'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'

I slightly relate to the protagonist, Jeanette, in Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's first novel.

It follows the life of Jeanette (a novel that tells the story of a person from childhood to adulthood is called a bildungsroman ... did not know this), who is adopted by a couple in the English countryside in a evangelical Christian community.

At a young age, Jeanette is groomed to go abroad as a missionary by her devout mother and her father, who is largely absent working odd hours.

As a child, Jeanette is active in her religious community, even preaching in tent revivals. Around the time of her adolescence, she begins experimenting with certain relationships with other women. Initially, there's nothing explicit, but it's understood and Christians have the capacity for overreacting.

She eventually repents and returns to her preaching ways until she meets another young woman and begins an affair with her. This time she refuses to repent and leaves the church and his kicked out of her house. The story ends with her returning to her home. There she has found some kind of balance with her still-devout mother, who is a bit jaded after a series of controvesies hit the church community.

I relate because I too was raised in the evangelical church. Speaking on tongues. Loud music with many instruments, no matter how well they were played. People dancing and clapping. There were other manisfestations of the Holy Spirit. Like crying and laughing.

Looking back and talking with friends, we're a lot more skeptical of the entire thing. I personally feel it was all real or all possible. I just don't think it was possible for me or for most of the people I associated with. As much as it was a place for spiritual growth, it was also a time of growth ... physically. We were all teenagers and no matter how much the Lord works through us, we still like a lot of crap that Jesus probably wasn't into during his 33 years on Earth.

It was a tumultuous time. A lot of hypocrisy, anger and ego. I was once told that if I ever found the "perfect" church then I should tell everyone because it's what we're all looking for.

I don't regret that time in my life. I just wish I had my current mindset during that time. For years, I blurred the line between a belief in God and all these little things that mean nothing. Like acting a certain way, developing certain "gifts" (like speaking tongues) and all of the work. They say that faith is important, but works are foolhardy. If you go from being a visitor or someone "unsaved" to being a member of a congregation, there are certain expectations and if those aren't met, there is real hell to pay.

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is at least semi-autobiographical. Winterson herself was raised in such a community and left after she announced that she was a lesbian. She worked odd jobs and eventually went to college.

My experience was different, but it was my experience and I'm happy to know that I am not alone.

'Fellini Satyricon'

If you want your mind blown, check out Federico Fellini's interpretation of Petronius' Satyricon. Based on the ancient plays written during Nero's reign in Rome. As the tagline goes, "Rome. After Christ. Before Fellini."

The inclusion of "Fellini" in the promotion and whatnot was because another film of the same name was already done years earlier.

Labeling it "bizarre" would be the understatement of the millenia. It's a visual orgy, a mish-mash of characters, dialogue you can't understand, plotlines that don't make any sense, quick-changing sets and scenes.

On a different thread, Satyricon is the name of a death metal band from Norway. Extremely black. Extremely metal. Kind of the polar opposite of the film.

'The Heartbreak Kid'

Elaine May is pretty interesting. She's an improv comedian, who hooked up with Mike Nichols while a member of the renowned Chicago improv group, Second City.

Nichols would prove to be May's muse. This behind-closed-doors love-hate thing they've had going on has proved to be some kind of driving force for her career.

May directed The Heartbreak Kid. She's only directed four total films, including the awful Ishtar. The Heartbreak Kid is a Neil Simon play so it's the only film she directed, but didn't write.

May's career as a director is tenuous. If The Heartbreak Kid is her best, then you are on the outside looking in. However, she is a woman and there aren't many female directors and there are hardly any good female directors. So the fact that she's borderline bad, is good.

However, May's claim to fame -- in my book -- is her writing. She had a hand in Heaven Can Wait, Tootsie and Reds. She also co-wrote personal favorites The Bird Cage and Labyrinth, starring David Bowie as the baby-stealing Goblin King.

The Heartbreak Kid also seems significant because it's this celebrated, somewhat funny film about a guy who is a total asshole douchebag. Like a Woody Allen film starring Osama Bin Laden.

'Head On'

An interesting chronicle of the Middle Eastern expatriate living in the west. But it's not always the United States and it's not always some country of friction like Iraq or Pakistan.

It's Turks living in Germany. The divide between cultures and between generations is wide. I think the generational divide between devout parents and kids that embrace the carnal nature of youth and modern society is deeper and vast than any other strait.

Sibel is a young, beautiful Turkish woman living in Hamburg under the iron thumb of her Muslim parents. She proposes a marriage of convenience with Cahit, an older, deadbeat drunk who has revoked all Turkishness from his life, divorcing himself from his homeland.

Sibel puts little value in their arrangement and lives a libertine partying every night and sleeping with countless men. Cahit finds that he's actually in love with Sibel, and winds up accidentally killing one of her former lovers in a bar.

He goes to prison and Sibel moves back to Turkey having been disowned by her family. There, her life spirals rapidly as she gets addicted to hard drugs and winds up getting raped passed out on a bar floor. She picks a fight with three guys and is stabbed and left for dead.

We then find Cahit out of prison and seeking Sibel. We learn she has her life together and raising a child. The pair have one last affair. Cahit leaves for his hometown hoping Sibel shows up at the bus station to join him. He goes home alone.

It's a really cool story and it's very well acted especially with Birol Ünel (Cahit) and Sibel Kekilli (Sibel) who absolutely kill their roles. I also think its worth note that Kekilli is a former porn actress. Which might explain her being so good in the sex scenes.

'The Host'

South Korea is very weird in how it ranks its films in terms of popularity.

In the United States (and everywhere else, I think), we rank films based on the amount of money it makes at the box office.

In South Korea, at least, they rank on them on how many times the film's been seen. Bong Joon-ho's film Memories of a Murder was seen more than five million times in South Korea. This success pumped up the anticipation for his follow-up, The Host.

The latter was seen 13 million times. Since there's little to no context on how successful it is, just know it was the highest grossing film in South Korea at the time (and still is, I think). It's like South Korea's Titanic.

The film was inspired by an actual event when a Korean doctor, working for the United States, poured an inordinate amount of formaldehyde into a drain and into Han River in Seoul.

In the film, it results in a giant, man-eating, child-stealing river monster. In real life, it resulted in pissed off Koreans.

Although the film is a crisply-made sci-fi film, it's wonderfully hilirious, at times heartbreaking and working at a nice pace. In the end, you feel kind of good. Like there's some redemption although Joon-ho was not scared to take everything out on his characters and spiritually sap them.

'Homework'

Daft Punk are the guys that make house and techno legit. It's like Robert Johnson turning the guitar into some honky tonk or backwoods instrument into something real and beautiful.

They are beyond the generic music that you'll find in clubs and put elements of melody and pop music into these beats and synths.

They also defy the element of image, always wearing those black jumpsuits and the helmets. They are not faces, facial hair, a hair cut or visage. They are like two robots creating these sounds so people can dance.

Homework, their seminal record, has sold like two million copies. Thankfully, Daft Punk has kept all the rights to their songs. They preach "control." I'd preach that's how you make a shitload of money. And keep control. Get Kanye West to sample some of your beats and sell a couple of songs to car commercials and you're set.

"We've got much more control than money. You can't get everything. We live in a society where money is what people want, so they can't get the control. We chose. Control is freedom. People say we're control freaks, but control is controlling your destiny without controlling other people. We're not trying to manipulate other people, just controlling what we do ourselves."

Smart!

'The Big Sleep'

This crime novel is known for its complexity and varying characters all playing different roles with different intentions, many of them secret.

It is often tough keeping up with these characters, who they are and what they want. And by the time you think the mystery is solved there comes Ray Chandler with another twist, another truth and another turn of the screw.

How complex is this novel? Chandler was shocked to learn after publication that the murder of the man in the car dumped in the bay was never explained.

It was not only the basis for the Bogart-Bacall film, but also for the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski.

'Dances With Wolves'

I remember watching Dances With Wolves, I think, in the seventh grade. I remember only really being interested in the opening scene when Dunbar is on the amputation table and he pulls on his boot and rides the horse in front of the enemy line. We had to fast forward through the sex scenes.

I was extremely saddened to find out the next two hours and 45 minutes were him running around with a bunch of Indians, eating buffalo hearts and stuff.

The rest of the film does get really boring and I can't imagine it deserving all the awards and accolades it got back in the day. It beat out Goodfellas for the Best Picture Oscar (crime!). I won for a bunch of awards and was nominated for even more, some deserving and some shocking that they were even in the mix.

I did not remember the end. Dunbar and his wife going off on their own. Leaving the tribe that would soon be destroyed. It is interesting that Dunbar wants to go West to see the "frontier" before it "disappeared."

It is true. Soon, that part of the country would be decimated. It's a shame. For those people, for that lifestyle, for those millions of years of culture and history. It's eerie when the chief busts out the helmet from the conquistadors. This great ebb and flow of civilization is amazing. It's so much bigger than we could ever imagine. It's beyond us and that makes it impossible to grasp.

'Ugetsu'

Ugetsu is a Japanese ghost story directed by the famed Kenji Mizoguchi.

Mizoguchi was born in 1989 and died just three years after Ugetsu was released in 1953. According to stories, Mizoguchi would often have a film finished in weeks. Thus, he did more than 50 films in the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1923, he moved to a studio in Kyoto, until he was suspended because the call girl he was living with attacked and wounded Mizoguchi with a razor blade.

Ugetsu is a form of jidai-geki, a film that focused on Japanese history and folktales. He made a series of these after World War II including The Life of Oharu.

Just years after making a major resurgence among filmgoers, Mizoguchi died of leukemia at age 58.

'There's No Place Like America Today'

Three years before, Curtis Mayfield released the soundtrack to Superfly, which I found really disappointing. It was really evident that he wrote the songs and music as a soundtrack. As a series of song that are stilted and are made for a film.

My disappointment turned to delight after listening to There's No Place Like America Today, his 1975 album.

It's a really good R&B record. Melodic and sweet. It exemplifies the brilliant musician and songwriter that Mayfield truly was. If you want to get to the real Mayfield and one of the best soul records from the 1970s, skip Superfly and get this album.

'Spellbound' & 'Gaslight'

Funny or sad story: I was watching Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound when I started researching Ingrid Bergman.

From 1942-1946, she starred in Casablanca, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gaslight, The Bells of St. Marys, Spellbound and Notorious. It's a five-year span in which she got three of her six Best Actress Oscar nominations (winning once). That's a salty five years of acting.

The only reason this is funny-sad is because I saw Gaslight on the list and I started reading about it and I realized I'd just watched it. Like two weeks before.

After a little bit about the plot, I remember it now. Opera singer dies. Niece and new, creepy husband move into house. Husband turns out to be murderer of opera-singing aunt looking for jewels that he forgot to steal in the first place.

Anyway, Bergman is great, but Spellbound is by leaps and miles the better film. Although, I could probably do without Gregory Peck. I'm not too into what he's bringing although Hitchcock seems to milk everything out of his actors.

'My Generation'

Reason No. 824 why I hate The Who: On their seminal 1965 record (the same year The Beatles produced the beautiful Rubber Soul), My Generation, featuring arguably their most popular song, is a mish-mash of R&B covers and garage band noise.

Basically, The Who had no idea what they wanted to be when they grew up. And I'm supposed to think they were a good band?

And Roger Daltrey and that ridiculous haircut. What a douche.

Look at all four of them on that album cover. John Entwhistle with that head of hair that his mom combed for him that morning. Pete Townshend and Keith Moon with that "aw-shucks" visage. Like they were just visiting Big Ben and someone decided to take a photo for the cover of a rock record.

'The Wild Boys'

As I finished The Wild Boys the other day, I began to wonder just when William S. Burroughs knew he was done with a novel.

If you've never read Burroughs, it's a wandering hodgepodge of thoughts with a less-than-developed plot (if there is one). Often, narrative is repeated. There's nothing that would be confused with a story arc: A beginning, middle and end. There's an end because there's a last page, there's an ending. In theory, there's little reason Burroughs could not have written 200, 500 or 1 million more pages to The Wild Boys. The end is no more of an end than the beginning or middle.

How does he determine this? Surely there's a feeling. Maybe the drugs wear off. Maybe he gets bored. I can all three happen. Maybe at once.

The Wild Boys, largely, is about homosexuality: This sub-culture of feral young men running wild having rabid sex with each other whenever and wherever they pretty well please. At some point, the story includes the American army invading North Africa to stop the Wild Boys. Thene there's a seperate story seemingly set in ancient South American culture.

Nonetheless, everyone's sexing each other up. Two dozen anal sex anecdotes later and that's The Wild Boys.

Someone who should be quoted, I guess, said, " [Burroughs] helped make homosexuality seem cool and highbrow, providing gay liberation with a delicious edge."

Let me tell you something, there isn't a thing in The Wild Boys that makes homosexuality "cool or highbrow." It's vicious and carnal. It's not love making. It's ejaculation. The two shouldn't be mixed up.

'Mondo Cane'

Humans are weird. It's the biggest difference between us and the animals. It's not invention, free thought, opposable thumbs, the ability to talk or play Wii bowling, it's oddity.

Dogs and monkeys aren't odd. Odd looking, yes. But not odd. They sleep, wake up, eat, shit, fight, eat, shit and sleep. That's not odd. That's a dream for human beings.

We work, have 401ks, purchase cars based on gas mileage, watch films with Kevin Costner, buy Thin Lizzy records, mow lawns, pick school districts, check out books at libraries, look at Internet porn, cheat on our wives, shoot heroin in our veins, get flu shots and hire personal trainers. That shit is fucked up.

Mondo Cane is a series of travelogues detailing the idiosyncratic and, often, retarded rituals, rites, cultural events, traditions and activities that human beings "enjoy" as we pass through this planet.

I don't need some Italian documentarians to tell me this. I know it. I live it. I think we underestimate the human being's ability to be relatively self aware. It doesn't take long to scroll through a newspaper to realize that things are quite right. Something's gone haywire in our brains and we can't stop murdering, stealing, raping and going to sporting events (how retarded are sports, big picture?).

I watched a show about "victims" of obsessive-compulsive disorder and these people have serious mental issues. Then again, so do all of us. I can't stand it when towels and blankets are left on the floor. It's a minor thing. It bugs me. But it doesn't control my behavior. It does for OCD patients.

We are all virtually just a step or two away from being one of the degenerates that are written up about in the newspaper. We all have odd interests and fetishes that could be considered borderline mischievious or "bad." The guy who likes weird porn and the guy that rapes women are seperated by a thin line.

It's what Mondo Cane tries to show us (we're cruel assholes), but it's no secret.

'Imperial Bedroom'

I purchased Imperial Bedroom at a record store. I played it once and, frankly, kind of ignored it. I played it again and it started to stick.

By the 10th spin, I was pretty hooked and loving the record. So much, that if I had the opportunity to purchase it on CD, I probably would.

It's very melodic, with these rather varying and complex melodies. I've learned that this was the first album Elvis Costello write on the piano, which makes more sense in regards to the melodies being a tad more complex.

This was also the first album Costello did without Nick Lowe producing. As Costello noted in the liner notes of one release, he wanted to do things and didn't think Lowe had the patience. It's also the first Costello album where the songs were first played live.

The album titled is stolen from Brett Easton Ellis' novel Imperial Bedrooms. Tit for tat, Ellis took his novel title Less Than Zero from Costello's song of the same name.

'A Pale View Of Hills'

Despite what you might assume about his name, Kazuo Ishiguro is not Japanese. He is the son of a Japanese couple, born in Nagasaki in 1954.

He moved to England when he was five, went to school there and became a British citizen in 1982, the same year his first novel, A Pale View of Hills, was published.

Ishiguro would not even visit Japan since he was a child until 1989. Therefore, A Pale View of Hills, one of his few novels set in his native country, is based on completely imagined environs. He didn't really know anything about Japan (outside of what he might have read or remembered as a young child) when he wrote the novel. Knowing this, it makes sense. Ishiguro's novels do not hinge quite so much on setting as others. Ishiguro's novels are based around his complex and, often, disturbed characters.

Many are immature or naive. Others are placed in a set of unwanted circumstances. Most fail to come to grips with the future. That's precisely what we get in A Pale View of Hills, a set of characters unable to handle some part of their lives.

'Yes'

Yes begins with 477 uninterrupted words. No, I didn't think the entire novel was one long sentence, but it began to feel as such.

There is just one paragraph break in the entire book. Just one long rant by the unnamed narrator, who is pondering suicide. He is lonely living in the outskirts of an Austrian village. His only friend is a real estate agent, Moritz. He finds a sort of redemption when a Swiss businessman and his companion, the Persian woman, arrives and purchases a piece of land to build a house.

The narrator inundates the Persian with his philosophy and thoughts about life and suicide during long walks in nearby woods. Unloading himself on her.

Later we learn that he was merely prepping her for her own suicide, which happens when she walks out in front of a concrete truck.

Thomas Bernhard's works lean heavily on death and suicide. He labored with TB as a child and continuously thought of death, which was probably debilitating as a child.

'Wild Reeds'

I think everyone, no matter what country they live in, often go through certain periods of transition and upheaval.

Clearly, times in Afghanistan or Iraq are terribly different from those in the United States or Japan. Still, people go through uncertain times. Maybe it's a downturn economy, a war, political unrest or general disagreement. Sometimes things don't feel right.

In France, during the Algerian War, things were in clear upheaval in the homefront even if the bullets were flying thousands of miles away. People didn't agree. There wasn't a consensus and no matter how absolutely normal this sounds, it's difficult to live with because people don't act normally when it comes religion and politics. It's why you don't bring it up.

If people could handle religion and politics, the world would be a better place. Most wars would generally be unnecessary.

Now, imagine being 16 years old. And then being totally fucked up about your future and your sexuality. These are the conflicts in Wild Reeds. As sweet as the film is, it's filled with this constant grating of feelings and lives. It's very confusing. It'd be even more confusing for these characters.

It's a beautiful coming of age film, but it's a disastrous set of circumstances and contexts.

'First Band On The Moon'

The Cardigans first caught my (and everyone else in the United States') attention after "Lovefool" was included on the soundtrack for that dumb Romeo + Juliet film (the old language, updated with cars).

However, they shouldn't be judged based on that song. They are a dynamic and interesting pop band that had little problem covering Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" with their soft, slowed swagger. As if it were their song.

The songs are great. Sassy and sexy. The basslines absolutely grove and they orchestrate with the lushness and levels of any big band and the danceability of a disco group.

The fact that they're Swedish makes them better.

The Cardigans recorded a couple albums afterwards and then took a break after six years of recording and touring. Now, they're back on a second hiatus. You kinda wonder if they're really into themselves as a group.

'The Killer'

This film is in Chinese and for about the first 15 minutes there is talking and not a whole lot of subtitles going on. It's OK. Because there's not a lot of talking. Just a lot of shooting.

Still, the subtitles weren't working. Still, when hte subtitles clicked on (after much remote control wrangling), there was something off about them. As if they weren't really translating what was being said or the Chinese syntax and subtleties of the langauge don't translate well or it's one of the corniest written film of all time.

I tend to think it's the first and a bit of the third. This film's really over the top in that Quentin Tarantino kind of way with a shitload of blood, these melodramatic subplots, the killer with a conscience and more.

It is very crazy. The action scene never seem to end and they include so much blood, equal to any Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez film. It also launched the mainstream careers of Jet Li and John Woo, who'd both latre make craploads of money in the United States.

'London Calling'

My first exposure to The Clash and 1980s punk and ska came in or around 1997. I was 15 and my parents were divorced. At the time, my sister was getting a divorce and living with my mother for a brief time.

She had the soundtrack to the John Cusack film, Grosse Pointe Blank. I tried several years later to watch the film, but I fell asleep.

Anyway, the soundtrack was composed by Joe Strummer, the ultra-cool lead singer of The Clash and featured two Clash songs and a bunch of cool 1980s music.

One of the songs included "Rudy Can't Fail," from The Clash's best album, London Calling.

What makes it the best Clash album is that it encapsulates all of the music that truly inspired the band, including punk, rockabilly, ska, reggae and rock. It's melodic as any Beatles album, yet it's edgy and raging. It matches the cover as well as any album in history.

One of the greatest album covers of all time.

'The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady'

The Black Saint and The Sinner Lady is regarded by some as the greatest jazz album of all time. It features the talents of famed composer and bassist Charles Mingus.

The album is a six-part suit of avant-garde, swirling jazz music. It's a complete narrative, however, of music. That sounds ridiculous, but it's a very listenable album.

Mingus was a bit of a nut, however. He and his psychotherapist collaborated for the liner notes on the album. In his autobiography, Mingus claimed to have had 31 different affairs in his life including 26 hookers at one time. Which is either ridiculous, untrue or awesome ... or all three. He was also married five times. He claims he was married to two at the same time. He also claims to have been a pimp.

Mingus also was apparently an asshole. He'd stop the music and yell at clubgoers for clinking ice in their drinks. He'd scream at band members and run them off the stage. He punched a trombone player in the mouth, forever altering the player's ability to hit hit notes on his horn.

Mingus released 68 albums as a bandleader in his time. Maybe an asshole. Maybe dealing with burning while peeing. But he could play some jazz.

'Straw Dogs'

The remake is due for a remake in a year. It will not be as good.

It's interesting that there are so many films that feature Americans or outsiders in the British Isles where the locals are hostile or suspcious of his actions.

It's not unlike the themes found in Wicker Man, The Quiet Man and An American Werewolf in London. There's something off key and mysterious about the region. They're really old having been home to anciet peoples and the Celts. They hosted the Roman legions and had hundreds of years of wars, death and everything in between. Scandanavia is the same way. Just something creepy about the area.

Straw Dogs was released in the same year as A Clockwork Orange, The French Connection and Dirty Harry -- all four extremely violent films. Furthermore, the rape scene with Amy was censored by the Americans just to get an "R" rating.

Of course, A Clockwork Orange was a comment on violence in society and the other two were two of the grittiest and genuine cop films of the era.

What violent films bring out and remind us of the raw and carnal nature of human beings -- not unlike that of a wild animal. When trapped or when given a reason to attack, they scratch, claw and bite like any other mammal. Straw Dogs reminds us of that.

'The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill'

In 1997, I first fell in love with a girl. Her name was April. I'd met you by happenstance at a Christian/youth hangout in the small East Texas town that I was raised in.

She was cute and sociable. Everything I'm not. We "went out" for a little bit, but we went to different schools and, frankly, I should not have been "going out" with anyone because I was a lousy boyfriend. Just lousy.

Several months later, we connected again. She ran a snow cone stand that her father owned and I would loiter there for hours. Just talking and eating coconut snow cones. We'd go to movies, talk music, hang out and all the other stuff that actual boyfriends and girlfriends do. Except there was no making out.

One thing we had in common was Lauryn Hill. I think she was the fan first. She was kind of a white hippie artist. At the time, I thought the world began and ended with rock music. Hip hop and soul had no place in my vernacular. Then "Doo Wop (That Thing)" and "Everything is Everything" were released as singles and I was hooked. I became a huge fan and listened to The Miseducation ... about 100 times.

For my birthday, that July 1999, April bought me concert tickets to see Hill perform at the Starplex in Fair Park in Dallas. We could not have been more out of place. Two white teenagers amid 9,000 black people. She bought a handmade T-shirt in the parking lot. We listened to Rage Against the Machine to and from the concert in my 1995 Red Chevrolet S-10.

We saw a young OutKast do "Rosa Parks."

I'll never forget any of this. Ever. One of the greatest albums of my life.

'In Utero'

In Utero is really angry. Not so much the lyrics. They're as intelligible and nonsensical as any other Kurt Cobain song.

It's the music. Calling it "aggressive" would be an understatement. The chord progressions, the guitar effects, the way they're played, the way Cobain abuses the strings on his instrument evoke the very anger and disillusionment that Cobain was feeling.

Most of the higher-ups dealing with Nirvana found the album a disappointment. They thought it was unlistenable and unmarketable. The douchey 30-year-olds who bought Nevermind four months earlier in 1992 (Nevermind being released in 1991) weren't going to relate that well to "Rape Me" and "Milk It."

Instead, it went on to be one of their best selling albums thanks to "Heart-Shaped Box" and "All Apologies." There are its pop moments. It is terribly overproduced. The band picked Steve Albini to produce based on his work with The Breeders and The Pixies.

Although they may or may not have been pumped with working with him, Albini, it appears, was totally disinterested considering Nirvana as "REM with a fuzzbox" and he took the gig because he felt sorry for them. Albini would finish the album but the band came back and had another producer redo a couple of albums.

'Let It Bleed'

A classic Rolling Stones record. The final one featuring the work of the great and understated Brian Jones.

Recording for the album actually began in 1968 when they recorded "You Can't Always Get What You Want" and then Beggars Banquet was released. The song was held over and recording for Let It Bleed began in February 1969 and didn't end until October 1969. Yes, that's eight months of recording. Jones' contributions (autoharp, percussion) came in May 1969 and then he was fired in June.

Let It Bleed was done during the Rolling Stones' peak creative years. It's sandwiched between Beggars Banquet and Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street. It's really hard to beat a four-album stretch like that.

It actually temporarily bumped The Beatles' Abbey Road from the No. 1 spot in the United Kingdom. Temporarily.

'Tommy'

Tommy is regarded as "great" because -- and only because -- it's by The Who, who are amazingly overrated and because it's a so-called "rock opera." Meaning, all the songs were written and recorded in a way that followed a plot and told a story.

If those same songs were release by the Dave Clark Five as kind of a regular, hodgepodge of songs, seemingly unconnected, then it would be considered the worst possible rock albums of all time.

As it is, it's "great." Not to me. But it's a general consensus. Those songs stink. It's a dumb story told by a dumb band.

The most disappointing aspect of the album is the relative lack of any production value. This album was done in 1969 and by then recording technologies and breakthroughs were already going through the roof. The Who, being a gigantic rock band, could afford anything they want. This was a rock opera, why not go the entire nine yards? Instead, they got Keith Moon banging on those drums and Pete Townshend strumming away at his acoustic guitar and that's about the end of it.

If a real band with a real producer had come in in 1969 and really had their way with that album, then I might be playing a different tune here. I don't want to hate the album, but I'm not buying into the hype. Consider the album for its songs and not for its context, then you'll see my point.

'MTV Unplugged In New York'

It is well regarded that Kurt Cobain had many issues, not the least of which was fame and his unability to deal with it.

Frankly, the guy couldn't get out of his own way. Unplugged was recorded six months before he killed himself and released another seven months afterwards.

It would go on to surpass In Utero as the top-selling album by Nirvana and the song "About a Girl" was released as the only single and, thusly, it became the album's only commercial hit. Of course, "About a Girl" was a giant "fuck you" to MTV and everyone else. It's a great song, but it's also off the band's first album, Bleach, which was wildly unpopular.

Unplugged performances were typically an opportunity for a huge band to play all their hits acoustically and sell shitloads of more albums. Nirvana didn't do that. But it didn't stop Nirvana's album was filled with rareties, B-sides, covers of the Vaselines, Meat Puppets and Leadbelly.

The album is eerie. Cobain is audibly and physically uneasy and nervous. Rumors are he was withdrawing from drugs. The album wasn't completely unplugged because Cobain demanded he have an amp as a sort of security blanket. He also demanded the set be arranged and decorated to look like a funeral -- as if he knew what was going to happen in April of the next year.

Cobain and Co. tried their damndest to be unpopular. But that effort made them increasingly more popular.

'The Sixth Sense'

I first saw this film in college during one of those "movie nights" in the math building. I'd never seen it nor did I really know any kind of spoiler in regards to the twist.

Frankly, it freaked me out. Scared me shitless. Not knowing what to expect, the unexpected took me by total surprise. It still kind of freaks me out. I know I'm supposed to say that I knew Bruce Willis was dead the entire time and that it doesn't scare me now, but it does.

There's something about the woman who cut her wrists and the boy that accidentally blew his brains out that always gets me. The way they walk past, almost a blur. Like they're shadows.

This is just one of four horror films all time to get an Oscar nod. It is a really good film. Frankly, M. Night Shyamalan hasn't done a decent movie since, but I think he still gets opportunities because of The Sixth Sense. They're waiting for him to lure the filmgoers back with that twist. Hasn't happened since.

'Steppenwolf'

Steppenwolf is a book within a book about man, Harry Haller, who forever battles internally these urges of the carnal (the wolf) and that of the man.

At a place where he wants to end his life, Haller meets Hermine, who instructs him on the life of a bohemian, dancing, laughing, drinking, doing drugs and listening to jazz. It's at this point that Haller finds healing and growth. Where he's able to almost ignore the "wolf" living inside of him.

Haller learns to laugh and take himself (and art) less seriously. His anger toward a silly painting of Goethe and classical music take backseats to jazz and making love to young, beautiful women.

Hermann Hesse contends it was the most misunderstood of his books. It was his 10th novel. He said the attention paid to the struggle of wolf and man overshadows the healing and transcendation of the Haller character.

Also, it's full of Eastern and Buddhist philosophy, Hesse being a big proponent.

The book is defined during the latter half when Haller enters into the Magic Theatre and reality is turned on its head. Here, Haller lives his fantasties and lives out the phantasmal. By the 1960s, the counterculturists had adopted the novel due to its philosophical nature, dependence on Eastern culture, drug use and dallying with the layers of the mind.

'Lola Montes'

Lola Montes was a real person. She was actually Irish, born Eliza Rosanna Gilbert in or around 1818. She then, apparently, took the world by storm.

She became a dancer and courtesan in London, Paris, Munich and various other European cities. She did indeed seduce King Ludwig of Bavaria and Alexander Dumas.

Montez finally wound up in the United States and Australia, where she did her spider dance -- allegedly -- hiking her dress up so high that it clearly showed she wasn't wearing any undergarments.

Montez sounds like a neat person.

The film Montes performs in a circus as a sort of a sideshow freak where her many conquests are retold to an audience and thus her life is retold.

Montes is portrayed by the gorgeous Martine Carol, who was married four times, attempted suicide, struggled with drug abuse and was even kidnapped by Pierrot Le Fou. Anyway, she was breathtakingly beautiful.

'Palo Congo'

I was playing this album in my office when a co-worker (a black man who listens to hip-hop and neo-soul) comes into my office and asks, with a certain amount of puzzlement as if I were listening to recorded farts, what I was listening to.

Palo Congo is a 1957 album from Sabu Martinez, one of the foremost Latin and jazz percussionists of all time. It wasn't the typical type of music you hear on the radio, but it wasn't anything you might hear in a Latin club or in any film. This isn't odd music or anything.

I told him that more people in the world listened to this type of music than they did his favorite music (like soccer), and that he should broaden his horizons a bit and listen to different types of music.

Like so many jazz musicians before him, Sabu Martinez died at the rather early age of 49. Fortunately, he wasn't a drug addict (or didn't die because of it), but instead a boring, unjazz gastric ulcer.

'Being John Malkovich'

One of my favorite all-time films. It blew my mind. I'd never seen a more original film in my life and I might not have seen one since.

It's shocking to me that this film was every made. Getting John Malkovich involved. Collecting that fantastic cast (including the actually good Cameron Diaz). Writing that quirky, yet, wonderful script. Tying together all of these idiosyncratic characters (like the receptionist that can't understand others' talking). It's such a bizarre, unique film and due to the other dreck that is made, it's surprising to see such a cool film.

The film addresses the existence of a soul, religion, being, consciousness and thought. Are we real? Are we just other people creating some kind of reality through someone else's body? Is all of this that far fetched?

It doesn't, honestly, to me. Unlikely, yes, but not totally out of the question. My two favorite parts are when Malkovich goes into his own portal where he's placed in a fancy restaurant where everyone has individual bodies, but Malkovich's head. Then when Diaz chases a pregnant Catherine Keener into Malkovich's portal and through scenes in his subconscious. Funny, yet disturbing, scenes from Malkovich ensue including him seeing his wife getting sexed up and hims peeing his pants on the school bus.

We assume these are fake memories. In the film, his middle name is "Horatio." In reality, it's Gavin. A small detail, but it divorces the real Malkovich from the Malkovich in the movie.

Which brings us to Malkovich's performance. You might say that it was an easy role since he's playing himself. This isn't true. For one, he's playing himself in a series of circumstances that the real Malkovich would never, ever encounter. Furthermore, for most of the film, Malkovich plays himself as John Cusack or Cameron Diaz would act should they be able to control him like a puppet.

'Independence Day'

I watched Independence Day twice in the theaters. I had a friend who had left the country for about three weeks that summer. When he returned, he naturally wanted to see the highest grosisng film of the summer. So, I went again after having seen it on opening weekend.

I found it entertaining then, but I hadn't seen it since. Looking back, the writing is awful, the special effects entirely overrated, the acting preposterous and the film is simply ridiculous on every level.

What I loved initially was Will Smith's character's cocky nature. It comes off as trite these days, but at the time it put the former Fresh Prince on the film map. Although he'd been in Bad Boys the year before, Independence Day was his true jumping-off point. Ironically or not, he's done quite a number of science fiction from I, Robot, Hancock, Men in Black and I am Legend.

What kills me about Independence Day are the shoehorned one-liners, the American jingoism and the blatant shilling for "green" living, even way back in 1996.

The one liners are awful. In 1996, they probably sounded cool. Now, they seem like the actors are reading them off a script in these super-attitudinal ways. Everyone from Randy Quaid, Jeff Goldblum, Harry Connick Jr., Judd Hirsch and Brett Spiner was guilty.

The "green" theme, I think, was not noticed at the time I first saw it. In 1996, we had worries of the hole in the ozone layer, but that was about it. Living ecologically responsible wasn't such a lifestyle choice back then outside of using non-aerosol hair spray and recycling.

Jeff Goldblum's character force feeds us his liberal, tree-hugging rhetoric ad nauseum. He throws something away, it's sure to pan to a reciprocal with a "recycling" stick on it.

As for the nationalism, the film is called Independence Day. The attacks happen over Independence Day weekend. It set up for the perfect speech from fake president Bill Pullman, or Lone Star as I like to call him. If you want to sell shitloads of movie tickets, write in a bunch of patriotic mumbo-jumbo and it'll work every time.

'Paul's Boutique'

I have a very vivid distaste for the Beastie Boys as generally being overrated. However, I do give credit where credit is due.

Paul's Boutique is a fantastic album. One of my favorites of all time and by far my favorite Beastie Boys record.

Interesting that its their second album following the success of Licensed to Ill and the punk/rap hit of "Fight for Your Right." Judging their direction on that album, you'd assume there'd be some kind of continuation. I think both are really different albums.

Paul's Boutique is good, for one. The lyrics are much more inspired and original. The samples and beats are amazing. Improved a hundredfold from their previous album.

It's by far their best album.

'Thelma & Louise'

Categorizing Thelma & Louise as a woman's lib flick showing free women being downtrodden by men, but also debunking their hold on their lives, I think, is underselling.

Not that I think it's particularly good. I'd never seen it and probably will never see it again.

However, it's not a film that should be considered for women, but for all people. Thelma & Louise is essentially one of the most existential films of the past 25 years.

Thelma and Louise are two poor, uneducated women living (I think) in Arkansas. Louise is working a dingy job at a greasy spoon living a life with a pretty low ceiling. Thelma is married to a true piece of shit, who verbally and emotionally abuses her. She is, we assume, unemployed with little to no prospects for the next 50 years of her life.

A weekend trip fishing spirals quickly when Thelma is almost raped and Louise murders the perpetrator. They run, undertaking a series of misadventures in avoiding the police and looking for a way out.

This "way out" isn't about avoiding the police or prison. It's about never really going back to their previous lives. They don't state it and it's not expressed in any real way, but both knew that they weren't coming back.

Why would Thelma pack so much? Why was Louise so meticulous in cleaning her house? Why did Thelma take the gun, despite the fact that she'd never touched it before?

Both knew they weren't coming back. Maybe it was dead at the bottom of a canyon or maybe it was them living in the mountains, working together in some diner.

Thelma and Louise made a series of life choices -- for better or for worse -- that benefited the individual. They thought and lived for themselves, for that moment. They didn't really think of each other. Thelma robs the country store on her own. She sexes up Brad Pitt for herself. Louise kills the potential rapist on her volition. What the man said to get Louise to make that decision isn't anything that isn't said a million times a day by a million different assholes. But Louise made that individual decision almost regardless of the repercussions and societal norms.

Thelma & Louise would make Kirkegaard proud.

'Foolish Wives'

In 1922, Foolish Wives was the most expensive film ever, apparently breaking the $1 million mark. It was also originally intended to be 10 hours long, which is ridiculous. At more than two hours, it was a total beating of a film. At 10 hours, I would've passed it up. That would've been a travesty in filmmaking.

Criticisms of the film were based around the cost. Winding up costing $1.2 million, I'm sure that was seen as incredibly ridiculous. It seems ridiculous now even though an actor of any decent popularity costs you $15 million. Not to mention other actors, sets, CGI and all the varying costs going into a film. Also, it took 11 months to film. Eleven months! Blockbusters these days take a couple of months. Indie films take even less. Weeks perhaps.

This film is pretty ridiculous. It's too long, has a boring plot and does absolutely nothing for nobody.

Production note: Lead actor Rudolph Christians died of pneumonia in the middle of shooting and they had to pull in another actor to finish it, all with his back to the camera for whatever was needed. In comparison, Heath Ledger died in the middle of that Terry Gilliam film and they had Johnny Depp and Colin Farrell step in. With their faces to the camera.

'The Quiet Man'

This is the first film I've ever seen of John Wayne that wasn't a western. Reading more, it was indeed a departure for both Wayne and director John Ford.

In fact, after Ford paid an exorbitant amount ($10) for the rights, the production company agreed to pay for it as long as Wayne, Ford and Maureen O'Hara did a western. They did Rio Grande and then set off for Ireland to do The Quiet Man.

O'Hara and Wayne's famous kiss is played in the film E.T. and it is the inspiration for Elliot's kiss after he sets all of the frogs free in science class.

I had family recently visit Ireland. I wish it were me. It's an extremely cool little island and I'd love to go one day. The Quiet Man is a very idealized notion of Ireland. It's set in the 1930s but they've had squabbles throughout its history. From langugae, religion and nationalization, they've always had a reason to fit. It's a part of their culture largely ignored in this film. Aside from some zinger one liners, the battles raging in that nation are swept under the rug.

'Oldboy'

If you told me 40 minutes into this film that it would almost entirely about incest, I would've thought you were a total nut.

This film's an odd juxtaposition because its so dark, surreal and violent. Then the director takes you to this deeply emotional and human level (extremely Oedipal) that's been retold for 100 generations.

Rumors were that Steven Spielberg and Will Smith were going to adapt the film for American audiences. However, they were going to cut the incest, which is the entire film. American suck. We can make war, make online porn a multi-billion dollar industry and enslave a people for 250 years, but fucking your sister is just too much.

A side note: The lead actor, Choi Min-sik is the Asian Gary Oldman.

'Kundun'

It's a pretty film, but I don't think it's very good.

If you make a film like this, you are trying to say something whether you actually say anything. At the time, the Dalai Lama and the rest of Tibet were flys in a world filled with giant gorillas. If a gorilla goes into an emotional tantrum and the fly happens to get squashed, then so be it.

The difference is that no one would notice a fly getting squashed by an angry gorilla, but plenty noticed China waltzing into Tibet and taking over. However, Tibet isn't the first country to get shafted and they won't be the last. It doesn't make it right. It just makes it normal.

Furthermore, do we care if Tibet is taken over by Nepal or even India? Probably not, honestly. China's higher profile. They're the bullies not unlike England, the United States or (formerly) Russia. I guess I don't need my viewpoint on world politics set and updated by the Beastie Boys or Martin Scorcese.

Even if China has zero right to be in Tibet, it doesn't make the Dalia Lama interesting.

'after the quake'

I have a friend named Garrison, who I sincerely believe wants to read. However, due to his drive or attention span or the quality of things he's reading, he never finishes. He'll read 15 pages. Set the book down. And never pick it up again. Since I've known him, I bet there's been 20 books or stories that have endured the same fate: Incompletion.

I initially told him he should think small. Read 10 pages of a book everyday. A 300-page book would take a month to finish. Read 12 books a year. Not bad.

Failed.

Then I told him he should invest in short stories. I let him borrow some Raymond Carver and Ernest Hemingway.

Failed.

I would recommend to him Haruki Murakami's after the quake, but all know how that would end. Incompletion.

****
after the quake is a series of short stories written following the 1995 earthquake in Kobe, Japan. The actual earthquake is a peripheral tragedy in Murakami's characters' lives. But it's interesting that an act of God would evoke a reaction of writing six short stories.

The Kobe earthquake or the Great Hanshin earthquake happened on Jan. 17, 1995. It measured a 6.8 Moment magnitude scale and it killed 6,434 people, about 4,000 of which in Kobe.

Now, we should put this earthquake in some kind of perspective. Six thousand people doesn't seem like much. It actually pales in comparison to the 1.5 million that lived in Kobe alone. Although the deaths are nothing to sneeze at, death-wise, it's not that mind blowing. In the Great Kanto earthquake in 1923, 140,000 people died.

How the Kobe earthquake became such a disaster is that it was the most costly natural disaster for any one country in recorded history. It cost Japan 10 trillion yen. That, at the time, was 2.5 percent of Japan's gross domestic product.

The other effect the earthquake had was on volunteerism. The country initially took grief for rejecting outside aid, but about 1.2 million volunteers went into action helping others and doing things like distributing food and water. The day, some say, is a turning point in the country's acceptance of volunteering. Even the yakuza distributed food and water.

That is something to write about.

'Big'

Big is an interesting film because of two things: 1) the lesson and 2) Tom Hanks.

Nobody talks about Tom Hanks but his early stuff (from TV to the early films) are really good and he's a really great comedic actor. I can actually see why some people don't like him. He's safe, for one. He also has a tragic streak in him. He plays the retarded do-gooder (Forrest Gump), the fight-for-your-rights AIDS victim (Philadelphia), the love-lost Robinson Crusoe (Castaway) and the "We follow orders!" wise war veteran (Saving Private Ryan).

My point is that Hanks was once in a movie where he jumped around on a giant piano in one film and had a octopus stuck on his face in another, but all we can get out of him anymore are this big, sweeping epic films about humans overcoming great odds. We'd much prefer him dressed like a woman living in an apartment.

By the way, Hanks was nominated for an Oscar for his performance.

Big is about a boy, who attempts to get on a ride at the carnival that he is very much too short to ride. He wants this because this girl he likes (who is apparently two feet taller than him) is on the ride. In a fit of rage, he makes a wish at a "Zoltar Speaks" booth. He wants to be big.

Fast forward seven hours and he wakes up as a 28-year-old Tom Hanks. He's forced to move to the city and get a job. Fear turns into acclimation which turns into outright upwards career movement and sex. He not only gets used to adulthood, but he embraces it wholly. He wears suits, ignores his former friend and goes to dinner parties.

Seemingly on a whim, he goes back to his old neighborhood where he witnesses kids playing in leaves, teenagers jumping in a car planning their next escapade and others playing baseball. He realizes that he wants to live the 20-odd years he missed because they were all filled with wonder and excitement.

Big has two core audiences: The kid (despite some adult themes ... but you don't give Tom Hanks a Pepsi machine in his apartment unless you want kids to watch) and the 30-year-old yuppie. This is because the kid always wants to be big so he can have a job and buy Pepsi machines to put in their apartment. And 30-year-olds would watch it because its adult themes placed in a kid's mindset.

However, the lessen (regret, reminiscing, good old day syndrome) is something lost on the kid. They don't understand the magic behind a first date, one's first concert, living free and easy. Whereas the 30-year-old knows what its like being 30 (of course) and 12. But the 12-year-old still doesn't think they're going to miss too much between 12 and 30. Big manufactures this feeling of reminiscence for the 12 year old despite them not knowing what it is.