on the radio

The latest KBOO Movie Talk half-hour is posted here. I remember going on and on about how much I liked the A-Team and the newest Judd Apatow movie. What is happening to me???

Update: KBOO blog posting.

what a drag it is...

I've managed to pull every muscle on the right side of my body from approx the waist down. I believe I accomplished this feat by walking. Just walking. Or possibly sitting. Or walking after having spent many months sitting, softening like a catered dish under the heat lamps of government work. (See how government is always somehow to blame? Uncanny!) Whatever the reason, walking, which used to be the easiest thing in the world, as easy as breathing, now hurts. Inconvenient, considering that this humble glob, once upon a time a travel glob, is suddenly a travel glob again, after many months, heat lamps, softening, etc etc. I'm writing about Seattle, from now until August. If anybody knows anything. All ears.

The good news is, sitting hurts more than walking. Also, I think I'm spending Saturday on a dirt bike, so whatever is wrong with me now will soon be masked by a more global, nonspecific sort of agony. Which I'm really looking forward to, actually.

Anyhow. Seattle! I'll try to post regular updates. And photos, if I can remember to bring my stupid camera with me. Yesterday I got to see my friend Abby, from NYU, who was in the area for the Sasquatch music festival. I dragged her and a friend all over town trying to discover which would make my hamstring (?) feel better faster, beer or donuts. (Both helped. And pinball removed the symptoms entirely.) Several times during the day, it struck me not for the first time that my job right now is flat-out hilarious. Granted, we're still in the honeymoon phase, before all the typing and the mapping and the 12-hour days that end in tears, but even so. This is pretty fun. I walk around (in excruciating pain, I remind you) checking out fun things to do so I can help other people have the best possible time when they finally get a chance to leave their desks. (Answer: Go to Shorty's. There. Now you don't need the book.)

It can't possibly last. But it is not a drag.

The opposite of bragging

Here's a recording of the latest KBOO Movie Talk radio episode. I haven't listened to it yet so am not sure if I can actually be heard this time, and even if I can, I can't imagine I said anything worth hearing, considering the way my mind descends into terrified blankness the second I open my mouth. But the fellas who host the show, Ed Goldberg and DK Holm, are smart and well-spoken (though both completely wrong about The Exploding Girl, haha), so it's worth listening to hear what they have to say. Y'know. If you like movies. :)

Renegade Sportsman: Update!

Zach's book has a trailer:

The Renegade Sportsman

This is a long overdue announcement: my friend and former WW colleague Zach Dundas has a new book coming out. He's an awesome writer - and he's writing about American freaks engaged in weirdo/underground/drunken sporting endeavors, which ought to provide some mighty rich material. (Soapbox Derby, anyone?) It's due out June 1st but you can order it now - find excerpts and more info on his website.

Old Vanport Motocross

Short video from a recent Saturday in the park....

And another video from the SFRC Alley Sweeper! Fun times.

And also...

...don't for one second imagine that I haven't been captivated by this bisexual airborne fungus dealie. In my role as a gov't stooge I must assure you there is nothing to fear. But as a gullible, paranoid, obscure-and-bizarre-disease-obsessed drama-whipper-upper who hasn't even had her flu shot yet, I am Freaked Out! Aren't you? Sources say you can catch it by scoping attractive people in bars! There goes my whole summer. Dang!

AHRMA Vintage Race at PIR

Hey, whatcha guys doing this weekend?

Want to visit me here?



C'mon, you know you want to. I mean, how often do you get to see me wearing leather? (In public?)

Here's a pic of my ride - along with some evidence from last weekend.

It'll be fun.

SFRC Alley Sweeper

...happens now.

i hereby ban

"What we X about when we X about X"

OK, everyone? I think that's enough of that now. Thank you.

Quibble

Why is it "pre-existing" [conditions]? Wouldn't a simple "existing" do the trick?

freedom

Hi glob fans,

I've been moving into a new apartment (with garage!), my latest excuse for neglecting you all. But here's a satiating tidbit: go look at Thor's blog (again). He's posted up scans of the 555 article from Cycle World. (Also read his explanation of a dad wheelie and look at the latest exploded-piston gore.) Good times!

More soon, promise,
xo

so dirty!

Couple of recent video bits from my friend and club bro Thor Drake:



From the SFRC retreat this past weekend:

Sam Lipsyte interview

...is up now at BookPage.

He's cool.


I also wrote a hasty blog post for the KBOO Movie Talk website, for anyone looking for places to hide from the hideous sunshine this weekend.

Hate

For some reason, the suddenly-everywhere expression "nom nom" (or worse, "nom nom nom") makes me want to reach inside my own skull through the left eyeball and squeeze the life out of my tiny brain.

Are we five?

We are not five.

(For the record, I also hate "meh.")

some updates

Dang, it's already February. Where's the time go?

Well, two weeks of it went to Colorado. I skied, ate a lot of ice cream, lost a filling, spent some time with the fam, including Karl & Natalie & their brainy little kidget. Went out on the town with my Uncle Mark - always entertaining. Two towns and two bars, a long dirt road, confusing amounts of beer on the house, a strangely affecting singer-songwriter and a karaoke nightmare. Just some of the highlights. I managed to stay out of trouble...this time.

Back in Portland I finally saw "Red Cliff," the new John Woo epic, starring my Ultimate Boyfriend, Tony Leung. Awesome. It's close to three hours long. The original is even longer -- two parts, like Kill Bill -- and now I want to see that, too. The chopped American version gets a little zoomy through the early history parts. Tony is perfect, of course. He's so powerful that he can't even fully be seen right away; the camera has to sneak up on him, stealing glances at an ear, an eyelash, a feather he's wielding. Tony's kung fu is pretty strong, but mainly he is honorable. And romantic. And sad. The turtle formation will blow your mind. Bonus: arrow-cam. Also starring is Cop 223, very handsome as well.

Friday night I finally caught "Where the Wild Things Are." It was sweet, and the kid who plays Max is adorable, as is the big furry James Gandolfini, but I wish all the other wild things didn't sound so much like, I dunno, Claire Danes? or teenage Portland emo kids or something. If you want a stuffed-animal movie that kicks phenomenal amounts of ass, I recommend again "The Fantastic Mr Fox." And I guess I can see how, in the very broadest possible conception of the universe, Dave Eggers and Wes Anderson are related, but -- not to me.

Anyway, "The Fantastic Mr Fox" is the first movie I've ever wanted to do an interpretive motorcycle-ride version of. If that says anything.

Speaking of motorcycles, some of my pals from the 555 (Thor, Germ and T-Bag) put on a wildly successful moto-art-show event the other weekend. Photos coming. I spent most of it huffing gas in a small engine lab, dressed in a huge orange jumpsuit and trying to appear helpful while several of my very favorite men tore into the guts of my dead SL175. It pretty much ruled. Now I'm busily hunting an apartment with a garage, so I can do that every Saturday night.

xo!

2009 movie roundup

Remember last year?

That was awesome.

OK, glob fans. It's time (a little late, actually) for the long-promised and much-postponed list of movies I saw and liked in 2009, followed by a few that I hated and some that I'll have to catch later. Feel free to discuss, mock, berate, scold, judge, etc. I'm probably forgetting some, but it's a start.

Here we go:

2009 Movies Seen & Liked (vaguely in order, at least the first half, based on today's mood and subject to change):

Anti-Christ

Tetro
The Fantastic Mr Fox

Inglourious Basterds

A Serious Man

It Might Get Loud

The Young Victoria

Moon

Coraline
Public Enemies
Zombieland

Star Trek

(500) Days of Summer

Duplicity

The Road

District 9

Drag Me to Hell

Coco Before Chanel

Red Cliff

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Up in the Air

Humpday

Beeswax

Dead Snow

Defiance

Avatar

Hated:

Angels & Demons (seen under duress in Stockholm)

The Proposal

Friday the 13th Remake (seen out of desperation in Panama)

To Catch Later:
Ninja Assassin!
House of the Devil
Orphan
In the Loop
Thirst
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
Up
An Education
The Hurt Locker
Sherlock Holmes
The Informant!
Where the Wild Things Are
Black Dynamite
Me and Orson Welles
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus
Bright Star
Broken Embraces
Precious
Summer Hours

The Hangover

'...a certain vanished grandeur...'

Yet another reason I love Katie Roiphe (read the full essay in the Jan 3 NYT book review for many more reasons) -- here she's talking about guys like Dave Eggers and Benjamin Kunkel, in contrast with the old rogues, Updike and Bellow and Mailer and Roth:

The younger writers are so self-­conscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own sexual impulses; they are, in short, too cool for sex. Even the mildest display of male aggression is a sign of being overly hopeful, overly earnest or politically un­toward. For a character to feel himself, even fleetingly, a conquering hero is somehow passé. More precisely, for a character to attach too much importance to sex, or aspiration to it, to believe that it might be a force that could change things, and possibly for the better, would be hopelessly retrograde. Passivity, a paralyzed sweetness, a deep ambivalence about sexual appetite, are somehow taken as signs of a complex and admirable inner life.

jeez, it's been, like, a YEAR

Hello, neglected legions of glob fans. I come to you today with a whole new level of respect for people who hold regular, full-time jobs AND somehow magically keep up with writing their blogs, or anything else. I can't even get the dishes done. I guess that's what weekends are for?

Good news: In mid-October I secured an emergency post at the Oregon Public Health Department (an emergency for me, not for the health department). I took it because it's thematically relevant to this glob (and because I wasn't sure my parents were really all that excited about the idea of me moving back in). I've been writing about the Illness Formerly Known as Swine Flu, or hini, which is very serious and not to be mocked. Here you'll find what little evidence there is against the popular and not outlandish view that I fritter my days away watching soaps and eating bonbons.

Fancy!

Anyhow. Here's some of what I've been up to besides that:

As hinted in a nearby post, the mighty sfrc voted me in as its newest member. The hazing and branding were painful, but I think it will be worth it in the long run. (Of course, on hearing this news, my motorcycle instantly died, so I've been riding a Vespa kindly loaned by Bradford ever since.)

What else? I interviewed Joe Sacco about his new book, Footnotes in Gaza. He had a cold but was very nice. I tried not to make my hero worship obvious, but I think he might've picked up on it a little at the end of the conversation, when I said something like "I've read ALL your books and everything you do is AWESOME and I think you're just the BEST and do you think maybe we could be friends?" (Sigh.)

I've also reviewed a couple of other things for BookPage, including two graphic novels, Nylon Road and Stitches (see below), and the new short story collection by Amy Bloom (good book, lame review). More of those lined up for the next couple of months -- I get to interview Sam Lipsyte, which should be cool, and do another graphic-novels roundup for spring.



Had another show on KBOO, in which somehow I lost control and admitted that as a youth I enjoyed reading the sort of books in which many of the characters were dragons. I still don't know how this happened. (It's true, though. Might as well get used to it.) I think the next show will be our end-of-year/decade favorite movie lists, but I'll put mine up here, too, because the funny thing about me being on the radio is that my tiny little munchkin voice cannot actually be perceived by the human ear, so it's all kinda futile. Better to write it down, I think, for people who really want to know.

Oh! Also, I tried out for the Mt Hood Ski Patrol a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun, although I didn't make the cut this time. I think I bombed the interview. But I did get to fulfill a lifelong dream of bumming around with Ski Patrol guys all day, and as a bonus, at the end of the day, I saw Glen Plake. (I think I forgot to tell you that, Karl.) He was shaking hands and signing autographs in the parking lot, part of a tour of small ski areas on the West Coast. Awesome! Anyway, I think I'll try out again, maybe in February.

I spent Xmas Day on a Wong Kar-Wai marathon. Hard to beat.

That's it for now. Apologies again for the wimpy updating! Guess what one of my New Year's Resolutions is going to be?

xo

news

Speaks for itself...

SFRC

:)