I had been keeping this hush-hush for a couple weeks, lest I jinx the thing. But now it’s officially mine. Here are the stats:
Hillcrest, just north of War Memorial
950 sq. ft.
2 bedroom, 1 bath
Living room/dining room/kitchen
Detached garage
New kitchen with fridge, microwave and washer/dryer
Gas range and stove (yay!)
Hardwood floors, new tile in bathroom
Good size backyard
If anyone wants to lend a hand moving, I’ll need help this weekend, so let me know.
The “What Do You Think?” section of The Onion is always a dependable source for incisive commentary. Today’s best example comes from the middle-aged lady, this week known as Joy Mattingly, Designer. She had this to say about Condoleezza Rice’s confirmation as Secretary of State:
“Twenty years ago, I never would’ve believed that we’d have a black, female Secretary of State, much less one who was a conservative warmonger, too. We’ve come a long way.”
In other news, happy 50th birthday to Eddie Van Halen. Ed, I can’t say enough great things about your abilities as an innovative player and composer. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then you’re the most flattered guitarist in the world. I do wish you’d quit smoking and drinking, though; if you’re lucky you’ll live to look like Keith Richards, and who wants that?
New sprawling, expansive plog today. I thought about dividing it in two, but that’s just more work than I need right now. I’ll likely have even more pics coming next week. I’m not going to tell you of what. But I will say that it’s something very big, both physically and financially.
Special note to Google: Nancy Nolan is an Arkansas photographer. She rules. Put her in your cache already. I’m tired of waiting.
A comedic actor/writer and author makes a very good point.
“The people who want power and money are unfortunately more adept at wielding power than the people who want to make things better.”
-Terry Jones
Salon has a great article with Terry on politics and the state of the world. He brings a very historically informed opinion on today’s issues, more so than one would generally expect from a man known to the world as the guy who directed a very silly movie about Arthurian knights running about with coconuts for horses.
Some weeks ago I happened upon several copies of World Party’s Egyptology for sale super-cheap at Hasting’s in Conway. 50 cents each to be exact. AND, each copy had a World Party Best-Of sampler attached to it. So two discs, a quarter each. Fabulous albums. I knew that these CDs needed to go to the right homes, so I offered them free to the first takers on the Jellyfish mailinglist. I didn’t even charge for postage. I did it for no other reason than generosity and the fact that seeing great albums sitting in the bargain bins hurts my soul.
One of the lucky winners was a bootleg trader and offered me anything from his collection as a thank you. I chose a DVD of the Grays live at the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia. This DVD is so marvelous. I got it tonight and as I’ve been watching it, I realized that I was being karmically rewarded for my acts. The cost of buying and mailing all those CDs was easily worth paying for this DVD. So there you go. Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment weren’t kidding.
Also, in case you weren’t aware, new Tori album coming out soon:
I spent Friday evening, all Saturday and some of Sunday at Barry Poynter’s home studio in my neighborhood. Pictures in the new plog. Superflux has been recording demos of our original songs, as well as some covers for club demo purposes. It was a neat experience – I learned a lot about the recording process, and my own musical abilities (or lack thereof). Turns out the first Sugarbomb record was recorded at the studio, so I was all pop-nerd excited about that. Barry burned me a copy of it.
On Sunday, I found an incredibly cool house, and I’m going to go make an offer on it today. Also, Jessica and I went to see the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet/Audrey Tatou film A Very Long Engagement. It’s a sweeping World War I mystery drama. It’s every bit as good as their last work, Amelie, but not an outright comedy. More like Cold Mountain but not nearly so cold.
On Friday night I had dinner with my dad. He brought me 12″ Star Wars figures of bounty hunter 4-LOM and Princess Leia in the Jabba Dancer bikini. I’m not sure how I feel about owning something like that. It feels dirty. He also gave me a Star Wars comic and a Kid Colt comic, as well as an Empire Strikes Back glass. It’s like 1983 all over again…
My photo log is one year old today. It began on this date in 2004 with a series of pictures of the dearly departed Atomic Guitars, and random scenery across northern Arkansas. Fittingly, we come full circle, as that first edition of the Plog featured an expansive pictorial of the glory that was my beloved tree.
New plog details the aftermath of an event predicted in the previous plog. The big tree outside my apartment finally fell. It took a couple of cars with it. Part of it remains, leaning against my the roof near my living room. I’ll miss you, tree.
The first in what will likely become a series.
Here in this world, popular songs are used in commercials to sell things like cars. Often songs are re-written such that, for example, “Para Bailar La Bamba” becomes “You Could Be Driving a Honda.”
In a parallel universe, though, commercials employ poems:
so much depends
upon
a red Dodge
Ram
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chicks.
20 years ago, Transformers the Movie came out, and after the opening credits, the ominous voice of Victor Caroli says “It is the year 2005. The treacherous Decepticons have conquered the Autobots’ home planet of Cybertron.” I remember thinking then that 2005 was so far away, and I wondered what life would be like then. Would we have robots running and flying around? Ever since the birth of science fiction films in the mid 20th century (boy, referring to the “20th century” like it’s some far away place feels weird, too) I think we consistently set ourselves up for disappointment when The Future arrives. Even the one film that was regarded as a reasonable depiction of the future, 2001: A Space Odyssey turned out to be overly optimistic. We can barely keep a rustbucket International Space Station open for business, much less commercial flights to the moon.
I’m beginning to wonder if, in general, we gorge ourselves on films (high quality, artistic films mind you) that set us up for disappointment. I’m reminded of the first chapter of Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs in which the author points out that very often movies set us up for an ideal of what love and life is supposed to be like, a standard that inevitably our messy lives continually fail to reach.
But here I am starting off the new year on a down note. Actually 2005 looks very promising. Superflux will be doing some recording this month, so I’ll have something creative of my own to point to. I’ll be putting together a new computer for home recording soon. I’ve got a ton of great DVDs to watch (such as Garden State and De-Lovely). John and Susan want me to work on a website for their London-based art consulting business. Last but not least, I’m inviting Jamie to come visit for a few weeks at the end of the month. So to quote the immortal poet Ethel Merman, “everything is coming up roses.”
Oh yeah…and there’s a new plog.
