There's a Very Fine Line Between Stoopid and Clevah...

That is pretty much the rule I live by. It's a line from This Is Spinal Tap, which I just watched. I'm adding it to my top favorite films of all time list because it falls into that genre I dearly call British Hoomuh. I'll stop with the bad spelling because it's stupid and not clever. Food almost fell out of my mouth during the scene when Nigel falls backwards on stage playing his guitar and then needs help getting propped back up because his leather pants are so tight. Is it too late for me to break out onto the comedy scene? Ricky Gervais did it when he was in his late 30s so I guess I still have some time.

Finally sent my camera to Canon so they can fix the foggy lens. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they'll fix it for free since it's under warranty. This means I'll be cameraless for about three weeks which begs the question, does it actually count if I can't take a picture of it and post it on the blog? For example:

Rockabilly night would not have been nearly as great if I couldn't have posted these pics. The guy not facing us is Anne's future baby's daddy aka DJ Sei. I've never seen a cooler man in my life.

His friend with the wicked sleeve is pretty cool too.

So rockabilly night was last Friday at Otto's Shrunken Head. It's called Rebel Night and they have it there once a month. A group of Japanese guys with a fondness for 50s music started it a few years ago. It is a scene. I don't know where else you can go to see a bunch of tatted Asian guys with impeccable pompadours doing the twist. It was great.

As you can see, we are in dire need of rockabilly makeovers i.e. red lipstick, stylish hair, a titty tattoo and a swingin dress preferably one with either polka dots or animal print.

I did some research (googling) and found links to a bunch of rockabilly sites, one of them being for The Stray Cats. This for some reason sounded familiar to me. It made me think of a song from my childhood that might have been part of some cartoon I watched a lot. I know none of that made any sense but some more searching led me to a youtube clip, possibly the greatest youtube clip of all time, at least for me anyway. This is a clip of Disney's DTV Romancin Valentine's Day Special from 1986. I'm pretty sure this one hour special made me the person I am today. A fondness for sappy music and unrealistic expectations of true love. This Disney special has music from Madonna, Lionel Ritchie, Stevie Wonder, Huey Lewis, The Eurythmics, Elvis etc etc set to Disney cartoons. When I found this clip, I almost cried I was so happy to see it again. Anyway, one of my favorite clips was of a girl getting ready to go out and the song to it was Rock This Town by The Stray Cats! It's a great great song and sung by Brian Setzer before he left the group to form his own Orchestra and turned into a douchebag. The song starts at about 2:11. Enjoy!





I would also highly recommend watching all of the Disney Romancin's. (keywords "Disney DTV Romancin" there are five parts) Not a bad way to spend an hour. Oh and Part 3 has the Gummi Bears introducing Elvis's song Teddy Bear!

Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind comes out Friday and I am sooooo excited! I saw the preview for this along with the one for Juno while watching Darjeeling Limited months and months ago. Let's hope it doesn't disappoint me like Juno did although I very much doubt it will. (Finally found a review of Juno that matched my sentiments. Even better that it was reviewed by the guy who is the owner of the world's cutest cat. He basically says that Juno IS TO cool, sassy indie film as Hot Topic IS TO place where hardcore punks like Avril Lavgine shop.)

But anyway how you can go wrong with a film that has analog technology and Mos Def?

So this Deitch gallery in NY has an exhibit recreating the Be Kind video store and inside there are a bunch of "stages" where anyone can make an appointment and film a 10 minute movie.

Like this camp scene.

Or a cafe scene.

Or stuck in a car like this animated Asian dude.

Where in the world did they get this Robocop prop?

This gallery space is pretty big.

Inside the video store. I remember a time in my childhood when me and my dad would go to the video store looking for beta videos and the owners would always say they didn't stock it and we would leave sad and frustrated. Soon after we got a VHS player.

And finally some good Mexican food! This was at Mexican Radio in SoHo. We'd heard about this place for some time and of course were skeptical but their reputation lived up. Carne asada fries NY style.

After that went to the Brooklyn Academy of Music where they have free music on the weekends.
The cafe was a really, very nice.

This was Effi Briest. An all girl band playing ALL and any instruments possible.

Needs more COWBELL.

Girl with a wood paneled accordian.

Zoning out with the maracas. I think even I could manage to keep rhythm with those.

La Lunar

It is so, so, so, so cold right now! I'm in my room typing with gloves on because my fingers are frozen. My heat pole is piping hot (finally) but it's not enough because I can feel the wind slipping through the window. At one point today, the temp was 22 degrees but "feels like" zero with the wind chill. ZERO!!! I was probably only outside today for a total of ten minutes (5 minutes to the subway to work, 5 minutes from the subway to home) but trust me, 10 minutes of freezing cold creeping into my clothes is quite enough for the day. I finally understand the need for a Spring Break and why knowing whether or not that groundhog saw its shadow matters (it did btw which means we have six more weeks of winter). The cold, of course, doesn't stop me from going out (usually).

Friday went to a reading at Pianos. It didn't last very long and it wasn't very good. But Janice came and I haven't seen her in awhile hence the festive SoCo and lime shots (for me, Janice, and Anne).

Post SoCo.

Mas SoCo at another bar on the way to dinner. I bowed out because I am a wimp and party pooper and fearful of ending up on the bathroom floor (again). LOVE Janice's "fuck it, it's Friday" expression.

LOVE Janice's "oh yeah, smooth...." expression.

Shots on an empty stomach and being turned away from a super packed taco place will conduce otherwise normal people to do very gross things such as eat Doritos on the street.

Those chips really hit the spot.

After waiting for a very long twenty minutes out in the cold, we finally got to sit and order our tasty Ethiopian food. I haven't had Ethiopian food since my first trip to D.C. in Winter 2000. I didn't like it very much so never bothered to seek it out again. This time around I enjoyed it very much indeed. This was a very limey avocado appetizer.

We ordered a combo meat plate with lamb etc etc.

Monsters.

Sunday was the Lunar New Year Parade in Chinatown.

This was on Bayard St. where the parade ended.

I used to be afraid of those poppers just like her!

It was damn cold too.

I really like this shot.

Cynthia lives right on Bayard so we watched from her roof.

I've never seen a black dragon before.

Commi building across the street.

Kids doing some martial arts stuff.

And of course some noodles to extend my most prosperous life.

This was sooooo made for me.

This has nothing to do with New Year just a funny picture of Tusky on laundry day.

Nina the Sports Nut

Never in my life have I needed to look at a Sports page for more than just finding out the score. This has all changed, however, since THE.GIANTS.WON.THE.SUPER.BOWL!!! I spent most of my time at work today reading everything the NY Times had on the game (this write-up was my favorite because it compared Manning to Joe Montana and Steve Young), scrolling through photo slides, and thinking about where I should go to buy my Super Bowl T-shirt. I even came home and watched ESPN SportsCenter. Tomorrow is the official parade for the Giants and I really, really, really wish I could go.

I don't think many New Yorkers had any expectations for this game. I certainly didn't. I was just looking forward to eating and seeing Ed's place, neither of which disappointed. I brought KFC and beer, Anne brought cookies, Doritos, and beer, Serena made Texas caviar dip, Alison made spinach dip and brownies, Shannon cooked sliders and brought mac n cheese, Linette brought supersized pigs in a blanket aka hogs in a comforter, etc etc. As for Ed's place, the building has a doorman and elevators and he says he gets lots of sunlight. Phooey.

And really, I haven't been excited about football since I was in middle school, back when the 49ers were awesome and it seemed like we were always going to the Super Bowl and because our principal was a 49ers lovin Catholic nun, we got to wear red and gold on Fridays before a home game. Yep, being a 49ers fan in San Francisco during the 80s and 90s was alright.

But last night, last night made me believe in football and sportsmanship all over again. It made me believe that the underdog always has a fighting chance and if a sweet, Southern boy like Eli Manning who still looks like a geeky kid in high school can beat a Playboy like Brady (oh hell, his wiki says he's from San Mateo meaning my neck of the woods), then dammit we can all make our dreams come true! Speaking of dreams, I thought it was really funny that Ed dreams about the day he can watch football in heaven with God. LOL.

So yes, last night's game was really, very, tremendously extraordinary. The entire game actually held my attention; I didn't once think about how I was missing the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. It was a pleasant surprise when we scored a field goal in the first quarter, only allowed them one touchdown in the second quarter, kept the third quarter score as is, and then when they scored another damn touchdown in the fourth quarter (Brady's drive for that one one was inspired, I'll give him that) the mood still wasn't total defeat because we still had 2:42 remaining and everyone knows that that is a helluva lot of time in football and really, being down 14-10 with that little time left was sort of exactly what we needed to really do it.

I'm pretty sure everyone else at the party has been replaying in their heads the moment when we all watched in awe as Manning miraculously untangled himself from a near-sack and then somehow managed to launch a perfect 32-yard pass to Tyree (hmmm, sports talk is fun!) and then Tyree, even more amazingly, leaped to make the catch and then held onto it as he fell backwards, with his hands in a crazy position, onto the other player who was all over him and still had the ball in his hands. That's when we all screamed and shouted and yelped and jumped into the air because we could not believe what we just saw. Inspired! I had chills and my heart was pounding and really the rest of it was all a blur until Manning connected with Plaxico Burress (talk about an inspired name) for the winning 13-yard touchdown pass. It was pandemonium. Not kidding. I remember jumping up and down and clapping and shouting and hitting everyone around me and yelling something about how much I loved America and football and then Ed brought out champagne....it was like New Year's all over again.

And then of course, after we had settled down for a bit, we went out to join the other revelers in the streets. The pubs on the UES were packed, cars were jammed in the streets honking away, and everyone kept yelling 18-1! Haha.

Some guy on SportsCenter said that he thinks the pass from Manning to Tyree is the greatest Super Bowl play in history. I would most definitely have to agree.

I heart Eli and the Giants.