Happy Birthday, Dad!

Lethargy month is drawing to a close. I’ve been out and about for the usual films and rock shows, but the time spent at home has been occupied with less will to be creative than to stare at the walls and play countless hours of TimeSplitters 2, which might be time better spent if the game wasn’t significantly less good than Perfect Dark. I’m in the process of lulling myself out of the slump with a renewed interest in screen-printing.

The last two weeks:

Secretary was worth watching for a pretty fantastic performance by Maggie Gyllenhaal (and for the first time ever, James Spader didn’t give me the creeps), but it kind of choked as the last half of the film sank into conventionally retarded romantic comedy. I finally saw Matt Pond PA play at the Troc and they were damn good, though I thought it a little odd to play a record release show virtually devoid of new material. Exhumed Films’ Living Dead Marathon was fun—I never expected that my first time seeing Dead Alive on the big screen would be in a New Jersey shopping mall at 5:30 AM (although maybe I should have). Bowling for Columbine is on par with Michael Moore’s other films and at times it’s considerably more affecting. Skeleton Key at the Balcony was a bit disappointing, as I noticed that singer/bassist Eric Sanko is once again the only surviving founding member, and the new dudes don’t really do it for me. My friend and bandmate Rachael is back from a year in Europe and has informed me that her friend’s filmmaker brother wants to make a video for our song “Dead Babies.” More on that as (if) it develops.