Archive for the ‘rufus’ Category

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current obsessions

August 14, 2007

1. Banksy. Chris turned me onto him with this photo:
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The elephant was then placed in a room where his painted skin matched the wallpaper. Then, while reading the Wikipedia entry, I discovered this nugget:
In August 2004, Banksy produced a quantity of spoof British £10 notes substituting Princess Diana’s head for the Queen’s and changing ‘Bank of England’ to ‘Banksy of England.’ Someone threw a large wad of these into a crowd at Notting Hill Carnival that year which some recipients then tried to spend in local shops. These notes were also given with invitations to a picturesonwalls.com Santas Ghetto exhibition. The individual notes have since been selling on eBay for about £200 each. A Limited run of 50 signed posters containing 10 uncut notes were also produced and sold by pictures on walls for £100 each to commemorate the passing of Princess Diana. One of these sold in May 2007 on eBay for $35,000.
I WAS AT THE NOTTING HILL CARNIVAL THAT YEAR. Only we were too busy drinking warm Heineken keg cans to notice any of these happenings.

2. Okkervil River. They have so many albums and are coming to the Rock & Roll Hotel in late September. And all of their songs are good. Especially “Kansas City,” in which they say the word combination “pretty baby” about a hundred times, and that really does it for me. Also Damien Jurado is opening for them, and we all know how I feel about him. He lost his luggage the day before he came to D.C. last time, and was stuck with the clothes on his back, which included … a BLACK FLAG T-SHIRT. I love it.

3. Getting out of this city for a long weekend. Since it’ll be spur of the moment and a quick vacation, my destination of choice will have to be in the U.S. I’m thinking of a fly into Seattle, drive down to Portland and end up in San Francisco before flying home. Ah, fall in the Pacific Northwest. It’s time for a pilgrimage. Hi, buddy!
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4. Obviously, winning the Rufus Wainwright competition and getting into Neko Case’s pants.
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so fabulous

May 4, 2007

OUT WITH THE OLD:
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AND IN WITH THE NEW:
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For those of you who know me and know me well, this is a major leap-into-happiness for me. Granted, my job at AOL served me well and was a great first job to have right out of college. Without it I would have never met my beloved co-workers, especially Kenny. Without him I wouldn’t have had the chance to write the clips that got me my new job (as online editor of The Washington Blade, have you heard?). My inner gay man would only be at, oh, 85% instead of it’s full potential.

A lot of amazing things have happened surrounding my recent hiring. The new Rufus album made its way into my ears, and I am gloriously in love with it, especially two songs: “Going to a Town” and “Release the Stars.” You can hear the former on his MySpace page. This plucks of the violin match those on my heartstrings. He chastises the country with these lyrics: I’ve got a life to lead, America and I’m so tired of America and Tell me: Do you really think you go to hell for having love? Amen, sista. I feel like I’ve had an epiphany, and that my life’s purpose is now set out in front of me — I will not rest until gays, and subsequently at least five out of the top 10 people that I love and care about most in this world, have the same rights that I do. And during these last two weeks at AOL, I will watch the KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic Rufus Wainwright live performance at least three times a day. It had me weeping at my desk this morning. Just look at the way he holds that cigarette. I could die:

I want to be that cigarette – delicately held and breathed in.
On top of all of this, I rented The Laramie Project last week and finally got around to watching it yesterday, which was appropriate because the House passed hate crimes legislation! It’s going to get veto-ed, I know, I know, but I still rejoicing and chastised the dems who voted against it. I spent all of last night crying on my couch while watching this film. The way they handled Matthew Shepard’s story, by description, sounded cheesy to me — famous actors would say the words that real people of Laramie said in interviews. So the movie starts off with Camryn Manheim reciting something someone else said. But the way they did it told the story so well, and I got over the fact that the only real eyewitness to the boys leaving the bar was being portrayed by Pacey Witter. My mission is clear!

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