Gareth – Page 121 – The Designer Monologues

September 9, 2011

Queen Lizzy’s

A good friend of mine, Matt Poulton, is a British chef living here in the wilds of Kansas. (Love will do strange things to you, apparently — he’s married to a local.)

He’s getting read to launch a new restaurant here in Lawrence — a traditional English fish-and-chips joint (AKA a chippy). Fish, chips, bacon butty, battered sausage, doner kebab, curry, etc. — wonderful stuff. He’s got a space lined up, and is currently running an IndieGoGo project (similar to Kickstarter, which you’re quite aware of if you’re reading my blog) in order to give him a bit of a launch cushion — helping secure some new equipment, do a bit of renovation, etc.

I would VERY MUCH like to see this succeed. Please consider chucking a few dollars his way — he’s got some nice rewards, even if you’re not local to the area. Every little bit helps. (Full disclosure — I’m involved in this as well: I’m handling his graphic design (did his logo, for example) and consulting on marketing & operations.)

You can check out the project (including the promo video that I put together) by clicking here and visiting his page on IndieGoGo.

I WANT TASTY NOMS. MAKE THIS HAPPEN.

Er…I mean: please. (Must be polite. Must always be polite.)

August 26, 2011August 26, 2011

Friday Music

Hoping to get back onto a regular schedule with these, now that the madness of Summer is drawing to a close.

A couple of weekends back, I found myself listening to the local alternative radio station’s “Resurrection Sunday” broadcast: a four-hour block of “classic alternative” (i.e. what we used to call “new wave”, “punk”, and “college rock.”), which had me digging back through my collection, and has led me to a desire to do an 80s-themed Friday Music. I hope you bear with my sad, 40something nostalgia.

First up, my favorite track from Berlin’s Pleasure Victim album, almost always ignored in favor of the far more popular “Sex.” This song, though, remains not only my favorite from that album, but my favorite Berlin song, period (narrowly edging out “The Metro”). Berlin – “Masquerade.”

Spooky, ethereal, odd, and just plain KATE. Before “Who Let the Dogs Out”, she was pretty much one of the only folks who could get away with vocalizations of barking in a song… Kate Bush – “Hounds of Love.”

I discovered Shriekback through the Michael Mann movie “Manhunter.” This soon became my favorite song of theirs. “Priests and cannibals, prehistoric animals, everybody happy as the dead come home…” Shriekback – “Nemesis.”

The lead track on a mix tape given to me by my high school girlfriend. I knew it was The Church, and I knew the title of the song, but it took the invention of the Internet for me to track down the album. The Church – “Unguarded Moment.”

The first song I ever heard from Sinead O’Connor’s debut album The Lion and The Cobra, before she became mainstreamed, the butt of jokes, and villainized for being one of the first to protest the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the abuse of children. Her anger, her energy, her howl, it’s all in this first single. Sinead O’Connor – “Mandinka.”

One of my favorite pieces of music from Genesis, a little-known instrumental track from their Invisible Touch album, which I discovered when it was used with chilling effect as backing music to a scene in a Magnum, P.I. episode where he’s gone a bit off the deep end and is preparing to murder an old enemy. Genesis – “The Brazilian.”

I’ve always loved story songs. This odd bit of noir-ish narration from Robbie Robertson struck that chord in me, and I’ve always loved it as a result. Robbie Robertson – “Somewhere Down The Crazy River.”

There you go, kids — enjoy. Back with more next Friday.

August 22, 2011

Casting Monday: DOCTOR STRANGE

Kicking off a potential new regular feature here at the Monologues: Casting Monday.

One of my favorite geek pastimes has always been speculation and discussion along the lines of “if they were going to make a move about ‘Geek Property X’, who should be cast?” So I figured that it would be fun to bring that to the blog. I present my choices below. Feel free to add your own suggestions in the comments. If this takes off, we’ll do it every Monday.

This week: DOCTOR STRANGE.

One of my all-time favorite comics — it’s been done as an awful 1978 TV-movie, an expired-option-turned-into-serial-numbers-filed-off direct to DVD film in the early 90s called Doctor Mordrid, and most recently a not-too-shabby animated version released on DVD. Reports are that Marvel Studios is now working on a Doctor Strange film as part of their line-up.

So, how would I cast this?

	Doctor Strange: Guy Pearce. Pearce has the necessary combination of thin features, otherworldly intensity, and aristocratic bearing.
	Clea: Romola Garai. Well, I mean, just look at her. She’s brilliant in the BBC TV show The Hour as an independent career woman in 1950s Britain, and I think she’d bring the same strength to the Daughter of Dormammu.
	Baron Mordo: Rufus Sewell. Mordo needs to be the dark reflection of Stephen Strange. He needs to be what Strange could have become if his arrogance and thirst for power had overwhelmed him. Sewell can definitely hang in there with Pearce, and makes a good pairing, in my opinion.
	Dormammu: Tim Curry. Obviously, the Dread Dormammu would be a CG creation (and hopefully wreathed in flame far more convincing than that which appears in Ghost Rider. He needs to have a great voice, though — powerful, commanding, dripping with venom and arrogance. Tim Curry’s past performances as Darkness in Legend and Cardinal Richelieu in Disney’s Three Musketeers informed my choice here.

So there are my choices. What do you think?