I Hope I Have Electricity Too

With a nod to ‘Coma for recently citing two of my favorite movies of all time, if I am stuck on a deserted island with nothing but a TV and a DVD player and only ten DVDs, I believe I can get by with these. In no particular order:

1. River’s Edge – In the Nineties and pre-DVD days, I practically killed myself to get a VHS copy of this off eBay. Crispin Glover is a madman (in real life and on camera) – and was wonderful in the Back to the Future films – but he truly shines here in seriously disturbing and unnerving glory. Say what you will about Keanu Reeves, and yes, he’s played the same role a million times, but it suits him no better than in this film. The film is SUPPOSED to be disturbing and so are the characters. And to boot, it’s based on a true story. Side Trivia: Ione Skye Leitch, daughter of ’60s music icon Donovan, appears as Keanu’s love interest in the film, one of her first (Gas Food Lodging is another good one featuring her). She is also the ex-wife of Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys, and had a long-term live-in relationship with Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
2. Heathers – Quite possibly my fave film of all time ever. Yeah, it’s starting to look a little dated now but that only adds to its charm nowadays. And the setting is Westerburg (sic) High School – need I say more? There are so many fabulous tongue-in-cheek in-jokes in this movie – the Heathers, Betty & Veronica, millions more – it’s just beautiful. Back in the days when I actually used to go OUT to the movies, I saw this one about five times in the theater in the same month. Side Trivia: Kim Walker, who played Heather Duke (the first dead Heather) was dating Christian Slater at the time, but they broke up during filming of the movie. Walker later developed a brain tumor and died in 2001 at the age of 32.
3. Say Anything… – There have been few John Cusack movies I haven’t adored, but director Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything… is THE one. I have referenced Lloyd Dobler on this blog so many times over the years (as well as other Cusack films), I have a separate John Cusack category on the blog. I would have a super hard time picking a favorite scene, but my favorite is probably when Lloyd confronts the guys sitting outside the Gas ‘N Sip. Lili Taylor does a marvelous turn as well in this flick, and her songs about Joe (especially the one – you know the one) always have me in fits of giggles on the floor while watching. Side Trivia: Ione Skye also appears in this one, as Lloyd’s love interest Diane. The Replacement’s “Within Your Reach” is also notably featured in this film, which of course is another of the million reasons I fell in love with it so hard.
4. Gremlins – I can’t even talk about how much I have always loved this movie without crying. I haven’t watched it in many, many years for the same reason. I first saw it while on summer vacation in a theater in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1984. Side Trivia: Judge Reinhold & Phoebe Cates also appeared together in another fondly remembered for me film of the ’80s, Cameron Crowe’s (again) Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It’s not one of my very favorites and it’s certainly gotten dated, but it is still funny, especially if you grew up in the ’80s.
5. Less Than Zero – Another, to borrow a phrase, ’80s “the kids are NOT all right” film, and another I practically paid an arm and a leg for to get a VHS copy of back in the ’90s. This one is akin to a John Hughes movie gone all wrong. It’s got its problems and on the surface would appear to be really out there as far as the whole wealthy and disaffected youth thing, but it’s really not as implausible as one would think. The details of the scenes themselves may have been different, but mainly due to geographics – the base story existed all over the country at the time, including Nashville. Side Trivia: Oh, James Spader, how despicable you are in this film, but how I adore you anyway and have in every film you’ve ever been in.
6. Sid & Nancy – And thus begun the rest of my lifelong adoration of Gary Oldman as well. There are much better films he’s been in (and I love each and every one of them), but Alex Cox’s Sid & Nancy was his first big role, and there was just no one else who could have been a more perfect Sid Vicious. It’s the most disturbing and disgusting and sickening love story and everything punk was, a beautiful film in all its ugliness and has one of the best soundtracks ever. My friend Jen used to do the best Chloe Webb doing Nancy (“SIIIIIIIIID!”) that would have me rolling in the floor. Side Trivia: Look for an extremely young Courtney Love in a few scenes as one of Nancy Spungen’s pals.
7. Drugstore Cowboy – I used to not think very highly of Matt Dillon as an actor until this one came out, and I became a fan of Gus Van Sant’s films on this one. Like many of my favorites, it’s disturbing and difficult to watch, but one of the greatest things about this film is that even though the story is pitiful and pathetic, Matt Dillon is SO funny in it. Under the surface of all the dirty drug addiction tale, this movie is hilarious. Also has an excellent soundtrack of gems from the time of the film’s setting, including The Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction”, Desmond Dekker’s “The Israelites”, Gary Lewis & the Playboys’ “Judy in Disguise”, and Hazel, KY/slash/Puryear, TN (my home county) native Jackie DeShannon’s “Put a Little Love in Your Heart”. Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho is also pretty good though a little faulty; this one is better. Side Trivia: Matt Dillon’s first big film role as a young teen was in another big all-time favorite of mine that has become a cult classic of sorts, Over the Edge – another one that has gotten very ’70s dated over time but still well worth watching, plus then-not-so-known Cheap Trick is largely featured on the soundtrack. As a commenter on iMDB noted, Over the Edge was “a teen movie that gets it right”.
8. Dogs in Space – An Australian film you’ve probably never heard of and another disaffected youth mostly on drugs flick, but this time based in Melbourne’s post-punk scene of the late ’70s – and also based on more true stories, and starring – yes – the late Michael Hutchence of INXS. This film is such a favorite of mine I paid an extremely huge amount of money to get the VHS tape in the ’90s, and the last time I checked on DVD prices (which admittedly has been a few years now) it could be had for $200-350 – that price has probably gone down by now. Very much a “slice of life” flick and disturbing in places to watch, but it’s excellent and also has a soundtrack far beyond excellent – Iggy Pop, Nick Cave/Boys Next Door, Brian Eno, Gang of Four, and some more legends of the time as well as the fab tracks done by Hutchence and crew.  An iMDB commenter said, “This is for when you’re feeling like you need some company, but you don’t feel like venturing past your doorstep” – I agree.  Side Trivia: The real Sam Sejavka, who fronted Melbourne band The Ears in the late ’70s and is played by Hutchence in the film, appears in the movie twice and is addressed by Hutchence in the party scene as “Michael”.
9. Quandary: Real Genius or The Doors – I can’t help it, I do love me some Val Kilmer, and if I could take another dozen or so films I’d be taking all the Val Kilmer films as well as the entire John Hughes oeuvre with me. Real Genius is so freakin’ hilarious through and through and I defy anyone to disagree with me. Oliver Stone’s epic The Doors has got its problems but it mostly gets it right and dang, Kilmer did such a dead-on Jim Morrison it’s almost creepy, I can’t help it, I think his performance in this film was brilliant. This was another I saw probably eight times or more while it was still first-run in the theater. Probably in the end, The Doors would win out, but jeez, it’d be a tough call. Side Trivia: Kilmer did most of the singing in the film himself and even the surviving Doors (Manzarek, Krieger, and Densmore) admitted they had a hard time telling the difference. So did I the first time I saw the film; I had no idea it wasn’t Jim Morrison’s vocals. On that basis alone, par excellence. Also look for a fairly large number of Doors associates and other scenesters of the time, including producer Paul Rothchild, Patricia Kennealy, singer Bonnie Bramlett, Eric Burdon of The Animals, and a Door himself – drummer John Densmore – in cameo appearances.
10. Another tough call – Birdy or Platoon? – My decades-long adoration of and obsession with Matthew Modine is only barely outweighed by John Cusack and only slightly precedes James Spader, and having to decide between these two films is awful, though Birdy would probably win out in the end. This also meant I had to toss out another huge Modine favorite and an underappreciated and hugely funny one that probably doesn’t appear on many favorites lists, Married to the Mob. All three are fabulous films for their own reasons. Side Trivia: Having now mentioned Birdy, I also have to mention two more that didn’t make the cut – Valley Girl and Raising Arizona, all featuring Modine’s Birdy co-star Nicolas Cage, also good. Valley Girl, which was really Cage’s big film break, is worth it for The Plimsouls on stage alone. Wow, I first saw that one at the drive-in in 1983.

God, that was awful to try to choose ten and I still didn’t really succeed. Here are a few more – runners-up, I suppose – that didn’t make the final cut:

1. Edward Scissorhands – I love this movie in all its goofy glory so much it makes me cry and it killed me to leave it off the list. In retrospect, I might have to swap one of the above for it. Side Trivia: Speaking of Tim Burton, there’s also Beetlejuice, of course.
2. Pretty much all of the John Hughes Brat Pack-era movies (which you likely knew was coming) and Joel Schumacher’s St. Elmo’s Fire – It’d be a hard call, but St. Elmo’s Fire would be the first cut ‘cos it’s almost too cheesy. Some Kind of Wonderful and Pretty in Pink, I love but could live without. The Breakfast Club is, well, The Breakfast Club, but it’s not my very favorite. It’d come down to a tremendously agonizing tug of war between Sixteen Candles and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and I honestly don’t know which would win. Ferris would probably win, though. Even though – Side Trivia: John Cusack makes his second film appearance in a small part as one of the geeks in Sixteen Candles.
3. Ciao! Manhattan – As much as I adore this, which is not so much a real film per se but more of a collection of some of the few remaining pieces of film footage of Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick, as well as many other Factory scenesters, I just can’t justify it being one of the ten. Still, it’d be hard. Side Trivia: I hear the DVD, which I still don’t own, has loads of extra footage and modern commentary by some of the actors from what was supposed to have been the original film, and I’m dying to see it.
4. Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains – Unless you had The Movie Channel or HBO in the early ’80s, you probably don’t know this film; it’s been out of print and unavailable for decades. I had a taped copy for years and the tape finally broke seven or eight years ago. This was one of Diane Lane’s earliest films and also features a very young Laura Dern. It’s an excellent film and, along with the aforementioned Over the Edge, is as responsible for my musical obsessions/addictions as any piece of recorded music is. I was pleasantly shocked and surprised to see co-star Ray Winstone’s name for the first time in years when he turned up in the multi-award winning Nil By Mouth in 1997. The good news is that after years of fans pleading, I got word the other day via MySpace that the film is finally going to be released on DVD and, in fact, the very next day got a notification from Amazon that the DVD was now available for pre-ordering. Side Trivia: Former Sex Pistols Steve Jones and Paul Cook, and former Clash bassist Paul Simonon, appear as the other members of the band in the movie led by Winstone.
5. Pretty much every Kevin Smith and David Lynch film ever made – I can’t decide. I can’t, I can’t. Though I guess Dogma and Blue Velvet. Or maybe Chasing Amy and Eraserhead. Or… I can’t decide. Don’t make me.

God, that was painful. And it would really suck if there was no electricity on that island.

Tuxedos & Oscar Just Kinda Go Together Anyway

I hadn’t been by one of my fave blogs in a while, Abbie the Cat Has a Posse, so when I stopped by tonight I was distressed to learn that Abbie had been missing for a while (for real) earlier this month.  Upon further reading, I was relieved to discover that he had been found, thank goodness.   Not really surprised he turned up – a 20-lb. tuxedo cat wouldn’t get overlooked very easily, I don’t think – but certainly glad he did, after what was apparently a pretty large effort by many folks to help find him, and his owner, known as The Guy, is understandably relieved.  Hopefully Abbie will get back to blogging and report on all his adventures away from home soon.

And, if by chance you missed the Oscars tonight, The Squirrel Queen live blogged the whole thing, so drop by and catch up if you have a mind to.  Apparently red was the in color this year, and you know, I’m sorry, but Cameron Diaz just sucks anyway.

Yeah, Everyone’s a Critic

As some know, I am a lover of movies, and even very briefly considered changing majors and schools and going to film school when I was in my early twenties.

I have never walked out of a theater while a film was still running, and I have only once turned off a movie in the middle at home and didn’t finish watching it because it was boring me to tears.  That one would be this one.

One I have always been a little sorry I didn’t do the same, and stop it within the first hour: this one.

That’s all I got, but for god’s sake, don’t rent either or I’ll have to say I told you so.

PS Just wanted to let Jon and Katie know I’m thinking of them and eagerly awaiting word of the upcoming Charlotteness. And much love to everyone else and I miss you all.  I’m not dead, just stuck in the black hole of blogging, apparently.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

One of the things I bought my Mom for Christmas was a Netflix gift subscription, mainly for the express purpose of her finally getting to see all seasons of Six Feet Under and Dead Like Me. (I know SFU has been running on A&E, but it’s also somewhat censored, and completionist that I am – well, you know). I wasn’t sure if she’d really get into using Netflix, but I told her if she likes it, then I’ll renew her subscription for Mother’s Day.

So the other day I go take a look at her queue to see what else she’s tagged to get and watch.

Um, she is filling up her queue with Disney movies.

Lala How the Life Goes On

Just wanted to add that even though it’s a sad day today all over Tennessee, it is perfectly okay to:

(1) Make fun of my desire to buy the entire line of action figures from the film The Warriors so I can recreate pivotal scenes from the film with them – a different scene each day!

(2) Scare me with smoke inhalation stories. And yes, I still smell it, tho it’s getting a little better and not as frequent.

(3) Comment on my comment to your comment from the other day on my comment from the other day about your post from two and half weeks ago.

(4) Whatever.

I’m just sayin’ don’t feel any need to be quiet on my account. Besides, it’s my understanding (and from reading her own blogging) BJ had an exceptional sense of humor and seemed to be a really fun person, and this afternoon AT said everyone should pop a beer if they had one, that BJ would have wanted things that way. I imagine she would approve of blogging fun going on in her wake. So I’m not going to make any attempt to contain whatever silly goofy wacky barrels of monkeys I may or may not have been saving up for the weekend.

So, eventually tonight I might post what was supposed to be the REAL post for Day #17, as both the fire one and the announcement were unplanned. (Or I might just be lazy and save it for tomorrow.) And then I might taste-test some of these dozen or so mini-bottles of liquor I’ve got hanging around since last Christmas for a while, and then go drunk-commenting around my fave blogs. You know, like drunk-dialing, but in blogdom.

Oh! Remember the candy discussion? I discovered another new, non-chocolate candy I like last night – well, not really new but new flavors – Jolly Ranchers Smoothies. They’re awesome! Except I had one of each flavor sitting on my desk today and now one’s missing, why are my cats stealing my Jolly Ranchers…

Watermelon Smoothie Jolly Rancher – good. Except, ow – Jolly Rancher stuck in back teeth now. Bad. Ouch.

It’s Survival in the City

This should have been a Halloween post, but as most of my friends and family will tell you, I am late for everything anyway. So, no reason why this should be any different.

In post trick-or-treat years, I didn’t have much occasion to dress up in costume again and most of the time whenever I did, it wasn’t Halloween. One of my batches of friends from college (hello, Swams!) had a habit of throwing costume and theme parties year ’round, not just Halloween. Beach parties in the middle of February, that kind of thing. My costume for most of these events was usually that of Drunk Blonde Chick. For the beach party, it was Drunk Blonde Chick with Red Ray-Bans, Sandals, & a Lei. You get the general idea.

The one time I did actually go in costume at Halloween was a Halloween party one of the school clubs was having my senior year in high school, fall of 1983, and that was my favorite costume ever. I wish I had an picture of me dressed up, but for some reason nobody took any photos that night, so you’ll just have to use your imagination. I borrowed an old baseball uniform and bat that had once belonged to my then-boyfriend’s older brother and went as this guy you see here.

Actually, I didn’t go as this one, I went as one of his comrades – the blue-faced Fury, to be specific. The purple-faced action figure was just the only one I could find a decent picture of. Anyway, this is pretty much what I looked like, except instead of purple and black, blue and black, with some subtle differences. And I am not made out of plastic. But I was pretty scary looking as a Fury, or at least as scary-looking as a 5’2″ Baseball Fury could be.

So, if “The Baseball Furies” means nothing to you, I’m not sure we can be friends anymore. Well, OK, I guess we can. But you’re on probation now. I’m just sayin’. Unless you’re under 30-35 and then I guess to be fair I’m forced to cut you some slack, I s’pose.

When I was zipping around looking for photos, I must have come across a bazillion pics of folks dressed up as the Furies – including one of my fellow NIT bloggers who’s done the Fury thing before (and also Luther!) – so that kinda tickled me to find the Furies continue to be a popular costume. For those of you who don’t know (and that are now on probation, heh), the Baseball Furies were one of the many gangs who tried to stop the Warriors from getting back home to Coney Island in the 1979 film of the same name (The Warriors, duh).

Unfortunately, the Furies were also probably the biggest pussies of all the gangs that came across the Warriors’ path, but they had the coolest costumes. (And a bit of Warriors trivia – rather than other actors, the Furies were all stunt men who were working on the set.)

There was no film more revered in Camden, Tennessee in the early to mid-Eighties. There are probably about 116 Camden natives of a certain age (mine) that have the dubious ability, still to this day, 25-ish years later, to be able to quote that movie from start to finish, because we all watched it forty hundred and eleven times. Around 1982-83, not too many people had VCRs yet (I know that’s incomprehensible to some these days) – I had one at my house, a few of my friends had them at theirs. It just became a ritual. Too boring uptown? Let’s all go to JBird’s and watch The Warriors. Too hot and tired of swimming at Lynnster’s? Let’s go inside and put The Warriors in. Snow and ice falling everywhere and they’ve canceled school tomorrow? Let’s all go out to Ang’s and watch The Warriors. Twice. And spend the night (girls upstairs, boys in the basement) and all get up in the morning and watch it AGAIN.

So, the action figures! If I had a lot of cash to blow, I’d be tempted to buy ‘em all. They have them at ToyWiz.com. The original series all came in dirty (bloody) and clean versions. The Ajax one is quite rare and priced high. They also have the blue Fury (MY Fury) priced at $749.99 but I suspect that’s an error. And here’s the funny thing… they all come with several little accessories. For instance, the Luther action figure comes with a tiny broken bottle, so you can re-enact the whole “Warriors… come out to pla-ay…” scene perfectly. If you do that kind of thing. Which I would never do. (ahem)

I was a big Twin Peaks fan back in the day and it just pleased me to no end when David Patrick Kelly, who was Luther in The Warriors, showed up in Twin Peaks as Jerry Horne. But I digress yet again…

Anyway, back to my Halloween costume as the blue Baseball Fury. There was one really bad thing about that costume that was an unpleasant surprise. About two hours into the party, that makeup started itching like hell. By the time I left the party, I’d scratched a good bit of it off, and what didn’t come off was a bitch to get off later. And my face looked like a tomato for the next week, it was so red and swollen from all the itching and scratching.

But still, it was worth it. Best costume EVER.

If there’s a next time, tho, I think I’ll just dye my hair black and go as Mercy. Much, much easier, and for anyone who doesn’t get the in-joke, they’ll just think I’m dressed as a hooker anyway.

So Tired of Waking Up Tired

Must post before February arrives so it actually looks like I’m at least making a halfhearted attempt at daily updates… ok, ok, here goes… oh, hi. Giggle.

A couple of suggestions… if you are new here and trying to figure me out (and should that happen, PLEASE let me know since I have yet to figure me out either) and wanting to read up on past history, I guess I would recommend for the time being going backwards, mainly ‘cos most of the first two years of the Zone’s existence hasn’t made it over here yet, I still gotta move that stuff (March 1997 thru July 1998). But I should get all that junk moved over in the next week or two so if you are obsessive about wanting to go in forward chronological order, that’ll be possible soon.

If you are an old friend/visitor from the old site and you’ve just now found me again and just now realized I have been updating again, albeit sporadically for a while – especially if you hadn’t been by in a really, really long time – I would recommend starting with March 2005 as that was the first really big update/major catch-up in a long, long time and starting there and going forward should bring you up to speed with all things du Lynnster.

The visitor stats (on Blogger) are, of course, not technically literally correct since I just moved everything over here in January and just know I’m fully aware of that. It’s not set like it is to impress anybody or anything. It’s set that way starting with the final count from the old site ‘cos all I wanna know is how many people have visited the Zone – no matter where it was living at the time – since Day One. So if that’s gonna bug you just pretend it’s not there or something, it’s for my benefit solely and – of course and as always – that’s all that matters. Heh.

Also, not like I haven’t mentioned this forty billion times already, but I’m also mirroring on LiveJournal, so if you like cutesy stuff and the current soundtrack and stuff like that, there’s that. The link’s at the bottom of the side panel.

OK. Enough of all that. Other than moving the rest of the missing ’90s entries, I am pretty much moved in over here now, have added all my fave links and Lynnstered this place up and woohoo. Things are starting to feel normal again… whatever that means.

What does NOT feel normal is, of all the hundreds of times I’ve made off-the-cuff comments about driving myself into clinical exhaustion… lately I’m a little afraid I maybe am! I have been working my ass off since the first week of December with nary a break and now I’m doing things like I did tonight – falling asleep sitting up straight in the chair here at the computer for three hours after I got thru working for the day. Been doing that a lot lately and last week I was so exhausted, at one point I was actually hallucinating (nothing fun, really weird stuff like hearing music where there was none on and some other moderately trippy moments, pretty boring stuff really).

Well, it’s really no wonder I am so beat. Last week I got to thinking about it and scribbled down some figures and realized I have been averaging anywhere from 65-95 hours a week working the last two months, with very few full days totally off not working at all – and that’s just the paid work, that’s not even counting the volunteer work on the side! I didn’t add those hours in nor do I care to know. And considering how bad I have been at time management the last couple of weeks – for instance, last week from 5 p.m. Sunday to 6 p.m. Thursday, I managed to get a total of 4.5 hours sleep during that entire time period – it’s no wonder I’m about to drop dead.

I haven’t fared much better so far this week – since about 6 p.m. Sunday, I have had 1.75 hours of sleep (not counting the three hour pseudonap I just took) and now here it is late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. But at least I’m not walking around dizzy all the time or hallucinating anymore. Getting some decent sleep Friday and Saturday nights helped immensely.

So starting late last week, I started making an attempt to rein this monster in and managed to work it out where I had absolutely NO work to do this weekend, and that worked. Except I spent a whole bunch of hours working on moving into the new blog, but, well, you know.

And having started out the week this week exhausted since I never went to bed Sunday ‘cos, well, I just wasn’t sleepy – Monday I had decided that I was not going to take on any freelance work for the early part of this week if I could help it, and planned on spending at least Monday evening and maybe some more just messing around after getting thru with regularly scheduled work Monday day. I wanted to do some stuff like fix up a few more things here in the blog/journal, and watch at least one of the movies I’ve had sitting around for two weeks now trying to get around to watching.

A great idea in theory, but not to be. Due to some misunderstanding and miscommunication last week, it turns out I actually did have some unfinished work to do last week… if I had only known it was waiting for me. So, much as I did NOT want to do anything that wasn’t “me” time Monday night, I ended up doing that, working thru the night. And as usual, it took longer than I’d hoped. So I got 1.75 hours sleep in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, then put in a full day of regular work. Then, as aforementioned, passed out cold at the computer desk this evening.

Which brings me to here. The nap did help, uncomfy tho it was, and I am planning on going to bed at a semi-decent hour (for me, the night owl), and Thursday’s my usual day off so I’ll be able to rest up some more, hopefully. The unplanned work Monday means I get unexpected pay this week, and I got my check from my job that pays for my ‘Net access this week (which I always forget about it being time to come, so it’s always a pleasant surprise when it arrives), so I can kind of afford to take it easy this week, I think. I know I really probably need to, and I need to get this time management thing between the three jobs and the volunteer work/job under control so I don’t wind up hallucinating again, ya think? Yeah.

So yeah, other than killing myself lately with all this stuff, that’s about it. I have been desperately trying to get to movies/catch-up TV for two weeks and just haven’t, but by god, I’m going to this week, I’m determined.

And speaking of that – let’s talk about my Netflix queue. Yeah, I finally bit the bullet and opened up an account. I got rid of Showtime and HBO last fall after realizing that it had been like almost two years since I’d watched anything on them – and paying Time Warner any more money than necessary just goes against every principle I have, I hate that I’d been paying them for that stuff for the last two years – but that’s not really the reason I opened up an account with Netflix. I mean, yeah, I’d thought about that before, just doing that instead of paying TW’s exorbitant prices for premium channels on digital cable, but it was actually something else that made the light bulb go off my head – and kick myself about a thousand times after for not having thought about it before.

One of the reasons I had kept Showtime and HBO so long was because there were so many shows I had fallen in love with, as well as others I’d wanted to see and just never really got around to or kept forgetting about ‘em. Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Queer As Folk – big fan all along. Dead Like Me, saw one episode and meant to keep watching it and didn’t. Oz, got into late and didn’t see the first couple of seasons but really into once I did. Anyway, anyone who’s been around the Zone much knows what a huge Six Feet Under, especially, fan I’ve been since the first episode.

Well, there was this point in time in early 2004 where things got kinda busy and crazy and I fell behind on my weekly watching. And kept on falling more and more behind. And even with reruns, marathons, etc. – it just kept seeming more and more hopeless and futile to even try and catch up. I had the Six Feet Under DVD sets on my Christmas lists the last couple of years – and that is something I do want to own one day – but my family doesn’t seem to be terribly interested in feeding into my obsessive TV and film habit, tho once in a while and depending on what it is they will get me a movie I want or something.

All that really hit home last year when I started reading about it being Six Feet Under‘s final season, and more recently reading about The Sopranos starting up again soon (which, remember, I don’t have HBO or Showtime anymore). Now, mind you – I do kinda know some of what happened during the last couple of seasons of Six Feet Under, and I do know the Cliffs Notes version of how it ended. But please don’t tell me anything else and spoil it all for me, I’m behind from mid-Season Three on.

Anyhow, so fast forward to about three weeks ago, when I’m just sitting there working and for some reason thinking, yet again, “Damn, I’d really like to see the rest of what all I missed on (insert any of the aforementioned shows here)”. And then I mourned a little about the fact that apparently no one is going to buy me any of the Six Feet Under season sets on DVD for Christmas or my birthday. And then it hit me.

Well, DUH. Now why didn’t it ever occur to me before that they are all (or will be) on DVD and thus they are rentable?

So yeah, now my Netflix queue is pretty much episode disc after episode disc of various HBO and Showtime series. I do have some movies in the queue too, as well as two here at home – planning to finish watching May tonight and watch Wonderland sometime this week – but yeah. Finally I get to catch up.

Anyway, damn. I’ll be getting caught up on my shows. I’ve got the old Graffiti Wall moved and christened in its blogdom and am even posting sorta regularly, hopefully even better as time goes on. For the first time in three or four years, things are suddenly starting to seem “normal” and “regular” again. I feel like I have just come out of a years-long coma. Wonder what’s next? Well, I can tell you this, it ain’t gonna be the kitchen getting straightened up, uh uh, no way.

In other news, had a big dog fight today. I have really got a problem with Buster and Petey picking on Bruiser. As old readers will know, I have long suspected Bruiser might be autistic or just a little retarded. Before she died, their mama always treated him a little differently than the others – some disciplinary type action when I couldn’t really see any reason for that to happen, some other things that were unusual compared to how she treated the others. Autistic or retarded, who knows, but at the very least I guess he is the weakest of the bunch and this is the second major blowout there’s been, although they have been spaced out by months. Poor little guy will not usually go all the way out in the yard when Buster and Petey are roughhousing, he is obviously scared of them. And I don’t really know what happened to precipitate today’s altercation other than I guess just getting in each other’s personal space. And tho there’s been a couple of very minor, little injuries, it hasn’t progressed farther than that. But I wish they’d stop, ‘cos it’s really scary when they do that. Plus they knocked me over today and I fell face first in the dirt, dammit. Just glad it hasn’t rained in a few days or it would have been mud!!!

All four of the puppies (Brian says, “When are you gonna stop calling them puppies? They’re almost two years old, Lynn!”) definitely have their own individual personalities. Petey is twice as big as everyone, especially Daisy but even his feet are bigger than the other boys’, and he’s Mom’s protector. Buster is so spoiled rotten that no matter who you call to come over to you – dog, cat, whatever – you get Buster too… I think he knows he was originally supposed to have been the only one to stay. Bruiser is my cuddlebug and my pretty boy, he’s a sweet baby and you just cuddle him like a stuffed animal. And Daisy, well, she’s just perfect and has every dog in this house, including her Uncle Dobie, wrapped around her little paw.

Strangely too, finally some evidence of breed has come out – Daisy and Bruiser have really had what appears to be Collie come out in them in more recent months. Buster still looks like his mama, the black Lab, except for his white body and the teeny white stripe on his big black head. And then there’s Petey. Petey, Petey… born with the white question mark on his head, and for good reason. No idea. But he’s HUGE. Big head, big feet, just big.

In closing, got some of the new Skippy Snack Bars today. They were in the granola bar/Pop Tart section of the store and I’m a big fan of granola bars and the like (preferably Nature Valley crunchy, no chewy granola bars for me, thanks) and peanut butter so it seemed like a good idea. They’re all right, too small and too expensive because of that tho. And too bad Jif didn’t put them out instead. Choosy Lynnsters have ALWAYS chosen Jif… and with that, I bid you adieu ’til ‘morrow…

What’s Up?

So I found out in the course of my extended absence from here that (A) somebody besides the whiny KC/Greg/Duncan/Jo/etc contingent and Stef actually reads this thing, and (B) people I don’t even know, or at least don’t think I have ever met, actually read this thing, and regularly… so upon finding all this interesting info out I am once again motivated to rant and rave at will, at least until and unless I get pissed off again, so, in that case… hi!!

Really tho I’ve just been staying so busy constantly with eBay junk, i.e., my second just about dang near full time job, as well as some private buying, just haven’t had time to be here… vintage Barbie has been berry berry good to yours truly this summer, anyhow. But, I have waded thru and sifted out all the junk mail, expired stuff and other such clutter in my mailbox, answered a few, and am getting around to the rest, I think I still have mail from 1997 in there but I am slowly but surely getting around to everything, including maybe even updating the website some, in fact, I have to now because someone finally solved the Monarchs Riddle, yay!

I’ve also been pretty tied up trying to get my latest cat family addition, who’s now undergone $300 worth of surgery and basically had himself a facelift, to stop hating all his new brothers and sisters and, since he’s not playing nice, spending quality time with him in what’s become his room and he is most assuredly getting way too spoiled rotten.

What else have I done or has gone on… well, let’s see, our Stef in Boston got married in the interim so congrats all around there… I learned that I have, unknowingly, not had any health insurance coverage this entire year and have instructed my family that if something happens to me they are to sue my employer’s you-know-whats off… I got the new STP CD and man, is it awesome… been to funerals, missed funerals, found out about funerals three weeks too late… Chuckie & Jan have a beautiful new baby girl named Maggie…

Went to see The Watcher, now that was a cool movie, and James Spader and Keanu Reeves in one sitting is about more than a gal should be expected to have to withstand, but I must say here, it was REALLY weird seeing Keanu play a bad guy for a change, and every once in a while I felt like I was watching Bill & Ted’s Excellent Serial Killing Adventure… I continue to harbor reasonable grudges against 22% of my ex-boyfriends…

The Hoodoo Gurus played a one-off reunion gig in Sydney during the Olympics and I wasn’t there, but bless Robbo, Sven, and the always pleasant Andy Kelly for making me feel like I almost was…

Cole & Donna came down with the kids one day and yet another reason why I don’t have kids occurred to me after spending maybe an hour walking around the mall at Wolfchase looking for Halloween costumes (John Stephen is to be Bugs Bunny this year) and came home as exhausted as if I’d been walking around there for twenty hours instead of one…

KC experienced a fit of genuine and selfless generosity and I waited for the sky to fall in for a couple of days, but amazingly it never happened… for the first time ever in nearly eleven years I am thinking about changing jobs… it got cold… there was an unbelievably huge wreck right out in front of my house one night, the aftermath of which turned into kinda a neighborhood block party…

Our man in Sydney, Jimm, was here in the States for weeks and I didn’t get to see him this time around, but thanks to the power of USPS Priority Mail I made sure he went home with stacks of Goo Goo Clusters and chocolate Moon Pies… I also recently saw the movie Hillary and Jackie and it was truly incredible, I had no idea… the annual girls’ slumber party time is coming up again, and can you believe we’ve been doing this for ten years now…

Gorman Bechard’s (out of print but you can usually find it on Half.com) book The Second Greatest Story Ever Told is about the second most hilarious novel I’ve read in my entire life (the first being the oft-mentioned Tommy Womack book) and has many Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson references for any Replacements fan to die for… and I don’t know, that’s probably about it.

Spending Christmas in Chattanooga this year, so expect an ice storm to befall the entire Southeast again just before, just like it did last time I was driving to Chattanooga for Christmas and nearly stranded me by myself in Memphis for the holiday… just thought I’d warn y’all in advance.

So I like just about fell over in shock when I opened up my Commercial Appeal one morning a few weeks ago to find ’80s Nashville power pop party boys the White Animals as the front page story and photo in the Appeal section… my god, talk about one’s gloriously misspent youth staring one in the face! After getting over the shock, I was absolutely thrilled to learn that not only are they doing some shows here and there (including New Year’s Eve in Birmingham) but have put out a new compilation CD, which means I can finally have all, or almost all, of the Ecstasy album back again!! That poor pitiful cassette tape I had from 1986 literally died from overuse ages and ages ago, and definitely has been leaving a great big hole in my Nashville Underground music collection ever since. I need to update and revise the entire Links section again, but if you want a copy of the new compilation CD for yourself you can go to the Links section and go check it out, look at old and new photos, all kinds of stuff. Now if someone would just re-release that 1986 or ’87 Jet Black Factory album, The Movement’s self-titled one, the entire Government Cheese catalog and the City Without a Subway compilation on CD…

Anyway, I must go for now but will probably think of things I forgot later… goodnight Evan D. wherever you are, and talk to the rest of y’all later…

We Care a Lot

Hello. Wish I had time for lots of stuff tonight, but I don’t… and I don’t have time to return phone calls before 3 in the morning, either, so like, you know, once again, e-mail me with news & stuff, the chances I’ll get back to you are a heck of a lot better at this point with that than the stupid phone. Tonight I’m digging the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack, if you haven’t got it you should… what can I say, the Violent Femmes, The Clash, David Bowie & Queen doing “Under Pressure”, Guns N’ Roses, really old Faith No More, The Jam, The Specials, can’t really do much more to shoot me right back to college and HS again, heh, the Bowie/Queen alone will do that immediately, 1982 in a heartbeat.

Anyway, speaking of Grosse Point Blank – a great flick – anyone who’s been here very long knows John Cusack is one of my fave actors and Say Anything… is just about my fave movie of all time, a fondness I also share with my evil brother-in-law Troy, and we also share this theory about John Cusack having been Lloyd Dobler in just about every movie since… you think about it, you’ll get it. Lloyd Dobler as a hit man in Grosse Point Blank. Lloyd Dobler as an air traffic controller in Pushing Tin. Even – not quite so perfectly but almost – Lloyd Dobler as a puppeteer in Being John Malkovich. About the only movie he hasn’t been Lloyd Dobler again in is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, and I’m not even 100% sure of his non-Lloyd Doblerness in that. And I haven’t seen it yet but I’m absolutely positive of this – Lloyd Dobler as an indie record store owner in High Fidelity.

Anyway, I gotta go, only other thing I have to say is life is suddenly starting to make some sense for a change, that’s scary. But cool. Later…

Screamin’ Skull

I have been so tired thus far this week I’m not even worth shooting, but since I had to get on AOL anyway tonight I thought I’d write a sec. Among many other reasons I haven’t been sleeping, I got so sick & tired of being behind at work I brought a ___load of it home Monday night and finally quit & went to bed around 5 a.m., but you know what, I don’t care how tired I am because at least I’m finally caught up thru June at work!! Now to just deal with June seeing as how June’s almost over… nothing really else to report, I am awaiting the results of several possibly misguided decisions this week so, surely by the end of the week, I will either be reeeeeeally really happy & in good humor, or someone will be checking me into Lakeside… tho I have no idea who seeing as how my mother is flying to England this weekend (and we won’t even discuss how jealous I am about that!).

So, anyway, things are quiet, a lot of late nights, not much of any interest to spout at the moment. I did come to one conclusion this week tho -

It is a terrible and absolute travesty that the Fleshtones’ Hexbreaker! album is not available on CD!! I am just sick. There are probably less than six nearly-impossible-to-finds on my list for my neverending search to replace all my music on CD now, and that’s one of them, and it’s just like, not out there. And that’s a shame, that’s really one of the best albums of all time, or at least of the last two decades…

Speaking of the Fleshtones, one of my friends used to date one of the guys in that band and it just occurred to me – years and years later now – that I think it’s the same Fleshtone mentioned in the Hoodoo Gurus’ (most excellent) video collection, Electric Soup (see “Axegrinder”)… now, I’ve known my friend for years now and I’ve had that video for at least four or five, why on earth I just now made that connection is beyond me!! (“Lynsey’s train of thought, tape delay, it’s all the same thing.” – K. Callicott, 1993.)

Anyhow…. yeah, other than Hexbreaker!, I’m really close to being finished seeking and finding, with the exception of whatever else just hasn’t occurred to me yet. The only other thing I am actively hunting at the moment is Let’s Active’s Big Plans For Everybody, which can be found but for not much less than $25 or $30, so… yeah, as far as musically, things are kinda spot-on cool and I’m about to make a ten-volume Ultimate Road Trip Mix collection… woohoo.

Oh, on the film front (I keep forgetting about this) – Boys Don’t Cry, thumbs UP. Ms. Swank deserved that Oscar like no other. I knew it’d be good, but it truly bowled me over – a powerful, powerful flick. The Bone Collector is also pretty cool. On the other hand, I found Fight Club semi-boring and ridiculous, tho with some interesting parts, a bit of shame since I never met a Brad Pitt flick I didn’t like… and on the completely opposite side of everything, do not even waste your time seeing Eyes Wide Shut. That was a huge disappointment for me as I’ve always been a Kubrick fan, but my god, I think that may well be the worst film I have ever seen in my entire life. Never thought I’d see a Tom Cruise or Kubrick movie I loathed, but that one is certainly it. It is truly awful, horribly boring, much too long, and many other horrid things. I can almost always find something to like about even the worst movies – some of the worst films ever made are so hilarious that makes them good – but this one, nope, there ain’t nothing at all redeeming about it. Do not bother.

So that’s Lynnster’s movie reviews for the month, which I suppose belong on the Movies page but I’m too tired to update more than one page right now. Anyhow – being that it’s almost the end of our fiscal year at work, don’t expect much ’til after 07/01, but maybe I’ll be back. Otherwise, see ya in July!