The Movie-List Forums have become one of my favorite web resources, especially the forum I linked. I'm always driving myself crazy trying to figure out songs that are in movie trailers, even though I usually already have the song (among the 5000 songs I have in iTunes). The guys on this forum always have the answer.

GRRRR... I need this song like NOW. Erlend Oye rocks my happy heart. I can tell from the MP3s on their website that this is gonna be one of my favorite songs of the summer...

The Times Picayune, the local paper, ran an article today about the attack on my friend Paul.

Quick notes:

Currently Reading: His Dark Materials Trilogy by Philip Pullman

Currently Listening To: Kokomemedada - Komeda

One of my favorite blog's that I've been meaning to mention and add to my links is Fluxblog. It's an MP3 blog and Matthew, Mr Flux himself, has VERY good taste in music.

I've gotten scads of cool tunes from him and I'll be eternally greatful to him for that.

I'll also mention Losing My Edge, which I found through Fluxblog. It's a new MP3 blog, but it gets major kudos for the LCD Soundsystem inspired title.

Ok... so I've mentioned TV shows twice in the past two days.

I used to be absolutely addicted to television. I watched a ridiculous amount of it.

And then one day I decided that cable television was a luxury that I really couldn't afford anymore. It's ridiculously overpriced, IMO. And the reception that I get with bunny ears is pretty darn bad. So, I went cold turkey. And discovered that I really didn't miss it. It helped a lot that this was shortly after I moved to New Orleans, so I had new friends to hang out with and new places to explore. The only show I couldn't give up entirely was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but a friend at work taped it for me every week.

And then came one of the greatest innovations of modern times... tv shows on DVD. Through the magic of DVD, I've watched the entire run of The Family Guy and most of Sex in the City. I watched ALIAS, The Sopranos, The Shield and 24 from the beginning. I've watched as much of OZ and Six Feet Under as they've released.

And then I discovered the next greatest innovation of modern times... Bit Torrent. There are crazy (lovely) people out there who tape tv shows every week and convert them to AVI or MPG files within an hour or so of that show airing. A few hours of downloading (usually while I'm sleeping) later, I have that show on my computer to watch.

So, I watch TV shows again. But, I watch them at my convenience. And there aren't that many that I watch. For the record.. here's what i do watch:

The Shield
The Sopranos
Six Feet Under
24
Alias
Queer as Folk

With their varying schedules, that's less than four hours a week of tv watching. I can live with that. And with one obvious exception, I think the shows I watch are pretty smart.

I wasn't very happy when ABC announced their fall tv schedule and I saw that Alias isn't going to come back until January. But I just watched the pilot for the show, Desperate Housewives, that's going to air in it's timeslot on Sunday nites until it returns and suddenly I'm not so upset anymore.

It's a very clever, slightly weird primetime soap opera geared towards smart adults instead of hip teens. It's one of those shows that I shouldn't like, but I do. Very clever writing, well filmed and just enough of a sardonic edge to make it work.

Of course, now I have to wait months to see another episode...

saintetienne.com has had a pretty big update.

You can register for their fanclub on the site now and forums are up and running. And it looks like that if you sign up quickly for the fanclub, they'll send you one of the Xmas 2003 CDs that they gave out at their December London show...

Housekeeping time...

I got rid of some crap over in the border (was anyone really translating my page into French on a regular basis?) and added three links to blogs. Those would be the first one and the last two.

Dave is, of course, THE EX. Heh... I'll always call him that. He's also one of my best friends in the world. You can read all about his exploits of hippydom and beekeeping this summer. And I think I've already mentioned The Corky and Peaeye. And I sort of assumed that they'd like being next to each other on the list... what with all the togetherness this past weekend...

Ok... so I watch Queer as Folk still... And in some ways, I actually think it's gotten to be a better show.

But, I was really annoyed with the plotline early in this season in which Justin was dealing with his unresolved anger from being gay-bashed at the end of the first season. I thought it was just a bit over the top.

And then I got an email yesterday from Poppy telling me that a mutual friend of ours had been bashed this weekend.

I was in the Quarter Saturday nite and I briefly hung out with one of my friends, who told me about a party he had attended earlier in the night with his boyfriend. But they decided to go their separate ways after the party.

Around 4 in the morning, his boyfriend was walking in the Quarter when a van pulled up along side of him and five guys got out of it and started beating him for no good reason. Some teenage girls came running to help and the big bad men ran away from them. But, the damage was done. He needed nine hours of surgery and will probably never regain more than 20% of the vision in one his eyes.

I'm unbelievably angry and sad. There's nothing I can do right now besides to let them know that they're in my thoughts and to offer to be there when and if they need help.

But, I don't think that storyline was so over the top right now. Given the chance, I could easily do violence to these guys and I wasn't even the victim...

My Memorial Day weekend was overall a bit unremarkable, but I did meet Corin and Billy and their respective boyfriends this weekend out in the bars, thanks to an initial intro from Jonno. Although.. Jonno... i overheard that snarky "he's got a blogSPOT" remark... Still love ya though...

It was oh so cute watching two couples flirt... although about an hour before they actually left the bar Monday nite, I wanted to scream out... "jesus christ... would you just go fuck already!"

Oh... and Corin... when do I get access to those pics??? :)

Argh. I've waited far too long to effectively write about my trip to Manhattan. It was fabulous, natch.

I stayed at The Chelsea Pines Inn, which wasn't luxurious but it was certainly in my price range and it was pretty perfectly located for my the purposes of my trip. I'd stay there again, the rooms are funky in a good way and the staff was sweet as hell.

Mark came straight over from his office to meet me Friday night and we spent a really pleasant evening just strolling around the Meat Packing District, the West Village and Greenwich Village. We were supposed to meet Charley in the East Village a bit later at the end of some big New York Blogger Drunkfest. But... we fell asleep in my room...

See... here's Mark sleeping...



We woke up the next morning and Mark spent most of the day with me, showing from Chelsea up through Midtown. It involved more than bit of shopping, I will admit. But... clothes be cheap in the city that supposedly doesn't sleep...

Mark eventually left me, cuz he had a party to attend that nite and a business trip the next day. I was terribly sad to see him go, cuz I do love me some Mark. He's one of the most adorable guys, looks and personality, that I've ever met. I've had a HUGE crush on him since we met last summer in San Francisco. Mark has since added a boyfriend to his life since last summer however, so I exercised a massive amount of willpower and our activities on this trip weren't quite so extracurricular... He's still a great kisser tho...

Saturday nite, Charley was too hungover to hang out with me, so I compiled a list of recommended bars from Charley and Mark and hit the East Village by myself. Staying in Chelsea, I had been a bit put out by what I'd seen of New York gay boys thus far. But the moment I walked into the first East Village bar, I felt like I was HOME. Tattoos, haircuts, fashion, etc... much more to my taste. The night is a bit of blur, but I managed to visit seven different bars over the course of the night. The highlights, IMO, being The Slide, The Phoenix and The Cock. Oh... and I wound up at some place called The West Side Club late in the evening...

Sunday, I was gonna check the Biennial at The Whitney, but when I got there there was an unmoving line to the street to get in. I guess all the natives waited until the last minute to check out the show. So, after a slight detour through some parade about Israel which the entire Jewish community of New York seemed to be attending, I hoofed my way back through the city to do some more sightseeing and shopping. I saw a good bit of the city this way, walking about 70 blocks. I briefly toyed with the idea of doing a show, but thought better of it. Even at TKTS prices, I just don't like theater that much...

Sunday nite was a highlight. After I caught the season finale of ALIAS in my room, Charley came over and met me and we went to The Rambles at The Park, which is a party that Jonny McGovern throws on Sunday nites. It was a really fun space and scene. And it got points for the fact that I heard a Moloko song... Charley's friends were all swell guys. And it's always so cute how no matter where you travel, people always get an excited look on their face when you tell them that you're from New Orleans.

Anyways, Monday was another Walkfest. I walked from my place on 14th Street to Ground Zero. I managed to take a zig-zaggy route that led me through Greenwich Village, Nolita, Little Italy, Chinatown and Soho. Ground Zero itself was weird. Not so much seeing the site, but standing in the middle of the people standing there staring into the abyss with such odd looks on their faces. It was just a bit too much for me to process, so I vacated my mind by shopping some more. Century 21 is right across the street after all.... Monday nite I was too pooped to do anything too strenuous, so I went to Hell. The bar in the Meat Packing District, that is. I sat there in the mostly empty bar for a couple of hours and chatted with Joel, the utterly adorable bartender who had an iPod full of music exactly to my taste.

And then Tuesday, bidding a fond farewell to H&M, I came home...

Ok... deep breaths... my flight for New York leaves in 2 and a half hours... what have I forgotten??? I'm so overpacked, I doubt I forgot anything... I hope that you and you are ready for this...

Geez... y'all... gay couples are going to be legally married in the United States tomorrow... I know it's a momentary blip, but still...

Wow...

The 80s live! I hope the promises of this website come to fruition, cuz the thought of OMD meets Propaganda gets me hard...

Someone please tell me that Gwyneth Paltrow did not name her daughter
Apple... Well... at least it wasn't Microsoft...

Sorry guys... I have a sinus infection. My photo software all seems to be kerblooey and I leave for New York in a week. Oh, and I have a date tomorrow with a pretty swell guy. I swear to god I'll blog Saints & Sinners soon. Swear. Double dog...

I just noticed the typo in my last post... "whole." But, I think I like it that way. Right now, I have a big hole... but I think after I sleep a bit, I'm gonna feel more like there's more "whole" in my life...

I'm dying to write about my weekend, but I'm too physically and emotionally drained right now to even attempt to do so. Saints & Sinners was an absolute fucking blast. I had more fun in the past three days than I've probably had in the last 5 years. I met several dozen of the most incredibly generous, talented, witty, sexy beautiful people over those days and I feel like there's a big whole in my life now that they're gone. And no less than three of them stole a little bit of my heart.

But, I need sleep now or I'm going to start crying again... which I've done several times tonight...

Expect many more details and a few pictures in a couple of days when I'm a little more together.

This weekend, I'm going to be the token bookseller at Saints and Sinners, a GLBT alternative literary festival in the French Quarter. It should be an interesting time. I'm going to get to meet a broad spectrum of writers. And I'm somewhat terrified, because it's my first year doing this and it's very hard to try to predict what people are going to want to buy and in what quantity. Inevitably, I'm going to run out of some author's books and they're not going to be happy with me. *sigh* Hopefully, they'll remember that this is all a benefit for NO/Aids and that I'm doing my best and that I've worked my ass off putting my part of it together.

On the other hand, I'm much looking forward to meeting a lot of the authors. I do love me some book-people.