October 2007

October Playlist

1. Guyamas Sonora - Beirut
2. If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then the Vampires They Will Die) - Tullycraft
3. Summer’s End - Foo Fighters
4. Follow The Lights - Ryan Adams
5. So Long, Marianne - Leonard Cohen
6. Is There a Ghost (Album) - Band Of Horses
7. Sea Horse - Devendra Banhart
8. He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones
9. Famous Blue Raincoat - Leonard Cohen
10. Ruby II - Amy Millan
11. Nantes - Beirut
12. Choices - Bettye LaVette

Mexican Monkey Armbar

CAT WARNING!!! (The following may contain cat-related hijinks!)

I have to many stories involving my cat right now to even feel good about myself anymore. It’s not that I’m ashamed, it’s just that even though I probably had a dozen pet cats when I was a kid, they all lived (and eventually perished by what I assumed were Coyotes) outside. Having an inside cat who bothers you or sleeps on your head (or in the reverse case, a cat who your girlfriend sometimes uses as a pillow) is a weird thing. Also this cat loves food more than anything and does not yet understand the concept of lasers. I am perplexed and amused by this animal

In non cat-related news, I went out to the Nightlite and hung out with Scrapper and the gang, who I do not see nearly often enough, and in the process Gretchen and I talked about our mutual respect of Cher. Our 5 year anniversary is coming up next week, so it’s probably a good time to start getting out these kinds of strange likes and dislikes. For instance, I really fucking love eating banana pudding while watching pro wrestling. It just goes together for me. These are the things I guess, you learn about someone after 5 years.

In other, other news, I finally have http://www.salazardillinger.com up and running, which is something!

-Matt

Philly Trip Recap

Troy and I were talking this morning and concluded that this trip was probably an unmitigated disaster on all fronts (capped off last night by me discovering that I’d lost my digital camera somewhere)

But I will recap the highlights quickly.

• Arriving in Philadelphia at midnight on Saturday, dropping off our bags and walking two miles in unfamiliar southwest Philadelphia to pick up a case of what turned out to be 70z Miller High Life bottles. We then sit under an overpass and proceed to drink the beer and talk about women we’ve known. Then we smash the bottles, walk back to the hotel and watch The Omen.
• The next night, a cabbie telling us that we just walked through the 2nd most dangerous neighborhood in Philadelphia at 2am.
• Finding the bar “The Happy Rooster” and getting useful advice from one of the best bartenders I’ve ever known
• Walking around Philadelphia while Troy tries to convince us to move there and start a business
• Nick considering lighting his cigarette on the eternal flame at the memorial for the unknown soldier
• Going to Jim’s Cheese Steak’s and Troy being mocked for only ordering at 70z High Life again, and being guilted into going for a 12oz Miller Lite.
• Troy nearly puking from his 3rd Cheese Steak in 24 hours.
• Troy actually puking from this 3rd Cheese Steak
• Going back to the Happy Rooster and meeting some new friends, who accompanied us to the festival.
• Troy finding Chester, the Liberty Bell Chestnut just a few feet from the Liberty Bell.
• Going to the former ECW Arena in the middle of nowhere. Knocking on the door, and having the owner of the arena pull up behind me and ask what we were doing. After hearing our story, he let us inside to take pictures and hang out. We then learned that 3 hours earlier Billy Corgan had shown up and asked the same thing.

Note - I have pictures of most of these, but my digital camera has been lost.

Darjeeling Limited Stuff

Hey, so as well as getting a cat and GW getting a tattoo, we also caught the Darjeeling Limited on Friday night and though I was expecting to be disappointed, it just turns out that this is more than likely Wes Anderson’s critical backlash movie than the film being disappointing in any way.

The fact of the matter is, he doesn’t really change his style at all what with his particular screen fonts, colors, screen formatting and the like, he has his style, and other than tweaks (instead of a montage, he uses a series of traincar sets on a soundstage to show what each character is up to.) its pretty much his own style, and I, for one, like it.

As far as the movie itself, I really liked that he focused almost exclusively on the three brothers (and wish he would have made shorts like Hotel Chevalier for all 3) and their quest. I liked all three actors (GW liked Adrian Brody especially) and the way they interplayed with each other, and though the metaphors in the film were really obvious (even obvious enough that I got them) they were presented and choreographed well.

What I liked, and this is kind of a spoiler, is that the three brothers had split up their deceased father’s 20-odd piece luggage set, and they were all carrying what amounted to different sized pieces of luggage the entire trip. So they had this huge set of luggage with them whereever they went, and usually its just kind of amusing that they have all these pieces of luggage. And it isn’t until the end, when they have to abandon the luggage to hop the train home, that they are unburdening themselves of, literally, the baggage from their father’s death. It’s done in the usual slow-motion Wes Anderson style, and it works on a humorous, obvious and emotional level and ends the film in a very satisfying way.

Anyway, good stuff, and I liked it better than Tennenbaums and Life Aquatic. I doubt anything will replace Bottle Rocket in my heart.

So there you go, no cats in this one.

Warning! Cat Related Entry #1

DSC00967

Originally uploaded by comunistdahter

We got a cat yesterday. Gretchen and I, which is weird since we don’t live in the same place. She likes the kitchen appliances for whatever reason, as well as belly rubs.

Her name is Ramona J. Pancakes (Combined inputs from Scrapper, Faye and GW herself)

I will precede any post involving the cat with a warning to those who do not care about cat entries.

I am a cat owner. Lets hope this goes better than my last cat. (RIP dear Wally)

The Highs and the Lows

I was feeling pretty optimistic coming into this week, I think Monday at work was probably the best day I’d had there in at least a year. And then it just went down hill. Work was piled on me (including a task that I only found out about from a guy’s vacation email. “Matt Selby will be taking over this task while I am out”. Not a good way to find out about things) Also, I was switched into an MS Project class at the last minute, which I wasn’t particularly excited for and knew would put the Fast Off in Jeopardy, mostly because, as what happened last night, I came home brain dead at at 5pm and pretty much stayed on my couch and drank bourbon and watched movies to get the cobwebs out of my head.

To say this class is tedious is an understatement and a reason it’s hard to attend training classes. Yes, I know all the goddamn standard Windows shortcuts. I know that control+z is undo!

These types of things.

Also, as a result of these two days of class, I’ll be working Saturday to catch up.  And teh Fast Off is cancelled (or at least I won’t be there)

Sunday, I’ll be raining terror down on poor Scrapper’s Fantasy Football team. There won’t be anything left. Sorry man.

Off to class…

In Rainbows out now

Nude is my favorite song on the album, but it would be, wouldn’t it?

The Accidental Tranny

It seems that for some reason this ‘going back to Philly’ business has somehow focused me. I had the first weekend in a while where I really felt I was able to get away from things relax I’ve also started work on a new screenplay that I’m hoping is going to be a bit more personal and introspective. I’m kind of going on the idea that it might be a workshop film to just tinker with for a while until the stars align and we can do something with a wider palette (so to speak). It always feels cheesy to do something about yourself and the crap you’re dealing with. But, you know, I don’t care, it feels right.

In other news, I finally was able to get Gretchen’s futon over to my apartment and it fits nicely in the place. Also, I’m going to spend a couple of hours tomorrow seeing what kind of logistics we might need to cover to get together the Fast Matt event next Saturday. It seems that a lot of people don’t like running, so it might just be a small, hearty group of us. I’m also thinking of doing a best of three. As, since most of us haven’t run very well since the last time we shoplifted orange soda from Thrifty Foods, it might be good to have a practice heat.

We’ll need photographic and video coverage of this, I’ll work on that too.

Back to Philly

I made the decision to go to Philadelphia last night. I just bought a ticket, so hopefully I’ll be able to get the time off. It’s a bit of an impulsive decision, but it became clear to me during a conversation last night that if wanting Finn to be in a festival is all I really wanted, then I can’t cheat myself out of the experience, no matter if it’s the way I wanted it to turn out or not.

Anyway, Troy and Nick are going to be my escort. If you want in for whatever reason, let me know, I’ll send you the flight details.

-Matt

Fast Matt FastOff

Laura+Troy+Dimeatra+Nick+Tim

Originally uploaded by Tzpkcht Kzmsrskstlrz

Yesterday I saw a picture of two men in a race, I sat up, and actually said out loud ‘I want to know how fact my friends are, I think it’s important’ and then I giggled to myself.

But that chestnut of thought came unstuck from it’s cranial tar and went ripping through my brain as I drank a Rainier beer and looked down the bar at my neighbors.

We are going to have a foot race. 100 Yards and a cold beer at the end. Whoever is the fastest gets the title of Fast Matt as well as a bonus prize more powerful than your mind can comprehend.

More details as they come.