I SAY I SAY I SAY

Tired today. Drove back from Seattle and got in at 2 in the morning; was still in the office by 8. I work for you people.

Erasure was nothing short of fantastic. I was pumped by the end. Andy Bell continues to be over-the-top and camp, wearing an Old-West-style dress with a hoop skirt, then stripping down to just the hoop and leather get-up, and then even further down to just leather shorts and boots—shameless. The set dressing was made to look like an old house, complete with reclining couch and a screen for changing. It was just Andy and Vince on stage, along with two back-up singers.

I overheard the couple next to me commenting on how many bald heads there were in the audience, and how the crowd was so old—before one of them had the realization, “Then again, we’re 35.”

I expected a set made up almost entirely of covers from Other People’s Songs, but we only got about five in the two hour show. The rest were almost completely the hits, skipping only the Cowboy album. We got “Stop,” “Always,” “A Little Respect,” “Rock Me Gently,” "Love to Hate You," "Alien," "Breath of Life," “In Your Arms,” “Blue Savannah,” "Chains of Love," "Chorus," “Victim of Love,” “Ship of Fools,” "Oh, L'Amour," “Sometimes”—and more. The highlight though was Wild!’s gorgeous “Piano Song.” Very much a surprise.

The girl in front of me I swear could have been Parker Posey’s sister. I was pretty smitten, and spent the show imagining in my head that I was smooth, and all the things I’d say to her if I was as cool as I fantasize myself as being. It could have been lovely.

*

The oft-mentioned and much beloved Kelly Sue DeConnick has a new website. Visit it and give it kisses.

Current Soundtrack: Morrissey, Bona Drag; The Small Faces, Greatest Hits (there's a million, pick one)

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

SO STRUNG OUT ON YOU

Today I am on the ball. I was up and out of the house by 8:30, and down to Starbucks. This despite having stayed up to about 2:00 am. I have whittled away at Man of Many Faces and gotten to just past the halfway point, and now I am ready to plow through it. I’ve been here for a bit, warming up with some coffee and the similarly named coffee cake, proofreading designs for the Atomic City Tales 2: Doc Phantom trade paperback (Matt Fraction continues our recent spurt of awesome introductions; the boy is mad!), continuing my Supergrass high with Life on Other Planets, including it’s various single B-sides.

Now I am ready to begin…

*

…and two hours and twenty Geneva B-sides later, I am done.

Current Soundtrack: Supergrass, In It For the Money (main disc)

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ARE YOU DERANGED ENOUGH?

Concert night #2 began with disappointment. The Coral had cancelled. Snow in Colorado had stranded them and they couldn’t get to town. Really, really bummed. They were the band out of all of them I wanted to see the most.

Our consolation prize was Detroit’s Electric Six. This is a little like being told you are going to get truffles and they feed you grub worms instead. They should have called themselves Elephant Shit for all the lumpy turds they left in my ears. Wow. They were so bad. Like Jon Spencer joined My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult bad. It’s like their whole act was based on a Gallon Drunk performance from 1993, only the tape they were watching was coded like an illegal cable feed, having the same effect as horny adolescents watching scrambled porn. They make out enough to think they know what is happening, but really don’t see how all the parts fit together.

I bet fans of the Hives think Electric Six are completely brilliant. The importance of charisma is lost on the dull.

Thankfully, Supergrass were awesome. I have not been all that enthusiastic about Supergrass or Life on Other Planets. They’re decent albums, but it sounds to me as if the passion has gone out. Like the magnificent energy they expelled to make In it For The Money was impossible to replenish.

And sure enough, the songs off the first two albums sounded the best, but the newer stuff takes on so much more life in the live arena. Someone gave them a tune transfusion.

The crowd was pretty decent. Our one odd note of the night was the drunk girl behind us who tried to convince us that we weren’t rocking enough, and thus we didn’t deserve to be in the front row and should give up our spots. A kid next to us got tired of her yapping between songs, and rather calmly but sternly told her to shut up. It worked. I was amazed.

Current Soundtrack: Love & Rockets, Seventh Dream of a Teenage Heaven (original version); In it For The Money limited edition second disc of B-sides

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HE POURS HIS HEART OUT UNTIL HIS THIRST FOR COLLEGE GIRLS IS SATISFIED

I expected at least one of my concerts to be cancelled this weekend. But it looks for Erasure and Supergrass are just ending their tours, so they are over here and unless protests turn into apocalyptic riots, we should be safe. (Idlewild, who play Portland on the 3/29, start their tour tonight…so I imagine that could be in jeopardy.)

Which, apparently there was some real craziness in Portland last night. Of the three bridges I could have taken over the river from the office to the show, I apparently picked the right one. I looked down Grand and saw some flashing lights, so I jumped on the Hawthorne Bridge—the proper choice since protesters closed down the others. I had no idea. It always seems weird to me that the protests end up disrupting traffic and things. I mean, I understand that it’s because there is a mass of people in the street, and I also understand these people want to be heard—but what I don’t understand is the logic of stopping people from getting home in order to try to convince them of your message. Human nature being what it is, you’re more likely going to turn people against you by inconveniencing them. And yes, you can tell me all you want how much more inconvenient it is to have bombs dropped on you, but I’m talking human nature being what it is. Which is imperfect.

I only saw one protester myself. As I passed, I tried to read his sign, but it was too complicated. Three small lines leading to one big punchline—but I forget the punchline because I was too busy trying to read the other lines which was impossible on a drive-by. Again, unclear of the concept. When all you have is a couple of seconds to catch someone with your slogan, making it complicated seems to be counterproductive.

The gig itself was interesting. It looked to be empty at first, but eventually, there was a decent turnout.

The Music were quite fantastic. They were what I expected—pretentious and ridiculous, but super tight and delivering the goods. The band had it together and made a big, big noise. I imagine without the constraints of an opening slot they’d be prone to unending jamming, but all that was in check here. They remind me of early Verve and the druggy Black Crowes, and maybe a little bit of, dare I say, Kula Shaker (who were insanely stupid, but had some good choons). There is a gloriously fun over-the-top sincerity to The Music. I mean, consider that name. You can imagine the band meeting. “Dude, you know, it’s really all about the music. The music is what’s important. So that’s what we should be called. The Music.” I can’t believe that it took this long for some band to name themselves that.

The lead singer was wacky. His dancing was quite spastic. He actually danced like a rave kid, with lots of swirling hands and shuffling feet. To be honest, he’s a damn fine dancer, but his unbridled passion for it of course puts him up to ridicule to tittering college girls who like to mimic his movements and pretend like they are so much cooler—when we all know if they danced the way they really dance when out at the clubs, they’d look like balloons full of strawberry jelly hooked to a ceiling fan. (Our lesson for today: The only thing I learned in college is that college students are idiots. I am sorry if I am offending any college students reading this, but trust me, one day you will look back and think, “Dear Lord, I was an idiot. And so was everyone else.” The harder thing is realizing that while you’re in college. But then my dad always made fun of me by saying, “It must be hard walking through life knowing you’re smarter than everyone else.” I’d always reply to the affirmative. He also suggested I should have a hat that says, “You’re messing with me,” after one of my many stories that contained the line, “They didn’t know who they were messing with.” My dad had me pretty well sussed, until the day when I was 17 that he turned and looked at me and said, “You’re a bigger asshole than I ever hoped to be.” That was the day the student surpassed the master…but that’s another story and this is already a long parenthetical statement.)

The other scary dancing phenomena, since I am swimming in cruelty this morning, are the old people. I’m talking the ones even older than me. No longer old enough to know better, but old enough to forget they should know. You’ve seen them. They’ve been hanging at the bar and then suddenly the music grabs their loins. Usually it’s the woman that feels it, and the man ends up following because, well, he’s balding and overweight and won’t do anything to fuck up his chances at getting some after the show. They come running out of the bar, barreling through the crowd, annoying everyone. They ultimately settle in a spot that is kind of open, but not quite. Like, there is just enough room, and once the guy starts doing his fists in the air jumpy dance and the woman starts swiveling her hips, thinking all the while I am still young and I can grind!, the people around them have to move out of the way unless they get the old sweat on them and become infected.

And I say all that with the full knowledge that I am rapidly approaching the point where college girls will look at me at a show and say, “What the hell is that guy doing here? Who does he think he’s fooling?” I’m overweight and olding, but my hair is still thick, and frankly, I don’t give a good fuck.

Okay, The Vines…

Wow. If ever a band lived up to their live reputation. If the guy in The Music was stoned out of his mind and loving it, the dude in The Vines was drunk off his ass and showing it. How fucking awful. Everything seemed to be played at half-tempo. Even “Highly Evolved,” which I don’t even think is three minutes long, which is supposed to be punchy and full of energy, sounded like the tape machine was running out of batteries. I wanted to hang on, prayed for an early “Get Free,” but it wasn’t getting better. We thought they’d pull it out, as “Outtathaway” started off pretty good, but it fell apart as it went. The following song started with an acoustic guitar, and James and I were out of there. I think we lasted five or six numbers, and it was awful. The singer was all over the place, practically delivering each line with a different vocal style. He’s cute, but not cute enough.

And yes, I know a lot of you want to give me shit for liking The Vines in the first place, but you guys are usually Hives fans and so you can just crawl away and die. At least I don’t make The Vines out to be anything more than crap with a couple good singles; Hives fans act like they are the return of genius, playing the same number twenty times in under an hour. Yippy. I bow to your overwhelming hipness.

Current Soundtrack: Massive Attack, Blue Lines

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DEAD STAR

So if I went by what some people say, I shouldn’t post in my blog because, well, there is a war, and somehow it’s inappropriate for me to talk about a girly manga like Man of Many Faces when people are dying.

I mean, no one has said that straight-up, but the thought seems to be a running theme in a lot of stuff. On NPR, there was a story on spring breakers, where some well-meaning college girl said, “It feels surreal to be lying on a beach while soldiers are on the other side of the world in mortal danger.” It’s a nice thought, and certainly life is different, but maybe the bigger question should be more about why normally you wouldn’t consider how lucky you are to be able to take a spring break when some people would love to have a job to take a break from, or the chance to go to school. Or that cops and fire fighters and other people are in danger every day.

I support the troops. My support is in wanting them to not have to fight and to come home safely. And my support is in making sure that life continues apace and that we continue to live it, which in some way is what they are fighting for. Are we all just supposed to hit pause until this is all over?

Howard Stern seems to be the most hypocritical. I like his show a lot, because it’s sick and wrong, but there is something ridiculous in him beating up celebrities for going forward with the Oscars, saying it’s self-centered and inappropriate. Yet he hasn’t stopped talking about anal sex and boobs to only discuss the war. He still details the minutiae of his life. That’s not self-centered?

To be honest, the only disappointing thing about the Oscars going forward is that they may not have the good sense to be frivolous. By Sunday night, I am sure we’ll all be sick of the endless loop of news, where the stations somehow stretch an hour of information into 24. We’ll want all the celebs to look fab and be dumb, but they’ll all feel like they have to be serious. Thank God I’ll be at the Erasure concert instead. I can’t imagine Andy Bell’s frivolity can be contained.

So, I stick with Man of Many Faces, because I am shallow and selfish and want my paychecks and entertainment.

Weirdly, Cheddar James and I have both noticed a strange increase in spam in general, and penis-enlarging spam in specific. Could someone be trying to get the message out, that if we made our rods bigger we wouldn’t feel the need to go fight?

Current Soundtrack: Muse, Hullabaloo disc 1

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13 STEPS LEAD DOWN

Not a lot to say. Starting to work on the second Man of Many Faces with little progress. Still recovering. In all, with the secret gig having lasted about two weeks, I did 128 manuscript pages. All in my off hours. Still very tired. Hopefully this will open doors and things will get very interesting from here on out, though.

This weekend is going to be a music overload, with The Vines & The Music on Thursday, Supergrass & The Coral on Friday, and Erasure in Seattle on Sunday. Ay yi yi. And there is a new Audrey Tautou film opening, but I will have to wait until the manga is done for that. Deadline is Monday.

Current soundtrack: commercials before Survivor

GIVE ME A WINK AND I'LL GIVE YOU THE PERFECT LOVESONG

I have nothing of any interest to write about right now, but I just did a short writing exercise for Kelly Sue's forum, an excellent haven for writers. This week she was inspired by Kipling's Just So Stories and gave us topics based on that. Mine was "Why Hair Grows." I was already planning to get my hair cut today, but this puts me in the mood even more.

*

Best beloved, as you recline and listen to my tales I can’t help but notice your resplendent, neatly groomed hair. Hair is truly one of the loveliest attributes that we, as humans, possess. Have you ever had cause to wonder why your hair grows rather than stay exactly as you want it to always be? Shall I tell you?

Many years ago, our hair had different properties. Once we reached a certain age, it grew to its ideal length and adopted its ideal shape, and so it would be until the day we died. So you with your curly hair just to the base of your neck—the way you always like it—would never have to spend your time and money at the hairdressers. Styling products were unnecessary, as well, leaving a lot less clutter in the bathrooms.

One day, a pretty young lady decided that she wanted to take care of people’s hair for them. She loved hair, and thought that more could be done with it than just letting it settle into one style. Knowing that location was the key to any successful business, she set up a shop in the center of town. Unfortunately, people didn’t react to this innovation very well. They all thought she was crazy. Why would they pay her to fix what they didn’t think was broke?

This made the girl very sad, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by one particular boy. He would pass by the girl’s shop on his way to work every day, and he had often admired her beauty. He was smitten with her, and finally, after several weeks, got up the courage to go inside and have her cut his hair, seeing it as the only way to really meet her. The boy enjoyed this time tremendously, chatting with her about their lives, feeling her hands on his scalp. Unfortunately, when it was all over, he had no excuse to see her again. His new hairstyle was fantastic, but now it was short, and there wasn’t enough left to do anything else with it.

Do you know what the boy did, best beloved? He decided that he needed to find a way to make his hair grow, otherwise the girl would be sad forever.

The boy tried everything he could. He hung himself upside down, had his friends pull on his bangs to see if they’d stretch, shampooed with plant growth formula—but nothing was working. He was about to give in to despair, but a last minute bout of tenacity stopped him. He wanted to make his crush happy, and so he became even more determined to force his hair to grow. He thought and thought and pushed with his mind, and before he knew it, he had a full mane.

This technique allowed him to return to the shop several times, and eventually members of the town saw how fun it was to have different hairstyles, and they began to make their hair grow, too. This brought the girl tremendous joy, as well as piles of money. Once she was rich enough, she traded the boy in for a younger model and went to Bermuda.

And that is why our hair continues to grow to this day.

Current Soundtrack: The Divine Comedy, A Short Album About Love

NEEDLES & PINS, AND THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

I have big hair this evening. I took a shower and then took a nap with the cat in front of the heater without doing anything with my wet mop. It’s all poofed up now. The cat has the added bonus of having the cable modem in front of the heater. She sleeps on it and gets toasty on both sides. Happiness is a warm modem.

*

I watched a 1980 film called Hopscotch this evening. It stars Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Ned Beatty, and Sam Waterston from Law and Order. The liner notes in the Criterion DVD call it the “only ‘feel-good’ realistic spy film ever made,” and I think it’s a pretty good call. It’s definitely a charming film, with Matthau, of course, working his magic, playing a CIA agent who, rather than fade into bureaucratic obscurity, leads his fellow agents on a worldwide chase while leaking to them chapters of his very revealing memoirs. The film occasionally suffers from some ’70s television-style direction (Matthau departs on a joke, zoom in on the woman laughing!), but overall is a fun, obscure gem.

Watching it, however, was a tad bittersweet. I first saw Hopscotch 22 years ago, when it was in the theatres. It was a movie we had ended up settling on, after a long day of fighting between my parents.

You see, going to the movies wasn’t done when I was young. My father was a pastor and the church forbade it. Or at least my mother felt that way. To be honest, I don’t know for sure. My earliest film memories are of my dad sneaking off to the college near where we lived several times when I was very young (like four years old, maybe) and watching movies in their theatre, bringing me along. From the snatches of memory I have, it was mainly kung-fu movies, and oddly enough, Animal House. My young male mind recorded the scene where the woman takes her shirt off in the back of the car. Probably my first bra.

So, my dad enjoyed movies, and my mom didn’t.

We moved to California when I was seven, and he left the ministry. This corresponded with me becoming more aware of the cultural aspect of films. I was the only kid in my class who hadn’t seen Star Wars I am sure. (And before the wags try to say this is why I despise that film now, I should point out that when Empire was released, I sat in the theatre watching ever showing straight through one Saturday, and I used to shoplift Jedi action figures. It was an education in story that made me detest George Lucas. In other words, fuck yourself.) I think my new awareness connected both to just being in school and also, in Michigan, we only got two channels on our TV; in California, I discovered the joys of syndication and afternoon cartoons, and so became an advertising target. I started lobbying to see films, because I wanted to be part of it all. I think I first won with Lady & the Tramp, likely because it was Disney (church on Sunday nights had always caused me to miss The Wonderful World of Disney as well, so this was a big deal). The second movie was The Black Stallion. My mother tried to make me feel guilty about this, since I was bringing sin into the house. She pointed at my dad on the phone, and said, “See what he’s doing for you? He’s been calling around all day trying to find tickets?” I know now what bullshit that was, he was probably calling for show times, but to a seven-year-old, that was serious guilt.

I was probably eight by the time we saw Hopscotch. The movie my dad really wanted to see was Raging Bull. He told me this, and I burst out with, “But dad, that movie is rated R!” He tried to shush me, but it was too late. The row began. And it lasted all day, until finally my dad put his foot down and took us to Hopscotch. We waited in the car when he went to buy tickets, and my mother turned to me and said, “We’ll go see it with him, but we won’t enjoy it.” I can see how fitting it was now that she was creating a covert conspiracy, given the film’s subject matter. It was rated R, too, but really, she had nothing to worry about. Beatty says “fuck” about four times, one person says “son of a bitch,” but there is no sex and no bloodshed. It’s pretty tame. (And I knew those words already, and used them liberally on the playground.)

Very little memory remained of Hopscotch. Ned Beatty beating on the hood of the car (one of the times he said “fuck,” too), an inept agent being cornered by a Doberman, and that’s about it. I can see my dad really enjoying the film, and had I not been poisoned, I probably would have too. Matthau’s shenanigans would have been right up my alley.

*

The film was a brief break in working. As soon as I post this, it’s back to work for an hour or two before SNL. Looks like the secret gig will take me into next week, leaving me with a week to do the second volume of Man of Many Faces, which is six more days than I did the first volume in, so it should be fine. My upper arms actually ache from the typing. What’s up with that?

Current Soundtrack: Ms Dynamite, A Little Deeper

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YOU’RE MY JELLYBEAN

I’ve updated my Oni column, “Big Talk From the Smallest Face,” with a piece about some of the comics I came across at the Alternative Press Expo. buzz buzz buzz

*

Finished Clamp School Detectives vol. 2 last night. This gets me ahead by several days on that, and clears the decks for the other writing gig. It’s all about utilizing each window to its fullest. Had a night off from the one, did the other. Hope I will get tonight off, too, though, since I’ll have nothing going on and can chill.

*

I got hooked up with an advance of the new Blur record yesterday, Think Tank. They seem to be one of those bands that is always tipped to fall apart, where the knives are constantly out and the critics are waiting, thinking, “This is the album where they’ll blow it.” No such luck. Albarn and co. always seem to know what the next logical step is, maintaining their eclecticism and pushing it as close to the edge as they can without going over the line into wankery. I’m impressed. They really change it up this time around, yet still sound like the same band. The lack of Coxon is fairly obvious, though. Doesn’t rely on guitars at all.

I’ll be curious to see how people react. It’s been hip for a little over a year now for the wags to whinge about how there is no good music anymore. It seems to be a constant theme, wherever I go. Yet I manage to consistently have new records I am enjoying (though if you ask me what they are, 9 times out of 10 I'll go blank). In the last several weeks alone, I’ve gotten new discs by Nick Cave, Cat Power, Will Oldham, Massive Attack, Systemwide, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys. The Music is so-so, but I’m looking forward to hearing The Coral finally. What I’ve heard of the upcoming Placebo is pretty excellent, and the new Black Box Recorder is in the post right now.

Part of why I've struggled in the past with doing quick reviews for papers was I always felt my listening experience was tainted. If I got a new record and knew I had to write a review, I would spend each song wondering what I would say about it, not letting it sink in and just enjoying it—which is how I prefer to discover music. Often, when I hear someone complaining about an album, it seems to be reacting to what the record isn’t, as opposed to just listening to it for what it is. (I find this in comics criticism a lot, too.) Could it be that, with the proliferation of places for people to post their opinions on the internet, that fans have changed how they listen, as well, and are now more like half-assed music journos? Or am I just too much of a sucker for a nice hook?

Current Soundtrack: The Roots, Things Fall Apart

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WHERE IS THE MAN YOU RESPECT, AND WHERE IS THE WOMAN YOU LOVE?

Watching Mr. Joe Cellunaire talk on his telephone, in his light leather jacket and burgundy sweater, jeans and one of those concoctions that currently passes for sneakers but looks more like an old couch with laces, I realized that if you follow contemporary mainstream men’s fashions, you have two options. Either be this guy, and look like a dick, or be the other guy with baggy pants and backwards baseball cap, and look like a lazy dick. No wonder all guys are dicks. That’s what they’re sold in the catalogue. At least chicks have Delia’s. [side note: on the way home, I passed a dude in an “I *heart* Robots” shirt. Is it any wonder girls weren’t trailing behind him like he was the Pied Piper of Hot Buttered Sex?]

So, I devised a new trick to beat the home distractions of e-mail and clutternet. I unplug my modem. It’s in a different room than my computer, thanks to poor design. The cable jack is really inconvenient (the phone is worse, it’s in the kitchen). This makes the stupid impulse to log on contend with the walk to the modem, and the distance is my friend. This allows me to work at home rather than elsewhere (where I am now), which has the benefit of allowing me more music selections and space to wander. I like to walk around when I write. It works better for me than trying to think at my desk, and also helps the legs not to go numb.

Only problem is, I think on an average day this new trick will only work if I am writing at night. If I am hoping to wake up and get to work straight away, it’s not as easy. I think it tends to be a problem of the gray days here in Portland, and the added effects of not really leaving the house. I’m not going to fully come to consciousness unless I get out and moving. I have the same problem if I try to watch a movie on Saturday morning. I will likely fall asleep at least once, and no amount of coffee is going to do it. I had two cups at home (did I turn the pot off when I left?) since I woke up at 8:00 am, and I still didn’t get my ass in gear before noon. At least walking down here got my blood flowing.

When I get tired, it manifests itself physically in my eyes and my legs. The latter get stiff, and my knees pop a lot. I fidget, try to keep them straight, and my feet stop feeling like they belong in my shoes. In my eyes, it’s like someone has hung weights off the back of them and are threatening to pull them into the sea of my skull. It all can be a bit rough when I have to sit still and I’m having to stare at a computer screen, so whatever I can do to wipe those feelings away is good.

But contingency plans aren’t bad either. Low batteries on the MP3 player, no place to plug my laptop in—whichever runs out of juice first will send me home. (And considering I am halfway done now, it will most likely be a perfect time to bug out of here.)

Current Soundtrack: The Streets, Original Pirate Material; Rosita, “Sant Poca’s Dream” 7” EP; Morrissey, "Tomorrow" CD single

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WHATEVER TURNS YOU ON

I’ve been jumping from lily pad to lily pad this week. The secret project is progressing well, but it comes in pieces. Thursday I had no new components, so I jumped on Clamp School Detectives vol. 2, which is due this coming Friday. I got ¼ of it done. I also was open Tuesday night, so I finally got that pitch done for that comic story (more work-for-hire), before passing out midway through the night’s Buffy episode and sleeping straight through to morning. I suppose it was bound to happen.

I’ve been on a chip kick lately (crisps for you Brits). I’ve been liking tangy kinds, like last night’s Balsamic Vinegar and Sea Salt. Granny Goose’s Sweet Hawaiian Onion is also pretty damn good. Outside that, looks like the snack food of choice for the weekend will be Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, Watermelon flavor. Nummers!

Current Soundtrack: King Adora, Vibrate You

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WE’LL SCARE THE SKIES WITH TIGER’S EYES

Information round-up!

The first bit of my secret assignment went well. Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication, I used the wrong sample file that was sent to me as my template—meaning when I was intended to write with a 12-point Times New Roman font with 1.5 spaces between each line, I used 10-point and single spacing. Meaning I wrote wayyyyy more than necessary. Ha! Live and learn.

I think I completed the afterword for J. Torres’ & Scott Chantler’s graphic novel Days Like This tonight. I need to sleep on it, and I also have it out for opinions. J. likes it, which makes me happy. I felt really rusty doing the music crit’ thing again, and felt very intimidated by having finished reading Nick Hornby’s Songbook last night. I need to stop paying attention to Hornby, because he makes me feel so inferior. I read High Fidelity for the first time shortly after I left the record store I was working at part-time in order to save money for Cut My Hair because I had saved enough money and the book was being prepped for printing…and High Fidelity made me feel like shit because it was so much better at everything I wanted to do. And now I read Songbook and I feel buggered because it’s a book I wish I had written, and it feeds into this suspicion that I am not very good at the straight-up writing-about-music thing. I think I had a particular problem in the past with starting my essays at one point and ending up somewhere else and never really making the journey clear. J. says that didn’t happen this time. One hopes not.

Finally going to get around to writing a pitch I was supposed to do about two months ago. Hopefully I haven’t blown it, or made the editor think I am unreliable. I am enormously reliable when I have a deadline, but open-ended offers to pitch are hard for me. I’ve had an idea for a couple of weeks, but haven’t had time to look some stuff up. Neelam Arora was kind enough to help, since she’d been looking at similar things. Cheers! (And this is a comics project, just so you know.)

Does anybody have the second issue of Dark Horse Extra with the Spike comic strips by me and Chynna? I just realized I never got that.

Jake says I can’t say “bitch” in children’s manga. I say the link shows who the bitch is.

Current Soundtrack: Suede, Suede (though I have the Japanese edition with the bit of burgundy suede in the CD tray and the piano version of "My Insatiable One")

ALL THE THINGS YOU SAID, RUNNING THROUGH MY HEAD

Hahahaha! I just realized that my last post officially qualifies me as one of those online diarists I hate. How damn angsty. I mean, last night’s post, that I could have gotten away with. It had a good metaphor and everything. But today’s entry! It sounds like one of those ultra-sensitive brooding types that live inside their sensitivity bubbles, and every tiny dust mote of stimuli is tragic and painful, and they must instantly share. The world is so far away, and they are so alone. Up next, my fantasies about meeting Morrissey and how he will invite me for tea under the statue of James Dean at Griffiths Park. (And even this will cause me strife, as I don’t like tea very much.)

It reminds me of being in high school and hanging out with Morgan Martin on one of those days where we’d decide to be morbid. We’d sit there with a quote book looking for quotes on horrible things and try to work up a black mood, to see who could reign in morbidity. I ultimately was declared champion when on Christmas he called while I was watching a movie and I got mad. He said, “I just wanted to call you because you’re my friend.” I replied, “Well, I may be your friend…” He filled in the rest, and I was declared king of the dark ones. (This is for all of you who like to protest when I tell you I’m an asshole. See? It’s true!)

Anyway, I am off to a good start on the secret project. I’ve moved to my Starbucks haunt, though, to see if I can really get rolling. I need twelve pages of writing by Monday morning, and I am at one-and-a-half. Move, bitch, get out the way!

Of course, I am stuck in an easy chair with an oompah-loompah table with no plug because the nearest plug is being monopolized by some sumbitch who has to plug in his computer and his phone. How does one say, “Cock” with one’s eyes?

By the way, one of my working albums today is the previously mentioned Massive Attack newie, 100th Window. It is so not the disappointment many critics would have you believe, nor is it the Mezzanine knock-off others have suggested. Sure, there is no masterpiece like “Unfinished Sympathy” or “Teardrop,” but it honestly doesn’t matter. What you get instead is one of the best chill-out records ever made. All the songs are mellow and slow, taking their time to work out and explore their groove. It’s different, but not in a bad way, and though I definitely miss Daddy G’s voice, I certainly have no complaints about what the band has given me. Their first three albums form a complete whole, whereas this one seems to fit in more with the No Protection dub album. Plus, it has Sinead O’Connor on three tracks, and that’s never something to complain about.

*

Anyway, I really hunkered down and did my thing. I have plans with my friend Lara Michell (the songwriter quoted at the front of Cut My Hair) tomorrow afternoon, so that was an added incentive to be done. I just really needed to see if I could handle this—and I think I can. I think I did okay. If nothing else, there were some challenges. I found transitions between the different sections to be rather tough, and had to do some problem solving to figure them out. (Sorry I can’t be more specific. It actually would be fun to talk about, but I just can’t.)

But, man, am I beat. There is a comic book show in Portland tomorrow, and Randy Bowen is having a party for all the guests (though among them, I think I only know Devin Grayson), and I am just two tired to go (somewhere, Denny Haynes is weeping with jealousy). Plus, it might not be a good idea to be in public when all the coffee I drank catches up with me. Two cups at home, and then two grande Vanilla skinny Lattes at the ‘bucks. It’s not going to be pleasant when they hit the lower intestine. Yum!

Current Soundtrack: Prince, Parade

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

SCREAMING AUTOMATIC PAIN

The ants still haven’t found their anthill.

I am not sure what is taking me so long to decompress. These past couple of week’s—the ordeals with Cheat and various other day-wasting problems—are not things I want to relive, and they’d be boring to read about anyway. It’s just sometimes it seems we end up cramming several months worth of crises into a regular week at Oni.

And I am not sure if this electrical activity in my chest is hanging on due to the anxiety of starting this new project, or if the stress of the week is transferring itself and making me anxious about the project. Or does it really matter, because are either possibilities really that different? Anyway, babysteps…we may as well start the work, let our fingers do the walking. The Smiths are on (Best I. I wanted to hear “Half a Person.” You should here the rendition I belted out while taking a piss…).

Current Soundtrack: Cowboy Junkies, “Dead Flowers”

MY FEVER BURNS ME DEEPER THAN I’VE EVER SHOWN

I woke up this morning at my usual 5:43 A.M. (I can’t wake up on nice numbers like normal people), ready to go to the gym, and I found Sadie sitting in front of the refrigerator, mesmerized by an invasion of tiny ants. I think she had pawed them some, because they were running around in circular patterns and didn’t seem to have much purpose. They would bump into each other and essentially looked like they had no idea which way to go. It’s a perfect metaphor for my brain at the moment.

I thought last week was bad, but this week is pretty bad, too. My monitor frying on my laptop was a nice spike in the center on Wednesday.

But Gravitation vol. 1 is in (in fact, it was a day early), and none too soon, as another writing assignment has fallen in my lap, and it should be challenging. Only thing is that due to the nature of it, I can’t talk about it. (And don’t flatter yourself that you’re special enough to e-mail me and ask what it is, because I guarantee that you’re not. Unless you’re Marie Du Santiago or Faye Wong, I guarantee…) It should also take up my time pretty heavily, even though I’ve got two used Crackterion DVDs that just arrived that I should watch to make sure they are okay. Crap.

Current Soundtrack: Fiona Apple, Tidal

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

IT’S THE WAY YOU DON’T READ CAMUS, OR BRET EASTON ELLIS

A lot of randomness this weekend, obviously.

*

I watched a DVD of all the videos from The Strokes—or more precisely, three videos and two live tracks. I really want to like The Strokes more than I do. Their music is gloriously empty, but sometimes that’s okay, especially when you bang out some really spectacular tunes, which The Strokes occasionally do. Unfortunately, there are two many ironic contradictions to this band—including the fact that I don’t think they know how hollow they are—that make it impossible for them to ever be great to me.

There’s the video for “Someday,” where they are filmed by Roman Coppola hanging out in a dive bar with Slash. It’s almost like, “Look at how famous and normal we are all at the same time.” It’s a pretty banal display of expensive slumming. This footage is intercut with them playing Family Feud against old man sadbags Guided by Voices, and it gets even more ridiculous. In another group’s hands, you could see it as a great display of a sense of humor, but with The Strokes, it makes you feel like their rock music is a bit like the spoiled brats from the private school going to the public school to sell drugs, getting richer on the backs of the poor. Isn’t it all just a laugh?

All from a band write a song like “New York City Cops,” where the most intelligent observation they can muster is that said cops “ain’t too smart.” Beyond that, it was a pretty easy sentiment for them to turn their backs on when it was more commercially viable to do so in the wake of 9-11. Now they seem to trot it out and stick it on things just to say, “Look, we’re naughty. We’re rock ‘n’ roll!” But how rock ‘n’ roll was it to change your album cover from this to this just so Wal Mart would carry you? (Normally I don't care about such things, but you know, if you're going to have the image...)

And with all the people getting all purple with whining about which pop kid can sing and which one can’t, why doesn’t anyone ever ask why Julian Casablancas can never perform without filtering his voice through a muffler?

I am sure plenty of better critics have said all the same stuff before. But man, I am not sure the last time I was turned off that much by 17 minutes of video.

*

An interesting note about Gravitation: I’ve reached the first big kiss between Yuri and Shindou, and up until that moment both of them are pretty much denying they are gay. I am not sure if there are cultural differences I should know about when it comes to how homosexuality is viewed in Japan. Or is it that little Japanese girls are more turned on by straight boys kissing, much the same way some gay men find it attractive to see a heterosexual man stray over to the other side? Either way, I am trying to play the book for the appropriate drama, play up the confusion that at least Shindou feels and tone down some of the outside reactions—while at the same time being true to the text. What a balancing act!

Current Soundtrack: Suede, "Obsessions” DVD b-sides; Manic Street Preachers, “Australia” CD1

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

BOM BOM DIGGY

I am Jamie, and I have an addiction.

Many of my friends know this. They were plagued by it last week when, in a mad rush, I attempted to keep a particular high from slipping away.

I am addicted to Criterion DVDs. Let’s call them Crackterion. The Crackterion Collection. There are over 150 ways for me to shoot up with Crackterion, and I haven’t tried them all yet. Last week I found out that one of those ways, How To Get Ahead in Advertising, starring Richard E. Grant, was going out of print. It was already going for about double retail on eBay. These things go out of print and the other freaks start paying outrageous prices for ‘em. Salo is the most expensive, I’ve seen it sell for $300 to $600, despite no one liking it very much (it’s one of the two OOP titles I lack). So I was e-mailing people in different states, saying, “Call your local Tower or Borders. Let’s find this disc!” I couldn’t turn one up, though my addiction partner, Christopher McQuain, who now lives in Seattle, found it right away in an outlying suburb. He needed it for himself, though. It’s luck, I guess, because when the Jacques Tati films disappeared, I found Mon Oncle at a closing Tower on it’s very last day of business and got it insanely cheap. (I finally got Advertising for a so-so price on eBay, and if any of the two I have on backorder show up, I can make my money back easy.)

What is so special about Criterion? Here is how they describe themselves: “The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. Criterion began with a mission to pull the treasures of world cinema out of the film vaults and put them in the hands of collectors. All of the films published under the Criterion banner represent cinema at its finest. In our seventeen years, we've seen a lot of things change, but one thing has remained constant: our commitment to publishing the defining moments of cinema in the world's best digital editions. * The foundation of the collection is the work of such masters of cinema as Renoir, Godard, Kurosawa, Cocteau, Fellini, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Fuller, Lean, Kubrick, Lang, Sturges, Dreyer, Eisenstein, Ozu, Sirk, Buñuel, Powell and Pressburger. Each film is presented uncut, in its original aspect ratio, as its maker intended it to be seen. For every disc, we track down the best available film elements in the world, use state-of-the-art telecine equipment and a select few colorists capable of meeting our rigorous standards, and take time during the film-to-video digital transfer to create the most pristine possible image and sound. Whenever possible, we work with directors and cinematographers to assure that the look of our releases does justice to their intentions. Our supplements enable viewers to appreciate Criterion films in context, through audio commentaries by filmmakers and scholars, restored director's cuts, deleted scenes, documentaries, shooting scripts, early shorts, and storyboards. To date, more than 35 filmmakers have made our Director Approved library of laserdiscs and DVDs the most significant archive of contemporary filmmaking available to the home viewer.”

If the Criterion name is on it, I will gamble with a film and buy it. Even if it’s not an instant favorite, or if the film is flawed, they usually have picked it for a special reason. Because of them, I know now who Douglas Sirk, Samuel Fuller, Wong Kar-Wai, Lynne Ramsay, Rene Clair, Yasujiro Ozu, and the Maysles brothers are; I have tried Fellini, Bergman, and Truffaut; I have seen films I had never seen before from Preston Sturges, David Lean, the Archers, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Luis Bunuel. And they don’t just do art pictures. They’ve done classic ‘50s horror like The Blob, they’ve released Michael Bay films (yeah, I know, but no one is perfect), they did excellent editions of Chasing Amy and Wes Anderson’s last two films. Their double-disc Beastie Boys anthology may just be the best music video compilation there is.

And you know how they sucker me? They number the spines. Yes, they get the old comic book geek in me by making it so I have to have them all or I will be missing something. Someday I will have to buy Armageddon or risk not having a #40, of having a hole between Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter (#39 – which I still need) and Olivier’s Henry V (#41 – got it). They even give you a scorecard in the package, so I can sit there with a Sharpie and mark off the ones I have and look for the ones I need. I have an eBay system set up, with the prices I want to pay to get a good deal on the particular films (they are priced at two tiers--$29.95 and $39.95 retail, depending on the set; I try to get them cheaper on eBay. If I buy retail, I go to Deep Discount DVD or DVD Planet, as they consistently have the best prices). It’s really sick. They prey on obsessive personalities like mine.

I am not admitting my addiction because I wish to overcome it. I only seek understanding, patience. I will not change. As I was typing this, Amazon notified me that my copy of the Crackterion Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas that is coming out Tuesday just shipped. It gave me a thrilling jolt. I refuse to let that go.

Current Soundtrack: Tricky, Juxtapose; The Who, Odds & Sods

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

THE SOUL OF THE HERO

Duran Duran, “Stop Dead”

Jeezus! I don’t think anyone has every knocked on my door before (I don’t get visitors, thankfully). So I was a bit startled when someone was pounding on my door at 10:30 this morning. It was the mailman with a big box, registered mail from China. Rebecca went overboard in loading me up with Faye Wong CDs and other Chinese pop. I am quite startled. There are a lot of discs here. She is never one to do things halfway.

On the Faye Wong situation: I heard back from Sony Hong Kong. She is recording her new album right now and so isn’t doing any press. Hopefully, they will keep me in mind. If not, maybe the next Wong Kar-Wai film will come soon, and I can latch on that. I may still try to write something for the next issue of Kitchen Sink, as it’s a stalker theme, and maybe I can make something out of my hunt for my pop obsessions. I told Laurenn McCubbin I will try, but I am not sure what my time will permit. I need to finish Gravitation, and I also have to finish my essay for Days Like This. I feel a bit like a swimmer in a drowned world lately.

Rebecca also sent me a Mashi Maro comic. He is a rabbit who walks around with a plunger on his head. I don’t know why. But it’s really funny. A lot of toilet humor. I guess that’s something the Chinese have in common with the British. I’ve got arrested development, so it really makes me laugh.

Current Soundtrack: original soundtrack to Hero, or at least something that purports to be it--it's got Faye's theme for the movie, and movie artwork, but the rest is a Faye Wong album. Ha! Chinese releases are really bizarre. I have all sorts of albums now that don't appear in her official discography. Maybe if the movie comes out over here, I can get the real score (it's been nominated for a Best Foreign Language Academy Award). Rebecca is my hero right now anyway. (Awwww...this from the guy who last night called everyone a fucker.)

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

MIDNIGHT WALKERS, CITY SLICKERS

Chynna asked me why I go to Starbucks to hide and write. Not why as in what purpose does it serve, because she knows it protects me from the freelancers like herself that would seek to suck me dry every hour of the day until there is nothing left for myself. Though that’s not Chynna these days. She’s actually been pretty on top of Blue Monday: Nobody’s Fool and Scooter Girl. No, the sort that feels that my schedule is built around them, that because they can’t work an eight-hour day or get things done at normal hours that my nights and weekends should be in service to them. I mean, if they’re working, I should be, too…yes? (Bitter? You bet your ass, fucker.)

No, she wanted to know wasn’t there someplace “cooler” in Portland. Well, I suppose in a land of self-invented cool, yes, there is something with better self-invention. But coolness isn’t really the point. I come here because it’s convenient, mainly, but also because the less cool places are much better to visit if I really want to do any decent people watching. Hipsters don’t need to be observed, because they’re easy to make up. Real people, on the other hand—they’re the reason someone had to coin the phrase “Truth is stranger than fiction.” Of course, there is no one here right now to prove my point with, but frankly, no one is paying for the pleasure of reading this blog, so you have to accept what you get. (Still bitter? Does the Pope have saggy nuts? It’s been one fuck of a week.)

Besides, hipsters need to be noticed. Quiet work is not possible when there is a guy with a horrid ski cap and an ironic T-shirt for the honest-to-goodness Johnson High School Athletic Support Crew explaining what he thinks of Adaptation to a college freshman co-ed too busy wondering why her new chin piercing still stings to realize he’s wrong. Sometimes stupidity is too difficult to ignore.

And yes, normal people are pretty damn stupid, too. But I don’t have time today, and more of the Portland unkempt made it difficult for me to drive home quickly and safely today than the hoi polloi, so it’s their turn for my ire.

Anyhoo…today’s mission is Gravitation. Volume 1 is due in a week, and I’ve only dented it. It’s a good dent. I am taking to this book quite easily. I was the right choice for it—which is as close to an ego chest-puffing statement as you’re going to get with me—and I am quite enjoying it. Hopefully the batteries on my MP3 player will get me through the night. Massive Attack’s Blue Lines is the current choice. I am gearing up for 100th Window to arrive in the mail. I haven’t read the reviews, but something is in the air, and I am scared it may be their first time to fail me. So I am making sure their greatness is fresh for me, just in case, so I can be prepared to cut them some slack.

This place is also good because it will close right about the time I should be getting my ass home to catch Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Hopefully 100th Window won’t be to Massive Attack what Criminal Intent is to Dick Wolf. (Though that show seems to be finding sturdier legs. And I’m pretending Dragnet does not exist.)

Primal Scream, Evil Heat for energy. The Lord is My Shotgun.

Wendy James, Now Ain’t The Time For Your Tears for pop trash attitude. “This is a test, and it’s going to cut you down to scale.”

The main character of Gravitation, Shuichi, is an aspiring musician in high school. He makes techno music, and is a frustrated teenage poet. There’s a certain amount of fun in drawing on my past as a brooding adolescent (I know, just last year) and play around with his mood swings and overwrought lyrics. Even funnier, though, is that the object of his affection, Yuki, is a novelist. I got to write the lines, “Writers sit around in their underwear all day. They’re all perverts. I’ll bet he’s losing his hair, too,” with all the confidence of someone who is still fully coiffed and wouldn’t care if he wasn’t. Though if I were not here, if I were at home, I would likely be in my underwear. I probably will end up posting this in my underwear, though—which is a nice personal detail for someone who told me that she wished this journal was more personal. She also thinks I’m one of the biggest perverts she knows, but another female friend says I’m not nearly as perverted as I think. Guess it depends on which side your ball gag is buttered. (Editors also get some jabs in the book, and I got to appropriate a line I used on Kelly Sue the other day: “Editors have brains of death.”)

A bunch of Bowie covers by the appropriate ‘80s folks—Big Country, Duran Duran, Ian McCulloch, Polecats, Edwyn Collins, Blonde. Is it any wonder?

I hope I am using the word “oeuvre” in a manga for the first time. I want to be a pioneer.

Arcadia, So Red The Rose. Because I feel pretty. And I’m moody and gray, I’m mean and I’m restless (so restless…so restless indeed).

Current Soundtrack: 808 State, Utd. State 90

[This was written last night, Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t go online when I got home. My MP3 battery conked out as I was walking home, just after Arcadia ended and I was trying to play Starsailor’s cover of “All or Nothing.” It is my loyal friend.]

I DON'T KNOW WHERE IT COMES FROM

I'm on the stair-step machine or whatever it's called this morning, reading the CNN ticker-type, listening to Faye Wong, and trying not to leer at any of the pretty women working out, and suddenly last night's problem of where to go next in The Everlasting is no longer a problem. It's totally clear. In addition, it solves another issue where I was trying to bring a periphery character back into the narrative. I'd call myself a genius, but Princess Comics told me my horoscope said not to be cocky today. Or as she basically said, no more cocky than normal.

On the Faye tip, I resent my e-mail to Sony Hong Kong. Stay strong.

Current Soundtrack: Death in Vegas, Scorpio Rising

MAKIN' LOVE TO THE ULTIMATE MIND

I just did something I really, really hate in other people’s work. I’ve always hated it, even when I was a kid.

I made my way back to The Everlasting today, and read over where I last left off. This was the scene where Ashley goes to Lance’s apartment to check it out, to see if the boy she is choosing is the right choice. It’s followed by another e-mail from Lance to Tristan about how they have porn star names…no, actually, it’s about a sensory memory, a flashback to a more idyllic romantic time triggered by listening to Duran Duran’s Big Thing (try it, it’s ace!). And then I realized why I probably wasn’t rushing back to this manuscript. I don’t know what’s next.

You see, I essentially have to get through the relationship with Ashley to get to the point where Lance meets Mandy—which is actually already written. Funnily enough, I already wrote the transition from Mandy to Quentin, too. I just need the middle bits, the actual relationships.

Now, obviously, I can’t show every single date. I can’t chronicle every tiny moment in the lives of these characters. I would have to be Marcel Proust (or at least my understanding of Proust; I’m not going to lie to you and pretend I've read him). It would be a massive, massive book. So I have to choose the right moments. I think I wrote before about the quandary of making sure I show how these characters fall in love; then I have to write about how they are in love; and then I have to kick them out of love. But that’s no straight plot line. That’s more like a map of the stars, and I have to figure out which ones make a constellation amongst all that mess.

So to get into the groove, I’m fussing about. I have a sequence that doesn’t yet have a home, where I detail the travails of Lance’s roommate, Roger, and his affair with a keyboard player in a fictional band, and how this musician has to play straight to the press, despite being gay. (His name is Paul Multiple, which, if I remember, is actually a bit of a nod to my buddy Matt Fraction. I needed something that sounded like a guy who would be in a retro synthpop band. Ha-ha! Fuck you, Fraction!) I’d like to use this sequence as a parallel to Lance’s situation, but haven’t yet found out where to put it or if it will even make the cut.

In my writing, wadnering Antonioni-like, I go from there to another sequence, a little device that popped into my head to show some contrasting moments in Lance’s time with Ashley, and I find myself typing “he's known her for four months.”

And that’s the part I hate. Whenever an author or a filmmaker or whoever does that to me, I just get mad, because I feel like they took something away from me, almost like I was cheated. Stuff happened in those four months, and I want to know what it was, dammit!!! But I have to do it. I actually have to get my characters from where they begin, around March of 1999, to New Year’s Eve before the third act can even start, so I am going to have to be jumping ahead in time. And I did do it in Cut My Hair already, when I move from Mason and Jeane’s first dates to several months later (something people often miss when they criticize their fast relationship – yeah, they fell in love fast, but then they stay together and have grown before you see them again; perhaps an error on my part not to show more? which doesn’t help this monologue). Once again, I am stealing several months from my reader. It's like when you read a history of a recording artist and they mention a legendary album said artist recorded and shelved. You can't do that! Give it to me, fucker!

I further hate to admit that I did all this based on what movie they are going to see in the particular section of the book. I needed a movie from 1999 that Lance would hate. In short: eat me, George Lucas. Only thing is, this can’t be the next chapter in the novel, because Lance has to turn 25, since the book is a book about being in love at age 25…and that has to happen before that movie could come out for Lance to be a Gemini, like I want him to be.

Fuck, how needlessly complicated. (Let’s blame Matt Fraction.)

On a side note, I pulled out Big Thing as a result of reading that sequence. It really helped shift me into the right mood. I followed it with Duran Duran’s second self-titled album (also known as The Wedding Album), their early ’90s comeback, which is sounding pretty good right now. I haven’t heard it in a while. (Odd memory that just struck me. The first tape I bought when I went to college, purchased at a Target down the street from the campus, was perhaps almost their worst record, Liberty.)

Current Soundtrack: Duran Duran, Duran Duran II

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

A LITTLE CUNNING

It’s amazing what a couple of toffee nut lattes, a laptop, and an MP3 player can inspire a boy to do. Faced with the task of somehow working my last-minute assignment on Man of Many Faces around the other things I have going on this week, I went down to Starbucks last night and just hunkered down. I think I got about ¾ of the book done before they closed, and finished up the rest before going to bed. I don’t think I could have done it on a more complicated book, but the main characters are aged nine and six. They speak with a wisdom beyond their years, but also with a directness and naivete that made it a bit easier to adopt their voices. It’s a cute story. And it’s kind of nice to see that I can still focus and really go to town when it’s required of me.

The Faye Wong dominoes are beginning to fall. Andy’s connection in Japan bounced me to a person in Hong Kong, and now I am waiting. Could be quite cool. I picked up a couple of CDs at Amoeba in San Francisco over the weekend, and Rebecca apparently sent a pretty healthy package of stuff from Beijing. I should actually be able to interview her with some authority if this comes off. I recommend the Scenic Tour album as a good introduction. It’s what I have in right now. It also has a great package, some of which reminds me a little bit of Bjork’s Post (I would guess Bjork has some influence on Faye, at least from an image standpoint and the desire to try many things).

*

I also managed to catch the Johnny Marr & The Healers show at Bimbo’s in SF. It was fairly what I expected. Some of it was quite good, the rest was relatively mediocre. There seemed to be a shyness that was holding him back—which is maybe to be expected in the vocals, but not so much in the guitar. He never really let loose, and so it just came off as standard bar band stuff (even with the awesome Zak Starkey pounding drums). The highlight was certainly his cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” which he recorded and released on an Uncut magazine compilation this past summer. It had the right amount of gentleness, and his vulnerability ended up being a strength.

Current Soundtrack: Faye Wong, Scenic Tour -- also, it seems, known as Chang You, according to Amazon, but I have see it as both; I'm finding getting the right names of her songs requires a littel effort

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

ALL MY USELESS ADVICE

Someday I’d like to maybe write an article on all the things a freelancer can do to drive an editor crazy. It would be an advice piece, for those people out there getting into the field, featuring all the pearls of wisdom I’ve gathered in my time on both sides of the fence. It could even include the alternative, a note to editors about what they may not understand about the freelance life. I’d do it now, but I'm afraid that everyone I work with would read into what I have to say and think it’s them. That’s trouble I don’t need. The fragile, eggshell egos of creative folks…the Napoleonic complexes of editors.

I have been working on my afterword for Days Like This, and it’s been reminding me of how long I’ve been out of the freelance music critic game…as well as how shitty I am at being a journalist. I’ve got no discipline for research, and I sit down with the vaguest of points and just run. I am the writing equivalent of a young child who has escaped from the bath and is running around the front yard naked. I think my biggest fault is that my brain makes connections too easily, and so the actual article doesn’t really spell out how these things hook up, leaving the reader confused. And most weekly papers don’t edit you to help you learn. In fact, if you ask them what you did wrong, what caused them to change it, they’ll give you the “You didn’t really do anything wrong, we just wanted it more in our style.” (My friend Christopher McQuain and I were just talking about this--style schmyle, we say!) So, whatever bugged them, you keep doing it, because how could you not?

*

Super Confessions Pop Star goes to Andy Greenwald who may have a lead on Faye Wong! Andy is the real deal, a true journo. He got Pounded and Vertigo Pop! London in Spin, and he’s currently writing a book that I will plug here when concrete info exists, coz he deserves whatever small fame we can acquire for him.

Current Soundtrack: Depeche Mode, Ultra

cut_my_hair@hotmail.com

SLEEP, I DON'T NEED TO SLEEP - I HIDE MY FEARS BEHIND ME

My cat is sitting in my lap and I am kind of trapped here, in my chair, in front of the keyboard. The CD ended about five minutes ago. I was playing the first disc of the Erasure “Solsbury Hill” single, and I guess I should have picked something longer.

Haircut today. Last time I went in I gave Jennifer a copy of Cut My Hair since it was just before Christmas. I felt kind of cheesy and egotistical doing it, but at the same time, I do like to share. You never know what to do when you see someone again after giving them something like that, though. I don’t want to bring it up and ask if she’s read it. I’d feel like I was hounding her. But she brought it up and said she was halfway through, she had to wait to start it until she had finished her other book. She said she liked it so far, and really liked the illustrations. So, yay…though I worry I may be pigeonholed as the guy with illustrated novels. I am not sure I really want to do that with The Everlasting. Bonus was the really good haircut. Showered when I got home, too, which is always a nice feeling when the hair is cut short. I should have shaved it all off just to piss of Chynna at the Alternative Press Expo. Letters to Blue Monday suggest we don’t bicker enough anymore, so this would hopefully kickstart an argument revival.

January has kind of been a crap month. Even if we ignore the war that is seemingly inevitable because, frankly, our leaders seem to be the madmen they claim they want to destroy, it’s just been a real rush work-wise. And I have a bunch of trade paperbacks and original graphic novels (or as we like to call them, OniGNs) on deck, which are piling up and seem really hard to put together. The Hopeless Savages: Ground Zero trade is just around the corner and I am just now preparing. We may have a lead on the girls who were in Kenickie, though, which would be great. We failed to make contact to get a quote or an introduction for the first collection (though bless Andy Greenwald, he tried), so if we can pull it off—well, a lot of people may not care, but we’ll think it’s cool as all hell.

Cat just got up. Good. My legs were falling asleep and I need some noise. How about Kenickie’s Peel Sessions disc for good luck?

I’m feeling a bit stressed. Or maybe not stressed, maybe rushed. I have that feeling that my guts are moving at a faster speed than the rest of me. There has been some misunderstanding, and a book at Tokyopop that I thought I was taken off of so I could do Gravitation has now come back around, and they are in a pinch, so I can't say no, meaning I now have three books to do in the next six weeks, with this one--Man of Many Faces--being due next Friday. I thought Jake said I wasn’t doing it because it was too girly even for me. I think I am going to try to start Gravitation right now—which I was going to do tonight anyway—just to get a jump.

Oh, and while we’re on the subject of contacts – if by some bizarre chance someone who reads this knows how to get through to Faye Wong’s people, I have an alternative American magazine interested in me doing a piece on Faye for an upcoming issue—about her music and about me being a North American, English-speaking fan. My e-mail is below. Help! So far, I’ve had no luck. Even just a direct contact to Sony Asia would be appreciated, as I've gotten no reply through their website.

Current Soundtrack: Kent, Isola (just moved forward to the next CD in the rack when refiling Kenickie, and thought it would be great to hear “If You Were Here”)

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AS LONG AS WE CAN ALL WATCH, THAT’S OKAY

The weekend was full of The Divine Comedy.

When the band announced their U.S. tour, they initially didn’t have Portland on their itinerary, so I made plans to visit my friend Christopher in Seattle and we could attend the show there. The Divine Comedy are a spectacular band, well worth the travel. I had only seen them once before, and it wasn’t really a "them"—bandleader Neil Hannon performed an acoustic solo set in the opening slot on the Ben Folds tour (talk about pearls before swine); therefore, this would be my first opportunity to see them as a band. (Though, the heyday of the string and brass sections are gone, this was just a quartet.) Besides, as good as the last performance was, it’s a bit rough seeing someone you really enjoy do a quiet set for a room packed with people who have zero interest in hearing what he has to say.

Thursday night down here was fun because it was extremely loose. They had only gotten off the plane from England a few hours before, and the boys were all pretty jetlagged. There were a lot of false starts and charming mistakes, as we got treated to a handful of hits and a handful of new material (a bit sub par lyrically, sounding like Hannon spent too much time in the faux-clever tour bus of Ben Folds). In contrast, Friday night was a lot tighter and featured some different songs, including a cover of “Daydream Believer” that worked out pretty well.

Friday night I was also able to witness two of the worst types of concertgoers in their natural environment.

First was the Attention Seeker. This is the guy who somewhere got the idea that his name is on the ticket. Tonight’s particular Attention Seeker was clearly brought to the show, he wasn’t in attendance out of any interest on his part. He was actually there with four women and one of their boyfriends, and the women seemed to really be into the music. Not that Attention Seeker cared. If no one was looking at him, he would tap one of his friends on the shoulder to relay to him or her the latest quip he had come up with. They tried protesting at times, but if even their dancing couldn’t deter him, why would a direct plea? And if they weren’t giving him his due, you could see him looking around to see if there was anyone else to make eye contact with. Because not talking was not something he was prepared to do.

The second was the Auditioner. The Auditioner is actually a fan. In fact, he’s a bit of an uber-fan. He’s the guy down front and center, right under the microphone, who knows every word. How do you know he knows every word? Because he is going to sing along and/or lip synch so dramatically that you can make out every lip curl, every tong thrust on the th sound, so that you can see just how white his teeth may be. He emotes like the member of the chorus of a musical who has heard there is a talent scout in the audience and figures it’s his one chance to be seen. And in this case, Neil Hannon made the grave error of acknowledging the guy’s existence between songs. It took several minutes for the Auditioner to be quieted down at that point, basically ending when Neil reminded him whose show it was (and no, it wasn’t the Attention Seeker’s, oddly enough). But that gave the Auditioner a chance to point back at Neil and give him that “You da man” wink. (Hilariously, it was the only pointing cue the Auditioner got right the whole show. Any time he would attempt to point at an appropriate moment of a song, he was off.) There was also a bit of irony when the Auditioner made fun of another fan for grabbing the set list. I guess since he and the singer shared a personal moment, he had surpassed the level of such geekery.

Current Soundtrack: The Divine Comedy, Fin de Siecle

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THE GOOD’S GONE

I feel like I am being showered by some strange karmic raspberry with the current situation with Pete Townshend. It’s been very disheartening. I am not sure I have ever been around to see someone I admired so much in such a horrible situation. His explanations sound perfectly reasonable, and the evidence will hopefully bear them out, but will it matter? Will anyone listen and accept that he wasn’t guilty of the crime he is accused of? There are already jokes, song parodies – this is the stuff talk show hosts and bad radio DJs dream of.

So what does this have to do with me? Why is it karmic?

Well, I believe O.J. killed his wife and her lover. He was acquitted. I believe Michael Jackson is guilty of doing inappropriate things with children. And He was never convicted. I make cracks about both of them without considering that these people have fans, too. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago I theorized to someone that being a Michael Jackson fan is a rough business, because there is a lot of weird shit you have to get behind, a lot of bizarre behavior you have to accept, to continue being his fan. I have a feeling those people can hardly enjoy Jackson’s music anymore without someone coming along and saying, “Dude, don’t let your son go down on me.” “That’s Elton John, you idiot, and those tabloid reports weren’t true about him, either.” “Shut up.”

It’s actually something you encounter as a Morrissey fan, too. People go out of their way to tell you what they think of Morrissey’s music for no other reason but some odd compulsion to tell you. It’s why at Dark Horse I found the most obnoxious Moz poster I could and put it on my wall, facing out to the hall. Even I wanted to hit him for how he looked in that photo. But I am off-topic…

Point is: Townshend is barely going to be able to take a step without some hearing joke about the true meaning of Tommy or “Pre-Teenage Wasteland.” And that’s sad--but do I have the right to condemn behavior I would have previously condoned and even engaged in because this time it’s someone I like?

On a lighter note: I already posted this on the Oni board, but Kelly Sue Deconnick has written the best review I have read in a long time in any category. Read it here. It’s for Colleen Coover’s Small Favors, a book I agree with Kelly Sue 100% on. Try it if you like that sort of thing (and yes, I realize it’s an odd book to recommend at the end of this post. Sue me.)

Current Soundtrack: Ms Dynamite, A Little Deeper

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LA FEMME ACCIDENT

Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland is a wonderfully strange book. About 100 pages in length, it’s essentially a collection of non sequiturs. Each chapter doesn’t remotely relate to the previous, except hapless Miyuki laments that she has unknowingly stumbled into another mishap. Each chapter is simply her tumbling through the rabbit hole or into the looking glass and into some oddly sexual alternate world, where she is terrorized into losing her clothes before she wakes up back home. My favorite is when she ends up playing strip mah jongg. There is something wonderfully absurd about it.

The funny thing is, though, it never gets very dirty. There is a goofy, erotic innocence to the book. While you might see some lingerie, or Miyuki will feel the sting of a dominatrix’s whip, there is no nudity and no real sex. I adore when Miyuki cries because now that the evil women of Wonderland have removed her clothes, she won’t be able to wear white to her wedding. It seems a bizarrely Western convention to find in a silly Japanese softcore comic.

I am eager to get back to The Everlasting now that I am ahead on my manga. Christine Norrie turned in Cheat in penciled form and I just love it, I am heels over head for it. When my friends do their romance comics, they make me want to dig into my romance novels, and Christine in particular makes me want to go deep and find the real, heart-breaking stuff. The final quarter of Cheat is just devastatingly emotional and I hope I can achieve a similar impact.

*

News! Tokyopop have added the last of my current assignments to their website. Gravitation. I think if you read the description, it's fairly obvious why I was chosen to do this. I am also kind of excited because it's going to be one of the first of a very different genre of manga to make it to North America--romance comics featuring all male characters, but written and drawn for girls to enjoy. I have a feeling a lot of its audience over here will be gay men, but there is something kind of cool about the idea of a comic with boys kissing purely for the pleasure of Japanese school girls.

Current Soundtrack: Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Navigation: The OMD B-sides

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REMEMBER PHIL? I KNEW PHIL WELL

Tip for anyone on blogger.com: Always type your post in a word document or something other than this window here, because if this damned service isn’t working, as it often seems not to be, when you go to post, if it comes up an error, you’re fucked. In other words, take 2:

As promised, here is my list of my Top Music of 2002. It’s the latest installment of my intermittent column, which used to be called Big Talk from The Smallest Face, but somehow seems to have been changed to the rather mundane Big Talk when James redesigned the Oni sight last year.

Last week I had to bang through Clamp School Detectives rather quickly. It may have been the fastest I have done any of the manga, and being the first volume, there was no time to get my feet wet. I had a hard time really getting the voices of the boys, but once I decided to look at it as part of that British genre of boy detectives and see them as well-to-do English school kids, it fell into place. I had them speak properly, which the translation already suggested, only not going for English accents or slang. I played Akira as slightly less sophisticated, as if he were Watson and Nokoru was Holmes. Suo I considered a boy who sort of saw through the image that Nokoru/Holmes projected, but didn’t seem to mind letting it stand.

Now it’s on to Miyuki-Chan in Wonderland, which is short and should be fun. It has a gorgeous collection of color pin-ups up front that I hope they can reprint in the American edition. I also remembered that once Jake had me ask Paul Dini if he would be interested in doing the script; he didn’t have time, and it’s rather flattering to be the second choice after him. (Paul actually called today, and he had his assistant Nancy phone for him, which he rarely does, but I think he thought he was in a little bit of trouble. I made a joke about it that made Nancy laugh. I learned a long time ago that the key to Paul’s office was making Nancy laugh. Just don't tell him.)

My next Tokyopop assignment, which I will do while alternating Clamp School Detectives and Dukylon, will be my first non-CLAMP title in a while, so I am looking forward to it. I still love CLAMP, but I want to wander a bit. They haven’t announced the title yet, though, I don’t think, so I am not sure how much I can say.

Oh, the first Magic Knight Rayearth box set hits comics shops this week. It’s a really nice package. Definitely look for it. The reproduction slays the old editions.

Ever since I fell in love with F. Scott Fitzgerald, I’ve wanted his book All The Sad Young Men. It’s a short story book they don’t keep in print. While the stories are likely dispersed in other collections, it’s a shame not to be able to get a collection he put together. Plus, I’ve just always loved that title. It’s a jazz title, but it just seems to be the quintessential Fitzgerald name. I’ve always envied him getting it first. Anyway, there was a copy with no dust jacket on eBay yesterday, and I couldn’t decide whether to bid on it. It was at $60, but without the reserve having been met. I didn’t know if that was a good price—until today Chynna showed me a site where they sell out of print books, and the cheapest was $125 with no jacket. Damn it.

I did get in the mail today, though, the Wong Kar-Wai book for In the Mood for Love. It’s small, but fat, and comes in a neat slip case. Apparently it was very limited and available only in Hong Kong. It’s nothing but stills from the film. Lovely.

Current Soundtrack: Trash Can Sinatras, A Happy Pocket; Faye Wong, Lovers & Strangers

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OH, YOU’VE GOT GRAY EYES

Welcome to the working year…

Okay, now it can be told. I went to China for a few days. You know me. International Man of Misery. Just hopped off to Asia on a lark. No serious. I did. I had some Christmas cash, and my friend Rebecca has been attending university there and has been asking me to come—I had motive and opportunity and just went. I didn’t publicize it beforehand because I get all paranoid about saying I am actually leaving the country. Like angry comics hooligans whose dreams I have shattered will come and kick in my windows and Sadie will have to defend the homestead. (She’ll win, mind you. I am the only champion who can best her.)

’s funny because people flipped out when they heard I was going and would only be there for three days. So much for spontaneity. Truth be told, the experience was pretty overwhelming, and I always feel that vacations are both too short and too long. This length seemed to work out okay. We saw a lot, but there is also a lot to see. Rebecca has been there four months and she says she still hasn’t seen it all. And obviously, yeah, not the whole country—we’re just talking Beijing. It’s massive. Yet, it may also be the only city in the world where, no matter where you are, you can hail a cab in under a minute. Every time.

We did some touristy things, like go to some Palaces (both Forbidden and Summer), and just took our time looking around the city. You learn pretty quick to adjust to the masses of people, and also to blow off anyone you don’t know coming up to you and saying in English, “It’s so nice to meet you.” While they could just be students looking to practice their language skills, it’s also often a scam. You’ll have a conversation and end up at a point where you discover they have an ulterior motive to talk to you. The common one seemed to be the art gallery they were preparing for a show in America, and they so wanted American opinions—which is all flattery to try to get you to buy art. One guy tried two poor techniques—first by assuming that we were Swedish because we were supposedly blonde, and then when Rebecca waved him off, grabbing my arm and saying, “You going to let the woman decide for you?” Yeah, dude, she’s got the money.

It was interesting seeing a bit of a New Year’s celebration in another country. It’s certainly not the drunken amateur night that we experience here. We actually ended up in a private room with some Uygher students at a Muslin restaurant. The Uygher are a people who live in Eastern Turkestan. They have splendid food, even if what we had was a Chinese approximation of it (sort of like how our Chinese food is an American approximation of Chinese food – you’ve never had Kung Pao chicken like the Kung Pao chicken I had over there). There was spicy lamb and potatoes, roasted dates, an amazing apple salad, soup – just a feast. They showed us some traditional dances, and generally kept us entertained. It’s a bit awkward to be in a room where you can only understand one of the three languages being used—and probably the one used the least. But I enjoyed myself immensely. (For more about the Uyghers, start here: http://www.uyghurinfo.com/.)

Oddly, I was in a plane and on my way back home before anyone in the states had entered 2003. Actually, even more oddly if you think about it, I left China at 9:30 in the morning on January 1st, and arrived at 10:30 in the morning on the same day. It was like I was in the sky for one really, really long hour. I did, though, nearly fill up my travel journal, which I started on my trip to England last Spring.

Overall, the Chinese experience was quite a whirlwind. In some ways, it seemed like a flurry of illegal DVDs and CDs, but really, what it ended up being was just one giant crowd that I got to wander through and observe. Beijing is a city of people unlike any other. It makes New York look like a rural hamlet. I enjoyed its sites, its food, and even got to see a wonderful acrobat show—and all with one of my best friends. Spontaneity worked out.

Of course, now I am a little jet lagged and a little behind. I need to get on Clamp School Detectives. I need to start rolling on some Oni work. I need to do my new editorial for the Oni site and update my site.

Soon. Just a little more sleep.

Current Soundtrack: New Order, Retro (the “Pop” disc); Morrissey, Maladjusted

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