Vote!

Hey, two posts tonight! Screw you, it's Monday night. I have to stay in sometimes. Anyway, this is important.

My friend the mighty Chiken Green made a potential commercial for Comcast. Now it's up for a vote against nine other entrants. We need your help! Please go here:

Atlanta Challenge--I Hear You

If you like what you see, please vote 5 stars. I think you have to register to watch the video and vote, but there's cash and film equipment for the winner. Also, if you look up and to the right, you'll see some guy doing the world's worst cabbage patch. Some handsome, talented, guy.

Hey, that Bob Dylan's talented.

If you go to Bob Dylan's site, you can download the song "Beyond Here Lies Nothin" for free until tomorrow at midnight. It's from his forthcoming record "Together Through Life." The song's pretty damned good, a pretty natural extension of the last two records.

That song is not the point of this post.

The cover looks like this:













The cover art for Big Bad Love, by the late, great author Larry Brown, looks like this:














Bless you, Bob. Good to know he's a fan. Please read Larry Brown. Please listen to Bob Dylan. Please hope for Brett to pick Jamie on Rock of Love.

I am a failure.

I tried.

I really did.

I did everything I could.

I talked, but the person I needed to hear me wouldn't listen.

Now there is a void. Emptiness. All we can yearn for is what was there before.

I couldn't stop my best friend from watching 2 Girls 1 Cup. WITH HIS WIFE.

Dumbass. I warned him.

My heart hurts.

This is very tough for me to write. I try to keep my personal life separated from this blog. But sometimes, I have to express how I feel.

Bret just sent Beverly home from the Rock of Love Bus Tour. How could he do this???????

I...I'm going to go curl up with a glass of Night Train and try to muddle through, somehow.

Here. This will make us all feel better.

R.I.P. Popcorn

I don't think I posted this video originally other than sending it to some friends, but Johnny Knoxville did a great interview a few months back with legendary moonshiner Popcorn Sutton. Popcorn was the living embodiment of what you think a moonshiner is, and. he was looking at two years in prison, two years that I'm sure he wouldn't have survived. Popcorn took his life this week to avoid his prison sentence. We won't be seeing his like again.

I'm from the south and have heard moonshine stories all my life and have had a handful of nights with the stuff myself. Here's to you, Popcorn. I hope you're taking a slug from the jar wherever you are.

For Knoxville's story about Popcorn's death and the original story, click here. Just a heads up, the interview is pretty, um, frank. Really, really frank. But chances are if you've survived reading my words to this point, you'll make it through this.

Stanislavsky all up in this piece.

I spent most of yesterday afternoon with my head painted green, watching a non-existent television and giving my pretend buddy hell about a fake phone call he got during a football game that wasn't actually happening.

Despite not being an actor*, I get called on to act every now and then. And so, I found myself being directed by my friend Chiken as he called the shots on a commercial he was shooting for an upcoming contest. I'm a writer and always will be, but it's cool to sit in and watch the process of a film happening. For 30 seconds of total footage, we overtook a house, had four cast members and twice as many crew, with everyone working for around five hours, not to mention all the advance work that Chiken had done. The sense of collaboration was palpable, even when things got bogged down. I work best in that kind of atmosphere or bouncing ideas off someone else. If it's just me and a blank screen, eventually I'm just going to go read Li'l Abner comics on the internerd somewhere.

I also may have made some inroads for more screenwriting down the line, so it was a successful afternoon all around. If you've been keeping up with things around here, the horse movie is still happening, but we've hit a few delays. It should be shooting in the May/June timeframe. On the plus side, I've finished the sequel and outlined part Three. And Four. I can be ambitious when need be.

*By any, any, any stretch of the imagination. Kirk Douglas. THAT'S an actor.



Also, this is either the best or worst cat ever.

Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear...

And now, a story from the SharkFinHat vaults. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

It was September, 1996. A young Jenny McCarthy was planning to leave Singled Out and conquer Hollywood. Joan Osborne was postulating what the situation would be if God was one of us. Mentos commercials were entering our collective consciousness.*

I was living in Athens and getting ready to attend the 21st birthday party for a good friend of mine. And attend we all did, ensuring that our friend got absolutely schnockered. Unfortunately, my idiot roommate decided he should get just as schnockered, which ended up with me sitting across from him at a table as he collapsed face down in his seat. I figured the night was pretty much at an end at this point, so I grabbed him by his arm and walked him a couple of blocks over to The Grill. I plopped him down on a bench and went to the payphone** to call a cab. I come back over, and he's completely passed out in some pine straw.

I sit him up and plead with him to get it together, as we were both 19 and therefore breaking several drinking laws. I finally get him to sit up. We're sitting there waiting when this guy comes and sits down beside us. Looks to be about our age, black guy, dressed more like a townie than a student. He introduces himself as Tony, as which point my roommate, let's call him Clark, shouts "Give me five, man!" Tony gives him five.

Then, Clark tells him "All I know is that black motherfuckers are cooler than white motherfuckers."

At this point, I run through all the things in my life I'll never get to do. I regret not asking out that cute redhead from English class.*** I'll never get to write the great American novel.

To his credit, Tony recognizes what a drunk dillhole Clark is being and says "Naw man, we're all the same." About this time, the cab pulls up and I throw Clark inside, say goodnight to Tony****, and we're on our way. Clark keeps trying to get the cab driver to give him five, at which point I slam my arm across Clark to keep him in the backseat. We finally get back to the apartment, where Clark stumbles into the bathroom. He falls out of the bathroom and across the hall a few minutes later, managing to break the door that covers our washer and dryer off its hinges. He had to fix it the next day, when he woke up and had no idea what happened.

What's the point of all this, you ask? Remember Clark's theory above, that black motherfuckers was cooler than white motherfuckers? Well, it turns out he was right. Please see below for proof.



*Years later, the parent company of my employer would own Mentos. DID I JUST BLOW YOUR MIND?

**Kids, ask your parents what a payphone was.

***I eventually did ask her out and we dated for a bit. Everything ended wretchedly.

****Many weeks later, we went to Krystal's at around 2 in the morning. Tony was working the register. I could tell he was trying not to laugh as soon as he saw us. I never said anything. I knew Clark didn't remember any of it.

Hurm.

So, Watchmen opens today. I saw it earlier this week, thanks to certain connections. The movie's really good and a knockout bit of filmmaking, but I'll be interested to hear what people who haven't read the book think. It's a very dense 2.5 hours, but as long as Paul Blart didn't challenge your way of thinking, you should be okay.

If you are a fan of the book, you'll find this pretty damned funny.

15 albums that changed my life

Cross-post from my Facebook page, because I am a junior high girl.

Cooped up inside all day, so Facebook meme ahoy. In 10 minutes, come up with 15 albums that changed your life. I went back and added some commentary to each when I was done.

1. R.E.M., Document. In 6^th grade, I had a dub of this on a tape with U2’s The Joshua Tree on the other side. I wore out the R.E.M. side, played the Joshua Tree maybe twice. I think it all goes back to this album for me. Still my favorite band. It was tough to say that for a few years.

2. Warren Zevon, Mutineer. Not the strongest album in his catalogue, but the first record of his I owned that wasn’t a greatest hits collection. I’d eventually get everything the man did. Still one of the best lyricists rock and roll has ever known.

3. The Dead Milkmen, Beelzebubba. A breath of fresh, profane air. The band that proved you could be funny, juvenile and smart all at once. I try to live by that code.

4. Guided by Voices mix—not an album, but a mix made for me by my friend Cary. I’d heard of them, but this was the first time I’d ever actually listened to them. After you hear Teenage FBI, there’s no going back.

5. Jack Logan, Bulk---“What do you mean, this guy just records on his boombox? His first record is a double album? Is it any good?” Uh, yeah, it was. Still is.

6. Drive-By Truckers, Gangstabilly—Saw these guys for the first time at a Merle Haggard tribute show at the 40 Watt. I picked up their first album not long after, and that was where it all started. I’ve seen them play dozens of times in the last 12(!) years, and they helped influence the way I think about being from the south and all that brings with it.

7. The Smithereens, Blown to Smithereens. Including a greatest hits record is kind of a cheat, but this is the album that got me into power pop. From there, I went to Cheap Trick. Cheap Trick to Big Star. Big Star to Marshall Crenshaw. Crenshaw to Sugar…

8. Body Count, self-titled—This album really wasn’t all that good. But it was the one that got secretly passed around once “Cop Killer” was banned, so that got to be my little teenage rebellion. This was also the bridge that led me to listen to more rap and hip-hop, so it’s got that going for it, too.

9. Wilco, Being There—I heard about a band called Uncle Tupelo when I was in high school. Never listened to them. Didn’t pick up Wilco’s first record, either. Finally got hit over the head with a bunch of reviews for Being There. Bought it on a lark and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Smart, literate rock and roll that didn’t sound like anything else I knew then. Immense.

10. Bob Dylan, Time Out of Mind—A latter day Dylan record, but it hit at just the right time for me. He was back in full force just as I was developing my musical sensibilities. I got to see him play not long after that, a show that holds a lot of meaning for me. The lyrics from this one hit me harder and harder as I get older.

11. Nirvana, Nevermind—I was actually a little late to the party on this one. It passed me by in high school because I felt like I was getting the band crammed down my throat. Once I finally just listened to the damn thing, I realized it deserved every bit of the praise it got. Plus, it gave us Dave Groh’s career.

12. Tom Waits, Rain Dogs—The first Tom Waits record I ever bought. That summer, I was working as a dispatcher for the college police in my hometown and I had to work some insane shifts. When I was working nights and sleeping during the day, I would put this album on to listen to as I drifted off. I dreamt a lot about pirates that summer.

13. Alejandro Escovedo, More Miles than Money—The album that got me into alt-country, a genre that I ended up spending several thousands of dollars on.

14. The Ramones, self-titled—Their first album was the shotgun blast of a revolution. It still sounds fresh and new, and they rightfully influenced countless bands that I love. I can listen to the Ramones every day of my life and never get bored with them.

15. Johnny Cash, Unchained—The second of his American comeback records and the first one I bought. It’s the sound of a man reclaiming his crown and it opened my eyes not only to his back albums, but Willie, Merle, Waylon, etc.