The BIG One

Thanks to the ever-helpful and informative Interwebs, I discovered earlier today that it is World Alzheimer's Day. As such, I've been motivated to dust off a post I started several months ago and try to finish it up. Here's what I had:
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Okay. This is the post I have started and rewritten hundreds of times over the past year, usually when I can't fall asleep because my mind is whirring at a rapid pace, that is the big explanation and mea culpa as to why I've sort of dropped off the social grid. At this point, it's been so long and so much has happened, I don't know where to even start or how in-depth and detailed to be. It's very tempting to make this a thorough purging and chronicling of all the things that have happened but it's all a mish-mosh in my mind. Certain events stand out but I can't always place them in the timeline. And little things that feel important to me are probably not critical to the overall story. So forgive me if this post is really a bit too "Dear Diary" - I'm trying to streamline as I go! At the very least I'll try to paint an entire picture as clearly as possible. It's a long post... apologies in advance.

So, what is this mysterious post about, you ask? Well, nothing fun and nothing nice, of course - it deals with Alzheimer's disease. My mom is currently suffering from AD and it is and has been an excruciatingly painful experience for my family. It's truly like a death and it's beyond difficult to put into words just how cruel a disease AD is and how it affects each member of the family, both mentally and physically. I follow the Alzheimer's Association on Facebook and earlier this week watched a video that I found really helpful to explain the symptoms of the disease and I think that's what's kind of kicked me in the pants a little bit.



Now, I don't know if I'd call these "warning signs" of the disease - my mom hits every single one and she's pretty far into it. But I'm assuming if your loved one displays only one or two of these signs, it means s/he should be checked out. My mom's diagnosis has been a long, unorthodox one, impeded by outlying factors but we've been operating under the assumption of Alzheimer's for over a year now (though in doing a little digging for this post, I see that things started declining a bit more rapidly at least around January 2013). She's actually on a medication sometimes used for Alzheimer's patients (Seroquel) that has helped a LOT, but lately she's been sliding backward and I think a change of something is in order. That's also probably helped push me into finally writing this post... She's been on my mind a lot lately.

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This really could be a LONG, long post -- I have about a million things frantically swirling around in my brain, wanting to get out but I just don't know that I have the patience to form them all into a chronological, coherent post! Plus, it's actually fairly exhausting rehashing all of the depressing details, even if just to myself. So I'll start in February of last year and then try cover the bigger chunks of importance.

In February 2014, my mom had a major setback in her health; unbeknownst to us, her kidneys were not working properly and her pain medication began to build up in her system. She wound up having what amounted to a morphine (what she takes for pain) overdose and wound up in the hospital. While trying to get her health and medication under control, it became clear that her dementia was perhaps the worst it had ever been. My mom was in the hospital for a couple weeks and while none of the following things were constant, they all manifested at some point and some much more often than others. She didn't recognize my sister, Michelle. She thought I was in eighth grade. She didn't know where she was. She couldn't form certain words. She couldn't carry on a coherent conversation. She was hostile and belligerent with hospital staff, causing either my dad or my sister to have to go down in the middle of the night and sort things out. I am forever and immensely grateful to Michelle for coming into town because I was a mess, I didn't know what to do, and I didn't have any idea how to handle my mom in such a sickly state. My sister knew how to take care of my mom; she washed her hair for her and styled it, she painted her nails and even brought my mom coloring books and Crayons, which my mom loved. I would never, ever have thought to get such things for my mom. She's my mom! She may be sick but she's not a little kid. But, sadly, at that point in time she was. 

When it was time for my mom to be discharged from the hospital, it was shockingly apparent that she would have to go to an assisted living/rehab facility. We talked to the hospital doctors and reached out to various homes and finally found a place where we thought she could stay. It was the most heart-breaking experience of my life. I had known this stage of her illness would arrive someday but I wasn't at all expecting it to happen so soon and so fast. Robert was my rock and my sister, my dad and I all leaned on each other to get through the darkness. There really isn't any adequate way for me to describe how difficult and how painful it is to get yourself mentally reconciled to the fact that the mother you knew, that you loved, that took care of you is not here anymore. Her body is here but SHE is gone. It's almost an insurmountable task and having to do it in fast-forward is unbearable.

My mother did stay in the rehab facility for a short while, (less than a week), but ultimately my dad decided he couldn't bear to keep her there. Over the months my sisters and I have gone around and around, wanting my dad to take care of himself and get different kinds of help for my mom but after lots and lots of discussions, we've all come to the conclusion that it's his decision and we just have to support it. I don't know what it's like to have a spouse with Alzheimer's so I can't force my beliefs onto him -- he has to do what feels right to him. But I do know what it's like to have a parent as a caregiver to someone with Alzheimer's and it's almost as painful to watch as it is to watch Alzheimer's steal your other parent. My dad's physical health has deteriorated over the time he's been taking care of my mom and it hurts me to see it. To say nothing of what tolls it takes emotionally and mentally. One very good thing that has come out of my mom's illness is that my dad and I are incredibly close now, so much closer than we would have been had my mom stayed healthy. And my sisters and I, as well as my dad, have been able to engage in open and honest dialogues about everything and that's brought us all closer together, too. 

I have to admit, though, that my heart and mind have closed a bit where my mom is concerned. It sounds terrible to say, I know, and it feels terrible to say but I think it's a self-preservation thing. After I had pretty much reconciled myself to my mom's prognosis, I didn't change my thinking when she began taking the Seroquel and improved. And I think that's because I don't want to have to go through all of the pain and sickening heartache when she deteriorates to that point again, because it's a question of when, not if. If I keep her distant emotionally and mentally, I'll save myself a little bit of pain. It really hurts my dad that I approach my mom this way and I'm sorry for that. I do still love my mom, of course, and on the outside our interactions are just the same as they were. But inside I am protecting myself. Not at all a conscious decision but when I forced myself to sit down and think about why I approach her that way, that's the answer that makes the most sense to me. 

As you know, I have been dealing with depression and anxiety for over 10 years now. And, of course, dealing with all of this hasn't made either of those issues any better but I won't waste time getting into that! The main thing I noticed is that my natural tendency to isolate myself was only intensified by dealing with my mom's illness. I sort of dropped of the social grid and was harder to get a hold of than usual. No blogging, no visiting, no emailing. I just didn't feel like talking to anyone and I think a big part of that was because I didn't want to have to talk about my mom all the time. People are kind and want to know what's going on but, as I mentioned earlier in the post, it's tiring rehashing such depressing stuff all the time. Somewhat around the time I was dealing with all of this I had two close friends who lost their fathers to cancer. And in talking to them I realized that I was not alone in my isolating tendencies -- no one with a sick or dying parent, it seems, really feels like talking to anyone. I am grateful to them for the knowledge that I was not alone. I am incredibly sorry that my own issues prevented me from being a good and supportive friend. Dealing with my mom's Alzheimer's is oddly consuming and so I'm sorry I've been even more distant for such a long time. 

When the Oscars were on last year, one of the nominated songs was Glen Campbell's "I'm Not Gonna Miss You." I broke down into tears about 30 seconds into the song because it so accurately captures what families, including the one with the disease, go through when Alzheimer's invades your lives. I'm not sure if any of my family members have heard it but I recommend it -- it's a great song on many levels.

 

And here's a video I really like that tries to help you understand what it's like to suffer from Alzheimer's. It's really fascinating. Over the years my mom has had episodes of hallucinations, both visual and auditory; paranoia; she has physical impairments like foot numbness and hand spasms; she can't follow conversations or trains of thought; she suffers from Sundowning; she organizes things obsessively but she doesn't put things where they belong -- she puts remotes in the freezer or paper in DVD cases; she gets mired in the minutiae of what she's doing so she'll spend hours sorting her shoes when she was supposed to be getting dressed or counting grains of rice when she should just be eating dinner. It can be incredibly frustrating dealing with my mom sometimes and that makes me feel incredibly guilty. Logically, of course, I know she has no control over what she's doing but sometimes, if I'm already irritable or tired, dealing with her can be downright infuriating. Caring for an Alzheimer's sufferer takes a reserve of patience that I do not possess. I can see that it's frustrating for her, too, in her more lucid moments and that makes me exceedingly sad for her.



I do apologize for this post being so wordy and rushed but I wanted to take advantage of World Alzheimer's Day to share my story with those of you who didn't yet know it. 

 

I Remembered a Cool Thing!

So, I've been meaning to post about the shows greenlit for this fall but it requires me to link from several pages and I'm lazy/busy so I promise I will get to it this week. I get off early Monday and Thursday so I've gotta dedicated some time to the blog!!! In the meantime, here's a moldy oldy that I found languishing in the 'drafts' pile.

Sometime during my senior year in the VT program, the need arose for Boone, our resident horse, to have his sheath cleaned. Apparently, this is something that happens all the time in the horse business but since Charcy was a girl, we students had never really been confronted with it. But it was a learning opportunity so when Dr. Mac asked if anyone wanted to join her on such-and-such day and time to clean Boone's junk, I decided I'd help out. Now, I had Animal Care immediately preceding the cleaning so it's not like I made a special trip to campus or hung around excessively; I don't think I'd have done either of those things had I been forced to make the choice. But since I was already there I decided to go for it. Besides, when else would I ever get the chance to do such a thing?! Robert absolutely did not understand or agree with that philosophy since it involved sticking my hand up a horse's penile sheath but that's why he's a writer and I'm a tech. :o) The process essentially consisted of filling a bucket with warm water and soap and then getting a bunch of gauze, soaping it up and inserting it into the sheath to scrub away debris. We wore gloves, don't worry. Dr. Mac had the displeasure of reaching waaaay up and retrieving the "bean" of smegma (sorry, guys) so we students just had to scrub and rinse. There were only about 4 of us (excluding Dr. Mac) and you wouldn't really believe how dirty it gets up there! It only took about a half-hour total and I'm glad I did it. Something to tell the grandkids.

Here's an informational video on the process if you're at all interested in real visuals to go along with your mental pictures:

The Boys Being Cute

Wow! It's been longer than I thought since my last post... Sorry about that. I worked 10-7:30 last week and it totally wore me out!!! My manager doesn't give out the next week's schedule until the weekend before so it makes planning things difficult. For example, I still don't have my schedule for the upcoming week so I have no idea how many hours I'll be working or on which days. It's more than a little frustrating. But I digress. This is supposed to be a cute post, dammit! So here goes.*

First, we have Funk. Many mornings when I wake up, I see a big, black puppy laying in his bed. Notice I said laying, not sleeping. Funk's bed is on my side of the bed and when he thinks I'm awake but isn't sure I'm going to get all the way up, he just wags his tail. He doesn't commit to actually getting out of his bed until he's sure I'm really, truly going to get up (and pet him). One morning I teased him by whispering to test his commitment to the stay-down and he didn't disappoint:

He's so cute I can barely stand it! And even though Linguini is generally a butthead he, too, has a cute habit that I caught on film. Those of you that have visited Casa de Mac may have noticed that our doors all look like crap. But our bathroom door is especially sad, and for some reason the previous owners shortened it so the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor is abnormally large. (Not creepy Peeping Tom large but larger than normal.) Every night, Linguini likes to thrust his paw through the gap and try and nab my feet. I think he plays the game with Robert, too, but he really likes socks and Robert rarely wears socks so my feet are way more tempting. :o) It is TOO CUTE to see the little pink-padded paw reach out and try to grab my toes, I love it! My nighttime routine has gotten a bit longer to include ample play time but since Gweenz doesn't have much that he seems to enjoy with his people, I will play as long as he wants. (If he gets a good grip on my sock, I'll slip it down to about mid-foot and let him pull it off. He still likes to play after he conquers the sock but he definitely doesn't play as long with bare feet.)

* Clearly, I suffer from VVS. I'll try to work on that in the future.

Music Minims 10: The Return of the Mode

It has been almost 3 years since my beloved Depeche Mode has gone on tour (remember the sad cancellation of '09?) but they're coming to the Shoreline this September. Yay! See that one sad little exclamation point there? In other years there have been many more but I can't muster it this time around. I still love the Mode as much as ever (though I never like their new albums as much as their old stuff... though Delta Machine has a few good songs on it, so that's encouraging) but the ticket-buying experience has been completely ridiculous. Buying tickets for stadium tours is always obnoxious but in this case there were 4 presales to get through that made it even more so. Four presales!!! Ridiculous! There was a presale for CitiBank members, Facebook fans, special Shoreline VIPs, and those who purchased the album in advance from Amazon.com. Past experience has proven that presales do not always offer the best seats but the fact that there were 4 made me think the odds of getting any type of ticket that wasn't for the lawn were slimmer than usual. I was only eligible for the Facebook presale and that offered only lawn seats (surprise!). So Robert woke up early on Saturday to try to get tickets during the general sale and knock me over with a feather we got some! That aren't on the lawn!!! In the two minutes it took for Robert to complete his transaction, all non-lawn seats blew away so we got lucky, I guess.

You guys didn't really need to hear that story but I wanted to post an interview with Dave in Time so that is my lead-in. Sorry. :o)

TIME: You’ve been making music for almost 35 years.

Dave Gahan: Yeah it must be something close to that. We were playing gigs at little clubs around London and trying to get out of London in 1979, ’80. Then we put out our first single in 1981. It’s been awhile. What do you think are some of the biggest changes that you’ve seen in the industry? It’s totally different. It’s kind of beyond me, really, now. What’s changed the most, I think, is the idea of having an album – of having that special thing in front of you and reading the lyrics and all that stuff – that died the minute the record industry decided to make the compact disc. It was the death, really. Even when they first came out, for me, the packaging was sh–, ‘What is this piece of plastic? It’s nothing special.’

Was Delta Machine released on vinyl? Yes, it does come out on vinyl, but that was all you sold back then. That’s what people bought. They bought albums or cassettes. And now HMV just closed in the UK… There’s no more record stores! In New York I’ve watched them slowly disappear. One thing that happened though, is that I think live music is more popular now than it’s ever been. The possibilities are endless now, with performing, getting your music online, getting your own website and getting your music out there. I think that’s very cool and amazing.

Have you embraced social media? Personally? No. I barely email. I text, but—put it this way: The other day, my daughter texted me something that was funny, so I texted back to her “LOL” And she texted back to me, “Don’t do that, Dad.” I was like, right, right. I do use texting as a great way to communicate quickly, but I don’t Twitter or anything.

Speaking of technology, as pioneers in the electronic music field, how have the changes in technology affected how you make music? Funny enough, in the studio we tend to lean towards modular synthesizers, old fashioned synthesizers, from the ’70s through the ’80s. So you have the exact same equipment you started with? We have a lot of equipment. Martin [Gore] has a collection of old synthesizers and drum machines that would fill this room, literally. [Ed. Note: It’s a big room.] They are big and old and clunky, but they make great noises. We use soft synths too, online, but not so much on this record. This record was predominantly modular synthesizers that were manipulated and played and sent through amplifiers. Same with drum machines, guitars, and everything. We often manipulate original sound– whatever is creating that sound– through a wall of synthesizers and amplifiers to create a sound that is really interesting to us because of the rhythm or the atmosphere it creates. But, you know, for me, making records has become …well, I long for it to be a simpler process. Making a record with Depeche Mode is not a simple process. It’s quite complicated and long. We have the luxury of time. I’m not sure that’s such a good thing when you’re being creative. We come into the studio with lots of songs in mind. I’ve demoed songs, Martin’s demoed songs, we have 20 songs and we come into the studio to record them. You would think coming into the studio with songs demoed and ready, that we would come into the studio ready to record them quickly. But we don’t. I kind of like that process of working a little faster in the studio. It gets boring for me. They are in their laboratory surrounded by all these twiddly things with all these things that make bleeps and noises and I sit there, like, “Can I sing now? Can I sing now? Can I sing now?”

Has that always been your process? Yeah, I’ll just go in the other room and fiddle around on my guitar. Now, I don’t waste my time. We recorded a chunk of Delta Machine at Jungle City, Alicia Keyes’ place, and we recorded a bunch of it out in Santa Barbara where Martin lives in a downtown studio there. But Martin has his own studio and I have my own studio – they’re both small places. So when they are working in the main studio, I’ll be in the little studio – mine or Martin’s – doing vocals. They might be working on one track during the day, and I’ll say to the producer, ‘It sounds good, give it to me now before you start fiddling with it too much.’ Then I’ll go do vocals, give it to the producer, he’ll shove it in a computer and see what works, what has to go. It’s like a puzzle. It’s a continuous thing. We don’t close the door on it all until its finished. Each song goes through many different interpretations. As Martin always says, we always go thorough a reggae version of the song and it never ends up there, but it gets that beat going on. We’ll try a blues-driven beat. We speed it up, we change the key, we’ll play with it until it works.

Do you have a favorite song on this record or is there one that you think holds the album together? On this record, for me, one of the key songs was “Heaven,” which isn’t probably the most obvious of singles, but Martin and I felt it represented the record in lots of ways, which is why we wanted to put it out first. It’s not like we felt it was going to be a big hit or something, but that doesn’t really drive us to make music. We all like to have hits, it’s nice to have hits, of course, but after making 13 records together, it’s not what drives you. What drives you is to make a great record. That’s what still drives me. Certain songs propel that. “Heaven” is one of those songs. When Martin played the demo for me, I was in. It’s gospel-y bluesy, it’s right up my street. Songs like that speak to me. I hope I can write one someday. I did a Soulsavers project last year and we wrote a bunch of songs together and there are some songs like that on there. This song would fit very well on The Light the Dead See. That’s where I’m at right now, a gospel-y bluesy thing just speaks to me.

Which, of course, is the antithesis of what people think of when they think Depeche Mode. The title Delta Machine describes it, though. It’s influenced by the blues, but it’s made by machines. It’s what we do and this album embraces that more than the last couple. Every album leads you to the next one somehow. Sometimes, you make a record and you’re not quite sure why you’re making it, but you find out when you make the next one.

As an artist who has such an ardent fanbase and impressive discography, do you feel tied to the past at all? Or do you just make what you are driven to create and hope the fans like it? It’s probably the latter. There’s a lot of talk like that in the recording studio from record companies and you have to watch out for it. They’ll say, ‘Oh that sounds like old-school Depeche’ and alarm bells go off for me. Martin and I have an undeniable chemistry together, and you don’t mess with it, it just is. His songs speak to me. I don’t know why that is, but it works. For me, when I start hearing people in the studio saying that it sounds old-school or that it sounds like something that is far away from who we are I’m, like, ‘Great let’s go far away from who we are.’ Because it’s like a clock, you can try and get away from who you are, but it will come right back round. It’s my voice, it’s Martin’s influences, there’s a style that the song is written and arranged. It’s good to take it away. There are some fans who will love this record, and there are some who think, ‘I don’t like this record, because it doesn’t sound like that one.’ You have to keep moving forward as an artist. It’s a ridiculous idea to try and repeat a process. I am afraid of that. If we go in the studio and it feels too normal, then you’re not pushing yourself. The moment that happens, I think Martin and I will look at ourselves and say, ‘We’re finished.’ [laughs] Why stay in the same band and limit myself as a musician?

Have you ever wanted to do anything else career-wise? It’s great being in a band. If it doesn’t work and you’re just fighting other bulls–t and the music’s put on the side, you gotta move on. You have to find the right spot. I was lucky to find that right when I was about to throw in the towel. Before we made Exciter …we began making that record and it felt like, ‘We’ve done this.’ For me, it did, anyway. I don’t know if Martin and Fletch did. I had demoed a bunch of songs, but it was clear that the band was not interested in any of my writing aspirations. I played a couple of things and there was literally no reaction. I remember being quite upset about that. I didn’t vocally say anything, but I was quite upset. Like, ‘F— you guys!’ — but the message I got was, that’s not what you do—you sing. I made a decision that I was going to work really hard on my vocals. I was going to go on the Exciter tour and then I was going to go in the studio — with different people. That, for me, was the beginning of actually becoming very enthusiastic about making music. I was getting to the point where I wanted to go paint or something. I wasn’t interested in making music anymore. I wasn’t interested in myself as an artist. I wasn’t stimulated. I didn’t know it then, though, but now I see it. I had, like, 15 or 16 songs that eventually became the record Paper Monsters. And, then, forming a band to tour with that for six months, changed my whole outlook. Then, I was ready to go back in the studio to make Playing The Angel with Depeche Mode. I don’t think I would have done that without making the Paper Monsters album and touring, though.

Is that a lesson that you would want to pass on to younger artists? Make sure you’re doing what you love? When you’re younger and you’re driven by something that seems much larger than life when you begin. You’re in a band. You’re in the back of a van, traveling from gig to gig, and it’s just you against the world. It’s cool! It’s the greatest thing. Do you miss that? I got it back when I did the Paper Monsters tour. There was a lot of that, where we were just in the back of the van, traveling through Europe, getting held at borders, barely making the gig, running on stage. It was fun. So I try to make this fun now. Touring with Depeche Mode is a whole different thing. This tour that we’re doing in Europe now, it’s 30 shows and we’ve already sold a million tickets. That’s beyond what we couldn’t have imagined. But touring with Depeche Mode is a production. There’s a hundred people in the crew and lights and show—and a lot is expected. That’s what we try to live up to. Depeche Mode has become something that I see very clearly …our fans who come to the gigs, they know us. They know our music. It means something to them. It means something in their life, or it meant something, anyway. Thirty years is a long time. It’s why people walk up to me on the street in New York and say, ‘That record got me through college!’ or ‘That song came on when my daughter was born.’ I get more of that than anything else and that’s a really nice feeling, to have meant something. To be part of something that means something to people. 

Finally, here's an amusing interview the band just did last week with Jonathan Ross:

Whatever! I Just Don't Wanna Eat Liver!

Robert bought me The Essential "Weird Al" Yankovic (3 awesome CDs) for Christmas but I just got around to importing it into my iPod this past weekend. There are lots of songs I hadn't yet heard so I've been enjoying listening to it while typing up my posts. But when I started listening to "Trapped in the Drive Thru" I had to turn it off because I was laughing so hard I couldn't concentrate on what I was writing! I've never heard the original recording of "Trapped in the Closet" but knowing Al this is probably pretty spot-on. I must share. Enjoy.





The only version of the song I've heard is from the 'Trapped in the Closet' episode of South Park:




And because it's one of my favorite, favorite moments:



Robert and I "OhMahGahd!" all the time at our house. We're weird.

I Prefer 'Reproduction' but..

I just got back from dropping Robert off at the airport (he's off to beautiful Secaucus on a business trip) and am already missing my annoying little man. So I thought I'd take a moment and post a couple of recent Robert-isms to cheer me up.

First up: Maxwell Caulfield. Some of you may know him as Hayley Mills' brother-in-law. Some of you may know him as Dr. Quinn's believed-dead-but-really-just-disfigured fiance David. But me? I know him from a little film called Grease 2. He was Michael, the hunky foreign exchange student and cousin of Sandy, who moonlighted as a mysterious motorcycle man to win Michelle Pfeiffer's heart. Or, as he is otherwise known, Cool Rider. C-O-O-L  R-I-D-E-R.



I haven't seen or heard much from Max since then (save his stint on Dr. Quinn, of course) but he popped up on Modern Family a few weeks back. Very excited to see him still working (though a bit sad to see he still didn't look like he did in 1982, shockingly enough) I squealed "It's C-O-O-L  R-I-D-E-R!" To which Robert replied "Who? Colored man? Who's that?" Colored man?!! Really? Really, Robert? He said he heard the C and the R and the D and for some reason that made him automatically jump to Colored Man. Cause I talk about that guy all the time.


Next up: CPR. I honestly don't remember how this came up but for some reason Robert and I were discussing how 'Staying Alive' is the song of choice for those performing CPR because the beat coincides with when you should pump. I mentioned that when I took a CPR last year (a VT program requirement) they mentioned a second song that was equally useful if a bit more morbid. But I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was. Fast forward to me blurting out "Oh! It's 'Another One Bites the Dust!'" To which Robert replied "Hey, that's actually a good one- it's related to what you're doing!" I gave him a puzzled/incredulous look and it only took him a few seconds to realize that 'Staying Alive' also, y'know, is thematically appropriate with trying to save someone's life. Go figure. He does make me laugh, though. You gotta love him. :o)


Oh, and for those of you confused by the post title, click here. It's my favorite Grease 2 song.

Robin Gibb, a.k.a. Bodding

In keeping with what others perceive to be an eclectic taste in music, I am a big fan of the Bee Gees. Not the disco Bee Gees, though they're good, too; my favorite Bee Gees are the ones that made music before Barry discovered his falsetto singing voice. They have so many good songs (and wrote so many good songs for other artists to record) that it really bums me out that they're pigeonholed by kids today as an obsolete disco band! This is probably how Nora feels about Neil Diamond...

Anyhoo, as you know, Robin Gibb passed away last month, leaving Barry as the only remaining member of the group. He posted a very sweet video remembrance of his brother on YouTube and so I thought I'd share it. I'd never heard "Heart Like Mine" before but I like it very much; Robin's voice always sounds so achingly pained that it instantly adds feeling to any song he sings.

Random Entertainment: SNL & Gotye

Okay, so this skit is a month-and-a-half old but because the song is still in regular rotation (I heard it three times today!) and I think of this every time I hear it, I thought I'd give in and post it. It's not even that hilarious a skit but @1:33 makes me laugh out loud every time! I don't know why I find it so amusing. I just do.

Movie Morsels 78: The Hunger Games Review

As a huge and obsessive fan of The Hunger Games trilogy, I went out and saw the first movie on opening weekend (as y'all knew I would). I've had a blank post in the queue since then, just waiting for me to type out my review. But, as those of you who have heard this diatribe first-hand know, I get so dang worked up about the whole thing I just couldn't find the time (or will) to sit down and type it all out. Now, there are plenty of people who liked the movie and some of those have even read the book. But the majority of people that I talked to that liked the movie had not read the books - and that's precisely why they liked the movie. Because anyone in their right mind who has read the books could (and should!) not enjoy the film. It was too rushed. It cut out way too many relationships. It did away with Katniss' narration which completely obliterated most of what you were supposed to get out of the story. But most egregious of all is it made Peeta a whiny dude who closely resembled a pussy! And Peeta is sooooooooo not that person! I know THG isn't all about the romance and blah blah blah, I get that, but the relationship and dynamic between Peeta and Katniss is pretty critical to the entire series as a whole and the movie just did not do it justice AT ALL. Peeta is a super awesome guy and my favorite character (can you tell?). In fact, he's a lot of peoples' favorite character - Entertainment Weekly polled their readers and 27.77% voted Peeta their favorite character, #2 behind Katniss. (Gale only received 1.96% of the vote while "Other" got 2.79%. Ha ha! Suck it, Gale!!! Moving on.) But when I left the theater with Robert and Maria, going on and on about the hatchet job the movie did on his character, Maria said "Who was Peeta?" Not a good sign. When having a similar rant session with Wade just last weekend, he, too, asked "Which one was Peeta?" An even worse sign. And one of the techs at my clinic actually said "I was hoping Katniss would kill him." !!! This is NOT what you are supposed to think or feel about Peeta, people!!!!!!! Oh. My heart hurts. So, of course, I trolled the messaged boards to see who else agreed with me and I found this post, which I think sums things up nicely:

Movie Peeta is scripted differently than book Peeta. In the book, Peeta and Katniss are portrayed much more as equals. The mutual benefit of their relationship is much more obvious. His motives with the Careers are spelled out. Movie Peeta is stripped of most of book Peeta's wise and humorous lines. The bread scene is botched and becomes something for which he has to apologize. Book Peeta is confident, even while accepting his death. He comforts Katniss, while she is afraid he will die and leave her to fight alone again. None of that cave dialogue is included in the movie. The actor did well with what he was given, but I feel that the script short changed the character.

So true, Whateveryournameis. So true. And, just to add to your list of character inaccuracies portrayed in the movie, Book Peeta didn't puss out and fall off the rope ladder! Ugh. That annoyed me. You know I love my IBF Josh Hutcherson and I think he did the best with was he was given but geez. To say I was supremely disappointed would be an understatement. (And I wasn't only disappointed because Josh should have had a shirtless scene 'cause there was one in the book but we got to see bupkis. Though that was pretty disappointing.)

Still, I saw the movie a second time with my fellow THG-obsessor Kristine and I actually enjoyed that viewing a little bit more, no doubt because my expectations were so nonexistent that I was able to watch the movie for what it was and not spend 2 hours and 22 minutes waiting for it to get good. And I'll buy the DVD when it comes out, which brings me to the actual point of this post: The Hunger Games DVD is coming out on August 18.

But since this has turned more into a post about how poopy the movie is as compared to the book, I will share with you a couple of links that agree with me, as well as a cute Unscripted with Josh, Jennifer, and Elizabeth.

The Hunger Games: Book vs. Movie

THG: Review By a Moviegoer Who Never Read the Book

Unscripted - The Hunger Games - Complete Interview

Movie Morsels 77: Skyfall Trailer

Well, the new teaser trailer for the upcoming James Bond film Skyfall but the only place I read about it was on LaineyGossip and she only featured its link on a French site! So... this makes me think that people aren't as excited about movie as they perhaps should be. And, to be honest, the only thought I had while watching the trailer was "Was Daniel's hair that short in the other movies? I don't like it."



We'll go see it, of course, but I hope it doesn't require any remaining knowledge of Quantum of Solace 'cause I hate that movie and refuse to watch it again! So, if that's the case, I hope Daniel looks super hot in the movie (read: his unflattering haircut is featured only in a flashback) so I have something to look at while I am confused.

Movie Morsels 76: The Dark Knight Rises Trailer

So, this is verrrrrry belated but I couldn't just let this slip by without some degree of fanfare, however small. Of course, the trailer to The Dark Knight Rises look awesome and I can't wait to see it! Though, after reading through EW.com's dissection I'm ever-so-slightly concerned that my main bat may not survive the series and that would majorly bum me out. I would understand the death thematically but I feel like it would really make the whole thing end so morosely. I know that's TDK's 'thing' but I don't want my hot men to perish! Bah! I'm less attached to Christian since I found out he is a man-whore but still...



Here's the link to EW.com's dissection. I strongly recommend it as it points out a lot of probabilities and possibilities that hadn't occured to me. The Dark Knight Rises: Trailer Clues?

Procrastination Games

I am supposed to be working on a school project right now (a sample client handout about canine herpesvirus... fun!) so, of course, I'm buying my tickets for and watching YouTube videos about The Hunger Games. (Just as an aside, I've gotten two of my classmates hooked since I last posted so it's really time you start thinking about giving them a try.) And so, to kill even more time, I have embedded all of the best ones right here just for me you.

 

BRAND NEW clip! Squee for Peeta!

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Entertainment Tonight's behind-the-scenes footage (with a cave scene blip!):


L.A. Q&A session from the current mall tour (you can read an amusing recap of the event here):


Newly released scene - Katniss meets Cinna:


I always like Josh Horowitz interviews but this is a teeny one:

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And, because he's my inappropriate boyfriend and the clip is mostly about THG:

Only 22 Days!

Til The Hunger Games hits theaters and I can't wait!!! And just look at what's showing up (hopefully) in my mailbox tomorrow:

“Is it violent?” says director Gary Ross of his PG-13 film. “Yes. Do we back off from what it is? No, we don’t.”

The March 23 release of The Hunger Games is nearly upon us. While we can’t make the clock turn any faster, we can offer fans of Suzanne Collins’ best-selling dystopian trilogy (and newcomers, too) a deep, behind-the-scenes look into the making of the film, from conception to casting, filming to marketing.

Perhaps no bit of casting news was met with greater surprise than Lenny Kravitz taking on the role of Cinna, hero Katniss Everdeen’s deeply cool and compassionate stylist. Kravitz was working on his album, living out of a trailer in the Bahamas and oblivious to the Hunger Games phenomenon, when Ross first approached him to offer him the part. The director had been moved by the musician’s gentle grace in Precious and was further intrigued by the fact that Kravitz already felt a nurturing bond with star Jennifer Lawrence, who had become close friends with his daughter Zoe during the filming of X-Men: First Class. “I love that girl,” says Kravitz. “The minute I met her she became a part of the family.”


It took one sleepless night of reading a downloaded version of The Hunger Games in his trailer for Kravitz to commit. But Woody Harrelson, who initially turned down the role of Katniss and Peeta’s sodden wreck of a mentor Haymitch, was a harder sell. “Listen, I’m nuts,” he explains. “It was just a stupid thing where I hadn’t read the books yet. I didn’t see that there was enough for me to do in the script. But then Gary called me back and said ‘You got to do this, I don’t have a second choice for the role.’ And of course flattery always gets the best of me so I read the books and really saw the depths of this guy. Holy s—, I would have been bummed to miss this.”

I just finished the third and final book yesterday and am re-listening to THG to see if I pick up anything new now that I know how the story ends. Have I mentioned that they're awesome books and you should be reading them right now? Cause they really are. And you really should.

Oscar's Injustice

I think I am the most disinterested as I have ever been in this year's Academy Awards. I have seen none of the Best Picture contenders and am actually only interested in changing that fact for 4 of them. That, plus my being buried under schoolwork, plus my having only just returned from Vegas (more on that later) only yesterday, PLUS the outright snubbing of Deathly Hallows Part 2 equals a very uninformed Lauren filling out this year's RHI ballot. I am absolutely incensed that DH2 received only three nominations and, only in the technical fields at that. I know the Academy is a bunch of old, white dudes but if LOTR's final film can win 900,000 awards, including Best Picture, why can't Harry?! I am gobsmacked at its exclusion from any 'big' awards. It was the best-reviewed film of 2011 (according to Rotten Tomatoes) and had a pretty heavy 'For Your Consideration' push around the beginning of the year. Plus, the franchise has been nominated only 9 times over the first 7 films and has won ZERO Oscars thus far. Nada. Zilch. Bupkis. Inconceivable!!! The film should have garnered at least a pity nomination! Though such a thing wouldn't have even been necessary for anyone who saw the movie and watch Alan Rickman give such a fantastic performance as Severus Snape.

(S P O I L E R  A L E R T: Do NOT - I repeat, do NOT - watch this video [or read the small print below it] if you haven't yet finished the franchise, either books or movies-wise. That means you, Blackards.)



Dan once said in an interview that he, too, felt Alan should have been nominated, as he had the undesirable task of embodying a moment so beloved and imagined in the minds of millions of readers but that he did so brilliantly. And I agree 100%.

Dan thinks DH2 was snubbed because it was "too commercial" and maybe that's true. But I think the Academy writes it off as a children's story and just doesn't think about it at all. Which is a pity. Because the movies were (and are!) absolutely amazing and I think Dan should have at least had the courtesy of being nominated for carrying such a massive franchise on his young shoulders. The man became an excellent actor throughout his work in the films and he helped make them as wonderful as they are. His work should have been acknowledged in some way. And so while I think Rise of the Planet of the Apes may very well take the little bald man on Sunday night for Best Visual Effects, Robert and I stand by our man. Because Harry Potter will only be gone once those of us are no longer loyal to him.


And, now that I have stepped off my soapbox, here is this year's completed RHI ballot.

Wish us luck!

My New Obsession

Is The Hunger Games. I loooooooooooove it! I resisted it for a long time, writing it off as a young adult book that wouldn't interest me but both my friend, Kristine, and one of the techs at my clinic have just raved about it over the last couple of months so I finally caved. Kristine has all three books of the trilogy as MP3 files so she handed them over to me and I just finished the first book Thursday. The story was so good I couldn't wait to listen more and find out what happened! I loaded it onto my iPod and listened to it in the car, while I cooked and even in the shower. So good!!! Now I'm devouring every trailer and morsel of information I can find about the upcoming movie adaptation (out March 23) because, as I said, I'm obsessed. I already have a date with Kristine to see the movie when it comes out and if any of you are waffling on whether or not to give the books a whirl, I say go for it! I will totally share my audio files with you. :o)

EW.com dissects the new trailer!

The Hollywood Reporter : The High Stakes of The Hunger Games

And I have to add that I am so excited that Josh Hutcherson is one of the lead roles. Were I 16 years old, I would be squeeing over him massively! Seriously. It's kind of embarrassing. I just think he's the cutest darn thing and a good actor to boot. I've liked him since Bridge to Terabithia (I have always been a sucker for a guy an actor that can cry) and I'm happy to see him grab a big, meaty role. But I realize I am a creepy old lady with an inappropriate crush so I will just have to fangirl on the inside... 

Garfunkel's First Equine Encounter

I saw this video a couple of days ago and waffled on whether or not to share (it's not the most substantial thing, after all) but I was inspired to post it after taking Funk on his walk this morning... because he saw his first horse! We were walking the trail around Quarry Lakes and a man was just taking his horse out for a Sunday morning ride. Garfunkel went absolutely bonkers, whining and straining to get a closer look. So the man was very kind and turned his horse around so Funk could check him out a bit better. I was proud that Garfunkel didn't completely freak out and run toward the horse but I do wish he'd been a little calmer - he basically whined like a maniac while taking a few sniffs and then flopped down on the ground to whine some more. I wish he'd been as mellow as this little guy:

Danielpalooza!!!

UPDATE: I watched the show this morning and it was a typical episode of SNL: awful. I did laugh twice so it wasn't a complete and utter waste of time (I guess) but I felt bad for poor Dan. He did the best he could, he really did - he was a trooper! But the writing is just so atrocious there isn't a host out there that could make it funny. Honestly. (It's because of this that I'm slightly tempted to tape the February 4th episode featuring Channing Tatum. Dude is a piece of wood with abs and the show is going to be a train wreck!!!! I'm morbidly curious.) Even EW.com agrees with me. About Dan, not the Chan man.


Okay, so the first part of this post is current but the second half is a week late. (Sorry.) I just kept finding more and more awesome Daniel things to post and I couldn't squish it all in on time!!! What is important for you to know now is that DanRad is hosting Saturday Night Live this week! Not much can get me to watch SNL these days but for Dan I'll TiVo it. :o) He is SO adorable and always game for anything so my hopes are high that he will knock it out of the park. Oh, how I hope he does. He's already the funniest thing about the promos:


I have no idea who Lana Del Rey is. I feel old.

Dan also did another interview with MTV's Josh Horowitz the other day (to promote The Woman in Black) and it was just as fabulous as his last one. I know I gush about his interviews every time I post one but I can't help myself! He's always such a good interview, I just adore him. Adore him! Slightly embarrassing. But not enough to stop me from making it public.

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And now here's the old part of the post...

One of my favorites is in the upcoming issue of Parade magazine!!! Wheeee! I have to say, I am sad that his stint in How to Succeed is over because I'm digging his current haircut. He looks great! When left to his own devices, he looks more like this. Or this. Which... eh. I really hope he tries to keep it attractive a little longer.

Photo by Jake Chessum

Daniel Radcliffe opens up about life after Potter, falling in love, and fame in this weekend's issue of PARADE. And with his first post-Harry Potter film — the psychological thriller The Woman in Black — out next month, the actor admits he doesn't do well without fear.

In the highlights below, the 22-year-old actor discusses entering the second stage of his career and what it means to really be in love.

Be sure to check out this weekend's issue of PARADE magazine in your local newspaper for the full interview with Daniel Radcliffe.

Are you a romantic?
"Yes. I don’t know where my romanticism comes from. My mom and dad would read to me a lot.Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, tales of chivalry and knights, things like that. Those are the stories I loved growing up. I still see something very romantic in the world that perhaps isn’t there. I suppose I want it to be the place of knights and that kind of stuff.”

Knights marry princesses. Do you want to get married?
"Yes, absolutely. When growing up, I thought of marriage as being very official, drawing up a contract. It seemed slightly clinical to me. But then you meet somebody that you really love and you think, 'Actually, I wouldn’t mind standing up in front of my friends and family and telling them how much I love you and that I want to be with you forever.'

Are you in love with girlfriend Rosie Coker? [Radcliffe met Coker, a production assistant, on the set of the last Potter film.]
"Yes, absolutely. When Rosie’s here, every day seems better….I’m not an easy person to love. There are lots of times when I’m a very good boyfriend, but there are times when I’m useless. I mean, I’m a mess around the house. I talk nonstop. I become obsessed with things. This year it’s fantasy football, which means Rosie has to listen to me talking 24 hours a day about this team. 'Should I take this player out, do you think, darling?' And she listens to it, and she loves me for my oddness, my awkwardness, all of those things that I hate about myself. She finds them cute. I guess that’s love."

Why was that?
"I hated dating because I’m crap at it! [laughs] With Rosie, I didn’t know what was appropriate, like on which date you’re supposed to try and kiss her. At the end of the second date I pulled a move out of the Bela Lugosi Book of Woo—I went to kiss Rosie and at the last minute lost my nerve and ended up kissing her neck, which is such a weirdly intimate place to kiss somebody on a second date. Afterward, I texted her, saying, 'I’m sorry, what I just did probably seems very odd to you.' Fortunately, she just found it really funny, so she kept coming back."

Last year you gave up alcohol. Why? 
"My inner life was being drowned. I’ve worked with Richard Harris, Gary Oldman, all those actors who went crazy when they were young, and I always wanted that. The idea of that kind of life and chaos was always so appealing to me. Unfortunately, the way I do it, there is no romance to it! [laughs] There is nothing glorious or triumphant about it—it was pathetic, boring, and unhappy."

Your dad is a Protestant from Ulster and your mom is English and Jewish. Were you raised in a particular religion?
"There was never [religious] faith in the house. I think of myself as being Jewish and Irish, despite the fact that I’m English. My dad believes in God, I think. I’m not sure if my mom does. I don’t. I have a problem with religion or anything that says, 'We have all the answers,' because there’s no such thing as 'the answers.' We’re complex. We change our minds on issues all the time. Religion leaves no room for human complexity." 

You’ve had enormous success for someone so young. Do you fear that it won’t last?
"Yes. But it’s reality, not fear. It will happen, and I have accepted that. In a way it’s a great relief that I will never, ever do a film as successful as the Harry Potter series. But neither will anybody else. [laughs] Or it will take them a long time.”

Photo by Jake Chessum

In the exclusive extras below, the 22-year-old star talks about the cause he wants to put his Potter fortune behind, his new film, The Woman in Black, his love of poetry, and more.


On giving back. 
“I got involved in The Trevor Project [a charity which works to prevent young gay people from committing suicide] in late 2008 when I was in New York doing Equus. A few of my friends had made me aware of it. It sounded like such a fantastic thing. People need it. The suicide rate for gay teens is four times that of straight kids. I couldn't believe that nothing like this had existed before. I think that any free-thinking person who becomes very wealthy and has strong opinions on things would get involved with something like The Trevor Project or scholarships for schools or whatever. Fame is very useful in directing attention toward those things.
 
“I got paid so well for doing the Harry Potter films, it's ridiculous. If somebody asked me, 'Did you think you deserve that money?' No, of course I didn't. 'But would you have taken it anyway?' Of course. I happened to have found this industry where people get paid stupid amounts of money. That's the reality. I feel almost guilty for having done so well out of Potter. But there’s a moral imperative to help others. You know, the fact that I wake up in my lovely apartment in New York and get to stroll down here and do a couple of shows, and there is somebody in some country waking up wondering where he's going to live that week—it's a horrendous feeling. There is a sense that you have to do something. I feel Brad Pitt would agree that the way to help is to really get behind things that you're passionate about, like The Trevor Project. You have to give back.”

On homophobia. 
“Realizing that other people have a problem with [homosexuality] was the weirdest thing for me. As a kid it wasn't even something that was mentioned. It was never something that was even explained to me. It was just, “That's Mark and he's gay.” Mark was just another friend of my dad's who would talk about his boyfriend instead of his girlfriend. I was 5. I didn't care. It seemed perfectly normal, and still does....It just drives me crazy...that people can make such sweeping, ignorant statements and bring religion into it....Why would you want a god that’s up there picking and choosing who he lets in?...That doesn't make any sense." 

On marriage.
“I've got a great example to look at in my parents, because they've been married for at least 25 years and, I think, they were together for about five more before that. So they've been together a long time. I wouldn't recommend anybody marrying an actor, really. [laughs] Of course, there are cases where it works, but I’m an actor and I know what I’m like. Actors and actresses are generally pretty neurotic.”
 
On work — worrying about it, achieving the most. 
“I do worry about things like I'm not going to be good enough or my next film is not going to do well enough and that eventually people will go, ‘Oh well, why don't you move on and do something else?’ … Of course I worry about all of those things, but it comes out of a place of pride, in my knowing that I'm smart enough, good enough, hard-working enough to achieve. I now want to make as big a mix of everything as I can, from stage acting to film, and just keep working. What's lovely is that [my fame] will really help get a small independent film made, because my name carries bankability at the moment, and it will do for a few more years. If you look at somebody like Brad Pitt or George Clooney, those are guys who have immense fame and do some very successful commercial films, but they balance it by doing stuff they love, that interests them. Both could have gone down just playing romantic leads for the rest of their careers and made a very nice living. But they wanted to do different stuff. The majority of Clooney's career, acting and directing, is what I look at. If I can achieve half of what he has achieved, I'll be happy.”

On his love of poetry. 
“I think true poetry is a color—it's as fundamental as that. It can provoke a profound, basic human reaction. Understanding what the poet is saying comes from something fundamental in us that is moved by the musicality of language. I love T. S. Eliot’s 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.' I was so obsessed by it. That poem is how I see myself. It’s how people feel who have an inner life they struggle to express. That’s what's so powerful about that poem. To me it's about somebody who wants the world to be the world in his imagination and is constantly disappointed that it is not. Poetry once was not an elitist thing. Somewhere along the line, writing poetry became viewed as a kind of girlish thing to do, not something that real men should be concerning themselves with. English writer Tony Harrison is a modern poet and my hero. It's tough, muscular, brutish, angry language, and it's exciting to read.”

On his new film, The Woman in Black. 
“On the surface it's about a young lawyer, a widower, who is given a task to collect the paperwork of a recently deceased woman in her house in rural England. He goes and is terrorized by the ghost of a different dead woman. Every character that you meet in the film has been touched by bereavement at some point. It’s character-driven. Stanley Kubrick said that any film about the supernatural is inherently consoling because it implies an afterlife. That's what our film is about, really. On the surface it's about being terrified, but actually it's about love.”

And you can see a little slideshow of Dan through the years here. He's adorable! Cause they didn't include too many of his scary hair photos.

Dragon Tattoo Review by MOVIEBOB

For our annual NYE movie night, Robert and I went to go see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We would have gone to the movies anyway, because who are we to break such a hard-partying tradition?, but I wound up getting $1 movie tickets through a Groupon deal so celebrating at the movies seemed like an more awesome idea! (In fact, Robert was so stoked about our massive savings that he splurged on a soda a box of Reese's Pieces for me. $9.75 later we still made out in the black so woohoo!) And it was a good movie so it was a good choice. I had both seen the original Swedish version as well as read the book so I was able to view the movie with more critical eyes, I think (and a more understanding brain for sure), than the average moviegoer. Robert had, of course, seen the first movie, too, but hasn't yet read the book so even he and I looked at it a little differently. I didn't know anything about the books or the movie when we saw the original Dragon Tattoo so after watching it I was very taken with it. So it's hard for me to say which version I prefer; it's hard to parse out my initial "Wow! That was great!" feeling and look at the first movie objectively for a straight apples-to-apples comparison. I think both films have pros and cons in their own right. I did hop on the IMDb boards the next day, though, and came across this review which I think actually does a pretty good (if somewhat harsh) job of sizing up the films against one another. If you've seen them both, take a look a this and tell me what you think.

The Escapist : Escape to the Movies : The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo