I actually found this trailer on the site for Mr. Lee’s General Store & Haberdashery, a cozy little shop nearby that sells things like shaving blades, baseball gloves, mustache wax, switchblades, steel wool, handkerchiefs and fedoras — man stuff. It was from this store that my daughter bought me some wool socks for my birthday. Yes, today is my birthday.

Let’s do this again, shall we?

It’s a fuckin’ dark comedy (if you dig Jody Hill’s other stuff like The Foot Fist Way and Eastbound and Down) and the soundtrack is absolutely killer — The Band, Dwarves, Yardbirds and a smokin’ Pixies cover.  I figured they must have gotten Wayne Kramer to handle the music again since he’s done such a great job on EBAD but turns out it wasn’t him after all.  Obviously Jody Hill puts a high priority on locating only the finest tracks to aurally accompany his work.

And an alternate take that looks 100% more interesting and accurate:

I went to Toronto for FITC… and we won an award! Also got a super cool gift from Relish for the whole famn damily. Gosh you guys are clever.

I became an uncle. I just missed meeting Dylan Matthew (no Facebook profile to link to yet) by an hour and change. He was literally born as I my plane was taxiing on the runway to head back to Vancouver. To be honest, I’m kind of mad that my sister couldn’t push him out sooner but I’m sure I’ll forgive her in time.

Mish and I went to see night #2 of the Weakerthans and Constantines 2-night stand of the Rolling Tundra Revue at the Commodore. That was a seriously good show. It’s probably been 5 years since I’ve seen the Cons play (I’m pretty sure it was with the now-defunct Royal City at Babylon) and they quickly reminded me that they are a smoking live band. Huge sound and tight as hell. Even though I think I’m an album or two behind I forgot how many of their songs I knew.

Monday night we went to the Showbox in Seattle to see the Shins. I find those drive-there-and-back-the-same-night shows always sound like a good idea on paper when you buy the tickets but not so much when you’re jet-lagged and have to hit the road at the end of a long work day. All that aside, the show was great and it was super sweet to see the band in a cozy venue like that. It was all ages and Mish and I ended up standing next to David Bazan (who is – or was – Pedro the Lion) and his little daughter… who was dancing up a storm. The set finished at midnight, which was decent, but the drive back was especially painful. Since I was tasked with driving I loaded up on a concoction of sugar and energy drinks designed to keep me awake for the required 2 hours. I think my sugar buzz was just trailing off as we entered Vancouver but I managed to hold it together and not launch the car off the road into a ditch. Lesson learned… stay in a hotel room next time, cheap ass!

Last night we went to see a screening of the documentary film Objectified at the Rio, which is a great old (recently restored) theatre in town. The director/producer Gary Hustwit was there and answered questions afterwards. Pretty good film all in all… it’s a nice overview of the massively huge topic of “design” and how it fits into our everyday lives. Obviously he featured designers from great brands like Braun and Apple but there’s a notable absence of any kind of analysis into the IKEA phenomenon — “high” design at low prices that basically falls apart if you ever have to move it. Mish was going to ask him why he basically glossed over IKEA but was way too chicken to put her hand up and ask it in front of everybody. Fortunately somebody else asked a simliar question and his response was basically that IKEA is a bit of a touchy topic in design circles and he didn’t want to take sides. Fair enough. Here’s the trailer… enjoy.

This looks absolutely epic.  Hoping it shows on some Vancouver screens.  Right now it’s a pretty limited run.

Interestingly… the White Stripes had bailed on touring to support Icky Thump because of Meg’s anxiety problems so this is technically their first performance in nearly 2 years.  They did a pretty soulful version of “We’re going to be friends” sans drums… kinda cool.

And speaking of Jared Hess (this is the song that plays in the opening credits of Napolean Dynamite) you need to all go meet Ronald Chevalier – star of Hess’ new film Gentleman Broncos.