I Coulda Been a Contender

It doesn't matter that no one really commented on the last blog. Just comment.

I mean, manifestos. Played, right? OK, here it is:

Can't more people be like this? Forward! Forward, forward, forward!

There's enough disappointment through all of us.

Or this: I coulda been somebody, which is what I am:

See ya on the other side, no one:

Don't Forget Me

There needs to be a power amongst people of youth. I'm only 24 and I feel like I'm slipping away. There needs to be the fire in eyes, and I don't see it. I see the kids my age taking a lot of pictures, flaunting them on Facebook. The pictures of food, of parties - is there nothing that we can capture that is of worth? Vegan food?

I recently read an article about the Peace Corps, wished to join it, and knew immediately that I am too cowardly to join. So be it. But I feel, wish, and hope that I can make a difference down the line.

I think we need to call it back to art and the community of art. Where is there a community? I may not be in the know or connected to the pulse or in the heart of it, but I've been around these communities, man, and these communities ain't nothing but shit. It's all outfits. I've seen it. I've been drunk and around and I find myself silent. I find myself out, looking, wishing for another drink. Is the next drink the answer? If it is, I am a community of one: when you drink, drink for that last one and never waste a living minute to get it.

No, this shit cannot stand. If someone is fashionably drunk again I'll drink two shots for him. If you're wasted and you pose, I will drink two to out pose you, doubly. Come on. Let it stand. Everyone is too educated. I never learned anything from a book that I didn't learn from a bottle and I'd never learn anything if I didn't read a book. I've got a ringing in my ears that I can only hope to drink into silence.

There is music from every era that can make me cry. There is only one love that makes me move, and it is a person. Let's all try and move towards that love. That's a community I'll get behind. Nothing cosmic, nothing political. Ask her out. Ask him out! And be real. Isn't that the only way you can get a date?

Email me at danielgrgas@gmail.com

Free Shit

Am I the only one not getting everything for free? I feel like everyone's getting free t-shirts, free tickets, free this and that - and then they're gloating about. Hey everyone, if you got something for free, I don't wanna hear about it over and over again. You're not special because you won a t-shirt. With quiet dignity, let me know about it. And then, I think, I'll be able to rejoice in your good fortune. But don't slap me in the face with it.

Don Van Vliet, RIP

I love ya, ya big dummy.

Just heard that the Captain, Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, has died, due to complications from multiple sclerosis.

I'm upset about this one. Here is a man that, while he wasn't young (69 when he died) certainly wasn't old, in this day and age. And even though he no longer made music, he was a great painter, and was the type of person who would always have something to give, artistically.

It's funny that he dies now, just when I have gotten to know all of his material. In the last three months I've bought 4 Beefheart LPs, so I could hear them on vinyl. Some of the best musical moments I have had have been in the past half year, listening to the Captain, and getting to know his music.

His music is not for the faint of ear or heart; the Captain made uncomprimising music, and that's why his music was so great. Trout Mask Replica is an album that has taken me literally years to appreciate, and now I couldn't imagine living without it. One day it clicked, and then I needed to hear everything the man had done.

Anyone who reads this, if you haven't heard the Captain, I think you should. Start off with Safe As Milk, his first album. It's a blues record, but with the Captain's sensibility and the touch of his Magic Band. Listen to "Electricity". You listen yet? The Captain had a voice unlike any other, and that's just a fact. Now work your way through his catalogue.

The Captain was in touch with himself and nature. He wasn't conventional. He made the kind of music that I appreciate, the music that challenges and takes time to work its way into us. And when it does, it really hits home.

All my heroes* are going. RIP Don Van Vliet.

*12/21/10 - Here's what the Captain had to say about heroes: Speaking about jazzman Eric Dolphy, "Well, he moved me, but he didn't move me as much as a goose, say. Now that could be a hero, a gander goose could definitely be a hero, the way they blow their heart out for nothing like that." Love the Captain!

Also, when describing his music, he said that the art of Franz Kline was probably the best representation of what he was trying to do. He singled out this painting, Kline's No.7:

"...it's just totally speed and emotion that comes out of what he does."

Calling 12 of the top 20 Albums of the Year, Pitchfork

The much anticipated and venerated Pitchfork Top 50 Albums of 2010 will be complete tomorrow, and I'm going to call what I think will be the top 12. If you want a piece of the action, let me know: the over/under is 7.

12) Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
11) Vampire Weekend - Contra
10) Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
9) LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
8) Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
7) Beach House - Teen Dream
6) Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
5) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
4) Big Boi - Sir Lucious...
3) Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
2) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
1) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

And there you have it. I'm pretty confident, but who knows, I could be straight smoked. Animal Collective, even though it's an EP seems high. Top three - I'm confident on those picks, and Kanye has to be one since he received a 10.0.

(this is stupid)

Click to see Pitchfork's list HERE.

Bolded means it was in the top 12, and bolded and italicized means I guessed the correct position.

12) Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
11) Vampire Weekend - Contra
10) Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
9) LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening
8) Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
7) Beach House - Teen Dream
6) Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
5) Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
4) Big Boi - Sir Lucious...
3) Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
2) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti
1) Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

10 outta 12! Hope everyone took the over!

Surprised Flying Lotus didn't crack the top 10, let alone the top 12. Seemed like there was a lot of buzz on that one. Also, thought Ariel Pink would've been higher.

I'll never get the supreme love of Beach House - they're OK, but kind of a snoozefest.

Always underestimate the sway that LCD Soundsystem has...I believe that's two #2 albums on the Pitch4k year end album list. I didn't think this was as powerful as Sound of Silver.



So does this mean that I'm a genius, or that Pitchfork is just predictable? Or was it easy to guess based upon the rankings they gave these albums in the past year?!??! Maybe a combination of all three, that's what I think.

Blame It On a Black Swan...

What awakens me from my blogging slumber? If you guessed "Another mediocre Darren Aronofsky film," then you are correct!

1) First off, they should've just called it The Ballerina. The Wrestler and The Ballerina. Why not? Movies about troubled, self mutilating athletes who have family issues that feature the back of the leading actor's head for three quarters of the film, ending in a shot where the athlete finds some sort of grace, juxtaposed with the athelete falling from a great height - literally.

2) Look, enough with the back of the head shot. Natalie Portman has one of the best back of the heads in show business, and I still don't want to stare at it endlessly. Furthermore, would it kill ya, Darren, to raise the camera above characters' heads? Why does it always have to be eye level or bust?

3) Any movie that has a character smoke a cigarette to signify that they are evil is living in a cardboard cut out of reality. OMG Mila Kunis is smoking! Hiss! Hissss! [Superman Returns did this far worse though: when Kate Bosworth drops her bag and a cigarette comes out...well, lemme just say that it was quite the tense moment for Clark Kent.] And when Black Swan went further and had Portman's character take - wait for it! - ecstasy - given to her by the evil Kunis, it gave me the feeling I was watching an after school special. I'm not pro drugs or completely anti drugs. It's just a complexity of life that was dumbed down.

4) Usually when a screenplay is written by three different people, you can tell, and Black Swan is no exception. "Now I want you to go home and touch yourself tomorrow." "If your name is Todd and you have a penis, then yes." "I'm throwing out this cake in the garbage!" These aren't exact quotations, but they represent the vibe I got. The story was fair; it was just that the dialogue made me LOL in the theater. [Hands down the best part of the movie was when my buddy LOL'd during the flick and some other guy LOL'd ten rows behind him, LOLing at my friends LOL. LOL.]

5) I applaud Natalie Portman, both her acting and the fact that she did all of her own dancing. That said, I would have liked for a professional dancer to do some really complicated tasty moves that Darren could have cut to in a wide shot allowing the audience to see just how skilled the Portman character was as dancer. I think Black Swan missed out on showing the audience just how utterly beautiful ballet dancing probably is.

6) Heavy handed with the music. Easy does it, pal. Cue the Requiem theme! DA NANANA DA NANANA!!!

7) The melodrama between Portman and her mother. Enough, already. Cue the Requiem theme! DA NANANA "You're on uppers, Ma!" DA NANANA!

8) The sex scene between Kunis and Portman was awesome! Pretty explicit I thought, what with all the muff diving. Curious to see just how NC-17ish Blue Valentine is/was compared to this lesbian romp -- as compared to what I've heard is a realistic, though gritty, depiction of heterosexual sex. Versus, of course, the homosexual psycho-sexual intercourse that takes place in Black Swan. Cue the Requiem chants! "Ass to ass! Ass to ass!"

9) Vincent Cassel was fucking boss. Pimping ballerinas and then casting them aside when he has used them. Fucking Cassel. "You bit me!" Portman, the biter: only Cassel could bring that out of her.

10) Total waste of Winona Ryder.

Basically, Black Swan and all of the other Aronofsky films suffer from being vague explorations of the depths of the human condition/existence (The Fountain), vague grotesqueries (The Wrestler, Requiem for a Dream), or both (Black Swan). [note: I have not seen Pi, but I'm sure it is a vague mathematical quest for spiritual fufillment.] In that Black Swan was both of the former, I applaud it, as well as Aronofsky's commitment to his vision and art. Plus, Black Swan was genuinely strange, so there's that.

But that does not take away from the fact that I believe he is a poor director. His visual style bores me, and, worse yet, he does not handle his stories with much finesse: the finished films do not as much bring the viewer into the world as they leave the viewer on the outside, admiring the spectacle of an idea or notion that Aronofsky is currently infatuated with. Investment in characters is the key to filmmaking and when I watch an Aronofsky film I could care less about any of them.

Bloody Mary

10 thoughts on a good bloody mary.

1) Gotta be Clamato.

2) Vodka - any is OK. Cheap is fine; it's not a martini.

3) What kills a bloody mary is too much Worcestershire sauce. Easy does it.

4) C'mon, they got to be spicy - give it a kick!

5) Pickle juice: the secret. Add it and boy, does it enhance the BM. Compliments the spiciness with a nice, cooling freshness.

6) Drink 'em any time, but they're always best in the morning, truly.

7) Horseradish: I'm for it.

8) Try a little Peter Luger sauce - pretty nice, for variety.

9) Salt and pepper must be added.

10) Finish off with fresh lemon - mmhhhmmm!