I’ve seen some polls around the Internet that ask voters what their top issues are in this midterm election. One of the choices is “moral values.” Well, I put that as my main reason but not because I support “moral values, which I assuming in this case (and most cases in the mainstream media) means “Christian Values.” But I am not voting for “moral values,” but rather, against these so-called moral i.e., Christian “values.” I don’t want these “values” pushed on me, and I hope that by voting Democrat that is what is happening.
The Boring Dahlia
I’m sad to report that I was pretty disappointed with Brian de Palma‘s The Black Dahlia. He’s one of my favorite directors (Femme Fatale is one of my all-time favorite movies and I also love Snake Eyes, Body Double [though I’m not sure it warrants a special edition], Scarface [which has an awesome special edition], and Sisters). People (including myself) say that he’s a Hitchcock rip-off, but that’s not always bad… I also decided to read the James Ellroy novel on which the film version of The Black Dahlia is based. The novel was so-so, but I really expected the movie to be better.
For starters, the color palette for the movie seemed “off” to me. I really expected dark, bold, strong, sexy colors like those from Femme Fatale or David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. Or even something more stylized and shadowy? Instead, the film felt very brown and drab.
I was also disappointed that de Palma downplayed the psychosexual aspect of the film. Granted, Ellroy’s novel didn’t really tease out the strange threesome-relationship between the three main characters (Josh Hartnett as Bucky, Aaron Eckhart as Lee, and Scarlett Johansson as Kay), but I expected that the film, under the right director, might. The threesome relationship as well as the darker aspects of Bucky’s relationship with Madeline (Hilary Swank), the somewhat doppelganger of Elizabeth Short a.k.a. The Black Dahlia (Mia Kirshner). For some reason I’ve always considered de Palma to be somewhat of a dark and erotic director, but The Black Dahlia reminded me that I apparently confuse him with David Lynch or Adrian Lyne or Paul Verhoeven or something. De Palma is more like a creepy voyeur.
Granted, there were some cool tracking shots (such as right after a woman finds the body of The Black Dahlia) and split-diopter (two objects in focus at the same time) shots, but the film just didn’t feel as viscerally rewarding as some of his other work.
The sad thing is, The Black Dahlia is perfect source material for de Palma. It’s got blonde (Kay) vs. brunette (Elizabeth, Madeline) women, potential doppelgangers (Elizabeth/Madeline, Bucky/Lee), suspense (“Who killed the Black Dahlia??”), allusions to film (The Man Who Laughs and the Hollywood setting), etc.
I’m not sure whether de Palma really has become “a director for hire” or what. I hope that Femme Fatale wasn’t his apogee and now he’s all downhill.
God Made Me Post It!
As promised in my God Made Me Do It post, I went ahead and posted my college paper “The Problem of Faith and Reason in Brown’s ‘Wieland’; or a Kierkegaardian Critique of Wieland As a Knight of Faith.”
Keep in mind that this is probably what I consider to be my first “heavy academic” paper. I was just getting the hang of writing papers using philosophy for support, so parts of this paper aren’t are strong as they could be. Of all the papers I’ve ever written, this is one that I would like to revist and work on some more given my strong feelings on religion.
Read it and let me know what you think.
A Cool iTunes Playlist
If, like me, you are sometimes overtaken by nostalgia or find yourself wondering how your life was different (not necessarily better or worse) last year at this time (I always become much more introspective and whatnot once the sunny days end and it gets darker earlier and rainy here in Seattle), then I have a neat playlist for you:
I called it: “Last Year This Month.” It will show you all of the songs you added to your iTunes library last year at this time. I’m constantly adding music, so it’s interesting for me to see what music I was just getting into or tracking down just a year ago.
To make it, setup an iTunes Smart Playlist with these parameters:
Match: All
Date Added --> is in the last --> 12 months
Date Added --> is not in the last --> 11 months
So right now I can see all of the songs I added to iTunes in October, 2005. It’s neat. I was just getting into the Bloc Party and the DFA record label and got new albums by Depeche Mode, Fiona Apple, and Boards of Canada.
Gay Pride 2006
Yikes, a bit behind am I? So Seattle Gay Pride was something like five months ago (almost half a year!) and I am just now getting around to posting my “Gay Pride 2006” mix.
Compared to Music Make You Lose Control and Destroy Rock (And Roll), this mix is tremendously better. I have a few theories on why it’s better: First, pretty much every one of these songs are club/dance mixes — they are designed (good intros/outros) for DJs and mixing; second, I am getting better at this — I know when to start mixing songs together, what types of songs go good together, etc.
As for the songs, when I first envisioned a gay-themed mix I had planned to do songs with gay themes (lots of stuff from Le Tigre and Scissor Sisters). Then I realized that finding all the songs and putting them together was going to take a while… and that a gay mix could be done at any time and wasn’t necessarily “2006” or “Pride” oriented.
So I decided that it might be more fun to make a mix of all of my favorite songs that I had heard at Neighbours over the last year. In the end that idea worked and I think this mix turned out to be a lot of fun.
I started the mix with Basement Jaxx’s remix of Missy Elliott’s “4 My People.” This song was a perfect opener for two reasons: First, the title “4 My People” sorta signaled that this was a gay mix for my “gay” people or whatever. Second, Elliott’s …So Addictive album (where “4 My People” appears) is a totally gay album (themes of clubs, drugs, sex, etc.) and “4 My People” is Elliott’s most club-friendly song. A great way to kick things off.
Kelly Osbourne’s “One Word” was one of the first songs I remember really starting to love at Neighbours. Being rather unfamiliar with pop music at the time, I had to try to hear some of the lyrics (“it’s not the way that I want it/it’s just the way that I need it”) and text message them to myself so that I could search for the song and download it. I’m not sure that I’ve actually heard Dannii Minogue’s “Perfection” at Neighbours despite the fact that it’d be a perfect pick. The song samples “Turn the Beat Around” and is so high-energy.
My favorite moment of the mix is around the 22:00 mark when toward the end of Gabriel & Dresden’s remix of “The Wings” (theme song to Brokeback Mountain) Madonna’s “Hung Up” starts to creep in. The two songs have this similar “reverso beat thing” (I don’t have a more technical term) that matches up perfectly. In addition to the musical synergy of the two songs, I firmly believe that “Hung Up” and Brokeback Mountain were the two biggest gay events of the year, so placing them side-by-side/ontop of each other just seemed perfect.
Speaking of perfect, “Since U Been Gone” is a perfect example of how Neighbours has influenced my taste in music. When Kelly Clarkson was touring sometime last year, I walked by The Paramount and saw her tour bus. I was one the phone with my friend at the time and made some comment like, “Ugh, Kelly Clarkson. I hate her.” My friend responded something like, “Well you sure seemed to love her song at the club the other night.” And sure enough, he was right. I love “SUBG” and it’s inclusion on this mix was an absolute must. For some of the songs, I opted for edited/shorter remixes or did a lot of overlapping. For “SUBG,” though, I really needed to get the whole song in there so I went with the full-length version of Jason Nevins’ perfect (and in my opinion, his best work ever) remix.
It’s funny, I think, that of all the artists on this mix, only Dannii Minogue appears twice. As I mentioned before, “Perfection” wasn’t even a song that I heard at the club, but I loved it so much I couldn’t do the mix without it. Not the case with “Put the Needle On It.” I always loved it when this song came up. My favorite part is the voiceover going, “Dirty hands do demand” or whatever. Originally I planned to use Tiga‘s remix, but in the end the Jason Nevins mix just worked better. I kind of regret putting two Nevins mixes back-to-back, but what can ‘ya do?
My friend Troy would kill me if I didn’t credit him with turning me on to the Gabriel & Dresden remix of “Don’t Leave Home” by Dido. So there: Everyone: Give Troy credit for this. The funny thing about this song is that finding a “good” MP3 of it took quite a while. Most of the mixes you find on the p2p networks come from various compilations (such as Bloom) and aren’t the “pure”/”official” version that I wanted. (Since I don’t have vinyl, getting the official “Sand In My Shoes” / “Don’t Leave Home” single wasn’t feasible.) I immediately fell in love with the song, especially the part that comes in toward the end of the song (or around 45:22 in the mix) where the song takes a break of sorts and goes all electro/robot/whatever.
The same Troy who loves “Don’t Leave Home” hate’s “Cha Cha Heels.” That’s sort of why I put the songs next to each other — I thought it was funny. This song really has no substance or anything likable, but it’s fun when it comes on at the club and some people (such as me) pretend that they know how to cha-cha.
If “The Wings”/”Hung Up” don’t make this the perfect gay mix, then “Don’t Cha” better be what it takes. With the exception of “Hung Up,” I don’t think I’ve seen any song make the gay boys at the club more excited than this song (or maybe this is me projecting since this song makes me so excited?). There is something about being at a gay club and the lyrics, “Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me” that is just too great. It’s a pretty common gay fantasy to seduce and get with the hot straight guy, and in a gay context this song seems to be the anthem for getting with the straight guy who has a girlfriend. Due to this song’s perfect thematic role in the mix and the fact it’s great to dance to, I had to use Ralphi’s full-length 12″ vox (i.e., vocal) mix.
“The Sound of San Francisco” was another one of the first songs I really loved to hear at the club. The fact it sampled/covered “San Francisco” by the Mamas and the Papas made it all the better, and turned me on to the idea of finding other techno songs that did the same thing. In the end, “The Sound of San Francisco” was the best (though the Global Deejay’s “Flashdance” is great, too).
I always thought that the Global Deejays songs used the same beats that Benny Benassi did, so that’s why I put his remix of Goldfrapp’s “Ooh La La” after “The Sound of San Francisco.” I admit, the transition here is a little sloppy, but I think the fact that both songs have that heavy beat/organ sounding thing helps hide a bit of the slop. Funny story about this song: The remix that the DJ at Neighbours usually played was Peter Rauhofer (a pretty big “gay DJ”). His mix was sort of dark, however, and didn’t climax very well. Although my friend Troy and I frequently requested “Ooh La La” (being as how we were Goldfrapp fans), we were always disappointed with the results. Finally we took things into our own hands and I specifically requested the Benny Benassi remix (I had downloaded all the songs from and eventually purchased the purchased the “Ooh La La” club promo CD single) and it helped us finally realize the awesomeness of “Ooh La La” in a club setting.
Toward the end of this mix, I admit, I got a little sloppy. I wanted to include “Inspiration” and “The World Is Mine” because I remembered them from the club and they were good, danceable songs. I wish I would’ve included Scissor Sisters’ “Filthy/Gorgeous” earlier in the mix and done a better job incorporating it, because this is easily my favorite Scissor Sisters’ song. At least it closes the mix?
So in the end, how many of these songs did they play at Neighbours during Pride weekend? Well, I went out Saturday night and I definitely remember “The Wings” (which surprised the hell out of me), “Don’t Leave Home,” and “Ooh La La.” Others may have been (and probably were) played earlier or at other times.
00:00 — “4 My People” (Basement Jaxx remix) by Missy Elliott
02:56 — “One Word” (Chris Cox remix) by Kelly Osbourne
08:55 — “Perfection” (Dancing DJs remix) by Dannii Minogue
14:00 — “The Wings” (Gabriel & Dresden’s Organized Nature remix) by Gustavo Santaolalla
20:24 — “Hung Up” (SDP extended vocal mix) by Madonna
26:39 — “Since U Been Gone” (Jason Nevins club mix) by Kelly Clarkson
32:49 — “Put the Needle On It” (Nevins Club Creation) y Dannii Minogue
39:13 — “Don’t Leave Home” (Gabriel & Dresden remix) by Dido
48:11 — “Cha Cha Heels” (Ralphi Rosario radio edit) by Rosabel
51:02 — “Don’t Cha” (Ralphi’s Hot Freak 12″ vox remix) by the Pussycat Dolls
59:37 — “The Sound of San Francisco” (progressive extended mix) by the Global Deejays
64:30 — “Ooh La La” (Benny Benassi extended remix) by Goldfrapp
70:44 — “Inspiration” (radio edit) by Ian Van Dahl
73:25 — “The World is Mine” by David Guetta
75:54 — “Filthy/Gorgeous” by Scissor Sisters
![[save]](/jason/wp-content/themes/double-reading/images/icons/disk.gif){kind=icon}
Download “Gay Pride 2006” (very low-quality)
Disgraceful
I love how sometimes the media picks up on a certain phrase/adjective and uses it absolutely everytime something is mentioned.
For example, if I had a dollar everytime the phrase “disgraced lobbyist” was placed before Jack Abramoff‘s name, I would have somewhere around $1400 (I’m currently getting 1,415 results).
By contrast, there are only 1,384 news articles that include the phrase “lobbyist Jack Abramoff” that don’t have the word “disgraced” in the article.
So basically what this means is that when a news article mentions Jack Abramoff’s name, it’s more likely to include the phrase “disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff” than it is likely to not include it.
Now I’m not saying that Jack Abramoff isn’t a disgraced lobbyist (he is most certainly a slimeball), I just find it lazy and humorous that this phrase seems to be so automatic and unoriginal with news reporting. Try a thesaurus or something. I’m sure there are other words that one could use instead of the now-tired “disgraced.”
What are other examples of this? Right now I cannot recall, but keep your eye out for lazy writing.
Racial Profiling
This morning while subjecting myself to conservative talk radio, one of the talk show hosts made a comment about how the U.S. should be racially profiling terrorists and targeting people from the Middle East, etc. His rationale was that since most terrorists are Muslim, it would be in our best interests to go after them and if we end up trampling on the rights of innocent people, it doesn’t really matter, in the end.
What these people who advocate racial profiling fail to recognize is that being white is a race and that if we really want to infuse profiling into law enforcement, then:
- Since pretty much all rapes are done by men, we should assume all men are rapists
- Since most “white collar crime” is done by old white men, we should assume that they are all ripping off their companies
- Since nearly all of the people who bomb abortion clinics and terrorize those who work there and seek treatment there are Christians, we should assume all Christians are terrorists
- … and so on
Yes, I’m exaggerating a little, but it really irritates me that people who call for profiling are so unaware of how they themselves can be profiled. I’m not sure whether it’s ignorance/arrogance (i.e., they assume white people/men/Christians/etc. have no reason to ever be profiled) or whether it’s some sort of law of averages thing (i.e., they assume that there are too many white people/men/Christians to target). Either way, it pisses me off.
If we start profiling we assume everyone is guilty (for better or worse), and if people are okay with that, fine, but don’t be so stupid as to assume that you yourself cannot or should not be profiled. For example, if I had my way, I’d probably have most Christians locked up for homophobia/misogyny/etc. and the potential to commit hate crimes/rapes or something like that. So it’s a good thing for them that I don’t have that authority. (Again, I am exaggerating [sort of], of course.)
Fall 2006 Here I Come
Every few months I end up posting a sort of “calendar” of events/things that I am looking forward too (it seems that last fall was good, too). Eventually I do intend to write or find some sort of WordPress plugin that makes this easier and less table/post-ish, but there are just so many things on the horizon that I cannot wait… As always, let me know if you wanna join for concerts or want information on any of this stuff. (Note: I get CD release dates from Metacritic’s Upcoming Releases, I get DVD release dates from Joblo’s DVD Release Dates Schedule and Cover Art, and I get movie release dates from Entertainment Weekly‘s Coming Soon.)
| Month | Day | Exciting Thing |
| August | 22 | Paris Hilton by Paris Hilton (I’m already preparing to be thoroughly embarassed when I buy this), Kelis Was Here by Kelis, Idlewild by OutKast, Classics by Ratatat |
| August | 29 | Arrested Development season 3, Desperate Housewives season 2, Nip/Tuck season 3 |
| September | 5 | B-Day by Beyonce (CD), Dreams by Whitest Boy Alive (Erlend Oye’s [Kings of Convienience] new band), Lost season 2 |
| September | 8 | Dandy Warhols at the Showbox (buy tickets) |
| September | 12 | Crazy Itch Radio by Basement Jaxx, The Outsider by DJ Shadow, So This Is Goodbye by the Junior Boys, Pieces of People We Love by the Rapture, FutureSex/LoveSounds by Justin Timberlake, Return to Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio |
| September | 15 | The Black Dhalia opens in theatres (new film by Brian De Palma; I am about to start reading the book) |
| September | 19 | Battlestar Galactica season 2, part 2 |
| September | 24 | Season 3 of Desperate Housewives begins |
| September | 26 | Ta-Dah! by the Scissor Sisters, Lady Vengence (part of the triology that includes Old Boy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengence), The Presets at Chop Suey (buy tickets) |
| October | 3 | The Information by Beck, Sam’s Town by the Killers, Scissor Sisters at the Showbox (buy tickets) |
| October | 4 | Season 3 of Lost begins, Shortbus opens in theatres |
| October | 6 | Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica begins, The Departed opens in theatres (Martin Scorsesse’s remake Infernal Affairs) |
| October | 13 | Ladytron at the Showbox (buy tickets) |
| October | 20 | Fast Food Nation opens in theatres, Marie Antionette opens in theatres |
| October | 24 | The L-Word season 3 |
| October | 26 | Placebo at the Showbox (buy tickets) |
| October | 27 | Babel opens in theatres |
| November | 3 | Volver opens in theatres |
| November | 14 | Hot Chip at Neumos |
Looks like there is a lot to look forward to! If you have any additional recommendations, please let me know.
Terrorism Plot: Time For Vacation!
I love the fact that the UK had been investigating this now-foiled terrorism plot for the last few weeks and that the US got involved within the last ten days… sounds like a perfect time for Bush to go on vacation, eh? It’s one thing to say that he happened to be on vacation today when the shit went down, but the fact that this supposedly really large terrorist plot unfolded recently might cause one (especially if one were the president) to maybe postpone a vacation?
Linus Loves Remixing ‘SexyBack’???
From the “Too-Weird-And-Awesome-To-Be-True” department:
While searching around the interenet last night, I found a tracklisting from Justin Timberlake’s “SexyBack” single. Of note, it appears that Linus Loves is going to be remixing the song!!!
Ever since remixing Mylo’s “In My Arms,” I’ve absolutely loved Linus Loves. Their mixes have a very slick, dancey, futuristic feel to them, and I cannot wait to hear what they do with “SexyBack.” The disc doesn’t come out until the end of August and I’ve been unable to find any leaked remixes, but rest assured I will be on the lookout. Without even hearing it, I’m predicting that this will be one of my favorite remixes of the year.
(On a related note, of equal mixing between “high” and “low” culture, The Scumfrog remix of Paris Hilton’s “The Stars Are Blind” is quite awesome, as well, and even if you hate Paris or her “reggae hip-hop,” the mix is worth checking out…)