Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: brussels, cinema, film, leonard cohen, london, music, paris, penelope cruz, photography, roman polanski, self, self portrait, tom waits, vicky cristina barcelona
I’ve been busy obsessing over the most disjointed random things/people in the world. That’s what I’ve been busy doing instead of blogging on this shit.
1. Leonard Cohen. It’s because every time that doc Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man is on Sundance I watch it. It changes my life every time. I always love Leonard Cohen because he gets you at all points in your life. And as I’m going through a whirlwind of dullness and mood swings and everything, he is making the most sense. He tends to make sense a lot more than most people do. Something about Cohen’s voice and words and presence is just comforting. I almost wish he was my father.
2. Penelope Cruz. I would do the little accent mark but I have no idea how to. I finally saw Vicky Cristina Barcelona and she blew my mind. She’s just so sickeningly beautiful and amazing. I think I might add her to my extremely short list of people I’d go gay for. (and btw, the movie was really good too, but I’m biased since I love anything by Mr Woody)
3. Self portraits. I’ve been taking too many of them.
(me and Edith, I tried very hard to get her into the photo)
4. This fucking Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 USM Image Stabilizer lens. I NEED IT IN ORDER TO SUSTAIN MY LIFE.
I was playing around with it when Madelaine and I bought her new camera yesterday. It has the best focus of any lens I’ve ever had my hands on. I’m going to try and find a cheaper one somewhere (ebay? reliable y/n?) before I leave in 15 days.
5. Obsessing over the fact that in 15 days (give or take, too lazy to calculate exactly) I’ll be in London, Paris, and Brussels. Yeah. WHAT!? Thank GOD. I don’t even know what to do with myself. We basically have no plans for anything. I can find my own way around London by now so Madelaine just plans on following me around to places that are for sure hits, and then just hanging out. and then eventually celebrating her birthday by doing something dangerous and stupid most likely. Maybe I’ll try and see the family. Who knows. The only plans for Paris is the Louvre, so I can cry and recreate the race in Band of Outsiders while trying to not get kicked out (oh and look at epic art pieces, of course). I might try and visit the Cinematheque Francais so I can weep. No plans for Brussels at all except to get Belgian chocolate.
6. Tom Waits. I am going through a serious musical rut where he is basically all I listen to. I would marry Tom Waits.
7. and last: ROMAN POLANSKI. I finally got around to watching that documentary Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired. I love him so much I refuse to believe he’s a pervert, but it’s obvious he got his groove on with that 13 year old girl, what Humbert Humbert would call a nymphet (that reference was necessary). She wanted it though, I guarantee it. Who wouldn’t want to get it on with a young RP?… Like, come on girl, just admit it, stop tormenting this little man’s soul. He’s a genius, a god of his art form, let’s allow him to frequent our country again and continue making spectacular films…. give it up girl!
Went to see one of my favourite bands ever last night, the Kills. to say the least, they fried my little brains.
tons of random, weird things happened. I guess I’ll try and sum up the night in bullet points? my thoughts are not complete at the moment.
- Jamie Hince asked us to light his cigarette, and we did. talk about a random as fuck moment. I have a hard time believing that Jamie Hince ever goes without a lighter on him though. Not that I care. I was just like “dude.”
- really wanted to ask them for a photo when they were sitting next to us but I feel so awkward doing that. especially when they are in conversation. instead a snuck a creep ass photo.
- someone explain to me how moshing alone ever happens? okay, I get moshing and all that if there’s a group of people doing it. but when you are there alone, drunk off your ass, and trying to insinuate a mosh pit, please just give up and save yourself and everyone around you.
- the Magic Stick/that entire building that houses like 9 different things is the greatest venue because it allows you to smoke inside. I hadn’t been there in over a year. yeah anyway, the law in Detroit is too busy worrying about people getting shot every day to worry about smoking indoors.
- I forever hate Faris Rotter from the Horrors (opening band [I know]) for more reasons than one, but now I have a new one. my friend passed out during the Kills encore which was terrifying and we won’t even go into that. But somehow we got ?sort of backstage? when I dragged her out of the crowd. I’m like, busy trying to revive a life here, and Faris walks by us literally 4 different times. I’m like DUDE, can’t you tell I’m freaking out and I know you can’t do anything because you’re dumb but can someone please acknowledge the fact that I am having a crisis right now!?!!? Faris walked by us so many times I thought he was running a fucking marathon. and he did nothing except drink and look at us conspicuously.
- We met these people there that were kind of with us the entire night and kind totally trashed. I’m still trying to figure out how seeing a show totally trashed is enjoyable whatsoever. they were nice though.and the girl Stephanie shared some drinks with us and had the backup cigarettes. meeting people at shows is so strange because usually you end up getting their numbers and you look in your phone the next morning and you have no idea how or why.
- The Kills are incredible and I don’t even know who I have a bigger crush on anymore, Jamie or Alison. when they played “Kissy Kissy” I almost combusted into 100 flaming suns.
Check out my photos (they suck) if you wanna.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: andrew bird, bob dylan, cinema, crime drama, don't look back, film, i love television, jack kerouac, manhattan, music, photography, tom palumbo, woody allen
Since I’ve been sick I’ve been laying around watching TV for what seems like a decade. I’ve accumulated much !!!inspiration!!! (yes, from the TV and the internet) recently. Here are some of the things that make me want to make myself get off this couch and do something.
1. Tom Palumbo.
This is one of the most inspiring streams I’ve come across on flickr in my life. Tom Palumbo is a photographer who has uploaded much of his work from the 1950s and 60s. His photos are so breathtaking, I almost cried looking at this stream. To me, Tom Palumbo’s photography sums up what the art of taking photos should be about. You can tell how much he loved his wife Anne just by looking at 5 or so photos of his. His photos make you want to know the people inside of them. And they are also timeless. They are perfect (I don’t know when else I’ve used the word ‘perfect’ for a photographer besides Avedon).
Jack Kerouac by Tom Palumbo
Palumbo in action
Anne by Tom Palumbo
2. Don’t Look Back, the famous Dylan doc, has been on TV at least like 8 different times the last couple days. I watch it every time. Bob Dylan is so…. for lack of a better word… cool. Dylan is the coolest man on earth. and why does no one look like him anymore?
3. This is totally irrelevant. But a couple weeks ago I got around to watching Woody Allen’s Manhattan. It was incredible and might take the cake for my favourite Allen movie of all time. I understand there are a lot of Woody Allen haters around. I don’t get that contempt at all. I think he’s hilarious and brilliant.
4. Crime dramas. Besides all the Dylan obsessing that’s been occurring, I’ve been watching any type of crime drama that’s been on TV. I don’t really know what “crime drama” even means, it just seems appropriate, so forgive me. Obviously, these bitches are my favourites:
I think I’ve seen every episode of Law and Order: SVU, and most of them more than once. I can NEVER GET ENOUGH.
Then I watched like, 9 hours of NCIS which is actually great. for some reason I never ‘got it’ until yesterday. Maybe it’s because it was the only thing that was on all day Saturday. NCIS was pretty legit, and my dad informed me that our old next door neighbour is related to Mark Harmon and we met him a couple times or something. wtf? (p.s. Mark Harmon is hot).
Then I ventured into the world of CSI. I never watched CSI and I don’t really know why. I watched the craziest episode that featured the sad acting of Criss Angel. It was about a magician who took out his anger on his crew by killing them in typical magician-esque fashion (i.e. sawing a girl in half, literally). Seriously, who THINKS of this stuff!? Anyway… Gary Sinise is a badass.
5. Andrew Bird. most of my indie shithead friends have known of him since like, before they were born or something. I finally listened to him and I am in awe. I love him. take a listen for yourself.
and he’s adorable.
final thought: anyone that becomes a fan of “summer,” “laughing,” “sleeping,” or “hot showers” on facebook should probably be shot.
Mick Rock has always been such a huge inspiration to me. I cannot even explain it. his photos are majestic. I’m sure there are some people that are against his new stuff but I love it all.
I think I will stay at wordpress. my people are here. or my person, apparently. it is strange when people isolate you from their lives and don’t give an explanation why.
well anyway, today is my birthday! it doesn’t even feel like it. my birthdays never seem special and they only hit me until about a week after.
I went on the most spontaneous trip ever to Chicago 2 days ago. I went to the diner here with a few of my friends. We decided at midnight we were going to leave at 7 the next morning. and we did. hopped in the car and went to Chicago. spontaneity is a beautiful and rare creature.
lots of good music,good people, sangria, and Bukowski. I posted some pictures on my flickr from the trip. check ‘em out.
oh and we stopped in New Buffalo, michigan on the way home. nice little hideout in this god awful place.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: abbey drucker, film, inspiration, jim sturgess, photography, sound of music, taxi driver
this is my new favourite picture.
(click on it to view it big).
I only wish I knew the photographer. I think that photo sums up the exact photography I would want to make money doing.
Oh and speaking of inspiring photography, I am listening to Interpol again (I totally forgot I saw them live?) and I was looking up Paul Banks info and came across his ex girlfriend’s website. She is an AMAZING photographer. Her photos are so beautiful and feminine. Her name is Abbey Drucker.
photos like this (Abbey’s and the unnamed photo of Jim Sturgess) just remind me that I need to take in my Praktica LTL to be fixed before I totally forget about its existence. I don’t know how many times I’ve brought this up. I really want a Nikon FE though, speaking of film cameras… Fuck. I need a job (so many Morrissey lyrics pop into my head when I say those words). I need to be able to buy these things.
and by the way, the only reason I even came across that photo shoot of Jim Sturgess is because I was watching Taxi Driver last night and realized how much he resembles a young Bob De Niro. well anyway, Taxi Driver is probably one of my favourite movies. I only recently realized how really brilliant it is. and it took me maybe the 3rd viewing to realized that Marty Scorsese is the psycho wife killer in the back of Travis’ taxi. it blew my mind all over the floor when I got that…
in the behind the scenes I watched last night, Jodi Foster or someone said that Iris’ friend in the film is the REAL girl that Iris’ character is modeled after. this kind of information blows my mind.
(the girl on the left)
I know the thoughts of this post are all over the place. one more thing. the Sound of Music is on TV right now. IS THERE ANYONE ELSE IN THIS WORLD THAT CRIES WHEN CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER SINGS “EDELWEISS” IN THE SOUND OF MUSIC? I weep. every single viewing. this song gave me a huge crush on Plummer when I was like, 8 years old.
I was randomly looking at photos of David Lynch and some were so amazing I gasped.
(Lynch and Isabella Rosellini by Helmut Newton)
and found some amazing photos of him and his amazing hair on flickr.
and this one was uploaded directly from one of my contacts. I just about died.
oh my god. don’t those photos make you want need to know the man?
went to Royal Oak with one of my best and long lost friends Garret yesterday. he might be one of the…. 5?… people I will legitimately miss next year.
On another note, I don’t think I’ve ever been so sure that I needed a new camera before in my life. The thing has no idea how to deal with light or focus anymore. I have dropped it like 6 times though. I mean, I’m not blaming my lack of good photos completely on the camera but… there is only so much you can do with it. I need to see how much money I have in the bank because I really need a DSLR before the summer arrives.
btw the worst feeling in the world is not knowing what music to listen to.
what the fuck. I am looking at some of my random music photos and I love this one. I don’t know why.
I think I am just going to listen to Oasis forever. and nothing else. ever. I do not give a damn if I am the most annoying person on the planet. I am aware, so you don’t need to tell me. I am so glad for this band’s existence because otherwise my life would be 100% worthless (okay maybe 80%) or something. I cannot wait for this awful part of my boring life to end in approximately 2 months. I cannot wait to be back in the UK and in France and hopefully in New York and in definitely Chicago this year. I cannot explain to you how awful this awful place is that I live in and I will do almost anything to get out of it. I cannot explain how much I hate this useless place. But… whatever. It will all be over soon. This town has no function at all. It is so unbelievably useless. This place (which shall rename nameless) has never felt like home to me, I guess it isn’t really. I think that some people are just accidentally put in the in the wrong place sometimes by God or Allah or Bob the Sun God, Fate the Bitch God or some other unknown force. I know what home feels like and this is definitely not it. I know that this is completely irrelevant to this photo (it might not actually but but I won’t even go there) that I just posted. I only posted it because I found the blog function on flickr.
I hope you are well. I sincerely hope you are well whoever you are.
I also hope that you will listen to this song because it is everyone’s life at some point.
“All those songs, if you listen to them, the feeling in all of them is of yearning — to be somewhere else, not to be here.”
I also hope that whoever you are, you have a friend. Whether it be in the form of your best friend that lives down the street or your friends that live overseas, I hope that you have friends that you can rely on to be there for you no matter what. I especially hope that you have some silly little piece of music or a really, really amazing record that you love so much it hurts, that you can lean on and listen to because we all know that that’s sometimes all there is. When you live in a place as useless as this, the only things that matter or make sense are the relationships you hold with the people or the things you love. Because I know that feeling alone and feeling like the world is leaving you behind or time is flying by you are some of the worst feelings in the world. Living is not easy unless you have friends with laugh with or shoulders to cry on. So frankly, I don’t care if you listen to the Stone Roses or Pearl Jam or Hendrix or Public Enemy or U2 or Neil Young or AFI or Radiohead or Taylor Swift or Lily Allen. I don’t care if you hate the things that are most important to me. I don’t care if you are a liberal or a conservative. I don’t care if your favourite movie is Breathless or Step Up. I could care less if you like muscle cars or football or art. I don’t care if you are a boy or a girl. I especially do not care if you are weird or not. If you need someone to talk to, I am here. If you need someone to recommend a good book or a song or something, I am here. As a friend or as someone you can just vent to and walk away from, I am here.
I don’t even feel sad or down or anything right now. I just hate knowing that there are people out there that don’t have someone to talk to. People that feel lonely or lost or homeless. I am very lucky to have music and 3 very good friends that are always there despite anything. Just remember that there is a light that never goes out.
This is less of a blog and more of a diary these days but… well there you go. and wow, this entry just started with a photo of Liam Gallagher and look what it turned into.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: bob bonis, cinema, film, keith richards, me, oasis, photography, self, the fall
- I worked at Madelaine’s dad’s place last night. It reminded me so much of my last job. I have no idea what to do for a summer job this year. Working with food isn’t that bad, just… not my thing?
- Speaking of food. I brought home 2 brownies from Mr’s place last night. I had half of one last night while I was editing the video Madelaine and I made as Liam and Noel (you probably can’t see it, and definitely if you’re not my facebook friend. Thank your lucky stars), and I brought them back into the kitchen this morning. Someone ate them in the span of the 2 hours I watched a movie downstairs. Someone in this house is not owning up to it, and it is not fucking okay with me at all.
- The movie I watched was The Fall, a rec from Abby. It was really really really weird but really really good. The imagery is incedible. It’s like a moving Salvador Dali painting.
Who knows why movies like this don’t get any attention anymore. Miss March is all the rage or whatever right?
- Don’t you hate when people won’t admit to stealing your fucking brownies? jchrist.
- Radiohead just dropped off my last fm top artists. I feel like I just lost at least 2 stone of pretentiousness.
- This.
Photo by Bob Bonis who has a collection showing in NY of the Beatles and Stones’s first US tour.
- Do you think that photographers/journalists/everyday citizens know that a band is going to be huge? Do you think that as soon as people heard the Beatles or the Stones or the Who that they would become legends? I always wondered that. I think they say 25 years later that they knew, that they could “feel it,” but I really don’t know.
- 2 random photo booth pictures that should be seen:
dressing up as Liam for that fucking said video. 7$ XXL parka on the sales rack at Target that inspired it. Fuck yeah. personally I think it’s a great video but no one knows what we’re on about.
me and the rabbit/fox dog who is rarely seen these days.
- And last but not least, who the hell is Lady GaGa?
