Archive for the ‘Kultcha’ Category
Saturday, January 19th, 2008
The premise: A couple of guys decide to quit their soul deadening day jobs and cross the US by Segway. That’s right, Segway, one of those stand-up scooter things that were supposed to revolutionize transportation. They pull together their people and off they go, from Seattle to Boston, with a final hurrah at the Segway headquarters. On the way they meet interesting people, score a couple of sponsors, have wacky adventures, etc. You know the drill.
This reviewer’s point of view:
- I’m a huge fan of road trips and road trip movies.
- I love that technology has made it possible for anyone to make a movie.
- Slow travel is an excellent philosophy.
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Posted in Kultcha, Passport Travels | 2 Comments »
Saturday, December 22nd, 2007
It’s probably too late for last minute holiday shopping, but if you want to get someone something cool, you should check out the artwork by my pal Nia. I’ve got one of her collage pieces - made from vintage metal tins and tintype photos - in my kitchen and I just adore it. You should get one, they’re cool, one of a kind, and hey, buying art is good for the soul.
There are more here.
art, collage, mixed media, assemblage, metal
Posted in Kultcha | No Comments »
Thursday, December 13th, 2007
Note: Read to the end for your chance at a fabulous prize!
Maybe it’s because I’m female. Or maybe it’s because I’m a prude, or, who knows what it is, but I always find it troubling when sex tourism gets treated more with irony than outrage. Gonzo travel guys seem to visit these places and merely raise an ironic eyebrow over their tourist priced beer while not being particularly bothered one way or the other about the fate of underaged prostitutes or women who make money by writing banners with markers stuffed in … oh, you get it. It disappoints me when these otherwise funny, smart, insightful, (many positive adjectives here) seem to give sex tourism a get out of scrutiny free card. I have to read the sections in question in “Smile When You’re Lying” again to confirm this is correct and that I’ve not put the book down with a false impression.
That’s all I’ve got by way of criticism about Chuck Thompson’s hilarious, painful, scathing, and again hilarious book. It was especially excruciating to read it following our press junket. We both indulged in and were victims of all the things Thompson takes down in his book - the freebies, the PR rep hosted cocktail hours, the nonexistent support for our trip from the publisher, and still, I sit at my desk every day involved in the terrible evil of writing noncritical prose about our destination. Forgive me, Thompson, for I have sinned, and am surrounded by sinners.
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Posted in Kultcha, Passport Travels | 12 Comments »
Sunday, September 30th, 2007
Angela Reed is one of those not quite waif like white girls with very very very very long hair and a voice that belongs to someone much older and more experienced but somehow, dammit, ended up in her body. Wow, can she sing. You know the type, forgive the pigeon holing - Jewel, Joss Stone, Brandi Carlile, Melissa Etheridge, even.
Last night Angela Reed was channeling that sixties singer songwriter/chantuese style that is notoriously easy to make fun of, but because she’s packing such an enormous amount of voice, it’s a impossible to not take her seriously. I remember seeing one of these “girl with a guitar” acts a few years back with some friends, and god forgive us, when one of the women started with her diatribe, my friends and I burst out laughing. That wasn’t the case last night. It’s hard not to stop thinking and just listen when Angela Reed sings, but I want to hear better songs. She’s young, so I guess this is exactly what they mean by “promising talent.”
She was followed by Kenny White, a guy who can write and how. He’s a crazy mash of Dylan and Elvis Costello and Randy Newman and maybe Rickie Lee Jones, but also, very much himself with a lot of amazing skill on the keyboards and the guitar. He has this whole stream of consciousness thing going with his lyrics, an intense power of observation that he captures in his lyrics. I get a little bit of that, I understand how writing works, I think, but to see that keen ability to express a moment combined with music that doesn’t cave in to cliches or compromise on the literary, well, let’s just say I enjoyed it very much.
Check out this tiny line from Five Girls:
Yeah and I think that I might tell her that she’s
looking like a billboard
With that shirt that is cute,
but oh, so inappropriate for the season
Inappropriate for the season. She’s real from that remark alone.
This is from Last Stop:
boppin’ mexican boys with their hair cut short on top and long in the back
ears stuffed with portable sonys
still manage to hear each other say somethin’ about cajones
And that’s a helluva rhyme, sonys and cajones. Wow.
Finally, here’s the opening verse to In My Recurring Dream
in my recurring dream we have a daughter with a boyfriend
with a moustache with a taste for younger women, like our daughter
and he has this little habit when he tries to make a point, points his finger
which if it had not been eaten by a table saw when he was 23
would really help to emphasize his point, instead we are distracted by the
sight of the missing joint and no one hears a word he says…
in my recurring dream
That’s a whole story right there, and it’s only the opening verse.
There’s so much observation, so much attention to detail, so much that you don’t usually hear in music. Run of the mill song writers settle for the girl being pretty or the boys being tough or dreams being, well, I don’t even know what to say about the dream sequence other than, yeah, I think that’s some mighty fine writing. And all from the hand of a guy who can play and sing.
I loved hearing Angela Reed sing with Kenny White, they did a lovely duet of Blue Moon/Moonlight Becomes You, though people, people, don’t take this the wrong way, it’s “all dressed up to go DREAMING” okay? Also worth mentioning, the sound in the Phinney Neighborhood Center was lovely, remarkable even, for a room that must have been a gymnasium or maybe a cafeteria at one time. The folks from the Seattle Folklore Society organized a wonderful but woefully under attended show - “It was nice of you guys to buy two and three seats each,” said Kenny White.
I skipped the after party, having had my share of stimulation for the evening. I’ll probably regret that when I hear about it later. My ears were very happy though, I thought I’d just take them home while they rested in that content state. You can click through the links to Kenny White and Angela Reed up above to find out for yourself what your ears think.
Kenny White, Angela Reed, Seattle Folklore Society
Posted in Kultcha, Seattle | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 1st, 2007
I wanted to hate Last Stop for Paul from the get go. The frat boy aesthetic, the talk of “chicks”, the gonzo attitude, the beer, babes, and bong hits. I wanted to hate it. But I couldn’t. I was worn down by the understated charm of the premise and the absolutely true to life representation of things that seem to only happen to travelers. There’s that whole, “Okay, you’re not going to believe this, but…” attitude that permeates the movie. And I found that irresistible.
Forgive the diversion, but late in the movie I found myself remembering, in exquisite detail, a trip to Monteverde. We were off to visit friends that had bugged out for the year and moved to Costa Rica. They’d arranged for “some guy” to pick us up at the airport and, since we were going to see friends, we’d done NO homework. Night arrived. The van driver picked up a buddy in the dark. We wound up a dusty, barely paved track. The wind threw branches across our path, the headlights picked up the ribs of a skinny white horse crossing the road. We looked at each other, sidekick and I, wondering where the hell we were and where we were going. The driver turned off the laughable main road in to a hiking path buried in trees. Ah, I thought, this is it. I hope it’s brief, I hope it’s a gunshot to the head. Pity I don’t have much of value in my bag.
I am, of course, an idiot. Everyone knows that the road to Monteverde is a trial. Everyone but me, that is. Anyway, there’s a scene in the movie that brought all that back to me as though it had happened yesterday. And I was really grateful for that.
Here’s the premise of the film. Two dudes go on a grand tour to dispose of another dudes ashes. Along the way, stuff happens. Out of control stuff. There are hookers and drugs and crazy Irishmen and romance and elaborate lies and well, the kind of things that happen when you’re a dude traveling the world with bravado. There’s zero sensitivity towards native culture, nothing about sustainable travel, nothing enlightening about the trip. And let me say that as a sometimes travel writer, that Frommer’s thing made me CRAZY. (See the movie. No spoilers.) Except. Well, when the central character talks about why he travels, I have to smile and nod my head in complete and total agreement. And there’s the underlying sweetness of the best friend getting out of his cubicle bound life to take his friend’s ashes around the world.
The film’s a lot more Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas than Lost in Translation. It doesn’t exactly make you want to like the main characters or make you want to be them,even. But it did, for me, capture that sense of “anything can happen.” Of the maddening magic that travel brings to you when you give into the ultimate carpe diem mindset. Most of all, it made me want to hit the road. Big time.
A note from the producer:
Could you please point out that the movie is coming out theatrically this Fall and it is a “little movie” that will disappear if people don’t seek it out. Just like those great moments in travel.
Related
- Last Stop for Paul: Official Movie Site
- Part Travelogue, Part Girls Gone Wild: Review on The Perrin Post
-
Baseball Logic: Review on Global Traveler
Last Stop for Paul, travel
Posted in Kultcha, Passport Travels | 1 Comment »
Monday, May 7th, 2007
I shot some studio photos for my pal Nia on Saturday - her site is up and her work is really really really nice - go have a look. Seriously. It’s so nice I have one of the pieces in my home.
And speaking of artwork, I’ll be hanging my collage work for art walk this week in West Seattle - I hope you’ll wander by.
West Seattle art walk, collage work
Posted in Kultcha, Seattle | No Comments »
