September 27, 2007 (1) Comments

Ok, I'm liveblogging the season premiere of Grey's until Chris gets here.

SPOILER ALERT!!!

9:25: Sandra Oh (I forgot all their names over the summer) gives the Grey's anatomy signature 20 second drama recap over a Lily Allen song. Dryly: "Some chick lost an arm, Meredith's half-sister is gonna be fucking Dr. Shepherd by October, Inga's outside saving the life of a deer so as not to offend her vegetarian sensibilities. How are you?"

9:27: Commercial for new George Clooney movie. George Clooney is my husband. Go see it, so our children can go to college.

9:28: CYMBALTA commercial - tagline "Depression Hurts" sounds like my 14 year old cousin's next fave band.

9:28:39: Yeah, I don't have DVR. What.

9:31: Inga is reading books on the circulatory systems of deer. Why not? She's already drilled a hole into the skull of a carpenter with a SKIL. (See: last season.) Music: MISCHIEVOUS.

9:32: Sandra Oh to patient. Dryly: "If your husband moves his head, it will roll off." Decapitation, a severed arm, a potential familial love triangle. Still 30 more minutes to up your grisly ante, Shonda? Can we get an impalement one time? Thanks.

9:35. Inga: "We're all freakin out. We're all freakin out. I'M Bambi. I'm A SAD CARTOON CHARACTER. I'M ALL ALONE IN THE FOREST, GEORGE. ALL ALONE IN THE FOREST." Pure COMEDY!

9:36: Dr. Shepherd is defending Sandra Oh to McSteamy RE: the departure of Isaiah Washington aka Dr. Burke. Sandra Oh and Dr. Shepherd will be fucking in 5... 4... 3... 2...

9:37: Some old dude, hungry after surgery, shoveled some marshmallows into his face earlier and now he's choking to death. Old man, don't you know corn syrup incurs the wrath of God?

9:42: Inga is saving the deer in the back of the truck, because she is seriesally incapable of performing any surgery that does not simultaneously serve as a lunkheaded metaphor for her own life.

9:43: The severed arm chick is now giving birth to her baby, while her arm is being reattached. Shonda Rimes, you do not fail me.

9:44: Sandra Oh is talking to this dead-not dead-dead-not dead guy about always remembering the one you love blah blah blah blahhhhhhhhhh

9:46: They're operating on somebody who eats nickels and scissors, apparently. Throwback jam to first episode where they found a gym towel in someone's abdomen.

9:46:39: Meredith's new half-sister is playing therapist to George, who's having a minor meltdown, while conveniently recapping the entirety of last season. George is definitely gonna sleep with Meredith's half-sister, angering both Inga and his semi-estranged wife, La Chingada.

9:48: TOTALLY CALLED IT! Meredith is enviously looking on to her optimistic half-sister and seriously hating. Meredith needs to get cozy with some Cymbalta.

9:50: Tina Fey has her own American Express commercial! (Where the fuck is Chris? I need to hear the ham napkin joke again. [30 ROCK PREMIERE NEXT WEEK! WATCH IT!])

9:55: Inga, with a deer-blood moustache (or bad make-up?), gives a backhanded inspirational speech to the incoming interns. You go on with your bad self, Inga.

9:56: Yet another coy, piano-bonered indie rock song comes on. George finds his self-worth. Sandra Oh is sitting near the window crying, thinking, "Why did my long lost love have to be a homophobe? Now they're going to make me sleep with Patrick Dempsey, and he's a virulent egomaniac."

9:58: Meredith voice-over. She wants to punch her half-sister in the face for getting faded with her ex-boyf down at O'Hanahans at the end of last season.

9:59: Dr. Shepherd and Meredith are breaking up in a closet in the hospital. Matter of factly. Now they're going to sleep together again - cause no breakup is complete without outro sex. (Exit sex, if you will.)

10: George is back at Inga's, reaffirming La Chingada's recent, post-marriage portrayal as the unsexy, kid-desiring matron... to think just eight episodes ago she was a true freak with a hankering for whiskey and a role model for thick, sexually liberated, boozy Latinas everywhere. Thanks a bunch Shonda. Thanks for slowing my roll.

September 27, 2007 (0) Comments

Because "finding a fucking animatronic deer in the back of the truck" is the new "jumping the shark" : season premiere of Grey's Anatomy has been on for 18 minutes and I have already campy-laughed like six times. A Fucking ANIMATRONIC DEER? GET IT TOGETHER, TIMMY! THE DEER CAN'T GO BACK IN THE WILDERNESS AFTER HUMAN HANDS HAVE TAINTED IT WITH THEIR SCENT!
If fucking Inga or whatever the fuck that blonde chick's name is (Izzy) saves the deer, I'm OUT.

Missed Ugly Betty cause I was at the Obama rally, bawling my face into my notes.

Thinking about liveblogging the rest of Grey's, but Chris is coming over to watch the season premiere of 30 Rock for the 500th time (got it on DVD, thank you Jon Caramanica aka Jack Donaghy to my Liz Lemon). IT'S SO FUCKING GOOD BTW.

September 27, 2007 (0) Comments

This is the coolest thing I've heard in awhile, I mean from a "horror and vengeful space creatures mutation nerd" perspective. Shout to my girl Sigourney!

September 26, 2007 (0) Comments

Our man David Banner on Capitol Hill (Master P and Michael Eric Dyson to right).

I am glad Master P apologized (though skeptical about his motives - he is after all a business, man, and he's got a new kids label to run) BUT I am even gladder D. Banner stuck to his principles... I'm an anti-censorship anti-misogynist, and while his next album is phenomenal and has some real ass nasty ass lyrics about like, diving his power drill into your wood grain or some shit, I wouldn't dare suggest dude shut the fuck up. I would definitely argue with him about the meaning of "ho" and what it means to, you know, "power-chow" on your "chicharrones" or whatever-whatever, but I wouldn't want him to stop being him. (Plus, there's a BIG difference between nasty-ass / porny / uncouth and patriarchally violent.) My fist ends where yr nose begins and whatnot (unless you deserve a beatdown).
OK back to wk

September 26, 2007 (0) Comments

Our man David Banner on Capitol Hill (Master P and Michael Eric Dyson to right).

I am glad Master P apologized (though skeptical about his motives - he is after all a business, man, and he's got a new kids label to run) BUT I am even gladder D. Banner stuck to his principles... I'm an anti-censorship anti-misogynist, and while his next album is phenomenal and has some real ass nasty ass lyrics about like, diving his power drill into your wood grain or some shit, I wouldn't dare suggest dude shut the fuck up. I would definitely argue with him about the meaning of "ho" and what it means to, you know, "power-chow" on your "chicharrones" or whatever-whatever, but I wouldn't want him to stop being him. (Plus, there's a BIG difference between nasty-ass / porny / uncouth and patriarchally violent.) My fist ends where yr nose begins and whatnot (unless you deserve a beatdown).
OK back to wk

September 24, 2007 (0) Comments

Soap opera stars are generically attractive, and I think that's partly why they're employed. Soap watchers, yr average chica, want to look at a dude on tv and be like, "wow he's hot... and I could potentially date him." They're no Clooneys, they're no Denzels. You couldn't pick these dudes and their moussey hair perfection off an NYC street - they are generic weekend west villagers or maybe more midtown-level starbucking park walkers who, if they asked to buy you a mocha latte, you wouldn't turn down. But you could totally get a date with a dude equally or slightly more attractive. I'm saying.

I spent most of Friday on the set of a popular soap opera, as an extra, watching America's biggest and hulkiest superproducer that's not Dr. Dre perform. They wrote Timbaland into the plot, and they wanted some "actual" journalists in the audience, though I'm not sure why cuz there was no mention of our presence, nor were we holding clipboards or wearing trenchcoats or shouting out provocative hard questions such as, "Timbaland. What's your take on the 50 Cent Kanye soundclash?" The executive director sat me and my new friend Marcus from AOL Black Voices and this chick from BET and another new friend / model / extra Tia, who has been in VIBE fashion like five times and was totally in the June (or July) 2005 issue of Teen Vogue in one of my favorite spreads ever (on the beach with cute pop-art/graffiti maillots) they sat us all in this booth in this mock club set - CLUB CAPRICORN - inside ABC studios. A mealyfaced white guy with a bbq lighter in a holster kept coming over and re-lighting the votives on our table. 40 other extras, dressed in their Forever 21 best, milled around and danced, and we cheered and screamed for like 47 takes. It is not inappropriate that my network television debut may be a clip of me going "woooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!" I was wearing tons of make-up.

Keri Hilson was there. She and Tim had to do "The Way I Are" five times for the cameras - a little bald dude ran around with his fingers up - "FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE, ROLLING!" Keri killed it - she sang it live over pre-recorded track, but that shit is extra choreographed to sound like it's not choreographed - she sang the same way every time, her high-pitched vibrato fluttering. Between takes, Timbaland entertained the shit out of us, or himself, rather - he seemed bored - beatboxing, cracking jokes, doing caricature imitations of Kanye West "stronger," of biggie "juicy," of kelly clarkson "since u been gone" in a crazy falsetto. During the chorus on Clarkson, keri took over and sang it for real, for real real, a capella, but cracked on the super high "YEAH, YEAH!" note. She stopped and meekly giggled, "respect to kelly clarkson, this is hard." Keri's voice is more nightengale sweet than throaty R&B which is why she A. is perfect for timbo's current glossy techno hankering and B. will be a pop star. That and she's like, banoculously gorgeous. Not tall at all, though - which tells you the height of Timbaland and Polow, considering she towers over them in every photo. The only tall famous people are Rich Boy and Jay-Z. Everyone else is leprechauns.

One Republic, the fake-Coldplay on Tim's album, opened. I don't know what song they played, but they had a live cellist and a decent beat I could groove to and it wasn't so bad, cause they only had to do two takes.

I feel like I'm sub-literate right now. It's been a long weekend, with lots of conversations, late nights, Obama arguments with strangers, rooftop barbecues, meeting scientists and film folx, ill-advised karoake, late-night walks home, and new and old friends. More later, perhaps when I process and get past the superficial observations of the soap world. The set and process were interesting, but sometimes I wonder if being around TRL so much jaded me to the lights, camera, action, at least the production qualities of it all. Not to mention celebrity (on large and small/community scales) is icky, and lately I've felt even more oversaturated by / weary of the gossip / schadenfreude culture /TMZ boner everyone on the netses seems to have- although I will say I think it's gonna bottom out sometime semi-soon. I hope that it does, anyway. I mean, we are gonna go to war with Iran, you know? I am ready for the webformational hierarchy to reprioritize away from Britney's chocha and back onto the shit we should at least be informed about, even if we have no hope to control it. I would also have liked for the news-news to have covered OJ less on Black Thursday, the day of the Jena 6 march, and covered more... Black Thursday. By the way, Shaheem Reid has been doing an excellent job of covering all aspects of his experiences there, in Jena, at mtv.com.

September 20, 2007 (0) Comments

Amazing. This momentum will continue - Rev. Al Sharpton believes it will be a reinvigoration of civil rights movement.

If you don't know - ya better figure it out.

September 20, 2007 (3) Comments

MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

September 12, 2007 (8) Comments

This is some real pretentious, self-congratulatory hilarity. Written in the kind of high-horsey tone that we at the Mercury (the weekly paper where i was arts editor for 4 yrs) used to make fun of the Willamette Week for copping all the time - like "Portlandia! argh argh argh *chortle chortle*" (excuse the pdx insider baseball)
like everyone wants to make this "THING" out of portland's white people - indie rock population - it's like this weird, toxic combo of starfucking and envy that manifests itself in this annoying writer-voice no matter who's writing - the haughty voice that's kind of "otherizing" about its subjects, but also "i know better than you, gentle reader" at the same time. also LOL at "Bay Area's recent 'hyphy' movement"

what would be great though is if someone wrote in this voice explaining the inexplicable magic of Dungeons and Dragons.

i really miss the stumptown coffee though - and the huge-mongous fucking mansion me and connie and blas lived in (with backyard! and basement!) for $350 each/ month. and my friends. especially connie and blas. and ezra.

September 10, 2007 (0) Comments

I wrote this M.I.A. feature approximately 94 years ago. Was supposed to go in the August 2007 issue of VIBE, as package w/Dizzee Rascal, but got cut at last minute for pages. Now it is on the internet, for free.

September 9, 2007 (1) Comments

"A Wrinkle in Time" was one of 5000 books I read in 4th grade that proved to me I could be, and would be, a writer. Love and peace to a woman who believed, wholly, in love and peace.

“Why does anybody tell a story?” Ms. L’Engle once asked, even though she knew the answer.

“It does indeed have something to do with faith,” she said, “faith that the universe has meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically.”

September 9, 2007 (0) Comments

These guys are smarter than you! (And You! And You! And You! You're gonna love em. YEAHHHH WOO WOO WOO.)

September 6, 2007 (0) Comments

Sometimes I think my heart is too tender for this world.
After three cigarettes, a deepfried mushroom sandwich and a caramel custard from Shake Shack, it's an easy conclusion.

The last activity of summer: me and E. on the Madison Square Park green, watching Venus Williams play that other chick, you know, the one with the last name, on a drive-in-size projector screen. No humidity, just the nightlights twinkling in the park - a winky glow, my impression of season's end. Shit is done, summer blew, my autumn riding boots are ready to make their debut. Will is texting me the lowlier aspects of the Republican debates - Mitt Romney's dealing banal cards, flinging his moral javelin, blindfolded. The hypnotic pop, silence, pop of the Wilsons drifting from the screen and over the lawn, nigh-dead mosquitos making last supper from my ankles. we have to win shep, Will's texting, we have to. He is still the only person who can call me by that nickname and make it sound tender, endeared, not like a dog or a perverted Massachusetts football coach. I promise him we will. We. Will. Not. Lose.

I have dreams. I dream of Barcelona beaches, composition books and Pilot G-3 gels and an unending supply of time. I dream of going CIA on my vacation to Amman for Ramadan - getting fat Clooney with it, but harming no one. I dream of climbing into a deep sea diving bell, alone, so I can peer at the nitrogenous crimson tubeworms growing up from the volcanic fissures in the ocean's nether reaches, of dropping deeper still, of letting go. I dream of being untethered.

Venus won the match.

September 4, 2007 (0) Comments

THIS SONG HAS BEEN REPLAYING IN MY HEAD FOR TWO WEEKS. REASON: UNKNOWN. Please join me in my adulation of sensuous pop islandry, unending affection for the giant 1992 flip-receiver cell, and bury your face in the man born Rexton Rawlston Fernando Gordon.

September 3, 2007 (5) Comments

A month ago Connie sent me three boxes, four years on, full of stuff what I left when I moved away from the Left Coast, and I'm just now finding the time to unload them, gradually. Most of it is old journals, books of poetry from 1998, fanzines I forgot I wrote for (Kitty Magik, anyone? QUI UBOLE, KITTY MAGIK?), books I'm glad I didn't lose (Signifying Rappers: David Foster Wallace & Mark Costello; The Man in the High Castle: Philip K. Dick; New York City Ballet Workout: proto-pilates). But tonight, TONIGHT, I UNCOVERED THE ARC OF THE COVENANT OF MY JUNK!: The handwritten postcard from Dan Clowes, esteemed graphic novelist, in response to my elaborate fan letter, after he blew my mind clean open with Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron and the then-new David Boring thread in Eightball (pre-superfame, pre-Ghost World movie). God bless 'im, he wrote the following, POSTMARKED JAN 3, 2000:

Eightball
2140 Shattuck AVe
Suite 2107
Berkeley, CA 94704

Julianne Shepherd
314 NW 5th Ave #213
Portland, OR 97209

hi Julianne,
Thanks for your generous offer. Unfortunately, I am not marriage material (just ask my wife). You should hold out for someone better.
My best to you, and thank you for the kind words.
Daniel Clowes

-----------

Jon mocked me today for writing such an effusive a fan letter as recently as 2000 but as I pointed out, 2000 was before the internet was invented and I was working at a comic shoppe at the time so I got over on the special nerd clause. DAN CLOWES!!

jon mocking me

September 1, 2007 (1) Comments

If you have not yet sat down and read the Jezebel column "Crap Email from a Dude" in its entirety DO IT NOW. This one's the best - both cause of the astute and highly relatable statement "Summertime brings with it two things: weddings, and bad decisions," and the text from John Doe - classic material.
Also, whoever came up with the term "emosogyny" (and applied it to the Zach Braff breed of boy-faker) is a total genius.

More later - goin to see Aventura at Madison Square Garden. Jon put me on to them via "Un Beso" - which is not so much the bachata as the romance, I think. And the fact that I can practice my semi-rusty rumba. Also, the singer's cute. Such simple pleasures.

September 1, 2007 (0) Comments

Before we get into it, I just wanna say: These are, as Pete pointed out, the last few days to wear white pants with abandon.

Now. I have long been of the opinion that Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins is the scourge of the universe. He was good in the '90s, but for the past, like, three-five years dude has been seriously Scott-Storching his shit (aka phoning in the same "signature" beats/melodies), and yet every corpo R&B singer feels the need to give him nine quattajillion dollars for tracks in which he half-assedly plunks down some over-muted beats and that dramatic synth stab he puts in everything and only ever gives the singer like two notes to warble over a dead-in-the-water chorus - all just because that one time, he wrote "Say My Name." Like Storch, people go to him cause he's familiar, supposedly catchy, and they think an already semi-familiar radio single will get people to buy the album, which may or may not be the case, but it doesn't matter anymore because, you know, who cares about albums. Let's take a look at dude's recent track record:

Beyonce "Deja Vu" - mega underwhelming
Megan Rochell "The One U Need" - bad song + Def Jam = her album's never coming out
Shareefa "Need a Boss" - love this song, but illustrates the above two-notes theory
Bobby Valentino "Turn the Page" - zzzzzz
Natasha "So Sick" - I guess the two-note theory works here cause Natasha can't sing for shit
Danity Kane "Hold Me Down" - perfect example of how dude writes action-movie scores, not pop&b tracks - i picture D. Woods dodging explosions and doing stop-drop-and-rolls under red sports cars. emotion? PAH!
Ciara "Can't Leave Em Alone" - hmmm. there's something familiar about this - oh yeah it's basically Destiny's Child "Cater 2 U"

Which leads us to: "Shoulda Let U Go," the ill advised second single from my fav singer Keyshia Cole's new album. HE RECYCLED THE SAME BEAT/MELODY he used in Mary J. Blige's "Enough Cryin"? FOR SHAME.

I can barely speak about this, I am so furious.