Attraction

I don't have a certain type, but they all fall into the same catagory: the wrong guy. In my early 20s I was a magnet for compulsive liars and drug addicts. I didn't know much about drugs back then, and I'm still not much of a liar, but i made a connection with that type of person, and to a certain extent, I still do.

That doesn't really bother me, but one thing that I find hard to accept is my attraction to certain horrible characters- ones you've probably read about or seen on the news.

I'm, not trying to be shocking or funny. I hate to admit that I've been attracted to a certain mass murder who was executed for his horrible, disgusting crimes. I always thought he was very handsome, and he's the kind of guy that I would focus on when I was in middle and high school: angry, moody loners. I don't wanna say this guys name; I'll just say that I believe that if I had gotten to meet him I coukld've changed the direction of his life and he wouldn't have fallen in with a bunch of anti-government miltia-types.

He was probably into guys, or was at least confused, and being in the Army really fucked him up for good. I think his fucked-up "mission" became a substitute for sex. And I wish this guy had never been born- hundreds of people would habve happier lives today- but, still, I was truned on when I read a Vanity Fair article where he told the writer about how his jail cell is video-monitored and the guards can see his morning "pup tent".

There's also a certain guy who murdered one woman and was involved in ther disappearance of another. He's an evil person, but I came across a shirtless photo of him and saved it to the computer.

I'm not gonna worry about this too much. I'm also attracted to other- normal, decent, law-abiding- guys.

Christmas 2011

I haven't yet written in my journal about Christmas 2011 and since I'm kind of pressed for time and I haven't written here in a while, it's all going here.

For me, Christmas started this past Friday night when I did all my Christmas shopping. I only bought for my three roommates and my 2 year old niece so it didn't take long. I came home and wrapped everything, and when I haven';t yet gotten the Christmas spirit, wrapping presents always does the trick.

I worked the next day and afterwards I went to my parents house and we got ready to go to my cousin's house where we go every year for Christmas Eve.

I love it. Two things, though, hit me this year. Every year it's exactly the same. Same great food, same routine, same family members. I guess that's pretty comforting. Because it's always the same, I was time-tripping a little, because it felt like last year's Chjristmas Eve was the day before- that's how close it all felt. Also, my cousin Josh asked me what was new and I realized that not a single thing about my life had changed from the year before. Nothing. I guess I could feel thankful and instead I feel like a big fat loser.

We drove home and my dad ghot ready for bed and my mom and I sat in the living room with the two dogs, one on each of our laps and we watched old movies and read and waiting till 11pm when my brother got home from work. After a quick visit we all went to bed.

Tghe next morning we did presents and I helped mom clean and get lunch together. It was just us, my parents, my brothers, and my brother John's wife and daughter.

I got Gigi 2 books and a notebook with a light-up snowman cover. She opened the first gift and tossed the book aside so fast that I wish we had it on video. No interest. But she loved her Dora pajamas and insisted on wearing them instead of her cute Santa suit.

Gigi and John's wife Stacie were tired so they didn't go to my grandmothers to see everyone before they came to my parent's for dessert. My mom's side of the family was pissed at John because they wanted to see Gigi and had presents for her so they ended up stayjing at Noni's and not coming for dessert. I think my mom was disappointed and sad but she didn't say anything. It's just that she had made brownies and Christmas sugar cookies with buttercream frosting and I'm sure Christmas didn't feel complete without coffee and dessert together.

I went to bed early and the next morning i woke up sick and spent the entire day in bed until 7pm when a friend came to pick me up and take me home.

I had a really good time though I wish I had stepped in and offered to drive Stacie home for a nap or said that I'd take John and Gigi up to Noni's. All the hard feelings could've been avoided but I was tired myself and not really thinking.

So that's my Christmas story, hope you enjoyed it, and I hope that you yourself had a great Christmas.

If I don't talk to you before then, Happy New Year. Love RJ

Here's what I don't like

This is going to be one of my rare negative posts. I try not to write about things that I don't like but- that's not what this blog is about- but sometimes I have to talk about these things.

I love the Bravo network. There's The Millionaire Matchmaker and Million Dollar Listing and Tabitha's Salon Takeover plus a bunch of Kathy Griffin specials.

I also loved Project Runway. I'm pretty sure that the creators of PR and Sarah Jessica Parker got together and created Work of Art- the Search for the Next Great Artist. It's just like PR only with visual art.

I saw a few episodes of the first season and while I wasn't impressed with the artists the show was interesting to watch.

My problem with Work of Art is the show's "Tim Gunn". I don't know who he is or what his name is but I hate him. He's a fake and a tool and I can't stand his fucking combover. Someone needs to call him out on it and as far as I know, no one has.

It pisses me off so bad. He's got a scraggly tuft of hair up front and then all this hair from the side of his head combed into it. Some combovers work for a minute or two but this isn't that kind of combover. This is the kind where you see the person and their part is so oddly placed that it's all you can see.

I hate combovers and the people who have them. The rules of manners probably forbid it, but I believe that whenever someone encounters somebody with a combover they should be allowed to say to that person, "You're bald and I don't appreciate you trying to deceive me".

FROZEN

Frozen (2010) Adam Green

I'm trying something new. I like the blog By Ken Levine, and one of the things he does is he writes the names of movies and TV shows in all caps, especially in the title of his posts. For now I'm just doing that- using caps in post titles. I'm hoping it'll make the subject clearer.

Anyway, tonight after work I went on the computer and also turned on the TV. I wasn't watching it; it was just on the Encore station, but at one point I looked up and saw three young people sitting in a ski lift chair. Right away I knew what movie it was. Back in February of this year the Final Girl Film Club selection was Frozen, a 2010 movie by Adam Green.

I remembered reading about it and I also remembered that most of the people who reviewed it liked it. It has an interesting set-up for a scary movie: three people stuck on a ski lift while all the staff shuts down and leaves for the week, not knowing that the three are still up there. I missed the very beginning of the movie so I don't know how the filmmakers settled the one major stumbling block to any modern horror movie: cell phones.

I imagine it must be really hard to come up with ideas for horror movies now that everyone has a cell phone and can call for help. I guess "no signal" is how they get around that for now, but what are they gonna do when coverage is universal? I guess they'll still think of something.

Anyway, the movie was really good and well done. As Final Girl said, the characters aren't very likable, but I don't think that their personalities bothered me as much as they bothered her. She called them assholes but I saw them more as nice people who did a few asshole things, as we all do, or at least, as I do sometimes.

I'm not gonna say anymore about the movie except that you should see it. Just know that it's very upsetting in places- a lot of places.

Moving on. Today was my day off but I had some office work that I needed to do so I forced myself to go out into the cold and go in. Before I left I was on Youtube watching clips of Chelsea Handler, both her show and her on Ellen. She's so funny, I love her.

The Informers

I've been wanting to see The Informers for a while. The Informers was the first Bret Easton Ellis book I read. It was the book cover that got my attention. Back then, I'd go to the library and choose the book that with the cover that looked the most "artistic'. That's what got me to read The Virgin Suicides and The Tale of the Body Thief.

As for The Informers, I'd remembered all the stories about American Psycho but I wasn't interested in reading that until after reading The Informers. The Informers cover had a blue sky with clouds and a black block with the letters of the title cut out and the all the type was set at an angle.

I was flipping around the other night before bed and caught the middle of The Informers. I watched 20 minutes and it was all so dull and boring that I turned it off and went to bed.

I have a theory that any movie with an "all- star cast" is terrible. I have a soft spot for the Cannonball movies but they're bad. And I love Garry Marshall- Penny's brother. He's great director (Pretty Woman), and a great actor (Soapdish) but you couldn't pay me to see his two newest movies, Valentines Day and New Years Eve. The ads make me angry.

Anyway, I've read Ellis say that The Rules of Attraction was the best movie made from one of his books and I agree. It did the best job of capturing the attitude of his writing.

I've been away too long

I wish I was one of those bloggers who post every single day. I give a lot of shit to The Daily Guru but at least he's consistent. I do have an excuse, I guess: I have zero readers. But that could always change. And if someone does start reading RJ Battles, I wanna be ready. Final Girl has been extremely inactive this year and she's probably lost a lot of readers because if you keep going to a page and seeing the same old post you lose interest. Why bother? When there's a new post every day or every other day it's exciting and it feels like there's something going on. When three weeks or a month go by with no new posts the page starts to feel like a ghost town and it's very sad and a little depressing.

Also, I've always suspected that I've had readers all along. A small silent minority that lurks on the edge of RJ-town. They read but don't comment. They keep me writing, just not often enough.

Anyway, the focus today is on cassette sleeves. We've got two Madonnas and one Elvis Costello.

I guess around the time of EC's Brutal Youth album, he and his wife wrote an album's worth of rock songs and he decided to give them all to a singer named Wendy James. He and his wife recorded demos of all them and some of them showed up as Brutal Youth B-sides. I picked up the CD single for "13 Steps Lead Down" and it included "Puppet Girl", "Basement Kiss", and "We Despise You". I've since lost that CD but I always liked those songs- they were good songs and best of all they didn't have those awful keyboards that ruined a lot of EC songs over the years.

Sometime in the mid 90s Madonna was trying to soften her image after Sex, Erotica, and Body Of Evidence so she put out Something To Remember, a collection of her older ballads. "Oh Father" was re-released and this is the sleeve.

Also, after the success of the single "Into The Groove" it was included on later editions of Like A Virgin. They made it the first song on the second side.

Red Heaven sampler

Red Heaven sampler (1992) Throwing Muses

I came across this image and was surprised by the tracklisting. The record company actually came up with a really cool and interesting selection of songs. And the track with the most radio appeal- the remix of "Firepile"- appears at the end of the CD.

1 "Dio" isn't my favorite song from Red Heaven but I like it a lot nad it's held up pretty well for a song that's almost 20 years old. It has a great energy.

2 "Summer St." is the kind of song that can easily get stuck in your head. It should've been released as a single. Over the years there have been so many excellent TM songs that could've found a large audience but they weren't released as singles because they didn't sound like what was on the radio at the time. It's too bad. It's a huge loss.

3, 4, 5, 6 Four tracks from the Firepile EPs including two original songs and two covers. All have high energy, even the slower "City Of The Dead". From the credits it looks like the Bernard George really became part of the band well before University.

7 "Firepile (Remix)" I love remixes of rock songs. I'm thinking of TM's "Him Dancing", Belly's "Gepetto" and "Slow Dog", and The Pixies's "Dig For Fire". This "Firepile" remix is awesome. The drums and guitars sound so clear and loud. It's much more intense than the original album version.

The Exorcist

Sliding & Driving

Sliding & Driving (1996) Tanya Donelly

I might've mentioned some of this in an older post, but here it goes again: I loved Belly back in the early to mid 90s. Then they broke up and Tanya Donelly went solo. I remember being in the big Tower Records store in Boston back in 1996 and seeing the Sliding & Driving EP in their vinyl single section. it couldn't have been priced at more than $9.99, but as much as I loved Belly (and Throwing Muses), I didn't buy it.

I think I suspected that the music wasn't very good and I based that on the sleeve. I didn't like the colors or the collage style of the images. The lettering was cool but that was it. I also ignored Lovesongs For Underdogs when it came out in 1997. Maybe I decided that I'd pick it up someday, and I did, but that wasn't until 2003.

I'd made the right decision and I'd made a mistake. I was mostly right to ignore Sliding; half the songs weren't that good. But I really missed out by waiting so long to get Lovesongs. It's worth it for "Landspeed Song" alone. Then there's "Goat Girl", "Clipped", and "Swoon" (also included on Sliding).

But there's more that I'd missed out on: if I'd gotten Lovesongs back in 1997 I also would've picked up the CD singles and heard all the amazing B-sides.

"These Days"

"Moon Over Boston"

"Vanilla"

"Bury My Heart" and my favorite- maybe my favorite song ever-

"Influenza"

Anyway, here are some Sliding & Driving images.

Peeptown, PA

Almost ten years ago, one of my oldest friends got married and moved to Betheleham, PA. The town used to be the home of one of the largest steel mills in the country. Production declined over the past thirty years and now Betheleham Steel is out of business.

Now Betheleham is the home of the Just Born Co., maker of Mike & Ike candy and Peeps. My friend lives less than a mile away from the factory. I've wanted to visit so badly so that I could go on a tour and watch the Peeps being made.

Anyway, I came across this painting on Wiki and I like it a lot.

Dizzy

"Dizzy" (1989) Throwing Muses

There's something cool about the images on the "Dizzy" record sleeve. There's a certain hologram/3-D element to the cactus. I'm going to do some watercolor painting over the next couple days and I'm hoping to do something similar. If it's good I'll post it here.

Songs from Little Creatures

"The Lady Don't Mind"
"Road To Nowhere" (1985) Talking Heads

I own the first two Talking Heads albums on vinyl. Originally I bought them on one those "2 on 1" tapes that Warner Brothers used to put out. They did the same thing with some of Prince's early albums- you'd get, say, Controversy on Side A and Dirty Mind on Side B and the whole thing would cost about $7.99.

The other Talking Heads album that I have on vinyl is Little Creatures. A lot of people call it their first big "pop" album but I don't know. Yes, it has catchy songs, but I don't think they compromised anything.

There's one thing I don't like though: I've read a few times that David Byrne felt that the structure of "Road To Nowhere" was too simple so he added the gospel intro. I think that part is lame and it nearly ruins the song. Oh well.

The sleeve for Creatures is interesting. The album came out in 1985 and the style of the sleeve is very similar to Prince's Around The World In A Day. In fact, each albums single record sleeves are alike too as they both use isolated images taken from the larger album picture.

Take Me To The River

"Take Me To The River" (1978) Talking Heads

This is one of my favorite Talking Heads songs- the drums sound do good. The top sleeve is cool; I love it when artists use a variation of the album cover for a single's sleeve.

Lovesongs For Underdogs (1997) Tanya Donelly

I love the tape itself and I think the T-shirt image is an interesting choice.

Lately

Yesterday I was tired and spent most of the day in bed. When I wasn't sleeping I was watching movies, propped up with pillows. Shattered Glass was on so I watched that again.

As always, I'm really looking forward to Christmas and I'm hoping to start shopping the weekend after next. I've been working a lot over the past couple weeks so I'll have a good amount of money.

Do you look forward to Christmas, and what is your favorite part of it?

New David Sedaris

Just recently I found an essay that David Sedaris wrote for The Guardian this past summer. It's called "Chicken Toenails, Anyone?" and it's one of the funniest things he's written in a long time. He comes down pretty hard on both Chinese food and Chinese people and certain people have complained in print.

In tone, the essay would've fit in perfectly in Sedaris's earlier collections like Barrel Fever or Naked.

I have no problem with people complaining about Sedaris or his writing. But I totally disagree with the critisism that he's recieved for this essay. He doesn't say anything that is untrue, and it's unfair of other writers to call him racist or even insensitive.

What I really want to write about is the piece that Alex Heard wrote a few years ago in The New Republic. Heard's essay bothered me then, and it bothers me even more now. I'm going to go into full detail later this week. If you'd like to read it yourself there's a link to it on Sedaris's Wiki page.

The Vampire's Assistant

I really like this movie. It's on now, but I first saw it last fall when I was staying at my friend's house while I had a couple days off and he was at work. I got to sit on his recliner drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. That was a good time.

Anyway, I can't stand the lead- he seems like a goody-goody in real life, Steve is more interesting. I like the monkey girl and John C. Reiley is really good.

Shockaholic

Shockaholic (2011) Carrie Fisher

This weekend I bought Carrie Fisher's new book, Shockaholic. She's already done four novels, all loosely based on her life, starting with her best known: 1987's Postcards From The Edge which was made into a movie starring Meryl Streep, Shirley McClaine, Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, and Richard Dreyfuss and directed by Mike Nichols (Dreyfuss is thanked on Postcard's acknowledgements page; he went through rehab around the same time that she did).

Around the same time that the Postcards movie came out, Fisher realeased her second novel, Surrender The Pink. I read in an old Entertainment Weekly interview that Steven Spielberg bought the movie rights before the book was even finished. Reading the novel you can see why there is no Surrender The Pink- The Motion Picture. I started reading with a lot of interest because the book is supposed to be based on Fisher's relationship with Paul Simon and the two of them are an odd pair that I find interesting. But the book is made up of the kind of dialogue that dragged down Postcards- the worst part of her first novel were the sections where the characters had converations about their feelings.

I haven't read the two newer novels, Delusions of Grandma from the 90s or The Best Awful from around 2005 but from what I understand Delusions is more of an invention and Awful is almost entirely drawn from real events in Fisher's life, from the birth of her daughter to her ex-husband leaving her for a man to her cable TV interview series to her opiate relapse (Oxycontin) to her stay in a mental hospital.

A couple years ago Fisher went on what she called her "one and a half woman show" Wishful Drinking and released a book based on that material. It was a great book with some interesting stories, but most people felt the same way I did: the book was too slim and most subjects were touched upon too briefly.

Her new book, kind of a Wishful Drinking II, is Shockaholic. While this one is also too slim (162 pages) it covers its subjects in more detail. In this case I wish there were more subjects and a little less detail. There are really only five main subjects: her ECT treatments, Michael Jackson, a 1985 blind date with Chris Dodd (plus Ted Kennedy), her step-father Harry Karl, and her father Eddie.

All of it is interesting, especially the MJ section, but I was hoping for more stories about the movies she made, and I don't mean Star Wars. I'd like to here about The 'burbs and The Time Guardian (though she does mention Hollywood Vice Squad and Liberty.

Anyway, while the book is needlessly vulgar in spots, it's well-worth reading and a lot of fun.



Note: The top image is the one that's on the cover of my book. Before Shockaholic was released I saw the bottom image on Amazon. I belive the bottom image was used on non-US editions of the book, but that's just a guess.

Pod (1990)

Pod (1990) The Breeders

HMV makes cool ads

Here's a little Hips and Makers and Strings.

Ramona

I love The Real Ramona and everything related to it. The other day I saw this cool promo for TRR; I wish I had it. I love the album cover, the black background with the fern, the postcard, the photo of the band at the beach, the cover photo and the way that they use that image on the inside of the sleeve- everything.

I read somewhere that Kristin Hersh was working on a follow-up to Rat Girl and it's supposed to focus on the recording of The Real Ramona. I hope it's true; that'd be awesome.

So much time on the computer

I waste a lot of time.

I'll have two days off in a row and I just sit at the computer looking shit up. Say there's a movie on, like the other night, when The Town was on TV. After I had to go to Wiki and look it up- who was in it, stories about the production, the stars. From there I go to other pages: actors, then movies they were in, then other actors.

Ben Affleck is a good director. I can't even think of any flaws. None. And he does a good job of involving the audience. You feel protective of the bank robbers, even Jeremy Renner. He's so believable and you don't notice at all that he's acting. I think he was nomintated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oh wait, I thought of a flaw. I forgot, there was one thing that bothered me: I don't wanna give anything away so I'll just say that I don't believe that Renner's sister would be given the information that she has and gives to the FBI. I think it would be too risky to tell her, especially considering the heat that the robbers are under at that point. They're so careful so it seems like a huge lapse.

But anyway, it's an awesome movie. Good story, the car chases- especially the one in the middle of the movie- are unnerving and realistic (no, I've never been chased, but I witnessed part a police chase last week and it was freaky), and the breakfast scene with Affleck, his girlfriend, and Renner is wicked suspenseful.

Back to Jeremy Renner. He's the best thing about the movie; it wouldn't be the same without him. I never saw (and don't really wanna see) The Hurt Locker but I do remember seeing him years ago in one of his earliest movies, maybe his first starring role: Jeffrey Dauhmer in Dauhmer. I didn't see the whole thing but one scene sticks out in my memory. It's a scene where Dauhmer is in his late teens or early twenties and he's been living with one of his aunts and his father comes for a visit. His father goes through his closet and finds a mannequin or something and other creepy stuff and then he sees a lockbox that belongs to him and he demands to know why his son has it and what he's keeping inside. They argue and finally his father is about to smash the box open and at the last moment Dauhmer says that he's hiding porn magazines inside and he doesn't want his aunt to know and his father backs down. It's a strange scene because as you're watch you're on Dauhmer's side; you don't want his father to find out what's really inside, even though the discover would end up sparing the lives of innocent people. It's funny how movies can end up messing with your sympathies. Or scary, really.

Anyway, time to get ready for bed. If you're a loyal follower of RJ Bttles then I've got good news: I'm going to be here a lot more, maybe even everyday.

Good night.



One more thing. As you know, I don't like combovers. They're stupid and they annoy me. But I think I know the point when I became really hostile towards them- it was an episode of Dateline or 20/20 and Jeffery Dauhmer was being interviewed along with his father and the father had a total combover. That pissed me off. I wanted to punch him in the face. His son tortured and killed people and deprived families of their loved ones, and he's afraid to appear bald on TV. What a fucking dickhead. If I was the interviewer I would've brought it up. First question, probably.

Talking Heads

"Slippery People" from Speaking In Tongues.

Italian Wedding Soup

I had never thought to look before, but the other night at the store I came across Campbell's Italian Wedding Soup. It's nowhere near as good as when my father makes it, but it's good enough for a quiet November night at home. Mm-mm, good.

Comedy Central is finally showing reruns of It's Always Sunny- I'd seen a few scenes years ago but I had never managed to catch it when it was playing. I don't even know if they're making new ones but I hope they are. Mm-mm, good.

Have I ever mentioned how I used to love Talking Heads? I was obsessed with them and David Byrne's solo records. This was around 1996. I'd gone to Newbury Comics in Hyannis and they had Sand In The Vaseline on cassette for $4.99. I think I ended up loving 99% of the songs on it. I was amazed, especially by songs like "Warning Sign", "I Zibra", and "Memories Can't Wait".

Everything about the collection was awesome: it had early, unreleased songs like "Sugar On My Tongue", out-takes like Speaking In Tongues-era demo "Popcicle", newly (1991) finished songs from the Naked sessions, plus essays from each band member and stories about every song on the tapes.

And, of course, I loved the packaging since it had reproductions of a bunch of album and single sleeves.

I wish Belly's Sweet Ride packaging was done the same way. If they ever put out a box set, I'd love to see it come with a bocklet that shows all of the Belly sleeve images- front, back, and inside, plus the labels, postcards, and posters. I would buy that no matter what it cost.

How not to write

Is it better to say bad things to someone or behind their back? That's a good question, and like a lot of difficult questions, the answer is, "It depends."

Here at RJ Battles I've written some unkind things about the blog The Daily Guru. But every time I wrote one of those posts it crossed my mind that maybe I should send a message or a comment directly to TDG. Just friendly suggestions. But there's not much fun in that, plus, who knows how those suggestions might be recieved. It's been my experience that people don't want to hear anything about their work other than "It's awesome".

So I'm not going to write to TDG and point out what I think are some flaws in his writing style. Instead, I'm going to highlight them here at RJ Battles and let his mistakes serve as a lesson to other writers out there. Stephen King said that the only way to be a good writer was to write a lot and read a lot. And reading bad writing is as important as reading good writing because it shows you what not to do.

The problem with The Daily Guru is that his music reviews are locked into a basic magazine music review formula. As a result, sentences are bloated with cliches and pointless phrases.

I'm going to use two recent reviews as examples.

On October 26 he posted about The Ronettes's "Be My Baby". In the first sentence he uses the phrase "one can easily argue". Then in the third sentence he says, "and yet it can easily be argued". He also ends the second paragraph with "one can easily argue".

Like most of the TDG posts, the "Be My Baby" review is four paragraphs long, and in a piece of writing that size overused words and phrases start to jump out at the reader.

The first, third, and forth paragraphs all contain the phrase "there is no question".

In paragraph two, the phrase "completely unique" is used two sentences in a row.

In one sentence he writes, "nothing short of iconic" and in the very next sentence he writes "nothing short of legendary". In the next paragraph: "nothing short of hypnotizing".

That's bad, right? No, it's good compared to today's post, a review of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water".

Four paragraphs containing a total of 28 sentences. Again, there are some cases that can be argued easily. But for the most part, there are no cases to be argued- there is, in fact, no question.

Paragraph One
"there is no question"

Paragraph Two
"it is without question"

Paragraph Three
"there is no question"
then, in the very next sentence-
"Yet there is no question"

Paragraph Four
"Yet there is no question"
"is without question"
"there is no question"

I saved my favorite thing for last. This is a sentence from Paragraph Four:

"Yet there is no question that the original stands far above the reach of any imitator, as the fragile beauty that Simon and Garfunkel created here is without question one of the most breathtaking moments to ever be captured on tape."

That sentence is pretty amazing on its own, but then when you think about how many times the phrase "no question" is used- 7- in a 28 paragraph review, you wonder how the writer could avoid noticing. It's crazy if you do the math- 1 out of every 4 sentences contains the phrase (except, as we know, that isn't exactly true; the phrase shows up twice in one sentence).

Anyway, (That's one of my own overused words; I'm no great writer myself. I know.) if you go to The Daily Guru and read these posts you can see that the phrases that he overuses are not needed. If they were erased his writing would be a lot cleaner. From Strunk and White's Elements of Style: "Omit needless words".

Play dead

I had Bjork's Debut on tape but not this version- mine ended with "The Anchor Song", not "Play Dead", which I've never heard. My sleeve was a lot like this one but the "Bjork" logo near the song titles was the other one. I think I like this one better.

This week

I've been inactive lately and a lot of my time has been spent in front of the computer. I like looking things up: music stuff, blogs, news, but mostly movie trivia. Last night I saw a half-hour special from around 1994 where Quentin Tarentino talks about Robert De Niro's movie career- especially his movies in the 70s.

He talks about how in 70s De Niro was the biggest name in acting and he worked with the strongest directors of that time: Coppola, Scorsece, Cisero. He has a lot of praise for his performances in Mean Streets, Godfather II, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull, but what's interesting is that Tarentino get's critical of De Niro's later work. He says that he and his friend used to run to see De Niro's movies the day they came out but after a while it wasn't such a big deal. De Niro stopped being choosy about his projects and did more movies. I think that's a very good point, especially if you look at the movies De Niro's done over the past 15 years. I don't even have to list them; you know what I'm talking about.

I never payed a lot of attention to John C. Reilly. He was good in Magnolia and Dolores Claibourne, but the movie that I really like him in is one that I never thought I'd watch, never mind like: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant (2009). Reilly is great in that movie, just like everyone else in it- except for the lead, some boring kid.

There's a book I wanna read called Portrait of a Monster. It's about Joran van der Sloot. He's creepy, creepy guy and I can't believe he's only 24. He liked Natalee Halloway on May 30, 2005, and then he killed another woman exactly 5 years later. Lifetime made a movie about Halloway and I don't know who played van der Sloot but it wasn't who it should've been: Nick Stahl.

Oh shit

I forgot my anniversary. Me and RJ Battles have been together for 3 years, 3 years this past Tuesday, but I didn't stop by and write anything that day.

I didn't realize this until late last night, and while it's not a big deal, I really did mean to do something. 3 years is kind of a big deal. That's a long time.

But really, I've been neglectful of the blog for the past 6 months anyway. I haven't been too busy; I've just been less ambitious than I usually (which isn't very).

I follow 3 blogs. Even though the writing comes off like a high school newspaper student trying to sound like a People Magazine music reviewer, I do usually learn something new about a song that I'm half-way interested in. The writer, Joel, is knowledgable, but "Guru" (a word I don't care for anyway) is a stretch. Also, you can see where a lot of the info comes from- read his post about Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot" and then take a look at the song's Wiki page- seperated at birth.

For the past year or so I've been following the blog By Ken Levine. He's former writer for M*A*S*H and Cheers and he's a baseball announcer (so, as you'd probably guess, I skip any posts that show a picture of a baseball diamond). I came across his blog one day when I was on Wiki reading about Cheers. There was a story about Carla's husband Eddie and the whole backstory about why he left the show so abruptly and a link to Levine's blog where he tells everything in full detail. It's very interesting and his blog is full of posts like that. Levine also co-wrote the movie Volunteers starring Tom Hanks, Rita Wilson, and John Candy. Remember when people made a big deal out of the characters drinking Coke in the movie while the movie company, Tri-Star, was owned by Coke? He gives the details behind that story too. Also, he was in a mini-feud with Aaron Sorkin a couple years ago and a mini-feud with Roseanne this year.

Both The Daily Guru and By Ken Levine feature new posts every single day. It's part of The Guru's "mission", and Levine's blog was voted one of the 25 Best Blogs of 2011 by Time Magazine so that makes for an eager audience. My favorite blogger isn't as productive, or, at least, hasn't been lately.

Last year, Final Girl put up 387 posts; so far, this year there have only been 92- for July, August, and September there were a total of 6 posts. She's written every day of October, but that's because it's October. I mean, I'm not complaining (but I am)- I'm just surprised that someone who ammassed such a large following would just let it all wither. Because I'm sure that a lot of people don't even bother checking in anymore. Final Girl might be on their Favorites list but they gave up on it and have found new blogs to read.

But I'm sure she's got a lot of other projects to work on, and maybe she just wants a break from constantly writing about horror movies. Maybe she's said just about everything she wanted to say about the subject.

What I know for sure (if I can say that, if it's OK with Oprah) is that if she decides to get back into Final Girl full-time, she's such a good writer that she'll attract just as many people to the site. It'll never be a ghost-town (NPI).

Pixies after "Trompe Le Monde"

I was just at the Frank Black Forum and one of the threads was about someone was wondering if the Pixies recorded any songs together after their last LP, Trompe Le Monde- there was a link to Youtube and a couple clips of Pixies demos.

One of them- "Hang On To Your Ego"- I'd heard before. Still, it was interesting to hear it again. The other was "Brackish Boy" which ended up being recorded for 1993's Frank Black. Youtube just has a clip but I'd love to hear the full song; it sounds really good.

Now I'm listening to other songs from a bootleg called The Purple Tape 2. It's got "I Can't Forget" from the Leonard Cohen tribute, I'm Your Fan, and "Born In Chicago" from Elektra's 40th anniversary collection.

"Born In Chicago" is a throwaway, but "I Can't Forget" is interesting. It sounds like it was recorded the same day as their other tribute album song from that era, Neil Young's "Winterlong".

It's great, though, hearing songs like these. I love the Pixies but I've played the shit out of all their songs- even their B-sides are worn out so it's good to hear something of their for the hundredth time instead of for the thousandths time.

Here's some news:

Stephen King has a new novel coming out this fall called 11/22/63 and I read yesterday that they're making it into a movie and Jonathon Demme is directing. So many great directors have done SK novels, I think the only one left is Scorsese.

Let's see, there's been DePalma, Kubrick, Cronenberg, Carpenter, Mary Lambert, George Romero, am I forgetting someone?

Also, King is working on a sequel to The Shining. It's going to be called Doctor Sleep. Interesting title.


I just realized tonight that tomorrow is a big day: it's going to be the 3 year anniversary of RJ Battles. I can't believe it's been that long.

I want to do something special but I'm not sure what would be "special". I'm going to have to sleep on that. I'm going to bed now, Good night.

Pixies after "Trompe Le Monde"

The computer

In general I'm not very ambitious, but today I was feeling super-lazy, so I spent almost the whole day on the computer looking up random shit. And for the past three hours I've been on Youtube, mostly watching Kevin Smith.

I don't care for his movies and I don't see why people make such a big deal about them but I like him a lot. He tells a great story- when he talks about Prince the whole story is probably longer than a half hour but it leaves you wanting more.

He also tells a funny story about a fued with Tim Burton. I love that kind of thing. He seems very truthful, a lot like Kathy Griffin. Some things are, I'm sure, exagerated for effect, but I feel like he's really trying to be as real to life as possible. I like that.

Best songs since 1999 (not since "1999")

Here it is- the very last day of September and I'm back.

I was without internet for a few weeks- the router was broken here at my house.

Luckily, there hasn't been much to report so you haven't missed anything. One thing I wanna talk about tonight, though, is songs from the past decade that I really love.

Last night I was on YouTube and I kept looking up videos for songs that really got a strong emotional response out of me over the last 10- 12 years. Songs that I consider beautiful and near- perfect, and- in some cases- kind of get me choked up.

One of the first songs I thought of was 1999's "My Love Is Your Love" by Whitney Houston. A second ago I said "near- perfect"; this song might be perfect. I'm not a big Whitney fan. Then again, I grew up with her music and there are a lot of her songs that I'm very, very fond of:

"I Wanna Dance With Somebody"

"Moment of Truth" (the B-side of the previous song)

"How Will I Know?"

"I Will Always Love You"

"I'm Your Baby Tonight"

"We Didn't Know" (duet with Stevie Wonder)

While "My Love Is Your Love" wasn't a huge hit and a lot of people have never heard it, I think it's one of those songs that everyone who has heard it, loves it. Right now, I think everyonwe considers "I Will Always Love You" to be her signiture song, but I believe that in the future, "My Love Is Your Love" is the song that she will be remembered by. From the very first lines it has something special.

One song that reminds me of a certain time period in my own life- around 2004- is the Sarah McLauchlin song "Fallen". While it's a bit over-produced it still hits its marks. It's sad and regretful. It's like a serious blues song. And I think a lot of people can relate to it. And even if it doesn't reflect your own life, I think that for four minutes or so you can imagine that you relate to it.

I never bought a Dido album and I only know her singles. I don't know why I've never sought any of her other songs. It' strange because the Dido songs that I've heard are so good and they really hit me. I know three Dido songs. The most popular is probably the weakest of the three: "Thank You". But it's a great song. Then there's 'White Flag". I love the sentiment. I'd really love the song but something doesn't match up. Maybe I just don't belive what she's saying. And for a song like that you have to belive that it's true and not just a love song.

I'd say that Dido's best song is the first of her's that I heard: "Here With Me". With this song I belive that she means ever word she says and this song still gets to me.

There's one song from the past decade that really hits me hard. I love all the songs from Kristin Hersh, Tanya Donelly, Aimee Mann, and Jenny Lewis. But it isn't a song from any of them. It's a big, commercial, radio song that really gets to me and puts a lump in my throat.

One summer- either trhe summer of 2008 or 2009- there was this big hit on the radio called "Bleeding Love" by Leona Lewis. I heard it a few times and didn't understand the appeal. I still don't.

A few months later, Lewis released another single, this one called "Better In Time". I fell in love. This song is so sad and so sweet and Lewis sings so beautifully. I feel two things when I hear this song. I relate to it because I've been through it and I understand it. And at the same time, I feel so bad for Leona Lewis. When she says "Gonna smile cause I deserve to" I get choked up.

Anyway, there are a lot of great songs that I've enjoyed over the past dozen years but those are the ones that hit me hard.

These days

I can't believe it's already September 4. This summer- this whole year- has flown by. The sad thing is, I have nothing to show for it. I feel like spring and summer are the time when you've got a lot of energy and daylight and you accomplish a lot so that when the weather turns cool you can relax knowing that you've done what you need to in order to prepare for the winter. You reap what sow and falltime is harvest-time. I've got very little to harvest cause I've done next to nothing in 2011. I certainly have no savings.

But I guess it's not too late. Really, it's still summer, so I can still get things done.

I want to-

1) Save money

2) Do spring cleaning. I'd like to clean and organize my bedroom and take inventory and get all my clothes into order.

3) Have a sexy summer romance (That's not gonna happen. Next.)

4) Be in the moment, so that time stops passing me by

So, this Friday I'm taking a train to Baltimore. I've never been to Baltimore and I've never been on a train before- this is gonna be a big weekend.

Roger Clemens

I was just reading a story about Roger Clemens in USA Today. It turns out that he's gonna be re-tried for perjery. The defense is saying that the prosecutors purposely introduced banned evidence so that they could start fresh- one of the jurors said he believes that the government has no business investigating steroid use by ballplayers- and, of course, he's right.

I think they should leave Clemens and the other baseball players alone, but anyway- I liked something I read in the story. The defense is accusing the prosecutors of having a "win-at-all-costs" attitude. Maybe the prosecutors should try some steroids.

Home

It's time to tell you about where I live.

December 1, 2009, I moved into this house on the outskirts of town- it's a 45 minute walk to my job downtown. The house id owned by a 48 year old man I'll call Papa Bear. He's a very cool guy, very enthusiastic with a lot of energy. He has a white Alaska Husky that's a lot like him, Porter. Porter is very friendly, always shaking his tail and holding a toy in his mouth.

For at least 20 years, Paopa Bear has been friends with an older guy I call Stickman. Stickman has been living here with him ever since he bought the house around 1995. Stickman is around 55 but looks and seems older (though I think he thinks he can pass for 40). He's a second shift nurse and he expects to have the bathroom all to himself for the 2 and a 1/2 hours leading up to the time he leaves for work. He takes insanely long showers and God knows what he does with the rest of the time.

The third and final roommate is a 20 year old coolege student who works part-time but spends most of his days and nights playing computer games. He pays partial rent and Papa Bear buys all his groceries and cooks dinner for him every night. I call him Baby Bear. Between his size and the way that Papa Bear cares for him the name fits perfectly. I like Baby Bear. All he needs to be happy is a computer game, some pot, and maybe some Doritos and Mountian Dew. He's got a good attitude. Like Papa Bear, he's got a good attitude: enthusiastic. It'll be late afternoon after a long day of work, or it'll be 10pm and I'll be in bed so that I can be up at 5am, and I can hear Baby Bear on his headphone/ speaker set, talking to his teammates, and it's very relaxing. It's loud sometimes but it never bothers me; it puts me right to sleep.

Here's how everyone gets along: I get along with everyone. Me and Papa Bear talk a lot. It can be rough sometimes- he's always gotta be right. And he's the dominant dog. Sometimes, too, it seems like he's being contrary on purpose. But that's it. Those are my only complaints, and, anyway, that's what makes him Papa Bear. I'm always happy to talk to him and he's very easygoing and flexible.

If I don't talk with Baby Bear much, it's only because he's almost always at the computer and i don't want to interupt. There are some trust issues as well. For instance, he never owns up to doing anything wrong when Papa bear asks who's the one who did something. On the other hand, I've overheard him rat out Stickman for certain things.

I've gotten along with Stickman but he's gotten crabby with me over stupid shit, like cutting into his bathroom time. But really, it's not that we've clashed so much- I avoid him because I overhear his fights with Papa Bear.

About once every 3 months Stickman will come home from work and get into a shouting match with PB. These fights get loud and ugly. Once, PB yelled that Stickman was a miserable piece of shit with no friends and no teeth. I was listening and laughing into my pillow.

Stickman and Baby get along alright. The have pot in common. But really, I don't think that Baby likes Stickman. I think he's using him for free pot and free cigarettes. Baby helps himself to smokes from both PB's and Stickman's packs when they're not around. I've heard them yell at him but most of the time Baby gets what Baby wants.

I mentioned that I have some trust issues with Baby Bear. It's because of this: For the first 6 months that I lived here, baby was sneaking into my room and taking cigarettes. Now I just said that he'd take cigarettes from the other guys. Well that's different. They had an understanding. Baby would help himself while PB was at work or while Stickman was outside doing yardwork all afternoon.

Baby was taking my cigarettes when I went to take a piss or while I was downstairs for 2 minutes putting my clothes in the dryer. It seemed like sometimes I'd have less cigarettes than I thought but I didn't think anything of it till one day I brought a load of laundry downstairs. As I walked past his room we nodded at each other. When I opened the washer door I could hear squeaking of floorboards directly above me and my bedroom was directly above me. I dropped my socks and rushed up the stairs. Honestly, I didn't want to catch him- that would be too awkward. But I caught his shadow in the hallway. When I got to the top of the stairs he was across the hall in Stickman's room, playing with Porter.

What really confirmed my suspician was one day later that week when I had company but they didn't park in the driveway. Baby came home a few minutes after we did and I was taking a piss. From the hallway you can always tell if someone's in the bathroom- you can hear the fan and you can see light through the door. My friend told me after that he opened the door without knocking, looked surprised to see them, and then said he was looking for a Sharpie to borrow.

So, yeah, I like Baby, but he's a little sneak and that bothers me. I feel like I should visit with him more often, but since i don't trust him I figure, Why bother?


To be continued...

Journal

I've been keeping a journal since I was in high school. I ended up throwing away the first 5 years- it all sounded so dumb. I also threw away another big chunk so now what I have is some notebooks going back to 2005, plus some enries that I made on the computer.

Nowadays I always write on the computer. One problem is that a year ago I had to delete my hard drive and one whole year had to go. It didn't bother me because nothing had really happened. Nothing happens in my life; it's very boring. I guess I'm lucky. In fact, I know I'm lucky.

My family is, for the most part, happy and healthy, as am I. I'm in my mid-30s and both of my parents are still living. Plus I have an enjoyable job and a place to sleep and a little bit of money and I owe less than $300.

I wish, though, that my diary was more interesting (I almost went back and deleted "diary" and replaced it with "journal" but, why bother?).

Maybe I'll start making entries here at RJ Battles instead of on Microsoft Notepad. That'll force me to make them more interesting.

The reason that I've always kept a journal is because I wanted to preserve my memories. My goal was always to record events that happened so that I could go back and read the diary and instantly be brought back to that particular day. It hasn't worked.

So maybe this new way will be better. We'll see tomorrow.

"Lost in Translation"

I was reading Final Girl last night and saw her review of Battle Royale (2000). The name sounded familiar- where have I heard that recently? I know. Online I saw a clip of Quentin Tarentino listing his 20 favorite movies since 1992. Battle Royale was his top pick. He listed some other Japanese movies, including Audition, which Final Girl reviewed recently also. Plus, Boogie Nights, Speed, and The Matrix. A lot of his choice surprised me, especially Lost In Translation. I'll defend Sofia Coppola for The Godfather III, but I'm not crazy about her movies. The Virgin Suicides was good for what it was- it set a mood, which I consider one of the best things a movie can do, but I don't really like the mood that she set. Then there's Marie Antoinette- it doesn't do anything for me.

And then there's Lost In Translation. I'd seen parts of it before. It's just people lying in bed watching TV. That's what I do and I don't want to see that. Boring.

I'm 45 minutes into this movie, I keep waiting for it to wow me but I just wanna go to bed. Is this really a good movie? Really?

"Pumped Up Kicks"

"Pumped Up Kicks"
Foster The People

My friend Amy slept over last night and she woke up before I did so while I was laying in bed I heard some of the songs that were playing on whatever music station she had the TV turned to- probably VH1- and I heard this song and I love it.

It's so cool and so fucking catchy. I've been playing and replaying it on Youtube for the past half hour and I can't get enough of it. Check it out.

Corinne Bailey Rae "The Love EP"

The Love EP
Corinne Bailey Rae
Released: March 13, 2011

I wish more artists would do things like The Love EP. I love covers. Of course, my favorite thing is when musicians cover recent songs, like when Joss Stone recorded The White Stripes's "Fell in Love With a Girl", but I'll settle for an older song.

Here, Corinne Bailey Rae covers Prince, Wings, and Bob Marley, but most importantly, Belly. That was a surprise. Even more surprising was the song choice. It wasn't "Feed The Tree" or "Gepetto" or even "Judas My Heart". She chose "Low Red Moon", the slow, dark track that closes side one of Star.

"Low Red Moon" is the second track here, and it stands in sharp contrast to the song that opens the EP, Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover"

Here's the full tracklist:

1. I Wanna Be Your Lover
2. Low Red Moon
3. Is This Love
4. My Love
5 Que Sera, Sera

If you like Corinne Bailey Rae, or if your just interested in hearing new versions of these songs, then you should pick up The Love EP, it's a great CD.