...notes...

this week, I've been kind of shooting myself in the foot. Every day i come home late due to ot at work, kill time online and don't catchup on my dvr. I could use a day/week off badly, but right now, I need the $ worse.

I finished the 2nd Daniel Clowes book/graphic novel I've read. Mind you, I could finish that or probably "David Boring" in a day or 2, but since I only have about 20-30mins to read at work each day, I have been forced to pace myself.

I need more time to really write a review of both of those, but for now, I can say i thoroughly enjoy Daniel Clowes. characters and dialogue. He truly is not a 1-novel/story wonder w/ Ghost World. Although I'd rate "David Boring" higher than this, but I really started to enjoy the characters, even though their stories were never very long or explored in-depth. DB was more of a story-arc, but these were sort of like short-films (or short-stories done in a comic style), but they all revolved around that town of "Ice Haven." 1 film that comes to mind Niagra Motel or even just Gilmore Girls in a sense (Northern Exposure, Men In Trees). Yeah, I always have to reference tv or movies instead of books, sorry.

Now I've started another one, 2004's "Pussey!"



and I'm already digging it. Clowes just has a great ability at observing society and putting that into narrative and characters that represent that. He reminds me in a way of someone like Charlie Kaufman or Bryan Fuller in that way. Not in style, but in appeal and distinctive-ness and social/political commentary through fiction.


the new V show premiered last night. Thumbs-Up so far. Yeah, the reptile-part of the "Visitors" genetics got revealed already, but that is not so much where I think they may have a chance. The factions of their race, possibly replacing humans with cloned-with-lizard-bodies-underneath (and having to hunt-down those original human and/or their bodies), and the "Visitors" who are good, bad, neutral. There is potential here. Scott Wolf?..meh, i hope he becomes tolerable, especially in that role. Beyond him, I felt the cast worked fine. Joel Gretsch and Elizabeth Mitchell..both fine. Monica Baccarin (sp?) and Laura Vandervoot = eye candy and great as evil-grinning aliens. The black dude and his fiance I have seen before as well. I do hope Alan Tudyk from Firefly and recently on Dollhouse continues to show up as the previews for this season showed. The guy is good in everything he's done that I've seen. Even the commercial with Dule Hill, lol.

We'll see, but as I and my co-host went-on about on that Psych podcast last weekend, this may be the lowest/worst new-tv-show fall ever. Eastwick is good, and for me "Accidentally On Purpose" and maybe "Community" are watchable. Otherwise, it's just been bad network-show after bad network-show. All the best new tv is being made on Cable. It's true. But V at least might save that a little. And perhaps the Tyler Labine show "Sons of Tuscon" and "Parenhood" will be better, but that doesn't happen until March, lol.



new Biffy Clyro album is really good. Better than I expected, and not just the songs from the eps. I shall post some kind of list of recent albums I require more time with between now and early December to finally go about and accurately rate my 2009 Index. Sound Opinions of course only allows 50 albums for voting, and to make the top 50 for my list..truth be, album number 63 might be as good if not better than album number 39. There's a laundry-list of records that are really pretty close in that mid 60's to high 70's range. Easily they could be mixed-and-matched.

Also the EP/Singles list. I need to list and rank them, and figure out all the videos that aren't singles. Thankfully, I posted many of those in this blog throughout the course of the year. A damn fine year for EPs. This day and age could become more about the EP based on cost/time/convenience.

-Margot and the Nuclear So and So's have a new single out in late December


-dredg played the entire "The Pariah, the Parrot, the Delusion" record at least twice this week in Germany. I heard a recording of the show from Monday 11/2. Good show, the Judgment Day guys helped out a lot. Enhanced many tunes including some of the stuff besides the TPTPTD stuff. The show on Sunday 11/1 is/was supposed to be filmed for a DVD. Based on some comments on some of the boards, I'm not 100% certain of that. But mixing and whatnot can help make recordings work better.


-Thomas Pridgen is rumored to be booted from The Mars Volta. Okay. Bedlam the cymbal work ruined that album. Their latest record is better, but as a fan, I'm not really down about that since their recent music isn't as much my thing. And they may get someone whose better suited for them anyway. Pridgen is/was a jazz drummer. Are TMV Jazz? not really.

Between Two Skies opens for Janus on Friday in Maplewood at the Rock. Mixed feelings. I have Janus latest record and I won't keep it from here, the production is pretty awful on many tracks. Lots of cymbals clipping throughout. And the new songs I don't find to be as good as the 3-4 they had up before that. That all being said, I'm looking fwd to seeing BTS again of course, but also finally seeing Janus. They still have some music I enjoy, and after a few years, it's nice to finally see them live. I know, I skipped their show earlier in the year, but they're from Chicago, so I was right to think they'd be back. Why they never made it here in 2006, 2007 ish? no idea. maybe their label gave them money finally to tour.


more to add in a bit (i think)