There Will Be Blood

SPOILERS CONTAINED WITHIN:

I have been looking forward to this movie for quite sometime. The trailer had me with its Penderecki-like violin scratchings ripping and clawing all over the images of the early days of the oil business imagery. It opened here in LA several weeks ago (Dec. 26th I think) but only played at the Arclight in Hollywood for most of that time. Now, the arclight is THE place to see I flick, judging from my only experience back in July when my friend Chris and his buddy Avner brought me to see Danny Boyle's Sunshine there. The sound was fantastic to the point of nearly being painful, which is exactly how I like the sound in a theatre to be. Twice this year we saw big blockbusters out in 'burb theatres and the sound literally seemed to be emanating only from the front of house. Fuck that, I want that shit to RIP my fucking face off! So the Arclight would have been the first choice, except the juxtaposition between Sara's schedule and my own has made it pretty much a massive inconvenience at best to get there. So anyway, P.T. Anderson's newest masterpiece (and probably the best film of his career thus far) opened wide this weekend and we made our way to the theatre in Rancho Palos Verdes, our local fav thus far, to finally see it.

We were not disappointed at all.

What with the three weeks or so of hoping to see it but being thwarted again and again I had begun to worry that my anticipation had been revved to the point of being unquenchable.

Nope.

From the very first note, the very first shot, all the way through to the end, There Will Be Blood is a breath-taking, dark, witty, funny, horrible, emotional piece of art that will stay with me for the rest of my days. I have a lot of favorite movies, but within that realm there are a certain few whose perverse mixture of the horror and the comedy of life, exemplified by stand out, iconic performances make them actual facets of my personality. Jack Nicholson in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining or Dennis Hopper in David Lynch's Blue Velvet spring immediately to mind. Their violence, sarcasm and beligerence is motivating in that it not only shows you how bad a person can be, but also motivates the impressive tales that contain them to leap off the screen and make you jump, flinch, laugh and hollor along - the inherent 'fun' in being able to be so unbelievably evil just by invoking the character through the quoting of iconic lines or acting along with the characters. Well, everything I'm trying to bestow to you above, Daniel Day-Lewis has it in this film. Hopper's role in BV is argueably a lesser part of the film in that he is not the main character (although I my self would argue he is the main character to some degree; he certainly drives lot of what transpires even if he does not have as much screen time as Kyle MacLachlan) but Day-Lewis' role as Daniel Plainview reminds me so much of Nicholson's Jack Torrance in that since seeing it I find myself wanting to run around holloring any number of memorable lines at the top of my lungs.

Now, TWBB also reminded me of another favorite from this past year, Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country For Old Men. So much quiet. So many big, open spaces where there was no movie on screen but a window into the characters' lives. Sara put it best, and I'll paraphrase her here, but after TWBB she said really like both these films for the fact that they were not so much conventional stories, with set-up, conflict introduced, exposition and finally climax and resolution, but more like recordings of real life. I liken them to using the camera not so much to tell a story the way most filmmakers or filmgoers think of a story, but more as an unnatural observer that watches a cadre of people's lives from point A to point B and then ends. TWBB is definitely that, and I would argue that the problem many people have with NCFOM is that it takes a tale that should have a resolution and everything else and twists and tweaks it so that it does not have them.

My picks for 2007:

Best Film: No Country For Old Men (TWBB a very close 2nd and the one I think will actually win the award)

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Best Actress: Not sure.

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem

Best Director: P.T. Anderson

Best Score: Johnny Greenwood for There Will Be Blood

Best 

Biggest piece of shit: Probably Transformers. I know there was tons worse (there's never any shortage of shit on the movie screen) but this, ah, even though I enjoyed myself profusely watching it, it was just bad. Not that it could have been anything else really, but my god, that scene with the autobots leaning backwards over neighboring houses trying to keep out of sight of the kid's parents? John Tuturro in this horrible role? NOOO!!! I'm going to rewatch Miller's Crossing soon to try and renew my faith in the guy.

I'll trail off here because I haven't given the rest that much thought.

Lily and Thompson

Pink Floyd - The Wall

When was the last time you sat down and listened to this start to finish? It'd been YEARS for me, as I listened to it so much in high school that I kind of absorbed it and became jaded as I moved out into the world and saw how commonplace it was. Threw it on last night on a whim and you know what? It's FUCKING AMAZING!!!

There's this episode of six feet under, the first of the fourth season I believe, and in it there's a scene where David finds Claire in her room staring at a book of photographs by some famous photographer. She explains she is trying to see with different eyes, to leave all the tired associations the world grafts onto us behind and really see something in a different way. That's what I did to The Wall last night and I saw it for the monument it is. Haven't felt juiced by anything Pink floyd since high school.

Planet Earth...

I find it so amusing how popular the BBC television series Planet Earth is in box set form.

Wait a minute. Back up asshead.

Okay.

So I work retail right, and one of the most popular things nowadays, dvd wise, are box sets. You got box sets of television show seasons, ya got sets of movies in certain series or by certain directors or starring certain actors/actresses. THen you get the stuff thats documentary orientated, and the BBC's Planet Earth is one of those.

Many of you will know what this series is. If not for my job I would never haave heard of it. But I tell you, we sell these things like pot on a high school campass. Really, epecially everytime we do our big box set sale (couple times a year), then we literally have our inventory beefed up with them (last time I think with somewhere around 100 copies) and we sell them down to single digits, if not out entirely. I have actually seen people get FLAMING FUCKING ANGRY with me for having sold out and not had any. FURIOUS these people become (easy yoda) at the thought of not being able to spend $50-$80 (Depending on which sale) on a box of discs that contain images of animals and landscpes, phenomena and serenity from across the globe narrated by David Attenborough. Angry with us you say? Why?

We're standing in their way of treading up through the store in their Indonesian, child labor-made sneakers, paying at the front with a currency that, in most cases consists only of abstract 1's and 0's, having their their small, 2 lb package swaddled in a PLASTIC bag (at their request because the irony driver in me always has me ask a Planet Earth purchaser "do you need a bag with that') so they can transport it home in their hummers and SUV's, and throw on the 'spectacular images' (one customers words) of the Planet Earth and completely fucking IGNORE the real thing outside the walls to their own protective little existences.

Now, before I go any further let me just say that yes, I'm being somewhat of a hypocrite here. My shoes weren't made in China by World Industries. I don't know if they employ sweatshops or the like. They're a smaller company though, originally manufacturers of skateboards. The point is, Your going to have to wear some form of shoes, they should be something that is comfortable and something to some degree you do not find vomitous. WHY wear something like NIKE when they have had a past of child labor (for one example check out this old article

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1020-01.htm).

Now, I'm not going to go on an all out rampage about shoes here, I'm just using a couple things to point out the ridiculous nature of people. We often joke at work about how many people probably leave with their Planet Earth DVD, unwrap it in the car and toss the plastic wrap out the window. This is so far out of my realm of existence but every once in a while I see someone do this while driving, often I think with cigarette celophane (based on the fact that yes, when I was a 15 year old douche bag punk with long ass hair, a chip on my shoulder about EVERYTHING for NO reason and too many Pantera albums (but then of course, 1 Pantera album is too many in my adult opinion) I also through cigarette celophanes out the car window. And I can remember exactly when I stopped, how I realized what I and so many people I knew were doing was completely thoughtless, without motive and downright terribly hateful. Indicitive of all the things older folks thought and said about us that we tried so hard to rebel against. And I THOUGHT and CHANGED my behavior and attitude. That's what I'm trying to say about... oh, wait, let me end these paranthesis and get back on point...)

Anyway, that's what I'm talking about in this meandering, soapbox post. Yeah, Nike may have changed their policies. From what little research I just did as writing this it looks like they have. ALOT of those sports shoes/clothing/products have. So no, its not fair for me to stand up and say I'VE CHANGED!!! TAKE ME SERIOUSLY AND FORGIVE ME AND LETS MOVE ON and not allow someone else to do the same thing. HOWEVER, the point isn't NIKE, or Hummer or whatever. Its the big joke that in the height of all the talk of 'GREENING' so much awe and respect, sacrifice and time is being poured into a marketable, consumer commodity PRODUCT instead of into the real, living and breathing thing that nurtures us. Text book IDOLATRY. Our real 'GOD[DESS]' is the marvelous machine that gave us life to begin with.

PLANET EARTH, the planet, not the DVD!!!

She is our mother and we forsake here. It's similar to everything else now, where our entire world and all of our intricacies as humans are being encoded into those wonderfully magick 1's and 0's, uploaded like characters in a William Gibson novel, while the flesh and blood bodies we all started with wither away from McDonald's-sized neglect (Billions and Billions served and I'm a fucking hypocrite ehre too because I ate there at some point in the last week).

Alright, I've left you circumnavigating the text here, my out of control ramblings weaving off and on topic, no doubt alienating many. That's the way I write because, honestly, thats the way information happens in my head, it all weaves in and out and that's how, I like to think, I make some of the connections and points (what points I hear you say, outraged) that I do. These are more an idea firing launchpaad than something that will sate those looking for classically trained 'articles'. Too bad, go to Wiki or an Encyclopedia if you want your theories 'opinion-free'.

2007 Guitar Center Drum Off

so I come home from work yesterday afternoon and Sara wisks me away to downtown Lala land, specifically the Henry Fonda Theatre (aka the Musicbox) for the finals of the Guitar Center drum off.

'What the fuck's a drum off?" I ask, wanting only to consume copious amounts of beer and chicken after a hard day in retail hell.

"Thousands of try-out contestants from GC's all over the country have been widdled down to four finalists. They play tonight, amidst a bunch of bells and whistles, for the winning spot."

"What are the other bells and whistles?" I ask now imagining a mostly empty room, hardly filled by about one hundred geeky looking guys wearing Dream Theater t-shirts and gesticulating constantly with Trekky-like enthusiasm. Perfect for me to bring my paperback Terry Pratchett novel and a thirst for over-priced Irish whiskey from the upstairs bar at the Fonda, where a couple months previous we witnessed the Melvins play 'Houdini' start to finish followed by Mudhoney performing 'Superfuzzbigmuff'. Decent seats up on that balcony, maybe Sara can skim the nerds for her story and I can finish Wee Free Men and score a buzz.

"We're not staying for them, believe me. I want to get the story and get home in time to watch some more Lost."

Okay, I'd never let her down, so here we go.

I've been up since 6:30 in the A.M., so I'm tired. I sleep a little on the way down sitting cobain. I wake up just before we park, to the sound of Sara saying, 'Oh, they have spotlights.' Spotlights? I think, for a drum off? This confuses me. In my sleep-swaddled head I try to fit the images of a Hollywood funciton that warrants spotlights with the images of the nerd train I had in my head.

Try as I might the two would not reconcile, and then we were moving.

Sara, far more important in the musicians community than I often remember, is on her phone immediately with a gentleman named Robbie. He's a head rep something-or-other-big-shot for GC and she's giving him a step by step guide to our approach, as apparently he is coming out to usher us into the ...VIP? Wouldn't VIP at a drum off be the equivalent of VIP at an action figure collectors show?

Boy, am I wrong.

Robbie meets us on the corner and after a quick introduction he leads us back toward the entrance to the club.

THRONGS, yeah, that's the word alright, THRONGS of people are waiting in a line that wraps around the block and is flanked on either side by MASSIVE, Hollywood, MGM Grand style spotlights. The entire city block is alive with hipsters, metalheads, parents, kids, poseurs, minor celebs... I think I spot Wes Borland off to the side of the entrance arguing about his name's status on the list and I give him the finger as we're wisked past EVERYONE and installed in front of a kindly lad who plants a fourescent green wristband on each of us before we're allowed in.

Robbie gives us a brief tour of the facilities as they operate for the evening, ie - general admission, balcony, and thrid floor where the VIP seating is located within stones throw of the bar with the whiskey. He sees us seated and runs off, no doubt a list of a thousand people to greet and welcome similarly. We scope out our seats and then hit the bar. No reading here. This is set up as much a rock show as any rock show I've been to, and more so than some. It's packed, its noisy, its dark and its ALIVE WITH that expectation. Did I mention the name ANGELS and AIRWAVES on the marquee when we entered? No? Well, evidently they're the presiding rock icons to close the show after the competition (making me wonder how many of these people are here for them alone and if a version of this shindig without them would look quite abit more like the original image in my head) Shortly after we sit, the show begins.

Now, Stephen Perkins, drummer from the late Jane's Addiction is the host of the show. Interesting. Stephen holds the unique honor among his Jane's peers as being the only one of the three I do not find a contemptible douche bag. How could I, he's the only one that hsn't at some time in post-Jane's time tried to whore himself out for as much spotlight as possible. He comes out, harmless enough and says a few words, then introduces the opening act.

Opening the show was the Street Drum Core. Never heard of 'em? Neither had I. Here's what Amazon throws down as a description: "Street Drum Corps is a punk rock version of Stomp, a tightly choreographed mix of street drumming and pop-punk tunes..."

Now, go goggle them and look at some of their pictures on Myspace or wherever. The French have a word for folks like this, La Dil-Do. Seriously, a punk rock version of Stomp? Does anyone want to see this? ANYONE? Their performance was wretched. Granted, there were some interesting layers of rhythm and lights that made we wish for halucinogens (which would have been a mistake based on the shitty timbre of their music itself) but overall this was like fifth generation Slipknot knock-off run by high school theatre kids swept up by the 'all image, no substance' moniker often associated with Hollywood. TERRIBLE and they make Shawn's SIT THE FUCK DOWN list (to be addressed in a future post cuz its a looong list).

After the faux-punks (my how I wish we could eliminate that word from the popular lexicon) here's Mr. Perkins again. He comes out to introduce the two guys from GC who put the whole thing together and to introduce the living legends they are honoring this year. The more Perkins talks, the more I take a cynical view. He sounds exactly like my good friend Sonny impersonating 'whitey'. Seriously, this guy just sounds so white, there's no other way to say it. Of course I'm probably just looking for a reason to complete my disdain for the entire Jane's cast, and I try to keep this in mind and give him a fair shake. In the end I do, but still, he's getting made fun of after this. The word 'parradiddle', a drum training exercise, came out of his mouth SOO many fucking times I almost gained the ability to successfully anticipate its arrival.

'Wow, you guys, there are so many paradiddles going on backstage.'

'We got hits, grooves and more paradiddles coming at'cah in a few minutes.'

'Someone just jumped me backstage and force-fed me a piece of posterboard with the word paradiddle written on it in stinky permanent marker.'

The first two are half-remembered paraphrases and the third is a bit of a fantasy, but you get the drift. So out comes Alan White from YES, last years award winner, followed by Steve Smith from Journey and Dave Garibaldi from Tower of Power who won this years awards. Everyone on stage had a grand old time and I must say even though I'm not a drummer and really have no idea who these people are, really, its good to see great musicians get recognition. Okay then, that being said, the rest of the night went pretty well. HTe four finalists came out and played, we saw the winner coming a mile away I think, but still, it was actaully pretty cool. Then Robbie found us and wisked us away again so Sara could meet the CEO of GC, they brought us out to the VIP patio and after a few more minutes we left, wanting to get that early start before Angels and Airwaves showed their pointless tattooed asses.

All in all, one thing about this night was how indicitive it was of why I love Sara. I sometimes make up my mind about things based on nothing at all, and she often comes along and shows me differently, thus she adds layers to me that I do not add to myself. But I guess that's what's really meant by a 'soul mate'. The ying need the yang to make a complete circle.

The Trapezoid on Amduscias Comp...

I wanted to drop a line here talking about the Amduscias Winter 2007 Compilation my current music project, The Trapezoid is appearing on. Now, obviously I want You all to hear my track, but seriously, its 3 discs long and fell of great music. The artists are going to be unfamiliar to many of You, but that's even moree reason to go and download it here:

http://www.archive.org/details/AMR100

and help support independent music. It's all what many of my friends whould call 'weird' music; bizarre and often challenging tinctures fermented with Ambience, Noise, Avant Garde, Electronic, Dark Wave, No Wave, whatever fucking wave You want to call it. The point is it is original, imaginative and absolutely WONDERFUL!!!

My recommendation is download it, throw on Your best set of headphones, smoke out or pour yourself a drink, turn off the lights and immerse yourself in the sounds of the limitless dimensions of imagination.

its too bad...

I hate feeling as though I have friends out there who I can no longer talk to because of petty little squabbles. Seriously, I can't think of one example where this has happened where it has not been at least partially my fault, so I'm not pointing fingers at anybody and declaring my outrage or anger at them. No, its just that age old idea that time is the great destroyer - it literally pulls the fabric of our lives apart. Of course some of that is just the way we as people, with raging ids, egos, and libidos do things. We ATTACH to things, nostalgia for times and people that no longer orbit the same planets we do. How could they? It's like the ultimate proof of good ol' Aleister Crowley's Thelema, the basis of which is the idea that if everyone does what they are truly supposed to do, they would never cross another - our 'paths' take us to our ultimate selves, and on the path to our ultimate selves why would there be conflict with others? This then, what I'm talking about right now, shows how we form islands of alliance, friendship and comaraderie in our fledgling or formative years, tiny Pangias of meaning that eventually get pulled apart, scattering all the components into their own course, to become their own continents.

But this is one of those days where I'd like to call some people and chit chat, I won't name names, but suffice it to say that working on my screenplay about growing up in bands there's some pretty integral guys out there I cut my fucking teeth with in everything from bar fights to recording to throwing fucking potatoes at people. Some guys I'd like to call up and say 'What's up fucker," and drink a beer while on the phone and talk about what we're up to.

Fuck it, I don't dwell, I just wanted to catalogue this as a feeling, so next time it happens I can come here, glance at the words and dilute the nostalgia before it begins.