"Saints" promo poster

Saints (1994) promo poster, The Breeders

New Throwing Muses demo: "Milan"

The new Throwing Muses demo, Milan, is up now at CASH music. You can also hear Sunray Venus along with about 20 other solo recordings from the past year.

Here's the link, or search for CASH Music Kristin Hersh:

http://kristinhersh.cashmusic.org/

Lucas Black

I've only seen Lucas Black in one movie: Friday Night Lights, which I caught a few weeks ago at a friend's house. I didn't realize it was a movie at first- I didn't know that there was a movie; I thought it was just a TV show.

Billy Bob Thornton plays the coach and I think he might've had something to do with the casting of Black, as they were in Sling Blade together when Black was a kid. I also found out that Black was the kid at the beginning of the first X-Files movie, the one who goes down in the hole and who's eyes turn black. I didn't see the whole movie, just the first 30 minutes but I remember that scene being pretty creepy.

Lucas Black was also in a few movies that I've been wanting to see for a while: The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift, as I mentioned before, All The Pretty Horses, which also stars Henry Thomas (Elliot from ET), and Jarhead.

He seems like a really good actor. He's from Alabama and used to play football, which also probably helped him land Friday Night Lights.

Terrarium: Part 1

I made my first terrarium today. After Christmas I found a couple tree-shaped cookie jars at Wal-Mart for $1.50 each and today I bought some Sweet Basil seeds. I'm going to put some rocks and things in later.

Also, once I get a bigger container- a fish tank- I'm going to plant some poppies. I love them (for a lot of reasons).

I'm really excited. My ultimate plan is to make some really nice small ones and sell them at one of the stores downtown- for just $10 probably. I'll print out a small little booklet w/ care instructions(they're very easy to maintain anyway, you basically just leave them alone I've read).

Once things start sprouting I'll post some pictures here. Stay tuned.

My Facebook status at the moment: "I'm making a terrarium today bitchesssssss."

The Daily Collegian horoscopes

Here are a few horoscopes I pulled from the UMass-Amhearst Daily Collegian.

Aquarius- Buy low. Sell high. Buy low. Sell in a giant loop. Invest in roller coasters.

Pisces- Bananas are an excellent source of potassium. Corpses are an excellent source of embalming fluid.

Leo- That guy you make fun of in class? He's drawing up the blueprints for your demise right now.

Capricorn- Listerine is not a beverage and no amount of tiny umbrellas is going to make it one.

Elisha Cook Jr., "Dear Prudence", Lord Alfred Douglas

Sometimes if I have the day off- like today- I like to go on the computer and look up random shit. The Maltese Falcon was on TCM so I looked up Elisha Cook Jr., who played Wilmer. He's (or was) a well-known character actor, usually cast as villians, in old movies.

Maybe ten years ago I caught the middle of The Big Sleep, another Raymond Chandler movie starring Bogart; I'd forgotten about the character who gets poisoned- I remember it was pretty upsetting when I saw it and I felt bad for the guy. That was Cook too.

*****

After Siouxsie & the Banshee's song "Kiss Them For Me" came out I started buying some of their other records. Then Twice Upon A Time came out and I heard their version of "Dear Prudence". You might already know that Mia Farrow and her sister Prudence went with the Beatles to India to study meditation and that's where they wrote most of the songs for The Beatles. I just think it's so interesting that she did all these things when she was so young, and she married Frank Sinatra, was served divorce papers on the set of Rosemary's Baby, and then later married (were they married?) Woody Allen. I guess Farrow says in her autobiography that when all that shit came out about Allen and her adopted daughter, Sinatra called up and offered to have Allen's legs broken.

I mentioned this to a friend who said, "He was still alive then?"

"That all happened in the early to mid 90s; remember he died in May of 1998, of disappointment over the weak series finale of Seinfeld "(that's just my own theory).

*****

I've always loved Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and I've read it about 5 times. I've also read a lot about his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas (did you know that Douglas's father set up the Queensbury rules for boxing- I don't know what that means but I've seen the name mentioned before).

Douglas was in his early 20s and very selfish and immature. You might've seen Jude Law play him in the movie Wilde- I don't think he really captured the Douglas that I have in my mind but he did OK.

The thing about Douglas, a lot of people think that he was the inspiration for Dorian Gray but that was written before they met. Still though, Douglas was very handsome, probably the best-looking man I've ever seen.

In the Wilde biographies they only show pictures of Douglas when the two of them were together so I was shocked when I came across some pictures of him later in life. It's funny, because then it really does make you think about Dorian Gray- Douglas's face is swollen and puffy and it sags.

Douglas eventually married a woman and had a son who spent most of his life in mental asylums. Douglas was once sued by Winston Churchill- slander I think- and lost. He died in 1945, one year after my father's birth, one year before my mother's. His time seems so long ago so it's hard to imagine that he and my father were alive at the same time

This blog

I'm supposed to be writing a review of Uzumaki for the Final Girl Film Club but I'm going to sit this one out. That movie didn't do much for me so why chime in with a bored review of a movie that I don't really care about? To bring desperately needed readership to my lonely blog- sure I thought about it.

Maybe it's the headcold I picked up yesterday and which blossomed last night has got me down. But what I really think- what I was thinking on the way home from work this evening: my writing on this blog is pretty weak. Especially compared to Final Girl.

I think I did my best writing in high school, when I was writing notes to my best friend. Those notes were funny. I'd say something clever, then I'd throw in some random graffiti I found on the art class table and I was proud to send those notes out into the world.

Once I feel better I'm going to set things right here.

For now, I've got Vics Vapor Rub smeared all over my upper body and a T-shirt wrapped tightly around my neck and I'm going to bed and hoping for the best, or the worst. We'll see.




Note: I think I've gotten a little better- check out a post I put up today called "more Corey Haim". Tight and relaxed, I think. -RJ Battles, 3/15/2010