Videodrome

Lately, I've found myself casually flipping to the MTV HITS channel once every hour or so, simply in hopes of seeing this new video that's been fascinating since the first time I happened upon it like a month or so ago. I know nothing at all about the artist herself, though I plan on reading up on her at some approaching point. But the video is pretty bugged out, seeimingly taking place within this Gothic porcelain dollhouse that could be found in the haunted house residence of a deceased little girl...well, at least that's the morbid imagery that the video sets upon yours truly.

The artist's name is Kerli, and the song is called "Walking On Air." I'm not even sure if that's good of a song; frankly, I barely listen to the actual lyrics. I'm totally enamored by the imagery and overall dreamlike tone of the song. Check it for yourselves....if nothing else, it'll be one unique viewing experience:

Gotta Eat

A bit shameful to admit in a public forum, but M.B. can't cook food worth a lick. The basics--grilled cheese, pasta, Lean Cuisines--aren't a problem; it's really just everything else in the culinary stratosphere. I'm sure if I actually bought one of those fancy Rachel Ray cookbooks, I'd be able to follow the instructions well enough to whip up something that's partially edible. Or, at least, edible enough. But until I bite the bullet and visit Barnes & Noble for such literature, I'm stuck tossing Lean Pockets in my trusty microwave night in and night out. And I do love my Lean pockets quite a bit....nice and light, tons of different recipes, inexpensive. A dream come true for yours truly.

But as I sit here, watching 106 & Park and further depressing myself about the state of hip-hop (Yung Berg is co-hosting, and it's pretty sad watching the audience members react to his lame "swag" and sloppy rapport with robotic yet-still-kinda-cute Rocsi as if he were Will Smith, when you know damn well that each and every one of the attending teenyboppers wishes he were Chris Brown....Yung Berg, haha), the hunger bug is hitting me like a sack of potatoes (hopefully these corny food puns I'm sprinkling throughout this post aren't falling on deaf ears). But, as I investigate my fridge and freezer, all I see are some Lean Pocket boxes and microwavable fish patties (grilled salmon is always a wise choice, though). If I knew how to cook, I'd be flipping on the stove and cooking some chicken stir-fry or something delish.

Now, mind you, I completely understand how lame of a post this is, but hear me out. It actually serves a meaningful purpose....the hope is, I'll look back on this post weeks from now, I'll think, "Wow, how sad was that? I really have to learn how to cook with some finesse and skill, if only to avoid writing a follow-up essay to that waste of words." In fact, I'm going to flip over to The Food Network right now and see what's cookin'. Who knows: maybe tomorrow, I'll even pick up a cookbook while I'm at Borders buying my next graphic novel conquest (Black Hole....I hear its frikkin' brilliant). As for tonight, it's looking like an Italy-meets-Mexico extravaganza of dining....Chicken Parmesan, with a side of Three Cheese Chicken Quesadillas. Those are Lean Pockets, of course.

Why....so....serious?!?!

The strangest thing happened to me a couple hours ago. To be perfectly frank, this wasn't the first time it's happened to me, but this time it felt particularly bizarre.

I was exiting the theater on 34th Street, having just seen The Dark Knight for a second time (four behind my all-time record of seeing Grindhouse six times while in theaters....I'm a bit crazy like that when it comes to my movies). By now, being that nearly every breathing human has seen the movie already, it's no hush-hush that Heath Ledger's take on The Joker is iconic. brilliant. chilling. unbelievable. insane. mesmerizing. blah blah blah.....you get the gist. But anyway, as I was exiting stage right, I caught myself walking like how Ledger does when Joker is walking away from the exploding hospital--a sort-of stutter step mixed with a innocent sway blended with an aloofness pinched by a strong sense of evil. I'd say I walked about 10 steps or so before I realized this....catching myself in the act, I quickly glanced to see if any passers-by were peering at me with confusion and/or laughter. Thankfully, none that I could see were.

What made this especially trippy for me was that the macabre siren-y strings that accompany The Joker each time he pops up in The Dark Knight were playing in my head the whole time. Weird, huh? In fact, that music is still playing over in my head, even as I type out this a-bit-too-revelatory blog. Oh well. We all go a little mad sometimes, right Norman Bates?

Young Lloyd does it again

As a result of my ever-growing disdain with rap music, lately I've been getting more and more into R&B. It's nothing to be ashamed of or anything; rather, I'd imagine that people would be happy to hear this. Many have complained that I've been too enclosed within the rap universe, not stretching my wings outside enough. A sentiment I totally concur with....not saying you'll catch me bumping Fall Out Boy in my iTunes anytime soon or anything, though. Although that Katy Perry song "I Kissed A Girl" really does knock hard...it's my jam, no lie.

So I just contributed to the downfall of the music industry by DLing the new Lloyd record, Lessons In Love. I like the dude (pause)--his last album, Street Love, was a somewhat slept-on gem of a modern R&B album, in my humble frame. Ben would agree (does he even go online? will he ever even read my blog? if he's reading this now, is he ready to crack open some Corona 22s this Friday night, per usual? I hope he's supplying again). Dudes loves his R&B and makes no qualms about it.

"Take You Home" on Street Love was a dope one, for sure, and I went into this new joint hoping for a track on par with that one. And I'll be damned, the first song easily surpasses it. It's called "Sex Education," and I've listened to it like five times in a row now. Beat is this sci-fi-ish synth bed, with electric guitars and unabashedly hokey chants of "I wanna make an A! I wanna make an A!" In the bedroom, not the classroom, get it? I won't even lie, I havent gotten much bpast that current single, which comes second on the album. You know, the "Girls Around The World" jam with Lil Overexposed and Overhyped Himself Wayne. It's a great single, I can't wait to hear it soon while I'm high off Coffee Petron sights and have a fine lady in my inebriated scopes...."destroyer mode," as Steve has so cleverly coined me when I'm drunk and randy in the club.

Hopefully the rest of this album keeps bringing the goods....oh, I still have some personal ish to write about. Maybe I'll get to that before bed tonight....depends, though, if I opt, instead, to finish Watchmen, or start Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards script. Fuckin'g can't wait to get into that one....if I could do one thing right now, it'd be to watch old school grindhouse reels in Tarantino's home theater, with Rza and Rosario Dawson seated on my sides. Rosario's hand in my lap, mind you, whispering sweet nothings in my ear, in that Naturelle voice she used in 25th Hour. Happy happy, joy joy

just had a Lost-like flash forward.....

....on the PATH train, coming to work. It's the strangest thing, something that actually happened to me like a year ago, on the same PATH train. Maybe NJ Transit is somehow connected to The Twilight Zone (how cool would that be, on second thought).

So yeah, anyway....I'm cramped up in next to one of the doors, being that this particular cart I'm in is pretty much filled to the brim. I can barely move, I have this like 4-foot-tall elderly lady to my left and an overweight guy wearing a hoodie to my right (a hoodie in 90-degree weather? At least it'll help him sweat off some pounds). And right before I'm about to drift into daydreamland, I notice this girl--probably 18, 19 years old--seated in the row directly across from Grandma Dwarf, and this bizarre feeling hits me: "That's what Gianna is going to look like when she gets older." Now, for those who don't instantly recognize that name, Gianna is my crazy-but-cool-as-hell niece who I love more than vanilla-flavored gelato (and boy do I love me some impostor ice cream). Hence why this creeps me out, how I've now seen what I consider a spitting image of a teenage Baby G on the PATH train.

Does this mean I'm a bit tetched? Am I some sort of clairvoyant visionary, blessed with magical powers to see into the future? If so, how can I fast-forward to see who the lucky gal is that I'm going to marry, so I can focus on finding her now instead of wasting my time dating all of these JV second-stringers keeping me back from my Varsity lettergirl? Or does something similar to this happen to other people as well? A reassuring sidenote: this girl is what others would definitely consider "very attractive," so Baby G has little worry about.

This definitely feels like a T-Zone episode of some sort; no one ep in particular, just something that the god himself Rod Serling would've had a field day with....come to think of it, I may have just inadvertently stumbled upon a dope idea for a story I can one day put letter-to-Word-document on. Well how about that? I've already gained some use out of this blogging thing.

about that above three-way mention.....

....under my blog heading. These are two women mentioned. Oh, how I love thee.....tomorrow, I shall leave Celebville momentarily to wax hardly-poetic on some personal thangs. Stay tuned.

my own personal The Dark Knight....

Above you'll see the quite ambiguous poster for my current cinematic obsession, in terms of how badly I want to see it and how unfortunately defeated I feel in knowing that I most likely won't feast my peepers on it's savage brilliance for like six months or so....damn you, pussy-footed Hollywood suits. French horror films are my new bag, btw.

Hello, My Droogs....

Come one, come all....after months of deciding whether or not I'd ever keep up with a personal blog, in terms of new updates and content, I was hit with the good ol' "fuck it" sentiment earlier today. There's a helluva lot of stuff running through my dome, ranging from giddiness over new movie trailers (I really hope that Quarantine doesn't tarnish the name of Spain's fucking brilliant [REC] here in the states....I'll have to wait 'til October 10 to know for sure....); disdain and decreasing amounts of interest in today's rap music, other than Nas' latest and Ehlzi's amazing EuroPass cd); and stuff going in my personal, out-of-office life. Whether anybody out there actually gives a you-know-what about any of this is neither here nor there....I'm going to use this blog as a journal of sorts, keeping things more-real-than-I-probably-should at times. So yeah, if you're ever wondering what's going on in my ever-shifting mind, here's your one-stop shop....and hopefully some of you out there get the reference I've dropped in my blog's title. If not, go back to Hard to Earn, track 8, for clarification. The opening third is one of my favorite beats of all time. Preemo, you genius you.

My thought process today, July 22: how absolutely jaw-dropping Alan Moore's Watchmen graphic novel is. I'd read it once before earlier this year, after R. Dot put me on to it and Mr. 300 himself Zack Snyder signed to handle the film adapation, sending the fanboy universe into a panty-twisted frenzy. Everything about that intital reading experience floored me---how Rorschach became one of my favorite fictional characters ever; how I bizarrely can relate to the isolation felt by Dr. Manhattan; how dense and multi-layered the whole story is, something that I hope to some day even-slightly match when I transition into non-journalistic storytelling fulltime (it'll happen, please believe). Watchmen turned me into a closet comic book nerd, but not for the likes of Iron Man and Superman; rather, the 28 Days Later novelized sequels and the horror-ific works of the dude, Steve Niles.

And then I watched the new teaser trailer for March 6, 2009's Watchmen film, and it all reignited inside me. While the slow motion is a bit OD in the trailer, all of the little details look strikingly uncanny to the comic, a truth that has upgraded this flick from "I hope they don't fuck this up" to "I'll be stalking the Warner Bros publicity dept all of 2009 for an advance screening to satitate my geek-dom."

So now, I've begun re-reading the graphic novel....I've already breezed through the first five chapters in like an hour, and I'll continue reading it on the train tomorrow into the city for the underpaid hustle I call my career. I'm sure some observers will label me a tool, an underdressed dude reading a comic with a smiley face on the cover. But if they only knew....I really am a tool. At least I feel like one as I sit on my laptop, re-watching the Quarantine trailer over and over again before skipping to the scene in Inside (quite possibly my favorite film of the last 3 or so years, call me a sadistic bloodhound if you must) where Johnny Depp's smoking-hot sister-in-law regroups herself with makeshift spear in hand and the music escalates into a militant techno stomp, which leads into my nightly hour of Family Guy reruns on The Cartoon Network, all while wondering if and when I'll meet my very own Bust-It-Baby here in Hoboken.

Yeah, I'm pretty weird, huh? Bet most of you friends and associates who happen upon this blog didn't even realize how weird I truly am....well, my friends, you ain't read nothing yet......