jamescuarterodotcom

The 2000s were jammed w/ amazing entertainment & art, & while I don’t profess to have an encyclopedic knowledge or expansive curiousity about finding every great album, movie, book or video game I read about, I do know what I like when I find it. With all of that said - these are some of my most favorite records from the past ten years. Enjoy!

Constantines - Shine A Light

Q & Not U - No Kill No Beep Beep

Les Savy Fav - Inches

Cursive - Domestica

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

Ted Leo & The Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak

The Twilight Singers - Blackberry Belle

M.I.A. - Arular

The Dismemberment Plan - Change

Metric - Live It Out

The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls In America

If fanboys have a problem, it’s that they have an irrational need to be taken seriously. Haven’t you heard? Comics - er, graphic novels are important and if you believe the promotion, Watchmen is “the most celebrated graphic novel of our time.” Which of course, demands that a movie adaptation be made, even though that ridiculous statement is like saying that Cookiepuss is “the most celebrated ice cream cake of our time”.

You can find an infinite number of plot synopses online so I’m not going to re-hash it here. Director Zack Snyder has professed a deep love for the comics and that if nothing else, for fans he was going to be as faithful to the book as possible. From the shots & angles lifted directly from Dave Gibbons’ panels to the alternate-reality New York to Dr. Manhattan to even the details on Rorschach’s coat, it was obvious that Snyder had a degree of affection (no matter how skewed) for the source material and was indeed painstakingly faithful to the look of the comic. It looks freaking great. Yet, while it was cool to see the milieu of Watchmen brought to life, visuals alone do not an adaptation make.

One of the many reasons that Watchmen the comic was such a critical success is because it’s a comic that turns the cliches of the medium on its ears. Within its pages, Moore & Gibbons take superheroes as we know them & point out their absurdity & ineffectiveness if they were ever to appear in the real world. Instead, Zach Synder & David Hayter gave viewers a film that celebrates the complete opposite.

Which brings me to my biggest gripe with this movie. The film is full of completely dated & hackneyed Matrix-esque, martial arts-laden fight scenes & studio-added uber-violence that serve no other purpose than to placate action junkies, shock viewers and titillate the Saw set. If these were comic panels, they would be gaudy double-page spreads, not the economical & precise nine-panel grids employed by Gibbons.

One of the more egregious examples of this is Rorschach jumping out of Moloch’s apartment window. In the comic, he hurts his ankle upon landing and promptly gets beaten to a pulp by the police, taking away the big heroic moment. In the movie, not only does he land OK, but he proceeds to fight off said police with Rorschach-fu, in full Wachowski hero shot glory.

I haven’t even gotten to the story. As it is, Watchmen is bluntly delivered and poorly-paced. At times it slows to an agonizing crawl and then speeds to a hundred miles per hour at others, without leaving the viewer any time to digest before the next scene. Apologists will say that if you really wanted to replicate the comic, it would be a five-hour movie or a 12 part HBO series. So why tether yourself to the story at all when you’re going to take a hatchet (or meat cleaver, as it were) to it? Unless you are going to do a panel-by-panel recreation a la Sin City - which is a much simpler story, mind you - it is nearly impossible to adapt a story with this many layers, this much meta & subtext under three hours and do it any justice. Better to take the concept, characters and spirit of the comic and weave your own tale (e.g. The Dark Knight).

However, left to their own devices, I doubt that the creators would have been capable of anything more than aping what was presented to them within Watchmen’s pages. The dialogue & narration, which ranges from serviceable to sublime in the context of the comic, mostly sounds forced & cheesy on the screen, especially when delivered by the likes of Carla Guggino, Patrick Wilson & Malin Akerman. Billy Crudup & Jeffrey Dean Morgan turn in promising performances but no one is given any room to shine, whether it’s because of a lack of screen time or that David Hayter couldn’t be bothered (or more likely, lacked the ability to) smooth the edges off their lines. I’m a bit torn on Jackie Earle Haley’s portrayal of Rorschach, he was great and terrifying in spots but I just couldn’t buy his Christian Bale Batman voice.

Whether it was cheesy dialogue, the near-pornographic treatment of violence, ham-fisted plot points, subplots that didn’t go anywhere or the sickeningly obvious soundtrack choices, Watchmen featured way too many unintentional laugh out loud moments for non-fans and too much Hollywood gloss for purists. Note to Snyder & Co: minutiae & aesthetics do not equal faithfulness. Not recommended.

my mom got me this! seriously, she is the BEST.

you never, EVER have to burn out. you could be like 500 years old and if you’re still in love with what you do, you never have to act old, you never have to compromise, you never have to be mediocre, you never have to slow down. have you ever met that person who retires when they’re twenty-four years old? they’re TWENTY-FOUR and they get all conservative and dismissive and they don’t want to see anything, they don’t want to know anything new, they get in their little rut and they act like little old men - and they haven’t even done anything yet! and then you meet some wild sixty-five year old bohemian who’s into all this crazy stuff - “let’s go listen to this! let’s go see that!” - and they WEAR YOU OUT. you’re twenty years younger than them and they make you tired because they have so much energy - “what are you doing sleeping?!? come on, the sun’s coming up! let’s go watch!” and you’re like “…get the **** away from me!”

i want to be one of those people.

- henry rollins

i really can’t describe how great i feel today, it’s like the fog of the past eight years been lifted. this election was not only a rejection of the failed policies and leadership of george bush and the divisive tactics of karl rove. it was also the sound of millions of previously unheard voices: minorities and the youth, the disenchanted, disenfranchised and cynical saying, no, SHOUTING that they are engaged and emotionally invested in the future of this country. not because it’s fashionable or that they’ve been swept up in obama’s celebrity but because over the course of this campaign they’ve learned (and we as well) what it feels like to matter and that civic responsibility doesn’t begin and end in the voting booth.

And Barack stood up that day, and he spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about the world as it is and the world as it should be. And he said that all too often we accept the distance between the two, and we settle for the world as it is, even when it doesn’t reflect our values and aspirations.

But he reminded us that we also know what the world should look like. He said we know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like, and he urged us to believe in ourselves, to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be. And isn’t that the great American story?

- michelle obama

i’m going to be honest. the phillies organization has burned me so many times over the past fifteen years that i can’t tell if my less than unbridled enthusiasm towards the phils’ world series berth is due to it not yet sinking in or if i’m still harboring resentment towards an ownership that has very little to make this team the perennial contender that a market of this size and devotion deserves.

it hasn’t been fifteen years of near misses, as has been the case with teams like atlanta or chicago, the majority of that time has been spent in the national league east basement and the laughingstock of the city’s four major teams. ed wade was reviled in this city for his seemingly complete inability to adequately stock this team. we would say goodbye to players like curt schilling and scott rolen while the team’s lone big name signing for years was jim thome, a blatant attempt to keep tickets sales up once the short-lived sellouts and luster of the new park was gone. and don’t get me started on the phils’ mysterious shadow ownership, with the amiable but maddeningly evasive dave montgomery acting as its mouthpiece.

however, that’s changed over the past few years. where there was a dearth of players from the farm system, we now have a number of homegrown talents. their miserly approach to free agents and player trades and inexplicable loyalty to the oft out of his depth charlie manuel have proven my longstanding opinion - that the phillies would not win a pennant under its current ownership - completely wrong. is that what’s stuck in my craw?

yet at the same time, what should ownership have to do with one’s devotion to a team? who really cares what goes on in the front office? perhaps it’s our generation’s infatuation with snark and minutae in an atmosphere fostered by sports radio, espn 24/7 and endless sports blogs, where it’s easier than ever for the fan to second guess and play armchair coach, manager, general manager and owner.

when you were a kid were you complaining to your friends why the phils failed to pull the trigger again on an ace pitcher? of course not. in a perfect world, sports should be about the players, the fans & the game. the current phils roster is amazing and stocked with players you love to root for. ryan howard, chase utley and shane victorino are just awesome. even jimmy rollins, brett myers and pat burrell, former poster boys for the spoiled, petulant & lazy professional athlete and chided for their sense of entitlement and disdain for the fans, have become admired for their talent, grit and leadership. it’s a disconcerting yet welcome change to longtime fans and i think i speak for all of us when i say CASH IT IN AND BRING IT HOME.

My band Apple of Discord has a really cool show coming up Saturday 10/18 at the Auction House. We’ll be playing an old school set with former drummer Nelson Ciron, playing songs from all of our previous albums. Also playing are our good friends and labelmates The Silence Kit (who have a fantastic new album out), Red Orange Morning & The Meritocracy.

The Auction House is former 1920’s bank that functions as an auction house during the day and as an all-ages, drug & alcohol-free center for the arts at night. It’s located at 100 West Merchant St in Audubon, NJ with plenty of free parking in Audubon’s municipal parking lot located just 1/2 block away. It’s an amazing local space and a great place to bring the entire family. Seriously, I’ve seen babies at shows here.

Show starts at 7PM and will end by 10PM, we will more than likely go to Merryfield’s Bar in Oaklyn afterwards. It’s also Nolan’s birthday!

Apple of Discord
w/ The Silence Kit, Red Orange Morning & The Meritocracy
Saturday October 18 7PM
The Auction House
100 W Merchant St
Audubon NJ
$7 / All-Ages
auctionhouseevents.com
myspace.com/appleofdiscord

- where i’ve been: monica & i moved at the beginning of june. we started out looking for something older and with character but guess what, character takes a lot of freaking work! we ended up opting for a 9 year old house in the heart of suburbia. honestly, i would be just as happy living like a college student but in my cousin ryan’s words, this place is ballin’ yo. it’s crazy; a few years ago we wouldn’t have been able to reasonably afford a place like this but the price on it dropped like 80K in the three months prior to our purchase. thank you, collapse of the US housing market!

on the flip side, we moved without selling our old house first! listing here: http://southjersey.craigslist.org/reo/864700336.html. i almost don’t want to sell it now as we’d end up taking a bath on it but it’s still for sale for a few more weeks. ideally, we’ll end up renting it and putting it back on the market when (hopefully not if) it rebounds.

- i started a comic in august called the worst kind of people. aaron had been encouraging me to make a comic for a while but i could never come up with a concept. as it is, TWKOP consists of hastily-drawn gags and slice of life strips inspired by but nowhere near the awesomeness of red meat, PBF, the far side, etc. for some reason the most popular comic thus far has been one starring so taguchi. go figure. i’m towards the end of a week-long break following this year’s SPX but i’ve really enjoyed getting back into comics and there are more yuks and bad line art to come.

- apple of discord kept working on our fifth release, titled nothing is possible and due by the end of the year. i’m really happy with the tracks, they’re a good mix of guitar rock and sleepy acoustic numbers. we’re having an old-school AOD show next week that i’m very excited about, details in an upcoming post.

- did a lot more running this summer, averaging 11.5 miles a week and logging over 200 miles from june through september. it’s more than double what i was doing last summer and right now, i’m almost tripling it. however, i can’t even come close to my fastest mile of last year, 6:37. the closest i’ve gotten this summer has been 7:02. the only explanation i can come up with for losing that much speed is that i’m running through my neighborhood vs. running on a track with the extra 25 seconds coming from turns and inclines. but on one of my rare visits to the track this summer, it took me even longer than that! who knows. for the next few weeks i’m cutting my distance day down from 12 miles to 8 and adding an extra day of intervals. i’ll be happy if i can even get down to 6:45.

- barely watched any TV or watched any movies this summer. read a smattering of books, including david sedaris’ dress yourself in corduroy & denim and holidays on ice, venus envy by l. jon wertheim and tooth & claw by t.c. boyle. haven’t gotten past chapter two of his a friend of the earth, still in the middle of nowhere to run by gerri hirshey and just started michael chabon’s the yiddish policemen’s union, which judy o. had given me out of the trunk of her car.

- here’s a bonus for anyone who actually made it to the bottom of this post: an end of summer mix featuring an hour of dark country, new tracks, songs from the turn of the century, covers, the odd 80s inclusion and an unhealthy dose of canadians. download here:

https://rcpt.yousendit.com/613167111/742c0774a51b51df532d4ae76a31ee95

the new paul westerberg album, 49:00 is available as a single download for 49¢:

And we have lift-off: Download 49:00 from Amazon MP3

It’s one MP3 file, with a whole mess of songs, so even though it’s only one download, you’re getting plenty of songs. Some things to note: In order to get the album for $0.49 (rather than the whopping price of $0.89), you need to use the link I posted above and:

• Click on the “Buy MP3 album with 1-Click” button
• Download Amazon’s MP3 Downloader (takes 1 minute)
• Proceed with purchase

Because of the way it’s entered in the system ($0.89 for the ’song’ and $0.49 for the ‘album’), if you don’t do it this way, you will be charged $0.89 (which is also a massive bargin).

Good news: Non-US fans can now download the ‘album’ here (and US fans who for some reason can’t/don’t want to use Amazon).

i can’t seem to find a track listing or liner notes on his webpage but i’m sure they’ll surface soon if they haven’t already. on first listen, i’m pleasantly surprised with the quality of the recording and material; i was a little worried that it would be 49 minutes of half-baked, low-fi songs (although there are a few bee thousand-ish moments here and there for fans of the latter) but so far they display the wit and hookiness typical of PW and well worth the download.

housekeeping note: this is my first post using scribefire. i’d been looking for something i could use to x-post into my blog, myspace & LJ. we’ll see how the results go!

you can’t mess with griffin. taken by kristin k. 10/07/07

Mark Griffin, 35 years old of West Hartford CT, died Monday June 2 surrounded by family and friends. He grew up in Sayreville, NJ.

He attended Sayreville HS (1991) and the Joe Kubert School (1997). Working as an illustrator, he also created his own comics: “The Kersaders” about kid superheroes, and his unfinished personal work, “Karma Shmarma”, documenting his battle with cancer. Mark played bass in several rock bands and enjoyed traveling and cooking with his wife.

Survived by his devoted wife of 8 years, Jennifer, and his mother, Susan, and predeceased by his step-father William Dorman. Also an extended family of relatives and friends. Mark had a generous soul and touched the lives of all who knew him.

Memorial services will be at Rezem Funeral Home, 457 Cranbury Road, East Brunswick, Thursday June 5 from 5 PM - 8 PM. Funeral on Friday June 6 at 10 AM. If you would prefer to make a donation in Mark’s name in lieu of sending flowers, Jen Griffin suggests The Marrow Foundation at www.marrow.org or The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society at www.leukemia-lymphoma.org.

i don’t think it’s fully sunk in that you’re gone and i don’t know if i ever want it to. there are so many things i’ll miss about you, from breakfasts at your house to driving aimlessly in search of apple fritters to sharing new comics to that absurd near all-night session of adventures of lolo 2. remember that night you, me & aaron were on the way home from st. mark’s after helping phil move? i was enthusiastically telling you guys about a scene in JLA when we pulled up next to that silver SUV - “professor stephen hawking!”, aaron points to the car and our mouths dropped - i don’t think anyone but us believes that actually happened.

sometimes i feel like i don’t deserve to hurt as much as our other friends that have known you since childhood and high school but over the past six years you and jen have shown me new measures of strength, love and courage that had a profound effect on me. every time you were diagnosed you never succumbed to bitterness, cynicism or self-pity. you let all of us in instead of shutting us out. that’s the type of person you are and it made your inevitable recoveries that much more joyous and inspirational. the running joke was “who gets cancer four times?”"someone who can BEAT cancer four times”.

one of my favorite all-time memories, months after mark had beaten cancer for the second time:

sleep well, my friend, i’ll miss you every day of my life.