"Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure G5 is a great computer, but I wanted a Dell for Christmas. I don’t have any programs for Apple and didn’t feel like waiting for them. I thought about selling it, but my parents would be upset with me. After all, this was a very expensive gift and it meant a lot to them to give to me.

"It’s a good thing my parents don’t know anything about computers, because I’m sure they would be really angry if they knew what I did. I have to say that I'm happy - I can keep on using XP." (emphasis mine)

It makes me very angry. His reasoning for the switch was that he lacked apps for OS X, but then he goes and says, "I use it mostly for Internet, ripping music/DVDs." ALL of which can be done with software that comes pre-installed on the G5, and ALL OF WHICH would work better and faster on the G5.

That said, I want to make it clear that I don't have a problem with competition for jobs. I don't have any issues with working for free to learn the ropes and build a network. My problem is that the producers, the people who are getting these shoe-string budget films started, are just using free labor to advance their own careers. They get $$$ together for a film and go, "well we will just crew up with a bunch of noobs that we don't have to pay to cut costs. And we will shoot it in 1/2 the time we should take to shoot it to save even more!" This "sweat-shop filmmaking" is one issue. Another is the exodus of major film production from Hollywood and the glut of low-overhead reality TV programming. This causes a lot of professional crew to take jobs "below" them for way less $$, filling all the jobs one or two "steps up" the ladder from freebie work which makes it tough to climb the ladder. This makes for bitter and cranky Gaffers and Key Grips who have no interest in "baby sitting" wet-eared film school grads (and really who can blame them.)

What can be done? Short of miraculously bringing back productions that have gone to Vancoover, New Zealand, or Austraila and the eventual death of Reality TV, not much. Hopeful filmmakers have, as I see it, 3 ways to "break in" all of which involve a lot of luck. First you can work your butt off and hope that someone, somewhere calls you for that gig that leads to the gig that gets you the gig.... Second you can sink 20-100K of SOMEBODY'S money on the next Swingers or Blair Witch or Clerks and become the next goldenboy of indie film. And third: ...well, I'm still working on that. So unless I suddenly find "investors" willing to fund the aforementioned "next indie gem" (which hasn't been written yet,) I'll be working my butt off and waiting for the call. And thats cool. It is, after all, why I am IN Hollywood. And at least I'm not trying to become an actor. Those fools have it BAD!

The real key to success in Hollywood is to do what EVERYONE in town is doing, but do it better than everyone else: write. A GOOD screenplay is the quickest way out of the ghetto of wannabes. And on that note I'm off to put the finishing touches on the step-outline to my ticket outta here....

I just found out that the legendary unreleased Beach Boys album "Smile" will finally be released in some sort of official and completed version this year sometime. Smile was to be Brian Wilson's magnum opus of psychedelia, and is often compared to Sergeant Pepper. I have not heard much more than a few bootlegged tracks, and by no means am I a Beach Boys fanatic, but Brain Wilson has often fascinated me and I cannot deny the impact that Pet Sounds had on my adolescence.

It's like it's 1997 in here. What with a new Cyrstal Method album and a new Moby dance record (recored under his noncommercial alias: Vodoo Child.)

The video for the new Incubus single, "Megalomaniac," is getting fairly heavy play on MTV2 and I'm quite fond of it, though that may just be tied to the kick-ass video which features a stop-motion flying Hitler-ballerina. It was directed by Floria Sigismondi who has directed videos for Bjork and Sigur Ros and absolutely rocks. Check out her website here.

OH! I nearly forgot, while watching the "Globes" I saw a promo for Michael Jay Fox's triumphant return to TV. On SCRUBS! Which makes me dislike NBC Chief Executive Jeff Zucker even more. See Zucker (who is also responsible for all the dumb-ass non-standard start times and durations for NBC shows,) in his ceaseless tinkering with the NBC primetime schedule, moved Scrubs to Tuesday night so that "The Apprentice" wouldn't get slaughtered by "American Idol" again. So that means the runner up for the Octy in TV will be up against the Octy winner "24." Which I guess is reason number 413 that I love TiVo.

Frist, remember the blob that washed ashore in Chile way back in July? Well, it turns out that it was just decomposed whale. Skip Pierce, professor of biology at the University of South Florida, had this to say about the dis-discovery: "Once again, to our disappointment, we have not found any evidence that any of the blobs are the remains of unknown sea monsters.” Shucks.

More recently I posted about a poll on the AFA website and encouraged all my readers to go vote for the legalization of gay marrige. It turns out that the American Family Association has pulled the results of the poll and has no intention of presenting it to congress because the results were the exact opposite of what they were shooting for: 2-to-1 in favor of legalization of gay marriage! Yay for us good netizens! Now if there were only a way for the average American to influence the policies of our President and keep the governing body from passing unjust and archaic changes to the very document that our country is built on. Oh wait...

The newsletter also mentioned a new exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum that focuses on the "Ant Farm" art collective from the Sixties. The Ant Farm was the group responsible for the Cadillac Ranch in Texas and was co-founded by UCSC FDM Department Chair Chip Lord. Chip is an old-school experimental video guru and another brilliant mind that I had the pleasure of learning from in his Intro to Production and Documentary Filmmaking classes. If your in the Bay Area between now and April I highly suggest checking out the exhibit.

And finally, a couple of people who were students when I was running the Check-Out lab at UCSC have short films running at Sundance this year! So here is to hoping they make it big and remember the guy that bent all the rules to get them gear when they needed it.

Also, the local PBS station KCET is running the wonderful "Power of Myth" series today. Joseph Campbell is SO friggin brilliant (and it was mostly his fault that I very nearly majored in Philosophy in college.) The 6-hour program is just Bill Moyers interviewing Campbell (with some occasional video clips intercut to break up the "talking heads,") and yet it is unstoppably watchable. Campbell is THE master story-teller of the 20th Century. If you haven't seen it I highly suggest adding it to your queue.

Second, the word-on-the-street is Shatner will return to doing Priceline commercials, and he will be joined with his ol' buddy Leonard Nimoy. (And I thought they hated each other.)

But here is to another year!

But seriously. Mad Cow disease is a horribly lethal brain infection, and the mere threat of infection has caused massive worldwide economic turmoil. The fact is there are less that 160 cases of human infection WORLDWIDE and the CDC pegs the risk at contracting Mad Cow greater than one-in-ten-BILLION. As my favorite celebrity chef points out (in his January 11th post) Americans are FAR more likely to be killed by a food-born bacterial infection (such as e.coli) than ever contracting Mad Cow. Even is you don't eat ANY meat unsanitary kitchen conditions can cross contaminate your salad and get you sick. And that is a hell of a lot more likely to happen even the most voracious carnivores getting infected with Mad Cow. The militant vegans and meat-phobics are quick to point out the long incubation period and mysterious nature of the disease and use these facts as bellows to stoke the flames of panic. But the reality is eating a cheeseburger today is no more dangerous than eating one ten years ago. Mad Cow is an important issue and changes DO need to be made in the meat-industry. But lets not forget the SARS scare, and the West Nile Virus scare, and any other pestilence-of-the-week that the media over-inflates to sell papers.

But you are still going to give up beef? Then go exotic. Amazon now sells a selection of exotic meats like venison, ostrich, and even yak! Many are organic and eating 100% exotic meats will reduce your risk of contracting Mad Cow to 1 in 20 billion! Seriously though. Yak. Mmmm Mmmm good. Why don't you come on over and I'll grill us up some wild beastie!

The runner up this year is the White Stripe's "Elephant." A wonderfully produced take on the duo's distinct Detroit blues-rock. The album was recorded across the pond at Toe-Rag Studios (an ancient all analog studio), and there must have been something in the air in London, or perhaps it was all the breaks for tea, but the disc has a very distinct feeling that separates it from their earlier offerings. Which isn't to say that their sound is any different; it is still all about Meg White's "Minimalist Drumming" and Jack's frenetic abuse of his Gibson, but the arrangements on Elephant are a little deeper and more refined. The song writing is top-shelf material; every song is a gem and I would be hard pressed to name only a few highlights. But the quote-unquote epic "Ball and Biscuit" ranks as one of my favorite songs of 2003. If "White Blood Cells" was the White Stripe's attention grabbing "pop" album then Elephant is their dark and challenging album that looks to shake-off the Johnny-come-lately fans and succeeds in proving that the band is no one-trick pony.

I actually find it easyer to write about the runners-up than the actually Octy winners, and this Octy is a particularly difficult case because the Band has worked so hard at deifying categorization. But here goes. The 2003 Octy for Best Album goes to:Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief". Radiohead has fought against the media and the industry's attempt to pigeon-hole them, first as a one-hit wonder then as the new sound of Brit-pop. After "OK Computer" became one of the most critically lauded albums of the Nineties nobody suspected the bizarre and often inaccessible techno-rock-opera of "Kid A." It is a love-it or hate-it disc that served to dichotomize Radiohead fans. Those fans in the "bring back the damn guitars" camp were disappointed by the hastily issued follow up to Kid A: "Amnesiac." Made up primarily of B-sides from the Kid A sessions and is, predictably, a little uneven. But even where the disc doesn't work as a cohesive album (not in the way OK Computer of Kid A do anyway) it still contains some of the best songs by the band. The long awaited "Hail to the Thief" achieves the near impossible feat of satisfying those wanting "old Radiohead" and those (like myself) that want the band to puch forward further into the uncharted with each album. (Sorry for the little "A History of Radiohead, as Told by John," but I feel that it was necessary to discuss what has come before "Hail to the Thief" before I tackled what I think of the disc.)

Hail to the Thief (hereafter HttT) is perhaps Radiohead's first album for their fans and not just for Radiohead. It skillfully blends the "modern guitar rock" of their early catalog with the purposefully difficult electronic textures and soundscapes of the Kid A period. To quote the All Music Guide review, "Guitars sound like guitars more often than not; drums are more likely to be played by a human; and discernible verses are more frequently trailed by discernible choruses. ...there is a certain return to relatively traditional songcraft." But there are still the delicious moments of electronic freak-out (most notably on "Backdrifts" and my favorite cut on the album "The Gloaming") that made Kid A and Amnesiac so wonderfully scary. The album was officially released on June 10th, just two months after US forces entered Baghdad and during a period of mounting US casualties and it seems to perfectly reflect our uncertainties and insecurities during the troubling summer months making it an eerily well suited soundtrack to 2003. But the thing that cemented HttT as the Octy winner for 2003 was seeing the band play live at the Hollywood Bowl in September. It was a long time dream of mine to see them live and the show was a near religious experience for me. And by this I mean that after the show I felt a profound sense of peace and awe and felt like I was given a certain new perspective; like one who is devout would feel after a moving sermon or mass. The set list was primarily material from HttT and the show really gave me a new perspective on the album, and there were two important points that became clear to me after the show. First Thom York is the glue that holds the band together, but each member is a brilliant musician capable of many splendid things. And secondly Radiohead fucking ROCKS. And by this I mean "rocks out" in the traditional way that the iconic gods of rock and roll have always rocked: with a jumping around, trashing, theatrical stage presence that electrified the crowd as if a high voltage spark had been transmitted through The 20,000 people at the Bowl that night. It reminded me that Rock and Roll isn't dead, and that it can be new, exciting, and electric. (Best. Birthday present. Ever.)

The Honorable Mention for the Octy this year is Natalie Merchant's "A House Carpenter's Daughter." I had a review of this all written up, but I can't find it now. And my head hurts after writing the White Striped and Radiohead portion of the post so you'll just have to trust me on this one until I get around to posting why.

2003 Octy for Television
A lot of TV shows came and went in 2003, but the Runner up for the Octy is Scrubs. Easily one of the funniest shows on TV, and the 2002/2003 season was the high point of the show so far. Scrubs combines a well rounded cast with some really good sitcom writing and presents the whole thing a little off kilter. At any moment in a given episode a character might just break out into a song and dance number or careen into a bizarre fantasy sequence. It was only Just nudged out for the Octy by: 24

Yup, season two of everyone's favorite realtime crime/political/action drama gets the Octy for TV in 2003, even though I didn't watch the show until a few months ago on DVD. The first season was ground breaking and nail-bitting, and the second season was bigger, faster, more action packed, and kept you guessing until the very last episode. I highly suggest checking out the first two seasons on DVD. Just be sure to clear your schedule as the show is seriously addictive, and once your through the first disc, you'll have a hard time stopping.

And now, the 2003 Octy for Film!
It was shaping up to be a pretty tight race coming into october, but then Return of the King came out and blew everything else out of the water. And so the 2003 Film Octy goes to Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King. I'm not sure what to say other than RotK exceeded all of my very high expectations, and there is really no way it wasn't getting the Octy this year. Which made the runner up honor the really tough race. On the one had you have the larger-than-life high seas adventure of Pirates of the Caribbean. Pirates was an instant classic for me and one of those rare movies that I never get tired of watching. But there was also the quite tragedy of Lost in Translation. Bill Murray and Scarlet Johansson were both gave remarkable performances from a very original and markedly un-Hollywood script by Sofia Coppola. Two movies that couldn't be more different, and either of them good enough to take the Octy in a year where there wasn't the grand finale of Lord of the Rings. So one of them gets the runner up, and the other an honorable mention. Take your pick.

Tomorrow, the long awaited Octy for Best Album in 2003!

Don't give up the fight!