FINALLY

The NBA Finals start tonight. This is the first year that I've managed to watch most of the games in the playoffs (which have, for the most part, been fantastic) since I got back into basketball in a big way four or five years ago. And it kind of pains me to say it, because this is the first year the Jazz haven't been in the playoffs in a while, too.

But even without a clear team to root for this year, I've loved all the games. I skipped out on a wedding party to watch Memphis and San Antonio's overtime game, woke up from a nap just in time to see Brandon Roy come back from the dead and kill the Mavericks in the fourth quarter, watched as Scott Brooks let his young team pretty much do whatever they wanted only to watch them get repeatedly knocked down by a veteran group that knows better.

I changed my tune on the Celtics while watching the Basketball Jesus drain momentum-killing threes coming off a high screen, then watched as their season ended when KG suddenly showed his age and the miles he's put on his body since coming in to the NBA at age 18 caught up with him. I watched as Amare struggled with watching Carmelo become the new top dog in NYC, and watched the Magic fall apart in the first round. I reveled in watching the Lakers get swept by a team that everyone predicted would be gone in the first round. I watched Derrick Rose play magnificently at first only to get shut down when it mattered most.

It's been an awesome eight weeks of basketball and I'm sad to see it go—especially since it looks like the NBA is on the same path as the NFL and there won't be anymore basketball for a long, long time.

But the Finals start tonight with the Dallas Mavericks facing the Miami Heat.

And no matter who wins this series, we all lose.

We all lose for one, big, six foot eight, 250 pound reason—LeBron James.

We all remember what he did last summer when he took his talents to South Beach, putting a target on his back and essentially making him the new villain of the NBA. I wrote a little bit about it then, but haven't much cared to since. Because everywhere else you go, that's what was dominating the news, whether it was Yahoo!, ESPN, Fox Sports or one of the millions of basketball blogs.

But here we are on May 31, with game one tonight in Miami and there are two ways this plays out. The first is that the Heat lose. If this happens, Dirk and Kidd get their rings and Nowitzki comes off "the list" he's on with Barkley, Malone and Marino as the greatest players to never win a championship. But that all goes away after about three days and we spend the entire summer listening to the talking heads on TV and radio and reading the sure to be dozens of columns all saying the same thing—even with Dwayne Wade, LeBron still couldn't get it done. How he'll never live up to his title of 'King James.' They'll tear him apart all summer long and well in to next season, too. It'll be the top story for months.

The second, is that the Heat win. If this happens, those same people will spend the next six months tearing LeBron James apart, saying that he couldn't do it alone and how he'll never rightfully earn the nickname 'King James.'

Either way, get ready for another summer of LeBron.

And I know last year, when I sort of predicted a Laker-Heat final, I said I'd root for Los Angeles, just to watch the Heat lose, but I changed my mind. There's one person in the NBA I've hated for well over a decade, and I'll be pulling for Miami for one small reason.

It'll be way more fun to see Mark Cuban lose than LeBron.

THE FUZZY PACK

This movie will be fantastic.

ISOLATION

I posted these a few months ago, but they kept getting taken down and I kind of gave up trying to keep up with all the new links and how to find them. But they started popping up again, so I'm posting them until they get taken down—which will probably be sooner than later.

"Gimme Shelter" is one of my favorite Rolling Stones songs (how could it not be, though?) and I think these isolated tracks are just truly fascinating. They're just totally stripped down and raw and you can hear every little nuance and every little mistake they make. The lead guitar track is the best example of this, but it's not up anymore. I'll post it as soon as I can find it.

Vocals Only


I'm not the biggest fan of The Beatles "Helter Skelter" when it's played by the full band, but the vocal track alone is one of my favorite things to listen to. You can just hear how much fun Paul is having singing and it definitely translates.

Vocals Only

FRIDAY THE 13TH @ CATHEDRAL TATTOO

11:30 PM and still a full house

Last week it was Friday the 13th. While the day is normally associated with bad luck and awesomely terrible horrible horror movies, a lot of tattoo artists have turned the tables.

Cathedral Tattoo (249 E. 400 S. in Salt Lake City) decided that they were going to do small, flash walk-ins all day long and spread good luck instead of bad. They had tons of custom designs for people to choose from starting as low as $13 and ranging up to $80. Seemed like a great idea and on top of that, some of the proceeds for the day would be going to Cause For Paws, an organization to help find homes for shelter animals about to be put down. They advertised it on the Internet, cleared their books and hoped for the best.

They had no idea what they were in for.

Dan C in the coveted #1 spot

When the 5 employees (4 artists and a shop manager) showed up an hour before the doors opened, there were already around 40 people waiting outside. They set up shop, devised the ticketing system, opened the doors and bedlam ensued right away. Okay, maybe not that bad. Everyone was patient and understanding while Jake, CJ, Tyler and James got to work.

I showed up around 3PM and there was still a line around the workspace that stretched out the front door. I grabbed a ticket for Jake (number 30) and decided to head home for a bit, rather than wait at the shop all day. Before I left, I asked Mike what number Jake was on, he consulted the sheet, looked at me and said, "seven."

I laughed and headed out. Ran a few errands, cleaned my apartment a bit, took a nap, showered, grabbed some dinner and went back down to the shop around 9PM. Jake was on #19. Not having much else to do, I decided to stick around and hang out.

The shop stayed full the entire night and by the time it got close to my turn, it was 1:30 in the morning. By that time, everyone was worn out, but pressing on. Knowing I had to be awake and at work in a few hours and that there were still a few people after me, I gave up my spot so they could get tattooed instead.

As much as I wanted at Friday the 13th tattoo, I decided I'd rather just get a bigger better tattoo another time—a time when I didn't have to wake up three hours later. So I made an appointment, bid everyone at the shop adieu and headed home with no new zaps anywhere.

While I don't have anything to do with Cathedral Tattoo professionally, those dudes are some of my closest friends and I was genuinely thrilled to see how many people wanted to spend their Friday waiting around to get tattooed. Everyone that I talked to that night was gracious, respectful and understanding of the wait and I never saw anyone pitch a fit and storm out. While there were a few people that never came back when their number was called, even more stuck around and gutted it out.

By the end of the day Jake, CJ, James and Tyler had tattooed for nearly 14 hours straight and collectively done close to (if not a bit more than) 150 tattoos.

Everyone had fun and good luck had been shared with tons of grateful people. Here's hoping they do it again on the next Friday the 13th.

And if they do, I'm camping out the night before.

CASTING COMICS

City Weekly -- Robert Downey Jr. is Tony Stark. After two movies—plus a third one in the works and The Avengers due even sooner—the entire world recognizes that. But that’s not the case in the monthly series Invincible Iron Man. The Tony Stark of that world bears a striking resemblance to Josh Holloway—better known as Sawyer from Lost—and has since Salvador Larroca started drawing writer’s Matt Fraction’s run on the book over three years ago.

And it’s not a coincidence.

Comic-book “casting” has been going on for decades. Artists, after all, have probably the hardest job in comics. They often need something (or someone) to model the characters after in order to get dimensions, body language and facial expressions correct. When C.C. Beck and Bill Parker set out to create an alternative to Superman in the late 1930s, they came up with the character Captain Marvel. Beck stated that the character had been modeled after actor Fred MacMurray, but had been done so carefully. He used the actor’s cleft chin, wavy hair and slanted forehead, but as time went on, Beck rounded out the face to make the comparison less obvious.

Dozens of other characters have been based on popular actors throughout the years, too. John Byrne and Chris Claremont used Orson Welles, Donald Sutherland, Robert Shaw and Diana Rigg as basis for the characters of the Hellfire Club, and Steve Ditko modeled Dr. Strange after horror legend Vincent Price. However, as was the case with Captain Marvel, features were always tweaked during the process.

But while comic-book characters’ resemblance to celebrities has always been part of the process, lately it’s become far less subtle—and much more distracting. Over the past decade, artists have been moving away from using actors as a simple basis to simply using them. Sometimes artists do that for the benefit of consistency, and sometimes it’s purely for publicity. When Mark Millar and J.G. Jones launched Wanted in 2003, the main character, Wesley, looked exactly like Eminem, and The Fox was definitely Halle Berry—there were even a couple of panels in the book that looked just like screenshots from 8 Mile. Millar said the resemblance was because the actors were interested in playing the roles in the upcoming movie adaptation. Of course, the rights to the film hadn’t been sold yet, but it was a clever move by Millar to get the industry talking. It was also a bit of a distraction, because Wanted seemed like it had been created with the sole purpose of being an elaborate film pitch, as opposed to letting it stand on its own as a piece of comic art.

Alex Maleev, currently the artist of the Icon title Scarlet, usually works in the style of photorealistic art and has never been shy about letting the world know that. He hires a model to pose to make his job easier and to give the character a more real feel. With Scarlet, that model even gets recognition on the credit page. The difference is that she’s an unknown. The reader isn’t immediately taken out of the story when they see her because they never have before. That’s much different than when Warren Ellis and Mike Deodato took over Thunderbolts and Norman Osborne suddenly looked exactly like Tommy Lee Jones.

To some that doesn’t matter, and to others it’s so distracting that it ruins a potentially great story. At times, it also seems like the artist is taking the easy way out of the situation by using a specific actor. Sure, it’s hard keeping up with the pressures of meeting a monthly schedule, but that’s part of the game. It just feels like the shelf life of a trade (or hardcover) would be longer if the first thought that came to mind when flipping through was, “Oh, this was a great Iron Man story,” as opposed to “Wait, why does Tony Stark all of the sudden look like the guy from Lost?”

SLCFF PODCAST #1

 SLCFF Podcast #1 by SLCFF

I have all the necessary equipment to record a little DIY podcast—mainly because I took most of it from Casey.

We had a podcast that we did probably once a month for my other blog Grudge City Activities, but like everything else on that site, we kind of just quit doing it.

Well now that we're getting closer to the Salt Lake City Film Festival, Justin, Miah and I decided that we should revive the idea and use it to talk about events that the Film Festival has going on. It's going to be a little irregular at first while we figure out how everything works, but hopefully we'll find a nice balance somewhere down the road and it'll turn in to something that people really enjoy.

The first episode was recorded last night, and we talk about this month's HEFFE'FILM'IN, in which we're showing KISS KISS, BANG BANG at Brewvies on Thursday and the FILM REELS AND FLYING SAUCERS art show this Friday. It's short and sweet for a podcast (about 15 minutes), but I think it turned out pretty enjoyable. You can listen to it embedded above or you can download it at the SLCFF Soundcloud page (or just clicking the little arrow pointing down on the right side of the player). Eventually we'll try to get iTunes involved, but for now, like everything else we've done for the festival, we're starting off DIY.

Enjoy it.

ONE OF THE GREATS

Jim Henson.

I ACTUALLY THINK YOU'RE KIND OF AN ASSHOLE

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS

Right after Kurt Cobain died, Dave Grohl didn't quite know what he was going to do next. There were undoubtedly many people interested in adding him to the mix and rightfully so, since he was one of the best drummers around (still is, probably). One of the first offers that came in was to become the permanent drummer for one of his favorite bands, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Ultimately, he turned it down in favor of finishing the demo he'd been working on, playing every track on his own because he really wanted to be the frontman. That demo later became the first Foo Fighters album and the rest is history.

But, he did play a few shows with Tom Petty first, just to try it out. I ran across a video of them playing together on Saturday Night Live and, while it sounds good, it also sounds very wrong. Petty's tunes are too laid back and Grohl sounds stifled, like he's trying to hold back. It's fun to watch though.

THE D+K WEDDING

I made a little photo set of the pictures we took at Dan and Kristin's wedding last week. Now you can view the best ones in one easy place in case you're not friends with any of us on FB or just feel weird lurking random Facebook profiles to see pictures.

But let's be honest here, no one feels weird about lurking FB pictures of people you barely know. That's what it's for. But if you want to pretend you're weird about that, go to my Flickr and check them out.

That would be this link.

And I'm using this as the default because it's my favorite of the bunch that I'm in.

I'm self-absorbed like that.

THIS SAYS IT ALL

SPACEMAN

It was 50 years ago today that the United States caught up to Russia in the space race. Unfortunately, the space program isn't what it used to be anymore.

But in honor of the 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard becoming the first American in space (and the U.S. finally catching a break against those pesky Russians) LIFE has released a few photos from the vault.

I always wanted to be a spaceman.

Check them out.

PEARL JAM 20

Even though I haven't really kept up with this band for the past decade or so, I still have a soft spot for TEN and VS.

And considering this documentary is directed by Cameron Crowe (who's been following and filming the band sporadically since before they were big) I'm anticipating it to be great. This is just a teaser from when they were called Mookie Blaylock, and whose jersey number ended up being the title of the album that launched their career.

After they changed the name of course.


Mookie>>>PJ from Pearl Jam on Vimeo.

FAST FIVE

I've been waiting for Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) to accept his fate as this generations resident action hero for some time now. He may have, finally, come back to it.

He started out with promise taking on roles in movies like WALKING TALL and THE RUNDOWN, but then, like most action heros do at some point in their career, decided he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor and wanted to showcase his comedic chops. This lasted for nearly 5 years. Luckily, in that 5 years, no one else was able to step up and grab the title (to borrow a phrase from The Rock's WWE past). It was rightfully his and we were all waiting for him to graciously accept it.

Seriously.

There is no one else that could do it. And I'm not talking about Steven Seagal or Jean-Claude Van Damme here either. Dwayne Johnson is and should be the new Bruce Willis. And that's hard to do, but I'm ready to give him that mantle and I think he's finally ready to accept it.

Look at it this way, Van Damme and Seagal made good bad action movies, but they never made purely awesome action movies. They didn't have the charisma to pull it off. Jason Statham wanted the title, but his too-serious, pursed lip scowl didn't do him any favors and he relied too heavily on martial arts trickery. He doesn't seem like the type of guy you'd just watch in a knock down street brawl and believe it.

The Rock, excuse me, Dwayne Johnson, has acting chops and comedic timing. He does. He was the only good part of the otherwise abysmal BE COOL and he's killed every time he's been on SNL. But  in the grand scheme of Hollywood, he's only marginally talented. He's also just way too big for the roles he'd ideally like to play. He's 6'4". You put him in a movie with Tom Cruise or Matt Damon and he's going to dwarf them (and probably be a DP's biggest nightmare because of a 9" height difference). So yeah, he's good, but he doesn't have the kind of chops that put him in anywhere other than the Bruce Willis league. And that's not a bad thing.

That's why with the recent DRIVE and finally, FAST FIVE, I think he's accepted his role.

I've never seen a single one of the movies from the FAST AND THE FURIOUS franchise. I don't care about cars and I've don't really like a single actor that's been any of them. You throw The Rock in the fifth one and I'm there opening weekend.

There's no way to be critical about this movie. You should know exactly what you're getting in to before you go and that's the only reason to go. I heard Adam Carolla talk about it the other day and he basically said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "FAST FIVE is like a Twinkie. It's not great and you can't compare it to a real dessert like a fresh German Strudel. But if you're in the mood for a Twinkie, the only thing that's going to satiate you is a Twinkie."

And that's probably the best way to sum it up. Sure, there are flaws and holes and it's about 15 minutes too long, but it is what it is. There are a few great action scenes and a fantastic climax. The whole plot felt a little too "borrowed" from OCEAN'S 11 though (right down to the characterizations) and from what I've been told by 'fans' of the series, too caper-y and light on street racing.

But you know what? I don't care. The Rock killed it the whole way through and I was entertained for two hours on a Sunday night. That's more than I was hoping for and my $8.50 paid off.

And finally, The Rock has come back.

MUSING

I've been thinking a lot about the state of trevorhale.com over the past week.

I like what I've done with it and it's going to be fun to look back at in years to come, but I also want it to be more fun for everyone else to look back at in years to come.

But I also want people to enjoy coming here and looking at it right now. I want it to be part of your daily (or at least semi-daily) Internet routine. I really like when I see people I haven't seen for a while and they tell me that they like looking at my blog. But not in a "Hell yeah, I'm popular" kind of way, though. More of a "I'm genuinely glad people enjoy reading the silly things I post or watching the stupid videos I make with my friends" kind of way.

So, I'm kind of reaching out here. Let me know what you like, what you don't like, what you'd like to see more of, less of, etc., etc. You can post a comment, send me an e-mail, or hell, if you don't want me to know who you are and just want to hate on me anonymously for a minute, you can do that too.

I'm genuinely curious. I've got some ideas for this site that I hope to have implemented over the next month or so, but for now, thanks for coming here. Hopefully you keep coming back to learn about all the stuff you never thought you wanted to know.

ALL QUIET

Things were pretty quiet last week, but for good reason. I was on vacation.

Short and sweet, but much needed and much appreciated. If you couldn't tell by the post below this one, I was in Florida and it was gorgeous. Mostly. I posted on Twitter that Florida is like the crafty, chubby girl of the states. It's not nearly as awesome as the Internet pictures lead you to believe. Most of the way down, it looks like a shit hole. The Florida Keys, while awesome in certain areas, still looks exactly like it did when it hit its peak in 1957.

We were heading to Duck Key for a wedding and on the way, we drove through Key Largo and past the Caribbean Club. I wanted to stop for a picture next to the sign, but figured I'd be the only one that cared, since I'm one of the few that's actually seen or remembers the movie. The travel time to actual hanging out was a little less than desirable, but we still made it work.

Here's our itinerary: Red eye from from SLC (1:05 am) to ATL (6:25 am), a one hour layover, ATL (7:25 am) to FLL (9:25 am), rented a car, got breakfast and coffee and drove the 130 miles to Duck Key. Hung out the rest of the day, got up the next morning and drove the 60 miles south to Key West. Pretty much for nothing besides eating at the vegan restaurant they had, buying Cuban cigars for my dad and taking a picture with that sign. Drove back, went to the wedding, partied, slept. Next day, got up hung around all day, drove the 130 miles back to Fort Lauderdale, spent the night, got up the next morning at 5:30, returned the rental car for a 7:15 am flight to Detroit that was about 3.5 hours, had an hour layover then a 3 hour 20 minute flight to Salt Lake City.

Like I said, not the greatest itinerary, but we made the most of it.

I'm posting a couple of pictures for now. When I get/find/convince Colby to get me the rest of them, I'll post a folder somewhere for you to see them all. This will have to tide you over.

It's good to be home.