Congratulations! Gefeliciteerd! Chook hah hahm nee dah!

I just wanted to give some kudos to my friend Chappell Ellison, one of the lovely Is This Tight? writers, for winning the prestigious AIGA Winterhouse Award for Design Writing and Criticism.

I urge you all to download and read her compelling portrait of OCD.

Chappell is almost frustratingly awesome at everything I've known her to do. Reading her essay gave me a moving and fascinating insight into a life afflicted. It also encourages me to become a better writer with its powerful turns of phrase.

So... w00t to you, Miss Ellison.

Have You Read This Book?

I finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo when I woke up this morning. This comes after reading the book til 4 am (which isn't that exciting, actually, I stay up til 4 every night).

It was dark and intriguing. Somber but not without humor. Detailed with minutiae at times yet quickly paced.

I've never read a book about another 5 ft tall black haired girl with a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder. Though I'm not as tough or interesting or Swedish as Lisbeth, there were other similarities in our histories that at times made my eyes widen at the wonder of it all.

However, this book isn't just for short people with a fondness for ink and revenge (I did read some deliciously violent passages twice, I admit). The story seamlessly flows between the dynastic history of the very strange Vanger family and modern corporate corruption in Sweden. I've mentioned my aversion to spoilers so I'll say nothing more about the plot.

Author Stieg Larsson passed away before this book -- part one of The Millennium Series -- was ever published. It will be a sad day in October when I've read the last page of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest, the final book. In the meantime, I anxiously await the arrival of The Girl Who Played With Fire.

In other news, I'm going on a news boycott this week. Ironic since Wednesday's column is all about the 24 hour news channels. (Yes, I just used the word "news" three times in one sentence.) You can find me at Qdoba reading Anne Perry's Cain His Brother. I'm still gobsmacked by the fact that Perry is actually Juliet Hulme. Kate Winslet's portrayal of her in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures fascinates me to this day.

Things I've Done This Week

I went to see Ponyo. Not my favorite Hayao Miyazaki film but his retelling of The Little Mermaid is fairly delightful even though I think Sosuke's mother would have been reported to child services at some point for all that reckless driving... and leaving a five year old alone in the middle of a typhoon.




I also saw District 9. I'm sort of maniacal about spoilers so I didn't know much about it and suspected it might be some sort of Cloverfield-esque piece of poo. Oh how wrong I was. Strangely, I think I liked D9 more than anyone else I know that's seen it. The joy of reduced expectations, I suspect. The film also made me cry more than once. I'm really just... getting to the point of head asplode over how we treat each other and even though it was just a movie, I sat there thinking, "Well, of course this is what would happen."




I finished reading Phillipa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl. It was a bit of a chore getting to the finish of a 600+ page book when I knew how it ended, but the detail of life in Tudor England was beautifully done. I mentioned in another post what a jerk Henry VIII was. I sort of reveled in his piggish decline as the book wound down and his madness escalated. Next on the reading list: getting back to Anne Perry's William Monk series and checking out Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo which comes highly recommended by a trusted friend.




Let's see, what else? I got called one of "Obama's Youth" and a communist in one sentence by someone I know and like. He wondered if I was reporting dissidents to the Kremlin (White House) over health care reform. So that was fun.




And finally, I watched both the Project Runway All Star Challenge and the premiere of season 6 last night. The All Star Challenge was a bit disappointing. I wanted Sweet P to win and couldn't believe they chose Daniel Vosovic for two reasons: that athletic shirt/bubble skirt combo seemed ridiculous and his restaurant dress with the vertical black tubing across the midriff looked like he was going for some sort of suicide bomber chic. Still, Daniel was the least annoying of the bunch and I was reminded how much I do not miss Korto, Jeffrey and, of course, Santino, who was so awful Tim Gunn said he contemplated cyanide.

As for season 6, there are so many contestants it's hard to tell where the show's headed. Already we have this season's Ricky Lizalde in the form of Johnny Sakalis, the ex-addict who spent much of the episode in tears. I think the irony is lost on no one that Ari Fish got the auf wiedersehen as she's a dead ringer for guest judge Lindsay Lohan's on again/off again girlfriend Samantha Ronson. I mean, they auf'ed her in favor of a dude who sent his model down the runway in a beige chiffon tent. A look deemed "unwearable" by the judges. La Lohan made for an opinionated judge. I guess designing leggings has really made her an expert in sartorial critique. My favorite looks of the night came from gender bending Malvin Vien and Kohl's designer Ra'mon-Lawrence Coleman. Why the judges loved this thing, I have no idea. Then again, Tom kind of liked it, too, so maybe it's just me.

Ok... that's it for this week in the life of LP. I read this morning that Trinny & Susannah have a new show on TLC that starts tonight. Oh yes, I am very pleased about this.

Is there anything I'm missing out on? Book, film and TV suggestions are always appreciated. Oh, I also watched Mad Men for the first time ever, but since the theme song was my favorite part of the show I figured it's best not to discuss and irritate all my MM loving friends.

Prescription For A Panic Attack

Yes, this might seem like a joke, but I'm being super serious, of course.

I used to suffer from debilitating panic attacks. For a week in 2000 I didn't sleep. I would stay up all night watching Elmo's Adventures in Grouchland, and in particular this scene. I know it sounds totally crazytown (and it probably was), but nothing helped like hearing, "Take the first step and then you will see just how brave your heart can be."

It's pretty embarrassing, this story, but I'm a blogger, right? I'm supposed to have no shame.

I spent the weekend with two relatives who are pretty far right on the political spectrum. I always hear you're not supposed to talk politics with family, but what can I say? I'm a fool. I don't purport to know everything about Obama's health care plan (believe me, I'm trying to understand it, but the President isn't helping in this endeavor). That said, I'm pretty sure he's not going to euthanize our loved ones once they turn 65. At times these discussions turned ugly and I felt like I was having a town hall meeting in my kitchen. All of this has left me feeling sad and not very optimistic about the fate of health care reform, something we desperately need.

The big picture, for me, is that we need to take care of each other. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, deserves good health, happiness, and love. These things seem to be in short supply these days, and I feel those panic attacks creeping back into my life. I hear a lot of fear and anger from one side, and I don't hear clear answers coming from the other.

I want us to remember that we're reasonable people at heart. That we're good people. That we have minds of our own. I hope something happens to turn the tide of vitriol to measured discussion and real solutions. Without that I really am worried about what's going to happen next. These are hard times, but working together is the answer, right? Otherwise we'll just split farther and farther apart until we're fractured beyond repair which will be very grim indeed.

Rediscovering Old Loves - Driver 8

It's like "Two for Tuesday" around here... only it's not Tuesday... err, anyway.

You might wonder how I decide what songs to feature, and let me tell you it's a very complex scientific process that consists of me futzing around on Facebook and/or Twitter while listening to the musics. Occasionally I'm struck by something resembling inspiration and I type out a few sentences, gushing like a burst dam, and then I slink away quietly, returning to my time wasting efforts.

I decided earlier today to write about "Driver 8" by R.E.M. but who knew I would find such an excellent YouTube version to post. I don't know who those two girls are but they are AWESOME SAUCE! I totally want to go back to the 80s and hang out with them.

It took me a while to warm to the siren call of Michael Stipe because in the mid 80s if you weren't English, sullen, pale and dreamy I really had no use for you. Australian bands could fake their way into my heart, but if you were from Athens, GA, bah! Away with you at once. I don't follow R.E.M. much anymore, but you can't deny they've written some of the most memorable songs and goodness, they do kick ass live (even if you're standing amongst hundreds of thousands of drunk Scandinavians, all the way in the back, they'll reach you).

So... enjoy this long play of the vid on this hot summer day. I just bought Wii Resort so I'm going to go make a fool of myself in the living room.

I don't know if anyone actually reads this stuff but if you do, what are some of your favorite songs to rediscover?

Rediscovering Old Loves - Cannonball

I didn't know this video was an early Spike Jonze offering until, oh, two minutes ago (unless Wikipedia is lying, which is always possible).

The year is 1993 and I'm still not cool, but I can pretend while driving my mint green Mazda 626 through the darkened streets of Austin. I once read an article about The Breeders that mentioned how Kim Deal dyed her hair with black shoe polish and I just thought, "Well... I am never going to be that punk rock. Better just give up now, then." And so I did and got married and divorced, moved to LA and now I live in Crestwood and dye my hair with Clairol Natural Instincts Midnight.

That story really went somewhere, didn't it?!

The NYC Prep Finale - It Ain't Over til the Fat Lady Sings... Or In This Case a Skinny Teenager Named Kelli

It's finally here, ladies and gentlemen. The season finale to the best show ever to grace TV, NYC Prep. The drama is realer than real, the hair flips have taken on mythic proportions, the forged relationships not faked at all.

Last week Taylor and PC started hanging out, there was some Cole craziness and PC said mean things and wore eyeliner and the producers walked away happy that even though the lines they'd given this merry band of teens were delivered in stilted fits and stops, suckers like me were still queueing up to watch the magic happen!

Already the newly formed friendship between the prince of the Upper East Side and his little misfit, the West Side social climber of Stuyvesant High, is on the rocks. PC returns to his BFF Jessie who invites him to a fashion shoot for her upcoming Operation Smile soiree. Jessie's modeling for a promotional piece for the OS benefit gift bag. PC undermines her as she strikes a pose with a male model. Zzzz... PC is a brat, we get it. What I don't get it is why she has twigs sticking out of her head and crazily tragic eye makeup.

Sebastian, who looks like a member of Menudo more than anything else, sweeps his hair to the side and tells Kelli about his plans to build wells in Africa... or something like that. He's having a benefit and wants K to sing... or something like that. I don't think anyone ever really comprehends what Sebastian is saying. I think he's supposed to be too cute to understand, maybe. Of course Seb only cares about poor people because chicks dig it. I always say that I don't care why well known people get involved in charity because if it benefits even one person, it's worthwhile. However, this is really pushing it. Kelli performs, and well... let's just say she sings better than I do.

PC has a dinner party to celebrate graduation, but Jessie shows up and acts like Bitchy McBitcherson. She and Kat stage a little snapping girlfight that ends with Jessie stomping off but not before we get an eyeful of her mesh bustier and hideous tube skirt. I'm pretty sure she can afford a better outfit than that. The next day she and PC have a candid heart to heart and I want to care about what they're saying but Jessie's early 80s black eyeliner is too distracting.

It's funny... it's easy to hate Jessie. It's obvious. She's snotty and pretentious and shrill. However, the real villain is Camille. The Tracy Flick in training future Harvard student (or so she hopes) loves to deliver insults with a smile so sweet you think maybe she's being nice, but no... she hasn't quite developed the skills to fully mask the glee she feels when delivering verbal blows. Watch out for this future barracuda. It's hard to witness the two of them fighting to be crowned Queen of Mean. Life is so much more than social posturing, girls!!

Oooh, it's the moment we've all been waiting for! Jessie's Operation Smile fashion show has been a running story throughout the season. She heads up one of the committees and were it not for Bravo I doubt she'd be standing there posing with Ted Gibson and Carmen Marc Valvo. Camille's worked herself up into a real snit over being excluded by J and takes her complaints to the Director of Development and Development Manager of the organization. She rats Jessie out and it's classless and crazy and for our benefit only. PC apologizes to CMV for bringing too many people to his after party. This is ridic. Seriously? Carmen Marc Valvo cares what's going on with his spoiled high school intern and her silly best friend?

So... it should be awesome when Jessie stumbles down the stairs and everyone laughs, but it's not. Nothing about NYC Prep is amusing anymore. I never thought I'd miss Gossip Girl so much! Watching these kids play dress up and run towards adulthood while spewing self-involved platitudes like Sebastian's, "This year's been a lot about quantity. Next year I'm gonna try for quantity. Just settle down. A smaller number of girls but like really really hot ones." Actually, that's kind of funny.

However, they're killing me with the faux sentimentality as the cast reflects on their time on the show and plans for the future as if anyone really cares. I wish them well on their journeys... and hope I never see them again.

Bananas

I was going to blog about the Teen choice Awards but between Miley Cyrus dressing like a hooker and Anna Paquin getting nominated for Best Actress for True Blood, a decidedly not tween friendly show, I find myself feeling old and disgusted.

Something else that's crushing my soul? The craziness that's ensuing over health care reform. Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin are really blowing my mind with the Nazi name calling and "death panels." The rhetoric on both sides has been at a frenzied level for several years and what good comes of it? It's hard not to get caught up in the anger and anger can be productive but fear is not. Fear and ennui are eroding our spirits and I wish more than anything that I had the solution, but I don't.

The only thing I can offer to lift us up today is the Monkey theme. I hope it will suffice. (Monkey theme comes courtesy of Beaucoupkevin).

Oh God, I just saw a commercial for the Octomom special on Fox. I'm going to go cry now.

They Think He's a Righteous Dude - John Hughes Remembered

I try not to shed tears over celebrity passings because let's face it, I don't know these people. I feel sort of strange about the whole thing. I didn't know John Hughes, of course, but his movies reflected so clearly the best parts (and worst) about being a teenager. All the hope and drama and narcissism glimpsed through a tender eye.

I feel an acute sense of sadness over the death of the man who made the anguish a little better because somewhere at the end of the road we might find our Jake Ryan standing by a red Porsche saying, "Yeah, you." Or maybe even Blaine opining, "I always believed in you. I just didn't believe in me." We could be Andie, independent and strong willed, or Watts, adorable and cool as hell. For a teenage girl, every dream could come true via Mr. Hughes. We didn't have to be simpering and helpless or the homecoming queen to get the guy.

I've been reminiscing a lot about the teen years lately and what Robert Smith (and say, Jim Morrison) were to me in music, John Hughes was to me in film. There's a huge sense of something lost here, but it's great to know that some of the best parts of him are a room away on DVD.

I couldn't tell a better tale about John Huges than Alison Byrne Fields who was pen pals with him for two years during the 80s. It's an amazing read with great insight into a man who, for all his heart, was a bit elusive.

Fellow Velocity blogger Erin Keane did a nice post about him, as well.

If Only My Morning Jacket Really Looked Like This

I laughed. Out loud and everything.

I know this is a cheap post but I'll try to come back later with something mildly interesting.

A Post Wherein I Do A Lot of Rambling and Some Copious Name Dropping

Okay, I'm running on three hours of sleep today. By the time I reached slumberland Morning Joe was already on. I've decided to start staying up all night because frankly, I never get anything done during the day. I'm too busy looking at Google Reader, Facebook and Twitter. Occasionally I stare off into space. I am so 21st century pathetic.

Today is the day my very first Velocity column appears in the paper along with, apparently, an even more giant version of my head. I just got through telling someone I think there are maybe five pictures of myself that exist in the world that I don't hate. She asked why I don't use one of those and my reply was, "Because they were all probably taken when I was three." Anyway, you can read it here if you are so inclined.

Today is also the day that my post about Johnny Cash's 1994 keynote goes up on the SXSW blog. I've embedded the clip here. Towards the end you can see yours truly standing next to the man in black and it was just magically random that I was there and he decided he wanted some ladies standing next to him for the photo op.

I try not to, but I often take for granted the life I've led so far. It never seems that interesting to me that I've met most of my musical heroes, traveled the world as a tour manager, or booked The Viper Room even though all I wanted when I was a kid was to be part of the music industry. However, as I spend summer nights thinking back on my life, trying to recall experiences for book fodder, I'm finally starting to go, well, holy cow, I dropped out of high school (twice), lived at a night club, moved to Austin with $20 when I was 18 because my father kicked me out, started volunteering at SXSW and the rest is a crazy history full of stranger than fiction tales.

So now it's fun to remember the time Keith Clark from The Circle Jerks taught me how to play pool after two skinhead chicks tried to beat me up before their show (they called me a fish faced gook and told me to go home, nevermind that technically I was home). He even re-gifted me with a necklace that a fan had given him. I still have it somewhere. Several years later he became an accountant that several of my friends used.

I can't believe I had dinner with John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin when I was in London and he and his wife drove my friend April and me to our bus stop. I was so jet lagged my face was practically in my food... a poor showing, to be sure. Somewhere I have a 3-D picture of us that someone took at SXSW the night Bettie Serveert's tour manager decided he didn't like the towels I'd given him.

And finally, for today, I guess I'll go with the story of spending week after week with the men of the Neurotic Outsiders. Yes, every Monday for a month I had John Taylor of Duran Duran, Matt Sorum and Duff McKagan of Guns n Roses, and Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols crowding into my office, hanging out and generally being very nice boys. I think Duff was my favorite. I also got to know Ian Astbury a bit during this time as he and Billy Duffy sat in on a couple shows. How many hours did I spend obsessing over Duran Duran when I was 13? Too many. How many times did I listen to Appetite for Destruction while watching the sun come up over downtown Dallas? Countless. Even reading this paragraph it feels like some science fiction far removed from my current life as a housewife in rural Kentucky.

The funny thing is, these stories sound kind of cool to me, and the last thing I've ever been, let me assure you, is cool. Like right now I'm listening to Donna Summer and wearing really ugly sandals. Yes, it's true. Also, if I'm retelling stories here, I apologize. I just found out I've posted the "New Moon on Monday" video twice. Apparently I'm getting senile which is also... not cool. And I need a nap!

A Witch Hunt For Another Girl

The Cure - New Music - More Music Videos

If you read Velocity, you'll find out tomorrow that I planned to spend this summer writing a YA novel. Now the summer's half gone and all I've managed to do is move two miles down the road and stare at my monitor a lot while listening to "Sweet Home Alabama" (yes, that's what's playing right now, I am a hick).

I have been doing loads of research, though, or so I call it when I feel guilty for sitting around reading Evermore or watching Make It Or Break It.

However, most of my days are spent across the pond in merry old England as I'm in the midst of making my way through The Other Boleyn Birl and catching up on Skins as I eagerly await the season three premiere on Thursday. I'm also watching The Tudors at bedtime and come to think of it, that might explain why I'm having such weird dreams lately.

Life in the UK sure has changed in 500 years. England in the 1500s seems like no place to be. Even if you're a courtier, life pretty much sucks and there's always someone scheming to take your place. Henry VIII is kind of a jerk, too, always sleeping around and ordering beheadings and hangings. I bet he'd be wearing Ed Hardy if he was alive today. I find it interesting that all the political tension and violence centers around religion, something true since the dawn of time, I suppose, and obviously true today. Makes you wonder if we'll ever all just get along.

Modern day Bristol, where Skins is set, is no picnic, either, come to think of it. If one thing hasn't changed, it's that where there's youth, there's drama. I'm going to miss Tony, Sid, Maxxie and Anwar as we head into a new series of the show with all new characters, save Effy. I'm sure the new lot have just as much trouble, angst, sex and sadness headed our way. I think Skins is one of the best shows to depict the realities of being a teen and of course it's all set to fab music.

I know my teen years seem a lot better in retrospect when replayed against a backdrop of The Cure, Bauhaus, et al. I can remember them as somehow rosy when I know they were really just a series of embarrassing events that included lots of boy rejection, watching kids blow pot smoke in a guinea pig's face, buying beer and driving my friend's mother's car when I was 15, sitting in the middle of the street drunk while Liz and Clint made out in the bushes, and so on and so forth. There were good times, though: running through the park at night, driving through downtown Dallas hopped up on speed listening to Guns n Roses, walking in on the panther backstage at the Motley Crue concert (my friend Steph was engaged to their pyro dude), the first time I heard Robert Smith's voice, putting baby powder on my face and laughing with my friend Amy about how we'd always want to look as pale and wan as possible.

Maybe someday I will capture these moments in words that make up a story that someone can read but in the meantime I'll just say goodbye on a night like this...