Saturday, June 17, 2006

catching up

Another busy week. Another weekend to catch up.

The TV has been on all morning. Not happy to hear The Flaming Lips' "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" as the soundtrack to a JC Penney Father's Day ad. Wayne, honey, what were you thinking?


Speaking of Father's Day, Nike manages to produce another tearjerking television ad (the last one was
the one featuring Lance Armstrong's 1996 press conference announcing that he had cancer). This time it's the ad dedicated to Tiger Woods' dad, Earl, who passed away last month.

I want an invite to join MOG. (Thanks, Josh, for making me feel very un-Cool.)

I went to see The Last Waltz on Thursday night with my friend Don at an outdoor screening at the SilverDocs film documentary film fest and I managed to walk away with a (renewed) crush on Robbie Robertson (such a movie star), Levon Helm (the stoned permagrin with a southern accent did me in) and (okay, Michael) Rick Danko. Hats off to the kids who danced with abandon in front of the screen while all of the jealous adults watched. I'm hoping to see a couple more films before the festival wraps up.

Thanks to the folks at PSFK for the link. I was on the list of bloggers who piped up about Marktd and added it to my blog roll and aggregator. I like the fact that they're encouraging folks not to be shy about adding their content -- all in the name of "democratizing access". In other words, don't wait for someone else to find you if you think you have something to share.

By the way, I got a whole bunch of State Department traffic from that Colleen Graffy post, as well as some traffic from a Public Diplomacy site at USC. I've either gained a few new readers or I am under investigation. Either way, welcome.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Rick Danko is (was, sigh) my favorite. My ex and I saw him play a solo gig at The Bottom Line, and it was so moving, because as an older guy with a big belly he was still so enthused about what he was doing. Like Hugh Grant at the end of "About a Boy", he did a lot of singing with his eyes closed.

Someone at my old job gave me a free DVD of The Last Waltz, and I keep thinking "I should watch it," but I leave it in the shrink wrap, and I'm not sure why. I guess it's a weird movie to watch alone. Better for a group of people drinking beer.

abf said...

I looked up pictures of members of The Band with a co-worker who is probably more than a decade younger than I am and found a photo of Levon Helm looking like he was about 75 years old. She reminded me that people get older, noting how stunned I looked. Not the reminder I needed.

The most moving scene in the film, for me, was the scene toward the end (was it the last scene?) in which Rick Danko is in the studio with Scorcese talking about making music now that The Band has come to an end. Your story about seeing Danko at The Bottom Line (now there's a location of a few memories that I hadn't thought about in a while)fits in with that same feeling.

Get the beer and get the group of people, K, and break open the shrink wrap. It's in my queue on Netflix and I am moving it up to watch again because apparently there's a retrospective short doc as part of the DVD extras.

Atkins Gal said...

well... maybe we should fire up our skype connections, watch the movie simultaneously, and drink beers on opposite coasts.

that's my favorite scene too. the song is "sip the wine". someone at the bottom line asked him to sing it, and he did.

i was a total wreck when he died!