HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

[insert poster-art for the 1981 Columbia Pictures movie]

Ok, well...my birthday passed by on the 20th of this month, I'm now 26 years into the grave (ah!). The good news is, with money my better-off-than-my-mother- gramma gave me, I bought a one month subscription to Napster (dot cooom!) at BestBuy (you don't have to go to BestBuy to do that, but if you're a Reward Zone member, you get 5 points for doing it that way - I think...(!)). So anyway, I got a truck load+ worth of music (a very large truck, I kid you not!) and, in addition to the usual suspects, I have actually found most, if not all, of '70's progressive rock band Gentle Giant's back catalog available for on-demand streaming(!!!!). I don't like all their albums, but I remember downloading IN A GLASS HOUSE off of some site I might be better off not mentioning in this forum, and then dragging my feet deciding when to buy the album and how much to pay for it...part of me was like "well, I DID listen to it quite repeatedly, without the artist's consent..." and then another part of me was like "but you only did that 'cause you had nothing better to do!" and then not too terribly long after that IN A GLASS HOUSE and several other GG albums became "discontinued by the manufacturer". Well, after finding IAGH on Napster, I looked it up on Amazon and there it is!!!! ---- $13.99, just like the good ol' days (where have returned, if you didn't pick up on that...). Huh...Barnes & Noble (dot coooom!) is actually having a holiday-season special offer for B/N "members" where you get free S&H if you get $10+ worth of stuff. I'm actually not technically a member, but my Mom is and maybe after I'm done babbling about this, I'll go check it out...
Anyway...I'm glad sites like Napster and Rhapsody are finally making essential music like Gentle Giant and The Grateful Dead available. Of course, Columbia Records is still holding onto their '70's Aerosmith back catalog with a very firm grip. I so would like to hear CLASSICS LIVE! any time I want. Heck, it'd be great just to buy "Train Kept A Rollin'" and "Kings and Queens" in their CL glory, with the big, sharp, wailing guitars and all...the version of "TKAR" from GET YOUR WINGS just doesn't compare. K&Q is good tho, do need to replace my long-parted copy of AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS. The studio version of that is good, but the live from CL version has a kind of ambiance not found on the original...I heard "Same Old Song And Dance" on the radio in my outpatient therapist's car and it brought back the feeling(s) of living in Monterey County (California) during 1995-1997, near the beach and numerous breathtaking nooks and crannies. The ocean being near really made a big impact on the air itself, and the way things felt in general. We didn't get big snows and leaves turning and all that countrified traditional b.s....I guess you have to go there sometime for an extended period of time perhaps to know what I mean. Sometimes in the spring here in Cape Girardeau, MO, it feels a little like that. But we go through maybe 1 or 2 springs without it...at least I don't have to go without as much living here...of course, about a year ago when I was seriously considering going back, I started having nightmares of getting lost...when I think about it in the waking hours, it doesn't seem so far fetched. I mean, without a car, getting lost is a real pain in the ass! I would think anyway...in California, they keep away from strangers, even if a stranger approaches them, they shy away, out of the idea that you shouldn't trust anyone.
But anyhoo...getting AEROSMITH'S GREATEST HITS probably wouldn't do any good...I hardly listen to AM or FM radio anymore. LastFM and Pandora are my two main choices for branching out...so; when I heard "SOS&D" it had been awhile since hearing it. I get something on CD, especially at this moment, since I have so few, I feel an obligation to listen to it. It all depends on so many things what effects me and when....next thing you know I'll hear a Stevie Ray Vaughn song and start reminiscing about junior high, even though at this particular moment I have no fond memories of Jr. High, except it was during that time when Christmas' were more easy to look forward to...being poor in California, Xmas (or New Years'; that was what we celebrated instead of Xmas until about 1996, since my mom adamantly refused to embrace Jesus and didn't want anything to do with it/him; she got less adamant as she got older, we moved to Missouri in mid-'97) was a hit and miss...

NOOOOOOOOOOOO-TES!

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (SLIPCASE EDITION)
AMAZON: $26 (...) (no cashback)
BUY Mktplce: $25.38 (4.5% cashback)
DEEPDISCOUNT $25.50 (4.5% cashback)

BUY.COM MARKETPLACE is the way to go!!!

Hopefully these prices will be good in January (and maybe shortly thereafter...).

CARTEL - CYCLES
DEEPDISCOUNT: $8.38 until Nov 29th (4.5% cashback via Bing)
BUY/BUY MTKPLCE: $11+ ($4.5% cashback via BigCrumbs)

Hopefully I'll get some B-day $ from Gramma...(on or near my birthday...fingers crossed heavily!).

CD LIST:

1. Cartel - Chroma
2. Cartel - Cycles
3. Genesis - Invisible Touch
4. Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Volume One: The Shorts
5. Genesis - Live/The Way We Walk Volume Two: The Longs
6. Hidden In Plain View - Resolution
7. Oingo Boingo - Skeletons In The Closet: The Best Of
8. Toto - Toto IV

DVD LIST

1. Ghostbusters
2. Ghostbusters II

BOOK LIST

1. Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park
2. Shirley Jackson - The Haunting of Hill House
3. Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird

REAL

This is why I don't like films about films:

1) filmmaking, by definition, is a lie, is lying about the truth. It either simplifies the truth, ignores most of it, or flat out lies all together. For instance, where does a person's entire life ever get documented in a movie, in complete honesty? Films focus on one or two small aspects of life.
2) the ideas/facts that movies focus on should have significance. but even the small details should be either interesting or true, either in a metaphorical sense or a hardcore sense.
3) filmmaking is only interesting to people who want to be something they are not (which is a dishonest way to live), or other filmmakers. Film should not serve the filmmaker, unless the film is to be distributed internally, as opposed to the genera public.
4) to sum it, if you make a movie about filmmaking, you are either telling a tale that's already been told or telling a lie.

Examples:
BAD:
FINDING NEVERLAND - based on the life of someone who nobody would care about if he hadn't created "peter pan". So basically it's a drama-version of Peter Pan, since all the other details are rooted in details related to "peter pan".
THE AVIATOR - Glorifies old-school Hollywood, making it look appealing, drawing sentiments of "the good ol' days" and a bunch of other b.s.

Examples:
GOOD:
BATMAN BEGINS - A film about how crime effects people. How basic can you get? The details, every last one of them, is a visual wonder. It's not a ripoff, a tribute, or any other phony crap. It's real, but, be warned, it's also fake.
MYSTERIOUS SKIN - A tale of innocence lost. Another basic tale. Every detail is rooted in deep emotion(s), again, no tributes or phony crap. It's real, but, again, it's also fake.

~Jonathan