Had a highly enjoyable weekend. On Saturday, went to see Capturing the Friedmans, which was every bit as great as the critics say. (As usual, don’t trust Kenneth Turan — the man is rarely right.)
Director Andrew Jarecki got the participation of most of the Friedman family for this documentary — but not the family’s middle son, Seth, who didn’t want to be interviewed. Trivia: Seth Friedman is better known to ’90s zine readers as the guy behind Factsheet 5, the epicenter of the zine world. (It was sort of the Blogdex of the pre-blog era.) He also edited a great book on zines, The Factsheet Five Zine Reader.
Seth’s taken down his web site, replacing it with just one sentence: “Due to concerns about my privacy this site has been removed.”
Those who’ve seen the film will find this piece by Debbie Nathan (the reporter in the movie) enlightening.
Last night, I trekked up to Denton to see the Pernice Brothers. Great show, if too sparsely attended. (Maybe 60-70 people.) Joe, the head Pernice, was in fine form, and guitarist Peyton Pinkerton dished out licks of such high quality that they matched the majesty of his name, one of the finest in rock history.
The one downside: Joe dedicated one of the songs (“Bum Leg” off the Big Tobacco album) to his brother, whose house he said burned down Saturday. I presume he meant Bob Pernice, who’s a guitarist in the band (but isn’t playing on this tour). Sad news.
A final piece of trivia: Joe revealed during the encore that “Grudge Fuck,” his classic song from his days in the Scud Mountain Boys, was written in response to the Gin Blossoms’ hit “Hey Jealousy.” His girlfriend at the time thought “Hey Jealousy” was a touching song about reclaiming a lost relationship. Joe: “I knew it was about getting laid.”
30 June 2003 |
2 comments
I just found out that my Pew Fellowship will also include a 2.5-day training course run by the Centurion Risk Assessment Group. It’s called “Hostile Environments and Emergency First Aid Training,” which is a shortened version of this five-day program.
Among the issues covered: ballistics awareness, how to react to a hostage taking, the pros and cons of wearing personal protective equipment, mines and booby traps, working with helicopters/light aircraft, and my personal favorite, “Controlling bleeds (gunshot/stab/mine blast injuries, etc.)”
Basically, British ex-Marines will yell at me for extended periods of time. Boot camp for budding foreign correspondents. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am.
30 June 2003 |
3 comments
Never mind all my Chanda optimism. She just lost in straight sets to 27th-seeded Silvia Farina Elia, 7-6 (6-8), 6-3. Frustrating.
She is still alive in doubles with Daniela Hantuchova, who’s gone into a slump after (for some ungodly reason) trying to lose weight.
27 June 2003 |
1 comment
Evidence No. 2,304 that crabwalk.com gets things done: Remember that post last month about monkeyphonecall.com and its Dallas connections?
Well, it just so happens that a crabwalk.com reader also works for D Magazine, our local city mag. Which is why in this month’s issue, you’ll find this crabwalk-inspired piece (second item).
Among the revelations: Mr. Monkeyphonecall has grossed around $10,000 with his e-biz. That’s more than amazon.com! And this great quote: “When I was a kid, my mom always used to tell me, ‘Lars, just do what you love, and one day you’ll figure out a way to make money doing it.’ I think she intended that I would love being a doctor or an attorney. But the truth is, I just love making monkey noises.”
Sadly, the article only uses Lars’ first name. I have no such restraints, Lars Hundley of 5200 Martel Avenue!
(Also, props to Adam for uncovering Lars’ connection to origamiboulder.com, which my research had not uncovered. Now complete with vaguely offensive Charlie Chan dialogue!)
27 June 2003 |
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I’ll be in Denver from July 11 to 16 for a conference and a little R&R. If there are any Coloradan crabwalk.com readers in the hizzouse, the first beer’s on me. And any advice on fun things to do in Denver would be appreciated. (Note: I don’t need any advice on things to do in Denver when you’re dead.) I’m thinking of climbing one of the easier fourteeners.
27 June 2003 |
6 comments
Now taking all applications for people who’d like to see the Pernice Brothers Sunday night at Rubber Gloves in Denton.
25 June 2003 |
1 comment
Chanda wins again, 6-4, 6-4 over a pained Amy Frazier. Next is, as predicted, Silvia Farina Elia. I’m just not seeing any difficulty for C.R. until the quarters.
Here’s a good Chanda story saying that “[n]ever in her 12-year pro career has Rubin been in a better position to reach the final of a Grand Slam.” It’s positive enough that I’ll forgive the writer’s silly Louisianaisms (“the whisper-quiet young woman from Carencro, La., a Lafayette suburb where there are more bayous than streets” — puh-leeze).
Did I not mention that Chanda won at Eastbourne last week, beating Capriati before finishing off Conchita Martinez? Or that it’s her second straight year winning Eastbourne?
25 June 2003 |
1 comment
I’m not sure I can read this guy’s web site ever again. Too scary.
24 June 2003 |
1 comment
I have to agree with Gene Weingarten: the third paragraph of this story is truly magnificent.
24 June 2003 |
2 comments
ChandaWatch returns to crabwalk.com! Chanda won her first-round Wimbledon match easily, crushing the once formidable Iva Majoli, 6-3, 6-0. Her path forward doesn’t look too rough: likely Amy Frazier in the second, Silvia Farina Elia in the third, a Maleeva in the fourth. Clijsters looms in the quarters, but Chanda has always done well on grass. I will boldly predict that this is the time for a Chanda breakthrough to the semis, which would be her first since the Australian in 1996.
Meanwhile, I’m back to AppleWatch, my obsessive trait of checking as many Mac news sites as possible during any major Steve Jobs address, this time the WWDC. (Nine Mac-related browser windows open at the moment.) If I weren’t about to live in a hotel room for four months and thus be stuck in a laptop lifestyle, the temptation to buy one of the new G5 towers he’s certain to announce in a few minutes would be overpowering.
23 June 2003 |
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A take on the Greg Packer situation. (Packer’s the guy who has committed his life to being quoted as the “man on the street” in newspaper stories.)
“I think the reason Packer is quoted so often is that journalists hate man-on-the-street interviews. It’s demeaning to have to scan a crowd of total strangers, seaching for someone who looks like he or she might have something quotable to say, and won’t tell you to get lost. What a relief to spot a Packer at the head of the line, ready and eager to give you a sound bite.”
So very true — MOTS stories are painful, for me at least. (That’s probably why my education stories always have too many men in suits and “experts” and too few teachers, parents, and students.)
Unfortunately, the author falls into one of the most annoying columnist tics — making a strong, coherent argument, realizing it might be taken as too extreme by your editors, and then completely reversing course with a few “I didn’t really mean it” paragraphs at the end.
23 June 2003 |
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Great track listing for the new Locust album (third item):
01 Recyclable Body Fluids In Human Shape
05 Earwax Halo Manufactured For The Champion In All Of Us
09 Teenage Mustache
11 Anything Jesus Does, I Can Do Better
12 Late For A Double-Date With A Pile Of Atoms In The Watercloset
13 File Under “Softcore Seizures”
16 The Half-Eaten Sausage Would Like To See You In His Office
17 Pulling The Christmas Pig By The Wrong Pair Of Ears
18 Can We Please Get Another Nail In The Coffin Of Culture Theft
19 Your Mantel Disguised As A Psychic Sasquatch
22 Priest With The Sexually Transmitted Disease, Get Out Of My Bed
23 Pick-Up Truck Full Of Forty-Minutes
I am confident that the songs themselves will not be as good as their titles.
23 June 2003 |
1 comment
Here’s my story from Saturday’s paper on Felipe Alanis’ surprise resignation. (Surprising to me, at least. I suppose I’ve overrated my pluggedinness.)
23 June 2003 |
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Here’s my story from today’s front page, on what I promise will be my last test-score story for a while. I hope.
Austinites, clear your calendars for next Thursday and Friday, when the Red Stick Ramblers — the official Cajun gypsy swing band of crabwalk.com — will be playing the Cactus Cafe and the Continental Club.
Me, I’m going to Austin tonight to get away from Big D for a while. Back on Monday.
20 June 2003 |
1 comment
Here’s my story from today’s front page, the eighth and final installment in my Schools That Work series. It’s on an alternative high school in Houston that does great things with kids at risk of dropping out. You can find all eight stories in the series at that link.
I’ll also be on tomorrow’s front page and on TXCN sometime this afternoon, repeating through the evening.
19 June 2003 |
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If you were to try — really try — to draw up a more cretinous regulation of Internet content than what the EU’s proposing, I’m not sure you could.
Combined with the silly libel laws over the pond, Europe is hell on media law.
18 June 2003 |
3 comments
If you’re a Dallasite (blogger or no), show up for the DFWBlogs happy hour tonight at one of my favorite Dallas haunts, the Meridian Room. (That is, it’s one of my favorite Dallas haunts on those rare occasions when I leave my apartment.)
18 June 2003 |
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If there has to be a photo of me floating around, it might as well be a good one. (That was shot by Rannie during SXSW.)
18 June 2003 |
4 comments
Dude, I didn’t know until just now that my photo was in the Austin Chronicle back in March. (I’m the one with a full head of hair. Not my best photo.)
16 June 2003 |
6 comments
A boring, yet strangely mesmerizing video for the Shins’ “New Slang.” Just a girl on a porch, staring into the camera and lip-syncing the song. The way she breaks up laughing at the end just makes you fall in love. (Trivia: That’s Kim Baxter of the All-Star Summer Fun Band.) I like it much better than the other (official?) video for the song.
And it’s about damned time the Shins record another album. Their last one was gorgeous.
16 June 2003 |
3 comments
Remember my post a few days ago about Greg Packer, the guy who mysteriously shows up as the “man on the street” in seemingly every story based in New York?
As Jon pointed out in the comments, ol’ Greg is a known quantity — a fame whore, basically. The mainstream media’s on it, too. (Here’s AP’s version.)
16 June 2003 |
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That’s what I get for not checking in at laexaminer.com for a couple weeks: they’ve up and relaunched. What was once a smart media-centric site (run by West Coast bloglords Layne and Welch) has now become a low-rent SoCal Gawker. Maybe they’ll hit their stride, but I’m not seeing it yet (and I’m a Gawker fan). The tone’s off, and the design’s goofy.
Meanwhile, the old laexaminer.com role appears to have fallen to the new laobserved.com.
Also noted: “Los Angeles is the world’s first and only city to receive its own unique Internet address: .la.” How strange is that? Can Dallas now get .dl or .ds? Or .df for the Metroplex?
Of course the added bonus is that .la works perfectly well for Louisiana web sites. I immediately tried to register www.rayne.la (in homage to my hometown), but the site says it’s already been registered. Doubtful.
16 June 2003 |
1 comment
Here’s my story from today’s front page, on Texas’ new efforts to sell its standardized tests to folks out of state. I believe (cross your fingers) that this is my last standardized test story for a while. Praise be.
I had to work a 3 p.m.-to-midnight shift Saturday night, and I thought it would be a fine time to catch up on some blogging. Alas, I ended up spending the whole damned shift dodging mosquitoes and tracking escaped convicts. Here’s that story.
16 June 2003 |
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Last year, I posted about a great boozy-Muppet video by the Starlight Mints. Unfortunately, the version I linked to broke about halfway through the song.
So to make up for that year-old slight, I now present you, in full and unbroken Quicktime glory, the Starlight Mints’ “Popsicle.”
(Their new album is quite good, too.)
14 June 2003 |
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Here’s my story from today’s paper, a middling effort on the Hispanic dropout problem.
13 June 2003 |
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Words I never thought I’d say: Ann Coulter may be on to something. Who is Greg Packer, what does he know, and when did he know it?
Reminds me of the highest honor a journalist can receive, membership in the Occult Hand Society (see June 4 entry). (Don’t believe me?)
12 June 2003 |
1 comment
If anyone’s interested, here’s the press release on my Zambia trip.
Regular blogging to return soon, I pledge.
11 June 2003 |
6 comments
Don’t you even try to stop me from ordering what will someday no doubt be declared Book of the Last Several Millennia: Carol J. Adams’ epic The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory. A real page-turner, I’m sure! I’m particularly heartened by the five-star review from one “Gwen”:
“I was so moved by this extraordinary text. Interrogating the assumptions of white male Women beaters/meat eaters, this important work examines how the white dominating and oppressive culture dictates that the eating of meat is ‘good’ and even ‘necessary’, subject Peoples of Color to dietary regimes alien to their own subjectivities. As the writer notes, there is considerable resistance among patriarchal-dominated discourses to vegetarianism. This resistance is a form of textual rape, to be combatted by a ‘taste of their own medicine’: ‘A vegetarian writer may express feelings about textual violation by referring to images of butchered animals and raising the issue of dismemberment.’ A wonderful book, highly recommended.”
Hey, meat lovers! Bet you didn’t know you were a textual rapist!
09 June 2003 |
10 comments
Hey, kids! No matter what Finding Nemo says, don’t flush your fish and expect them to reach the ocean.
A company that manufactures equipment used to process sewage issued a news release Thursday warning that drain pipes do lead to the ocean — eventually — but first the fluid goes through powerful machines that “shred solids into tiny particles.”
“In truth, no one would ever find Nemo and the movie would be called ‘Grinding Nemo,’” wrote the JWC Environmental company, which makes the trademarked “Muffin Monster” shredding pumps.
06 June 2003 |
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Since I no longer have the CDMOM as an outlet, I’ll just tell you it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to an album as obsessively as I have been to Consonant’s self-titled debut. I love those dense drums and that meth-fueled energy.
I also like the back story of band leader Clint Conley: bassist for seminal early-’80s post-punk band Mission of Burma, 15 years away from music (including his current day job as a producer on a TV news show), then a new band assembled from indie-rock superstars (including ex-Dallasite Matt Kadane, formerly of Bedhead and currently of The New Year).
(Trivia: That last link mentions a Bedhead show in Cleveland seven years ago. “It was a Wednesday night, there were a couple of hundred people there to see us, and we couldn’t figure out why all these people who were there to see us were yelling and just causing a ruckus the entire time. We basically had confrontations with the audience, because there were people who just wouldn’t shut up, yelling for songs and things. It was one of the most bizarre shows we ever played. I’m kind of scared about going back!” I was there! It was July 4, and I was in Cleveland to visit my buddy I-Huei, now making rock history as a member of Sea Ray. It was actually a great show, in a divey storefront space downtown. When it was over, the fireworks were going off over the Cuyahoga River.
One final note: Sea Ray has finally crossed over from “best unsigned band in America” to proud new member of the Self-Starter Foundation family, which makes them brothers of Clem Snide, Enon, Les Savy Fav, The Mooney Suzuki, and other fine acts. New Sea Ray album out this summer — I’ve heard just about all of the tracks in one form or another and trust me — it’ll be worth your $12.)
06 June 2003 |
6 comments
Here’s my story on today’s front page, about why Texas high schools suck. (I phrase it differently in the story.) I forgot to mention it here, but I was also on TXCN last night.
Meanwhile, if the person who replaced my throat with a rusty razor-stuffed pipe could please return my esophagus, I would appreciate it. Thank you.
05 June 2003 |
No comments
Braggart Watch: Longtime readers may remember that last year, I led my team to victory in the Dallas Association of Young Lawyers first annual trivia bowl. I, as the non-lawyer ringer, teamed with my college chum Dena (an actual attorney-at-law) to rip through the much better-paid competition. (Well, better paid than me. I can’t speak for Dena.)
Well, this year, we tried again (with a new and valuable teammate, Henry). The odds were against us, as they are against all returning champions. Our opponents included: a team we humiliated last year that recruited a new member purely to counteract me, a team with a former Win Ben Stein’s Money contestant, and a high-powered team anchored by a retired judge.
But the results were the same. You are now reading the weblog of the two-time Dallas Association of Young Lawyers trivia bowl champion. The highlight from tonight’s playoffs: a rousing comeback in the semis, from down 210-90 at the halfway point to a 300-220 victory. (Not to mention a 440-130 shellacking of His Honor in the finals.) I now stand at 19-0 in trivia bowl competition, the longest winning streak by a Cajun in bowl history.
The concludes tonight’s edition of Braggart Watch.
03 June 2003 |
6 comments
I can’t decide which is more annoying: having to listen to a coworker spend two hours on the phone with a customer service rep, complaining (unjustifiably, in my opinion) about some alleged wrong that has been done to him, swearing and yelling — or listening to him brag about his manly, tough phone call for the rest of the day, as if he’d just killed a wild lion with his bare hands.
03 June 2003 |
3 comments
Alas, Chanda’s run comes to a halt, as I feared, with a 6-3, 6-2 loss to Henin-Hardenne. Not that it matters much, since she would have been mowed down by Serena in the semis if she’d won, but still sad — Chanda’s still waiting for that breakthrough.
That said, she stalled in the fourth round of each of the last four majors, so this was an improvement — her first appearance in the quarters at a major since 2000, and just her second since injuries started messing with her game in ‘96.
Anyway, I’ve got a good feeling about Wimbledon.
She also remains alive in the quarters of women’s doubles with Daniela Hantuchova, who I may have mentioned earlier is hot, hot, hot.
03 June 2003 |
4 comments
I just optioned my first story to Hollywood. So if you ever see an inspirational movie-of-the-week about a small-town Texas school that turns itself around, you know who to thank.
02 June 2003 |
1 comment
The perils of not shaving your mustache.
“Real-life Hitler look-alikes continued to get stopped at customs, and as late as 1969, German authorities were still rounding up men who resembled Hitler — including one retired miner, Albert Pankla, whose refusal to change his hairstyle or shave his mustache led to his arrest, he claimed, on some 300 occasions.”
02 June 2003 |
1 comment
Here’s my column from today’s paper, on why Texas test scores dropped this year. (Some day I will write about something other test scores, I promise.)
I also just noticed the paper’s publishing my bio with my column online.
02 June 2003 |
2 comments
Chanda is into the French quarters, with a victory over Petra Mandula. She dropped the first set 4-6, but rallied to win 6-2, 7-5. Next is Justine Henin-Hardenne, who I fear will be too much for our Rubinator.
For what it’s worth, Chanda’s also in the third round of women’s doubles with her partner, uberhottie Daniela Hantuchova. (By the way, the guy who runs that Hantuchova site must be about 12 years old — check out his collection of drawings.)
02 June 2003 |
No comments
