Pop Culture Petri Dish

My wife let slip that she doesn't always groove on me writing about music, so I know of at least one reader who might want to sit this one out. You see, Adam Franklin's in Seattle tonight at the Crocodile Cafe (he also does a free in-store appearance at Sonic Boom Records in Ballard), and I'm as happy as a little girl with a shiny new Easy Bake Oven over this news. Unsung Rock History Lesson of the Day: In 1995 Creation Records , Britain's biggest buzz-band-harvester of a music label was busy wiping the bums of Brit brats Oasis with a wheelbarrow-full of advertising, promotion, and royalty dollars. As a result, Creation tapped out their coffers so badly that they treated a lot of other records they released around that time like the proverbial ugly stepkids in the basement. One of those albums was Ejector Seat Reservation , the third album by a scruffy quartet named Swervedriver . Swervedriver arose in the wake of that UK music genre known as the Shoegazer scene, which...

A friend of mine 'tagged' me with an Electronic Chain Letter Exhortation to relate eight things about myself, and then pass this mofo along to eight more Bloggers. Screw the eight bloggers part: the only Bloggers I know well enough to inflict this crap number fewer than eight. But I'm a good prole and will bend to the whims of peer pressure like any arrested adolescent worth his salt. Besides, I know that if I don't respond at all then The Chain Letter Curse is visited 'pon me. Plus there's a Scooby Doo reference here, which ties in (however tenuously) to the Pop Culture leanings of this Blog. So here goes. Apologies to my fellow Bloggers/Webmasters/Friends, but tag...You're IT!! (More Than) Eight Things about Me --For I, too am a contrarian, Kipling West... 1) I'm pretty disorganized, except for how I eat dinner. Side dish, vegetable, main course. Consumed in the most regimented pattern possible. Don't ask me how this started. 2) Been with the sam...

Think old black and white movies can't speak cold hard truths that still register today? Then take a look at The Heiress , director William Wyler's 1949 tragic costume drama (out recently on DVD). Beneath its genteel nineteenth-century surface beats the most bracingly caustic--and brutally honest--of hearts. The story proper follows the path of Catherine Sloper (Olivia DeHavilland), a plain and unexceptional young woman whose father Austin (Ralph Richardson) happens to be a wealthy physician. One night Catherine is pulled away from her routine of needlepoint and isolation to attend a lavish society party, and the drab heiress makes the acquaintance of dashing ne'er do well Morris Townsend (Montgomery Clift). Soon Morris is courting her fervently, a pursuit that inspires suspicion in her father even as it brings Catherine out of her shell. If all of this sounds like the preamble to a typical period weeper, rest assured that it ain't. Wyler--one of the studio era's le...

The mantle of Britain's rock and roll poet laureate gets doled out to some flavor of the month with numbing regularity (the current recipient appears to be Alex Turner, frontman of post-punk darlings The Arctic Monkeys --at least according to the British music press and Entertainment Weekly ), but this side of Elvis Costello there's no bloke more richly deserving of that oft-bandied-but-seldom-earned title than Jarvis Cocker . Here in the US you've probably never heard of him unless you're a rock critic, a music nerd, or English (or some combination of the three) but across the pond Jarvis Cocker is an honest-to-God institution, a charismatic, funny, and refreshingly self-deprecating pop star whose sharply-observed lyrics of class struggle and love in its many incarnations have endeared him to a whole generation of musicians and fans. His words--and his irresistible baritone voice--are as tartly, quintessentially British as a really great bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps...

No home internet connection for nigh three weeks has turned me as crabby as a chain-smoker being denied cigarettes on an airport layover, so this clandestine post comes from my fine place of employment between routine tasks. Just don't tell my boss... 'Twixt relentless bouts of schlepping boxes, commuting between work and two residences, and cleaning various species of insect from the dark corners of my new pad, I squeezed in a visit to the local cinema for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End . And the wind appears to have forsaken the franchise's sails. If you're a fan of the first two Pirates movies (and I am), no amount of kvetching is gonna dissuade you from seeing this final installment, but be forewarned not to spend full-price (if anything) on a ticket. From this cramped perspective, it's a pretty epic disappointment. Depp's Captain Jack still charms at spots, kernels of promising ambition bob up amidst the chaos, and the damn thing looks as go...

Our apartment complex was bought by new owners. For the last five years Rita and I have been living happily in West Seattle, in a complex run by fairly nice people; nice location, reasonable--hell, cheap, even--rent, and quiet neighbors who don't induce either of us to jab lead pipes into our temples. Of course, this couldn't last. Earlier this year, the new owners (or as I like to affectionately dub them, the jackbooted fascists) took over the property. They're converting the south end of this thirty-building complex to condominiums. They'll likely do the same to the north end (our neck of the woods) within a year. To prepare for this eventuality (or maybe just because they're greedy jerks), they've pulled out a whole gallery of A#&hole Landlord Toy Surprises: Copious random apartment inspections with zero notification time, an attempted $200 rent hike with thirty days notice (a flagrant violation of Seattle landlord-tenant law), a chronic inability to ans...

Vince Keenan.com opened up this fun movie nerd meme ( look it up ). I normally resist these damn things like a vampire sidestepping garlic, but I can't turn down this quick-and-dirty movie-nerd fix...Feel free to play along. 1. Name a movie that you have seen more than 10 times. Casablanca, Suspiria, Star Wars . 2. Name a movie that you’ve seen multiple times in the theater. Raiders of the Lost Ark , Star Wars , John Carpenter's The Thing , Aliens 3. Name an actor who would make you more inclined to see a movie. Peter Cushing, Humphrey Bogart, Marjoe Gortner, Emma Thompson, Pam Grier, Russell Crowe, Clint Howard, Johnny Depp. 4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to see a movie. Kevin Costner. 5. Name a movie that you can and do quote from. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 . As I've said before, as quotable as Casablanca or Pulp Fiction. "Lick my plate, you dog dick!" 6. Name a movie musical from which you know all the lyrics to all the songs. None, but ...