I have started watching The L Word.

In accordance with character-picking custom, I have decided that I am Marina. This variety is much preferable to Sex & the City in which you had to decide if were a SHREW/successful, a WHORE/sexually liberated, a PRUDE/innocent or a FLAKE/free-spirited. Can't one be all of the above?!

That is all.

luxury problems

The aux situation in my car seems to be broken, so I can't listen to my ipod. Or, not without some kind of accompaniment that sounds like...lots of crickets, on fire.

I have tons of cds rattling around in my glovebox, all of which are OLD. Somewhere in there is the first cd I ever bought, which was a collection of Jimi Hendrix's greatest hits. The stereo won't even read it. I'm hard on my things. Anyway, listening to very old cds is entertaining and disturbing. I'm instantly transported to whenever I first made a memory listening to this or that song.

2003.

2002.

2001.

1996.

God the 90s were so much better, musically. Am I just saying that because I'm from there? Also, I forgot that Jarvis Cocker has the greatest voice of all time, and that Blood Roses was supposed to be my favorite song until I died and how great Suede is and how much I like the name Ambersunshower.

Born to Kill

Finally saw this. Classic noir, '47.

Awesome! This image from here. So much gorgeous period typography.

Lawrence Tierney, wow. Love the scene where he's waiting in the darkened kitchen for his girl's new paramour. The poor little guy didn't know what he was dealing with, and the violence, though muffled for the code, is still a little sickening! It continues when Helen finds the bodies, shocking but obscured in shadows, and bails without a word. What a cold little snake!

Photos from this review. This movie has officially entered my library of favs.

si se puede

guess how i feel about this. this being sb 1070, the biggest deal in phoenix since it hit 122 degrees in 1990.

it is interesting to collect the opinions of my friends and family, i guess. this is, for once, a social and political issue that everyone has an opinion on. no "shrug, it doesn't matter/affect me/count anyway" remarks.

i feel semi-confident that this bill will be found to be constitutionally unsound. arizona is constantly trailblazing with the extremism, but the buck has to stop somewhere. jan brewer is the same piece of shit who had nearly 100,000 mexican names purged from voter rolls or rejected when they registered to vote back in '04-'05. she claimed she was cracking down on voter fraud, that is, illegals registering to vote. out of ALL of these people who found themselves unable to vote (oh and they found out at the polls, not in advance), NONE WERE ACTUALLY UNFIT TO VOTE. they were all american citizens. why would she do this? because the nasty old shrew knows that mexicans overwhelmingly vote democrat. was this little gem from pearce as well?

i will never understand the absurdly self-indulgent, baseless hatred of entire races of other people. the hypocrisy of a bunch of non-arizona-natives COMING HERE and then wanting to kick out all the brown people threatens to make all of my blood shoot out of the top of my head. people do not understand history, they do not understand where they live or what events conspired to bring us to the present. and worse, they do not care. this is a border state and it is subject to all of the drama, politics and difficulties that entails. how i wish these lily white bermuda short wearing elderly schutzstaffel retirees would just get the fuck out of here themselves.

Esai!

I had to watch La Bamba yesterday to break the monotony of being sick in bed for the 5th day in a row.

La Bamba is, of course, one of the greatest movies of all time, and I remembered for the 16th time how much I love

BOB!

Yes, he's an alcoholic philandering wife-beater (well, he would be if he'd only settle down) with deep-seated emotional issues, but he's COOL. And vulnerable! And an artist!

Where can I get some good La Bamba stills. Anyway, this movie has been with me from the start. It was sewn deep into my psyche the first (second, third, fourth and fifth - I was one of those kids) time I watched it at the age of 6. Perhaps that's from whence comes my hangup with the dirtbag type. And on top of it all, you have Brian Setzer at his height portraying Eddie Cochran. Dazzling.

Santo and Johnny's Sleepwalk is also the greatest song of all time and it is impossible not to cry at the end of the movie because of it. RITCHIE! waugh. This movie started me on a huge Ritchie Valens jag as a kid that continues today.

Bob!

And some fun forgotten tunes of yesteryear. del barrio!

There was a '62 Comet for sale several months back that I keep thinking about now. It needed an engine and my dad talked me out of it, asking why I would want a "schoolteacher econo-box" like that when there are so many badass cars in this world.

But I think the Comet is just plain awesome and perhaps one day I will find an S-22, no econo-box there.

Like this one. :(

It is. So awesome. Here's this particular car's story.

I am impatiently waiting to get over this awful cold. I have cleaned parts of my house, taken two naps, watched Mr. Skeffington (not great, don't know why Bette got the Oscar nod for this not that I would begrudge her ANYTHING), plowed through half of House of Abraham, and painted my nails (on one hand - two is too much).

Reading this right now. I'm sick this weekend, so I better finish it.

One thing's for ril, those Todds were a pack of rats. Reminds of my dad's family, in fact.

I am hoping the book goes into Mary's spiritualism and the seances they held at the White House, but we will see. Lots of historians don't care to delve into this. There's an episode of the Paranormal Podcast that discusses it here. I haven't read her book yet. The Paranormal Podcast is interesting...sometimes ridiculous, sometimes not.

In which I type "sad" 17 times.

I can't believe how genuinely saddened I am that sex vampire Peter Steele has died. I had forgotten all about him. In my curiosity, I have researched what he's done with the past 10 years, and it is weak, upsetting and a waste.

This only reinforces my belief that ultra "success" is only a corrosive agent. Too much access to money, drugs, parties, women, etc. It's a false alterworld and it drives everyone (or anyone with a soul or a conscience) straight to hell. I watched a video of him from I guess a couple of years ago in which he discussed his crazed drug use, which was followed by a stay in prison and then a mental institution, and he is clearly just a shattered human being; utterly broken, and he says so. He realizes it. In the video, he seems to be on drugs and the verge of tears at the same time, talking about how he hates his family for intervening, and that the years he spent out of his mind on drugs were the best of his life - not because it was all such a gas, but because he was able to get away from himself. Maybe I should add that this ultra success must be extra damaging to someone who is depressed or emotionally unstable to begin with. I am not sure why I am finding this to be so especially upsetting, but I think I see plenty of myself in him. When asked if he is happy, he will reply, "Well...I'm less miserable!" HAH. It's a joke, and yet it's not. Outsiders to that particular condition will never understand that. In any case, I feel that having been placed in the same situation that he was, I would have crashed and burned just as badly, or worse and faster, as he did. Luckily I seem to have fewer genetic markers for addiction!

Mentally unstable, emotionally vulnerable, unabashedly counter to societal streams, and looking like a character that could only exist in literature, he was evidently unable to keep it together in the life he had created, or in society in general.

Sad sad sad sad sad.

And yeah! I did listen to Type O Negative in the 90s! I was in high school! What do you want from me! I'd do it again!

The 80s!

She likes to be threaded

I watched Belle du Jour for the first time recently. Oh my godddd Pierre Clementi. He's uncouth and brash and arrogant, whip thin, rude, and carrying a long cane, all of which works to neutralize (or complement, I dont know) the high cheekbones and girlish face. Like I said somewhere else on the internet, it's all fucked up gold teeth and little waistcoats from here on out.

Catherine Deneuve is so fronsh. I first saw her in The Hunger, which I love very much, and on a sidenote I think she was looking better in the 80s than she did in the 60s. Her character's style had an effect on me, and I filed it away for later consideration as I age. I don't think any twentysomething can pull off her offhandedly sophisticated Eurocentric sexiness, all orderly chignons and sheer stockings (cmon, it was the 80s) and little suits with YSL scarves. Interestingly, YSL dressed Deneuve for every scene in Belle du Jour and it shows. Maybe the best part about her in the movie, in my opinion. Here they are together.

dramas / musics

it's one thing to be at a crossroads, but what if there are 6 different potential paths? i am so indecisive that i can't trust myself to make decisions anymore.

regarding a career, i am constantly pulled between doing something that satisfies me intellectually and creatively, and doing something that actually benefits other people. when you pare existence down to the essential elements, it is obvious that not a single thing matters in this world other than helping those weaker than yourself, those who can't help themselves. all else is vanity and distraction. and that's not to downplay vanity and distraction - they're important too, but they don't stack up. so when i focus on the fun only, i begin to feel guilty, irrelevant, like dead weight, part of the problem.

i think i may have to save my self-indulgent playtimes for afterhours.

in other news, i hate watching live music because it is boring. even bands i like have me checking my watch on the 5th song in, wishing they'd wrap it the hell up already, but this was my favorite band from day 2 (i missed day 1) of sundown showdown:

the kabbs. i think they sounded better live than in these recordings. the vocalist has a bit of a morrison-in-70 thing, live. roadhouse blues sort of vibe.

speaking of myspace, the only reason i keep that horseshit around is for the couple of bands i've discovered there that i can't seem to get ahold of anywhere else, or last time i checked.

my absolute favorite is BIG NED. incredible australians. they remind me of the birthday party. big fan.

josh t. pearson. he's got a good schtick going, particularly since he seems to parlay it europe where being from west texas and recovering from jesus is probably ~exotic~. also i think his whole, "deserter confederate soldier, been dead a week" style is just adorable. no really. call me.

benji hughes is enjoyable and i like his voice and thor style.

and of course thomas nola. a very prolific artist who does most things well, or at least interestingly. perhaps an eccentric artiste, i don't know him well, but he is one of my biffles' ex-husbands, more or less.