Blog: THEME FOR GREAT CITIES

Greetings from the gutter. That's where my mind is at the moment, and in honor of Valentine's Day on Tuesday, I'm going to spend the weekend splashing around down here, paying musical tribute to the next best thing two people can do together after falling in love (which, if you're lucky, will lead to even more of this). For those who prefer some music on the side, I've curated the perfect V-Day soundtrack. I didn't realize until I was halfway through that it's dominated by male performers. Female singers may move me more overall, [...]

What does it take to make a brand new day worth waking up for? Not necessarily the promise of great adventure nor the love of a lifetime, though I wouldn't dream of tossing either out of bed. Yesterday is hardly a blur, but on paper, it wouldn't qualify as the most memorable one ever, the greatest one-man show on earth, featuring a very special guest. So what did I get up to on Thursday, February 9, 2012 -- the 40th day of the year -- then? Most notably, after nearly an entire week, I [...]

Curious? To find out why, find a quiet spot, and clink on this link to my column at The Faster Times.

Better late than after the Oscars, right? The Artist finally hit Australian screens last Thursday, so 11 weekends into its U.S. run, I at last can add my two cents to the hundreds of shiny pennies that already have been tossed into the critical pool. 1. Was there a better-cast actor in 2011 than Jean Dujardin? He not only perfectly captures the carriage and mannerisms of a 1920s screen star, but his dark good looks actually seem to be straight out of the early part of the last century. Every time I [...]

No, I'm not talking about the inanely and unoriginally titled "Give Me All Your Luvin'," by Madonna (featuring Nicki Minaj and M.I.A.). To these ears, it's possibly the worst-ever first single from a new Madonna album ( MDNA , speaking of inanely titled, due March 26), a paint-by-numbers pop song that doesn't even attempt to be groundbreaking or an essential part of the Madonna canon. It will likely have a healthy debut on next week's Hot 100 (though not enough to beat Kelly Clarkson to the top), thanks to the double promotional shove of the video's [...]

Does this cap make me look "gangsta"? Last weekend, a friend of mine made an interesting comment/observation that I filed away for future consideration. This morning, as I lay in bed plotting my Saturday, it popped back into my head. I'm not sure how or why, but the conversation last Saturday night had suddenly shifted to being black and living in a place where you're not only a minority but a rarity, too. It's a topic that has been broached several times by friends and acquaintances over the last year [...]

Speaking of last goodbyes, yesterday I said one to someone I really care about. Now today (Friday, the 3rd) is looking a lot like a Smiths day. (Bye bye, Soundgarden -- for now.) Morrissey always did know exactly how to express all of my feelings of personal and romantic angst. He gets it like that. Today's partial must-listen-to Smiths playlist: "I Know It's Over" "And you even spoke to me, and said, 'If you're so funny, then why are you on your own tonight? And if you're so clever, then why [...]

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This hump day clearly won't be one of my most productive ones. There's a cluster of ideas for future posts crowding my mind, but instead of settling on any of them, I'll focus on the one thing that is stopping me from focusing on anything else today: tonight's Soundgarden show at Melbourne's Sidney Meyer Music Bowl, which will be my first major concert in Australia. (What took me so long, right?) I'll have to do some sort of in-depth analysis of Soundgarden one day (like tomorrow, when I'll be reviewing the show for the Time Out Melbourne [...]

It's good to know that I haven't always been so stupid in love. Once upon a time, before I got caught up in the rapture of the charms of Argentine men, I had a healthy dose of skepticism and cynicism when it came to romance, and it served me incredibly well on the job. Of course, when you spend years covering celebrities for People magazine and Us Weekly , you learn a thing or two about Hollywood love lives. Yesterday, while I was writing a post for my blog at [...]

There, I said it! Octavia Spencer and Christopher Plummer have been virtual Oscar locks in their respective supporting categories for weeks now. I privately predicted a Jean Dujardin Best Actor win months ago, when The Artist was still a newbie in theaters, comparing him to Roberto Benigni, who triumphed for Life Is Beautiful 14 years ago, and my friend, a movie critic for a major national U.S. magazine, shot me down. " The Artist is no Life Is Beautiful ." No, it's not, [...]

A few weeks ago, I realized that one of my greatest fears since I left Buenos Aires 11 months ago is finally coming to pass: My Spanish is fading away. Whoever said, "Use it, or lose it," sure wasn't kidding. I was writing an email to the woman who manages my apartment in BA when my lapse in language occurred. I couldn't bring myself to say, "I was wrong," which was strange because I've never had trouble saying it in English. I don't have a problem saying those three words (which are actually only two [...]

"The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be." -- Marcel Pagnol Truer words have never been spoken -- or written -- and I read those ones for the first time several weeks ago. Where? In someone's Manhunt profile, of all places. (Who says online cruising never leads to anything good?) The guy who dared to put them there immediately topped my [...]

I confess. I'm a television junkie. And I won't even pretend to like the supposedly "quality" stuff. I live for boob-tube fluff. The more mindless, the funnier (sometimes). Which is certainly not the case when it comes to cinema and music. With movies, I'm never in my element until Oscar season, when sequel fever cools, the action slows down, and Hollywood starts putting out films for adults. And with music, I'm a little bit country, and I'm a little bit rock & roll, the majority of Billboard's Hot 100 be damned. Bruno Mars, LMFAO [...]

Same person, different bodies? To be or not to be... gay. That is the question. And according to one of my friends, one whose opinion I not only value but usually agree with, it's a question whose answer -- along with everything that we are, beyond the physical -- is determined solely by our environment. In other words, just as the language(s) with which we are raised determines the one(s) we end up speaking, the environment in which we grow up determines the gender we end up wanting to sleep [...]

My first Australian Day has come and nearly gone, and I'm still not 100 percent sure what it is. But then, neither are most of my Australian friends. At first, it was described to me as the Aussie version of the U.S.'s Independence Day, but after Devarni did a mobile-phone Internet search, we decided it had more in common with Columbus Day. January 26 is the anniversary of the day in 1788 when Great Britain populated its island territory in the Southern Hemisphere with convicts. I'm not sure that's quite it, and I'm a little too exhausted [...]

Who cares if Tim Gunn hasn't had sex in 29 years? Well, I guess I do. Sort of. But not for the reason you're thinking. In general, I couldn't care less about the sex lives of celebrities, or semi-celebrities, like Tim Gunn. And I'm not even sure what Tim Gunn does. I've never seen anything he's been on. The only reason I know who he is at all is because in 2006, I was at an Entertainment Weekly party, and a friend of mine started to hyperventilate at the [...]

After making nary a peep all Oscar season, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (whose title I still can't seem to get right) snags a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Young Adult and its star, Charlize Theron, are left out in the cold. And no Bridesmaids or The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in a Best Picture category with nine (?) nominees. Those aren't the only unexpected developments that have me scratching my head after the January 24 announcement of the 2012 Oscar nominees (for 2011 films)! [...]

"Has anyone ever written anything for you?" Stevie Nicks asked on a 1989 B-side. As far as I know, the answer would be no. Who even "writes" anymore? If not face to face, most communication these days is done by tapping a keypad with your fingers. And texts, instant messages and Facebook wall posts will never count. My ex-boyfriend said he bought me a card for my last birthday, and I presume that he wrote something in it, but he forgot it at home when he came [...]

The other day, a film-critic friend and I had dissenting opinions -- several of them -- and our healthy debates, naturally, turned to the subject of George Clooney, one of my favorite actors. The other guy's take on the soon-to-be-quadruple Oscar nominee for acting (and likely two-time winner come February 26) was one I've heard countless times: "Doesn't George Clooney always play himself?" Wait, that guy he was playing in Syriana was George Clooney? I do not think so, and if he was, then he gained 30 pounds and f**ked up his back on [...]