Dave J

The Best of 2006

Everyone has snazzy new templates, so now I look frumpy in comparison. Maybe this will encourage me to mess with things I don't completely understand until everything explodes and Jeff just has to do it for me. I'd do it now if "Carry Me Home" on GH2 didn't give me eight different kinds of carpal tunnel. I can hit all the notes, it's just a damn endurance match to see how long it takes before the hands just give out and it can't be done anymore (56% tends to be around the area). Edit: I just beat the song, placing me in a mild state of euphoria. Now if I could just get past 85% on Psychobilly Freakout...

So, being the Eve of '07 I thought I'd get a start on the best things of 2006, with a “worst” list to perhaps follow at a later date. These are completely random and probably skewed more towards recent memory, also I may have read or seen things that are 15-100 years old, but it's more of a subjective list on what cultural artifacts and events had the biggest impact on my person this year. I wish more lists were like that, honestly, because so often mediocre new crap makes lists due to lack of competition. So with the explanations out of the way, here's some random things that have rocked out.

THE 10 BEST THINGS OF 2006, in reverse order:

10. Tie: Hold Steady concert/Les Savy Fav concert: Both are great bands, both put on amazing shows. Hold Steady probably wins in the long run because they had a never-ending set and because their concert was in a small Jersey bar and not an NYU facility, which is always a plus. But then again, LSF only plays whenever they feel like it now, so I feel lucky that I got a chance to see one of my favorite acts hurt themselves on stage for my benefit.

9. Guitar Hero II (PS2): More of the same, but when "same" is Guitar Hero, that's really not a bad thing. It's got everything the first game should have had, in terms of features, and although how the two track lists compare could be endlessly debated, it certainly didn't flunk out. Hopefully late 2007 will bring us a third installment, but until then, co-op multiplayer will continue to be the game of choice at any gathering.
War Pigs!

8. Going Vegan: When I was sick for months, one of the symptoms was lactose intolerance, which given my vegetarian habits to begin with meant that I decided to go all the way (or whey, as it were) to being a vegan. It was certainly an interesting experience and introduced me to plenty of foods and food substitutes, many of which I still dine on today, that I formerly ignored. I absolutely adore cheese, but that particular side effect of this crazy illness was actually a good lesson in trying to be a less picky eater. Now I just eat pizza.

7. WATCHMEN (Alan Moore graphic novel, 1986-87): I read quite a few of Moore's works in the past year and a half, but for some reason this one stayed unread until very recently. How good is it? I started reading it at 4am at Newark Airport, despite the game plan of sleeping until getting to Omaha, and kept at it until Christmas Eve. It's easily the greatest superhero-related thing I have ever read or seen, and its complexity is mind-boggling.

6. Nintendo Wii and Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: No system has debuted to quite the same level of interest, even the PlayStation 3 (which I currently don't own and have no wish to until it can deliver truly stunning exclusives), and in this case its entirely deserved. Having reviewed a thousand of these things, and still a nerd recreationally, the Wii--combined with Zelda, the best launch game--reawakened something lost in the jaded atmosphere of who can get the highest polygon-counts or what minor roster changes can get millions of people to re-buy Madden every damn year. It's so fun, I think even Jeff can play it! Oh and I killed someone when the remote flew from my hand, rupturing their skull... how Wii-tarded of Mii. (As a sidebar, this console has gracefully introduced the potential for thousands of new puns, of which many have already been seized upon by journalist hacks.)

5. The Proposition (2006): I accidentally took Monica to this as a date film, thinking "we both like Nick Cave, and Guy Pearce in a Western should be cool." Well, given the Angelika's sound systems are set to "Skullfuck Loud," and the opening scene involves an intense shootout at a copper-lined shack, we soon learned exactly what kind of movie we were in for. It still remains one of the most hauntingly brutal and yet strangely alluring films I have ever seen, with an ending that might the most beautiful and emotionally simple. The soundtrack is expectedly gorgeous, as well, but I suppose what really surprised me was the strength of everything else.

4. NYU Summer School: Although I'm sure I missed out on a lot of fun in Omaha, this past summer gave me a few very unique opportunities to take classes that actually felt relevant and interesting. I rarely feel that college does what it's theoretically supposed to do--teach new ways of thinking or looking at the world, or give timely information that lead towards smarter decision making. The Emergence of the Modern Middle East was fascinating and threw an exhausting amount of information, texts and figures out there, all of which helped increase the understanding of current conflicts (and how stupid people are). Pop Culture Sexuality gave me the info needed to explain to Jeff exactly what Fleet Week is (and why you want to hit the piers after checking anonymous sex listings on Craigslist), and I got to take a modern film course with J. Hoberman, widely considered one of the best and last remaining celebrity critics of our times. I even wrote what I thought was a great paper for that class (the treatise on 24).

3. I Like Nice Things.com: I think its best days are yet to come, but that doesn’t mean I’m not proud of what got created this past year for Jeff and I’s premiere website. Whether it’s some scorching hot songs (Rangtonez) or hee-larious videos, for a no-budget concept that often uses improv writing and non-professional actors, I think what got done is something to be very proud of.

2. Still having friends: It’s that mushy time of year when it is appropriate even for typically aggressive males to reflect on the good things that have happened and the people they’ve been privileged to share it with. This year has also seen a further separation between old and new as the trips to Omaha grow less frequent, and it’s no longer guaranteed anyone will be there when I do stop in. But through all of this, both New York and Omaha both have great people who I hope to continue to share stories and laughs with in 2007, and I can think of at least one date where I expect to see everyone together.

1. Getting Engaged to Monica:

Oh please, like you didn’t know what would be first. Beyond all the videogames, movies and music in the world, Monica’s the reason 2006 was a very good year for me. You’ve hopefully gotten a chance to check us out (or just her) during our handful of trips to Omaha, or perhaps just living the easy life in New York. She has noted in the past that she gets little blog coverage, and this is true, as I have tried – probably unsuccessfully – to move from event-based to idea-based writing. But this should not suggest that she is anything less than totally involved in just about everything that’s going down. Even Guitar Hero II. Labor Day 2007 should be pretty wild!

So with that exhaustive marathon entry out of the way, enjoy your holiday! Monica and I will be working at the ol' video shop tonight and New Years Day, so we've got our holiday plans down. We also plan on finishing Little Miss Sunshine, which could be either/or at this point in terms of "good or bad" (Devil Wears Prada was decidedly sexist and childish, fyi).

Oh, and a safety note for the holidays: Don't drink and blog! The Internet is too important to die.

James Brown's ghost makes me stronger

Well in the words of my cab driver, Happy Merry Christmas all! I am now back in New York, following a blink-and-you-missed it weekend in Omaha spent almost entirely with family. Naturally as we move closer to the end of the year, it means more than just that awkward transition period where both the 2006 and 2007 wall calendars are up (c'mon, you do this too), it also means year-in-review style posts! Who can wait to see all the thoughts and pictures assembled in one convenient place? Maybe a new page design will accompany this thing into the next year...

So, while I rock to the Join the Dots Cure set that Monica got me for Christmas, lets get really warm and philosophical and talk poetry. Lately I've been reading "Transbluency," which is a compilation spanning a couple decades worth of Amiri Baraka's work. I find Baraka particularly fascinating, because the evolution in his thought and politics seem evident as you track the years, moving from a rather straightforward (but still race conscious) Beat writer ala Ginsberg or to a lesser extent Burroughs, as he does show a brief fondness for the cut-up/fold-in method, to black nationalist to general Third World Marxist.

Anyway, as to where this is going--I have posted one of my absolute favorite poems of Baraka's below as a little holiday gift to all the artists out there, because I find it very thoughtful piece on the elitism/narcissism found in canon creation and the commercialism of art--both timeless topics. I have decided not to post all of it, mostly due to the feeling that this is probably going to show up as a complete source for the poem on Googlez, and I believe strongly this is one of the better books I have purchased recently and therefore encourage the same (or at least be old school and ask to borrow it). Also because I know whippersnappers these days hate reading, so I guess I should be glad that I didn't have to track down a YouTube of some girl reading it out loud. Also because I hate typing and transcribing.

some excerpts from...
The Politics of Rich Painters

is something like the rest
of our doubt, whatever slow thought
comes to rest, beneath the silence
of starving talk.
Just their fingers' prints
staining the cold glass, is sufficient
for commerce, and a proper ruling on
humanity. You know the pity
of democracy, that we must sit here
and listen to how he made his money.
Tho the catalogue of his possible ignorance
roars and extends through the room
like fire. "Love," becomes the pass,
the word taken intimately to combat
all the uses of language. So that learning
itself falls into disrepute.

[....]

They are more ignorant than the poor
tho they pride themselves with that accent. And
move easily in fake robes of egalitarianism. Meaning,
I will fuck you even if you don't like art. And are wounded
that you call their italian memories petit bourgeois.

[...]

The source of their art crumbles into legitimate history.
The whimpering pigment of a decadent economy, slashed into life
as Yeats' mad girl plummeting over the nut house wall, her broken
knee caps rattling in the weather, reminding us of lands
our antennae do not reach.

And there are people in these savage geographies
use your name in other contexts
think, perhaps, the title of your latest painting
another name for liar.

C'mon. "I will fuck you even if you don't like art"! That is a t-shirt or a MoMA slogan or something Web 2.0 just waiting to happen.

Speaking of Web 2.0, why not celebrate the holidays with A Very Webcam Christmas? Someday there's going to be something really good posted, and you'll be pissed if you miss the moment it finally arrives!

Don Johnson: TIME Man of the Year

"Ya know Verna, if I turned my back long enough for Big Ed to put a hole in it, there'd be a hole in it." - James Cagney, White Heat

They just don't write movies like that anymore. At least not intentionally.

Also, when did Larry King become a certified movie critic? I have seen his review blurbs recently pop up on two DVD cases, Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (which made me want to set fire to myself in front of Johnny Depp and Jerry Bruckheimer, but which Larry King "could watch over and over again!") and Kingdom of Heaven, where he gives high praise to a 3.5 hour directors cut of a film that was boring as hell in its merely 2 hour version. Larry King needs to not be on the back of DVD cases, same with Maxim's Pete Hammond, who seems to be the spokesman for every movie that seems like it should be good but in fact received nothing but critical drubbing from the more high-browed and expected sources. So basically Pete Hammond is Larry King minus 70 years of age. Also Hammond writes for a magazine that prides itself on carefully concealed gazongas, whereas Larry King just farts a lot.

It may even deserve some kind of fancy comparison chart the New York Post specializes in.

I live next to Hobo Pee Alley

Hey, anyone want to go to The Good Life show at Saddle Creek Bar on Thursday evening, Dec. 21st (first night back)? It's 21+, I haven't even kept track of who is or isn't that old yet, but I thought it might be a nice idea. It's $7 too, which beats the local 2-drink-min freak folk joint Monica and I recently ventured into. That place sucked.

So these kids transport back in time...

but where do they find the medieval wizards robes, barbarian outfits and really skimpy sorceress costumes so quickly?

There's no way to make this cool, but I'll be damned if this show doesn't try. I may just watch the whole thing.

p.s. I will be home December 21-25 (flying back to NY Christmas Day! How cool is that!)

p.p.s. The final papers are almost done. This is good news, because I will then have entire days to devote to Zelda, TIVO and one hell of a movie project starring every action hero you ever really wanted to see. Like if the Justice League was made up of Van Damme, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, Norris and Seagal!

Merlin: "I am a great magician, but the one thing I cannot do is... grow hair!" (in response to a bald joke told by some kid)

A Holiday Gift to You!

Things been getting too serious around here lately?
Things even have the chance of getting too serious?
Sounds like someone needs ridiculous book covers courtesy of Amazon.com!

Here is a favorite I found just searching around this morning (and a couple of faves from an attempt of Jeff and I to track down the novelization of Chuck Norris' Reagan-administration-funded action-epic INVASION, U.S.A.)

YES! CULTURE WARRIOR IS 2006's version of...

RIG WARRIOR. If I ever get called upon to do a major Hollywood film franchise, Rig Warrior would be what I raise from the ashes of pulp fiction. Just imagine these covers in explosive 3D!

(Additionally, search for William Johnstone sometime and revel in his thousands of mass-print books, hundreds of which include keywords like Eagles, Blood, Mountain Men, Freedom, and Border (cause there's a serious anti-immigration slant to almost all his work, even historical western fiction)... for example, CRY OF THE EAGLES, BLOOD OF THE EAGLES, or CRY OF THE MOUNTAIN MAN)

Just thought everyone could appreciate that diversion.