I was just thinking that probably the thing I'm most proud of writing-wise from 2008 is my Idolator post about Clique Girlz, when much to my surprise and delight Maura (my boss, not my sister) included it in her top 12 Idolator posts of 2008.

Not only is there a perfect storm of cultural references in that post--I had just seen the trailer for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the tween pop subject matter warranted the incorporation of JoJo's "Leave (Get Out)" in my final sentence (always a boon)--but it also actually managed to reach the mouth breathers over at Interscope (the band's label) and they actually complained to the company that owns Idolator. I was very proud when I heard that. If people in the position to put music into the world on a mass scale insist on giving us lazy shit-for-brains noise that's an insult to the concept of pop then they should at least be told to shove it up their asses every once in a while. And I'm really honored that I had an opportunity to do so on a platform that could reach their solid tin ears.

Also, for the record, and I know that perhaps the opposite comes across in that post, but...JoJo's "Leave (Get Out)" is a really good song. It's really just JoJo herself that I take issue with.

HEY! Happy new year! As they say down here in the Lone Star...I'm fixin' to open up some booze and commence drinking goodbye to 2008.

Here is a very seriously wacky Jimmy Buffett video from the '70s to see you into 2009.



Where is that vest man now? Is he still dancing?

I finally fiiiiinaaaaalllly got around to uploading this song that I've really liked for the past few months. I had to upload it with my own bare hands because it's by this presumably pretty obscure Spanish band Jonipai that apparently disbanded a number of years ago. There's hardly any trace of them on the internet. You even kind of have to hunt around for them on their label's site. And since there's also no easily discernible manner of purchasing their album (I came into possession of it via a nice Spanish guy who was generous enough to take me out for drinks and burn me enough CDs to justify my Idolator paycheck in Madrid), I figured it wouldn't be too dubious to post a song. Here it is:

"Los días que pasamos"

I put it on my bike riding mix and it's been really delightful.

Also, The A.V. Club has a great feature on movies not available on region 1 DVD. Among them Brewster McCloud, Robert Altman's 1970 homage to Houston's peculiar landscape. Or maybe he didn't see it as an homage, but I do.

2008 was a banner year for Christmas gifts, as it turned out.

From Allie:

I've decided that I'm going to spend the money to ship this up to New York for the semester because I can't be without its presence in my life.

From Adena:

Finally I am in possession of the Dame's awesomely picture-centric autobiography.

And my friend Catalina gave me an awesome bowl with a cat face painted on it, which is in New York so I don't currently have a picture of it.

I always thought I was a bit tricky to shop for, but apparently anyone who's spent any significant amount of time with me realizes that I'm actually quite readable. Just judging from these three gifts, I can conclude that my friends perceive me as a cat person who enjoys Spanish language film, kitsch, and Helen Mirren to the extent that I would willingly own and display a coffee table book about her. This assessment is...startlingly accurate.

This movie looks truly promising:



Not to mention close to home. Privileged, but not-quite-privileged enough shithead college kid wants to go to Europe after graduation and is desperate to work anywhere to save up money? Why yes, that does sound familiar! The "I'm not even qualified for manual labor!" rings particularly true. In fact that whole job search mini-sequence essentially encapsulates my entire job search experience over the past two-three years. As it turns out, six months at a smoothie restaurant when I was a senior in high school, two combined months of random nepotistic data entry/office admin for my aunt's business, and two years of sporadic professional music blogging doesn't qualify you for a whole heck of a lot.

Higher quality trailer here.

Also, on the New York craigslist you get shit like this:

Walking Doggies LLC is looking for dog walkers who live on the Upper East Side to handle early morning, late night and weekend walks.

The schedule fluxuates based on need, and additional hours during the day are possible. Some walks are 8am and some are midnight. We also receive last minute requests for walks within a 2 hour timespan.

Please do not apply if you don't live on the Upper East Side.

This job can develop into a management position within a year.

No resumes!

No experience necessary, but you must be honest, reliable, trustworthy, respectful and you must love animals. You must be ready, willing and able to climb stairs, and to walk dogs in the rain, snow, freezing cold temperatures, boiling hot temperatures whether it's 8am or midnight.

To apply send us an email with your name, phone number, location and tell us why you want this position. Also tell us why you want to work with animals.

Before applying please read this ad again to make sure you understand our needs. Your location must be in your response. We will only consider Upper East Side applicants.

If hired you will be an employee with benefits!

I'd have this job in the bag if only...I lived on the Upper East Side. What the fuck?

This year we resurrected my favorite Christmas pastime:


There's a particularly inappropriate picture of me with a partially-deflated yard Santa, but I'll refrain from posting it for the sake of common decency.

Sometimes when it gets to be too late to read without falling asleep I like to occupy myself with this clip:



I haven't seen any of Werner Herzog's narrative films, but I'm pretty sure he's probably a much better bullshit talker than he is a filmmaker. He's like an artist of quotes; these perfect little bizarre-o nuggets of linguistic pretension just spill out of his mouth with such elegant disdain.

"The trees here are in misery, and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing, they just screech in pain."

"It's a land that God, if he exists, has created in anger."

"It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder." <---What does this mean? I love it.

"And we, in comparison to the articulate vileness and baseness and obscenity of all this jungle...we, in comparison to that enormous articulation...we only sound and look like badly-pronounced and half-finished sentences out of a stupid suburban novel."

I made this blog for one of my finals. The backstory is that my friend John lives in a building in Bushwick where the eccentric Puerto Rican guy downstairs keeps a duck in a kiddie pool (he also has a machete collection). Since our final could be a creative project I was inspired to create a blog entry about Bushwick from the POV of the duck.

A couple of things before I jet off to fabulous Houston and disappear into the Christmas cookie abyss. First, Adena Rice was in Dublin this semester studying music videos and her final project was to make a video for a local artist. Here it is:



She knitted all that stuff with her own bare hands and made that crazy fabric tree. I am proud and impressed.

Secondly, I made a few contributions to Idolator's master list of the 80 greatest/most interesting things about music this year plus 8 heartbreaks. Click around and you'll find my posts. But read the other ones too!

Lastly, merry Christmas.

This morning on the Williamsburg bridge as I was passing the only guy who was managing to go slower than I was (a true feat) he gave me a thumbs up and said "HAPPY THURSDAY! SPEEDY GONZALEZ! MAKE A LOTTA MONEY!" I turned around and said "Yeah, man!"

School is done for the semester, so I just did my ritual cleansing:




Now these corners are empty and prepared for next semester's onslaught. Or maybe I'll, you know, like, buy a folder or something (probably not).

I saw this squirrel today in Union Square:

He's the Newman of squirrels.

Tomorrow I go home for the break. One of the many, many things I enjoy about Houston is that I can get in a car at any hour of the night, hit scan on the radio and come up with something like this on one of the local stations:

It's spooky, but it sounds like home.

Adding whiskey to terrible eggnog does not make it better. It only makes you drunker.

Last night I spoke with a guy who's going on tour as a bird whistler with the former lead singer of The Cardigans (yeah, them). And he was from Houston!

I continue to enjoy this song:

Classes are over, let's celebrate with some quality YouTube: