Put away the crackpipe, the pornography, and the booze

[vovat]

I've had so much going on in the recent past (relatively speaking, that is) that I found it difficult to get excited about the Pixies concert I was going to. It was at the new House of Blues in Atlantic City. bethje and her Uncle John accompanied me to the Showboat, but didn't go to the concert with me. The venue is pretty nice, I guess, although I think the concert was a bit pricy to be standing room only. I mean, there WERE seats, but it was over $40 just to stand. I can't recall ever having paid more for a concert where I had to stand for the whole thing.

I ended up getting there a little after the official starting time of 9:00. The Mediocre Opening Band (no, I don't think that was their real name, but it COULD have been) had already started playing, and they left the stage around 9:30 or so. After that, there was a wait of about half an hour before the Pixies started. I had a pretty good spot, close to the soundboard, although I ended up moving slightly before the concert ended, for reasons that will become clear in the next paragraph.

I usually try to write concert reviews in roughly chronological order, but I wanted to get the craziest part out of the way first. There was a fight not far from where I was standing. Some drunken, possibly-on-something-else-as-well girl kept jumping around throughout the show, showing no concern for anyone else's personal space, and spilling her beer all over. Some other girl nearby confronted her a few times, but I couldn't hear what she was saying. Anyway, the jumping girl wouldn't stop, and eventually the other girl pushed her, spilling even more of her beer on the floor. Oddly enough, some people continued to stand around on the alcohol-soaked part of the floor. I guess that kind of thing is a common occurrence at some sorts of concerts, but I decided it would be better for me to move away from those people. I also saw another guy being escorted out by security, but I have no idea why.

Anyway, on to the concert itself. When the Pixies came out, I got the impression that they were collectively trying to have as little hair as possible. It looked like David Lovering had shaved his head, and Kim Deal had a really short haircut. Frank Black was wearing glasses when he came out on stage, although he later removed them. They started out by playing acoustically (well, using acoustic instruments plugged into amplifiers, that is; I guess that still counts as "playing acoustically" these days), which was cool. The setlist was pretty similar to what it was the last time I saw the band, although they did do "Is She Weird?" and "Here Comes Your Man" this time, as well as "All Around The World" [1]. No "Velouria," though, unfortunately.

There was a fair bit of banter between the band members, although I couldn't hear all of it that well. Frank was saying something about how Joey Santiago looked like Marlon Brando (in an upcoming documentary, I believe), and Kim said something like, "Joey ALWAYS looks good!" Then Frank said that he also looked like Brando, but from a different era. At the end of the show, Frank told Kim not stay up all night knitting, to which Kim replied that she didn't knit. There was something else after that, but I couldn't totally make it out.


After the concert, we left Atlantic City, and Beth and I watched Donnie Darko. I thought it was a good movie, but there were a few things that confused me. I guess the main point of the movie was that Donnie realized he had to die in order to make things better for other people. As Beth pointed out, though, Jim Cunningham's child pornography stash wouldn't have been discovered otherwise. I actually thought for a little while that they were going to go with the idea that the destructive things Frank told Donnie to do would turn out to have unforeseen benefits. Sort of like Wonderfalls in that respect, I suppose, and some of Frank's brief, enigmatic instructions really did strike me as similar to the kinds of things the knick-knacks would tell Jaye in Wonderfalls. As it turned out, though, I guess the discovery of the kiddie porn was ultimately bad, because it led to Donnie's mom being on the plane instead of the gym teacher. There didn't seem to be any good results to the flooding of the school. And didn't Donnie tell his girlfriend that he'd burned down an abandoned building in the past? That would presumably have been before Frank, right?

Aside from the wanton destruction, I thought Donnie was pretty cool. I liked how he told off the gym teacher and Cunningham. Some of what he said was the kind of stuff I would have been thinking, but wouldn't have had the guts to actually say.

One other question I had was whether, when the real-life Frank shows up, he looked anything like the imaginary Frank had in the movie theater. I mean, he obviously didn't have an eye missing, but aside from that, I don't really know.


I think enough time has passed by now that I might as well just go ahead and make my posts on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince public. You can see them here and here, if you're interested.

[1] "All Around The World" is a country-ish song that I believe was an outtake from Honeycomb, Frank Black's newest album. I'm not sure whether it's a cover or a Frank original. It bears no real relation to "All Over The World," which the Pixies didn't play last night.

Comments

SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[revme.livejournal.com]

I think that Donnie Darko only works if you assume that basically everything between the turbine crashing through on him and the very end where everything is Set Right and Donnie dies takes place in Donnie's head, sort of as a last-dream-before-death. But unfortunately, according to Richard Kelly, the writer/director, that's not how you're supposed to read the film, and you're supposed to take it at face value. Which is sorta... um. I really dig my version of the movie, but I think his version is pretty lame.

Also, I'm pretty sure Movie Theater Frank looked like Real Frank, but it's been a while.

(anyway, uh, for more on my interpretation, here's a mefi comment I just made and heh, I just spent a while looking in my LJ for an expanded thing, but I think I actually just went over my interpretation in person, to Dale, not on the LJ. Since the only thing I could find on the LJ was basically my rant about how Drew Barrymore Cannot Fucking Act, soooo.... Just check the Mefi Post, then.)

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask about how your interpretation accounted for Gretchen appearing at the end, but I see that your Mefi post covered that, so never mind.

I'm actually not adverse to taking the film at face value, but wouldn't that mean his house would have been hit with a turbine twice (once at the beginning, and then again when his mom was on the plane)? Or am I misremembering here? I was kind of nodding off at the beginning (I HAD gone through a concert, a pointless train ride to Philadelphia, and more that day), although I started to pay pretty close attention later on.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[revme.livejournal.com]

With the plane turbine -- it's been a little while since I've seen it too -- I _think_ that in the "real" version of the film, the first turbine that crashes through and doesn't kill him is basically the start of that particular time-line or world-line or whatever you want to call it; the one resulting in the End Of The World (see: 'nother argument for my version, since it would be the End Of Donnie's World! huh? huh?) -- so, he basically does all this stuff in the alternate universe, which Sets Things Right What Once Went Wrong, and the turbine falling off the mom-plane is the last thing that happens in Alternate World, and basically when he's crushed by the Mom-Turbine, his work is complete, so he goes back into the Real World, a little bit before, so he doesn't get up and wander around, but instead is right in his bed, ready to get crushed by the first, non-mom, turbine.

(I think the Salon article linked in my MeFi post might cover that, too -- it's all about the Kelly Interpretation, so...)

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[vovat.livejournal.com]

So the "real" explanation has TWO airplane turbines fall into his room? I guess that makes sense from the standpoint of framing the Tangent Universe, but still.

I guess I'll go ahead and read that Salon article, even though that "Day Pass" thing is annoying.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- pretty much, only the first falls in the Alternate Timeline, while the second falls in the Real Timeline. So, uh, yeah.

And, yeah, the Salon article is pretty itneresting, but I liked the Mulholland Dr. one better (and thought that was generally more enlightening). And, yes, those daypass things are so stupid and annoying.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The Salon article says something about how Donnie was able to send the engine back in time, so I guess that makes sense, and explains why no one knew where it came from the first time.

I liked the article, and I thought it explained some stuff pretty well. I do think the excuse that God is manipulating everything in the Tangent Universe so that Donnie will want to go back and end it was kind of cheap, though. I mean, I suppose it makes sense, but it strikes me as a convenient excuse to use unrealistic or out-of-character actions simply to advance the plot. I can see the appeal of the "it's all in Donnie's mind" interpretation, since it seems more excusable that an imaginative high school student would use sloppy plot devices than that the Almighty would.

I'm also not totally clear on why the existence of the Tangent Universe would mean the end of the world, but I guess that's something we're just supposed to take as a given.

I've never seen Mulholland Drive, or anything Lynch (that IS a Lynch movie, right?), as far as I can recall. Eraserhead is on our Netflix queue, though.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- I think there might be something in the Ramona Quimby (er, whatever her name is, the old woman... I read too many Beverly Clearly books growing up...) book about the whole "tangent universe == Death" thing -- did you see the original or director's cut? Apparently the original doesn't have the cuts to the book/as many of them. But.. yeah -- it's the sloppy plot stuff that made me think of my interpretation, since, well, it seems way more buyable to me that Donnie Darko would be doin' that sort of thing, rather than a first-time director that everyone was falling over themselves about how great he was and how brilliant his script was..8)

Mulholland Dr. is Lynch, and it's pretty good, although it's one that I had to sort of warm up to; I didn't like it after first seeing it, but I realized that since it was all I could think about for about 2 weeks afterward, it had to have had an impact, which is what good films do. I still haven't seen Eraserhead, actually, although I'd recommend Blue Velvet. It's David Foster Wallace's favorite film -- I don't go nearly that far (and tell you the truth find it weird that it could be someone's favorite film, we're talking ever, not "favorite Lynch"), but it's really good. I'd also recommend checking out Twin Peaks, but wait until Paramount finally puts out the second season/pilot film. Don't bother with the set that's currently out. It doesn't have the pilot film (which is basically the first couple episodes, story-wise), and it's just the first season, which, while being the best, does leave most of the stuff unresolved, which'd be wrapped up about halfway into the second season, give-r-take.

Elephant Man is really good, too, actually. It's not TOO Lynchian, but it's easy, easy to see that it's a Lynch film. haven't seen Dune, but I've heard it's terrible and he's taken his name off the TV version, Wild at Heart is OK, but I probably wouldn't start there. On The Air is AWESOME and BRILLIANT but really hard to find. But SO AWESOME. It was his TV follow-up to Twin Peaks; it was a comedy; a surreal comedy that was awesome -- about a TV station in the early days of television. So, so wonderful. I would kill to have this on DVD, but I got my bootleg tapes, so I'm happy-ish. Need to see Lost Highway, but Straight Story is pretty good, if really slow and... barely Lynchian. It's his G-Rated Picture. (For reals.) It's a sweet story about a man going a long distance to visit his brother on a riding mower. (True story, too.)

And he did a Rammstein video, too, but I don't think I've seen it. But he has said that Rammstein was his favorite band. Which is kinda funny; you wouldn't expect it from him, but then again, the kind of guy he is, you wouldn't expect him to make David Lynch movies, either.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah -- I think there might be something in the Ramona Quimby (er, whatever her name is, the old woman... I read too many Beverly Clearly books growing up...)

You mean the Grandma Death lady? I looked it up on the IMDB, and her name is Roberta Sparrow. I did watch the director's cut, but even that usually only shows brief glimpses of the book's pages. I might want to watch it again with pause button at the ready. It's actually a movie I wouldn't mind owning, if I could find it for a not-too-high price.

I remember reading some Beverly Cleary books myself. I thought it was interesting that both Ramona Quimby and Mayor "Diamond Joe" Quimby both got their names from the same source.

I know my mom used to watch Twin Peaks when it was new, but I was usually in bed at the time. I am kind of interested in seeing it, so maybe I'll check out that DVD set when it comes out.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[revme.livejournal.com]

Yeah - Grandma Death; completely blanked on her name, thanks..heh. I knew there was an R though.

What's the source for "Quimby"?

I actually used to watch it with my parents; I missed most of the first season when I started watching (I think I came in maybe halfway through) and would watch it every week after that. (My family were also the only 3 people in america who saw all three episodes that aired when they ran on ABC...) I think I was the only 4th grader with a Twin Peaks shirt, heh.

Re: SPOILERS FOR DONNIE DARKO!1111

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure there's a Quimby Boulevard or some such in Portland, where both Cleary and Matt Groening grew up. I know several other Simpsons characters are named after streets in Portland, although the only other one I can think of offhand is Kearney.