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?