Freaky With A Side Of Deaky

Ahhhhh... ackkkk-k-k-kkk (choke, sputter)

Cowboy Mouth is going to be at the House Of Blues in Vegas tomorrow night.

Yes, with Vance.

And I just printed out my tickets for Joe and me.

I didn't even realize they were going to be there until today, and quite frankly the thought never even occurred to me to check. I am seriously off my Vance radar these days, where I once knew pretty much where he was at every second of the day in whatever corner of the country he may be (strictly in a non-stalkerish way, of course). And now here he is and there he will be. And we should have time to see him since once we get there we're going to Sam's Town to see the Wrestlemania pay-per-view, which is something Joe really wants to do, and then have time to hop over to the House Of Blues for Cowboy Mouth, which is obviously what I want to do but Joe is hip to it as well since he's actually seen the pre-Vance incarnation of the band live years ago and said that they were fantastic live, so he's up for that.

Holla.

I'll leave you now with another bit of video nostalgia that I'm pleased to have just found on Youtube this evening. Years ago, we're talking early 80's, we used to have a local music video TV program hosted by resident veteran disc jockey Mike Arlo that came on Sunday evenings, and I remember one night sitting in the dark watching his show I saw this video, "Draw Of The Cards" by Kim Carnes. The video starts out a little surreal and gets increasingly more surreal as it progresses, but right at the end (starting at 3:40, or the last 50 seconds of the clip)) this monster with freakishly long arms and tongue chases her down in a dark alley and damn if that didn't scare the pants offa my 13-year-old ass. And I thought about that video for years until finally seeing it again tonight since that one night it aired back on Arlo's show. Anyway, skip to that part of you want to. Maybe somebody can explain to me exactly what it all means.

It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcarft

I think it's been officially three days since I stopped feeling like I had been swung by my ankles repeated into a wall by a 8-foot tall toddler. Funny how I was hardly this sick the actual day I was sick, but the over a week-long recovery period felt like I was dying. Exhaustion, nausea, raging overall misery, more nausea, and even more exhaustion than I previously let on. And now I finally have the equilibrium to sit up straight at the computer long enough to type something about my life out there into the void only to say... ah, I got nuthin'. Well, other than leaving for Vegas this Sunday for S.'s wedding. Which, by the way, will be live on the internet, and probably rockabilly-themed, as there will be bowling shirts and Elvis involved. I had no idea what my participation in this will be but at this point I'm game for anything. I miss the pranks and mischief we used to get into together before things changed over the last few years, and I'm really hoping this experience together really helps bring us as close as we once were, or heck, in regular communication again. She seems thrilled that I'm coming, so I think we're heading in a positive direction here.

A few things acquired these last two weeks to feed the little brain-hamster in its wheel...

Charlie Parker's Yardbird Suite, and I'm really not quite sure why I bought this because I'm pretty certain I have about 80% of this on numerous other Parker disks up in this jank, but it does cover a pretty creative period in his career and I suppose it's nice to have all of it together in one compilation. Perhaps it was just an irrational jazz reflex, which I get from time to time. A $20 reflex, to be sure. Oh well, it was used anyway.

The most awesome Unknown Hinson and his badazhewannabee EP Rock N' Roll Is Straight From Hell which also came in used and righteously cheap. Contains the hilariously excellent "Love On Command" which I've been wanting for, like, forever. A couple of other tracks recorded live and just more overall gut-bustin' southern gothic hillbilly vampire representin'.

The EMI rep came to visit this week, and I snagged the promo to Sound Of Silver, the latest from LCD Sound System, or in other words James Murphy surrounded by a lot of blipping, tweaking technology. Digital wizardry with personality, or something like that. I suppose I'll download it into my iPod tonight for the plane ride to Vegas for further exploration.

As far as DVDs I invested in something I've been meaning to check out for awhile: The Alan Clarke Collection which packages the early works of the seminal British film and television producer and director from the 70's and 80's, with works that include Scum, Made In Britain, The Firm, and Elephant. So far I have only seen the TV pilot for Scum, starring a young Ray Winstone (Sexy Beast) as a boy caught up in the harrowingly bleak and brutal British juvenile detention system, and Made In Britain starring a 16-year-old Tim Roth as an NF skinhead, the story of which was okay but worked more a showcase for Roth's truly galvanizing performance as a monstrous creature made all the more monstrous for being frighteningly intelligent and possibly beyond redemption. I have yet to see The Firm but it also has an early performance by Gary Oldman as well, so I'm looking forward to that.

If I don't post anything before I leave, I'll see you folks either probably Thursday, since I'll be getting back maybe late Wednesday night. I might have time to post something then. Until then peace and humpitness forever.

Schedule

Sun 25: 11-6
Mon 26: 10-6
Wed 28: 10-6
Thur 29: 3-cl
Fri 30: 12-7

Acid Test

Whoooo, doggie. I sure do hate gettin' sick. I guess I had that virus thing that's been going around because I was doing the technicolor yawn all Wednesday afternoon and part of the evening, and then feeling like a slug for the past two days after. I think I'm just partially wore out, physically and mentally. I feel so battered these days, so on edge, like there's something hugely important that I have to do and I'm forgetting what it is, and then I worry that I won't have time to do it because of work and then I come home and pass out on the couch as soon as I kick off my shoes and toss off the bra. Sitting upright at the internet keeps me mildly awake but I have so little time to do it, and to be honest I don't really want to spend so much time doing it because it takes me away from things that I really should be doing. As a result my emails are piling up and I know people think I must be seriously dissing them but I'm really just answering maybe 3-4 at a time as I receive them, trying not to spend more than 20-30 minutes at one sitting. Compounded with things going on at work, as usual. Wow. Things just... don't look good. And I know I've been saying that for over a year now but damn, I can't imagine much worse it can get. And the medical bills....

Argh! No, I'm not going to make this a pity post. This is the first time in about a week where I haven't felt like my innards are coming out of my throat and I want to revel in the positive. Like the fact that I'm going to Las Vegas with Joe next weekend. It's S.'s wedding, and it's going to be in some novelty chapel presided over by Elvis. Or an Elvis impersonator (depending on which package deal she got) and it's all going to be live over the internet. And I'm going to be there. And God knows what she'd going to have me do. Hopefully not carry Elvis' train.

But Joe's never been so it's going to be pretty cool either way. It's only for a few days but I think we could both use the get-away time. We're going to try and get tickets to see Spamalot while we're there. But mostly we're just going to play it by ear, and hang with a few of our old friends. I think I need this. I think I need to remember what it feels like not to stress for awhile. And to fall asleep every evening to the sound of slot machines dinging in my brain. Reminds me of every time I spent the night in Manhattan at Dave's place down in the lower east side, and the hum of constant traffic at every hour of the night. Nope, I sure don't miss those jets at the oceanfront. Oh my word, no.

Oh, and happy birthday, Papa, ya dirty ole man. I left you a verah sexay voice mail message today. Or as sexy as someone like me gets, which is actually more dorky than sexy. Oh well, sexy is your job. I just pay the bills. ;-)

Last Weekend In Pictures

Jandek at the Firehouse Theater Project in Richmond, VA last Sunday. One of those rare moments where he was actually facing the audience.

Sisters Lara (left) and Lisa (middle) in a 20 year reunion shot at a hotel room in Chesapeake, VA last Saturday. One of those rare moments when I'm actually facing a camera.

Jandek and I need to get togther for tea one day and discuss our issues together. I'm convinced it could do us both a world o' good.

Schedule

Sat 17: 3-cl
Sun 18: 11-6
Tue 20: 3-cl
Wed 21: 3-cl
Thur 22: 9:30-5
Sat 24: 3-cl

Mr. Smith Goes To Richmond

Yesterday morning I was up early and out of the house, tossing Lisa into the car seat next to me as we spun off together into nearby Great Bridge before I took her to the airport. Lara and Lois had already left on an earlier flight, but Lisa was determined to revisit the town and the neighborhood where we spend all those summers with her grandparents as a little girl. Her voice a low whisper and her hands shaking every time she snapped a photo of her Nana's old house next door to my own childhood home, seeing it again after 20 years, all she could repeat over and over was how tiny everything looked, compared to the world of giants she remembered as a 13 year old. We stopped in to visit my parents and see my old bedroom where we used to play is now my parents' office and computer room, and took to her to the red shed in my backyard that used to be our clubhouse. I cleared away the spider webs with a stick so that she could go in and take pictures of all of our names written on the shelves, where "The Five Foxes" held their meetings, read comic books, swooned over boys, and wrote "Go-Go's Rule" all over the walls (Whattaya want, it was 1982!). Also made a stop at the graveyard for Lisa to snap pics of her grandparents' final resting place. On the way to the airport we stopped at Hardee's because, not having Hardee's or Carl's Jr in Boston she was dying for a roast beef sandwich just like the ones we used to eat there as a kid, but were both stunned to discover that Hardee's doesn't make roast beef sandwiches anymore. And I didn't know that either since I haven't eaten at Hardee's, or hardly any other fast food place, in years. Anyway, Lisa plans on sending some of the pictures to me soon so I'll try and post some as they come along, although I suppose I'll get my jollies out of it more than anyone else, expectedly.

The start to Richmond was a little late going, but Joe and I got there and found the Firehouse Theater Project with a minimum of fuss. The show wasn't until 7pm so we called Leslie and went by her place to catch up and hang. Les, whom I have also not seen in a number of years, had been sick with that stomach virus that everyone seems to be gestating lately but was feeling better that day, and her housecleaning business that she started up about two years ago is really on fire right now, which I'm delighted to hear. Over a leisurely dinner at Mekong (this terrific Vietnamese restaurant near Leslie's house where we ate last time we visited) we were so caught up in the act of catching up that we neglected to remember the time and almost two hours had passed since Jandek had hit the stage. So after dropping off Leslie we tore down Broad Street and got to the show... just in time to hear the last two or three songs from Jandek's set. Armed with a drummer, bassist plus sax, Sterling & Co. whipped up tempest of skronky free jazz that reminded me more of Peter Brötzmann than anything I had ever heard off of Telegraph Melts. But you kids know how much I loves me the Brötzmann anyway. On a set designed to resemble a spare living room, like a photo from one of his album covers, Jandek in black shirt, slacks and hat played mostly with his back turned to the 200 or so people seated in the audience except for the occasional spinning around to press his lips to the microphone and spouted strange words and ghostly groans. In fact something about his presence made him appear as if he were not really there at all, as if maybe he were being projected from a hologram machine from off in a corner. He really gives off an unreal inhabitance. And maybe that's just the aura of his mythological legend that colors my perception. I'm a cryptozoologist by nature, and seeing Jandek in the flesh makes me shiver in that way that I probably would just catching a glimpse of a Tasmanian tiger out of the corner of my eye.

After the show I had the pleasue of meeting the Jandek fan extraordinaire friend I made at myspace who first told me about the show. Even more charming and handsome in person, we had the chance to chat briefly before Joe and I had to hit the I-64 home so Joe could get up early for work the next day. But to be honest I was exhausted. Emotionally, maybe, more than physically. Surreal, to be sure. I spent the morning standing over Mrs. McGee's grave, reflecting on the unusual woman who helped shape my young life, and the granddaughter who helped create some of the strongest memories from my childhood. Then dinner with one of my best friends from college, reconnecting after several years of losing one another. And then seeing Jandek, which surrealness factor right there pretty much goes unspoken. So now I think I'm ready to go for a walk. And think about things. And ponder how I'm going to get to Vegas next month for S.'s internet wedding.

And listen to Telegraph Melts.

Schedule

Tue 13: 3-cl
Wed 14: 11-7
Thur 15: 9-5
Fri 16: 3-cl
Sat 17: 11-5

I Loved You Once, But Now...

I got the call around 10:20 last night from Lisa. She, Lara and their mom was in town and currently in a hotel about 20 minutes away, so literally still in my pajamas I shrugged on a bra and a heavy coat and stormed off into the night across town and was instantly tackled by Lisa as soon as the elevator doors opened to their floor. In the room I was given long, emotional embraces by Lara and their mother Lois, and for one of the many strangest moments in my life it felt as if 20 years had never passed.

Lois, whom I always remembered from my childhood as this old school punk chick with jet black spiky hair and black goth dresses, looks as if hardly a day has past since I last saw her in the early 80's. For several years she was involved in the in-house booking and promotions for Boston's famed punk club the Ratskellar (or "The Rat", as it was called then), and she regaled me with wonderful, fascinating stories about booking The Police back when nobody had heard of them, and the Buzzcocks show where Steve Diggle shot off a gun during the concert, and... wow, countless amazing tales, all of them. She got out of the business for awhile and tried the 9-5 desk job routine for a change of pace, but she still longs to get back into the booking grind again. Yeah, tell me about it.

Lara is still as breathtakingly beautiful as she's ever been, and probably even more so, although she did have a bad cold last night and was feeling miserable. She currently worked for Boston's (also famed) Newbury Comics a the webmaster and customer service, and gets access to vinyl and comics and DVDs beyond anything she could ever assimilate in a lifetime. Lisa is ever so much the sister with the big personality -- loud, loquacious, eyes and hands and body moving at all times. It's a shame that Sheryl couldn't make it. It would have been perfect. But we still spent the next 3 hours catching up as well as reliving the past -- like the time Ron, who had a crush on Lara, jumped off the neighbor's front porch onto Lara and his top front teeth got stuck into the back of Lara's head. Or when Ron's brother Gary (whom Lisa was in love with), stoned out of his mind, showed up at Lisa's 13th birthday party with a snake in a shoebox for her as a joke, and she threw it in the air screaming and we all had to scurry around trying to catch it. or when Lara and I went to see The Empire Strikes Back and Lara got so mad at Boba Fett she threw her flip-flop at the movie screen. Well, little things like that, but still, God did we ever laugh. Like, tears and sobs and rolling out of our seats laughter. My word. So much time has passed. And to my astonishment, so much had been happening around that same time in which I was completely oblivious. But it was a surreal evening, and I left around 1am after saying farewell to Lara and Lois, promising to visit them in Boston soon, and making plans to take Lisa around Sunday morning before her flight home so she can see the old neighborhood again.

Anyway, as I was driving home I was remembering this thing that Lara and I recall more than anyone else, of that summer in 1983 when HBO showed the movie Clash Of The Titans over and over and we practically memorized every word of that bizarre, cheesy-assed movie. One thing that we joked about The Eye, or what looked like a giant marble that these three blind witches held over their heads to see. And of course we just yucked it up for years after, making "The eye! Theeee eyeeeeee... who's got the eyeeeee...?" in a creaky old lady voice part of our in-joke vernacular. We even made up our own movie tie-in promotion product called "Kracken Breakfast Cereal", with little marshmallow "Eyeeeeeesssss!!!" (as well as marshmallow Pegasus, marshmallow Robot Owl, marshmallow Burgess Meredith) which had us in stitches remembering all the terrible lines from that picture (Lawrence Olivier: "Send in... the KRRRACKEN!" Ursula Andress: *robotic acting* "I loved you once..... but now...."). So anyhoo, here's a scene with the three witches and "The Eyeeee!" which the three sisters used to act out with a tennis ball in the front yard, much to my side-holding, gut-busting childish amusement. Somehow I sense a week-long nostalgia trip through youtube in future posts, if you folks will bear with me (and thank you, as always, for doing so).

The Death And Resurrection Show

I received word Wednesday evening that someone from my past had passed away that very day. And brings a chance of strange circumstance to potential this weekend, if possible.

Inez McGee was like a second grandmother to me. Well, technically third. But anyway, she was my next door neighbor when I was a little girl growing up in Chesapeake, and from when I was about 8 years old she used to come over at 6am and take me with her to garage sales on weekends. Having never even been aware of this concept where people in the neighborhoods sell their weird, cool stuff out on the front lawn I became intrigued and delighted by this world of cheap junk. Because as a child I sure had a lot of cheap junk of my own. And who else but a child could appreciate an older woman who saw the value of cheap junk at the level I did?

Then every summer her three granddaughters came to stay with her during the vacations months. They lived with their mother in Boston, and even better, they were all around my own age, so during those three months we all became the closet of friends. My youth in the late 70's and early 80's were colored vividly by our antics; skateboarding on their cousin's halfpipe in the driveway, swimming in our other neighbor's backyard pool, putting on elaborate variety shows for the people on the street, flirting with the Bevins brothers and their friends, and above all, getting caught up in the wild mischief that we always got in trouble for somewhere along the way. But in a way it was as if I had become accepted into Mrs. McGee's extended family, and my childhood with her and her three granddaughters are some of if not the most vivid imagery from my childhood that I can still recall.

I lost touch with the "girls" (as well called them) around 1987 when I went off to college. When I came back home for Christmas I caught up with Lara (the eldest) who came to visit her grandmother alone for the first time. A lot of unfortunate instances had taken place in the family around that time, and things were a little fractured. But after moving back home after my freshman year Mrs. McGee had moved away, and I never saw nor heard from her or the girls again.

Then just this past new years I was contacted by Lisa, the youngest, through myspace. She and Sheryl, the middle sister, had their own pages (even their mother) and I was delighted to see them still living in Massachusetts with families of their own. It was amazing talking to Lisa again, and we exchanged stories, photos, and caught up with one another after the nearly 20 years absence. None of them have been back to Virginia since I last saw them, and they had not seen their grandmother in almost same the amount of time.

So here is where things get interesting.

Lara and Sheryl may come down for the funeral this weekend. Lisa isn't sure if she can attend because she has a very young daughter to look after. And so far I'm not certain when the funeral will take place. I am scheduled to go to Richmond on Sunday to see Jandek, but if the girls come into town after all I want to be here to visit with them, despite the circumstances surrounding the visit.

But it's been 20 years. We're not the same four girls, trodding over hot summer tarred streets in bare feet singing along to "Atomic Dog" and doing up our hair and leopard-skin make-up like our idol Annabella Lwin. How much has changed? How much of each other still influences the other?

I'm still waiting to hear back. The trip is kind of on hold until then. Eh, I still haven't gotten my car inspected yet anyway. Probably best I don't travel.

Write The Words Again

The heat in my car has been broken all winter. And yet late tonight when I got home from work I sat shivering in the driveway while I listened to Stevie Wonder's "All In Love Is Fair" on the radio, and the tears felt almost molten hot as they trickled down my frozen cheeks. I could almost feel my damp eyelashes getting hard and brittle as if they were turning to ice.

I love that song.

God, I miss so many people.

Glad To Be Unhappy

In all the hustle y bustle over the last few weeks I neglected to mention that the Valentine's Day edition of The High Hat was released, which I just remembered the other day when discussing Tom Waits because Jon Morris reviews the new album. The issue is appropriately all about first loves, who we fell in love with at first sight, first read, first listen. Punkmeister Hayden Childs recalls his cred-levelling first blush with Styx. Talented Leonard Pierce waxes romantic on Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep. And Emerson Dameron gets his dopamine fix on Nazi nostalgia in the three-martini dry "My Favorite Flag", just to name a few.

I suppose I should also update what's been going on in the comix forefront, which as you all know is basically me being woefully behind on everyone else. In this case here are a few hardback comic novelizations that pick away at my brain where most people see a blank thought balloon over my head.

Currently reading the Harvey Award winning hardback collection Black Hole by the immensely talented Charles Burns, whom I have been a fan of going on the last 20 years or so since his days with RAW. The story revolves around a social circle of Seattle teenagers circa 1970's who pass strange physical deformities to each other through sexual contact. Written between 1995 and 2005, I remember buying the first two issues back around when they first came out and getting rather into it, but I think somehow my local store stopped carrying it or something, but either way I lost track of the story over the years and now I'm looking forward to catching up with it all over again. Burns' trademark stark, severe black and white style creates a terrifying atmosphere with the forests and lakes used as an almost pre-human primordial backdrop for a fable saturated with man-versus-nature metaphors as well as the fears and insecurities of young people being thrust into the wild unknowns of puberty and impending adulthood.

I was rather hoping that The Illustrated Jane Eyre would have been a straight comic book interpretation of the novel. Turns out it's just the novel itself with a few scattered B&W and color illustrations by noted Meatcake artist Dame Darcy, a woman whose style as well as sense of humor I've always appreciated. She creates an interesting visual take on the story, and her gothic flair couldn't be better matched even if Edward Gorey took a turn at it himself. Bronte nerd that I am, I don't know if I would have drawn either Jane or Mr. Rochester so flatteringly, as the classically accepted image of Bronte's Jane was a plain, unadorned, "Quakerish" woman in simple dark clothes, uncomplicated hair, and unmade, unremarkable face. Jane looks like she's been treated to a shopping spree at Hot Topic here, complete with Darcy's trademark raccoon-eye make-up and spiraling hairdos. But I can't help it, I'm too much of a sucker for Dame Darcy's work in general to fly off into full-on nitpicky mode. And I can always do for another copy of the book to go with my numerous other Jane Eyres and Wuthering Heights... Ooooo! Now that's a tale I'd like to see her drape her lacy goth-cloth across.

Finally I have thoroughly gotten down and funky with Need More Love: A Graphic Memoir by undeniably funky seminal underground cartoonist Aline Kominsky Crumb. Although overshadowed by the career of her famous husband Robert Crumb, her style was never as accomplished and aesthetically pleasing as his, and most of the time it borders on downright difficult to look at sometimes. But what colors her work is the infusion of her brash, spunky personality and distinctive humor in every page, etched in every loose, squiggly line. The book is her autobiography, of a little Jewish girl growing up in Long Island, New Yok, feeling fat, ugly and outcast from her self-described monstrous family, to her wild sex-and-drug freewheeling years during the 60's, and meeting the community of women artists who would come together for the first issues of Wimmin's Comix, the first truly all-female collection of women cartoonists, and later, becoming an outcast even among her fellow artists, began her own series called Twisted Sisters. Aline became known as one of the first female cartoonists to write about herself as her subject, displaying all of her faults, her fears, her insecurities in real, every day instances, airing her dirty laundry for all to see (the first cover for Twisted Sisters featured a cartoon of Aline sitting on the toilet, which up to that point had never really ever been seen before from a female perspective in comix). Yet Aline's work is completely, unapologietically feminine, and like myself she obseses over her family's approval, her fluctuating weight problems, her artistic abilities, her insatiable sex drive, and her copies amounts of shoes (well maybe substitute CDs for shoes in my case). Aline Kominsky Crumb was a pioneer in a genre that was once a predominantly female demographic by taking it back to the female perspective and creating a deeply personal twist that few had ever attempted before, and has since been duplicated many times over. An interesting woman who led a fascinating life, and left a distinctive legacy of her own behind.

Schedule

Mon 5: 3-cl
Wed 7: 4-cl
Thur 8: 9-5
Fri 9: 9-5
Sat 10: 3-cl

What Keeps Mankind Alive

Just as I may have let one ugly customer convince myself that I'm a terrible employee, let alone a perfectly horrible person all the way down to the core of my filthy soul, I have one sweet gentleman customer whom I work with semi-regularly offer to bring me a free CD burn of an out-of-print Randy Meisner CD that he just acquired, only because he remembered our last conversation several months ago about how I had been looking for that CD myself because it was one of my father's favorite albums when I was growing up. I can't tell you how much I wanted to hug that man that very second. Or heck, just sweep him up into my arms and spin him around. As depressed as I've been over my actions this week, he reminds me that maybe I'm not such an awful person after all. I don't think he even realizes how much he made my whole week with just that one small, thoughtful gesture.

Oh, I did get a few new CDs during my birthday week. Two used, and one I ordered from Amazon...


The three-CD set of Tom Waits' Orphans, Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards which also includes a little booklet of liner notes and nice B&W photos of Tom et al. A good chunk of it is new material, with covers of songs by Brecht/Weill, Ramones, and it even has his version of Disney's "Heigh Ho" that was released on the Stay Awake compilation I had a bazillion years ago. Pretty much Waits doing what Waits does. Which is sound like Louis Armstrong on a bender. But it fits my mood appropriately this week.


The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw by Pelican, instrumental proggy art-metal with a dash of acoustic guitar for a just little what-tha-fuck. More a mood piece than anything, but I like what moods in invokes. I've been kind of going in this direction metal-wise for awhile now. Well, more like alternating really. I still can't manage to pry my beloved Slayer CD out of my car stereo nearly a year after I bought it. You can't take that away from me, boy-o.


And finally as a birthday gift to myself, and a recommendation from a new friend of mine, Ethiopiques, Vol. 4: Ethio Jazz & Musique Instrumentale, 1969-1974, a collection of instrumental soul-jazz tracks from the early 70's with a touch of Ethiopian rock, composed and arranged by musician Mulatu Astatqe. Funny how my friend suggested I get this having not even known I had been sort of dabbling a bit into early rock and soul music from several African nations like Senegal, Congo and Ethiopia. Pretty vital stuff. My dear fellow, you can drop me more recs like this one any day.

Actually I'm dying for recommendations from anyone right now. Movies, music, literature, etc. I've hit another proverbial brick wall creatively, and I need my juices stirred, so to speak. Lay 'em on me, babies. Greg? Chris? I know you boys always come through for me.