Friday, May 27, 2005

Up,up,up we goes


You're a jackass now, brother.
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
I may have already revealed the following information to you, but here it is, possibly again:
1) Lili Taylor does radio ads for Tylenol.
2) The voice of Mastercard? Billy Crudup. But maybe you already saw him in the *priceless* gas station ad.
For reals, I think I already told you this stuff.

I can't wait for Sinead O'Connor's new reggae album. She went to live with Burning Spear for many months. It will either be Jupiter-Genius or Pitiful-Sucky.

I was listening to KROQ on the drive back from the OC today in my 1989 U-Haul ten-footer and it's a Nineties weekend folks. That means Soul Asylum, Toad the Wet Sprocket, Foo Fighters, Gin Blossoms, Prodigy - sorry, THE Prodigy -Veruca Salt, Radiohead, Weezer, and the Presidents of the USA. Wow, I could barely type out that last band it's name is so god-awful embarrassing.
When I was driving from Seattle to Vancouver earlier this month, KNDD was having some President of the USA emesis contest. They played a rockblock, and it was somewhat revelatory to know that this could be done with a band like that. It was akin to listening to "Peaches" in 25-minute form, only the chant of "Supersonics" mixed in occasionally.
Folks, the 73, the 405, the 605, the 5 and the 101 shook with the joy of smeary 90's rock as I barrelled side to side back up into the city. Thank you KROQ for putting away your Linkin Park and assorted shit-rock for the afternoon so's I could breathe it all in.

I've been Netflixing season 3 of Six Feet Under. I dont know how they do it. They have so many different directors in a season but they are able to maintain the potency. The roots lie in the writing of course. My favorite character currently is Olivier. I would love to play Olivier, if ever I was asked to play a French-Moroccan male prick art teacher.

Compare with:
The L Word. Firstly, in contrast to Six Feet Under, let's look at title sequences. Where Six Feet has crows and roots of trees, the L Word has a title sequence worth torching. Here you will find a bad song, matched with a collage of gluttonous L.A. Gear images (palm trees, convertibles, sunsets over a downtown skyline, swimming pools, sunglasses, must I go on...).
In the L Word, you will find lots of bad bad bad music, but then you will find an episode with an awkward cameo by Peaches. It will involve dialogue such as: "You guys! Peaches!"
In the L Word there will be acting of a horrifically terrible calibre but then - poof - there is Ossie Davis (playing, notably - uncomfortably - a dying man). Who then dies. The best episode thus far was written by AM Homes.
The press has been asking me which character I would be most likely to want to kiss if forced to under social circumstances. The answer is simple! The guy that lives in the garage.
Fine, ok, that wasnt the answer that was looked for.
Sigh, I would have to pick Shane, and maybe this is because she looks the most like a boy, and she has a tough voice and an angular jaw. She is Gwyneth Paltrow's cousin, per Libby. Shane had a period of very bad hair for some time.
The character I most want to kick to the curb is Jenny, but everyone wants to do that. Mia Kirshner, your dialogue is awful, your dream sequences and literary imaginings make me fast forward on TiVo.
I would recommend a summer of the L Word on DVD for those who might be fans of such fare as America's Next Top Model, What Not to Wear, and Alton Brown's food network shows. Have it for dessert!

Monday, May 23, 2005

Everybody do the merkin!


Everybody do the merkin!
Originally uploaded by Sarah Lebo.
Today I abandoned work in order to have my right eye examined for it has taken to being red and disturbing and in public places I become self conscious of my eye. Hath been plagued. Me.
So in the Kaiser Permanente waiting room, where I am seated next to an old black lady with a lace hat on who looks and breathes like a fish, they have Oprah on for everyone to be entertained by while waiting for their name to be hollered by the "Yes, a
Man or No, not a man"-receptionist. People can be so confusing what with the sizes of their jaws in proportion to their brows, cant they...

Tom Cruise is the guest, and what I and millions of others witnessed made me wither inside. I withered because of the reaction created by the audience in response to TC's presence and to his ensuing behavior.
I withered because I was stunned by my own powers of perception which allowed me to have a vision in which I could see the two contracts hovering in gold leaf over TC's and Oprah's heads. There was the one that was written between TC and Katie Holmes, wherein she agrees to perform merkin-service for a price and he agrees to fawn shamelessly as only an overcompensating closeted gay man can ("I love women. I love the way they smell. I want to treat my women the way they deserve to be treated. I love my woman"), and the one written between he and Oprah wherein she agrees to vomit forth only sycophantic mummenshantz in her interview, propositioning him with queries about forthcoming marriage proposals.
I wish you could have seen them as I did. In that moment I communed with both Van Morrison and William Blake.
And yet I cannot describe, you must only look
here.

As a palate cleanser, I would suggest you prance over here to see the so-adorable-it's-orgasmic Blur video referenced above.

A Word On Sith:
1) I held back from shouting: "Cast it into the fire!" during the last sequence
2) Why are all the Storm Troopers Maori? Was it always so?
3) Kiss me like you once did on the lake in Naboo!
4) Padme's Paradoxical Pandora's Box: a uterus the size of a woman in her 5th month, bearing full term twins!
5) Why can't it be like it was on the lake in Naboo?
6) Hayden is cut. Dewy. Skranky greasy hair. I bet he can throw down. Mm.
7) Noooooooo! (arches back in anguish). Cut to Vader. Skywalker now Dark.

Friday, May 13, 2005

Traumatic Brain Injury....and you!

I just got home into hazy nighttime Vancouver from Washington state following a two day sojourn at the Seattle Sheraton for "Brain Injuries: The Conference". I added on the colon, it was just called "Brain Injuries". This was my first conference experience. I spent the first five minutes glaring at the back of one fake-n-bake peroxide blonde in high heels and a booby bib in the front row whose name tag denoted her affiliation to be as RN. I was mortified.
Today in one session on managing challenging behaviors in brain injury patients, the lecturer played us a video of a man going apeshit during physical therapy and calling the RNs and PTs bitches and quentes and his head looked like someone had pushed in on one side with a very large thumb.
There was a knowing laugh that spread amongst the people. How odd that I belong to this community now. I drew pictures of stick people banging on drum kits during most of this session, then I had two episodes of tinnitus (in which I heard someone sigh in my ear, no joke, as well as ringing) so I imbibed a Perrier and was healed.

People with traumatic brain injury have been known to speak in tongues.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN LEBRON JAMES!
LAKERS!
KOBEEE BRYANT!
CHIPS AHOY!

(the above is an outburst witnessed at my workplace. This was then immediately followed by the screamer falling into a deep sleep.)

This is a somewhat hyper post. I have edited it as I have annoyed myself with myself.
FYI to JEB: there is a saying amongst RNs and Physicians in trauma/code scenarios:
"Less than 8, intubate!" which means, if someone has a Glasgow Coma Scale rating of 8 or less, the hour has come for deep intervention.
I would like you all to know that.
S

Sunday, May 01, 2005

And it was all Coachella

I have:
a red nose and scalp from the sun
a sock and watch tan.

I wish:
I had remembered to bring my camera though I know the pictures that would result could only be disappointing. Crowd pictures can be lame. However I could have done a photo essay only on tshirts.
"Would you mind if I touched your butt?"
"More cowbell"
"I'm with Steve/John/Freddy/Chris"
"Me love cookies"
"Slap me some skin"
And on, and on.
I wish I brought my green sunhat.

I saw:
a)The Raveonettes, who are from Denmark, and are capable of speaking perfect English sans accent. They rocked very intensely and cleverly and were clean and well styled.

b) Snow Patrol,who are from Belfast and have been sainted by a reference from the OC, like many others. They suffered initially from sound issues and the lead singer's flat, vanilla voice but they came together towards the end. I forgive the lad his weak rocking abilities simply because he did what most people do not when on stage in that he smiled and laughed persistently throughout.
There was a guy in the crowd wearing the most unforgiveable of all Irish tourist items available for purchase: the tricolor viking hat plus flag as cape.

c) Keane, from "small town in England", were great. My friend Steve remarked that the pianist and the drummer looked like the Bobsy Twins. To me they were just two men flopping up and down in unison at their respective instruments, but the flopping was comedic like the singer's cute slapfaced cheeks. Nice to see a band with a instrument-less singer, a la Mick and Van and Bono.

d) Wilco, at sunset. That was nice. I'm not a huge Wilconian, but it was enjoyable. Tweedy has an unfortunate face but he is crafty at his craft. And the guy on keys looked like Nigel from Spinal Tap.

e)Weezer...what can I say? Weezer is for kids. It's true. I have never felt so old as I did yesterday as I fled out of the crowd after Keane only to have to push against what I will term The Incoming Tide of Utter Tools...alt frat kids, their tow-along girlfriends and high schoolers. Not only did I feel old but I also felt such a bitch. Rivers bowed to the crowd and said "this is fun" so I think he rather enjoyed himself even though he was off key. I used the bathroom at this juncture. I do not say this to point out how cool I am because I didnt want to see Weezer, but voiding felt more important and it won by a long shot as far as priorities go.
f) Bauhaus: Unbelievable. Like an Opera. The only band to have platforms to use for climbing onto simply for dramatic emphasis. First, all we heard was low bass rumbling, tones shifting up and then down again. But from my angle in the front, we could see that off stage right, a man was hanging upside down from a guy wire. For four minutes only we could see this, he just hung there, not moving. Then smoke was sent out and the man was pulled to mid-stage upside down, and he proceeded to arch his back slightly and bring his hand up into little claws like a bat and then he sang the opening number completely upside down. He liked to vamp at the camera like the dramatic German he is.
g) Coldplay. Where Weezer had The Tide of Tools, Coldplay's crowd (in my area) seemed to be mostly clean cut Asian American kids who said things like "Wow, I am smelling a *lot* of pot around here", and who were very cheery with their friends, snapping photos, baseball caps and buttonup shirts, lots of love going around. Coldplay did in fact blow me away, I will say that right now. I did not expect this, and I wouldnt buy a ticket to see Coldplay, but they seem to have learned a few things about live performance and engaging the audience (from, ahem, I wonder who) that works well. They have a formula, and they are very good at it, so much so that I was reminded of the fact that Yellow is one of the best pop songs ever written after hearing it live under a big desert sky. But something about Chris Martin remains unsettling. What is it? I get a wierd vibe off him. He goes to be with Gywneth Paltrow! So wierd, and so cute. He was visibly happy and grateful to be there too and he openly dissed the show they played in Vegas last night and then introduced a Johnny Cash song, or one he wrote for Johnny Cash, or something like that. And lept off the stage like a fool.

There were some other people there: Bloc Party, Spoon, Chemical Brothers, Buck 65, Rilo Kiley but I did not see them. Today is Arcade Fire, Aesop Rock, Gang of Four, Black Star, and a million others.
Next year, there shall be on-site camping and a two-day pass for me.


This has been Sarah Lebo, with a synopsis and a wrap-up.