But I'm the Director
When IFC released my film, they asked me to send them a copy of the final version a month before the theatrical release date so that they could encode it for video-on-demand. I was still tweaking the sound mix and making last minute changes, so I rushed the sound mix to completion in order to make the deadline.
Soon after I had sent it, I realized that some of the sound levels weren't quite right, and I wanted to tweak it some more. I was told by IFC that I could make changes right up to the release date, since no encoding would be involved, so I went ahead and did a remix. When I called IFC to tell them it was finished, I was told that it was too late, and that my "final final version" would have to wait until the DVD release, which would be sometime around October.
Today, I learned that the DVD has already been encoded and that the DVD release date is in fact scheduled for September 12th! I'm not sure why nobody bothered to tell me this was happening. These are all very nice people who mean well, but the end result is that the director seems to be the last person consulted about any of this.
When I asked if I could weigh in on the DVD artwork, I was promptly sent the work-in-progress artwork. I found it to be excellent (much better than I could ever have done), but I got the sense that this wasn't part of their routine, and that they were only showing it to me because I had specifically asked to see it.
They also agreed to let me re-encode the sound, which is great news. They've been incredibly accommodating, but I'm surprised at the degree to which the film ceases to become the property of the filmmaker once a distributor decides to "pick it up."
Next time, I'll know to be more on top of it.
The Weinstein Company
Today, I got a call from the Weinstein Company (who are releasing the DVD of "I Am A Sex Addict" through their Genius label), informing me that all of the DVD extras needed to be ready and delivered by July 7th. I had previously been told that I had until the end of August, and had been planning accordingly. Now I have to rush the DVD extras to completion.
I've already put together three separate "making of" shorts, but I had been planning to shoot and edit a longer and more ambitious extra in which I was going to re-enact the story of the making of the film. I had already written the script and was going to begin production on July 15th. This is one of the downsides of not doing it yourself - communication snafus tend to happen, and one's best laid plans can crumble. But the upside is not insignificant - much wider distribution and marketing of the DVD.
Going with an established distributor has been a two-edged sword in a lot of ways, and it's still too soon to assess the end result, but given what I've learned about distribution and marketing since the film opened theatrically, I'm very happy to have IFC and the Weinstein Company behind me.
French Escort services
Today, I received an e-mail from a French sex addict who told me he'd read about my film on a French
escort rating website. He gave me the link to the site which had a rather lengthy discussion (in French) of my film (which no one had seen yet). My favorite comment was the following: "I'm looking forward to seeing it, but we should remember that it comes from the States, and is therefore likely to be watered down."
I thought it was kind of surreal to have all these prospective johns discussing my film on a website devoted to exchanging information about the pros and cons of specific prostitutes.
I also learned a new word today. The French sex addict described himself as a "punter," which according to Wikipedia is British slang for a john. I'd never heard that word used in that way before.
My Father's Second Cousin's Father
In 1953, my father's second cousin's father, Iranian General Fazlollah Zahedi, led a CIA-sponsored military coup that overthrew the democratically-elected government of Iranian Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah of Iran (who had previously fled the country in response to a popular uprising). The reason the U.S. wanted to overthrow Mossadegh was because he had recently nationalized the Iranian oil industry, and the U.S. wanted to regain control of the Iranian oil fields.
Some historians have argued that the seeds of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 were planted by the 1953 United States-sponsored coup, and that the subsequent rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran was a direct result of misguided U.S. attempts to impose an authoritarian monarch on a country that had a functioning democratic system of government already in place.
I recently applied for several grants to make a film about this pivotal episode in the history of Iranian-American relations, but my grant proposals were all rejected. Today, however, one of the grant-giving organizations that had previously turned me down unexpectedly reversed its decision, due to a recent funding increase. And so, I will be making this film after all.
The Shah of Iran and General Fazlollah Zahedi
College Reunion
Today I was invited to be a featured guest at a Yale Univeristy master's tea. Apparently, some of the students had requested that I be invited, God bless 'em.
One of the more wonderful things about Yale is that they have these amazing "teas," in which a guest of some repute is invited to one of the residential colleges (Yale has several of these) to "have tea" with any students and faculty members who are interested in attending. When I was a student at Yale, I "had tea" with such distinguished guests as
Jacques Derrida,
Umberto Eco,
Louis Malle,
W.S. Merwin,
Carl Andre, and
Yves Bonnefoy. It was a rare and beautiful thing to be able to converse freely with these people in a setting so conducive to the give and take of actual dialogue.
I'm kind of thrilled and honored.
Go, bulldogs.
The Red Vic
Tonight, I flew back to San Francisco (from Austin) to do a Q and A at the
Red Vic Movie House. The Red Vic is a fantastic second-run movie theater that is cooperatively owned and operated. They show a great film pretty much every night of the week.
I was initially thinking of premiering "I Am A Sex Addict" at the Red Vic (they also sometimes show first run films, although these are usually films without a distributor), but they have a printed calendar and only one screen so it wouldn't have been possible to extend the run if it had done well. We premiered the film at the two-screen Balboa Theater instead, and it played there for 5 weeks, so it turned out to be the right choice. But I love the Red Vic, and am thrilled that the film is finally playing there.
It also happens to be my neighborhood theater - the only one within walking distance, so it's where I usually go when I feel like going to see a recent release. It's also the only movie theater in San Francisco (as far as I know) that sells nutritional yeast-flavored popcorn.
Registered Sex Offender
Today, I acted in the film
Registered Sex Offender. The film is is written and directed by my friend
Bob Byington (who also directed "Shameless" and "Olympia"). He asked me to improvise a short scene in which I play a recently arrested sex offender at a mandatory counseling session. The counselor was played by
Kevin Corrigan, best known for his stand-out role in Nicole Holofcener's
Walking and Talking. I found him to be an unusually kind, sensitive, and down-to-earth person, and I really enjoyed talking with him afterwards. He has a small role in the upcoming Scorsese film,
The Departed, (he also had a small part in "Goodfellas") and it was a real treat to hear him tell on-the-set stories about Scorsese (his imitation of Scorsese is pitch-perfect).
There is something incredibly gratifying about intersecting, however fleetingly, with others who have been a part of the cinematic landscape to which we are all trying, in our various ways, to contribute. The time it takes for films to become part of our shared "history" seems to be getting shorter and shorter, and even a film as recent as "Walking and Talking" already feels like an historical artifact. I always enjoy meeting anyone who has been a part of this history that we are all trying to write, and today was a case in point.
Thank God for the Austin Film Society
"I Am A Sex Addict" opened today at the
Dobie Theater in Austin. The film received a rave
from the Austin Chronicle and an opposite-of-rave
review from the Austin Statesman, the first sentence of which was "Caveh Zahedi is a pretentious jerk."
The film was sponsored by the
Austin Film Society as part of their weekly film series at the Dobie. The Austin Film Society, which was started by
Richard Linklater and a few friends back in the eighties, has since grown into one of the largest and most successful film societies in the country, with a full-time staff of twelve people and the conversion of the old airport into the Austin Film Studios (where
Quentin Tarentino,
Robert Rodriguez, and
Kimberly Pierce are all currently shooting their next projects).
The film was well attended and well received, and the Austin Film Society hosted a party afterwards at the Dog and Duck Pub. It was nice to see old friends like
Bob Sabiston (who animated "Waking Life" and did the animation for "I Am A Sex Addict") and Margaret Brown (who directed
Be Here To Love Me) and John and Janet Pierson (of
Reel Paradise fame) and David Jewell (who acted with me in the "Holy Moment" scene from
Waking Life).
On the way home from the party, I was pulled over by a Texas Highway Patrolman for speeding. The first thing he asked me was: "Are you from California?" (I have no idea how he guessed that). I said yes, and he said: "Do you know we sometimes put people from California in jail for speeding?" I said no, I didn't know that, and he then explained that California law doesn't allow the state of Texas to enforce the collection of traffic fines (?) and that since it was late at night, and the court was closed, he could, if he wanted, put me in jail in order to ensure that I would show up at court the following Monday to pay my fine.
I explained to him that I was a filmmaker, and that I had been invited to come to Texas by the Austin Film Society. Those seemed to be the magic words, and he agreed to let me off with a warning.
Postcard from Austin
I am in Austin, Texas for the premiere of "I Am A Sex Addict" at the Dobie Theater tomorrow night.
I am staying at Richard Linklater's place (which I love). It was fun to see him (I hadn't seen him in a couple of years). He beat me in ping-pong (as always). He leaves first thing tomorrow morning for Los Angeles, where he is doing a press junket for "A Scanner Darkly."
Of Demonology
"Le combat spirituel est aussi brutal que la bataille d'hommes; mais la vision de la justice est le plaisir de Dieu seul."
- Arthur Rimbaud
Today was spent wrestling with my writing demons (Yes, they seem to be plural, and to outnumber me ten to one).
There is a tradition by which every episode of the New Testament parallels an episode of the Old Testament. The New Testament episode of Doubting Thomas putting his hand into the wounds of the risen Christ has as its parallel the Old Testament episode of Jacob and the Angel, in which the Angel is described first as a man, then as an angel, and then as God himself. The strange thing about this story is that Jacob overcomes the Angel/God, and wrestles Him to the ground (although Jacob is afflicted with a limp ever after).
Well, I've been limping my way around the house all day, and I'm not sure if my writing demon is in fact a demon or an angel or God himself.
Wilco et cetera
Tonight, Mandy and I watched
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart, the documentary on
Wilco. I loved watching it. I knew Wilco's music only a little, and had always liked them, but was struck by the degree to which the film helps you understand and appreciate the music more deeply.
The DVD was given to me by Albert Berger, one of the film's producers. Albert is one of the nicest people in the business. With his producing partner, Ron Yerxa, he also produced "Cold Mountain," "Election," "Little Miss Sunshine," "The Ice Harvest," "Pumpkin," "Bee Season," "King of the Hill," and "Crumb."
I first met Albert at Sundance in 1991. He had liked
A Little Stiff and we stayed in touch over the years. I filmed him recently for "Son of Sex Addict," the short about the making of
I Am A Sex Addict that I am preparing for the DVD. The DVD extra is a re-enactment of the making of "I Am A Sex Addict" which, like its predecessor, combines re-enactments with documentary footage.
Wilco
Cinema and Botany
I am currently reading Michael Pollan's
The Botany of Desire, which is about the evolution of four plant species: the apple, the tulip, cannibis, and the potato. The book argues that plants have evolved symbiotically with humans, and have had to figure out what humans desire most in order to maximize their chances of reproductive survival. The four plants in question have evolved by responding, respectively, to the human desire for sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and nourishment. The idea that plants have domesticated us just as much as we have domesticated plants is an interesting, and it seems to me, entirely convincing one.
The same could be said for cinema. Filmmakers have evolved symbiotically with their audiences, and have had to figure out what humans desire most in order to maximize their chances of cinematic survival. Fortunately, audiences don't desire just one thing. And like their plant predecessors, it could be argued that filmmakers have evolved by responding to the human desire for sweetness (Hollywood cinema), beauty (art cinema), intoxication (the thriller/horror film) and nourishment (documentary cinema).
Quote of the Day
"J. Krishnamurti, the great Indian philosopher and spiritual teacher, spoke and traveled almost continuously all over the world for more than fifty years attempting to convey through words - which are content - that which is beyond words, beyond content. At one of his talks in the later part of his life, he surprised his audience by asking, "Do you want to know my secret?" Everyone became very alert. Many people in the audience had been coming to listen to him for twenty or thirty years and still failed to grasp the essence of his teaching. Finally, after all these years, the master would give them the key to understanding. "This is my secret," he said. "I don't mind what happens."
- Eckhart Tolle, "A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose"
J. Krishnamurti
Steven Shaviro
Today, the following
review of Sex Addict appeared on Steven Shaviro's
blog. Steven Shaviro, for those who don't know, is a cultural critic whose works include
The Cinematic Body,
Passsion and Excess: Blanchot, Bataille and Literary Theory,
Connected, Or What It Means To Live in the Network Society, and
Doom Patrols: A Theoretical Fiction about Postmodernism. The review was one of the most intelligent reviews of the film that I have read, and it was also one of the best written. It was a thrill to discover it this morning.
Steven Shaviro was a graduate student at Yale when I was there as an undergraduate. I didn't know him well, but we did have a couple of conversations at that time. It was Shaviro who introduced me to the work of
Sam Hsieh, the Taiwanese performance artist who did year-long performance pieces, his first being to lock himself in a cage for a year (with no reading or writing materials), the second being to punch into a time clock every hour on the hour for an entire year, the third being to live exclusively outdoors for an entire year (this piece was aborted prematurely when he was arrested by a New York police officer for defecating in public), and the fourth and final piece being to tie himself to a woman (whom he didn't previously know) with a three foot rope for an entire year.
Sam Hsieh's work became a huge influence on my own view of art, and it is to the infinitely curious and ever-probing mind of Steven Shaviro that I remain indebted.
It was also Steven Shaviro who introduced me to the music of
Glenn Branca, and whose preference for Emily Dickinson over Wallace Stevens (which I considered heresy at the time) pushed me to a greater understanding and appreciation of her work, for which I am also eternally indebted.
Steven Shaviro
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
When I was twenty years old, I went to visit
Jean-Pierre Gorin (Jean-Luc Godard's erstwhile collaborator) at his home in San Diego. I had called him up out of the blue, told him I was a big fan of his work, and asked if I could come visit him. He graciously agreed to meet me.
I arrived full of excitement and delusion. I was somehow imagining that we would bond and become great friends and, who knows, maybe even work together some day.
We started talking about cinema, and I asked him about his favorite films. One of the first films he mentioned was: "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore." I was stunned. I had seen the film, but hadn't been particularly impressed by it. He told me it was Godard's favorite American film of the past ten years as well (this was in the early eighties).
We started to argue about the film, and he ended up getting angry and throwing me out of his apartment. So much for collaboration. But I never forgot what he said about "Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore."
Today, I showed the film in a class I was teaching on Scorcese. I hadn't seen it in the intervening years, but I finally understood what Jean-Pierre Gorin and Jean-Luc Godard had been talking about. It's an incredible film (I would even argue that it's Scorcese best). It was wonderful to watch it again and to try to see it through their eyes. It was actually heartwarming, and reminded me (despite appearances to the contrary) of Godard's deep love of classical cinema, and of the reality from which that cinema springs.
The Taboo Against Honesty
I Am A Sex Addict is opening in Chicago tomorrow (at the
Music Box). A
review appeared today in the Chicago Tribune. It was written by Michael Wilmington, and was mostly positive and well written, but it included this sentence:
"Is this guy whining or bragging?"
I'm always stunned when I hear that from a film reviewer. It's as if the taboo against honesty is so deeply entrenched than any instance of it can only be interpreted either as "whining" or as "bragging."
First of all, the social stigma and shame that surrounds the frequenting of prostitutes is such that the idea that someone would publicly "brag" about it strikes me as inane, and shows a real cluelessness as far as human psychology is considered. The same goes for "whining" - who is so out of touch with reality that they would expect to get sympathy by confessing to an addiction to prostitutes?
No one, as far as I am aware, has ever publicly come out and admitted this (besides me), and yet there are millions of people who have this same addiction. To reduce such an admission to either an act or "whining" or "bragging" is about as unimaginative a response as I can imagine.
There is another possible interpretation, but it requires a different set of assumptions about human motivation. And that is the idea of honesty as an act of generosity.
The Art of Seeing With One's Own Eyes
Today, I decided to go for a hike in the Alps.
I was trying to see, to really see, and I was having a hard time.
But then little by little, I started to be able to see.
I Am Not Allergic To Philosophy Anymore
Today was my turn to do a public presentation of my work at the
European Graduate School where I'm teaching.
I showed
Sex Addict. Surprisingly, it was one of the best screenings ever. It struck me watching the film in this setting that this was the ideal audience for the film. The film was really made for philosophers, and that's who these people are. These are the people I went to school with. They're all steeped in
Nietzsche,
Heidegger,
Foucault,
Derrida,
Deleuze, and
Baudrillard.
It has been wonderful to revisit the world of philosophical enquiry. I've been allergic to philosophy for the past twenty years, but I'm feeling inspired to get back into it again.
Derrida Was Right
Qu'est-ce que Quay?
Today, I had lunch with the
Quay Brothers, which was just about the funnest thing I've done since I've been here (in Switzerland). These guys are hilarious. One Quay will make a joke, then the other Quay will riff on it, and then the other Quay will riff on that, and on and on. And the joke just keeps getting funnier.
They had made plans to inspect some very old Swiss chalets after lunch and invited me along. Normally, I wouldn't find that kind of thing all that interesting, but their curiosity was infectious.
Afterwards, they showed a short film that the BBC had commissioned them to make. The idea was to come up with images to accompany an original
Karlheinz Stockhausen composition. The film they ended up making was inspired by the letters of an insane woman (in an insane asylum) to her husband. She would write pages of words on a single page, writing over the words she had written before until the page would become almost entirely illegible.
The film was astonishingly brilliant. It's almost unimaginable that anyone could make a film this good. And yet, there it is, for all the world to behold. The film's not available in the States but a new DVD of their work will be coming out in October and will include this mind-boggling gem.
Godard Lives Near Here
This morning, I sat in on
Claire Denis' class. We watched the first half of her film "Trouble Every Day" (amazing!) and then she gave a very moving defense of the idea of beauty. She has a very refined sensibility, and spoke eloquently about the difficulty of translating one's own personal experience of beauty to a viewer. We also talked about the difficulty of filming landscapes and at the same time avoiding postcardism.
This afternoon, I sat in on the
Quay Brothers' class. We watched a few of their shorts, including one of their dance films (apparently the inspiration for Guy Maddin's "Dracula" film). Hearing them talk about their work, what struck me is how hard a time they have had getting their work funded. I would have thought that the makers of "Streets of Crocodiles" would have been given carte blanche to do whatever they wanted for the rest of their lives, but apparently not.
This evening, Claire Denis and
Jean-Luc Nancy gave a talk on Godard's "One + One." Jean-Luc Nancy has an astonishingly agile and rigorous mind, and it was nice to be reminded of why French philosophy is so prized. He has a way of talking and of thinking out loud that reminds me a lot of Derrida.
Afterwards,
D.J. Spooky transferred a bunch of his favorite recordings into my ipod, including: Marshall Mcluhan reading "The Medium is the Message," Phillip Glass' "Concerto for Saxophone," and Jean Cocteau reading a poem about opera in French. He also showed me how to spin.
It's kind of surreal being here.
Postcard from the Alps
Today, I took a train from Geneva to Saas-Fee, where the
European Graduate School (where I'll be teaching) is located. What I didn't realize was that the train travels right past the village where I was sent to boarding school when I was nine years old. It was one of those Proustian experiences, where every sight and sound evokes a flood of forgotten childhood memories.
When I arrived, I ran into
D.J. Spooky (who promptly introduced me to the
Quay Brothers!) and we ended up going on a hike up a snow-covered alp. After dinner, filmmaker
Claire Denis and French philosopher
Jean-Luc Nancy sceened Godard's "One Plus One."
I like it here.
The Brothers Quay
Today, I am on my way to Switzerland to teach a seminar on "Confessional Cinema" at the
European Graduate School, an interdisciplinary institution of learning that includes among its faculty such luminaries as Chantal Ackerman, Jean Baudrillard, Jane Campion, Helene Cixous, Claire Denis, Peter Greenaway, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gaspar Noe, The Brothers Quay, D.J. Spooky, Margarethe Von Trotta and John Waters.
I have no idea what to expect, but I'm really looking forward to meeting the
Brothers Quay.
Slow
I have been up all night frantically trying to get ready for an early morning flight to Switzerland. Sifting through the pile of papers on my desk to try to find my plane ticket, I came across this: it is by a woman named Emily Carson, and it's entitled "Slow":
"Keeping pace with the world is more than you can manage. Keeping up is not possible. It is the great gift of this age that we are now, finally, headed too fast to ever keep up with. There is no choice but to fail. And so, I say, slow down. Not because it is better, not because it is virtuous, but because you have failed, because you cannot any longer stay abreast of the world's pace. It has left you, as all of us, in its dust. It is gone, too fleeting, too quick to be grasped or controlled. It moves, simply, faster than you, and because you cannot be anyone else but you, you fail. You are not designed for this pace; you truly are not capable of it. You may seem to be winning for a while, and, sadly, you are encouraged by that. But you should be encouraged only when you are able to sit still and let it pass you by, only when you are comfortable in this fact that you are failing. Slow is the way the body insists on moving, and the body suffers when its demand is not met. Slow is the truth of the current that is your energy. It is not optional. It is, in fact, how you work. Fast is always temporary. It always ends in exhaustion and confusion. It always creates pain. Fast is misaligned so fundamentally that it will never be truly possible for you. And there is no sadness and no loss in this. Slow is happy. Slow is glad. Fail the world, and find some gratitude that you can no longer keep up. It is a mercy killing, the way your silly expectations are extinguished by the fact of this. Those expectations must go. Slow is the way of the body and the way of knowingness. It is wisdom and tenderness. And it is you, thankfully; it is your constitution. Don't wish to be any different. Slow is the best you could hope for."
I Heart David O. Russell
Tonight, I went to see
Robert Thurman, the Buddhist Scholar. The main reason I went to see him is because I'm a huge fan of
David O. Russell (I LOVED
"I Heart Huckabees"), and David O. Russell speaks highly and often of him (Robert Thurman was apparently David O. Russell's teacher at Amherst). I love the way David O. Russell's love of Robert Thurman can cross-pollinate with my love of David O. Russell to produce the hybrid experience of tonight.
Quote of the Day
"ART when really understood is the province of every human being.
It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing."
- Robert Henri
The Way of All Flesh and Of The Resurrection
Most of my previous films are out of print, as the company that had released them, World Artists, has gone the way of all flesh. Recently, however, IFC Films agreed to resurrect the entire back catalogue on DVD. This includes: "A Little Stiff" (co-directed with Greg Watkins), "I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore," and "In the Bathtub of the World," as well as Greg Watkins' "A Sign From God" and the collective omnibus film "Underground Zero."
Although there is no official release date as of yet, I am currently in the midst of putting together DVD extras for "A Little Stiff" and "I Don't Hate Las Vegas Anymore," as well as for the planned October DVD release of "I Am A Sex Addict."
Pip and Squeak
Today, I had some time to kill in Minneapolis before my flight back to San Francisco, so I spent the day with an old friend. She's a single mom with two little girls, and they have been dying to get pet hamsters. After saving up their money for weeks, they finally bought the hamsters today. Their names are Pip and Squeak.
Regional Filmmaking
I'm in Minneapolis/St. Paul because I've been asked to be a judge on a grants panel. IFP Minnesota is giving out two $25,000 filmmaking grants to Minnesota residents. The grant money is provided by the McKnight Foundation, which was founded by William McKnight, who also founded 3M, which (I learned today) stands for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing.
IFP Minnesota apparently has the second largest membership in the country (right after New York). I'm a big fan of regional filmmaking, and I think it's a shame that so many talented filmmakers from around the country end up relocating to Los Angeles or New York. It homogenizes filmmaking, and deprives us of our cultural richness and diversity.
I'm really happy to support and reward local filmmakers. I love learning about other places, and it's great to learn about other places from the people who actually live there. It's been fun to see what Minnesota filmmakers have been up to, and to be able to help support good work.
When I got a Guggenheim, the first thing I did was to get rolfed. That was a good year. It's nice to know that two talented Minnesota filmmakers are about to have a much better year than they would have had otherwise. Thank God for scotch tape.
Postcard from Minneapolis/St. Paul
Today, I flew to Minneapolis/St. Paul.
The funnest parts of today were:
1) I met Melody Gilbert, who made the documentary "Whole" (about self-amputees), which I loved.
2) I had dinner at the University Club, where F. Scott Fitzgerald used to live and write.
3) I met Sarah Price, who produced "American Movie," which I also loved.
4) I read the fantastic recent Vanity Fair issue on global warming
5) I found out that Garrison Keillor lives here!
Postcard from Denver
I drove today from Aspen to Denver for a Q and A. It was about a 3 and a half hour drive, and what a drive it was. The mountains were bright red, there was snow on the ground, and there were roaring rapids that followed the road all the way.
I brought my ipod with me and listened to:
1) Bob Dylan - Bringing It All Back Home (I hadn't really listened to this record carefully since High School and wow, was I floored! I suddenly remembered why I loved him so much.
2) David Byrne - Grown Backwards (I hadn't been crazy about this record until today. Today I loved it. A great, great artist.)
3) Frank Black and the Catholics - One More Road For the Hit (Frank Black is my favorite singer-songwriter of all time. This album blows me away. Every single song on it blows me away. Unbelievable).
4) David Bowie - Reality (I hadn't ever really listened to this album carefully until today, and I was mesmerized. It integrates everything he's ever done. The work of a beautiful soul.)
That drive was the most fun I've had in weeks, thanks to Messrs. Dylan, Byrne, Black, and Bowie.
