Now DiG This

Haven't blogged in quite a while, it seems, though I have been working a bit. Work work, and writing work. You may have seen a new Breakdowns column go up last Friday, which was fun to put together, as usual, and last night I wrote a first-ever "author commentary" version of it as well. That will go up this week on the blog, but I wanted to give readers a chance to read the column on Comic Book Galaxy first.

I read about half the new LOSERS tpb, but other than that, I'm a bit behind on comics. One reason is I read a novel, Paul Auster's ORACLE NIGHT, and like CITY OF GLASS and pretty much everything of his, it deals with several layers or levels of reality. Most of it was pretty great, but it really didn't work so well at the end, just anticlimactic. I checked out THE BOOK OF ILLUSIONS by Auster at the library, too.

Helped my friend Jeff move some furniture from another friend of his' house to Jeff's garage on Friday night, which was exhausting. The original plan was we would drive this Budget Rent-A-Truck to Phoenix, where Jeff bought a second house as an investment, but there were issues with the loan, so the trip is postponed, or I might not even go. We'll see.

I also finally bought a PS2 last night, and stayed up WAY too late playing GTA: Vice City. I decided to get a couple bargain priced games rather than the new ones, so it was this and SHREK 2 for the kids. I'm sure everyone knows VICE CITY inside and out, so I won't say anything more about it.

A friend at work was kidding me, challenging my claim that I would put in an hour of writing to justify playing the PS2. And he was right, as I didn't get an hour's work in, but pretty close, pretty productive. I revised the outline to the first three issues of IRREGULAR JOE. It looks good, though the real challenge is revising the pages I have to incorporate all these new subplots and such. I think it will work, though.

Stopped drinking anything with NutraSweet in it, due to an article I read. Poison!

And I watched and loved DiG, which is Ondi Timoner's documentary of seven years of musical love and rivalry between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. It's fascinating, almost as funny as Spinal Tap at times, but also heartwrenching, as BJM leader Anton Newcombe visibly succumbs to heroin addiction while attempting to record their biggest album, STRUNG OUT IN HEAVEN. With such lengthy and cooperative access to both bands, and the interesting personalities in each band and their ups and downs of liking and disliking each other, Timoner has a wealth of material to use, and it's edited masterfully, though there were a few bits edited for drama over absolute accuracy that since upset Anton a great deal. Specifically, he felt his band's story was shown as over by 1997, while the Dandy's were seen up to recording 2003's WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE. And he's right, though the postscript makes it clear he may be down but not out at all. A few things that really struck me were a) how talented Anton is and how committed to music; b) how vain Dandy's frontman Courtney Taylor is, though basically goodhearted and a good sport about Anton's abuse and envy of him; c) how the BJM had the majority of great lines in the movie, and tambourine player and "audience window" Joel Gion is one of the funniest, most charismatic guys I've ever seen--Timoner describes him as a Dr. Seuss character; d) how nice but musically compromised and personally uptight the Dandy's are--they point out how well-adjusted they are (despite things like keyboardist Zia thinking that she has received good karma for securing the band's coke) early in the film, but this security and sunny attitude seems to leave them too easily satisfied with their music. I should point out all the Dandy's songs chosen for the film are pretty good, but I listened for the first time to their major label debut, COME DOWN, and it's pretty bad. Really boring vocals and most songs find a simple, groove and then do little with it. And "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth", a song I've waited years to hear, is only good for the opening ten seconds, then it quickly goes to hell. The lyrics are especially stupid, and Courtney gets the non-enthusiastic reaction he deserves when he first plays the song for Anton, as the song is hard not to see as a putdown of how Anton's living his life at this time. The other song I wanted to like, "Cool Like Kim Deal", is similarly embarrassing. I do think I'll like the next disc, THIRTEEN TALES FROM URBAN BOHEMIA, from what I've heard. Watch the movie if you like music, whether it's this in particular or not. The BJM commentary (sans Anton) is the best, with Ondi and her brother'a the next best, and The Dandy's the least interesting. To be fair, it would be hard for any band to live up to the frightening cartoon genius legend that is Anton and the BJM. I'm looking forward to the deleted scenes. Oh, and I went to the BJM website and found Anton's email, and wrote him. He replied the next day that he couldn't talk because he was in Iceland. Kind of nice to hear from the guy, who's been off heroin for five years. I think it's important, karmically and otherwise to thank the people who touch your life.

Off to bed...