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04/19/04-04/23/04

04/22/04, 12:22 p.m.

From: Sarah Lindner e-mail me

'We Built This City' made me feel like a rebel

Blender magazine's "50 Worst Songs Ever" list is already stirring up trouble. On one of the local newscasts, they decided the Blender-ites were a "bunch of cynics" for hating "My Heart Will Go On." Meanies!

Even worse than Celine, worse than anything ever, Blender declares, is "We Built This City" by Starship.

Eh, I don't know. Mind you, I'm not defending this song. ("If you are, we are so over," a friend told me on the phone.) It's a terrible, bloated atrocity. But nobody ever got all up in my face and sang it the way they did the follow-up single, "Sara."

But honestly — and this is why I'll never be more than a JV rock snob — I kind of liked it when I was a kid. And I liked it for the very faux rebellion that Blender decries.

To my 15-year-old ears, it sounded like the Starship was rocking out defiantly in the face of The Man. The Man who was daring to suggest we built this city on, say, corporate incentives and smart urban planning. Don't you remember? The Starship will take you to school if you don't, fool.

I had a soft spot for this kind of tepid '80s sedition against those who would stop the rock. "We Built This City" broke around the time as "Fight for Your Right To Party." But back then, the Beastie Boys made me blush. I was an officer in Future Homemakers of America, after all. "We Built This City," "Footloose" — those were more my speed. Rebellious — but happy!

I even liked — and I'm probably banned from Waterloo for writing this — Styx's anti-censorship "Kilroy Was Here" epic, which I thought was simply visionary. Shudder. If you've watched the Styx "Behind the Music," you know that "Mr. Roboto" caused a lot more human suffering than "We Built This City." (Tommy Shaw: "We found ourselves on stage doing this production that none of us really understood. At one point, we were in the Astrodome . . . and we were standing on stage in costume, reciting dialogue for 10 minutes before we played our first song. I thought (the audience was) going to kill us.") At least Starship all seemed burned-out, morally bankrupt and poorly coifed together.

Another reason I'm looking forward to Blender: cover girl Courtney Love. If I were her, I'd like to think I would have asked myself by now, "Hey, Court, you think maybe you're crazy?" Our girl's missed a few signs that perhaps it'd be a really, really good idea to leave her shirt on and maybe get some sleep. The latest? When Lil' Kim looks more credible in court than you do, that's a problem.

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04/21/04, 1:52 p.m.

From: Omar Gallaga e-mail me

Who needs jitters? I've got Mexico

It's a week and a half until the wedding and while my bride is flitting about, handling logistics (I'm hands-off, remember?) I'm both scattered and laid-back. My head is buzzing with a million details, but like a randy pony (what a strange, pre-teen simile is that), it bucks and neighs, refusing to stay on track.

It wanders, like a good brain should, but as I head toward marriage and a honeymoon, it feels a little inappropriate, like a Lil Jon performance at your aunt's Tupperware party.

On the brain this week:

"Is the Jimmy Kimmel Show always this bad or did Quentin Tarantino's directing, interrupting, self-promotion, harassing of the giggling countess Laura Harring and lame 'Pulp Fiction' references make it even worse than usual? What a colossal waste of PVR space." . . .

"If I got a flight to Mexico for next Friday and hid out in the mountains with some Clif bars and a donkey for a few weeks. . . . Naw. I'd better go to the wedding.". . .

"I'm going to annoy so many people with this Lil Jon ringtone. Awesome.". . .

"It's been a while since I checked out Homestar Runner. I wonder what Strong Bad is up to.". . .

"That Chris Rock special was phenomenal. Instead of donating to Goodwill, I sometimes wish I could contribute to people getting HBO in their homes.". . .

"Seriously, how many Clif bars would I need? 20? 30? Half of those would be Crunch Peanut Butter, right? No, no, no. Gotta get married. Clif bars are delicious, though. Especially when you're on the run in Mexico.". . .

"I like that Sofia Milos lady. Mmmmm . . . She could scare away bandidos for me in the mountains. I wonder if she likes Clif bars.". . .

"Stop it! You're getting married! Close that Expedia Web browser window!". . .

". . .'Uh to the window! To the walls! (To dat wall!) Till the sweat drip down my. . .' Oh man, I'd really better turn my cell phone volume down.". . .

"$899 to fly to Mexico!?! Well, now I have to get married. Thanks a lot, Expedia.". . .

"Why is the florist making me decide whether we want white flower petals or dusty rose-colored petals on the tables? Doesn't she know I'm the groom? Sheesh.". . .

"$899 times two, plus $25 for Clif bars. How much does it cost to rent a donkey in Mexico?"

"Why are the people at the animal hospital so afraid of my cat? They called me yesterday and I could hear the fear in the lady's voice. They really, really, really didn't want to keep her overnight. And why do they have to sedate her every time I take her in? Is she that mean? Well, there's no way she's coming to Mexico. I don't think Sofia would like a mean cat." . . .

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're not renting a donkey.". . .

"Stop it, brain. Gah! Stop thinking! Just... knock it OFF!". . .

"Maybe we should have had a shorter engagement." . . .

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04/20/04, 3:27 p.m.

From: Joe Gross e-mail me

Bill, killed

It would take far more blog space than we have to fully unpack everything that's going on with "Kill Bill" Vol. 1 and 2, and yes, there are plenty of spoilers here, so skip this if you haven't seen it.

1. This monster really, really should have been one movie.

The tonal shift between 1 and 2 was probably intentional, but that doesn't excuse the fact that it's so jarring as to knock audiences for a very negative loop. "Vol. 1" was all cartoony action and stylized violence. (I didn't need to see Lucy Liu's brain, but everything else was so over-the-top silly as to knock you out of the verisimilitude; the DVD of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is more disturbing, and 98 percent of its violence is off-camera or simply discussed.)

"Vol. 2" was all clattering yammer, from Daryl Hannah jawing away about snakes to Bill himself lecturing on Superman. It was also a little more sadistic, a little more personal in its violence. Hacking off an arm and seeing blood spray in a manner that one could easily describe as comical is one thing, burying someone alive is another.

These two tones could have balanced themselves nicely in one film, and with some judicious editing, the whole shebang could have come in under three hours.

But if anything, one long film would have amplified the story's epic scope. Q.T. could have balanced the samurai swordplay, the Chinese martial arts and the spaghetti western vibe into one grand, grindhouse gesture. The Bride would have a rounded persona, instead of action doll in "Vol. 1" and victim of Q.T.-the-auteur's will-to-chat in "Vol. 2."

2. Tarantino no longer seems to care about characters as characters.

His willingness to engage self-parody in this regard is disconcerting in its frankness. Seeing how he's evolved into a compulsive pastiche-machine, it's hard to recall a time when Q.T. movies were known for performances. Think of Chris Penn's relentless intensity in "Reservoir Dogs," or Bruce Willis' nuanced boxer in "Pulp Fiction."

"Kill Bill" has none of this. No development, no evolution, no nuance. Just abstracted violence that works best as a riff on junk he adores rather than a coherent narrative that stands on its own two feet. However . . .

3. I'll watch pretty much anything with a Carradine in it.

John, David, Keith, whoever. For us character actor junkies, they're a dynasty up there with the Barrymores. I became hooked on HBO's wildly potty-mouthed western "Deadwood" because ol' Keith was doing time as Wild Bill Hickok (but is he better than Paul Newman?) But Wild Bill got himself dead last week, so now I'm just marking time until "The Wire" starts.

David Carradine has been riffing on his old "Kung Fu" persona for years, and why Q.T. didn't take the opportunity to make Bill a descendant of this guy is baffling.

Anyway, Carradine is just fabulous in this thing. In many ways, his entire career has been leading up to this (now that I think about it, much in the same way Q.T. built on Travolta's thuggish '70s cool, seeing something everyone else had long forgotten in the man, for "Pulp Fiction.") He seems classy menacing, trashy violent, smart, funny and eternally cool all at once. And he's aged brilliantly. Bill is supposed to look weathered. As James Caan puts it in "The Way of the Gun," "The only thing you can guess about a broken down old man is that he is a survivor."

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04/19/04, 7:01 p.m.

From: Michael Barnes e-mail me

We're having an out-of-bars experience

The new Austin City Hall, rising in spiky angles on West Cesar Chavez Street, comes with a full complement of outdoor meeting spaces — rooftops, plazas, balconies and shady niches. That's because New Mexico-based architect Antoine Predock understands two things about Austinites: We like to gather and we like to do it outdoors.

Think about the essential Austin places and events, from Barton Springs Pool and Sixth Street to the Austin City Limits Festival and the Town Lake hike-and-bike trail (the city's informal town square). They are composed of people mingling in close proximity to water, buildings or greenery under a (hopefully) blue Central Texas sky.

At XL, we have always recognized this. Yet we have not always given Austin's recreational sensibilities their full due. Indoor lounging sites — theaters, clubs, bars, restaurants and galleries — have received our preference in reporting, which may explain why the arts and entertainment staff would hardly be mistaken for a pack of triathletes.

To correct this nagging inequity, this week in XL (April 22) we inaugurate a spanking new "Recreation" section. It may look familiar since it evolved from the former "Escapes" and "Out There" sections. This time, we decided on a more straightforward approach to the title. And we plan to be much more generous with the notices of fairs, festivals, parades, tours, family events, museums, theme parks, zoos, exhibits, recreational sports and outdoor events.

Of course, we can't list everything, every week. There are just too many recreational opportunities in Central Texas. We'll try to publish the more significant, useful and interesting events. To submit suggestions, e-mail recreation@statesman.com and look for more complete listings on Austin360.com.

What better way to launch this new section than to cheer the first-ever XL Austin Olympics. No, this is not an organized event like the quadrennial sports competition to be held in Athens four months from now. (Back off, IOC lawyers! There's enough humorous opinion here to satisfy a First Amendment defense.)

Instead, it's an invention of American-Statesman fitness columnist Pamela LeBlanc. She looked at warm-weather activities already shared by thousands of Austinites, such as mountain-biking on greenbelts or swimming in Barton Springs. Then she researched the equipment, potential distances and projected performances for beginners, intermediates and champions.

Don't get heat stroke playing the XL Austin Olympics. Pack plenty of H20 and ramp up your performances gradually. Go for the gold, but take the bronze rather than jeopardize your health.

Just get with Austin's outdoor ethos while the getting is good. Then check back with XL each week for fresh ideas in our expanded Recreation listings.

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