Corey Haim was born with a certain inner rhythm.
I’ve been reading everywhere about the Corey Confessions that aired on AE’s “The Two Coreys” this past week. On the show, both Coreys claimed to have been molested early on in their careers, something I do not exactly doubt, but have trouble processing given the improv/scripted format of the show (it was originally touted as a fictional/reality hybrid). The show follows fictional realities, and unapologetically so, yet everyone (meaning the entertainment blog world) seems to be treating this past episode as if it is unadulterated truth. I shouldn’t be writing about this as I haven’t yet seen the episode—-sadly, the show hasn’t hit SurfTheChannel yet—-and can’t provide any proof to support my suspicions. Still, I wanted to point you towards a fascinating moment in 1989, when Corey Haim wanted to prove to everyone he was not on drugs.
Corey Haim was still a teen idol in the late 1980s, but barely. Rumors of drug use had already damaged his star power, which is why he chose to film a video to address “the whole misconception thing, from the people out there.” Thanks Corey. Now we have Corey Haim: Me, Myself, and I, a video with production values that, as one YouTube viewer aptly pointed out, remind one of a porn sans sex. Some delightful winner out there compiled a montage of the video’s best moments, including Corey’s assertion that he’d like to stop playing the little brother and start playing the big brother or—-ooh!—-the only brother, and footage of a completely blitzed Corey creating his own “Japanese funk.”
Sure, it seems funny now, but you know there were girls out there who took this video Very Seriously. Shower nozzle style.
He hadn’t yet hit the bloat and incomprehensibility of the nineties.
you are the girl/ that i’ve been dreaming of/ ever since i was a little girl
I’m late to work, but a few quick things:
1. They’ve released the album version of “I’m not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you” on itunes usa. For $1.98 you can purchase it with a snazzy remix. totz worth it.
2. I wussed out at the Hood Internet show. I danced big, danced hard, showed my panties probably, but I had the chance to talk to them and I wussed. They’re not even hipster-pretentious, and I still lacked the cojones.
3. The set was magnificent.
I’ll post more later but seriously, go download the song.
the best thing i’ve seen all week.
I’m going to get married at a Chuck E Cheese.
Eleven years.
“And I’ll rise like an ember in your name.”
I can’t claim to remember the day they pulled Jeff Buckley’s body from the Mississippi River. I was twelve, miserably in love with Hanson and the Spice Girls (an emotional kid, I tried very hard to weep to ballads like “Lucy” and “Mama”), struggling to legitimize my grief over having switched states and schools. I remember seeing his face in a magazine after his death—-probably the Rolling Stone issue featuring a kohl-eyed Alanis sitting cross-legged on a studio floor—-and thinking that he looked like he’d die young. At twelve I thought these things. Shamefully, I’ve always adored the tragic. But I adore JB beyond all tragedy.
It was my fondness of heartbreak that brought me to him. At fifteen, I’d developed a penchant for bursting into tears at the slightest, strangest provocation, a habit that terrified many of the students and counselors at the “Gifted Camp” where I spent most of my summers. It was a gift I’d managed to keep hidden from my parents and anyone who might have encouraged me to seek counseling—-I seemed to understand that they shielded me, these sudden and oft-unsubstantiated tears, that I needed a blatant vulnerability to feel safe.
I do not remember her name. She was younger than I am now, the counselor who followed me on one of my early morning campus walks, who told me I needed to listen to Grace. She didn’t say much else. She had a lisp that made me want to kiss her.
And what to say of what he meant to me then? Of what he has come to mean? I tried to say, once. I wrote a terrible poem about the nicotine-lipped salvation I imagined of him. I tried. For so many he is The Beloved: image-search his name and at least a third of the images that appear are fan-created art (I admit, I’ve painted his face in blues and purples). We all try so hard to make him our own. I imagine (and it’s always only imagination) it would have terrified him.
So it’s the day Jeff Buckley died. I try to explain what it means but I am unable. I watch a video, I cry tears that don’t make sense. I get angry. It is not right that you are beautiful, today, for your tragedy. I failed you, I’ve failed again.
All I know today is wistful. I wish I could thank you.
Phil Jackson looks like a Gremlin.
At least he looks like the Brainy Gremlin. You know, the one with glasses.
I can also imagine Phil singing this pretty song.
My dad would be so proud of me right now.
Obligatory Delilah Post
Quoth my mother, “She is giving you what for.”
She really likes my cell phone. She doesn’t like it when I take pictures of her, though, because that means she cannot stuff the phone into her mouth. I really love this picture because it’s not only hilarious, but it reveals one of her milestones: Delilah is now of the age at which she can willfully make bizarre faces to prove her point (she now has a point, too). Last week she started making an angry fish-mouth that is fascinatingly potent in conveying her disapproval. I’ll try my hardest to capture it for the public.
The Hood Internet is cramping my (driving) style
(Image courtesy of Toe Taps and Spastic Claps. Also, my boyfriend has that brown shirt.)
I’ve somehow maintained a perfect driving record, minus a couple of parking tickets and that one time I backed into my ex-boyfriend’s roommate’s Civic (accident…please). I’ve managed to keep the cops at bay, somehow, despite the thick film of dead bugs splattered on my windshield. I’m one of those females who, proud of her driving prowess, publicly abhors the inferior who do not understand that the fast lane is for passing, not for puttering along at 5 miles over the speeding limit. I don’t read car magazines, but I coo over the Maseratis parked in my best friend’s neighborhood.
I nearly killed myself on Highway 85 last week, but I promise it wasn’t my fault. Blame Snoop, R. Kelly, a bunch of Australians, and my hipster-in-denial boyfriend.
Anthony just got me into The Hood Internet, which is, honestly, a dream. Those of you who read Pitchfork religiously (I, admittedly, do not) are likely already familiar with the Chicago duo, which has built quite a following over its indie rock/ hip hop mashup extravaganzas. They’ve got the huevos to lay party jam lyrics (”This is How We Do It”) over what I consider one of the most quietly yearning tracks in the past several years (LCD Soundsystem’s “Someone Great”), and the aural acuity to make it work. Some of the tracks don’t quite work—-the Rihanna vs. Menomena vs. M83 song comes to mind, but perhaps I desire too much pop of my pop—-but others, well, damn. They nearly drove me off the road.
The first mixtape featured a mashup of one of everyone’s favorite AIH songs, “Do the Whirlwind,” with a Snoop/R. Kelly song I never knew the name of because I only ever heard it while drunk. The first time I heard this track I had a solitary dance-off in my car; luckily, it’s only 2:21 minutes long. Listen, it’ll make you smile.
The Hood Internet—-That’s That Whirlwind (Snoop feat. R. Kelly vs. Architecture in Helsinki
Check out The Hood Internet. They’re playing SF at the end of the month. I will be there. And I’ll write about it, too.
Before the Dawn Heals Me.
I haven’t written in weeks. No: I started a post a few weeks ago, but it’s languishing in draft mode, indefinitely, because I couldn’t figure out how to upload a music file (I know, I know, I need to upload it to a file sharing website…which I’ll do…eventually). The frustration over my technical incompetence gave me the time to scrutinize the weakness of my words. So I pulled a Scarlett and told myself I’d get to it tomorrow…for about three weeks or so. It won’t surprise anyone to hear that I’ve left items at the dry cleaners for longer than two months.
I’ve been pleasantly distracted, anyhow. Evenings, sometimes, my type-A personality makes a brief but weighty showing and I, fearing complete inactivity, retreat to my room to paint or draw. Write I do not, but I don’t expect to until I stumble upon something urgent. Frankly, I’m okay with a lack of urgency in my life right now.
Life cannot be anything but pleasant when I can eat cherries—-which, by the way, are the best snack to take with you on a long flight. Quoth my favorite ANTM contestant Elyse Sewell, the airlines don’t want to have to clean up their bathrooms too often, so they only serve salty foods that will clog you up (and likely contribute to constipation upon reaching your destination). No one feels good when poop is not an option (can you tell how much I enjoyed typing that?), so take a bag of cherries with you on the plane. I managed to avoid digestional disruptions altogether on my recent trip to DC for my cousin’s wedding, thanks to my lucky cherries. Delicious natural laxatives, how I adore thee.
So, now. Well. Watch this space. Because I can write or not write for hours.
