The Culturepin pushes in

Ok, enough journaling and pontificating, let's get down to the root of what The Culturepin is really about - putting the pin on the ever accelerating limn.

Coolest new things I have seen this fall:

1. A Japanese company is developing exercise equipment that transforms human exertion into electric power - now the gym can recycle its own energy! (seen in Wired Mag)

2. Zero-fee multi-person video calls with video voicemail that actually looks good (and spews out a healthy 15 fps) has finally arrived - discover the good news at oovoo.com

3. OLEDs are finally hitting the market - Organic Light Emitting Displays are like bio-Lite Brites that will enable manufacturers to create paper-thin display screens. Can't wait to get my Hi-Def baseball cap that plays my latest YouTube vlog above the visor.

4. Casio's new Exilim camera has a built in YouTube encoder that captures video at YT's optimal video rez and uploads in just a couple of steps.

5. Solid State hard drives make their debut in all the latest must-have computers this Christmas. That's right, your boot drive will no longer have moving parts and a 0.1 ms seek time as opposed to the lava-like 11-17ms seek time of the antique platter drives. Although they are only shipping in max 64GB sizes, that will surely expand as the price drops over the next year. Other must-haves to stay in step with what's next: mini HDMI outputs, Expresscard slots, and HD screens that support 1080p resolution.

6. The Writer's Guild of America goes on strike to secure profits from content that broadcasts online. A strong argument considering the networks are now streaming full-screen broadcast resolution programming from all their hit shows with 15 second commercial spots intact. As of the time of the strike, nor writers nor actors participate in any of this revenue. Not one penny.

7. New models for the music industry. here are two scenarios:
i) Artists will receive shares in the industry like a Microsoft programmer receives shares in Microsoft.
ii) Music becomes a utility, like gas or water, where you on the "tap". All your Bluetooth gear is metered and you are billed at the end of the month.

8. Real ID - yes the passport is undergoing a major revision that involves a digital chip that stores all your vital stats. sure it will curb passport fraud, but it will also inexorably link you and your whereabouts to the Machine. Goodbye privacy. Same thing goes for rail and water travel in EU. Over 90 pieces of ID can now be requested to secure your travel pass. Coming Soon to America.

9. Social Networks = the new 90's DotCom Bubble. Seems every day a new SocialNet is springing up. As of now I have accounts at myspace, facebook, trig, imeem, buzznet, linkedin, going, wayn, quarterlife, friendster, twitter, evite, fancorps, freedom.ccp, youtube, etc etc. Can't wait for Web 3.0 cuz this party is way overcrowded. I think if I recieved a hand-written, snail-mailed poetic correspondence emoting some sort of primal human urge I might eat my fist.

10. Water wars. Oil is so turn of the century.

Have fun out there. Be excellent to each other.

Rock Soup!

As the story goes, a young boy, hungry and road-weary wanders into a small village with nothing but a small rock in his hand. He enters the village tavern and walks straight into the kitchen where he greets the cook and proclaims that he will teach him the secret to the greatest soup in the world if only he will offer him the pot to demonstrate. Bemused and intrigued, the cook hands the boy a well-worn cast iron pot.

"I shall return with it promptly" the boy promises and heads back out into the village and over to the first house on the left. Knocking on the door, he is promptly received by the old woman who resides there to whom he shares the same story, promising the same result in exchange for a donation. She has nothing but some wilting parsley which the boy modestly and accepts before proceeding.

He continues in this fashion moving door to door until he has acquired celery, beets, carrots, venison, potatoes and so on. Having raised considerable curiosity among the townsfolk, he now assembles them at the town square where he asks for a match which is quickly offered. He takes a moment to consider the various contributions he has accumulated and decisively selects the most complementary which he then drops into the pot.

The fire beneath the cauldron is lit and the ingredients set to boil.

"Behold!" shouts the boy at length, drawn from the kindness and variation of your respective hands and good will, I now summon the forces of magic to deliver to you the greatest recipe in the world!"

The boy begins handing out bowl after bowl of the resultant stew and the townsfolk, thusly congregated partook of a communal and bounteous culinary experience.

Well, in so many words, that is how we made the record. Two in fact. I started despondent, out of luck and resources, or so I thought, until one day, exhausted with exhaustion, I forced myself to begin, with one hundred percent commitment. Not 99.9% but 100% - which meant at all costs, take no prisoners, whatever it takes. Without ever harming an animal or an ego, without over imposing or burning a bridge, we are almost ready to share the communal result of this experience with the general public.

"Box" is a set of acoustic material that needed it's own space and time to be presented and will precede the release of the full rock record "Come To Life". And until the very last minute, we will still be making rock soup; drawing on the talents, enthusiasm and good will of musicians, engineers, designers and music fans to bring together these new musical projects.

Where so many people are concerned with getting the cash together so that they can then do what they want, we are proving again that tenacity, audacity and pragmatism, coupled with passion, curiosity and a good will together make a powerful force indeed. Even today Josh and I were welcomed to Darcy Macguire's studio in Toronto to track some last minute vocals for a pair of songs we decided to append to the Box album, one of which was written by Paul Gallinato that we recorded on his brief visit to LA from Buenos Aires.

Josh and I have been capturing video chronicles of the process and we want to share it with others who may be interested in creating their own indie ventures. The first episodes of Rock Soup will be premiering on YouTube within the month of November, so keep an eye out. And more importantly, keep an extra 10 piece aside for the release of Box, coming to you before xmas.

If you have a cool story about how faith and dedication manifested something amazing in your life, I would love to have you reply to this post and share it with our readers.

The unexpected arrival

Josh and I realized that before we release the full-blown supersonic miasma that is my "solo debut" we had to record some of the acoustic stuff that is floating around, and if not released now, may never find a home, short of some awful "b sides and collectibles" nonsense that I would have to go Supernova to have matter.

So the last day we had available to record in the sauna with our Avalon pre's AKG's and Rode NTs, we threw down. Eight songs in all. The album, which will precede the "studio" record is code-named "box". It will likely still be called box when it's released which should be within the month.

Lots of red wine, starry nights pacing around The Balcony, and shoving audio cables in boxes that squeak and grind more than S.A.M. the robot from Sesame Street and we are starting to find something pretty darn interesting.

My dad also bought one of those vinyl to CD thingies from a Skymall catalogue and I went totally apeshit digging through all the warped 45's from my childhood. I have to say, the two and a half decades worth of dust buildup and scratches make them sound way better. Some of that may find its way onto the acoustic record. I can't help myself.

So in a few days I fly back to LA - land of Sushi, chronic perfect weather, and SocialNetworkObsessedMeloDrama. And then I can hear what this all really is; framed by the boundaries of marketability and cult of personality, the experience Outside will finally show its strength or weakness.

Either way, this thing is coming out in a month.

I hope it makes you feel something.

ps. Josh, you rule for putting up with this crazy shit we do.

Sat. Sept. 8th - TIFF

My friend Emanuel Pereira came into Toronto from Vancouver to see two films on which he was post-supervisor working with Brightlight Pictures who, consequently, have their first two films ever in the Toronto Film Festival.

Tonight we saw "American Venus" starring Rebecca de Mornay as a freakishly control-crazy mother and Jane McGregor who plays her anxiety-ridden but highly sympathetic daughter.

Pic starts off as a dark comedy in the spirit of American Psycho before taking a more serious turn that examines topics - addiction, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety and depression and type A domination over another.

The film's score sounds like a direct Thomas Newman lift, which was my primary complaint seeing as the title already feels derivative of the Allan Ball pic. The other point of contention however - the unusual, deliberate pacing of the scenes, where the simple act of going through a stack of cheques unfolds as it would, rather than time-cutting, ultimately won me over.

Rebecca de Mornay gives a tour de force performance. She digs in and commits fully - giving us full reason to believe that she indeed is addicted to unloading a mag from a 40 .cal just because it helps calm her nerves, and will go to any length to get her fix, even in a place like Canada where getting hold of a gatt isn't so easy.

Jane McGregor, as her daughter is heart-achingly fragile and ever so lovely. I can't to see more from her as her star inevitably rises.

All in all, an engaging and unconventional perspective on an old idea, I'd tell friends to put down a ten piece for it. 3.5/5

---

Monday we go see Manny's other pic from Brightlight - "They Wait" - a psych thriller featuring James King (oops, it's Jamie now).

----

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford - I auditioned for the role of Robert Ford while I was shooting the L Word in Vancouver. I wanted it something firece. Lost the part to a better man. But this one will do well, I think. Of course because of Brad Pitt, but it's a solid script and a great take on an old legend. Top five for buzz at this festival.

Lars and the Real Girl - I think the journalist who implied Ryan Gosling might smell Oscar hype over a role wherein he is myopically in love with a silicon blow up doll is a bit of a reach, but I certainly must believe that director Craig Gillespie must have done something right. Yep you guessed it - I read for this part as well, when I was shooting "Cake" with Heather Graham in Toronto back in 2004. I don't think I quite understood how this was going to play - as a Farrelly Bros. comedy or as a straight piece like Edward Scissorhands. I am hearing it's somewhere in between. Worth checking out either way. High on the buzz meter at the fest among critics.

Two days until the fest kicks off

Having had more time to explore the cornucopia of films (did I really just say that -->shoots the typist) I wanted to list some of films I a most interested in. This, of course, will likely change as buzz and exposure affect the climate - in a flash a certain film can become a lightning hot must-see (wtf is wrong with me and the cliches today?) whereas a 'big-player" may suddenly be reduced to tepid interest. Hey, the point of all this is that no one has really seen any of it except maybe Piers Handling and the film selection committee.

At any rate:

Nina Davenport's "Operation Filmmaker" looks to be that little gem of a film that covers seemingly innocuous material but ultimately speaks on a much larger level to great effect. The very way it came together as a film defies typical imagination. Sure bet for me.

Young People Fucking - I read it, because I auditioned for it, and then I fought my ass off to do it. The script was tight, and so current. The dialogue was wicked and merciless. The only other time I felt this excited about a script truly grasping the teenage zeitgeist was when I read for Brick. I wonder if the film will let the screenplay down the way Brick did. Gotta find out for myself. Two tickets please. I know Sarah Polley was attached when I read for it. Seems that changed.

The Joy Division twins. Well, I thought 24-Hour Party People pretty much covered it - in fact I loved that it touched on Ian Curtis so laterally - but I guess now we can learn the rest with not-one-but-two (here we go again with the cliches) Joy Div pics. The "non-fiction" pic is eponymous. The other is "Control" - a biopic. Peter Howell of the Toronto Star says the latter is flawlessly portrayed by the lead actor. I'm gonna go find out.

Peter Bogdanovich introduces
Bucking Broadway John Ford
I mean. Come on, does it get any better than this? A print of a John Ford film from his first year of directing that was thought lost until now and presented and contextualized by Bogdanovich. Sold.

TIFF 2007

Ah delicious. I have returned to Toronto for my annual pilgrimage to the Mecca of movies. I have noticed some interesting changes this year - the 30-coupon book has been scrapped, there are 200 more films screening than there were last year (where there used to be roughly 310-325 this year there are over 500).

A lot of interesting music films covering Joy Division to The Who and everything in between. Got a tip the "Ex-Drummer" is a real over-the-top knockout.

I will likely see "Diary of the Dead" at Midnight Madness, since my friend worked on the production and had too many good tales to tell about wrangling zombies in a swimming pool for three days.

My good friend Manny Pereira did post on "American Venus" and so I am interested in seeing how they pulled the film together.

I typically do the fest in the most fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants way and stand in rush lines. I do this because a) I meet new people with similar tenacity and interests, and b) sometimes, when I don't get into a film, I get into something I never would have considered. That is the real joy of the fest for me - exposure to unknown territory. I love knowing nothing about a film when I go in and I try to maintain this stance as much as is possible. I want to afford the production the ability to seduce me on its own damn terms.

I will update this as the days go on and look forward to sharing my thoughts about stories I can't even yet imagine.

Have a great TIFF!

Links to last year's TIFF coverage:
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/09/tiff-day-8.html
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/09/tiff-day-7.html
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/09/tiff-day-5.html
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/09/tiff-day-2_08.html
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/11/evolving-poli-mocku-bio-mentary.html
http://keramsongs.blogspot.com/2006/09/tiff-day-1.html

"Culture is not a commodity, it is a necessity"

"Culture is not a commodity, it is a necessity."

Unless someone can correct me on the source of this quote, I am going to attribute it to the last person I know who uttered it - Midi Onodera the lesbian Japanese-Canadian director of the film "Skin Deep" in which I played a transsexual woman over a decade ago. The film explored sexual, ethnic and social archetypes.

It has always stuck with me, because it highlighted something we at some point took for granted yet had already become so prevalent in our collective, dare I say, North American mindset: "culture festivals," "a shot of culture" - the idea that it was something you went out and got a dose of, like a soul drip mainlining into your consciousness.

"Freedom fries" is perhaps the most chilling prominent example in recent memory of whitewashing the diversity that exists in life.

I just stopped by Mashti Malone's, the Persian ice cream store on La Brea and Sunset, that serves "homemade" flavors that include lavender, ginger rosewater saffron, pomegranate, Turkish coffee, so that I could pick up some black currant juice. This is the only place in Los Angeles I have found where black currant juice can be found. There is a reason for this.

"Blackcurrants were once popular in the United States as well, but they became extremely rare in the 20th century after currant farming was banned in the early 1900s. The ban was enacted when it was discovered that blackcurrants helped to spread the tree disease White Pine Blister Rust, which was thought to threaten the then-booming U.S. lumber industry ^[1].

The federal ban on growing currants was shifted to individual States’ jurisdiction in 1966. The ban was lifted in New York State in 2003 as a result of the efforts of Greg Quinn and The Currant Company and currant growing is making a comeback in several states including Vermont, New York, Connecticut and Oregon.^[2] However, several statewide bans still exist including Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.^[3]. Since the federal ban ceased currant production anywhere in the U.S., the fruit is not well-known and has yet to reach the popularity that it had in the U.S. in the 19th century or that it currently has in Europe and the UK. The first nationally available black currant beverage in the U.S. since the ban was lifted in many states is a powerful health-food nectar under the brand name CurrantC. Since black currants are a strong source of antioxidants and vitamins (much like pomegranate juice), awareness and popularity are once again growing in the U.S."

- Wikipedia

In article by Ann Baldelli about the return of the Blackcurrant, farmer Allyn Brown III points out the irony "that the federal government banned commercial cultivation of the Ribes species, which is native to America, to protect the white pine, which was imported from Europe. While commercial crops were eradicated, the currants and gooseberries thrived in the wild."

When I was a kid, my grandmother used to serve us blackcurrant juice daily. Rife with antioxidants and more vitamin C than any other juice (except perhaps Kale juice which would be really unpleasant). It was as common to me as Kool Ade or Tang may have been to others. We were in Canada so the laws around its production were different.

As I left Mashti's, I noticed a little Middle Eastern restaurant. Hungry, I walked in a found an incredible, albeit brief menu of cornish hen kabab with sour cherry rice, saffron chicken and so on. I exclaimed, to no one in particular that it was a lovely menu, and the gentlemen standing in line before me asked if I had not ever been there before. I replied I hadn't. He confided that it was one of the oldest Persian restaurants in Los Angeles and that the food was delicious. What was interesting was that he started to say "Iraqi," but stopped himself and opted for the politically cooler "Persian" qualifier instead.

As he was leaving, he gave the proprietor, a large burly man, a kiss on each cheek, said some words to him in Arabic, then turned to the cooks at the take out counter and wished them well in perfect Spanish. Why this filled me up so much is, I suppose, the motivation for this piece.

I left a message for my friend in French the other day, in response to her French accented outgoing voicemail message. She called back to say how much it turned her on. This made me wonder - why is it so exciting to hear someone speak a non-English romance language? Because it is rare here in the US? Because it belies culture?

I was fortunate enough to be raised in an Ecuadorian/Polish household and was thus exposed to an already fecund environment for diversity in tradition, sentiment, nuance, music, literature, history and there's that word again, culture. I learned French in school (being that I lived in Canada, French was always an option in school). All of this gave me a much richer understanding of the world, of food, of poetry, and most interesting to me, a way to think and say things that could not be similarly conveyed in English.

English is an incredible language. It is vital, complex, malleable to a fault and extremely effective for communication. But it easily lacks in certain departments. Note the almost inherent surrealist and analogical perspective of Spanish speakers, or the wry, didactic attitude of the French speaker, the sensual, familial sensibility of Italian, or the efficient, inclusive grammar of Japanese. Though the observation may threaten to engender stereotype, it only appears that way because it has to be parsed through the observational calculation of English.

This all to underline a disturbing phenomenon starting to spread like so much White Pine Blister Rust on the internet - localization of content. Is it ironic that a discussion on heterogeneity should be wary of the threat of localization online? Does the original world wide web not resemble more of a WTO than a UN? Perhaps from askance, but really it was just an lifting of borders. At the dawn of the browser, suddenly the curtain was lifted on the world, and without the barriers of money, Customs officials and mainstream media, we were afforded access to the thoughts, feelings and approaches of our contemporaries around the world.

With the advent of localized content (something already implemented at YouTube and MySpace) we restore the idea that what is immediately around us is of most interest, thus renewing an insular, incestuous perspective.

POM is all the rage now, but pomegranate juice was a staple in Arab countries for eons before it became a major industry in California. Like the Amazonian rainforest, we have no idea what other virtues and gifts exist within it mysterious borders, until it is perhaps too late. Every day another language goes extinct and with it all the nuance, perspective and wisdom of that culture.

It is imperative that we remain open to all of this and understand that all of it is required for the full experience of life, rather than treat "foreign" custom as a sideshow attraction.

Making the Record - Song Diaries pt. 1 - "We Breathe So Brief"

TRACK 1

We Breathe So Brief

As with most songs, I had a chord progression on the acoustic guitar and had yet to fill in lyrics. In my head, there was clearly a female vocal harmony that played counterpoint to a pair of urgent closely harmonized male vocals.

One afternoon I had Jessica Hathaway come by to drop some demo vocals so we splayed out on the carpet and scribbled down stream of consciousness ideas for her to sing. Those eventually became the lyrics to this track which is heavily inspired by my love for the early 90's wombadelic period that included My Bloody Valentine's "Loveless", Stereolab's "Transient Noise Bursts and Random Announcements" and Dinosaur Jr.'s "Green Mind."

The second half of the track is a classic Blue Dog Pict-syled "garden section"; a voyage into the subconscious - visceral, dreamy and typically more jammy - inspired by David Sylvian's "Secrets of the Beehive" and all the luscious, impossibly melancholic warmth that it rendered on vinyl.

As with almost all the songs, the drums were laid down by Ryan (Brown) at the backyard tracking studio in Burbank, and the acoustic guitars in the sauna at my parent's house in Toronto. Peter Devlin, a true guitar hero, tracked the funky strat stuff on my parents' porch one sunny July afternoon, as well as the Pink Floydesque licks in the latter half of the song, but the rest was far from conventional.

Wes Styles came by the (Chemical Light Factory) studio in Hollywood with his huge guitar pedal board and laid down three bass tracks - one that is pure grindy bass fuzz with octave pedal, one that is through his wah and chorus and became the primary "clean" bass track, and one that uses delays and flangers and an old Coke bottle as a slide to toss out random bass fx and swoons.

Before she moved to NYC, I had Natalie John stop by to track vocals and a trumpet solo which was later redone by Stewart Cole (a horn prodigy). Natalie's vocals are still in the track and sound slutty and surly as ever. Brilliantly rendered. So much charisma.

I later recorded some vintage 80's keyboard pads and after that some Ebow guitars through some amp sim plugin to create controlled feedback (guitar feedback is an absolute BDP/KMS staple).

After a couple of months of letting the track simmer I returned to track the electric guitars. This is a track that is different than any other on the record, but for its particular early 90's-ness it is perhaps my favorite - reminiscent of "The Cost of Admission" off BDP's "Spindly Light und Wax Rocketines" which may be the best track I have yet released, in my opinion.

I conferred with Josh Joudrie via MSN and webcam over the progression of the track and discussed methods for completing the sound canvass of the song.

Finally over the course of a week (during which my dear support friend Misa Cohen presided with tea, humor and wine) I tracked all the electrics on my trusty, highly customized Fender Strat same one I used on all the BDP records - yes Johhny Camden's "Watson").

All in all the song has over 24 guitar tracks. L, R and center channels for clean JCM 800 clean, crunch, power chords, MBV bends, and Princeton Chorus jazz leads. I then ran stuff through the McDSP plugins to rebuild everything I had ever learned from using the true analogue gear at Number 9 Sound in Toronto during Spindly and at Tone King Records during the Project:Ribcage era.

Essentially I built a signal path that pushed the guitars through an SSL console strip then into a Manley VariMu compressor, using a Urei 1176 to shape their transients, and then into a Neve 1073 or Avalon just for the tube stage, and then squishing it onto Ampex tape with a 100hz rolloff with a 6db boost at 100hz. Of course, every single track required its own treatment, but the end result is pretty colossal in its approximation to the old school Spindly sound. Despite all the influences, it really does end up sounding like nothing more than post-BDP. I guess it's just the fact that everyone involved came from that school.

At any rate the track sounds almost like what I heard in my head that muggy LA day almost a year ago. I am stoked about unleashing it on the public. This song, for me, is just an indulgent throwback to the days when music existed for its own damn sake - to uplift, to throw up its arms and say "I have no idea what the fuck to do, but it sure feels good doing it."

I thank Jessica for her inspiration and truly instinctual input - she and I have an irascible bond and it can be felt in the end product of this track.

"
Radical experiment
Lavender peppermint
Rainy days
Cloudy nights
Manta ray, iolite
Here's the test
What's your best
Can you rest
Never night
It's my turn
Have I learned
Do I care
Take the stairs
Or just breathe
Or just bleed
Or just leave
Lifelike dreams
Lifelike fears
Lifelike deaths
History's silhouettes

We breathe so brief
Release beliefs
That kill me slowly"

Dear Brother

With all due respect to those who have died in the spirit of serving some higher moral...

It weighs on my heart that despite my strongest efforts I was unable to get through to you, though it is not surprising and unfair to my own efforts when contrasted with the coercive mechanisms devised by the military to persuade you.

I have buried many friends for as many reasons - suicide, illness, overdoses - but yours will be the hardest to accept, because you trained for your own death. And you trained to take the lives of others. The saddest part is that you employed your greatest assets - tenacity, loyalty, dedication, intelligence to prepare for this tour through darkness, whereas you could have just as readily exercised these virtues towards the light.

What are you fighting for? What is it that you are being indoctrinated with that makes you believe what you are doing is for a greater good? Your responsibility is to yourself and you have defied that. With this decision you have made, you have also forgotten about those who love you. You counter that you are doing this to protect us; this only underlines the naivety upon which you have based your decision. Whatever sense of martyrdom you are carrying around in your heart is simply mislabeled hubris and selfishness - the ripple effect that harm coming to you through your experience will create is a function of your decision. When a person takes their own life they fail to respect what they leave behind. It is an utterly selfish act. I am not sure if you were playing a bluff - but they army is gonna call you out bud. They want a return on their investment.

Recognize that if you had filled your hours with other data then you would have arrived somewhere else. The sense of inevitability you now feel and face, is a function of your own creative power. But now you have surrendered that ability to choose over to someone else and there is a price you will pay for defaulting on your own free will. It is like walking to the front steps of prison and asking them to lock you inside for no reason other than having convinced yourself that you are not worthy of participating in the abundance of life. You gave up that bounty.

I am certain that you have been schooled to think that what you have been trained to do is to think on your feet, to take initiative, to steer your own course, to live the impossible dream, to explore the world, to discover your fullest potential. But you have been conned and that is what hurts me most. That I believed you knew better.

You were the kid who got a job so you could pay for your own singing lessons. Who aspired to set a Guinness record for tap dancing the longest distance - from the suburbs to downtown, who wrote incredible stories of marvelous lands, who aspired to be a nuclear physicist and gemologist.

But this is not fantasyland now, brother. Your mortality and your fragility are both very, very real. Whatever insecurities were preyed upon when that recruiting scout approached you on the bus home from school that day - memories of being teased at school, of being different, of being called weak - they are what has delivered you to this momentous decision you have made, and now it is your path - one that you accepted, that you fed with your own powers of manifestation. There is no destiny in it - only the legacy of choices you made. But you have relinquished that power now. Now you are someone else's property.

There is a time and place to fight for what you believe in. But you have signed up for someone else's war. It wasn't a threat to your country. It wasn't a threat to your family. You actively sought this fight out and decided to jump in for a piece of the action. To "prove" yourself.

There are many ways to defend freedom. Unfortunately a bigger machine than you are capable of perceiving co-opted the word and transformed its utility, just as it has your understanding of what other options and ultimately rewarding and significantly more self-empowering methods are available. I will, with the same tenacity and determination continue to support freedom, peace, love, understanding, wisdom and I imagine to greater effect.

The only thing we have is to choose how we think about things and from that we manifest the life we will live. I respect that, and I respect that you had the power to choose for yourself. We make our own beds, we dig our own trenches.

I miss you already.

May God bless your path.

The Secret

Is not a shortcut.

Is not a short walk.

Is not a movie.

You, who wield creation, are you comfortable with your power? Are you able to rely on it to get you from point birth to point demise? Do you play to win or to continue the play?

Is your self comfortable with abundance and thus are you able to truly give without taking the hit, and responsibly guide your charge through the darkness, or are you surviving, thus rendering your power a means to an end?

Have you taken care of yourself? When you see an abandoned child, a hungry homeless person, a sickly grandparent, an uncontrollable addict, can you see yourself?

Can you afford the same compassion to yourself?

That is your charge. It is your only charge.

Are you pragmatic and realistic? With all your dreams, aspiration and visions intact, can you attend to the here and now and supplant desperation, misery, loneliness, sadness, fear, regret, disappointment and rejection, actively and immediately with an actual objective towards self-perpetuation, soundness of mind and body and do so actively and begin immediately.

Are you comfortable with holding your own hand, stroking your own hair, feeding yourself first, putting on your oxygen mask before the person next to you?

Can you walk through the unknown, in the face of the status quo and maintain certainty towards your aim?

Are you self-sufficient with love or do you panhandle for it in the form of attention, acknowledgment, acceptance, a one night stand, a response?

Can you listen, just listen without inserting your own mark in the flow of events?

Can you surrender to the flow? Can you you dive into the rapids?

Can you persist?

Can you feed yourself?

Can you handle the way you are if you drop the bullshit? Can you accept that you don't know? Moreover, can you accept that you do?

Can you live without having to find yourself, and accept that if you did, your understanding would already be obsolete?

Can you walk meet the Devil at the gate before the bridge and say I need no further assistance. I am complete in my walk and will not waiver, and yet I am malleable enough to not break should I be diverted or obstructed or even hit.

Can you sit in the fire? Or do you thrive on distraction and avoidance to reconcile yourself with truth.

Can you remember anything at all, before the Distraction World took hold of your fevered and impressionable mind?

Do you remember not wondering if you look fat or skinny, or smart or stupid? Do you remember not classifying anyone else that way?

Can you make an impartial judgment?

Where is you courage coming from? Does vindication drive you?

Do you think you can get rich if you just believe it hard enough, because it really sucks not to have what your neighbor does?

Can you empathize with your enemies and detractors?

Can you take the smaller piece? Can you take the larger one?

Do you believe in destiny or do you believe in reaping what you sow?

Is affluence the end to the means or the means to an end?

Are you accountable? Can you communicate yourself simply or are you cryptic? Can you admit as much?

Are you able to simply observe your anger, jealousy, and fear with curiosity, as a student might a dissected frog? Or do you rush to cover it or release it, lest you be discovered, lest you see that your are a balance of light and darkness?

Are you able to apply reason to opinion - if the public promotion of your identity is true are you able to acknowledge its validity, and if it is incorrect or driven by other motives, can you simply disregard it with confidence?

There is no easy answer. The secret is not in a word or a sentence or a set of goals. The secret is you, its solution is the application of your power. Your accountability to that power. You are living the result of your mind's work.

Do you have the courage to face change?

So anyway, back to my record

I have gone through hell and back making this record. I wouldn't say that the making of it had anything to do with it per se, but the time within which it is being made certainly applies.

I have gone through manic depression, heartbreak, heartache, heartburn, insomnia, abject poverty, loneliness, fear, anxiety, anger, confusion, despair, elation, joblessness, near homelessness, near death, suicidal tendencies, agoraphobia, toxic poisoning, become a stalker, been stalked, been hacked, hacked back, learned C++, learned MySQL, written a forty five page marketing plan and filled out three grant applications, written two screenplays, lost all hope, gained total faith, lost the love of my life, lost the road, found it again and again and again, become an alcoholic, quit smoking, restarted, spent my last five bucks on a homeless person, not been able to ask for the same, made new friends, lost those friends, haven't played a show at a club but have played one a thousand times in my living room or bathroom, and when Joe Ayoub came to track bass there was a fire in my building and we stayed inside while the building burned and waited until the sirens stopped so we could start recording.

Why am I telling you all this? Because since the breakup I have opened up the sessions again and started laying down material like never before, and it's gone 3D. The process has taken me back to the initial spark for each of these songs. The words are significant to me again, and the musical passages all have context anew. Every part of me that died when Blue Dog Pict did, and when Danny took his life and when all the other bad shit happened, has also died and has been reborn in a much stronger iteration.

I do not write this with blind bravado - every single step has been an arduous lesson, and I am now observing the benefit of walking the whole path, and not ever having opted for the shortcuts. Every book, every lover, every heartbreaking fucking night of my life is in this and wow, when you finally sit back and just watch, the Universe rolls in ecstasy at your feet.

L'Avenir

Derrida talks about the difference between the "future" - that which we imagine or project will come to be, vs. "l'avenir" which is that unexpected actuality that comes in that we could not have imagined or predicted but replaces our reality and understanding of things.

This year TIME magazine named you, me, the "user" the person of the year. The editors identified us as the new world order based on the explosion of "user" created content, tastemaking, aggregation and filtering of data. They compare the Web2.0 to a form of global telepathy. This is something I discussed in my film "Rimlight Revel Without Me" back in 1995 when I saw the internet as an evolutionary leap by humankind, ever tied to the machine; a cyborgian marriage via which we become increasingly separated from the organic world into an informational form of energy.

YouTube is not the genie being let out of the bottle. It is a crude indication of where we are going. Next I see two-way realtime video, arena-style, where round table discussions are conducted, viewed, recorded, archived, cataloged and distributed simultaneously. Where we directly affect not just the narrative but the actual events taking place. Where we, from our living rooms, talk someone off the edge of a building, or police a neighborhood, or appeal to policemen to lay off a suspect.

I foresee world premieres of films in Second Life, where I take my remote date to a digital ATM, buy digital popcorn and zoom in on the digital screen at the virtual theater where simultaneously virtual film piracy is going on in the next row by way of a guy with a virtual camcorder taping the film for contraband sales on the virtual sidewalk the next morning.

As these economies become indistinguishable from the "real-world" economy, the commodities "within" these virtual places cease to be virtual at all. They are as real as the money in your mutual fund and capable of affecting your life to the same degree.

What is of interest to me is not the authentication of these things as real, but that it is a third person view of how we engage life already. The whole of it is a running narrative that we are able to participate in or sit back and observe. It is all malleable and forever changing by our simple viewing of it. What we determine to be relevant becomes a commodity that can be traded and our sense of success is defined by the goals that we commonly identify as worthwhile.

I see us all as little movers in a vast neural network that is learning itself. The planet is a seed, waiting patiently for the perfect moment when the sun and water conditions suggest it is time to finally crack the protective husk and push forth through the surface of the soil, to begin life and ultimately, entropy, demise.

That brief experience as a flower is fleeting, chaotic, a struggle, and it is an exhilarating subjection to the elements, and just before we face the final curtain, we burst into bloom and scatter our seeds so that the process can begin anew.

Exciting times, but when haven't they been? As the progression of our legacy on Earth continues to confirm this system, I can only look forward, without any reasonable prediction, to what will come next, know full well, that l'avenir will out-maneuver my most wild suggestions, and keep the dynamic of learning alive.

I surrender to this actuality and submit myself to the next part of this adventure. I look forward to experiencing it with all of you, my contemporaries.

Happy New Year. <-2006->2007->...?

The evolving poli-mocku-bio-mentary

Sasha Baron Cohen's "Borat; Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Great Nation of Khazakstan" surpassed even my generous predictions, coming in with US$26M opening weekend on less than 900 screens and making it the largest opener of its kind.

The theater on the second night was sold out for every show, and the line ups to get into the theater were an hour long. The crowd was a mix of "Jackass" fans, GOP-haters, frat boys, seniors, tweeners and basically anyone else. Though the film really doesn't say much, it does establish another first; it seamlessly binds together a variety of methodologies for commenting on the status quo - drawing on the Tom Green-cum-Jackass man on the street socio-agitator school, the Mork and Mindy/Coming To America - what we look like from outer space narrative fiction format, and the Michael Moore campaign-documentary, all wrapped up in a very contempo video blog indie subbacultcha format that functions as a silver bullet at its everything-that-is-popular-to-deride targets. This thing is waterproof.

In the same mainstream movieplex, alongside big openers like Dreamworks "Flushed Away" and Tim Allen's big xmas sequel "The Santa Clause 3" are Borat allies "Shut Up and Sing" - the Dixie Chicks bio-pic/promo/doc about the censorship and derision they faced after commenting on Bush in Iraq, and "Death of a President" - the controversial virtua-doc about the hypothetical assassination of the current standing president of the US in 2007.

This is an audacious new brand of cinema that has learned much from the highly advanced and surreptitious coercion tactics used by the megacorps and marketing agencies, to cloak their agendas in the lowbrow and self-effacing. There isn't a lot of content to speak of, but it belies how intense the culture war, that is the culture war of the left and right in America has become.

Watching "American Dad" today on Fox, I didn't know what to make of a segment about the staunch alpha male Republican father deciding to have sex with a man so that he could be accepted into the gay Republican movement. It's so inverted, (coming from Fox) that I couldn't help but be suspicious that in some way it was not so much Seth Macfarlane testing his limits, as it was Rupert Murdoch taking one on the chin via prime-time humor hour so that he can push his GOP agenda harder during "serious" air.

For how long on the broken backs of musicians

Ok, so I researched the new "digital media distribution" mechanism that was proposed to me. It's an MLM that essentially preys on musicians, and, like any Ponzi scheme, on vulnerable people and their friends, and their family.

I am taking a really interesting business course at UCLA at the moment on writing better business plans for independent features. One of the things that is most often stressed is honesty when finding investors. I find it serendipitous that this ancillary challenge, that is the allure of a get rich, while solving the unpaid musician dilmma is presented to me by someone who I trust and support, in the very ailing industry within which I am involved.

At any rate, I hope none of you get suckered in. I am even going to be cordial enough to those who have become involved and not list the company/model's name. But in case some kind of MySpace/Open Your Own Music Store/Make Money Selling Others People's Music thing comes around, but costs you more than you can justify - please read this excerpt from a document presented by the Federal Trade Commision:

PREPARED STATEMENT OF
DEBRA A. VALENTINE, GENERAL COUNSEL FOR
THE U.S. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION

on

"PYRAMID SCHEMES"
presented at the
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND'S
SEMINAR ON CURRENT LEGAL ISSUES AFFECTING CENTRAL BANKS
Washington, D.C.

May 13, 1998

"Here are some tips that consumers and business might find helpful.

1. Beware of any plan that makes exaggerated earnings claims, especially when there seems to be no real underlying product sales or investment profits. The plan could be a Ponzi scheme where money from later recruits pays off earlier ones. Eventually this program will collapse, causing substantial injury to most participants.

2. Beware of any plan that offers commissions for recruiting new distributors, particularly when there is no product involved or when there is a separate, up-front membership fee. At the same time, do not assume that the presence of a purported product or service removes all danger. The Commission has seen pyramids operating behind the apparent offer of investment opportunities, charity benefits, off-shore credit cards, jewelry, women's underwear, cosmetics, cleaning supplies, and even electricity.

3. If a plan purports to sell a product or service, check to see whether its price is inflated, whether new members must buy costly inventory, or whether members make most "sales" to other members rather than the general public. If any of these conditions exist, the purported "sale" of the product or service may just mask a pyramid scheme that promotes an endless chain of recruiting and inventory loading.

4. Beware of any program that claims to have a secret plan, overseas connection or special relationship that is difficult to verify. Charles Ponzi claimed that he had a secret method of trading and redeeming millions of postal reply coupons. The real secret was that he stopped redeeming them. Likewise, CDI allegedly represented that it had the backing of a special overseas bank when no such relationship existed.

5. Beware of any plan that delays meeting its commitments while asking members to "keep the faith." Many pyramid schemes advertise that they are in the "pre-launch" stage, yet they never can and never do launch. By definition pyramid schemes can never fulfill their obligations to a majority of their participants. To survive, pyramids need to keep and attract as many members as possible. Thus, promoters try to appeal to a sense of community or solidarity, while chastising outsiders or skeptics. Often the government is the target of the pyramid's collective wrath, particularly when the scheme is about to be dismantled. Commission attorneys now know to expect picketers and a packed courtroom when they file suit to halt a pyramid scheme. Half of the pyramid's recruits may see themselves as victims of a scam that we took too long to stop; the other half may view themselves as victims of government meddling that ruined their chance to make millions. Government officials in Albania have also experienced this reaction in the recent past.

6. Finally, beware of programs that attempt to capitalize on the public's interest in hi-tech or newly deregulated markets. Every investor fantasizes about becoming wealthy overnight, but in fact, most hi-tech ventures are risky and yield substantial profits only after years of hard work. Similarly, deregulated markets can offer substantial benefits to investors and consumers, but deregulation seldom means that "everything goes," that no rules apply, and that pyramid or Ponzi schemes are suddenly legitimate."

From:
http://www.ftc.gov/speeches/other/dvimf16.htm

---------
Don't get "Burned" especially not at the expense of musicians who ultimately are the fodder.

For both sides of the story check this out:
http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/blog/310#comments

I guess my search for the new music market model continues...

Making the Record Pt. III

My shoulder was so cramped last night after recording acoustic guitar for nine straight hours in a cramped little sauna.

Josh and I hauled the studio down into the basement where there is a 4x6 sauna, and set up the AKG 414 through a Studio Projects mic pre and recorded my dad's beautiful sounding acoustic. The wooden panels that cover the walls and ceiling of the small room were superior to the matte sound foam of a typical "dead room" because it contributed to the wooodsy sound of the guitar, acting almost like a resonant booster, like wine aged in oak as opposed to steel barrels.

Over the course of one night and one whole day we tracked all of the acoustic guitar tracks for the record, which is, in my estimation, the most significant hump to have overcome; so much of the rhythm and character of these songs was developed on that instrument. Suddenly the songs sprang to life, filling in the rhythmic nuances for which Ryan, the drummer, had so eloquently left room, filling in the contrapuntal harmonies against which the melodies take on a third dimension.

At first we were concerned that, due to the nature of my acoustic/drums/bass three- piece as established at Hotel Cafe in Hollywood, the acoustic parts would be "overplaying" - filling in too much precious "white space", but mixed far back enough, they simply gave the songs an airy texture that glued together the rest of the parts - electric guitars, keyboards and so on.

Finally, at the end of the night, we had probably too many drinks, and I awoke feeling like I should just go back to bed. Which I did. When I finally managed to get on my legs, I felt this incredible sense of relief and satisfaction - finally after so long, the dreaded meat of the record has been committed to wax. Of course, the lead vocals will prove challenging, but as I explained to Josh, vocals are an emotional challenge, whereas acoustic guitars are technical and so much drier and exacting a process, and thereby exhausting and daunting. Now that's all in the past and we can move on to more creative gestures.

As I went out for some fresh air, I was almost hit in the face by a Monarch butterfly. I guess all those fat fuzzy caterpillars that Sage and Jadie were observing eat plants whole last week at Cawaja Beach finally underwent their metamorphoses. Not to overstate the obvious metaphor, but I noted that I am going back to sobriety today. Like I did for a decade before turning thirty and deciding to loosen up for a bit. Except now I feel loosened up regardless. Also, I felt this cloud that has been hovering over my being for the past year or so, go away. I realize that seems like a lot to have happen over the course of ten fever dreamish hours, except that it was in fact the end of a very long road. I am now re-learning how to stand. How to walk. How to breathe. I am in a new land, and I have no idea how to speak the language. I am even a little reticent, but I am anxious to get the hell out of wherever I just was. It was like an excorcism. At one point I practically fell to my knees to pray and expel whatever demon I felt was parked behind my left eye. Long story. And not one I really want to expunge here. But you get the idea. And it was parked there for a long while.

Oh yeah, and I received an interesting call from Los Angeles yesterday. Something that may present a solution to the query I raised in my blog entry concerning the near future of digital media distribution methods and where the market will eventually settle. You know, that whole "I know you love good music, and I am doing my best to make some, but how am I going to make a living from it and how are you going to feel like paying for it when you know that the artist is lucky to get an even marginal share, and what's more why bother when you can get it for free" conundrum.

I am not divulging what that potential solution is yet, because I need to investigate it further, although I may fill you in on it sooner that the mass media do, because after all, this blog is called my Culturepin, and so I have some sort of self-imposed duty to fill you in faster.

xo

TIFF- Day 8

Met up with Jadie in the line outside Ryerson for the screening of John Waters' "This Filthy World". Jadie was chatting with the parents of the girl who would become Peaches - internationally known smut-electro-rock-queen. I knew Peaches back when she was Merril Nisker in Fancypants Hoodlum. And she is still Merril, except that she is living out her dream fully. It was cool to meet her parents who seem very happy about all her success, including her last album "Fatherf***er" which she recorded in Los Angeles. They were there for the screening because I believe Peaches did a performance with John Waters in Los Angeles not more than three months ago (that I wished I had attended!).

Anyhoo, "This Filthy World" is a essentially a live comedy taping of John Waters' doing auto-biographical standup, directed by Jeff Garlin, a regular actor on "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

It is certainly insightful and enriching to hear the reasoning and motivation behind John Waters' works, as told by John Waters. The film itself could use some more editing. Strange shots of the world's ugliest audience are used as cutaways asGarlin cuts between a variety of performances. To his credit, you'd never know the show was taped on different nights - which is why you wonder why the hell the director is cutting away to this audience.

The film was packaged by CAA and paid for by Netflix, so I am not sure how it will show up n the marketplace - maybe as a Netflix exclusive? The Netflix production/distribution company is called Red Envelope Productions, whatever that is.

The Q&A was as wierd as one might expect of a John Waters' screening, although the strangest thing about it was that John Waters seemed the only reasonable gentlemen among the members of the crowd. Even Flyerman, that notorious pinhead egomaniac tragic starfucker was there in the front row, asking decoy questions so he could stand up an flash the audience with his sparkly Flyerman lightshow jacket. But it was, again, poignant in a way. Isn't the lust for fame by whatever means, the parents of an international smut rock Queen, the madhouse being run by the patients, isn't that what any and every John Waters film is about?

The only thing I was left wondering - what is John Waters' role, when his mission has been to push the limits of depravity and keep the boundaries loose, in the Internet age, where the lid has been blown off the Pandora box of depravity?

He answered a similar question in the Q&A in a manner that surprised me - where I thought he might have conceded to that impossible to outpace phenomenon, instead he inferred that he would just have to try harder to find what is depraved. Good luck to him. I guess indeed, someone will have to show us where are boundaries are, so at least we are conscious of it - and John Waters wants to be your man. Long live the ghost of Divine.

TIFF - Day 7

Last night, stood in the rain for forty-five minutes waiting to get into "Trapped Ashes". The usual trenchcoat crowd showed great enthusiasm for the nostalgic 80's "Tales From The Crypt" setup that framed five horror shorts by five different directors. The wraparound, directed by Joe Dante drew me back to the days of campy horror flicks that started on craneshots over suburban row houses in the Valley and led to all sorts of ghoulish mayhem. The best of the bunch was John Gaeta's thought piece on the six foot tapeworm, as well as Monte Hellman's period piece on a hundred year old witch.

Tonight we saw the Gala screening for Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book", an epic tale with an epic starlette, Carice van Houten, that was clearly a labor of love for the writer/director. I happen to be a huge fan of Verhoeven's and this piece was imbued with the same larger than life, visceral impact of his canon of works. He made a brief disclaimer before the film concerning the work he had done via Hollywood to support his career, and that this film represented a homecoming to his native Netherlands, and interestingly enough his first Gala at TIFF since The Fourth Man also in his native Dutch twenty-three years ago. A brilliant and utterly engaging film with a tour de force performance by van Houten that could very well become a classic.

Gonna try for the Jon Waters bio-pic "This Filthy World" at the Ryerson tomorow at 9pm.

TIFF - Day 5

Saw the world premiere of "Sharkwater" at Ryerson which was received with a unanimous standing ovation. What began as an endeavour to shoot sharks in all their splendour quickly turned into a much greater story, a pro-active document that goes so far as to show the documentarian alongside a fellow Canadian ship captain ramming into illegal shark poachers off the shores of Costa Rica, Guatemala and the Galapagos. Through incredible acts of bravery and covert ops, they expose a trillion dollar shark fin poaching industry based out of China/Taiwan that depletes the oceans of over 100 million sharks a year. Strongly recommended. For more information: www.sharkwater.com
\Sage and I wandered around Yorkville for the next couple of hours as we killed time before making our way to the Isabel Bader theater for Tsai Ming-liang's "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone."

The film follows a trio of Malaysian urban youth, one a homeless vagabond, the other a construction worker, and the third a woman whose life consists primarily of dry bathing her comatose brother in law. The narrative unfolds without dialogue and through achingly long shots that linger long after the mind has grown weary. Within the hazy, polluted grit of industrial Kuala Lampur these three find a strange dreamlike peace within their silent painful communion. Given that one of my all time favorite films is Andrei Tarkovsky's "The Stalker," I was able to appreciate the somnolent observation of those moments that unfold beyond the contemporary abridged attention span. Challenging, but necessary.

Tomorrow I have to put myself on tape for a last minute audition for Brittany Murphy's film "The Ramen Girl", and then we are off to try to get in to white hot "Death of A President". I overheard another filmgoer today recounting the presence of no less than 12 security guards at the first screening of the film here at TIFF 2006. Promises to be as charged as the widely protested screeening of the Kensingtion cat movie a couple of years back.

Then at midnight we have a pair of tickets to "Trapped Ashes" - the tickets given to us by the producer himself whom we ran into outside the Four Seasons today. Well it's time I got my horror fix for the year, so what better way to do it than via a series of horror shorts. More bang for my proverbial buck.

TIFF - Day 2

After much traffic and strange ego battles on street corners (of which neither I nor Sage were a part) we made our way into the Isabel Bader theater for the 4:45PM tribute to Norman McLaren, the person who created the animation department at the National Film Board of Canada back in the 40's. The Governor General of Canada as well as Fest director Piers Handling were both on hand to introduce the tribute - a series of stop motion and animated shorts beautifully restored by contemporary animators at the NFB for a 7 DVD collection being released later this year.

Standouts were Blinkity Blank which won the Palme D'or some years ago - a peppery color on black short reminiscent of a Mentos in a bottle of Pepsi experiment or a winsome fireworks display. A Chairy Tale was also both highly entertaining and stood out for the ingenuity and emotion with which McLaren was able to imbue an ordinary woooden chair as it interacted with the male actor. Also a beautiful work set to the Oscar Peterson Trio that was very reminiscent of Stan Brahkage. Highly inspiring.

Also bought a pair of tickets to see "Sharkwater" - the doc about diminishing shark populations around the world and the repercussions of losing the top level predator to an ecosystem, and "I Don't Want To Sleep Alone", which received 5 stars in eye weekly's roundup.

I am off to be a true Canadian and visit the beautiful nothern forests Barry's Bay this weekend; nothing realigns one's energy so well as a weekend on the Canadian Shield (for those not in the know, it is one of the largest concentrations of quartz crystal rock in the world).

Be back Monday for more observations on TIFF 2006. Have a good one, and stay cool!

TIFF - Day 1

Sage arrived from LA last night and we are gearing up. This is her first TIFF.

Having a had a little more time to look over the spectrum of films for this year there are some astounding surprises that suddenly remind me why every time I attend I have this Do-Or-Die feeling as I try to get in via rush lines.

As of now my top must-sees include:

Kurt Cobain About A Son, AJ Schnack, 2006 - A near autobiography of Kurt Cobain via recorded interviews etc, without the MTV gimmicks.

Shortbus, John Cameron Mitchell, 2006 - Hedwig 2 electric boogaloo. Cmon, no chance of missing this one.

Away From Here, Sarah Polley, 2006 - Sarah's directorial debut. Promises to be delicate and subtle.

D.O.A.P., Gabriel Range, 2006 - Every year there is one film that requires a disclaimer and a justification (usually concerning free speech). This is that film for 2006 - the pseudo doc about the assassination of President Bush.

Dixie Chicks - Shut Up and Sing, Barbara Kopple, Cecilia Peck, 2006 - For similar reasons, this film is all about standing your ground and doing what you believe in - in this case, in the face of the US Zeitgeist.

When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Acts, Spike Lee, 2006 - Spike's documentary about New Orleans. Powerful combo. Must see.

Lake of Fire, Tony Kaye, 2006 - Ok this one is going to be really really tough viewing. Kaye has been making this documentary about the opposing views on abortion and rights for a decade and a half and I remember hearing stories about film processing houses that refused to work with the content etc. I am shocked and amazed and totally excited that it has finally arrived. Kaye is uncompromising, full of ego and what's more a genius, this film is his life's work.

Office Tigers, Liz Mermin, 2006 - Don't know why but I am a sucker for docs about contemporary corporations and business. Maybe it's because Roger & Me, startup.com, ENRON: The Smartest Men In The Room all make for such entertaining and infuriating subject matter.

Right now going to go try and catch Ken Loach's "Wind that Shakes The Barley". But what we actually get in to is anybody's guess.

-----

5:45Pm Stood in the rush line and got the 2nd last pair of tickets to see Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Hana", a very unorthodox take on the Samurai seeking to avenge his father's death at the hands of some badboy. I won't spoil it, but I was happily surprised by the unexpected twist and shared more than a few strong laughs with Sage as the actors, script and director landed some intentionally very funny beats. A bit long in the end, could have been tighter, and the 46 Samurai bit in the 3rd act felt like too much of an afterthought, regardless it gets a Recommend.