rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

I keep a bag of Werther’s candies in my desk.

I just popped one; I didn’t even take my goddamn eyes off the computer screen. the motion of doing so has been engrained. pick up my right hand, drop it to my side, feel for the drawer grip, pull, dig inside, locate bag, extract single piece of candy, unwrap, partake. that’s execution.

it seems that, whenever my affection for this candy comes up — and it has once or twice in the last few months, usually when I’m walking back from CVS with a fresh bag of these dressed-up dollops of corn syrup — the observation is made: my grandmother used to have these all the time!

yeah, mine did too.

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the story will come in parts, I feel. gimme a couple of days yet.

I just watched “A Fistful of Dollars.”

I would imagine that in this day and age, a lot of people don’t like westerns. fair enough. but if you’re going to watch one, this particular one isn’t such an awful one to settle on, what with its wanton violence and ample cliches. it’s among those movies where it would take some doing, some focused effort, to count the number of onscreen deaths. Eastwood is a deadeye with his pistol. and he slays a lot of cowboy gangster banditos.

I will say, though, that I dig action movies from fifty years ago — god dang, that’s actually about right, it says here “A Fistful of Dollars” was made in ’64.  but yes. I dig them. and I’ve been on a Clint Eastwood kick recently, matter of fact. fifty years ago, that now-cranky old bastard was in his wheelhouse. so I watched “Kelley’s Heroes” not too long ago, and earlier still I watched ”Where Eagles Dare,” which is the one where Richard Burton wrestles with two Germans  on top of a gondola in the Austrian alps while he tries to escape from a nazi spy castle. yeah, you’re right it is legit. I bet you can’t guess who gets the pin.

it has been very warm out here lately, warm enough that it feels like we skipped a season. it’s been in the seventies for the past few days, and there’s been an early bloom. I was kind of looking forward to spring, but I don’t know if there’s anyone I can really blame for the weather. who do you blame for the weather? where can you register your complaint?

I take a little time sometimes. but the story continues! editing be damned, below:

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it was just about 9 am on Sunday morning, and I put “Star Wars” on. it is 2012. this movie is now 35 years old. it needed to be celebrated.

my niece, the one old enough to talk, she wanted to watch “Curious George,” but Uncle Matt said to hell with that noise. it was entirely too early in the day, I reasoned, for children’s programming. you want to watch a movie? okay, I said, I got a movie for you. so we sat there and took in this pop culture staple while my younger, newborn niece slept on my lap, until my older niece got bored and ran off somewhere. she may be a bit too young yet to dig Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker and the rest playing great archetypes, staring wistfully at the two suns, teaching us lessons conveyed through swashbuckling romanticism, all while shitting all over the droids, the underclass in a galaxy a long time ago and far away.

that’s okay, she shouldn’t watch too much TV anyway. but Catherine was sawing logs and I couldn’t reach the remote from the couch, so I finished it out. not like it was pulling teeth or anything because, goddamn: “Star Wars” is a great flick. it involves a pretty simple plot, employs plenty of crazy shit to look at, and makes sure to roll out dozens of little one-liners that imply a lot. which reminds me …

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Friends and family, coast to coast: The McMullans wish you Feliz Navidad!

The new millennium is in its ‘tweens, and 2011 is coming to a close. Just like our own childhoods, it was an awkward year, one of character-building experiences for the US of A; Someone pulled out a can of Mace at a California Walmart during a Black Friday shopping frenzy. But, against all odds, Hollywood managed to churn out a halfway decent “Planet of the Apes” reboot. See? That’s American resolve. There’s hope for all of us yet.

But how are we, how are the McMullans, you ask? Well. Read on: Read more »

I have a habit of using my email account as an online notepad. should I be sitting at work and I find online I find amusing, or important, I’ll save it into a draft.
like, for instance, important local news stories:

Zsa Zsa Gabor Morris arrested in Lake County on multiple warrants

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we have graduated from 50s-era British war movies to 1970s Jamaica, with “The Harder They Come.” I very much like the DC public library’s media section.

this movie has a ridiculous amount of kick-ass music in it. if you have spent any amount of time driving around in my truck, you’ve probably heard the soundtrack. it’s one of the dozen CDs I have in the cab. but if not, if you are unaware, click on this. make sure you have a towel handy, cause you’re gonna make a mess.

there’s a couple of scenes, right around the beginning of the second act, where Jimmy Cliff starts singing in the church choir so he can get close to the preacher’s daughter — and, hopefully, bang her. and the camera rolls on about three solid minutes of a preacher testifying, his call-and-response with the faithful, and then the entire singing a gospel hymn. and it’s interspersed with these two kids making eyes at one another, flashes of sex,  juxtaposing faith and lust. er, maybe not lust, but passion, rather – or one interpretation of it, at least.

no, it’s lust. definintely lust. click on the picture above to see a chunk of it. it will make you want to get up and dance.

I got “Bridge on the River Kwai” going.

it’s too quiet in this place. and I need some new movies. no disrespect to Sir Alec Guinness and company, of course. it just is what it is. honest to god, I associate him with this movie before I think of “Star Wars.”

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PROLOGUE — Rick Perry made a spectacular ass of himself on live television last night. if you have any, you should make your children watch this. god bless this age of media we live in.

…. …. …. …. …. ….

MERRY MUSIC MEMORIES — I was in the seventh grade, and it was Christmas Morning. the big gift that year from Santa or grandma was a Sony Discman. moments after its arrival, the first CD to ever fall into my possession became “fashion nugget” by Cake.  it came as the requisite accessory.

I remember sitting in the La-Z-Boy in the living room in Indiana and listening to that album. it was, and remains, a good one, but not one that’s left a lasting  impression on me. I don’t mean any disrespect to Cake’s music, you see. it just didn’t stick; I was more interested in getting stupid stickers to smear all over the new Discman. I remember feeling that was of great import. my piece de resistance ended up being one that I got from a Klondike Bar wrapper. but I digress.

Cake’s good, I really mean it, yeah. but the second album that I ever came to own, the second one was called “the action is go” by Fu Manchu. Fu Manchu, they stuck around.

I thought this shit was great. my brother got it for me, and I remember later listening to them at his apartment in Mount Pleasant in 1997 or 98. when he got rid of a bunch of his old records, I got earlier and later albums. Fu Manchu ruled. they played so loud that the music sounded fuzzy, like it was coming in hot, and the band felt cool while I was not. and that last sentence just … rhymed. totally unintentional.

they sang about shit that I couldn’t understand — and I later figured out why that was; they were singing about nonsense like drag racing and pin ball. but I found myself listening to them through college, into my twenties, and even now. still in my twenties. but Aarti gave me an old iPod of hers and I’ve got a couple of their albums on that thing. you get the idea.

anyway. I was able to see them play once, with my friend Pat, about five years ago when I briefly lived in California. the club was in a small strip mall in Costa Mesa. I went to In-N-Out Burger just before the show, and watched them unload their own shit out of an Econoline van after the opening act.

and then I was able to see them again last year, here in DC with Aarti, who would totally tell you it was an awesome show. and now it would appear they are coming back again.

fine by me, I say! the guys from Fu Manchu have got to be 40, or only months out, but they’ve got enough left in them that I can double that up with nostalgia and spend a School Night going to see them. as such: if you live in Washington DC, you could probably do better on a thursday evening than checking out Fu Manchu. yeah, probably. but you could do a whole lot worse.

Fu Manchu next thursday at the Black Cat.