Today (as we hear the beautiful sound of falling rain)

We start w/ discos.  I have been thinking about discos lately.  It started a couple of weeks ago when Renee & I watched Mike Leigh's splendid Happy-Go-Lucky, starring Sally Hawkins.  I have prob shown you folks the trailer already but I do not care:  Here it is again.  (The song used in the trailer is LDN by one of my faves, Lily Allen but this song does not appear in the film.  It would have been a good fit musically but definitely not lyrically for sure.)  Anyhoo, there is a run of scenes early in the film that is some of my favorite movie-making in years.  This run starts w/ a scene of Poppy (Sally Hawkins, our hero) and her single lady friends dancing  to Pulp's Common People in a London disco.  Then it follows them on their walk home, we spend some late-night tipsy-time w/ the women, then finishes the next morning w/ a cuppa (natch!) There are a couple of things to talk aboot here.  First, for me, it is so fucking refreshing to see a scene w/ single women out having a good time w/ no mention of men, no moralizing, no pick-up scene, or ladies whinging aboot boyfriends or lack thereof.  Next, it is fantastic to see these women dancing to Common People, a song that I had forgotten about but should not have.  Common People by Pulp is a disco staple in England to this day, I am sure.  And although v popular here, as well (at the time), is prob now an afterthought, lumped in w/ the Britpop Oasis/Blur wars.  It should not be.  Common People is a majestic class-war anthem that appears to be yet another "spoiled bitch" rock staple e.g. Like A Rolling Stone, practically the entire Stones' oeuvre, etc, ... (The Beatles' Drive My Car or Day Tripper does not qualify as they were obv "joke songs", something the Beatles were exploring at the time e.g. Norwegian Wood, & I'm Down.  I'm Down is a pastiche of American rock and roll music at the time and Norwegian Wood [and Drive My Car] end w/ "punch lines."  McCartney typically winked louder in Drive My Car than Lennon did in Norwegian Wood.)  Common People is the perfect song for these schoolteachers, single ladies, and students to be dancing to.  Jarvis Cocker, the composer, is not "camping" here at all.  This is a sturdy put down to those who feel more entitled than the "rest of us", him included.  Obv this song means more to folks in Britain (& Ireland, I suppose) than it does to us in the US, where class means so little.  In the US all you need is money and like WC Fields in David Copperfield (an American actor in an American version [v good version, too!, showed the world Dickens could be done on film] of a v v v English class-explicit novel) that money is always coming right 'round the next corner.  In the United States of America we are ALL rich and of the highest class, for most of us, it just has not happened YET.  Here is the video (sadly it is a shorter 7" version but should do.)  


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Discos continue:  My first year of college (1986/7) I used to go to this downtown Austin disco w/ David Barber and this freshman chick from Mexico City.  Maybe Kate went too? I know Allison did not.  Actually, now I think Kate did not, as well.  It was Dave Barber, whatever young chick he was interested in at the time and me and my Kahlua drinking (really? getting prepped for a disco? I know we were eighteen but, ... ) Mexican crush dancing on the weekends in hip Austim, Texas.  I was v proud of my dancing abilities back in the day and when I moved to SF and pretty much got the "word" that the only people who could dance were gay guys and black folk I was pissed and hurt.  Anyhoo, this disco in Austim was fun but pretty lightweight.  There were plenty of times that no one would be dancing at all.  Whene'er those moments happened the DJ would play one of these four songs:  How Soon Is Now? (natch, still played at 80s Nights today, and a monster club track anyhoo), Love Cats, Blue Monday, and Dig It by Skinny Puppy.  Back in the day, like I might have mentioned, I prided myself on my dancing.  I was the white/straight boie who could get down on the dance floor.  And I had set dances that I would perform for both Dig It & How Soon Is Now? (though, now that I think aboot it, it was prob just the same "dance" w/ v minor adjustments.)  


It is funny growing older.  I do not pine for the Citizen Kane youthful days.  I pine for my college years, my marcel (curly) hair (where did that go?, the curls, kids, not the hair!), the drinks/drugs/acting in plays/trying to write like Pynchon/arguing with my friends aboot Madonna (do not worry UT friends, I surrendered to her power years ago)/writing fucking poetry (e'en if most of't was to get laid, not all of it was)/slacking school, hanging oot in the library reading back-issues of Rolling Stone/just the mere thought that while I strolled across campus, walkman blaring REM, I was an actor, script in hand. 


A friend of mine asked me if I would like to start acting again.  I sed, No, that has melted away.  I would like another crack as a singer though.  I want to record again.  Hopefully I will get another crack at it.  

Stephanie Bishop

• When I wake up in the morning and turn on my lovely, majestic Mac Mini (thanks, Mum & Da!) my home page is dailykos.com.  But I am sooooo depressed now with the politics of this nation that I am thinking aboot changing it.  As I sit here now, staring at a photograph of my Mother & I, me four years old, just back from a trip to DisneyWorld, I start to believe that politics is not where it is at.  It is time to dedicate myself to art.  I need to sing again.  I need to write.  I need to dedicate myself to creating & criticizing art.  It will be tough tough sledding but I know there will be more pleasure & depth of feeling in a poem or a play or a Bette Davis gesture or Richard Linklater slow motion sequence than in any satisfaction I get out of bills being passed or court victory.  I am Italian, after all, my peeps come from the barren, godforsaken Abruzzo.  I need to channel my Italian self.  Remember the Third Man:  The Great Welles wrote the speech on the spot. 
• I have been sick for near a week now.  It ended today.  Where I work is so frickin' cold.  My wine department is completely surrounded by coolers and freezers.  And grocery stores are cold typically.  So this morning I slugged my last dram of Nyquil as I had to walk to work in the (v light) rain at six this morning.  I wore a shirt, my badass thick Stax hoodie, and my super-cool Adidas Svenge footie jacket.  Beneath I wore my ultra-rare Bonny Doon Bouteille Call (Booty Call, get it? It is great dessert wine.  It is like Banyuls. I do not know if they make it anymore,) long underwear, and blak jeans (like a rok star should.)  That outfit was great for the rainy walk to & from work today but e'en in the frigid environment that is my workplace I was sweating up a storm.  I had aboot a hundred cases of wine to "throw" today (as we say in the biz), meaning stock on the floor, and w/ every case, as my internal temp rose, I could feel the sikness sweat oot of me.  A couple of times I thought, Cool down, take the jacket off but I did not.  I sweated all of that wretched virus oot today for sure.  
• Some of this stuff has been mentioned before.  Everything is always tied together, after all.  (Note:  these videos are most def NSFW.)  This was my playlist  walking to & from work today:  1. Common People/Pulp (I love the group but I have always, and still do, hate their name, yuk, ... )  2. Burning Inside/Ministry 3. Beers, Steers, and Queers/Revolting Cocks 4. Dig It/Skinny Puppy 5. Minutemen/D's Car Jam 6. Minutemen/Anxious Mo-fo 6. Minutemen/Theatre is the Life of You 7. Minutemen/Viet Nam.  'sfunny, on my way to work this morning I did not get the ipod going until I was on Ygnacio (aboot 3 or 4 minutes in to my walk) and when I landed upon the Food Hole Viet Nam by the Minutemen was playing.  On the walk home I started the same playlist as I left work.  It still ended w/ Viet Nam by the Minutemen.  
• One of the worst things aboot being sik to me these daies:  I cannot taste wine.  It sucks. I tried a glass before bed the other (last) night (of my illness):  It tasted like cough syrup, hot hot hot, no fruit, sad.  
• I got my UK version of Looking For Eric.  Yum-yum-yummy! There are a couple of great things I have to share w/ you that I learned from the fab commentary (by the director Ken Loach and the "hero", "Little" Eric, Steve Evets.)  First, that Loach expressed just the wee bit of unhappiness that one of the actresses in the film was from Leeds instead of Manchester.  The film is set in Manchester, contains much, if not all, the passion, dedication, and lerve that that Mancunians have for Man U.  Apparently, Loach, for his English films, likes to hire only actors from the city they are shooting in.  That is so badass & awesome to me I cannot tell you the ways.  Second, (and I had no idea that Loach, one of my all-time fave directors worked like this) they shot the film in sequence! Not only that, but they gave the actors only "sides" (that means each actor got only their lines) so that it creates an improvisational air on the set.  But, e'en better than that, Steve Evets. playing "little" Eric, had no clue that Cantona was in the picture! Looking For Eric is one of the best films I have seen in years.  Buy it right now on dvd.  Here is the trailer.  It was a smash at Cannes in 2009.  It is dying on the vine in Napa 2010.  Trust the vintage, it is great.  And I would just like to point oot two brill acting performances in this frickin' great film:  Stephanie Bishop as Lily and Gerard Kearns as Ryan.  Bishop is so lovely, her voice pitch perfect, "I loved you to pieces" is still something I say to Renee evry night, and Ms Bishop is so beautiful (and from Manchester, natch) 

Good night & good luck.  

P.S.  Grazie del tuo amore, Bonnie.