...uh....

OK. I have no idea what DUST DEVIL is, either. I know it was the second feature from director Richard Stanley, whose only movie credit previous to this was the crazy horror movie called HARDWARE which frightened me as a kid. I read a review about this, saying it was an insane, 5-disc edition of the film, detailing the horrible shooting conditions, the mangling by the studios, and the eventual remastering and releasing of the new director approved version of the film, complete with an even longer "work print" edition. It also includes 3 totally unrelated documentaries Stanley shot years later. Since the price tag was under $20, I had to pick it up.

I love Tuesdays...