Feeling kinda stunned that it's the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back's release. I remember the day clearly -- standing outside of the Baseline theater in San Bernardino with my Uncle Eddie, watching a bunch of ghetto fabulous dudes trip out over the lobby cards, STOKED that some dude named Billy Dee Wiliams (whom I had never really heard of) was in the movie. They literally could not believe he was a major character in the film and let the whole line know how bad-ass they though it was. It's was like a sci-fi version of the "jive" scene in Airplane!. Needless to say, that sort of enthusiasm will pump up a 7 year-old, and not only was I blown away by the movie, I was thoroughly impressed by this Lando Calrissian fellow.

Treme Feature in the Guardian

Holy cow. I wrote a feature about the new David Simon HBO series Treme for the British newspaper The Guardian and yesterday I received an excited call from a friend in London about. Apparently, it's the COVER STORY of their weekend magazine. Holy cow (redux). I had no idea, but dammit, I'm a bit proud of myself.

BITCHINVILLE RETURNS

Back in 2001 when I started this blog, I said that "I hate baseball." Nine years later, that is no longer true. In fact, I actually really love and appreciate baseball now, especially Minor League baseball. Funny how things change...

Anyway, it's been FIVE YEARS since I last posted on Bitchinville and for some reason I feel the need to start posting again. Expect links to my journalism, reviews of Treme and other New Orleans media, evangelizing about bands, etc. But don't expect too much, now. I'll try to keep it entertaining. And redesign the look of this place. Jeez, this design feels dated...

I Am a Prophet of Sexy Hipness

Don't ask me how I know about this, but today on porn blog Fleshbot, there was a post about the suitability of American Apparel ads as a sort of, erm, "marital aid." The awesome thing is, I wrote about that very same subject on Bitchinville back in December of 2003! Look at the archives and see the proof of my status as cultural seer. Bow before me. Next stop: MTV VJ.

Christ, that's a hollow, petty thing to be crowing about, isn't it? Oh well. Small "victories."

Achtung Christmastime!

Please to be going to the website of the Silent League, a bunch of friends who happen to play some of the sweetest music currently available to be heard by good-hearing ears. They've recorded a cover of Vince Guaraldi's classic composition "Christmastime is Here" from the soundtrack of A Charlie Brown Christmas. JUST. FOR. YOU. This is not coal, kids. This is a diamond.

Calebstein

Calebstein
Originally uploaded by Gabe Soria.

Please welcome Bitchinville's newest resident, my son Caleb Russell Soria. Caleb was born on Monday, October 25th at 10:44 in the morning. My girlfriend, the incredible Amanda Zug-Moore, is the woman responsible for making him such a delightful looking lad. I don't think I've loved anything quite as much as I love this guy, and that includes carnitas burritos and the film The Bride of Frankstein, which is amazing.

A New Definition for the Phrase 'Card Sharp'

Once again, feeble promises to update Bitchinville have gone unkept, and I've lost the ears of whatever public I once had, I reckon. Perhaps it's for the best? At any rate, won't you please take a peek at the website of raconteur/magician/true original Ricky Jay? It's been entertaining yours truly as of late and I recommend Jay's mini-radio programs, in which he holds forth on subjects such as midget entertainers and educated swine, for particularly edifying diversion. (Note: The subject line for this entry is a reference to Jay's ability to pierce the skin of a watermelon with a playing card thrown from across the room. I must also note that I've never actually seen Jay do this; the idea alone is interesting enough for me.)

Musicals and Mexicans

It's a half-hearted stab at trying to get back in the swing of updating this thing, but I found this short list of films recommended by filmmaker Richard Linklater to be a pleasantly distracting diversion from the day's pressures and put-ons.

It's Chilly Out Here in the Country... and Creepy, Too

Current new obsession: the Detroit band Blanche. Edward Gorey gets behind a pedal steel and the Gashlycrumb Tinies shriek with ghastly, funereal joy. (Renfeld knew the true meaning of the word "beetlemania," by the way.) And as long as I'm shilling out puns unworthy to shine Forrest Ackerman's shoes, I might as well go whole hog: Blanche would have been a hit on The Dead Sullivan Show. Heh. Watch the video for their song "Do You Trust Me?" and you'll pick up what I'm laying down.

Creeps

Har.

Recently Read in the Guardian:

A follow-up story on the lives of the teen stars of City of God, last year's best film, an invitation into Stanley Kubrick's scarily complete and precise archives, and a hilariously cautionary filmmaker's diary about the shooting of a less-than shoestring budget feature in Nigeria.

Good God Gondry!

Video fun from Frenchmen and Kiwis... together! What is the secret connection between knitting and rap-rock? Find out here! Ooh... crypticisms!

Holy Cow (and Sheep, and Pig)

I turned 31 today. How's THAT for a navel-gazing weblog insight? I promise to change blahblahblahblahblahblah this upcoming year and to accomplish blahblahblahblahblah.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Slightly Bemused Marcellus Hall

Marcellus Hall. You should know him and his band White Hassle (and, for that matter, his old band Railroad Jerk). Not content with being an amazing illustrator and a great singer/songwriter/guitar player, he's also a tack-sharp wit, as evidenced by this travelogue he's written covering White Hassle's recent European tour.

I Heart Myself

I have no idea why any of y'all would be interested in this, but over the course of last year I tried to keep a scrupulous document recording the albums which impressed me most. I was not entirely successful, as I fell into the trap of only counting records which came out in 2003 and didn't include records which I discovered in 2003, or which became important to me in 2003. Next year, if we're all still here, I'll correct this oversight. And tomorrow I'll add some links to the list so you don't have to type all these names into Google yerself...

This list is in no particular order:

Best records of 2003:

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds “Nocturama”
Supergrass “Life n Other Planets”
Mickey and the Soul Generation reissue
The Delgados “Hate”
Supagroup “Supagroup”
Bonnie “Prince” Billy “Master and Everyone”
M. Ward “The Transfiguration of Vincent”
Neil Michael Hagerty “The Howling Hex”
Josh Rouse “1972”
Richard Hawley “Lowedeges”
Super Furry Animals “Phantom Power”
Oxford American Music Issue CD #6
Silent League ‘The Orchestra, Sadly, Has Refused”
Hopewell “Hopewell and the Birds of Appetite”
P.W. Long “Remembered”
Tindersticks “Waiting for the Moon”
Okkervil River “Down the River of Golden Dreams”
My Morning Jacket “It Still Moves”
Steve Burns “Songs for Dustmites”
Death Cab for Cutie “Transatlanticism”
Elbow “Cast of Thousands”
TV on the Radio “Young Liars” EP
Led Zeppelin “How the West Was Won”
Mojo Essentials #1 (garage rock) and #2 (roots of hip-hop)
Basement Jaxx “Kish Kash”
Outkast “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below”
Britta Philips and Dean Wareham “L’Avventura”
Sleep “Dopesmoker”

Kill All Teenagers.

No lie: while I was riding to work on the R train this morning, I watched three teenage girls begin singing "100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall" pretty loudly for a couple of stops. The other stunned patrons of the MTA, too beaten down by life and dreading their eventual arrival at their shitty jobs, looked on in dismay, horror and mute anger. I contented myself with a cool little fantasy about severing these kids' vocal cords. You really had to be there. I totally apologize to any bus driver I ever had from first grade to, say, 'round about ninth. I'm terribly, terribly ashamed of myself and my past renditions of this dreadful song which I 'm sure I and my co-singers thought was fucking hilarious at the time.

In other news: got a bottle of Maker's Mark for Christmas last night. Learning to like bourbon is going to be fun.

Batman Adventures #9 - You'll Either Like it... or Not Like It!

Get yer booty on down to your local comic book store, boogie chillun -- I wrote the main story in the latest issue of Batman Adventures, which was released a scant two days ago. The art was supplied by my good friend Dean Haspiel, and the mighty fine back-up story was written by Vito Del Sante. Opinion seems to be split on it: the serious Batman heads over on the DC Animated Universe message boards are hating it, but folks with senses of humor and/or an appreciation of the absurd are digging the book, but they could be lying.

But look at it this way: EVERYBODY could be wrong.

Uptight Radio

This post is simply here to remind to, at some point, try to listen to This American Life and figure out what the fuss is all about.

Coming next week: my spotty list of the best records of 2003, like anybody but me gives a shit! Ha!

Quasi-Hipster Eros?

I don't hate to admit it: I love American Apparel's print ads. I fully support their products, and their advertising scheme craftily toes the line between salaciousness and elegance, if you give a shit about that sort of thing. Fuck it: I'm moving back to L.A.

Or not.

One From the Heart

Caught a revival screening of One From the Heart, Francis Ford Coppola's little-seen, bittersweet, semi-musical from 1982. Ah, how I long to return to those days, where Frederic Forrest was considered a viable leading man and Terri Garr was va-va-voom hot stuff. Filmed entirely on a soundstage, which gives the film a bizarrely appealing artificial, theatrical feel. Who gives a shit if something looks real? I prefer my films to either be kitchen sink or ornate and beautifully false. Baz Luhrmann's been paying attention, no doubt. Throw in an incredibly lovely Nastassja Kinski (cast as a circus acrobat minx -- perfect) and a Tom Waits score (hearing him growl the word "Sucker..." over and over in scenes that lead to the film's closing, you experience nothing short of a bottoming-out epiphany) and, well, you've got a fucking odd and affecting film. But what's with Coppola using every excuse in the book to show Terri Garr topless? The first time's cool, but by the fourth time, you just feel a little bit... creepy.

Bunnies, Getting Stronger, Getting Weaker

It is a blessing unto you that Vib Ribbon exists, even though you can't play it on your American PlayStation. Too bad. For further edification, learn about Laugh and Peace.

Michel Gondry: Frog Genius

I am obsessed with this. It breaks my brain in the loveliest way possible.

Electric Flannery-land?

It might be a stretch as hazy theories go, but it seems that bands like My Morning Jacket, Lift to Experience and the Drive-By Truckers are the best examples of the nouveau Southern Gothic lit experience. Half-baked, I know, but damn it if they aren't all fine bands (all of whose albums run about 100 yards long, time-wise). They're strange things, "Southern Rock" and "Southern Literature", and trying to pin them down as representing any one, specific feel or point of view is a tragic mistake, but lord if you don't know it when it's true and can smell the stink of it when it's false.

My New Hero

Happened upon a copy of Skin Graft #67, the 67th release by the Chicago record label Skin Graft. A-doy. Not an interesting story, essentially, but there's a catch. This CD is a soundtrack by the band Cheer Accident for a 16-page comic book called "The Mystery Treasure of the San Miguel Apartments", which stars a cat (literally, a cat) named Gumballhead, and Gumbalhead is... well he's a mean-as-fuck, cigarette-smoking, cheap beer-drinking, dirtbike-riding, stone-cold BADASS, and his adventures are the stuff of glue-sniffing legend. I was having a terrible, sorry-ass day before I discovered Gumballhead, and now my life is that much the scummier. And funnier. Here's a preview of the story mentioned above, as well as a couple of other examples of his lowlifery.

Chapterhouse Guardian

As an occasionally avid reader of the Manchester Guardian, I'm also occasionally finding little bits of grace hidden on the paper's fantastic website. Today, I discovered their meager, but intriguing, archive of articles that deal with science fiction books. Funny, informative and eminently readable, for the most part.

Movie Reviews

I could watch Bill Murray react to shit all day. In other words, Lost in Translation was a fine film.

Oldie

Wrote this back in 2000 (!) for insound.com, about my friends White Hassle. It's... okay.

White Hassle’s Tin Pan Dance Party
by Gabe Soria

Over a noisy midnight dinner, the members of White Hassle are discussing the dancing phenomena at their shows (people actually dance- that’s the phenomena), and the role their stripped-down sound plays in it:

Dave Varenka (funky drummer, soup-pot percussionist): "We enjoy playing to make people move their butts and feel a little soul."

Matt Oliverio (focused guitar Buddha): " Fuck yeah. I think that things have become way too plush and lush, and things need to be counter pointed by that. People want to hear what was good about rock music in the first place. It’s almost like de-evolution. Maybe back to basics is better right now."

And finally, Marcellus Hall (arch vocals, scratch guitar, Stevie Wonder-harmonica): "By no means would I agree that’s the absolute right direction. It’s just a pendulum swinging in another direction. Just because people are tired of angst-ridden grunge music doesn’t mean that sexy, funky music is the answer. I don’t wave the flag one way or the other."

It’s a comment you can’t really classify (is Hall downplaying one of his band’s strengths--their uncanny ability to play sexy, funky music with spot-on skill--or is he commenting on trend-hopping?), but that’s White Hassle all over. Sardonic without being superior and smug and a bit hard to pin down, these are guys who appreciate both a good joke and getting on the good foot. Together since ‘96 and staffed by half of the currently inactive industrial-blues outfit Railroad Jerk (Hall and Varenka) and the semi-recent recruitment of Oliverio (Varenka quips, "His parents have a really good basement and they have a van."), they’re New York’s premiere Dance-Folk (or is that Back Porch Funk?) band. White Hassle fuses together John Mayall-esque harmonica riffs, loopy punk guitar-craft and rump-shaking backbeats (and the occasional guest spot by a turntable specialist, sax and trumpet players, violin, organ and backup singers) into an unexpectedly badass rusty ‘n creaky Frankenstein’s monster of soul. As Matt says, "People have got to realize that good beats are good beats, no matter where they’re from."

And White Hassle’s new EP, Life Is Still Sweet (Orange Recordings) upholds that credo. It’s a weird record; listening to it, you’re struck by the notion that it’s multi-purpose: couples can screw to it, strippers can dance to it, but if you want to, you can sit around the house and drink beer to it. What else do you need? A little irony? Marcellus earnestly/sarcastically chimes in, referring to the EP’s title, "We were a little bit worried at first because there wasn’t enough irony [in the title], but we went for it, we took the plunge. All human beings have a moment, once or twice in their week, their daily lives, when they aren’t ironic and I think we wanted to indulge in that." Live, there’s no room or need for irony. White Hassle is hair-raisingly good on stage, so good that they wipe your memory clean of a million drearily competent shows you’ve been to, when all you could do was cross your arms and think, "This is all right, but Jesus, I could be at home watching television right now." The boys fulfill the promises they make on their records with obvious pleasure, as witnessed at their recent record release gig.

The moment the show begins, you know that you’re in for something special. The audience actually moves to the front of the stage, unashamed for once, not afraid to let their standing room only neighbor know that moving is not only an option, it’s an imperative. Hall flails around on stage like a punk rock student of James Brown, Little Walter and Prince, dropping to his knees when necessary, then springing back up as if on strings, blowing his harp and playing his six-string with grinning abandon. Varenka’s ramshackle drum kit (traditional hardware mixed with odds and ends from the junkyard) is pushed to the fore of the stage, and he shares the spotlight with Hall, ripping it up and hollering along. Oliverio focuses on his guitar, studious, looking up occasionally to throw a goofy-happy grin at his band mates or the onlookers. They’re having the time of their lives, testifying to what a blessing it is to be playing a good set of dance music to a diggin’ it crowd on a Saturday night. By the time they get rolling on their closing number, the colossal harmonica/big beat instrumental workout "Futura Trance" from the EP, the crowd is thoroughly worked over and won over. If they wore choir robes, played tent revival shows and passed the hat around, White Hassle would be Baptist millionaires.

They also have a knack for choosing imaginative and surprising cover songs that they don’t simply play, but also take out for a drink and respectfully reinterpret (heard recently: the aforementioned Stevie Wonder’s "Signed, Sealed, Delivered", BTO’s anthem (and Homer Simpson favorite) "Takin’ Care of Business", Lulu’s "To Sir, With Love" and the Everly Brother’s weep-fest, "Let it Be Me"). To explain their gleeful raiding and reworking of songs they love, Hall puts a (mock?) swaggering tone into his voice lays it down, "We were going to cover "Darling Nikki." We talked about it. Fucking White Hassle, we can cover anything, that’s the credo we live by. It’s part of the idea. We can strip down any song and do it."

Dave and Matt sip their beers and nod their agreement, as if already figuring out how to best arrange the song for two guitars, harmonica and trash can lid. Their version will probably give someone a heart attack in the best way possible.

If Your Picture Is on The Cover of a Book That You've Written or a Book That is About You...

...and you are not dead, then perhaps you should be. This goes double for books by political pundits of all stripes and affiliations. I mean, really, get over yourselves, you fucking egomaniacs. Exemptions? Some music biographies and autobiographies (especially if your name contains the words "Iggy" and/or "Pop"), some cookbooks (although how many times can a reader see that same "leaning against the counter with my smug arms folded because I'm such a better cook than you are even though I'm smiling and looking humble and pimping recipes that my grandma never gave a second though to" pose that seems to be the first thing taught in cooking schools nowadays) and that's pretty much it. Triple-death points are awarded if your book is a work of fiction that has nothing to do with you. Why'd you even bother writing the novel, asshole? And if you've written a biography of someone and you've subtitled it "...a Life", then I hope you have the decency to punch yourself in the stomach.

This is all apropos of nothing.

Dat Old Man Ribber Has Gots Me Under Its Spell

I cannot stop listening to Down the River of Golden Dreams, the latest record by Austin-based band Okkervil River. River river river. Sad bastard country-pop at its best. The melodies? Sweet! The production? Sweet! My review? Retah-ded! Go. Listen. Watch. Buy. Eat chocolate cake.

Things Completely Unrelated to Yours Truly

My ol' buddy Paul Cullum recently wrote an article for the LA Weekly about the incredible New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, perhaps my favorite movie theater ever. Ever. Themed double features that change three times a week? For six bucks? When someone tells you that Los Angeles has no culture, tell 'em to shove it up their ass.

And some cat at Pitchfork went and reviewed a mixtape he made a decade ago using the record collection of my friend Marshall Gause, one of the greatest gentlemen to ever grace the soil of this goofy planet. So there you go, folks. Happy reading.

Pigeon Guts and Sad Planet Tales

So yesterday I'm walking down Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn, off to the corner store to get a six-pack, when I see a stupid fucking pigeon get hit by a car. Blammo. A sickening, dull 'thunk' and the car drove on, leaving the writhing little beast to squirm in the street for a few moments, its insides hanging out, its body twisting in a slow circle until it finally came to rest. D-e-d ded. I felt really bad for the poor sucker. Two hours later, passing the same intersection, I saw that its body had been completely flattened by passing vehicles. Such is a pigeon's life. Ashes to ashes, dumb bird to dust.

On the same walk, I ended up purchasing a book called Bible Stories for Adults on a whim at a local used bookstore. Great title, good cover blurbs ("The best short fiction by James Morrow, 'the most provocative satiric voice in science fiction' -Washington Post), and low-cost. Read a bit of it on the train into work this morning and I'm not afraid to admit that the collection's second story, "Daughter Earth", almost made me cry. Beautiful stuff. I'm a sensitive, science fiction-lovin' man, dammit. Go forth and investigate, my children.

Oh yeah: The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra looks absurdly great.