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.