It’s almost 1 AM

. . . and I am still up. I have a video shoot in the AM, too. This is insane. The script isn’t done, The column isn’t finished. But here is the day, including an explanation about why I had the COLD STONES to diss a geek-friendly movie director. But right now I’m thinking: huh? Of all the things for iTunes shuffle to kick up: the Kingston Fargin’ Trio. I have one song: “Worried Man.” It takes a worried man to sing a worried song / I’m worried now, but I won’t be worried now. I listened to that album as a wee lad on the hard nubbly grey carpet floor of the living room, and I probably listened to that album more than my father did.

Here’s the thing: I grew up listening to the records in the front-room phonograph. It was an old RCA with a 45 table and a 33 1/3 table, purple fabric over the speaker. It had a radio, too. Took a while to warm up. There was a red light on the front of the cabinet that told you it was on, but it burned out at some point. I have to ask my dad where it came from – i suspect it may have been a hand-me-down from my grandfather. (Interest in latest-greatest consumer electronics clearly flows on the material side of the line. It’s remarkable: on the paternal side, no particular aptitude or interest; on the maternal side, we had Grandpa with every new radio or color TV, uncle with 8-track and Pong.) The record player was stocked with 45s, from proto-rock to Ernest Tubb to Dixieland to Johnny Cash, and I listened to them all. I laid on the floor and looked at the albums and memorized them – including the comedy albums. In those days a house would probably have a Cosby and a Newhart and a Vaughn Meader “First Family.” I listened to them all.

Don’t have a single memory of my father ever listening to any of them.

Did that stop, at some point? I keep meaning to ask. Why? How did that work, back then? You felt like hearing a little Johnny Cash, you put on the single, nodded along, then turned off the record player and did something else? Nowadays we have computers with 15,000 songs; you had an enormous wooden machine with 40 songs. One had to commit to the moment to decide you wanted to listen to “Ring of Fire.”

But you never did. I was the only one who played that machine.

Not to say my dad gave up on music: hah. When I go home and we sit up at night talking the TV’s set to the classic country music cable-feed, and we see who can name the artist first. I think he might be a bit pleased I can pick out the great old voices. I’d feel the same if I’m 82 sitting in a house at night staring at the mountains of Arizona with the water fountain ploshing, and my daughter says “Elvis Costello!” when the angular sideways chords of “Accidents Will Happen” comes over the speakers.

There’s no particular imperative for music to span generations, and it’s more likely that it drives a shallow rift. But it’s good when all is said and done, and you tell you pop you liked his tunes. It is likewise nice when pop appreciates what’s good about your kid’s tastes.

This can be difficult.

One hellaciously busy day stem to stern, but: I promised my daughter I would take her to a movie, so we went to “Tangled.” Thursday afternoon, one PM – figured we’d have the place to ourselves. Every seat was taken. The audience was about 82% little girls. Wise all-grown-up 10-year-old daughter was rolling her eyes: they’ll chatter and talk and scream. She has little patience for tiny pink princess-mode at this point, and is mortified when I produce photographic evidence that she once inhabited that demographic.

The movie starts; the kids are quiet. The movie goes on, the kids are quiet. The entire film, not a peep. The entire room is transfixed. I think the adults were expected Yet Another Animated Movie, but they got something you could put on a shelf with PIxar. It was Disney’s 50th animated movie, and I couldn’t help but think Walt (and we all think we know him well enough to call him that, and know what he’d like) would be proud, and astonished, and recognize the hand of his great studio in every frame of the movie. Great songs, one short but tremendous action piece, a villainess that’s probably the best of all the Disney villainesses for being a fully-formed character not a Bag of Evil, the best comic-relief horse in animation history, a genuine drunk midget, and character design that seemed a step above what everyone else has done so far. (No one looked like plastic.) We loved it. I probably loved it more than she did. She’s not old enough to get the teen angle, and the dad angle – which comes at the end, full-strength – of course escapes her.

Then we left and walked around the Mall, which I love to do with her, and I checked twitter, and oh crap. It’s like this. I got up this morning, grousy, banged out a blog post, forgot about it, came back to the internet later and found that Kevin Smith had called me a douchebag. I probably deserved it, because I made a crack about his weight. But the post was about his decision not to talk to media about his new movie, and instead refer everyone to TWELVE HOURS worth of podcasts about it.

I thought this was a bit high-handed and misguided, since A) no critic will listen to 12 hours of podcasts, and B) jeezem crow, dude, play the game. But he was unhappy his last movie got a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 19%, and said the press was going to write whatever they wanted to write anyway. He said anyone who didn’t want to make the effort was super-lazy, and I said I wasn’t going to listen to the podcasts, but I could fit in one airplane seat. Cheap shot, and I apologized on twitter and on the blog post – for the tone. Not the point of the whole post, but the tone. Tone matters.

I wouldn’t have been irritated by it all if it hadn’t been for the movie itself. Didn’t mention this in the blog post, because it strays from the intended subject matter of the blog – nice non-political pop-culture information of little-to-no-importance. But this is a fine spot. Here’s the poster for the movie:

Because those craaaazy red states are the places where you’re likely to find fundies, and the Westboro church is just the natural extrapolation of the red-state fundie ideas, right? RED STATE! OOHGABOOGA! Think of it: horror movies often have guys who A) kidnap victims, B) saw off their heads, and C) film it all for their own enjoyment. Oh, if only there really was a group of religious extremists who did these all things – it would give a movie a certain horrible topicality you just don’t get with unkillable bogeymen. But Smith would never do a movie about Al Qaeda in, say, a city in a blue state. No one would produce it; no one would distribute it. But a movie that links the Westboro church to something inherent in the ideological distinction of a “red state” will get you backslaps from all the right-thinking people. It’s lazy. It’s super-lazy.

So that’s what that was about. Anyway: New Year’s Eve Diner, here! It’s short – the 2011 Diners will be closer to 15 minutes than 30. Also, new ads at teh Gallery of Regrettable Food, here. Enjoy! And happy new year to all. See you Monday . . . with the start of an interesting tale.