This weekend--uneventful. Saw The Alamo on Saturday and enjoyed it a little more than I thought I would. Still a bit treacly, but this time the syrup's applied with a pen-point and not a paintgun--it's more like a squeeze bottle than a screwcap-topped Mrs. Butterworth. There's also, you know, the whole glorifying-the-eventually-successful-defense-of-blood-soaked-land-from-its-original-inhabitants thang, but I think it was handled fairly--well, at the very least, OKallright. Billy Bob Thornton is now my new favorite celluloid Davy Crockett, capturing the perfect balance between an unassuming "aw shucks, fellers" frontier politician persona of the Jackson era, a fierce warrior when the shitfires come, and a man contending with his own overblown legend, which, in some cases, is tragically inaccurate. Historians may argue over his Alamo fate for the rest of eternity, but I'd like to think it happened just like in the movie (I'll concede that maybe his last words weren't "I gotta warn you boys: I'm a screamer.").

I also discovered I can burn CDs on my new computer. In my excitement I threw together the following various-artist funk/soul collection, Funky Soul Fries, Vol. 1 (...and the ketchup pitched a bitch!):

1. DOWN HOME GIRL – The Coasters
2. CHICKEN – Sly & The Family Stone
3. WHAT IT IS? – The Undisputed Truth
4. BROTHER ON THE RUN (OPENING) – Johnny Pate & Adam Wade
5. END TITLES (THE TAKING OF PELHAM ONE TWO THREE) – David Shire
6. ARE YOU MAN ENOUGH? – The Four Tops
7. DOWN & OUT IN NEW YORK CITY – James Brown
8. LOVE CAN BE ANYTHING (CAN’T NOTHING BE LOVE BUT LOVE) – The Temptations
9. TELL IT TO MY FACE - Bloodstone
[Note: Shit cuts off at the end.]
10. HIJACKIN’ (aka I’M GONNA HI-JACK YA, KIDNAP YA, TAKE WHAT I WANT) (Long Version) – Holland-Dozier-Holland
11. WHAT AM I WAITING FOR – The O’Jays
12. I’M GONNA KEEP ON LOVING YOU – Johnnie Taylor
13. WHEN DID YOU STOP LOVING ME, WHEN DID I STOP LOVING YOU – Marvin Gaye
14. JAWS – Johnny Otis
15. THE JAM – Graham Central Station
16. MISS LUCIFER’S LOVE - Funkadelic

In retrospect, I should've clipped "Miss Lucifer's Love"; "The Jam" is the more appropriate coda: the loose vamping, the breakneck train-wreck flow no one can quite believe they're surviving, but you know that shit is tight. I wanted a Funkadelic song, though, and the one I reallyreallyREALLY wanted, "I Call My Baby Pussycat," bleeds for about 10 seconds into the following track on America Eats Its Young, so I couldn't use it, because it cuts off at a rather inopportune moment (the dreaded cut-off, however, didn't stop me from jettisoning Bloodstone's "Tell It To My Face" because of its missing half-second--now THERE's a jarring transition). All my other Funkadelic albums are at work or cry for liberation from my dad's CD collection, augmented by a thousand albums that used to belong to me. And, yeah: maybe the Johnnie Taylor wasn't right; Eargasm is a terribly limp record lost in dated disco and could hardly be considered funky or entirely soulful, but, again, my Johnnie Taylor best-of (with classics like "Jody"--that jive-ass homewrecker!) is back with Pops, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. Also, I couldn't resist the juxtaposition of "I'm Gonna Keep On Loving You" and "When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You"--a broken-vowed trail we often follow in affairs of the heart; incidentally, the latter is taken from the classic Here, My Dear, a worthwhile concept addition to any collection; rarely do records get this personal. The Reverend might ask me, "Where's 'Hell Up In Harlem'?" but dude'll have to wait for Volume 2, which should have Funkadelic's "Red Hot Mama," Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man," something from Funky Nassau that isn't "Funky Nassau," and a host of others.