5 Songs Before Bed

"All I Want" by Joni Mitchell

"Ophelia" by Natalie Merchant

"Baby Blue" by Aimee Mann

"Ice Cream" by Sarah MacLachlan

"Factory" by Band of Horses

Song & Man

"Coming Up from Behind" by Marcy Playground

Madonna - Girl Gone Wild (Lyric Video)

Oh yeah. This will totally be on my workout routine. Boogy woogy!!

The Oscars: Year-By-Year Highlights

1989 - I remember the production number done for the costume design category, and the nominated apparel from Valmont and the completely fabtastic The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen. Henry V won the category that year.

1990 - Whoopi Goldberg's win for Supporting Actress for Ghost and her stunned trip to the podium.

1991 - Jack Palance's one-handed pushups after winning Supporting Actor for City Slickers.

1992 - Bram Stoker's Dracula winning for those AMAZING costumes.

1993 - I watched this with my family while at the Polynesian Resort in Disney World. I was very excited to see Steven Spielberg win for directing Schindler's List.

1994 - My favorite Oscar win ever: Best Costume Design for The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Lizzy Gardiner's gold card gown was a hoot.

1995 - How bored I was when Braveheart won the night.

1996 - Madonna performing "You Must Love Me", the Oscar-winning song from Evita. Not her best performance, but it's a wonderful film and she should have been nominated for it.

1997 - Titanic sunk the night for me. Tee-hee. Honestly, I wasn't too excited about any of the nominees that year.

1998 - I was DELIGHTED that Shakespeare in Love won Best Picture. Of the 5 nominees, it's the only film I still watch.

1999 - I watched the ceremony in my dorm room at college with friends. I was not happy that Phil Collins' "meh" song "You'll Be in My Heart" from Tarzan beat out the likes of "Save Me" from Magnolia and "Blame Canada" from South Park. That was just embarrassing.

2000 - Bjork's swan gown stole the evening.

2001 - Halle Berry winning Best Actress for Monster's Ball was very moving. I was rooting for Helen Mirren or Maggie Smith to win Supporting Actress for Gosford Park, but of course that went to Jennifer Connelly in A Beautiful Mind.

2002 - Watched this in Australia in my place on Coogee Beach. I remember being shocked that Best Song went to Eminen for "Lose Yourself" from 8 Mile. If I remember right, Barbra Streisand seemed just as surprised when she announced the winner.

2003 - Lord of the Rings wins everything! Woot!

2004 - The most boring Oscars ever for me, but I loved seeing Cate Blanchette win Supporting Actress for playing Kate Hepburn in The Aviator.

2005 - I was PISSED that Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture. It was at this point I realized I was taking these awards way too seriously.

2006 - Pan's Labyrinth NOT winning Best Foreign Language Film was a shock.

2007 - Tilda!!

2008 - I was over all the Slumdog Millionaire love. Loved that Sean Penn won for Milk.

2009 - It was pretty cool to see Kathryn Bigelow be the first woman to win Best Director for The Hurt Locker

2010 - Trent Reznor won an Oscar?! Awesome.

Song & Man

"Daddy, I'm Fine" by Sinead O'Connor

5 Songs Before Bed

"Kids" by MGMT

"Hold On" by Mary Beth Maziarz - got me through some serious shit in my life

"Dizzy From the Fall" by Throw Me the Statue

"The Modern Leper" by Frightened Rabbit

"One Step Up, Two Steps Back" by Bruce Springsteen

Galley Proof Mentioned in Article

Amos Lassen wrote a piece for Windy City wherein he speaks of various writers and books that have recently moved him, and he included my very own Galley Proof!

5 Songs Before Bed

"Payne's Bay" by Beirut

"A Moment Lost" by Enya

"So Sorry" by Feist

"Come Together" by Joe Cocker

"This Was Pompeii" by Dar Williams

Song & Man

"Revolutionary Costume for Today" by Christine Ebersole

Mary Chapin Carpenter - This Shirt

Along with my sister, Angie, today is the birthday of folk star Mary Chapin Carpenter. She turns 54. Aimee Mann and Mary are my two favorite songwriters. This song by MCC is a favorite.

5 Songs Before Bed

"Our Town" by Iris Dement - This would go on my list of greatest songs ever recorded.

"Henry Russell's Last Words" by Joan Baez

"Change of Heart" by Cyndi Lauper

"Ain't Gonna Lose You" by Brett Dennen

"I've Had It" by Aimee Mann

My New Favorite Commercial

The actress here is hilarious.

Song & Man

"Girl Fight Tonight" by Julie Brown

Fun.: We Are Young ft. Janelle Monáe

A great pop tune. This is why I avoid bars, though. Somebody's always looking to bash a wine glass over my head.

5 Notes To Living

Salvation is your only purpose. I read this once in an Eckhart Tolle book, and then had a dream where someone I knew told me those exact words. The phrase has popped up here and there since then and I can't help but feel there is a reason for it. What does it mean? I can't remember exactly how Tolle explained it, but for me it means that, in the end, salvation is getting to the end, surviving and having learned at least a little something. Living is in and of itself Life's purpose. Experience.

Something in the universe loves me. Let's forget tagging it with a moniker as limiting as "God." SOMETHING loves me. I feel it in my core. Something wants me to keep going. To make it just one more day past all the hurtles and hate. Something has nested in my soul. Or maybe my body has evolved around it. If SOMETHING is god and god is inside all of us, then we are all god. And I heard once that god is love. When you pray, you are not reaching out into the sky but inward.

God is Being, not a being. That tingling in your fingertips. That is god.

Rethink everything you've ever been taught. Research. Never follow someone blindly, no matter how wise they seem. There is no Truth. No really. The world and all its history is a matter of perspective. The rest is illusion, right? I firmly believe that no human can know everything. No person has ever hit on precisely what happens after we die, be they preacher, pope, or politician. If someone knew exactly what happened after death, why, that person would be amazing. And here in our world we have people running around like birds squawking "Heaven and Hell!" or "alien abduction" or "nothing at all." What gall to think we know anything about what happens after death. Every idea of the After anyone has ever thought of is impossible because our minds are too limited. Heaven or Nothing. Neither can exist. But then, in saying that, I've made a philosophical loop, haven't I? If anything anyone has ever thought of the After cannot be, then neither can what I've just postulated.

Forgiveness is giving up hope that you can ever change the past. This one hit me just recently. I really needed to hear it. For a while - for years, in fact - I have been thinking to myself, "Damn! If only I had listened to my inner voice and not gone out that night. Then I wouldn't have been tackled and gotten sick. If only...If only..." But thinking like that is a waste of time and energy. In this universe I did fall, I did get sick. What ifs are useless exercises and serve only to bring one down.

So say-ith the Arvin!

Song & Man

"The Memory of Trees" by Enya

This Week's Bullet Points

1. The new Amnesty International Bob Dylan collection, Chimes of Freedom, which includes Dylan covers by 76 different artists from Johnny Cash to Flogging Molly, is quite a treat. The best cover is Mariachi El Bronx's version of "Love Sick."

2. Am I the only one who was excited about the return of Cougartown? Everyone seems so embarrassed to admit liking that show.

3. My new horror short story, "Miss Locks", has been accepted by Untreed Reads. Woot! More on that later.

4. Smash is really good. I wasn't expecting that.

5. Viola Davis should be in at least 5 films a year. That woman is brilliant.

6. Goal update: Regarding my goal to change my living situation this year, today builders began on an addition to the house. There's a lot of banging going on (not in the porno way), disrupting my writing. But goals require sacrifice to be achieved. Hope all this disruption doesn't piss off any of the old ghosts in this place.

7. I reached 1000 Twitter followers today! I realize that's not Ashton standards. It's a start, though.

Song & Man

"Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika

The Wedding Dance Film

This is a short film in promotion of a feature coming out later this year. In director Elliot London's own words:

"The objective with this project is to raise money for our feature film FRIEND. A film about coming out in 2012. A time now when things are so different with social networking. A time now that a child might not have the correct tools to coupe with humiliation in an instant world.
FRIEND is about giving back. Its a movie about accepting and loving oneself but most of all it is about educating. With the proceeds from this film I am going to be donating the profits to groups that help educate at risk youth... If we can raise $10,000 to make our last film with social networking. Than $250,000 can be done. Please take a look at the campaign we have started. Please share this film... "

There's a link to donate to the feature film on the Youtube page.

Fleet Foxes Sing Me Off to Death

I just woke from a rather terrifying dream of drowning. It's the first drowning dream I've ever had....and it had a soundtrack. Well, at least a song. As I was drowning the chorus of the song "Lorelai" by Fleet Foxes played repeatedly. "Old news, old news to you now..." I struggled to rise from the water (which corresponded to me struggling to wake myself). As I was waking/rising, I saw my body below me in the water. Then the shape of my drowned body in the water transformed to that of the light from my window on the wall, and I was awake. Very disorienting. The thing is, when I thought I was drowning - when I gave into it as a reality - I had an expectation of "well, that's over. What's next?"

Song of Man

New project. A song and a photo that, in my opinion. kind of go together:

"This Time of Year" by Better Than Ezra

I Want To Dance With Somebody

I'm not a major Whitney Houston fan. Don't hate on me. I once was, back in the 80s. There was a time when she was very near the top of the pops for me.

I remember a specific summer when "I Want To Dance With Somebody" (still my favorite of her songs) was a colossal hit. I was staying over at my best friend's house. It was a Sunday morning and we were on the back stoop of the house, listening to Casey Kasem's Top 40 via a small portable radio. It was a lovely sunny day and when that song was played it was as if it was written and recorded for that singular moment. The warm sun in its mid-morning arch, the birds in the trees, the fun and laughter, the dancing. That song still takes me back there whenever I hear it. It makes me smile.

It's funny what we believe about stars when we are young. Jem & The Holograms might as well have been reality TV to my way of thinking. I once believed that all rock stars were friends. As if they lived in this big condo somewhere and always had broad smiles on their faces, because how could life be bad when you're a rock star? Rock stars, movie stars, and the like were all there to make us regular folk happy. How could their lives be anything but joyous? They were immune to problems.

In my head, I imagined that Whitney, Cyndi Lauper, and the Queen of Pop, Madonna were best friends and hung out together at malls, dressed just as they did in their videos. Cyndi, of course, was the kooky one. I imagined Tina Turner and Bette Midler would occasionally join them. In truth, that has probably happened, though with drag performers playing the parts. Such are the thoughts one was allowed to have before Entertainment Tonight turned from entertainment journalism into tabloid trash show and began reporting who said what about who, exposing the insecurities of the rich and famous.

Whitney Houston was an undeniable talent, but her star faded for me long before any of her drug issues. I don't really know why. That said, I respect what she gave to me. A Sunday morning on the back stoop of a house in Kentucky with my best friend. You have to respect anyone who writes a song just for you.

5 Songs Before Bed

"Only the Young" by Brandon Flowers

"Eagle on a Pole" by Conor Oberst

"Coming Home" by Mt. Desolation

"Lost Boys" by Shearwater

"A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall" by Edie Brickell

5 Songs Before Bed

"I'll Take Out Your Ashes" by The Low Anthem

"God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise" by Ray LaMontagne

"Oh Dear" by Brandi Carlile

"Calling it Quits" by Aimee Mann

"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster The People

This Week's Bullet Points

1. Great news! Along with Simple Men, my newest book Galley Proof will also be translated into other tongues.

2. I finally saw the wonderful documentary I Am. I highly recommend it. It reminded me of an older documentary-ish film called What the Bleep Do We Know. Only this time I wasn't berated afterward by someone claiming he was more evolved than me and the film was a childish explanation of a transcendental theme. This same guy told me he was only attracted to Asian men, so I don't know what he was doing with me. We hate him.

3. Madonna's performance at the football match was great. You can disagree with me, of course. Ass. You are allowed your ass-holish opinion. But the thing that really twisted my nipples was when I heard people make the sexist claim that she was too old for the show. Hello? Bruce Springsteen did the show two years ago and nobody said he was too old. And he didn't even do any cartwheels! Madonna did fucking cartwheels, motherfucker. Straight guys, bitter queens, and teenagers, I will beat you all up. I ain't a-scurred!

4. Smash. I will watch Anjelica Huston in anything, and this was actually a decent show. Glee for grownups.

5. Anybody catch Happy Endings last night? I love Max. Best gay character on network TV, and he even got a big gay kiss scene in this week's episode. Hopefully he gets even more re-acquainted with his ex in future episodes this season.

5 Songs Before Bed

"Indiana" by David Mead

"Sweet Auburn" by David Berkeley

"Tweeter & The Monkeyman" by The Traveling Wilburys

"Somebody's Missing You" by Dolly Parton

"Low Down Man" by Squirrel Nut Zippers

Define Pretty

5 Songs Before Bed

"I Can See New York" by Tori Amos

"With or Without You" by U2

"Main Title from Tess" by The City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra

"The Wrestler" by Bruce Springsteen

"There's a Bluebird in My Heart" by Over the Rhine

Betty White Raps 'I'M STILL HOT'

For me, the stars of this video are not the two ladies, but the big boobley sexy mens. That is all.

HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA

He-Man gettin' down!

5 Songs Before Bed

"Don't Get So Down on Yourself" by Chris Isaak

"Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)" by Mika

"Dido's Lament: When I Am Laid in Earth" by Alison Moyet

"On Her Mind" by Duncan Shiek

"Survival" by Madonna

Something About Football

Ryan Adams - Look Who Got A Website (Gordon Duthie Remix)

Love this song! Did you know witches created Ryan Adams' website?

Give Me All Your Luvin' (Feat. M.I.A. and Nicki Minaj)

It's here! Catchy song. And I love her flashback look near the end of the video.

This Week's Bullet Points

1. Unique Eats/Sweets are the most dangerous programs on TV. If I get diabetes it's their doing.

2. I was thinking of heading to the Rainbow Book Fair in NYC this March, but money and my damn foot may put a wrench in my plans. We shall see.

3. My "U" key is almost completely useless now on my laptop. I have to put all my body weight on it for the damn letter to show its smiling, narrow face. Ass.

4. Signed the contract for SuburbaNights with Dreamspinner Press. I have a trilogy!

5. The first language to get a translated version of Simple Men is...Italian! Woot! I loves me some Italians!

Foot Note 3

Got an ortho appointment with a general foot doctor. He won't be able to really help me too much, but I had to get in the Ortho Indy system by seeing any other doctor before I can be scheduled to see the doctor I actually need. So says my insurance. Go figure. Oh well. At least it's a step forward.