I’ve always been a college basketball, never a pro fan, but that’s changing now that the Thunder are in the playoffs, against a Texas team even. Yesterday, on the even of the Western Conference Finals first game, my mom sent me this video.

In Oklahoma, basketball goes hand in hand with tragedy. But something else struck me about the story above.

I was 14 years old when the Murrah Building was bombed. I was in junior high, had not yet taken my first creative writing class, had not yet worked for a newspaper. But I loved to write, and I had been keeping journals every year. Watching the video now reminds me of my desperate need for info after the bombing. How voraciously I consumed every newspaper, magazine, news report and update. It never occurred to me before, but in no small way did the OKC bombing influence my later development into a news junkie and journalist.

Elizabeth Taylor has died. I loved her in nearly everything she did, from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf to A Place In The Sun, but the above scene has always been my favorite. The Film That Changed Hollywood, a feature-length documentary on the troubled production of Cleopatra, is an absolute must-see for anyone with an interest in the way cinema works, then and now.

Update: Here’s the obit I wrote for the Houston Press on her best movies.

Yes, I wear a nightgown from the thrift store. Whut.

Work has taken a front seat in my life lately. I miss writing. I miss my little blog. But that’s gonna change. Stay tuned for more.

Jerry Lee Lewis in 1957.

Jerry Lee Lewis on January 21, 2011.

He can still hammer those keys away, even if he was a little slow-moving on stage. I have always, since I was nine years old, wanted to see him play. I remember taking a road trip to Missouri with my grandmother and listening to a JLL greatest hits tape and loving him even back then.

Read my write-up of the show on Rocks Off.

And here is the accompanying story.

In a past life I was an entertainment writer, though covering music has really always been my thang. I went to this as a last-minute assignment. Covering kids’ puppet shows ain’t exactly my idea of a lively beat but it was a super fun laid-back interview and they insisted after the fact that I try my hand at it. My job, it is so hard.

Rest in peace, Captain.

And now a Patric Swayze reference.

God, that trailer is so ’90s. But there are two things I love about this movie (besides the obvious, because it’s awesome): 1. it was directed by a woman, and 2. the three main actors did all their own stunts.