Life Goes Off

A friend of a friend is a Psychology grad student at the University of Illinois and his latest project is an online survey on what type of men/women we find attractive. So it's basically a geeky version of HotOrNot, but you get to look at pretty people's pictures. According to the survey, I tend to prefer smart, seductive and trendy-looking women slightly more than I do rebellious women and "nice girls". The survey takes about 5-10 minutes and is kind of fun.

I came across a great passage in Chuck Klosterman's otherwise disappointing Killing Yourself to Live. I was hoping Mr. Klosterman would deliver a book as morbidly delightful as Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation. Instead, Klosterman avoids his subject (touring death sites of famous rockers) like the plague and replaces it with ruminations on his love life and intense infatuation with certain women. While this worked wonders for Ross McElwee in his brilliant film Sherman's March, Klosterman does not share McElwee's concerns about Southern womanhood, Burt Reynolds and nuclear war. The passage below proves that Klosterman would have better served himself and his reader had he applied himself to what he's best at: writing about rock music enthusiastically.

... every straight man born after the year 1958 has at least one transitory period in his life when he believes Led Zeppelin is the only good band that every existed. ... Led Zeppelin is the most legitimately timeless musical entity of the past half century; they are the only group in the history of rock n' roll that every male rock fan seems to experience in exactly the same way.

You are probably wondering why that happens ... For a time, I thought it was Robert Plant's overt misogyny fused with Jimmy Page's obsession with the occult, since that combination allows adolescent males to reconcile the alienation of unhinged teenage sexuality with their own inescapable geekiness. ... Led Zeppelin sounds like the way a cool guy acts. Or - more specifically - Led Zeppelin sounds like a certain kind of cool guy; they sound like the kind of cool guy every man vaguely thinks he has the potential to be, if just a few things about the world were somehow different. ... For whatever the reason, there is a point in the male maturation process when the music of Led Zeppelin sounds like the perfect actualization of the perfectly cool you. ... And you [feel this way] for six days or six weeks or six years. This is you Zeppelin phase ... and you will grow out of it, probably. But this is why Led Zeppelin is the most beloved rock band of all time, even though most people (including myself) think the Beatles and the Rolling Stones are better. Those two bands are appreciated in myriad ways and for myriad reasons, and the criteria for doing so changes with every generation. But Led Zeppelin is only loved one way, and that will never
evolve. They are the one thing all young men share, and we shall share it forever.

My Zeppelin phase was when I was 15 and just got my license, and the car has to be one of the best places to get the Led out. I recently introduced an Italian (my friend's boyfriend) to Zep, so he may be entering his phase as I write this. Or he may just wonder what's the fucking deal with all the elves and what the fuck is a bustle in a hedgerow (don't be alarmed now).

The NY Times offers an interesting article on the prospects and realities of Mardi Gras 2006.

I am one of those people who fervently believes that Mardi Gras must go on, especially in the wake of a disaster. The entire purpose of Carnival is to purge the community of past troubles, transgressions and worries as they prepare to enter the liturgical season of Lent. To cancel such an event because it is "too close" to something bad is to miss the point of the event in its entirety. Not only will Carnival supply the populace with a chance to vent their frustrations via floats satirizing the events of Hurricane Katrina, but it will also provide the city with a chance to show its endurance and resolve. It could be the moment where we prove to GOP aides that we are "helping ourselves".

Anyway, here's the text of the article:

NEW ORLEANS, Nov. 24 - After Hurricane Katrina floored this city, there was widespread hope that Mardi Gras would yank New Orleans back to its feet, helping to reclaim its spirit, its tourists and its economy.

The huge Mardi Gras crowds of 2004, right, will be only a memory in 2006.

The two weeks of Mardi Gras parades and parties have for decades been the city's binding cord, bringing together all segments of society and thousands of outsiders for a mix of the sacred and the profane. But with planning for the February Carnival season now under way, Mardi Gras has been plagued by harsh financial realities, indecision, lowered expectations and the possibility that this year's parade lineup could be absent some of its most popular krewes, or social clubs.

After the city announced plans for smaller and fewer Mardi Gras parades, dissatisfied krewes protested. Responding to the pressure, an advisory panel to
Mayor C. Ray Nagin recommended Wednesday that an additional weekend be included in an abbreviated Mardi Gras parade season. The mayor is expected to agree to a pre-Lenten Carnival season of eight days, instead of the customary 12,
culminating Feb. 28 on Mardi Gras Day (known in English as Fat Tuesday).

Yet while city officials and merchants are desperate for symbols of recovery and renewal, some residents are concerned about the message that will be projected when New Orleans holds a giant party in a hurricane's catastrophic wake.

The coming Mardi Gras will celebrate 150 years of New Orleans's parade tradition and, officials hope, provide a fiscal bloody mary for a hung-over economy that has suffered a shutdown of vital tourism and a layoff of half of the municipal work force.

Mardi Gras pumps $1 billion directly and indirectly into the local economy each year, the equivalent of several Super Bowls, city officials say.

While Carnival is intended to signal that New Orleans is open for business again, residents say they also need the celebration for themselves, to affirm the city's essence - a piquant improvisation evident in the food, music, irreverence and self-indulgence.

"If not one tourist comes to town, Mardi Gras will still serve its initial purpose - entertaining local people," said Ed Muniz, founder and captain of the Krewe of Endymion, which holds one of the largest and most lavish Mardi Gras parades. "I think the locals need a celebration of life. The funeral has got to end, and the recovery has got to begin."

City and Mardi Gras officials say they are confident that the 2006 Carnival season can be of high quality. But several issues, mostly financial, remain unresolved.

At a tense planning meeting on Monday, Warren J. Riley, the acting police superintendent, said his department welcomed Mardi Gras, understood its social and financial importance and could provide adequate protection for paradegoers. But Superintendent Riley also said there was no money budgeted to pay overtime to New Orleans's 1,442 police officers. All parades will have to follow one route, down St. Charles Avenue, and each day's parading can last no longer than eight hours, he said.

"We do not have $5 for overtime," Superintendent Riley said, explaining that such costs ran as high as $300,000 to $400,000 on weekends during Mardi Gras.

The city reconsidered that position on Wednesday, saying it was seeking to raise an additional $1.5 million to extend Mardi Gras over two weekends and to pay for overtime on several days. Krewes have agreed to relax a prohibition on corporate sponsorship of Mardi Gras, but say they will not allow corporate logos on floats.

Wednesday's recommendation came after warnings by krewes that 10 parades might be canceled or moved. Mr. Muniz, the Endymion captain, said Monday that plans to trim Mardi Gras were sending a message to tourists "not to come." He threatened to move his parade to adjacent Jefferson Parish.

"I want to be in New Orleans, but if I've got to cut my parade in half, I'm not going to parade in New Orleans," said Mr. Muniz, whose krewe has 2,300 members.

On Wednesday, Mr. Muniz said he felt assured that overtime money would be raised to accommodate his parade in full.

The Krewe of Zulu, established in 1909 and representing a cross section of African-American society, will decide on Dec. 4 whether to participate in the coming Mardi Gras. Many of the krewe's 500-plus members lived in the heavily damaged New Orleans East section and remain out of town and out of contact, said Andrew Pete Sanchez, the club's chairman of Carnival activities.

"The feeling is mixed," Mr. Sanchez said. "Those who have returned home support participation. Those in opposition want to be able to come home first."

The decorated coconuts thrown by Zulu's members are among the most distinctive and sought-after Mardi Gras trinkets. "There's no Mardi Gras without Zulu," said Arthur Hardy, a Carnival historian and publisher of a definitive Mardi Gras guide. "They're just too much part of the celebration."

Among other possible casualties are the Mardi Gras Indians, African-Americans who dress in elaborately feathered costumes in honor of Indians who helped runaway slaves. The Mardi Gras Indians celebrate with theatrical confrontations among "tribes," but some find themselves short of the material and thousands of dollars needed to make their costumes, said Alfred Doucette, big chief of the Flaming Arrows tribe.

"I don't have no more supplies," Mr. Doucette said. "I need feathers and stuff."

His costumes require 10 pounds of ostrich feathers that cost about $5 apiece, Mr. Doucette, a singer, said, explaining that it had been difficult to find work as a musician since Hurricane Katrina struck in August.

Speaking of other chieftains, he said, "They would like to come, but they're short on money this year."

If African-American participation is severely curtailed, Mardi Gras may run the risk of further delineating the class and racial divide exposed after the hurricane.

No one seriously considered canceling Mardi Gras in 2006. That would have been "a big blow to the psychology of New Orleanians," said Wayne Phillips, curator of costumes and textiles at the Louisiana State Museum here. "It is not just a frivolous celebration of costumes and beads, but an ingrained part of our psyche."

Still, locals acknowledge, the approaching Mardi Gras will require a delicate balance that validates a city's spirit without minimizing the devastation and dislocation wrought by Hurricane Katrina.

Some said they worried that outsiders might receive conflicting signals from scenes of partying and drinking in a disaster area at a time when New Orleans has its hand out for billions in federal money.

"I have mixed feelings," said Barry Barth, a float builder. "I want my business to go on, but I don't think the rest of the country understands Mardi Gras. I'm concerned they're going to see it as a waste of money instead of New Orleans coming back. Or they may say, 'These guys don't look like they're that bad off.' "

City and Mardi Gras officials point to a study indicating that the 2000 Carnival season generated $55 million in tax revenue for local, parish and state governments, including $21 million for New Orleans itself, a nearly fivefold return on the $4.5 million spent on police, sanitation and emergency services.

New Orleans expects to have 22,000 hotel rooms available for tourists in February. Even with a scaled-down Mardi Gras, "we can't afford not to do it," said Blaine Kern, the city's largest float builder, who is known as Mr. Mardi Gras.

If only half of the usual tax revenue is generated, Mr. Kern said, "that's still something."

The more satirical krewes are certain to skewer politicians who have been widely criticized for the government response to Hurricane Katrina. According to sketches of the Krewe of Muses parade, its television theme will lampoon Mayor Nagin, who faces re-election in February, as a star in "The Ex Files" and "Sixty Feet Under."

The canine Krewe of Barkus will celebrate animals rescued after the hurricane and is exploring the theme of "A Street Dog Named Desire." About 700 dogs are expected in the parade, along with a tabby cat, several ferrets and a goat. As usual, the queen will arrive by riverboat to be greeted by a king awaiting with Champagne and a gift, perhaps a rhinestone-encrusted paw-print brooch.

"All this will be forgotten when the first float rolls," Mr. Hardy, the Mardi Gras historian, said of the current crisis. "The story is not that New Orleans will have a smaller Mardi Gras, but that it can do Mardi Gras at all."

Exactly. Complaining about not being able to afford extra feathers, coconuts and beads is missing the point. Krewes are going to get a major pass this year. It's okay if Mardi Gras this year looks more like Mardi Gras in Lafayette. What's important is that it's not in Lafayette but in New Orleans.

As Jeffrey noted, there is a lot of controversy swirling around Lakeside Mall's Christmas Village design. The Metairie mall decided to create its Christmas village in the image of post-Katrina New Orleans.












Many were rightly offended and the village is undergoing reconstruction to its former appearance, much like the city of New Orleans. While I do get the joke and appreciate the village's designers' attempt to make everyone smile, perhaps a Christmas exhibit was not the best avenue for such a thing. I think Mardi Gras is where this will be a better fit (I can't wait to see floats devoted to Michael Brown).

That being said, I think it would have been better to give a Nativity scene this treatment. You know, the flooded manger with a blue tarp, the wise men wearing gas masks, the innkeeper chilling in Houston and the Roman Centurions finishing their dinner in nearby Nazareth as Jesus, Mary and Joseph try to bust through the roof of the manger to be rescued by a helicopter.
Of course, I hate to compare anything to 9/11, but think about the uproar in December 2001 had a mall designed their Christmas village with a pile of rubble at Ground Zero. This New Orleans village is not nearly in as bad taste as that would be, but if they're not in the same ballpark, it is certainly the same sport.

Saints 21, Jets 19

Fellow LGO contributor Sean t met me in the Giants Stadium parking lot for this dramatic Saints victory. I believe this is the first time I've watched a Saints game in its entirety with Sean and given the Saints victory, I hope we can do it again sometime.

Earlier in the week I saw a post on the Super Forum at Saintsreport.com announcing a tailgate just for Saints fans. I didn't know if I should go. I don't like particularly like meeting people on the internet, but my experience with northeastern professional football fans in the past reminded me that there might be safety in numbers. Besides, after a week with the in-laws, I was aiming to get out of the house, drink some beers and get ready for some football. The guys from Jersey were alright, but they don't understand the depths to which people in Louisiana care about football and the Saints. One guy there was from New Orleans, and before moving to New Jersey in the early 90s, he bought two cars from Benson's auto dealerships just to thank Benson for buying the team in 85 and keeping it from moving to Jacksonville.

My contribution to the tailgate would be beer. And I should have known the Saints were going to win when I went to Spirits Liquor Store in Red Bank, NJ to buy Abita beer. I've long described Spirits as the best liquor store on the east coast and frequent there because I can usually get the Amber, TurboDog or Purple Haze. But when I walked in to Spirits on Saturday, I was greeted with Abita's new specialty brew of Fleur-de-Lis Restoration Ale. With $1 for every six-pack going to Katrina relief, I convinced my better half to let me buy two cases of it. I brought it with me to Giants Stadium, but most of these Jersey-bred tailgaters were not too familiar with Abita. That's alright because that left more for me and Sean T.

A friend hooked us up with pregame field passes. We took some great pictures of the team and the owner. But my personal highlight came as we were exiting the field. Sean pointed out that we were about to walk by Louisiana's own Better Than Ezra, who were there to sing the National Anthem. We walked just past the lead singer (Sorry, Ezraites, I don't know his last name.) He was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me. I reminded him that I'll never forget the time I saw him play Jazz Fest in 1997. What I didn't tell him is why I remember it. It was one of those muddy, muddy days at the Fair Grounds and I got pissed at him for encouraging the crowd to mosh. For crissakes, you're Better than Ezra, not Nirvana (or so I thought in 1997). I was about ten rows deep and flicked him off. Sure, I may have had a few too many beers when I did that, but what I recall is that he seemed to make eye contact with me and had a confused look on his face. My friends who were with me at the Fest also remember the incident quite well and do recall how bizzare it was for the lead singer to actually see me flick him off despite a rather large crowd. But back to 2005. After I told him about seeing him back in '97, I encouraged him to use his fame to tell the world how Tom Benson is stealing the Saints from Louisiana and lying about it the entire time. BTE just gave me a dazed look, and I knew then that my words were lost on him. If only Harry Connick or one of the Marsalis brothers were there, they would have taken the mike before performing to tell New York what was up. We walked away and he was singing the National Anthem three minutes later. (Note that when BTE played the halftime show, the Giants Stadium crowd booed them loudly... twice!)

As for the game, the Saints offense finally stepped up and scored touchdowns instead of field goals. It's a good thing because the Saints defense did not play nearly as well as it should have given that they were up against one of the worst offenses and one of the worst quarterbacks in the league. As usual, we had a couple of stupid special teams penalties late in the game that almost cost us big time. I don't know how our special teams play became so boneheaded this season. It had been a strength throughout the Haslett era, but consistently disappoints this year. Perhaps in all facets of the game, this is where the disrupted practice time really interferes with the team's execution.

This Week's Saints

Aaron Brooks -- I think this was the best game he played all season. He converted a number of critical third downs, and found the end zone three times to make sure we got TDs once we were in the red zone. All this despite not much run support.

Will Smith -- Ever since the Fresh Prince got whistled for kneeing that Pats player last week, he has played like a man possessed. This begs the question where this intensity was all season long. Let's just hope he keeps it up, because we need more and consistent pressure from the defensive ends.

Zach Hilton -- He caught his first ever touchdown as a Saint. I like Zach's size a lot, but he has disappointed us with a number of clutch drops throughout the season. He even had a big drop in the first half. But the more reliable he becomes, the harder it will be for defenses to ignore his size. And once defenses pay attention to his size, then our talented receivers should find it easier to get open.

This Week's Sinners

Kendal Jacox -- His 15 yard holding penalty with under 2 minutes left stopped the clock at a point when the Saints could have burnt another 40 seconds off the clock. That's a stupid penalty to get on a running play when the primary purpose of the play is to run off time.

Will Smith -- I know I praise him above for his defensive play, but in the second half he ran into the punter, giving NY a first down and allowed them to score their only touchdown of the game. We had a chance to run away from the Jets at that point, but Smith got too close and it cost us big time.

Lead Singer of Better Than Ezra -- You've got a chance to tell the world about Tom Benson's deceitful ways, but you refuse. No one cares about your music anymore, so please use what's left of your fame for good. (Still, you guys don't deserve to be booed at Giants Stadium. That was low class by the Jets fans. Maybe if you had played that song about running through the back yard, and the LSU frat stuff the fans would have been more forgiving. But that's just me!)

Next Week

Next up is the Tampa Bay Bucs in Tiger Stadium. There will be no one there, not because we can't support a football team, but because we hate the owner and will not give him money just to watch a 3-8 football team. That's too bad, because I think the Saints will roll, 24 -- 17.

Before I leave you, here's a picture we took of Better Than Ezra moments before the game:

Well, I don't have a parasite. Now I have to get an ultrasound on my gallbladder and liver. Thankfully, my doctor told me that no amount of stress I have could be causing my liver enzyme levels to go up, so at least I'm really sick and not suffering from post-meteorological stress disorder.

I'll get to do some posting later on today. Still catching up on rest after a Thanksgiving holiday with my nephew that included a trip to Disneyland on Sunday.

Why aren't you shopping? You can't be here! You should be shopping! What is wrong with you? Why do you hate Christmas? Why do you hate Jesus? Why do you hate America? Shop, shop, shop, for the love of God, shop!

One of my teachers at Loyola, the great short story writer and novelist John Biguenet, has an editorial running in the New York Times that is well worth the read. Biguenet is a man who's always even-keeled and never speaks on anything he doesn't have a firm understanding of, so keep that in mind when you read this sobering state of affairs.

Thanks to Mr. Clio for the link.

Nonesuch Records (home to Wilco, Steve Reich, Emmylou Harris, David Byrne, and Brian Wilson) has produced a benefit album for New Orleans with some of New Orleans' finest musicians contributing brand-new songs. It's called "Our New Orleans - A Benefit Album 2005".

"The newly recorded Our New Orleans benefit album showcases the depth, richness, and profound musicality of that unique city. Some of New Orleans' best-known musicians, from across genre lines, have recorded songs that express their feelings about their beloved hometown. Artists went into studios around the country for one-day sessions, completing all recording over the span of a month.

Other Crescent City contributors include Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford and Nick Spitzer, host of public radio's New Orleans-based show American Routes - both of whom contributed liner notes. Net proceeds from the sale of Our New Orleans will be donated to Habitat for Humanity International to aid those affected by the recent hurricanes along the gulf coast. A portion of those funds will be earmarked to help provide housing for musicians who lost their homes."

Our New Orleans will be released on December 6.

Full Track List

1. Allen Toussaint - "Yes We Can Can" (producer, Joe Henry)
2. Dr. John - "World I Never Made" (producers, Mark Bingham/Hal Willner)
3. Irma Thomas - "Back Water Blues" (producer, Joe Henry)
4. Davell Crawford - "Gather by the River" (producers, Mark Bingham/Hal Willner)
5. Buckwheat Zydeco - "Cryin' in the Streets" (producer, Ry Cooder)
6. Dr. Michael White - "Canal Street Blues" (producers, Mark Bingham/Doug Petty)
7. Wild Magnolias - "Brother John Is Gone/Herc-Jolly-John" (producers, Doug Petty/Matt Sakakeeny)
8. Eddie Bo - "When the Saints Go Marching In" (producer, Nick Spitzer)
9. Dirty Dozen Brass Band - "My Feet Can't Fail Me Now" (producer, Joe Henry)
10. Carol Fran - "Tou' les jours ç'est pas la même" ("Every Day Is Not the Same") (producer, Nick Spitzer)
11. BeauSoleil - "L'ouragon" ("The Hurricane") (producers, Michael Doucet /Nick Spitzer)
12. Preservation Hall Jazz Band - "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans" (producers, Doug Petty/Matt Sakakeeny)
13. Charlie Miller - "Prayer for New Orleans" (producers, Mark Bingham/Hall Willner)
14. The Wardell Quezergue Orchestra featuring Donald Harrison - "What a Wonderful World" (producers, Joel Dorn/Adam Dorn)
15. Allen Toussaint - "Tipitina and Me" (producer, Joe Henry)
16. Randy Newman featuring the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra with members of the New York Philharmonic- "Louisiana 1927" (producer, Steve Epstein)

I dare you to find a more heartfelt, gut-wrenching song than Buckwheat Zydeco's "Cryin' in the Street" from any release of this past year. It's one of the three songs streaming on their website.

It's been a rollercoaster of a year, but I think I'll make a little list of things I am really thankful for without getting too mushy or soapboxy (it's a word):

- Stephen Colbert, the man who puts the "C" in "Truth"
- The opening bars of Architecture in Helsinki's "Wishbone"
- The hamburgers and beer at Father's Office, which I discovered this year
- My drum set
- My new (and superb) gastroenterologist
- Cormac McCarthy
- Michael Silverblatt's program "Bookworm" on KCRW
- People who still finance little films like The Squid and the Whale
- David Cronenberg & Michael Haneke, who never stop creeping me out
- The Criterion Collection
- Rough learning experiences
- The Comeback, the best cancelled show on TV
- Savoie's Cornbread Dressing Mix
- Our new apartment
- Amoeba Music
- The New Orleans Saints, after they beat the tar out of the Jets on Sunday
- New Orleans, the greatest city in the world, and the wonderful Memorial Day Weekend we spent there
- My folks, fam and friends, who support me in all my endeavors
- Murphette
- Everything, good and bad, that has gotten me to where I am today

Murphette and I have family in town, including an 18 month-old nephew who is cuter and way more important than blogging, so I may be out of commission until Monday as I cook and play with the little guy.


Hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Thanks for reading, but seriously, go eat. Really, go.

Ed. note: revised from below, in somewhat final form.

There was once a pretty girl who everyone liked. They liked her because she was pretty, easygoing and sweet. She was so pretty, easygoing and sweet that she had a great, big, popular boyfriend and made all the other, not as pretty girls wish they were as easygoing and sweet as the pretty girl. They couldn't hate her for too long because it was impossible to hate the pretty girl.

Everyone was friends with the pretty girl, so much so that they wanted to spend time with the pretty girl all the time. She was so much fun. Everyone would hang out with the pretty girl and they would have such a great time that it would make their lives seem sweeter and more like the pretty girl's. The pretty girl didn't mind. She liked all of them, too, so she invited them all to all of her parties and cooked for them. She loved to entertain. It made her feel pretty and sweet, which she was. She liked having so many friends around. That way, she'd never feel lonely. And she never was.

Then one day the pretty girl got in a car accident. Her seatbelt broke and she was pushed out of her seat. Her face kissed the windshield, the glass digging into her pretty face. She was badly disfigured. She got out of critical condition a week later and found none of her friends were there. She expected to see them, but the nurse told her no one had ever come by. Not even her great, big, popular boyfriend.

The once-pretty girl called her great, big, popular boyfriend a few days later. He told her he didn't want anything to do with an ugly, used-up girl. He said he wanted to be with a smart girl, not a girl too stupid to get her seatbelt fixed. Back at school, she heard her friends talking about her. They said she was too easygoing, too sweet. She didn’t protect herself. They said she had been using them all to make her life seem pretty and sweet, which it never was. Or so they said.

And so the once-pretty girl with the sweet, easygoing smile had no friends. She walks through the halls at school, but she isn’t alone. She feels her old friends’ eyes on her, hears their voices circling around her. She knows everyone wishes quietly that she would just go away so they wouldn't feel so guilty anymore. The once-pretty girl does her best to disappear. She wants them to be happy. So she lets her pretty hair grow long and looks at the frayed shoelaces on her scuffed shoes when she walks. The once-pretty girl tells herself she understands. She only wishes she had known what to expect.

Many Louisianians feared it would take a major hurricane devastating New Orleans to force state and federal officials to get serious about the expensive wetlands restoration and levee protection necessary to protect the Louisiana Gulf Coast from a monster hurricane. Katrina was the moment engineers and others got to say "I told you so," in the hopes that now everyone would believe them and do what is necessary, do it right and help a great American city survive. Why is this not happening?

Because we got our I-told-you-sos mixed up. The "I told you so" going around now is from many in the rest of the country saying "I told you not to build a city below sea level. You should have listened. Now you're S.O.L." The problem with that is, most likely, none of these people "told us so" because they never realized this New Orleans fun fact until after the hurricane, their ears just as deaf as state and federal officials who knew what needed to be done but didn't want to spend the money. You can't say "I told you so" unless you did, in fact, tell us so. Regardless of this, the leaders remain perched above the shitstorm while the people below are ridiculed and left hung out to dry (or drown) for "not listening".

I guess we have to take some worthless comfort in the fact that had Louisiana fought really hard to get the billions of dollars needed for wetlands restoration prior to Katrina, the response would probably have been the same: "Why should my tax dollars pay for your wetlands?" Because it makes more sense than a bridge to nowhere, perhaps? All snark aside, Louisiana politicians didn't fight to the death over wetlands restoration, but many did fight over the years, and all got the same response: silence. Aren't they the ones, on behalf of their constituents, who really deserve to say "I told you so?"

Of course, it's from Oyster. Oyster on people who think New Orleanians are "stupid bowl dwellers":

Before I prepare my seafood dinner, I think I'll put on some jazz, sip my sugared coffee, turn up the thermostat, and lecture New Orleanians about how unwise it is to live where they do. I should have told them in person when I vacationed there last year, but I was too busy having the time of my life.

I don't think anyone has said it better. If I may be so presumptuous as to include my own bit of figurative language, consider this story:

There was once a pretty little girl who everyone liked. They liked her because she was nice, pretty, easygoing and sweet. She was so nice, pretty, easygoing and sweet that she had a great, big, popular boyfriend and made all the other, not as pretty girls wish they were as nice, pretty, easygoing and sweet as the pretty girl. But they couldn't hate her for too long because the pretty girl was hard to hate. In fact, she was impossible to hate.

So everyone was friends with the pretty girl, so much so that they wanted to spend time with the pretty girl all the time. She was so much fun. Everyone would hang out with the pretty girl and they would have such a great time that it would make their lives seem sweeter and more like the pretty girl's. The pretty girl didn't mind. She liked all of them, too, so she invited them all to all of her parties and cooked for them. She loved to entertain. It made her feel pretty and sweet, which she was. She liked having so many friends around. That way, she'd never feel lonely. And she never was.

Then one day the pretty girl got in a car accident. Her seatbelt broke and she was pushed out of her seat. Her face hit the windshield, the glass digging into her pretty face. She was badly disfigured. She got out of critical condition a week later and found her none of her friends were there. She expected to see them, but her parents told her no one had ever come by. Not even her big, popular boyfriend.

The once-pretty girl called her big, popular boyfriend a few days later. He told her he didn't want anything to do with an ugly, used up bitch. He told her she shouldn't have been so stupid and gotten her seatbelt fixed so it could have withstood the accident. When she called her friends, many of them were not home or were "too busy" to talk to her.

Suddenly, the once-pretty girl with the sweet, easygoing smile had no friends. They look at her in the halls, but they look away just as quickly, afraid to notice her, afraid she'll want to invite them to her house for a party. It doesn't matter if they look at her or not, because the once-pretty girl looks at the frayed shoelaces on her scuffed shoes in shame. She knows everyone wishes quietly that she would just go away so they wouldn't feel so guilty anymore. The once-pretty girl understands. She only wishes she had known what to expect.

I haven't blogged enough about food in the past 18 months, but this will hopefully more than make up for it.

Murphette and I's favorite restaurant in Los Angeles is easily Norman's. This restaurant is gourmet to the max and has a price tag that only allows you to go once a year at best. However, chef Norman Van Aiken (no relation to Clay) has been generous enough to offer a bargain deal to his devotees: every Friday is Pig & Paella night on the patio. Norman serves up seafood paella, roast pig and a special slaw and plantain mash, all for $19 a person, which, at this place, is practically free. Their excellent bar and divine cheese course (over 20 artisanal cheeses from across the country) are, of course, extra, but well worth it.

Let me back up to describe Norman's cooking. His idea of food is to saturate your palate in savory goodness. My best way of explaining this is telling you about my favorite dessert there: Chocolate Banana Bread Pudding ... inside Creme Brulee. Oh no you di-int! Oh yes, that's Norman's style: gourmet fusion, tastebud orgasm, bacchanal dining. Here's a photo of the creme brulee:

Can you dig that?

But that's nothing compared to the rest of the restaurant. The pig roast and paella are a real treat. The seafood paella is creamier than normal and chock-full of all the fruits of the sea. I'd like to talk about the paella more, but there really isn't anything left to talk about after you've eaten the roasted pig. It is so incredibly delicious it dwarfs everything else on your plate, no matter how excellent. Roasted out on the patio, sliced up and served to you with a piece of crispy skin on the side, the roasted pig is something you would kill for.

Murphette and I went for the second time about two weeks ago, where we learned that the future of the pig roast was in jeopardy. It seems that Norman only intended it as a temporary thing, but it's become so popular that he's considering making it a regular thing. Of course, we promptly made another reservation for this Friday in our Thanksgiving quest to find out who is the Biggest Gainer. However, I think the future of the pig roast may be okay because Jonathan Gold, the LA Weekly's exceptional food critic, just did a write-up on the pig roast, which should keep people calling them for weeks.

If you live in L.A. and haven't experienced this, you have yet to have lived life to the fullest.

I'm sure you've all been wondering why no one at LGO has reviewed Wilco's live album. It has been five days, after all. We'd like to say that it's because we were preparing a track-by-track gloss as we did for A Ghost is Born or that we had some tremendous insight into the record, but it's really just because we're lazy.

It's an absolute pleasure that Wilco's first live album is an album featuring its best lineup ever. The additions of Nels Cline and Pat Sansone have transformed the band into a juggernaut, albeit a juggernaut that has only been experienced live - until now. While the album heavily features tracks from A Ghost is Born (sadly leaving out "Theologians"), Wilco were wise enough to include the new lineup's dazzling interpretation of older Wilco tracks like "Via Chicago" and two - count 'em, I did - two tracks from their Woody Guthrie collaborations with Billy Bragg. These renditions of "vault tracks" truly showcase how much better Wilco has gotten in the past 18 months, not to mention arousing us for how much further they are sure to go.

Some have said Wilco has devolved into a jam band, and I believe that Kicking Television can set the record straight that Wilco is hardly a jam band ... unless Sonic Youth is a jam band too. And Sigur Ros. And Miles Davis. Just because a song is over five minutes long does not mean it is formless. Anyway, that's another argument.

I'm typically not too enthused by live albums because it feels like something's being presented out of context, like watching a colorized black and white movie. This album, however, approaches the live album greatness of Stop Making Sense and the live recordings of Janis Joplin. It's not quite that great, but when it's great, it's spellbinding.

Many tracks fare much better than others. "Misunderstood" suffers from the faint sounds of the crowd singing along (I'm proud that you know all the words), as well as the "Nothing" finale not featuring the drum breakdown captured in the film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart and other live performances. I thought for sure they'd include that drum part, and I was really disappointed they didn't. "Heavy Metal Drummer" also has more crowd sing-alongs than anyone would like, but the rest of the tracks are surprisingly crowd-free except at the end of the track and some random outbursts about being from Kansas City.

The high points of the album are some of the most unexpected, like the mind-blowing "Handshake Drugs". This is the third time Wilco has released this song on a record and each one is drastically different from the other. This one has my vote for the best. Other interstellar moments are "Via Chicago", the end of "A Shot in the Arm", "At Least That's What You Said" (obviously), "I'm the Man Who Loves You", and the title track, which I now finally understand. Before, I thought it was a toss-off like "I'm a Wheel", but live, it really cooks, and it's a good thing that's more or less the main version to be had.

This album features so many fantastic rock freakouts in its 23 tracks that they're hard to digest in one sitting, leaving you with the overwhelming feeling you get after seeing Wilco live and up-close. It's the kind of live album you'll keep listening to, especially during those long months between Wilco tours and albums.

I am tired of writing two different Apprentice posts for what is becoming the same old shit.

First, Martha: I used to think Amanda was going to go all the way ... until she started showing her true colors last week. Watching how they ganged up on Marcella was simply awful, and to watch them get all self-righteous afterwards was shameful. "How dare you question my loyalty!" My response would be "how dare you give me a reason to." Marcella is not going to go all the way, but she is a team player and it's more pleasureable to root for her over these cutthroat demons from Brooks Brothers. I'm also starting to like Jim more. He's still obnoxious, but he's actually starting to look like he has some sense too. Of course, the promos promise us that he's going to go crazy again. I'll believe it when I see it. Until then, it's false advertizing.

The Donald: I still don't understand the task they had to do, and the fact that both songs sucked so much adult contemporary ass didn't help. I think The Donald should have just told them their job was to promote XM radio for an hour and try not to get fired in the process. I can't believe people called in because I would have been embarrassed to admit I was listening, but that's just me. Clay was the obvious person who had to go, and to watch The Donald act like he was going to fire Randall just to scare us was frustrating and painful. It was also disappointing to see Rebecca pound on Randall, but I guess that's what you have to do to save your ass. To the end, Clay exhibited his overwhelming compassion for himself and his undying hatred for anyone who is not him. I think Adam's the next to go and we'll see the final four of Randall, Rebecca, Felicia and Alla, with Alla offending someone in the interview and Rebecca and Felicia mud wrestling to find out who gets to lose to Randall.

David Byrne's latest, Grown Backwards, is a laconic but delightful record in which he turns his focus away from instrumentation and more toward his voice. We could see this coming on Look Into the Eyeball, but that album still had some freaky-poppy songs resembling his Talking Heads work and solo record Feelings. Grown Backwards is mid-tempo at its fastest, but that's why it's a good record to relax with. Byrne's voice sounds absolutely wonderful, even operatic at times, and the record makes you realize it's about time Byrne showcased his voice in this way. For fans of Byrne and for adventurous Michael Buble devotees.

They don't know, but they'll call the house just to find out if they need a trailer. Read more frustrating hilarity from Chris Wiseman.

Leave it to our representatives in Washington to turn a serious debate into a petty schoolyard fight ... actually it's not like a schoolyard fight ... it's more like a library time gossip session in which words like "coward" replace "scaredy cat".

These people are all childish, all of them. They are all ineffectual and are, I believe, working against the interest of the people. If the rest of the nation disappeared, they probably wouldn't notice and keep fighting. Then again they might notice, but only because the holidays are coming up and they may leave Washington and wonder what happened to all the people who used to wipe their asses for them. But they'd probably give themselves another raise first. In short, I have lost faith in the legislative branch, left and right, House and Senate.

But I digress. I'm afraid that the Democrats and their new "backbone" have fallen right back into the hands of the Republicans. You see, the Dems got tough on calling for another investigation of the pre-war intelligence that led us into Iraq. Cool, great, fine. Then Rep. Murtha had to say we should pull out now, and the GOP pushed the Dems up against the wall and dry humped them like they were drunk sorority girls in a frat house by drafting a resolution for an immediate pullout and asking for an up-or-down vote.

Here's why this is incredibly clever, almost admirably so: if Dems vote against the pullout resolution, the GOP will nail their anti-war platform to the floorboards ("He says he wants us out of Iraq, yet he didn't vote for it when he had the chance ..."); if they vote for the pullout, they look soft on security and the debate on Iraq gets horribly muddled. Masterstroke, assholes. Bravo: you've managed to help your pals in Congress further divide and fuck up the country. Have an extra brownie tonight, forget your diet of freedom, prosperity and unborn babies, you've earned it. You're doing a heckuva job, dicks.

The debate is getting muddled because people fail to recognize that there is a difference between inquiries into how we got to Iraq and whether or not we should stay. Those are two separate discussions, and the GOP has just formed a synergistic alliance with them. Now the Dems are in the tight, Kerry-esque corner of trying to explain why it was a bad idea to go in and then why we should stick it out. This is much harder than saying it was good to go in and we should stay, because we like things that are good ... because they're good.

It's perfectly legitimate to look into how we got into a situation even if we are going to stay the course. I don't know if it was a good idea to go in - I'm conflicted - I think all of our leaders let us down, especially Congress, and I do think it's valuable to examine the presentation of pre-war intelligence. But, as we know all too well, we are there, and we have to consider all options. The President seems to want to pursue only the status quo, and the only other alternative in the national debate seems to be pulling out, despite ample evidence that we could be doing our job better and doing it in a way that could bring everyone home sooner rather than later.

I think an immediate pullout would be a bad idea, but I think many aspects of the invasion have been a disaster, primarily due to mismanagement. I think the war is in need of a new project manager, but I think scrapping the project would be potentially catastrophic, both for Iraq and for ourselves. I'm not sure if the grand experiment of democratizing part of the Middle East will work, but I know it has no chance of working with an immediate pullout, nor with a publicized exit date. However, we do need to rethink our strategy and reassess the new phase of the war, fighting an insurgency and transferring full power to Iraq.

I fully understand that many of LGO's readers fall on either side of the issue than I do, and hopefully this is not taken as me drawing a line in the sand. My point is that there are more than two answers to the Iraq Question, and it would be lovely if we could consider the others.

The Weekly Standard had a fantastic article about this from a few weeks ago. Its thesis:

The most significant challenge the coalition faces in Iraq today is the fact that the Sunni-Arab community is in large part unwilling to accept the consequences of democracy, and has not yet reconciled itself to the loss of its dominant position in the country. U.S. military strategy has largely ignored this problem so far. Victory in Iraq thus requires a refocusing of coalition military efforts against this central challenge.

Of course, this debate will never happen so long as Congress continues to focus on giving each other wedgies. It's all far from over, to be sure, and it will be interesting to see how it develops. Let's just hope there's something worth saving by the time the smoke clears.

Of course, no one is going to say anything bad about Harry Potter, lest s/he receive death threats and unsatisfactory performance reviews, and, since only one other movie goes into wide release this week, that's what we'll go with:

The Village Voice's J. Hoberman on Walk the Line:
In no way obsessive, Walk the Line is more sincerely--which is to say, more boringly--sincere. It doesn't leave you with much to think about, except maybe the empty vibrato of effective ventriloquism.

My buddy Todd sent me these photos his brother and others took recently of Chalmette, Louisiana. They speak for themselves. In the first photo, that's a hot tub on the roof.

If, as the White House claims, Congress and other agencies had access to the same pre-war intelligence as they did, does that mean Congress has been receiving the (classified) Presidential Daily Briefing every day?

If I can ask a follow-up, and, if so, should we blame every Congressperson for ignoring the 8/6/01 PDB titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack U.S."?

Of course, I am not trying to say this lets Congress off the hook. Even the blind could read the writing on the wall in the lead-up to invading Iraq.

Today marks another entry in Decency's all-out war on Responsibility and Free-Thinking. Yesterday it was teachers screening R-rated movies. Today, it's movies showing people smoking. From IMDb News:

The attorneys general of 32 states have called upon the major studios to slap anti-smoking messages on all home-video releases in which smoking is depicted. The AGs -- California's Bill Lockyer was conspicuously absent -- affixed their names to a letter drafted by Maryland's J. Joseph Curran Jr., who observed that he and the other AGs have repeatedly raised concerns about studies showing that movies play a large role in influencing young people to smoke. The letter specifically referred to a new study conducted by Dartmouth Medical School which concluded that adolescents with the most exposure to depictions of smoking in movies were nearly three times as likely to try cigarettes as those with the least exposure to such depictions. "This latest study reiterates what we have been telling the motion picture industry for two years -- we need their help in protecting our children," the letter said.

When someone invokes saving "the children", their argument is immediately suspect, if you ask me. They're not doing it for the children, because if they were, they would simply do it in their own home and not attempt to impose their will on the world as a whole. They're doing it because they will not rest until the entire world agrees with them ... or at least is afraid to disagree with them in the public sphere. There was a guy in Russia who behaved this way too. He was really popular.

While I'm sure the label will be easily ignored on the video box, it could lead to much more invasive ways of "spreading awareness of the dangers of smoking". For instance, if studies begin to show that their labels are not effective, will they attempt to superimpose graphics on the screen whenever a character lights up? If you find this reactionary, keep in mind that Spielberg re-edited E.T., digitally replacing the bad guys' guns with walkie-talkies, and that George Lucas ruined Han Solo's character by allowing Greedo to shoot first. Both moves were done in the name of decency and making things safe for the kids for all time and allowing parents to check that part of their job off their to-do list.

This reminds me of a "Smoking in Movies" seminar I attended at the American Film Institute. I went mainly because one of the panelists was Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, the titular character of the overlooked masterpiece The Insider.

The seminar included a 45-minute or so propaganda film called Smoke Screen. In the film, they feature a clip from Robocop 2 in which Robocop sees a man smoking on the street. Robocop takes out his gun and shoots half a dozen bullets around the frightened man's head until the cigarette falls out of his mouth. As the man looks at Robocop in fear, Robocop says "Thank you for not smoking."

In the discussion after the film, one of my fellow students pointed out how odd the inclusion of the clip was, her point being that the propaganda film seemed to believe that senseless violence was more acceptable than smoking, at least in the movies. The panelists chuckled and said "Yes, it is a very funny clip" and moved on, clearly blind to their hypocrisy and lack of irony. My fellow student attempted to press her point, but the panel, well-trained in ignoring anything off-message, quickly moved on. Her point, however, and the panel's reaction, was hardly lost on the group of 50-odd disillusioned filmmakers, and the rest of the seminar was met by us with rolled eyes and the inner yearning for a Bogart movie and a carton of Chesterfields.

Let's, for once, be honest with ourselves: people smoke in movies because people smoke in real life. Movies are, after all, a reflection of the world around us, be it literally or figuratively. Most critics argue that movies glamorize smoking, yet they fail to recognize two important things: 1) Smoking looks cool; you don't need to glamorize it. This is a fact, and we know this is a fact because 2) real people in real life manage to make smoking look glamorous without any help from Hollywood. Smoking has been around as long as there have been people, it was seen as cool and sophisticated before movies were invented, and I find it hard to believe that Hollywood has much to do with this, especially now.

It is not the cinema's responsibility to make the world a safe place. It is not the cinema's responsibility to be decent. It is not cinema's responsibility to save the children or shield them from death, harm or disappointment. The role of cinema is to tell stories, stories that illuminate the world around us and make us see things in a new way, or at least have some kind of emotional, cathartic experience. If there's something going on in a movie that you don't agree with, you have three options: 1) Take a deep breath and realize the hard truth that the world was not created in your image or 2) Leave the theater or 3) Just don't do whatever it is in the movie you disagree with and tell your children why you don't agree with it. Actually have a discussion about it. It might be a really great bonding moment that your child could have with you instead of the nanny.

What is going on now is not a debate. It is a one-sided screed brought on by people who are not interested in discussing anything. The options they present are simple: buckle or be buckled.

Tell you what: if you feel that strongly about it, why don't you go and write a script without any smoking in it, get funding and go make the movie. You know what? Make ten of them, make as many as you can. I promise to give you the artistic freedom to realize your vision. You won't hear a peep from me. Actually, you would: you would hear the sound of me wishing you all the luck in the world and hoping you make a good movie - strike that - great movie. An earth-shattering movie the likes of which we have only dreamed about. I know you would do the same for me. Wouldn't you?

A teacher of 37 years is fired on the spot for screening an R-rated film to his high-school advanced British Literature class. The atrocious, offensive, graphic film he screened? Elizabeth, the 1998 biopic starring Cate Blanchett. Here's more:

"Mr. Youngblood did not ask for a local review of the film prior to showing it, nor did he allow parents the option of opting their students out of the viewing," [a spokeswoman for the Gwinnett County Public Schools] told the Gwinnett Daily Post. Youngblood, who had taught at the school for 37 years, said that he was given five minutes to choose between resigning or being fired. "I didn't think about it being R-rated," Youngblood said. "It's such a good movie."
...

On Tuesday, students in Ed Youngblood's class mounted a protest. "If 'First comes learning' is true, why do you get rid of the guy who holds that motto the best?" one senior in the class told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Of course, this is a high school, and I'm sure many of the students were under 17, and it would have been in the teacher's best interest to get permission slips signed. But I do have to ask: would such an uproar have occured if he had screened Saving Private Ryan? Or would objectors in that case been called unpatriotic or ignorant of the horrors of war or, worse yet, unappreciative of the sacrifice of the "greatest generation"?

But this was an "advanced" literature course. I'm sure the students were able to handle it. After all, there's much more objectionable material in Macbeth (decapitation, murder, war), Titus Andronicus (super-sized combos of murder, rape, dismemberment), Julius Caesar (political assassination, astrology), Gulliver's Travels (golden showers), Heart of Darkness (colonialism, deification), The Canterbury Tales (sodomy, rape, adultery, humor), 1984 (brainwashing, liquidation, premarital sex, smoking), Frankenstein (child homicide, graverobbing, hunchbacks), and other such titles sure to be included on the reading list for a survey of British Literature. There's certainly much more objectionable material in these books than the small amounts of violence and brief nudity in Elizabeth.

But here's the real thing: this man taught at the school for 37 years. He does one thing somewhat questionable and they get rid of him. This is simply reactionary and proof that many schools care more about arbitrary boundaries (like the R-rated movie) than they do about education.

I guess the good news is that these kids are learning a valuable lesson about how the real world works, although it's not the optimistic, you-can-do-anything-if-you-try lesson the school wants them to learn.

I am really enjoying one of my free downloads from emusic, Sun Kil Moon's Tiny Cities, an all-acoustic, all-Modest Mouse cover album. For those who don't know, Sun Kil Moon's frontman Mark Kozelek used to be the man behind Red House Painters (their sound is very similar), and Tiny Cities is his second Sun Kil Moon release.

This album serves both duties of a great cover: make the song your own and make your interpretation illuminate how fantastic the song really is. Sun Kil Moon succeeds tremendously on both levels.

Their covers are almost unrecognizable as Modest Mouse songs unless you know the lyrics, yet the songs have the same haunting, thought-provoking melancholy of the originals. They actually make you rediscover the greatness of a song you've heard 100 times, and that's a really hard thing to do.

This album, along with Kozelek's other ventures, is fantastic rainy day music, and I wish I had stumbled upon it earlier in my post-meteorological stress disorder because it would have been Chicken Soup for My Ears.

You can listen to sample tracks on emusic. I recommend their cover of "Ocean Breathes Salty" and "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes".

Mad props to Aquarium Drunkard for turning me on to this.

You heard it here first. Thankfully, it is not responsible for my constant stomach woes ... for now. My awesome new doctor thinks I picked up some kind of parasite in Lake Arrowhead over Labor Day and have been allowing it to live in my body rent-free for over two months.

But we have to find out which parasite it is, and this means we have to do tests. I gave them a shitload of blood yesterday and, for the next three days, I get to collect samples of you-know-what into 10 different plastic jars and vials. It's an intricate process involving Saran wrap, plastic gloves and little baggies that makes you feel quite uncivilized. Hopefully we'll have an answer next week.

As for my post-meteorological stress disorder, I'm happy to say that I've been able to get a lot of creative work done and plan to start writing a new script after Thanksgiving. This time, though, I'm not going to wait for someone's permission to make the film; I'm just going to go out and do it. Thankfully, it's a cheap movie, otherwise, I'd just have to wait for permission. Of course, once things get rolling on it, I'll put all the updates here.

Well, Lisa Loeb, I think your new reality show sucks.

Loeb is going to be a Bachelorette of her own in "#1 Single" (catchy, huh?), a show in which she returns to New York and the dating world. I wish they'd tell us when it was on so I could set my TiVo ... to never tune in.

New blogs on the horizon. Oyster found Chris Wiseman's World Class New Orleans, and I know Chris! Pretty rad. Anyway, he's got a thoughful blog just starting up and it's worth reading and adding to your daily Katrina edumacation.

One sad story Chris talks about is Ruth's Chris Steakhouse's almost instantaneous decision to move their corporate headquarters from New Orleans to Orlando. Ruth's Chris was created in New Orleans and started from a single steakhouse. Before Ruth passed away, she sold her business to a corporation who now make all the decisions, like putting on their best panties and running to Disneyworld when it gets a little wet. They don't plan on re-opening their New Orleans restaurant, ever.

What makes this really sad is Ruth's Chris' hurricane history. During Hurricane Betsy or Camille (someone set me straight on this), Ruth opened her steakhouse and started serving free steaks. Why would she do something so crazy and anti-profit? The power was out and the steaks were going to go bad, so you might as well feed the hungry while you can.

Ruth Fertel is rolling over in her grave.

Flood maps provided to insurance companies by FEMA to determine who lives in a flood-prone area in New Orleans are using data that is over 20 years old, not taking into account new developments in the area and wetlands erosion, giving homeowners a false sense of security when they chose not to purchase flood insurance.

Now some may think that anyone who didn't own flood insurance in New Orleans is stupid, and while they may have a point, possessing reliable, specific information would help to make even the stupidest of the stupid less stupid. Take this for instance:

More than 130,000 of the nearly 189,000 households in Orleans Parish are in areas designated by FEMA as having a high risk for flooding. But much of New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood was not, so homeowners there were not required by their lenders to carry flood insurance. The premise was that the Industrial Canal levee would protect the area.

Even areas such as Bay St. Louis, an area that is 17 feet above sea level, flooded, but the homeowners did not have flood insurance because ... well, for the same reason they don't have earthquake insurance: they don't think they need it, and no insurance company told them otherwise.

I don't know what the solution for this is, but I would hope that it would get agencies like FEMA to update the information that they are giving to the public. I don't think Brownie would appreciate getting a 20 year-old menu at a restaurant or a 20 year-old listing of dogsitters in his area. That would just be an unnecessary hassle to find out that Applebee's no longer serves the pizza shooters or that Doggie Divas went out of business five years ago.

It's been a long time since I've spewed bile along the information superhighway about Hurricane Katrina. It seems that I too have been guilty of not paying enough attention. This is partly because folks like Oyster are doing a superior job and partly because I've had a constant stomachache since Labor Day ... that isn't a joke. I really have had stomach problems since Katrina. The first doctor I went to tried to test my for arthritis (exactly) and I get to see a real doctor today. I say he's a real doctor because I had to wait a month for an appointment. I hope it's not stress, but I've been trying to cut back on stress just in case it is, which means less blogging about Katrina.

Anyway, it's starting to become worrisome that New Orleans is being primed for another disaster. The necessary wetlands restoration and levee construction to withstand another major hurricane is not getting the push many would have expected. Many thought it would take a catastrophic storm to awaken the slumbering officials near and far to the need for wetlands restoration. Many thought Katrina was going to ensure that we'd get the job right this time. Right now, this isn't really happening. The hefty $15-20 billion price tag has given many people sticker shock and the opposition is mounting ... because opposing this simply means doing nothing, which is always easier.

What's happening? Well, down on the bayou, many are just too focused on cleanup and restoring basic things like power and industry to do much else. Of course, without the safety of a strong levee system and the buffer of the coastal wetlands, industry will not come in for a lengthy period of time because they will not be able to get insured. So, while the local government's approach is necessary for the time being, soon they will need to look at the bigger picture.

The rest of the state, particularly north Louisiana, is not interested in spending more of their tax dollars on New Orleans. This has been a complaint of the rest of Louisiana for decades. They like to point out that the state has more cities in it than New Orleans. This is true, but this mantra, of course, will change when non-New Orleans residents realize that much of their government money comes from tourism dollars generated by New Orleans. Without the revenue from the city of New Orleans, the state cannot function (it barely even functions with that money). If they don't get it by that point, when it's truly affecting them, I'll gladly accept their secession on behalf of the new state of South Louisiana.

On the federal level, Katrina has been co-opted by both sides of the political aisle. The right has latched onto it as a reason to get the government's spending under control after spending too much money restoring the wetlands of Iraq. The left has decided to use the President's low poll numbers (brought on by Katrina and many other things) to mount an offensive against dishonest government. They have, of course, made Iraq their main critique, as though they were patiently waiting for Bush's numbers to fall below 40% before doing anything serious.

This is disappointing, you know, the whole watching a national tragedy get piled on like Paris Hilton at a UCLA frathouse thing. It's trivializing the real debate about Katrina as mere politics as usual. I'm not talking about the whole FEMA/government response thing. I'm talking about the whole "With money we can solve this problem" thing. We can rebuild the city and, as the President himself said, we can rebuild it better, safer, we can get it right this time. Many seem to want to forgo giving the Crescent City a second chance because it costs too much and/or isn't as politically self-serving as attacking the President for waging a war you voted for in the first place.

The good news is, that the issue is far from over, and it's up to not only Louisiana officials and lawmakers but also to the people of Louisiana and the country as a whole to keep these concerns at the forefront of national issues. To make it about the price tag or the war is ridiculous and terribly misguided. But, if you want to make it about money, try this on for size: the price of gas will go up as it becomes more costly for companies to refine crude oil in and around the Gulf of Mexico. And I'll even wager you can get the oil tycoons to swear to that under oath.

50 Free MP3s at EMusic. No shit. Just sign up for the free trial, download your stuff and then you can quit. You can do whatever you want with the songs, there's no protection at all. Screw iTunes, screw Napster, EMusic seems to have it right.

If you're wondering, I snagged the following:
Spacemen 3 - The Perfect Prescription
Devendra Banhart - Nino Rojo
The New Pornographers - Twin Cinema
Sun Kil Moon - Tiny Cities, an entirely acoustic Modest Mouse cover album.

For 40 downloads a month for $10, I think I may stick around.

via Aquarium Drunkard.

Tuesday, Nov. 8 - I walked away from AFI Fest and into Amoeba for Leslie Feist's in-store before she opened for Broken Social Scene at the Henry Fonda Theater. Feist digs the high-rise jeans and has a bitchin' haircut, but would you expect anything less from her?










The set was laid-back and carefree as Feist vowed she wouldn't play anything the way they normally play it. She kicked it off by laying down a wonderful vocal loop, building "Oohs" and "Pleases" until her voice was swirling around the store. She could have done this for an hour and I would have been pleased. But she moved on to give the rest of her band something to do.





She did great renditions of "Inside and Out" and "When I Was a Young Girl", covered a Broken Social Scene song ... and then I had to leave, but not before she busted out "Mushaboom". I shot some video of it and you can watch it here. This is the first time I shot video with my digital camera, so excuse the fuzziness from zooming in. When the link dies, it will be dead because it took like 4 hours to upload this shit.

Like Vanessa Williams, AFI Fest saved the best for last: Michael Haneke's Cache (Hidden).

Michael Haneke is one of my favorite filmmakers working today. His films have consistently pushed the cinematic envelope in a daring, unsettling way. Cache is more subdued than Funny Games or The Piano Teacher, but it is certainly no less incisive or profound.

Cache opens with an image of a Parisian apartment building. The image holds for a long time. Few people or cars go down the street. We see Juliette Binoche leave the building, but she is far away. She walks out of frame and doesn't come back. Finally, we learn that we are watching a videotape, a videotape that's been sent to Juliette Binoche and Daniel Auteuil, her husband. It's simply two hours of a view of their building. They have no idea who sent it, no idea how they're doing it. They get more tapes, and they are now accompanied by crayon drawings of a boy coughing up blood. The tapes also show TV book critic Auteuil at work and his parent's old estate in the country. After awhile, he becomes convinced that the man harrassing them is someone he knows from his childhood, someone he has a history with, what history he is reluctant to say. That he keeps hidden.

That's the catalyst for the movie, in which we watch Auteuil's seemingly sophisticated liberal character devolve into a paranoid, sanctimonious bigot, all the while thinking that he is as noble as can be.

We never find out who is making the tapes. We don't find out a lot of things about the plot, actually. This pissed off most of the crowd as they left. "Too many loose ends," they said. "Too many unanswered questions." They missed the point. Haneke expertly used the old Hitchcockian "Macguffin." The tapes are not what the movie is about. The movie is about discovering what is hidden in the history and the soul of Auteuil's character. Like A History of Violence, Cache is first and foremost a character study based on lies and secrets. The movie is less the creation of the truth than the unraveling of what we think we know. No answers are provided because there are no answers left to give. The truth as we know it has been permanently cast into shadow.

Haneke once again demonstrates that he is the master of the long take. His long takes are tense as hell. They hardly move. They never end. Cuts make you feel safe. Long takes make you realize it's real. He makes you sit in the tension until you're creeped out of your seat. Cache is as full of these moments as Funny Games, but Cache contains one of the most shocking scenes in recent cinema. I will only dance around it, but it's one deadly action and its long aftermath captured in an unflinching, uninterrupted, static shot that not only comes completely unexpected but also doesn't leave when you want it too. It's a moment so harrowing that the rest of the movie feels as though it could explode at any moment. The fact that it never does only makes it more tense, placing you completely in the hands of the filmmaker.

This may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it sure as hell is mine. Haneke is as interested in the audience as he is in the story, which is why his films play with the viewer's expectations and patience. Watching one of his films makes you feel like he is rewiring your brain, taking you to another place, a place that is far from safe.

Like Hitchcock, Kubrick, Polanski and Cronenberg before him, Haneke is exploring the edges of cinema, the boundaries between filmmaker and audience, the fringes of the comfortable. His films may not be fun-filled thrill rides, but they do carry their own thrill, the thrill of watching a pioneer blaze a new trail, daring you to follow him.

Get Rich or Die Tryin' was too high-profile to administer the recommended smackdown, so critics beat up on a little puppy called Derailed, yet another delayed (and derailed) release from the ashes of Miramax and the newly-risen Weinstein Company.

Sorry this is late. We had friends in town at the end of last week.

How quickly they fall. In less than 30 minutes, Marshawn went from being one of my favorite players to someone I wouldn't smile at on the street. Not only did she psyche herself out of doing the presentation, but she talked shit about Brian on her cab ride home while he was in the cab with her. Not classy at all.

In addition to holding five degrees, Randall also knows everything about Star Wars. I think the rest of the team should have been fired for not knowing anything about Star Wars. Where are you from? I guess Wall Street and Trading Places were their movies growing up. I know Randall had the exemption, but they should have let him lead again to keep themselves safe for another week, because having the PM (both PMs, actually) defer to someone else for every decision is not going to help anyone.

I think the funniest thing about the episode had to be Clay's complete misunderstanding of what Bill Ransic said on their reward trip. Bill's talking about doing a good job, creativity, teamwork, etc., and Clay takes it to mean that he should sabotage everyone and go out of himself in an unproductive way. I love these people.

And even a one-hour commercial is not going to get me to see Star Wars Episode 3.

I swear that I hadn't looked at Murph's list since he first posted, so any crossover songs are merely a coincidence. I'm sure we'll disagree on something eventually.

1. “For Real” – Okkervil River, from their album Black Sheep Boy
2. “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left” –Andrew Bird, from his album The Mysterious Production of Eggs
3. “Off the Record” – My Morning Jacket, from their album Z
4. “Mushaboom” – Feist, from her album Let it Die
5. “Initiate” – Calla, from their album Collisions
6. “Casimir Pulaski Day” – Sufjan Stevens, from his album Illinois
7. “The Engine Driver” – The Decemberists, from their album Picaresque
8. “Slow Night, So Long” – Kings of Leon, from their album Aha Shake Heartbreak
9. “It’s All Gonna Break” – Broken Social Scene, from their album Broken Social Scene
10. “Your Ex-Lover is Dead”, Stars, from their album Set Yourself on Fire

Honorable Mention
"Kicking Television" (live) – Wilco, from their live album “Kicking Television: Live in Chicago”
"The Beast and Dragon, Adored" – Spoon, from their album Gimme Fiction
"Soon Enough" – Constantines, from their album Tournament of Hearts
“Dilaudid” – The Mountain Goats, from their album The Sunset Tree
"Everyday" - Rogue Wave, from the album Stubbs The Zombie: The Soundtrack

Check out IMDb's message board for Little Miss Sunshine, a funny movie about the world of beauty pageants. This board goes to 11.

Man, did Howie choke! This was an easy task and the team picked a loud, lousy product and got creamed. I know I picked Amanda as my favorite, and, while she may have been a little too bossy, she is a better player than Leslie. I have no idea if her way of doing things would have led them to a win, but Ryan was a sharp player in changing the game plan as needed during the presentation when sales started to drop. Anyway, I don't know how many of you watch this show, so I'll keep it short. Final Four: Amanda, Dawna, Ryan and the wild card, Jim.

Dolphins 21, Saints 6; Bears 20, Saints 17

Apologies dear readers for this late post. I've been busy a bit and frankly too depressed about the Saints situation to think too much about it. Since I left you last, I flew down to Louisiana to watch the Saints first regular season game in Louisiana. The day itself was wonderful. Great weather, a fantastic tailgating atmosphere, boudin from Joey's, and Abita Restoration Ale. I took lots of pictures and will try to post them soon. All was swell, but then a football game broke out and the Saints played awfully. Their poor play continued against the Bears last week. This leaves the team at 2-7 at the bye week. They'll now play out the string under awful circumstances.

Do the Saints deserve a pass for this season given their hurricane relocation issues. Maybe a little. But the truth is that this team is just about the same we've seen under Haslett for the last five seasons: inconsistent on both offense and defense; unable to recover after something bad happens; thoughtless penalties and bad luck. The solution is a new coaching staff, but given the state of flux the franchise is in who knows what lurks later this season and the offseason.

The most disappointing aspect of this team's poor play, especially as of late, is that a winning team this season could have really lifted the spirits and interest of a lot of folks in Louisiana. Obviously, there are more important things than football to worry about, but we are a people that love our football. The 61,000 that showed up for the game against the Dolphins didn't care that the Saints were 2-5 at the time. They were just happy to have their team back home. The excitement and good feelings were palpable. But the two losses put into even more question the team's long term future in the state. Trust me when I say this -- a winning Saints season this year would have resulted in 70,000 plus crowds later in the season. Now, they'll be lucky to get over 40,000 for either game and the nation will see that as a lack of support for the Saints. But c'mon nation, give us a break. We have a weak economy, a losing team, and an owner who has sabotaged all efforts to create good will between the team and the state. I truly believe that a new ownership group, with the right leadership, could make Baton Rouge an exciting temporary home. Already we see Terry Bradshaw rallying to put investors together to buy the team. Let's hope him, or someone else, can come up with the lump sum to make it happen. And even more than that, let's hope Mr. Benson finds it in his heart to make the deal.


In the meantime, we must continue to support our boys in black and gold. Criticize their faults and praise their accomplishments. It's going to be a long season, so just crack open a cold one and enjoy the game, win or lose.

Next Up

The Saints have the bye week this Sunday and return to action next Sunday against the New England Patriots. Lord knows which Patriots team will show up, but I think the Saints will be competitive. The week off will do them some good, and will be enough to hang tough. But the Pats will simply be too much to handle. Pats 30, Saints 24.

"Ho-hum, Ho-hum, some of these films are dumb."

Fateless - I was ready for an all-out atrocity exhibition since this was about this Hungarian kid going to multiple concentration camps during WWII. Instead, it's fairly by-the-numbers, hardly violent at all, but it lacked something that prevented it from really grabbing me. I don't know if it was a voice, a point of view or something else, but the film lacked that deeper thing that makes movies resonate with us. I just could never find out "why this story", and that bothered me.

Little Athens - again, I was ready for bad teens doing bad shit because I'm always ready for that. Instead, I got dull teens doing dull shit. Must've been a typo in the program guide. Apparently, this film has been getting rave reviews at festivals. I think I saw the same movie, but the one I saw had little to rave about: uninspired cinematography, unintersting script, and great actors giving lackluster performances, plus a soundtrack that didn't know when to quit changing songs.

I am counting the days till I get to see Michael Haneke's new movie (Cache) on Sunday.

Sorry for that lame title. But here's the deal: I wanted to let you know about this evening of short films I'm co-producing/curating with some other fine folks. Asbury Shorts of New York is presenting an evening of the world's best short films at the beautiful Florence Gould Hall at the French Institute in Manhattan on Friday, November 18th at 8pm.

Director Jason Reitman (http://imdb.com/name/nm0718646/) will be our host for the evening, and we will be doing a mini-retrospective of some of his award-winning short films. Jason's debut feature film "Thank You for Smoking" based on the Christopher Buckley novel of the same name, recently premiered at the Toronto Film Festival to much acclaim and is being released by Fox Searchlight Pictures in March 2006. It stars Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Katie Holmes, and William H. Macy.

Our lineup includes the following:
Gulp, In God We Trust, and Consent by Jason Reitman (all award-winners and have screened at Sundance and numerous other festivals)
Neo-Noir by Chase Palmer (25 New Faces of Independent Film in 2005 - Filmmaker Magazine)
9 by Shane Acker (Multi-Award winning short and currently working with Tim Burton on a feature adaptation of this short)
While the Widow is Away by Adam Reid (Winner - Seattle FF, Jacksonville FF, Visionquest)
Milton is a Shitbag by Courtney Davis (Winner - Slamdance, Austin FF)
Return I Will to Old Brazil by Alex Budovsky (New short by the creator of the multi-award-winning short Bathtime in Clerkenwell)
Perpetual Motion by Kimberly Miner (Student Academy Award winner)
Zombie-American by Nick Poppy (starring Ed Helms of The Daily Show)
Home Game by Martin Lund (Winner - Aspen Shortsfest, screened at Sundance and numerous international festivals)

You can buy tickets (with a small fee) through Ticketmaster here: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/03003B5CF403D554?artistid=999035&majorcatid=10005&minorcatid=59

Or you can buy your tickets (without the fee) directly from the Florence Gould Box Office. Box Office hours are Tue: 11am-7pm / Wed-Fri: Noon-7pm / Sat: Noon-4pm and box office phone# is 212-355-6160.

Tickets are $18. Florence Gould Hall and its box office are located at 55 East 59th Street between Park and Madison. Their website can be found here: http://www.fiaf.org/rental/florencegouldhall_nyctheater.htm

Please help to spread the word through any websites, blogs, message boards, etc. Any help is much appreciated!

If you're in the New York area, I think you'll really enjoy this show.

Comedy Central has picked up The Colbert Report for a full 42-week season after it has drawn an average of 1.6 million viewers and retained 86% of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart's audience. Now we are guaranteed at least 42 installments of Better Know a District (a 435-part series).

Bravo, Colbert Nation. Bears, watch your hairy asses.

Fuck. FUCK! This is the worst-looking poster ever. Whatever happened to holding a rocket launcher, shirtless, scarred, with flames blazing behind you and a jade buddha necklace lovingly wrapped around your neck? This is total crap. This hurts. Sly, please tell me you're April Fooling my ass. I want to call this number and ask them if this is true, but I'd probably wind up asking them this:
"Can we win this time?"
Then, when they ask who this is:
"I'm your worst nightmare."
God, that would be awesome.

So Ah-nuld's special election initiatives got shot down in a blaze of something other than glory yesterday. I myself voted them all down in what had to be the most rapid voting trip ever.

Here's why most Californians voted these things down: it's not our job to vote on these things. In a representative democracy, we elect legislators and governors to pass legistlation like each of these propositions. If they won't do their jobs and run to us to vote on everything, why are we paying them? Further, these "special elections" cost the state nearly $60 million. Aren't we in a budget crisis? If they're tired of working, I'll gladly take my money back and vote on a few things, but until then, do your fucking job.

And Ah-nuld, stop being a pussy. If you can't get your way with the legislature up in Sacramento, don't come crying to me like a little girly-man. I thought you were tough. I thought you, like Twisted Sister "ain't gonna take it anymore". I know what Det. John Kimble would say: "Stop whining!"

On a serious tip, the initiative provisions are meant for legislation to come from the people up, not from the government down.

Much better pickings today, and I discovered that after 5 PM there are free drinks in the Cinema Lounge, sponsored by Absolut, Stella Artois and Rosemount. I'm getting more swag from AFI for $55 than I got for $40k in film school. Weird. But, anyway, the movies.

Sunflower - Chinese film from the director of Shower, a heartwarming story about a boy growing up with his father after his father spent 6 years in a Maoist work camp. I saw about half of it, and it was good, perhaps a bit sentimental, but I'm certainly interested in seeing the rest of it.

Buckle Brothers - man, was this disappointing. It's a documentary about black rodeo cowboys from South Central L.A. The stories all seemed interesting, but the film's crude production values and terrible sound recording pretty much ruined it all. It's a shame, because I'm a sucker for anything having to do with rodeo in the moder age ... when I can hear it.

Addicition - a Finnish film about a married career woman who discovers she is addicted to anonymous sex. Sounds awesome, right? Think again. For such a unique take on your standard infidelity story, everything about the plot is standard as can be. And, at 102 minutes, it feels longer than Cleopatra.

C.R.A.Z.Y. - I wouldn't be surprised if this is the best film I see at the festival. It's Canada's official Oscar submission, it won Best Canadian film at Toronto, and it's really good. It's the story of a boy coming of age in Quebec during the age of Pink Floyd and Bowie. He tries to come to terms with his identity, his family and his place in the world. A movie seldom uses period music as well as this film. Rather than just being there to tell us we're in the 70s, the music is an extension of the characters, revealing their innermost desires and fears. Imagine an inspired use of "Sympathy for the Devil" during Christmas midnight mass and you're just scraping the surface. I hope this movie gets to a theater near you, because it's really accomplished and special. For those of you who, like myself, think the title is really weird, it actually fits the movie quite appropriately, even if you won't catch on until the closing credits.

Believe it or not, they exist. If you're looking to read about the war in Iraq but don't have the patience for the polemic, then I highly recommend Chris Ayers' War Reporting for Cowards. It's written from a great perspective: a British hypochondriac Hollywood correspondent gets embedded with the Marines in Iraq for no good reason. The book is a chronicle of his experience and reluctant bravery in the first weeks of the war. It's really funny and has the feeling of a breath of fresh air.

To give you a taste, here's the kind of person Ayers is:

It was then that I noticed the most terrifying item in the entire document. It was number four from the top, under the "Items to Be Worn" section. I looked again, but there was no mistake. "Underwear, 1 pair," it said. Yes - I was being sent to war, in one of the hottest countries on earth, for weeks if not months, and I was expected to take one pair of underwear with me. For a moment I felt pity for the unlucky garment that would be chosen to accompany me to Iraq. By the time we reached Baghdad, I concluded, it would be a biological weapon in its own right.

There's also Ayers' hilarious description of his attempt to purchase the necessary war gear from The North Face in Beverly Hills. Then there's his complaining that the only songs that get stuck in his head are Madonna's "Borderline" and the Oompa-Loompa song:

The movies, I thought, have got the soundtrack to war all wrong. War isn't rock n' roll. It's got nothing to do with Jimi Hendrix or Richard Wagner. War is nursery rhymes and early Madonna tracks. War is the music from your childhood. Because war, when it's not making you kill or be killed, turns you into an infant. For the past eight days I'd been living like a five year-old - a nonexistence of daytime naps, mushy food and lavatory breaks.

It's this kind of style in which Ayers points out some of the absurdities of war, but he also finds himself at times yearning for action, just like the Marines he's embedded with. It's this kind of objectivity and avoidance of the how-we-got-there that makes this read even more illuminating. It has nothing to preach to you; its only aim is to communicate the rather hilarious experience of one pasty Brit in the desert.

Successful child actors have it rough. Most of them never shed their cutesy image. Most of them never get taken seriously as an adult. Most of their careers are over before they can vote. Most of them grow up to be burnouts, cynics or jokes ... if they live long enough to grow up. Few manage to crossover into adulthood, and if they do, they're just happy they're getting paid, happy someone still wants them, even if it is for a reality show chronicling their downward spiral towards death and anonymity. Even fewer manage to have their career blossom with depth and sincerity. When they do, it's a beautiful thing. Because it's rare.

Bret Easton Ellis is not an actor, though plenty of people think he's full of shit, but I think this comparison is worth making. Bret had his first novel published while he was still in college, he became the poster boy for the rich, young and depraved, he became the most hated man on Earth with American Psycho, then he disappeared. The publication of his college short stories, The Informers, and Glamorama quietly ushered Ellis back into the shadows for most of the 1990s, making him a cultural footnote to the 1980s. As we got further away from the 1980s and the Reagan revolution, Ellis seemed to disappear. Even his biggest fans, of which I consider myself to be, thought Glamorama proved he'd lost his stuff, that he could only do one thing well, and that one thing was becoming less relevant with each passing year. None of his retractors rejoiced, but it certainly appeared that Bret Easton Ellis was finished.

When I heard that he was going to publish a new novel with himself as the main character, to be honest, my first reaction was not positive. I thought it was a grab for press, a stunt, a lunge for relevance. I stand here today so damn glad I was wrong. Lunar Park is Bret Easton Ellis' second best novel, if not his best. Just pick whichever one your favorite is (mine changes from day to day among the first three), and put this one right alongside it. Not only is Lunar Park a great Ellis book, it's his first mature work, a work in which he takes himself and his canon head-on and grapples with who and what he is as an artist and a human being. It proves that he still has more to say, that he's not just a bunch of ambivalent college kids fucking and snorting and serial killing.

That may be some people's worst nightmare, but they're in for a treat, because Lunar Park is a nightmare, a nightmare inside Bret Easton Ellis' head. And I think the book may offer just as much to his haters as it does to his fans, because Ellis paints himself as anything but sympathetic. It's almost as if he's writing himself as people who hate him think he is, and it's both funny and heartbreaking at the same time, because beneath this playful postmodern turn lies a wounded soul, a person trying to begin again both personally and creatively, and it's hard. In fact, it's almost impossible.

Lunar Park is a horror novel, using a relapse in cocaine use as the catalyst for a series of events that could be a haunted house or a haunted mind, the playboy violently fighting settling into the suburbs, PTA meetings and dinner parties. It's his version of The Shining, with himself as Jack Torrance, but Ellis takes the novel where King would not: he puts himself into it, he makes it personal. While this may seem like a cheap gimmick to some, I bought it. Like American Psycho, Ellis makes you wonder whether or not what you're reading is really happening or if the main character is just having a nervous breakdown.

The result is a delightful piece of modern gothic horror metafiction in which a writer digs deep and discovers what he's really made of, and while I'm sure you think you've read all of that genre that you can stand, but you should find a place in your reading diet for Lunar Park.

Only had time to go to one today, and I was offered two choices, both playing at the same time. I chose wrongly ... or maybe the other movie was bad too, but I can't be sure because every movie only screens once during the day and once at night, and since I have a Day Pass, I ain't going to pay for no night movies.

Instead of seeing Suspect, the Japanese action blockbuster, I saw Antibodies, a German attempt at The Silence of the Lambs. Slow, with the "twist" painfully obvious for at least an hour before it happens. The "countertwist" did nothing but propel the movie toward a melodramatic conclusion that I didn't feel the need to stay and see.

So I went up to the Cinema Lounge, located on the top floor of the Arclight parking garage. The festival has set up a network of enclosed white plastic tents that look like they belong more to the scientists' operation in E.T. than to a film festival, but, knowing AFI's nefarious ways, perhaps it fits just perfectly. Anyway, the lounge was a place that had free water, donuts, coffee and magazines, as well as a bar that looked all-too-appetizing at 2:30 PM. Of course, this is Hollywood, so they also had a DJ getting ready to spin, because no one can imagine a Hollywood industry party without a crappy DJ.

I have yet to sit through a Q&A session, partly because I either had to run to another movie, but also because I've been on both ends of the Q&A session at a festival and don't usually find them to be particularly illuminating. When I do sit through one, I'll be sure to report on it.

Today was definitely one of the lighter days on my list, so I hold out hope that tomorrow will be better.

Well, it's really day four, but it's the first day I went. This year, I broke down and bought a Day Pass for 60% of its real price (finally my degree from AFI is doing things for me), so I'm going to see all I can between 12-6 PM and pass the savings on to you!

An American Haunting - this film starring Donald Sutherland and Sissey Spacek started out decently enough, providing a few good scares. But then it became clear that the movie was only good at one kind of scare and kept doing it like it was some kind of nervous tic. The "twist" ending is so revoltingly dumb even M. Night Shamaylan wouldn't go near it. Skip it.

The Sixth of May 06/05 - Because I was dumb enough to sit through all of An American Hauting, I only saw the second half of this film, but it was great. It's the final film by Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered in 2004. The film, spookily enough, covers the conspiracy of another political murder of a man killed for upsetting the Muslim population. It's the film The Constant Gardener wishes it was. See it.

Screaming Masterpiece - I was really looking forward to this one: a documentary on Icelandic rock music. I went in all pumped to learn more about Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum, Bang Gang, etc., but this film offers no insight into Icelandic music whatsoever. It does have some good performance footage and introduces you to a lot of interesting bands, but don't expect to come out with anything more tangible than that. A real missed opportunity. Rent it if you like the bands.

That's all I saw today. More tomorrow.

Think about it. He makes threats that have a vague nuclear aura, uses said threats to extract money and power from other governments, seems to be satisfied, then starts it all up again.

Almost forgot, but the critics didn't give me much to work with either, and I'm tired to trying to deceipher the polite dismissals they're giving Sam Mendes, self-proclaimed genius of all images moving and he-who-shall-not-be-panned, and Jarhead, his new cinematic exercise in cheap, surface irony and sanctimonious detachment. So, I went with Chicken Little instead.

Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern
If I could find some facet to praise, I'd be glad to do so, but the production's mediocrity is all-pervasive ...

Last night, Jon Brion and Nels Cline decided to carve up the world between them. They blew people's minds for two and a half hours, took a break, and then blew them one more time.

This wasn't your standard rock show: this was all-improv, yo. JB and Nels created music out of thin air, tore it to pieces, picked up some of the pieces and built something cooler, then repeated steps 1-3.

To watch them play together was to watch two geniuses not only at the top of their game but also completely in sync with each other. No words were exchanged between them, only about a dozen glances during the entire show. As JB would go apeshit on the keys, Nels would texture the spaces between JB's notes, adding accents, counterpoints and short, sustained bursts of guitar freakout, a guitar sneeze, if you will. JB got an idea, then hurried over to the drum kit and laid down this tribal beat on the toms, then they both grabbed guitars and commenced the most blazing solos produced on this earth in 2005. And it wasn't in some hokey "Dueling Banjos" style. Iit was organic, it was collaborative as JB would force a transcendent moment out of his guitar, then back off of it, changing the song every second, at which point Nels would go even further, only to be followed by JB for another, completely different bitchin' guitar workout.

Twenty minutes of this is about all a geek like myself can handle. Then ... Nels Cline went behind the drum kit. I looked at my friends: "The guy can play drums too?" Yeah he can fuckin' play drums. He's awesome. He got behind the kit twice during the show, creating some building rhythms with washy cymbals and banged on the toms like he was trying to bring them back from the dead. It was proof that anything could happen at this show, and that's exactly what it felt like: we were all in the hands of two geniuses who wouldn't tell us where we were going because they didn't know either. They just asked us to trust them, promising that it would be cool. God, were they right!

At the end of the show, JB announced they were doing it again December 8. I know what I'm doing that night.

Mike Love, the only remaining Beach Boy allowed to be called a Beach Boy, is suing former bandmate (and sole genius) Brian Wilson for

promoting his 2004 album, "Smile," in a manner that "shamelessly misappropriated
Mike Love's songs, likeness and the Beach Boys trademark, as well as the 'Smile'
album itself."

Excuse me, Mike Love, but I think you've made more money than some people make in a lifetime off of "Good Vibrations", and all because you contributed less than two seconds of lyrics and your cousin was good-hearted enough to give you co-songwriting credit. You should be kissing his feet, not suing him.

Mike Love, you're on notice!

W....T....F? Last night's Apprentice has to be one of the strangest on record. Lectures on sex, virginity, homosexuality and Anti-Semitism. This isn't The Real World, people, and if it is, I demand you bring back Puck! I had to keep pushing the "info" button on my TiVo remote to make sure I was really watching this and that it wasn't some fever dream brought on by the rapture that was the Jon Brion-Nels Cline show (more on that in a bit).

So, once again, Randall proves to be the shiznit and he should win. He's clearly on the best team now and they'll probably mop the floor with the other group until there's no one left. Maybe his idea wasn't a home run, but he sure turned a ground-rule double into a stand-up triple, which is more than can be said for the Sex in the City episode that the other team put on.

I don't know what made them think "Sex at Work" was a good idea. I'm sure most corporate employers cover all of this stuff in an employee manual and orientation session, not to mention that you wouldn't want to learn about it from this bunch. Clay once again proved that he is borderline crazy and that he loves attention so much he doesn't care what happens or how he looks so long as he's keeping the attention. While Adam misquoted him as saying "tight ass Jew" instead of "tight Jew", it was still way embarrassing, as was his sexual history in the workplace. I'm surprised they came as close to winning as they did.

Then there was the boardroom. I don't know how everyone got the idea that Adam may be a virgin, but I don't really see the reason to question him about it. His hesitancy about the topic was hardly the reason no one liked it. It was because it was an unfocused presentation and they didn't teach anybody anything. So, he missed the point not because he may be a virgin, but rather because they turned a class into a discussion. It got really weird when The Donald started telling him to go out and screw everything that moves because sex is "no big deal". It all felt really awkward: why are you telling him this in front of other people? I could think of no reason other than to further embarrass him and shame him into leaping across the table and ravishing Carolyn (who was looking quite foxy).

As for Markus, it was a long time coming, but I did feel bad for him when no one listened to him for weeks. It was one of those things destined to fail, because he wouldn't admit he had a problem articulating his thoughts, and no one else would take the time to help him. It was also kind of sad to see him take his frustration out on The Donald and accuse him of being insincere and "railroading" him. Guess it's just another instance of him projecting fault onto others when no one understands his plans.

Next week, The Donald will talk to us about war, teen pregnancy and genocide. Of course, I'm talking about Star Wars. Am I the only one who thinks they kind of missed the timing on this? The DVD came out three days ago, the movie's older than Mark Hamill and nobody cares anymore. In fact, after Tuesday, I was thankful that I wouldn't have to be force-fed Star Wars anymore.

Oyster is dominating these days, and if you want to know what's really going on down in Louisiana now that Katrina is "old news", he'll set you straight. I can't stress enough how illuminating and saddening much of the news he's posting on is.

While we've been talking about JB's recorded efforts all week, there's no denying that the best way to experience his music is live. Granted, he is a studio genius, a wonderful producer and performer, but no recording will ever capture the spontaneity and love of music and life that his Friday night shows at Largo inspire in his audience. Despite his ever-growing cult of followers (not to mention the ever-growin impossibility of getting a table reservation), Brion continues to do the show every week, which can only mean one thing: he loves it, it keeps him sharp and it's fun.

Sean T provides a wonderful description of what his one-man-band show is like, and it's always best to hear about it from someone who has just experienced it for the first time, so I don't feel any need to go further into describing it. What I'd like to talk about are some of my favorite live moments I've experienced.

Of course, with every show, there are two sets. Inexplicably, about half the crowd leaves after the first set ("it's late - we're tired"), when the second set is always the surprise. It's a surprise because you never know who will show up to play with him: Fiona Apple, Nickel Creek, Nels Cline, Michel Gondry. Not only that, but it's your chance to request songs for him to play. This is where covers get sublime, because he won't just take requests for the song, but also the style. Rockabilly "Little Red Corvette"? You got it. "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head" in the style of Thelonious Monk (complete with standing up and spinning around)? Check. Springsteen medley? You bet your sweet ass.

It's the medleys that really get me going crazy. Take the Springsteen medley. He starts with "Dancing in the Dark", plays most of it, then, during the solo, he slips into "I'm On Fire", then into "Brilliant Disguise", only to return to the shouting final verse of "Dancing in the Dark". Mind you, this is all absolutely seamless, and the only cue you have that he's about to blow your mind is the little smile that creeps across his face, that moment when he's just blown his mind and can't wait to rock your world.

My favorite all-time medley: an earnest piano rendition of Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like a Knife" that, out of nowhere - yet so perfectly - morphs into Leonard Cohen's morose "Famous Blue Raincoat" ... and this is when he really gets cooking. He stops for a moment and leaps out from behind the piano, lays down a quick drumbeat and grabs his guitar. He flips through this massive 3-inch binder of songs and chords that seems to be arranged in an order only he understands until he finds what he wants. Then, he lets it rip: Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer". All eight minutes. At the end, he announces that he has just done a Canadian medley. That's how he got from A to B to C. Fucking brilliant.

And there's one more thing JB can take to his grave with him: to this humble music fan, his eight minute cover of Bowie's "Heroes" is better than the original. Way better. You had me when you were lying on the floor belting out "I will be king."

Maybe if he and Nels Cline take requests tonight I can get "Heroes" again. Anyone have any other bitchin' guitar songs they'd like to hear those two play? Maybe I'll figure out how to shoot video on my camera and get some footage.

Martha follows in The Donald's footsteps and cans two blondes, proving that, unlike The Donald, she doesn't let you coast for two weeks just because you're attractive.

This episode was just bad. Not even funny, and certainly not entertaining. It's really boring to hear people take a back seat when they know their ship is sinking. They give up so quickly it's kind of pathetic.

I'm pleased Martha fired Carrie along with the obvious firing of Sarah, because she was just hiding behind her pal and letting her take all the hits.

Next week they promise that Jim is going to go crazy again. Please, just fire him, because it really hurts now when, like this week, he's right about something and you just don't want to hear it. Too bad he waited until week 6 to make sense. Now no one will listen to him.

We do our best over here at LGO to try and discuss other musical matters besides those related to the triumvirate of J's (Tweedy, Brion, and O'Rourke), but these guys are so damn good and prolific that it's hard to avoid.

With that being said, Beth Orton has a new album coming out in February entitled 'Comfort of Strangers', and it is being produced by Jim O'Rourke. The album was recorded in New York over the past few months (this would explain why I saw Beth in the audience at the Jim O'Rourke show at Tonic several months ago), and Jim plays bass, piano, and marimba on the album.

I'm very excited about this news as I've always loved Beth's voice but thought some of her recent output was a bit boring. Her first two albums Trailer Park and Central Reservation are quite beautiful though. This could prove to be a great collaboration.

Guess Dennis Hastert will get his wish after all.

JB's first non-PTA soundtrack was for Michel Gondry's excellent film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and Brion's lonely, melancholy piano and hectic rhythms fit the film perfectly, making the score some kind of hybrid between Punch-Drunk Love and Magnolia.

This soundtrack is more atmospheric than many of Brion's film scores, relying heavily on drones and clanks in the dark to give the listener a feeling of disorientation and menace, particularly when things start going wrong in Joel Barrish's head. But that's not to say that the score is without whimsical humor, because it's got a ton of that too. In fact, Brion is able to alternate between the two almost instantaneously, which, oddly enough, creates an even more disassociative feeling because you're never on stable ground. Like Joel and Clementine out on the ice, you could slip or fall through the ice just as easily as you could fall in love on it.

The score established Brion as an independent voice, proving that his musical vision could work with a filmmaker other than Paul Thomas Anderson. With the exception of those damn Polyphonic Spree songs, this soundtrack is quite nice.

So say Senate Republicans after Senate Democrats work within the rules of the Senate to act as an opposition party. I don't know if it was the best thing to do, but it certainly proves that the Dems can grow balls from time to time, but only after high-up administration officials are indicted and only after a sanctimonious media whore like Joe Wilson appears on every television show in existence.

The Republicans, of course, used this same procedure when Clinton was in office, not to mention they helped the government shut down for a few days, but that was all noble and true and God-fearing. This is just a "stunt", a "blindside attack". I know the Democrats have been peacefully bending over for you for the past five years, but that doesn't mean you're married, Senate Repubbies. Besides, you don't like gay marriage.

All this pissing and moaning is rather ridiculous, as is the fact that it has to come to all this just to figure out why and how we got things wrong about the "reasons" for invading Iraq. There were other, better reasons for intervening, but they didn't sell as many tickets and would have taken too long. They also would lead to too many questions, like "why are we doing this now?".

The Senate should have been asking all these questions and doing all of this "investigating" three years ago, but they pussied out. Now they claim it was because they were lied to, but that really doesn't fly. Just tell the truth (it's what you're asking Bush to do, after all): You were trying to look tough on national security for the upcoming elections, and, to you, doing that meant giving up one of Congress' greatest responsibilities: declaring war (or giving the President power to commit troops). It's rather duplicitous to bitch about it now as though this was all done without your permission.

Of course, if we lived in a democracy where our leaders cared more about the people and less about power and money, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. But who am I kidding?

It was only a matter of time before other hip filmmakers would want their film to rub up against Jon Brion's musical genius. Sometimes, the blend was as wonderful as his work with Paul Thomas Anderson, as we'll see when we cover Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and other times, his music can do nothing to rescue a failed idea.

David O'Russell's mess of a movie I Heart Huckabees is a case of the latter. I know this movie has its followers, but I'm not one of them. What I can say, though, is that Brion's music can stand on its own, perhaps even coming out better in the process.

The instrumentals are quintessential Brion: quirky, melodic mood pieces that give you that "where am I/who am I?" feeling the movie was trying for. His lyrical pieces are fun philosophical musings, full of clever twists of words that do what Brion does best in his songwriting: he takes a cliched phrase and gives it meaning again. This is never more evident than on "Knock Yourself Out", an upbeat, bounce-around-the-room ditty that's as catchy as avian bird flu will be in about two years. It's one of the ten best songs JB has recorded, and it alone makes the soundtrack worth owning. Thankfully, there are 19 other tracks that make it worth owning as well.

I know many of you are awaiting Big___Shot's latest installment of Saints and Sinners, and I'll have to ask you to sit tight. LGO sent Big___Shot into the field to file this report. It's coming, don't worry.