Add some Brian to your day

What a pleasant surprise! There's a Brian Wilson interview in Salon today (requires sitting through Flash-based ad for peach-flavoured vodka).

There's not a lot there -- Brian's still about as bad an interview as you would have imagined -- but he does show he's still a little bugged at his old man:

Is that how you got started in music, playing the piano?
Yes, I taught myself to play the piano.
Your father didn't teach you? Wasn't he a musician?
Yeah, he was, but not a very good one. He was a bad musician. I learned nothing from him.

There's at least one completely inexplicable exchange:

Do you listen to much classical music?
Are you Jewish?
No ... Why do you ask?
Just asking! No reason.

And he's pretty confident about his current projects:

Do you think the music you're writing now is as good as "Smile" or "Pet Sounds"?
Yeah, the stuff we're doing is just as good as "Smile," and it's better than "Pet Sounds."

I'll believe that when I hear it, but any new Brian Wilson material is a blessing.

Love Courtney

Here's a damn good transcript of a speech by Courtney Love (circa 2000) that's actually making me respect her a bit. It's about how record labels screw over artists, and she makes some great points, although my favorite part is when she takes an unprovoked swing at "Mambo No. 5", calling it "a piece of crap".

Of course, any swing at "Mambo No. 5" can't be that unprovoked. It is a piece of crap. I'm sure even Lou Bega knows that, although I've always liked to picture him in front of a boardroom full of suits, flush with confidence from his recent hit as he makes this expansive gesture with his hands and says, "Gentlemen, I've got three words for you: Mambo. Number. Six." And then security throws him into the street, getting his white suit all dirty as he lands in the gutter, and one of the guards stomps on his hat.

Anyway, read the speech.

Holy Trailer Trash, Batman!

Here's something like we used to do at The Trailer Trash back in the day: my review of a ten-minute preview for Batman Begins, which makes up part of Jay Pinkerton's new primer on the Dark Knight.

I also want to point out that after forty years, Michael Caine has finally been upgraded from "Alfie" to "Alfred" with his role in the new film as Bruce Wayne's butler.

From the "Yippee-ki-yay, Mister Falcon" Department

From the TBS presentation of Nothing to Lose [modified for television broadcast]:

Tim Robbins: That's not the point. It's beetle-headed. It's only a matter of time until you do get caught.
Martin Lawrence: What is "beetle-headed"?
Tim Robbins: It's a synonym for "stupid".
Martin Lawrence: Oh yeah? Here's a synonym for "procreation": Forget you!

I think this actually makes the joke much funnier.

I am violated

I just got home from a long, sweaty commute. My landlord and landlady were in the yard, tending their garden. They live a few blocks over, but have a garden at our house for some reason. They're in their sixties or so, and are the parents of my housemate, Brain-Damaged Toula.

I peeled off my sweaty clothes, took a cool shower, then headed for my bedroom to change. I have a suite of rooms, so I didn't bother with the formality of having a towel on or anything. However, just before I walked into the bedroom, I realized I could hear my landlady lurking right beside the window and gibbering in Greek (I am on the ground floor). At that short distance, you can see through the Venetian blinds, particular since I busted the end of a couple of the slats off while climbing through the window one time, so there's kind of a gap. So I decided to wait her out.

I waited by the door, and finally, it sounded like the coast was clear. I stepped into my room to only to see my landlady deliberately peeking through my window right at my full frontal male nudity.

Get the hell out of the yard, old Greek people! Goddamit!

The latest gossip on the War of 1812

I ran across an interesting snippet of local history in Wikipedia's entry on Prescott, Ontario (it's interesting to me, anyway, because I grew up very close to Prescott and the American town directly across the St. Lawrence River, Ogdensburg):

Prescott was the home of the British Fort Wellington, which is now a tourist destination. During the War of 1812, troops stationed at Fort Wellington crossed the frozen river and burned Ogdensburg in retaliation for an American raid further up the river; the American citizens of Ogdensburg, who were profiting by supplying the British army with food and other necessities, drove out their own American military detachment after the raid so that they could continue doing business with the British army in Prescott.

If I'd known the people of Ogdensburg were a bunch of British collaborators, I might not have made them the target that time in high school when I crossed the bridge solely to urinate on American soil.

Friday rumours

• On one extraordinary episode of The People's Court, Judge Wapner became so incensed at an outrageously negligent defendant that he sentenced him to 30 days in jail rather than the customary monetary damages.

• Due to a mixup with electronic voting machines in the state of Ohio during the 2004 election, the United Way somehow won a seat in the House of Representatives.

• The breakup of Hüsker Dü was precipitated when long-simmering internal tensions among the members of the band flared up during a surprisingly bitter argument over whether glass-bottom boats were a good idea or just plain stupid.