List: Best Movies That Celebrate Food

There are 297 movies currently on my Netflix queue. By the time a movie makes the top of my list and into my house, many times I have forgotten why the movie was on the list in the first place.

I watched one of those movies today - Last Holiday. The 2006 version not the original version from 1950 with Alec Guinness, which I now want to see.

The movie's summary from IMDB:
In morte veritas. Georgia Byrd clerks at a New Orleans department store. She defers pleasure: cooks gourmet meals, eats Lean Cuisine; likes a co-worker in silence; has savings, but hasn't left Louisiana. All that changes when a CT Scan discloses she has three weeks to live. She cashes her savings and heads to Europe's Grandhotel Pupp, where Chef Didier(Gerard Depardieu) presides. She checks into the Presidential Suite, orders everything on the menu, snowboards, and comes to the attention of the chef and the hotel's powerful American guests: a Congressman, a Senator, a retail magnate, and his mistress. She has nothing to lose, so she tells them what she thinks. Will the truth set them free?

 It is a bit predicable, but Queen Latifah, LL Cool J and the rest of the cast are quite good. The movie had two other things going for it that made it even more enjoyable: 1) a large part of the movie was filmed and set in New Orleans (which came as a pleasant surprise to me) and 2) the movie celebrated food - eating and cooking it.

In the first scene in the European restaurant run by the character played by Gerard Depardieu, in response to the waiter announcing the day's specials, Georgia Byrd (Queen Latifah) orders all of them. According to IMDB, Food Network posted the recipes for all of the dishes on their website. Specific dishes prepared for the movie include:

• Lobster Salad in Potato Leek Nests
• Duck Hash on Toasted Baguette
• Spiced Lamb Shanks with Blood Orange Relish
• Roasted Quail with Brioche and Chorizo Stuffing
• Risotto Barolo with Roasted Vegetables
• Bananas Foster
• Poulet Tchoupitoulas

This movie has me thinking of other movies that have the love of food as a main idea so here is my list of...

Best Movies that Celebrate Food
Last Holiday
Bend It Like Beckham (for the Indian dish Aloo Gobi, which I have made twice)
Waitress
Julie & Julia

Honorable Mention:
Soylent Green (no spoilers here)
The Help (for the chocolate pie)

That's a short list for now, but there are other movies on my Movie Master List that I have yet to see that may make the above list once I watch them:
Tampopo
Soul Food
Mostly Martha
Fried Green Tomatoes
Chocolat

Happy Easter

Happy (Alien) Easter, Everyone!

Speaking of - the Alien movies, not Easter - have you seen the latest Prometheus trailer?

News Article: The Weinstein Company Will Release 'Bully' Unrated

The Weinstein Company will release the film Bully unrated on March 30 after the MPAA refused to budge on its 'R' rating on the film, according to a press release received by Movieline:

Furthering proof that the R rating for some language is inappropriate for a film that’s meant to educate and help parents, teachers, school officials and children with what’s become an epidemic in schools around the country, the fight against the rating continues on. The outpour of support by politicians, schools, parents, celebrities and activists for the film’s mission to be seen by those it was made for – children – has been overwhelming. Nearly half a million people have signed Michigan high school student and former bullying victim Katy Butler’s petition on Change.org to urge the MPAA to lower the rating.

Said BULLY Director Lee Hirsch, “The small amount of language in the film that’s responsible for the R rating is there because it’s real. It’s what the children who are victims of bullying face on most days. All of our supporters see that, and we’re grateful for the support we’ve received across the board. I know the kids will come, so it’s up to the theaters to let them in.”

It will be up to movie theaters to decide whether or not to let minors see it.

Here's the trailer to the film...

Kristy McNichol Comes Out

I've suspected for years...

From an article at People.com

Kristy McNichol Wants to "Be Open About Who I Am"

Kristy McNichol has been out of the public eye for 20 years. Now she's chosen to come out – to try to help kids who are being bullied. 

McNichol, 49, who has lived with her partner Martie Allen, also 49, (photo of both below) for the past two decades, decided to make a statement about her sexuality and share this photo because she is "approaching 50" and wants to "be open about who I am."

She "is very sad about kids being bullied," her publicist Jeff Ballard tells PEOPLE. "She hopes that coming out can help kids who need support. She would like to help others who feel different."

Best known for her Emmy Award-winning role as Buddy Lawrence in the '70s show Family and later as Barbara Weston in Empty Nest, McNichol left it all behind when she dropped out of Hollywood to focus on her health.

Done with acting, McNichol spends her time focusing on tennis, yoga, travel and raising her beloved miniature dachshunds. "She is very happy and healthy," says Ballard. "And she enjoys living a very private life."

Childhood Stories: At The Movies

Earlier this week, Carlos and I were watching a new series on the Turner Classic Movies channel called TCM's Night at the Movies, with the first episode concentrating on Thrillers.

Other episodes - that have been aired, but we haven't seen yet - are entitled:
The Horrors of Stephen King (which I'm looking forward to)
The Gigantic World of Epics

The discussion of thrillers and movies reminded me of a couple of stories from my childhood.

When my sister Christine and I were kids, our parents thought that the movie theater was a great babysitter when they got tired of us and couldn't send us off to the local swimming pool.

Our mom would bring us to Lakeside Theatre, pick out a movie, and come back for us two hours later.

I remember one specific time our mom was trying to pick a movie for us to see, she saw the title The Boys from Brazil. Since she usually picked our movies by the titles - she rarely read about them beforehand - she remarked: "That sounds like a great adventure movie."

The plot to The Boys from Brazil: "In this thriller based on Ira Levin's novel, young Nazi seeker Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg) stumbles on the trail of the infamous "Angel of Death," Dr. Josef Mengele (Gregory Peck), who is planning to resurrect Hitler's vision in South America. But when Kohler shares this information with seasoned Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman (Sir Laurence Olivier), Lieberman doesn't take the information seriously until he makes his own grim discovery."

I was 10 years old.

Lucky for us kids, we decided on another movie.

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Growing up, our family didn't bother with the concept of movie start times. Whenever we were ready to see a movie, we would all pile into the car, buy tickets for the movie we wanted to see, and walk into the theater. 

More often than not, we were walking into the middle of the movie. No worries. We would stay until the end of the movie, wait during the break, see the movie from the beginning to the part that we had walked into - and then leave.

I didn't realize until I was in high school that movies were much more enjoyable in order.

Jane Lynch

NPR's Morning Edition interviewed Jane Lynch this morning. Somewhere during that 7 minutes and 20 seconds, I went to Amazon and bought her new book.

Here's the short version of the interview.


It's a big week for Jane Lynch. Her memoir, Happy Accidents, was released on Tuesday, and this Sunday night, she'll be hosting the Primetime Emmy Awards. And she's a reasonably good bet to pick one up, too: her second in a row for playing the scheming cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on Fox's Glee. On Friday's Morning Edition, she talks to David Greene about her career, her book, and the difficult process of telling her parents she was gay.

Lynch learned perseverance early after she quit a school play in which she'd been cast because she was afraid of making mistakes. Despite the fact that wanting to be an actress was her "first conscious memory," she became so afraid of failing that she walked away from the project. "That is the last time I walked away from anything," she says. "I've been a yes person now for a long time."

One person to whom she eagerly said yes was director Christopher Guest, whose work on so-called "mockumentaries" like This Is Spinal Tap and Waiting For Guffman she already admired when she met him when he directed her in a commercial for Frosted Flakes. Lynch and Guest ran into each other again later, and he cast her in his 2000 film Best In Show, where she played one-half of a dog-showing couple opposite Jennifer Coolidge. She went on to appear in Guest's A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration, as well as Judd Apatow's wildly popular The 40 Year Old Virgin, where she played Steve Carell's sexually accommodating boss who sings him what she says is a Guatemalan love song. As Lynch explains, though, the words come from a Spanish textbook and in fact vow to blame her mother for cleaning her room.

But in spite of her many successes, Lynch says it wasn't easy for her when she told her parents she was gay. "I went to see a therapist," she says, "because I was just suffering so much over this alienation I felt from my family." The therapist convinced her to try writing her parents a letter, with the understanding that, of course, she didn't have to send it. But when she wrote it and the words came easily, she sent it after all — which, she says, was undoubtedly the point of the exercise.

As she cruises into her high-profile hosting gig this weekend, Lynch says she's learned a lot about how to approach her own limitations: "I think the most important thing is that it's not like I'm done growing and evolving, but I certainly have so much more compassion and kindness for myself, and I have cut myself some slack."

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For the long version - or if you'd rather listen than read - follow this link and click on Listen To The Story.

Judgment Day

According to sources, this Saturday - May 21 - is Judgment Day.

Here are four perspectives.


My Friend Steve

In discussing the upcoming New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, he guides his readers:
Maybe you’re afraid you’ll be Raptured this weekend and don’t want to make any big plans. That’s understandable, but I am here to help. If you fear you may be a divine bubble-team, a potential at-large participant on Selection Saturday, you still have time to ensure this is not so. Here’s a handy list of activities. Make sure you do a few of these over the next day or so and you can rest easy that your name will be wiped from the Rapture list, freeing you for dinner next Wednesday. You can thank me at MiLa.

1. Assert that the earth is more than 4000 years old
2. Believe in evolution
3. Treat someone gay as, like, just another human being
4. Dance (see Footloose for more information)
5. Refuse to handle snakes
6. Commit a crime against nature (this is an advanced strategy)


My Friend Jason




My Current Favorite TV Show Ever - This Week (Supernatural)

The series's Season 4 Episode 20 episode entitled The Rapture (click the link to see the episode) is described as:
Castiel appears to Dean in a dream and says he has something important to tell him but they need to meet somewhere private. Dean and Sam go searching for Castiel but instead find Jimmy, Castiel’s human vessel, who has only a spotty recollection of being an angel. Jimmy wants to return to his family and normal life, but Dean and Sam are concerned about his safety.



This movie (or Arnold Schwarzenegger's current situation)



New Post This...Sunday (May 22)

The 50 Best Gay Movies

For those interested, AfterElton.com did a poll of the 50 Best Gay Movies.

If you don't want the details on each movie, but only the list, here you go (with the ones in bold the ones I've seen):
1 Brokeback Mountain (2005)
2 Shelter (2007)
3 Latter Days (2003)
4 Milk (2008)
5 A Beautiful Thing (1996)
6 Get Real (1998)
7 Maurice (1987)
8 Were the World Mine (2008)
9 Trick (1999)
10 Juste Une Question D'amour (Just a Question of Love) (2000)
11 Big Eden (2000)
12 The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994)
13 Torch Song Trilogy (1988)
14 Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom (2008)
15 Broken Hearts Club (2000)
16 Angels in America (2003)
17 Longtime Companion (1990)
18 Jeffrey (1995)
19 Sommersturm (2004)
20 All Over the Guy (2001)
21 Mysterious Skin (2004)
22 Philadelphia (1993)
23 Burnt Money (2000)
24 Birdcage (1996)
25 Edge of Seventeen (1998)
26 My Beautiful Laundrette (1985)
27 Boy Culture (2006)
28 Parting Glances (1986)
29 Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
30 The Trip (2002)
31 Shortbus (2006)
32 The Boys in the Band (1970)
33 Yossi and Jagger (2002)
34 Another Gay Movie (2006)
35 The Bubble (2006)
36 The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
37 C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005)
38 Coffee Date (2006)
39 Making Love (1982)
40 Prayers for Bobby (2009)
41 East Side Story (2006)
42 Love Songs (Les Chansons D'Amour) (2007)
43 Mambo Italiano (2003)
44 Adam & Steve (2005)
45 In and Out (1997)
46 My Own Private Idaho (1991)
47 Rent Count (2005)
48 Eating Out (2004)
49 Mulligans (2008)
50 Transamerica (2005)

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How many of these have you seen?

I have been working on my own Top Ten Gay Movies of All Time list for awhile. I'll get around to posting it one day.

Mystery Solved

Remember the guy in the below photo? He is the mystery actor described in this post.

Carlos figured out who he is. We were watching Runaway Jury yesterday morning and recognized him. His name is Cliff Curtis. Here is his official IMDB photo.


Here is his bio via IMDB:

Cliff Curtis was born in Rotorua, Aotearoa, New Zealand, on July 27, 1968.

Of New Zealand Maori descent (Ngati Hauiti, Te Arawa) he spent time when young learning the traditional Maori fighting styles of mau rakau. He enrolled at the New Zealand Drama School, and then the Teatro Dmitri Scoula in Switzerland.

After returning to Aotearoa New Zealand from Europe, he was cast in The Piano (1993). Subsequent roles in New Zealand include the camp melodrama Desperate Remedies (1993), the gruelling urban drama Once Were Warriors (1994), and the lighthearted comedy Jubilee (2000).

In Hollywood, Curtis has played a range of different roles and ethnicities in films. He plays a Colombian in Blow (2001), an Arab in Three Kings (1999) and The Insider (1999), a Latino in Training Day (2001) and Runaway Jury (2003), and a drug dealer of ambiguous ethnicity in Bringing Out the Dead (1999). However, he is probably best known for his role as Paikea's father Porourangi, in Whale Rider (2002).

Carlos has a great memory. He said that he couldn't remember the guy's name, but remembered that he had starred along Bruce Willis in a movie. We can now confirm that movie is Live Free or Die Hard.

Dead Pool

Remember the 1988 Clint Eastwood movie The Dead Pool? I haven't actually seen it, but I can relate to it. I keep track of celebrities who have died.

Some days when Carlos and I talk after work, I open the conversation with, "Guess who died today." (Carlos, who keeps up with pop culture as much as I do, usually knows the answer.)

I subscribe to the newsletter for the website Who's Alive and Who's Dead - including daily bulletins for very famous people.

I receive the daily and weekly posts from the associated Yahoo Group.

CNN sends me daily bulletins.

All so that I can know information like Jill Clayburgh's death was announced yesterday.


I have never played the game The Dead Pool, but I may play this year. Once I have my list - and after I post it to The Dead Pool - I'll post it here.

To Do List

Carlos is out of town this weekend, visiting his sister in Montgomery. (He isn't coming back until late Monday. I just got back from a few days in Fort Walton Beach, Florida with some of our friends so I didn't want to take any more time off.)

I guess I could have ensconced myself in porn and candy all weekend. Instead, I thought I would go through my ever growing To Do List.

Over time, as I think of ideas, I write them down on little sheets of paper, totaling around 40 right now. As I organize them, I thought I'd take you through the journey. (I'm skipping listing ones like "Call Steve back." and "Weed cucumber garden." I don't think those points are of any interest to you.)

Add to DVR:
- America's Test Kitchen (PBS)
- If you Really Knew Me (MTV) I have to keep at least one teen oriented show on my DVR list. I recently finally dropped Degrassi: The Next Generation.
- Locked Up Abroad (Nat Geo) The episode describing the true life story that inspired the movie Midnight Express is coming next week.

Visit Jeep dealerships
I think I want my next car to be a Jeep


Create menu for August Family Dinner
My younger sister Claudia and her family are coming back in town for a week near the end of July. Our immediate family rotates hosting dinner the first Monday of each month. August is my turn (with a bit of help from Carlos). To coincide with Claudia's visit, we're moving the dinner back a bit. I am thinking simple: French bread, cheese, wine, salad, potato salad, hot dogs, chili, pudding. I am still working out the details.

Add to Netflix queue:
- When You're Strange (a Doors documentary)
- Better Off Dead (for a planned John Cusack 80's teen trilogy weekend)
- One Crazy Summer (ditto) Savage Steve Holland directed both Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer - and one of my other favorite 80's teen movies, How I Got Into College, starring a young Laura Flynn Boyle and a cute Corey Parker. I wonder whatever happened to him?
- The Sure Thing (ditto)
- It Might Get Loud (to see Jimmy Page)
- Prodigal Sons (documentary - "star of the high school football team comes home to his 20 year high school reunion as a woman.")

Add to Amazon Wish List:
- 100 Greatest Comic Books - Jerry Weist and Jim Steranko
- Mr. Peanut - Adam Ross
- New Orleans Kitchens: Recipes from the Big Easy's Best Restaurants - Troy Gilbert & Stacey Meyer (Troy and I worked together at Kinko's in the early 1990's.)


To Buy:
- iPhone holder
- This Arch vase (pictured below top) that I saw in a recent issue of Cooking Light magazine
- The Pivotrim - that I saw on late night TV, to help with my yard work, but I want to do tons of research first
- Thumb Wine Decanter (pictured below bottom), that I saw at a party Carlos and I attended recently





Listen to the Paul Pena CD that Karen at work lent me.
We were listening to WWOZ at work recently and the song Jet Airliner came on. I had always assumed that The Steve Miller Band did the original version. I was wrong. Here is the original, Paul Pena version:


Check out:
- Discoveries Furniture and Finds on N. Rampart Street in Downtown New Orleans
- St. James Cheese Company

Find Pictures of Jay Hayden
He's the guy in this popular commercial:

It took me almost 2 months to research his name!

Download Songs (legally, of course):
- Dierks Bentley - Pride (In the Name of Love), a U2 cover
- Thinkin' 'Bout Something - Hansen (to sample their new CD)
- And I Waited - Hansen (ditto)
- Anything by the band Tinted Windows (From Wikipedia: "Tinted Windows is an American rock supergroup formed by guitarist James Iha, previously of The Smashing Pumpkins, singer Taylor Hanson of Hanson, bassist Adam Schlesinger of Fountains of Wayne and Ivy, and Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick.") I'm curious to hear what they sound like.
- Anything by the band The Decemberists (I heard them on WTUL yesterday and really liked them.)

Okay, I have to get busy.

More Quotes I Live By

[For the original list, go here.]

"I've always believed that when you work hard and are kind to people, wonderful things will happen. And some of those wonderful things will happen to you." - Wil Wheaton


“Maturity is: The ability to stick with a job until it's finished; The ability to do a job without being supervised; The ability to carry money without spending it; and The ability to bear an injustice without wanting to get even” - Abigail Van Buren

Halloween

Carlos and I spent the Halloween weekend watching scary movies.

Friday night, we went to Jason’s house. He had Shawn of the Dead picked out for us to watch. Everyone at the party was too involved in conversation to really watch it. Since most of the people had already seen it, it was the perfect movie for that part of the party.

We then figured out how to stream movies from Netflix. After some discussion, Julie recommended 1974’s Black Christmas. (She had seen the remake, but not the original so the movie was new to everyone.)


The synopsis: It's time for Christmas break, and the sorority sisters make plans for the holiday, but the strange anonymous phone calls are beginning to put them on edge. When Clare disappears, they contact the police, who don't express much concern. Meanwhile Jess is planning to get an abortion, but boyfriend Peter is very much against it. The police finally begin to get concerned when a 13-year-old girl is found dead in the park. They set up a wiretap to the sorority house, but will they be in time to prevent a sorority girl attrition problem?

The movie stars Olivia Hussey (earlier in Romeo and Juliet with Leonard Whiting), Keir Dullea (Dave from 2001: A Space Odyssey), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane from Superman), and Andrea Martin (from SCTV). Debbie said that she looked like Howard Stern.

Trivia: Andrea Martin is the only actor to appear in both the original version and the 2006 remake.

Jason’s internet connection messed up four minutes before the end of the movie. We don’t know how it ended. I think the man in the fur coat is the killer. Carlos and I are going to watch the finale later today. I’ll post an update.

Jason’s version of his party can be found here.

For Saturday night, I picked one movie that both Carlos and I have seen before, but scares the shit out of us – The Descent.


The synopsis: A caving expedition goes horribly wrong.

I purposely made that very brief. I don’t want to give anything away.

He and I watched the first hour of the movie with just a few candles burning – all the lights off. We agreed to then turn the movie off. We were getting too freaked out.

Carlos said that I should finish watching the movie during the day – after he is gone. I think that misses the point of a scary movie. I have shipped it back to Netflix.

One day, we’ll get through the whole thing.

There is a sequel coming out in 2010. All six of the original actors are listed as being in the cast of the new movie. Hmmmm. There must be a lot of flashback sequences.

Carlos and I then watched Trick r Treat, recommended to me by one of the members of a Yahoo Group I’m in called Queer Fear. Great recommendation! Though I think I liked it a bit more than Carlos did.


He did like that one of the stars was Tahmoh Penikett. He's a huge fan of Battlestar Gallactica.

The synopsis: Five interwoven stories that occur on the same block, on the same night. A couple finds what happens when they blow a jack o' lantern out before midnight, a high school principal has a secret life as a serial killer, a college virgin might have met the right guy for her, a group of mean teens play a prank that they take too far, and a hermit is visited by a special trick or treater.

The tone reminded us of the 1982 movie Creepshow. (Did you know there was a Creepshow 2 in 1987 and a Creepshow 3 in 2006?) The movie was definitely scary and gory, but had some humor about it too.

Here are the trailers for the movie -

Trailer #1:


Trailer #2:


Grades (out of 10):
Black Christmas – 6
Shawn of the Dead – 7 (based on past viewing)
The Descent – 9
Trick r Treat - 8

The Best Movies of 2009 - So Far

I am working on this year's end of year Best of lists.

Here are – alphabetically – what I think are the best movies of 2009 - so far. (Main criteria for the list: A positive to “Would I see the movie a second or third time in the theatre?”)


(500) Days of Summer
Adventureland
District 9
Monsters vs Aliens
Star Trek
Where The Wild Things Are
Zombieland

I’m also working on my Worst of list. Coming soon.

Bennie and the 27 Dresses

One day I'll have to make a top ten list of Top Ten Best Uses of an Elton John Song in a Movie.

Until then, here's an addition to my Almost Famous coupled with Tiny Dancer post -

27 Dresses coupled with Bennie and the Jets.



Bonus: It has one of my Top 20 Favorite Stars of All Time - James Marsden. (Here's my original post. James Marsden is #11!.)

Cleaning Out The Attic

Whenever I have an idea for a blog post, I scribble it on a sheet of paper, later transferring it to a Word file.

I have tons of Word files.

Tonight I'm going to clear out a lot of them.

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Sometimes the ideas are just the title of the Word file, that I know for sure I will remember later the significance, but of course over time forget. Song titles seem to be a popular starting point for me:
Desolation Boulevard (the name of an album by Sweet)
Love Vigilantes (the name of a song by New Order)
Tiny Dancer (from Elton John, resurrected by Cameron Crowe)

The references for the first two are lost to me, but my best guess about Tiny Dancer is that I wanted to discuss "Music Heals All Wounds" or "Cameron Crowe" as one of the answers to "Name the people in history you would like to have dinner with."

Here's the clip from Cameron Crowe's movie Almost Famous to help explain the former. The set up: Billy Crudup ditched the band to go party. The next morning he is found. The scene opens with the band's manager wishing the party goers goodbye, while the rest of the band are still resentful that Billy disappeared. Music heals the wound...


I have before mentioned how cool I think Dave Grohl is. Here is another reason:




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Sometimes the ideas are snippets of thoughts:
- Scott and the bus stop trash can
- $5000 bank error in my favor
- Larry Tyler Moore Parties
- My job: Like a frog in water slowly boiling
- Paw Paw Was A Rolling Stone (We called my grandfather "Paw Paw")
- The Sauna and Super Balls
- In early 2009, I was an expert witness for a case involving the hospital I work with.
- Artificial Hoops
- The Monty Hall Paradox

Expanding on the last one: I have always been fascinated with math, math problems and math puzzles. The more complex the better!

In college, I tested out of my first two semesters of math. I got an A in both my third and fourth semesters. To make extra money, I tutored in the Math Lab during my freshman and sophomore years. I was even a math major for one semester. (When I discovered that I would have to take advanced calculus, I changed my major. Not because I was scared of the challenge. Because the course was only offered at 8 am five days a week. Back then, sleeping late was more important to me.)

Here is the best explanation of the Monty Hall Paradox/Problem that I have found. Plus David Krumholtz is kinda cute.



Or if you're a Kevin Spacey fan, here is a clip from the movie 21 explaining the same thing...


Any of those snippets could be turned into a 1000+ word blog post. I just never seem to run out of current thoughts to explore in details my past ones.

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I am also a big fan of lists. Here are some lists that I never finished enough to blog about...

Name the people in history you would like to have dinner with:
Bob Costas
Larry Mullen Jr.
Jeff Buckley (RIP)
Ryan Adams
Cameron Crowe

Why do I want to have dinner with them? I need time to discuss. That's the reason I haven't posted about that subject yet.



The Top 10 songs of the 1980's:
Change - Tears For Fears
I Melt with You - Modern English
The Great Commandment - Camouflage
The Promise - When In Rome
Dreaming – OMD
Just Like Heaven or The Lovecats or Boys Don't Cry - The Cure
Strangelove or Nothing (or really anything from their album Music for the Masses) - Depeche Mode
Don’t You Want Me - Human League
A Little Respect – Erasure

I can't finish the list because I could add to that list forever - and I can't narrow my choices down to ten.

As you can see, I was a fan of New Wave, pop and dance music in the 1980's. Interestingly though, back in the 1980's I was actually listening to Led Zeppelin and other classic rock gods much, much more than any of those other types of music. I don't think of any classic rock as having a time period. That music to me is timeless.

Here is the video for Camouflage's The Great Commandment. No matter how much I prod, Carlos swears he has never heard this song before.


And here is The Promise, When In Rome's only hit. This is my cousin Casie's Favorite Song of All Time...


I can't find a video for Depeche Mode's Nothing. How about a cute guy lip syncing to it?


In 1987, I was living in our fraternity house. That same year, I was the co-Social Chairman (along with my friends Todd and Sean. More on them one day soon), which meant in part that we had to plan and play the music for our parties.

Imagine 100+ (straight) frat boys dancing to Depeche Mode's Strangelove...


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This summary post of Cleaning Out The Attic is long. Imagine how long the actual posts could have been.


I do have enough material to fill another really long post, but I will stop here. I will finish this post with...


Quotes I Live By

Again, the explanation of each could fill a blog post...

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut." - Ernest Hemingway

"Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar." - Benjamin Franklin

"It is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." - Grace Hopper

"Alcohol. The cause of - and solution to - all of life's problems." - Homer Simpson

Wil Wheaton & Stand By Me

Wil Wheaton's blog is one of the handful I eagerly await a new entry from. Yes, the actor - and now writer. I recommend his 2004 book Just a Geek.

Here's an excerpt from his most recent entry, along with the picture he is referring to.

This photo captures our personalities perfectly: River and Corey are focused and serious (Corey is even wearing a tie and drinking coffee!) I am listening to the same person they are, but I'm not even trying to contain how excited I am to be going on a television show that I had been watching with my Aunt Val since I could remember, in front of the whole country, no less.

My favorite part of this picture, though, is Jerry. It's almost like he caught my mom or dad taking this picture of us, and decided to strike a pose, just to be silly. I just love that he isn't taking the thing too seriously, and that he's just having fun and enjoying the whole thing. As I got older and began to feel like the teen magazine publicity stuff was taking over my life, it stopped being fun, and it started to feel like a chore. I always envied that Jerry seemed to take it all in stride, keep it in perspective, and just have fun with it. I heard him on the Adam Carolla podcast about a week or so ago, and he hadn't changed a bit: still silly, still cracking me up, still keeping everything in perspective.


I've always said that Stand By Me was so successful because Rob cast four young actors who were so much like their characters, but I think it's spooky how the four of us ended up being so much like our characters: River died too young, Corey struggled like crazy to get his personal demons under control, Jerry found success and happiness, and I'm a writer.

You can read his entire blog entry here. It's much longer than what I posted.

Here's a link to the ending of the movie. Scroll over to around the 6:45 minute mark. From there until the end makes me tear up every time.

Top Male Stars of All Time - Part II

I have that neat little device called FEEDJIT Live Traffic Feed that lists which web site each hit comes from, which site the person leaves to, and which specific blog page the person initially enters.

My friend Debbie obsesses about that information.

My friend Jason mentioned it in one of his entries, but I can’t find the specific entry right now. (Jason – Link please?)

Invariably, the specific page that draws my visitors (right now, 6 of the current 10 listings) is Top Ten Favorite Male Stars of All Time, usually from a Google image search.

Since that page is so popular, I thought I would revisit it. Then round out my Top Twenty.

Recap of the Top Ten:
1. James Duval
2. Stephane Rideau
3. Ryan Phillippe
4. Tommy Kirk
5. River Phoenix
6. William McNamara
7. Kevin Zegers
8. Ethan Embry
9. Steve Antin
10. Peter Facinelli

The Top Ten List has remained constant over the years. The rest of the list, leading to #20, does change.

Here is my current list, with pictures (click them to see larger) and some information on each person.





#11
Name: James Marsden
Current Age: 35
Where You Probably Know Him From: Cyclops in the X-Men movies
Where I Discovered Him: The 1996-1997 TV show Second Noah
Best Place To See His Body: He has long shirtless scenes in the movies Heights and Sugar & Spice, and the TV show Second Noah. He has never done frontal or rear nudity.
Has He Ever Played Gay?: In the movie The 24th Day and at least one other. (I don’t want to reveal the other movie. I consider it a SPOILER.)
Sexual Orientation: Straight.
Did You Know?: He isn’t known for his singing, but sings (well) in the TV series Ally McBeal, and the movies Hairspray and Enchanted. Although not related to actor Jason Marsden, they are actually good friends and their respective wives have been friends since they were six.





#12
Name: Jim Verraros
Current Age: 26
Where You Probably Know Him From: Season one of American Idol
Where I Discovered Him: American Idol
Best Place To See His Body: Google search (for magazine photo shoots)
Has He Ever Played Gay?: In the movies Eating Out and Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds. He doesn’t show any skin in either one.
Sexual Orientation: Gay. Came out in The Advocate in 2002.
Did You Know?: Both his parents are deaf.


#13
Name: Kal Penn
Current Age: 32
Where You Probably Know Him From: “Kumar” from the three Harold & Kumar movies.
Where I Discovered Him: The movie Van Wilder
Best Place To See His Body: The movies Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (rear nude) and The Namesake (shirtless)
Has He Ever Played Gay?: Not that I can find
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: His real name is Kalpen Modi.






#14
Name: Sal Mineo
Current Age: Killed by a mugger in 1976, age 37.
Where You Probably Know Him From: “Plato” in Rebel Without A Cause
Where I Discovered Him: Krakatoa: East of Java – late night TV when I was a kid
Best Place To See His Body: The movie The Gene Krupa Story (shirtless) and the Harold Stevenson's painting The New Adam (full frontal nude)
Has He Ever Played Gay?: He was smitten with Jim Stark (James Dean) in Rebel. He played opposite Don Johnson in the 1971 gay-themed play Fortune and Men’s Eyes.
Sexual Orientation: Came out in the early 1970’s.
Did You Know?: In 1957, he had a #9 single called “Start Movin’ (In My Direction)”




#15
Name: Ian Somerhalder
Current Age: 30
Where You Probably Know Him From: “Boone” in the TV show Lost
Where I Discovered Him: The very short-lived TV show (8 episodes in 2000) Young Americans – written by my #9 favorite Steve Antin.
Best Place To See His Body: The movies The Rules of Attraction, In Enemy Hands, and Marco Polo (shirtless), and the TV show Tell Me You Love Me (obscured frontal view)
Has He Ever Played Gay?: Yes, in The Rules of Attraction
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: He’s from Covington, LA – right over the Causeway Bridge from my house. No, you probably didn’t – or cared.





#16
Name: Danny Nucci
Current Age: 40
Where You Probably Know Him From: Leonardo Dicaprio’s doomed friend from the movie Titanic
Where I Discovered Him: A 1986 episode of the TV show Growing Pains.
Best Place To See His Body: The movies Sublet (shirtless), Shark In A Bottle (rear nude), and the TV show Some of My Best Friends (shirtless)
Has He Ever Played Gay?: The movie The Unknown Cyclist and maybe other times
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: He was born in Austria, was raised in Italy, and moved to America in 1976.




#17
Name: Rafael Nadal
Current Age: 23
Where You Probably Know Him From: Watching tennis
Where I Discovered Him: The same
Best Place To See His Body: The cover of a magazine, a Google search, or The Tennis Channel
Has He Ever Played Gay?: N/A
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: He is the only male player to have won French Open, Wimbledon, and Olympic gold medal in the same year (2008).






#18
Name: Logan Marshall-Green
Current Age: 32
Where You Probably Know Him From: Played “Trey Atwood” on the TV show The O.C.
Where I Discovered Him: Played “Tyler Fogg” on the short-lived 2007 TV series Traveler
Best Place To See His Body: Short shirtless scene in a movie/TV show that I cannot yet identify
Has He Ever Played Gay?: Not that I know of, though he does more theatre work than movies/TV
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: He has a twin brother named Taylor Marshall-Green.



#19
Name: Andy Roddick
Current Age: 26
Where You Probably Know Him From: Tennis on TV
Where I Discovered Him: A tennis tournament that I was watching in 2000 that he won the day he turned 18. I don’t remember the name of it. I just remember never hearing of him before watching that.
Best Place To See His Body: a Google search
Has He Ever Played Gay?: N/A
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: Roddick hosted Saturday Night Live on November 8, 2003, becoming the second professional tennis player to host (Chris Evert being the first).


#20
Name: Jesse Spencer
Current Age: 30
Where You Probably Know Him From: Plays “Dr. Robert Chase” on the TV show House, though he hasn’t gotten much screen time in the last couple of years.
Where I Discovered Him: In the 2003 movie Swimming Upstream
Best Place To See His Body: That movie – he’s in a Speedo for most of the time.
Has He Ever Played Gay?: No
Sexual Orientation: Straight
Did You Know?: He is fluent in French.





As I mentioned in the original entry, if you enjoy male stars, you really should join my Yahoo group MaleStarsShirtless. And be sure to check out my other blog of the same name.