Summer is typically a pretty solid time for books, music and movies. Here are some I'm looking forward to, regardless of quality.

Movies:

The Dark Knight: Christopher Nolan's first crack at Batman was so strong, I'm kinda dying to see
how he's going to up the ante. Plus, how could you not want to see the late, great Heath
Ledger's final performance?

Hancock: Maybe the trailer is just superb, but Will Smith really picks his material well. This superhero as anti-hero popcorn flick looks to be more original than 99% of summer flicks, and it also stars the exceedingly talented Charlize Theron and Jason Bateman.

Step Brothers:This foul mouthed Will Ferrell -John C Reilly comedy, again about two overgrown man-children, made me laugh out loud, which is saying something.

Books:

The Monster of Florence by Douglas J. Preston, Mario Spezi

This true crime thriller sounds pretty amazing. Douglas Preston and his family moved to Florence, Italy in 2000 to live the good life and provide a great atmosphere in which he could write. Soon, Preston finds out that a grotesque, notorious murder was actually committed years ago on his new property. He teams up with Spezi, solves the decades old crime, and finds himself suddenly under suspicion for perjury and Spezi accused of the crimes themselves.

Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent by Fred Burton

From the Barnes and Noble overview:

For decades, Fred Burton, a key figure in international counterterrorism and domestic spycraft, has secretly been on the front lines in the fight to keep Americans safe around the world. From battling Libyan terrorists and their Palestinian surrogates to having facing down hijackers, hostages, and Hezbollah double agents, Burton found himself on the front lines of America's first campaign against Terror.

Music:

Weezer - The Red Album:
Rivers Cuomo returns with a new batch of clever, hummable pop. The first single, Pork and Beans, is typical Weezer, and that's a good thing.

Judas Priest - Nostradamus:
C'mon, a double album from the Priest all about the famous French seer and his prophecies? How metal is that? If first single Visions and the operatic title track are any indication, it's going to be simultaneously brilliant and amusing.

Miley Cyrus - Breakout:
Miley kicks out the serious jams in this breathtaking...oh, never mind.

Patti Smith - The Coral Sea:
Live album, which could be iffy, but almost everything Ms. Smith does is golden in my book.

_

It's pretty amazing how quickly the month has flown by. I feel as if I just started to scratch
the surface and, alas, it's over. I'd like to thank Raquel Bruno, Elektra Gray, Jessie Carter,
Melianthe Kines and Kent Rees for their invaluable assistance while I toiled away on this
glorious labor of love. Have a great summer, everyone!

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I live in Manhattan and take the subway practically everyday. Over the past year or two, as subway ridership has reached record levels, I have noticed a pattern of behavior among a certain group of fellow strap hangers (OK, the strap is long gone, but the cool nickname remains) that is typical of Type A New Yorkers. I'm sure other people have noticed this behavior as well, but I haven't seen it discussed in any detail.

I'm talking, of course, about Door Blocking and Subway Sprinting. Let's begin with the more common affliction, Door Blocking. You are a commuter, and you go to work every morning taking the NRW trains from 49th street to, say, 23rd street, a short but rather common trip. Since you do it every day, you know to get on the last door of the second car in order to be EXACTLY in front of the turnstile exit, and thus get out of the Subway first, before the crush of the other, slower people leaving the train.

The problem is that other Type A commuters have figured out the same thing, so at any given moment (usually between the 34th and 28th street stations, in my case) there begins to be a small group of people hovering around and/or outright blocking the doors in order to obtain Position. I have actually had people wedge into a tight 4-inch space between myself and the door in order to obtain this crucial strategic linchpin.

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Ten years ago, when I saw Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, I was impressed with an unknown actor named Jason Statham. He seemed raw, yet had an undeniable charm and, yes, that indefinable quality, charisma. He displayed it again in his next Guy Ritchie film, Snatch, playing Turkish, the sketchy boxing promoter who gets pulled into the criminal underworld.

Soon, I began to see commercials for something called The Transporter, and there, again, was Statham. Not being much of an action film buff, I passed. As I flipped through the cable channels a few years later, the Italian Job remake was on, and I noticed Statham again, this time playing a character called Handsome Rob. I changed the channel, and bingo, more Statham, this time in a small part in Collateral. Two channels later, a commercial for a film called Crank, starring, of course, Statham. Wow, I thought, this guy is working like mad.

Well, two months ago, my wife and I went to see The Bank Job, a pretty entertaining heist film well directed by the crafty vet Roger Donaldson, and I was struck, as I watched Statham portray Terry Leather, with a strong sense of deja vu. Who did he remind me of? The answer seemed so obvious, and yet I couldn't place it. Then, during one of his closeups, as he stood there, perfectly still, his character listening intently yet seemingly perfectly relaxed, it hit me.

Jason Statham is rapidly becoming the British version of Steve McQueen. Maybe he's not fully there yet, but he's well on his way.

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Memorial Day weekend, time for barbecues, parties, sales, (which means lots of shopping), and perhaps getting drunk and abusing a loved one.... it happens. And this is to commemorate what?

Many years ago I was driving up a road in the Ventura hills, it was Memorial Day. The sun had just set to reveal a gigantic moon.

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Alexander,
Allard,
Barrasso,
Bennett,
Brownback,
Bunning,
Burr,
Cochran,
Corker,
Cornyn,
DeMint,
Ensign,
Enzi,
Graham,
Grassley,
Gregg,
Hatch,
Kyl,
Lugar,
McConnell,
Sessions,
Voinovich.

Do you recognize those 22 names? What do those people have in common? I would venture to guess they all wear American Flag Lapel pins. It would be pretty safe to assume they have "SUPPORT OUR TROOPS" yellow ribbon bumper stickers on their SUV's. It would be a safe bet to think they have each used the phrase, "we are living in a post 9/11 world", to justify the illegal wiretaps or suspension of Habeas Corpus or use of torture or maybe even an unjustified, fear-based, pre-emptive war and occupation.

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It seems as though some great myth was created by the film A Hard Day's Night, it being that all RocknRoll bands were just one big happy family. I'm here to tell you that being in a band is like being a part of a dysfunctional family.

I spent a short time in The Ramones and there were problems in that family. The guitar player didn't speak to the singer and the bass guitarist sat in the back of the van getting stoned all the time. Of course The Ramones are our generation's Beatles, they also have a film. It's called "The End of the Century". It kind of bookends the whole myth thing for me. RIP Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee. Spinal Tap in reverse, the band had four drummers, all alive and well.

If you haven't seen the films, "Still Crazy" and "Stardust" I'd highly recommend them for further
insight into this wacky world. Paul Simon in "OneTrick Pony" is pretty good too, and then there's "Cisco Pike" starring Kris Kristofferson and Harry Dean Stanton. Let's not forget "The Rose" with Kris
and Barbara and of course there's "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", the ultimate RocknRoll trashy movie.
Classics all!

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In order to make sense of this story, you need to know a few things.

First of all, my wife likes to shop for shoes. Often. Usually she exercises restraint, but every now and then, given the time, money and inclination, she can make Imelda Marcos seem like a rank amateur. So, when I happened to have a little cash lying around - maybe a couple hundred bucks - I would slip it in an envelope and put it in the cutlery drawer, just in case she or I needed a few dollars.

Soon, however, I began to notice that the money was disappearing more quickly than usual, and the number of shoes belonging to my spouse began to increase exponentially. Realizing that drastic action was necessary, I took whatever cash was remaining from my pilfered funds and began to store it in a single white sock in my sock drawer. This seemed to ameliorate what was threatening to become a precarious situation.

On to the second item, which will initially seem to be unrelated, but will eventually become quite crucial to our story. I often stay at my sister's house on Eastern Long Island, sometimes without my wife, who remains in Manhattan studying for her business school finals. One weekend, while I was buying lunch at the local deli, my eyes fixed upon a warmly familiar object: a can of Chef Boy Ar Dee Overstuffed Ravioli. Although some people find canned ravioli repellent, I, on the other hand, experience it as edible nostalgia. Without hesitation, I bought a can.

Which brings us to the final piece of crucial information: my wife, quite rightly, tries to improve my diet, and will sometimes question my caloric decisions. So, after being unable to find the time to consume the ravioli, I returned home from Long Island with the contraband pasta packed discreetly in my carry on bag. The question, then, was where to hide it from the disapproving eyes of my spouse until I could find a quiet moment in which to devour it. Since my cash supply had showed indications of stability, I chose what I felt was clearly the safest place: namely, the sock drawer.

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EVAN

Why do we find it ok to create movies, television, and video games about killing and the glorification of gratuitous violence? From war movies, to unlikely duos, from police stories on TV, to dramas, mysteries, and horror movies, etc. It seems we are a society obsessed with violence and killing. A question I would love to pose is,"how many of the people who watch this programming will actually kill someone in their lifetime? We portray murder, revenge actual wars, westerns, gangster movies, and the list goes on. Do you think even 1% of the viewers will ever kill someone? Either way, too much violence in our media goes virtually unpunished. Kids watch R rated movies all day with virtual acceptance by parents and all of America. What are we thinking? Good thing that boy is watching that (violent) program, hopefully he will grow up and kill some people just like what he is seeing on the big and little screen. And above all, let's make sure he is not tainted by seeing a breast or a nipple. Give him anything he wants, just make sure he does not get turned on, or even informed. It seems to me that we have kinda gotten it twisted somehow. Ya'think?

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Sitting here in front of the computer, still reeling from the pulse pounding American Idol finish last night (totally, deeply kidding), I am mildly surprised. For the first time in nearly three weeks, I don't feel a pressing need to write about one specific topic. I'm not in the mood to be introspective, deep, or even vaguely thoughtful. Instead, I would rather talk about a bunch of random stuff, the mental bric-a-brac that tumbles through my head without warning and, more often than not, reason. So, in no particular order:

White Beer: I'm not much of a beer drinker, and I've never liked dark beer (like Guinness, for example - blech), but my friend hipped me to Hoegaarden, the Belgian white beer with hints of coriander and Curacao orange peel, and I'm totally hooked. Another excellent brand is Hitachino White Ale, a Japanese white beer that's expensive but really delicious.

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On a recent radio show hosted by conservative Bill Bennett, Joe Lieberman chuckled with glee at the idea put forth by Bennett that Hillary would bomb Iran. "It does have an appeal to it" he added through his Fudd-like chortle. Mike Huckabee at an NRA meeting "joked" that a noise back stage was Obama hitting the ground after someone pointed a gun at him. When Huckabee was forced to apologize for his dangerously stupid adlib, he inadvertently gave us a further peek into his dark, twisted soul. He said many politicians get caught making jokes that they may have to back track from later, citing John McCain's BOMB BOMB BOMB IRAN ditty.

Here's the kicker, Huckabee then added, "I thought that was funny". How does it happen that an ordained Baptist minister, former Presidential candidate can laugh about bombing another country? (I still can't find the rationale for him even speaking at NRA meeting. I am not sure Jesus would be behind repealing the ASSAULT WEAPONS ban.) So here we have three prominent politicians, all three with aspirations to be Commander in Chief, two of whom wear their religion on their sleeves, publicly laughing at the prospect of countless INNOCENT Iranians being killed. Even if it came to the point where we all agreed that action needed to be taken against a foreign country, shouldn't the gravity of the deaths of thousands of civilians force these men to stifle their laughs?

Happy Memorial Day....hmmm

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