It's official. I'm packing my bags and moving to Wordpress.

I will no longer update this blog, but I will keep the account active in order to check out (and comment on) my LJ friends' pages more conveniently.

My new blog is the unimaginatively titled Chris in Boston.. It's a work in progress - I still have more links to add, and I'll probably mess with the template on a regular basis. Visit often and I'll try to post often.

I'm about 80 percent sure that I'm going to jump the livejournal ship very soon. I already have a wordpress blog set up and ready to go.

This blog you're reading right now is my second (after having a blogspot page for about two and a half years), and I swore I wouldn't jump over to another host again, but the time has come. Mainly, I feel that the livejournal community is too insular. I feel like all I ever read are my LJ friends pages (which I admittedly love). As a result, I hardly ever read the other non-LJ blogs I used to check out on a daily basis. I will still keep this site alive, if only to have access to my LJ friends pages in one convenient spot. But I won't be updating anything here.

Wordpress seems a bit more user-friendly and open to more customization that LJ. It seems like a lot of the things I want to do to my LJ page require a plus account, and frankly, I can't see paying for a blog when I can maintain one for free. I have a pro Flickr account, but it's dirt cheap and totally worth the money. This is different.

I will likely launch the wordpress site "officially" in the next few days. I need to learn my way around before committing to it officially.

Life gets in the way of blogging. You know how it is. But so does Facebook! Sweet Jesus, that site has been my internet crackpipe lately. I can't help it. It's like a scab I can't stop picking. Sorry, I went a little overboard with the metaphors.

But seriously, I find it so much easier to post YouTube links and periodically update my status than hunkering down and trying to come with a few witty paragraphs over here on the LJ. It's entirely possible that the distance I'm currently keeping from livejournal may become a semi-permanent thing. Who knows. I've said that before.

Stuff I've been into lately...

The Persuasions. Actually, I've known about them for years. Here's the deal: in the late 60's, they were a kick-ass a cappella doo-wop group without a record contract when Frank Zappa (a serious aficionado of the genre) heard them and signed them to his label. They made a series of stunning a cappella records throughout the 70s and beyond and even managed to (posthumously) give Frank a tip of the hat with Frankly A Cappella, a collection of Zappa covers. You haven't lived until you've heard "Electric Aunt Jemima" sung by a bunch of middle aged black guys. I even put their version on a mix disc I made for Liza way back when we first started dating. Perhaps as a way of letting her know what she was getting herself into. Recently I was talking to Dave H about them and he promptly loaned me three of their albums, Sincerely, We Came to Play and Chirpin'. The latter is definitely my favorite. I love the image of these guys entering a recording studio in 1977 - ground zero for disco and platform shoes - and singing Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson covers without the aid of a scrap of accompanying instrumentation.

And speaking of images, Chirpin' possesses one of the most beautiful album covers of all time:



Sorry about the low resolution.

I've also been into spending time with the family. Last Saturday, Liza and I hopped on the commuter rail and headed up to Danvers for a leisurely lunch/dinner thing at Dennis' austere high-rise apartment. Dennis, in case you haven't been keeping track, is the beau of my sister Julie. Karen (my other sister) and her husband Peter were also there. And Dennis' sister Noreen. Oh, it was a time! If only someone was taking pictures...

Here we see Dennis demonstrating a piece of medieval equipment that apparently has some sort of therapeutic value:



Stinky cheese! It's the way to my heart, you know...



My sisters are awesome:



But a gigantic piece of ham is awesome, too:



Dennis is a bit of a wine enthusiast.



The apartment is on the fourteenth floor, and there's a garbage chute, which brought out the teenage troublemaker in all of us. Whenever there was something noisy to throw out, we would venture out to the chute to listen to its glorious din:



Video also exists of this event. To be posted soon.

What else? Oh yeah: Liza and I are hip-deep in The Wire. We just started season four. Forget Facebook,this show is crack. Sometimes for real. Movies? Oh, most definitely. Oscar season is on, baby. Over the last few weeks we've seen Slumdog Millionaire (every bit as awesome as you've heard). Frost/Nixon (quite excellent, and why the hell didn't Michael Sheen get an Oscar nomination?), Revolutionary Road (well-made, rather depressing and definitely raised a few notches by Kate Winslet's performance), Milk (stunning - Penn is spectacular, as is the rest of the cast) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which I found so incredibly engaging that I honestly wouldn't mind if it pulls a Best Picture upset on Oscar night (although Slumdog will probably win).

I think you're caught up. Oh, and Christian Bale is a pottymouth. But you already knew that.

I love old family photos. And I came across this one just yesterday:



It's my parents, December 1969. My friend Kim Hilliard posted it to her Facebook page. Kim and her family have been friends with my family since long before the both of us were born (our fathers worked together at Raytheon). According to Kim, my parents were babysitting Kim's older brothers, Gregg and Scott, when this picture was taken. Kim's parents were at the hospital waiting for Kim to be born. If that's the correct story, then I was nine months old when this was taken. I'm assuming the bottle on the table is mine. And I'm assuming the cigarette butts in the ashtray belong to my parents. For the record, I think it's the first and only time I recall seeing my father wearing one of those Irish longshoreman sweaters, or whatever they're called. And my mom, besides having a psychotic look on her face, apparently has a plant growing out of her head. Liza thinks my dad looks like Scott Glenn in this picture.

And while we're being all nostalgic and everything...



This is Kim and I several years later. June 1974, to be exact. This was taken the night before my family and I left the U.S. to live in France for five years. I happen to think that this is one of the most adorable pictures I've ever been a part of. Not that there's a lot of those.

I called in sick today. Last night I got some small twinge in my lower back that developed into a full-fledged back pain by the time I went to bed. Starting this morning, I began to experience several different levels of agony, which really only occur when I do two things: stand up and sit down. Not exactly a condition that's conducive to office work. I may call in sick again tomorrow, I haven't decided.

I managed to make my day a little more manageable with a self-imposed Coen Brothers marathon. I already watched Fargo and The Hudsucker Proxy, and I may get to at least one more tonight. And then there's tomorrow, perhaps. I have six more of the their movies in my collection (Blood Simple, Barton Fink, Miller's Crossing, The Man Who Wasn't There, The Big Lebowski and No Country For Old Men), so I have my work cut out for me.

As far as the rest of the Coens' work is concerned, there are five more that I need to add to my DVDs, if I choose to do so. I suppose it wouldn't be a bad complete collection to have. I still need to get Raising Arizona, O Brother Where Art Thou, Intolerable Cruelty, The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading. I don't really enjoy Raising Arizona as much as most people do. It's certainly not a bad movie, but I really don't think it measures up to their best work. Same goes for O Brother, but I've only seen that one once, and I guess I should give it another shot. Intolerable Cruelty was lightweight and certainly no masterpiece, but it's fun. The Ladykillers and Burn After Reading are the only Coen films I haven't seen. The former didn't go over too well with the critics, but I don't mind getting a cheap copy for the sake of completism, and the latter seems like a goofy good time in the spirit of The Big Lebowski. I really love the Coen Brothers.

Is "completism" a word? Spellcheck doesn't seem to think so.

I know, I know. You'll be hearing from me soon. About the following things, probably:

Slumdog Millionaire was awesome.

I'm going to be 40 in two months and a day.

The Wire is a great show, but you probably already knew that.


I still love cheese.

In the meantime, I can never get enough of this video. I want to be here right now:



It really helps to watch the whole thing, to get the full effect.

If you've been keeping track of my comings and going via Facebook, then you know that Liza and I went to Target yesterday and spent the remainder of the rather huge gift card given to us by her grandparents. You know you're getting old when you spend more gift money on things like Clorox wipes and bath mats than actual entertainment, but that's life. We did allow ourselves a few luxuries, like a copy of The Incredibles. This is actually part of a plan Liza and I have devised to eventually acquire all Pixar films on DVD. It's partly for our own entertainment, but also to ensure fun and laughter for future generations.

We also went to Shaw's, so now there's food in the house.

Liza is now fully sucked into the Twilight series, probably due to her long-standing fascination with the literary gateway drug that is Harry Potter. I bought her the first book for Christmas, which she read in about two days, now she's on to the second book. As for me, I'm keeping myself busy with Dean Koontz' Dark Rivers of the Heart and Coltrane: The Story of the Sound, which I've been meaning to read ever since it came out. My fascination with John Coltrane has been going on for quite some time - I bought A Love Supreme in 1992 and never looked back. That album and Blue Train have been at the top of my Coltrane favorites for a while, and I took a big chance yesterday and bought Ascension, his "free jazz" masterpiece. I've been told that it's "difficult," but I can handle Interstellar Space, so I think I'm game for anything.

Oh, and I'm about 80 percent sure that I'm going to shave today. I don't think this is working out.

For the three or four of you out there who are actually working on Friday, December 26th - is it as dead where you are as it is here? I think the phone has rung roughly six times since I got here this morning, and all but one of the calls were internal. I'm glad that I'm getting paid to do nothing, but still…I wish I could do this in jammies while watching The Wire or something.



While I typed that last sentence, the phone rang again, but it was a wrong number.

Christmas Day rocked mightily. Dennis - my sister Julie's beau of the last eight months or so - hosted an awesome dinner at his condo in Danvers. We were also joined by my other sister Karen and her husband Peter. Dennis' sister, Noreen, was there as well. Dennis cooked a standing rib roast that was roughly the size of a Hyundai. There was also tons of really good wine. And we laughed a lot and opened presents. Peter is apparently terrified of heights, so Dennis' 14th floor apartment didn't sit well with him at first - especially the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows - to the extent that he wouldn't even step out of the kitchen. But Dennis managed coax him out with some anti-anxiety meds, and soon enough, Peter was not only comfortable in other rooms of the house, he even sauntered out onto the deck. I think he was a bit stoned. Holidays!



Liza's grandparents got us an obscenely large Target gift card, which we already put a small dent in earlier this week, and plan to finish off this weekend. I'd love to squeeze in some end-of-the-year blogging regarding books I've read and music I've heard, so look for that in the very near future, perhaps. I read 32 books this year, which is a new record, and while quality is more important than quantity, I can back that up by saying that my reading habits are getting more and more eclectic. This year: three Vonneguts and a Pynchon? WTF? Where is Chris and what have you done with him? Don’t worry, there's also plenty of Kellerman and Connelly in there, too. I can also tell you without a doubt that the best album of the year - in my humble opinion - is Girl Talk's Feed the Animals. There isn't a single other album that came out in 2008 that blasted out of my iPod on a more frequent basis. But that's another post for another time - stay tuned.

I'm trying to grow a beard, but I don't know if it's working out all that well.



I think I just look like a pissed-off teenager.



As far as the hair on top of my head goes - well, I just woke up.

In the audio commentary of the Weezer DVD compilation, one of the guys in the band comments on Rivers Cuomo's beard in the "Dope Nose" video by saying, "you could hide spare change in that thing!" That's sort of what I want - a beard you can hide spare change in.



I know what you're all thinking...what does Liza think about this? I can't get a straight answer out of her. Suffice it to say that she's tolerating my immature experiment, but it's still early. This is about 10 days of growth, by the way.



I love Martina!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been all over Facebook in the last couple of weeks. I can't seem to escape it. I'm not sure if this happens with other FB users, but every once in a while there's this wave of activity where I find someone I knew from back in the day, and then, looking at their friends list (or the comments on their "wall"), I find other friends from that same era. Next thing you know, I've reconnected with several good people from decades ago.



Earlier this year I caught up with Nick Fraser, one of my all time best friends on earth - we were practically joined at the hip during our senior year in high school - and the other day, while looking at his wall, I saw a photo someone posted of Julie O'Neill, which led to a friend request, which led to finding Chris Peloquin, Meredith Zinn and Leslie Witthohn. Truth be told, I didn't really know Leslie all that well - she was a friend of a lot of my friends, but I can't say I ever had much direct contact with her. But now we're friends, at least in the Facebook way. It's funny how that happens.



No offense to any of these other fine people, but the most incredible Facebook reconnection that's taken place in recent memory has to be cyber-reunion between myself and Goran Radovanovic. Goran and I knew each other in 1985-86, during my one year in Palos Verdes, California (we lived out there briefly when my dad took a job that collapsed unceremoniously after the company was sold). Goran was part of my small circle of friends that seemed to have one thing in common - an obsession with really good music. One day, while taking note of my love for artists like Joe Jackson, Squeeze and Graham Parker, Goran asked me if I'd ever listened to Elvis Costello. I confessed that I was only familiar with a handful of songs I'd heard on MTV. He then lent me his cassette copy of Elvis' Get Happy and it changed my musical outlook forever. No exaggeration.



Goran and I last saw each other in the spring of 1987, about a year after I left California and returned back to Florida. I visited him back in Palos Verdes for my spring break, where we spent the week hanging out, going to parties, wandering around Venice Beach, driving around in his beat-up old Audi (which had an 8-track player with exactly one 8-track: Elvis' This Year's Model), and best of all: attending my first Elvis show, at University of California at Irvine. The last time I had any contact with him until last weekend was sometime around 1989, via a brief exchange of pre-internet correspondence.



Violently changing subjects: I've been in a training class all week, which has been enormously informative, not to mention a nice change of pace from sitting in an office. I'm finally learning Final Cut Pro the real way, as opposed to fumbling around the interface and taking wild stabs at how to work effectively. My four to five years of Adobe Premiere Pro experience initially helped, but being in an actual class with a very bright and easygoing instructor have made a world of difference - not to mention the fact that there are exactly two of us in this class. It's practically one-on-one training. The class also qualifies me to take the FCP certification exam, which will make my life a lot more interesting.



On the Netflix front, Liza and I have decided to start watching The Wire again. We started it sometime last year and kind of gave up on it for some reason. But now we're back. I haven't been to the movies in months - an unforgivable sin - but I hope to catch up on the Oscar-buzz stuff once the holidays die down and I have a little extra cash. I really want to see Milk, Frost/Nixon, Slumdog Millionaire and W. Among others.



On the music front, I'm rediscovering the music of Eric Matthews - you may not have heard of him because his difficult-to-classify style is a nightmare for marketing dweebs. He also never gigs or tours. Ever. He was on Sub Pop Records back in the mid 90's, but his affiliation with those grunge tastemakers is merely geographical (he's from Oregon). A good way to describe him might be Nick Drake Meets Scott Walker at a China Crisis concert. His albums It's Heavy In Here and The Lateness of the Hour are gorgeous. Apparently he's still making music, albeit via the internet and in other unconventional, low-budget ways.



Now I have to take a shower and get ready for some more learnin'.

I'm spending an inordinate amount of time on Facebook lately, and my blog has suffered as a result. But enough about that! Check out this fine upstanding subway passenger:



Keep in mind that this picture was taken on Saturday afternoon. Soon afterwards, one of the doors in our subway car refused to close, whereupon we were asked to exit and move into another car. It took two MBTA employees to literally drag this guy out of the car, and he put up quite a fight. This was after one of the employees extracted a bottle of some clear liquid (gin? vodka?) from his person. Ah, Boston.

Last night Liza and I had dinner at Lucca in the North End, thanks to a gift certificate given to Liza by her rep dancers. Me: bacon-wrapped monkfish (everything tastes better when wrapped in bacon). Her: porkchop slathered in gorgonzola (everything tastes better when slathered in gorgonzola). We brought the camera, hoping to commemorate this combination of romance and gastronomy, but we forgot to use it.

Here is Liza with a matchbook from Lucca, on our way home after getting off the train.



We're both trying to get better about taking the camera with us whenever and wherever possible. I usually take plenty of random photos with my cellphone, but that camera's been wigging out more than usual. Tonight we're going to party at Jen's house (Beacon Hill! W00t!), so I'm sure there will be lots of excuses for photography.

In the meantime, I accomplished some much needed Christmas shopping this afternoon, but not before treating myself to a purchase after the end of my Borders shift:



Okay, so, Warren Zevon fanatic that I am, it seems inconceivable that I've never actually owned a real, hard-copy version of his self-titled 1976 masterpiece. I'm familiar with almost all of this album - most of the songs have found their way onto various Zevon compilations and mixes in my collection, and I have the official Zevon discography on The Beast, but I've always held out for a special edition. Boy, was that a good idea. This two-disc version, which came out a couple of weeks ago (unbeknownst to me - I haven't spent time on the official Zevon website in ages), is a goldmine of awesomeness. Besides the original album on disc one, you get a second disc of outtakes, demos and alternate versions. And a fancy booklet of liner notes and photos. I *heart* extended liner notes! Yay! I'm a geek!

Elliot Carter is 100 years old today. And he's still writing music. Holy cow.

Incidentally, Olivier Messiaen - another 20th century composer, one of my favorites, in fact - would have turned 100 yesterday (he died in 1992).

I've been throwing this all over Facebook since I finished putting it together yesterday afternoon. Here it is for the rest of you...

Frank Zappa, rock's one true genius (my blog, my opinions), passed away 15 years ago today. Wikipedia is commemorating the occasion by having Frank's bio as their featured article. Check it out, you might learn something.

Holy shit. Did you see Spectacle on the Sundance Channel tonight? No? If you're an intelligent music fan, Tivo that son of a bitch. Seriously.

Basically, it's Elvis Costello hosting a music version of Inside the Actor's Studio, without all the fawning and ass-kissing. The inaugural episode featured an hour-long chat with Elton John. Say what you will about the last, oh, 25 years of his career, Elton was unbeatable up until about 1974. And he's an absolute music nut. The show not only focused on his career, it also gave Elton the opportunity to talk at length about some obscure early influences. It's probably the only place on television where you'll hear someone discuss Laura Nyro, Leon Russell and David Ackles all in the span of 60 minutes. There were also some spirited live performances (from Elton and Elvis, solo and together, along with the Spectacle house band, led by the legendary Allen Toussaint), including Elvis' opening number, a terrific cover of Elton's "Border Song."

Back in the mid-90's, there was a show on VH1 called Four on the Floor. It was a 30 minute show with a panel of music critics and one guest panelist, where they just talked about music (mostly current stuff). Basically a musical version of Politically Incorrect, I suppose. Never heard of it? Not surprising, considering the fact that it was quietly cancelled after it turned out that me and maybe five other people in the country were watching it. Nowadays, VH1 and other alleged "music" channels are stuffed to the gills with reality crap, along with pop culture "list" shows where you get to hear Gilbert Gottfried and Michael Ian Black talk about the irony of the Starland Vocal Band and Rubik's Cubes. Whatever happened to the music?

Forgive the "cranky old man" tone of this post, but if you're like me and you miss real musicians talking about real music, I implore you to check out this show before it dies a slow death and is replaced by something that is sure to insult your intelligence.

Another successful Thanksgiving with me, Liza and a lot of ingenuity in the kitchen. I don't have pictures of the finished project on Flickr yet, but here's some of the preparation:


Getting the goat cheese down to room temperature helps when you put it in your hands for a while.


Liza debones a veal tenderloin. Not for the timid.


Stuffing the tenderloin with lots of tasty goodness: peppers, arugula, sun-dried tomatoes, and best of all: cheese!


Here I am vigorously mixing ingredients for pumpkin pie.

Finished product photos are forthcoming. In the meantime, we're about to tuck into said pumpkin pie while continuing our self-imposed Californication marathon. Any of you seen that show yet? It's very good. Sort of like Entourage for a slightly older generation. Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday. Killing time on my way to visit a friend in Jamaica Plain.


Newbury Street, 4:49 p.m.


Lenox Hotel (Boylston and Exeter Streets), 4:50 p.m.


Green Street subway platform (Jamaica Plain), 5:56 p.m.

Huzzah! Winter's almost here!



I love cold weather and snow, but I'm starting to be a bit more guarded in my love, due to the fact that high heating oil costs are frustrating me to no end. Liza and I are dealing with it by employing a space heater when we're in the living room and throwing on a couple of extra blankets when we go to bed. Last night was the first time we've turned on the heat this season, and that was just because we had some friends drop by. It was only on for about three hours.



Liza and I finally saw Tropic Thunder last night, from Netflix. I enjoyed it, but frankly I was a bit underwhelmed. It was funny - at times very funny - but i was expecting more. Clearly, Robert Downey Jr. and Tom Cruise stole the show, although I would have loved at least two more scenes with Cruise. It seems that they could've gotten a lot more out of that character (his closing-credits dance = priceless). The most pleasant surprise for me was Matthew McConaughey, refreshingly playing against type (and by type, I mean "shirtless male bimbo who just wants a cold brew and a hot supermodel"). And I loved the fact that his name was Pecker. How random!


Brent likes white people.

The last time I posted here, I mentioned that we have a new iMac and we love it. That hasn't changed. It's incredible. I was also able to get iWork installed (so Liza can work on her resume), as well as Final Cut Express (so I can finally start editing fun stuff at home, as opposed to less fun stuff at work). I also learned the fine art of Mac screenshot capturing, which led to this inaugural experiment:



Screenshots will make blogging considerably more interesting, I can tell you that.

This weekend, Liza and I are spending one night at the Publick House in Sturbridge - the site of our wedding reception. Part of the reception package includes free dinner on our anniversary, which is actually next Tuesday. I'm looking forward to getting out of the city and enjoying the chilly autumnalism of Sturbridge, but I do love Boston. I mean, look at this:

So, yeah.



Our lives just got a hell of a lot easier.

This thing is incredible. The 2004 iBook was nice while it lasted, but that was then. This is now.

Sorry about the quality of the photo - the cellphone camera gets periodically wonky. One upgrade at a time.

I just started the process of deleting my MySpace account (the second time I've done this in the past five years), and am currently working on deep-sixing my Twitter account. There isn't anything in the Twitter FAQ that tells you how to delete an account, so right now my request is being processed. I guess the geniuses at Twitter never imagined that anyone out there would even consider the concept of deleting something as cool as a Twitter account, but I never really used the thing. No offense, but I don't get it. "Chris is enjoying the sunny weather!" So what?



I think the main problem I have with social networking sites is that there's just too many of them. Blogs, Friendster (which has inexplicably found a niche in Asian countries after it was laughed out of the States), MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, okay okay okay I get it! I like the idea of being out there in cyberspace, telling everyone how I feel about the new Brad Mehldau album, sharing cool photos, talking about my upcoming weekend plans - but after a while it's just oversaturation. I don't need umpteen different outlets to notify the world of my comings and goings. If you need me, you'll find me.



I like Facebook. Say what you will about the ridiculous third-party applications, but it beats the hell out of MySpace. It's neat, clean, fairly easy on the eyes, and has been responsible for me reconnecting with a surprising number of people from my past. I enjoyed being a part of the pro-Obama solidarity in the weeks leading up to the election (and found it mildly amusing that the small number of conservative friends I have on Facebook - mostly relatives - have been unusually quiet since November 4).



I can't see a day when I'll ever stop blogging, but I've definitely slowed down over the past few months. Lately the inspiration just hasn't been there. A long time ago, I stopped being one of those people who would not post for a week or so, then return with a profuse apology..."I haven't updated this thing in so long! LOL, sorry, etc..." But my attitude now is that while I still blog, I no longer feel an obligation to do so. Haven't posted in two weeks, you say? Sorry. I've been getting on with my life.



This is not meant to insult people who do post blog entries on a daily basis - my hat is off to you, but it just ain't my thing. I'll post when I feel the need to post, or if inspiration strikes me. Or if I have photos that I feel the need to share with you for no reason at all.