True Ghost Stories about Patty Griffin's Living With Ghosts

Linette S., 41: Let me just start by saying that until last week, I did not even know who Patty Griffin was. But all of that changed last week. I only worked a half day and went home thinking I would just go and lay down for a while. I'm in bed and all of a sudden I could feel something is lifting my blanket and slowly putting it down again. I thought it was my imagination and did not make much of it. Then I had the distinct feeling something or someone was looking at me, which really creeped me out. But the worst thing was when I started hearing really bad AOR songs with absolutely horrible overwrought singing. I shuddered and thought, "Who would want to listen to this crap?" The next morning, I immediately cancelled my subscription to Paste Magazine..."

Russell P., 26: For about two weeks now, my fiancée and I keep feeling or seeing someone floating into our apartment hallway. It doesn't matter if my fiancée is home or not, I see this female figure standing at the end of the hallway by our bedroom entrance. The figure is super white or pale in color and appears to be wearing a flowing dress, like the kind you'd wear to a swanky awards ceremony. I can't make out distinct details but I get the feeling whatever it is, it's sad, especially one night when I heard the eerie sound of this figure crying, just openly wailing--something about not having yet winning a Grammy despite having slept through every level of her record company's A&R roster..."

Tanya W., 35: I would never say I had extra sensory powers or anything like that, but I'm acutely aware of White women who think they can sing all soulful. I just have a sixth sense for it--that fake gospel trill, the vocal crescendos that overstay their welcome, and so on. Well, a couple of years ago I was housesitting for my sister's family because they were going on vacation. I asked my niece if I could please use her room to sleep in as it had all the amenities that I needed, but she kept warning me that it was haunted by Patty Griffin, but I didn't even know who the fuck that was, so what did I care? That evening, I lay down on the couch and watched some TV. Peaceful enough, I thought, until I felt the room become very dull, almost as if enveloped by a huge loaf of white bread. This was followed by a really weird kind of singing, the kind of sound you hear White women make when you can tell they'd give anything to sing without the shame of having been born White. I kept thinking, "Did someone transport me to a coffee house open mic night?" I yelled out to the spirt to please stop singing, but the damn song kept going on and on...something about 1000 kisses, so I just went running from the house...anything to avoid that damn god-awful singing..."

The Disappointment Only a Father Could Feel For His Worthless Wayward Children

I raised all of you better than this. Here is all the wrongness which you allowed to happen during my recent sabbatical:

1. You encouraged Leslie Hall to channel her inner Roches (but at least she possesses a much better fashion sense).

2. You catipulted Santogold into the charts simply for emulating M.I.A. when, in reality, she is also guilty of copying Gwen Stefani, The Breeders and Gwen Stefani.

3. You sanctioned Alec Empire as he morphed into Gary Numan without the sense of humor.

4. You replaced Stereolab with Monade and nobody has yet detected the switch.

5. You decided that since The Kinks and Green Day have not delivered any recent product, it would be fine for the Foxboro Hot Tubs to fill in during their absence.

6. I do feel pride, however, over how you continue to pick cartoon-like political figures to run for public office, giving me more practice to enhance and strengthen my burgeoning alcoholism: I drink a shot of tequila every time Sarah Palin has another baby.

My Precious Feelings on the 35th Annual Telluride Film Festival

As usual, I was the first in my party to spot Ken Burns. I somehow end up winning this spirited competition every year, with Burns and I gravitating towards each other within mere hours of the festival’s beginning. Is it because I, too, am a 40-something male sporting the bowl cut hairdo of a 12-year-old?

While waiting in line for Firaaq (a film so pedestrian, I had to depart 30 minutes into it), I spy Salman Rushdie conversing with the film’s director Nandita Das. I briefly considered carrying out the fatwa which has been exacted upon him, but realizing there was no financial reward involved, I quickly lost interest.

Although I am against public stalking in principle, during a screening of Max Ophuls’ newly-restored 1955 epic Lola Montes, I spy my favorite husband and wife filmmakers Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor (also known as the Desperate Optimists) taking their seats. Needless to say, I can’t resist planting myself in front of them to blather to them how much I love their films, especially Who Killed Brown Owl, a film which still haunts my thoughts every so often. Thankfully, they are gracious and polite, completely refraining from having security remove me from their vicinity, although the restraining order presented to me after the screening did hurt my feelings somewhat…

If the timing had been a bit more perfect, I could have crossed swords with actor Greg Kinneer in the men’s restroom right before viewing the tepid Danish blockbuster Flame and Citron. Instead, I am a few nano-seconds behind him, performing my last-drop dance at the urinal while he’s already at the sink soaping up. I had an “in” (we attended the same college) but by the time I had worked up my opening statement (“Hello, Mr. Kinneer. You lather your hands with the same dedication you showed in Little Miss Sunshine—and I even walked out of it halfway through!”) he was long gone. Curse me and my long-winded time-consuming verbosity!

Another restroom encounter, this time with UK director/genius Mike Leigh. I briefly entertained reaching out to introduce myself and proclaim my love of his movies, but he’d just left the urinal and had not yet washed up afterwards. Yes, he’s created some of the most acclaimed films in recent British film history, and more than a few of his cinematic efforts are on my Top 100 Favorite Films list, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let his pee-pee backsplash rub onto me as we shake hands. Ewwww!

A day into the fest, I once again spy Ken Burns, this time one row in front of me during the screening of the gritty Italian film Gomorrah. Oddly, he and his wife make tsk-tsk faces at each other during the film’s frequent outbursts of violence, as if to say couldn’t the director scale this bloodshed back a little? Considering it was a film about the present-day Italian mafia, he’s lucky the carnage wasn’t more savage than it already was. If only I’d had a bottle of tequila with me, I could have made their shocked reactions into a drinking game.

Imagine my surprise when Hunger—the film I was most reluctant to watch--turns out to be one of my favorite flicks of the entire fest. The elliptical style and the stark camerawork had me captivated from beginning to end. Bonus points go to those seated near me who did not seem to mind my loud munching on carrot sticks during the hunger strike scenes.

Take the frantic family antics of Capturing the Friedmans, turn the dysfunction up about 10 notches, toss in a third-act link to Orson Welles and you have Prodigal Sons, a discomforting autobiographical documentary by Kimberly Reed. After it’s over, you’ll almost find yourself feeling lucky for being born into your own family. Almost.

Rain is one of my least favorite weather elements (right behind tornados, swarms of locusts and ash clouds spewed from active volcanoes). To avoid one of Telluride’s typical torrents, I reluctantly grabbed a place in the dry tent-covered line for Paul Schrader’s Adam Resurrected merely as a means to avoid the downpour. Had I known what was in store, I’d have gladly chosen a deluge of Biblical proportions instead. Imagine the worst parts of Patch Adams, Life Is Beautiful and (I assume) The Day the Clown Cried tied together in a Holocaust comedy/drama vehicle for Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum is made to behave as a dog under the Nazi thumb of Willem Dafoe, later causing him to engage in dog-like animalistic sex on all fours with sexy nurse Ayelet Zurer (it's quite natural that hot women spread their legs for aged men 30 years their junior). Did I mention he attempts to heal the heart of a young Holocaust survivor who thinks he’s a dog?

One feels a sense of wonder and innocence while watching Jan Troell’s 1966 coming-of-age tale Here Is Your Life. Then the scenes of the where-did-that-come-from? homoeroticism pop up and you just end up feeling like a pervert. Bonus points for the snippet of conversation between two aging film professors I overheard before the screening begins: “My students are on You Tube all the time. I’ll send you the link.”

While exiting Tulpan, the acclaimed new film from Sergei Dvortsevoy, I find myself behind a contingent of marketing brass from Turner Classic Movies, all of them underwhelmed by this subtle award-winning work, utterly perplexed are they by the frequent images of goat herds living and dying on the Kazakhstan plains. It’s good to know the vast cinematic library overseen by TCM is in such capable hands.