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This is a playlist (LISTEN LISTEN!) I had originally created during a work trip to Asia in late 2008. I would listen to it on the ferry ride to and from our office in Hong Kong to my hotel on Kowloon. Although I recalled going through a very intense Bob Dylan phase during that time period, the playlist served as the perfect background to a boat ride staring at a real life version of “Blade Runner” for 45 minutes everyday. The Bard just wouldn’t have cut it. I revisited it recently after hearing some new tunes that I thought would slot in nicely. I’ve also discovered that it kind of reminds me of trying on clothes at Banana Republic. Oh well, I enjoy it anyways. I hope you do too.
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Tony lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend and his brother. He enjoys music and fresh-baked cookies. He will not apologize for being a fan of Crowded House. Follow him at twitter.com/tonyvontz . His other pieces are NOT to be missed, including RIP Alex Chilton, A Lil Bit of Country, Winter Beard Playlist and Best Music of 2009 List.
I have read 26 scripts since 9:00 this morning, and my eyes are beginning to cross. I’m doing coverage for money now, until I find a real job, and I’m acutely aware that some poor screenwriter’s fate is in my hands as I evaluate their life’s work with a Vanilla Ice Blended in one hand and my television remote in the other. I’m using a pseudonym for my coverage, Shippy Shipwright, so that I might still be taken seriously as a real writer, and I’m thinking of adopting this pseudonym for other areas of my life as well, so when I screw up and blab someone’s deepest, darkest secret, Shippy gets the blame for it.
In order to make my rent next month, I need to do about 150 more sets of coverage, so I call one of the interns from the company I just left. She doesn’t know I quit, so I tell her I’m working from home for a few days. The intern has purple nail polish and bright hot pink curly hair, and she does really great coverage. She’s also a screenwriter, and her script, which is set on Mars, won a contest I helped arrange, which is how I found her.
The Intern comes to my apartment to collect some scripts from me, and we start chatting. After a few glasses of wine, I’m considering asking her to have a threesome with my Insignificant Other, but I don’t know if that’s too much to ask. The Aspiring Actor I have been dating (and not dating) for three months is quite obviously not just looking for the love of an okay woman: if he is going to commit to someone full-time, he wants added benefits. I tried to break things off with him when I quit my job last week, but I couldn’t take all that change, so instead of gradually not returning his calls, I made up a new sexy girlfriend I met at Barry’s Boot Camp: Shippy Shipwright, who has seen his picture and can’t wait to meet him.
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D-GIRL was a development girl in Hollywood and New York City for many years. While finding projects for actors, directors and producers to make into movies, she amassed a number of salacious tales of questionable morality that became an internet column entitled “D-Girl Diary.” She left show business to become a full-time writer in 2001.
Please have your listen HERE.
I had planned on making a super shit kicking country rock mix for this Friday, but then Alex Chilton died and the plans changed. Alex Chilton has had a profound impact on your musical life even if you have no idea who he is. If you have no idea who he is, shame on you. Go to iTunes, type in Big Star and buy every song that comes up. Without Big Star, Chilton’s seminal early 70s rock band, we may have never gotten to hear REM, The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, or the Hold Steady. The music genealogy of most of my favorite music of the past twenty years leads straight back to Chilton and Big Star. Yes, the dude was that big of a deal. It is sad to think that his early death adds yet another grim chapter to the Big Star story that began with so much beautiful, soaring pop rock music.
While I’ve kept a few of my favorite country rock chestnuts on the list, I kick off the mix with one of my favorite Chilton Big Star compositions, as well as sprinkle in some songs from bands that never would have happened without his genius. I hope you enjoy, and I hope the publicity surrounding Chilton’s early death will only serve to further expose the gifts he gave to the world.
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Tony lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend and his brother. He enjoys music and fresh-baked cookies. He will not apologize for being a fan of Crowded House. Follow him at twitter.com/tonyvontz.
You are quite silly to miss his latest spinout entitled March Madness Playlist and other crits including Winter Beard Playlist and Best Music of 2009 List.
(image: Classic Four Piece)
This morning I brought a box to work. It was just a plain old empty box, and when I got to the office I filled it with my stuff, said goodbye to the Iranian girl who is the only one in my company still talking to me, and walked out the door. I don’t know if anyone even noticed. My lawyer was the one who advised me to do this, she said the stress of working in such a hostile environment was making me sicker, and I suppose it was, but I hate to give my New Boss the satisfaction of winning our little war. As I walk down the path from our office building to my car, I realize I thought this would feel more liberating, as I’m quitting as opposed to getting fired, but instead I’m scared to death. I haven’t gotten paid yet for writing the television pilot, and who knows if they will ever pay me now that I have quit my job on them. I got a small check for the rights to the internet column, but that will barely cover my bills for the next two months. When my company decided to turn my internet column into a television show I thought that was my Big Break. Turns out it was just a small break. Another small break was the deal the Notorious Book Publisher offered me for the rights to the novelized version of my column: that was an even tinier break. I will be able to buy some new underwear and a magazine with that money. I always thought a book deal and a burgeoning television show would mean I would finally not have to worry about money for a while, but apparently I will never be rich.
Luckily I still have friends in Hollywood, and only five minutes after I put out the word I’m looking for a job, I have a job interview. They say love is all timing, and jobs are no different. I don’t have time to change, but luckily I dressed up for my dramatic exit this morning, and I drive over the Hill to the Universal Lot hoping by some miracle I land this job. The job is to be Creative Executive for a man who produced The Sixth Sense, among other movies. I wonder if I should mention to him that when that movie came out I thought of making a short film called The Seventh Sense, about a guy who has heightened gaydar. The opening shot in the movie would have been a man on an exercise bike looking out over a city. Through all the windows in the neighboring buildings, he sees Gay men in various states of undress, and he says, predictably, “I see Gay People.” When I sit down with the Producer, though I immediately can see he does not have a sense of humor, so I keep my little spoof idea to myself.
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D-Girl Diary tomorrow! (d girls image artist Tashina Suzuki)
March Madness (listen)
In what I hope becomes a regular occurrence, I have posted a playlist of actual music for your listening pleasure. Where I would normally just post the names of a bunch of people and songs and pray that someone, somewhere still participates in the act of buying music, I am now delivering the sounds straight to your computer. Since it is Friday, the weather is nice, and it would technically be Spring Break if I was not an old bastard, I have kept things upbeat.
We get started with an instrumental banger from Dennis Wilson’s magnum opus “Pacific Ocean Blue,” and then go down to the bayou for two of the singer-songwriter era’s best kept secrets in Tony Joe White (could someone’s music sound more appropriate for a person with a name as awesome as Tony Joe White?) and Bobby Charles. Beth Ortonand Lissie represent for the ladies, while Vetiver and Monsters of Folkkeep it real for the bearded set. San Francisco’s The Dodos bring almost uncomfortable levels of sincerity, melody and propulsive rhythm, and Atlas Sound and Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox combine for what is the most instantly catchy song of either of their critically lauded careers.
Devendra Banhart, Citay and Girls represent the Bay Area. If you’ve read my posts in the past you know how I feel about Girls. If you remain uncertain about Devendra Banhart, his most recent record may be the one to draw you in. It’s produced with buttery vintage thickness by Paul Butler from A Band of Bees. A couple pleasant breezy strummers from the new Midlake and Citay records slows things down, and Dolly kicks it back up with a shit kicking ode to white trash pride.
Kurt Vile has occupied a special place in my heart over the past two years with his unique production work (both on his own records, and on War on Drugs’ debu), voice, and guitar work. ”Freeway” is the hit that never was for Kurt Vile (his actual name, that, much like Tony Joe White, is way too appropriate for the music he creates). Yeasayer and Kiwi imports Ruby Suns bring a touch of four on the floor, and the inimitable Arthur Russell closes things out with a letter for you.
Enjoy!
Tony Joe Vontz
Tony lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend and his brother. He enjoys music and fresh-baked cookies. He will not apologize for being a fan of Crowded House. Follow him at twitter.com/tonyvontz . His other pieces are NOT to be missed, including Winter Beard Playlist and Best Music of 2009 List.
(photo: Mendocino County, 1974)
When I was in Junior High School in Massachusetts, I had a fight scheduled with another girl almost every day after school. Girls would constantly ask me to fight them, I guess it was because I was really small but I had a big mouth. I only won one of these fights, and that was because I hit a girl in the mouth who had braces and she started bleeding and stopped fighting me. All of the Tough Girls at that school hated me, mostly because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut during class; they slashed the tires on my Mom’s car when she came to see me play the drums in a band concert and I couldn’t walk to the local library after school without fearing for my life. I used to hide on the path between the school and the library until all the Tough Girls left for the day, and I remember distinctly one day a tall girl who was about 16 and still in the eighth grade chasing me down the street while wheeling a baby carriage, cursing at me with a lit cigarette in her hand. It was a rough town, a small factory town, and not the actual town my family lived in, as I lived in a town too small to have a Junior High School. We moved away after my eighth grade year and I came back once to visit my best friend and go to the Annual Town Fair. Even though years had passed, I got followed around that day by some Tough Girl still angry at me for wise cracking at her during Science Class.
I am an adult now, and no longer get into fist fights with girls, but much of the conflict in my life still stems from my Big Mouth, and Hollywood is a lot like Junior High School. Every day lately, at some point, I start to get the same queasy feeling I got when I was younger and the end of the school day approached: the feeling that sometime later that day, I was going to get the crap beat out of me. Only one spunky Iranian girl at work has the guts to talk to me, everyone else has been instructed not to speak to me because my Big Boss is afraid I will sue the company for firing me for having Multiple Sclerosis. I had no intention of suing when this first happened, I was happy to learn I still had a job, but the New Producing Partner is now on a mission to make my life so miserable I will quit, and once again I am being called out to the playground to fight someone twice my size.
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D-Girl Diary tomorrow!
(d girls image artist Tashina Suzuki)
Right around the corner from Bourdain’s orignal meat house, a spot, perhaps you may have seen him as he slipped out the back of the kitchen for a shot of grain alcohol. A juke joint filled with jazz, sexy vibes and a back room to act them out. Just a cool crowd–a downtown place in a Flatiron body. Remember in the early aught’s the Flatiron was like an empty warehouse ? See the old Madison Square Park, Billy’Stopless, Tramps, and of course the staple – Curry in a Hurry ….more on these spots later.
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Rasta J is old New Yorker still in love with the city. R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Bumbleclot….
(image: Shanna Ravindra/NYM)
I have not called in sick to work in years, maybe ever, but two weeks ago I was having a bad day, my left arm has been going numb for a while now, it crawls all the way up my cheek and lasts for a few minutes, and I finally just called in sick. The day before I called in sick I was in a meeting with my Boss and a Super Star singer/actress and my arm fell asleep and creeped up the side of my face. The Singer was nice about it, but I figured maybe I should rest, see a doctor, and admit I am sometimes sick for just one day. I am sitting at the doctor with an IV of steroids in my arm when my Boss’ new producing partner calls my cell phone. She has only been at our company for three weeks, and her voice has a phony ring of concern as she asks me if maybe in light of my recent flare-up of Multiple Sclerosis I should consider taking some time off. By time off, she goes on to say, she means a few months, and then I should get a job somewhere else. I can barely lift my head from the pillow in the hospital room as I gasp, “Are you firing me?” She sighs, as if this is the hardest thing she has ever had to do. “I just don’t think you can handle this job,” she says faux-sadly.
There is a flurry of activity that includes my Mother, who is a right-wing politician, calling my Boss and demanding to know if her daughter just got fired for having Multiple Sclerosis, and a letter being delivered to my hospital bed signed by no less than eight lawyers calling the whole event a “mistake”. Hospital beds, lawyers, concerned mothers, panicked Bosses, none of this is familiar territory for me and my prevailing thought is what could I have done to make this Producer hate me so much? I will admit I don’t like her much, but I didn’t know she knew that, and I was just getting used to having a job again, a real Hollywood job with buck slips and business cards and my own little office. Even though my Boss hired me back as soon as I called to tell him what happened, I have a feeling nothing is ever going to be the same for me at this job again.
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D-GIRL was a development girl in Hollywood and New York City for many years. While finding projects for actors, directors and producers to make into movies, she amassed a number of salacious tales of questionable morality that became an internet column entitled “D-Girl Diary.” She left show business to become a full-time writer in 2001.
(d girls image artist Tashina Suzuki)
I am feeling very overwhelmed lately with a sudden influx of job/writing career/relationship success, its hard to keep it all straight but I am certain the Private Investigator my insurance company has sent to keep an eye on me will sort it all out. I don’t think he has much else to do except sit out front of my apartment building behind his tinted windows watching my stream of male admirers enter and exit, and I wonder if they will cancel my insurance policy because I am suddenly so popular. I suppose they are casing the joint to find out if I actually have Multiple Sclerosis, and I want to knock on the guy’s window and tell him I would gladly give up my insurance policy not to have this disease, and to be able to walk without wobbling for two days in a row.
Meanwhile my Boss has been keeping an eye on me to make sure I am doing my job and that all my recent success has not made me lazy, and I am extra vigilant via the internet about making sure my non-boyfriend is not non-committing to any girl he has met on his travels. And finally, my nemesis Lorna McSlutchen has taken to tapping into my emails to also see if I am doing my job, we are all watching each other closely, and it’s frankly keeping me up at night. There is a nice guy who worked at this company right before I left who reads my Internet Column, and he now works for a notorious book publisher with a past even more checkered than mine, and he has brought her my work and they are offering me a small book deal. I should smack down a copy of my manuscript as soon as I finish it right on the windshield of the Private Investigator’s car, it will tell him everything he needs to know about me.
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(d girls image artist Tashina Suzuki)
Love is in the air–or it better be– for the levels of consumerism flourish during the world-wide celebration of love and affection for significant others known as Saint Valentine’s Day (more commonly known as Valentine’s Day in the United States and Valentime’s Day in the Bronx) this Sunday, February 14. Largely popularized with expressing one’s love through greeting cards, the holiday easily holds the title of the second most popular day to send a card (Christmas is first) making it the first of the calendar year’s “Hallmark Holidays”. However, before one could run to the strip mall for one of the instant greetings and salutations manufactured by an English major drop-out or bored, Baptist housewife working part-time in the greeting card business, there was an honest attempt at creating a declaration of something meaningful for one’s true love; and I feel that this really meant something worthy of scrapbooking “back in the day”. Flashing forward the text message generation, the greeting card, although as important as the icing on the cake, has become an introduction to THE gift from one’s love.
So what else is appropriate in addition to the requisite card for the sweetie? Well, candies, chocolates, flowers, jewelry, dinner reservations (with an emphasis on reservation as Houlihan’s will not suffice) or even a trip would be enough to prove one’s love at a pecuniary level through the rest of the week. Although, one should keep in mind if dating the more finicky, Valentine’s Day falls on the first day of the week this year and you could be throwing caution to the wind if a “bumper” gift is not presented at the mid-week (or one of those fancy weekend dinner rezzies is always a great way to end the week). Alas, this article is really not about any of those things, my lords and lassies. It’s about wine; good wine that would easily serve as a catalyst of your love and a precursor spark towards the presumed post-Valentine’s Day relations (to be expected after blowing your week’s allowance on snookie-poo). So, here are my suggestions of wines to be shared by loved ones on this special day:
2008 Gini Soave Classico 750ml $19 Ripe melon, apricots, and peach burst forth in this wine that hails from Verona, the setting of William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. Clean and mineral driven with impeccable balance and acidity, it delivers a light and refreshing alternative to the more one-dimensional Pinot Grigios that have dominated the palates of Italian wine drinking Americans.
MV Moët & Chandon Imperial Champagne 750ml $40 Rich-bodied and smooth with crisp acidity focusing on green apple, lemon and lime flavors with subtle notes of ginger and honey. Making its debut in the United States late last year, the world’s most popular champagne recently replaced the legendary White Star with this label. Regardless of the name change, the quality is the same and a right as rain way of making any sugarbumpkins swoon.
2006 Cesari Amarone della Valpolicella Classico 750ml $46 Ripe fruit and fruit preserves with a focus on cherry dominate the palate. Orange peel, baking spices and green tea move into focus followed by forest floor and mushrooms on the finish. This wine follows suit with the Soave coming from the same town as the literary love bird big wigs “Romeo and Juliet”.
2000 Chateau Calon-Segur 750ml $120 Daffodils, black cherry, cassis, blackberry and a striking minerality are present in this wine from the blockbuster 2000 vintage. After 10 years in the bottle, this wine has really come in to its own and has shed some of the tannic character that was evident a few years ago. It should also be known that it is the perfect Valentine’s Day wine as a result of a giant red heart that appears on its label. A perfect companion to the Beef Wellington that you created for your wittle wubbie bubbie.
Johnnie Walker Blue Label 750ml $240 Subtle aromas of smoke, tobacco, dried fruit and peat. A pleasant warming sensation on the palate unbeknownst to lesser quality blended whiskies. It has lingering finish that can easily captivate the senses for a good minute or so. For some, Valentine’s Day means being alone, unloved and unwilling to love. These folks deserve something with a little more weight in the mouth, but not with the typical burn of the hard spirits (in the event that a last minute invite comes from the neighbor gal, with all the cats, for dinner and you need to save your palate for the wine that will be consumed).
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Darin Link is a Court of Master Sommelier’s Certified Sommelier. He has worked at the Mobile Four-Star restaurant, Tony’s. He also served as the sommelier in the over-the-top restaurant, Busch’s Grove, where he received Wine Spectator’s Best of Award of Excellence in just two years. He’s currently employed as the wine buyer for Straub’s Market in Saint Louis.
(read Darin’s last posts: Lovely Bubbly, A Reason To Celebrate. + Winter Wines to Wet your Whistle.)
(image: Miss Lonelyhearts; Alfred Hitchcock’s Read Window)
I have never had a baby, but I wrote a script once. I checked myself into a room at the Standard Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles to finish it, and handed the script to my best friend and Literary Manager Sarah when I was done. In my life, I have checked into various establishments before for help: hotels and hospitals, voluntarily and otherwise, but the Standard has far superior food to them all. I don’t know how to write anything that’s not about me, so I wrote a script called Forever Yours about a girl who stalks all her boyfriends, and it never went out as a spec because Sarah’s boss told me the main character was too creepy. I think the word stalker gets overused in modern lexicology: to be honest I don’t see what’s wrong with spending every second with someone once you know you love them. My new almost-boyfriend the Computer Guy/Thespian does not, however, subscribe to this philosophy and is going on a trip to India for a month for work. He is clearly not completely aware of my excruciating abandonment issues; meaning, I make it excruciating for anyone who tries to abandon me. I want to press my face up against the glass of his airplane to say my final Goodbye to him, but FAA regulations preclude this, so I am forced to make a colorful sign and stand woefully at the window of the divider between the main terminal and the gates at LAX while he endeavors to make his way to his airplane. The sign says “Don’t Forget Me” but I think it would be difficult for anyone to forget me, especially since I deliberately spilled an entire bottle of my Chanel perfume into his suitcase this morning.
We have only been dating a month, but I have had three vodka-Red Bulls, so I text him that I love him as soon as he is boarding his plane. It’s amazing how nervous laughter actually does translate in text message form, because his response is “love ya too babe” which, of course, commits to nothing. I head home immediately to begin an onslaught of email missives the likes of such this guy has never seen before. Forever yours, don’t forget me. Love, D-Girl. He has no chance, this docile, young studious lad. He has encountered a force bigger than himself and decisions have been made about his life far into the future. He should not fight it and just enjoy the ride. I’ve heard one may lose weight in India because the food goes right through you, so for this reason and my aforementioned stalker mentality I decide to look up flights to India and possibly join my new friend in a faraway land that hopefully has forgiving lighting and no laws against the aggressive pursuit of true love.
Spoon’s ‘Transference’ has been playing non stop in the car, on the ipod, and in the apartment since its release. As if I ever doubted that this would deliver in spades. Spoon again prove to be the most consistent and interesting bands of the aught aughts. Transference is full of hooky songs, fried out grooves, and super interesting textures. Yes, some how they make music you can actually feel with your hands. Don’t ask me how. It is an early front runner for the best of ’10 list. If you want to start a dance off at your next house party throw “Who Makes Your Money” on repeat, drop the mic and start boogieing. Speaking of dance parties, I have fond memories of marching through the streets of San Francisco during Bay To Breakers 2008 with a boom box strapped around my neck pumping Tigercity’s debut EP ‘Pretend Not To Love,’ inciting dance riots at every turn. This unheralded deep Brooklyn quartet returned to the fold in late 2009 with their first full length ‘Ancient Lover’. It was released to (tragically) little acclaim. In another world their songs are blaring out of car stereos and dance club speakers every Saturday night. While the album as a whole does not deliver the promise of their debut EP, its standout tracks (Mallory, Fake Gold, & James Iha) certainly do. With all of the nostalgia for the 80s in pop culture right now I am flat out amazed that they not been able to float above the garbage. They are the rare 80s revivalists who get it right, writing instantly danceable songs with big fat meaty falsetto laden choruses that will have you reaching for the ceiling. Fans of Chromeo, Passion Pit, and Phoenix will not be disappointed. Do yourself a favor and grab the EP and the album and prepare to cut rug.
With all of this gloomy weather in the Bay Area (fuck you El Nino), it has definitely not all been dancing and fist pumping, as much as The Situation may have had me convincing myself otherwise. The majority of 2010 has seen me growing a winter beard, getting fat and listening to winterized music. So in honor of the lashing rain and the lack of sunlight, I leave you with my 10 song Winter Beard 2010 Playlist:
1. Lissie-Little Lovin
2. Jim O’Rourke-Ghost Ship In A Storm
3. Palace Music-West Palm Beach
4. Teenage Fanclub-Empty Space
5. The Bees-Punchbag
6. Gerry Rafferty-Right Down The Line
7. Sam Prekop-Between Outside
8. Starling Electric-Camp Fire
9. John Cale-Please
10. The Low Anthem-To Ohio
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Tony lives in San Francisco with his girlfriend and his brother. He enjoys music and fresh-baked cookies. He will not apologize for being a fan of Crowded House. Follow him at twitter.com/tonyvontz .
