Roger Miller

Beer (recent):
Green Flash W. Coast IPA. Superb. Who says San Diego has nothing to offer?
Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Porter (replete w/Ralph Steadman drawings). Go for the darkness.
RockArt - EXTREME double porter smoked. And just about everything else they make.



Music (recent):
LIVE::
SHELLAC, in Portugal and Spain, May (we were on tour w/them). There are some especially devastating moments in their live sonic assaults.
AN ACCORDION PLAYER in Barcelona, Spain. I was walking through the "old part of town", tiny corridors and ancient stone walls, and heard an amazing accordion player playing Bach and Vivaldi. He sounded more like an organ. Very moving in the environment I heard it in.



Movies (recently):
INCEPTION
I was skeptical about this film, what with all the hype. But my girlfriend convinced me that I'd like it: and I did. Aspects of dream layers are quite accurately portrayed, though there were, of course, numerous errors in that department. (dream-time is actually the same as "real time". This has been proven in laboratories). I'm a fan of layered realities, so I was quite amused by the proceedings. I read somewhere that it was like MATRIX meets James Bond: quite accurate. My favorite part was that most of the expensive effects didn't really exist - because most of the movie happens in a dream, they are not real things at all: they are just illusions. The director spent all that money on something that didn't really exist even in the movie! I have a feeling the director thought that was an interesting joke.
Actually I don't watch that many movies. I've considered this possibility as to why: I remember, and often write down, my dreams. The plots are generally more interesting than most movies, and since I am usually the main character, I find them easy to relate to (for example, recently I was in a comedy with my ex-wife where we were trying to build a clubhouse in her back yard. And the night before I was in battle with "The Sons of Statannish" - enemies of Dr. Strange). I certainly consider TV to be vastly inferior to dreaming, although recently when I'm on tour I have enjoyed South Park quite a bit, and the Cobert Report oft cracks me up. Even better, when Alloy was at a pub in Detroit, a sports channel "closed caption" writer must've been tired as hell or toasted as hell - most words barely resembled English diction, and new words were coined every second. Needless to say, I watched the typing much more than the game)



Books (recent):
EMPIRE OF THE WORD
A History of Civilization based on language rather than war-fare (though of course they go hand in hand). Quite fascinating.