November Rain, revisited.

fuKhGI watched November Rain last night for the first time in a couple of decades. And Man! The production values! I’m quite certain that Kevin Smith made Clerks for a fraction of what this nine-minute video cost.
Observations:
  • It’s an Axl/Slash love-fest with hints of Duff and a couple of overhead shots of the drummer.  Was Izzy even a part of the band at that point?
  • There’s a probably-not-intended bromance thing going on. Why does Slash leave the church mid-wedding? Is he sad to lose Axl? Don’t worry Slash, you will soon get to comfort your buddy while he mourns.
  • The sweeping helicopter shots of the guitar solo outside the church are amazing! And very fun to think of the steps of filming them. (We need a church in the middle of nowhere. Lots of–what’s that color? Not gold–gold’s too glitzy. We need contrast here. Amber! No, not the girl! Amber’s the color I’m looking for. And then we need to see Slash from all sides! Don’t neglect the back. And there should be movement! We’ve got the helicopter for five hours! Don’t waste it!)
  • With all the costumes and trappery, no one noticed that Axl is sporting a mustache equivalent to a consummation stalled by impotence.
  • Slash however, looks good. Slash always looks good. I just googled him. Both the jeans and flannel on top of the piano and the leather jacket and chaps totally work. Still.
  • The smoking! Do musicians smoke so much in their videos anymore?
  • I have always loved, and still love, that wedding dress. Probably because it was made for a model, not for a 5’3″ normal-looking female.
  • I had forgotten the wedding-to-death transition. So abrupt!
  • The color change of wedding bouquet to flowers on the casket. Amazing! So obvious and yet so effective!

(Image from: http://i.imgur.com/fuKhG.jpg)

If you’re going to die, you might as well do so on a slow news day.

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Because if you do, you might get a front page cover story, that continues for another half-page inside.  And also a reprint of a past concert review.

Here are my Prince memories:

  • The preview for Purple Rain played during at least one, and perhaps more, movies my family attended that summer.  Maybe during Ghostbusters?  At any rate, I have a strong memory of my dad reacting as if the movie was not for us to see. I was too young then, of course, but I’ve never actually gotten around to watching it.
  • I really liked the song “Little Red Corvette” and I think my mom did too.  I have vague memories of watching the video, perhaps at the neighbor’s house as we didn’t have cable then.
  • “When Doves Cry” was one of those songs that imprinted on me, though I mostly associate it with Romeo+Juliet, where it was used effectively in the soundtrack.
  • The Batman album.  That theme song was all over the radio that summer.  “Did you ever dance with the devil in the pale moonlight?/Batdance!”  My brother may have even had the soundtrack on cassette tape.  Funny that I haven’t heard mention of this album AT ALL in the millions of laudatory words written about Prince.
  • My brother and are watching the video music awards and Prince is singing in a bright yellow suit.  It’s all par for the course.  And then he spun.  And we looked at each other, our jaws dropped.  Because there was no butt in that suit!
    (image from http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160421153519-03-prince-fashion-prince-get-off–restricted-super-169.jpg)160421153519-03-prince-fashion-prince-get-off--restricted-super-169
  • Two iconic Prince songs I associate more with white artists, which is interesting.  “Kiss” was first introduced to me by Tom Jones.  When Julia Roberts sang along to the song in the bathtub, in Pretty Woman, I was surprised to hear her say, “you gotta love Prince.”  Watch that Tom Jones video at your peril.  It’s heavy on the rad computer graphics.  And of course, Nothing Compares 2 U, the video of which was on repeat ad infinitum, letting us all think that we’d look as good as Sinead O’Connor if we shaved our heads.  I hated that song until I loved it.
  • I can’t say I’m a huge fan of Prince and I don’t know if I could name a song of his after 1990, but an earlier-than-usual death is never a good thing.

The old Portland

I grew up in Boise, Idaho, but my grandparents and aunts lived in Portland so we visited at least twice a year.  Portland was the big city, where you always locked your car in the mall parking lot, where there was a bus system that people actually used, where I routinely tried not to stare at skinheads and homeless people.IMG_5212

In Heavier than Heaven, Charles Cross’s biography of Kurt Cobain, he describes Portland in the late 80s and early 90s as (I’m paraphrasing here) a city, but a blue-collar city, still showing its roots in logging and shipping.  And that’s what I remember of downtown Portland growing up.  Sure, it had Meier and Frank and the ten stories of goods, plus a fancy restaurant to replenish your appetite during a day of shopping.  But it was also full of buildings like this one, single story and dingy looking and in need of a face lift.  My memories of walking around downtown Portland as a child are gray (probably because of the perpetually overcast skies) and crowded (many Portland streets are not very wide).

Those dingy buildings are disappearing so quickly.  Just looking at the edges of this photo you can see the changes happening.  The shiny building to the left of the Passport Photo place was a similarly dingy restaurant equipment supply store until a few years ago.  And in the upper left you can see additional stories grafted onto a building on the Park Blocks that has been purposed into mixed-use condominiums.  On the upper right is a huge condo complex the likes of which I will never be able to afford and I can’t even tell you what kind of buildings used to be there.

It’s a time of big changes for the blue-collar logging town.  Some of them I love, some of them I don’t.  I just hope that through the changes Portland says a city I’m crazy in love with.

Three sentence movie reviews: Serenity

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I think this is the first time I watched the tv series followed by the movie, as I’m pretty sure I watched the movie having not watched the show.  I think it works well as a stand-alone, although why anyone would want to only watch the movie when there are fourteen fabulous episodes of quality TV is beyond me.  This is the movie where I learned Joss Whedon never gets overly attached to his characters.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2005/serenity.html
(wow, do I not like this poster.  The other two were not good either.)

Firefly Butt-Numb-a-thon

What if we watched all of the Firefly episodes plus Serenity in one day?  As the person posing the question was the person who put together watching all three extended versions of Lord of the Rings in one day, this marathon came to pass.

And since the other half of this plan was one of the people who planned Laurie’s 40th birthday party in Italy, this was an event.

I did not start at the beginning of the party, due to volunteer commitments.  Instead, I arrived at 12:15 during the half-hour lunch break to this amazing spread.IMG_5205

Notice the level of detail!IMG_5203 IMG_5204

The Hot Cheese was good, especially paired with Frito’s
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Fancy sandwiches, labeled in both English and Chinese.  And this lunch spread was just the beginning.  There was a food prop/bonus to go with each episode. For example, “Jaynestown” came with Mudder’s Milk which was an amazing bourbon and milk concoction whipped up by Darla.IMG_5207

Can you name this Firefly episode?IMG_5208

I had planned on only staying for a few episodes, not wanting to sit for so long.  But I started with Episode 6, “Our Mrs. Reynolds” which was followed by “Jaynestown” and then “Out of Gas” and after that trifecta, who could leave?  I ended up staying until the end, clocking in 11 hours of a magical show that never should have been cancelled.

Thanks to Laurie and Darla for such a fun time.

When you’re a former Beatle…

Apparently all your tour trucks match.IMG_5196

Paul McCartney is in town for a show tonight.IMG_5197

I loved also discovering this mini-bike attached to the back of the truck below.   Plus, it reminded me of the time in high school that a bunch of us loaded into Cindy’s family Jeep Wagoneer (aka the Jalapeno Wagon) and drove up and down the Interstate talking to truckers on the CB radio.  Lori was really good at it, taking the handle Cotton Candy.  We convinced a trucker to stop for a late dinner at the Flying J truck stop with six lovely ladies who all wanted to meet him.  He laughed so hard when he saw a table full of giggling under-aged girls waiting for him.  Then he sat down and we had a very nice chat about his truck driving life.  He liked driving trucks better than the desk job he had before.

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Postcard from Minnesota.

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It’s New Year’s/Easter greetings from regular commentor Sara and occasional commentor Shawn.  And I make an appearance on this year’s card!  Can you find me?  It seems I’m actually on the card twice, but was smeared out by the mailing process. Aside from playing the guitar with Sara, I’m also to the left of Archie the cat on the bottom-middle of the card.

And now we can officially put 2015 to a close!

Say goodbye to two houses and easy street parking.

My neighbor who knows what’s going on in the neighborhood told me the sad news.  There’s going to be a development of mixed-use apartments like we saw with the site of the former City of Roses Motel.  I don’t have specifications yet, but I’m guessing there won’t be parking, or much parking included.  Given that this is one block north of our house, Matt and I can probably say goodbye to easy street parking.

And we shall soon say goodbye to three structures including this beautiful duplex, which is still in great shape.  No word on if the tree will survive.IMG_5187

Here’s the duplex from the other side.  One of the tenants, now long gone, was the first person to welcome me to the neighborhood, back in 2007.IMG_5188

The commercial building will also go.  I had some plans to tear it down and make a big garden. 🙂  But that won’t be happening.IMG_5189

And this pretty little house, which my neighbor says is also really nice inside.IMG_5190

Which means we will also lose this lilac tree.IMG_5192

Again, I must be careful in my lamenting as my current duplex residence also replaced a single family house.  And it didn’t include parking either.  I’ve been thinking more about this issue lately because the City Club just did a study about affordable housing and the membership voted to amend the report to re-zone single family neighborhoods to increase density.  And there was this very intriguing interview with Sonja Trauss of SF BARF saying yes, big projects should be built.  I found myself agreeing with her logic, but also resisting because I hate to see houses that are well cared for destroyed for something big and ugly and usually hugely over-priced.

Requiem: microplane grater

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I can no longer remember who bought me this grater.  My best guess is that it was my Aunt Carol as she enjoys going to the kitchen stores.  But I’ve had it for probably 10 years or more and it’s been a good grater.  So good that I went out and bought a new one the next day.  Thanks microplane grater. You did a lot of work in your time.