Author: colter

Bloglag

I promised myself I wouldn’t let another month go by between blog entries, but once again I’ve failed, due mainly to equal parts creativity drought and space/time acceleration. So, for no other reason than to mark time for future reference, here is some condensed bloggage:

SXSW – 2010 was a slow year for me at SXSW. No super-exciting shows, the bizarre cold snap kept me from hanging out with my sister and her kids, I missed the guitar convention and record show, and I missed Linus of Hollywood. Oh, and Alex Chilton died on my birthday. Still, it was nice to get some sunny days of biking around. And Tara is becoming quite the chef.

Meat Loaf – My friend Aly had a conflicting engagement last Wednesday so she sent me to a small album preview gathering at The Hit Factory for Meat Loaf’s new album. I got to meet Meat and listen to the bombastic new record (featuring Steve Vai, Jack Black, Brian May and more) in a nice studio with sandwiches and cookies. Score!

Colleen – My virtual friend Colleen became real a week ago when I met my longtime Flickr bud in realtime. She’s putting out her first children’s book, Hamster & Cheese, and was doing a women’s author panel at the NYPL (where I finally got my library card).

Easter brunch – I was invited to a fellow Arkansan’s gathering of other Arkansans, so it was nice to meet new people from old places. Even if they were all distressingly young and insanely pretty.

Greenberg – Director Noah Baumbach did a Q&A after the premiere of his new film Greenberg at BAM. Very cool to see him in person, as I’ve been a fan of his for a long time.

Lucas – Corey Haim’s early death prompted me to head over to J&R after work to find a copy of Lucas on DVD. It’s still a heartbreakingly great movie, and it makes me wonder if Haim might have had more in him than his hearthrob marketing allowed him to use.

The General Electric Building – Man, is this place a temple to electricity or what? It was the home to RCA then GE before Rockefeller Center was completed. Check out the sides, the deco carvings, the subway entrance.

Books – I tallied up my books today. The unread outnumber the read by about 5.

Moving – As mentioned earlier, I’m in search of my own place, but now my roommate is moving back to Tennessee. Whatever happens, this is the end of a chapter for both of us. Hopefully the new chapter for me begins with central heat and air and lots of natural light.

Busytime

Last few weeks have been dizzyingly busy. So far I’ve enjoyed the winter wonderlands of Prospect Park, explored the wilds of Canarsie and Manhattan’s lower west sides, and picked up another bargain guitar.

Things I didn’t take pictures of: last week’s dining expeditions with Heather for Moroccan and Indonesian food, the Tim Burton MOMA exhibit, checking out “Venus in Fur” (starring Arkansan Wes Bentley) with Gabrielle.

Coming soon: SXSW next week, and I’m looking to move into my own apartment, so I’ll be starting The Search as soon as I get my tax refund in the next few weeks. EXCITEMENT!

The Sermon

The aforementioned sermon is now online. Dude drops knowledge from John Carpenter’s They Live and George Orwell’s 1984. Brief synopsis: we’re all equal but we all steer clear of the ghetto. He doesn’t seem to have any understanding of cultural history or socio-economics. He says even though pride goeth before a fall, that was a different definition of pride. Definitions change over time. He goes off on a long tangent on the natural racial awareness of babies. Which, even if it were true, nevertheless leaves out that infants are also naturally selfish, shortsighted, and impatient.

The hardest part is listening to the child crying in the background. I couldn’t help but post a rebuttal on his 2/8 entry. We’ll see if he allows it to post[1].

Oh, and he says there will be a part two next week…

1.) UPDATE: He didn’t.

Poking Dead Things with Sticks

Sometimes you can’t look away. Sometimes you’re fascinated by the heart of darkness. And sometimes you’re curious about the difference between the Truly Evil and the Merely Misinformed.

Not far from my hometown, one of the last vestiges of the Ku Klux Klan survives. I’ve mentioned a particular blog before, but I won’t link to it this time, just in case they check their backlinks.

I promised myself I wouldn’t comment on that blog. But sometimes I have to poke dead things with sticks. My anonymous comment is first here. Naturally I came at it with a sarcastic and self-righteous attitude, and I succeeded at creating no dialogue.

But what if I changed my personality and voice? What if I put myself into a similar mindset? I tried again with that in mind and succeeded! While the message didn’t make it past the blog owner/moderator, he liked it enough not only to excerpt it in a future blog post, but also to use it as the basis for a two-part sermon! The part in italics is what I wrote. I hope that there will be some way to see or hear this sermon online. I feel oddly proud of this accomplishment.

To get a better idea of the voice I wrote in, read the last comment on this page, which did make it past moderation. And since no comments have been left after it, I can feel some bit of satisfaction at having politely schooled one of the other posters.

Now I have to step back and ask…am I totally deranged for doing this?