The Sound of Silent Film

Last night there was an event at the Chopin Theatre called "The Sound of Silent Film." Originally I had a small group going with me, but everyone bowed out at the last minute, so I went it alone. I thought about skipping it, but I'm glad I didn't. The show consisted of several short silent films which were recent creations and music that was either composed by local living composers or improvised by musicians. One of the musicians groups was called Hard Art and they were really good. The played six short pieces which had leftist themed lyrics. The upright bassist was also the composer and the singer. He had a song about finding the Uranium necessary for making the first nuclear bomb and used words like "it's a stranium on my cranium to find Uranium." Pretty funny.

Afterward, I was supposed to meet Dee and Frank out at Holiday for some karaoke madness. Or, just karaoke, I guess. On the bus there, there's these two guys that get on around Fullerton and Ashland. One is a typical-looking latino guy and the other one is a well-coiffed latino guy. The coiffed guy is obviously drunk and is talking very very loud about the restaurant they work at and then talking about how normally he takes a cab home but the bus was just there and that he lives with his partner up in Rogers Park and they have a car, but his partner is a school teacher in the suburbs. He's just goin' on and on and sooo loud. First the normal-looking latino guy gets off and then the drunk one gets off at the same stop as me and as the bus slows down he's standing behind me and he coughs and this spittle flies near my head and I'm sooo grossed out and I'm thinking that I hope this guy doesn't even try to hit on me or something. When I get off the bus I walk really fast and he doesn't follow.

When I get to Holiday, the really cute door guy, Preston, who was the object of a missed connection (not mine) on craigslist a few weeks back is working the door and he says "hello brother," but I don't think he actually recognizes me.

Dee sings Spiderwebs by No Doubt and Frank does a rendition of something who's name escapes me, but he only knew the chorus and so did I.

Some drunk dorks do Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer and I think I could do better and then I see At The Drive-In's One Hand Scissor and I think, "ooh I could do that." I point it out to Frank and he's never heard of it.

I was trying to explain the other day the significance of having access to television in terms of being a part of a living culture as it happens. Right now I have a TV and a DVD player, but no television service, not even an antenna for basic broadcast television and what this does is it precludes me from that sort of water cooler conversation the next day after Lost or Desperate Housewives or whatever. This is the same with music. In general I only buy CDs when an opening band surprises me or on the few occasions I go to Reckless and buy CDs from labels I like. In either case, karaoke usually doesn't work with my music. It's weird - there's this huge binder full of songs and I don't know the words to so many of the songs and then everyone's all singing along and I feel left out, but it's still pretty fun to watch. Like going to Showtunes Mondays at Sidetracks with all the 'mos singing showtunes like they're in high school theatre.

After about a 1/2 hour Dee decides we need a scenery change and we head to Hydrate, but then while in the car first she says "I'm so drunk," and then, "we need to go to my apartment so I can get baked." It was kinda funny. So, we go to her place for a few and I play with her kitty and then we go to Hydrate and cute bartender John makes very strong Stoli Vanilla and Diets and I can barely taste the diet. There are few people I know at the bar but there's a few and I say hello and there's this guy who used to date this guy that I had a crush on and I think (am pretty sure) he hates me eventhough the first time I'd met his boyfriend he didn't mention having a boyfriend and then by then I was smitten and it totally wasn't my fault. Plus this was like 5 or 6 years ago and I think the guy doesn't live in chicago anymore anyway. Anyway, I hope he can get over hating me but he probably won't cuz he just has that look about him. And there's this other guy there who I met pretty recently and we had played a little phone tag and he was obviously "with" someone and so only sheepishly said hello and I was very respectful and didn't push him to chat or anything. Ugh. People are weird. Me included.

So, after two of those vanilla diets I'm pretty trashed and I guess after being sick for just a few days I'm already a light-weight again. I take a cab home and when I get there pop in a French film called 8 Women and the herb is still affecting me because the french language is soo beautiful but it doesn't keep me awake, anyhow and I wake up to the main dvd menu of the film and I have no idea what I'd watched. And I look and there's a bowl out of which I guess I at Ravioli mixed with Chees Dog Twistaroni (how old am I?). Oops.

This morning I was quite hungover. Not too fun.

Update

I've added some content to the art section. Go take a lookity.

The Last Samurai (Or, Why does Everything Make me Cry?)

OK, I frickin' loved The Last Samurai. I can't stand Tom Cruise, but I mean, c'mon most people wouldn't waste the piss to pee on Eminem, but lots of people think he's good at what he does. I'm not so sure that Cruise made the film, but I know that the film was moving and beautiful. It took a long time and the first fight scene was like in the middle or some shit, but that first fight was fantastic. And, what's really awesome about a film like this is that it had both fight scenes and battle scenes. Well, one. The final battle scene is powerful. I so want to find out how much of it was based on a true story (I'd heard that it was) and where I can find some primary sources. The film depicts Cruise's character as keeping a journal. I would love to look at some of those pages. It would be cool to see his initial dabbling into Japanes Kanji. I'm sure license was taken in that Cruise's character was depicted as this sort of undisciplined loose cannon that found the discipline of the Japanese Samurai culture to be awe-inspiring. This would be the Man vs. Self part of the story. OK, well, anyway, good film. I highly recommend it, but maybe you can steal it or something, so that no money goes to that douche Tom Cruise.

6 movies and 5 television episodes later

I got sick over the end of the weekend. The flu. It was during this time that I am in the 6-at-a-time category of Netflix. I don't have any television service. No Cable and no network television, so Netflix is my only passive entertainment. When you're sick, you don't really like reading or doing stuff like that.

I watched:
Daredevil
Elektra
The Day After Tomorrow
Maria Full of Grace
Overnight
Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is the only one I've seen before. It's in my collection, though I don't own it. I think it's Erik's. I've been meaning to ask him if he wants it back. Either way, it was a good re-watch.

Elektra was better than Daredevil.

The Day After Tomorrow was aight. I think it had the same guy from Donnie Darko, interestingly.

Maria Full of Grace was good. I was surprised it was written by some white guy indie filmaker. Weird.

Overnight was about this guy who was in a band and wrote a screenplay and both his band and his screenplay were about to break and his cockiness kind of came out and he pissed off Harvey Weinstein, who is basically God of Hollywood and everything went to hell. This guy was so cocky, it was kind of painful to watch. I had to wonder how much of the footage was picked to show just this aspect of him. It's so hard to tell. It was a documentary. A decent watch for people who like looking inside hollywood. Fans of Project Greenlight might like this.

So, I stayed home from work for two days and on the second day I worked on this photo project I've been sort of planning for many years. After years of going to shows, I have lots of long-exposure photos of bands which start to look abstract. I cropped 2" x 2" digital images, printed them on nice kodak fancy paper through a service, and then matted and framed 16 prints in 5 1/2" clip frames. They look pretty good. I'm hoping to hang them in my apartment tonight and take an installation photo. S'funny, all 16 prints pretty much fit in a 2' x 2' sqare. They look pretty awesome, though. Two in particular look kinda like Rothko paintings; they're my favorites. I figure these pieces have double marketing potential: someone who likes abstract photography with lots of wild color can like them, and someone who's into indie bands could also like them. Probably if anyone buys them (I think I'm only gonna be selling them for like $30-$40), they'll be fans of both. Bands I have pictures of include: Appleseed Cast, Bear Vs. Shark, Minus The Bear, Liars, Three Dollar Bill, Terminus Victor, Life at Sea, and Sleeping at Last. Obviously, this means I have multiple piictures of a few bands. Fortunately most of the bands I have multiples of are more popular ones.

Also I've completed some other new art projects and started some new ones. I'm hoping my crappy camera will take some decent pictures, but if not I may have to just break down and get a new one. Spending money sucks.