A challenge

I want to present you, dear readers, with a challenge. I challenge you... I dare you.... I double dog dare you to get this song out of your head. The R&B/B&R video of the day: "My Year in Lists" by Los Campesinos!.


Seriously, try to get it out of your head. You can't do it. Sure, you might be able to shake it for right this second, but maybe later today, maybe sometime tomorrow, there it'll be. In your head.

I'm a fiend for all the stuff on the Arts & Crafts label, and although I don't own anything by these guys, I like what I've heard. And this damn song, which is just under 2:00, won't leave my head. I can't help but laugh, though, at the fact that they're trying so very hard to look emo, or twee, or whatever you wanna call it. I mean, nothing screams "I am twee as fuck" quite like an office green zippered hoodie. Except maybe a yellow t-shirt under a purple hoodie with a yellow badge pinned to it (especially if it's a badge of your own band). Oh, and a girl with a star tattoo on her wrist playing the bass for you. Oh. And self-reference. They've got that in spades. The only thing that would make this band more twee is if they were all wearing black-rimmed, tiny-lensed glasses.

Another thing that I think is funny about this video is that the drummer, Ollie Campesinos (wearing the green t-shirt in this video), looks alarmingly like a circa 2003- Eric Staal.

Anyway, enjoy the video. Try to keep the song out of your head. Good luck.

moving through the netflix queue

Since the hockey season is over, I have reached the point that I reach every summer where I get incredibly bored. Oh, sure, the Entry Draft came and went, providing me with about two hours of entertainment. The free agent signing period begins tomorrow (July 1), and that should provide me with a couple of days of excitement, but for the most part, the period between mid-June and early October is boring. So I've been putting a pretty good dent in my Netflix queue. In a half-assed effort to keep this thing afloat, I'll enlighten you (all two of you) with some of my recent selections.

• Days of Wine and Roses (1962) Starring Jack Lemmon, Lee Remick, Jack Klugman. Directed by Blake Edwards.
  
  Holy shit! What an excellent movie. Jack Lemmon plays a PR guy who happens to be a drunk. He falls in love with a girl from the office who is a goodie-two-shoes. He converts her to alcoholism. They battle demons and each other. Jack Lemmon is phenomenal in this role. He was nominated for best actor, but unfortunately, it was the same year that To Kill a Mockingbird came out, and Gregory Peck rightfully walked home with the Oscar. The greenhouse scene is sensational. I've got goosebumps just thinking about it. Highly recommended!
  Normally, when you hear "Directed by Blake Edwards", you would think zany sex comedy. This isn't even remotely a comedy.
  This movie just skyrocketed all the way to #2 on my list of favorite Jack Lemmon movies. #1 is, and will always be, The Apartment.
  
  
• loudQUIETloud: A film about the Pixies (2006)
  
  I wouldn't really say that this is a film about the Pixies. More accurately, it's about their short-lived reunion in 2004. It's not terribly enlightening, and certainly not very Edddddd-uuuuuuuuu-caaaaaaaay-shunnnnnnnnn-aaaaaaaaaal, but it's entertaining. It definitely reminded me that the REAL genius in the Pixies was Joey Santiago. Unfortunately, since he wasn't the singer or the girl, he didn't get talked about.
  It was sort of strange to see them all at 40, living responsible lives with families and whatnot.
  I feel like the filmmaker went out of his way to point to the fact that Kim was just out of rehab. Part of her healing is that she demanded that their dressing room be clear of all alcohol and drugs. In an 82-minute film, it seems like 30 minutes was spent covering Kim's nowfound sobriety. The other side of the coin was David Loverling's abuse of Valium and red wine.
  
  I feel like the director set out to make something a lot like I Am Trying to Break Your Heart. He didn't succeed.
  
  It was okay, but I wouldn't see it again, and I can't really say that I would recommend it.
  
  
• Screaming Masterpiece (2005)
  Another music documentary. This one touts itself as a look at the 2000-year history of Icelandic music. Honestly, with that description, I wasn't quite sure how much of the ancient history I was gonna get. The answer : none. There was very very little mention of traditional or "folk" music of Iceland. No explanation of where it came from or why. Only that, just as any other culture, the traditional music is based in poetry.
  As should have been expected, the main focus of this film was Björk, Sigur Rós and Múm. There were dozens of other bands, but all of them were contemporary and none of the others are worth mentioning. I learned absolutely nothing from this picture except these "facts". Icelanders don't consider themselves to be Scandinavian. They are, simply, Icelanders. They have only, just in the past 30 years or so, realized (according to Björk, anyway) their own identity. They just now realize that they are Icelanders rather than Danish colonists.
  Iceland is a country of just over 300,000 people, and there are an insane number of rock bands. Most of them suck.
  As much as I wanted to love this, I actually hated it. I found myself bored to tears, fast-forwarding through bits. Even the live footage didn't do much for me. I didn't imagine this would be the case, but I was really glad when it was over. Even if you're a huge fan of any of these Icelandic bands, I wouldn't recommend this movie, except as a cure for insomnia.

There have been a few others recently, but those are the most recent. The next six or seven will be seasons five and six of Scrubs. I can't wait for those.

If you really like me, you'll buy me this...

I've come out of hibernation only to say that if you were really my friend, you'd buy me a ticket to this.

It's only a little over $400 per person, so if you've got that much extra dough burning a hole in your pocket, feel free. Actually, by now, the whole thing is prolly sold out, but it sure would be sweet.

Sunday night alone would be well worth the price of admission.

I'm in the New York Times!

The New York Times has given my hockey blog some love!

I've been asked to be the Carolina Hurricanes blogger representative in an ongoing q&a thing being hosted by the New York Times hockey blog. Each team has one blogger representing it, and we're all asked the same set of questions. It looks like they'll be posted division-by-division.

The first installment is here, and it'll be a regular thing at least until the regular season ends in early April. Keep checking back to the New York Times: Slapshot blog, as well as my hockey blog for more.