X-Men: The Last Stand

As the third movie in a trilogy, X-Men: The Last Stand worked surprisngly well. As a stand alone movie, not so much.

Let me address the bad first, because I can do it more quickly. The problem lay exactly where I feared it would. Based upon spite, this movie had a release date before the script was done or there was a director attached. To spite Bryan Singer who had left this project to helm the new Superman film, the studio all but decreed that X3 be released before Superman. They made this decision before they were even ready to start shooting, which is a bit bass ackwards.

As a result, while there was s good story at the core, the script needed a good amount of tightening to highlight this better.

THERE WILL BE MAJOR SPOILERS FROM HERE ON IN. DON'T READ IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.

But the good is that it built well upon the first two films to bring what felt like an unofficial trilogy to an end. The story revolves around a "cure" for mutations, and all that brings about. (In a nice little bit of continuity, the source of the cure was a mutant named Leech, who's power was to surpess people's mutations when they got too close to him; he was a minor character in the Generation X books.) It's permanantly supresses the mutant gene, removing mutation. Although the government maintains this will be voluntary, it comes to light that there is a weaponized version. This pisses off Magneto, and puts him on offensive, driving the action of the film.

Brett Ratner, the universally (and somewhat unfairly) hated director of this film said in some of the pre-release press that this would be the last X-Men film. I scoffed at the time, since X-Men was basically a franchise that if done right was a license to print money every few years. But after watching the film, I can see what he means.

SERIOUSLY, HUGE SPOILERS COMING HERE. I MEAN "DARTH VADER IS LUKE'S FATHER" BIG. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

Charles Xavier - Killed by Jean Grey as the Dark Phoenix. And not just killed. Utterly obliviated.

Scott Summers/Cyclops - Killed by Dark Phoenix.

Jean Grey - Completed her Dark Phoenix transition foreshadowed in X2. (Although it's not the Phoenix storyline from the comics, not a cosmic entity, merely her own untapped potential.) Killed by Wolverine in the final battle.

Magneto - Cured (unwillingly) in the final battle. Which is fine, because if the franchise does go on, it's really time for a new main villain.

Mystique - Cured (unwillingly) in a prison break attempt.

Rogue - Cured (willingly). Again, I'm fine with this because it's a logical place for her story arc to end. Rogue of the movies wasn't Rogue of the books. She didn't have her invulnerabilty, super strength, and flight powers she got from killing Ms. Marvel in the comics in the movies. She merely had her abilities to absorb peoples powers and life force, which has to suck for her since she can't make out with her boyfriend.

Of the good guys left that leaves essentially two adults: Wolverine and Storm and a bunch of "kids": Kitty Pride, Iceman, and Colossus. Not exactly a formidable X team. So I can see where it almost feels like this franchise is ending.

A few extra notes on casting:

Kelsey Grammer as Beast was pretty awesome. He had the look nailed. (I didn't count him as one of the adults however, because, much like Nightcrawler in X2, I can't particularly see him hanging around for subsequent movies, if there are any.) Hank McCoy's mannerisms, however they didn't do as well.

Ellen Page as Kitty Pride, also right on. She was actually pretty badass.

Daniel Cudmore as Colossus was OK. Not a lot for him to do, but there were two fastball specials in the film.

Ben Foster as Angel, well I have mixed thoughts on this one. First of all Warren Worthington III was pretty much criminally underused in the film except as a plot device, so I don't know why they didn't just cast him as an extra to begin with. But also, Ben Foster just doesn't seem to have the Warren Worthington III bearing. I realize that, like Rogue from the films, they're choosing to go with a younger version of the charcter, but it also doesn't help that Ben is always going to be Russell from Six Feet Under to me, an effete, "tortured", art school student that was primarly Clare's boyfriend, but who also had gay sex with their teacher. It's a shame that he was so good in that role because now I can never picture him as anything else.

Vinny Jones as Juggernaut was pretty good. He got the attitude down, but they glossed over how he got his powers (which I guess is fine since the fact that he's bonded to a mystical crystal is probably irrelevant to anyone that hasn't read the books.) But they also apparently just wrote out the fact that he's Professor X's brother, a bit larger of an oversight....ahem, creative decision.

Anyway, to cut this off: A flawed film with potential. Definitely the least of the series so far, but does a good job of tying up an unofficial trilogy.

Taking a page...

Taking a page from Bill. A Top 7! Well, not really a top 7 of anything particular. A friend of mine is hosting an iPod DJ night at the Middle East tonight, and part of the deal is that if you bring a playlist of 7 songs, he'll play it. So why not, I've got some time to kill before I head over. We're going with a 70's rock theme here.

1) You're Time Is Gonna Come - Led Zeppelin. (OK, this actually came out in '69, but whatever.) There are only three bands/artists I can think of that have had debut albums that have been so good your jaw drops. Zeppelin is one, and despite the greatness of the other two (Guns N' Roses and Jeff Buckley) Zeppelin's is the one that makes you wonder how four people so good could come together and play something so amazing and cohesive. Nowadays if there's a premiere player in a popular band, (not that this happens much anymore), the band seems to be about him. Here there were 4 great players that fit so well together.

2) Jailbreak - Thin Lizzy. If I was picking my favorite Thin Lizzy song ever, it'd be Borderline, but that's way too depressing. We're here to rock, people.

3) Sway - The Rolling Stones. Guns N' Roses ripped this song in a couple of ways, but so subtly that I can't tell you what songs of theirs they did it on. There's just something about the melodies and chord progressions that I know I've heard Gn'R play. But it's not a surprise considering that Izzy Stradlin' was the lost Stone, he was just born a couple decades too late.

4) Flying - The Small Faces. Rod Steart was untouchable in the late 60s and early 70s. His solo albums, his work with Jeff Beck, and of course The (Small) Faces. (The first album went under the name The Small Faces which was their name with a previous singer. The next three albums they were The Faces.) Flying is the first song from them I ever fell in love with. Intricate yet loose. Great organ sound.

5) Room Service - Kiss. And we ain't talking about food.

6) Home Tonight - Aerosmith. OK, one slow song. But these guys were probably so drugged up when they wrote/recorded/played/forgot about this song it hardly counts.

7) If You Want Blood (You Got It) - AC/DC. Gotta close strong, and it don't get much stronger than this. I hated AC/DC when I was in high school. In arguments about them I accused them of making the same album for 30 years. But now I realize, that album is so damn good, why not do it over and over again. You can be simple. You can be great. But to mix the two so consistently is an art form all its own. And the guitar sound.....oooh, damn!

OK, I'm done. Not that I dislike the music I grew up with, I like it very much, but do you ever listen to something and think how great it would have been to have discovered it as it was first coming out? I was alive when most of the albums these songs were on was first released, but far too young to enjoy them. That makes me nostalgic for an age that I didn;t really grow up in. Weird. Anyway, gotta go refresh my beer and see what's happening with the Heat/Pistons game.

Checking in

Well, time some little bits and pieces. I'm back from vacation, perfectly timed I must add. The day I left was the day it started rainging. The day I came back, it had pretty much just ended. Awesome.

Some vacation stats: I was in 8 states that weren't MA (counting layovers). I took off in planes 9 times. Subsequently, I also landed 9 times. Amazing how that works. I slept in 7 beds that weren't my own, (all of them alone, in case you were wondering.) I had on average three alcoholic beverages a day. I drove in two version of the same car (my parents' Honda Oddyssey, and my sister's newer version of the same Honda Oddyssey.)

Although I've been back at work for two days, I haven't actually been back at work. I went right into a three day class for a product that, if we ever end up using it, could be helpful. But it's hard to tell the extent of it's usefulness since the class isn't tailored to MIB in particular. But it's still better than answering phones.
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My iTunes shuffle in the span of about half an hour has picked three Kiss tunes. That's pretty unlikely considering I have 3,113 songs in there and probably less than 50 are by Kiss.

That reminds me, I need to put my old All Eyes On tunes on my iPod. I've had a yearning recently to listen to them. Well, as soon as I finish my blogging.
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So, my quickie review of Mission Impossible 3.

It's getting increasingly harder to go see a movie with Tom Cruise. I think you know why. He's progressively losing his mind in front of a worldwide audience. It's truly amazing to watch. I love the abounding theories. 1)He was always this crazy, but he fired his publicist and hired his sister for the job, and that gave him free reign to do what he wanted. 2)He's reached the highest level of Scientology which means he now has to "preach". (I assume this means he knows all about the aliens, too. Or whatever it is they believe in.) 3)Katie Holmes is getting 6 million dollars to be with him for 5 years and she never actually was pregnant.

I don't know if any of this stuff is tru, but it sure makes for diverting reading. Anyway, because of his increasing lunacny, it's hard to actually lay down the money to see a movie he's in. But here's the thing, and it still stands true. Tom Cruise, while he will never make a movie better, he will also never ruin one. My sister beleives that Ron Howard (the director) is only as good as the script he's given. He "shoots the script". I beleive the same about Tom Cruise.

So how was he in MI:3? How good was the movie that he neither ruined nor made better? It was good, probably the best of the three. Truthfully, I went into this for the J.J. Abrams factor. J.J., co-wrote and directed the film, and I'm a fan of his since he created Alias and co-created Lost. That's an impressive enough resume. IN fact, he brought in some writers from Alias to help on the script.

Needless to say, we're not talking Oscar winner here, this is of course a pop spy movie, of the gals and gadgets school. But it was solid enough. Philip Seymour Hoffman kicked ass (as usual) as the villain, the action was good, the story good enough, the babes babe-alicious.
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I had written a few paragraphs about how every now and then I take a glance at the internet dating pool, but everything I tried to write on the subject felt clunky and wrong. Let's just say that what these women appear to be looking for is nothing like me. Methinks internerd dating is not my millieu. Too bad that speaking to women in real life doesn't seem to be either.
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Got a new tune in the works. Got the chorus lyrics and verse and half written, as well as the rough idea for the chord progression. All in about 3 hours. The idea came to me as I was driving home from Trader Joes earlier. It's an alt-country-ish rock tune. Drive by Truckers style (hopefully). If I can get the lyrics done soon, I'll probably set upon starting to demo this one next, although I probably won't running diary it like I did "Woman"...

...which is still somewhat unfinished. I never got the vocals down. Matt wasn't able to make it over to do them before I left for vacation. Maybe I should just suck it up and try to do them myself. Oof! I bet that'll sound rough. But it'll be easier in the long run.

I like writing fast, not overthinking it. It's a refreshing change from the stuff I'm doing with Matt, which has been moving a lot more slowly than I'd like, which is something that needs to be addressed and soon. Gotta get a fire lit under our asses to produce a little more quickly. Rock and roll isn't meant to be taken to carefully.

Travelblog: The Final Chapter

People at airports are funny. And not just because at least half of them are still reading Dan Brown novels. I'm sitting in the Philly airport right now. It's about 50 minutes until my plane takes off. Which means at least 30 until it boards. And people are linignup already to get seats. It's the Southwest "first come, first serve" policy. What a silly looking bunch of jackasses. Relax. Are you really that impatient to sit your oversized asses into uncomfortable undersized airplane seats?

Anyway, I'm almost home. A few more hours. The down south portion of my trip was relatively uneventful. The christening went well. Christening is also a pretty funny word, I realized. Is that like a verb form of Christ? What are you doing? Oh, I'm just christening.

Spent a few days with at my sister's place, basically just getting beat up by me nephews. That's the new game they like to play: beat up uncle Chris. For the most part it's not so bad, as it involves heavy use of pillows. However, Michael does have some deadly fingernails, and getting your neck stepped on repeatedly is not particularly theraputic. Just a heads up. Also, roughhousing with a nephew who had spent much of the day throwing up is a cause for some concern. But apparently, much to my and my clothes' relief, he was feeling better.

Because I'm sitting near the gate, I am now entirely surrounded by the waiting lines. Hahahahahahaha! Fools. Stand and wait, whil I sit comfortably listening to Thin Lizzy. The best part is that when they do start boarding and I have to stand up, I'll be cutting half these people by deafult.

Travelblog 3: No Witty Title

Sedona was, like much of the rest of the southwest, very pretty. But aside from that, pretty boring. The weather was awesome, sunny and warm. Much better than the continuous rain and unseasonable cold back home. Had a couple of godd meals. Saw Mission Impossible 3 (which, I may review later if I remember.)

Now I'm back in Albuquerque. Flying out, back to Boston, tomorrow. Where I'll be for a day before flying back out again. Apparently the WWE is in town, as my sister saw Chris Benoit walking out of our hotel and over to Applebees.

Anyway, that's all there really is to report.

Travelblog 2: The Revenge

Yesterday was mostly a driving day. Farmington to the Grand Canyon, according to my mom, is about 8 hours. That’s not true. It’s probably about six and a half. Granted with stops (to be detailed) it ended up being up around 9 hours. But it really wasn’t bad. One good thing about going on a road trip with your family rather than your friends is that there’s a whole lot less farting in the car.

First we passed Shiprock, which as mentioned in a previous blog, is featured in the Tony Hillerman novels my dad likes. I didn’t realize at the time but Shiprock isn’t actually a town. It’s…get this…a rock. A big rock. In the middle of the desert. Seen from afar, it’s looks like the teleporting castle from Krull.



Let me just take this time however to say that the landscapes here in the Southwest are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t been, I highly recommend it, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen.

After a few hours we stopped for lunch at the Anasazi Inn. Apparently, even though the Anasazi mysteriously disappeared en masse off the face of the earth hundreds of years ago, their recipes remained. Including the ultra impressive Navajo burger. Take a piece of frybread—which is just like it sounds: fried bread; much like fried dough but not sweet—about the size of a small pizza, fold it in half , stick two burgers in there with all the toppings. With portions like this it’s a wonder that the Navajos aren’t all the size of Augustus Gloop. I must humbly admit, however, that I did an admirable job on mine.



Next stop: Four Corners. This is the one place in the United States where four states touch one another. No, not sexually; Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona are all very chaste states, as far as I know. Now to stand in one state is free. To go and straddle two states anywhere in the country, also free. To have the privilege of standing in four states at once? $3 a person. Land of the free? C’mon now.

Anyway, onward and upward. The next stop was the Grand Canyon. But let me address that a bit more in a minute. We went in one gate of the Grand Canyon national park and drove about 25 miles. After a brief stop at a hotel on the lip of the canyon to browse yet another gift shop and to have a beer at the Grand Canyon we split to our hotel was just outside the south gate.

That was yesterday.

Today was the Grand Canyon day. We had signed up for a tour that took us around to a couple of different spots in the GC. Well, not in the GC, but along the rim. For what is essentially a massive hole in the ground it’s really impressive. 217 miles long, 10 miles wide on average (18 miles at the widest point) and approximately 1 mile straight down. That’s a big damn hole. I probably took about 4 dozen pictures (half of which I deleted because they came out crappy.) You can see them here. The pictures don’t do it justice. One because my camera is crappy, and two because the scope is just unbelievable if you haven’t seen it.

Anyway, we’re back on the road now, on our way to Sedona. Which Chuck Klosterman describes as “a Narnia in the desert for adults.” <-- Paraphrasing. Which I’m guessing means more hippies. Which seems to bear out in that my mom was reading me some descriptions that extolled the many psychics and vortexes.

Should be fun.

Peace out.

Scenes from a hotel bar

I'm staying at the Best Western in Farmington, NM. In the lobby there's a sports bar called Rookies. I don't know why, it seems like most of the people drinking there tonight are pros. Although it's not where I am, the feeling is very much one of middle America.

Next to me is a man, bald in a John Malkovich sort of way. He's married; I can tell by the ring on his finger, not by any converstaion. He's drinking and smoking in that quiet and determined way that says there's something on his mind.

Next to him is a man that looks suspiciously like Willima H. Macy by way of Chuck Norris hair and mosutache. Although he's probably harmless, I feel like a year from now I could be reading in the papers how he killed half a dozen people.

There are two Mexicans playing pool behind me. One is cheating, moving his opponent's ball while he's not looking, turning an easy shot into a very hard one. His opponent doesn't notice, but makes the shot anyway. He still doesn't win the game.

Sitting across from me is the only woman in the bar at this point that doesn't work there. She's a little older, pretty in a hard way. She's getting plenty of attention from the men around her. One looks like he drives tractors for a living, another talks about his band, and the third was maybe a high school football hero, but that was a long time ago.

A man enters. By the standards of the bar, he's younger looking. He's a rockstar. Tatooed arms; Nikki Sixx haircut. Apparently he must be popular, at least by Farmington standards, because the woman asks for his autograph. At this point I feel I should know him, but after much considering I don't. Maybe he's someone, maybe not, I just don't know and my Corona's gone and I just don't have any more time to think about it.

Travelblog

Disclaimer: Sections of this blog were written at different times, an all uploaded when wi-fi became available. (Which, so far, is surprisingly often, considering the generally barren nature of the area we're transversing.)

On with the blog:

4:15am is a hell of a time to have your alarm go off. But when you’re booked on a 6am flight, it’s necessary. One thing about cabbies at that hour, I’ve noticed, is that they’re exceptionally punctual, early even. All I had to do was slip into some pants and go the bathroom before my requested 4:30am ride and he was still there before I was done. The one really good thing about flying that early is that you have an entire airport virtually to yourself.
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So, as I'm sitting here at an unadvertised, but not unscheduled, layover at Pittsburgh International Airport I have a few thoughts from early in my vacation.

I figured out while standing in line at Au Bon Pain next to a woman who was a slightly more attractive, but immensely more pissed off, Sandra Bernahrdt, that this seems to be a very inconvienent airport. It's in the details. The Au Bon Pan didn't have napkins. There seems to be nowhere to sit other than at the gates or at the restaraunts. There's a relatively big concourse with no benches or chairs whatsoever. And even the seating at the gates is uncomfortably cramped. Even the toilet paper rolls in the bathroom are difficult to use. And the trash barrels are so hardcore feng shui that you can't see them. The military doesn't have camouflage this good.

People here seem more subtly rude than in Boston. No less rude, just less obviously. Although I imagine that, since Steelers fans seem so intense, that at any minute someone's going to start yelling and waving a yellow towel in my face.

But at least there's wi-fi.
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Concourse B at the Denver airport smells almost entirely of Auntie Anne’s pretzels. No matter where you go, despite the fact that I didn’t see one Auntie Anne’s, I smeleed it. Howver my rush prevented the signal from making it totally from my nose to my stomach by way of my wallet. See I had left my flight, looking for my connection, there was a problem. Looking at the flight boards there was no connection for Albuquerque. Anywhere. So I decide to go back to the gate I came from and ask the airline rep. But she had left. So I decide to go find the USAirways counter. There doesn’t appear to be one. Oh, but wait, an Information Booth. Oh, but no one’s there. Meanwhile, tick…tock…tick…tock. 20 minutes until my flight boards. Panic is starting to set in before I calm myself. “You rock at traveling!” I tell myself. “This airport is your bitch! Work it out.” So I dig into my bag and get the original email confirmation. Hmmm, the flight number doesn’t match up with that on the boarding pass. But, upon further review, neither does the airline. Apparently USAirways was farming out some flights to United. Which is in a different concourse in Denver airport. Concourse B. Eventually I find my gate and all is well.
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Albuquerque airport greets you with the sounds of mariachi. As in a full mariachi band. Awesome! Immediately we proceed to old town (read: tourist area) for lunch, a bit of window shopping, and a 300 year old church with this scary statue of a fellow who looks like he should be in a Vincent Price movie more than a house of the lord.

On the road, we go to Santa Fe, which is remarkable to me only from the musical Rent. According to Rent, there are a lot of good restaurants in Santa Fe. I wouldn’t know; we weren’t there long enough to eat. We were there, however, long enough for an excellent margarita with a disappointing beer chaser.

Then back on the road to Taos. Or more appropriately, back on the road to….Taos? How do we get there? That’s the question. Maps appear to be no help as street signs are few and far between. Really few. Really far between. There was a little losing of the way. Now New Mexico has some really pretty scenery. I mean real pretty. Stuff I’ve never seen before (which is largely the reason I came on this trip.) But for all that, there’s also a inordinate number of yards containing either rusted out hulks of cars that haven’t been driven since the 40’s or broken down gas pumps. The types of things that put me in the mind of The Hills Have Eyes or Wolf Creek or the Vanishing. Places from which I fear we will not be returning. But all turned out well as we are rolling safely into Taos now. The (hopefully) last and (hopefully) least challenge is to find our hotel. Let’s hope and pray for smoothness, a happy ending.
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Taos is a town that, if attacked by vampires, would fall in 2, maybe 3 days. First off, it’s small. There’s not a lot to Taos. Secondly, there are more art galleries per square foot than there are people, most of which look like they’re owned and run by aging hippies. Who we all know are pretty much all but useless in the fight against vampires.

“Hey, why don’t we talk this out over some chai. Sure you can kiss my neck. OUCH!”

But aside from that, Taos is nice. (To visit, not to live). It reminded me a lot of North Conway, NH, but with adobe and southwestern architecture. There was a surprisingly upscale restaurant where I got a nice free range chicken breast, (which tasted much like regular chicken only not as good.) Our hotel room would have made the best apartment, complete with a spiral staircase, hot tub (Gonna make you wet! Gonna make you sweat!), and the best front porch ever.

Today we walked around the Taos plaza (read: tourist area) and saw an authentic Indian pueblo of the Tiwa tribe, complete with authentic gift shops and an authentic casino right down the road.

Currently we’re on the road to Farmington, which is roughly between Taos an the Grand Canyon. That’s basically the rest of our day.
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Traversing downtown Farmington, it's a scene you can see anywhere in America. It is a town slowly dying. It seems there are as many storefronts closed as open, and it's largely devoid of life. It's a depressing reminder that small town life is slowly going bye-bye. Not that I'm particularly small town type of guy, but it's a part of America that always felt crucial to me.

At least there were people at the 3 Rivers Brewery because otherwise, who would have served me home-crafted beers and steak? No one.

Tomorrow we hop in the car for an eight hour jaunt to the Grand Canyon. That's pretty much our day. Of note, we'll be driving through Shiprock, NM, which is largely featured in the Tony Hillerman novels that my dad likes to read.
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P.S. If interested, see all photos of the vacation here

Six Feet Under

Last Friday I finally finished watching Six Feet Under. I never had HBO so I always had to wait for the DVDs to come out before I could watch them. As such I was always typically 6-12 months behind. Which was especially frustrating since, especially at the end, it seemed like everyone wanted to talk about it, and I had a hard time staying away from spoilers. In fact I did catch one major spoiler about the last season before I saw it, one that was probably the biggest event on the show's 5 year run.

But now that I'm done watching I can say unequivocally that I'm glad it's over. Not because it was a bad show, in fact it was at it's best some of the best television I've seen. No, I'm glad it's over because it was so damn depressing.

I had said the same thing to Brian the other day and he asked, "Even more depressing than Millenium?" The answer of which, a resounding "Yes." While Millenium was a depressing show, it was more so in the gloomy "Everything is terrible and poorly lit and there are lot's of killers and conspiracies out there" sort of way. Or a better example: Badmotorfinger is a great album, but it's also sort of depressing in it's gloominess. It's a heavy, yet at the end of the day inconsequential, sort of depressing. Whereas "Borderline" by Thin Lizzy is a lot less ponderous, and a hundred times more depressing. Because it's more personal.

It was the same with Six Feet Under. It is a very personal show. These are normal people that are being dealt with, and for the most part normal lives. OK, so some of the main characters often have conversations with either their dead father, or any number of corpses that come through the funeral home they work at, but this is not in a supernatural sense, but merely a visual television representation of the memories we carry of people, the voices in our heads as we imagine how conversations might go with people we know.

However, being a television show, especially one about normal people, there needs to be entertainment value. Even a show purportedly about nothing, like "Seinfeld", was obviously very entertaining, because it wasn't exaclt about nothing, merely the ridiculousness of every day situations.

Six Feet Under took another tack. While often very funny, it took the normal lives of its cast and just threw every bad thing it could at them. In fact, since the show revolved around a family who lived in and worked at a funeral home, every episode began with a death. A death of a minor, "extra" character, but in that sort of opening, you know the tone that's being set. Obviously then one of the main themes of the show was of death and loss being a part of life. And how we (or they) deal.

Depressing enough, right? But there's more.

Aside from feeling for these characters as they seemingly went from one bad sitatuion to another, there was the aspects of the characters themselves. Let me take a minute here for a second to make the following argument. I watch a fairly decent amount of TV. And a conclusion I've come to is that, for all the crap TV in general gets, (and rightfully so since it produces a lot of crap), when it's really good, television can probably be the most effective storytelling medium. Now, those case where I feel it's really good are few and far between, but my reasoning is this: with other mediums (novels, movies, etc.) there is a definite beginning and ending point. In a movie you only have 2 or so hours to be introduced to a set of characters and follow them through whatever the screenwriter and director has in store for them. In a novel you have usually a few hundred pages. In really good television, in this example Six Feet Under, you had five seasons. You have a lot more time to learn about these people. They go through more. There's more depth as you see them in situation after situation. (The only other medium that can really compare are serial comics, but in my recent re-reading of all my comics I've found the quality to be a lot less consistent for reasons I've yet to figure out. Probably just not as many good writers.)

And this leads to my second point. The fact that you do get to know these characters so well. And if a show is going to be successfull, especially one such as this, you need to identify with those characters. You have to care when something happens to them. The problem is, and this is speaking from a more personal viewpoint in how I view myself, is that all the main characters are deeply flawed. One one hand that's part of what makes them interesting, but on the other a lot of times when I was relating to someone on that show, it was often to a part of them that was not of their greater nature. I identified with them when they felt lost or alone. Adrift. I recognized similar traits when they acted wrong, and knowlngly wrong for that matter. In situations where I felt they made the wrong choice, I could visualize myself making that same choice.

That's not to say I see myself as some totally moral Quasimodo or anything, but simply that in this case, a television show can also be educational, illuminating things about yourself that you might never have thought about.

But for all that, if I haven't made it sound like a total suicide-fest waiting to happen, I'd highly reccomend some Six Feet Under to anyone.

Diary of a sex romp (part 4)

I was going to wait until tomorrow morning to write this, but I need to do something to divert my attention from the horribly bad film rendition of the Phantom of the Opera that I'm watching. I must be masochistic since I've yet to turn this off.

Anyway...

I sat down yesterday to record the bass and guitar for Woman. I started a little later than expected since I got the calll for "Emergency Brunch" over at Johnny D's. I don't know why it was an emergency, but brunch was certainly welcome to help nullify the massive hangover.

First things first. I turned on my amp and let the tubes warm up while I was getting the computer up and running and setting up the mics. With a tube amp, the warmer the tubes, the better the sound, so if possible it's always best to turn the amp on at least a few minutes before you going to use it.

I set two mics up on the amp. One one was close in near the speaker cone, a typical mic set up. The second was placed a few feet away, to get the room sound. I do this to get a "room" reverb. And there's also the extra added beenfit of being able to record two guitar tracks at one time. When I mix it later, I'll mix the two together to get the final sound.

All in all the tracking went pretty quickly, which is good because the amps was loud and my neighbors upstairs were probably praying for silence. After the guitars, I sat down and did the bass (with a bass borrowed from Dave.) The original bass line I had pictured in my head didn't actually fit when played with the guitar part. So I ended up with something simpler. Writing it out and playing it also didn't take that long and I got a surprisingly good bass sound being plugged staright in to the MOTU I/O.

After the bass, it was back to the guitar. This time for the solo. Also not written that the time of recording. I looped the solo section and practiced for a little while. Wrote it out in about 15 minutes, and started recording. I almost got in the first take, which would have been a record, but I messed up the VERY LAST NOTE! Argh!. That can often set a tone in recording that it's going to take a while to get something done, but luckily I got the solo in only 5 takes. Again, probably much to the relief of the upstairs neighbors.

All in all it was about 3 hours of recording to get everything done.

It looks like the vocals aren't going to be done before I leave for my trip. Unless I did them myslef, but I probably don't want to do that. I was hoping Matt could come by today and belt them out, but it didn't happen. Oh well, I still have a few lines of the lyrics to write anyway. But for the most paprt I got done what I wanted. Written to recorded in one week.

Diary of a sex romp (part 3)

The drums are done!

I found a loop, Time Streteched it correctly and it was pretty easy from there. Or at least should have been if not for human error.

Yesterday I likened the Time Stretch to my car. I know how to use it, but I don't know how it works. Last night I used the MPEX Algorithm option on the Time Stretch, which, to continue that analogy is the part of my car that I don't even know is there, never mind the name for. However, there are four quality settings for the Time Stretch, in this order: Low, Medium, High, MPEX Algorithm. So apparently it's the best quality. Which is what I needed, because the stretch was longer than was good for the loop otherwise; the sound was suffering. Even still, there is some loss in sound quality, but not as much, and oddly enough I think it sounds kind of cool.

The drum part isn't exactly right, but it's close enough for government work. It's fairly simple, but again what can you expect with loops and without the presence of a live drummer. But it's good enough to get the point across.

After getting the loop stretched and on it's track, it was just a matter of arranging it (cutting and pasting, essentially). It should ahve only taken a few minutes, but I must have somehow accidentally dragged the loop out of time, because I had to spend a good amount of time getting it to line up again.

All in all, it took me about two and half hours last night to do everything, starting at around 6:30, with a break in the middle to have dinner and watch Alias and Lost, and finishing around 11pm. But as I'm sure you all know, two and a half hours fly by when you're doing something you like. When I really get into recording/songwriting/arranging mode, I won't realize that hours have gone by while I've been working.

Anyway, they're done. Guitar and bass (if I can borrow Dave's) won't be until Saturday, so I have the next few nights off, which is good because I should really get back to learning some cover tunes I need to play in a jam on Monday.

Diary of a sex romp (part 2)

Last night I sat down with the express purpose of getting the cymbal hits down for the verse. I think, with the drum loops I have, the verses are going to be very sparse for this demo. I created two tracks for the separate hits, because had I put them both on one the decay on the first hit would have been cut off after half a beat, and that would have sounded really weird. After I got the timing right on the two hits, it was merely a matter of copy and paste into the correct locations. Come see the boring side of art, also known as the Lenny Kravitz "Fly Away" school of songwriting. Although I'm much more a fan of the organic approach, raelity is that when you're working with drum loops on a computer recording medai, you're dealing with cut and paste.

At any rate, this was mostly scut work, and I got through it relatively quickly. Once they were all in place I played through the song to make sure everything was set correctly and prepared to move on to the next part.

But before the future, the past. Yesterday I mentioned that I had two more things to do on the hi-hat track: to substitute the "open" hi-hat on the chorus and to Normalize the track. I decided to hold off on both. I'm going to skip altogether using the "open" hi-hats on the chorus for two reasons: 1)Because the timing on them is different (the decay is longer) and I didn't feel like fooling around with the Time Stretch until I got them right, and 2)While thinking about it, I realized that the drum loop for the chorus is going to already have a hi-hat in it anyway, (or maybe a ride), so I don't particularly need to double it. As for the Normalizing, it only takes a few seconds to do and is an automated process, but I decided to hold off on it until the entire drum part is done. No reason, really. I just decided I don't really need to do it now.

And now to the part that caused me problems last night, and will continue to cause more going forward. A quick note about the Time Stretch option. Time Stretch is like my car. I sort of know how to use it, but if you get down to the nuts and bolts of how it works, I couldn't explain it to you.

Since I'm grabbing all my drum loops from the same tempo folder, (Hard 90 if you didn;t remember), theoretically you'd think that by using the same values on the Time Stretch, any loop should stretch out equally and match right up with whatever was stretched out before on another track. Not the case. Why, you ask? I have no idea. None, whatsoever.

So, when I grabbed a loop that I thought might make a good chorus pattern, dropped it on it's own track, Time Stretchedwith the same parameters as what I used for the hi-hats....it didn't match up.

Uhhh......

I fucked around with different options for this for about an hour before I stumbled on what I think I'll have to do to make it work. Unfortunately, it will create more work for me though. (And work that involves actual math...bleh!) Unless I think of anohter solution before I get home tonight, I will have to settle on a loop I like for the chorus and Time Stretch it to an appropriate tempo. Then I will have to set two marker points, one at the beginning of the loop and one at the end. These marker points basically say: "The loop starts at this time and ends at this time and is precisely this long." I will then subtract the starting time from the end time to get the new lentgh of the loop, divide that number by four, and that number is what I will have to set the Time Stretch for one hi-hat hit. Why four? Because the song is in 4/4 which means four beats per measure, or in this case, four hi-hat hits.

I kid you not, actual math is going into the recording of this song. Is this what Trent Reznor feels like?

Once I figure that out, I will just have to redo the hi-hat track to fit, because it's unlikely I'll be getting everything at the tempo it's at right now; it will likely be slightly faster or slower. I won't have to re-Time Stretch the cymbal hits, because of the nature of them, they just hit and fade on the 1. I'll just have to move them to fit, but that should be quick.

Anyway, that's my job for tonight. If I can get it half done, I'll be in good shape. I want to use by half stack to record the guitars; I'm not planning on doing it until the weekend, as it will be loud and I can do it during the day so as to (hopefully) not annoy my neighbors upstairs and landlord downstairs too much. In fact, I'm hoping they'll all be out. So I have until then to get the drums done, or mostly so. I realized last night the drums don't have to be totally done before I leave for vacation, just enough for me to do the guitar part right. I'm going to have my laptop with me when I go, so I can work on the drum parts durning the longer car rides if necessary.

Now, you may be saying to yourself: "Self, this sounds like an awful lot of work for one three and a half minute sex romp that in reality probably isn't even all that good." But that would miss the point. The real upside to this is that by having to figure all this stuff out, I learn more about the recording program.

Still, this whole thing will probably become a lot easier when Eric gets back from Australia and gets himself a new drum set. Then I can just say, "Dude, set up your kit. I'm coming over with the laptop and a six pack.....uh twelve pack."

Hi, Eric. Muhahahahahahahaha!

Diary of a sex romp (part 1)

OK, as described in my last post, I've written my sex romp tune. So, for giggles I'll keep a running diary of the tune from conception to demo recording (which if I can remain focused should hopefully be before I leave for vacation next week; at least everything except for the vocals since I'll need to find someone to sing it.)

Now, although it will frequently be referred to as a sex romp tune, that doen't necessarily make it so. I just think it's funny. It's a song about women. In fact it's called "Woman". As mentioned in the last post, it's my attempt at something different, my perception of what a stoner/desert rock tune would sound like (from the few bands I've heard that describe themselves as such.) I'm probably nowhere even close, but whatever.

Anyway, enough preface, on with the diary.

Sunday night the music and about half the lyrics were written. It went incredibly fast; we're talking in the span of about an hour, maybe less. This is pretty notable as I've had lyrics take me months to write before. However, in this case, it was a case of having the verse music written and the lyrics basically flowed by what fit rhythnmically. The chorus is basic a souped up version of the verse. The solo section is the chorus music in a different key. Modulation is fun when done right.

That was Sunday night.

Last night I sat down and tightened up the arrangement. Basically that's when you decide: OK the verse goes here and is played for this long. Next is the chorus. Here's the transition back to the verse. Solo. Chorus. Outro. Into. All these things get decided in the arrangement, although nothing is set in stone, as it can always change in the recording process.

But for now, I have the arrangement I plan to work with.

The next part was harder. The drum part I have in my head for it isn't a typical beat. Now, I have about a metric ton of drum loops on my computer to work with, but the question I had to ask myself was: Do I want to just use something that I could play over but wasn't exactly what I wanted, or should I take the time to see if I could put together the drum track I wanted, one that was closer to what I pictured in my head?

There's a couple of problems with the loops I have. They sound excellent, and there's a lot to choose from, however because there are a lot, it takes a while to search through them to find what you want. It can be an exhausting process. With one of the first tunes I recorded a demo for, probably about a year ago, I spent a good three hours just listening to drum loops. It's murder on the ears and a great way to give yourself a headache. I have a better idea where to look for stuff now, but even still it takes a while. However, if you can find stuff that fits better (as opposed to taking a straight beat that, while it fits, isn't fitting), then you'll be happier with the end result.

With that in mind, I ended up deciding to try and build the drum track I wanted. Or at least as close to it as I could with what I have. I imagine it wouldn't be perfectly right without an actual drummer playing it, because although I do have a lot of loops available, my options are limited. And if I don't have the right fill, or beat, then I don't have it.

Luckily, I picked the right folder pretty much right off the bat. Hard 90. Which means they are "hard" drum loops, as in hard rock, and are at 90 BPM. Luckily, that was close to the tempo I wanted. A great feature of Nuendo (the recording software) is the Time Stretch option. Which means, you acn take a drum loop that is close to the tempo you want and either lengthen (stretch) it or shorten (compress) it to get the tempo you want. You can only do it within reason or the signal degrades to a point where it's unusable, but if it's close to begin with, you have a good amount of leeway.

First thing I tried to do was to see if I could get two cymbal hits closer together than what the loops provided. This would/will involve modifying the .WAV files, which I've never done before. I messed around with this for a few minutes, long enough to determine that it should be possible, before I decided that this was the wrong way to start.

Instead, I grabbed the loop for a hi-hat hit, which is exactly that: one hi-hat hit and used that as my first drum track. The hi-hat is going to be featured prominently on the sex romp, so it made more sense to start with this. Also, because of the nature of the drum part, I'm going to have to try another first: separating the drum loops/parts into different tracks. The hi-hat has it's own track throughout the song, and there will be at least one (and possibly more) separate drum tracks.

After getting the tempo set with the Time Stretch, the next step is to arrange the hi-hat part. Essentially that just means put in as many hi-hat hits as the song needs. The song ended up being about 3:37, so that roughly equals out to.....carry the 3.....divide by pi.....multiply by the circumference of Sally Struthers.....well let's just say a lot of hi-hat hits. It's mainly just trial and error. I copied and pasted about 3 minutes worth of hi-hats (at this point they also act as a handy click track) and played the song over it. When the hi-hats ran out, I figured out where in the song I was, how much I had left, and added more.

So, now the hi-hat track is done, right? Wrong. I was done for the night, but there is at least two more steps to that one track. There are two separate hi-hat sounds in the Hard 90 folder. A more "closed" hat and a slightly more "open" hat. I used all closed hat to set up the track and the length. However, the chorus is more rocking, so I'm going to want to use the dynamic of the more open hat for that part. The next step will be to grab that sound file and replace the hi-hat hits that fall in the choruses. After that, I'll need to Normalize the entire track which in the simplest terms "makes everything louder". Those will be my next steps, hopefully tonight.

Yet another (yawn) weekend recap...

Well, another weekend, another round of typical hijinks.

Friday night found me at Dick's Last Resort in Fanueil Hall seeing a cover bands that some of my friends play in. The band was good, the sound terrible, the vibe dead, the beers too expensive. I only stayed for a set and a half.

After that, I tried out the Pour House, but it was also slow. So I opted to stop at Bukowski for a beer while I figured out what to do with the rest of my night. However, that ended up being the rest of my night, as they were simply playing too much good music for me to leave. Amorica followed by Exile on Main Street? Bartender, keep the Bellhaven's coming until i run out of money. (Which, although sounds kind of pathetic, was actually only 3 Bellhavens; I didn't go out with a lot of cash.)

Saturday, I went and watched the original The Hills Have Eyes with Matt and Stpehanie. Started out a little creppy then just got silly, even considering the "70's horror movie cheese factor". Some genre's just don't age as well. Horror movies from the 70's can have some undeniably good vibe, but inevitably cheesy 70's music or acting is going to intrude.

On the way home, fully intending to stop at one of the local shops to buy a calzone for dinner, Krista called. She and Danielle were going to Redbones, so my dinner plans changed. Because, well Redbones. Mmm, Lone Stars and brisket. Later that evening, I went over to Toast with Krista and her bevy of Emerson lovelies: Danielle, Laura, and Becki. Although I'd heard the name a bunch of times recently, Toast was totally not what I was expecting. The vibe was a Manray lite type deal in Union Square, the last place I'd expect to see it. Complete with self-absorbed goth style dancing. You know, that style where a dance floor full of people all look like they're dancing utterly alone. Anyway, my night there ended early, as chivalry called. Danielle, not feeling very well after a full day of alcohol---she was 24 hours removed from finishing grad school, you see---needed a ride back to Brighton. It was a small adventure as I didn't know where she lived, and in her state, neither did she. No joke. After we got in the general neighborhood, I pulled over where she indicated. She gets out of the car and immediately lies down on the sidewalk. Then I went home. Nah, just kidding. I get out, help her up.

"Which way," I ask.

She points vaguely down the street. We start stumbling---well, I was walking, she was stumbling, but the assisitng/half-carrying didn't do much for my balance---down the street. A few minutes in thid direction and she changes her mind. It's the other way. We start heading back the other way. She can't remember which house was hers. Finally I get a house number out of her. We make it there without any further incident. Now, I know she at least made it into the house, and at least heard her start climbing the stairs, but that's where my involvement in her evening ended. I'm hoping she at least made it to her bed and didn't spend an uncomfortable evening betweent he first and second floor.

Anyway, by this point, it's too late to go back to Toast. I've heard they stop letting people in at 1am, and it's 12:45 and I'm all the way across town. At any rate, a text message from Laura said they were taking Krista home anyway, as she was similarly drunk. So, close, to the Model, I ended my night there to little fanfare.

Sunday: Wait there's still weekend left? The day started with the typical "post too drunk last night Krista" text message: "Did you drive me home last night?" (This is not to say she gets drunk like that a lot, but on the occasions she does.) Anyway, it was a good enough alarm clock to get me out of bed and to a bowl of cereal. What to do with the day though? I have no plans until dinner, (which I will get to shortly.) I decide to head over to the local arthouse theater to catch Hard Candy.

In the day of Myspace pages, Craiglist dating, Google searching and such, hard Candy is a timely film about internet predators. With a twist, of course. It's timely, if not a particularly good film. All the reviews I've skimmed hint at the twists and turns of the film in a manner that suggest it is shocking. Which is why I only "skimmed" the reviews. I didn't want to know. Unfortunately, I already did know. You see, you can tell exactly what the twist is by the trailers. It's not really that secret.

But because of the nature of these reviews, I was expecting more. And I got less. I was also hoping for an Audition-like uncomfortableness. I don't know why, but I was, and that's an unfair expectation to put on a film, because most movies I don't think could match it.

Anyway, Hard Candy starts out with a really uncomforable vibe with a 28 year old photographer meets up with a 14 year old girl he had chatted with on the internet. being that you know what the film's supposed to be about, you spend the first 10-15 minutes being like, "Ewww." Even knowing where the film was going, this intro makes you feel uncomfortable.

However, soo enough, we get to the point where everything goes to hell, and oddly enough this is where the film starts to flounder. For one thing, it was a touch to talky. Too much exposition. Words explained much of everything. But film is a visual media, and "show, don't tell" should be a mantra embraced by every director, as far as I'm concerned.

The other problem was the relative lack of suspense, (with the exception of one surgical scene.) Mainly because there's never any doubt in who's going to come out on top in this film. Also, although they tried to establesh a gray area for this film to reside in, there was a los no question (at least in my mind) that it wasn't quite so gray. The secrets of this film were all sunny blue and crystal clear.

Oh, well. My disappointment in this film, however pales in comparison to the fact that the top grossing film of the weekend was RV. Are you fucking kidding of me? Having seen the commercials for this film, why would anyone go see it? Really, why?

Anyway, after the film, I came home and made some cornbread. For real. Beacuse dinner last night was at Krista and Joe's, and was pulled pork shoulder, collard greens, slaw, beans, pickles, and....corn bread. You can't have pulled pork with corn bread. I reckon it just ain't right. Anyway, let me just say, if you put a full pork shoulder in a smoker for about 10 hours, it comes out pretty damn delicious. So, food was eaten, bellies distended, tequilla worms and scorpions were swallowed (although not by me as I was abstaining from the sauce last night.)

Finally, I went home feeling down for some reason. So I sat in my room, intending to play some guitar. Maybe put on some depressing songs and solo over them. Lit some candles, got all vibey, plugged in, and the promptly wrote a sort of Wolfmother-esque silly but awesome sex romp. For those of you who don't know Wolfmother (which is probably all of you), I liken them to Black Sabbath meets Queens of the Stone Age, with a smattering maybe of Led Zeppelin. Kind of doomy/desert/stoner rock, I guess. It's not a genre I'm overly familiar with, although I do dig the Wolfmother stuff. So the fact that I wrote something along those lines was completely unexpected. In an effort to not overthink it, I'm considering the music done. And the lyrics are slightly more than half written. I need to finish up the second verse and it'll be complete. If I can get them finished (hopefully today), I'm hoping to start demoing it this week, because I want it to remain raw and....immediate?...and not too overthought.

Sex romp. Awesome.