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05/17/04-05/21/04
| 05/20/04, 1:05 p.m. |
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From: Sarah Lindner 
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Kids in the Speakerboxxx
What is a more frightening prospect: the fact that Britney Spears wants to have babies or that she wants to write poetry?
I've been haunted by that question since reading about Brit in Marie Claire. (I was stuck in the doctor's office — don't judge!) The whole week's been kind of troubling entertainment-wise.
I went to my first O. Henry Pun-Off. I missed the second, more exciting half, which may be just as well with my delicate nerves. I was already dying inside when some of the punsters in the story competition repeated each other's motifs. Imagine working for months on your geology puns, only to hear someone get up and throw out "mineral (men are all) the same" before you. How does the human spirit handle that? It's just like "Bring It On," I thought, when the Toros see the other squad do their routine. (I tend to compare far, far too much to "Bring It On," which is troubling in itself.) A tip for next year's punsters: spirit fingers.
I'm soft. I worry. What's going to happen to Da Band? Is Xander OK? Why haven't we heard anything?
I'm going to have to trust that Dré and Big Boi are looking after Kevin McDonald. Listening to the audio commentaries on the "Kids in the Hall" Season 1 DVDs, I kept waiting for Kevin to bring up the fact that he's in an OutKast video. If I were Kevin, I would constantly be like, "Well, as Big Boi was telling me the other day . . ." and "That reminds me of what happened at Dré's party . . ." but he's too nice for that. Mark was always my favorite Kid, but I'm crossing over to the Kevin camp. He always seemed to be trying harder, risking more, looking worse — even in a fearless troupe like the Kids. Underappreciated in his KITH days (except by France — they love him in France!), he's underemployed now. "Lilo & Stitch"? Shudder. I hope the video for "Roses" lifts him out of the slump. Take one last look at the past, Kevin — and we're out.
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| 05/19/04, 1:31 p.m. |
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From: Omar Gallaga 
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Beamed back to techie heaven via HDTV
In case you haven't seen it yet, our television writer Diane Holloway has begun her very own blog over across the virtual hallway at statesman.com. This week, she's focusing on the new network fall schedules (according to the trades, "Arrested Development" is coming back. Praise be to Fox!), but starting Friday and after next week, she'll settle into writing about what's on, what's about to be on and what she thinks of it all.
If I were to go back and count the number of times I've written about TV on the XL blog, you would get a number well into double digits, and you might be a little worried for me. Who is this man-boy who slavishly follows the dating mores of Yale student Rory Gilmore, who shakes like a leaf at the evil specter of "24's" Sherry Palmer, who giggles with glee at silly puns on the news graphics of "The Daily Show"?
The launch of Diane's new blog coincides with a time in my life when I can hardly think of anything but TV. I'm supposed to backing off on the TV jabber. But I can't! It's season finale time! Tony Soprano is having crazy dreams! Unless an unspeakable act of injustice occurs, Fantasia is set to win "American Idol"!
And I'm making a technological leap to high-definition TV, an obsession of late that's turning me into a retro-tech geek. I, who turned off cable in college to have more time to read books, am suddenly dealing with diplexers, highly directional UHF antennas and dual-input, TiVo-enabled high-definition-recording satellite receivers. I'm trolling forums where fellow TV geeks argue about the "Softness" of picture quality over a DVI connection, or how to upgrade the new HD-TiVo box. These people are opening up these expensive boxes before they've even warmed up in the birth blanket of the initial setup, and adding a second hard drive to expand available recording hours.
It's insane, is what I'm saying. And I'm part of it.
I'm arguing with installers, setting up elaborate plans for a triple-LNB dish that may need a cascading 5x8 multiswitch. What's a 5x8 cascading multiswitch? I don't know! But it has lots of pretty connections and I may need it!
HDTV, at the present time, is a geek's paradise. Computers, which with Windows XP, the Mac OS and now wireless Internet, have become increasingly cheap and easy to use, no longer scratch that Sherlock Holmes itch that attracted many of us to hardware follies to begin with. Nearly anything that's wrong with your computer these days can be fixed with a Google search or replaced cheaply at the component level at your local big box electronics chain.
HDTV presents a miraculous blank slate of new problems to fix. Sure, in a year or two, things will be simplified and getting it set up will be as easy as calling the Cable (or Satellite) Guy.
But right now, with a hodgepodge of available over-the-air content, getting a good signal is still an inexact science. Antennas must go up. Wires must be laid down. Attenuation or amplification may be needed. But not too much amplification: If there's anything HDTV hates more than a weak signal, it's an overly strong signal. Amplify your signal too much to reach that Fox broadcasting tower and you'll end up with dead signals on every other channel.
That means heated debate on Internet forums, knee-dirtying behind-the-TV set fiddling and something I thought I'd never see again, rooftop shouts of, "How does the picture look now? How about now? Better? Worse?"
HDTV, in this brief window of geek bliss, is bringing back the days of foil-wrapped antennas and rabbit ears. How can someone raised on an Atari 2600 and CB radio not love that?
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| 05/18/04, 3:12 p.m. |
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From: Joe Gross 
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When I strike it rich, I will get rid of that ad
$50 million and counting. Always counting.
I've made a decision, people. After comparing all of the ads and all of the alleged public service announcements, those for absurdly spelled tans, those for strip clubs and those for beer, I've found the most evil billboard in Austin.
Every day as I'm driving to work, it forces me to think about why I'm not rich, and the philanthropic foundations and record companies I would found if I were. I get lost in this fantasy to the point where I find myself veering off the road.
Every day the same thoughts: put enough away for future children's education and to live in the bourgeois comfort to which I have become accustomed, make sure my extended family can do the same, and start the slow, methodical process of giving the rest away. And make sure I had enough to reissue a few out-of-print albums that have never made their way to CD. And dedicate myself to freelance writing, cuz, man, that's a wonderful lifestyle if you don't have to worry about eating.
I'm sure lots of people do this while they go to work, especially if they don't like their job. Now, I like my job, but who wouldn't want to have over $50 million at his disposal?
Yes, I'm talking about that Texas Lottery sign that you can't help but see as you crawl down Interstate 35 South near 45th Street in the morning.
It taunts me, that sign.
Of course, it's selling me a fantasy. That's what all advertising does. That's what it's supposed to do.
But while I'm going to work? Man, that's mean.
It's not a sign that's telling me that the American Dream can be mine if I just work hard enough. If anything, it's telling me the exact opposite. Instant wealth is just a ticket away. Work, shmork. You can't earn your way out of the daily grind. You can only win your way out. Is this the message we want to be sending to Austinites as they head off to work? It is not.
Is it over $60 million yet? I have books to write.
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| 05/17/04, 12:24 p.m. |
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From: Chris Garcia 
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Some Of My Exes Live In Texas
The whole ex-girlfriend thing can be great, awful and obnoxious all at once. Right now, I'm hovering somewhere between awful and obnoxious as I wait to hear from my most recent steady, the Ohioan I cut ties with in March about an hour after watching the impressive Metallica documentary 'Some Kind of Monster' at South by Southwest. I still wonder if the movie's bristling strife and baneful songcraft had anything to do with my heartless, over-the-phone gesture. (Tacky, but she's in Ohio and all.)
We're on good terms (aren't we, dear?) and I e-mailed and sent her sheaves of postcards during my China trek. Last week she should have received a bundle of Chinese souvenirs ranging from romantic and thoughtful to creepy and appalling. I'm all those things, so she'd understand. And yet, nothing. Not a peep. I even called, thinking the worst. No answer. Laura, if you're out there, give a guy a break and send a smoke signal, preferably one shaped like a heart.
Ex-girlfriends. That's who I spent time with this past weekend. Allow me to mortify two women: Guenevere on Friday, Dawn on Saturday. (Ladies, you can duke it out on Tuesday.) The former moved with me to Austin from the Bay Area about six years ago. We broke it off, I didn't see her from summer 2000 to summer 2003. Now we've mingled several times and it's been a blast on each occasion. Time passes, people don't really change. She's still lovely, I'm still caustic and incorrigible. On Friday, she brought me french fries at three in the morning. That's like finding out your girlfriend likes beer, Apple Jacks and KISS -- marriage material. But, nah, she has a boyfriend, some kind of buffoon who probably wears khaki shorts and sandals.
Dawn's a former figure skater, which is almost like dating a former synchronized swimmer. It's so removed from my blinkered, bookish life that it's practically novel. She's now in law school, doing rigorous law school things that could lead to brain tumors.
She looks fantastic and still holds myriad little things against me, if you can imagine. She recites terrible things I said back when Jennifer Lopez was still with Puff Daddy. We went out from spring to Christmas of 2001. (Tip: When you announce you're not going to eat Xmas dinner with your girlfriend's parents, wear armor.)
Together, with shared shock, we watched the Sept. 11 events live on television on a Tuesday morning. I introduced her to Club Deville, she introduced me to the buckling frigidity of ice rinks. I took her to see Fellini's 'Satyricon' at the Paramount Theatre, she took me to Macaroni Grill. We had neat times showing each other our individual worlds. She's now familiar with the singular kick of playing Trivial Pursuit at the smoky G & S Lounge and getting mercilessly drubbed as "Back in Black" throbs on the jukebox.
Laura and I went to Italy and road-tripped Florida together. Our memories are golden. I have seen her only once in six months. Laura, I think you should give me a call. . . .
I got the autograph of Ann Savage, star of the classic 1945 noir 'Detour', Saturday night, when she screened the scrappy B film at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown. She signed a mini-poster I got off the wall just before reps from the Austin Film Society unfurled a mint vintage "Detour" poster owned by Richard Linklater to be signed. (Linklater was busy shooting his adaptation of "A Scanner Darkly" with Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson.)
Savage -- 83, a little bent over, but tack-sharp -- was suave in a silky robin's-egg dress from the 1940s and a single strand of pearls. Her hair is white, a longish tumble of Cool-Whip. Because a print of "Detour" from Harvard's collection had water damage, Savage brought her own 16-millimeter copy, whose sound proved muddy and hissy.
Reconciling Savage's blistering on-screen hellion Vera with the gracious old woman before us was knotty work. How could this be the same person? The Savage on screen, apropos of her vivid stage name, growled. The Savage at the Alamo purred.
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