WES ANDERSON 1, M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN 0

Wes Anderson fans, go here and prepare to die laughing.

IT'S STORY TIME AGAIN, CHILDREN

You may remember a year ago I spent the first week of May writing bad short stories based on title and first line suggestions from a couple of fans. I figured, since I'm on vacation again, I might as well do it again. Next week--May 1 to May 5--I'll post a new piece of short fiction every day, ranging from 500 words on Monday to 2500 on Friday. But this time, they'll all be chapters of The Boy in the Tunnel, so the two of you who've been clamoring for new stuff, start rejoicing now.

What I need from you are first lines to start off these chapters. In lieu of titles (since the chapters don't have titles, durh), you can also provide index entries from the UNWG Student Handbook, e.g. "your dorm room, secret features of." Get to it.

TV TOP FIVE

From Hillary.

Top Five TV Shows
1. The Simpsons
2. Homicide: Life on the Street
3. Deadwood
4. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
5. Freaks and Geeks

Top Five Sitcoms (no animated stuff, no English stuff)
1. Arrested Development
2. NewsRadio
3. Seinfeld
4. Curb Your Enthusiasm
5. The Cosby Show

Top Five Episodes of The Office (the American version, it seems)
1. "Diversity Day"
2. "The Dundies"
3. "Booze Cruise"
4. "Christmas Party"
5. "The Secret"

Top Five Characters from The Andy Griffith Show

Never seen it.

Top Five Episodes of The West Wing

Never seen that either. New list!

Top Five Auxiliary Seinfeld Characters (aside from Newman and George & Jerry’s parents)

1. Crazy Joe Davola
2. Russell Dalrymple
3. The Maestro
4. George Steinbrenner
5. Tina (Elaine's roommate)

EVERYTHING IDOL: THE INAUGURATION OF LOVE

Today we gather to formally name Love as the Best Thing Ever. Though many felt this was a foregone conclusion, Love's journey to the top has not been easy. Let's take a look back at the battles Love had to fight to achieve this honor:

Qualifying Round
Despite strong competition from Faith, Hope and Charity, and confusion over whether all four contestants were in fact the same thing, Love pulled out a victory to move on to Round 2.

Round 2
The Sopranos, Huck Finn and Film did their best, but the hippy-dippy softies of the voting public were too enthralled by the picture of the sweet cherub to vote for anything but Love.

Round 3
Music and Jon Stewart could not withstand the Love juggernaut.

Quarterfinals
Despite the vocal support for Kitties that made them the dark horse candidate all the way into the Quarterfinals, all their fluffy cuteness couldn't beat Love.

Semifinals
By this point, it was pretty obvious that Email wasn't going to be the one that could finally take down Love. Only Art could do that, but...

Final
...it didn't. It got kind of close there at the end, but Art just didn't have the staying power. Love is named the Best Thing Ever-elect.

A few of Love's bested foes are here today, and would like to say a few words in honor of the new Best Thing Ever.

Hope: I can't really say I thought Love would win, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I really did think it would be me. I guess there's always the next Everything Idol.

The Sopranos: The fuck you talking about? Love didn't win. I think if you'll go back and check your records, you'll see that Love actually died in a boating accident three years ago--an accident which several people will attest that I was nowhere near, as my daughter and I were visiting Princeton at the time. Do we understand each other?

Kitties: Luv suks. Kats r best. We wuz robd. We demand rekount. Or else! Kats rize up! REVOLOOSHUN!

Art: Love. Oh yeah, everybody loves Love. Jesus, how obvious. You all think Love is so special, like it's the most important thing ever. Well guess what? You wouldn't even know what Love is if it weren't for me. That's right. You think Love is just something that exists independent of anything else? It isn't. Love is a bunch of chemical reactions and impulses and shit. Art is how you know that weird feeling is Love and not demonic possession. Just think about it for a second: does what you know about Love come from actually being in love, or does it come from all the books you've read, the music you've listened to, and the movies you've seen? Art gives love a shape so you can recognize it. You can write that shit down.

Well, I guess all that wasn't really in Love's "honor." Man, some TV shows, animals and abstrat concepts are bitter. So, anyway, it's now time to officially inaugurate Love as the Best Thing Ever. Unfortunately, Love couldn't be here today--it's filming a movie up in Vancouver--so its close friend Obsessive Longing will accept the honor on Love's behalf. OL, you want to say anything?

...I've just been informed that Obsessive Longing is hiding out in the bushes across the street with a pair of binoculars, so it won't be making any speeches. I'll just accept the award myself. I guess that does it for the first Everything Idol competition. Thanks for voting, and we'll see you again in four years.

BEST MOVIE EVER

Did you ever think "Man, Bring It On is a great movie, but wouldn't it be even better if it was all about Eliza Dushku's punk-rock gymast character Missy going to a gymnastics academy run by The Dude?" Well guess what: your prayers have been answered. Just ignore the lame "breaking the law...of gravity!" joke at the beginning and focus on how brilliant the "phone" gag is. Forget X3, forget Superman--here, finally, is a movie to get excited about.

IT'S THE RIGHT THING TO DO

Jack White and Coca-Cola seem to agree with Everything Idol voters. (via Golden Fiddle)

EVERYTHING IDOL: EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER

So Love, to the surprise of no one, beats Art to become the official Best Thing Ever. How sweet. Next Monday, April 24, we'll have the official inauguration ceremony. Love, consider this your official invitation to attend. Everyone else, in the meantime, enjoy the usual patented brand of awesome GLFC content you've come to know and love.

EVERYTHING IDOL:
OFFICIAL VOTING POST

Here is where you may--and must--vote for the Best Thing Ever. This post will remain at the top of the page until polls close at 11:59 p.m., PST, April 13. See below for arguments, etc.

CONSECRUCIAL UPDATE: Deadline for voting is extended till Monday, April 17, 11:59 p.m. PST, while I work out my computer issues.


Life isn't long enough for love and art. - W. Somerset Maugham, The Moon and Sixpence

ATTENTION FANS

The GLFC Mainframe is on the fritz at the moment (best case: busted fan; worst case: melted hard drive), so the Imperious Leader is going to be less communicado than usual for the next day or two. He'll probably be able to get online once a day or so--he's sending this from an internet cafe because all of a sudden it's 1997 again--but if you absolutely have to get in touch, use the ancient device known as "the telephone."

The deadline for Everything Idol voting may get pushed a bit. Stand by.

EVERYTHING IDOL:
DEEP THINKING

K2 has put more thought into this little contest than it probably deserves. Good show!

EVERYTHING IDOL:
ART SONGS

A few thoughts about art to help you make up your mind.

MP3: "Artists Only" by Talking Heads (from More Songs About Buildings and Food)

I'm painting, I'm painting again.
I'm painting, I'm painting again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning my brain.

Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
Pretty soon now, will be a quitter.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
You can't see it 'til it's finished

I don't have to prove...that I am creative!
I dont' have to prove...that I am creative!
All my pictures are confused
And now I'm going to take me to you.

MP3: "Baby, That's Art" by Frank Black (from Oddballs (I got it from Emusic))

Then we crush the heart
Then the meat we pound
Then we cruise to the sound
Of collecting the honey
Well maybe I'm saying
Well baby, that's art

MP3: "The Poet Game" by Greg Brown (from The Poet Game)

I walk out at night to take a leak
underneath the stars -
oh yeah that's the life for me.
There's Orion and the Pleiades
and I guess that must be Mars -
all as clear as we long to be.
I've sung what I was given -
some was bad and some was good.
I never did know from where it came
and if I had it all to do again
I am not sure I would
play the poet game.

MP3: "Airport Painting" by David Cross (from The Pride Is Back)

A serious philosophical examination of the limits of art.

MP3: "Art" by Alan Moore & Tim Perkins (from Snakes and Ladders)

Art, a fire ungraspable, cannot be shunned. It must be true, and more than this be truth itself--a blood of light at meaning's heart. Art is the highest, the most rarefied of human works, and the most arduous. Beauty is easily imagined, but its realization will require a greater faculty, require long yards of golden toil.

EVERYTHING IDOL:
LOVE SONGS

(Remember, you must vote here for your vote to be counted.)

Love seems to be the early favorite in this battle of Love vs. Art, but before you throw your support behind either candidate, let's take a closer look at the horses in this race. Love, of course, is one of the great themes of art, and it might even be possible to say that art is responsible for our understanding of love. Nowhere is this more evident than in the modern popular, or "pop," song. What do some of our beloved musical stars have to say about love?

MP3: "Our Love Is Here to Stay" by Frank Sinatra (from Songs for Swingin' Lovers; written by Ira & George Gershwin)

The radio
And the telephone
And the movies that we know
May just be passing fancies and in time may go
But oh my dear
Our love is here to stay

MP3: "Love and Happiness" by Living Colour (from Biscuits; written by Al Green)

You know in this sin-sick world we live in
Gotta have something to help you through the day
In this world full of frustration
Lack of hope, despair
There’s something in this world
To help your day
No, I’m not talking ’bout drugs, baby
No, I’m not talking ’bout alcohol
What I’m talkin’ ’bout love and - love and happiness

MP3: "Some Kinda Love" by The Velvet Underground (from The Velvet Underground)

Some kinds of love
Marguerita told Tom
like a dirty French novel
the absurd courts the vulgar
and some kinds of love
the possibilites are endless
and for me to miss one
would seem to be groundless

MP3: "This Is Love" by PJ Harvey (from Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea)

I can't believe that life's so complex
When I just want to sit here and watch you undress
This is love, this is love
That I'm feeling

MP3: "Love Love Love" by The Mountain Goats (from The Sunset Tree)

Raskolnikov felt sick
but he couldn't say why
when he saw his face reflected
in his victim's twinkling eye
some things you do for money
and some you'll do for fun
but the things you do for love
are gonna come back to you one by one

MP3: "Love --> Building on Fire" by Talking Heads (from The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads)

When my love
Stands next to your love
I can't define love
When it's not love.
It's not love.
It's not love.
Which is my face
Which is a building
Which is on fire.

MP3: "Love" by The Smashing Pumpkins (from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness)

It's what you wanted to see, it's who you wanted to be
For what you needed to need, she'll make it up
Love, it's who you know

MP3: "If Love Is a Red Dress" by Maria McKee (from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack)

If we played even
I'd be your queen
But someone was cheating
And it wasn't me
I've laid it on the table
You held something back
If love is aces,
Give me the jack

MP3: "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Albert Kuvezin & Yat-Kha (from Re-Covers; written by Joy Division)

Why is the bedroom so cold
Turned away on your side?
Is my timing that flawed,
Our respect run so dry?
Yet there’s still this appeal
That we’ve kept through our lives
Love, love will tear us apart again

MP3: "Love Hurts" by Roy Orbison (from The All-Time Greatest Hits)

Love hurts, love scars
Love wounds and mars any heart
Not tough or stong enough
To take a lot of pain, take a lot of pain
Love is like a cloud, holds a lot of rain

Monday: What do artists have to say about art?

IN CASE YOU DIDN'T KNOW

My brother is awesome.

Everything Idol resumes below.

EVERYTHING IDOL:
THE FINAL

ART vs. LOVE

Finally, our two-year journey is almost complete. One week from today, we will know what is truly the Best Thing Ever: Art or Love. Though I may regret allowing abstract concepts into the competition, I think these are two fine contenders that will provide a stirring final matchup.

Voting will proceed as usual. Voting is open to anyone and everyone, and the polls will remain open until 11:59 p.m., Pacific Standard Time, Thursday, April 13. PLEASE NOTE: You must vote in the comments of the Official Voting Post, which you may find directly above this one. It will remain at the top of the page until polls are closed. You may use the comments of this post to debate and stump for your chosen candidate, but any votes cast here will not be counted. Only votes cast in the Official Voting Post will be counted.

I urge you to discuss and debate our finalists in the comments. Over the course of the next week, I will be posting more material to help you make up your mind in this, truly the most important vote of your or anyone else's lifetime. You may wish to hold off on voting until all final arguments have been made. Check back tomorrow for the first of these installments.

In the meantime, heed the words of Easter Painter Bugs Bunny:



"Art and Love are the same thing, people! I'm living proof!"

EVERYTHING IDOL FINAL COUNTDOWN:
ONE DAY

Everything is made for you and me

One song I've been listening to a lot lately is Iggy Pop's "The Passenger," from his 1977 David Bowie-produced solo album Lust for Life. It's one of those perfectly enigmatic songs that can be contorted to fit whatever mood or meaning you want to ascribe to it. Listen to the jaunty chord progression (written by Bowie sideman Ricky Gardiner) and lines like "We'll see the stars that shine so bright / the sky was made for us tonight," and you could convince yourself it's a love song; pay closer attention and you hear the same sky described as "bright and hollow," you pick out a phrase like "the city's ripped back sides," you hear in the "la la la" chorus (on which Pop is backed up by Bowie) a hint of doomed sarcasm. In the first verse, Pop names himself the "passenger;" in the second, "we" are the passenger, and by the third, the passenger is "he," someone else entirely, though even as "he sees the winding ocean drive," "everything was made for you and me." This shifting perspective enhances the distancing effect of the lyrics: the Passenger, whoever he is, remains "under glass," unable to interact with the things he sees. He's not even driving; he's just along for the ride. The city may look good tonight, everything might be yours and mine, but we just keep riding through it. Obviously it's a perfect driving song, and whatever city he's singing about (best guess: Berlin) becomes whatever city you're driving through as you listen to it, the beauty and the horror of your home that doesn't quite feel like a home safely on the other side of the window. All of it is yours and mine, not just mine alone.

For reasons that should be obvious to anyone familiar with ANT POWERS!!!!, I looked around today for a female-sung cover of "The Passenger." I'd heard one a while back on Indie 103.1 and thought it might be The Pretenders, but nope:

MP3: "The Passenger" by Siouxsie and The Banshees

Siouxsie doesn't add much to the song besides a cheesy 80s horn line (every good 80s song has to have a horn line--and preferably a sax solo), and it's nowhere near as good as the original, but this serves my purposes well enough. Buy it on Twice Upon a Time: The Singles.

MP3: "The Passenger" by Iggy Pop & David Bowie

Here's a live version by Iggy and Bowie--I don't know the provenance, but it seems to be of a more recent vintage. This is a little more manic than the original, with some special new extra-dirty lyrics.

MP3: "Dog Gone" by Frank Black and The Catholics

On which the erstwhile Black Francis proclaims "I'm not the passenger" in what must be a direct allusion to today's subject. The tone here is one of resignation tempered with resolve, as opposed to the near-nihilism of Pop's mocking "la la la"s. Black isn't just riding--he's trying to get somewhere. From Frank Black and The Catholics.

EVERYTHING IDOL FINAL COUNTDOWN:
TWO DAYS

New TV!

In theory, I'm a big fan of heist movies, though now that I think about it I really haven't seen that many. But anyway, I'm a sucker for just about everything associated with the genre: the obligatory bringing-the-team-together scenes, the intricate plans, the double- and triple-crosses, and, most especially, rooting for the bad guys. Though heist movies are about crimes, the heists never feel like crimes, and the thieves never feel like criminals--largely because the people they steal from are even worse. Add to that a corrupt or at least incompetent police force, and it's easy to root for the guy in the nice suit who's just trying to liberate a few million from the casino.

In one of those ideaspace coincidences that pops up every now and then, two new TV shows just premiered that promise to follow the twists and turns of a Big Score over the course of a season (or at least a truncated starting-in-March season). But both shows come at the genre from very different directions, as is readily apparent from their titles: Heist (NBC, Wednesdays, 9:00) is about the score, while Thief (FX, Tuesdays, 10:00) is about the people.

Heist is by far the breezier of the two--it might as well be called Ocean's 11: The Series, though so far it has failed to display the same wit or style as the Soderbergh/Clooney films. Scottish actor Dougray Scott stars as heistmeister Mickey O'Neil, who plans to rob three jewelry stores on Rodeo Drive on Oscar night (in one of the more amusing product-placement deals in recent memory, show sponsor Bulgari is one of these stores). He gathers a motley crew of specialists and pulls off a bank job to bankroll the heist, which sets a team of detectives on his trail. Meanwhile, Mickey starts up an ill-advised romance with the lead detective (frequent The Shield guest-star Michele Hicks--it's always interesting when a long-time bit player like Hicks gets a lead role like this, because you can practically hear her praying that the show doesn't get cancelled), whom he meets-cute at the grocery store while she's shoplifting a pack of razors. By the second episode, of course, it turns out that Mickey isn't just pulling off the heist to get rich, but to get revenge on the guy who runs the stores' security, who just happens to be the guy who shot Mickey and left him for dead seven years ago and then took up with his wife and daughter. This time it's personal, etc. The show's fun in that overcranked quick-cut-LA-b-roll kind of way, but the attempts at Tarantino-esque pop-philosophical dialogue fall flat; Heist is at its best when it throws all attempts at seriousness out the window and lets the gleeful absurdity of the genre take over. My favorite moment so far was when the fat, racist detective (who of course has a wisecracking black partner, and they actually made a pretty funny Lethal Weapon joke about the situation) got stuck in a manhole while trying to follow up on a lead. That kind of stuff is much preferred to yet another scene where Mickey stares wistfully at his daughter playing violin. As the lead, Scott is decent, yet he can't help but compare unfavorably to George Clooney's Danny Ocean; and what's with British/Scottish/Irish/etc. actors getting parts like this, only to have to adopt a flat California accent? Letting Scott speak with his natural brogue could only help, as his charm is continually being undercut by the audible strain of maintaining the American accent. Here's hoping that in episode 4 Mickey reveals that his American parentage is all a ruse, just part of his masterplan; of course, now that NBC has inexplicably moved Heist from 10:00 to 9:00 (opposite Lost), I'll probably never find out.

I can't get too upset, though, because there's still Thief. I've been anticipating this show for what seems like years now, as it's the return to TV of my favorite actor, Homicide's Andre Braugher. Thankfully, it doesn't disappoint. As you can tell from the title, Thief is more about the people pulling off the score than the score itself, and this means it's both slower and deeper than Heist. The first episode starts in San Francisco, where Braugher's Nick Atwater and his crew are doing a job, but soon shifts to Nick's home base of New Orleans (a few b-roll shots make reference to Katrina, but otherwise this seems to have been filmed pre-hurricane). Though, after one episode, Thief hasn't exactly shown us a side of New Orleans we haven't seen before, it at least is a welcome change of pace from the sunny, flashy locales of Heist and Ocean's 11. Like the FX show it replaces, The Shield, Thief's setting infuses the dark, grainy cinematography to give it a distinct look--but whereas The Shield's LA was all sun-blasted yellow, Thief's NO is a rich, almost sickly green, the color of money and envy. Money, in Heist, is an abstract--it's a goal, something to be obtained, something that will inevitably make the lives of the thieves better. In Thief, money is an infection, tearing Nick's team apart nearly from the second the first episode starts. Nick's life is not one of cool cars and sharp suits and cat-and-mouse games with a sexy detective--Nick's a businessman, and stealing is his job.

Thief's richest dramatic vein so far is Nick's family life. He's married to a white woman with a daughter, Tammi, from a previous marriage (Arrested Development fans will be happy to hear that Mae Whitman, aka Ann, aka Egg, aka "Her?" is playing Tammi) who seems to have inherited her father's racist tendencies. Without giving too much away, by the end of the pilot episode, Nick and Tammi are forced into a closer relationship, just as Tammi starts to question what Nick does for a living. This relationship between black stepfather and white stepdaughter promises to be the heart of the show, even while Nick and his crew try to evade a Chinese gang and a corrupt cop and set up a big score. Unlike Heist, which deals with racial issues with post-ironic banter, Thief cuts right to the core, and Braugher is at his best playing a man torn apart by conflicting emotions. He's authoritative and menacing with his crew, bristling when Malik Yoba calls him "dawg" but throwing a "nigger" back at him as tensions rise. As Homicide fans know, Braugher can do righteous indignation better than just about anybody, but here he gets to show a cold-blooded dark side that even Frank Pembleton never went to. The pilot episode ends with Nick remorselessly committing an act of violence, then tenderly comforting Tammi, and in just those two scenes Braugher turns Nick into one of the most fascinating characters on TV. There's still a ways to go before Nick Atwater joins Frank Pembleton in the pantheon, but then again, we've only had one episode of Thief.

EVERYTHING IDOL FINAL COUNTDOWN:
THREE DAYS

Art and Love duke it out on Thursday, and to celebrate there's new stuff every day this week. Like:

The Constant Gardner Update

Saturday night at the Bigfoot with the Grassy Best (at least the hardcore team members who enjoy drinking on Saturday night, then waking up early on Sunday to practice), I ordered a Maker's* and ginger ale, then proceeded to convince the rest of my party to order them as well, and to tell the waitress that the drink was called The Constant Gardner. By the end of the night we were all on the same page. So if you go to the Bigfoot Lodge in Los Feliz, the waitress who looks like Tonya Harding should be able to hook you up with a Constant Gardner. Phase One of my plan for world domination is underway.

*Now that I'm an official Maker's Mark ambassador, thanks to Chris and DJ, I feel like I should promote them as much as possible. But before you accuse me of selling out, realize that it's all part of my nefarious plan to gain worldwide recognition for the Constant Gardner.

Creepy Music

The DJ at the Bigfoot was spinning a mix of mostly 80s punk and new wave, but at one point he played a melancholy dance song that I couldn't quite place, though I knew I had heard it before. When I got home I googled the only lyrics I could remember--"goodbye horses"--and discovered this frighteningly in-depth history. Oh my god, it's the song Buffalo Bill's listening to when he dresses up like a woman!

MP3: "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazzarus

A fine song, to be sure, but once you make that mental connection with Ted Levine's tuck-and-roll, it's impossible to hear it without feeling a little squeamish. It's the same effect I get with pretty much every song David Lynch has ever used in a movie.

I guess no mention of Silence of the Lambs-related music can go without a reference to Silence! the musical. My dad recently brought it to my attention, but I first heard about it on The Tofu Hut (which I was prepared to go all RIP over, but he seems to be posting regularly again. Woo!). Anyway, at that Silence! link you can hear a new track from the musical, "I'd Fuck Me," which manages to be even creepier than "Goodbye Horses."