Apart from my children, here are a few of life's little treasures:
Pernod. C'est un aperitif magnifique.
The Samuel Smith brewery. No, not Samuel Adams. There must be a reason why so many boneheads think I mean "Adams" when I say "Smith." I freely admit to being a beer snob. The best stuff available comes from this old Yorkshire plant and their American lineup includes a Taddy porter, a pale ale (Inspector Morse's brew of choice), a nut brown ale, a holiday brew, an Imperial stout, and, the finest beer in the entire known universe, an Oatmeal stout. The only negative quality to their craft is the price, which is about $13 for a six-pack, or $3-4 a bottle in even the best bars, but you are paying for quality. In England, there are even more varieties, including a cider and an extra stout which is damn near worth flying across the Atlantic to try. They have a pub in London called the Angel, and I believe it's on Marylebone High Street, and you should really try it out.
Tullamore Dew. Any other whiskey is just, well, whiskey. This is ambrosia.
Jezzball: Good heavens, what an amazing way to pass the hours! Who thought up this little work of genius? Just don't tell the boss I'm playing!
The four best video games ever made for home systems: Adventure for the Atari 2600 (easily 1000+ hours logged...and I haven't played in at least 4 years!), Sonic the Hedgehog and all its sequels for the Genesis, GoldenEye for N64 and Twisted Metal 2 for the Playstation. Word of warning on that last one: do NOT play this for five hours straight and then drive anywhere. I've never come so close to crashing head-on into a *parked* car...
The best movie seat in town: UGA's Tate Theater. Once upon a time, the concession stand used to have nachos, which should be mandatory for movie theatre concession stands. I should note that they now sorta do have nachos, but they're those "nuke-em-yerself" type. Nice try...
On the subject of nachos, the best club in the history of the universe was Athens' Rockfish Palace, now home to the none-too-shabby Boneshaker's. Anyway, they did the dinner thang too, and the kitchen closed about an hour before the shows would start, and if you timed it just right you could get a whopping huge basket of nachos with just amazingly good salsa for $1.50. Then, you had plenty of time to eat and play a tabletop version of Elevator Action, one of the best coin-op video games of all time before the lights went down and the music started. Among several great shows seen there: the dearly missed River's Been, Pez's reunion show, Matt "Guitar" Murphy (doing a righteous 20 minute version of "Soul Man") and Michelle Malone.
Shows: Ohmigawd, did you ever happen to see the Opal Foxx Quartet? They were, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the best live act I've ever witnessed. Part thunder, part melodrama, part drag act, for several months in 1990 they were the most important damned band in the universe, and I was gobsmacked by every show I saw. The sad death of Deacon Lunchbox put an untimely end to a group whose only CD release didn't even capture a hint of the majesty onstage, but in all fairness, they knew that when they were recording it.
Food again: there's a restaurant in Athens and in Atlanta called the Mean Bean. Fine Mexican Food by Gringos. Walp, it's good eatin', but once upon a time, the Mean Bean had a location downtown on College Avenue. When I was in school, I was there three times a week easy. It was the sort of place where I could say "the usual" and they'd know I wanted a bean burrito deluxe with extra cheese, a half order of chips, hot sauce and sweet tea. They never did Polaroid me for the customer of the week slot, but did give me an invitation to their post-closing farewell fiesta. Sigh. I still crave it. The other locations seem to have food from another supplier, and sometimes the staff at the 5 Points location have been downright surly to me, so I don't go often at all. The downtown site was just the greatest...friendly, positively yummy and priced right. Worth inventing a time machine to revisit.
The best job in history: Writing for 10 quarters at Athens' student-run newspaper The Red & Black. You mean you'll *pay* me to rant about teevee?
Toni Collette. She is the goddess.
Breathtaking animation: It's not often you'll see a Popeye cartoon worth spitting at, but keep your eyes peeled for one called "Sindbad the Sailor," a 15-minute thing animated by the Fleishers. There's one amazing shot about 4 minutes in when Bluto (as nasty uber-sailor Sindbad) commands a giant bird to snatch Olive from Popeye. The bird's takeoff is mind-blowing. This cartoon is older than your parents (well, probably) and we still don't see animation that good today.
Also along that line, Wallace & Gromit's second and third films. Frankly, the first really didn't impress me, but "The Wrong Trousers" is consistently brilliant and the "Thunderbirds" spoof in "A Close Shave" is honestly the funniest thing I have ever seen. (And I've thought long and hard about what that would be.)
Speaking of "Thunderbirds" spoofs, if you are ever questioning a reason to continue living, watch a few Gerry Anderson shows if you're not familiar with the format and then go buy "The Best Of...What's Left Of...Not Only...But Also...," the classic BBC comedy with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore doing, among other things, "Superthunderstingcar." Sadly, this is one of those things that I've foolishly watched about 40 times and no longer can laugh at (sorta like Monty Python's "Spam"), but I think I stopped breathing the first time I saw it. (That's why I won't be watching "A Close Shave" again any time this -- or the next -- decade. I don't want to kill the laugh.)
There are many great moments in "Doctor Who," but the story "The Happiness Patrol" is blessed with one of the very best scripts of the whole series. Sadly, the production is really, really poor, even for "Who," and the sound very bad in the US movie version, which is why it isn't on my top 10 fave TV episodes list. Anyway, the story concerns the Doctor's drive to topple a totalitarian Thatcherite regime in a single night. It's full of magical, powerful, human moments, like when the Doctor convinces two gunmen to lay down their weapons because they're better people than their ruler gives them credit for. There's also an amazing creature called the Kandyman, an executioner robot made of confectionery, who gets all the best lines. And the Doctor sings a few bars of "As Time Goes By." As if the story wasn't moving and empowering enough, the final scene with grinning despot Helen A (read: Maggie T) establishes her as one of television's greatest villains. In a horrifying moment, Helen A (played perfectly by Sheila Hancock) explains her rationale for all the death and misery she's wrought, and she just doesn't get why her actions are wrong. It's spine-chilling stuff, angry television that is too often overlooked by many of the show's fans.
"I came to Hollywood to fuck that divine Gary Cooper." -- Tallulah Bankhead
"I read the Book of Job last night. I don't think God comes out well in it." --Virginia Woolf
"You're not drunk if you can lie on the floor without holding on." --Dean Martin
"On the credibility scale, Andrew Ridgeley falls somewhere between Latoya Jackson and oblivion." -- Jim Farber in Rolling Stone
"Oh, my, that's a very big rock. I can't wait to show my friends. None of them have a rock that big." -- Spike in Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Buzz is the best person I've ever met. He has a beer in one hand and he's friendly." -- Ego Hat
"Big Mac? Slave Master Now? No slave ain't master now. Ride them cowboy. Terrorist, radicals, and militants in authoritative roles to provoke violent crimes, Cecil. B. Moore" -- Brenda Butler Bryant, the author of at least 700 lawsuits filed in Pennsylvania against such entities as Burger King, Lane Bryant, the Board of Education and at least two judges, all of which were thrown out, 1993 (If anyone knows anything else about this woman, please e-mail me. I've seen some of her other suits and they're all most amusing.)
Linus: "I guess it's wrong always to be worrying about tomorrow.
Maybe we should think only about today."
Charlie Brown: "No, that's giving up. I'm still hoping that yesterday
will get better."
"There is a pervasive something that is not quite adult about the Rosicrucians." --William Poundstone
"What manner of diseased beast died to produce this thing, I wonder." --unknown writer reviewing Richard Marx's "Right Here Waiting" in the NME.
"Money is meaningless compared to the power of controlling an invincible monster!!" --a villain in Bigfoot & Wildboy
"The point is, everybody has a childhood and a television. If you light yourself on fire, you're a moron with a childhood and a television. I don't know when we became so fragile. When I was a kid, Evil Kneivel was on TV 12 hours a day. Fuck shooting himself with a firehose or wearing a meat suit; that crazy bastard jumped the grand canyon on a dirt bike." -- Seanbaby. Further insights and bile on his site, www.seanbaby.com .
"You want my favors -- I got four-and-a-half feet of rock hard cosmic favor right here, Daddy." --Jack Knight in Starman #55 by Robinson & Goyer.
"[Renee Cox] openly maligned the Catholic Church and complained that 'African-Americans are invisible, especially in Renaissance art.' Last time I checked, there were no Americans at all in Renaissance art." -- Camille Paglia
"I think I'm an existentialist. I do." --Mary (Parker Posey) in Party Girl.
Warren Ellis on comics, Dec. 1999: "Now, Grant Morrison claims that a new boom is coming back. With his astrological charts, reports on sunspot activity, entrails of roadkill and a bloody Etch-A-Sketch, he can prove that a cycle of industry wealth and success exists, and that we're currently moving along the upswing of the curve towards a brand new peak, a little optimum. In just a few years, everyone will be all over us again, people will back truckloads of money up to our doors, we'll shift more units of THE LONELY DEATH OF GOT NO LEGS BOY in one week than Shania bloody Twain shifts CDs in a year, and we'll all live like kings.
"But, to be blunt, Grant is on drugs."
"I pity people who wake up without hangovers. That's as good as they'll feel all day." --who else but Dino again.
"I shat in your ciabatta!" --Jarvis Cocker.
here's Nancy Reagan chatting with Andy Warhol:
"We've been able to see more movies than we had because [at the White House] and at Camp David we can run movies."
"The one you probably don't want to see is Mommie Dearest."
"No, I don't want to see that."
"There is no such thing as coincidence. Only the illusion of coincidence." --John Smith
"I'd die for an idea, all right, but to die for an idea I've forgotten is too much. Does anyone have the faintest idea what I said?" -- Ezra Pound
"We live in far too permissive a society. Never before has pornography been this rampant. And those films are lit so badly!" -- Woody Allen
"You'd be surprised how many cosmic dilemmas have their roots in a distribution problem in South Yorkshire." -- Tom Lennon on alt.comics.2000ad
"Well, I always thought [Damon Albarn of Blur] was a bright kid, but obviously he's a thick-assed cunt." -- Noel Gallagher
"Someone possesses my soul and dominates it...we are finally killed by what we love." -- Guy de Maupassant
"When Kenny G decided that it was appropriate for him to defile the music of the man who is probably the greatest jazz musician that has ever lived by spewing his lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, f***d up playing all over one of the great Louis's tracks (even one of his lesser ones), he did something that I would not have imagined possible. He, in one move, through his unbelievably pretentious and calloused [sic] musical decision to embark on this most cynical of musical paths, s--t all over the graves of all the musicians past and present who have risked their lives by going out there on the road for years and years developing their own music inspired by the standards of grace that Louis Armstrong brought to every single note he played over an amazing lifetime as a musician. By disrespecting Louis, his legacy and by default, everyone who has ever tried to do something positive with improvised music and what it can be, Kenny G has created a new low point in modern culture -- something that we all should be totally embarrassed about -- and afraid of. We ignore this, let it slide, at our own peril. . . there ARE some things that are sacred -- and amongst any musician that has ever attempted to address jazz at even the most basic of levels, Louis Armstrong and his music is hallowed ground. To ignore this trespass is to agree that NOTHING any musician has attempted to do with their life in music has any intrinsic value -- and I refuse to do that. (I am also amazed that there HASN'T already been an outcry against this among music critics -- where ARE they on this?????!?!?!?! -- magazines, etc.) Everything I said here is exactly the same as what I would say to Gorelick if I ever saw him in person. and if I ever DO see him anywhere, at any function -- he WILL get a piece of my mind and (maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.)" -- Pat Metheny, earning a million style points from me, June 2000.
"I...attempted that most difficult of comedy challenges � political humor from a conservative POV. This is kinda like writing a Marx Brothers movie and trying to make Margaret Dumont the funny one." -- Mark Evanier
"This is a Hanson concert! There are no rules!" -- the middle Hanson
1. Cracker
2. The Singing Detective
3. Sapphire & Steel
4. Homicide: Life on the Street
5. Doctor Who
6. Route 66
7. Prime Suspect
8. Columbo
9. The Avengers
10. Gilmore Girls
1. Cracker: "To Say I Love You" (wr: Jimmy McGovern)
2. Route 66: "Welcome to the Wedding" (wr: Howard Rodman)
3. Homicide: Life on the Street: "Three Men and Adena" (wr: Tom Fontana)
4. Homicide: Life on the Street: "Fallen Heroes" (wr: Eric Overmyer, James Yoshimura)
5. Sapphire & Steel: "adventure two (Ghosts)" (wr: PJ Hammond)
6. Columbo: "By Dawn's Early Light" (wr: Howard Berk)
7. The X Files: "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" (wr: Darin Morgan)
8. Cracker: "Brotherly Love" (wr: Jimmy McGovern)
9. Doctor Who: "Kinda" (wr: Christopher Bailey)
10. Maverick: "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres" (wr: Roy Huggins, Douglas Heyes)
1. Prime Minister Francis Urquhart (House of Cards)
2. The Master (Roger Delgado) (Doctor Who)
3. John Bly (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.)
4. Johnny Jack (Sapphire & Steel)
5. The Cigarette Smoking Man (The X Files)
6. The Street (Prime Suspect)
7. Luther Mahoney (Homicide: Life on the Street)
8. Helen A (Doctor Who)
9. Leader Desslar/Desslok (Space Cruiser Yamato)
10. The Riddler (Frank Gorshin) (Batman)
1. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
2. My Neighbor Totoro
3. Watership Down
4. Adieu Galaxy Express
5. A Boy Named Charlie Brown
6. Laputa
7. Yellow Submarine
8. Final Yamato
9. 101 Dalmatians
10. The Plague Dogs
1. Being There
2. Heavenly Creatures
3. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
4. Casablanca
5. Citizen Kane
6. Chinatown
7. The 400 Blows
8. Wild Strawberries
9. The Maltese Falcon
10. The House of Yes
1. "Hurt" -- Johnny Cash
2. "Tonight, Tonight" -- The Smashing Pumpkins
3. "Steaming" -- Sarah McLachlan
4. "The Ink in the Well" -- David Sylvian
5. "Slave to Love" -- Bryan Ferry
6. "Spark" -- Tori Amos
7. "Sunny Came Home" -- Shawn Colvin
8. "Close to Me" -- The Cure
9. "Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah" -- The Pogues
10. "Here Comes the Rain Again" -- Eurythmics
1. Brilliant Trees--David Sylvian
2. Touch--Sarah McLachlan
3. Boys and Girls--Bryan Ferry
4. The Lexicon of Love--ABC
5. Disintegration (vinyl version)--The Cure
6. Different Class --Pulp
7. For Your Pleasure --Roxy Music
8. The Wayward Bus -- The Magnetic Fields
9. Rattlesnakes--Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
10. Murmur --R.E.M.
of course, having said that, "Kind of Blue" by Miles Davis is probably the best album ever made.
1. "Dead Man's Curve"--Jan & Dean
2. "The Mayor of Simpleton"--XTC
3. "Rattlesnakes"--Lloyd Cole and the Commotions
4. "100,000 Fireflies" -- The Magnetic Fields
5. "Common People"-- Pulp
6. "A Design for Life"--Manic Street Preachers
7. "I Feel Fine"--The Beatles
8. "Heartbeat"--David Sylvian and Ryuichi Sakamoto
9. "Why?"--Bronski Beat
10. "Standing in a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand"--Primitive Radio Gods
1. "Like an Animal"--The Glove
2. "Telstar"--The Tornados
3. "Thunderball"--Tom Jones
4. "Come On Eileen"--Dexy's Midnight Runners
5. "Spellbound"--Siouxsie & the Banshees
6. "Goin' Southbound"--Stan Ridgway
7. "Our House"--Madness
8. "Can't Get There from Here"--R.E.M.
9. "Mr. Pink Eye"--The Cure
10. "Hawaii Five-O theme"--The Ventures
2. My girl Ivy's birth on December 16, 1998
x. Practically falling over, grabbing onto Deb for support, seeing that Samuel Smith had a gawd-friggin' *pub* just two blocks from our hotel in London
x. The Friday night of my last final, spring quarter 1990, I went out with Lauren Forrester, and, as we pulled away from Upper Crust Pizza, Basia's "Crusing for Brusing" came on the radio and we were surprised to learn we knew all the words.
x. I took my high school SATs the morning after my prom. In my tux. I slept in between each section and Rhonda Godfrey, who sat in front of me, shook me awake each time.
x. The first time I ate at Paul's Barbecue. You could've killed me then and I'd have died happy. And full.
x. Victoria and I used to walk down the hall of the J-school singing Ben Folds Five's "Your Redneck Past." We managed to infect a huge volume of songs with memories in too short a time... I thought Macy Gray's "I Try" was our song, but it's definitely those Carolina boys... "Je suis americain, please cook my steak again..."
x. Speaking of francais, and I often do, I was in Paris in 1987. My high school sweetheart and I watched the sun set on the observation deck of the Eiffel Tower and let out a contented sigh as the last glimmer of light faded on the horizon, and immediately the idiot with us said "Can we go now?" It took years to be able to look back and laugh...
x. Deb and I honestly only had one date. We saw Green Card second run at the Tate. I offered her jelly beans during the film and spilled them all over her lap. Jelly beans make a damned incredible racket as they bounce and roll down a theater floor...
x. Deb and I saw Bryan Ferry at the Roxy in 1994. General admission, we were about six feet from the stage. The band played the longest intro to "I Put a Spell on You" imaginable before Bryan stalked out, just shuddering with energy. He sang the first verse like a pent-up volcano, before reaching into his pocket for the chorus and throwing up a handful of glitter to coincide with a loud, breathy aspiration of the word "SPELL" that, I swear, hit the room like a fucking truck. Totally magical.
x. Julian's first day of school. (my BABY!)