The Greatest Living Actor

To extend my streak of seeing movies with central themes revolving around deserts and ruthless men, I saw There Will Be Blood last night (okay, two in a row is not much of a streak--the other being No Country For Old Men--but the similarities were worth noting).

Apart from having seen a pretty outstanding movie, I came away from There Will Be Blood with the certainty that Daniel Day-Lewis is the greatest living actor. I had suspected this after his portrayal of Bill "The Butcher" Cutting in Gangs Of New York, but now I'm sure that he's at the top of the profession. His dedication to staying in character even when the camera isn't rolling is borderline crazy¹ but it definitely pays off because he's always really convincing. And the fact that he only makes a movie every two years or so keeps the quality of his work elevated.

A huge part of his impressive portrayals is always his accents. He has a knack for finding these über-regional accents that are ambiguous yet quite distinct. He doesn't really do many interviews so I'm not even sure if I know what his real accent sounds like but I suspect it's something resembling Irish. So when he does a peculiar American accent, he's that much more remarkable. He also always seems to have a different build to his body for his characters, as if he has a kit of interchangeable torsos and limbs that he picks through and rebuilds himself like a human Mr. Potato Head.

My respect for Daniel Day-Lewis is noteworthy for I'm usually not one to overtly praise actors because I believe they already garner a bit too much reverence from the public. I mean, most actors are basically animatrons that are given words and actions to act out by writers, told how, when and where to act by directors and made better looking by hair and makeup people and costume designers.

For the most part, actors have surprisingly little to offer other than a face and the ability to remember lines. In a way, they're not much different from the monkeys they sometimes share the screen with, in that they're only as good as their handlers.

We have to keep this in mind when the writers' strike seems to be keeping us from enjoying new episodes of our favorite shows. Without them, Steve Carell is probably only as funny as Evan Almighty (although he was a writer for the Daily Show so he can probably hold his own; I just wanted to make a cheap Evan Almighty joke). So, Hollywood, let's pay the writers accordingly for their contributions.

Oh yeah, before I forget:

There was blood, but not that much.

¹He insisted on staying in character 24/7 when he played a severely paralyzed man in My Left Foot by having the crew of the film push him around the set in a wheelchair. When filming The Last Of The Mohicans he lived off the land and carried a rifle everywhere he went. When he played a boxer in, huh, The Boxer he trained for 2 YEARS(!!!) as, huh, a boxer. He apprenticed under a butcher for Gangs Of New York and refused treatment for pneumonia because it was not in keeping with the period. Needless to say, the dude is serious about method acting. I'd hate to see what he would have done had he been cast as Hannibal Lecter.

You Lost Me At Hello

The fourth season of Lost premieres tonight and saying that it's a big deal for a lot of people is an understatement. I've never seen the show and I'm certainly not going to start tonight because I have no idea of what's going on (although this puts me on par with people who watch the show religiously, apparently). But I have seen the previews of the new episode and I've been aware of the show for its duration so I'm perplexed by a couple of trivial things:

I'm assuming that after three whole seasons of the show, some time has gone by since they all crashed on the island. If this is true then why do all the characters still have the same haircuts and facial hair? Is there a barber on the island? Are the male characters still habitually shaving even though the fundamental norms of society have clearly broken down?

And the fat dude does not appear to be losing any weight. Is he eating other characters? I'm pretty sure he'd lose some weight if he was suddenly thrown in a Darwinistic survival situation and didn't have regular access to processed cheese. But maybe that's just me.

If you have answers to any of these questions, please enlighten me.

Best Of 2007

Hello friends,

It's the end of the year so it's an obvious, psychologically satisfying time to list all of the best that 2007 had to offer in music, movies and television (in my not-so-humble opinion, anyway). Disagreements are to be expected, so feel free to post any comments or your own picks below. Just know that you're probably wrong and that I am, in fact, always right.

"How can it be bullshit to state a preference?"

Rob (John Cusack) in High Fidelity

Best Records (in no particular order)

-The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
-Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
-Feist, The Reminder
-Radiohead, In Rainbows
-Menomena, Friend And Foe
-Elvis Perkins, Ash Wednesday
-Kanye West, Graduation
-Avett Brothers, Emotionalism
-Jay-Z, American Gangster
-Okkervil River, The Stage Names
-Sondre Lerche, Phantom Punch
-The White Stripes, Icky Thump
-Ryan Adams, Easy Tiger
-Iron & Wine, The Shepherd's Dog
-Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

Best Reissues, Soundtracks & Compilations

-Elliott Smith, New Moon
-Various Artists, I'm Not There O.S.T.
-Elvis Costello, My Aim Is True Deluxe Edition
-Eddie Vedder, Into The Wild O.S.T.
-Counting Crows, August And Everything After Deluxe Edition
-Sondre Lerche, Dan In Real Life O.S.T.

Good Albums, But Not Up To Par To Previous Achievements (try harder next time, please)

-Bright Eyes, Cassadega
-Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
-Band Of Horses, Cease To Begin
-Pinback, Autumn Of The Seraphs
-Devendra Banhart, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon

Best Japanese Psychedelic Pop Album

-4 Bonjour's Parties, Magpie Will Peck A Hole In My Plaster Cast

Best Comedy Album

-Patton Oswalt, Werewolves And Lollipops

Most Overrated Albums

-The National, Boxer (Somehow it still made it to 1 on Paste's list; I tried to stop them...)
-Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam (Not *actual* music!!)
-Panda Bear, Person Pitch

Albums That Would Have Made The "Best Of" List Had I Actually Listened To Them All The Way Through More Than Once

-Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
-Rogue Wave, Asleep At Heaven's Gate
-The Shins, Wincing The Night Away
-José González, In Our Nature
-Beirut, The Flying Club Cup

Best Albums I Haven't Heard Yet

-PJ Harvey, White Chalk
-Wu-Tang Clan, The 8 Diagrams
-Ghostface Killah, The Big Doe Rehab

Best Songs

-"Intervention" by The Arcade Fire
-"1234" by Feist
-"Young Folks" by Peter Bjorn and John
-"You Are My Face" by Wilco
-"Two" by Ryan Adams
-"All I Need" by Radiohead
-"Roc Boys (And The Winner Is...)" by Jay-Z Featuring Kanye West
-"Myriad Harbour" by The New Pornographers
-"Smile" by Lily Allen
-"Girls In Their Summer Clothes" by Bruce Springsteen
-"Lake Michigan" by Rogue Wave
-"Good Life" by Kanye West featuring T-Pain
-"Our Life Is Not A Movie Or Maybe" by Okkervil River
-"Plaster Casts Of Everything" by Liars
-"You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse
-"The Underdog" by Spoon
-"Rag And Bone" by The White Stripes
-"The Heinrich Maneuver" by Interpol
-"Sinking Soon" by Norah Jones
-"Florida" by Modest Mouse

Guilty Pleasures (I must be getting pretty secure in my tastes 'cause I could only come up with a few that I truly feel guilty about this year)

-"Umbrella" by Rihanna (Enjoy it while eating paella, ella ella eh eh eh. Or while watching Cinderella, ella ella eh eh eh)
-"Walk It Out" by Unk (I actually had to look up who did that song; now I know)
-"Crank That" by Soulja Boy (I still don't understand a single word of it)
-"Makes Me Wonder" by Maroon 5 (This one I feel really guilty about)

Best Cover Songs

-Elliott Smith, "Thirteen" (Big Star)
-José González, "Teardrop" (Massive Attack)
-Alison Krause, "Trampled Rose" (Tom Waits)
-Devendra Benhart, "Little Boxes" (Malvina Reynolds)
-Regina Spektor, "Real Love" (John Lennon)
-Jeff Tweedy, "Simple Twist Of Fate" (Bob Dylan)
-The White Stripes, "Conquest" (Patti Page)
-Sondre Lerche, "Let My Love Open The Door" (Pete Townshend)

Best Mash-Up

-DJ Axel, "Guns N' Hovas" (Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" v. Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder")

Coolest Aging Alternative Icon I Met This Year

-Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips at the Echo Project in October. He's slender and quite handsome. He was also wearing a bitching custom suit.

Band That I Once Loved But Should Have Stayed Broken Up For Its Own Good And The Good Of Humanity

-Smashing Pumpkins (Billy, just stop and let me still enjoy your first three albums in peace)

Best Singer-Songwriter That I Drove To A Gig In My Car Through Atlanta Rush Hour Traffic From The Paste Offices

-Josh Ritter on November 1st; we talked about Dylan and girls walking in the sunshine (he's weird)

Best Movies (I didn't see that many movies in the theater again this year so forgive me for my crappy selection)

-The Darjeeling Limited (probably my favorite)
-Knocked Up
-300
-Sicko
-Superbad
-Ocean's Thirteen
-Grindhouse: Planet Terror & Death Proof

Movies I Really Wanted To See But I Probably Won't Until I Can Netflix Them

-Zodiac
-Eastern Promises
-Lars And The Real Girl
-Into The Wild
-The King Of Kong
-Sunshine
-American Gangster
-Control
-Shoot 'Em Up
-Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
-I'm Not There

Movies I'm Going To See For Sure In The Next Two Weeks

-Juno
-Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
-No Country For Old Men

Worst Movie To See In A Theater Full Of Teenagers Who Feel Compelled To Talk On Their Cell Phones And Scream Advice To The Actors On The Screen Without Considering The Fact That It Might Ruin The Experience For Other More Mature Moviegoers

-Rob Zombie's Halloween (never again!)

Best Television Shows

-Entourage: Season 4 (HBO)
-The Sopranos: Season 6, Part 2 (HBO)
-Big Love: Season 2 (HBO)
-Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO)
-Flight Of The Conchords (HBO)
-Weeds: Season 3 (Showtime)
-Dexter: Season 2 (Showtime)
-The Office: Seasons 3&4 (NBC)
-Survivor: China (CBS)
-It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia: Season 3 (FX)
-The Henry Rollins Show (IFC)
-Iconoclasts (Sundance)
-No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain (Travel Channel)
-Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares (BBC, not the shitty FOX Version!)
-Gordon Ramsey's F Word (BBC)
-The Soup (E!)
-Best Week Ever (VH1)
-Pardon The Interruption (ESPN)
-Top Chef: Season 3 (Bravo)
-Attack Of The Show (G4)

Best Excuse To Get Digital Cable With DVR

-Being able to have a life that is not dictated by television schedules. That, and to instantly replay people getting hit in the nuts on American Funniest Home Videos. Oooh, and fast forwarding through commercials; watching an hour long show now only takes 41 minutes!

Best Unabashed Display of "Scarm" (Scar + Arm) On Television

-Padma Lakshmi on Bravo's Top Chef; disfiguring scars have never been so damn sexy.


So there you have it, I hope this list will inspire you to draft your own selections or perhaps encourage you to pick up an album or watch a show you otherwise wouldn't have.

See you next year!

A Stubborn Notion: "Jesus Camp" Fails To Shock

Adrienne and I watched Jesus Camp tonight. I'll spare you the set up of this documentary by letting Netflix do the work:

This riveting Oscar-nominated documentary offers an unfiltered look at a revivalist subculture where devout Christian youngsters are being primed to deliver the fundamentalist community's religious and political messages. Building an evangelical army of tomorrow, the Kids on Fire summer camp in Devil's Lake, N.D., is dedicated to deepening the preteens' spirituality and sowing the seeds of political activism as they're exhorted to "take back America for Christ."

So basically it shows the indoctrination of kids into the evangelical way of thinking (or lack thereof) at this summer camp in the Midwest through tactics right out of the Hitler Youth¹ playbook. The best description of the design and purpose of the camp is made by Becky Fischer, the founder and organizer, who equates it to an extremist Muslim training camp where children are molded into good little Jihadists --except she does it without a hint of sarcasm.

She sees her ministry as a sort of counterweight to other extremist religious groups and the godless liberals who she thinks are ruining America. Essentially, these kids are routinely and systematically transformed into little rhetoric-spewing mouthpieces of the Christian Right and encouraged to spread the message by any means necessary.

The documentary is anything but biased or preachy, choosing instead to let the subjects do the talking, most of which is done by the kids themselves. The only discernible "voice of reason" present in the film is of Air America's own Mike Papantonio (a Methodist who often criticizes the Christian Right) who at one point interviews Becky and calls in question her "teaching" methods and the glaring hypocrisies of her sect of Christianity.

Regardless of the apparent lack of persuasiveness and cajolery by the filmmakers, the inherent tone of the film is meant to incite outrage and/or utter terror at these events, which astonishingly take place in modern-day America.

I, however, was not affected in such a way.

I don't know if there's anything comparable to the "five stages of grief"² that applies to dealing with the Christian Right as a modern thinking person who values reason, but I feel like I've gone through several different stages myself.

I certainly used to get angry at this type of thing; it made me visibly resentful to see any type of commitment to the proliferation of ignorance and disinformation. I associated this rage with being passionate and I reveled in it without ever actually using it as a sort of catalyst for action.

And that, of course, is typical teen angst fare.

It's pure, carnal and self-serving. It's downright fun. It's rock n' roll. It's a Black Flag song. It's what teenagers are put on this earth to do.

But that type of unbridled rage gets old after a while (it starts looking forced and a bit naive and definitely stops helping you get laid) and I eventually moved on to trying to rationalize why certain people just don't get "it", almost to the point of making excuses for their way of thinking.

I blamed it on their upbringing, their surrounding environment, the encompassing establishment, morally bankrupt corporations, the traditional Puritanical culture of the U.S. and anything else that could be a sphere of influence on their soft, amorphic minds. In other words, it's not their fault, they are the product of what they themselves are sadly propagating.

But that logic is only applicable to a certain point. Even my extremely liberal mindset can't wrestle with the notion that people aren't somewhat responsible for their own predicaments. The intimation of the effects of upbringing and environment has a definite cut off point.

It certainly pertains to kids and young adults, much like the ones being programmed in Jesus Camp; they, after all, have a limited amount of inputs. But in this age of accelerated processes and open-ended information very few people in America live in a bubble, a suspended state of cryogenic storage. At some point of adulthood these people choose to be willfully ignorant and spiritually incurious for whatever reason --be it convenience, or perhaps the need to be antagonistic, headstrong or perversely indifferent.

So now I'm left to believe that they are just stubborn, ignorant douche bags for whom I should feel relatively nothing. That's why I wasn't outraged when in Jesus Camp a mother home schools her son to reject science as merely another belief system, global warming as something not to be worried about and that the earth is a mere 6,000 years old. I didn't wince at the sight of a man praying that George W. Bush finds the strength to appoint a Supreme Court Judge to overturn Roe V. Wade. I didn't even laugh when they all started speaking in tongues and wailing uncontrollably.

Not me, not anymore.

It must be a sign of the start of my curmudgeon stage when I become an empty shell of a man, too knowledgeable of life to learn anything new and too dead inside to care --ironically sharing the very qualities of the people I once despised.

But there is hope.

After a little girl described her favorite music as Christian Hard Rock and proceeded to dance and sing along, I still felt a silent, murderous rage for her display of bad taste in music.

Suddenly, I felt unbridled rage making a comeback.

¹The Hitler Youth, incidentally, increased by great numbers when it joined with the Evangelische Jugend (Evangelical Youth, a German youth organization with upwards of 600,000 members) in the mid 1930's. Coincidence?! I think not.

²In case you need a reminder of what these are: 1. shock followed by initial denial; 2. denial replaced by anger, rage, envy, and resentment; 3. bargaining (with God or the like); 4. depression; 5. ultimate acceptance.

The Echo Project

On Friday, I got to go to the opening day of the first annual(?) Echo Project Festival which took place just South of Atlanta this weekend. The whole thing is modeled after all the big three-day festivals that are now a mainstay of summer, but with an ecologically minded proclivity. Basically, Al Gore's¹ wet dream of a concert concept.

They picked out a great location on a 350 acre farm just minutes outside of the A-T-L; a broad, ample field surrounded by rolling hills, placid lakes and a rippling (albeit, contaminated) river. And they also picked a great time, mid-October, when it's not so god damn² hot and clothes-drenching humid. Even the infrastructure and layout of the festival seemed to have been well thought out.

The gripes I had with it were that 1) tickets were way too expensive and 2) not enough good bands were booked to justify the price of the ticket, so 3) not as many people as were expected showed up.

Of course I got to go for free so why should I give a fuck, right?

Right.

Some of the more interesting bands playing on Friday, all brought together by their love of smoking weed (or ganja, where it may apply): The Flaming Lips, The Polyphonic Spree, GZA of the Wu-Tang Clan with Slick Rick, Cypress Hill, Stephen Marley, Les Claypool and Secret Machines.

The bad (or utterly obscure) bands that played on Friday: all the other 67 bands that played on various stages to tens of people throughout the day and night.

But even they couldn't ruin a good time. I definitely can't complain, I got to hang backstage drinking free beer and I met The Flaming Lips' Wayne Coyne, a personal hero of mine. And best of all, I got to watch him and the other guys in the band (as well as a couple dozen folks dressed as Santa Claus, aliens and superheroes) send thousands of people into sensory overload and epileptic seizures with their amazing show. If you've never seen The Flaming Lips in concert, you're seriously missing out. This was my third time and even though their show is always basically the same, it's one of the most fun things I've ever been a part of every time.

Good times.

¹Note to Al Gore: if you entered the race for presidency right now, it would be a slam dunk, a home run and a 95 yard touchdown pass all wrapped into one. To put it plainly, you would win --handily. I'm just saying.

²I usually think it's more satisfying to write "goddam" instead of "god damn", but I'm giving it a try to see if it grows on me. Also, are you supposed to capitalize the word "god" or is that just if you're specifically talking about the Judeo-Christian God? Oh, goddam it all.

Things That Are Good

Things that are good:

-The song in the Fruit of the Loom commercial that looks like a video that has the "Fruit Guys" in it. You know, the one about the blue collection of underwear. Yeah, if you're anything like me (and congrats if you are) you'll be glad to know that they have the extended version up on YouTube. Oh man, it's great. But why go all the way to YouTube when you can just watch the damn thing here:



Now that's songwriting. Take notes, FreeCreditReport.com jingle writers, the bar has been set pretty damn high.

-Fionn Regan came by the Paste office this week to record a couple of songs for our podcast so we all squeezed in our little studio and watched him do his thing. It was great. He seemed like a nice enough fellow. If you haven't heard his album, "The End of History", you should probably do yourself a favor; you deserve it, after all. To keep it on the YouTube tip, here's a cool video of his:



-Speaking of Paste related things, if you happen to see the issue with Iron & Wine on the cover in the coming weeks, flip that bitch to page 12, hit the guy or gal standing next to you, point to my name on the page and say, "Hey, I know this dude, he's okay in small doses". That would make my mom awfully proud. C'mon, she needs it.

-I'm coming to Nashville next weekend, so shape up Tennessee! I want to see some excitement and high energy for my homecoming. Don't disappoint me.

I was supposed to go to my 10-year high school reunion but upon finding out that nobody that I actually want to see is going to be there, I asked myself why I was going. "Just to see how fat (fatter?) and lame (lamer?) everybody got?!"; I don't think so. That's really not enough to get me to spend $70 and waste a whole weekend around it. Oh well, there's always the 15-year reunion, everyone will be even fatter and lamer then. Me included.

Good night and good luck.

Drove To Chicago All Things Know All Things Know

I sense a palpable clamor in the air for an update on all things Luca.

Ok, maybe it's just Stacey. And she's not really clamoring--more like politely inquiring.

Here ya go, Stace:

-The internship at Paste is going well. Actually, it's going great. They're keeping me very busy and I'm learning a lot. I was afraid that I might not be able to do everything that would be asked of me but I've learned that I can handle pretty much anything. The work environment is ideal for my particular sensibilities too. I mean, we spent the last couple of hours of work on Friday drinking beer and playing "cornhole" (a variation on the classic "horseshoe"). And when we manage to actually work at publishing a magazine that a half million people read every month, it hardly feels like work at all, and that, my friends, is the key to finding what you're truly meant to be doing.

-The little lady and I went to see "Superbad" today. It was profanely funny. I don't know what it is about high school comedies, but I usually enjoy them way more than I ever enjoyed my time in actual high school. Whether it's "Ferris Bueller's Day Off", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Can't Hardly Wait", heck, even "Teen Wolf"--I love them all. Meanwhile, I cringe at most of my own high school memories. The naive awkwardness that makes these movies compelling is also what I want to eschew from my own reminiscence. Sick, isn't it?

-Adrienne will be going to Chicago for Labor Day to visit friends and possibly scout the area for future living consideration. A lot of our friends have moved or are moving there in the near future and Adrienne is campaigning for us to follow them next year when she's finished with school. I'm not exactly sold on the idea yet but I'm keeping an open mind. My philosophy has always been to embrace opportunities when they present themselves so I guess we'll see. For now I'm excited to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.

All right, that's enough for now.

Later.

Deuteranopia Is Not My Only Burden

So, yeah. . .

It's been a while since I've posted an update on the going-ons in my life so here we go:


--First and foremost, while running the risk of jinxing myself, I should tell you that I'm anxiously waiting to be interviewed for an internship at Paste Magazine. If you're not familiar with this publication you should check out an issue or their really cool website. I don't even need to stress how cool this would be for me; it would be the first job I've ever had that actually has anything to do with what I studied in college.

The internship would be either in the Marketing/Business or the Editorial department. It would pay close to nothing but the experience and contacts I would make there would be priceless. And how could they not hire me after the internship is over? I'm adorable.

They emailed me today to let me know that I should go in for an interview. I really, really, really hope I get this. You should hope for this as well.



--I've been running a lot lately and lifting weights. I guess it's my last (and perhaps first) attempt at getting fit. I am seeing quite a difference in my body after just a short time so I'm actually sticking to it. I've already lost quite a chunk of the belly fat I've been nursing over the last...oh, I don't know, ten years or so and I'm actually building up muscle. I know, shocking! This shit actually works.

I'm doing it five times a week for about an hour or so, hopefully I won't burn out. I'm setting small goals for myself to keep me motivated and I guess my first is to run a 5k comfortably and at a good pace. I feel like I'm almost there already. I just hope my knees don't give out since I've had problems with them in the past due to old basketball injuries.



--In other bodily news, I'm losing my eyesight. Not like the whole way or anything, I'm not going blind (hopefully, although I'm already colorblind). However my eyesight has gotten exponentially worse in the last few months. I have a hard time focusing on text that is more than three feet away from me and my eyes get fatigued while driving at night. I'm also seeing the words I'm typing right now in a bit of haze and I haven't even been drinking (much)!

This is all a recent development as I've always had reliable eyesight and I must admit I'm very resentful that my eyes have given up on me so early. Yes, I haven't treated them in the best manner with all the tv watching and endless hours staring at computer screens, but I figured they would carry me at least into my thirties.

Now I'm faced with the daunting task of getting my eyes checked and eventually getting glasses. Contacts aren't an option as I would rather carve my name into my thigh with a rusty knife than have to touch my eyeball. That's just not happening. Adrienne told me that I look like a sexy professor with glasses on so I'm not too worried after all. Then again, it is her job as my girlfriend to lie to me to protect my fragile ego, so she can't be trusted.



--At least I can be thankful that I don't have restless leg syndrome because that might lead me to a severe gambling debt. Have you seen this? Adrienne brought it to my attention after she heard it on a tv commercial. And after some research we found out that apparently a side effect of Mirapex, a medication that eases the symptoms of restless leg syndrome (RLS), is a rise in compulsive behavior. However, they take it a step further by singling out compulsive gambling as the main form of adverse behavior.

First of all, I'm not yet convinced that restless leg syndrome is an actual medical condition, even though Adrienne swears her mother has it. And then you throw in compulsive gambling as a side effect and I'm left to assume that restless leg syndrome is the body's own deferral system against OCD and by taking Mirapex you're merely transferring the fixating anxiety from your legs to your head. Is this a good trade off? I think not. You may lose some sleep with RLS but at least you'll still have a roof over your head at the end of the day.

If you have RLS please don't take Mirapex. Just calm the fuck down. Or just smoke some weed before bed; it's less expensive and far safer.



All right, good night my sweet babies. Sleep the shit out of tonight for tomorrow is another day.