They're Actually From Sweden

Hi. I'll level with you my friends, my mind is a little out of sorts this Halloween weekend. People are all sorts of dressed up (I sat next to a male Carmen Sandiego on the train tonight), which leads to people screaming at you, asking what you're dressed up as. "I'm not dressed as anything." "No, no, come on, what are you?" "It's a hat and a jacket!" "Are you a sailor?" "I'm cold, and increasingly pissed off." Plus, we fell back today, and I didn't realize it till 2/3 am. It's all fucked around with my head a bit. That and I'm a little hung over.

All of this has lead me to my couch, and having to choose between a 'Viva La Bam' marathon, a Hot Links infomercial, or videos on VH1. I know, apparently they still play music videos on music networks (except for MTv, they're deep into a 'True Life' marathon), but only at hours when no one will actually watch them. Brilliant! It's a bit funny though, the last two videos I saw were Regina Spektor's 'Fidelity' and Ok Go's 'Here It Goes Again', videos I saw on this here series of tubes a few months again. It seems like the networks are caught between trying to act like they're still important in the music industry or if they should just give it up and embrace their new network platforms completely (when will Bonaduce break? When damn it?), so in the mean time they're playing catch up with videos I've already seen and at the same time trying to act like they're introducing them to the world(Regina Spektor is a 'You Oughta Know' artist, thanks for the tip VH1!). It just seems funny that the only way that actual, listenable music is getting play on television is after everyone kind of collectively ignored it.

Anyway, that good music I said they were playing? I lied, that's over, we're back to the All American Rejects (though to be fair, Ben Kweller was just on). So I've turned to YouTube to find the videos that VH1 will get around to in January or so (none of these are really new, but again, I'm hung over, which means I'm lazy, and these songs are kind of simple, and oddly pleasing. Shiny in a way):

'We're from Barcelona' - I'm from Barcelona



Going out to all my Spanish readers. All two of you. Hi. I laughed the first time I watched this, at the school photo sets, the swaying, the dorkiness of the lead singer, the unnecessary wind effects, the fact that everyone else doesn't seem to be sure why they're in this video. Then I realized I had watched it five times. This video is like an infomercial for a cult, a cult where you don't have to wear some ugly purple jumpsuit. Which has always been my major hang up about cults. It's like, I want the sing and the glazed eyes, but I want to be my own person too, you know?

'Young Folks' - Peter, Bjorn & John



This has been one of my favorite songs of the summer, because honestly, how can you resist a good whistle chorus? You can't. You just can't.

'Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above' - CSS



They have a newer video out, which is pretty nifty, but I like this song better, and my head is a very delicate place at this moment, so... yeah.

'Us' - Regina Spektor



This is from her last album, but wow do I love this video. Wow, I'm going to bed.

I Suppose That's Just The Way The Cookie Crumbles

I don't know how these things work, I'm not a wizard. The cape, well its more like a safety blanket really, but that's not the point. Fame is hard to figure out, while some of the most talented artists in the world toil in obscurity for their entire lives, hackier people shoot straight into the public eye, where they either stay or disappear so quickly it was like they were never there at all. I am looking squarely at you Lou Bega. Four straight months of everyone in my life singing your song or some version of it where they just put in the names they wanted to hear, and for what? An Applebees commercial? Was that your end plan? Did you ruin my summer of 1999 just for a plate of the baby, baby back ribs? You son of a bitch.

Anyway, Lily Allen is having a Lou Bega moment. It's kind of an old story by now, she posted tracks on her myspace page, we fell in love, she released her album (in the UK at least), and we fell harder. Apparently against the idea of making money, her record company decided to hold off on releasing her album in the States until January. A record company representative was quoted as saying "We're just swamped with all the money we've been taking in lately, we're a little behind on the counting. Johnson forgot how many zeros were in a billion, and well, its all just been a mess." But Lily has once again proved that you don't need a record company (or really, even a record) to be famous. I meant that in a good way, not the Paris Hilton way, just to be clear.


In the last three weeks, Lily has had her 'Grey's Anatomy' Moment, her MTV moment, started touring the states, has become the darling of the tabloids as the first famous person to agree that Paris Hilton and Madonna are worthless, and today released the third video from 'Alright, Still', for 'Littlest Things' -



She looks fantastic in noir. Anyway. What's to become of our Lily? Only time will tell. But I well tell you this my friend, I want some baby back baby back baby back baby back baby back I want my baby back baby back baby back... (Dear God, when do they say ribs? Never. They never say ribs.)

Animal News!

We have gone too far. Sure, its easy to make fun of him. He can't fly, or run fast, or, shoot a bow and arrow. He's just generally not that super. And the green and orange ensemble isn't really helping anything either. But it seems now, after years of 'sea men' jokes, he has had enough. Because, Aquaman - is - pissed. The recent death of 'Crocodile Hunter' Steve Irwin was a tragic accident, though it seemed somewhat reasonable due to the fact that Irwin spent his life provoking animals past reasonable logic. But, what I'm saying is, was it? Irwin's death appeared to be an accident, but it acquired world wide attention. Now an attack on this man in Florida, with the same MO (though this one actually jumped out of the water to do it), suggests, maybe this wasn't just a one off thing. Irwin got our attention, this last case shows us that he's serious, and any of us could be next. Aquaman is the king of the sea. That's the majority of the world. And he's tired of taking our shit. I would just like to go on record as saying, I love Aquaman (especially 'new' Aquaman. A hook hand? The definition of awesome my friend), and would like to not be pecked to death by the flock of seagulls that live in the parking lot next to my building (Yeah, didn't think of that did you - seagulls are under his domain, since they're apparently from the sea. If he wanted to, he could just turn the entire world into the 'The Birds', except, you know, with just one type of bird. Still scary though.)



This story from NPR about a boy running with, then being chased by, then mounted by a deer while his entire cross country team apparently did nothing but take pictures and I'm assuming, laugh until they had trouble breathing is kind of a metaphor for adolescence. Picture one is the boy posing with the deer smiling, because at the start we're all cute kids, and we're excited about becoming adults. At picture two, we're starting out, and it's a little scary, but nothing we can't handle. Picture three, okay, somebody help me, I was wrong. Picture four, seriously you guys, this isn't funny any more! You give up on whining by picture five, because no one is listening. Picture five is either when you start playing football and drinking, or start painting your nails black and listening to My Chemical Romance. And drinking. Because by picture six, you have been fully mounted and licked by the deer. And you just kind of go with it. Because by picture eight, they're just kind of pushing you into the race again. And, like adolescence, its hilarious when it's not happening to you. Because that kid totally got attacked by a deer.



From the BBC: A Russian official has accused the King Of Spain of drugging a tame bear with a mixture of honey and vodka before hunting it down. I think this is an important opportunity for all of us. It would be fantastic if the world was thrown into war over the death of a bear. World War I was set off over the death of an arch-duke, why not a bear? If this situation escalates to the point of war, can you imagine the lesson the five of us left after the nuclear holocaust would take away with us? "You guys, we went to war over a bear. Man, that is silly. War is silly." We would all agree, and then Mary would succumb to radiation poisoning.

Also, vodka and honey sounds like a delicious way to get sloshed.



This video of a comedian doing some fifth rate Carlos Mencia shtick and being assaulted by two women when he asks - actually asks them- if they were offended by a terrible 'towel head' routine isn't strictly animal related, but watching him scream did remind me of the time I was at the circus, and they took away the unicycle from the Unicycling Bear - ironic, I know. We all laughed, and then when he tried to get it back they shot him with a tranquilizer dart, and he fell to the floor, drooling. And we laughed even harder. I'm not saying that I find animal cruelty funny, it was just - well the bear was wearing a hat. I guess you had to be there.

I Lost It

Tonight was the last night of the Chicago International Film Festival. I've been to the movies for six of the last seven nights. I don't know why, but sitting on your ass can be oddly exhausting.



Dirt Nap

I can take joy in the fact that seeing this at a festival so long before it's release date, if it gets one, is that it means I get to be one of the first people to call it 'Garden State' for the middle aged set. It's not a fair thing to say, but I guarantee you, it's going to be said, over and over. And it's not D.B. Sweeney's fault. He just wanted to make his movie with his friends, and if your friend is John C. McGinley, and he'll do your movie, then you put him in your movie. In doing that, you've already built in an audience, but the flip side of that is that audience sees that Dr. Cox is in a 'finding yourself' movie, they're going to start comparing it to the other doctor's 'finding yourself' movie.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. You can almost see it as a rebuttal to 'Garden State', the cinematic equivalent of our parents telling us, "You think you got problems? You don't have problems. I've had all the same problems you've had for thirty years longer, and I didn't have a blog to cry about it on." Then they go and drink and turn up a Springsteen album to drown out whatever Coldplay album we're crying ourselves to sleep to. Which is a fair point to make, but do people want to see that? I can appreciate that people seeing movies about 20 somethings complaining about their lives can be obnoxious, but at least those movies usually end with a glimmer of hope at the end, but when you're characters are twenty years older, it all takes on a sense of inevitably, which makes the filmmaker work extra hard to get some entertainment out of the story. Which leads to the thinking behind 'Dirt Nap', where our main characters work out their problems by hitting the road and find themselves running into things like alligators and Ed Harris as an one armed carnie.

Other than McGinley's performance and Sweeney and Moira Kelly having a 'Cutting Edge' reunion, there isn't really anything on paper that makes 'Dirt Nap' sound original. And it's not really. A lot of the dialogue reaches to be both normal and entertaining, but fails at both, and some times things just happen so something is happening. You can tell that this is someone's first movie. But the performances are strong enough (Paul Hipp is as good at playing weak and indecisive as McGinley is at being angry and cocky, which says something) and the fact that Sweeney actually cares about his characters and the generation that they represent carries the film through it's rough patches. It's an honest film, which leaves you with a type of satisfaction that you don't usually get from movies. Plus, it has Ed Harris as a one armed carnie. I just wanted to make sure you picked up on that.

I Hope She Does The One About Prostitute Donuts

It's hard to love Scarlett Johansson sometimes. I want to just write her off as the blonde, Sexiest Woman Alive (not that there is anything wrong with that), but every once in a while something she does reminds me that the same smart mousy girl from 'Ghost World' is living underneath all that bombshell. Like this. I'm told by chattering girls who go to Borders to read but not actually buy People and US that the cool thing for modern young starlets to do is to branch out from their acting careers to record a musical album. Modern day icons like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and Annette Funicello come to mind. So why wouldn't New Scarlett jump on board, throw her hat into the over produced pop ring? But it turns out she's not just going to fill a disc of forty minutes complaining about the paparazzi or how sad it is that the stars are blind (seriously, what the fuck was that?) , but instead she's doing a disc of Tom Waits covers. Yeah. This is the Johansson Paradox, and it's killing me.

RELATED ITEMS!

Can't wait for the album? You want to hear Scarlett sing now? I suggest you visit Stereogum to hear her cover Gershwin's 'Summertime'... Or if you're in the mood for just some straight up Waits, I found this site, with a live recording from the 1974 San Diego Folk Festival. I really hope Scarlett does some nasal pitched ramblings in between songs, because really, that's half the fun... Bill Murray never comes to my parties, we just get Chevy Chase, and he steals our silverware... and in music related news, because it's music... MOKB has both video and an Mp3 of the new Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins song they performed on Conan Friday (not to mention an awesome photo). I recommend you download the song and watch the video. Why? Sweet dance moves, that's why.

Radio, Radio

Attention public radio fans! I'm guessing all of you are still reading. Because honestly, who doesn't love the folksy charm of Garrison Keillor, the dry journalistic wit of Terry Gross, the desperate yet still amazingly patronizing tone Alan Chartock's voice takes on during pledge drives. Anyway. This American Life, is going to be offered as a free podcast starting this Monday. So no longer will we be hindered by the restrictions of time, or money, or owning a radio. I honestly haven't listened to TAL on the radio for a year, instead listening to it on my computer or watching it when they played NPR over the security feed in my old building. There's nothing quite like getting your news while watching a kid plead with a security guard, because that pot totally isn't his.

John Hodgman Bought Me A Hotdog

The Hot Dog John Hodgman Bought For Me

That's a bit misleading, though technically true. He bought hotdogs for the entire audience, but I was a member of that audience, so, if you think about it, he bought me a hot dog. Sadly, it was covered in the mixture of salad and odd green, candied relish that Chicago insists on putting on its hot dogs. It's - it's not that it's bad, it just seems so unnecessary. Like they're ashamed of their meat. So they hide it behind a tomato. It's all very sad. It's like going on a date with a girl wearing heavy make up. You're pretty, stop dressing like some terrifying circus clown.

The reading began with a musical performance by Jonathan Coulton, who sings kind of, satirical folks songs. Like DaVinci's Notebook, but with an instrument. He's actually playing a show with Paul and Storm tomorrow night. He sang the usual fare, love songs of gigolos and mad scientists, and then sang Hodgman's theme song. Which, as you may have guessed, led to John Hodgman. Not that he had some grand, wrestler like entrance into the Borders reference section. He had actually been sitting in front of me during Coulton's set, and before that had been talking to those of us who had gotten there half an hour early. Still though, when you have your own troubadour sing of your praises, you look very impressive.

The Symbol On The Podium Means "It is time for hoboes to take over the United States government"

He then proceeded to have us recite the six oaths of the virtuous child, talked a bit about the history of almanacs, his history, and then he delved into all matters hobo, including how he originally had planned to use the hobo material from the book for a PBS documentary, where it would be narration going back and forth over a slow Ken Burns pan of the same photo of a hobo. Sadly, hobos don't show up on film, so the idea was scrapped. Coulton also played 'Big Rock Candy Mountain', but with the original lyrics, the ones written as a way to entice children to run away from home and join their hobo lives. I can only imagine what the woman behind them was thinking when they segued into the 'Tender Crisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch' version of the song (which they were quick to point out, seemed dated even though the ad campaign has only been over for a few months).

They did a Q&A after that, entirely conducted through walkie talkies (invented here in Chicago as some odd man lurking in the corner was eager to point out). It was one of the least awkward Q&As I've ever been to, which says something about the other ones I've been to (some highlights: the 'Shopgirl' session where someone asked Jason Schwartzman and Clare Danes what it was like to work with Robin Williams, or the 'Half Nelson' one a few weeks ago, where they didn't even have the lights on, they did the entire thing in silhouette). He then ended the reading by throwing a piece of official John Hodgman railroad track chalk at a woman in the back, missing, hitting the ceiling, and dinging a man in the last row.



He signed my book afterwards, and after asking me what I was studying here, commented, "Well good, Chicago is the film capital of the world. If you like Joan Cusack movies." Which is now officially the line I'm going to use when ever anyone asks me why I decided to come here (because honestly, she is delightful). So, thank you Mr. Hodgman.