Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Close to Home — What it’s like on the street where you live
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Cinema Valore - Dark Knight
P.S. If you want to see an actor that can play The Joker, go to the CRASHER column in this weeks Reader. Watch the video.— October 22, 2008 9:27 p.m.
Choke and a Bluecoat Shot
I've told this cat story before, I think. But, years ago I dated a woman that had a cat with three legs. I hated the thing. It would sometimes just start running around the house like a spaz. Well...we are sitting in her room talking, and the cat is nowhere in sight. I tell her how creep the cat is, the way it slinks down the hall way. I'm going on and on. Well, as I'm saying this, the cat runs into the room, full speed. Jumps on her dresser. And, she had a mirror, that had a photo of me attached to it. The cat (with one of it's good legs), starts clawing at the photo. The photo falls down, and she runs out. I've never seen a woman laugh so hard. It lasted about 10 minutes. And...it kinda creeped me out; such a weird coincidence.— October 22, 2008 8:18 p.m.
Cinema Valore - Dark Knight
Okay Anti...so, if I throw out some younger stars that I think could've played Joker: Shia LaBeouf, Justin Long, heck put Justin Timberlake on the list. I mean, he looks like a pansy boy to me. But hey...he was more intimidating then I thought he could get in the great Black Snake Moan with Samuel Jackson. What about Daniel Radcliffe? Harry Potter going to his darker side with the joker. I could see them all pulling that off (and, that probably shoots my wad at the young actors I can name off the top of my head). Here's a way to look at it: Nobody knew who Anthony Hopkins was before Silence of the Lambs. I did. I liked him. He played a quiet, awkward, killer in 1980s MAGIC. He's a ventriliquist, and his dummy (or him, I forget who), kills Ann Margret and Burgess Meredith (has there ever been a movie or Twilight Zone, where he didn't die?). He was in Elephant Man. Yet, he says in interviews he ended up drinking more than making movies, until Silence of the Lambs brought him back. He won an Oscar. And, it's hard to imagine a creepier villian, right? I hate to even think of other actors in that part. But, I can give you Willem Defoe, Dennis Hopper, John Malkovich, Jack Nicholson, and about 20 others, that would've done just fine as Hannibal Lector, and probably also snagged an Oscar. Hard to imagine, because Hopkins had that refined, British accent, the look...but, that's because you can ONLY picture him now in that part. Ya know, I liked The Shining. But, it wasn't one of Kubrick's finer films. And, one of my knocks on it, is Nicholson's performance. Once he goes crazy, he's great. But, he's not supposed to be crazy in the beginning, and he looks/acts crazy. There's a scene were a few people interview him for the job of managing that hotel. And they say something like "Ya know, some people go crazy...being up there alone, the isolation. Nothing but snow." He gets that Jack Nicholson grin, eyebrows flared up, and says "That's not me. I'm looking for the piece and quiet." I wanted to scream...REALLY?!?!?! You look crazy right now. So, in some ways, another actor would've been better in that part. My point is...it just baffles me that Ledger is getting so much hype because of this part. It was a role. A great role. He got animated with it. He got dark with it. But...it's an overrated performance.— October 22, 2008 8:13 p.m.
Trick or Treat -- Football Edition
Well...here's the big question for ya. Would you rather have the Rams go all the way, and win the Super Bowl. Or, you go all the way, and win some cash, in your fantasy football league? It's funny, because I love the Steve Hartman and Mychael Thompson, on this L.A. station doing an afternoon sports show. Whenever they interview someone like Kobe, they ask "Would you rather have the MVP ring, or a championship ring." They always say the championship. Which, is a stupid question, because what can they say? "Oh yeah, my MVP ring. Who cares about my team, and winning it all." But, they've delved into this with athletes, and seriously, some will say "You can take back all my awards, I would've rather had a Super Bowl win." But, here's how you know they're lying. Take Barry Sanders. Or, take Michael Jordan. As much as those guys had the passion and drive to win, and make it all the way (Sanders never did, unfortunatley)....if you made them average players. Meaning, Jordan scored 10 points a game, with 3 assists, and he had a 12 year NBA career, making $750,000 a year, instead of millions. Yet, he had 13 championships instead of his 5 (or is it 6?), which would he take? Or, make Barry Sanders a running back that only got 40 yards a game. Played in the NFL just as long, but was on a Super Bowl team. He has the ring, but he never makes the Hall of Fame, or the millions and millions. He made a good living while he played, but now he has another job. Which would he take? Exactly!— October 22, 2008 8:01 p.m.
Odd Couple Oddities
See...the difference between trumpet players (or people related to them), and me; they get the song stuck in their head. I get lines from the movie stuck in my head. When Mathau is yelling at Lemmon saying "Stop leaving notes on my pillow! And, you signed them 'F-U'. It took me two weeks to figure out that 'F-U' meant Felix Unger!" I have a brother named Lewis, and when I was 8-years-old, I was walking home from school and a neighbor said "Your parents should've named you Clark." I asked why, and was told "look it up." This, was obviously in the days before Google! Damn kids have it so easy these days. But, I think David Alan Grier (one of the funniest guys around), has a daughter he named Anorexakeisha. Regarding the Batman theme...I have to tell this story. It's a moment I'm proud of. When I worked in radio, a Batman cartoon came out on Fox. They advertised with us, but wanted our morning team to produce/write a commercial for it. The Batman movie had been out for a year or so. I came up with the idea of us standing around, talking about why the movie didn't have a Robin in it. I then had Kevin (my co-host) say "Well, play that theme song backwards. Ya know, they used to play Beatles songs backwards to see if Paul McCartney was alive, and heavy metal songs, to see if you were a satanist." And, as we played the song backwards (which, surprisingly, sounds almost the same as when it's played forward)...you hear a voice say "I buried Robin." Now, for those that don't know...one of the Beatles songs says "I buried Paul," when played backwards. Or, so the rumor goes. Lennon said that what he said was "Cranberry Sauce." I believe it's a tune of Magical Mystery Tour. Man...guys did a lot of drugs in the 60s. Anyway, Fox picked our commercial as one of the five best in the U.S. and gave us leather/baseball style jackets with the batman logo. Whenever I wear it, someone offers to buy it from me. I told the kid at Barnes & Noble, that insisted I sell it "Okay, give me a hundred bucks for it." He said he'd call me, and never did!— October 22, 2008 7:56 p.m.
No Soup For You, Donovan McNabb. Some for LaDainian Tomlinson, though.
Well...she certainly LOOKED better. I can't believe she stayed married to Ringo. I mean, not because he's Ringo. He talked about how she begged him to give up drugs, and he was still doing them (even when performing the No No Song, which is anti-drug). And, I have to imagine the novelty of marrying a Beatle would wear off...I dunno. That movie had an interesting cast. Shelly Long, and that football player (name I won't even attempt to type out). And, the guy with the big, black curly hair, who did the Doritos commercials.— October 22, 2008 9:55 a.m.
Beer - Making People Do Stupid Things since 1878!
Nice. If there were a computer rimshot, I'd insert it here.— October 22, 2008 9:52 a.m.
W - Not the Hotel, the Movie
And...the whole line about "based on a true story" is such a load of crap. It seems to give filmmakers the permission to do ANYTHING they want, and then say "We said it's 'based' on a true story." But...I'm going to do a blog probably next, about this very topic. It has to do with bio-pics, because of some idiotic writer for the Washington Post, complaining about The Express. A movie about the first black guy to win the Heisman. His beef is that it shows too much of the WHITE coach. I swear, you really can't win, when people want to pull that race card.— October 22, 2008 9:51 a.m.
Divorces in the News
Whoopi Goldberg has gone the path of those other female comedians (Garafollo, O'Donnell, and .... the Korean one, can't think of her name right now); they'd rather just complain about politics than being funny. And, I'd love to ask Goldberg, if she thinks that Colin Powell would've come out, two weeks before the election, and supported Hillary Clinton, if it was her and NOT Obama running. I seriously doubt he would've. So, therefore, it makes it a legitimate question to ask if it's about race. Now, I don't think Powell would've come out and supported ANY black person that was running for office, but still.— October 22, 2008 9:47 a.m.
Trick or Treat -- Football Edition
P.S. Who's been a Rams fan since SDSU stud Marshall Faulk retired?— October 22, 2008 9:39 a.m.