A few things that are pretty cool:

In no particular order:

The Arcade Fire, “Neon Bible”

This is one of those bands by and for kids that I actually “get.” I’m hep, baby. Most new music sounds like garbage to me (although everybody looks real nice), and even a lot of the critically-anointed ‘cool’ bands like Radiohead I never did get.

These guys I get. In spite of the fact that most of the time, I have no idea what the hell they’re going on about – I’d swear some of the lyrics are in French? – but it doesn’t matter because the bits I can make out suggest they think it’s something pretty important, anyhow. And the fact that they don’t jump out at me and read me the riot act is kinda welcome too. Even if they are trying to wag their fingers at me, they’re polite enough to bury the vocals under enough glorious bafflegab that the finer points roll right over me.

I used to say that INXS wanted very badly to be U2 but only succeeded in being U2 very badly. These kids pull if off (being U2) with style and zazz to spare. It’s very sweet, anthemic music about stuff that sounds like it matters. I’d swear he just slagged off the White House right there. Well I’m cool with that. I’ve made a cottage industry of it here on my beloved forum. “Friends, Romans, people with substance abuse problems and family members…”

However, he just sang “I don’t want to live in America no more.” Well, we have an open border policy in this country mister (just ask Lou Dobbs!), nobody’s forcing you to stay. Plus, that would explain the French. How much you want to bet these guys are from Canada?

(Speaking of Canada, Rush has a new album coming out May 1st. Place your pre-orders today!)

Anyhow, “Neon Bible” is a little baroque but very, very pop and well-crafted. Sincere without being weak-kneed. Best new record from a newer band in I can’t remember how long. You should also run over to iTunes or wherever you snitch your music from and check out “Wake Up,” a previous anthem totally in the U2 mode. It may already have become the standard they’re going to be held to. And “Neon Bible” damn near lives up to that promise.

“Grindhouse”

Opening this weekend; sadly, the matinee screening I attended on Friday was sparsely attended, unlike the same showtime for “300” which had been packed. Doesn’t look good for the bottom line, but my gut tells me its directors, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, will land on their feet. If this thing bombs, watch for them to tell the press that they’re proud that it did, that that was the whole point of it.

That having been said, I loved the hell out of it. The directors, who famously met years ago at a festival screening of their respective first features, are both working at the top of their form here. The banality and utter dispensability of Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror,” is again, the point of it. Zombies get blown apart in every conceivable way, heroes sling catch-phrases, the film itself spackles and cracks and scratches like a second-generation print of a 30-year-old film. A-List stars mingle with television actors and people more famous for being famous than any actual acting talent… Rodriguez nails the genre perfectly. And at a brisk 85 minutes or so, there’s not a lot of fat on the film story-wise, either.

In between the films and before the first, were fake trailers for non-existent movies that also nailed their genres perfectly. Some even created their own genres, like Rob Zombie’s “Werewolf Women of the SS.” Brilliant stuff.

Tarantino’s contribution, “Death Proof,” is more Tarantino being Tarantino than a reverent re-creation of films past. His is more a nod and a wink to the genre it’s aping than the aw-shucks homage of Rodriguez’s film. The dialogue is pure Tarantino, and first half of the film at least is almost all talk. I was getting pretty sick of it, frankly, till stuff started to happen. Clever dialogue will only take me so far in a splatter film.

But when stuff started to happen, it suddenly became one of the great car chase movies I’ve seen. It made me want to check out the car-chase movies it repeatedly referenced in the vast, arid stretches of clever dialogue, saucily delivered that preceded it. Long takes, too. Oh yeah, and Tarantino makes long-ish cameos in both films. Puh-lease.

In “Death Proof,” Kurt Russell plays a variation of his renowned Snake Plissken character from “Escape From New York.” He’s a stunt car driver/serial killer who kills people with his stunt car after stalking them. The fun of this movie isn’t reading about it, it’s seeing it, the same as “Planet Terror.”

I’m on a deadline here. “Grindhouse” was definitely a blast and I’d recommend seeing it on the big screen while you can. Hopefully, you’ll have a livelier audience to enjoy it with than I did.

“Rome” Season Two on HBO

Just finished watching this thing. Awesome! Better than the last few seasons of the Sopranos. Tighter, leaner, meaner and more focused. My favorite series after “The Wire,” for which I have already rhapsodized at length elsewhere.

The first season of “Rome” wrapped after the death of Julius Caesar on the senate steps, and I thought that was a fine place to end it. I’d heard it was a really expensive series for HBO to produce, and I was glad they’d given it their all the way they did. The fact that they eked a second season out of it initially worried me. What was there to tell?

Fortunately, history is generous. In the great civilizations, one monster is always replaced by the next monster, as is the case here. Julius Caesar is replaced by two scheming, warring asswipes, Marc Antony and Caesar Augustus. Three, if you count Egypt’s Cleopatra, and I definitely would count her among the scheming asswipes assembled. This season follows their stories, as well as the interconnecting lives of two commoners, soldiers whose job brings them to the attention of the better-known historical figures.

It’s a device I’ve seen before, but it’s especially well-used here. And for those grumpy Guses complaining The Sopranos has been stingy its last few seasons with the sex and the violence, “Rome” delivers both by the heaping helping.

My only caveat is, this alone-time TV. No kids, no ringing phones, no answering emails. This is more like literature than TV writing. You can’t afford to miss a bit, and you don’t want to. Rent the first season, out on DVD now, and HBO will probably have season two out in no time. If HBO didn’t charge a goddamned arm and a leg for their DVD products, I’d pick it up myself and watch it again. What, do they press these discs on spun gold or what?

The Man Cub

I have saved the best for last.

At about 18 months or so, he’s really coming into his own. Still doing annoying baby shit like not sleeping as, how, when and how long we’d like him to, and throwing pointy, hard objects at expensive, softer objects (like laptop monitors).

But he’s also beginning to get a handle on communicating. ANECDOTE ALERT: When we put him down for his morning nap, the ritual includes him tapping his light off (it’s touch-activated) and us shutting his drapes to make the room appropriately dark. Yesterday, The Missus was putting him down and she pulled the right curtain shut. The boy writhed and pointed to a section of drape that was stuck, and not where it should be. “Nyuuuh!” She pulled the drape free and smoothed it out. She took the right drape and pulled it toward the center, again catching a corner on some baby toy. Again, the boy twisted and pointed to the unobstructed area of window, “Gaaah!” until she had freed the drape and smoothed it into the proper vertical configuration, placating the boy. Then she turned to me with an accusing look and said, “Well, we know whose son he is.”

He understands more than he can communicate. I can say, in the morning, “Want to go get Mommy up?” He jumps off my lap and grabs my hand and leads me the bedroom where he knows Mommy is, slapping the door and making happy, multi-syllable baby noises.

I say “Come here.” And he knows to laugh at my foolishness and (literally, still) toddle off the other way, giggling at his indiscretion.

He’s even finally getting “bah bah” and the attendant hand-wave, as well as being able to identify where his nose is by pointing to it when requested. His baby doctor will be so relieved. The Missus is even working with him on his ABCs, and 123s, so when he does speak his first complete sentence, it might well contain a quadratic equation.

Meanwhile, I work on survival skills with him. It’s a rough old world out there, and I didn’t have the foresight to name him “Sue,” so I’m gonna have to stick around and make sure he has the tools he needs to triumph over a world that eats little people like us for breakfast. And the first step down that road … is dandelions!