Vinoteca Farfalla - Follow Up

It turns out that Vinoteca Farfalla is not in Silverlake. It's in Los Feliz...so they're used to the bourgeois. No problem.

Vinoteca Farfalla

At a new wine bar called Vinoteca Farfalla with Vic. It's in Silverlake so you know all the neigbors groaned when they heard a wine bar was opening up...so bourgeois. I like it.

Melissa And The Scientologists

By: Ben Tiernan


I have a friend named Melissa, and she’s awesome. Among her many incarnations of awesomeness, she’s the Managing Editor of Television Week which sounds pretty damned fancy to me. MSN, which is a cable network, also thinks Melissa’s awesome. That’s why they choose her to espouse on the topic of Scientologists and the media. Here’s a a video of Melissa doing her thing.

Rogue Poet

By: Ben Tiernan

I thought that I was a fan of William Blake. His “Songs of Innocence and Experience” is quintessential stoner lit, and he’s revered as an engraver turned self-taught genius poet – which appeals to me. His public artistic life had the flash in the pan characteristics of modern celebrity, but his art endured, and that’s cool too.

He was a rogue artist whose work was related to the late 18th century Romantics, but kissing cousins at best. His work was better suited for the French Symbolists who were popular half a century after he died. His personal engravings, and those he produced for his own publications are cerebral, symbolic and way out there – again, totally unique an cool.

Turns out, he’s too far out there for me. I just can’t get into him like I used to. His poetry seems simple and a little crazy, and his engravings give me nightmares.

I grow old…I grow old…, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

This is what I'm talking about. Scarry right?

Wage Slave

By: Ben Tiernan

While I was out having a few drinks with a friend, he told me a story about a coworker of his that travels most of the year for his job. This coworker is important to the organization and well paid, but the obligations of his position keep him on the road and away from his family.

One day, his young son asked him, “Dad, what’s it like living at the airport?” His son actually thought his father live at the airport. This makes me wonder, is his son a moron?

Good Song: Naked

Usually, I reserve something as trite as song sharing for my Myspace profile, because myspace is for desperate losers, but this song is so good...it's awesome.

Dig it...This person is naked. So what?

"Tsotsi" Not An Obscure Film

By: Ben Tiernan

Friends and acquaintances have informed me that "Tsotsi" is not an obscure film. I’d never heard of it before I saw it, and I really thought its cultural relevance ended at the inspiration for the game “Which Member Of Tsotsi’s Gang Are You?”

Apparently, it even won an Oscar – I believe it was for Best Movie Based On A Game.

Tin Car Gets 10 Page Views A Day

By: Ben Tiernan

Choke on that, New Yorker. Tin Car gets an average of 10 page views a day from as many as four unique daily visitors. That’s right, that’s four people that won’t be reading encrypted “Shouts And Murmurs,” or fancy “Goings On About Town”. Better not turn around, them’s Tin Car’s footsteps you hear behind you.

To those noble four readers who spend an average of 5 minutes and 50 seconds on the site, you are forward thinking and attractive. You are intelligent, well kept and expeditious. You are creative, moral and misunderstood. Tin Car understands you. Tin Car has your back.

To address Tin Car’s dismal readership, I’ve updated the promotional video with hip new music from “The Lonesome Architects”. Thanks to “The Lonesome Architects” for making beautiful music and for letting me use it, and thanks to David for giving them a call.

Here’s the updated clip. I entered it in a contest for videos under 1 minute to get some exposure. You can go HERE to vote for it. Four more votes can’t hurt.

Ancient Art

By: Ben Tiernan

It’s been a big music week for me: I saw the Black Eyed Peas tear up a charity dinner, I saw the Queens Of The Stone Age and I saw the Rolling Stones. First of all, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Fergie perform her hip-hop acrobatics to “Pump It” in a ball gown. The Queens of Whatever opened for the Rolling Stones, and I’m happy to say that the QOTSA rocked. What ever it is that I’d heard of theirs before was more manicured than the hodgepodge of sounds lost in distortion that erupting from stage Monday night. It was very cool.

I’d never seen the Rolling Stones live before. I’d caught a performance or two on TV at some major cultural events like the Super Bowl, and Live Aid, and personally I always thought their performances were a little lame. My experience with the Stones was that of ancient rockers cashing out on their once relevant rock anthems of youth and rebellion. Of course, I knew it was important to see the Stones, and I was genuinely excited, but my expectations were low.


It turns out that seeing the Rolling Stones live is like viewing a familiar masterpiece in person. It’s like standing in front of Michael Angelo’s “David” for the first time – you’re reaction is, “That’s awesome.” The analogy of Michael Angelo’s “David” and the Stones is particularly appropriate because their awesomeness is made even more impressive because they are so old.

Those skinny little Brits jumped around the stage like they were 45 years younger, and they sang everything. You don’t realize it, but every song ever recorded before 1989 is a Rolling Stones song. Beyond Satisfaction, and Jumping Jack Flash there is boundless world of songs that you learn at birth, and those are also Rolling Stones songs. I suppose I knew that old farts could rock too, but it was nice to see it proved.

WHICH MEMBER OF TSOTSI’S GANG ARE YOU?

By: Ben Tiernan

I saw a movie called Tsotsi this weekend. It’s a South African movie about a boy living in a shantytown who is a hardened criminal by his mid-teens. When he steals a car and shoots the owner he finds a baby boy in the back seat. It’s a lot like Savannah Smiles in pigeon Afrikaans.

Tsotsi is the leader of a gang of misfit thugs. Some are murderous, and some are happy go lucky, and while I watched the movie I thought that these were good modern archetypes. The thought led me to ask:

WHICH MEMBER OF TSOTSI’S GANG ARE YOU?

Choose which member of Tsotsi’s gang of delinquent man-boys you’re most like.

Tsotsi


Grew up on the streets of Johannesburg's shantytowns, making his home in abandoned drainpipes on the edge of these sprawling ghettos. Having lost his parents to AIDS at the age of nine he has no memory of his early family life. Tsotsi is the leader of a small gang, which is comprised of Die Aap, Boston and Butcher. He appears to have no moral or ethical problem with inflicting violence on anyone who stands in his way, and only tolerates his crew as long as they continue to serve his purpose.


Boston


Is much smarter than his companions. Unlike the other members of Tsotsi's gang, Boston is filled with an immense self-loathing and a hatred of violence. When drunk, Boston cannot control his tongue and constantly talks down to those he thinks are less intelligent than him.


Die Aap


Has been Tsotsi's loyal follower since childhood. He is big, strong and stupid but is happy to do as Tsotsi orders.


Butcher


Is the most bloodthirsty of Tsotsi's gang and thrives on inflicting pain upon others. Butcher has never known a moment of love in his whole life and is probably beyond redemption.


Let me know what member of Tsotsi's gang you're most like.

Nothing New Here

It turns out that Jedd, soothsayer that he is, already predicted the existential crisis I bitch about in “Little Boxes Of Life”. He wrote a paper about it three years ago called, “The effects of digital communication on face-to-face and voice-to-voice interaction; is e-mail a catalyst or crutch?” The title alone is longer than my whole post about the subject. Go to tin car Essays to read the paper.

Music Day: Have Rock Will Travel

By: Ben Tiernan

Time spent traveling on a train is pensive, philosophical time, or, at least it can be. For me, right now, I’m a bit hung over, and rocking out in my little cocoon of sound to a new CD from She Wants Revenge – which, by the way, rocks – and I’m en route from Solana Beach to Los Angeles. So, on the train I speculate about rock and travel.

It’s important to provide a sound track for travel…in life. People know this, that’s why there are millions of road-trip mixes. The association of travel and music is primal – there’s something basic linear about movement. Getting from hear to there paired with the fixed pace of footsteps or the wurr of engines simulates the basic sensation of the progress, and the steady reassuring tempo of a song.

Today, I like She Wants Revenge, which seems to be a self titled album. They employ satisfying bass-lines that lay footsteps to the wurr of my whisk up the coastline: punctuation to the sage and limestone blur to the east, and vast, steel ocean to the west. They have an 80’s, English, Mod thing going on if that can be said – I’ll have to check my lexicon with David and Tom. They feel English, and I think they even sound English, but everything I can tell from the liner notes, says they’re from Santa Monica.

Rock is the thing for modern travel. Hyper-speed progress leaves you no time to consider the your place in time and space. There is no consideration of the elements of the landscape: a tree, a house, and a fence. There is just landscape, and your place actually has nothing to do with the landscape because your place is in motion (relativity plays in here, I’m sure).

Rock always feels two steps ahead of me as my mind moves from chord to chord, rarely pausing and always quick-tempo. The elements blend as the tempo drives forward and there is no time for meditation. The state of the rock song is simply in motion.

I also have a new Eels CD: “With Strings Live, At Town Hall”. I haven’t listened to it yet, because She Wants Revenge rocks so hard.

Music Day: Self-Titled Albums

By: Ben Tiernan

Why do so many bands self-title their first album? It shows more than just lack of creativity, I think it shows lack of foresight and vision. What if they manage to pull together another album and that one rocks too? And what if they become rock idols after a few CDs? Don’t you want your magnum opus, your stake in the ground, your topper, your piece de la resistance to be the self-titled album?

How cool would that be if the White Stripes came out with a White Stripes album now? It would be like “This is the one. Rec my rod.” It would be the anointed album destined to tear a hole in the universe from which will poor the future of rock. Instead they probably blew the self-title card on some garage album that only David and Tom know about.

This may not be true, but I’m not going to research it.

Music Day: Hidden Tracks

By: Ben Tiernan

I also don’t understand bonus tracks or hidden tracks:

1) Why not just call them regular tracks? It’s not like they’re not on the album.
2) They’re never very good. They’re just more.

Music Day: Songs Or Tracks

By: Ben Tiernan

I don’t know why we have to call songs tracks, when they’re songs. I’m sure it has something to do with the magnetic strips and master reels and copyrights, but most people are neither sound engineers nor music industry lawyers. No one ever sings a track. I’m going to call them songs.

I'm No Luddite

By: Ben Tiernan

So this communing idea is a Romantic concept, but I think we all agree that there is an inverse relationship between the quality of experience and the amount of mediation.

(Someone should put a formula to that – the quantity of mediation – we can call it the mediation conversion: something like (Sense/Media Quality) x Shared Experience = Quantity of Mediation. I’d buy it.)

In any case, I’m just saying that shared experience and face-to-face communication is more satisfying than an IM.

I’m no luddite; I love my IM. I’m just saying.

Little Boxes Of Life

I don’t know what to feel about this life where my leisure is compartmentalized into an appointment format. Last night, I made jambalaya and hurricanes for some friends, this morning Jill and I went to breakfast with her friend from Philly and her new beau. Now, we’re off to San Diego for lunch with my mother. It’s all enjoyable, but the compartmentalizing of each experience makes me a little uneasy.

I worry that perhaps it is all disingenuous. The fusion of efficiency and meaningful human interaction feels counterintuitive. At work I have meetings with superficial objectives like, “let’s discuss the impact of the production timeline on the media plan. It will take one hour”. The objective of communing, however, needs fuzzy boarders.

Jill points out that I have very little free time so if I want to see the people I want to see, I have to carve out time for each of them. She’s right, of course, and the larger questions of work and leisure, life priorities, spending and getting all loom not far beyond this issue.

The roll of technology: cell phones, IM, email, on-line communities, personal media networks, etc. also play into the question: When we interact so efficiently does it lose meaning? With all this dialogue, do we ever commune?

The jambalaya was delicious.

Cosmic Silk

By: Ben Tiernan

Since I wrote Black Tie Formal about the 2005 Golden Globes, which was my first black tie event ever, I’ve had the opportunity to don my formalwear four more times. The attire is simple and appropriate – the kind of outfit you’d call a workhorse – and I like it because it was all off-the-rack stuff from Macy’s. I have a black suit, a black tie, and sleazy, Italian shoes buffed bright enough to guide ships in the fog. The suit is my tuxedo. There’s no bowtie and no cumber bun, but the traditional monkey suit seems old-fashioned and the shimmering silk necktie makes me feel in vogue.

There is something cosmic about that suit. Once I bought it I needed it. My brother got married and I needed the suit, some of Jill’s friends got married and I needed the suit; the Golden Globes came back around and I needed the suit. Andrew Eddy invited Jill and me to go with him and Lisa to a charity dinner and I needed the suit. It’s a hellofa suit. I’m wearing it later this month at an advertising event and next month in Seattle. Who knew you could go black tie in Seattle.

Here is a picture of me looking tense in my suit with some other people...



This flurry of black tie events makes me wonder – Is my suit a metaphor? Does the assumption of ownership cause the stars to align giving it purpose? Did my purchase of a formal suit somehow secure my brothers wedding? Does that fact that I own a black suit mean I will get invited to charity dinners, and industry events? How do they know?

Perhaps I should take this cosmic coincidence for a spin and see how it handles: hotel reservations in Europe with no plans to go – I’ll just see what happens. Porsches are awfully expensive these days, but maybe if I buy the keychain a Porsche will just manifest. I’ve never owned a company, but maybe if I start screwing people someone will just give me one.

I apologize if my stars aligning in anyway disjoint your stars. I promise I won’t be using them long. There is already a cigarette burn in my suit.

Awesomeness

I just made a Myspace profile, and it's awesome. It's so awesome that your computer may not be able to support all of its awesomeness. You may just see parts of the whole and due to your imperfect processing certain aspects may seem random, incongruous or even unfair, like when good people die.

The Second Coming

Jedd Davis weighs tin car against profesional achievement

It’s been a while since I’ve contributed to tin car. It’s been longer than I expected, too long. I’m not saying I’m disappointed in myself, or disgusted by my absence, I’m just saying. However, I have thought a lot about tin car, especially recently.

Things happened since my last rant. I got a new job. I like my job so much that I arrive earlier than I used to, and leave later. My job is so good, that I think about it all the time, and little else – sometimes even on the weekend. It’s so good, that I dialed up tin car and invited some friends to come over – you know, share the wealth. We all like it so much that we don’t even talk to each other, even though we sit within 4 feet of each other – that’s how great it is.

And that’s where tin car comes in.

Tin car is what’s good about life. Tin car is where you express your feelings about things that matter (to you, at least). Tin car is a place where you learn about others and yourself. Tin car isn’t a job, and your life shouldn’t be either.

Is it difficult to have both? A life and a job? You bet ya … especially when you don’t know what you want to be when you grow up. So instead of spending the limited free time you have in front of the television, take a deep breath, re-focus your energy on the people and hobbies that make you feel most alive, and remember that the good people at tin car are usually ready to get drunk at the drop of a hat, even if they do have to wake up earlier to go to work.

Viva la Tin car.