public service message

if you had knee surgery 3 weeks ago, do not, under any circumstance, forget that you just had knee surgery and then proceed to kneel on your knee (therefore placing your full weight on it) while assembling equipment for a show.

HOLY-FUCKING-MOTHER-OF-GOD-SHIT-FUCKER-DAMN-GEORGE BUSH-SON OF A BITCH-SHITSTORM that hurt.

no comment monday

pan's labyrinth

yes, another blogger blogging about pan's labyrinth. deal with it.

i just got home from seeing this movie and all i can say is wow - guillermo del toro is a god. i mean, he has such complete and total vision for the world('s) he's created in this film, from post-civil war spain to the aformentioned labyrinth; it's impossible to not be sucked in and taking on an amazingly haunting, beautiful and delicate journey.

i really do believe this film will be sticking with me for a bit. much more i want to write about it; but i've got to process what i've just watched. however, in a word or two, this movie is why i love movies. i was so completely transported - it blew me away.

there were three movies that came out this past year that really transported me in a way that so rarely happens anymore - the prestique, the fountain and this one.

in anticipation for the oscars, i've been writing up my own thoughts on the best films of the year (i'll be posting those thoughts sometime in the next couple of days). i can add this to that ++++ column.

random bits

ok, this is now the 3rd time i've started this post today; blogger has been pissing me off - it's crashed 3 times. fuckin' blogger.
---
knee update: off crutches (thank god). still got a bit of a limp, but it's getting better everyday. the weird thing about my knee is it feels completely removed from my body. almost like i'm experiencing the knee remotely. it still doesn't do what i want it to do (sitting cross legged for example) but it's getting there. the doc says these feelings will continue on and off for about 6 months or so and i should have reasonably full mobility back within a month.

i'll be happy when that happens.
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finally, the truth.

from the current issue of gq's interview with sarah silverman:

gq: so hillary clinton for president, then?
ss: i'm more of the barack obama camp.

gq: why obama?
ss: oh, not for any real, intellectual reason. just for the same reason real people make their decisions - i saw him on letterman and i thought he was awesome.

i've often thought that people really tend to just make their political decisions on something as influential as a gut response. there are exceptions of course, (i'm sure alexander over at voenix rising and mike at lolife/ are in the other camp, the one where you weigh all the options and make a truly intellectual decision), but i think most poor slobs like me make it on a base response to something.

nice to see someone admit it in the press though.
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just a a reminder.

before there was the whole pope shredding thing on snl and the marriage to god and the divorce from god and the other kooky happenings there was:

<>a fucking brilliant debut album that still resonates today.

my fine is...

....$655.60.

see what your fine is here.

ebay whore

ok, i admit it - i have a slight addiction to ebay. it comes and goes of course, but on the whole, i'm a big fan of ebay - i find the ability to rediscover one's childhood (or in this case early late teen-aged years) to be a wonderful diversion to the every day mundaness of life.

just today i won this little treasure, dale bozzio's riot in english:

formerlly the lead singer of missing persons, dale bozzio signed to prince's paisley park label in the late 80's and put out this pure pop fluff of an album in 1988. while i had it on casette and remember liking the album just fine, i can't imagine it's aged well at all.

however, it has a prince song on it (so strong), so ultimatly it was necessary for me to eventually own this again. so ebay to the rescue.

as mentioned, i remember liking it on the whole; it's a very "pop" album, not nearly as experimental as her work with frank zappa or missing persons - but if memory services it was pretty left field for pop music at the time. i've poked around the 'net since i started bidding on this and am kinda surprised how well the album seems to have been reviewed (i dismissed it almost immediatly back in the day - it was just fun fluff, nothing great)... from all music: "the tight-as-a-drum production sounds are right out of trevor horn's notebook" and "bozzio has grown up here, as 'simon simon' rocks with authority, a good album leadoff, as is the song which launches side two, the title track, 'riot in english.'"

all in all i'm pretty jazzed to have won this; and am anxious to give it another listen.

p.s., i'd post the video to 'simon simon' on here, but it's a pretty bad video, very 1988; but if your so inclined, do a search on you tube; it's out there.

willfully stolen....

...from eyeteeth:

by bansky.

brilliant in'it? seriously, check out his other art - the guy's got a great eye.

superfluous prince

no big secret, i loves me some skinny mother fucker with the high voice. yes, it's a bittersweet love - i mean the man's a fuckin' genius, but sometimes he's a lame-ass fuck that is mearly resting on his laurels.

well shit if this didn't remind me how much i love it when the man just simply plays - for the love of the guitar! the above video is from prince's 2004 induction into the rock and roll hall of fame. if you don't know, at the end of the induction ceremony, the recently inducted members do a "jam session" - the video is princes solo during the george harrison tune "while my guitar gently weeps".

i love this.

s.t.c.n.c.b. drag queens

perfect if only for the line: "supertrashycheapandnastycuntybitchy drag queens"

agitation / peace

i'm not always the smartest duck in the pond.... but it's good to have people around (albeit 1,253 miles away) that can push me in a different direction every now and then.

i've been super agitated tonight. i'm not sure why. as the hours passed tonight, i was getting more and more agitated, jumpy, crabby. i have no idea.

certainly, i don't think my knee is helping things. i'm still very mobility-limited. while i've gone into the office the last two days, i haven't really been out and about much. my knee is hurting more, the vicodin is just masking the pain. i'm not sleeping well and i can't get physically comfortable.

earlier, i was on the phone with cb and he pretty much had to talk me off the ledge so to speak. when i get agitated, the nervous energy just multiplies like bunnies and it feeds the demon which only serves to get me more jumpy. cb was fairly adamant that i needed to take some pain pills and lie down, or read, or - here's an idea, listen to music, to calm my center.

music is the my favorite thing in the world, virtually my one constant, but do you think i thought of that? nope. i just sat pacing (as best as a gimp can pace). cb reminded me about a piece of music i own (thanks to him) he knows how i love it, and how it has a calming effect on me.

so i took an hour out of my night, turned off the lights, lit a candle and listened to jonathan elias' the prayer cycle. i'm almost a differen man!

combining such divergent voices as nusrat fateh ali kahn, alanis morissette, ofra haza, linda ronstadt and perry farrell (to name just a few) with the american boy choir (featuring the staggeringly amazing devin provenzano) and the english chamber orchestra and chorus - the work evokes (for me) the combined one-ness of the greater global community.

elias wrote the piece (a choral symphony in 9 movements) just before the turn of the century, and in his words: "...the world we live in is both joyous and cruel. the divide between love and hate has never been as wide as it is on our world today. i pray that we can move forward and that the next generations rise where we have fallen."

i find it interesting that he chose to take music from all over the globe, in combination with voices that are at equally divergent (i count voices singing in 15 different languages) - and yet, what came out was one cohesive sound. it also seems relevant (or at the very least interesting) that 7 years on from the millennial change, the world is even more at odds - and yet, when one listens to music that was created with a true sense of purpose, and are taken on a journey to the far points of the globe, your left feeling more connected to the world around you than when you started.

so here i sit, listening to the piece for the third time tonight, and i'm calmer, more at peace (at least for the moment). yes, landry, i do need to figure out the source of my agitation, but sometimes just getting lost in another world for a bit of time can make all the difference in both the long and short run.

there you have it, prodded a bit by a good friend to just sit down and be in the moment - it's a nice little reminder now and then. especially for the densest duck in the pond.

globe recap.

(when bad dresses happen to mediocre actresses)

ok, so i never said i was going to predict the winners of the golden globes - my picks were just who i wanted to win - it's not my fault if the hollywood forign press got it so wrong so often.

• best picture – drama-the departed. damn if i didn't get this one wrong; i've heard it's good, i just can't get into brad pitt lately.
  
• best picture – musical or comedy-little miss sunshine. dreamgrils won. i hate dreamgirls. well, more coorectly, i hate beyonce. i refuse to support any film with beyonce in it (even if i do love jennifer hudson)
  
• animated film-cars. yes! i got it. there was really no chance that this wasn't going to win.
  
• lead actor – drama-leonardo dicaprio in the departed. i'm really not a fan of leo's either, but was duly impressed with his performance in the departed - shame he didn't win, but i've heard forest was great in the last king of scotland.
  
• lead actor – musical or comdey-chiwetel ejiofor in kinky boots (should win; sacha baron cohen in borat will win). yup, sacha won! no surprise. i still like chiwetel better, but i'm claiming this in my win column.
  
• lead actress – drama-helen mirren – the queen. helen mirren is the fuckin' shit - so deserved.
  
• lead actress – comedy or musical-meryl streep – the devil wears prada. again, brilliant and no question really. and meryl's speech was awesome.
  
• actor in a supporting role- ben affleck in hollywoodland. ugg eddie murphy. ugg dreamgirls. blech.
  
• actress in a supporting role- emily blunt in the devil wears prada. jennifer hudson. jennifer rocks. dreamgirls sucks.
  
• director- martin scorsese for the departed. yes! it's fuckin' about time marty got props. the departed was most excellent.
  
• tv series – musical or comedy- ugly betty (would be happy with entourage as well). yes yes yes yes!!!! so fuckin' deserved.... ugly betty is the best show on tv right now.
  
• actor in a leading role – drama- patrick dempsey in grey’s anatomy (he’s dreamy you know). that dude from house got it - fuckin' great speech. never seen the show.
  
• actor in a leading role – musical or comedy- jason lee in my name is earl. alec baldwin eh? he ain't horrid.
  
• actress in a leading role – drama- ellen pompeo – grey’s anatomy. no comment really, never seen the closer... kyra's always solid.
  
• actress in a leading role – comedy or musical- america ferrera – ugly betty. again - this is fuckin' perfect. america is sublime. way to go
  

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unreleated; so i went back to work today... only made it about half the day... i was so fuckin' tired, had to come home and take a nap. i'm still on crutches (i totally figured i'd be off them by now, it's been 8 days).

tomorrow is another half day work wise - i have the follow up post-op dr appointment.

wish me well.

song of the heart

so the skinny mother fucker with the high voice won a golden globe award (best original song for the song of the heart) and was running late so he wasn't even there to accept it. sometimes i wonder where the fuck his mind is - the boy seriously lives in his own little purple world. who shows up late for an award ceremony? as a huge fan of the man, i gotta say - it's nice to see him back on the scene, but the song wasn't that strong was it?

oh, and seriously - what the fuck was cameron diaz wearing? i'll try and find a pic...

plum tuckered out

ventured out of the house for the first time today and boy did it tire me out... had lunch with my friend christopher today (tasty burger and fries at the longfellow grill).

still ambling about on crutches (especially for more than just walking from the bed to the couch) but it felt great to finally get out. things i've learned:

• it's difficult (but not impossible) to shave while supporting oneself on crutches.
• putting a sock and a shoe on when you can't fully bend (or extend for that matter) your leg can fuckin' hurt.
• walking through four inches of snow on crutches is fun.
• daytime tv sucks ass (and not in that good ass to mouth sort of way way).
• judi dench is a god.
• brian from cheapblueguitarspan> does not spend enough time entertaining me.

i think it's nap time. i'm a tired boy. but before that - tonight is the golden globes - the second greatest night of tv, so without further adu; my pics (truth be told i've not seen many of the flicks nominated - but i really do love the below performances...):

best picture – drama
-the departed

best picture – musical or comedy
-little miss sunshine

animated film
-cars

lead actor – drama
-leonardo dicaprio in the departed

lead actor – musical or comded
-chiwetel ejiofor in kinky boots (should win; sacha baron cohen in borat will win)

lead actress – drama
-helen mirren – the queen

lead actress – comedy or musical
-meryl streep – the devil wears prada

actor in a supporting role
- ben affleck in hollywoodland

actress in a supporting role
- emily blunt in the devil wears prada

director
- martin scorsese for the departed

tv series – drama
- heroes

tv series – musical or comedy
- ugly betty (would be happy with entourage as well)

actor in a leading role – drama
- patrick dempsey in grey’s anatomy (he’s dreamy you know)

actor in a leading role – musical or comedy
- jason lee in my name is earl

actress in a leading role – drama
- ellen pompeo – grey’s anatomy

actress in a leading role – comedy or musical
- america ferrera – ugly betty

i life less ordinary

sshhhh..., don't tell anyone, but i'm kinda a romantic - a sappy, romantic.

today, after the 867th film (serenity, for those keeping score) i've seen in the last few days, i was flipping through channels and i came across the last 20 minutes of a life less ordinary, one of the greatest flicks in the known universe if you ask me.

this 1997 flick, from the director of trainspotting and shallow grave was nothing short of revolutionary to me. i love danny boyle's (the aforementioned director) eye, sense of rhythm and frenetic directing style; a style that was perfect in the gritty trainspotting - but i would have never thought he could do a romantic comedy (albeit with a fair bit of tragedy thrown in) as well as he pulled off this flick.

i love everything about this movie - cameron diaz and ewan mcgregor are awesome, while delroy lindo and holly hunter (playing a brilliant pair of murdersome, meddling angels) are a pure delight.

from imdb: "ewan mcgregor stars as a cleaning man in l.a. who takes his boss's daughter hostage after being fired and replaced by a robot. two "angels" who are in charge of human relationships on earth, offer some unsolicited help to bring this unlikely couple together. the "angels" are so successful that the daughter soon turns on her father in order to save her captor."

i forgot about how much i love this movie and how much i love feeling happy about the possibility of love. i've already ordered a copy for my library.

can't wait to watch it from the start!!

celine: so your telling me that successful relationships are made in heaven? Not founded on the daily practicality of two people being prepared to tolerate the imperfections of one another?
robert: it’s not successful relationships celine, it’s love. and it comes from a strange and wonderful place that we don’t know about.
celine: so then, you also reject the idea that love is merely an emotional adaptation of a physical necessity?
robert: completely.
celeine: are you serious?
robert: fate intervenes in people’s lives.
celine: in ours for instance?
robert: fate brought us together, it kept us together. we were destined for one another.
celine: fate had a pretty strange way of making it’s point
robert: but that’s part of the beauty of it, it’s inexplicable, unpredictable and absolutely beyond control or understanding.
celine: but you nearly got killed…
robert: but i didn’t. and here we are.
celine: do you have any substantial evidence to back up all of this?
robert: none at all.
celine: and you realize that it’s absurd and irrational?
robert: i know that.
celine: then why do you believe it?
robert: because celine, i’m a dreamer
celine: i guess that makes two of us.
robert: are you ready?
celine: as i’ll ever be.
robert: then lets go….

brilliant! simply brilliant :-)

and for those up for a knee update (don't worry, no more pictures) - i'm doin' more or less ok. woke up this morning and could actually walk on the full pad of my foot - 'course that went away as the day progressed and i'm back to crutches. it's an evolution right? the swelling is down by about 50%, but i am still going fuckin' stir crazy. hopefully tomorrow i'll be without the crutches.

picture of the day

snapped this pic a couple of weeks ago (dec 31 actually) with cb in the car..... this is the world famous club "first avenue"; featured in the movie purple rain and home to about the best damn rock-n-roll experience in all of minneapolis.

i have always wished that as a young music afficiando, i would have kept all the ticket stubs to the various concerts i've been too - i think it would have been cool to be able to sit and reflect on what was once done... alas, i never kept ticket stubs for more than a couple of weeks so my recollection of who i've seen in this humble building is less than complete. but suffice to say, some of the greatest moments of music i've ever seen live, have been in first ave.

from the top of my head:

concrete blonde / siouxsie and the banshees / the creatures / lloyd cole / johnette napolitano / paul weller / soul asylum / the rembrandts / the jayhawks / ben folds five / pil / new order / youssou n'dour / ana voog / sounds of blackness / spiritulized / brother sun sister moon / me'shell n'degeo'cello / the afghan whigs / morphine / trip shakespeare / violent femmes / interpol / tori amos

ahh the memories :-)

christmas recap

christmas is always a mixed bag for me.... i mean, who doesn't love prezzies, right? i mean, hell ya, i love gettin' prezzies (i also particularly love to give them - search for eons for that perfect gift), but at the end of the day it's rare that i am ever given something truly personal - something that says as much about the person gifting me as it does me. i don't mean to sound ungrateful, but sometimes i feel like people just don't get me. and that saddens me a little. i will say this, it's fairly easy to buy for me on the surface (itunes gift cards, dvd's etc - that all works just fine), but the surface stuff isn't really me right?

this year, i got a very surprising prezzies

eon's ago i told a good friend about two treasured items from my childhood. two stuffed animals in fact. one stuffed animal i still own (a bear that's pushing 100 years old - he belonged to my grandmother, then my mom and now i have him), and a stuffed bunny that disappeared sometime in childhood. by the way their names were 'bear bear' and 'bungy rabbit' respectively - what can i say, i was never the most original child.

i told him this story well over a year ago (if not longer) and when i opened my christmas prezzies this guy was staring up at me out of the mylared bag:

there was a card under his butt: "kyle - my name is marty. i know i'm not like bearbear or bungy rabbit, and i know parker usually sleeps with you. but i hope that when you are alone or just need someone to hug, you'll think of me... because i'll be there waiting. (see? some bears are nice.) - marty"

and boys and girls, i gotta tell you, curling up with this big furry lug the last couple of nights with my knee propped up on 3 pillows has been mighty comforting.

picture of the day

cool ass pic from a church in boston - i have no idea what church, just saw it when i was walkin' around boston last november.

another view:

doesn't even look like a knee....

does it?

day 2.... i'm so over being cooped up in the house.... i'm sick of watching tv, movies and naps.... in the past two day's i've seen 'date movie', 'an evening with kevin smith 2; evening harder', 'clerks 2', 'failure to launch' and '24 hours on craigslist'!

other than that, today i've been on a ton of conference calls for work in between cleaning up after my cat. i switched her food on tuesday morning and she's done nothing but puke for the last two days.... emergency trip to the pet food store (ooh driving and vicodin a fun combo) to get her old food. this better work - i'm honestly more freaked out about her belly than my knee.

ugg, i need to be able to walk and to get out of the house - i'm going completely stir crazy.

....

knee surgery...

....went well.... was at the hospital at about noon, in my "gown" by 1.... sat around in the pre-op room watching tv till about 2:45. wheeled into the operating room then - on a side note, why do operating rooms in real life look nothing like they do in hollywood? i mean in hollywood movies & tv shows - o.r.'s are all sexy and dark and intimate. in real life, they are bright and cluttered and not sexy at all.

don't remember a thing after wheeling into the o.r.

woke up around 4:15 in post-op - very very very out of it.... i hate coming out of anesthesia. it sucks. all the fun of sleeping without the cool dreams or the restful waking. and then home by 6:30.

I personally haven’t talked to the surgeon, but my mom did, apparently there was a lot of "junk" that they carved out of from under my knee cap - including something that actually attached itself to my knee cap. can't imagine that was a good thing. i'll have pictures next week to share with all of you (and if your really curious, i have pics of my spleen i can show you - but that's another story).

knee feels "ok" today - just a numb feeling - it's pretty dramatically swollen and wrapped from mid thigh to ankle.

i've got crutches, vicodin & a big ol' stack of movies to watch. life is pretty good. doing a bit of work here and there too (mainly conference calls).

i've been horrible at updating sr.sl over the past month - the knee thing + a good dose of insane work has been keeping me distracted, but i've got a couple of fun posts in the pipeline and more than enough time to get off my ass and post something.

thank you for all the well wishes - they mean a lot to me. really :-)

medial meniscus and "other bodies"

wow - so much to update you all on - the holidays, my complete and utter total addiction to sports night, and my new years weekend with cb (by the way, ignore whatever he says about my "gameplay" - it's not my fault he can't draw worth a shit and his family is cruel and makes people "act out" shit) - and i will update you all, i promise... but

i got me some big fuckin' news for ya'll.

that there picture, that's a knee cap (well specifically it's showing you a medial meniscus). that there picture, that's my future. specifically my very near future.

next tuesday i will be going under the knife...

18 years ago i took a fairly dramatic fall that resulted in 3 tiny bone chips floating around under my knee cap roughing up my medial meniscus. the doctor then (and the 2 subsequent doctor's that have had the pleasure of poking and prodding my knee) essentially said "yup, you got some bone chips in there; you'll want to have those removed someday - in the mean time, here's a knee brace; off you go".

to which i generally responded with "why don't you fucking cut me open and remove the "other bodies" so i don't live with pain for the next 18 years". (they call bone chips "other bodies" - sounds vaugly alien doesn't it?)

interestingly enough, they ignored that question.

so there i was living off and on with sometimes marginal pain to sometimes blazingly intense pain - until this past november.

november was the beginning of the end.... my knee has progressively gotten worse and worse (tears may have been involved a time or two, i'm not ashamed to admit it). so i've finally found a lovely doctor who agreed to remove said "other bodies" in order to improve the quality of my life.

so this coming tuesday at 2:00pm my knee will be filleted and fixed.

i'm very happy about this.

in other non-meniscus news i just want to give a shout out to the original "nasty girl" who turned 48 today.

happy birthday vanity!