"I remember literally breaking out into a sweat"
I've written about this before, but now I can actually show you Butch Vig's reaction to hearing Nirvana play "Smells Like Team Spirit" for the first time.
The reason this intrigues me is it's about the genesis of probably one of the best songs evar, a pivotal moment in music history.
I've always wondered what it would be like to be there when a seminal work is being born. I have a friend who spent years in the arts scene, going to performance after crappy performance of local bands, cruising all the art openings, hitting every event he could merely to experience being there when something huge was born and took off.
I don't think he ever had the pleasure.
Anyway, here's one story of being there when it did happen. I would've probably broken out into a sweat, too.
Monday, April 06, 2009
What's Wrong with This Picture?
I burst out laughing - loudly - at the library, which is still a no-no.
Now if the word "metro" had appeared in the title, maybe the soft, foofy sweater and the doe-eyed gaze - with the hand held so dandily to the side of the head - wouldn't have been so damn funny.
But "Mantalk"?
Uh, no.
I burst out laughing - loudly - at the library, which is still a no-no.
Now if the word "metro" had appeared in the title, maybe the soft, foofy sweater and the doe-eyed gaze - with the hand held so dandily to the side of the head - wouldn't have been so damn funny.
But "Mantalk"?
Uh, no.
He Should Be Pissed. Sorta.
The recent Rolling Stone has a nice little bio on Kris Kristofferson by Ethan Hawke (the actor, who's apparently branching out). It starts with a little vignette backstage at Willie Nelson's 70th birthday concert (excerpted from the Yahoo story, as Rolling Stone hasn't put it online yet):
After the shit Keith pulled on the Dixie Chicks, it's nice to see him get a little jab in the nuts. Which he handles well:
Oh, wah. Guess what goes around comes around. I can't wait for the Dixie Chicks song about it.
_________
Update:
Almost forgot to include a pretty funny story from the article, which I'll have to paraphrase as I don't have the mag with me.
At the funeral of June Carter Cash, as Kristofferson was sitting next to Johnny Cash in the receiving line, a guy walks up and after he offers his condolences to Cash, he tells Kristofferson that he loved his singing. After the guy walked away, Cash leaned over and whispered, "Well, there's one.
The recent Rolling Stone has a nice little bio on Kris Kristofferson by Ethan Hawke (the actor, who's apparently branching out). It starts with a little vignette backstage at Willie Nelson's 70th birthday concert (excerpted from the Yahoo story, as Rolling Stone hasn't put it online yet):
Hawke said the argument began with the "Star" [Toby Keith] telling Kristofferson: "None of that lefty (expletive) out there tonight, Kris."
Hawke said Kristofferson then angrily confronted and asked him if he had ever served in the military.
"Have you ever killed another man? Huh? Have you ever taken another man's life and then cashed the check your country gave you for doing it? No, you have not, so shut the (expletive) up," Hawke recounted Kristofferson as saying. "You don't know what the hell you are talking about."
After the shit Keith pulled on the Dixie Chicks, it's nice to see him get a little jab in the nuts. Which he handles well:
"He didn't even call me by my name. ... He called Norah Jones, Ray Charles, everybody else by name. Willie (Nelson), Kris (Kristofferson). Why didn't he call my name? Why didn't he say Toby Keith walked through and said this (expletive)? Right? You know why. You know why. You know as good as anybody why. He didn't want to (expletive) deal with the aftermath."
Oh, wah. Guess what goes around comes around. I can't wait for the Dixie Chicks song about it.
_________
Update:
Almost forgot to include a pretty funny story from the article, which I'll have to paraphrase as I don't have the mag with me.
At the funeral of June Carter Cash, as Kristofferson was sitting next to Johnny Cash in the receiving line, a guy walks up and after he offers his condolences to Cash, he tells Kristofferson that he loved his singing. After the guy walked away, Cash leaned over and whispered, "Well, there's one.
And Speaking of Rolling Stone...
They had a great (maddening and saddening) article on some of the corruption under the Bush administration:
Read the whole thing here.
They had a great (maddening and saddening) article on some of the corruption under the Bush administration:
During the Bush era, the scandals over America's wilderness areas were centered at the Mineral Management Service, the Denver office that serves as Interior's collection agency. The government auctions off the right to drill on public lands, and taxpayers are supposed to receive a cut of any profits that energy firms make on the oil and gas they extract. Last year, MMS collected more than $23 billion in royalties from drilling — second in revenues only to the IRS. "The oil companies were basically running MMS during the Bush years," says Bobby Maxwell, a top auditor for the service who was forced out of his job in 2005, despite having recovered more than $500 million in unpaid royalties during his career.
Maxwell and other auditors sensed the change in direction as soon as Bush took office: Collections of unpaid royalties from oil and gas companies plunged from $300 million a year to less than $50 million. "The focus changed," says Maxwell. "It was 'Quit doing detailed audits. Stop getting records from oil companies.' " The push was no longer to collect money owed to taxpayers for drilling on public land — it was to provide what the Bush administration euphemistically called "royalty relief" to big energy firms.
MMS not only slashed audits by 22 percent, it even prohibited auditors from recouping money in cases involving clear evidence of fraud. In what would become the costliest scandal, it also looked the other way when it learned that, because of a massive bureaucratic fuck-up, it had failed to collect billions in royalties for deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, the Bush administration fought to let oil companies keep the money, and a judge appointed by Bush recently overturned royalty collections on 75 percent of all oil produced in the Gulf. Should the ruling stand, taxpayers will forfeit as much as $53 billion owed by Big Oil.
As another favor to oil and gas companies, MMS also set up an office called "Royalty in Kind," allowing drilling interests to pay the government not in cash but in petroleum products. The RIK office would then sell those products on the open market, bringing in some $4 billion a year. But since the office owned no pipelines or refineries, it was forced to extend lucrative contracts to the oil companies to transport and process the oil — taking another costly bite out of the revenue owed to taxpayers.
Instead of negotiating tough deals with the oil companies, officials in the royalties office indulged in what an internal investigation later termed "a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity." A third of RIK staff members, the investigation found, accepted illicit gifts from the industry. Others "used cocaine and marijuana, and had sexual relations with oil and gas company representatives." One pair of government-employees-gone-wild, celebrated among oilmen as the "MMS Chicks," partied hard during corporate snowboarding trips — one got so drunk at a ski resort that Shell had to put her up for the night in its "Dutchman Haus" chalet — and repeatedly had sex with representatives for Chevron and Shell. The "Chicks" did not recuse themselves from negotiations with the companies. Worse, they allowed Chevron and other firms to revise the terms of 118 contracts that had already been finalized — favors to the industry that cost taxpayers $4.4 million.
"They were literally and figuratively in bed with the oil industry," says Maxwell. The director of the Royalty in Kind office, Greg Smith, was apparently too busy worrying about where his next line of coke was coming from to rein in his underlings. According to Interior's inspector general, Smith regularly bought cocaine from a subordinate, offering her a $250 "performance award" as a reward for provisioning him with quality "office supplies." When Smith wasn't high — or pressuring women on his staff for blow jobs, as the inspector general found he did repeatedly — he was busy accepting payments from an oil–services consulting firm in return for insider information about the RIK program.
When the inspector general sent his findings to the Justice Department, however, the Bush administration suddenly went soft on drugs, declining to prosecute Smith. It also failed to charge Lucy Dennet, a former associate director of MMS, whom the inspector general said "manipulated the contracting process" to steer $1.1 million in government business to a company run by two outgoing MMS agents, both of whom have pleaded guilty to felony violations of conflict of interest. Many Interior insiders believe that both Dennet and Smith are prime candidates for prosecution under Salazar. Speaking to Rolling Stone, the secretary refused to speculate about which former officials are now in legal jeopardy, but says that his investigation extends beyond the corruption at MMS to the entire department. "I am being cautious as a former prosecutor," he says. "I can't tell you everything I know."
Even by Washington standards, the level of corruption at MMS was mind-boggling — far worse than the notorious bribe-for-drilling scandal that defined the administration of Warren G. Harding. "The previous low point for the Interior Department was the Teapot Dome scandal of the 1920s," says Jeff Ruch, executive director of a federal watchdog group called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. "Right now we've got Teapot Dome cubed."
Read the whole thing here.
Thursday, April 02, 2009
In which my baby finds a children's book that's NSFW
A family ritual of ours is a weekly (at least) visit to the library where we let the girls pull anything and everything off the shelf they'd like to read, watch, or listen to. Our only limitation is the sheer amount of stuff that we can carry to the van in one trip.
As the four-year-old plucks things from the shelves, we do a quick preview because a huge portion of children's books are just weird. For instance, there's a huge genre I'd label "victimhood" which contains books about being a particular race, or religion, or having a handicap or something. We eschew all these books with an agenda other than telling a good story.
Well, even with our filtering, sometimes we miss a stinker.
What slipped through security this week was Mommy Laid an Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come from?
From the cover, it looks like it will be whimsical.
But, after a page where it's explained that the cartoon penis fits into the cartoon vagina - an arrow even helps us make the connection (and it's cartoonish enough that it's almost innocuous) - we suddenly hap upon two pages that show many positions in which mom and dad can do it in.
Check it out for yourself, and believe it or not, this is NSFW!!! And it's a freakin' kids book!
Did they really need the Kama Sutra angle? Oh, and I especially love the pair who's role-playing with the clown noses and stuff. As if clowns weren't scary enough to kids.
What in the hell were these people thinking?
I half expected to find John and Yoko's conception video as a bonus DVD in the back.
(In case you've never heard this one, they filmed themselves screwing when they were trying for Sean, so they could give him the videos - along with his birthing vids - when he was old enough. How scarred would you be if you saw the video of your parents boinking in order to bring you into the world? Even if one of them was a Beatle?)
A family ritual of ours is a weekly (at least) visit to the library where we let the girls pull anything and everything off the shelf they'd like to read, watch, or listen to. Our only limitation is the sheer amount of stuff that we can carry to the van in one trip.
As the four-year-old plucks things from the shelves, we do a quick preview because a huge portion of children's books are just weird. For instance, there's a huge genre I'd label "victimhood" which contains books about being a particular race, or religion, or having a handicap or something. We eschew all these books with an agenda other than telling a good story.
Well, even with our filtering, sometimes we miss a stinker.
What slipped through security this week was Mommy Laid an Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come from?
From the cover, it looks like it will be whimsical.
But, after a page where it's explained that the cartoon penis fits into the cartoon vagina - an arrow even helps us make the connection (and it's cartoonish enough that it's almost innocuous) - we suddenly hap upon two pages that show many positions in which mom and dad can do it in.
Check it out for yourself, and believe it or not, this is NSFW!!! And it's a freakin' kids book!
Did they really need the Kama Sutra angle? Oh, and I especially love the pair who's role-playing with the clown noses and stuff. As if clowns weren't scary enough to kids.
What in the hell were these people thinking?
I half expected to find John and Yoko's conception video as a bonus DVD in the back.
(In case you've never heard this one, they filmed themselves screwing when they were trying for Sean, so they could give him the videos - along with his birthing vids - when he was old enough. How scarred would you be if you saw the video of your parents boinking in order to bring you into the world? Even if one of them was a Beatle?)
Friday, March 27, 2009
Most Humble Apologies
Ever look at a morbidly obese person and wonder how they wiped their ass?
Wonder no more - the long reach comfort wipe:
(Click for full size, or click here to view the actual catalog entry)
In other advertising wonderfulness, check this out:
(Click for full size.)
I've heard that thedepression recession has been hardest on teenagers since old farts like myself are now asking folks if they'd like fries with that. Well, to me, here's the opportunity for a win-win. They should hire teenage boys to vet all ads, to insure they pass the "Beavis and Butthead" test.
Ever look at a morbidly obese person and wonder how they wiped their ass?
Wonder no more - the long reach comfort wipe:
(Click for full size, or click here to view the actual catalog entry)
In other advertising wonderfulness, check this out:
(Click for full size.)
I've heard that the
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Perhaps some recalibration is in order
That was the name of the post I started a week ago after I'd seen The Watchmen and had bought the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon.
Both left me underwhelmed, and at first I decided maybe it was me. I've been busy as hell lately, my wife was in a car accident (she's fine, btw - got t-boned by a teenager who'd had her license a month), and the free hours I did have I spent on The Watchmen.
However, I've seen blog after blog go "meh" about it, so I've decided it does kinda blow (even though my two favorite critics - Ebert and Travers - liked it).
For me, the three moments that ruined it for me where:
- A "child in peril" where we see dogs fighting over the bloody leg bone of a little girl, which still has one of her shoes intact.
- A graphic sex scene which was bad enough in its own right (we see the guy's ass thrusting a few times), but they play Cohen's "Hallelujah" during the whole embarrassment. Not only has that song become a movie cliché, it has to be used ironically if it's used at all. But vetted as a serious soundtrack during a sex scene as we see their orgasms wash over their faces? I was not the only one who laughed out loud.
- They removed the freakin' ending. More on that later in the spoiler section.
Hopefully, this will be the last hard "R" adaptation of a comic book. Comic books are about grand stories and escapism. Dead children and superheroes boinking in the owl-mobile really yank you back into the dark reality of the theatre where you face the fact that you're a grown man (or woman) watching a movie about people who run around in leotards and capes fighting crime, as opposed to wearing leotards and capes while getting hammered as a means of getting out your ya-yas before the Catholic holy season. More than once I thought back on how The Incredibles portrayed all the same concepts in a much better way.
U2's new album was originally on sale for $4 (as was Lily Allen's), a trend I like very much. So make sure you bite the first week they're on sale.
While the new set isn't horrible, it is their biggest stinker since Zooropa. Like that one, there's only one obvious hit and a lot of noodling. That makes two albums in a row that aren't spectacular. But then, they have made so many spectacular albums that when they make a merely good one, it's a disappointment. There is one classic lyric though: "Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot."
Supposedly they are coming out with another album this year of the other songs they recorded during the sessions but didn't feel they were good enough or fit the theme of this album. I'll bet you that album will actually be pretty good, and if it is, you heard it here first.
I'm enjoying Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You much more. I'm even gonna buy the expurgated version of "Fuck You" because since they had to bleep it so much, they got creative and went totally Monty Python on it.
Even cooler, she's got a page where folks can upload remixes of her songs. On the CD are the base tracks for all the songs, so you can roll your own. (If I had the time, I'd get it and do just that, but since I don't, I just popped for the MP3s). The remixes are also a way to hear complete versions of the songs before you buy. Brilliant. If I were a rock star, I'd do this.
I'm apparently WAY behind the curve* on this next song because "popular" radio anymore mystifies and annoys me. Heck, even this song annoys me, because it would actually be a tasty tune if there were any TUNE there. All it's got is a beat and an aggravating synth run. BUT, the dancing is mesmerizing. And I HATE dancing videos. HATE'EM, I say. When videos went from little movies to nothing but choreographed dance numbers, I pretty much tuned out. I think that is really when MTV experienced their first big loss of viewership; the second being when they stopped playing vids altogether.
But once in a while one comes along that makes you go "whoa," and this is one of those times.
Beyoncé » Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
*Apparently this has been out and popular for so long, there are well over two dozen parodies of it on Youtube.
___________
Update:
Syaffolee discovered the original dance the above wasstolen from based on:
If you're going to see The Watchmen, stop reading now.
+++ THE SPOILER SECTION +++
I would guess that a lot of those who flock to The Watchmen have read the original, and somewhat seminal (save for the ending), graphic novel. As such, they probably anticipate the original ending.
Like me, they'll be sitting there as the credits roll thinking, "Did they really just do that? Did they really fuck up that badly?" Out in the lobby, they will finally face that the answer to both questions is "…yes."
Y'see, in the comic, the uber-smart Watchman guy (I don't care to look up their names) has secretly concocted a huge fake alien - faked so well using DNA manipulation, no one but he would be able to tell - which he then materializes in the middle of NYC, making it appear as though the process of teleporting actually killed the alien. This causes the world to unite together against this alien threat, stopping the nuclear annihilation about to occur between Russia and the US. (Let's disregard the fact that an actual event like that - the destruction of the towers - failed to do anything of the sort. I don't know why it'd matter if it were an alien or terrorists.) (Oh, and the towers are actually shown quite a few times in the background as if to underline this very thing.)
Folks who haven't read the novel will wonder what the hell really happened, because what does occur in the movie is a nuke goes off in the middle of NYC and they blame one of the Watchmen (the big, blue, naked one), which then causes worldwide peace as we unite against that particular superhero. Which makes no sense, because it's shown throughout the movie that if that particular superhero DID attack us, there's nothing we could do to stop it.
So they not only cripple the ending by changing it, they make it nonsensical.
For the record, when I was researching this, I discovered that the "fake alien invasion causes peace" plot was original to an "Outer Limits" episode called "The Architects of Fear," which the author of The Watchmen comic, Alan Moore, discovered after he'd already planned the ending, so he stuck in an "homage" to that episode to acknowledge the same.
You kinda wonder who was the fucktard was who thought changing the ending around was a good idea. It's kinda like if they changed the ending of Gone With the Wind and not only have Rhett stay with Scarlett end, but he reaches behind his neck and unzips a costume to reveal that he's really Ellen DeGeneres.
That was the name of the post I started a week ago after I'd seen The Watchmen and had bought the new U2 album, No Line on the Horizon.
Both left me underwhelmed, and at first I decided maybe it was me. I've been busy as hell lately, my wife was in a car accident (she's fine, btw - got t-boned by a teenager who'd had her license a month), and the free hours I did have I spent on The Watchmen.
However, I've seen blog after blog go "meh" about it, so I've decided it does kinda blow (even though my two favorite critics - Ebert and Travers - liked it).
For me, the three moments that ruined it for me where:
- A "child in peril" where we see dogs fighting over the bloody leg bone of a little girl, which still has one of her shoes intact.
- A graphic sex scene which was bad enough in its own right (we see the guy's ass thrusting a few times), but they play Cohen's "Hallelujah" during the whole embarrassment. Not only has that song become a movie cliché, it has to be used ironically if it's used at all. But vetted as a serious soundtrack during a sex scene as we see their orgasms wash over their faces? I was not the only one who laughed out loud.
- They removed the freakin' ending. More on that later in the spoiler section.
Hopefully, this will be the last hard "R" adaptation of a comic book. Comic books are about grand stories and escapism. Dead children and superheroes boinking in the owl-mobile really yank you back into the dark reality of the theatre where you face the fact that you're a grown man (or woman) watching a movie about people who run around in leotards and capes fighting crime, as opposed to wearing leotards and capes while getting hammered as a means of getting out your ya-yas before the Catholic holy season. More than once I thought back on how The Incredibles portrayed all the same concepts in a much better way.
U2's new album was originally on sale for $4 (as was Lily Allen's), a trend I like very much. So make sure you bite the first week they're on sale.
While the new set isn't horrible, it is their biggest stinker since Zooropa. Like that one, there's only one obvious hit and a lot of noodling. That makes two albums in a row that aren't spectacular. But then, they have made so many spectacular albums that when they make a merely good one, it's a disappointment. There is one classic lyric though: "Every beauty needs to go out with an idiot."
Supposedly they are coming out with another album this year of the other songs they recorded during the sessions but didn't feel they were good enough or fit the theme of this album. I'll bet you that album will actually be pretty good, and if it is, you heard it here first.
I'm enjoying Lily Allen's It's Not Me, It's You much more. I'm even gonna buy the expurgated version of "Fuck You" because since they had to bleep it so much, they got creative and went totally Monty Python on it.
Even cooler, she's got a page where folks can upload remixes of her songs. On the CD are the base tracks for all the songs, so you can roll your own. (If I had the time, I'd get it and do just that, but since I don't, I just popped for the MP3s). The remixes are also a way to hear complete versions of the songs before you buy. Brilliant. If I were a rock star, I'd do this.
I'm apparently WAY behind the curve* on this next song because "popular" radio anymore mystifies and annoys me. Heck, even this song annoys me, because it would actually be a tasty tune if there were any TUNE there. All it's got is a beat and an aggravating synth run. BUT, the dancing is mesmerizing. And I HATE dancing videos. HATE'EM, I say. When videos went from little movies to nothing but choreographed dance numbers, I pretty much tuned out. I think that is really when MTV experienced their first big loss of viewership; the second being when they stopped playing vids altogether.
But once in a while one comes along that makes you go "whoa," and this is one of those times.
Beyoncé » Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)
*Apparently this has been out and popular for so long, there are well over two dozen parodies of it on Youtube.
___________
Update:
Syaffolee discovered the original dance the above was
If you're going to see The Watchmen, stop reading now.
+++ THE SPOILER SECTION +++
I would guess that a lot of those who flock to The Watchmen have read the original, and somewhat seminal (save for the ending), graphic novel. As such, they probably anticipate the original ending.
Like me, they'll be sitting there as the credits roll thinking, "Did they really just do that? Did they really fuck up that badly?" Out in the lobby, they will finally face that the answer to both questions is "…yes."
Y'see, in the comic, the uber-smart Watchman guy (I don't care to look up their names) has secretly concocted a huge fake alien - faked so well using DNA manipulation, no one but he would be able to tell - which he then materializes in the middle of NYC, making it appear as though the process of teleporting actually killed the alien. This causes the world to unite together against this alien threat, stopping the nuclear annihilation about to occur between Russia and the US. (Let's disregard the fact that an actual event like that - the destruction of the towers - failed to do anything of the sort. I don't know why it'd matter if it were an alien or terrorists.) (Oh, and the towers are actually shown quite a few times in the background as if to underline this very thing.)
Folks who haven't read the novel will wonder what the hell really happened, because what does occur in the movie is a nuke goes off in the middle of NYC and they blame one of the Watchmen (the big, blue, naked one), which then causes worldwide peace as we unite against that particular superhero. Which makes no sense, because it's shown throughout the movie that if that particular superhero DID attack us, there's nothing we could do to stop it.
So they not only cripple the ending by changing it, they make it nonsensical.
For the record, when I was researching this, I discovered that the "fake alien invasion causes peace" plot was original to an "Outer Limits" episode called "The Architects of Fear," which the author of The Watchmen comic, Alan Moore, discovered after he'd already planned the ending, so he stuck in an "homage" to that episode to acknowledge the same.
You kinda wonder who was the fucktard was who thought changing the ending around was a good idea. It's kinda like if they changed the ending of Gone With the Wind and not only have Rhett stay with Scarlett end, but he reaches behind his neck and unzips a costume to reveal that he's really Ellen DeGeneres.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Groovy
I don't know how Attu finds this stuff, but this is one heck of a video mashup groove. (Btw, Attu has attempted so split his blog into SFW and NSFW, but I would still use caution when going to the main, quasi-SFW.)
I'm gonna mp3-ize this one to see if it sounds good without the vid portion.
I may be wrong, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I think the drummer comes from the Steely Dan "Aja" vid in the totally awesome (for music lovers) Classic Album documentary series.
I don't know how Attu finds this stuff, but this is one heck of a video mashup groove. (Btw, Attu has attempted so split his blog into SFW and NSFW, but I would still use caution when going to the main, quasi-SFW.)
I'm gonna mp3-ize this one to see if it sounds good without the vid portion.
I may be wrong, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I think the drummer comes from the Steely Dan "Aja" vid in the totally awesome (for music lovers) Classic Album documentary series.
Friday, March 06, 2009
Oscars and Issues
Read Pictures at a Revolution which was a sorta dull, straightforward history of the five films nominated for best Oscar in 1968. The premise is that was the exact year when old Hollywood supposedly succumbed to the new Hollywood, though that premise isn't given all that much analysis.
That's pretty much the problem with "Revolution": a lot of wind about "what" but not much about "why."
However, I've always been curious about Sidney Poitier - one of the primary topics of the book - because he was such a mainstay and huge star for a long time and then seemed to drop off the face of the planet. From what I can gather, he was the dual victim of black activism and white tokenism. On the one side, he was getting flack from black activists because he always played "good, safe" black men, and on the other side, he still wasn't considered for every leading role (read "leading roles meant for white guys") and was typecast as, well, Sidney Poitier. You wonder if he would've gotten past that had he not folded to the pressure to stop taking "Sidney Poitier" roles.
Aside from that, got two good pieces of trivia:
- Morgan Fairchild was Faye Dunaway's stunt double when her character had to drive because she couldn't drive a stick.
- The famous "Elaine!" scene in the church at the end of The Graduate where Hoffman had his arms out like he was Jesus on the cross was really just a "fix" because when he pounded on the glass (as he did on the first take), it would wobble and looked like it was going to break - it was not symbolic crucifixion as many critics at the time claimed.
TLD: Reading about The Graduate spurred a thought. When I worked at a vid store many moons ago, a couple stoners walked and asked for a surfing movie, so I gave them Apocalypse Now, which they loved, and forever after sought me out for recommendations. If that were today and someone walked in and asked for a movie on cougars, I'd hand them The Graduate.
And speaking of the Oscars, my wife and I used to view the Oscars as our superbowl, since neither of us are into professional competitive sports.
However, the type of movies that get nominated anymore are the tedious dramas with "plots" that used to be contained to the swamp of the literary fiction genre (incest! adultery! pedophilia! children dying! sexual predators! misery!), or spirited and preferably non-white foreigners overcoming something, or all gay all the time stuff (which knee-capped Broadway, so the movie folks better pay heed to the empty theaters showing Milk).
As this fun article points out, the Oscars are worth watching only if you've actually seen the movies that are nominated, which a larger portion of the movie-going public probably had not this year.
This jab from a "loved it, hated it" article made me laugh: "[T]the show bogged down with that somber bunch of Best Supporting Actresses intoning like they were going to banish the winner to the Forbidden Zone with General Zod." Those little ego-orgies were a bit much. Anthony Hopkins appeared to be especially mortified when his turn came to polish some nominee knob.
Ben Stiller's funny yet cruel impersonation of Joaquin Phoenix's publicly disintegrating mental health was a guilty hoot. Which led me to wonder about Tropic Thunder which I saw recently and was appalled at how unfunny it was. Why can't Stiller write and direct anything funny? He's great when he's doing someone else's material, but nearly everything he's written and directed has been on that edge of being funny; as you are watching it, you see how close it comes to actually being funny, but it just doesn't get there. So how can he be so funny in a context like the Oscars and/or improv, but just blow at movies? A question for the ages, apparently.
The self-righteous gay politicking got to be a bit much for me. For new readers (assuming, here): I don't feel marriage is a right, so framing it as such is silly and actually undercuts the goal of expanding the definition of it. Frinstance, are the polygamists attempting to frame it as a right? I think if the gay factions that do succeed, the polygamists will jump on that bandwagon, but they haven't gone down that road themselves, because they know everyone would laugh them out of the chamber if they suggested that being married to several women (or men) at once is a right. So hearing folks at the Oscars equate it with real human rights struggles is just an eye-roller.
Anyway, in a barely related tangent, I had a realization lately when I let my eldest (re)watch the two "Legally Blonde" movies.
But first, a little background: we'd let her see them with us they first came out, because there was a cute little doggie, and we thought the more adult stuff would go right over her head (she was about 5 or 6 I think). That was the case with the first one, but the second one prominently featured a subplot where we discover the cute little doggie is gay. They hammer on that so hard and draw such a complete picture that our little one finally asked what "gay" was. We were furious that we suddenly had that topic to vet, hoping she would be older before we had to have any sort of sex talk. Now, blame us, the parents, first, because we let her watch the movie before we knew what it contained. But they had so many toy tie-ins to the movies (she was cradling her own stuffed "Buster" ensconced in his Elle purse as we watched), I guess we didn't suspect that it would flounder so long in that particular realm of adult sexuality - or worse, attach it to the one character a child would fixate on.
So, I'd always wondered why they went that direction because it made the movie - which comes off like a GLAAD/PETA (the leader of PETA is gay) infomercial - nearly unwatchable. I suspect because it was because the first one, while trying to be sensitive by having a gay character, still takes a few swipes anyway. For instance, Elle solves the case by figuring out the guy who's supposed to be cheating with the wife is actually gay because he knows what brand of shoe she's wearing. And she carries Buster, her chihuahua, around in her purse (a PETA no-no).
So, the whole second movie is penance to GLAAD and PETA. And it feels like it. Who'da thunk a trifle about a valley girl who follows her BF to Harvard but ends up a lawyer would've been turned into a spinach movie for the sequel. Notice there was never a third movie, which is typical when Hollywood haps upon a franchise.
NOTE: Yes, I'm about a week late posting this since I gas on about the Oscars. It's been a busy time, lately.
Read Pictures at a Revolution which was a sorta dull, straightforward history of the five films nominated for best Oscar in 1968. The premise is that was the exact year when old Hollywood supposedly succumbed to the new Hollywood, though that premise isn't given all that much analysis.
That's pretty much the problem with "Revolution": a lot of wind about "what" but not much about "why."
However, I've always been curious about Sidney Poitier - one of the primary topics of the book - because he was such a mainstay and huge star for a long time and then seemed to drop off the face of the planet. From what I can gather, he was the dual victim of black activism and white tokenism. On the one side, he was getting flack from black activists because he always played "good, safe" black men, and on the other side, he still wasn't considered for every leading role (read "leading roles meant for white guys") and was typecast as, well, Sidney Poitier. You wonder if he would've gotten past that had he not folded to the pressure to stop taking "Sidney Poitier" roles.
Aside from that, got two good pieces of trivia:
- Morgan Fairchild was Faye Dunaway's stunt double when her character had to drive because she couldn't drive a stick.
- The famous "Elaine!" scene in the church at the end of The Graduate where Hoffman had his arms out like he was Jesus on the cross was really just a "fix" because when he pounded on the glass (as he did on the first take), it would wobble and looked like it was going to break - it was not symbolic crucifixion as many critics at the time claimed.
TLD: Reading about The Graduate spurred a thought. When I worked at a vid store many moons ago, a couple stoners walked and asked for a surfing movie, so I gave them Apocalypse Now, which they loved, and forever after sought me out for recommendations. If that were today and someone walked in and asked for a movie on cougars, I'd hand them The Graduate.
And speaking of the Oscars, my wife and I used to view the Oscars as our superbowl, since neither of us are into professional competitive sports.
However, the type of movies that get nominated anymore are the tedious dramas with "plots" that used to be contained to the swamp of the literary fiction genre (incest! adultery! pedophilia! children dying! sexual predators! misery!), or spirited and preferably non-white foreigners overcoming something, or all gay all the time stuff (which knee-capped Broadway, so the movie folks better pay heed to the empty theaters showing Milk).
As this fun article points out, the Oscars are worth watching only if you've actually seen the movies that are nominated, which a larger portion of the movie-going public probably had not this year.
This jab from a "loved it, hated it" article made me laugh: "[T]the show bogged down with that somber bunch of Best Supporting Actresses intoning like they were going to banish the winner to the Forbidden Zone with General Zod." Those little ego-orgies were a bit much. Anthony Hopkins appeared to be especially mortified when his turn came to polish some nominee knob.
Ben Stiller's funny yet cruel impersonation of Joaquin Phoenix's publicly disintegrating mental health was a guilty hoot. Which led me to wonder about Tropic Thunder which I saw recently and was appalled at how unfunny it was. Why can't Stiller write and direct anything funny? He's great when he's doing someone else's material, but nearly everything he's written and directed has been on that edge of being funny; as you are watching it, you see how close it comes to actually being funny, but it just doesn't get there. So how can he be so funny in a context like the Oscars and/or improv, but just blow at movies? A question for the ages, apparently.
The self-righteous gay politicking got to be a bit much for me. For new readers (assuming, here): I don't feel marriage is a right, so framing it as such is silly and actually undercuts the goal of expanding the definition of it. Frinstance, are the polygamists attempting to frame it as a right? I think if the gay factions that do succeed, the polygamists will jump on that bandwagon, but they haven't gone down that road themselves, because they know everyone would laugh them out of the chamber if they suggested that being married to several women (or men) at once is a right. So hearing folks at the Oscars equate it with real human rights struggles is just an eye-roller.
Anyway, in a barely related tangent, I had a realization lately when I let my eldest (re)watch the two "Legally Blonde" movies.
But first, a little background: we'd let her see them with us they first came out, because there was a cute little doggie, and we thought the more adult stuff would go right over her head (she was about 5 or 6 I think). That was the case with the first one, but the second one prominently featured a subplot where we discover the cute little doggie is gay. They hammer on that so hard and draw such a complete picture that our little one finally asked what "gay" was. We were furious that we suddenly had that topic to vet, hoping she would be older before we had to have any sort of sex talk. Now, blame us, the parents, first, because we let her watch the movie before we knew what it contained. But they had so many toy tie-ins to the movies (she was cradling her own stuffed "Buster" ensconced in his Elle purse as we watched), I guess we didn't suspect that it would flounder so long in that particular realm of adult sexuality - or worse, attach it to the one character a child would fixate on.
So, I'd always wondered why they went that direction because it made the movie - which comes off like a GLAAD/PETA (the leader of PETA is gay) infomercial - nearly unwatchable. I suspect because it was because the first one, while trying to be sensitive by having a gay character, still takes a few swipes anyway. For instance, Elle solves the case by figuring out the guy who's supposed to be cheating with the wife is actually gay because he knows what brand of shoe she's wearing. And she carries Buster, her chihuahua, around in her purse (a PETA no-no).
So, the whole second movie is penance to GLAAD and PETA. And it feels like it. Who'da thunk a trifle about a valley girl who follows her BF to Harvard but ends up a lawyer would've been turned into a spinach movie for the sequel. Notice there was never a third movie, which is typical when Hollywood haps upon a franchise.
NOTE: Yes, I'm about a week late posting this since I gas on about the Oscars. It's been a busy time, lately.
AAAAAAAAAAAAK! Holy CRAP!
or "Schadenfreude"
I suspect that when the Material Girl served Guy Ritchie the papers, he secretly rejoiced that he could get back to boinking his leading ladies.
Y'know, not that other rock stars are doing the aging boogie that well either...
But jeez. She's gone from decent to a full-on two-bagger. (One for her, and one for you in case hers falls off, as the old joke goes.)
Recently my wife and I were bemoaning what aging does to the aesthetics of your body, even if you stay in shape, and we agreed is just ole Mother Nature taking you out of the dating pool whether you like it or not. Can't have all these old farts tempting the young and fertile away from whom they should be with for continuing the species.
For instance, here's what Mr. Heavy Metal himself looks like while shopping with his wife:
Hetfield in flip-flops.
I doubt one groupie would like twice, unless it was out of incredulousness.
or "Schadenfreude"
I suspect that when the Material Girl served Guy Ritchie the papers, he secretly rejoiced that he could get back to boinking his leading ladies.
Y'know, not that other rock stars are doing the aging boogie that well either...
But jeez. She's gone from decent to a full-on two-bagger. (One for her, and one for you in case hers falls off, as the old joke goes.)
Recently my wife and I were bemoaning what aging does to the aesthetics of your body, even if you stay in shape, and we agreed is just ole Mother Nature taking you out of the dating pool whether you like it or not. Can't have all these old farts tempting the young and fertile away from whom they should be with for continuing the species.
For instance, here's what Mr. Heavy Metal himself looks like while shopping with his wife:
Hetfield in flip-flops.
I doubt one groupie would like twice, unless it was out of incredulousness.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Cracked Windshields All Over the Stadium Parking Lot
Boy, Pres. Obama just batted it out of the park with his address to congress last night! Several times.
Time to party!
(A Repub friend of mine sent me this in one of those emails mocking Dems, but I thought this really fit the positive mood Obama projected.)
I mean, members of congress were mobbing him and handing him copies of his speech to sign like he was a rock star. Have you EVER seen that happen?
And the next time anyone wails about the liberal slant to the media, I'm gonna tell them to join us back in reality. Check out the "Related" section on the Yahoo news article on the speech:
Is there even one positive article in there?
I also figured out one of the reasons why Repubs are flipping out so much about Obama - they're even more shrill than when Clinton was in office: it's because he's better than Reagan "the great communicator" and more charismatic, and they know it. They will now lose the image war they felt they'd won forever during Reagan to the Democrats (well, except the for wingnuts who will hate Obama just because). I'm lovin' that!
(Btw, the other main reason is that somewhere along the line, far right Repubs came up with the meme, which they apparently believe, that they are the true rulers of America, even when they don't hold the presidency or a majority in congress.)
It's nice being back on the happy side of the aisle again.
Boy, Pres. Obama just batted it out of the park with his address to congress last night! Several times.
Time to party!
(A Repub friend of mine sent me this in one of those emails mocking Dems, but I thought this really fit the positive mood Obama projected.)
I mean, members of congress were mobbing him and handing him copies of his speech to sign like he was a rock star. Have you EVER seen that happen?
And the next time anyone wails about the liberal slant to the media, I'm gonna tell them to join us back in reality. Check out the "Related" section on the Yahoo news article on the speech:
Is there even one positive article in there?
I also figured out one of the reasons why Repubs are flipping out so much about Obama - they're even more shrill than when Clinton was in office: it's because he's better than Reagan "the great communicator" and more charismatic, and they know it. They will now lose the image war they felt they'd won forever during Reagan to the Democrats (well, except the for wingnuts who will hate Obama just because). I'm lovin' that!
(Btw, the other main reason is that somewhere along the line, far right Repubs came up with the meme, which they apparently believe, that they are the true rulers of America, even when they don't hold the presidency or a majority in congress.)
It's nice being back on the happy side of the aisle again.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Reboot
It's been five years since Michael Blowhard suggested I start a blog. I was hesitant, not believing I really had that much to say. I've since discovered not having that much to say isn't an impediment. The joy is in the doing. Many times I've been surprised when I started writing out of a sense of responsibility (as I'm always thrilled when any of the blogs I read has a new post) and ended up with something entertaining (or at least I thought it was).
Even so, I felt it was time to reevaluate some things. Frinstance, though I really liked my old template (with the dots and stuff), I felt a small remodeling was due. I like the minimalist blue-screen look of this new template, fitting with the "reboot" theme. It has one big flaw in that any pics that are too large flow over into the menus on the right, and I haven't been able to figure out a wholesale fix, so older posts with big graphics might look a bit muddled.
I also considered just closing up shop for a while, feeling I've had a good run. My readership has pretty much topped out according to sitemeter, and is even dropping precipitously. I gave it a long and hard look, and nearly hit the delete button about a week ago. But then I remembered what I wrote in the first paragraph: this has become something for me as much as it is for anyone who reads this.
Just for the sake of completism, another thing I considered was deleting all but the "greatest hits" posts. But as I read through those I was thinking of consigning to the bin, I realized that I kinda dug them, too. So, here it all is. For better or worse. Blame Micheal.
To that end, I offer most humble apologies for my sallying forth to the windmills if you've stumbled here and feel I've wasted your time.
And most humble thanks for those of you who still check in once in a while. I'll try to make it worth your while and maybe make you smile.
It's been five years since Michael Blowhard suggested I start a blog. I was hesitant, not believing I really had that much to say. I've since discovered not having that much to say isn't an impediment. The joy is in the doing. Many times I've been surprised when I started writing out of a sense of responsibility (as I'm always thrilled when any of the blogs I read has a new post) and ended up with something entertaining (or at least I thought it was).
Even so, I felt it was time to reevaluate some things. Frinstance, though I really liked my old template (with the dots and stuff), I felt a small remodeling was due. I like the minimalist blue-screen look of this new template, fitting with the "reboot" theme. It has one big flaw in that any pics that are too large flow over into the menus on the right, and I haven't been able to figure out a wholesale fix, so older posts with big graphics might look a bit muddled.
I also considered just closing up shop for a while, feeling I've had a good run. My readership has pretty much topped out according to sitemeter, and is even dropping precipitously. I gave it a long and hard look, and nearly hit the delete button about a week ago. But then I remembered what I wrote in the first paragraph: this has become something for me as much as it is for anyone who reads this.
Just for the sake of completism, another thing I considered was deleting all but the "greatest hits" posts. But as I read through those I was thinking of consigning to the bin, I realized that I kinda dug them, too. So, here it all is. For better or worse. Blame Micheal.
To that end, I offer most humble apologies for my sallying forth to the windmills if you've stumbled here and feel I've wasted your time.
And most humble thanks for those of you who still check in once in a while. I'll try to make it worth your while and maybe make you smile.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Oh Dear Lord, Yes!!!
I have found the ideal piece of artwork for my study. Now I just need to figure out how to buy a print.
(Link goes to interview and more stuff by this artist.)
__________________
Update:
Huzzah! Prints are available! $15 - $ 20 depending on size. It's called "Fall Outing" by Tinman (aka Eric Joyner) in Gallery: "Tinworld"
Mr. Joyner is also offering a 100 edition signed and numbered version. The print is 15" square on 17" x 22" high quality paper.
The price is $225. This includes shipping and handling.
He accepts personal checks or www.paypal.com
Make check out to Eric Joyner and send to:
Eric Joyner
4343 3rd St. APT.405
San Francisco, CA 94124
I have found the ideal piece of artwork for my study. Now I just need to figure out how to buy a print.
(Link goes to interview and more stuff by this artist.)
__________________
Update:
Huzzah! Prints are available! $15 - $ 20 depending on size. It's called "Fall Outing" by Tinman (aka Eric Joyner) in Gallery: "Tinworld"
Mr. Joyner is also offering a 100 edition signed and numbered version. The print is 15" square on 17" x 22" high quality paper.
The price is $225. This includes shipping and handling.
He accepts personal checks or www.paypal.com
Make check out to Eric Joyner and send to:
Eric Joyner
4343 3rd St. APT.405
San Francisco, CA 94124
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Christmas Vacation Media Consumption
or, first omnibus post of the year, part 2.
Books
(In order of enjoyment, lowest to highest)
The Shack by William P. Young
These guys (I use the plural because there's more than just the author behind this) are trying their best to create the next big quasi-religious media movement, like Oprah's The Secret, Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, the odious Conversations with God series excreted by Neale Donald Walsch and that Purpose Driven Life hoo-ha.
The plot (spoilers ahoy, but are you really gonna read this thing?) is this crabby old guy whose daughter was abducted and killed by a serial killer gets in invite to meet God at "The Shack" and discuss it all. Of course, by attempting to be ecumenical, there's something here to offend about everyone, except the Unitarians.
The writing is abysmal. The "lessons" are feeble, watered-down quasi-Christianity, and the characterizations of the Trinity are eye-rollingly bad. At one point, as the old crab and Jesus are walking across the pond to get to the shack, Jesus becomes distracted by a fish he's been trying to catch and runs off after it. I was embarrassed for all of humanity at that point.
In the end materials, or more accurately the marketing campaign, there's this "society" set up in honor of the fictional child who was murdered to help spread the word about The Shack. I was embarrassed all over again.
I waste time on these things so you don't have to. Don't even expend the calories to hoist this one off the shelf.
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickersham
Praises on Amazon.com and elsewhere about this "unflinching" memoir of her father's suicide, interestingly (they claim) organized in the form of an index, and caveats that this wasn't just a wall-to-wall bummer, peaked my interest.
It was merely OK. Maybe you can admire Wickersham for being so objective that she doesn't attempt to hide her own faults while she's examining those of others, but it did leave me sorta cold in that I had no one to identify with. Having gone through a grieving over a loss, one needs to be more gentle with oneself.
There are no insights here, really. The father in question basically fell into the Willy Loman trap, and tied too much of his worth to what he did at work, and when that was taken from him as he aged amongst the younger sharks of the modern corporation, he floundered and then shot himself in his study.
Well, the wife had transferred her emotional intimacy to a mutual friend (male), so the father didn't really have a wife, but a roommate who'd prefer to be elsewhere. That was part of it, too. So maybe there's the one insight: you can cheat emotionally and not physically, and it is just as devastating.
The praises I read aside, this really is a wall-to-wall bummer with not a lot to carry out the other side. Except be good to the ones you love. Remind them they are loved. Often.
But you don't need to read this book to know that.
Dangerous Women: Why Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters Become Stalkers, Molesters, and Murderers by Larry A. Morris
I read this one for the sheer ugly fun of it, not really hoping for insights, but not minding if some did pop up.
And one did: stay away from crazy people.
The psychological diagnosis for most of the women here becomes as predictable as Dr. House saying "it's NOT lupus": Borderline Personality Disorder.
If you read this, DO NOT read the last case history section where the four teenage girls kill a 12-year-old girl, seemingly for the hell of it. The descriptions of the hours torture and eventual burning alive of the child are things that I wish had never allowed into my head.
The only interesting section is the one on the teachers who seduced students. Maybe read that one part while having a latte at Border's or something.
Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto by Ted Nugent
I read Ted because he amuses me. I don't agree with a lot of his life philosophy, but would have no problem with him being my neighbor. I do like the work he does in promoting hunting and hunter's rights. But his child-raising advice, politics, and views on the poor can be pretty harsh.
I think he sometimes loses sight of the fact that he's been a rich rock star most all of his life and the various entitlements it has brought. I've noted that a lot of so-called libertarians and far-right folks often have had a pretty cushy financial life (their emotional lives are a different story), starting in early adulthood, and have no real experience with financial hardship, and how much just one car repair or an emergency room visit can set the average person back.
Unlike his other books, Ted tends to start repeating himself in this one, so once you've read the first couple sections, you've got the drift. If you're a fan, skip back to the expanded rant on topics near and dear to you. Only die-hards should bother to read every word.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
We finally arrive at the good books.
This is my favorite Gladwell book so far. I enjoyed his other two, but my BS meter wobbled a little bit as he tried to weave together some causalities in ways that stretched credibility. (Or, in short: nice theory, but unprovable.) This book cleaves closer to pure facts and data and so is more enjoyable, since you don't have to suspend disbelief.
His main points are these:
- When you are born has a HUGE influence on how you will do in school, in sports, and sometimes in life. This is because we have come up with (seemingly) arbitrary cutoff dates for the inclusion of students in school, or athletes on teams, or you name it. It is proven that kids who are older in a given class really do much better that those who are younger. Gladwell suggests we actually institute 4 cutoffs per year for school age children to eliminate this imbalance. Since so many schools have a non-traditional school year anymore, I think his idea has merit.
When it comes to the moguls - the hyper-successful - all the big "industrial age" guys were born within a couple years of each other in the 1800s, and the big computer guys, like Bill Joy and Bill Gates were born in the mid fifties (born in '54 and '55 respectively), thus both groups were of the optimal age when industry and the computer boomed.
- Being able to get in 10,000 hours of practice (roughly 10 years) in your chosen field or specialty makes you not only competent, but allows you to be on the top of your game. Both Bills had accumulated 10,000 hours of personal coding time by the time the industry was in it's infant stages, which gave them a tremendous advantage.
So, being born at the right time, and having the proper experience under your belt when the moment hits has a lot to do with the difference between mild success and superstar success.
Good book. Check it out.
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
The feel of this book is as if you plopped down next to Ms. Fisher at a rockin' party at about the time her buzz was kicking in. You don't really learn any earth-shattering (new) trivia here, but you certainly are entertained.
I was hoping for more dishing on the making of the various Star Wars flicks, but the only new thing I learned was that Harrison Ford's pot was the best.
Fisher has recently gone through a course of electro-shock therapy to treat extreme depression, so her memory has been sliced and diced, as have her narrative abilities. Her novels were much more cohesive, but then again, they were fiction. Real life is messy and doesn't always follow a nice, clean plot.
However, to her credit, she can still craft a hilarious turn of phrase. This is a fun read. It's very short though, and uses the ole school term paper trick of using a big font and double-spacing to try to hide the fact that this is really more like a long article in length than an actual memoir.
Borrow it from the library. Ms. Fisher has plenty of money.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J. K. Rowling
In the Harry Potter series, this set of children's stories is referred to as the Hans Christian Andersen of the wizard world. The final tale relates directly to one of the major subplots of the books, as wizards are actually searching for the magical items in that story.
Even at $13, this book is only for the Harry Potter completist. Yeah, it brings back fond memories of the series, it's a nice big warm fuzzy, but you can read these things over a lunch break, so I recommend that. Borders serves sandwiches now, right?
The effect this had on me was to make me look forward to J.K. Rowling's next book, whatever it is, a feeling I did not have after finishing the final Harry Potter. I hope it's something not in the wizard universe, because even though it's apparent that Rowling is a talented author, it'll be fun to see if she can stretch beyond her current genre.
Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid by Dr. Denis Leary
This be the gem of the collection. I thought I would like this book, but didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did.
I laughed hard out loud. I was moved. I sniggered. I got myself some history lessons.
This is everything a memoir/rant/manifesto/who's-your-daddy should be.
Unlike with Ted, I agreed with nearly everything Leary said. But then he's an old, died-in-the-wool Irish liberal, which - if you throw in a little Swedish - I am, too. It was nice in this day and age to read political polemics and be able to nod along all the way through.
I found only two places where I disagreed with Denis:
- While you shouldn't hover excessively over your kids (helicopter parents), I don't think you should let them fall from the top of the monkey bars for character growth, either. (But then, Denis was talking about himself, not his kids, so maybe he was exaggerating for effect.)
- He is a very lapsed Catholic (which is not what I have a problem with), but he says that when you boil down the beliefs of Christianity and Scientology to a cute sentence, Christianity sounds as crazy as Scientology. Of course I'm biased, but I think an evil galactic warlord dumping aliens into a volcano and nuking them, causing us to be possessed by said alien souls sounds MUCH wackier than God coming down and suggesting we be nice to one another for a change and getting nailed to a tree for it.
Denis coins one concept that I will use henceforth: the jetpack parent. The jetpack parent is the exact opposite of the helicopter parent. Jetpack parents have kids as more of a fashion accessory, because it's hip and their friends have done it, and once they have them, do everything in their power to avoid having to raise them or be around them. The hire nannies. They ship them off to boarding schools. The resent it if they actually have to spend social time with them. They are really only interested in jetting off to their next activity (hence the name). I know a few of these kinds of parents. Hell, half the 'rents at my daughter's school are these schmoes.
Denis Leary for President! (Once Obama's had his eight.)
Movies
(Again, in order of enjoyment, lowest to highest)
Inland Empire
I will probably always give David Lynch's output a look. Over half the time, it's rewarding, and no one else has ever come as close to laying down the exact atmosphere of a nightmare as he has.
Still, sometimes when watching his stuff, you wonder ... what the fuck happened to this guy?
Something had to have joined the circuits in his head the way they are, and it wasn't shiny happy puppy time. No, he had to have been locked in a closet for a week, or molested by a wallaby, or maybe he lived on Kaboom cereal for a solid month (like most of us kids who upon first bite set a goal to do, but realized after the first box, something was amiss and we felt funny all the time) and all that food coloring scorched a swath of synapses. SOMETHING happened. Maybe his biographer will be able to tell us what it was.
That aside, this is one of his more tedious efforts. It would've been better had it been cut down to about and hour and 45 minutes, but it goes up to or past three hours. Like Rita Rudner says, I don't want to do anything that feels good for that long.
This one's a maybe for fans, but newbies should start with Blue Velvet.
Burn After Reading
The Cohen brothers re-team Brad Pitt and George Clooney (and Frances McDormand) in a goof on the Hitchcockian theme of innocents blundering into the middle of a larger plot of murder and intrigue.
This starts on a high note with the ever-more-hard-to-look-at John Malkovich getting fired, and making a great crack about a fellow spy who's Mormon (who was instrumental in getting Malkovich fired). This is one of my favorite paranoias: the fact that a large proportion of our "intelligence" community is Mormon because only they can pass the ridiculous "purity" tests to get into those jobs (something none of our past 3 presidents, including the incumbent, couldn't do).
Brad Pitt is at his best when he's playing a himbo or a nut, which he combines with aplomb, here. His performance is really the only good thing about the rest of this movie.
Sadly, this is one of the Cohen misfires, and I'd recommend it only for those times where there's nothing better to do, if you're a completist, a big fan etc.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
The Harold & Kumar franchise has stepped in to fill the void left by Cheech ∧ Chong, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, and other R-rated comedy masters of times past, since that world's been converted to the PG-13 market. As such, Harold & Kumar is glorious.
The setup for the gratuitous nudity moment is one of the best ever, and the recurring character of Neil Patrick Harris as "Himself" (albeit a drug-addled, heterosexual version) is pure genius. Bless him for having the balls to allow himself to be lampooned this way. I literally cried with laughter during the unicorn scene.
If you like these kind of raunchy, adult comedies, have a double-feature party with this and the first one (or if you've seen it, show Beerfest instead), and I guarantee you'll have a grand time.
I just have to share this one scene with you. Here we have Bush, the sequel (only days left!), saying perhaps the most intelligent things he's ever said - and of course it's not him saying them. Language NSFW - headphones, please:
Finally, here's a page of newborn babies' faces to ring in the new year.
Hope it's a good one.
or, first omnibus post of the year, part 2.
Books
(In order of enjoyment, lowest to highest)
The Shack by William P. Young
These guys (I use the plural because there's more than just the author behind this) are trying their best to create the next big quasi-religious media movement, like Oprah's The Secret, Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Illusions, the odious Conversations with God series excreted by Neale Donald Walsch and that Purpose Driven Life hoo-ha.
The plot (spoilers ahoy, but are you really gonna read this thing?) is this crabby old guy whose daughter was abducted and killed by a serial killer gets in invite to meet God at "The Shack" and discuss it all. Of course, by attempting to be ecumenical, there's something here to offend about everyone, except the Unitarians.
The writing is abysmal. The "lessons" are feeble, watered-down quasi-Christianity, and the characterizations of the Trinity are eye-rollingly bad. At one point, as the old crab and Jesus are walking across the pond to get to the shack, Jesus becomes distracted by a fish he's been trying to catch and runs off after it. I was embarrassed for all of humanity at that point.
In the end materials, or more accurately the marketing campaign, there's this "society" set up in honor of the fictional child who was murdered to help spread the word about The Shack. I was embarrassed all over again.
I waste time on these things so you don't have to. Don't even expend the calories to hoist this one off the shelf.
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order by Joan Wickersham
Praises on Amazon.com and elsewhere about this "unflinching" memoir of her father's suicide, interestingly (they claim) organized in the form of an index, and caveats that this wasn't just a wall-to-wall bummer, peaked my interest.
It was merely OK. Maybe you can admire Wickersham for being so objective that she doesn't attempt to hide her own faults while she's examining those of others, but it did leave me sorta cold in that I had no one to identify with. Having gone through a grieving over a loss, one needs to be more gentle with oneself.
There are no insights here, really. The father in question basically fell into the Willy Loman trap, and tied too much of his worth to what he did at work, and when that was taken from him as he aged amongst the younger sharks of the modern corporation, he floundered and then shot himself in his study.
Well, the wife had transferred her emotional intimacy to a mutual friend (male), so the father didn't really have a wife, but a roommate who'd prefer to be elsewhere. That was part of it, too. So maybe there's the one insight: you can cheat emotionally and not physically, and it is just as devastating.
The praises I read aside, this really is a wall-to-wall bummer with not a lot to carry out the other side. Except be good to the ones you love. Remind them they are loved. Often.
But you don't need to read this book to know that.
Dangerous Women: Why Mothers, Daughters, and Sisters Become Stalkers, Molesters, and Murderers by Larry A. Morris
I read this one for the sheer ugly fun of it, not really hoping for insights, but not minding if some did pop up.
And one did: stay away from crazy people.
The psychological diagnosis for most of the women here becomes as predictable as Dr. House saying "it's NOT lupus": Borderline Personality Disorder.
If you read this, DO NOT read the last case history section where the four teenage girls kill a 12-year-old girl, seemingly for the hell of it. The descriptions of the hours torture and eventual burning alive of the child are things that I wish had never allowed into my head.
The only interesting section is the one on the teachers who seduced students. Maybe read that one part while having a latte at Border's or something.
Ted, White, and Blue: The Nugent Manifesto by Ted Nugent
I read Ted because he amuses me. I don't agree with a lot of his life philosophy, but would have no problem with him being my neighbor. I do like the work he does in promoting hunting and hunter's rights. But his child-raising advice, politics, and views on the poor can be pretty harsh.
I think he sometimes loses sight of the fact that he's been a rich rock star most all of his life and the various entitlements it has brought. I've noted that a lot of so-called libertarians and far-right folks often have had a pretty cushy financial life (their emotional lives are a different story), starting in early adulthood, and have no real experience with financial hardship, and how much just one car repair or an emergency room visit can set the average person back.
Unlike his other books, Ted tends to start repeating himself in this one, so once you've read the first couple sections, you've got the drift. If you're a fan, skip back to the expanded rant on topics near and dear to you. Only die-hards should bother to read every word.
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
We finally arrive at the good books.
This is my favorite Gladwell book so far. I enjoyed his other two, but my BS meter wobbled a little bit as he tried to weave together some causalities in ways that stretched credibility. (Or, in short: nice theory, but unprovable.) This book cleaves closer to pure facts and data and so is more enjoyable, since you don't have to suspend disbelief.
His main points are these:
- When you are born has a HUGE influence on how you will do in school, in sports, and sometimes in life. This is because we have come up with (seemingly) arbitrary cutoff dates for the inclusion of students in school, or athletes on teams, or you name it. It is proven that kids who are older in a given class really do much better that those who are younger. Gladwell suggests we actually institute 4 cutoffs per year for school age children to eliminate this imbalance. Since so many schools have a non-traditional school year anymore, I think his idea has merit.
When it comes to the moguls - the hyper-successful - all the big "industrial age" guys were born within a couple years of each other in the 1800s, and the big computer guys, like Bill Joy and Bill Gates were born in the mid fifties (born in '54 and '55 respectively), thus both groups were of the optimal age when industry and the computer boomed.
- Being able to get in 10,000 hours of practice (roughly 10 years) in your chosen field or specialty makes you not only competent, but allows you to be on the top of your game. Both Bills had accumulated 10,000 hours of personal coding time by the time the industry was in it's infant stages, which gave them a tremendous advantage.
So, being born at the right time, and having the proper experience under your belt when the moment hits has a lot to do with the difference between mild success and superstar success.
Good book. Check it out.
Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
The feel of this book is as if you plopped down next to Ms. Fisher at a rockin' party at about the time her buzz was kicking in. You don't really learn any earth-shattering (new) trivia here, but you certainly are entertained.
I was hoping for more dishing on the making of the various Star Wars flicks, but the only new thing I learned was that Harrison Ford's pot was the best.
Fisher has recently gone through a course of electro-shock therapy to treat extreme depression, so her memory has been sliced and diced, as have her narrative abilities. Her novels were much more cohesive, but then again, they were fiction. Real life is messy and doesn't always follow a nice, clean plot.
However, to her credit, she can still craft a hilarious turn of phrase. This is a fun read. It's very short though, and uses the ole school term paper trick of using a big font and double-spacing to try to hide the fact that this is really more like a long article in length than an actual memoir.
Borrow it from the library. Ms. Fisher has plenty of money.
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J. K. Rowling
In the Harry Potter series, this set of children's stories is referred to as the Hans Christian Andersen of the wizard world. The final tale relates directly to one of the major subplots of the books, as wizards are actually searching for the magical items in that story.
Even at $13, this book is only for the Harry Potter completist. Yeah, it brings back fond memories of the series, it's a nice big warm fuzzy, but you can read these things over a lunch break, so I recommend that. Borders serves sandwiches now, right?
The effect this had on me was to make me look forward to J.K. Rowling's next book, whatever it is, a feeling I did not have after finishing the final Harry Potter. I hope it's something not in the wizard universe, because even though it's apparent that Rowling is a talented author, it'll be fun to see if she can stretch beyond her current genre.
Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid by Dr. Denis Leary
This be the gem of the collection. I thought I would like this book, but didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did.
I laughed hard out loud. I was moved. I sniggered. I got myself some history lessons.
This is everything a memoir/rant/manifesto/who's-your-daddy should be.
Unlike with Ted, I agreed with nearly everything Leary said. But then he's an old, died-in-the-wool Irish liberal, which - if you throw in a little Swedish - I am, too. It was nice in this day and age to read political polemics and be able to nod along all the way through.
I found only two places where I disagreed with Denis:
- While you shouldn't hover excessively over your kids (helicopter parents), I don't think you should let them fall from the top of the monkey bars for character growth, either. (But then, Denis was talking about himself, not his kids, so maybe he was exaggerating for effect.)
- He is a very lapsed Catholic (which is not what I have a problem with), but he says that when you boil down the beliefs of Christianity and Scientology to a cute sentence, Christianity sounds as crazy as Scientology. Of course I'm biased, but I think an evil galactic warlord dumping aliens into a volcano and nuking them, causing us to be possessed by said alien souls sounds MUCH wackier than God coming down and suggesting we be nice to one another for a change and getting nailed to a tree for it.
Denis coins one concept that I will use henceforth: the jetpack parent. The jetpack parent is the exact opposite of the helicopter parent. Jetpack parents have kids as more of a fashion accessory, because it's hip and their friends have done it, and once they have them, do everything in their power to avoid having to raise them or be around them. The hire nannies. They ship them off to boarding schools. The resent it if they actually have to spend social time with them. They are really only interested in jetting off to their next activity (hence the name). I know a few of these kinds of parents. Hell, half the 'rents at my daughter's school are these schmoes.
Denis Leary for President! (Once Obama's had his eight.)
Movies
(Again, in order of enjoyment, lowest to highest)
Inland Empire
I will probably always give David Lynch's output a look. Over half the time, it's rewarding, and no one else has ever come as close to laying down the exact atmosphere of a nightmare as he has.
Still, sometimes when watching his stuff, you wonder ... what the fuck happened to this guy?
Something had to have joined the circuits in his head the way they are, and it wasn't shiny happy puppy time. No, he had to have been locked in a closet for a week, or molested by a wallaby, or maybe he lived on Kaboom cereal for a solid month (like most of us kids who upon first bite set a goal to do, but realized after the first box, something was amiss and we felt funny all the time) and all that food coloring scorched a swath of synapses. SOMETHING happened. Maybe his biographer will be able to tell us what it was.
That aside, this is one of his more tedious efforts. It would've been better had it been cut down to about and hour and 45 minutes, but it goes up to or past three hours. Like Rita Rudner says, I don't want to do anything that feels good for that long.
This one's a maybe for fans, but newbies should start with Blue Velvet.
Burn After Reading
The Cohen brothers re-team Brad Pitt and George Clooney (and Frances McDormand) in a goof on the Hitchcockian theme of innocents blundering into the middle of a larger plot of murder and intrigue.
This starts on a high note with the ever-more-hard-to-look-at John Malkovich getting fired, and making a great crack about a fellow spy who's Mormon (who was instrumental in getting Malkovich fired). This is one of my favorite paranoias: the fact that a large proportion of our "intelligence" community is Mormon because only they can pass the ridiculous "purity" tests to get into those jobs (something none of our past 3 presidents, including the incumbent, couldn't do).
Brad Pitt is at his best when he's playing a himbo or a nut, which he combines with aplomb, here. His performance is really the only good thing about the rest of this movie.
Sadly, this is one of the Cohen misfires, and I'd recommend it only for those times where there's nothing better to do, if you're a completist, a big fan etc.
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
The Harold & Kumar franchise has stepped in to fill the void left by Cheech ∧ Chong, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, and other R-rated comedy masters of times past, since that world's been converted to the PG-13 market. As such, Harold & Kumar is glorious.
The setup for the gratuitous nudity moment is one of the best ever, and the recurring character of Neil Patrick Harris as "Himself" (albeit a drug-addled, heterosexual version) is pure genius. Bless him for having the balls to allow himself to be lampooned this way. I literally cried with laughter during the unicorn scene.
If you like these kind of raunchy, adult comedies, have a double-feature party with this and the first one (or if you've seen it, show Beerfest instead), and I guarantee you'll have a grand time.
I just have to share this one scene with you. Here we have Bush, the sequel (only days left!), saying perhaps the most intelligent things he's ever said - and of course it's not him saying them. Language NSFW - headphones, please:
Finally, here's a page of newborn babies' faces to ring in the new year.
Hope it's a good one.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Untitled, 01-09-09
As predicted, I felt not urge one to approach a computer on vacation for anything that required thought. Just the occasional lookup of something that came up during conversation ("Who was the guy in that movie?"), seeing if the library had anything in for me (lots! yay!), or checking email. Oh, and I finally found time to watch this web sci-fi softcore series, "The Fold," whilst the children slept in the morning. More on that in a bit.
But, here we are, back at the grind (thankfully, when so many are laid off or being laid off; been there; it sucks), and so to jar loose actual work thoughts, I blog.
Btw, that is the truth. Besides the fun of actually getting thoughts out of my head, I work much faster and with greater ease when I'm working on something fun at the same time as work. It seems that it lets my mind rest as I pop back and forth between work mode and blog mode, so in no time, I've completed some work project that typically would've taken twice as long.
So, to borrow Jackie Gleason's famous kick-off line: "Awaaaaay we go!"
Was watching some tube with MPC1 and a Walmart commercial came on. Since our child's a tween, we're being a bit freer about adult humor around the house, and so I remarked, "Oh, look! Walmart's changed their logo from a smiley face to an asshole!" Much sniggering was shared. Since my daughter hasn't read any Vonnegut yet, I wasn't able to reference his drawings of an asshole in Breakfast of Champions as the possible source of said logo, but at least you can have a grin over it. (If you share my juvenile sense of humor.) (Oh, and I know it's really an asterisk.)
Well, it seems their new logo is amazingly appropriate if you attempt to use their photo developing department. We were trying to get some old photos of the kids developed for a scrapbook their pediatrician's office was putting together, and the photo guy pulled two from the stack and announced, "These look like they were shot professionally, and therefore come under copyright, so I can't let you have these," and he put them through the shredder before my wife could even respond.
To cut to the chase, when I found this out (I was off filling the cart), I procured a manager and went back to the photo dept. and gave'em hell. I knew it was futile, but still ya gotta make it enough of a pain that maybe they'll eventually do something.
For the record, the current copyright law does forbid any photo developer to develop photos that are copyrighted, and so Walmart has extended this to anything that could possibly construed as professional. Makes you wonder what the actual professionals are gonna do. This was brought about by the copyright changes that were lobbied by Disney and the music industry. Thus, Disney, who's primary target market is your kids, is responsible for you not being able to develop pictures of them. Isn't that lovely? Time for the pirate costume methinks.
Got an email from one of my right-wing buddies that spoofs "where are they now?" with a picture of Urkel on the left and Obama on the right. Har har.
But, it did jar loose a thought I've had for some time. I think the person most responsible for making a lot of (unconsciously or consciously racist) folks more comfortable with electing a black president was Dennis Haysbert, the actor who played the first President on the TV show 24. Some would say Morgan Freeman's roles as the pres. (and God), but I think that Haysbert is the stealth candidate for getting folks over that hump in their mind. Just a theory.
I was saddened to discover that one of my favorite modern rock groups - The Darkness - broke up. These days when there is such a dearth of truly talented groups, any loss feels like your favorite lifetime team lost the superbowl.
Their complete oeuvre (a scant two albums) can be purchased here.
In happier music news, Lily Allen's latest/new single "The Fear" is a pure joy. It's a cagey and humorously concise coinage of current times. Everyone I have foisted it upon thus far has both laughed out loud and nodded in agreement with some of the sentiments. That girl has a way with hooky songs.
Speaking of summing up current events, check out this old Calvin and Hobbes
(Click for full size)
I also discovered that Whisky was dead-on about She & Him; it's wonderfully odd and eclectic, and the ladies of the household dug it on first spin (though I play most things from a USB drive anymore, so "spin" isn't entirely accurate).
Speaking of USB and MP3s, I finally ended my decades-long membership in the BMG music club because they have no plans with going to MP3s, and I just don't buy CDs anymore. It's always slightly unnerving to go through a format change commitment (gad, how geeky can I be?). I finally abandoned vinyl when I bought a copy of Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, and MCA always had crappy, crackly prints, so when it came with the typical side of bacon, I said screw it and exchanged it for the CD before I even had a CD player.
The first time I pressed "buy MP3 album" on Amazon - and that sucker was mine less than a couple minutes later - it was literally a rush. Nothing else offers such instant gratification. I was squishy at first about not having a hardcopy original, but then realized that my backup CDs are the same freakin' thing, and have about the same shelf life. I have my eye on one of those portable USB hard drives, which offers a freakin' terabyte for just over a hundred dollars. I could literally have every song I own on that bad boy. And that just blows my mind.
Finally watched all episodes of a the web series "The Fold," which is - as already mentioned - a sci-fi-ish softcore (though on the very edge of that - you get everything except graphic penetration shots - and there's still season 2 ahead).
For the life of me, I just couldn't get past flashing on Zack and Miri Make a Porno every time a sex scene came up (which is roughly half of the total running time).
Now, that's not a slam or a slight or anything like it. I loved Zack and Miri. "The Fold" (which I presume is a play on words and images as the time machine which "folds time" has the appearance of a giant vagina, with one of those stick'em anywhere battery operated dome lights functioning as the on/off switch, located in the clitoral position) is campy fun, with the vibe of the local theater group putting on a production of something written by a local playwright; it ain't Broadway or Hollywood, but it's fun for what it is.
The stand-out performer is the actress who plays the nearly always nekkid and very randy Joan of Arc: Julie Atlas Muz.
Ms. Muz is a burlesque performer who stages her own shows where she always ends up nekkid, judging from the videos on her site. If you check out "The Fold" and like it, you should also peruse some of Muz's performances. Of course, like me, you'll have to wait until the kids are in bed. I can't begin to imagine how I would explain the conclusion of Muz's bubble dance where she waves an American flag with her vagina; let alone how I would explain it to Child Welfare Svcs. how come my child saw such a thing. I, myself, am still recovering a bit from it.
I'm assuming that since I've made it pretty clear what you see on these sites is lots of bodies and (I'm assuming) simulated sex that you'd know it's NSFW. Not even a little bit.
M. Blowhard has been in a listing mood lately and linked to this article: Fabulously Observant: The Jewish case against same-sex marriage.
I was talking with a buddy about how I agreed with most of the points in the article, and he asked if I was going to post that on my blog. I said at the time that I didn't want the controversy or anyone screaming at me in the comments, but since have (obviously) reconsidered because I think I've been consistent in my views about this (when I finally made up my mind, that is).
For the record, they are:
1) I think that secular marriage should be reworked so it's essentially like a legal contract, one in which anyone who so chooses can enter into. So, rather than extending "marriage" to gays (and polygamists, open/group arrangements, cats and dogs living together, etc.), the current secular form of marriage between a man and a woman would go away, and everyone who decided to partner up legally would just be "under contract." (I have Dave Trowbridge to thank for this very sensible idea.) That nulls and voids any snarking about "rights" and such. Fwiw: marriage is not a "right" and never has been.
2) When it comes to the Judeo-Christian marriage, the conversation is over before it starts: God says marriage is between a man and a woman, and only that union is sanctified. There's no other way to float it. Paul even goes a step further and recommends avoiding the whole marriage thing altogether, unless you just can't keep from having to do the horizontal bop; which is why you should never really listen to a bitter old man when it comes to marriage advice.
There's no way to keep everyone happy on this issue, but hopefully this is one that will cause the least amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
There's a whole second half to this post, but I've run out of time today, so I'm going to post this and get out the rest later. Stay tuned!
As predicted, I felt not urge one to approach a computer on vacation for anything that required thought. Just the occasional lookup of something that came up during conversation ("Who was the guy in that movie?"), seeing if the library had anything in for me (lots! yay!), or checking email. Oh, and I finally found time to watch this web sci-fi softcore series, "The Fold," whilst the children slept in the morning. More on that in a bit.
But, here we are, back at the grind (thankfully, when so many are laid off or being laid off; been there; it sucks), and so to jar loose actual work thoughts, I blog.
Btw, that is the truth. Besides the fun of actually getting thoughts out of my head, I work much faster and with greater ease when I'm working on something fun at the same time as work. It seems that it lets my mind rest as I pop back and forth between work mode and blog mode, so in no time, I've completed some work project that typically would've taken twice as long.
So, to borrow Jackie Gleason's famous kick-off line: "Awaaaaay we go!"
Was watching some tube with MPC1 and a Walmart commercial came on. Since our child's a tween, we're being a bit freer about adult humor around the house, and so I remarked, "Oh, look! Walmart's changed their logo from a smiley face to an asshole!" Much sniggering was shared. Since my daughter hasn't read any Vonnegut yet, I wasn't able to reference his drawings of an asshole in Breakfast of Champions as the possible source of said logo, but at least you can have a grin over it. (If you share my juvenile sense of humor.) (Oh, and I know it's really an asterisk.)
Well, it seems their new logo is amazingly appropriate if you attempt to use their photo developing department. We were trying to get some old photos of the kids developed for a scrapbook their pediatrician's office was putting together, and the photo guy pulled two from the stack and announced, "These look like they were shot professionally, and therefore come under copyright, so I can't let you have these," and he put them through the shredder before my wife could even respond.
To cut to the chase, when I found this out (I was off filling the cart), I procured a manager and went back to the photo dept. and gave'em hell. I knew it was futile, but still ya gotta make it enough of a pain that maybe they'll eventually do something.
For the record, the current copyright law does forbid any photo developer to develop photos that are copyrighted, and so Walmart has extended this to anything that could possibly construed as professional. Makes you wonder what the actual professionals are gonna do. This was brought about by the copyright changes that were lobbied by Disney and the music industry. Thus, Disney, who's primary target market is your kids, is responsible for you not being able to develop pictures of them. Isn't that lovely? Time for the pirate costume methinks.
Got an email from one of my right-wing buddies that spoofs "where are they now?" with a picture of Urkel on the left and Obama on the right. Har har.
But, it did jar loose a thought I've had for some time. I think the person most responsible for making a lot of (unconsciously or consciously racist) folks more comfortable with electing a black president was Dennis Haysbert, the actor who played the first President on the TV show 24. Some would say Morgan Freeman's roles as the pres. (and God), but I think that Haysbert is the stealth candidate for getting folks over that hump in their mind. Just a theory.
I was saddened to discover that one of my favorite modern rock groups - The Darkness - broke up. These days when there is such a dearth of truly talented groups, any loss feels like your favorite lifetime team lost the superbowl.
Their complete oeuvre (a scant two albums) can be purchased here.
In happier music news, Lily Allen's latest/new single "The Fear" is a pure joy. It's a cagey and humorously concise coinage of current times. Everyone I have foisted it upon thus far has both laughed out loud and nodded in agreement with some of the sentiments. That girl has a way with hooky songs.
Speaking of summing up current events, check out this old Calvin and Hobbes
(Click for full size)
I also discovered that Whisky was dead-on about She & Him; it's wonderfully odd and eclectic, and the ladies of the household dug it on first spin (though I play most things from a USB drive anymore, so "spin" isn't entirely accurate).
Speaking of USB and MP3s, I finally ended my decades-long membership in the BMG music club because they have no plans with going to MP3s, and I just don't buy CDs anymore. It's always slightly unnerving to go through a format change commitment (gad, how geeky can I be?). I finally abandoned vinyl when I bought a copy of Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, and MCA always had crappy, crackly prints, so when it came with the typical side of bacon, I said screw it and exchanged it for the CD before I even had a CD player.
The first time I pressed "buy MP3 album" on Amazon - and that sucker was mine less than a couple minutes later - it was literally a rush. Nothing else offers such instant gratification. I was squishy at first about not having a hardcopy original, but then realized that my backup CDs are the same freakin' thing, and have about the same shelf life. I have my eye on one of those portable USB hard drives, which offers a freakin' terabyte for just over a hundred dollars. I could literally have every song I own on that bad boy. And that just blows my mind.
Finally watched all episodes of a the web series "The Fold," which is - as already mentioned - a sci-fi-ish softcore (though on the very edge of that - you get everything except graphic penetration shots - and there's still season 2 ahead).
For the life of me, I just couldn't get past flashing on Zack and Miri Make a Porno every time a sex scene came up (which is roughly half of the total running time).
Now, that's not a slam or a slight or anything like it. I loved Zack and Miri. "The Fold" (which I presume is a play on words and images as the time machine which "folds time" has the appearance of a giant vagina, with one of those stick'em anywhere battery operated dome lights functioning as the on/off switch, located in the clitoral position) is campy fun, with the vibe of the local theater group putting on a production of something written by a local playwright; it ain't Broadway or Hollywood, but it's fun for what it is.
The stand-out performer is the actress who plays the nearly always nekkid and very randy Joan of Arc: Julie Atlas Muz.
Ms. Muz is a burlesque performer who stages her own shows where she always ends up nekkid, judging from the videos on her site. If you check out "The Fold" and like it, you should also peruse some of Muz's performances. Of course, like me, you'll have to wait until the kids are in bed. I can't begin to imagine how I would explain the conclusion of Muz's bubble dance where she waves an American flag with her vagina; let alone how I would explain it to Child Welfare Svcs. how come my child saw such a thing. I, myself, am still recovering a bit from it.
I'm assuming that since I've made it pretty clear what you see on these sites is lots of bodies and (I'm assuming) simulated sex that you'd know it's NSFW. Not even a little bit.
M. Blowhard has been in a listing mood lately and linked to this article: Fabulously Observant: The Jewish case against same-sex marriage.
I was talking with a buddy about how I agreed with most of the points in the article, and he asked if I was going to post that on my blog. I said at the time that I didn't want the controversy or anyone screaming at me in the comments, but since have (obviously) reconsidered because I think I've been consistent in my views about this (when I finally made up my mind, that is).
For the record, they are:
1) I think that secular marriage should be reworked so it's essentially like a legal contract, one in which anyone who so chooses can enter into. So, rather than extending "marriage" to gays (and polygamists, open/group arrangements, cats and dogs living together, etc.), the current secular form of marriage between a man and a woman would go away, and everyone who decided to partner up legally would just be "under contract." (I have Dave Trowbridge to thank for this very sensible idea.) That nulls and voids any snarking about "rights" and such. Fwiw: marriage is not a "right" and never has been.
2) When it comes to the Judeo-Christian marriage, the conversation is over before it starts: God says marriage is between a man and a woman, and only that union is sanctified. There's no other way to float it. Paul even goes a step further and recommends avoiding the whole marriage thing altogether, unless you just can't keep from having to do the horizontal bop; which is why you should never really listen to a bitter old man when it comes to marriage advice.
There's no way to keep everyone happy on this issue, but hopefully this is one that will cause the least amount of wailing and gnashing of teeth.
There's a whole second half to this post, but I've run out of time today, so I'm going to post this and get out the rest later. Stay tuned!
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Some end-of-the-year thoughts
As of Wed. afternoon, I'll be on vacation. Posting might be more sporadic than usual; however, I'm not going anywhere (like most Americans, I'm strapped right now - the depression hit our household in July sometime), so maybe I'll be inspired. Stay tuned, as they say.
Was talking to someone the other day who I've come to know as practical and gifted with the not-so-common trait of common sense. We weren't even near the topic of politics when somehow the topic suddenly loomed, and this guy repeats a few of the common BS wingnut tropes that Obama is gonna take away our guns, that he won't say the pledge of allegience, and he has no respect for the flag, which he demonstrated by having it removed from his campaign jet - all much to my disappointment and surprise. (Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind.)
[Sigh.]
This is someone I can't just haul off and say, "Dude, you gotta stop watching Fox Pretend News. It's mostly bullshit. And what isn't bullshit is horseshit."
I've said it before that we should've kept those WWII rules on the books about foreign ownership of media outlets. I think that the second biggest threat to America is the existence of the huge propaganda machine that is Fox Pretend News and its bastard cousins, like the Moonie owned Washington Times and UPI (the first being the demolishment of a large part of the Constitution and the two depressions brought about by Bush's policies).
Oh, and this same guy said that "they" would probably blame this depression on Bush, too. Well, who the hell else IS there to blame but the guys who oversaw the dismantling of oversight and regulation on the finance industry, and the suppression of enforcing those laws that remain?
I think the mainstream news agencies need to set up fact-checking departments that constantly report all the lies and stretches of the truth these propaganda outlets excrete. Something like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do, but seriously. We can't legally force them out of business, but we could kill them with the facts.
Btw, here are the facts on Obama's stance on guns (one and two) and various efforts to corrupt the truth. (I usta like the NRA, too.) Here're the facts about the pledge of allegiance stuff and the flag on his plane.
We needs ourselves some reality patrol.
Roissy had a post about the future of robot sex and, from what I can tell, he wasn't kidding.
I was gonna write a whole take-down post, but then thought the better of it. (Partially because it would be just mean, but mostly because I couldn't make it very funny.)
Here's the gist of the take-down part: we already have life-size sex dolls that are just what he's talking about, they just don't move (which may be realistic for some guys, and let's just leave it at that). (Ok, let's not. Here's a hilarious song that contains a reference to moving around - here's the MP3 if you wanna add it to the iPod.) Besides, there's the uncanny valley (ha ha, sometimes they write themselves), and I think most people would be too creeped-out by a sex robot. To further state the obvious, sex is about way more than genital friction. If all the so-called betas of the world were gonna stay away from those scary real live girls and recede to the comforts of plastic, they'd have done it by now.
(I debated on putting this link up at all, but decided to leave the choice to go there to you. NSFW, natch. The sex dolls Roissy believes will conquer the betas are found at http://www.realdoll.com/.)
The reason I brought this up at all is to (again) pimp for the great Asimov robot series The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn.
In The Naked Sun, Asimov explores Roissy's scenario, where the whole human population is completely surrounded by robots, so they imprint (if you will) on them sexually - so much so that the government had to pass a law that forces everyone to have a human "spouse" whom they have to mate with to keep up the race. Essentially the scenario that Roissy lays out, but more thought through.
Then, in The Robots of Dawn, sexual mores are such that people screw as readily as we shake hands, and refusing sex is considered a very serious rebuff. One of the subplots involves a scientist who is estranged from his daughter because he wouldn't have sex with her when she asked (which is considered normal in that society) because he considers it wrong. So here we here we have the main, er, thrust of Roissy's preoccupation, getting laid as much as possible. Again, thought through a bit deeper.
Even if you don't like sci-fi, you'll like these.
We've been having a lot of talks around the house about time machines because my daughter's class read the classic by H.G. Wells. It's been fun because time travel has always been on of my favorite sci-fi topics.
TLD: The greatest of the best in time travel fiction are:
- Primer (Here's a graphic representation of the plot - a huge SPOILER natch. The wikipedia link also has a simpler graphic of the plot, so ignore it and see the flick first if you intend to.)
- The Man Who Folded Himself
- I also have warm feelings for the whole Back to the Future series, especially how they handle Marty's mom coming on to him. But, the time travel is really just a plot device and not a hardcore geeky examination of it, like the two above; the same goes for the great Terminator series.
Alas, real time travel is simply not possible according to Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in the fun A Briefer History of Time. It has something to do with the fact that our universe isn't spinning.
So, when we were discussing time machines with MPC1, besides sharing the fact that it probably can't happen, we alerted her to the two smart-ass "there really is time travel" memes out there:
- We do travel in time: we are constantly moving forward through time.
- Our minds are time machines.
Sorry, but I can't go back in time and take out Hitler and Marx with my mind. Argument over.
That said, I had a very visceral memory evoked while I was writing the first section in this post, which gave birth to this section. The song "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors circled up in my playlist and suddenly I was sitting in the window of my dorm room, which was on the 14th floor, had no screen, and faced out across the campus; I was listening to that song echo and phase through the dorm buildings, an amazingly haunting sound I've never heard reproduced otherwise. The town had one FM station that all the college students tuned in to, and for some reason every time that song came on - the station always played it when it rained - everyone opened up their dorm windows and turned it way up, so it would echo across the campus. It was always a great moment.
Since we have a three-year-old, we have dealings with the big guy in the red, fur-trimmed suit. (I keep waiting for PETA to take on Santa, since they've done so many other brain-dead and ugly things.)
Or at least we try to have said dealings.
Our youngest is slightly braver than our eldest was at this age, but she just will NOT get near Santa. Just won't have it.
Yes, we have the requisite shot of both chilluns in full wail on Santa's lap, but this year MPC2 just said "no."
My suspicion as to why kids utterly freak out is: it's probably a lot like meeting God. Here's this huge guy who can magically get into your house and bring you toys, and he's supposed to be super nice and everything, but holy cow here he is IN THE FLESH!
Right now I'm reading the controversial "event" book, The Shack (and I don't remember which group doesn't like it, the fundies or the mainliners), where supposedly the hero talks with God. It'll be interesting to see how the fear angle is played, if at all. I've yet to read a (fictional) book about someone meeting God where they even deal with the topic of how truly terrifying it would be. In the Bible, the first thing the angel or messenger from God says to the poor soul is something like "fear not" or "don't freak out!", so it is clearly something that makes you loose your shit.
Hmmm, maybe I'll write a short story about Tom Cruise meeting Zenu!
This has been a very contemplative year for me as:
- Leaders I've loathed have been replaced (or soon will be) by leaders I like very much, both on the national scale and at work.
- My wife and I are facing the fact that our three-year-old is the last child we'll have. And she's already pretty much a kid, as she's completely potty trained, can speak in full sentences better than the current occupant, can count pretty high, and already recognizes many letters. We love kids and so this is bittersweet for us. We like that we're getting our adult lives back to some extent, but having a baby in the house sure is sweet.
- I'm truly, irrevocably middle-aged and am experiencing some standard things that come with that, such as I now typically prefer non-fiction to fiction (the fiction's got to be better than usual or I can't stay with it); I like pretty, melodic music more than I do bleeding edge stuff, though am thrilled that rock seems to be gaining ground again; and am completely invisible to anyone under 30. (Let me assure you that last one is not self-pity, but a fact. I'm more bemused by it than anything.)
So my mind drifts to hopes for the New Year.
I hope:
- My family is healthy, happy and safe.
- The depression will be short.
- The injuries and casualties to our troops will be as minimal as possible, and they'll be brought home.
- There are at least three music albums, a couple movies, and more than a few fictional novels that are amazing awaiting us out there in 2009.
- I finally drop some of this extra weight.
- All my friends who are getting divorced find solace and peace, and find someone new, if that is their wish. (This is the second wave of divorces I've experienced in my circle of friends).
- I still have a job throughout the year. (There doesn't appear to be any danger there, but I've been surprised before.)
- That I can manage to entertain you, dear reader, as much or more than I have in the past.
Cheers.
As of Wed. afternoon, I'll be on vacation. Posting might be more sporadic than usual; however, I'm not going anywhere (like most Americans, I'm strapped right now - the depression hit our household in July sometime), so maybe I'll be inspired. Stay tuned, as they say.
Was talking to someone the other day who I've come to know as practical and gifted with the not-so-common trait of common sense. We weren't even near the topic of politics when somehow the topic suddenly loomed, and this guy repeats a few of the common BS wingnut tropes that Obama is gonna take away our guns, that he won't say the pledge of allegience, and he has no respect for the flag, which he demonstrated by having it removed from his campaign jet - all much to my disappointment and surprise. (Invasion of the Body Snatchers comes to mind.)
[Sigh.]
This is someone I can't just haul off and say, "Dude, you gotta stop watching Fox Pretend News. It's mostly bullshit. And what isn't bullshit is horseshit."
I've said it before that we should've kept those WWII rules on the books about foreign ownership of media outlets. I think that the second biggest threat to America is the existence of the huge propaganda machine that is Fox Pretend News and its bastard cousins, like the Moonie owned Washington Times and UPI (the first being the demolishment of a large part of the Constitution and the two depressions brought about by Bush's policies).
Oh, and this same guy said that "they" would probably blame this depression on Bush, too. Well, who the hell else IS there to blame but the guys who oversaw the dismantling of oversight and regulation on the finance industry, and the suppression of enforcing those laws that remain?
I think the mainstream news agencies need to set up fact-checking departments that constantly report all the lies and stretches of the truth these propaganda outlets excrete. Something like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert do, but seriously. We can't legally force them out of business, but we could kill them with the facts.
Btw, here are the facts on Obama's stance on guns (one and two) and various efforts to corrupt the truth. (I usta like the NRA, too.) Here're the facts about the pledge of allegiance stuff and the flag on his plane.
We needs ourselves some reality patrol.
Roissy had a post about the future of robot sex and, from what I can tell, he wasn't kidding.
I was gonna write a whole take-down post, but then thought the better of it. (Partially because it would be just mean, but mostly because I couldn't make it very funny.)
Here's the gist of the take-down part: we already have life-size sex dolls that are just what he's talking about, they just don't move (which may be realistic for some guys, and let's just leave it at that). (Ok, let's not. Here's a hilarious song that contains a reference to moving around - here's the MP3 if you wanna add it to the iPod.) Besides, there's the uncanny valley (ha ha, sometimes they write themselves), and I think most people would be too creeped-out by a sex robot. To further state the obvious, sex is about way more than genital friction. If all the so-called betas of the world were gonna stay away from those scary real live girls and recede to the comforts of plastic, they'd have done it by now.
(I debated on putting this link up at all, but decided to leave the choice to go there to you. NSFW, natch. The sex dolls Roissy believes will conquer the betas are found at http://www.realdoll.com/.)
The reason I brought this up at all is to (again) pimp for the great Asimov robot series The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and The Robots of Dawn.
In The Naked Sun, Asimov explores Roissy's scenario, where the whole human population is completely surrounded by robots, so they imprint (if you will) on them sexually - so much so that the government had to pass a law that forces everyone to have a human "spouse" whom they have to mate with to keep up the race. Essentially the scenario that Roissy lays out, but more thought through.
Then, in The Robots of Dawn, sexual mores are such that people screw as readily as we shake hands, and refusing sex is considered a very serious rebuff. One of the subplots involves a scientist who is estranged from his daughter because he wouldn't have sex with her when she asked (which is considered normal in that society) because he considers it wrong. So here we here we have the main, er, thrust of Roissy's preoccupation, getting laid as much as possible. Again, thought through a bit deeper.
Even if you don't like sci-fi, you'll like these.
We've been having a lot of talks around the house about time machines because my daughter's class read the classic by H.G. Wells. It's been fun because time travel has always been on of my favorite sci-fi topics.
TLD: The greatest of the best in time travel fiction are:
- Primer (Here's a graphic representation of the plot - a huge SPOILER natch. The wikipedia link also has a simpler graphic of the plot, so ignore it and see the flick first if you intend to.)
- The Man Who Folded Himself
- I also have warm feelings for the whole Back to the Future series, especially how they handle Marty's mom coming on to him. But, the time travel is really just a plot device and not a hardcore geeky examination of it, like the two above; the same goes for the great Terminator series.
Alas, real time travel is simply not possible according to Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow in the fun A Briefer History of Time. It has something to do with the fact that our universe isn't spinning.
So, when we were discussing time machines with MPC1, besides sharing the fact that it probably can't happen, we alerted her to the two smart-ass "there really is time travel" memes out there:
- We do travel in time: we are constantly moving forward through time.
- Our minds are time machines.
Sorry, but I can't go back in time and take out Hitler and Marx with my mind. Argument over.
That said, I had a very visceral memory evoked while I was writing the first section in this post, which gave birth to this section. The song "Riders on the Storm" by the Doors circled up in my playlist and suddenly I was sitting in the window of my dorm room, which was on the 14th floor, had no screen, and faced out across the campus; I was listening to that song echo and phase through the dorm buildings, an amazingly haunting sound I've never heard reproduced otherwise. The town had one FM station that all the college students tuned in to, and for some reason every time that song came on - the station always played it when it rained - everyone opened up their dorm windows and turned it way up, so it would echo across the campus. It was always a great moment.
Since we have a three-year-old, we have dealings with the big guy in the red, fur-trimmed suit. (I keep waiting for PETA to take on Santa, since they've done so many other brain-dead and ugly things.)
Or at least we try to have said dealings.
Our youngest is slightly braver than our eldest was at this age, but she just will NOT get near Santa. Just won't have it.
Yes, we have the requisite shot of both chilluns in full wail on Santa's lap, but this year MPC2 just said "no."
My suspicion as to why kids utterly freak out is: it's probably a lot like meeting God. Here's this huge guy who can magically get into your house and bring you toys, and he's supposed to be super nice and everything, but holy cow here he is IN THE FLESH!
Right now I'm reading the controversial "event" book, The Shack (and I don't remember which group doesn't like it, the fundies or the mainliners), where supposedly the hero talks with God. It'll be interesting to see how the fear angle is played, if at all. I've yet to read a (fictional) book about someone meeting God where they even deal with the topic of how truly terrifying it would be. In the Bible, the first thing the angel or messenger from God says to the poor soul is something like "fear not" or "don't freak out!", so it is clearly something that makes you loose your shit.
Hmmm, maybe I'll write a short story about Tom Cruise meeting Zenu!
This has been a very contemplative year for me as:
- Leaders I've loathed have been replaced (or soon will be) by leaders I like very much, both on the national scale and at work.
- My wife and I are facing the fact that our three-year-old is the last child we'll have. And she's already pretty much a kid, as she's completely potty trained, can speak in full sentences better than the current occupant, can count pretty high, and already recognizes many letters. We love kids and so this is bittersweet for us. We like that we're getting our adult lives back to some extent, but having a baby in the house sure is sweet.
- I'm truly, irrevocably middle-aged and am experiencing some standard things that come with that, such as I now typically prefer non-fiction to fiction (the fiction's got to be better than usual or I can't stay with it); I like pretty, melodic music more than I do bleeding edge stuff, though am thrilled that rock seems to be gaining ground again; and am completely invisible to anyone under 30. (Let me assure you that last one is not self-pity, but a fact. I'm more bemused by it than anything.)
So my mind drifts to hopes for the New Year.
I hope:
- My family is healthy, happy and safe.
- The depression will be short.
- The injuries and casualties to our troops will be as minimal as possible, and they'll be brought home.
- There are at least three music albums, a couple movies, and more than a few fictional novels that are amazing awaiting us out there in 2009.
- I finally drop some of this extra weight.
- All my friends who are getting divorced find solace and peace, and find someone new, if that is their wish. (This is the second wave of divorces I've experienced in my circle of friends).
- I still have a job throughout the year. (There doesn't appear to be any danger there, but I've been surprised before.)
- That I can manage to entertain you, dear reader, as much or more than I have in the past.
Cheers.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
European Commercials
Probably needless to say: NSFW!
Topless German (or Dutch?) Skydivers:
Source: Attu, also NSFW (though he tried not to be for a while).
After seeing this, I was chatting with my lovely wife and I opined, "if only we weren't so uptight about nudity in America, we'd have commercials like this, too." And the second that left my lips, the obvious probable result occurred to me: for at least three years, all we'd have were naked people in the commercials, given American advertising's predisposition to do whatever it takes to grab your attention.
Y'know, it's difficult enough to get through the dinner hour (when we watch the news) wading through every gross pharmaceutical*, feminine hygiene, and erectile dysfunction commercial, and then enduring ooey, gooey pizza commercials at 9 P.M., just when you're getting hungry again. Throwing nekkid boobage and pudenda - bald and pelted - into that mix would be a bit much. Hell, they'd probably demonstrate how to use tampons and condoms. The mind blanches.
*Though I have to admit, every time they have the "restless leg syndrome" drug commercials on, and they announce "impulse control disorders/compulsive behaviors may occur, such as gambling," I get a chuckle. I actually have this, and when my doctor suggested a prescription, I asked, "is that the drug where I'll end up in Vegas with a hooker on each arm?" He said if I did, I should inform him, preferably before I go so he can come, too. I actually loathe gambling, so I've not noticed any of those sort of side effects.
Anyway, back to the nekkid skydivers; something about their breasts dangling as prettily as they were jogged a memory. I remembered seeing this once (here's a second source in case the first link evaporates), and realized it was all special effects. You can't have concave breasts in your commercial for heaven's sake. Unless it's one for breast enhancement, of course.
Probably needless to say: NSFW!
Topless German (or Dutch?) Skydivers:
Link: 
Source: Attu, also NSFW (though he tried not to be for a while).
After seeing this, I was chatting with my lovely wife and I opined, "if only we weren't so uptight about nudity in America, we'd have commercials like this, too." And the second that left my lips, the obvious probable result occurred to me: for at least three years, all we'd have were naked people in the commercials, given American advertising's predisposition to do whatever it takes to grab your attention.
Y'know, it's difficult enough to get through the dinner hour (when we watch the news) wading through every gross pharmaceutical*, feminine hygiene, and erectile dysfunction commercial, and then enduring ooey, gooey pizza commercials at 9 P.M., just when you're getting hungry again. Throwing nekkid boobage and pudenda - bald and pelted - into that mix would be a bit much. Hell, they'd probably demonstrate how to use tampons and condoms. The mind blanches.
*Though I have to admit, every time they have the "restless leg syndrome" drug commercials on, and they announce "impulse control disorders/compulsive behaviors may occur, such as gambling," I get a chuckle. I actually have this, and when my doctor suggested a prescription, I asked, "is that the drug where I'll end up in Vegas with a hooker on each arm?" He said if I did, I should inform him, preferably before I go so he can come, too. I actually loathe gambling, so I've not noticed any of those sort of side effects.
Anyway, back to the nekkid skydivers; something about their breasts dangling as prettily as they were jogged a memory. I remembered seeing this once (here's a second source in case the first link evaporates), and realized it was all special effects. You can't have concave breasts in your commercial for heaven's sake. Unless it's one for breast enhancement, of course.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Best Vocalists, according to moi
Rolling Stone polled a portion of music royalty to compile a list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time". The issue was late in arriving, so decided I put together a list of who I thought should appear beforehand, just to see how much convergence there would be. Well, heavens to Murgatroid, here are the very few we agreed upon (in a very rough most fave to less fave order):
- Kurt Cobain
- Rod Stewart
- Elvis Presley
- Karen Carpenter
- Don Henley
- James Taylor
- Paul Rodgers
- Sam Cooke
- Stevie Wonder
Nine out of a hundred.
I choose to take that as a double-edged commentary on my musical tastes. I've always warned friends, lovers, and roommates (and my wife, who's all three) that I will eventually force them to ask to stop playing something, because I love it all 'cept gangster rap and opera. And I'll even listen to the bigger hits in those genres, too.
So, here's what remains of my list. This also ended up in rough order of faves near the top, which surprised me that it organically flowed into three categories, 1) the stellar voices who defy genre, 2) the rockers, 3) the crooners, with one little leftover.
The miracles:
- Nat King Cole: A voice for the ages. There's not enough hyperbole to fawn about this guy.
- Stephen Stills: I think this guy doesn't get the accolades he deserves (for his guitar chops, either) because, according to what I've read, he's a real arrogant prick who knows how talented he is. Sad that it would diminish that. I'm happy I've never met him so I can enjoy his amazing purr of a voice (and that guitar!).
- Maria McKee: I'll listen to this babe sing even a barely average song. My complete collection of her work thus far proves that in spades. She has some great songs there, but too many aren't worthy of her pipes. I'd love to see her do two albums: 1) a covers disc, 2) a disc of new songs written by big deal songsmiths, like "Show Me Heaven" that she did for that stupid race car movie.
- John Denver: I saw him on his last Denver show; man his voice had continued to grow. Overexposure and a weird public backlash expecting him to somehow be better than a mere human really seems to have eclipsed his music. But, damn it's good stuff. Like he sings about sunshine, his songs can make me cry.
- Dwight Yoakam: Trying to pick one performance that showcases how wonderful his voice is is nearly an exercise in futility .. just pick one! Any one! But if you have to pick just one, try that note he holds on the word "eternally" in "Johnson's Love." If you don't get goosebumps, call your doctor soon.
- Elvis Costello: Elvis can do it all. Try "Brilliant Mistake" on for size to hear for yourself.
- Rickie Lee Jones: To me, this woman is the style and phrasing master of the universe. Hope they have her complete works on the shelves in Heaven. (Presuming, of course.)
- David Gilmore: The nice voice of Pink Floyd. C'mon, you know you love him, too.
- Billy Joel: This is the one of the two guys where it amazes me he's not on the Rolling Stone list. Haven't these folks heard "Until the Night"? Sheesh.
- Alana Davis: She may be too young and fresh - and not widely popular enough - to be on this list. But her voice haunts me. Gawd it's wonderful.
- Gerry Rafferty: If you haven't really listened to how good this guy is, it's probably because the sheer vibrancy of his songs overshadows him. Try "Whatever's Written in Your Heart".
- Linda Ronstadt: This is the other guy who should be on this list. People sure have short memories. But, then again, these are mostly rock stars who did the list.
- Don Fagen: Mr. Steely Dan hisownself. I played "Deacon Blues" when I saw this omission. Was "I want a name when I lose" a self-fulfilling prophecy here?
- Dean Martin: If you've heard him, this probably needs no explanation. If you haven't, then you're just young. I bet he was in the rat pack so Sinatra could keep an eye on him. Or maybe it was that mafia "keep your enemies closer" thing. Best of that generation. My only quibble is the arrangements in his songs are sometimes corny and not as timeless as Sinatra's. That said, I still prefer his voice over Sinatra's.
- Bing Crosby: Like Dean, you know if you know.
The Rockers:
- Bob Seger: Who doesn't love themselves some Seger? He's such a part of the fabric of rock as a whole, maybe it didn't occur to anyone to include him anymore than people think of air when they breathe. Then again, it could be jealousy.
- Chrissie Hynde - Her performance on "Show Me" still moves me to goosebumps and sometimes still mists me up. Probably not a better song about how you feel when you have a baby.
- David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos): Smooth. Laid back. Sells the song. Most of the guys in Los Lobos are good at the mic, but I think Mr. Hidalgo is their gem.
- Terry Reid: The biggest "shoulda been a contender" of all time. Go listen to samples and wonder why.
- Micheal McDonald: So unique, you can pick him out of Steely Dan background vocals. If you know how Steely Dan does things, that's a statement unto itself.
- Tom Johnston (of the Doobie Brothers): "China Grove"? "Listen to the Music"? Beuller? Bueller? Who doesn't know and love this guy's distinctive howl?
- Dave Peverett ("Lonesome Dave") (of Foghat): Quintessential rock voice. Slow ride, baby.
- Burton Cummings (of the Guess Who): Like Seger and Stills, one of those great butter-on-sandpaper rock vocalists.
- Sting: Not as versatile as most here on the list, but still a unique, unmistakable sound that fits rock, jazz and stalker songs.
The Crooners:
- Lyle Lovett: His velvety lonesome croak rides across some of the best songs ever written, backed by one of the best bands around today. He is an event unto himself.
- Cee-Lo Green (Thomas Callaway) (of Gnarls Barkely) - Might be too young and unestablished to earn a "best ever" seat right now, but he will if he keeps it up.
- Chris O'Connor (of Primitive Radio Gods): This one might be more of a personal preference than a universal contender for best among the best. Love the voice, tho.
- Charlie Rich: Another old-timer who has probably been forgotten by the music biz and remembered only by fans. If you want a sample of his powers, listen to "Nothing In The World (To Do With Me)" from his biggest album The Most Beautiful Girl.
- Darius Rucker (formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish): I think the blowfish owe their success to this guy's voice. Now he's a big country hit.
- BJ Thomas: Mr. "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". He had a few hits, but with voice he shouldn't dominated the charts for most of his career. Rumor has it that ego and booze got in the way.
- Larry Gatlin: Amazing voice, but cocaine kept him from being bigger than he was. If talent were all it was about, he'd still be on the radio.
- Barbara Streisand: Now, how could a list of great singers not include da Babs? I wasn't surprise that it wasn't there - she's made a lot of enemies - but at least she should've been included in the selection committee. I don't think I need to praise or defend her singing; we've all heard it. And you know when it's her. There you have it.
The one non-singer (or as Mick Jagger refers to himself, a "vocalist" as compared to singer):
- Robert Smith (of The Cure): Smith doesn't sing, he ... well who really knows what he does other than him. His songs are endlessly fascinating, particularly given his vocal limitations, and I find myself actually listening to how he phrases things and what notes (if you can call them that) he hits - unlike, say, Neil Young or even Mick Jagger where I might enjoy the performance, but am not all that taken with the delivery thereof. I really should have him up in the "miracle" list, but then he deserves his own category.
And there you have it.
I do have some quibbles with some folks who did make the Rolling Stone list.
I have never liked Frank Sinatra all that much, though I understand what an influence he was. Personally, I just an not all that impressed with the basics of his voice. I think his phrasing and other stylistic quirks are original and can enjoy those. But his pipes are rather average if you ask me.
I also think Aretha is overrated. I do love some of her songs. The most famous collection of her songs (and inexplicably unavailable new) is Aretha's Gold, which - even though it's a hit's package - like Elton John's first hits set, is an entity unto itself. Still, her voice just doesn't strike me like the voices listed above do. Perhaps here's where my plebeian side shows.
My final question is how in the HELL did either Lou Reed or Neil Young get on that list?
Rolling Stone polled a portion of music royalty to compile a list of "The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time". The issue was late in arriving, so decided I put together a list of who I thought should appear beforehand, just to see how much convergence there would be. Well, heavens to Murgatroid, here are the very few we agreed upon (in a very rough most fave to less fave order):
- Kurt Cobain
- Rod Stewart
- Elvis Presley
- Karen Carpenter
- Don Henley
- James Taylor
- Paul Rodgers
- Sam Cooke
- Stevie Wonder
Nine out of a hundred.
I choose to take that as a double-edged commentary on my musical tastes. I've always warned friends, lovers, and roommates (and my wife, who's all three) that I will eventually force them to ask to stop playing something, because I love it all 'cept gangster rap and opera. And I'll even listen to the bigger hits in those genres, too.
So, here's what remains of my list. This also ended up in rough order of faves near the top, which surprised me that it organically flowed into three categories, 1) the stellar voices who defy genre, 2) the rockers, 3) the crooners, with one little leftover.
The miracles:
- Nat King Cole: A voice for the ages. There's not enough hyperbole to fawn about this guy.
- Stephen Stills: I think this guy doesn't get the accolades he deserves (for his guitar chops, either) because, according to what I've read, he's a real arrogant prick who knows how talented he is. Sad that it would diminish that. I'm happy I've never met him so I can enjoy his amazing purr of a voice (and that guitar!).
- Maria McKee: I'll listen to this babe sing even a barely average song. My complete collection of her work thus far proves that in spades. She has some great songs there, but too many aren't worthy of her pipes. I'd love to see her do two albums: 1) a covers disc, 2) a disc of new songs written by big deal songsmiths, like "Show Me Heaven" that she did for that stupid race car movie.
- John Denver: I saw him on his last Denver show; man his voice had continued to grow. Overexposure and a weird public backlash expecting him to somehow be better than a mere human really seems to have eclipsed his music. But, damn it's good stuff. Like he sings about sunshine, his songs can make me cry.
- Dwight Yoakam: Trying to pick one performance that showcases how wonderful his voice is is nearly an exercise in futility .. just pick one! Any one! But if you have to pick just one, try that note he holds on the word "eternally" in "Johnson's Love." If you don't get goosebumps, call your doctor soon.
- Elvis Costello: Elvis can do it all. Try "Brilliant Mistake" on for size to hear for yourself.
- Rickie Lee Jones: To me, this woman is the style and phrasing master of the universe. Hope they have her complete works on the shelves in Heaven. (Presuming, of course.)
- David Gilmore: The nice voice of Pink Floyd. C'mon, you know you love him, too.
- Billy Joel: This is the one of the two guys where it amazes me he's not on the Rolling Stone list. Haven't these folks heard "Until the Night"? Sheesh.
- Alana Davis: She may be too young and fresh - and not widely popular enough - to be on this list. But her voice haunts me. Gawd it's wonderful.
- Gerry Rafferty: If you haven't really listened to how good this guy is, it's probably because the sheer vibrancy of his songs overshadows him. Try "Whatever's Written in Your Heart".
- Linda Ronstadt: This is the other guy who should be on this list. People sure have short memories. But, then again, these are mostly rock stars who did the list.
- Don Fagen: Mr. Steely Dan hisownself. I played "Deacon Blues" when I saw this omission. Was "I want a name when I lose" a self-fulfilling prophecy here?
- Dean Martin: If you've heard him, this probably needs no explanation. If you haven't, then you're just young. I bet he was in the rat pack so Sinatra could keep an eye on him. Or maybe it was that mafia "keep your enemies closer" thing. Best of that generation. My only quibble is the arrangements in his songs are sometimes corny and not as timeless as Sinatra's. That said, I still prefer his voice over Sinatra's.
- Bing Crosby: Like Dean, you know if you know.
The Rockers:
- Bob Seger: Who doesn't love themselves some Seger? He's such a part of the fabric of rock as a whole, maybe it didn't occur to anyone to include him anymore than people think of air when they breathe. Then again, it could be jealousy.
- Chrissie Hynde - Her performance on "Show Me" still moves me to goosebumps and sometimes still mists me up. Probably not a better song about how you feel when you have a baby.
- David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos): Smooth. Laid back. Sells the song. Most of the guys in Los Lobos are good at the mic, but I think Mr. Hidalgo is their gem.
- Terry Reid: The biggest "shoulda been a contender" of all time. Go listen to samples and wonder why.
- Micheal McDonald: So unique, you can pick him out of Steely Dan background vocals. If you know how Steely Dan does things, that's a statement unto itself.
- Tom Johnston (of the Doobie Brothers): "China Grove"? "Listen to the Music"? Beuller? Bueller? Who doesn't know and love this guy's distinctive howl?
- Dave Peverett ("Lonesome Dave") (of Foghat): Quintessential rock voice. Slow ride, baby.
- Burton Cummings (of the Guess Who): Like Seger and Stills, one of those great butter-on-sandpaper rock vocalists.
- Sting: Not as versatile as most here on the list, but still a unique, unmistakable sound that fits rock, jazz and stalker songs.
The Crooners:
- Lyle Lovett: His velvety lonesome croak rides across some of the best songs ever written, backed by one of the best bands around today. He is an event unto himself.
- Cee-Lo Green (Thomas Callaway) (of Gnarls Barkely) - Might be too young and unestablished to earn a "best ever" seat right now, but he will if he keeps it up.
- Chris O'Connor (of Primitive Radio Gods): This one might be more of a personal preference than a universal contender for best among the best. Love the voice, tho.
- Charlie Rich: Another old-timer who has probably been forgotten by the music biz and remembered only by fans. If you want a sample of his powers, listen to "Nothing In The World (To Do With Me)" from his biggest album The Most Beautiful Girl.
- Darius Rucker (formerly of Hootie and the Blowfish): I think the blowfish owe their success to this guy's voice. Now he's a big country hit.
- BJ Thomas: Mr. "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head". He had a few hits, but with voice he shouldn't dominated the charts for most of his career. Rumor has it that ego and booze got in the way.
- Larry Gatlin: Amazing voice, but cocaine kept him from being bigger than he was. If talent were all it was about, he'd still be on the radio.
- Barbara Streisand: Now, how could a list of great singers not include da Babs? I wasn't surprise that it wasn't there - she's made a lot of enemies - but at least she should've been included in the selection committee. I don't think I need to praise or defend her singing; we've all heard it. And you know when it's her. There you have it.
The one non-singer (or as Mick Jagger refers to himself, a "vocalist" as compared to singer):
- Robert Smith (of The Cure): Smith doesn't sing, he ... well who really knows what he does other than him. His songs are endlessly fascinating, particularly given his vocal limitations, and I find myself actually listening to how he phrases things and what notes (if you can call them that) he hits - unlike, say, Neil Young or even Mick Jagger where I might enjoy the performance, but am not all that taken with the delivery thereof. I really should have him up in the "miracle" list, but then he deserves his own category.
And there you have it.
I do have some quibbles with some folks who did make the Rolling Stone list.
I have never liked Frank Sinatra all that much, though I understand what an influence he was. Personally, I just an not all that impressed with the basics of his voice. I think his phrasing and other stylistic quirks are original and can enjoy those. But his pipes are rather average if you ask me.
I also think Aretha is overrated. I do love some of her songs. The most famous collection of her songs (and inexplicably unavailable new) is Aretha's Gold, which - even though it's a hit's package - like Elton John's first hits set, is an entity unto itself. Still, her voice just doesn't strike me like the voices listed above do. Perhaps here's where my plebeian side shows.
My final question is how in the HELL did either Lou Reed or Neil Young get on that list?
Monday, December 15, 2008
Q: What's Worse than Creationism?
A: When (real) scientists claim they've gotten to the bottom of something when they haven't even gotten to second base.
Full Disclosure: Rant ahead.
The offense of both is neither has anything to do with actual science, or more specifically, any real proof that support their claims.
Case in point - a paper that was published recently about the phenomenon of widows and widowers seeing their recently deceased spouse and sometimes even having conversations with them. (Btw, I won't bother ranting about the abomination that is Creationism as it kneecaps itself. Christ on a dinosaur.)
Here's the abstract:
Here's the Slashdot.org post about it. It contains the link to the site that has the paper, but apparently you have to pay to download the paper itself.
My rub is the ASSUMPTION that these are hallucinations these folks are experiencing.
Now, yes, science typically operates under the unstated assumption that there are no supernatural causes or explanations for anything. That's fine. However, I don't feel that you can entirely dismiss events that cannot be entirely explained in cases like this - especially when it's a common occurrence that results from a specific event. That alone to me suggests that we need to leave the door open to what might be the actual cause and not write them off as mere hallucinations.
Listen, both my grandma and a great aunt of mine had this happen. These two ladies were WWII tough cookies who had been hard partiers back in the day (another one of those "greatest generation" things), so they knew a hallucination when they saw one. My grandma didn't tell anyone for years, because she was concerned someone would think she was nuts. When it happened to my aunt, she called my grandma because she knew about her seeing her hubby, too. She asked if she were going nuts because it certainly wasn't a hallucination. Grandma assured her she wasn't. Thank God neither of them asked a scientist.
If you're curious:
1)My grandma's "event": Her deceased husband just came walking down the hall into the dining room, stopped in front of the basement door, announced he was there to get his tools, opened the door, and went to the basement.
2)My aunt's "event": She heard something downstairs in the middle of the night, something like a chair scraping. As she was the only person home - "home" being a remote farmhouse - she figured she'd better check it out. Sitting in his favorite chair at the kitchen table was her deceased husband. When she arrived, he stood, announced that he needed to do some gardening (it was winter), and he went out the front door. The chair remained slid out from the table, so she knew it wasn't a dream or hallucination.
So, here are two level-headed ladies seeing something they shouldn't. Both dead husbands didn't say anything all that grand or enlightening. If it were a hallucination brought about by loneliness and grief, you'd think there'd be a bit more wish-fulfillment and comfort, not these odd statements about toolboxes and gardening. And, one left a door open and the other moved a chair. 'Slain that.
In other science (or more accurately, corporate) news, babies are dying because a company has a patent on the DNA sequence related to the disease, and charges thousands of dollars to test for it. There's a special place in hell, I'm tellin' ya....
Tell you what, people's babies dying because they can't afford an available test is going to create one hell of a monster. You are going to see executives gunned down as they leave work, angry mobs with torches, etc. Mark my words, baby.
And wouldn't it be rich if the superbug the scientists have been predicting for years came from mars?
A: When (real) scientists claim they've gotten to the bottom of something when they haven't even gotten to second base.
Full Disclosure: Rant ahead.
The offense of both is neither has anything to do with actual science, or more specifically, any real proof that support their claims.
Case in point - a paper that was published recently about the phenomenon of widows and widowers seeing their recently deceased spouse and sometimes even having conversations with them. (Btw, I won't bother ranting about the abomination that is Creationism as it kneecaps itself. Christ on a dinosaur.)
Here's the abstract:
Ratings of grief reactions, post-bereavement hallucinations and illusions and quality of life were made during the first year after the death of a spouse among 14 men and 36 women in their early seventies. In both sexes, the reactions were generally moderate or mild and characterized by loneliness, low mood, fatigue, anxiety and cognitive dysfunctioning. Feeling lonely was the most persistent problem during the year. Post-bereavement hallucinations or illusions were very frequent and considered helpful. Half of the subjects felt the presence of the deceased (illusions); about one third reported seeing, hearing and talking to the deceased (hallucinations). Former marital harmony was found to make a person more prone to loneliness, crying and hallucinations or illusions. The quality of life was significantly lower among the bereaved than among married people and those who never married, but equalled that found among divorcees.
Here's the Slashdot.org post about it. It contains the link to the site that has the paper, but apparently you have to pay to download the paper itself.
My rub is the ASSUMPTION that these are hallucinations these folks are experiencing.
Now, yes, science typically operates under the unstated assumption that there are no supernatural causes or explanations for anything. That's fine. However, I don't feel that you can entirely dismiss events that cannot be entirely explained in cases like this - especially when it's a common occurrence that results from a specific event. That alone to me suggests that we need to leave the door open to what might be the actual cause and not write them off as mere hallucinations.
Listen, both my grandma and a great aunt of mine had this happen. These two ladies were WWII tough cookies who had been hard partiers back in the day (another one of those "greatest generation" things), so they knew a hallucination when they saw one. My grandma didn't tell anyone for years, because she was concerned someone would think she was nuts. When it happened to my aunt, she called my grandma because she knew about her seeing her hubby, too. She asked if she were going nuts because it certainly wasn't a hallucination. Grandma assured her she wasn't. Thank God neither of them asked a scientist.
If you're curious:
1)My grandma's "event": Her deceased husband just came walking down the hall into the dining room, stopped in front of the basement door, announced he was there to get his tools, opened the door, and went to the basement.
2)My aunt's "event": She heard something downstairs in the middle of the night, something like a chair scraping. As she was the only person home - "home" being a remote farmhouse - she figured she'd better check it out. Sitting in his favorite chair at the kitchen table was her deceased husband. When she arrived, he stood, announced that he needed to do some gardening (it was winter), and he went out the front door. The chair remained slid out from the table, so she knew it wasn't a dream or hallucination.
So, here are two level-headed ladies seeing something they shouldn't. Both dead husbands didn't say anything all that grand or enlightening. If it were a hallucination brought about by loneliness and grief, you'd think there'd be a bit more wish-fulfillment and comfort, not these odd statements about toolboxes and gardening. And, one left a door open and the other moved a chair. 'Slain that.
In other science (or more accurately, corporate) news, babies are dying because a company has a patent on the DNA sequence related to the disease, and charges thousands of dollars to test for it. There's a special place in hell, I'm tellin' ya....
Tell you what, people's babies dying because they can't afford an available test is going to create one hell of a monster. You are going to see executives gunned down as they leave work, angry mobs with torches, etc. Mark my words, baby.
And wouldn't it be rich if the superbug the scientists have been predicting for years came from mars?
Weird Art
Funny and inexplicable, but tells a whole story. I examined the picture closely looking for the Pope's hat since an infamous call and response is "Does a bear shit in the woods?" followed by the rejoinder "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?", but there isn't one that I can see. Alert me if you spot it.
The artist's site.
Funny and inexplicable, but tells a whole story. I examined the picture closely looking for the Pope's hat since an infamous call and response is "Does a bear shit in the woods?" followed by the rejoinder "Does the Pope wear a funny hat?", but there isn't one that I can see. Alert me if you spot it.
The artist's site.
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