A trailer for ‘Died Young, Stayed Pretty’, Maynard Keenan tours (wine tastings?), Taibbi reflects on the election, and some crazily detailed Austin City Limits Photos.

Occasionally — perhaps inevitably — I’ll end up finding and posting something here solely because I am in love with it and I don’t want to forget about it, never expecting anyone else to come around to realizing how great it is. I suppose this could be one of those times, but I’m willing to risk it because I am smitten with this idea that combines two of my favorite things.

Died Young, Stayed Pretty is an indie documentary by first-time filmmaker Eileen Yaghoobian about contemporary rock poster culture. The people that make them, the ideas that go into them, and the fans who love them — primarily the community at GigPosters.com. As a fan myself, whose apartment walls are adorned almost solely by screen-printed gems from the past ten years, I cannot wait to see this movie. I’ve read interviews at Creativity Online and Ioncinema, I’ve watched the trailer on Youtube (below)… The whole thing gets me bristling with art and music nerd energy. Now, the wait begins.

See, the problem is that this movie, as the poster culture it documents, is a very DIY affair and only playing the festival circuit at the moment. Even still, only in the director’s native Canada. It could be a long while before I get a chance to view this, if I’m lucky, at a one-night-only engagement here in LA; or longer before it makes it onto DVDs available someplace like Netflix. What are the logistics for a small-time website sponsoring a special screening event? Would I have to rent a venue and promote for ticket sales and other costly things? I could also just wait patiently and hope it doesn’t slip my mind by the time an opportunity arises, but that’s far less exciting.

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This item is less newsworthy, but much more amusing. Apparently Maynard Keenan — yes, the one from Tool — is a huge wine fanatic. Maybe his bigger fans already knew this, but I was not aware that in the past few years he’s started his own vineyard in Arizona dubbed Merkin (snicker), created a label called Caduceus complete with a suitably mysterious website (give it a minute to load for the full effect), and is currently wrapping up a short tour of signings in select Whole Foods locations.

That’s right, this Friday the 5th, gentle citizens and tortured goth kids alike can line up in sleepy El Segundo, California to have their wine bottle signed by a master of both freaky prog metal and smooth southern Syrah. What a bizarre and truly wonderful world we live in. Can’t you just see it now?…

[Eclectic crowd gathered at Whole Foods collectively sips wine]
Pampered Housewife: (jubilantly) “This has an earthy aroma, a tart fruitiness reminiscent of spring pomegranate, and a crisp finish. Very refined! I should serve this at the Christmas party!”
Eyelinered, Long Black-Haired Metal Fan: (in somber monotone) “the sanguine hue of this brooding beverage hearkens to the dark recesses of my bloodstained nightmares. i’ll take two bottles please, and would you also sign my platform boots?”

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Good to know I wasn’t the absolute last person writing post-election wrap-ups. Of course, it could be that real writers either report news promptly, or take their time to create well-thought-out magazine pieces, and the rest of us, well… we do our best.

The consistently excellent Matt Taibbi refelcts on election night at Rolling Stone, as harshly honest as ever.

But ordinary Americans, alas, would have been perfectly happy to spend the rest of eternity mesmerized by the endless and endlessly condescending I’d Like to Have a Beer With You sideshow, leaving the boring policy stuff to the people who actually pay for the campaigns. Things could have just kept getting dumber and dumber, and no one would have been surprised. There was certainly no trend that suggested our presidential elections were bound to return to being great, sweepingly important contests of ideas. But that’s what happened.

I’m really hoping The Great Derangement turns up under a tree for me at Christmas — I can’t get enough of this guy.

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And one last bit of fun. I didn’t write much about it at the time other than some twitter updates, but Under Culture was representing at Austin City Limits this year. Want proof? They’ve recently posted ginormous, zoom-in-able photos from a few of the stages on their site.

If you look reeeeeally closely, you can see my head somewhere in the photo from the Raconteurs set. Did you find it? No, not there, on the left, by the other guy.

It’s called Gigapan technology, and there must be an army of robots involved — possibly the same ones in charge of either Google Earth or the Where’s Waldo? books.

If you didn’t have any luck, here is the zoomed in version from when I did finally find myself. The arrow is pointing to the tiny top corner of my girlfriend’s face, just barely visible even via Gigapan. Maybe they should be investing more in technology that lets the crowd see the stage instead of vice versa?