Humuhumunukunukuapuaa homina homina rowr!

And now, a story about what is quite possibly one of my all-time favorite things to say: the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa fish of Hawaii.

Not familiar with the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa? Would you like to know more about the Humuhumunukunukuapuaa? Can you tell I’m just looking for any excuse I can find to say Humuhumunukunukuapuaa? Oh, all right, fine. I’ll let you in on the fun.

The pronunciation of the word is: HOO-moo-HOO-moo-NOO-koo-NOO-koo-AH-poo-AH-ah. Here, click here and listen to it. OK, now you say it. That’s right. Say it slowly to start. Now, slowly start saying it faster. Great! You’ll be saying it like Bugs Bunny in no time.

Now, beyond this being the weirdest name of a fish you’ve ever seen, this fish actually has quite a pedigree. The Humuhumunukunukuapuaa (or humuhumu, for short) is, in fact, the state fish of Hawaii. Yes, Hawaii has a state fish. Don’t ask me why, they just do. And this is where the story starts, courtesy of The Las Vegas Sun.

You see, back in 1984, the state Legislature asked the University of Hawaii and the Waikiki Aquarium to survey the public and come up with a candidate for the state fish. The humuhumu was swept into the spot in part through the support of school children that learned of the campaign through classroom projects. The humuhumunukunukuapuaa was the clear winner, mainly of its ridiculous name and it’s already kinda looks like a cartoon. Here, take a look:



That’s him. Cute, huh?

I mean, for a fish.

Kinda looks like Adam Ant, doesn't he?

"He's a cute little fish.” admits Chuck Johnston, editor of Hawaii Fishing News. Plus, it’s got personality! “It kind of looks like a pig and it squawks and everything,"

How could you resist?

Believe it or not, some people did not like the idea of the humuhumunukunukuapuaa being named the state fish of Hawaii, and so lawmakers at the time agreed to only make the fish’s designation of State Fish Of Hawaii last for 5 years. After which, they could either choose a new fish or renew the humuhumunukunukuapuaa for another term.

At least, that was the plan.

Remarkably enough, however, everyone in the Legislature totally forgot about the 5 year term of the fish’s reign, (I guess that they had other things to think about) and so, for the last 20 or so years, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa has come to be known as Hawaii’s state fish.

Then, earlier this year, 6-year-old Joel Itomura was doing a report on the fish for school and discovered the obscure rule that showed that the humuhumu was king no more. He reported his findings to State Rep. (and friend of his dad’s) Blake Oshiro.

Sure enough, the debate was now back on about which fish should be the state representative, and believe me, people in Hawaii actually have strong opinions about this.

The main sticking point about the humuhumu? It turns out it can be found other places besides Hawaii!

Remember how you were like ”Hey, why does George Bush say he’s running for president from Texas, when I only ever see him in Kennebunkport, Maine?”?

Well! Imagine if he were a fish!

Shockingly easy, isn’t it?

State Rep. K. Mark Takai said that many of his constituents were in favor of the oopu, a brownish, freshwater gobbie endemic to the islands. Others were for the Pacific Blue Marlin, also known as the ulua. There is no lack of fish species specific to the islands. Thirteen species of wrass alone are found here and nowhere else in the world.

Ah, but herein lies the humuhumunukunukuapuaa’s secret weapon! One advantage that it has over all those other fish is that it’s completely inedible. Picking a popular game fish such as the oopu and the ulua could be a problem if environmentalists push to protect the fish from fishermen. No one wants to eat the humuhumu, as it tastes awful. In fact, Hawaii governor Linda Lingle recently pointed out that the humuhumu has not historically been held in very high regard, having been used by early Hawaiians as fuel for their fires, not their stomachs.

So, our candidate, the humuhumunukunukuapuaa, has many of the qualities that makes it ideal to hold the office of State Fish. It has a good public image, name recognition for days, resiliency, and it seems to have ducked the whole residency scandal. But, ultimately, it has the one thing that makes a candidate so difficult to stop from succeeding: incumbency.

"The logical choice is the one that was already selected," Chuck Johnston said. "It has been there. He's been crowned."

Don’t change fishes in mid-stream. Or something like that.

Spam-a-lama-ding-dong

Well, it’s been another crazy weekend of the now-world-famous Lindsay Jones “How To Be In 3 Cities In One Day” flight plan, and, amazingly enough, it worked out.

Left LA at the crack of dawn, got to Chicago to do a fast recording session, and then back on the plane to New York City, where I was able to catch Spamalot, the musical based on Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

Let me start by saying that I am a HUGE Monty Python fan. The Life Of Brian is my favorite movie of all time. I’ve easily watched that movie 50 times, and I know all the jokes from it by heart. The true genius in its subversiveness rests on how funny it is while poking fun at much of what people hold sacred about the Biblical story. Some people find the movie sacrilegious, sure, but those people have no sense of humor anyway. I feel similarly about Monty Python And The Holy Grail, as it’s an endlessly funny film. But what is truly so great about that movie is that all of the jokes seem to come from absolutely nowhere. You just do not see those jokes coming, they’re that good. In a thousand years, you would not expect a killer rabbit, the Knights who say Ni!, or “I’m not quite dead yet”. These two movies have had a special place in my heart for a long time.

OK, so in May 2004, I was in New York designing a show Off-Broadway when a good friend suggested that I meet with a friend of hers named Nevin Steinberg of Acme Sound Partners. For those who don’t know, Acme is made up of 3 partners: Nevin Steinberg, Tom Clark, and Mark Menard. They also happen to be the top sound designers working on Broadway. Chances are that if you seen a show on Broadway in the last 5 years, Acme was involved in the sound for it. At the time, I was doing ok for myself, working in regional theatres around the country and Off-Broadway. I mean, no one was calling me to design a Broadway show, but that’s ok, things were going well and I figure if that’s gonna happen, it will happen. So I remember saying to my friend who set up this meeting ”Hey, what am I gonna say to this guy anyway?” and she said ”Don’t worry about that, just talk to him and ask what it’s like to be a big-time Broadway designer.”

So I meet with Nevin on a hot May afternoon in New York outside of Lincoln Center, and he could not have been nicer. Really great guy, wanted to talk about where things were with my career, and was telling me about projects that Acme had coming up. He asked me if I had ever thought about designing on Broadway, and I said, sure of course, but I had no idea when an opportunity like that would present itself. He explained that it’s extremely difficult to get a design job on Broadway without having worked on other shows before as an assistant designer. I’ve never been an assistant to anybody before, and I wasn’t sure if I was the right person for that kinda thing, but then he mentioned that Acme would soon be starting pre-production on a new musical based on Monty Python And The Holy Grail called Spamalot, and that they might need an assistant for the out-of-town tryout of the show in Chicago. Would I be interested in something like that?

Would I be interested? In working on a musical based on a film that I knew by heart? Hell yes, I would be interested.

Ultimately, the job did not come to be, which was a disappointment, but I’ve always kept it in the back of my mind that I would try to get back to see the show, and as it worked out, this weekend happened to be that time.

So we went and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. I mean, it was fine, but it really wasn’t all that I had hoped, and maybe some of that is my fault. Many of the same jokes from the film were there, but they just weren’t as funny as they had been on the screen. Maybe it’s because I knew they were coming, maybe its because the delivery wasn’t as good, who can say? It was just like “well, that’s the joke, all right” but it just didn’t knock me out. The other half of the show was a lot of very Vegas-y sort of medleys of Python hits from the past and a few new songs, but it really felt at times like I was watching some theme park’s version of Monty Python, rather than Monty Python themselves. Hank Azaria and David Hyde-Pierce were fine, but not amazing. Honestly, you wouldn’t have even known that they were stars by their roles in the show; they were really supporting players as far as I could tell. The true standout of the show was Lauren Kennedy, who is the replacement for Sara Ramirez in the role of Lady Of The Lake. Lemme tell you, people, this girl can SING. She was really incredible - very funny, very pretty and seriously, an incredible voice that was just like GOD DAMN, THAT GIRL CAN SING.

Acme made the show sound great, it was a first rate design, and it’s easy to see why they’re the first call on Broadway. People want something that is guaranteed to sound awesome and they deliver.

I can only hope to follow in their shoes someday.

Trailer remixes: the sequel!

All right, if you did not see the first post on this, you must go here now and watch all that's specified here, here, and here as it totally kicks ass.

The basic premise is taking a trailer of a film and re-editing it with different music, so it looks like a completely different film.

Today's contestants are: Titanic, Revenge Of The Jedi, Psycho, A Christmas Story, and When A Stranger Calls.

Enjoy!!

Finally, a reason to watch the Grammys!

Hey hey hey!

All right, a very interesting article in today's Washington Post about the rumor that Sly and The Family Stone will be reuniting for the Grammys. This would be the first appearance of the entire band together since 1971. This, in itself, would be impressive, but it's even more impressive because Sly has not been seen in public (with one exception) in over 13 years.

Sly Stone's story is a long and involved one, but you can pretty much glean the facts quickly: multi-racial funk band, with an amazing new sound that literally blew people away when it came out of nowhere (there was no precedent for Sly and The Family Stone), a slew of hit songs including "Dance to the Music," "I Want to Take You Higher," "Hot Fun in the Summertime," "Family Affair" and "Everyday People". Drugs, ego, and some crazy, crazy behavior by Sly drove the band to self-destruct, and it was all over. In 4 years, Sly and The Family Stone changed the face of pop music, and then they were gone.

In the ensuing years since then, the other band members have all had varyinig degrees of success. Probably the most famous was bassist Larry Graham, who formed Graham Central Station, and quickly became the fonkiest bass player alive. In my opinion, his song "The Jam" is the single most underrated funk song of all time. That thing is a MONSTER. In recent years, Larry has mostly been hanging out with Prince, which sounded like a great idea, except that Larry is now a born-again Christian, and he's basically the one who convinced Prince not to perform any his songs that had explicit sexual content ever again. Which, as you can imagine, is like half of Prince's catalog. All he has to do now is make Prince give up any of his songs that mention God, and we'll all basically have to listen to "Raspberry Beret" on repeat forever. Great work, LG. Thanks a lot.

Sly, on the other hand, has been completely out of sight for a very long time. He stopped giving interviews in 1987. He stopped leaving the house not long after that. The rumors about Sly were not good: he blew all his money on drugs, he's broke, he's insane, he's in really bad health, he has a hunchback. (I'm serious, supposedly he now has a hunchback, something to do with how he's been treating himself over the years. Definitely not good.)

Then something really weird happened not too long ago. He showed up somewhere. Then things started getting even more mysterious. Here's what happened:

Some years ago, Sly's little sister Vaetta started what was basically a tribute band to Sly and The Family Stone called the Phunk Phamily Affair. They do pretty well, Cynthia Robinson - the trumpeter from the Family Stone - came on as a member, and they started touring around the country.

Then they get to Los Angeles for their show at the Knitting Factory, and, like it usually does in LA, things got weird fast.

The first thing that happened was that Sly showed up.



That's him on the front of the bike, his sister on the back. Not much of a picture, I know, but that's the first photo of Sly since 1993. That is definitely him.

Now, the next weird thing that happened was that, at this show, it was announced that from this point on, the Phunk Phamily Affair would be known as The Family Stone. Sly was now their "executive producer". Wait a minute, what? Who's band is this? What the hell is going on?

Sly's never been one for straight answers, and to compound the confusion even further, when you look up Sly on the internet, there are no less that FOUR websites all claiming to be the "official website": there is Sony's site, there is this official site called Backstage, which looks nice, but contains no info, then there's the new Family Stone site (which is just the Phunk Phamily's site), and finally the PhattaDatta site, which naturally claims that it is the only "true official website". It's hard to tell who's in charge, although that alone would certainly indicate that Sly is in charge.



Now, ostensibly, this whole event at the Grammys is to promote this new album called Different Strokes For Different Folks, a tribute album in which today's hottest stars massacre...I mean, cover their favorite Sly Stone songs. Maybe Sly got wind of this record, and decided to show people what he's really all about, before these other artists screw it up.

Honestly, the fact that he's still breathing is a miracle in itself. Drummer Gregg Errico put it best:

"It's amazing he's still here," he said in an interview last fall. "But he is. I always say that a cat has nine lives, and Sly has nine cats. He's a character in every respect."

Don't miss this people. Short of Syd Barrett getting out of the hospital or John Lennon coming back from the dead, this is one of your last chances to see a comback from a true superstar that vanished into thin air.

Read the sequel here!

Trailer remixes!

Well it's short and sweet today, people, but this is so worth it.

You ever wonder how much music and editing creates a context for something? Like, say, a coming attraction trailer for a movie, for example?

Well, it's time to find out. Check out the trailer remixes of Sleepless In Seattle, West Side Story, Cabin Fever, and, of course, The Shining. Then go here for part 2, go here for part 3 and here for part 4 of this post.

Next time, you'll give the composer more credit, won't you?

What is the emoticon for you cannot be serious?

Do you know what emoticons are? God bless you if you don't. They're those stupid little things that your little sister puts at the end of her sentences in her emails like this:

:-) or :-( or :-P.

Please don't make me go on.

Then, a while ago, people starting writing code that when you typed an emoticon onto like a bulletin board, they would look like this:

or or .

Well, if you find it impossible to believe people use these things at all, then you'll really find it amazing that, according to Cellular News, Cingular Wireless is attempting to patent them. That's right, Cingular, who currently uses emoticons in their advertising to distract from how bad their actual phone service is, have made an application for patent (number US 2006/0015812 A1) for the use of emoticons in cell phones.

Let's see, I'll just let that sink in for:

......1...............2....................3............and........................................

YES. Your conclusion is correct. If your little sister uses an emoticon in a text message to you, even if you have begged her not to, she would, in fact, be in violation of patent law, and could be sued by Cingular for millions of dollars.

Which is great if you're trying to discourage your sister. But is like BULLSHIT otherwise, as the emoticon has been in existence for as long as corny people have had access to the internet and text messaging. Is Sprint gonna like copyright that stupid "Bill Gates will give you a thousand dollars if you forward this to everyone you've ever met." email? Is Verizon copyrighting "LOL"? Is AT&T copyrighting the douchebag "Call me" hand gesture?

We can only hope.

Seriously, though, which would be more embarrassing? To have go to court to prosecute someone for this? Or to be brought to court because you did it? There should an emoticon for someone wearing a jacket over their head.

The whole thing is outrageous, but, on the other hand, if we can make it so that they only patent material in the public domain that sucks, then maybe this will all be ok. Otherwise, seriously, this is not a slippery slope, this is a slippery cliff.

The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Hi hello.

Random thoughts today about the things that are either awesome or the opposite of awesome:

The good:
















- Homestar Runner continues to be the single funniest thing on the web. Strong Bad is my blogging idol.





- Saw 700 Sundays with Billy Crystal last night. A really terrific show. I know, I know, the hype is completely out of control on this thing, but honestly, it's all that. Very funny and moving. It got me. It's way WAY too long, almost 3 hours. But, in the end, it works. My friend Michael Clark did the projection design, which, I have to say, was really outstanding. It plays through Feb. 18 at the Wilshire Theatre in Beverly Hills. If you can score a ticket, it's worth it. If you can't, well, this is the last stop on the tour. 20 bucks says that they make a movie outa this. I have no inside information whatsoever on this, but that's my bet.



The bad:



- Got all excited about that movie about Edie Sedgwick called Factory Girl, did ya? The one where we finally get a fascinating and authentic viewpoint into the life of Andy Warhol's beautiful film star and her tragic life? Yeah, well, settle down.

Guess who plays the Velvet Underground in the film?

Weezer.

Yes, that sound you just heard was 100,000 Velvet Underground fans all saying "AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW" at the same time.

That other sound? Oh, that was Lou Reed expressing his opinion of the movie to the NY Daily News:

“I read that script." he said. "It's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen - by any illiterate retard - in a long time."

The Velvet Underground star was close friends with Warhol after the met in New York City in the 1960s, and is horrified by the fictionalisation of parts of Factory Girl's plot - including a fictitious character, which is a composite based on numerous people including Bob Dylan. (Read that again. BOB DYLAN is part of a composite. Cause, like there ain't enough going on in his life to warrant a full character.)

Lou continued, "There is no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money. They're all a bunch of whores."

Guess he won't be showing up to the premiere.













- Speaking of whores, how about those Republicans? In a move so ballsy that they could only try it in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune reports that Republicans there are trying to introduce a measure into the state legislature that Congressional Representatives and Senators would no longer be voted in by the people. Instead, they would be selected by state legislators, provided that both parties agree on the candidates.

Of course! It makes total sense now! The problem with this whole concept of democracy is that the people are the ones who keep screwing it up.

"We know more than voters do," State Senate President John Valentine (R) said. "They don't get the chance to hear all that we do."

I'll say they don't. It's only a matter of time before that's a law too.

Evidence is in the eye of the beholder.

As you may remember, our old pal Jack Abramoff had been indicted for violating various laws concerning illegal lobbying and corruption, and everybody in Washington DC was trying to explain why they had never heard of him before, even though they had clearly accepted money from him.

President Bush was no exception, but, of course, as they always do, they had a story ready to go.

Press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

Wow, what are the odds, huh? The most powerful Republican lobbyist in Washington, and the president has no idea who he is. It must be because he's such an independent thinker, right?

Au contraire, mon frere, says Time Magazine. In an article published in this week's issue, Time editors claim that they have seen 5 different photos of Jack Abramoff together with George Bush in social functions. And this is not like at a PTA meeting, these photos were taken at high-profile events where only the high-rollingest of the Republican high rollers (and you know that's saying something) were invited.

Well! There's nothing like catching somebody in a lie! (And we all know we've had a lot of oportunities for that lately.) SO!.....uh.......hey, where are these photos?

Oh, we can't publish them, says Time Magazine. The owner of the photos (who we can't identify) won't allow us to publish them. But they exist! We swear! We saw them!

Uh....yeah, thanks a lot, Time Magazine. We're kind of in a day and age now where actual proof is pretty important. Instead, we're sorta left to figure it out for ourselves. Great, we're back to where we started. Sigh.

All right, let's think this through, just you and me. Now who exactly would stand to gain by the mention that photos exist of Abramoff and the president together, yet not actually allow them to be shown to the public? Hmmmmmm. Well, the Democrats need the proof, so it's not them. The Republicans have been trying to deny that any proof exists, so it's not them either. The White House says it has the photos, but you can go to hell if you think that they're letting you see them.

So who exactly does that leave?

Ooooh! I got it!

Jack Abramoff!

As reported by Raw Story, Michael Isikoff, senior reporter for Newsweek Magazine blows the whistle and confirms that Jack Abramoff, in fact, has been recently shopping photos that sound EXACTLY like the ones that Time is reporting that they've seen.

Appearing on MSNBC (watch it here), Isikoff breaks it down for us: "As a general rule, if you’re the president … you don’t like pictures out there of you with convicted felons. It sounds like … there’s at least one picture of him with at least one convicted felon and another indicted, so it’s probably not a picture the White House is eager to have out there. "

"The other interesting aspect of this is," he continued, "while the White House hasn’t put these out, Jack Abramoff has clearly shown them to people. I don’t know anything about Time sources, but I do know that he showed them to Washingtonian magazine, which suggests he may be playing a little bit of a game here. He has, of course, pled guilty already to the Justice Department. But it does raise a question in my mind at least as to whether Abramoff is maybe sort of sending some sort of signal out here: 'Hey, I’ve got this stuff.' Maybe he wants something from somebody at the White House, or he wants someone at the White House not to do something, and just sort of subtly playing with people here. "

Wow, you mean that the press has been made an unwilling pawn in a story about political power? Why does that sound so familiar to me?

Maybe we should sit down and figure that one out together too.

In other news.....

Memo to Vanilla Ice,

Come home, all is forgiven.

Really? Gee, I love cowboy movies!

Some days, you gotta make the funny, and some days the funny just makes itself.

Courtesy of Crooks and Liars, George W. Bush, for some reason, loses all his handlers on the way to a press conference in Kansas, and accidentally allows people to ask real questions.



As you can see from the picture, the highlight was when someone asked him about Brokeback Mountain.

"You would love it. You should check it out," a man in the audience told Bush Monday during a question and answer session at Kansas State University.

Oh yeah, he'll just love it. Then he'll introduce a constitutional amendment to ban all movies.

Nice work, gay Kansas wiseguy.

All I can say to Karl Rove is you spent 6 years making sure that this poor guy never had to be in a situation like this, and now you're putting him out there before the real public? Is the Abramoff thing that bad that you've dropped the ball this hard?

Talk about the love that knows no name....

There’s pirates booty, and then there’s pirates BOOTY. How to spot the difference.

There’s an important lesson to learn here tonight, and that is if you ever start to wonder why there are so many porn stars on your boat, it’s time to ask a few more questions.

This one is courtesy of the Tampa Bay Times, but seriously, you knew that already. Something this weird could only happen in Florida.

Down in St. Petersburg, they have the actual ship of the HMS Bounty docked at their pier. It’s a local tourist attraction that is managed by the city, and frequently, movie companies that are in need of a location on a tall ship rent it out to shoot their film there.

So it wasn’t that unusual when a film crew requested the boat for two weeks last June so it could do exterior shots for its pirate fantasy movie. But things did look a little funny when the director sent a synopsis of the film, especially with the misspellings and bad grammar that you will notice below:

“The movie is a comedy Sinbad type of film in quest of a magical scepter with lots of special effects and sward fighting with skeletons etc ... It is not going to be released in the theater it is going to be on TV like showtime. As far as rating I would say PG-13.”

All right, he wouldn’t necessarily pass his English exam, but he did have the money up front, and sometimes that’s all that’s needed to get rolling.

However, when the cast and crew showed up, things looked (ahem) a little unusual for a PG-13 film.

The city rented to the film crew an activity room for cast, crew and equipment storage from June 1 to 5, at a cost of $1,872.50, and roped off areas near the boat for camera equipment.

After the first night, city officials got a tip that some of the actors on the ship resembled well-known adult film stars. When confronted by officials, film reps admitted the actors were popular porn stars who might draw extra attention to the project, but the film was definitely not a porno. The ship’s officials were in a bit of a bind.

“We actually looked at the concept of canceling it, but with the contract, I couldn’t do it for no reason,” said Bob Hanson, who runs the boat. “Just because they’re porn stars doesn’t mean they can’t come on the boat or walk down the Pier.”

What Pier officials did was have the director sign a letter, dated June 2, promising not to mention the Pier, the Bounty or the city of St. Petersburg in any credits or materials associated with the film. “We all felt we were uncomfortable with the perception,” Pier spokeswoman Susan Robertson said, “and perception can get to be fact by some people.”

Well, shockingly, it turns out that they were making a porn film called Pirates, a knock-off of the hit film, Pirates Of The Caribbean. This was an unusual porn film, however, in that it had a budget of a million dollars, (as opposed to, like, $50 and and an 8-ball), and actual CGI effects of skeletons fights and other amazing special effects, not to mention that they shot on an actual ship that was government property. Needless to say, this did not go over so great with the local residents of St Pete once they figured it out.

But when Pirates was finally released in September as a 3 DVD set, the response was HUGE. It had a lavish opening night premiere at The Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, which was covered by Variety, and quickly, the legend of the film took hold. It has since gone on to be one of the highest-grossing adult films of all-time.

The punchline, of course, is that now people want to see where the film was shot, and so what’s the hottest new tourist attraction for fans of X-rated films? You guessed it. The HMS Bounty.

Bob Hanson, for his part, was somewhat philosophical after he saw the film.

“I was fast-forwarding through the naked stuff to get to the boat,” he says. “It was an interesting story. I thought it was kind of good. I thought they did a nice job with it.”

The lovely coda of this story is provided by The Tampa Bay Times itself. At the end of this story, they provide a series of related links for you to check out more information. One of them, it turns out, is a link to a 30 question quiz to see if you are addicted to pornography.

30 questions? Man, I can do that in 3.

1. How many movies can you name that star porn stars but are not porn movies?


2. When watching porn movies, do you fast-forward through the sex scenes so you can get to the footage of the ships?


3. Are you seriously asking yourself this question?


Click on this comments box below if you need answers for this quiz.

No wonder people take time off…

I work all the goddam time. It’s the nature of the job. I’m always on the road, and I’m always somewhere working. I don’t really get days off very often. Days when I’m not in a theatre somewhere frequently ends up being a day where I work twice as hard to prepare for the next time I’m in the theatre. There is no down time, and frankly, if I started having some, I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

That said, miraculously I have some time off. It’s kind of cool, actually. I’ve been like seeing friends. Hanging out at home. Enjoying myself. It’s been extremely disconcerting, but I’m getting used to it. I now see why people do not work 7 days a week. It’s so that you can have some fun every now and again. Who knew?

The last couple of days have been very interesting, so I figured I’d share what I’ve been doing with this time. If you don’t like it, I’m sure there’s a post with a wacky news item for you in the not too distant future.

SO! Here’s what I’ve been doing for the last 48 hours or so:

- My good friend Heath Corson came over and showed me his short film called Hooked that he co-wrote with Richie Keen (who also directed and stars in the film.) The film is fantastic, terrific cast, great sense of style and very, very funny. The movie features some amazing cameos from Jeff Garlin, Rebecca Romijn, Zach Braff, David Alan Grier and Fred Savage. They’ve just found out that the film will be featured in the HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen, CO from Mar 8-12th, which is a big deal for them. If you’re gonna be out for that festival, definitely make sure you check this film out in the short film competition. Jeff Garlin is way too funny for his own good and don’t even get me started on the guy who does the voice of Steven Spielberg.

- I hardly ever get to see theatre that I’m not working on myself, for two reasons. One is I’m usually busy, and the other is I’d rather get out of the theatre for the day if I can! That said, due to various convoluted reasons, I’m actually seeing quite a few high-profile shows over the next few weeks, and so I’ll try to let you know what I think when I see them. The first thing that I saw was called The Two And Only which is currently in its pre-Broadway tryout in Los Angeles, before it starts performances at The Helen Hayes Theatre in NYC on March 21. The show stars Jay Johnson, who you may remember as the ventriloquist Chuck (along with his dummy Bob) from the fantastic 70’s TV sitcom SOAP.

This show is a combination of Johnson’s ventriloquist act, as well as the history of ventriloquism, and his own personal history of how he became a ventriloquist. The first thing to say about this show is that there is no doubt that Jay Johnson is definitely the greatest ventriloquist working today. He’s incredibly sharp and funny, and his physical control (not to mention his breath control! The guys stomach muscles do not move when he talks for the dummy – it’s unbelievable to see!) is astonishing. If this were just his nightclub act, it would be one heck of a show. But it isn’t. Remember when I said he’s the greatest ventriloquist working today? That’s like saying he’s the greatest alpaca llama breeder working today. He’s definitely the best, but it’s a skill that just isn’t that popular anymore. The show operates under the assumption that by helping to educate the audience about ventriloquism, then they will understand the struggles that ventriloquists go through.

But….it just doesn’t hold your interest like it should, and honestly, the ventriloquism is so good, that you kinda just start feeling like you’re marking time until you get to the next routine. The script just isn’t as captivating as the act, and, as a result, you just want the act. But then the act is just an act and not a play, and then you might as well be seeing this in a Las Vegas showroom type of setting. You see where I’m going here? It just ain’t enough of a show for me. That said, if you have the chance to see the show, you should, if only to see Johnson at work on stage. He is a true master of his craft, and it’s really, really impressive. The show plays in Los Angeles until Feb 19, and then onto NYC from there.

- Tonight, I went to see a fantastic double-bill in Long Beach of The Average White Band and Tower Of Power, two bands who have laying down some incredible soul music for over 30 years. The venue is this brand new place in Long Beach called The Vault 350, and I have to say I thought it was very nice. Well-run place, sounded good, it was full but not crazy, definitely no complaints from me.

The Average White Band sounded great, still the funkiest Scottish people ever. (Yes, for those of you who don’t know, The Average White Band are not only the funkiest white guys out there, there the funkiest white guys out there from Glasgow. Not bad, eh?) They ran through their hits at a pretty good pace, only one saxophone player, so it wasn’t quite the sound you remembered from the record, but, still and all, a solid performance. The greatest part of the night was when the band finished their set, and headed offstage so that they would be called back on for an encore. You know, the typical drill. Only we happen to be standing next to the one guy in the world who is somehow unfamiliar with this practice, and could not believe that AWB did not play their biggest hit (and theme to every all-skate from 1976-1983) ”Pick Up The Pieces”.

“NOOOOOO!” he screams. ”NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! THEY DIDN’T PLAY PICK UP THE PIECES! HOW COULD THEY DO THIS TO ME? PICK UP THE PIECES! PICK UP THE PIECES! YOU FORGOT PICK UP THE PIECES!”

I turn around and say “Dude, calm down. It’s gonna happen. They’re not gonna leave here without playing it.”

He’s inconsolable. “I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY FORGOT PICK UP THE PIECES! UNBELIEVABLE!”

Needless to say, AWB shows back up 30 seconds later and plays it. Our man breathes a huge sigh of relief. What the hell? Do they not do encores in Long Beach?

So then Tower Of Power comes on and I’m telling you, people, they wiped up the floor with this place. When we last saw TOP back in early 2003, it was at their private concert at a tiny club in NYC to promote their CD “In The Oakland Zone” that was about to come out. Tower Of Power had finally done what fans had begged them to do for years: stop trying to ”update” their sound, bring in some new blood to make the band come alive again, and go back to what they do best; namely, straightforward funky soul music with stellar horn arrangements and musicianship. They had just brought in new lead singer Larry Braggs, and while he was great at the sneak preview show, he was clearly still finding his way in the band. When we talked to the guys in the band afterwards, they were excited at the prospects of what lay ahead for them, but they were reluctant to refer to this as a renaissance for the band…..yet. Only time would tell, they said. They were right.

Tonight was 3 years later, and all those new guys have now had time to integrate into the band, and man, it showed. With TOP alumnus Mic Gillette sitting in with the horns, it was a section of 6 this evening, and lemme tell ya, they were hot. The regular guys were there in force as always: Garibaldi, Rocco, Emilio, and the Funky Doctor. But the entire band displayed a new sense of confidence that I had not seen before. They were bad-ass, and they knew it. They literally came on and tore the place up. Larry Braggs was on fire. It was like he was testifying right there for all of us, and the band ripped through its extensive catalog like they were all 21 years old. Yes, they still dance like goofballs, and do the synchronized moves. But the funk was in full force and my eyes musta bugged out of my head at least 2 dozen times at how surprising the band was all evening. We’re 38 years into the career of this band, and this is the best they have ever sounded. When they come to your town, you must go see them. That’s an order.

- Last one. So, Scotty Iseri, associate designer extraordinaire, calls me from Chicago to ask if he can borrow my theremin for yet another onstage foley gig that he has gotten. Absolutely, I say, it’s in my place in Chicago, just head over and grab it. He calls back to say he can’t find the power cord for it anywhere. Do I know where it is? Uhhhhh…..

I tell him that I believe it should be with a crate of cables that I have there. Just look by the cable and you should find it. Hours later, I receive this email from him:

Couldn’t find the power cable. I might make another stab at it later in the week but i got tired.

For the record: Saying "Go into lindsay's room and look for cable" led me to the following comparisons, of which i couldn't tell what was funniest:

it's like saying...

-go to the ocean and look by the wet.
-go to Afghanistan and look around by the muslims.
-go to the john edward seminar and look by the fucked up family.

By the way, if you have not yet experienced all that is Scotty Iseri, then you have no idea how incomplete your life is. You must go here immediately. That's an order, too.

Look by the wet muslim family that’s fucked up. It’s right there!

Living the dream, dead as a doornail.

All right, I know I’ve had a lot of things this week about death, whether it’s about talking to the dead, the death of the record store, a guy mistaken for being dead, a woman ordering a hitman to make her dead, or Pierce Brosnan. Honestly, I have NOT become obsessed with death, it’s just how the week has gone.

Nevertheless, this will be my last story for a while about death, I swear to god. Whoops. Well, maybe not.



OK, so you may have heard about this guy named Chuck Lamb, but in case you haven’t, let’s review.

We all have a secret wish to be famous, to be remembered in some way. Some people achieve this goal in a big way, some people achieve this in a small way, some people never achieve it at all. For Chuck Lamb, a 47 year old computer programmer for an insurance company in Columbus, Ohio, the moment of truth was at hand. He had begun to realize that his options for fitting into one of these categories were starting to narrow down to a certain inevitability.

But Chuck had one long-hidden dream; to appear in a major Hollywood movie.

There were only a few major obstacles in his way:

1. He was a father of 6, working for an insurance company in Columbus. Not exactly a prime place to be discovered for the movie business.

2. He did not have what could be defined as “Hollywood good looks” or a true charisma for the screen.

3. He had no acting experience whatsoever.

But in the truest embodiment of The American Dream, Chuck found a way to market himself towards his greatest fantasy. He would become the ultimate corpse actor.

Dead people are part of films and television all the time, right? Somebody has to act like a corpse for these things. Why not Chuck Lamb? He could live out his dream by playing a dead guy in a movie.

Play to your strengths, my mother always said.

So, on Dec 5, 2005, Chuck started a website called deadbodyguy.com. The subtitle read ”Help me live my dream, let me play dead”.



To help people visualize how well he could play a dead body, his site provided a wealth of information, including numerous photos of him pretending to be dead in a wide variety of circumstances, as well as list of 10 reasons why he would be the perfect dead guy. (An example would be his pasty complexion, something that already made him naturally resemble a corpse.) His wife, Tonya, helped out by making fake blood and taking the photos.

People started stumbling over the site, and sending it on to their friends. Within a month, Chuck Lamb was the talk of the internet. Over a million people from all over the world had visited his website. The morning news programs started featuring his story, then The New York Times did a profile piece on him. He was featured on television, radio and newspapers across the country, and even around the world.

But the dream job hadn’t shown up. Until yesterday.

As reported by The Associated Press, Chuck Lamb was offered a role in "Stiffs" on Wednesday night during an interview on MSNBC's "Rita Cosby: Live and Direct." Kevin Fennessy, the casting director, called into the show to offer him the part on the air.

“Stiffs”, an independent film which stars Danny Aiello, will be shooting this spring in Boston. For Chuck’s role, he'll get his wish and play a dead man in a body bag.

The catch? Because Chuck is over 6 feet, they have to get a special body bag big enough to hold him. The production is already working on it.

For Chuck, it’s the role of a lifetime.

"It's like a big bomb to me," Lamb said, clearly inspired by his success. "I want everybody to know that you can do this, anybody can do this”.

Well, yes. But will they? We’re gonna need to form a corpse extras union if they do. Either that, or a lot more people need to get killed off on television.

Hey, wait a minute, that’s not that bad of an idea. When do we start?

Talking with the dead in downtown L.A.

So pull up a chair.

Last night, I went to see John Edward, the psychic medium, live and in person.

Yes, I’ll wait.

It’s fine, don’t kill yourself over there.

OK? Good.

Now, as you might guess, I’m not really into the new age stuff, and while I have seen John Edward on TV in passing, I’ll be the first to admit that I really haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to him in the past. If you don’t know who he is, you can check out his website to explain it to you, but the basic description is that he’s a person who claims to be able to contact and interpret people who are already dead.

OK, I am not a very spiritual person. This is not to say that I’m anti-religion or anti-spirituality per se, it’s just that I haven’t really found a place for it in my life. People sometimes refer to me as a very “zen” type of person, and I think what they mean by that is that I tend to see things fairly clearly, without a lot of complications. One could argue that this is because I’m a bit of a simpleton, and honestly, this is not entirely inaccurate. The bottom line is that I’m really a pretty practical person, when you get right down to it, and that I sorta believe that maintaining a certain objective viewpoint about things (when I can) is the best way for me to address problems and challenges in my everyday life. If you do it differently, then hey, good luck to you. Me, there’s only so much I can think about in a day, and I really don’t need what I perceive as additional layers of filter that I would have to sift through to figure stuff out. It’s what makes me a bit of a “yes or no” type of person, and I really think that works to my advantage.

That said, my wife says “Hey, we’ve been invited to an evening with John Edward, do you wanna go?”, I say “Abso-freakin-lutely”.

Who can pass something like that up?

So we go down to the Marriott in downtown LA and we head into this large hotel meeting room and here we are, along with 400 people who have paid $175, to be in what is called “a group reading”. The air is absolutely palpable, as we start looking around this room, with people who are genuinely anxious to have something in their life be RESOLVED. It was a super weird feeling, this nervous anticipation mixed with genuine angst. Out of all the people there, I felt like I was the only one who was an observer, everyone else was clearly a participant, whether they were being "read” or not.

John Edward came out, and it was about as low-tech of an affair as this could possibly be. No special lighting, no cameras, a couple of handheld mics, that’s it. There’s no hocus pocus about this at all, it’s just one guy talking to everyone. He lays out some ground rules, which I found very interesting and I’ll get to them in a second. He talked a little bit about who he is and how this all works. Basically, he gets a “feeling” from somewhere in the audience, and then sorta tries to track down where that “feeling” is coming from.

He’s incredibly matter-of-fact and straightforward about all this in his explanation, and really does not, in any way, try to spook anybody or make it seem like it’s some super-mystical-magical-illuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuusion that we are living inside of. It’s really like “Hey, I’m getting this message from somewhere else, here’s what I think its saying”. He’s very funny and personable, and, honestly, likable. It’s very easy to see why people connect to him so quickly. He’s not trying to sell you something. He’s willing to say things that will make you uncomfortable. It’s a very regular-guy approach, and to me, a skeptic, it seemed sincere.

OK, the following are things that I observed during this whole evening:

- People are messed up. I used to work every summer in a program for 16 year olds, and after a while, I developed this slogan which is “If you put 150 teenagers in a room, basically what you have is 150 different kinds of fucked up.” Turns out that this is true for adults as well. I know that this should not be surprising to me, but I’m just so rarely in a situation where people are so willing to expose their innermost frailties for complete strangers. I mean, I work in the theatre, people, I have seen every kind of human behavior possible, but this was different in the sense that these people were not attempting to show people something, there were just trying to understand why things felt unresolved to them, and would literally say or do anything, including things that they would never say or do anywhere else, in order to receive that understanding.

- There are only so many human stories in the world, and more than likely, many of them apply equally to a lot of people. Time after time in this thing, we kept coming back over the same topics: Alcohol and drug addiction, the feeling of not getting enough love, someone in prison, cancer. Occasionally, it felt kinda like an auction of human misery – “Someone in your family was an alcoholic. How about an alcoholic with a drug problem? Do I hear a prison record? Alcohol, drugs and jail time? Thank you, do I hear a prison record with an early tragic death? Tragic death going once, twice… SOLD to the lady in the green jacket!” Not really, but you see what I mean.

- Dead people are boring too. In listening to some of the more mundane moments of this thing, you sort of started to feel like you were watching someone’s home movies, only there’s no movie and you have no idea who they’re talking about. “You had an Aunt Tillie? Aunt Tillie once made you a glass of lemonade? There was a bird there, and you both listened to it sing? You were sitting by a fireplace?” Hey, can we fast-forward through this part? I’m getting sleepy.

The biggest thing, however, that I noticed in this event actually came from something that was set out as a ground rule by John Edward in the beginning of the night. He explained in very specific detail that if he is looking at a certain person or in a certain section and says something that may exactly apply to you, even though you are nowhere near that section, what he is saying is not about you. He calls these people “relative-stealers”, and by that, he means that you are so desperate for information about your situation, that you are willing to take other people’s information and apply to yourself. Looking over this crowd, I totally believe it. These people want answers and John Edward is the only one who can give it to them. Who can blame them for jumping the gun?

But I guess that this is where my problem with this whole thing lies. You see, the fact that people can so easily take this information offered and apply it to themselves, even when it’s “not intended for them” makes me wonder that, if this information really does apply to a lot of people, then how can we honestly say that it’s definitely for this person that we say it’s for?

All right, I’ve been sort of beating around the bush here, so I’ll just come out and say it. The biggest question that I’ve received today from my friends is ”Is John Edward the greatest con man alive or is there some truth to this whole thing?”

OK, here’s what I think: I think John Edward has some really terrific personal skills. He does seem to have the ability to size people up quickly and cut through their own individual bullshit to distill their personality down to an essence very easily. I also believe he’s a very perceptive person, and so, he’s able to make some pretty educated guesses about people, based on the information that he collects with a few questions.

For example, a family who stands up who appears to be a lower middle class type of family, the question of “Is there any alcoholism in your family?” has pretty good odds of the answer being yes. But I guess my point is that if you really thought about it, there’s probably a history of alcoholism in virtually everyone’s family at some point, although it may be incredibly removed and distant to you personally. You see what I mean? It’s really not that dangerous of a question, because the odds of it having some relevance to you on some level, no matter how small, is actually pretty high. So then it’s just about taking some educated guesses and then narrowing down the scope quickly through follow-up.

So, the final part of the equation, which is the trickiest, is: Is he receiving this information from the dead or is he pulling my leg?

Well, ok. Let’s put it this way. I believe that he honestly believes that he is getting it from the dead. I do not think he is lying to people, per se, or conning people about where he is getting this information. He seems like a genuine guy, and he truly believes what he is saying.

HOWEVER! Let me make a comparison for a moment. I’m a composer. I write music. Now where does this music come from? It’s in my head. How does it get into my head? I have no idea. It just shows up there. Now, do I think that I got this music from dead people? No, I don’t. Is it possible that dead people put this music in my head? Well, I suppose it’s possible, but that’s not my belief on where it came from. So where does it come from then? Well, I believe it comes from me, somewhere in a subconscious place, and I just find it there in my head. That’s what I think. I need music, I find it in my head, and I don’t ask a whole lot of other questions on where it came from.

Now, one could say the same about John Edward. Did dead people give him this information? That’s what he has chosen to believe. Is it possible it came from him alone, (or more specifically, his skills of quickly assessing types of people, and then relying on statements that are somewhat sweeping in generalization as to how they might apply to many different kinds of people)? I suppose it is possible, but you could prove that no easier than you can prove that my music did not come from dead people. You see what I mean?

In the end, these people who came to see him have chosen to embody this information with whatever meaning that they’ve attached to it, and, as I said before, this helps them to bring them to the point of closure that they needed in their life. Could they have reached this point of closure by themselves? Probably. But the end result is the same, and somehow the finality of someone telling them it’s time for closure in a calm and reassuring way is the easiest way for them to accept their situation and move on. And I guess that’s not so awful, if you think about it. It’s not for me. But hey, if that’s what you need, then good luck to you.

So, one final footnote: We go backstage to meet him briefly after the show. He’s clearly on a schedule – he has to stay up late and shoot some additional stuff for his television show that is coming out on the Women’s Entertainment network in March. But he’s very gracious as we meet him.

He immediately talks about a question that was asked early in the evening: "How does he prepare for the event?" At the time, he answers by saying he meditates and prays before each session. Backstage, however, he’s telling us that he was a little disturbed before tonight’s appearance because, normally, he has a feeling that he is already tapping into for his first reading before he walks out to meet his audience. Tonight, however, backstage he was feeling nothing. Zippo. He was more than a little nervous.

“Has that ever happened before, where you walk out there and you’ve got nothing?” I asked.

“Never in a group reading.”, he says. “But in a private reading, absolutely, yeah.”

“So what do you do when that happens?” I asked.

“Well, you know, you just chat at that point.” , he says. “Talk about whatever’s real. Not much else you can do if you’re not getting anything. Say you’re sorry and move on.”

Music? That's like what plays in the background of video games, right?

Oh, it is not a good time to be in the music business, lemme tell ya.

Never mind that the record labels are slowly merging into one giant conglomerate that only puts out music for girls between the ages of 13 and 14. I'm talking about the actual business of selling cd's is just quickly fading away.

When I was a teenager, I became a record collector. Not just a fan of music, I was a total dweeb in learning and buying everything out of the wide catalog of artists that were out there. I would buy the latest single by a band, and then track down the import version which had a different B side. Colored vinyl? I'm so there. The Velvet Underground's first album where you could actually unzip the banana on the cover? I had that. The import version of Thomas Dolby's The Golden Age Of Wireless which had a completely different track listing than the US version? Bought it for two bucks in a garage sale. Flexidiscs! Remember those? Where some magazine would release some incredibly obscure song on like this super thin plastic sheet that would fit into the magazine? Invariably, the disc would get bent or misshapen in the handling of the magazines getting to the stores, so by the time you listened to it, you couldn't tell if it was supposed to have this warped sound, or if that was just what it sounded like after its journey to you.

I read Goldmine magazine, for chrissakes! This was basically a huge listing of every guy who spent every weekend at a flea market somewhere in this country, and what records that guy had for sale. And like, two articles on somebody like Eric Clapton, but like only about when he was the second guitar player in The John Mayall Bluesbreakers. Or on like Fleetwood Mac, before Buckingham and Nicks, when Peter Green was the leader of the band, and they did mostly blues covers. Some completely obscure point that NOBODY except die-hard record collectors would care about. The magazine still exists, but there's much less of a market for it now.

Why? Well, there just aren't that many record collectors anymore.

Case in point is the recent closing of Rhino Records, the record store in Westwood, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter. Rhino, before it was a record label, was just a record store in Los Angeles that was staffed solely by complete record collectors. People who really loved music in all its forms and wanted to get the word out to as many people as possible about the wide variety of stuff that existed. They had the weird stuff that people like me were looking for, such as the obscure single that few people had or the new band that no one had heard of yet.

And their staff, well, they were opinionated. You know that part in the movie High Fidelity where someone is berated for 5 minutes, because they asked where the Michael Bolton records are? This happened hourly in Rhino. In fact, the clerks were so surly that they use to keep a huge list, prominently on display, called the "Worst Customer List". Give them any grief or, god help you, ask for something really cliched and awful, and bam! You went on that list.

Could you have less of a hard time shopping in a mall record store somewhere? Sure. But then, a mall record store was never gonna be able to have the great music that you couldn't find elsewhere, or the people who believed in it either.

But it's just not that way anymore. There are still a few stores out there now that are still great. Thank god for Amoeba Music on Sunset in Los Angeles, as well as their other 2 stores in San Francisco and Berkeley. This is, bar none, the greatest record store that I have ever seen, and let me tell you, I have seen them all. My only advice when going here is to make a list in advance of what you're looking for and only look for what's on that list. If you just start browsing, you will literally never leave. Ever. I'm serious.

But for every Amoeba, there are 20 Rhino's or Aron's (which just closed at the end of last year) that are gone now. Hell, last week, even the mall record store Musicland filed for bankruptcy, and they have 824 stores.

The saddest part of all, though, may just be the devaluation of music in our culture these days. Because it's so easy to get now through the internet and there's no longer a packaging that associated with it that makes you feel like you bought something, it's almost too easy to take music for granted now.

"There's too many other things to do and too many ways to get your music without paying $18 for a CD. . . . I don't see a great future for physical product." said Richard Foos, the owner of Rhino.

Indeed, a study by England's University of Leicester showed a basic difference now in the way consumers are looking at music. The school's psychologists noted last week that music had "lost its aura," and was now viewed as simply a commodity. The trend will probably only get worse with time.

Well, ok, so as not to be totally depressing here, let me give you two options of things you can do to keep the spirit of music alive:

The first is, if you're in LA, to head to Rhino Records this weekend for their massive store closing sale, Saturday and Sunday from 10am-4pm. Somebody has got to take all those import cd's off their hands, and it might as well be you.

The second is that I've just received word that Bang On A Can is offering a free sampler CD to anyone who joins their mailing list in the next couple of weeks. If you don't know who Bang On A Can are, they are a really brilliant collective of contemporary classical musicians who, after years of being frustrated by the lack of opportunities for new works by contemporary composers, finally just put their money where their mouth is, and started up numerous programs to stimulate new classical music in this country. They now have a program where they commission composers to write new works, they actively seek out collaborations with composers from different cultures, and they run a summer institute to foster new composers and performers. The emphasis here is on new works, not just some child prodigy playing a Mozart concerto. These people are actively shaping the future of classical music, and they make some pretty cool stuff. Go here, fill in your info, and presto, free cd of cool new classical music is on its way to you. Then, you can see if you wanna buy stuff if you like what you hear. It's a no-lose situation, and frankly, if we don't start actively fostering people to seek out adventurous music, it won't be around much longer to find.

A deal's a deal, now shoot me already.

People, people, I don't know how many times we have to go over this, but, for the last time, when hiring a hit man, PLEASE make sure you're getting someone with some references, some solid work experience. Otherwise, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment (or, in this case, a long and prosperous life.)

What can I say? It's all about priorities.

All right, courtesy of The London Times, here's the story:

Christine Ryder is a 53 year old unhappy woman, with a history of depression, who wants to end her life. She mentions this to this guy that she's in a mental health facility with, named Kevin Reeves, and he says he knows a professional killer who can help her. He just needs £2,500 up front to get things going. He tells her to just go about her business and things will happen soon enough. She does.

Nothing happens.

She eventually leaves the facility and contacts Reeves again to ask about the status of things. He says that unfortunately that the killer has raised the price to £5,000. She writes him a check on the spot.

Reeves tells her that she would be killed in a drive-by shooting on June 11, 2003. She wasn’t; Reeves called her to cancel the arrangement, saying that, due to some unforseen complications, he had had to kill the hitman himself and pay Mrs. Ryder’s money to the hitman's widow to care for her, so as not to suffer from a guilty conscience.

Growing frustrated with the delays, Mrs. Ryder asks Reeves if he would do the deed himself. Reeves agrees, but said it would cost her another £10,000. She writes him another check.

Nothing happens.

When Mrs. Ryder eventually contacts him again, he claims that her £10,000 had been seized by his bank because he was bankrupt, but he could still kill her if she gave him another £10,000. She refused but agrees to pay him £5,000; Reeves promises to kill her on November 28.

The day before the promised killing, Mrs. Ryder receives a letter from Reeves saying that the situation had changed, but “things are still on, so don’t panic”. At the end of the appointed day, surprise surprise, Mrs. Ryder was still alive. Alive, and now really, really pissed off about being alive.

So she calls Reeves, but his wife answers the phone. The wife tells her that they've just come back from a lavish vacation, as her husband apparently won the lottery. (The lottery? I'll say he won the lottery! THE CRAZY PERSON LOTTERY!)

Anyway, Mrs. Ryder finally has Reeves arrested on fraud, which, after everyone finally finishes smacking themselves in the forehead, he is sentenced to 15 months in jail, and he must pay back £2,000 of the money taken.

Ironically, he would have spent about the same amount of time in jail if he had killed her in the first place, but he would not have had such a nice vacation.

Even more ironically is that now Mrs Ryder has found a new lease on life in the prosecution of the man who took her money. I guess all she really needed was something to occupy her time. Isn’t that always the way?


Oh hey, I’ve got an idea!

Let’s update a few more of the stories we’ve been talking about lately. If you missed the story the first time, just click on the picture next to the story and you can catch up on what you missed.

- Pierce Brosnan did NOT win the Golden Globe on Monday night, although he had quite a good seat down front, which I’m sure he got solely on his own merits. There was a slight controversy, however, in that John Travolta called him Pierce Bronson by mistake. Pierce did not seem overly thrilled. Needless to say, there was absolutely no mention of me whatsoever during the ceremony. And, all right, fine, he was very handsome. Are you happy? Are you satisfied now? At long last, have you no decency, sir?

- Shooby Taylor has a new 7” single out this week! ”A new single?” I hear you say. ”I thought he died 2 years ago! And who puts out a 7” single in this day and age?” Well, all right, you’ve got me. This is actually a split 7” single in which The Dead Science sample Shooby’s voice into a new song. The best way to describe it is that it’s as if Shooby Taylor somehow wandered into a David Lynch movie. Which is totally a plausible situation, in my opinion. Here, take a listen to this snippet of it! I really like it. Although I strongly recommend that you first read the original post about Shooby for this to make sense. Uh, I mean, more sense. In a related story, Irwin Chusid wrote to say that Shooby’s CD is still in the process of rights negotiation, and that they are not giving up. Keep your fingers crossed, kids!

- The cat who dialed 911 appeared on the January 3 show of The Late Show With David Letterman, and I have to say, I thought that the kitty was really great. I can’t seem to find video of this on the web, so I’ll just to describe this as best I can: Basically, every so often, they would cut to the green room, which was totally empty except for a single table, and on top of it, sat one lone cat next to a phone. And they would just hold on the cat for a long time, waiting for it to dial the phone, and meanwhile, the cat would just look at the camera like “What? What the hell? Why are you looking at me?” I gotta tell you, it made me laugh. Anyway, so then Bill O’Reilly came on, and then all hell broke loose. We were told after the O’Reilly segment that the cat got so nervous during the show that he did, in fact, call 911, and then left the building. By the way, if you have not seen the Bill O’Reilly segment, drop everything and go watch it here. Thank god for Dave, for telling this windbag where to go. I do not believe we will be seeing Mr. O’Reilly outside of the safe confines of his own show again.

You think life is hard now, wait til you're dead.

My favorite news story of the day, from ABC News and The Mail And Guardian.

OK, so a guy named Raju Raghuvanshi in Katra, India, was sent to prison for a minor tax infraction back in October. While in jail, he suffers a stomach ailment and is transferred to the hospital. Because the prison and hospital are so far from Katra, the family asks a distant relative to check on Raju, and for some reason, there's a mix-up and the relative is told that Raju has died, and his body has been cremated. Terrible, right?

Well, OK, so Raju gets out of prison finally and goes back to Katra. But by then, in accordance with the Hindu religion, the family has already performed the last rites and shradh bhoj (community feast to ensure peace for his soul), and begun the greiving process for him.

So is the family thrilled and relieved that he's alive and home safe? On the contrary. Raju returns home to shouts of "Help! Ghost!" and the sounds of neighbors locking their doors in his home village of Katra. No one will even speak to him because they believe that he is a ghost that has come back to haunt them.

"My family thinks I am dead," he said in a phone interview on Monday. "They will not permit me to enter my home because they think I am a ghost." He said his brothers even "argued that they had completed all religious death ceremonies" and he should not have come back to haunt them.

Rural India remains deeply traditional and many in Katra share the traditional Hindu belief that they will be haunted by a ghost if ceremonies are not performed to ensure the soul of the deceased makes a peaceful transition into its next life.

Ostracised by the people of Katra, about 450km from Bhopal, he's now living in a nearby village and struggling to prove he's alive and not actually a ghost. He's appealed to the local police who have agreed to help him convince people, but his family and local villagers want him to prove that he's not dead.

The best proof he had -- that his feet were still properly attached, not turned backward as ghosts' feet are thought to be in Hindu -- was dismissed by villagers, as a cheap ghostly trick. Other tactics such as deliberately walking into walls, and saying "boo" unconvincingly, have yet to make any impact. He's now considering some kind of dangerous stunt in front of the whole town, in which he would be severely injured, in order to show that he is, in fact, mortal.

The poor guy is gonna get himself killed trying to prove he's not dead.

Pierce Brosnan totally stole my seat!

Loooooong day of flying today.

Due to the crazy routing that got me to Milwaukee, I now have to fly it all the way back: Milwaukee to Chicago, Chicago to San Francisco, and then San Francisco to Los Angeles. All today.

I start at 6am freezing my ass off in Milwaukee. Two flights in, things are going ok, although a little tense. On the flight to San Francisco, a woman has a minor heart attack, and fortunately there’s a doctor on the plane to look after her. Paramedics storm the plane as soon as we hit the ground, and it looks like she’s gonna be ok. Whew.

Now I’ve got 2 hours to kill at SFO before my next flight, and so I head to the Red Carpet Club. For those not in the know, the Red Carpet Club is United's special lounge that you can buy membership into for a fee. It’s basically a good place to hang out when you’re in an airport all the time like me – you can get a decent internet connection, all the Diet Pepsi you can drink, and you can leave your bag while you go to the bathroom and people won’t go apeshit. Definitely worth every penny, in my opinion, and the one at SFO is the swankiest one in the US. Excellent.

So I’m walking back from the bar to my table and, as I’m walking past the other chairs, I notice out of the corner of my eye that there’s Pierce Brosnan slumping into a chair. He’s with a few other people, who definitely look like producers to me.



“My god, he’s a handsome man,” I think to myself. ”That guy must be able to get anything he wants, anywhere, anytime.”

I keep walking back to my seat, and figure I’ll leave him alone, as he looks pretty tired from traveling all night from somewhere. I start thinking about trying to score an upgrade to first class on the next flight to LA. I’m starting to get really tired, and the seats in first are much easier to fall asleep in. Plus, my carry-on luggage is a little TOO overstuffed, and flight attendants will usually cut you a little extra slack if you’re in first, as opposed to the instant “no” that you would get in coach. I figure I’ll head down to the gate and see if I can somehow smooth-talk my way into first class. It’s a longshot, but it’s possible, and right now, it’s SO worth it.

As I walk back through the club, I spot Pierce Brosnan again. He’s now at the bar, watching the NFL playoffs on TV, and constantly being interrupted by people coming to him to say hello, and shake his hand.



“My god, he’s a handsome man,” I think to myself. ”I wonder what it’s like to be famous on that kind of level, where your whole life is about basically receiving fans wherever you go, whether you want it or not. Does he enjoy it? Does he ever get tired of it?”

I head out of the lounge and on to the gate. I talk to the gate agent, and with some fast talking combined with an upgrade coupon, I manage to weasel my way into first! Yay! I head on board, muscle my bags into the overhead bin, and grab my seat in 6C. Aisle seat in the back of first. Perfect.

The peace and quiet lasts exactly 30 seconds.

Suddenly, 10 high school kids bum rush their way into first class. It’s clear immediately that they’ve been bumped from a previous flight, and United is making it up to them by flying them first class on this flight.

“Check it out!”, one of them yells. “I’m the first black man ever to fly in first class!” The rest of them cheer him on.

Shit. So much for sleeping on this flight. This is just great.

The rest of the passengers board, and so now we’re just waiting for the last few stragglers to get on. I’m starting to get comfortable again, when this guy appears next to me, looking like he wants to get into the window seat. I get up, and he says “It’s ok, we’re still trying to figure out where we’re gonna sit.”

Hey, wait a minute. This is one of the guys that I saw back in the lounge. I turn around and now I’m toe to toe with Pierce Brosnan. The high school kids have all gone dead silent. They’re thinking what I’m thinking: “HOLY SHIT! I’M ON A PLANE WITH PIERCE BROSNAN!” They all grab their camera phones and start taking pictures.

The producer is now haggling with the flight attendant. Something about they got delayed coming back from New Guinea, and they were supposed to be on an earlier flight to Los Angeles. The flight attendant is basically saying “I’m sorry, sir, there must have been a mix-up..”



Meanwhile, I’m looking at Brosnan thinking “My god, he’s a handsome man. Delayed in New Guinea? Man, what’s it like when that’s the kind of circumstances you’re dealing with? Where people will move mountains so that you can catch a plane? That guy must be able to get any seat on any plane he wants, anywhere, anytime….”

The flight attendants voice suddenly cuts through my thoughts. ”The only seat we can possibly bump somebody from is seat 6C.”

“6C? Wait a minute, that’s….”

“Are you Mr. Jones?”

Crap. I know where this is going.

”Yes, that’s me.”

“You’ve been downgraded. I have a window in the back of the plane, and I have a middle seat between these two fat people.”

God damn it.

”All right. I’ll take the fat people.”

As I walk past Brosnan, who is now slipping into my seat, he gives me a very weak “Sorry, mate.”. I sorta mumble ”Yeah, thanks”, as I head back to coach.

Fortunately, this older woman beckons me over to her row and says that no one else is sitting with her, if I wanna get the window seat there.

”Confidentially, I was hoping that they would make him sit next to me.” she says to me.

“Sorry about that”, I say, trying not to feel guilty for being thrown out of first class.

“Me too”, she says.

The flight is uneventful, we land, and I head back up to the front to grab my bags before the door opens. Brosnan is looking at me as I come toward him. He looks really tired. Kinda haggard, his skin’s a little blotchy. I feel kinda bad for him. He gives me this look that says “Hey, I know that the only reason that I got to sit in your seat is because I’m a good looking celebrity, but don’t hate me for that, ok? It’s been a rough day.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and say “All right, look. If you win the Golden Globe on Monday, you damn well better thank me in your speech.”

“Absolutely” he says, laughing. We get off the plane, and a United representative meets him at the door with a cart for him. We slowly walk towards the exit, and my last sight of him is him slowly pushing this squeaky cart down the hallway, wearing sunglasses, still every inch a star, but definitely he seems more like just a really tired guy at the end of a long trip,

And, you know, I can sympathize with that.

But he still better thank me on Monday if he wins!

The final apocalypse of irony is upon us.

Well, this is it, ladies and gentlemen. I knew that this day would eventually get here and I have to say that I’m a little surprised that it’s getting so little attention in the mainstream press, but this is definitely the moment that I saw coming.

Over the last few years, there have been quite a few times where we have thought “Ah yes, this is a defining moment in our society.”, but none, NONE, have had such an impact on me as what I am about to report to you today.

Are you ready? Are you sitting down? Because what I am about to tell you is nothing less than the final apocalypse of irony. This is the moment that we’ve all been waiting for.

George Bush has officially outlawed the right to annoy people.

This is not a joke. Well, ok, it’s a joke in the sense that it’s ridiculous and funny, but this did actually happen yesterday.

In a story reported by UPI, George Bush yesterday signed into law the Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005, which is mostly a bill designed to strengthen laws about violence against women, as well as a bunch of money and improvements to the Justice Department.

Now, who could vote against that, right? Nobody is willing to stand up and say “Hey, I’m for violence against women, and also, let’s let the Justice Department go out of business.” It’s what they call a must-pass bill, and so, as a result, when people see something that’s going to actually get through Congress, they all wanna tack their particular preoccupation onto it, so that they can claim credit for it later.

SO! In this case, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), trying to be a bad-ass, slipped in this clause at the last minute into the very back of the bill that apparently few in Congress noticed as they approved it and sent it to the president to sign.

The clause outlaws using the Internet "with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass." There are many legal definitions of abuse, threaten, and harass, but this is the first federal law ever that actually has the word annoy in it.

“Wait a minute!” I hear you say. “There’s no one who annoys me more than George W. Bush, and his administration uses the internet all the time to advance his annoying policies and his annoying personality! My god, can this be true? Has George finally out-stupided himself and accidentally made himself illegal?”

Ah, if only it were that easy, my friend.

Turns out that there literally is no legal definition of the word annoy, and, as anyone who’s ever had to buy a Kenny G album as a Christmas present knows, there are many different interpretations of what exactly is annoying.

"A clearer definition of the technology it applies to, as well as the definition of 'annoy,' is vital to the true heart of the law," said Matt Cerrone, of Metsblog.com. "As it is, without these clarifications, it comes extremely close to violating First Amendment rights."

“This is an example of the usual reactions that happen when politicians get involved in technology that they don't understand," said Drew Curtis of Fark.com. "The first time it gets taken out for a spin, it will get shut down legally." He points out that there are numerous laws already in place for abusive and threatening speech, and that this law will not do anything to change those laws already out there.

But because annoy has been added to this law, it now brings a whole host of questions of what (and, all right, who) exactly is Constitutionally annoying.

I really just want this law to go to court so we can finally have that national debate on what actually is annoying. I have such a long list that I’m gonna need my own team of lawyers when I testify. And then I’ll call my lawyers annoying too!

But maybe I’m looking at this in the wrong way. Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe we can all come to some sort of understanding as we slowly air all our grievances, and find that common ground of “Hey, that annoys me too!”

Although I can already see how this all may degenerate into the argument we all had in second grade – i.e. “You’re annoying!” “No, you’re annoying!” “You are!” “No, you are!” “Shut up, the both of you, your arguing is really annoying me!” “Stop yelling! It’s so annoying!” "Oh my god, you people are all so annoying, you're all under arrest!" "No, you're under arrest!" "You're out of order!" "No, you're out of order! This whole courtroom is out of order! This entire joke is completely out of order, as it's gone on far too long and is now just really annoying!" "No, your joke is annoying!", etc, etc etc.

Interestingly enough, people are already trying to undo the law at the grass-roots level through email, but, here again, irony has the last laugh.

The email that’s going around states:

"There is a new law against annoying someone on the Internet, but it can be repealed if you forward this to 25 people."


Welcome to the dawn of a new era.

Who's the hottest band in Chicago right now?

It's a 23 piece marching band, complete with its own 3 person cheerleading squad.

You heard me.

All right, I'll explain. It's now been almost 4 and a half years since my band The Nubile Thangs! broke up, but honestly, it really feels like yesterday. People still ask me all the time when we're playing next, and with the exception of one gig we played last year (sans our trumpet player, who is now burning up the charts in Spain with his new band Marlango), we're pretty much dormant indefinitely. But I still get emails all the time from other bands, inviting me to check out their shows. I hardly ever do, not because I don't want to, but I just never have the time.

So, anyway, I started getting this email on a semi-regular basis from this group called Mucca Pazza, and ok, I'll admit it. I totally ignored it. I dunno, I saw the name, and then I saw them describe themselves as "nerd-core", and I thought "Criminy, another indie-rock band". I mean, I'm sorry, people, I have had it up to here with indie-rock. Really, It's all just really dull for me. It's not even any fun to make fun of it anymore, it's just really boring. Seriously. And I mean, I didn't know who these people were, the name didn't ring a bell.

So I put it off. The emails from this band would come every so often and I would just be like "Well, here's another..." and then forget about it. I feel bad about it now, but listen, I still have this Poison tribute band that writes me every week, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna go check out their website either. You see what I mean?

Finally, I get one of these emails from Mucca Pazza, and for some reason, I thought "Well, I should just check out their website, just in case".



And WHAM! It suddenly hit me who these people were and why they were so freakin' awesome! OK, so the story here is that this is the marching band that developed from the various events that Red Moon Theater has put together over the last few years. You know, like every time they do an outdoor parade or they have their winter pageant, this is that marching band that plays it.



Only now they've really become an actual band with, as I previously mentioned, 23 people in the band, including 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, 5 saxophones, 7 drummers, 2 accordianists, a guitarist, a violinist, and a sousaphone! And damn if I didn't already know half of these people!



And look, here are their cheerleaders with cool moves for each song! Pretty slick, eh?

OK, but I have to say that I really loved the music. Here, check some of it out. You have this marching band doing a surf song, a Czech flavored brass band number, and hell, they even do a cover of the theme to Mr. Magoo! Do yourself a favor and turn this up when you play it, so you can hear the whole band.

So, now here's where you're really in the know. Mucca Pazza (which means "mad cow" in Italian, or "worst band name since The Nubile Thangs!" in English) have been playing this monthly gig at The Hideout (the super cool rock club of Chicago) for a few months now. This last gig that they had, the show was completely sold out, and they had to turn over 100 people away who wanted to see it. So, trust me, the band is seriously about to become the marching band to beat in the club scene (and we all know how tough that gig is).

Here's a bootleg video of them playing live. WARNING! THIS VIDEO IS VERY LOUD! TURN DOWN YOUR SOUND A LOT BEFORE CLICKING ON THIS LINK! Obviously, this video is not the best way to see them, but this is all I got to work with, people.

Seriously, this band is the next big thing in Chicago. I'm not kidding! There's no cd yet, so you better go check em out while you can.

You can see them at:

Reversible Eye Gallery (1103 N. California Ave.) on January 27 for $5
(there will be music, feline performance troupe, puppet and doll show, contortionists, etc)

and they're back at the Hideout ( 1354 W Wabansia Ave) on Feb 19.

All right! Remember who told you!


Oh hey, before I forget!

Let’s update a few of the stories we’ve been talking about lately. If you missed the story the first time, just click on the picture next to the story and you can catch up on what you missed. (Thanks to Toy for passing on some of these updates).


- Runaway cow lives! In a followup story by Reuters, the owner of the cow who made the incredible escape from the slaughterhouse has decided to let the cow live out its life. "I've been around cattle all my life and it's just totally amazing," he said, adding that it is a rare cow that escapes slaughter. "I watched her do things that are just not possible for a cow." Now, the owner is trying to decide where the cow will live: In the pasture outside the slaughterhouse or at a cow sanctuary in Seattle. In the pasture outside the slaughterhouse?? My god, man, send that cow to Seattle. Otherwise, it will just be living out some bovine version of Schindler’s List, and will ultimately be driven to the point of guilt-ridden insanity and break back INTO the slaughterhouse to do itself in.

- The killers of Bryan Harvey and his family appear to have been arrested, according to Richmond TImes-Dispatch. It was not publicized at the time of the reports when the Harveys were found, but there had already been ANOTHER family that had been killed in the same way in Richmond. If these are the people responsible, then thank goodness that they have been caught before anyone else was hurt.


- James Frey appeared last night on Larry King Live, where he attempted (poorly) to explain himself, after being exposed by the Smoking Gun, for fabricating large portions of his book A Million Little Pieces. He admitted that he had embellished small parts of his story, but that it didn’t matter anyway. His defense is that a memoir is not strictly non-fiction, it’s more of “a history as I remember it” and therefore, it does have not have the same standard as a “typical non-fiction” book. What’s disingenuous about this explanation, however, is the fact that the book was first pitched as a fictional novel, and refused by 17 different publishers, until a publisher at Random House suggested that if he “restyled” the book as an actual memoir, then she would publish it. This explanation was blasted by famed author Gay Talese, who said that this type of rationalization, of what was clearly a person just making up lies and passing them off as facts, is ultimately what will destroy the concept of “non-fiction books”. This is especially interesting because Gay Talese’s wife, Nan Talese, was the publisher at Random House who ultimately published the book in the first place! Man! Sounds like somebody will need a million little divorce lawyers at the end of this.