Back Porch Videos make me wanna rock out!

So I have recently been introduced to what is possibly my favorite channel on YouTube yet, Back Porch Videos. A public access show in the mid 80s crewed by high school students from Dearborn, Michigan, the channel already features hundreds of ridiculously awesome rare music clips, and it was only started two months ago. There's nothing but good to be found here, in fact, this video made me singlehandedly appreciate The Circle Jerks like never before:

Diablo Cody and Ellen Page Podcast

Today, my interview with Ellen Page and Diablo Cody in regards to Juno will appear in the Maroon, and it's already online. At 1800 words, it's pretty comprehensive, but here's the full audio file. Hat tip to Matt Fagerholm at the Columbia Chronicle for providing the audio file.
I'm awkward as ever, but considering this is the first time I interviewed someone my age (actually younger than me), I apologize in advance.

I wasn't kidding about Ellen Page and Diablo Cody

Here's a picture of me with the writer and star of Juno, Diablo Cody (left) and Ellen Page (right). Diablo has an excellent blog called The Pussy Ranch (she used to be a stripper, after all), and Ellen Page is surprisingly short. My one regret is that Michael Cera couldn't be there, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.

Overall, the movie is fantastic, one of the best I've seen all year. One of the other cool details about this was that I got to meet Roger Ebert at the press screening (this is after he helped build the Juno bandwagon in Toronto). You always hear that he can't speak but can still think sharp as a whistle, but you don't really experience it until you see him, throat bandage and all. It's still a wonder to see him, and it was great that he would even acknowledge my presence.

Looking back on Look Back

Overall, it was very weird Friday to read a review of my work in Voices. After having written and edited so many things in that section before, it took me a little while to get used to seeing my name in the copy, as opposed to the byline, for a review of my production of Look Back in Anger at University Theater. Overall, James Kraft did an excellent job with the review, and even though I don't agree with him on everything, it was a solid review, one that criticized elements the play while simultaneously respecting the effort put into it. This is what criticism should be doing.

Overall it was an exhausting, overwhelming experience, and my grades will probably dip this quarter as a result of it. Nonetheless, I'm glad I did it, and I'm happy with the final results, and learned a lot from the experience. I don't know if I'll ever direct again, but I'm glad it came out like it did. Supposedly we had a couple of audience members crying, which is always a good sign.

Now that I've had my UT swansong, I can fully commit myself once again to both Voices in print and this blog in particular. Look for a Diablo Cody & Ellen Page podcast coming soon, as well as the snark and commentary this blog has become accustomed to. Godspeed, Voicelings.

Cinematical: 'Your Mommy Kills Animals' DVD Pulled by Amazon

In one of the most shameful acts of lobbyists effects on the film industry in recent memory, we have this story from Cinematical. Apparently, a "well known" Washington representing the tobacco and food industry threatened legal action against retailers if the animal rights documentary "Your Mommy Kills Animals" was released.

The biggest retail to not sell it was the most important - Amazon.According to Matt Pizzolo, President of Halo-8 entertainment, and the films distributor, "Our understanding is that there is no legal restriction on the film whatsoever and some retailers are buckling under threats that have no legal basis." So what this means is lobbyists are now going Ashcroft on the film industry and stifling free speech.

It's one thing if it was an all out attack and propaganda, but most reviews regarded the movie as a well-balanced documentary that both sides of the debate would appreciate. If that's the case, the lobbyist is better off suing Richard Linklater for making Fast Food Nation. I see no way where this is excusable in a democratic society.

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Gene Simmons wants your pants sued off

KISS was doing so well. The main recognition KISS was getting among those under the age of 45 was either ignorance, ironic appreciation, resentment, or a possible Halloween costume for those with big tongues. Unfortunately, this perfect KISS equilibrium was thrown off on Monday when Gene Simmons was interviewed at billboard.biz. Most of the interview regarded his concert DVD's and his role on video websites (as if anyone cares), but he did take the time to give this response when asked about a possible KISS reunion:

The record industry is in such a mess. I called for what it was when college kids first started download music for free -- that they were crooks. I told every record label I spoke with that they just lit the fuse to their own bomb that was going to explode from under them and put them on the street.

There is nothing in me that wants to go in there and do new music. How are you going to deliver it? How are you going to get paid for it if people can just get it for free? I will be putting out a Gene Simmons box set called "Monster" -- a collection of 150 unreleased songs. KISS will have another box set of unreleased music in the next year.

The record industry doesn't have a f*cking clue how to make money. It's only their fault for letting foxes get into the henhouse and then wondering why there's no eggs or chickens. Every little college kid, every freshly-scrubbed little kid's face should have been sued off the face of the earth. They should have taken their houses and cars and nipped it right there in the beginning. Those kids are putting 100,000 to a million people out of work. How can you pick on them? They've got freckles. That's a crook. He may as well be wearing a bandit's mask.

Doesn't affect me. But imagine being a new band with dreams of getting on stage and putting out your own record. Forget it.

Apparently, this kid makes Gene Simmons lose sleep at night.

I guess Simmons thinks littering his comments with random insults and obscenities will make him seem more badass. And I guess if you're a forty-something gym teacher who dreams of having Gene Simmons as your colleague (this was possible once), it seems badass. But to anyone else, he's the rock star equivalent of your grandfather complaining about the Youtubes and yelling at kids to get off his lawn. Frankly, a world where KISS is unprofitable is a better world for us all.

Wash U. has more hardcore music fans than us

I know the folks at the Maroon Sports Report will take offense to any reference of Wash U.'s superiority to the U of C, but to be fair, their music fans kick our asses. The best we can do is a half-assed attempt at smoking pot with George Clinton and Spoon. We don't go the extra mile and get belligerent and naked to the point where we have to be tasered in the ass.

According to Wash U's Student Life:

A Washington University student was tasered by a police officer while resisting arrest during a concert at the Gargoyle on Friday night.

The 22-year-old male student was intoxicated and had exposed himself, according to a Washington University Police Department (WUPD) news advisory, eyewitness accounts and the student himself.

He was jolted by a Taser stun gun three times before complying with the police and being taken away.

The student, who spoke on condition of anonymity, was disruptive at the concert, prompting B&D security personnel to escort him out to the lower level of the Mallinckrodt Center and tell him to leave at about 10:45 p.m. At this time, he was shirtless and wanted to go back inside and get his sweater because he had to walk home in the cold.

According to senior Oliver Hulland, the student was "being absurdly belligerent" and violently resisting the B&D guards.

Despite efforts by Hulland and others to pacify their friend, the student asked B&D personnel if they wanted him to walk home naked. He was "really flailing," according to Hulland and then pulled down his pants and underwear.

"B&D backed off because they didn't want to mess with a naked guy," said senior Mansoor Mahmood, who witnessed the event.

According to Chief of Police Don Strom, one officer initially responded to B&D's call for assistance. The officer instructed the student to pull up his pants or else face arrest. The student refused and the officer began handcuffing him.

Once the officer got one handcuff on him, the student decided that he did not want to be cuffed.

He pulled away and began resisting the officer, with the handcuff attached to one wrist. The officer pulled out his Taser and threatened to use it if the student did not settle down.

The student continued to physically resist arrest and the officer fired the Taser's electrified prongs into the student's back.

"He didn't scream or run; he just moved around with all his muscles tensed," said Mahmood.

The student, who remained standing the entire time, was not subdued by the first jolt of the Taser. Mahmood said that the student, while refusing to cooperate, did not offer significant resistance after being tasered.

The officer then touched the Taser directly to the student's buttocks and shocked him again, using a secondary function of the device called "drive stun."

When this did not appear to succeed, the officer again touched the Taser to the student's thigh and shocked him a third time, said Chief Strom.

The student described being tasered as an intense "burning sensation" primarily locating in his torso, spreading somewhat to his limbs and that the latter applications of the Taser were stronger than the initial jolt.

Witnesses say the officer directly applied the Taser for an extended length of time and a crowd of at least 20 onlookers were yelling at the officer to stop.

"He [the student] was kind of shaking and walking around," said Hulland. "The officer seemed pretty calm the entire time."

After the third tasing, the student surrendered and another police officer arrived. Shortly thereafter as many as six additional WUPD officers were on the scene. The student was handcuffed, his pants were pulled up and police walked him out through Bowles Plaza.

The student was taken to the hospital, where the Taser prongs were removed and he was examined. Hospital examinations are standard WUPD protocol following Taser usages. He was then booked in the St. Louis County Jail.

He was released around 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning and given a shirt to wear.

Chief Strom said that although WUPD has not filed applications for warrants yet, a news advisory stated that the department will recommend that the student be charged with Sexual Misconduct and Resisting or Interfering with Arrest, both misdemeanors.

As the situation developed, B&D and WUPD shut down Mallinckrodt, locking the doors so no one could return inside.

B&D ejected everyone from the Gargoyle; Diwali, an annual performance put on by Ashoka, had just let out of Edison Theatre.

"[B&D personnel] were shoving everybody out into Bowles Plaza," said senior Emily Soderberg, an attendee. Soderberg noted that people coming out of the packed Gargoyle concert were drunk, angry and yelling at the police.

WUPD says a crowd of about 100 people had formed in Bowles Plaza at the time that the student was led away.

"It really sucks when one person shuts down and ruins the entire concert," said senior David Kaminsky, booking manager/promoter for the Gargoyle.

According to witnesses, the crowd was chanting "F--- the police" and some people were yelling "You serve us" at the officers.

Police pulled several students inside for questioning, including Mahmood. Police grabbed him specifically because he was inciting the crowd, he said.

Mahmood described the concert as being "really rowdy" and said that many people went onstage alongside Girl Talk, the performer. He and others said the concert was enjoyable until it got out of hand. Gargoyle staff members repeatedly tried to usher people off the stage.

Chief Strom said that another incident report was filed that night in which a student accuses a Gargoyle student staffer of assaulting students during the concert.

After the Gargoyle was shut down, the performers and some attendees went to the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity house to continue the show. Girl Talk and its opening act, The DeathSet, continued playing at the house from approximately 1:00 a.m. to 4:00 a.m.

WUPD has used Tasers for about three years, and this is not the first time a Taser was used against a student, according to Chief Strom. The most recent previous use of a Taser was against a non-student burglary suspect earlier this fall.

"It is not our preference to exert force," said Chief Strom, who nonetheless concluded that its use was reasonable given the resistance of the student.

Student Life's website annoyingly requires registration to read the full article (seriously, Student Life, you're not the Wall Street Journal), so consider it an act of friendly college press rivalry that it's being posted unrestricted here (not nearly as brilliant as our east coast brethren).

I don't know which part is my favorite, describe being tasered as a "burning sensation" (who knew?) or the impromptu "fuck the police" chant from the crowd, or the fact that when the party was broken up they went to a frat with Girl Talk and continued to rock out anyway. All I can say is, bravo, Wash U. Bravo.

R.I.P. Norman Mailer

"Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less. One is always living a little more or dying a little bit." -Norman Mailer

From an artistic standpoint, today was quite jarring for me. I had Q2Q for the UT play I'm directing, Look Back in Anger. What it meant is that I effectively handed the reins to my stage manager, and that my work on what is easily one of the biggest creative projects of my life, is just about over. This evening, I saw No Country for Old Men, quite possibly the best movie of the year, and one of the most chilling depictions of evil you will ever see on film. I sat in the theater for a good 5 minutes afterwards motionless.

But the biggest story in the arts world today is, without a doubt, the passing of Norman Mailer at the age of 84. I have not read all of his works, but when I read The Naked and The Dead this summer, it affected me like few books I have ever read. The fact that anyone could write a novel that mature at the age of 25 is simply staggering, but at the same time, it was the type of project that needed someone young like Mailer to dare to write. And that was the first of his many accomplishments. He would go on to win two Pulitzers, found the Village Voice and thereby pioneer the alternative weekly, and would become one of the elder statesmen of the Counterculture movement despite being twice the age of most of his contemporaries.

I feel people of my generation really don't understand just how essential Mailer is to our culture. When I talk about him with my peers, most focus on his chauvinism, his machismo, and his battling with contemporary writers. To me, disqualifying him for this has the same level of intelligence as disqualifying Huck Finn for using the word "nigger" or disqualifying Chinatown or Annie Hall because of personal lives of their respective directors.

Mailer is as essential to the American identity as the likes of John Dewey or Alexander de Tocqueville. He's pioneered our definitions of masculinity, of the interaction of political and personal identity, the outsider identity and the nature of rebelliousness in American life. While other works may be more iconic than Mailer's in these regards, they all owe more than a little to Mailer, and have rarely been stated quite as elegantly as Mailer did on such a repeated basis. It's a sad day for our literary world, and leaves one less of the current handful of writers who have defined our contemporary fiction. I think only Phillip Roth and Thomas Pynchon remain with the same level of accomplishment, and while there are a load of promising youngish writers in America right now, none have come even close to reaching the level of accomplishment Mailer established.

The Cathy Santonies: University of Chicago Riot Grrls

One of my friends at this school once remarked that his brother decided not to apply to the University of Chicago because of the write-up we got in Rolling Stone's Guide to Colleges that Rock. Apparently, our campus is so classical-based that its pathetic rock offerings are taking away potential applicants. This coming from the publication that gave Papa Roach 4 stars.

Well, on Saturday I did discover one band that may change that. Fire Escape hosted the event Synesthesia, which put student films on the backdrop of some of the University's best rock bands. The featured band was U of C rock staple The Goddamn Shame, who had the unfortunate problem of trying to banter with the crowd with a guy fellating a toothbrush in the background. But the band that stuck out to me the most was The Cathy Santonies, a band of two girls and a guy who have been performing together for only a year and a half, but sounded like goddamn pros. They played a nice mix of riott girl and balls out punk rock, and sounded like Bikini Kill, X, and Le Tigre (bassist Radio Santoni donned a Le Tigre shirt during the performance). They seemed a bit unsure of themselves performing, but if they keep playing like that, they'll get more comfortable much more quickly.

Here's a sample:

Hollywood writers now have nothing to procrastinate on: WGA Strike Imminent

For the first time in nearly 20 years, we may see a serious labor stoppage in Hollywood. This is no laughing matter. It affects nearly every layer of the entertainment industry. The strike by the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) in 1988 cost Hollywood half of $1 billion. And that was in 1988. It will certainly be well into the billions this time around. We'll also see people's favorite television shows, such as Heroes and The Office, possibly stop premiering mid-season. We'll also see a hell of a lot of more reality shows, and a drop in movie premieres in the upcoming few years.

For a quick recap, the WGA's most recent contract expired midnight last night. The members are meeting tonight to discuss plans, and a strike could begin as early as tomorrow. The main source of conflict is that, at the moment, writers get a paltry cut of DVD sales. Since DVD's increasingly play a large part in the industry, writers feel they're getting shafted, and the studios are as of now refusing to budge on renegotiating their cut. For a quick summary on the debate, here are some excellent links:
The New York Times on the fallout following the deadline passing.
LA Times on the failed negotiations.
THR on the DVD issue.
THR on the digital download issue.

(Photo courtesy of Defamer)