Alex McAulay's Random Blog

hit the road

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:46:40 GMT

past and upcoming travels (Mar-Apr-May): chapel hill, barcelona, minneapolis, austin, chapel hill (again), ocracoke island, san diego.

Movies #1

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:26:16 GMT

So we saw some movies this weekend.... "Stop Loss" didn't work, even though I wanted to like it... more interesting than good. Then we saw "Snow Angels," and I thought it was abysmal. Boring, pretentious, meandering, just like all of David Gordon Green's other movies... terrible, endless, the guy is such a poser... I liked "21" more, and that was just mindless studio fare... I guess it's hard to make a good movie, huh?

Random Rock Music

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:11:01 GMT

It's been a while since I've played any music. But today I found an old videotape, so I thought I'd put it up here. I'm playing bass and singing (under the name Charles Douglas), Manish Kalvakota (aka the grandson of India's Prime Minister, P.V. Rao) is on guitar, and the one and only Chaz McQuen is on drums.

FELINE REHAB?

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 09:34:05 GMT

So anyway, what you see in the picture to the left is our cat BronBron trying to open a bottle of wine with her teeth. The reasons behind her actions are unclear... unless she has secretly become a raging alcoholic! I'm particularly amused by the feral look in her eyes, and her bared fangs. She wants her liquor, goshdarnit! Anyway, I just hope she doesn't become a bad influence on our other cat, Ishmael, and lead him astray... Ah well, at least BronBron has discovered the most important substance in the life of a writer (just kidding!)

Yo, Where Am I?

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:08:20 GMT

So what have I been up to recently.... I got a bad cold a couple weeks ago.... I've been working on my next novel for MTV... going well, but slowly... Not really much to say! I did finally get a chance to finish watching all of Firefly (really great) and all of Lost Season 1 (also great) on DVD.... Now it's time to go get some sleep....

What Am I Doing Here?

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:55:31 GMT

Got to meet Diablo Cody at her book signing at Book Soup on Sat--she was super nice, and very down to earth..... then Lisa and I saw "Charlie Wilson's War," which was pretty lame, I thought (except for Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who is almost always great in anything)...... then today I watched "Death Sentence" on DVD, which was also kind of blah..... and now I'm writing this blog before I get back to work on my new novel..... and I'm eating some donuts from this 24 hour donut place called DK Donuts, which has really great, addictive donuts and bearclaws.... mmmmm.... healthy!

10:24 on a Friday night....

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:24:52 GMT

So this is just a quick update before Lisa and I go out to party at The Green Door in Hollywood.... oh wait, I mean before we clean our teeth and go to bed!

Anyway, here are some prospective plans for the weekend, in no particular order. Who knows how many of the following things we'll actualy do?
1. Go see Diablo Cody of Juno fame at Book Soup (Sat. at 5PM)
2. Watch more Twin Peaks on DVD
3. Watch Clerks II on DVD (yeah, I'm only like 2 years behind on this one)
4. Work on novel #4 for MTV Books
5. Play with Ishmael and Bronwyn (this will definitely happen, because they're attention whores!)
6. Eat at Jack in the Box... home of the Breakfast Jack
7. Go see Ang Lee and friends talk about their Golden Globe nominated films at the Egyptian Theater (Sat at 1PM)
8. Read more of: Leni by Stephen Bach and Who the Devil Made It by Peter Bogdanovich
9. Talk to our parents (hi mom and dad!)
10. Hang out with Lisa
11. Catch up on all the emails I'm behind on because I'm a huge procrastinator, not because I actually get that many emails
12. Play guitar
13. Work on the dissertation (this draft is almost done--yay!)
14. Catch up on sleep
15. Try to think up material for a more interesting blog next time!

MY BRAIN IS TIRED

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 11:36:04 GMT

Okay, so this will be a pretty random assortment of tidbits I wrote for the MTV Books blog--it's basically just what's on my mind as I sit down and write this at 3AM! Anyway, I'm up late because that's when I always write (my wife Lisa is a total morning person, so it's amusing when we negotiate our schedules). I thought I'd make a list of some of the things that have been on my mind recently... and bear with me, because when I said this would be random, I really wasn't kidding! Oh yeah, and the list is pretty shallow too, because I've spent most of the last month watching movies, playing guitar, and hanging out with Lisa. I heard there was a political something-or-other in Iowa last week? Who cares! I'll vote for whichever candidate has the nicest hairdo (just kidding!)

HERE ARE MY RANDOM THOUGHTS, ETC:
1. There Will Be Blood is one of the best films I've ever seen. The plot initially sounded boring (a guy looks for oil in the early 1900's?) but the film is amazing. I kind of want to see it again, even though I just saw it. It's fascinating and bizarre, like Citizen Kane as if directed by Stanley Kubrick.
2. Not all famous people are mean! Tonight Lisa and I went to a screening and Rosanna Arquette was there with her teenage daughter. They were so sweet! The movie was Baby It's You, an obscure early-80's teen drama/comedy starring Rosanna, and every time she had a kissing scene in the movie, her daughter in the audience covered her eyes in disgust! (they were sitting right in front of us, so we weren't stalking them or anything... really... I, er, promise.....) But it was so funny--her daughter was clearly freaked out at seeing her mom kiss some guy onscreen.
3. Watching Twin Peaks on DVD is fun, even though the second season is really awful. Anyone remember Twin Peaks? What a great show.
4. My laziness. Really, I can't even think of a single New Years resolution. I just don't care enough to try to change anything about myself. But I'm afraid I'm going to get stuck in my ways, like my grandpa who once shoved a computer off a library counter and broke it because, "Computers don't belong in libraries!" My mom and I told the librarians he had mental problems, so in the end he didn't have to pay for fixing it (of course he didn't have any mental problems--he was just grumpy and eccentric, but he'd always been that way). So maybe my resolution should just be not to attack any computers? I think I can handle that.... maybe.
5. Someone sent me a copy of that YA book The Luxe. I haven't looked at it yet, although the cover art is cool. Has anyone read it? And what's up with so many YA books being "Alloy" productions these days? From what I understand, Alloy is some sort of book packager. Does this strike anyone else as weird? I think our government should break up that monopoly! (And if Alloy is, like, really cool and I just have no clue what I'm rambling on about, then forgive me, and Alloy rocks!)
6. Pizza. I really like it. Why is there no decent pizza in LA? I want dripping, oily, greasy, nasty New York style pizza like you can find on every corner in NYC. I don't want "chive and cauliflower" pizza with lemon sauce. Please! If someone can FedEx me a greasy pizza then I'll vote for you for President if you ever run for President, okay???

DVD Frenzy, Part 56

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 08:02:49 GMT

Over the holidays, I watched a couple great Pedro Almodovar films on DVD: Talk to Her and Bad Eduction, both of which were way better than I expected--and really disturbing (in a good way!) We've also been watching our way through the remastered Twin Peaks box set (first season = awesome). It's too weird that the series aired so many years ago. Even though I was about 14 when it was first on the air, I totally remember thinking it was great back then (well, at least the first season). It's just as good now, and it's really addictive too..... Okay, so now it's back to work on my next novel, which is coming along nicely, if I don't get distracted by the urge to watch more episodes!!

JIBLET #518

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 10:49:24 GMT

Movies I saw last weekend: Juno (great) and I Am Legend (decent)

Book I'm re-reading: The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Music I'm listening to: Pixies "Surfer Rosa"

Food I'm eating: Koo Koo Roo chicken (the Boston Market of the west!) & macaroni and cheese

Movies + Music

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:04:18 GMT

So once again Joe Wright (Pride & Prejudice) has directed a brilliant film from a brilliant novel. This time it's Atonement--and it's probably one of the best films of the last decade (seriously!) Lisa and I managed to catch a screening at the Arclight in Hollywood that featured a great Q&A with Joe Wright and the actor James McAvoy after the film. And then, inexplicably, they both hung out in the lobby and we got a chance to talk with Joe (basically Lisa and I raved to him about how great his films are--he was totally cool and friendly, a fascinating character). And James McAvoy got besieged by autograph seekers and women of all ages. So much fun! The Arclight really is the best cinema in town!

In other news, I'm working away on a couple different manuscripts at the moment (writing two books at once, basically!) It gives me a great excuse to listen to lots of new music, because I always play music when I'm writing. This week it's been: The Wrens, The Classic Brown, Get Him Eat Him, Dr. Dog, The Brakes, British Sea Power, Jule Brown, It's a King Thing, The Long Winters, and many more. Rock n roll!

Likes and Dislikes

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 08:00:43 GMT

A reader sent me an email asking what kind of art/books/movies I like and don't like. I took her question in an odd direction, probably, but I thought it would be fun in a self-analytical way to see if I could actually answer it! So here goes:

DISLIKES
I don't like "feel good" movies or books.
I don't like ironic, "twist" endings (unless they're really good).
I don't like cheesy sitcom-style dialogue that is meant to be ultra witty and clever.
I guess I don't like TV in general at the moment (except for House, The Office, and Lost)
I don't like it when people use their blogs to complain about things (like I'm doing now!)
I don't like organized religion.
I don't like politics.
I don't like any paintings or music that predates 1960.

LIKES
I do like anarchy, abstractions, and stylizations (yay Werner Herzog and Jean-Luc Godard!)
I do like bizarre, upsetting, challenging films and books (yay David Lynch and JG Ballard!)
I do like Coca Cola and fast food (mmmm..... french fries....)
I do like reading crazy people's blogs.
I do like kooky religious cults--I find them funny.
I do like outsiders, underdogs, and hermits.
I do like cats and most animals (except horses, I don't know why)
I do like aquariums, because they look so peaceful.

I'll try to think up some more stuff to add to this list.....

Ski Trips from Hell... the story behind OBLIVION ROAD

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:51:25 GMT

(The following piece was written for the new MTV Books blog: www.mtvbooks.blogspot.com)

So my new novel, Oblivion Road, is about five friends who get stranded during a ski trip in the Colorado wilderness. Readers often ask me where I get the ideas for my books—and I usually don't have a good answer for them! Ideas are such whimsical, odd, dreamlike little things. But in the case of Oblivion Road, the idea came directly from the experience of one of my friends. Back in high school, my friend Mark flew to Denver to go skiing for a week with his older brothers, right before Christmas. He was really psyched about the trip, and he was a great skier. (I almost went along myself, except my parents made me stay home because we had relatives coming into town).

As it turns out, Mark and his brothers never made it to the slopes. Their rented van broke down about an hour away during a massive snowstorm, and there was no way for them to call for help. They ended up spending the night out there, in the brutal cold, figuring that the next day someone would come along and rescue them. No such luck! Sometime around the next afternoon, they realized that they hadn't seen a single car, and came to the horrible realization that the road must have got closed because of the blizzard. They had to hike about two miles to a ranger station, where luckily, they managed to get help. But they knew they'd avoided a horrible disaster by the skin of their teeth.

So this was the genesis of Oblivion Road. I always kept their saga in the back of my mind over the years, but I wasn't sure if it was enough of an idea to support a whole novel. Then one day, I was thinking about it, and realized, Hey, how could I make things even worse for them? And I came up with the idea that while they were stranded, someone would stumble out of the snow, and that the person would be an escaped convict. From there, the novel just took on a life of its own.

Anyway, while I'm on the cheerful subject of skiing horror stories, there was one scene from real life I wanted to work into the book, but couldn't. Another friend of mine from college was in Vermont once, skiing a double diamond, when he slipped and fell going fast on an icy patch. Through some bizarre feat of physical contortion, his ski actually snapped off, and the metal tip punctured his skin—and the ski went all the way through his leg! He had to get taken down the mountain on one of those emergency sleds, and it was about six months before he could walk again. Ah, wintertime! So if anyone's got any juicy skiing horror stories, please feel free to share... (or maybe not...)

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:09:43 GMT

So two fun things happened today--I got copies of the Spanish edition of Bad Girls (which looks amazing!) and Publisher's Weekly reviewed Oblivion Road. While the review isn't a total rave, it's pretty decent (I totally agree with all the parts that praise me!) And hey, what's wrong with a popcorn flick, anyway? mmmm..... popcorn.......

FROM PUBLISHERS WEEKLY:
Oblivion Road review

McAulay (Lost Summer) tautly weaves a fast-paced tale of terror. During an ice-cold January in Colorado, five high school friends are heading home from a weekend ski trip when their SUV veers off the road and crashes into the dense forest, stranding the teens in a blizzard miles from civilization. With no cell phone service and little food or water, best friends Courtney and Reyna brave the knee-deep snow and trudge a few miles up the road. But instead of finding help, the girls discover an abandoned prison van with the guard shot dead in the front seat. Terrified, they hurry back to their friends and the crushed SUV, where they all take refuge for the night. But hours later, when they see a handcuffed man in a prison jumpsuit crawling out of the forest, the teens are forced to make a life-or-death decision: save the potentially dangerous prisoner or let him freeze to death? The author excels at building suspense and providing nonstop action, constantly escalating the stakes in this fight for survival. However, there is little depth to his characters and the writing is at times stilted: “[Courtney] felt glad to be alive, but oddly detached. She guessed the emotions would hit her later.” This is the print version of a popcorn flick—shocking and entertaining, but ultimately insubstantial. Ages 12-up. (Nov.)

I LIKE TO WATCH

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 06:38:07 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving..... but enough about all that, let's talk movies!

THE MIST: I really loved this whacked-out Stephen King adaptation. This is one of the most downbeat, brutal, and generally unpleasant (although never gory or silly) films of the year! I thought it was great. Totally nihilistic, and extremely critical of our government without being preachy. And it's directed by the guy who made The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. My grade: A.

SMILEY FACE: A great new indie film by Gregg Araki (of Doom Generation and Mysterious Skin fame) about a pot smokin' wannabe actress who accidentally gets super high and has to go about her day pretending she's sober. I thought it was really, really funny. I had a chance to talk with Gregg Araki before the screening, and he was incredibly nice in person, and very funny too. It's kind of an anti-stoner comedy, with a classic performance by Anna Farris as the drugged out actress. Destined to be a future cult classic! My grade: A.

SOUTHLAND TALES: Lisa and I have been wanting to see this for a really long time. As a huge fan of Donnie Darko, I was really psyched to see what Richard Kelly could come up with next. The film, as it turns out, is a total trainwreck, but it's so fascinating and bizarre, that I ended up being really entertained by it. It's nowhere near as good as Donnie Darko, but it's definitely a total head-trip! I guess I liked it in the end, but it was about half an hour too long. My grade: B.

AMERICAN GANGSTER: Pretty perfunctory effort. It's hard to believe that the same person who directed Alien and Blade Runner made this film. I'm sure it'll get some Oscar nominations, but it's really not that great. It's like Ridley Scott is trying to do a Scorcese film. And I'm so sick of Russell Crowe--he's really boring, and he always plays the same character. Denzel Washington is good, as usual, but I thought he was a more convincing badass in Training Day. My grade: C.

Happy OBLIVION ROAD Day!!

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 05:39:31 GMT

UPDATE:
Today is the day that Oblivion Road finally hits stores! Lisa and I visited some local B&N's and signed copies. It's been a crazy past few weeks. I was in Chicago, Miami, Pittsburgh, and then briefly back to Chapel Hill. Lisa was in Oakland and then College Park, Maryland. So we're relieved to finally be back home in our apartment with our cats, and our couch! I can't believe that Thanksgiving is coming up so soon.... mmmm.... it's almost turkey time.....

READING:
I just got finished with Dave Eggers' What is the What, which turned out to be surprisingly good, and I probably should have read it sooner. Also digging Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich, about a group of MIT students who managed to score millions of dollars off Vegas casinos through a card counting scheme, and a really funny travel book called No Touch Monkey by Ayun Halliday about her misadventures in various countries. And Lisa is reading Scott Smith's A Simple Plan right now, as well as Into the Wild.

WATCHING:
No Country for Old Men (decent, but we didn't love it as much as all the critics did)

LISTENING:
Dan Bryk, The Strugglers, Fergie, Neil Young, Flaming Lips, British Sea Power, Brakes, Weezer, Rolling Stones.

HALLOWEEN IS FOREVER!

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 06:11:32 GMT

Happy Halloween
Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays growing up. One year I went trick or treating with a group of friends, and we all dressed up as terrorists! (This was back in the early 1990's when I was in tenth grade--somehow I don't think that costume would go down too well today). And another year, we had a huge house party where my band played, and it got busted up by the police because of noise complaints after only one song... Ah, the memories! This year, though, I'm staying safely at home with our two cats, whilst eating candy and watching bad TV (Lisa is away at a conference in Maryland, and I'm exhausted from taking a 10 mile walk up through Hollywood earlier in the day). Incidentally, today is also Bronwyn's birthday (she turns two!) and one of Ishmael's happiest days, because as a big black cat, he really gets to strut his stuff! Right now he's out on the porch meowing at revelers, and hissing at them. Good kitty!

Random Postcard from Los Angeles

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:35:52 GMT

WEBSITE UPDATE:
Lisa and I have added a few things to the website, including a brand new FAQ section: www.alexmcaulay.com

READING:
Conversations with Woody Allen by Eric Lax

LISTENING TO:
Feist, The Dwarves, Pixies, Beck, Jule Brown, The Brakes, and more.

WATCHING:
Shakespeare Wallah (one of the early Merchant/Ivory films--really good)

Dispatch 809

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 09:32:12 GMT

Listening to:
Beck, Midnite Vultures

Reading:
Entertainment Weekly

Watching:
So today I sat out on our balcony and watched the Malibu wildfires. It was pretty surreal. We live in Santa Monica, which is far from the fire, but close enough to get a good view of the huge plumes of smoke billowing over the mountains and hills. At sunset, the smoke had drifted out over the water and turned the sky crimson. It was very creepy and kind of cool looking all at once. I just feel bad for the people whose homes are getting burned up. I guess that was one good thing about living in Chapel Hill, NC--no fires and no earthquakes!

update from Alexland

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 20:08:33 GMT

MOVIES:
So I finally watched the rest of Joon-ho Bong's monster movie, The Host. It was sort of a glorious trainwreck, and I definitely didn't think it was as great as everyone else did (a Metacritic score of 85? huh? really?) I'm a huge fan of Joon-ho's previous movie, Memories of Murder, which is a bleak, bizarre crime drama, and one of the best films of the last few years. So The Host was just kind of a crazy mishmash of every "monster movie" trope out there. The "plot" didn't really make any sense, and the special effects were really cheesy--the creature looked like an early CGI effort, like out of Jumanji or something. I did like the anti-governement theme running through the piece, and the movie has its funny parts, but it felt like an ironic knock-off of Jaws, or a failed attempt to combine Signs and Lady in the Water perhaps (Joon-ho cheerfully babbles about his love of M. Night Shyamalan on the director's commentary track, so maybe this explains things--although personally I thought even The Village was a lot better than The Host).

MUSIC:
Cody & Gillette are playing on an endless loop!

BOOKS:
My Spanish textbook and dictionary (yes, I'm learning Spanish--it's fun, sort of).

What am I doing?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:36:39 GMT

WATCHING:
So Lisa and I caught We Own the Night today, which was pretty good in a Godfather-wannabe kind of way. Some great, inventive action scenes. The only weird thing is that the movie is supposedly set in 1988.... but the music and clothes were way off (more like circa 1980 or so). I don't know if this was some kind of deliberate anachronism, but it just made the time period seem fuzzy. Other than that, the movie is definitely worth tracking down if you like police/gangster thrillers.

LISTENING:
Kate Bush, Big Star, Manish Kalvakota, Dean & Britta, Luna, The Cure, and Mudhoney.

READING:
New Cinematographers by Alexander Ballinger--awesome book that tracks the work of five incredible cinematographers (including Jean Yves Escoffier, who shot one of my all time favorite films, Leos Carax's Les Amants de Point Neuf aka The Lovers on the Bridge).

Quick Update on a Sunday Nite

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:14:49 GMT

Watching: The Host

Reading: Joyce Carol Oates Journals

Listening: Kate Bush, The Sensual World

Pondering: Whatever happened to John Hughes? I think it's time he directs another film (it's only been sixteen years since his last one...)

FAVORITES!

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:49:58 GMT

So it's time for a new round of favorites. As my favorites change constantly, a couple months from now this list will probably be completely different! Anyway, here we go:

1. Favorite Movie: Body Double (dir Brian de Palma)--but this one has to be watched more than once. The first time I saw it, I thought it was terrible. By now I've seen it about twenty times and realize it's a total parody of a mainstream thriller. I think it's hilarious and incredibly bizarre! And it has the best performance ever from Melanie Griffith (her final lines of dialogue in the film make me laugh every time--they are completely deranged. Brian de Palma is totally insane, in a good way). The runners up are Hitchcock's Notorious, Lynch's Blue Velvet, Bergman's The Seventh Seal, Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, and Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of God (yes, terrible title--great movie).
2. Favorite Song: "September Gurls" by Big Star--Like the poor old Velvet Underground, Big Star never got their due. But this is such a great song!! How could this not have been a huge hit?? My favorite track of all time.
3. Favorite Album: "Surfer Rosa" by The Pixies and "The White Album" by The Beatles--a tie for first. Neither album could be any better than it is.
4. Favorite Actor: Cillian Murphy (see Sunshine)
5. Favorite Actress: Melissa McCarthy (see The Nines)
6. Favorite Film Director: Hitchcock
7. Favorite Book: Sir Vidia's Shadow by Paul Theroux--the nastiest and funniest literary feud on record. Theroux's book is a 350 page diatribe against his former mentor/frenemy, the Nobel-prize winning novelist V.S. Naipaul. It's such an odd book, I can't think of anything quite like it. Definitely worth reading, especially if you are thinking about becoming a writer!
8. Favorite Season: Summer
9. Favorite Cat: Ishmaelbronwyn (they've merged into one being on the couch, like in The Blob!)
10. Favorite painter: Basquiat

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 00:00:32 GMT

The Cat to Flea Ratio: Soon to Improve!
Ishmael and Bronwyn have learned from a reliable source that green Palmolive helps get rid of fleas, without giving Alex and Lisa cancer! So the flea bombing of Apartment 5 is now on hold while we test this new and intriguing strategy. Perhaps we can even use Ishy and BronBron to help clean our dishes from now on....

The Kingdom
Lisa and I went to see The Kingdom because it was playing right next to us, and we were too lazy to make our way across town to go and see Into the Wild, which is what we'd decided to see. Anyway, I thought The Kingdom was pretty good without being amazing. The plot was kind of silly, and the politics were sketchy, but one of the characters wears a Pixies t-shirt for about a quarter of the movie! So of course I had to love that. And the ending was good (depressing maybe, but good).

Vegetarian Meat is Forever?
My alt rock band from high school, the horribly named Vegetarian Meat (we were going for so-bad-it's-funny, and failing), now has a Myspace page:
www.myspace.com/vegetarianmeatforever

Books
So Lisa and I were debating what to get each other for our second anniversary (which is apparently the "cotton" anniversary). Then we figured out that books technically have cotton in them. Cotton, I tell ye! Cotton! So now the problem is solved..... And you would think that last year for the "paper" anniversary, we might have gotten each other books, but we actually bought each other DVD sets (because they had paper covers). Marvel at the crazy logic of Alex and Lisa!

Everything's Stranger Down South?

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:12:37 GMT

So I missed Black Snake Moan when it came into theaters, because it just looked too silly, and because I hate Justin Timberlake on principle. However, I recently picked it up on DVD, and I have to admit, I really love it!! It's totally over the top and ridiculous, but it's also really fascinating and kind of endearing. Samuel Jackson and Christina Ricci are both great, and even Justin Timberlake is really good (and he doesn't sing--yay!) But what a strange film! It's definitely worth seeing. And after having lived in the south for so many years prior to moving to Los Angeles, it was odd to see that world depicted on the screen. Anyway, check it out if you have a chance. Great cinematography and soundtrack too.