Slowly Going Bald

• copyright law is bad

• fanfic is normal

• aliens have landed

• social-networking is bad

• people who are really into Disneyland are normal

• it's necessary to know Perl

• seriously, the fanfic thing is freaking me out

• the government is out to get me

• all conservatives and conservative movements are evil because the government is out to get me

• the bizarre is necessarily worthwhile

• the only way to talk about technology is with a kind of brain-choking smugness

Over at the Willamette Week, I take a look at TV shows you should watch on DVD now that the strike has potentially laid waste to new programming for months.

Click here for the column.

And, because it's always worth it, Charlie's song about going America all over everybody's asses from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia:"

UPDATE: Josh, you read my mind:

In which I chronicle the albums that came into my life this year.

March 2007

The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Gilded Palace of Sin/Burrito Deluxe (1969/1970)
It's oddly appropriate that the only (affordable) versions of these albums I came across at Amoeba were combined onto one disc, since Gram Parsons' G.P. and Grievous Angel are also collated onto one CD in the States. The Gilded Palace of Sin/Burrito Deluxe is a great blend of country and rock, though it leans more toward the 1960s sound than the broader "Cosmic American" sound Parsons would unleash on his solo efforts. "Christine's Tune" and "Sin City" are classics, as is the cover of the Stones' "Wild Horses."

Lucinda Williams, West (2007)
I'm stuck on this one because I like Lucinda Williams but also know that it's hard for me to get involved with her music, though I usually don't regret it. Still, this is a good album, and one of her more listenable (for me) in a while. You really can't go wrong with Lost Highway.

Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives, Live at the Ryman (2005)
Marty Stuart churned out his fair share of bad mainstream country hits a few years ago, but as a bluegrass artist, he's amazing. Live at the Ryman is an easygoing, fast-paced bluegrass album that features stunning instrumentation and old-time chats with the audience between numbers. The harmonies on "Homesick" will make you ache.

The Greencards, Weather and Water (2005)
I picked up this album after reading about it somewhere, probably in Paste. Solid, low-key newgrass for those who can't quite handle the rowdiness of Nickel Creek. It's a good background album.

The Mavericks, What a Crying Shame (1994)
This is just fantastic. Everything about the album is so howlingly 1994, from the ripped knees of the bandmembers' jeans in the photo to the strutting sound of mainstream country radio from the early part of the 1990s. But Raul Malo's phenomenal vocal range and the band's Latin influences keep the music fresh, and the album includes everything from a great deep-catalog Bruce Springsteen cover ("All That Heaven Will Allow") to the title track and some truly heartbroken ballads. I couldn't stop listening to this one for two weeks after I got it.

April 2007

Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, No More Beautiful World (2007)
This is a genuinely terrible album, and I haven't even made it all the way through. I tried three times to listen to it and only made it to track 3, which maybe means I could have made it to track 9 if I'd really buckled down. Roger Clyne made some really good rock-pop with The Refreshments, and as the frontman of his new band, he's made some great alt-country and rock-tinged music. But this atrocious record is Clyne's full-throated and idiotic announcement of his intention to turn himself into some kind of latter-day Jimmy Buffett, with songs about nothing more than sombreros and margaritas and every other stupid beach-based cliche you could want. I bought this album out of loyalty to Clyne, and though something in me — the anal-retentive collector, I guess — can't quite be made to part with it, I know I'll probably never listen to the album again. I'd planned on catching Clyne when he came through L.A. earlier this year, but after buying this album, I skipped the concert.

The Fratellis, Costello Music (2006)
Really good, vaguely punkish pop-rock that's wormed its way into dozens of movie trailers and more than a few film appearances. It's impossible not to sing along with it; "Whistle for the Choir" will get stuck in your head in a great way.

Peter Bjorn and John, Writer's Block (2006)
I was told I would be evicted from L.A. if I didn't buy this album. (Kidding [kind of].) I heard the lead single, "Young Folks," on KROQ a couple times and checked out the album, and really dug it. Just great, simple, earnest indie pop.

The Duhks, Migrations (2006)
Decent background bluegrassish stuff. Not too bad, but nothing to write home about.

Lyle Lovett, Pontiac (1988)
This is a full-on classic, featuring Lovett's distinctive mix of country, blues, and jazz; it's two parts Texas to one part Lousiana, and it works every time. The album opener, "If I Had a Boat," sets the tone with its simple melody and lyrics that balance hope and heartache, and "L.A. County" is downright haunting.

The International Submarine Band, Safe at Home (1968)
The only full-length album the band would ever release is worth picking up for anyone interested in the early days of country-rock, and especially for anyone looking to fill out their Gram Parsons collection. The album features a couple of Parsons' originals, including "Luxury Liner," as well as some interesting Cash covers with "I Still Miss Someone" and a medley that uses "Folsom Prison Blues." Incidentally, it was ISB producer Lee Hazlewood who prevented Parsons' vocals from appearing on The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo the same year; Parsons vocal tracks on the Byrds classic have only recently seen release. When Hazlewood died earlier this year, I kept trying to insert this injustice into his obit, but it didn't happen.

This is a longer review than usual for me, coming in at around 1,700 words, but I felt it was important to really explain just why Margot at the Wedding isn't good. I mean, I always attempt to do that, but this one required a bit more of a running start at the thesis, and it required me to do some soul-searching about just what constitutes a good film, and what does that look like, and how can that be recognized, and what does it mean for a filmmaker to write terribly depressing movies where virtually every character makes you want to walk quickly out of the theater, shudder in the sudden fall sunshine, and then go off to find something worth living for.

I really can't offer any kind of recommendation for this movie. Seeing it will not impact your life in any measurable or positive way. It won't make you like movies more, and it sure won't make you want to take a chance on art house fare. If anything, see it for the reminder of just how great it isn't.

Click here for the review.

P.S. A reward for anyone who gets the (I think) obscure headline reference.

UPDATE: Austin wins. (Well, Mimi over at Pajiba guessed it, too.) The headline is a nod to Patton Oswalt, and here's the clip it derives from. The language is pretty obviously NSFW:

American Gangster

No Country for Old Men

Margot at the Wedding

Strike While the TV Is Cold
[Willamette Week]

Dick: I guess it looks as if you're reorganizing your records. What is this though? Chronological?
Rob: No.…
Dick: Not alphabetical....
Rob: Nope....
Dick: What?
Rob: Autobiographical.
Dick: No fucking way.
—High Fidelity

The pleasing thing about lists is they allow you to see just how you measure up, to look at where you've been, and to show you where you want to go. I started putting together a list of every movie I've ever seen when I was a senior in college, and after a few weeks of combing the IMDb databases and adding titles whenever they occurred to me, it began to take shape and become as complete as I could make it. I update it a couple times a week, and while I concede there may be a title or two I've simply forgotten that I've seen, it's mostly accurate. The movie list is organized by title, not by when I happened to first see the movie, but I can usually make a good stab at when I saw a particular movie; for many films, I can remember who I was with when I saw them, and where we were.

But music is different. An album has an effect on your growth in a different way than a movie or a TV show, mostly because it's something you listen to several times in order to let it begin to sink in. The best albums become somehow stuck in your car's CD player or become a default choice on your iPod, and you listen to them over and over again. Music is much more of a continued experience, which is why I decided this year to keep track of the albums I acquired in hopes of being able to step back and observe my musical habits and maybe come to some kind of half-assed conclusions about the whole thing in a musical-journey-of-life-minus-the-b.s. sense. (I say "acquired" because I bought almost every album on here, but a couple were gifts from friends or coworkers. They're definitely not illegally burned copies. I swear.)

I figure this will take a few installments, so the first one will deal with albums I bought in the first two months of the year; I didn't have the idea until February or so, meaning I had to work from memory for the first few discs on the list. But later months are accurate.

Here we go.

January-February 2007

Old 97's, Hitchhike to Rhome (1994)
This was a fantastic buy. I couldn't stop listening to it when I got it; removing it from my car's CD player seemed impossible, an idea that made no sense. Living in L.A., I spend a fair amount of time on the road, and most of that timeis spent trying not to die, and albums like this one always make those trips more enjoyable. Hitchhike to Rhome is raw, and young, and so damn earnest and swaggering that I fell under every note's spell. The cover of "Mama Tried" is fantastic, as are "If My Heart Was a Car," "Stoned," and the fantastic version of "Doreen," which would resurface on the band's Wreck Your Life. I'd loved the Old 97s before this, but Hitchhike to Rhome cemented them as an all-time favorite.

Old 97's, Early Tracks (2000)
I bought this because I'm a bit of a completist when it comes to certain bands, and I wanted to own it. It's a decent album: It's got a different version of "W-I-F-E," as well a nice cover of Merle Haggard's "Harold's Super Service." But on the whole, it's only really listening to if you already know the Old 97s. There's nothing here to get excited about, just stuff to enjoy a few times.

Steve Earle, I Feel Alright (1996)
Holy hell, did this click with me from the very first song. I already owned a couple of Earle's albums before I got this one — Guitar Town, The Mountain, El Corazon — but this one came on hard and fast and blew me away. The dirt and pain are so real here, and Earle churns out some amazing songs. The eerie obsession of "More Than I Can Do," the breezily lamenting "Now She's Gone," the beautiful "Valentine's Day," and the solid duet with Lucinda Williams, "You're Still Standin' There," are all amazing. The album exists at the nexus of blues and country and rock and the singer-songwriter ethos, and it's always great to hear.

Emmylou Harris, Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town (1978)
Emmylou Harris was on an unholy creative tear in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and her string of albums from that period remain the best she's ever put out, from Elite Hotel to Roses in the Snow. Quarter Moon in a Ten-Cent Town is a typical entry from this era for her — a solid collection of covers with some duets and assists from established artists — but it's still worth getting just to hear Harris' voice at the peak of its power. Trivia: The album cover was painted by Susanna Clark, husband of Guy Clark, who also painted the cover of Guy's Old No. 1. Impress your friends.

Kim Richey, The Collection (2004)
I won't lie: My first exposure to Kim Richey came via "Angel." But I'm glad I found her. This is a decent best-of with some good songs that's worth an occasional listen. If you find it at a used record store for a couple of bucks, pick it up just for "A Place Called Home." Trust me.

Jessi Colter, An Outlaw, a Lady: The Very Best of Jessi Colter (2005)
I'm pretty sure my CD is autographed by Jessi Colter, unless someone in L.A. is in the habit of falsely autographing albums and selling them back to Amoeba. Regardless, this is a good album that I really haven't spent any time with, largely because I can enjoy the songs at arm's length and appreciate them for what they are, but I have trouble listening to the overly produced sounds of 1980s-era country for too long. The day I bought this, I was waffling between it and Colter's 2006 album Out of the Ashes. I probably should've gone with the latter.

Ryan Adams, Gold (Special Edition) (2001)
I know, I know. I owned most of the songs on Gold already — and when I say "owned," I mean I gleefully ripped them from the shared folders when I was a freshman in college — but I'd been keeping an eye out for a long time for a good used copy of the two-disc edition for less than $20. I finally found a good deal and snagged the album. There's not much to say in the way of discovery. I already knew how great the album was, having had "La Cienega Just Smiled" and "Firecracker" bouncing around my head for years, but it felt really nice to be able to hold the actual discs in my hands. That's what I don't like about downloading songs: You don't get to touch anything, to flip through the battered liner notes, to root through bins week after week waiting for that one album to show up. There's no tactile connection. Anyway, Gold is amazing, and something Adams will probably never top, which is why he's making (slightly) different music now instead of trying to bottle lightning twice. If you don't have the album, you should.

Lyle Lovett, My Baby Don't Tolerate (2003)
The album cover and the fact that it's on the Lost Highway label pretty much sold me on this one, and I wasn't disappointed at all. My Baby Don't Tolerate is a rootsy album that runs the gamut from Western swing to modern alt-country to some fantastic gospel numbers. The album is also amazing in its repeatability; instead of feeling like a sonically linear journey from A to B, the songs seem to call out to each other in pairs, creating a wonderful sense of internal continuity. And this isn't just in obvious pairs like the choir-backed album closers, "I'm Going to Wait" and "I'm Going to the Place." It's in the way "In My Own Mind" and "Nothing But a Good Ride" seem to mirror each other, and how track 3 ("The Truck Song") and track 10 ("San Antonio Girl") seem to have the same basic chord progression, as if they're just flip sides of the same battered old 45. Plus, I smiled like an idiot the first time I heard "San Antonio Girl," happily crushed by the weight of memories brought on by Lovett's mentions of everything from HemisFair to the Riverwalk to Mi Tierra's huevos rancheros. Damn, but it made me miss home a bit.

• I have no idea what people who aren't from Texas think or feel when they watch "Friday Night Lights." Do they understand how real it all is? And I don't just mean the small town whose existence seems to revolve around high school football every fall, because people from towns all across the country think they know what that's about. I mean the run-down middle-class feel of it all. I mean the prayer in school. I mean the Dairy Queens and old cars and yards that have never quite recovered from garage sales in years past. The show is shot in Austin, and watching it felt like being home.

• But the series amps up the football melodrama to a certain degree; it's not just Texas, but the kind of heightened state of being Texans wish upon themselves. And that also works in the show's favor. In mixing real-life drama with (only slightly) exaggerated storylines, the show mirrors the state's actual football-based insanity with the voluntary pigskin fever people invite because they think it's their duty as Texans to have.

• Let's get the obvious out of the way: The extremely shaky handheld shooting style often detracts from the emotional power of some scenes. It's a rookie mistake to confuse shaky camera work with reality and immediacy, but the fault can be traced back to Peter Berg, whose directorial style (cf. Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom) places a premium on cinematography so jittery you'd think the d.p. had some kind of terrible palsy. There were so many times when I ached for a decent two shot instead of the extreme close-ups that drive the show; when Tami and Eric talk on the balcony of their hotel room after the State game, we see only fragments of their faces, sliding in and out of frame, and that's a moment I wanted to really see them, to get a sense of their bodies as they talked through Tami's news. (I'm going through all kinds of linguistic hell here to avoid too many spoilers; you're welcome.) Reducing the actors to close-ups too often does a disservice to those performers skilled enough to use their bodies to send the kind of messages dialogue will never adequately express. When two people are having a DTR, for instance, I want to be able to see (again, for instance) him move toward her and her flinch away, or her shoulders soften as she scoots just a little closer. And I feel like I missed some of those moments.

• Plus, there are almost no establishing shots. None. You get used to it after a while, in a kind of "Hey, I guess the action has shifted to the school again suddenly" kind of way.

• But those legitimate technical quibbles still can't dilute the series' awesome first season, which is about life and love and growing up, as cliched as that all sounds. And over the course of the first season, the show makes clear that the only way to grow up is to give up on your parents. It's no accident that, aside from the coach and his wife, every other set of parents is deeply flawed in some way, guilty of the neartsightedness or inflexibility that are the hallmarks of being a teen. This is an ingenious way to amplify the kids' struggles: They are faced with the choice of committing the sins of their fathers (or mothers) or choosing to move on. Tyra's mother is codependent and weak-willed; Lyla's father is unfaithful; Jason's parents attempt to control him; Tim's absentee father is an abusive drunk; etc., etc. For the young men and women of Dillon, Texas, growing up means letting go of your parents' failures and rescuing them from self-destruction, and then picking yourself up and moving on down the road.

• This is why the coach's decision to transfer to TMU has such resonance when it's unveiled before the State game. Throughout the entire season, the coach has acted as a loving parent to Julie and a willing mentor to his players, but the season finale and biggest game of the year is the chance for the team to finally realize that no adult, no grown-up, will ever stay with them all the way. In a rare moment of clarity, Smash says to his teammates, "It's up to us now." This is the boys' ultimate test: To go it alone.

• Additionally, the series has helped me understand just why exactly I don't care about college or pro sports at all, and the reason is so simple I'm amazed I haven't been able to articulate it until now. It's not that I categorically hate anything to do with sports; I like a good sports movie (Hoosiers, Bull Durham, Rudy) as much as the next guy. But "Friday Night Lights" works for me because it's not just about the game, but about the people playing it. I'm not just marveling at the grace of a fourth-quarter Hail Mary pass to win the game; I'm rooting for sophomore Matt Saracen to step it up and become a leader. I can't just watch a game for the athletic skill of it. I have to, on some level, be involved emotionally with the characters, which is why I get chills every time Jimmy Chitwood says, "I'll make it," but can't remember NFL standings week to week beyond what I overhear at the office. And the reason so many people do care about sports is that they believe themselves to be a part of that story; they've bought into the package being spoonfed to them on SportsCenter and are convinced that they know the players and are witnesses to a great human drama. This is all completely untrue, since no one really knows what's happening in these men's lives beyond what makes it to the police blotter, but it also helps you understand why hardcore fans speak of their teams victories in the first-person plural, e.g., "We totally came back there at the end for the win, and we deserved it."

• The point is that I don't care about sports; I care about the story, and whether it's a good one. And "Friday Night Lights" is a great one. It's warm, and challenging, and realistic, and knows that there is no reason to watch a game unless you've given your heart to the players on the field. It's stirring and inspiring in the truest sense in that it engages the viewer on a visceral, emotional level and also pushes them to do or be something better. It's in the way Coach Taylor looked at a bed-ridden, paralyzed Jason Street and says, "You're a good man. You're what makes guys like me want to coach." It's in the way Matt drops everything to help out his aging grandmother. And it's in the electric moment when Smash and the coach stare each other down in the pourding rain in the "Wind Sprints" episode. Coach has already broken the team's ego, but it's up to Smash to swallow his pride and begin to forge the scattered parts into a powerful whole. He grits his teeth and shouts, "Clear eyes, full hearts ... clear eyes, FULL HEARTS," as his teammates echo his cheer and they turn, suddenly energized, to attack the hill once more. It's impossible not to run with them.

Click here for the review.

And while you're at it, enjoy some clips:

Ze has a new video.

It's about the strike, and if it's not quite as focused as some of his greatest hits, it's worth it just to have him back for a bit. Go check it out. And while you're there, don't forget to check out the main page and play in the ORG.

• With the aid of what I assume was some kind of evil posse, I killed several people by shooting them in the head, then had to drag their bodies into the other room. I remember feeling a sinking feeling in my gut when I realized I'd crossed a line and actually murdered someone, and that I would have to answer for it one day, crime- and soul-wise. I dreamed this because I saw American Gangster on Friday, which includes a scene where Denzel Washington's Frank Lucas shoots a guy in the head, point-blank, in the street one sunny morning.

• There was some fairly freaky (in many ways) stuff with Diora Baird. This is because I made the cataclysmic mistake of watching part of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning on HBO last night, which is absolutely no way to end your evening. I sat on the end of my bed and listened to Chalk Farm for a few minutes just to calm my brain down. I mean, everyone dies. Everyone. Not even Jordana Brewster, who is pretty clearly supposed to be The Surprisingly Resilient Heroine Who Barely Makes It Out, escapes Leatherface's impossibly sturdy mechanized blade. What is that? What is the point of the movie? Anyway, don't ever watch it, even if it's late at night and you're morbidly curious and you feel certain you'll be able to shake the images of slick young teens being grotted. You won't.

• Into the Wild is a good film, and a moving one, but in some pretty head-scratching ways.

• I guess it's appropriate that I find myself not quite willing to go along with the emotional premise of an Emile Hirsch movie; my issues with The Girl Next Door have already been documented. Specifically, Into the Wild is a moving film in that it hits the right notes and I allowed myself to be moved a certain degree. But I couldn't commit completely.

• Sean Penn is unquestionably a good director, and he's made a good film, despite weighing it down with awful narration. But by the end of the film, he's shifted from making a film about a boy striking out to find his own way in life to making a tone poem about what it would be like to make a film about that boy. In short, he shifts from storytelling to thinking about storytelling, and as a result, Into the Wild begins as a story about Christopher McCandless (Hirsch) and ends as a movie about Penn's struggle to tell a story about McCandless.

• But my bigger problem has to do with Penn's willingness to celebrate McCandless as some kind of visionary and almost deify a kid who ran off and died for no reason. I was sad but understanding when McCandless' parents turned out to be your typical suburban WASPy assholes. Sure, yes, burn that bridge, walk away. But McCandless clearly loved his sister, and she loved him, and Penn never even took a stab at figuring out why McCandless was moved to sever one of the few ties that could have held him to society. I don't even remember Penn even getting close to implying that no conclusion could be drawn in that area; it just kinda dropped.

• Likewise, I was sad that what in the film was McCandless' soul-altering epiphany — that happiness is only meaningful when it's shared — was something he didn't figure out until he was dying alone in the Alaskan wilderness. I probably knew that idea to be true in essence in high school, and in college I lived through a few things (like everyone does in college) that made me powerfully aware of just how true that idea is. But I didn't have to kill myself in Alaska to realize that, well, friends make life meaningful. This is something most people — popular, lonely, whatever — figure out on their own at some point, and I don't consider McCandless some kind of deified free spirit simply because he got really fit and lived off venison and cried when he realized how much he'd missed out on life. I hurt for him, yes. I wish he'd never come to that end. But I ultimately can't celebrate a film that seems to worship a boy for making such a cataclysmic mistake, the kind that cost him his life, especially when his existential breakthrough is something everyone else accepts much earlier, and easier. McCandless was a lost boy, but in none of the ways Penn showed.

I'm constantly amazed at how many people are at the movies at 11 a.m. on a Friday. I mean, I work Sunday-Thursday, so this is my legitimate day off. But, senior citizens aside, what the hell is everyone else doing at the theater? Does no one work? Can there really be this many unemployed actors in L.A.?

Anyway.

Click here for the review.

A friend of mine, inspired by this post, created this piece of art about my bald spot. For those who never saw 300, the artist is comparing the slightly thicker cluster of hold-outs in the middle of my bald spot — the eye of the storm, as it were — to the Spartans. I hasten to point out that the Spartans were eventually just annihilated. Still, anyone who wants to make art about my bald spot and email it to me (click the link in the top-right corner of the page) is more than welcome. Here it is: