Rod Stewart

Something I have in common with my mom: we both like Rod Stewart. Not so much in common is the era of Rod Stewart we respectively enjoy.

Never has someone had so much talent and so thoroughly betrayed that talent. - unknown

Someone said this once. I don't remember who, but the quote stuck with me because of it's glaring truthfulness.

So, every year, around Christmas time it seems that Rod Stewart releases another of his crooning "standards" albums. He's up to four volumes now, I think. Those are the albums where he sings cover songs all Vegas style. Even worse than the "Forever Young" and that craptastic song from Legal Eagles, "Love Touch" junk he was doing. Blech. But my mom likes them, so they make good Christmas presents.

But let's rewind about 30-35 years. It's the late 60's and early 70's and Jesus Christ did this guy put out some great stuff. The only shame of the matter is that it took me so long to discover it. Roughly it went like this: About two years ago, a guy at work suggested I check out "Truth" by Jeff Beck. He mentioned that Stewart sang on it and I was immeadiately skeptical. But I gave it a chance and it turned out to be quite good. Fast forward some time. I recall hearing the song "Every Picture Tells a Story" on my way home from Lowell. (Why I was in Lowell, I don't recall.) Again, I was pleasantly surprised. Fast forward to about 9-10 months ago, I hear from a few different people about a band called the Faces. Typically when the same name pops up in a few different places at around the same time, it gets stuck in my head, and I'll check it out.

The best way to describe the Faces, if you don't know them, is that they were the 70's version of the Black Crowes. The started out as the Small Faces and changed their name once Stewart and Ron Wood joined (although they did release one last album with the Small Faces name.) Quite simply these guys have been one of my favorite bands since I started listening to them. Boozy, fun, bar room rock. Except that they're English, so I guess that makes them pub rock. I scooped up all their albums, as well as the four disc box set.

At the same time the Fcaes were going on, Stewart was also releasing quality solo albums. And now, just over the past few days, I've picked up a few: Every Picture Tells a Story and Never a Dull Moment. And they're both great as well.

There's still a few more of his early solo albums I want to get before I can consider my Stewart collection complete. But with what I have so far, between the years of 1968 and 1973, just five years, he has sang/written on 8 albums that I really like. (And at least two more that I intend buy and fully expect to like.) That's pretty unheard of.

On the song "True Blue" from Never a Dull Moment, he sings that he'll never be a millionaire. That obviously turned out to be false. The unfortunate fact is that it never happened while he was turning out diamonds instead of rough. It's too bad that it occured after, as allmusic.com puts it:

Rod Stewart may have began his career as a respected singer, yet that respect eroded as he got older, as he became more concerned with stardom than music. While he has recorded some terrible albums — and he would admit that freely — Stewart was once rock & roll's best interpretive singer, as well as an accomplished songwriter, creating a raw combination of folk, rock, blues, and country that sounded like no other folk-rock or country-rock. Instead of finding the folk in rock, he found how folk rocked like hell on its own. After Stewart became successful, he began to lose the rootsier elements of his music, yet he remained a superb singer, even as he abandoned his own artistic path in favor of following pop trends.

Sometimes that fame can be a real talent killer.

Some satisfactions aren't worth it

Yesterday, a good portion of my day was devoted to getting my new piece of recording equipment up and running. The MOTU 828 mkII I/O. I went and bought one used off some bloke in JP. I get it home and immediately it doesn't work because I don't have the correct cable. I don't have a Firewire port on my laptop, which I bought specifically because it had an IEEE 1394 port, which to my understanding was Firewire. Well, as I learned yesterday, it is, but it's a 4 pin port instead of the stereotypical Firewire look, which is a 6 pin adapter.

So I run out to Radio Shack and buy the right wire. Add another $34 onto the $500 I paid for the I/O.

"$500?!?!? I don't even spend that much on a hooker!!" That may be what you're saying, but understand: this piece of equipment sells new for about $800. In fact, if I decided I never wanted to use it, I could probably sell it for a profit on Ebay. But I do want to use it, because now I'll ahve the ability to record 8 tracks of audio onto my computer at once, instead of the mere 1 track I was able to do with my old I/O.

Anyway, I get home with my new cable and hook everything up. Up comes the hardware wizard, and I go through it and can't complete successfully. I then think that "Well, maybe I need to download the drivers first," and close out of the wizard.

Now, here's where a large part of my problem came in. When I closed out of the wizard there was a box checked that said something like: "Do not try to complete this installation later." Or something like that. I saw it just as I was closing the wizard and a voice in the back of my head said this might cause me trouble later.

Anyway, I go to the MOTU site and get the latest and greatest in drivers. And, hey look! there's new options on my computer now for my 828. I click on one and get the "No MOTU devices found" error. Click on the next and get the same. Try the other two and nothing.

Uninstall, reinstall. No love.

Disconnect, reconnect. No love.

Uninstall, disconnect, reinstall, reconnect. No love.

Hardware wizard. No love.

Manually search every hardware option. No love.

Try install from DP4 disc that came with the unit. No love. (Although I didn't expect it to work. DP4 stands for Digital Performer, and is a recording software that runs solely on Mac. So, in fact not only did it not work, but it also jammed my CD drive closed until I rebooted.)

Punch computer. No love.

This goes on for a while.

Meanwhile, that little nagging thought about the checkbox is still in my head. So after about an hour and a half I go and do a system restore to the day before. What this does is it removes any updates I had done that day, it basically makes the computer "forget" that Sunday, March 26 ever happened. After this I try again, using the reccomended procedure on MOTU's site.

I download the drivers. Reboot. Plug in 828 as computer comes up and......VOILA! The hardware wizard is back. Successfully complete install.

Start to finish, from when I bought the unit to this point, maybe about 3.5 - 4 hours. And while I was immensely satisfied that it was now working and not just a $534 paperweight, I feel I would have much more enjoyed the experience had it worked on the first go. Had I done it right the first time, in truth.

The next 1.5 to 2 hours involved playing around with the interface which looks to be pretty intuitive, which is good since the unit didn't come with instructions and MOTU doesn't appear to have them on their site, and transferring a couple of recordings in progress over from my desktop to my laptop which took a while because these files can get pretty huge and took 3 CD each to transfer.

However, what this all means is that I'm not fully functional to record on my laptop. Now I just need to write some tunes to record.

Eeeeeeeeeeee.......

That's what it sounds like in my ears right now. I saw the Cult at Avalon last night, and although not extrordinarily loud, the mix did tend toward the high end. Aside from the mix, (which I thought was not that great, especially considering they were recording it for Instant Live), the band was pretty right on.

I have to say though, that Avalon is the WORST place to see a sold out show. With that many people, the layout is not conducive to getting near the stage, to the bathroom, to and from the bar, or just having any room at all. If it was a Japanese train, it'd be great for groping girls, but it's not, so it's usually just annoying. I've been in many packed clubs, and this one is always the worst for some reason.

Adventures in manliness

I needed shelves.

I recently got a pair of near field studio montiors for home recording use (which sound excellent, by the way). These monitors needed to go on my desktop, and since the desktop was already cluttered with a bunch of other stuff, I decided the best way to go was to get some desktop shelves to put them on. This had the double benefits of putting the monitors at a good height for, well, monitoring, as well as maximizing space in some sort of display of feng shui-ness.

So, over last week I head off to a number of different places, looking for shelves. Target, Staples, Office Max, IKEA, Hold Everything. No luck. No one has the shelf design I need. Finally, I decide if I can't find what I need, I'll make it. I will be a man and use tools and wood and make shelves. How hard can it be, I figure?

So on Saturday I head off to Home Depot. This week I've been to two of the most daunting stores ever: IKEA and Home Depot. Basically any store that's in a building the size of a warehouse is going to be daunting, merely by its size. But at least IKEA provided you with a map going in. At Home Depot no map, and as soon as you walk in the door it's just a giant wall of STUFF! Now, this might come as a shock to some of you, but being a man, I do actually have some of those deep seated guy tendencies. One of which is the thought that I should be able to find immediately what I need in a store that sells things like tools and wood. Since I'm a guy I should be almost telepathically linked to the aisle where I will find nails.

Not so.

Every time I go into a Home Depot it's like sensory overload, and I just stand there for a few minutes with a bewildered look on my face before I finally kick myself into action and wander around the store....with a bewildered look on my face. Trying to find whatever it is I need in there.

Saturday's list: nails, wood, Drano, Super Glue, and Swiffers. (Not all for my project; Sara asked me to pick her up some stuff.) It takes me approximately half a week to find all this stuff. Why would I ever think Super Glue would be in the paint section? Does that make sense to anyone?

Back when I lived with the folks in Weymouth, my dad had every tool known to man. In fact, had he still been up here, and not in SC, I reckon I would have asked him to make these shelves and slept late. However, the house is sold, and the tools are gone. So the challenge was to figure out how to get two pieces of wood that were 20" long, as well as four pieces that were 6" long to make my shelves. Luckily, Home Depot has a free cutting service. You grab the lumber you want and they cut it for you.

So, I grab a nice long slab, something that looks like enough so that I can get my 20" shelves and 6" legs. They cut it for me, and I leave with my stuff.

Back at the apartment, I set up everything on the kitchen table and notice the first problem: the "legs" weren't all the same height. Instead of measuring twice and cutting once, the Home Depot employee had measured once and cut rather haphazardly (a fact I noticed at the time, but didn't think much of until I got home and noticed the problem.) Three were close, but the fourth was off by enough that I figured I'd have to balance it with a maagzine or something. Oh well. I open my box of nails, get the hammer, and start to go to work.

This is not particularly easy when you're doing it on your kitchen table, with no clamps or naything. Again, I'm missing the luxury of having every tool known to man easily available. But there's another problem. I'm hammering away at this nail and the only thing that's happening is it's bending. I try another nail, same thing. So I'm thinking to myself that I bought nails that are too long. (I don't know for sure, but they were maybe 2" nails.) So I head back out to a local hardware store and buy some shorter nails: a box of 1 1/2" and a a box of 1 /14", since I'm not sure which I want to use for a 1" thick piece of wood. Back home, and it doesn't matter which I use as these also bend rather than penetrate. After a few minutes of pondering I figure out why. I had bought cedar (I think), which is apparently a wood harder than steel, and impervious to nails. Whoops. Well, I figure out a way around this. Later that evening, I'm meeting some friends at the Union Brewhouse in Weymouth. My friend Fil lives close by. He's a new(ish) homeowner, so I figure he must have power tools.) So, I pile up my wood into the car and stop by his place first to borrow some time on the power drill. If a hammer and nails isn't going to work, I'll use drill bits and wood screws.

Well, cedar is apparently impervious to powered tools as well. A handful of stripped screws and one broken drill bit later, we give up and go drink beer.

For my first course of Shelf Building 101, I get an F. My status as a man is now an endangered species, as I failed making something so simple as a shelf. Well, that wasn't going to stand. Sunday morning I wake up, ready to give it another go. I head back to Home Depot. A different one, since I don't want to have to deal with same people as I'm trying to keep my failure as secret as possible (from the strangers that are the employees of Home Depot, not you my friends of course.) It's a good thing there are two Home Depots near me, and oddly enough, very near each other. This time, I stay away from the cedar and buy a length of pine. Go to the "Cutting Center" where this guy does a better job of cutting the wood.

I bring my new wood pieces home and try again with the hammer and nails. Now, while you could bond cedar to Wolverine's bones and have it be stronger than adamantium, pine is a much softer wood. In fact, I don't even need the hammer. I'm feeling so manly at a sense of impending accomplishment that I could probably punch the nails in with my fist. In fact, that's what I do, and in about 10 minutes Voila! Shelves.

At this point I have regained my man-ness, and I celebrate the rest of the day by mixing two songs (with my new and awesome monitors); I kill some bad guys in Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell because guns and special forces video games are manly (at least as far as not being in the actual special forces is concerned); I eat some homemade chili (man-food) and drink beer; I watch a Myth Busters episode that involves (no lie) punching sharks. I then go to sleep in a testosterone fueled rage.

And that is the tale of how my manhood was nearly lost and ultimately redeemed over the weekend.

The best joke

My dad is good with wood. He does a good amount of woodworking, and owns many tools. If he's not doing one of his many projects around the house, or watching a B.C. fotoball game, then it seems like he's usually making something. Wooden Santas, household decorations, etc. For one of my nephews' second birthday he decides to make him a rocking horse. I mean, you've got to see this thing, (and in a moment you will), it's intricate. It takes him nine months of pretty much all his spare time to do. A lot of work went into this thing. It's made entirely of wood and a little bit of brass. Check it:



This is Maximus (actual name.) None of this horse is painted. That's all colored wood, all hand cut and fitted. Like I said, it took him nine months to make this, and you can see why. He said that he hoped nothing ever happened to it because he was never making another one.

He finished up Maximus a couple of months before my nephew's birthday, and the plan was to drive it down to South Carolina when he and my mom went, and then to FL when they went there for Alex's birthday. So, until then many people came over to see Maximus, and my dad even brought it to work and left it in his office for a week or so for people to see. He was awfully proud of Maximus, and rightfully so.

Of course, that got the evil side of my brain working, and a plan began to form. One that made me giggle every time I thought of it. I was giggling a lot, as I was thinking about it a lot. Now all I needed was one thing: for my dad to take a nap. He takes them fairly often enough, especially on the weekends. But it seemed that for this couple of months span he just wasn't taking any. Damn his well rested self! Until, with only about a week or so to go before my folks were leaving to head down south, he did, and I got to put my plan into action.

Which was, simply, this:



Cue theme from the Godfather.

I still laugh every time I see this picture.

Note: No rocking horses were actually harmed in the making of this joke. The head had remained detachable up until that point. My dad had planned to take it off and box it up for the trip south, and then permanantly attach it when he got there.

And that is my favorite practical joke. To date.

What a jackass, part 2

I'm not a particularly political person. Hell, the first time I ever voted in an election was in 2004, and although I knew it was futile, I wanted the right to be able to complain about Bush for four years and at least feel righteous about it beacuse I didn't vote for him.

And for those who did: I hope you enjoy what you've done, electing a man who is not only is probably too stupid to tie his shoes without help, but pigheadedly stubborn in that stupidity. Stupid AND stubborn? Not a good combination.

Speaking of combinations, this current bout of frustration in the leadership of our country springs from the combination of a couple of things I read this morning.

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Thursday Iran may pose the greatest challenge to the United States and diplomacy to thwart the Islamic nation's nuclear program must prevail to avoid confrontation.

In a 49-page national security report, the president reaffirmed the strike-first, or pre-emptive policy he first outlined in 2002. Diplomacy is the U.S. preference in halting the spread of nuclear and other heinous weapons, Bush said.

"If necessary, however, under long-standing principles of self-defense, we do not rule out the use of force before attacks occur — even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack," Bush wrote.

"When the consequences of an attack with weapons of mass destruction are potentially so devastating, we cannot afford to stand idly by as grave dangers materialize. ... The place of pre-emption in our national security strategy remains the same."

So basically he's advocating attacking a country that's done nothing? That maybe possibly someday might do something? And once again he trots one of the two pillars of his tenure in office: "weapons of mass destruction". (The other being the "war on terror, the most useless war since the "war on drugs".) Haven't we already invaded one sovereign nation under the false pretenses of weapons of mass destruction. Now, I'm not saying Iraq wasn't a mass of trouble that maybe needed a little fixing, but to lie to a country, and in fact the world, about your reason for doing it is bad form in my opinion. And I believe it was a lie, I believe at the time we knew there weren't any. I find it hard to believe that the country with probably the largest and most widespread intelligence network fucked that one up so bad. "We are invading Iraq because of their weapons of mass destruction..........ooops, they don't have any." Uh-huh.

Now, of course the textbook reply to this might be: "America is the greatest country in the world. Love it or leave it." And you know what, it is the greatest country in the world. On paper. But I'm getting increasingly disillusioned with a country based on freedom---freedom of choice, of speech, "we hold these truths to be self-evident"---that is run by a regime that ssems to have no problem denying those rights to others.

I find this line to be especially interesting: Diplomacy is the U.S. preference in halting the spread of nuclear and other heinous weapons, Bush said. Mainly because we have the bomb. We haev it, but you can't. Only us. Not that I'd like to see more of this stuff around, but this smacks more of bully-ism than anything else.

OK, you know what, terrorists get their hands on a bomb. I can see them using it againt the U.S. But a sovereign nation? Or for that matter state sponsored terrorism? Well how stupid would a country (Iran in this instnace), have to be to try something like that? An example that would be like me holding a steak knife and facing off against Jason Vorhees with his trusty machete. The only question in how that confrontation would turn out would be if I would end up beheaded or impaled? Either way, I lose.

I'm not a pollyanna. Although I do believe that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, I also believe in walk softly and carry a big stick. But when it all turns to vinegar and you're not walking softly, but stomping around in steel-toed workboots swining that big stick, well then I have problems with that.

And we haven't even gotten to part two yet. (Sorry, that this is turning out to be a long one.)

Aside from our disasterous foreign policy, there are our domestic issues. How can you reasonably police your neighbors if your own house isn't in order. Now, I'm not going to run down a list of all the ills that ail us. We'd be here forever. But I will say that I believe that the first step to healing most things is education. And not so much the education of those running the country, but those that someday will. I believe that there has to be a long view in place here, that most issues can not be solved in one liftime, that there is no quick fix. But that with education, they can be fixed eventually. We pass on to our children our beliefs, our opinions and tendencies, and if those things are wrong---racism, for example---then all we've done is passed those on to the next generation.

Everything I read seems to indicate that while we've spent $250 billion on the Iraq war, (a war that while I belive we cannot in good conscience now drop out of, will in the eyes of history be viewed as our next Vietnam), that the budget for education drops or is cut back. And our deficit is what now? I forget the number, but I know it's a record.

In "The War on Our Children" (In These Times, December 19, 2005), Representative Pete Stark(D-California) writes that the Iraq War and the tax breaks given to the wealthiest Americans have placed almost impossible hurdles in front of our children. Since 2002, nearly 7,000 Head Start slots for low-income families have been cut. The next targets are poor mothers with children under six years old. These mothers would have to double their work hours from 20 to 40 hours to remain eligible for vocational training, yet not gain the $10.5 billion needed for the additional childcare. When children reach school age they will be subjected to No Child Left Behind, which has shortchanged public schools by $40 billion as of June, 2005. If they reach college, students could be forced to pay an additional $5,800 for college. The U.S. has spent $250 billion for the Iraq War and will give American millionaires an average tax break of $41, 574 in 2006. These funding priorities may be costing American students their futures.

Information like this seems to indicate that education, or the opportunity for it will be shrinking. Which, in my mind, leads to more clouds in the future and less silver linings.

In closing, if it wasn't so cold up there, I'd move to Montreal.

What a jackass.

(Note, this occured and was written yesterday.)

I work at a Help Desk. Late last week, I took a call that the resolution of which made me realize that a procedure we'd been telling people to follow was incorrect under certain circumstances. It was a small thing, but relatively important. So I email the entire staff and let them know, as well as what the correct thing to do was.

I then spent a good part of my spare time today, creating a new document detailing this to make available to everyone. I took the original document outlining the procedure, and modified it to account for these certain circumstances. So at about 2:30 I finish, post it to our intranet site, and email it to the staff and our manager and supervisor.

Voila! I'm the man.

An hour goes by, it's 3:30, and the entire staff gets an email from another employee here at the Help Desk. In it she says, "Sorry - I already created new instructions before lunch and posted them in the appropriate folders. I just forgot to send the email to everyone notifying them.." So I go to check the folders, and sure enough there's her document. Only thing is, documents are time and date stamped in these folders....and they were put in there about two minutes before she emailed everyone. She didn't do it before lunch. What a clown.

Typically this isn't the type of thing that would bother me, but this lady has said some derogatory things about me in the past, as well as the fact as she has a bit of the "I'm queen of the roost" attitude, so I'm a little annoyed she's trying to take the credit. But, eh, whatever I guess. If she needs this to sleep better at night then her life must pretty much kind of suck anyway.

"Tomorrow is gonna suck."

That's the sentence that went through my head at 12:30 last night.

See, I had decided yesterday that I was going to go out for a few beers and decidely unhealthy bar food after work. Unfortuantely "after work" turned out to be me going out at around 8pm, not earlier like I had planned.

After what felt like a couple of hours, I look at my phone (clock) and see it's 12:30. Whoops. That's when, "tomorrow is gonna suck!" went through my mind, because not only was it late for me (for a work night), but I still had to get home and do important things like eat a sandwich and check email before I could sleep.

However, I did get to have one of Charlie's "slippery" cheesburgers. You know the kind: you take one bite and the whole thing squirts out the other end. Messy deliciousness, I say! Oh, and a random conversation was struck up to me by Antonio, with the opening line of: "Are you a drummer?" It only got weirder from there as he asked if I had ever eaten fungus amongus. (Once I ascertained that he meant mushrooms, I could more completely answer the question.) Also he inquired as to what my definition of "love" was. That was the point where I started wishing fervently for my drinking companions to please get there quickly. Luckily they must have received my telepathic distress call because they indeed did show up quickly. After which the strangest Antonio got was when he had me read a passage of his Nelson Demille novel.

Ahh, good times. But seriously, I need a nap.

Stuff n' stuff

The second half of yesterday was good. THe first half was full of work suckiness, but the second half was good because:

1) I got my passport finally. Now, where to go? I'm sort of backing off my plans for Italy this year, I think, because I was talking to my folks and they're planning on going next year. And they're thinking, (at least at this point), on renting an apartment in Rome for a few weeks, and I'm thinking that getting in on that might end up being less expensive than shelling out for a hotel room concievably by myslef. Not that I'd stay in Rome the whole time, but it would make a good "home" base from which to eat my way across the country. Also, Italy is an expensive trip. More so than other Europe destinations. So more time to save up and do it right would be nice.

So this changes my vacation plans for the year now. This Seattle/upper northwest thing that both Bill and Paul have both brought up a couple of months back can once again be considered. But there is other Europe to see, and a London or Prague or Spain or Amsterdam in October(ish) is also on my mind.

Of course there's always the roadtrip stanby of Montreal, as well. It's not a right year if I ahven't gone up there at least once for a weekend.

I really need more money, and speaking of which...

2) I sold my little LCD HDTV I had in my bedroom. I bought it originally when I moved to Medford and didn't think I'd have my big 32" HDTV available. Well, the 32" made it there a month or so after I moved. And I barely use the TV in my room. So I sold it. Made a good $350 on it, too. The question is now what to do with it. It's going to one of three things, it's just a matter of deciding what. Either a pair of monitors for recording, a new I/O for recording, or a new acoustic (if I can find one I like in the $500-$700 range. I hear Alvarez is good for the money, and there's a jumbo in that range that I think looks cool, but I've yet to try one. Unfortunately I don't have the cash to drop $2000 on a top of the line Taylor or Gibson or Martin.)

So, right now the top of the desire list is the guitar, but the top of the practicality list is the monitors. I need the monitors to be able to start recording with my laptop. I'd like the I/O to start recording better, but I NEED the monitors, as the speakers in the laptop are definitely not good for that type of thing. The speakers on the tower aren't great, but at least they're serviceable. Anyway, I'll start shopping around soon. I'm also going to be selling a guitar pickup I'm not using, so hopefully I can add another few bucks to my spending power.

3)A small thing, but my gym membership expired yesterday. I guess it's been two years, and you can definitely tell the difference as I'm in peak physical shape now......HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Oh, man, that's a good one. But anyway, the good news, is that in renewing my fee per month goes down by $10. So there's a little savings there.

However, they have the most inefficient method of renewing a memebership. They take your credit card info again, they make you fill out another form, and they take your card and mail you a new one? OK, you already have my credit card info, since you bill me there. I can understand the form part, because it is signing a contract. But taking the card and issuing a new one? Huh? Isn't that kind of wasteful? Think of all the lamination plants and animals that are needlessly dying every year in gym membership cards alone if that's the case.

The Oscars

Last night I did something I had never done before. I watched the entire Oscars, cover to cover. Man, what a boring show. Although I have little use for MTV, their movie awards show is so much better. If the Oscars are the person you've known your entire life, the MTV movie awards are that person's much more fun younger sibling that you'd really much rather hang out with.

The thing is, the Oscars are Hollywood's "big night". So as a result, they're handled and taken with a sense of austerity and self-importance that is so stifling, that not even the usually aces and diamonds John Stewart could penetrate it. Not for a lack of trying. It's telling that the most exuberant winners were those for best original song: The 3-6 Mafia for "Hard Out Here For A Pimp." There was actual excitment in their garbled, eubonic acceptance speech.

George Clooney, in an early acceptance speech, started out witty and charming, and I found myself thinking, "This guy would probably be great to have a drink with." But then he took a sharp 180 degree turn when he started with the subtly sarcastic remarks about Hollywood being perceived as out of touch, and how he agreed that they made broached "out of touch" ideas in their films such as racism, politics, and other hot topic issues, long before the rest of the world acknowledges them. Or something to that effect; I'm paraphrasing. Not that there's not at least some validity to what he's saying, sometimes, but way to pat yourself on the back.

But maybe the Acadmey believes this self-congratulatory tripe, since they gave the Best Picture award to Crash. What in the fucking holy hell? In a recent blog I already mentioned my disdain for this heavey handed examination of racism, adapted from Racism Is Bad For Dummies. But I never figured this film had any chance of winning. Aside from Crash, Munich was my least favorite of the Best Picture nominees, but even that was head and shoulders better than Crash. Basically, Crash being nominated, never mind winning, is like pitting Beefaroni against filet mignon and having Chef Boyardee walk away with the trophy.

Disgraceful, really.

At least my night wasn't a total waste though. One of the cameraman must have known about my love for Catherine Keener, as she got an inordinate amount of screen time for someone who didn't win or present anything. So I guess that's something.