When I first moved to Los Angeles 7 or 8 years ago I became obsessed with Six Feet Under. I remember going to work one day and one of my coworkers talked about the show for hours. She couldn't believe that I was not watching it. However, I didn't have HBO and I don't think the show was out on DVD yet. I didn't even have a DVD player yet. VHS releases of TV shows were starting to disappear so I didn't really have any way to watch it-- so it might have been Six Feet Under that made me finally give in and get a DVD player. My first DVD purchase was The Muppet Movie, but I think my second or third purchase was the first season of Six Feet Under. It had been a while since I had been obsessed with a really good TV show. I still managed to watch the entire Twin Peaks series about once a year, but there wasn't much else out there. It was just that I didn't have HBO. I had heard about all these new shows, but still had never watched Oz or the Sopranos. These shows would later become some of my favorites as I started to collect the DVDs and eventually was forced to get HBO again. I don't want to sound like an advertisement for HBO, but it really did change the way I looked at TV and really gave me many enjoyable viewing hours. Six Feet Under came at a perfect time in my life. The show took place in the Los Angeles area and was filmed just down the street from Amoeba at the Gower studios. I somehow felt the show was speaking directly to me. And I somehow felt more involved with it since it was filmed so close to me and took place in a city so close to my heart. It was also nice to see a gay character as one of the lead roles in a drama series. I have always had a love/hate sort of relationship with Los Angeles, but this show made me love it just a little bit more. The five seasons of the show took me on a long and intense journey. I fell in love with all the characters and started to think of them as my family. The show followed me back to San Francisco, where it eventually ended in 2005. This was one of those shows that I really did love but it also just sort of tortured me when I watched it. Not only was every episode dealing with somebody's death, but it was also dealing with all the characters' messed up lives at the same time. It was an intense journey. The thing that made this show so fantastic was the cast. The mix of the brilliant writing with the perfect cast was a magical combination -- and it doesn't really happen that often. The leads were all perfect. Peter Krause, Michael C. Hall, and Lauren Ambrose were perfect as the siblings of the house. Frances Conroy was brilliant as their mother. The show just had a list of some of my favorite or soon to be favorite actors -- Rachel Griffiths, Freddy Rodriguez, Jeremy Sisto, Lili Taylor, Kathy Bates, Richard Jenkins, Rainn Wilson, Justin Theroux, Mena Suvari, Veronica Cartwright, Illeana Douglas, and Catherine O'Hara. And Patricia Clarkson and Joanna Cassidy were nothing short of brilliant as the aunt and mother in law. I wish they could have been in every episode, I don't think any TV show will ever get a better cast...although Mad Men comes very close.

Since I write about what I listen to fairly often, this list may be a bit redundant, but consider it a happy round up! This is what was getting to me the most in 2008, whether it was released in 2008 or 1974, whether I'd heard it a zillion times before or it was something new to my ears.

Rodriguez - Cold Fact



Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down in the Light



Bobby Charles - s/t



Sun Kil Moon - "Glenn Tipton" from Ghosts of the Great Highway



Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers - "Islands in the Stream"

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It's crazy what a little nostalgia can do sometimes:


After reading the list of the Gayest Albums of All Time, according to Out Magazine, I realized I hadn't listened to Tori Amos in about 10 years, so I dragged out my old Little Earthquakes CD, ripped it onto my controversial I-Pod and went out for a stroll down my street, feeling a bit blue.

Within about 2 seconds of hearing "Crucify" I was feeling giddy, taken back to another time and place, but also hearing the songs in a new light since it'd been so long. Little Earthquakes is an incredible record. Between the raw lyrics and the acoustic piano, when it came out in 1992 it was like nothing else of its time. I feel like it sliced through all the other overblown stuff out there (like Michael Jackson and Guns N Roses), utterly idiosyncratic, and then managed to float alone above it all. I don't know how I'd forgotten how delicious a record it is. Walking down the street with Tori whispering and crooning in my ear, simultaneously brutally honest and seductive, the entire timbre of my day changed. It's that kind of album.

I remember reading Tori was influenced by Joni Mitchell's Blue, and now, years later, having become a fan of that record as well, I can really see what she meant. Both Little Earthquakes and Blue are extraordinarily confessional, sincere and frank. And favorites of mine.