Things That Will Change You Forever

One thing surely was watching The Seventh Seal as an impressionable young college student right off the farm. I doubt I've ever been the same since. Then again, every Friday night for years was Film Club night at the College of Knowledge. For someone who could barely get to class most of the time, I never missed a free Friday night Film Club offering. I didn't have a whole lot of dates, but I had the best film education anyone could want when I saw, savored is more like it, the greatest movies ever that way, everything by Kurosawa, Hitchock, Bergman, Fellini, Goddard, Truffaut, Lean, Wells, Kubrick, Capra, Kazan, Sturges, well... you-get-the-picture.

But I wasn't unusual, in the big scope of things. Steven Holden of the NYT writes about the passing of Ingmar Bergman in absolute, revered tones here. As well he should.

All Roads (Eventually) Lead Down South

The Penelope Cruz and Bono (or is it P. Diddy?) romance mystery intensifies! And Mikey Stipey knows all I bet. Power up the yacht, or a friend's, and cruise the oceans of love. From that disher-of-excellent-dirt power duo, Rush and Molloy at NYDaily News:

We told you yesterday how Saint-Tropez gossips twittered over Bono and Penelope Cruz's hand-holding on a beach. We cautioned that Cruz is one of a group of friends on Bono's yacht and that his children are aboard. Now comes further word that his wife, Ali, is also on the holiday.

Saturday night, after partying on Diddy's yacht, the happy U2 family left together, debarking with Helena Christensen, Michael Stipe and John Galliano. Our spies did notice that Cruz stayed behind. She was last seen headed toward Diddy's bedroom, with the rap mogul posting a bodyguard on the stairs.

The next day, our witnesses say, Cruz, wearing the same dress as the night before, turnedup with Diddy at Nikki Beach Club. "She looked very tired," said one snitch. "When they said goodbye, Diddy mouthed the words ‘I love you.'" Cruz's rep denies any romance: "Penelope and P. Diddy are very close friends and have been for five years."

Note use above of lower case "twitter" vs. using the upper case. Good not to ever confuse the two.

Diane Glass

Diane Glass was the girl of her own dreams, and pretty much everything I always wanted to be but always seem to fall short: fabulous, razor-sharp, educated, stylish, beautiful, helpful, friendly, unapologetic, emphatic, dynamic, bold, supportive, uncompromising, forward-thinking, techno-savvy-cool, engaging, quick-witted, a writer.

She embodied the sentiments of living life the way you envision it, not how others mandate how your life should be on more dull, unimaginative, limited, plebeian terms. She really was an inspiration. She graduated Harvard Divinity School, for chrissake.

It's hard to believe she took sick and died, yes, died, all in a three week span. This is shocking. I'm still reeling from the news. I can't imagine what her close friends and family are going through right now. This is one of those times when the cliches about being taken from us too soon really fit. She should still be here. I should still be able to pick up the Sunday AJC and turn to her column first. I feel cheated. Robbed of something. Missing something.

I'd write more about Diane, but I simply can't right now. The only way to stop the tears that just well-up when I start is by walking away from the keyboard. I met her once. I read her work and followed her career like a true fan. And that I will be.

Her obit is here.

Here's a Tres Chicas song for Diane from me:

Chilton Music Project Monday Night!

Chilton (Richard Stewart) and his new funk-soul outfit, ChiltonMusic Project, are playing Smith's Olde Bar tomorrow, Monday, July 30th. Yes, they know it's a Monday, but all the danceable, funk action starts at 8PM.

Publicity-wise, Chilton has been really caught in between the proverbial rock and hip-hop hard place by performing his style of acid funk groove in Atlanta. It would be just great if you bloggers could come out, because it really is a sound, and a sight, to behold. There is something sooooo innately southern about my old friend and former HDTV colleague, Richard. His music too.

Hope to see you there. Also, here’s a cool, ATL-oriented video Richard directed and produced himself. Dude's just got talent on many levels:

8 Random Things (About Me)

These are fun. I was tagged by Sherry to post 8 Random Things About Me. Jessica also tagged me the other day with something similar and I've been procrastinating, so here goes:

1.) I still like John Denver songs.

2.) I won a baking contest once.

3.) I took Home Ec. in high school.

4.) I refused to take Typing.

5.) I studied theater in college for two years, but dropped out for lack of stoners in dept. (Or was it lack of talent? I forget.)

6.) My mother's idea of a suitable career for poor relations, we're talking 1970's, was that of nanny. Bless her heart.

7.) I've worn glasses since second grade. And played sports.

8.) I'm a believer in (and practicioner of) natural childbirth. Chances are, I am tougher than you. By choice.

I now tag Tania and Vaspers The Grate.

Postcard From Paradise

So my pals, The Roches, went to Hawaii and sent back these marvelous snaps. Can you tell which family member is the 80's refugee?

There Was Only One In The Village

Luxury Items

When it comes down to it, I've always been a gadget person -- with very few gadgets. My first sewing machine, an ancient thing I'd found in some crazy relative's attic with a crank shaft, led to the aquisition of something electric at an opening price point from the Sears catalog by the time I was about twelve. I had that thing for years, slowly, slowly teaching myself to follow a pattern and sew.

Most of the time, I simply can't afford the great new gadgets, things I consider luxury items; I just make do with used or cheap stuff, and try to console myself that it's the content one is busy creating that matters, not the gadgetry involved. Even my new DV cam isn't the latest and greatest. It's not HD, so it's merely something that the salesperson was glad to get off the shelf. Of course I'm determined to spin straw into gold with the thing, come hell or high water, but that's another post.

Recently, twice now, well-meaning, kindly folk have let me touch their iPhone. I was immediately entranced, and then pained with a Gollum-twinge of mean resentment when I had to hand the thing back. This has happened to me only once before with a material item (although on more than one occasion with boyfriends, but that too is another post), when a neighbor let me borrow her stunning, vintage, white mink coat for a party, and I caught myself unconsciously stroking the damn thing and plotting ways of somehow not returning it for one more day. Good grief.

But the same feeling of uncontrollable possessiveness came over me with the iPhone. It really did provoke moments of lust and desire when I had it in my grasp. And greed. Lots of greed.

God forbid I drive someone's Mercedes S class...

Brave Sir Rudy Ran Away!

Cue the wandering minstrels, media blogger/guru Jeff Jarvis has this to say about Republican Internets paranoia:

The latest indication of their (R) fear of the internet is their attempt to fink out on the YouTube/CNN Republican debate. The party line — as we see from Rush and others — is that YouTube is somehow biased. That’s absurd. That would be like the Democrats saying that mail is biased because the Republicans made the first, best use of it. If internet video is biased it is a damned bad sign for the right and mighty strange considering the leading work done in the medium by the conservatives in the UK, France, and Germany. Hugh Hewitt frets that listening to YouTube will open up Republicans to cheap shots. That’s merely convenient paranoia. They’re looking for excuses to stay away from this dance.

Full BuzzMachine blog post here. The Tale of Sir Robin here:

Seeds and Stems

Let's get started...

1.) NYC artsy scene comes to Atlanta when Danielle Ganek, with her debut novel, Lulu Meets God And Doubts Him, signs copies of this book this evening. Come rub up on Atlanta arterati tonight at:

Fay Gold Gallery

764 Miami Circle

Atlanta

404-233-3843

5:00 - 8:00 pm

2.) Has anyone in Atlanta seen Once? I keep hearing about how wonderful it is. Happy ending and everything. Don't know if I could handle all that hankie time, but I almost bought the soundtrack on LP, except the thought of actually purchasing an LP at a full price seemed kinda dopey. Even though I still have a functional turntable and still play some of my eighties faves on it, Lloyd Cole and Aztec Camera, shit like that, I just don't need that much retro-authentic. The movie site sure makes me want to see this though. I sense those red hair and black leather tones all over it.

3.) Amber and Rusty are on What Is Goin' On. Yeah!

4.) One day I'm gonna catch this boy sniffing my panties.

5.) The ChiltonMusic Project is playing Smith's Olde Bar this Monday, July 30th. Yes, they know it's a Monday but all the rowdy funk action starts @ 8PM and done by 9PM. Finally, a live show during the week that doesn't start at midnight. About time.

6.) Bluegrass lovers, here's your not-at-midnight gig: Red Light Cafe on Thursday, August 9th. The Deja Blue Grass Band is "honored, flattered, and humbled to be opening for Cadillac Sky, a red hot newgrass band that just might make you have a religious experience." Deja Blue goes on at 8:00 pm sharp, with Cadillac Sky following at 9:00 pm. (Catch a peek at the Deja Blue banjo player on TrueGritz here.)

7.) Heard from Doug M. in NYC. He's up at 5:30am everyday to catch the D train to Coney Island. I know he'd love hearing from some of his blogger homies 'cause I bet he's just a wee bit homesick. Email address here.

It Takes A Marketeer?

I gotta wonder what the Atlanta Interactive Marketing Association means when they start talking about "media." I'd like to go and find out but I doubt I'll make this "lecture" tonight. Maybe some of you can go and report back?

Event: AiMA - Bridging the Gap Between Traditional and Online Media
Atlanta Interactive Marketing Assoc.
What: Lecture
Host: Atlanta Interactive Marketing Assoc
When: Tonight, July 25 at 6:30pm
Where: GLCC

Details and RSPV here.

Free Gorilla Ball Ticket!

Here's a perfect time for Atlanta bloggers to ask for, and receive, membership in the Atlanta Press Club 'cause you'll get a free ticket to the annual Gorilla Ball, where embarrassing bloopers and outtakes from local TV stations and CNN are revealed, but for members only. Some of the outtakes are hilarious, and some just take the total piss out of anyone involved.

Attention video bloggers: send the APC your funny outtakes and see if they will include them in the evening's festivities. But warning, you have to be willing, and have the stamina and inner fortitude, to endure peers laughing along WITH you. And yeah, sometimes even AT you. These local news folks have been doing just that, back and forth with one another, for decades. Builds healthy competitive environments and rivalries, all-American stuff like that.

I'm gonna call Andrew Keen right now and see if he'll go as my date. (You got his number Will Hinton?) I feel I need a man I can make goo-goo eyes at all night long, tell him what a strong manly-man writer he is, what an outstanding reputation he holds in the community, and let him know how much I adored his books I'd of course read every bloody boring word of. I'm feel certain that for my efforts he'll no doubt shower me with enduring affection, loads of money, mindblowing sex, and never leave me nor look sideways at another woman. Don't they all?!

Ahhhhhh romance.

Call Off The Revolution

OK, Andrew Keen wins a round. Atlanta blogger, The Shelbinator, went live on Internet TV during and after the CNN YouTube debate from the Citadel in Charleston last night. Our intrepid blogger took us afterwards, live of course, to the infamous post-debate spin room where he:

a.) wandered around in search of a water fountain
b.) snagged a few minutes with CNN's John King
c.) failed to shove enough people aside to get to Joe Biden
d.) shut down all production to chase after women

Talk about not quite ready for primetime. But Shelby looked very nice in his suit and tie, and we at home got to yell along at him in the live chatroom that uStream.tv provides for the blogger's homies. Don't know if he ever got laid though.

Overall: The cult of the amateur is moreorless as it should be: inmates running the asylum. And having a roaring good time doing so.

Smash Your TV

Atlanta blogger The Shelbinator will be broadcasting live on the Internets from the press pit at the CNN YouTube debate tonight. It’ll all go down here around 6:30 or 7pm.

Crazy Lady

Where do you start with Tammy Faye Bakker? Someones who's, ummmm, captured out attention if not necessarily our imagination for several decades now. How about the end? Talk about your long strange trip. I enjoyed Tammy Faye's chats with Larry King as she was, uh, winding down. Not that she ever really did that. RIP Tammy Faye.

Neville's Ear

"Oh yes. She's a sadist. She's very sick. She's got problems. I think she's been in prison a bit too long. But I suspect even before prison she had problems. She's a racist, obsessed with blood purity. Like Adolf. And she's in love with Voldemort, really."

Delightul interview with Helen Bonham Carter here about filming The Order of The Phoenix, a movie where I imagine many of her scenes were left on the cutting room floor. The biggest problem with that movie was that it was way too short. Another hour should have been added to include the Black family back story alone, something that figured prominently in the book but is hardly the stuff to engage the attention of tweens for very long. Such info, along with that very naughty Rita Skeeter, is all through the last book. (I'm about 3 chapters in, but with a promising rainy Sunday, I imagine I'll be plowing along at a nice clip momentarily.)

I still think of Helen Bonham as a Merchant Ivory princess, dragged repetitively all over Italy by a fussy, clucking Maggie Smith (who never ceases to end-up playing my mother in all her ineffectual-fussing roles) hovering over the scowling Bonham Carter and admonishing her not to play Beethoven because doing so inevitably made her "peevish." To which Helen Bonham Carter would only scowl that much more!

I love that word: peevish. Woe to the young turn-of-the-century woman who was too peevish and moody. No decent husband prospects for her. But whatever happened to that yummy Julian Sands? Seems like he of all people would have popped up in a HP role by now.

Starry Starry Night In Second Life

This is so beautiful, on so many levels. It's little wonder then that Second Life means so much to so many. Bring your hankie.

No Harry Potter Fun

My daughter is seven and now too cool for Harry Potter play. I thought she'd want to put on her Hogwarts robe, that Gryffindor tie & shirt combo I found at Value Village, grab her broomstick and cauldron, and head to Barnes & Noble to commune with likeminded youth. No way. That was soooo last year apparently. This year it's all just that trailer park princess, Hannah Montana. Ughhh. I guess I was really the one who wanted to go check out the scene. Take pics. Video. Blog it. Least I have a few fleeting moment snaps from her '06 birthday party.

Now, she's the child with the real scars, eerily like Harry, her one-time hero. But she's as anxious to have me & her dad read the last book to her as the rest of the world. Still, this is rather heartbreaking, after all it is "opening night" of the last book of the greatest publishing phenom since Gone With The Wind. And now I'm feeling blue. When they say that cliche over and over about how fast they grow up, there's a reason. Sigh...

Nick Lowe Alert

The Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe, will be on Fresh Air June 24th. Here's one of my fave tunes, one of many. (Lucky person who gets me drunk enough to tell my Carlene Carter story.)

Brogan TV Live Now! (Show's Over)

Blogging Breaking News

Forget the AJC. To many cooks in that pot. To heck with ESPN. Too fancy-schmancy. Creative Loafing? They wouldn't know multimedia if it bit 'em in the ass, which I think it has even tried to do before. (Long story.) Roadkill-minded local TV news? Gag. A magazine story three weeks from now? Do not make me lose it with snorting.

Atlanta bloggers pretty much own the Genarlow Wilson appeal at the Georgia Supreme Court story today. Click here and here. And keep clicking throughout the day for serious, breaking, comprehensive information for thinking adults.

WSB Radio news? Well maybe, but they do news at your basic 12-year old brain level. Fine for folks like me, and you too maybe.

Citizen journalism in Atlanta turns a curve today. (Hear that Prof. Leonard?) Gawd, I feel like a cheerleader! Gimme an:
A-T-L-B-L-O-G-G-E-R-S-R-O-C-K.

The Girl With The Voice

Caroline Monroe sings for your Happy Hour today! Atlanta Brewing Company at 5pm. Details on Caroline's site, as are upcoming shows. Her MySpace site is here.

Streets of Copenhagen 1988

Here's Your Old Media

This video cracks me up. Here's Ava doing a tube-by along the shoreline of a Cox Communications family compound. It's never too early to learn not only water sport safety, but that information distribution is valuable. I love it when I can swing a two-fer on the many life lessons she will learn - from my perspective.



No matter what side you view it from, the Cox Plantation lake landing is quite fabulous, if not a little foreboding. Look while you can though; could be that assets bundled so prettily into one single family's inherited property is something that slips forever into the mist of bygone media times.

YouTube Queen

Wanna impress a bunch of teenage boys? Make 'em a video, of themselves of course, for their YouTube channel. I shot and edited this little number for Drew, and his pal Clayton, while we're all enjoying the hospitality of Drew's mom's (my dear friend Jennie's) Lake Rabun place. They laughed their heads completely off, and must have watched it 6000X already. Talk about an appreciative audience!

My lightening fast skills on Windows Movie Maker wowed 'em so that they now think I'm some kinda techno goddess. Don't anyone dare tell 'em how seriously uncool WMM really is. These boys are serious jocks; they don't need that kind of information.

This shot only on my bashed-up, ancient Sony 3.5 megapixel digi-camera, FYI. Perfect for boating and YouTubing. Under $80 on any electronics auction site.

MSM Visitation

I used to do MSM editorials quite regularly. Not so much since I started blogging, because blogging is simply a more expressive, more freewheeling (my word du jour), more honest medium than the 19th century corset required for mainstream editorial consideration. Of course, lots of people think of blogging as dripping blood on the keyboard for all our knuckle dragging.

Anyways, don't feel like going down the same 'ole same 'ole garden path about blogging vs. MSM. There's a time and place and platform for whatever you need to say nowadays, and that's the good part. Let's focus on that. Here's today's AJC editorial, which is really nothing more than a blog entry cleaned-up for public consumption.

Another Atlanta blogger who excels at this blog-to-MSM process, although his typical blog posts aren't exactly written to inflame the senses, just sensibilities, is Leonard Witt, the go-to guy on citizen journalism issues in his blog, PJNet. Check it out when you can.

LCD Soundsystem

This video sucks (others will love it, but will YouTube kill the rock video?) but this song "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem is really great. Old style new wave done up new and just right. The Worst Video For Best Song award still goes to Nick Lowe's "All Men Are Liars" though.

Plight Of The Big Black Dog

The surgeon who, after putting my child’s face painstakingly back together with over 100 tiny, tiny stitches, the previously absolutely perfect face having been shredded by a Big Black Dog (or BBD as they're fondly refered to by the Humane Society worker-type) a few hours before told me this:

Most of the dog bites I (a pediatric plastic surgeon) work on are caused by (black) lab-mixes, likely because they're just so ubiquitous. I’ve come to believe though, in my line of work, that dogs and children just do not mix.

Even in the state of fighting-off-shock I was in at the time, I remember feeling pity for the BBD. The BBDs can't help it; they're simply everywhere, due to humans failing to spay/neuter and carry out responsible dog ownership duties.

There's a BBD named Spud, long departed for the Happy Hunting Grounds, who I will never forget. Really, Spud was more of a M(medium)BD, and he belonged to a good-looking, gregarious, freewheelin' hippie couple who were friends of my own freewheelin', hermit-like, hippie parents in the early 70's.

The sweet-natured couple and their dog Spud had been dispatched, in their VW van of course, to pick me up from summer camp, since my folks, due to I suppose, the typically chaotic state of their own lifestyle at the time, couldn't be bothered to drive north and fetch me home after my 3-week stay at what, at the time, was simply Sheer Wide Heaven, an idyllic refuge from chaos and cultural confusion in the most picturesque mountain valley outside of Summer Camp Central, Brevard, N.C.

How my folks had even managed the elaborate dispatching of this lovely young couple was beyond me; the parentals didn't have a telephone in our house, having determined that telephones were evil devices that furthered communications with society-at-large. And God forbid, other people.

I was miserable and depressed at the idea of leaving my cocooning, privileged summer camp wonderland and being returned to my "real" family on the organic sand farm in the middle of nowhere, where I would mostly trudge back and forth on some ancient yellow school bus, forced to spend most of my precious time amongst the great unwashed, barely literate, welfare-dependent, rotten-teeth and stinking from no running water, shack-dwelling population of Kershaw County, S.C.

No, that was not a soothing thought, and when the couple picked me up from camp that day to drive me the five or so hours back to Nowhereville, USA, despite their cheerful loveliness, I just curled up in a ball in the way-back of the VW bus and tried to keep my aching heart inside my little body someway where no one would notice how much it was hurting.

About 5-minutes into the ride back home in the VW, the black mixed-lab Spud jumped over the seat and curled-up in a soft, warming ball right beside me. He didn't leave my miserable side until we were all the long way home.

All I knew, for all my life, up to the point where I heard my child's screams a mere 10 feet away from me just over a year ago, was that mix-breed black dogs were a heaven-sent source of the greatest comfort a girl could want in a time of need.

Now, I just don't know what I think.

The Order of The Phoenix

Other than pining for a heroin-chic Gary Oldman to ravish me at some grungy bar one night soon, I was rather, ummmm, unmoved by The Order of The Phoenix. Likely had something to do with too many cute flourishes, no doubt meant to provide a bit of relief to what was a very dark book. While filled with tantilizing tidbits, the movie was just not black enough for me, although the costuming on Helena Bonham Carter's Bellatrix Lestrange was quite gothed-out, as was her unhinged, poisoned acting. Needed more Oldman and more Bonham Carter, less earnest teens. Yawn.

Her Name Was Tiffany

As the parent of a child who was mauled by a dangerous dog (but not to death, as happened in the wrenching tragedy yesterday with the Carroll County five year-old named Tiffany Pauley), I know one thing now: this horror, this carnage in our neighborhoods must stop. But how? I'm baffled. I don't really know where to begin. But let me say this much, let's prioritize and start with a focus where it should be: on the dangerous, irresponsible dog owners. Then we can move on to the other problem: dumb, stupid, instinct-driven, very dangerous animals.

Right now, as Doug Monroe reported in the July issue of Atlanta Magazine, as currently on the books, "if you own a dangerous dog in Atlanta, chances are the law is hideously, irresponsibly on your side." In this article, Doug wrote about my own child's case, although I declined to be interviewed for the article as I still find it extremely difficult to recount the details of that one afternoon at Lake Lanier, Mother's Day, 2006. I referred him to my ex-husband and his lawyer instead.

Unfortunately, there is no online version of the "Dangerous Dog" article to link you to, just this utterly useless Table of Contents. (Why no online version, Atlanta Mag? You still believe in the power to distribute a dead tree?)

I urge you to try to find a copy of the July Atlanta Magazine, read it, and send me any of your suggestions on how we can begin to raise awareness (change laws?) about preventing and stopping the hideous mauling of humans by an increasing numbers of deadly, dangerous dogs (and their irresponsible owners) in our midst.

We can't keep turning on the news to hear about another tiny, helpless child's death by being ripped to shreds by an animal that should never have been among populated communities in the first place. It's taken me over a year to begin to even try to write about my thoughts and feelings on this issue, so great has my personal shock and trauma been over this matter.

At least I can now watch a news story about the horror of it all without running to the bathroom to throw up. I'll call that, for lack of anything else, a start in some effort some how, some way, to do something. Whatever I can somehow muster to do that could prevent just one child, one family from going through the suffering we have.

Wilson's Got A Brand New Site!

Oh yeah, this is the good stuff. Lawyer Wilson Smith's brand-new site is live and good to go, a Georgia noteables podcast-interview Who's Who directory. What Is Goin' On is the most timely, comprehensive and in-depth media-of-any-kind offering in Georgia right now, other than a few assorted blogs of course, and the new site was put together by Amber and Rusty.

Wilson is now seriously What IS Goin' On -- in GA and elsewhere. And yeah, I can't resist the temptation to "prolink" (that's my new verb for the new media PR way of "promoting with links") one of my morning chats with Wilson right here.

Enjoy!

Seen That (former) Cox Plantation Pundit Somewhere Before

I don't know why I bother to respond to things like this anymore, because doing so just makes me tired and mad and sad, and just plain kinda weary in the long run. But Jesus H... this CL picture of Tom Baxter (above) is the same imagery I shot and used in a video about a political event in Atlanta -- weeks and weeks ago.

You can re-view that package here if you must. TB at 02:00 minutes in.

As I said in their pretty little comments place, while Rome burns, or writes up tedious, longwinded pieces about the death throes of traditional media (now there's a topic not heard much about 'round the Internets), new media rage on through the night, acknowledged or otherwise.

Snark-Happy In The Morning

This has got to be the worst music video ever produced, and for a near-perfect pop song. Good chuckles abound. And that's the truth.

Channel 46 Rocks

Atlanta's local news station CBS 46 is doing some darn good, local-minded reporting lately. They came first outta the gate with some hard questions about the dubious distribution of the Genarlow Wilson sex tapes, first blogged about by Grift, then today they fired off a piece about the City of Atlanta Water Dept. billing woes we've been having here in my 'hood, Underwood Hills.

Go 46 go... if I ever remember to turn on the tube to watch local news, CBS 46 will be the one I now turn to, rather than the Monica Kaufman-Pearson-Kaufman-Pearson-Kaufman-you-get-the-point show I've traditionally, but very occasionally, flipped to.

ATL bloggers give 'em two thumbs up!

Harry Potter Spoof

Toilet-bowl, juvenile humor at its finest. This is for adults only. Contains seriously partial nudity. Hilarious! LOL at the Snape wig alone.

Rumor Laid To Rest

Ohpuuuhhlease. Jay Bookman is saying it was the paparazzi that killed Bernie's fish when we know it really was Camilla Parker-Bowles.

Spacey Techno Question

If I activate Twitter for my cell, will I now be charged ludicrous amounts of money from Ma AT&T? (I haven't used any texting features on this cell account before, so I haven't purchased any plan that would allow me unlimited texting.)

Two Cool Music Things To Do Tonight - Tuesday

Free ice cream and beer at Decatur CD tonight, starting at 6pm. Knowing all the hipster-deadbeats likely to show up, best get there early. More info here on their blog.

Then later in the evening is cool country music from Jason Isbell at The Earl. More info about that show on Sara's blog.

Let me clarify with a bit of a rant... when I say "country" I will NEVER mean that country-lite Kenny Chesney crap. Lordy hon, don't get me started on the creepy hideousness that is "New Country." Vaguely inspired by Ugly Bobby's recent blissed-out ravings of mediocrity over what is simply really bad music and processed musicianship, I listened to way more than I ever should have of "New Country" while driving around the tri-state (GA, NC, SC) area on vacation. I've never heard so much mediocre, pedestrian, plebeian, manufactured, canned, trite, odes-to-McNuggets (I'm not kidding) and The Wal-Mart-Inspired Life, seriously average, fakey kinda "music" in my entire life. The worst offender was the feeble attempt to lull us all into drone-like stupidity by that nutwrapper jeans-wearing Kenny Chesney. UUUGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH.

See youz guys 'round the ATL tonight.

Lost Point Tour Again

Since YouTube just destroys gorgeous video, I'll post this one again from MetaCafe. (Pardon any porn that appears on their banner ad when you embed a video.) Not that their quality is that much better, but like Blip.tv, it's somewhat better quality. Then again, compression simply creates a compromised product any 'ole way you chop it up. And silly me, Joey was saying "DeLoss Point" all along; his genuine Geechee (White Gullah, if that makes any cultural soup sense) accent has become so thick again, now that he's moved back to Da Lowcountry, I misinterpreted!


The Lost Point Tour - Click here for more free videos

Swoon

Oh my Gawd... how does one wait? The endurance, the ordeal! Four days until Plucky Brit Male Film Fest, otherwise know as The Order of The Phoenix. We've got: Ralph Fiennes, Jason Isaacs (Luscious Lucias Malfoy), Gary Oldman (forever singed onto our hearts as Sid Vicious, of course), David Thewlis, those precious Phelps brothers, and of course, at the risk of sounding like a lecherous old woman, dear Daniel Radcliffe, who will be appearing on Larry King Wednesday night at 9pm. All in one film. Wow. Color me ready to geek the fuck out.

MSM Smackdown

It doesn't matter what you think about Michael Moore. What's delightful is watching him just smack the holy shit outta Wolf Blitzer! Heeheehee!

Lowcountry History Tour

Cap'n JoeBob, seen here on his boat narrating this short South Carolina history doc from the S.C. Intercoastal Waterways, and I used to work together for years in small dark rooms all day long editing corporate videos for The Home Depot. We never got a whole lot of corporate-y work done for all our chronic Lowcountry daydreaming and reminiscing. Bless our hearts, we tried though. Kinda.

Needless to say, Joey made it out of the ATL and back to Paradise faster'n I did. I do get to visit when time/life permit though; Joe and his wife Annie's southern hospitality is as rich and plentiful as their kindness and friendship. Here's a recent outing... in what is now Joey's backyard.

TrueGritz #13

Summertime means... more TrueGritz! Have a peek at a brand new Episode #13 right here.

Ladies' Retreat

Headed north, to Western NC. Another trip sans any menfolk along. The older I get, the more men I seem to jettison along the way. They seem to have faded from my life. By design? By accident? Lack of due diligence? The ones I know well, family members, are no longer interested in much that I am, and vice versa. We all consciously avoid one another for the most part.

I think that the more financially independent women become, then the more superfluous men become. Once the messy biology of reproduction has been achieved that is. A natural selection segregation of gender? Honestly, at this point in time, I don't really miss men in my life, unless I make a conscious effort to do so.

No small irony, this may have something to do with why I continue to thoroughly enjoy the company of men when the occasion arises; rarity invites a greater appreciation, n'est ce pas?