Just Funny Looking In A General Kind Of Way

Steve Buscemi. Criminally underrated actor. Don’t give me that character actor bullshit. That’s condescending crap. This is a guy who makes every movie more interesting just by being in it, who usually ends up stealing the movie, as film insiders say. Just took out IN THE SOUP (1992) from the library (which incidentally cost me six bucks because I returned it two days late, thereby defeating the whole purpose of using the library as opposed to Blockbuster), and again was blown away by the sheer watchability and likability of his performance. Just off the top of my head, there’s Ghost World, Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, Trees Lounge… okay, now I’m looking him up in a film book … and Living in Oblivion – all among my favorite flicks and largely if not solely because of the acting chops and charisma of the ex-NYC fireman. That’s right, you read it right. Although let’s be honest, if you’re trapped in a burning building, is Steve Buscemi’s goofy mug the first thing you wanna see climbing your fire escape to rescue you?

Some little known Buscemi factoids: Auditioned for the part of George Costanza on Seinfeld; volunteered at his old firehouse after 9/11 and worked 12-hour shifts searching for lost firemen; graciously helped out my friend John with his short film festival several years ago.

No Dalai Lamas Were Harmed In The Making Of This Motion Picture

Some shallow observations upon finally seeing Kundun, Marty Scorcese's swingin' Dalai Lama biopic. Can you imagine the casting call for this movie, what with actors needed for the 2-year-old Lama, the 5-year-old Lama, the 12-year-old Lama and then the adult Dalai! You know, like 500 Dalai Lamas hanging around the studio waiting to be called in. With all the leftover Lamas, you had the chance for some great reality shows: Tibet's Next Top Lama, Amazing Race: Buddha Edition, Dalai Lama: The Apprentice Buddha... Of course, with all those aspiring Dalai Lamas, I'm sure Marty was tempted to remake some of his more successful pictures. For instance, "Goodlamas," where three Dalai Lama hopefuls aspire to get made; "Raging Buddha," in which the 14th Dalai Lama singlehandedly drives the Red Army out of Tibet; and of course "Cape Tibet," whereby the Buddha of Compassion gets his revenge on Mao Tse-tung. That's all, I'm done.

Malloy off Air America

Do you believe this shit? Just found out that the Mike Malloy show is off WLIB, which is the NewYork station for Air America. So now if you wanna listen it's either XM or the Internet. That sucks. They're replacing it with the Satellite Sisters, which is even lamer than it sounds. I mean, first they take Marc Maron off the morning show, which forces me to listen to Imus to the point of diminishing returns. Imus was funny when he was a drunk cokehead before he became the political Imus, the brand Imus, who gives Rick Santorum and David Brooks and Bill O'Reilly valuable airtime.
That's two strikes against Air America in my book, getting rid of Marc Maron and now, at least temporarily, no more Mike Malloy raving against Bush & Company. That's substantial fucking with stuff I grew to like. It's kind of like when Au Bon Pan discontinued their chicken pot pies and, ultimately, their spinach and cheese croissant, but obviously on a deeper, more gut-wrenching level.
You don't miss your water till your well runs dry. I think Shakespeare said that. Or maybe Hank Williams.

The Best Music Show for People Without Cable...

IN THE EARLY TO MID-1980s I used to tune into staticky UHF channel 68 for their music video show, which featured mostly novelty rap with the occasional Replacements or REM tune throw in for good measure. This was before rap showed its vicious & violent vicarious gangster side, or was just beginning to "celebrate" this side of the relatively new genre. So you had groups like 3rd Base, Young MC and Digital Underground with its Humpty Dance and the Roxanne answer records, your RUN-DMCs and Kurtis Blows and Grandmaster Flashes the exception more than the rule. Then MTV institutionalized the whole thing and did its best to ruin good music much the same way ESPN has fucked up sports for those purists who can do without all the self-referentialty and self-congratulation.
Which in a roundabout way brings us to the closest thing in spirit to that below-the-radar experience, NewYork Noise on Channel 25. I catch it like 3 or 4 times a month without really looking for it, but it's on Fridays and I think Tuesdays and Sundays also. It's progressed from showing exclusively NYC bands but now that's just kind of a guiding principle. The bands? Well, they're usually arty in a willfully playful kind of way, if that makes any sense...
Here's the playlist from a recent show. I don't know if it's the same show all 3 nights in the same week. This was from Friday the 20th:

The Magic Numbers - Forever Lost. I have this tune on my 'Pod, so I was amazed when they kicked the show off with this. It's that kind of serendipitous coincidence that happens in music that makes you feel you're on the right track somehow. I found the song on a dollar compilation I picked up a few weeks ago and know absolutely nothing about the band except this shiny, catchy song.
Ramones - Rock & Roll Radio. Ah, the NewYork connection. I never liked this song really. Too polished and radio-friendly bland. Phil Spector's to blame.
Danielson Famile - Rubbernecker. The video and the song nothing to write home about. Anyway I'm home already, so it would be a waste of a stamp.
The Shins - Pink Bullets. Haunting and elegaic song, and a very inventive video, as only a video about two talking paper-mache cows can be. But I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
33Hz - Hot Flashes. Passable punk-funk tune. Computer generated video seems old hat by now.
Cut Copy - Hot Flashes. Two tunes in a row called Hot Flashes. That's never a good thing. I don't remember anything about the video or the song, and it's only been about an hour. I don't know if hat says something about me or the group.
Pixies - Here Comes Your Man. I don't see any New York connection, except I'm sure the band was here at least once. It's the video where their heads are freakily elongated. I don't have a problem with that.
Langhourne Slim - In the Midnight. This was a very cool video. The guy's riding in a cab at night around NYC, soaking it all in. It captured that feeling you get when your'e out in the City and it's around, well, midnight and you're kind of really glad you're out tonight and in the soup and not sitting home on the couch. Yeah.
Mum - Green Grass of Tunnel. I think they put a lot of thought into the song title. Maybe too much.

And that was it, except for the lame-ass anti-drug PSA ads. It's nice to see how creative and oroginal videos can be when it's not all about mindless bling posturing and gratuitous grinding and gun glamorizing. As opposed to forced alliteration.

Free Dailies Revisited

Just finished reading today's amNewYork and I realize I may have been unduly harsh. Today's issue was a full 38 pages, making it over twice the size of the flimsy metro. A full 3 pages of sports, and more hard news than metro, albeit mostly AP wire stories. So my verdict is am is hands-down a better read than its sister publication.

New York's Free Dailies

Part of my daily routine since being laid off is grabbing one or both of the free papers, amNewYork and metro, and going for my morning bagel and Earl Gray. If a free paper can be overpriced, then both these rags fit the bill. I realize that at 45 years old, I am several decades past their target audience, but I can still bitch, can't I?

Let's take metro first. Besides being horribly copy-edited, the paper features an array of mind-numbingly moronic features. On its op-ed page, metro features something called TODAY'S DEBATE, which is basically the old inquiring photographer gimmick, whereby they stop four people each day and ask them about a current event. Notable for their uncanny ability to corral the four dumbest, uninformed people on any given day, it never fails to amaze me how clueless these responses are. Today the question was, "What do you think about Hillary Clinton's comparison of Congress to a plantation?" Let's hear from someone called Mabel Minier, a 19-year-old Sales consultant (whatever the fuck that is) from Manhattan: "I didn't know anything about it," she responds. "I don't care, to be honest. It doesn't affect me." Well, excuuuuse me for asking. On so many levels this is disturbing. Another genius, Jackie Carroll, a 26-year-old from Brooklyn, you guessed it, another Sales consultant, says, "That sounds ignorant to me. I don't know why she said that. Congress makes the laws; that's a big thing." Yikes! I really blame the "reporter" for wasting everyone's time by jotting down their "thoughts" and sharing them with us. How about interviewing more than four people and picking out the quality ones?

But my least favorite, or more accurately the most pathetic waste of space, is the feature called PLAYING THE FIELD, written by a pitiful ass named Jason Raj McIntyre. His chosen bailiwick is pro athletes and who they're dating or fucking or whatever at any given time. This sniveling sycophant is immersed in the club world and performs the great public service of telling us who, for instance, Derek Jeter was seen with last night. I'm not making this up. Today he offered us this gem: he is rooting for the Carolina Panthers and Pittsburgh Steelers to prevail in this coming weekend's plaoyff games because, as he puts it, they represent "the cooler party animals"!
The rest of the paper includes the requisite celebrity worship and mindless designer brand name consumerism. On the cover is a picture of Eva Longoria. Why is this overexposed, talentless bimbo newsworthy today? Well, because she was seen kissing another overexposed celebrity at some L.A. club. That's what passes for news these days at metro. God help us.

Five months off...

I was fired last August after over 17 years at the Transcript. Downsized, as the saying goes. Was I bitter? No, not right away. Now am I bitter? Yes. Add pissed off, panicky, directionless and you get an idea of my mental state. At first I was just relieved, because I thought I had some options work-wise. Now I kind of miss my old job, if not all the people.

I had the copy editor part of the job down to a science, while the production manager part of the job was always stressful as we got nearer to the weekly deadline. But I also had time to breathe, to take my a walk down Wall Street to the Seaport...

(This first post is gonna suck, I can feel it, you can feel it, we all can feel it. It will get better, I promise.)

Now I am down to five stinking unemployment checks left. Five. I owe more money, to credit card companies, etc., than most Third World nations. Some of them, let's face it, are not going to get paid any time soon. And I say this to most of them: too fucking bad.
I like my apartment, and I want to keep it at this point. I was hoping with over 20 years experience copy editing that I would be able to get a job in this field, but so far I am extremely discouraged at my prospects. So now I have to broaden my search to include other fields, including sales and retail. I really just want to work in an office and use my superior intelligence and people skills to edit some interesting copy. But the gods seem to be arrayed against me -- mocking me, mocking me, mocking me...

Eventually, this blog will be a veritable cornucopia of pop culture insight, political wisdom and overall gems of greatness. Maybe as soon as tomorrow. One never know, do one? But as it stands now, I wake up every day bemoaning my situation, awash in a sea of self-pity, with the clock ticking down on my unemployment checks. Tick, tick, tick...