You've got to hear this mp3 that was created for a Starbuck's leadership meeting. If you thought you hated Starship's We Built This City just like the editorial staff at Blender Magazine did, well, you're in for a torturous treat! We've now got this classic piece of crap with modified lyrics to suit the suits at our favorite coffee monger.

Download Jefferson Starbucks Here!

I feel drained. I've been up past midnight and waking up at 6 for the past few days. My sleep patterns have been compromised because of the training course I've been attending this week.

It didn't help that I was at Chop Suey last night with Alison to check out Brazilian Girls, West Indian Girl, and Mercir. I got there at 9 and caught all of Mercir's set. I like their interesting mix of Coldplay-style moodiness over the bed of electronic beats, mainly drum n' bass. I didn't get to see Alison until midway into Brazilian Girls' set. Their vocalist seemed to have the same stylist as Blade Runners'. She looked like Darryl Hannah's android femme fatale from the movie--nice homage. The music was good. It was great for them to have the crowd yell pussypussypussypussypussypussypussymarijuana....all fun. I'm sure I would've had more fun if a) it was Friday or Saturday night, b) if I wasn't too pooped from all that activity earlier in the day, and c) if Alison showed up earlier.

I didn't stay for West Indian Girl's set. I think I disappointed Alison a bit that I didn't stick around. Well, it was between hanging out with her and getting my alcohol-soaked, tired old-man ass to bed for some needed rest.

I got to bed by 1 and was pissed as soon as the alarm woke me up at 6 later on.

Also, Happy Birtday to my favorite sister, Miel!

Okay, I finally got done checking out the IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards. I was glad to see that Sideways cleaned out big. The only other Alexander Payne movie I've seen was Election and that was also smart and funny. It's also gotten me interested in Pinot too (just like everyone else who's seen the film, I'm sure). It's unfortunate that they've snubbed Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind even for at least screenplay, or director.


Which leads me to tonight's Academy Awards. The same can be said about the snub for Eternal Sunshine again here. I can also say the same for Garden State. I still don't think those films need any award at all, but it would be a great feather in the proverbial cap for these.


Anyway, here's my list of who should win and who I think will win (note: anything in bold face got the award):


Adapted Screenplay
Who'll win--Million Dollar Baby
My Choice--Million Dollar Baby
Winner--Sideways

Original Screenplay
Who'll win--The Aviator
My Choice--Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind

Best Director
Who'll win--Clint Eastwood
My Choice--Clint Eastwood

Best Supporting Actress
Who'll win--Cate Blanchett
My Choice--Virginia Madsen

Best Supporting Actor
Who'll win--Thomas Haden Church
My Choice--Clive Owen
Winner--Morgan Freeman

Best Actress
Who'll win--Hilary Swank
My Choice--Kate Winslet

Best Actor
Who'll win--Jamie Foxx
My Choice--Jamie Foxx

Best Picture
Who'll win--Ray
My Choice--Million Dollar Baby

I'll make a follow-up post to see how our guesses turned out.

(After 3 hours...)

Well, we're done with catching all the festivities. As you've seen above, I've made updates to the post to show y'all how we fared in all the guesswork. I'm glad to see that Eternal Sunshine and Million Dollar Baby came out with a few good awards that proved me wrong in my predictions. I'm also glad that Jamie Foxx got that award. You'll have to refer to my previous post on Ray to see how I gushed over his acting ability. It's really too bad that Scorsese got shut out again. I'm somehow glad that The Aviator didn't win the Best Picture Award since both Ray and Million Dollar Baby to me seemed to be better movies anyway.

Again, I'll have to cry foul over Eternal Sunshine not even nominated for Best Picture or Paul Giamatti not even selected for Best Actor. Way to go for Paul though that he got his props the night before at the IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards. I'm sure if Paul plays lead in something next year, he'll get a sympathy nomination and vote the same way it was for Russel Crowe or Denzel Washington in previous years.

I still had fun guessing and watching the awards nonetheless. I'm sure we'll be doing this very same song and dance again next year.

I've always liked that statement Johnny Rotten made at a point in The Sex Pistols' US tour as a big "fuck you" to people who didn't "get" what the band was about and played a short and sloppy set for them. It's so punk. Now let's put this story aside and get to where we're going.

I got to view Saw this afternoon. It started out with the interesting premise that two men were chained to opposite sides of a room and are being toyed with by an unknown tormentor. This mysterious stranger tells them that they've got a limited amount of time to free themselves or else...dire consequences were to happen. That concept was intriguing to me. This movie may be this decade's "Seven" or something.

Instead, it's another case of frustrating, laughable, and even ridiculous turns as we delve into each character's back-story. I didn't even get the point of why Danny Glover's character was there to begin with other than as another way to drive the plot to give the audience a chance to hopefully tag him as a suspect in this labyrinthine plot (which, BTW, was just totally lame, IMO). I wouldn't want to say more about this lest you decide to see things for yourself. And the ending? Jeez, I just couldn't figure out how outlandish that one was. It's the deus ex-machina from hell.

It's one thing to feel cheated like the way I felt at a recent Pinback show with Neil Hamburger's comedy/performance art set and then there's Saw. During Neil's set, I at least caught on to it quickly that it was a schtick--something like the Sex Pistols' story I mentioned at the start of this post. It's another to wrap a piece of crap with all that gold foil of an intriguing premise and disturbing, yet interesting in a viewing-a-vehicular-accident kind of way set of visuals. The film aimed to let intelligent viewers piece together the hows and whys of these grisly murders, only to be insulted at the end. I feel so strongly against this movie even if I didn't even fork over any money to watch this. I at least deserve compensation for the time I wasted investing in the characters and what I thought was going to be an ingenious storyline. I guess it was my turn to get the bird flipped at me by (scriptwriter) Leigh Whannel. You'll get yours too, buddy. Karma has it's way of working back to the source.

Added credit for all y'all that know what this post's title references. That was the only thing the bro and I were giggling like schoolgirl bitches at when we saw this bag of fishballs at the Asian grocer. I just hope it doesn't taste like what it reads!

You say you aren't sure if you want to delve into the jazz world?  Well...start getting your feet wet with Brad Mehldau.  He's my favorite living jazz musician.  A demon behind the piano, he is.  He can do Coltrane's phrasing and style as heard on Countdown off his debut album.  Don't expect a sweet Diana Krall kinda thing here 'coz this dude's the real deal.  The last CD I got from him was a live gig in Tokyo where he played solo to songs by Nick Drake and an extra long reading of Radiohead's Paranoid Android (my favorite Radiohead track of all time).  Do yourself a favor and try his music out.

I attended the Hot Hot Heat show last night at Neumos on Capitol Hill. It's been a good couple of years since their last time in Seattle at The Vera Project and at The Graceland (now called El Corazon) as they toured for Makeup The Breakdown. Katherine seemed to agree with me that last night's show was one of the liveliest that we've ever seen from both the side of the audience and from the performers as well.

Their stage presence was more honed and they've dressed up a lot more now. They also are more comfortable on stage with a lot of gigs under their belt. April sees the release of their follow-up, Elevator. I can't wait. I guess I'll just have to settle for Makeup and their other EPs and singles.

I think I need to connect my iPod now...

In other late-breaking news...

Congratulations to Ilo and Celyn. He finally popped the question. You go, both of you!

Constantine is the new Keanu Reeves movie based on the DC/Vertigo comic book Hellblazer. Keanu plays John Constantine, an exorcist cursed to roam the earth to somehow maintain the balance of good and evil. He earlier in his life committed suicide and was given a second chance by the great beyond to live his life. He tangles with both the forces of heaven and hell and has to think about his slow physical decline due to cigarette smoking.

John ends up crossing paths with a police detective played by cutie Rachel Weisz. Her twin sister had supernatural powers which led her to commit suicide...or was she murdered? This was where John's services were needed to find out what's going on. All these events were tied to the emergence of Lucifer's son, Mammon on earth. This could only completed by getting a psychic medium and the Spear of Longinus to make this all come to pass.

The story seemed intriguing but after a while, I just got sick of seeing Constantine sick of the world he's living in. I was just waiting for Satan to end his misery already just so that the film could be done with. I was made aware that the comic book Constantine had a caustic sense of humor too. I got to see a bit of that, but there just wasn't enough of it to lend me to sympathize with him enough. It didn't help too that I had inevitable comparisons with The Matrix, which I know was totally unfair. There were some scenes that lent to that doubletake after a while though. Example would be where Rachel Weisz gets taken by the devil's minions from an office building and Constantine tries to chase them down. I was waiting for him to fly out of the building like you'd see in Revolutions to follow the baddies. I guess that just wasn't so. Oh, and that gun with the crucifix...what the hell was that? It was also a travesty that Shaia LaBeof was underused. What was also funny was that with this movie, Tilda Swinton registered in my hotness radar in a way that didn't occur to me in previous movies I've seen her as she played the angel Gabriel. Justin Timberlake music video director Francis Lawrence did a good job trying to stylize this modern gothic thriller but still wasn't enough to save it from itself.

I really gave this movie a chance even if they changed the locale from London to LA, handed the lead to Keanu in spite of his wooden delivery, and the unbelievable prospect that LA seemed to rain as much as Seattle. In spite of the interesting premise and the depth of characters that could be mined from the source material, all failed to transcend what was an eventual failure by Warner to try an cash in on the comic-book-turned-movie craze. They'll probably have to wait until Batman Begins this summer for them to take the best comic book movie mantle still held by X2.

As for me, my idea of hell on earth was waiting for this movie to get done much sooner if only not to see Keanu act again for a while.

On the other side of the rock spectrum, I'm also blown away by the talent that is Steven Wilson. He's the amazing singer, songwriter, guitarist, and uber-brainchild of the band Porcupine Tree. If you could ever conceivably think of mixing Tool's tendency to use fractured time signatures and dark melodies with Coldplay's lyricism and songcraft, then that may be the closest description you can get when it comes to this amazing collection of musicians.

Last Tuesday saw the wide release of their Polish radio show performance, Warszawa. I had my doubts about picking this up initially because I was aware of PT's past being steeped in space-rock a-la Pink Floyd--interesting in it's own right, but just not my taste. After a little bit of convincing from more seasoned fans, I decided to try it out and wasn't disappointed. It was also good that I've actually been familiar with some of the songs since I've heard them perform some of that material during the two separate occasions that I've seen them. It's so obvious that I've also only been a fan during the release of In Absentia. Lush vocal harmonies and gothic chord progressions intrigued me, especially Blackest Eyes and the Zeppelin-esque Trains.

I can't say anything more about this band than check them out. You just don't know what you're missing. This is prog rock taken to a new level.

This probably isn't the last time you'll hear me rave about them because as soon as next month hits, In Absentia's follow-up, Deadwing will be on the music store shelves. You've been warned with an upcoming review. The first song I've heard, Shallow, is already a barn-burner to me.

I usually have a "flavor (I guess in this case, 'flavour') of the year." It was Snow Patrol last year. Their appeal to me was of a small-scale version of Coldplay.

This year, I've already got a ticket to see Bloc Party on their first US tour. Their debut album was released last Monday in the UK. I've been jamming to some of their songs on my iPod already. The ones I have are tracks off their EP from Dim Mac records and a few demos and b-sides. I really had to do this just to satiate my appetite for their music.

If these guys are just as good live as their buddies at Franz Ferdinand, I'm gonna be in for a damn good show this March.

I can't believe that it's so early in the year and I've already made my selection.