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.

phone pixxx

from around.

last week was rough. tried to counteract this by doing lunch at the brass rail for entertainment purposes. not sure if i would recommend. i ordered a blue moon, but what came was a bud light with an orange in it. they insisted it was blue moon. maroons!

how i love that salvation army. they are so stupid and they have the best stuff! my local store seems to get a lot of 30s and 40s furniture in. they offer these items at extremely low prices, but then charge insane prices for the nasty 80s/90s garbage furniture filling the rest of the place, ugly old leather couches, particle board dressers, etc. this dresser is made of cedar. 40 bucksssss. i don't have any more room, unfortunately.

40s clawfoot dining table. not my style anymore (i live in 1966 now), but still classic. walnut? i bought one a little nicer than this a few years ago from lizabel's and hauled it home myself. in the summer. approximate weight, 8000 lbs. may have taken years from my life.

not from the salvation army, but still a deal. it's old - are there vintage eames knockoffs? there was no stamp or label on the shell.

just pointing out that aj's sells ramen. AT A PREMIUM!

I was digging around in some old scans and found this photo of the flag in my prior post, at a much younger age.

That's my great-grandmother and two of her boys. She only lost one son, not pictured. He was shot down somewhere over the Pacific. When I was in middle school, I would raid my grandmother's closets and pore through all of the boxed-up items and artifacts...one of which was a military-issue datebook that belonged to the boy who died. He was 19. It was full of girls' phone numbers.

nineteen hundred and eighty-one is over

An irish flu day spent watching comfort videos on youtube.

About, oh, twelve years ago, I bought a documentary called Girls Bite Back online (I'm like Al Gore) which contained a bunch of random live footage of Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagen, the Slits, and I can't remember who else. The video below was on the tape.

Nina Hagen was my favorite at this time. Outrageous German interplanetary disco queen with a command of I don't remember how many octaves - many - yet who seemed to enjoy singing in a growl much of the time. I joined a CC list that translated and serialized her autobiography, contemplated her crazy handwritten liner notes, and listened to her constantly. The reaction of the people around me was always the same: "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"

Nina is not for everyone, I guess.

The first time I watched this, I felt like 1:40 changed my life.

speaking of,

A day off. Hating work as much as I do does have one benefit: the simple act of not being there makes me nearly giddy. Last Monday I picked fruit, cooked, wandered around outside at midmorning - a time that I had forgotten existed (weekends don't count) due to being shackled to a desk at all times, freezing from artificial air-conditioning and being forced to listen to goddamn fucking Lady Gaga all day - and later visted my dad. I enjoy taking surreptitious photos in the house and of his things. I think the way he keeps house is amusing, weird. And I feel some need to document items and pictures that seem to be part of the makeup of my brain.

Those photos didn't turn out, though.

This flag hung in my great-grandmother's front room window all through WWII. It is supposed to be red, but the sun bleached it to pink. She had 6 children overseas at once and this as well as the fact that they had German POW's working their farm got her into Ripley's Believe it or Not. I have yet to take the time to track the article down.

It was kept for a lot of years in a ziploc freezer bag, shoved in a box in my grandma's spare room. I framed it a few years ago, carefully sewing it to the velveteen matboard & placing it under ~uv glass~ ... I miss this job. Sort of.

Can't be that tough with a name like Pinky.

Here he is showing off his police-issue bulletproof vest. I think it is probably illegal for him to have it. Unfortunately, he had actual use for it in recent years.

& this was my present for the day.

The weather is incredible. I walked to the store for supplies for non-dairy chocolate chip cookies, threw open all the windows in the house, made said cookies (awful) painted my nails (awful) and am watching Carrington & wishing I was an old gay writer too.