Moving forward towards a glorious new tomorrow

As you can see from the post dated 9/19, Max's World now features video for download. I hope to be able to upload something fresh every month or so. And this was all no small feat, mind you. I've been trying to put video up for a couple months now. Once again, Blogger's Knowledge Base is not a miracle of convenience. Plus, this sort of uploading would have been a nightmare with my old dialup connection. Just a quick peek behind the scenes here at Max's World.

So, to make posting new videos easier, I ran out today (to be honest though, it was less like "ran" and more like "rode in the car while my girlfriend drove") and bought a 128 MB Memory Stick for my camcorder. Now I can shoot video directly onto the card, and I don't have to dick around with capturing video off a tape and compressing it to a manageable filesize.

So to sum up: $800 for the camera. $50 for the memory card. $30/month for DSL to upload it. $50/year for the site to host it. Untold dozens of dollars in man-hours working on that fishtank (Perplexed? See the video). I think, in the end, this cost more to make than "El Mariachi".

Upshot: At least I didn't have to sell my blood to finance it.

Maybe I'll get Salma Hayek to star in the sequel...

PS Speaking of Robert Rodriguez: the best line in his "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" which we saw last night, as delivered by the incredible Johnny Depp: "Are you a Mexican or a Mexican't?"

Suburban renewal

Watch as we use our favorite possession to document the destruction of our least favorite possession.

Smashy smashy!

Chicken Soup for the Damned Soul

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Devil. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky. In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were a set of footprints and a set of cloven hoofprints. Other times there was just the one set of footprints. This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, like when I beat the drifter to death with a shovel, I could see only my own footprints.

So I said to the Devil, "You promised me, Prince of Lies, that if I followed You, You would walk with me always. But I noticed that during the most trying periods of my life, like when I strangled that hooker, there have only been one set of my footprints in the sand. Why, When I have needed You most, You have not been there for me?"

Lucifer replied, "My precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I possessed you."."

Concert Review: White Stripes, Greek Theater, 9/13/03

Simply un-friggin'-believable. This band is scary talented. I don't think it would be an exagerration to say that Jack White is the greatest guitarist of his generation. There is nothing clean or neat about his playing, it simply howls. He throws himself around the stage like a caged animal while Meg stares him down with laser-beam eyes. Most bands put on concerts - the White Stripes put on a SHOW.

The opening band: I'm a Robot. Bowie-ish glam rock meets early Cure with a singer channeling Geddy Lee. Great sound, crappy songs. Also, their set seemed to really drag on. It was almost as long as the Stripes's.

Low point: The Stripes show old Betty Boop and Little Lulu cartoons in between the warm-up act and their own set. At first, we all liked it, but after the third or fourth Little Audrey cartoon it got a bit old. It would have been more fun had the house music played before and after the concert not been so amazing; lots of Hank Williams and other "old-timey" country and bluegrass. Bring on more of that.

High point: Jack did a spoken-word rendition of Johnny Cash's "I've Got Stripes". Just Jack, reading off of a lyric sheet, but it was so honest and heartfelt and somehow more appropriate than the Cash cover song we thought we'd hear.

Best of set: "I Just Don't Know What to Do With Myself", followed closely by "Ball and Biscuit". "I Just Don't Know" has some truly spectacular guitar work, the equal of any of the bone-crushing solos on "Ball and Biscuit".

Run, do not walk, to see this band in your town. I give 'em ****1/2. I deduct half a star for having a set run under an hour. It may be that Jack is still recovering from a broken finger, but Django Reinhardt only had three. You make do with what God gave you, and you turn in a 90 minute set (at least). Sorry to be stern, but that's the law 'round these parts.

Johnny, Warren and Joe

Some of my thoughts tonight, originally posted on the EN World messageboards...

(first post)
I'm listening to Don't Take Your Guns to Town right now. What an amazing song. The more I think about this, the worse I feel. Three of my musical idols (Cash, Zevon, and Strummer) dead in a year's time. Those three artists were pretty much my entire musical upbringing.

I used to write a music column for my school paper. This was back in the early 90s, when bubblegum punk was just arriving as the flavor du jour. I'd get these tapes from 16 year olds who put on a Johnny Rotten sneer and thought that they were rebels. Forget about raw talent, which was usually lacking. Not one of them had the intellect, the attitude, the sheer cojones of what I remembered as the real rebels of my youth. And at the time, all three of them were walking the Earth and waiting for some kid to discover them.

And now all three are gone. Some kid will never discover these storytellers, these poets of the downtrodden and the lost. They'll know about rebellion; cash-strapped record execs and MTV's cynical programmers know that leather, tattoos and bad grammar will always sell. But I'm afraid no teenager will know what it is that they're rebelling against.

(Second post)
It just kills me every time I open up my new Rolling Stone and, without fail, there's a picture of Eminem flipping the bird (Don't believe me? There's one right in the latest issue). Johnny Cash was doing that 30 years ago, back when it was cool. When Eminem does it, it just looks like a guy who lived with his mom well into his twenties who's trying way too hard to look cool.

That was the great thing about Johnny Cash - he never came off as just an act. The black clothes, the downbeat lyrics, the attitude, it all could have been so gimmicky. When he talked about wearing black to show his sympathy for the poor and working-class people that listened to him, it didn't come off as overly earnest, either. He was a genuine artist who seemed to lack any shred of artifice. There aren't too many like him left. Neil Young's one. Springsteen's another. And crap, they're getting on in years too. Ugh.

(End of posts)

Thank you Johnny. The world's a much emptier place for your passing.

The Death of Optimism

Rachel bought a new furniture set over the weekend. She told me the shipping company said that it would be here Sunday afternoon. My response was, "Yeah right. There's no way they'll be here when they say they will." She gave me her typical dirty look she reserves for occasions when I wax cynical. But sure enough, 4:30 PM rolls around and they call us to say that they won't have it to us until "maybe Monday."

I did my little "jig of righteousness" but I took little comfort in being right AGAIN. This was all just very unsatisfying. Now, I've worked with freight companies in the past, and I know better than anyone that with them, equivocation is the name of the game. When they say "tomorrow", what they really mean is "the day after tomorrow, if the stars are right".

But lately I've been feeling this a lot. Of course our furniture's late, and we're sitting on the carpet watching TV while our old couch is out on the lawn. Of course our goverment doesn't work - what do these recall advocates expect?. Of course I've been temping for a year with no sign of permanency in sight - I mean, all I've done is work hard and show up every day. Of course those MTV Awards are going to suck. The Era of Diminished Expectations is upon us! Rejoice!

When did it become okay to be this cynical? When did it stop being a defense mechanism, and instead become a legitimate world-view? I look around, and I see a lot of messed-up people who've just thrown up their hands and said "This sucks, but what are you going to do?"