Self-editing is overrated. Or is it?

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

When late night TV was really something to see.

The Tonight Show with Jay Leno is a gigantic piece of crap.

There, I've said it.

I've watched it for some time now, largely due to the fact that there's nothing else on at 3am (when it repeats from its 11:30pm slot), and it is just terrible. I've had the chance to really reflect on why it's so bad, and while I could easily single out the horrendously repetitive band, the toothless jokes, the lame sidekicks, the endless gratuitous pandering to the audience, and the single worst comedy skits ever in the history of television, these are not the main reason why it's so bad.

That reason is a remarkably simple one: there are NO surprises on the show ever. Jay Leno clearly knows all the questions and all the answers in advance, and all spontaneity is crushed by this rush to consolidate everything into an easily digestible pablum. Even the surprises on the show are planned within an inch of their lives and there is absolutely no hiding it. It's honestly the closest thing we have to television programming for androids. It makes me insane. I yell at the tv screen constantly, demanding that the show try harder, but to no avail.

Maybe it's because I have a decent working knowledge of what late night TV used to be, and how dangerous it could be, that it makes me so disdainful of what it's become.



Tonight I was over at the lovely blog Jazz And Conversation, where it was reminiscing about the first television appearance of the Miles Davis Quintet. The year was 1955, and the band made its debut on The Tonight Show, then hosted by Steve Allen. Allen, an accomplished musician on his own, seems very nervous about the band's appearance, constantly referencing how they might put off "fans of Guy Lombardo" and also bringing up Miles winning the Down Beat poll that year for best trumpeter.

But honestly, Allen had nothing to worry about. After all, this is the quintet's greatest lineup with John Coltrane on tenor saxophone, Red Garland on piano, Philly Joe Jones on drums and Paul Chambers on bass. The band rips through "Max Is Making Wax" and then gets all sweet on "It Never Entered My Mind". It's a great performance, filled with risk, for both the band and the show.

Take a listen to it here!


But, as strange as Miles must have seemed to non-jazz fans in 1955, they surely cannot compare to the shock that audiences must have felt the year before as Perez Prado, the king of mambo, appeared for the first time on "The Spike Jones Show".

As if it wasn't enough for audiences to be overpowered with the band's primal latin rhythms and Prado's inability to speak any English, his band engages a battle of the bands with Spike Jones's orchestra, in what is surely one of the strangest musical moments in television. Plus, Billy Barty appears from nowhere and gets in a fight with a tall guy in a sombrero!



An incredible event, take a look below! They just don't do it like this anymore.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

You know, they could fly me in this and somehow I'd still be late.



Finally, somebody has figured out the way to beat this whole "I gotta be somewhere in 2 hours and it's on the other side of the world" problem, and the answer has been staring us in the face the whole time!

Rocketships!

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which has been touting the prospect of "space tourism" in the form of short, expensive flights into space, is joining forces with none other than NASA to investigate the possibility of hypersonic rocketships that could carry passengers between New York and London. In a newly signed deal, the U.S. space agency will trade facilities and services with Branson’s company and explore further collaboration possibilities.

Virgin Galactic has exclusive rights to the spacecraft technologies of Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites, whose SpaceShipOne was the first private craft to reach outer space. SpaceShipTwo, currently under construction, is due to begin testing next year; a rocket called (and I am not making this up) “The Mothership” boosts it through the atmosphere.



In the partnership, NASA will share technology, expertise and research facilities with Virgin; Virgin will let NASA test equipment and train astronauts onboard SpaceShipTwo.

NASA and Virgin Galactic have expressed interest in mutual exploration of space suits, heat shields, rocket motors, and hypersonic vehicles (aircraft capable of traveling at least five times the speed of sound). Unlike the currently planned SpaceShip travel, which basically involved parabolic flight up and down again, hypersonic travel would be geared toward crossing longer distances - for example, covering the distance between New York and London in less than two hours (hello!), or about half the Concorde’s supersonic travel time.

Hypersonic travel will run into all the environmental and noise issues that Concorde encountered and isn’t likely to happen soon (or soon enough, if you’re me). Still, the new deal with NASA gives a lot more credence to Branson’s hopes of opening space travel to, if not the entire traveling population, at least a larger segment of it.

Man! Sign me up! Can we do the same thing to my car too? You would not believe the schedule that I have tomorrow….

Monday, February 26, 2007

A new interview with me!



Well, I've just finished my score for "The Voysey Inheritance" at Milwaukee Repertory, and I'm really proud of how it's turned out! Thankfully, people seem to agree, so it's time for me to take a second to collect my thoughts and think about how things went.

Fortuitously, my old friend and stage manager Mark Sabha interviewed me today for his fantastic TheatreCast Podcast program, in which he profiles people of the Rep, and asked me all kindsa questions about what I do.

Check it out here! You'll need to skip about 8 minutes into the track to hear me, unless you want to hear an interview first with the fabulous directing intern Margo Gray.

If you like what you hear, make sure you go here to subscribe to the podcast, and then go here to cast your vote for it as the greatest podcast ever in the history of humanity!

(OK, not really, but it does good things for the podcast, so make you sure you vote!)

For a limited time, you can download the entire score of the Voysey Inheritance here. Just click on the download link when you get there, and you will get a zip file that contains the whole score. Act fast, the link expires at the end of the week!

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Oscar night at my house!

All right. There were definitely some slow moments during the Academy Awards tonight, but we were not discouraged! Sometimes you just have to make your own entertainment, as you can see from this family home video.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

One of the many travel tricks of the trade...

You may notice my link for Free Traveling (to the right - look over there ~>) and wonder what that is.

This is no accident - this site totally rocks if you're having to book your own travel. Is it like Orbitz or Expedia, where you book the cheapest travel through it? Nope. You can't actually book anything through it.

What Free Traveling does do is chronicle any rate MISTAKES that hotels make, as in accidentally listing a room that costs $350 for $35! This means that, if you're fast on the draw, you can get a room for very very cheap or even FREE. Nice, huh?

Well, it's just gotten better. They now list codes for discounts on airfare too! That's right, these codes can be entered when you're buying airline tickets, and presto, you get an instant 10% off the final price. VERY NICE!

If you're traveling as much as me, you'll take any discount you can get, believe me.

Friday, February 23, 2007

I know all the secrets of the Oscars this coming Sunday night!

WARNING! If your name contains the initials "A.B." or you are overly-familiar with the initials "O.C.D." or are otherwise not interested in seeing any advance spoilers for the Academy Awards on Sunday, then you must click here for the one prediction I can make that everyone must know immediately!








OK? Coast is clear? Let's start spilling secrets for the Oscars!

Now, these rumors and predictions are things that I've picked up from looking around the web today (including the fantastic Nikki Finke), and as predictions go, they're pretty solid. So, this is your last chance, if you hate knowing what's gonna happen before it happens, click here now for the one prediction that I can make that everyone must know.





1. This first secret is big. Huge. Gigantic. It's that Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and George Lucas together will be presenting the Best Director award this too-long telecast. What a gimmick. It'll be interesting for Hollywood to watch the interplay among them. (If I'm murdered overnight, then the Academy did it.)



2. I can reveal another secret which the Academy is keeping -- that Tom Cruise will be presenting the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award to ex-Paramount mogul Sherry Lansing. (This year, the Academy took the unusual step of not announcing which awards the celeb presenters will give out. This was done supposedly to heighten the suspense. As if...) Having Tom and Sherry do this together is an inside joke for Hollywood. Because both were shown the door at Paramount by parent company boss, Viacom's Sumner Redstone. Trust me, Hollywood is going to get a kick out of this, even if the folks watching at home may not understand its significance. (Then again, the Oscars are always filled with inside jokes enjoyed by the Industry alone.) Of course, Lansing greenlighted many Cruise films during her years at Paramount, where Tom's production company used to have its home. So the choice makes sense. But it's also a corporate laugh riot.



3. Here's another spoiler: Oscar telecast producer Laura Ziskin and Dreamgirls director Bill Condon have planned that each of the Dreamgirls -- Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson, and Anika Noni Rose -- will sing each others' songs from the movie. That's a cool concept: nothing's more boring than having the person you expect do the singing. Or maybe Beyoncé wants a crack at singing Jennifer's songs. Who knows... (But I can knock down right now one rumor flying around which I'll mention just because it's so asinine: that Michael Jackson will sing one of the songs from Dreamgirls. Thankfully, not even the Academy is that blind to the PR disaster of an MJ appearance on the Academy Awards. It's not happening.) Diana Ross, on whose life the Motown musical is loosely based, was asked to sing one of the Dreamgirls songs on the Oscars. But she said no, telling the producers, "I'm not interested in promoting that movie." She still claims she hasn't seen it.

4. Here's another secret: I'm told that there's a big change in the order that the awards will be presented. The Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards will NOT be presented in the up-front portion of the show, as in previous years. Instead, none of the acting awards will be given out until the last third of the telecast. The Academy is doing this, I understand, because Oscar viewership starts out strong and then wanes. Ziskin is hoping that this will keep the audience glued to the entire broadcast hour after hour. But I understand this decision was hotly disputed because it breaks with tradition. All I can say is that now there's not much reason to watch the beginning of the show, either.

5. I can also report that, after a few years absence, three members of the longstanding Oscars' comedic writing team are back together on the job: Bruce Vilanch, Carrie Fisher and Carol Leifer. This is great news for Sunday's telecast because their quick wits make the show that much more livelier and topical. They'd been individually helping -- for Chris Rock or Jon Stewart -- but not as a trio. FYI, they have not written Ellen DeGeneres' opening monologue.




6. Ellen DeGeneres is writing the opening monologue on her own and with her own team. I hear she has decreed it won't be political or mean-spirited. (But expect Vilanch & Fisher & Leifer to insert plenty of references to politics and pop culture into the rest of the show. Because Hollywood expects them.)



7. Speaking of Ellen, I can provide you with another nugget: the Oscar telecast kicks off with an expensive and "inspired piece of CGI trickery", I'm told. Along with other movie scenes from other studios in which she inserts herself, Ellen DeGeneres will be dancing with the Happy Feet penguins. You see, Ellen dances on her talk show, the birds dance in the movie, so we're supposedly talking synergy. Especially since Warner Bros., which is the producer of both the toon and Ellen's syndicated series, spent an enormous amount of money to make this segment happen and hired Happy Feet director George Miller to do it. (DVD out next month.)

8. And, the Oscar broadcast will feature some clip packages directed by top names in Hollywood. Among them, Michael Mann (Miami Vice, Ali, The Insider) looks at how America is portrayed in the movies, and Nancy Meyers (The Holiday, Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want) examines how writers have been depicted in films. I can tell you about the latter: as ink-stained wretches. (Remember Barton Fink?) Believe me, this is when the Kodak Theater audience will laugh the loudest.



9. One of my all-time favorite filmmakers, Errol Morris, is making a new Oscar clip short film! You may remember his last one from 2002, it's easily one of my favorite things ever done on the Academy Awards. Check it out below! See how many people you can name.



10. OK. I saved the worst for last. Sit down, ok? This is gonna be hard on all of us. All right, there's good news and there's bad news. The good news is that the great Italian film composer Ennio Morricone is receiving an honorary award this year. Morricone is known for such legendary soundtracks as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, Once Upon A Time In America and The Mission, and generally regarded as one of the modern gods of film music. As a composer and fan of the maestro's work, I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that he is receiving this long overdue honor.

That's the good news.

The bad news is that, in tribute to Morricone, lyrics have been added to one of his great instrumentals from Once Upon A Time In America and the completed song will be sung at the Oscars by CELINE DION! CELINE DION?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? CELINE FUCKING DION!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARE YOU INSANE?!??!! IS THIS SOME KIND OF SICK JOKE!!??!?!


NO!?!.....................OUI!



Oh, how I wish that this was a joke, my friends. But it is not.

Morricone orchestrated the song for 1984’s "Once Upon a Time in America," directed by Sergio Leone. Although songwriters Alan and Marilyn Bergman wanted to write lyrics for the song, the film’s producers felt none were needed. However, with Dion’s version of the song, the Bergmans got their chance to finally screw up one of his songs at last.

I'm sorry, but this is just the saddest development ever. I mean, it's like spending days to make the perfect steak dinner, and then, moments before you serve, you completely cover it in birdshit. AND I DON'T CARE IF THERE'S A TRIBUTE ALBUM COMING OUT! THIS IS THE OSCARS, FOR CHRISSAKES! LET THE MAN HAVE HIS DUE IN PEACE ALREADY!

You know, it's like he's the one composer who managed to get through his entire career without having compromise his music to accomodate some pop star, and his reward for this is to have Celine Dion sing some lyrics over his composition at the Oscars. It just ain't right, people. It just ain't right.

All right, I have one more prediction to make but you'll have to click here to see it!

The one Oscar prediction that I hope will come true

is that Alexandra Billings will be at my house for the Oscars this Sunday!

I have no shame whatsoever. Duh, right?

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Dammit, I miss Clinton.

I know, it's been a long time now. It seems like forever ago. We weren't in a war, we had a surplus, people were getting screwed in the White House instead of just screwing us. Man, it was great.

And his wife, well...I mean, she's all right, I guess. But she's not as much fun as the big guy, you know?

OK, so not all of you are gonna agree with this. But, honestly, watch this video about his last days in office, and tell me you don't miss him even a little bit. I bet you will.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Wait. Isn't this a movie already?

Well, you may recall my good friends Heath Corson and Richie Keen put together a great little comedy called Hooked, about a hard-working schmoe who lucks into a pair of tickets to the Academy Awards, and then has to find a date to go with him. It's a great premise, with a outstanding cast including Jeff Garlin, Zach Braff and Rebecca Romijn, and it did well last year at the film festivals.

That's it, right?

Interestingly enough, no! In a classic case of life imitating art, there's now a guy on Craigslist who claims to be in the same situation, and he's looking for a date for the Academy Awards!

Here's his posting:

Reply to: pers-280353013@craigslist.org
Date: 2007-02-17, 2:44PM PST


Hello,

It looks like due to a huge screenwriting windfall they want to give me 2 tickets to the Oscars. Being single right now means, yes, I need a date. So I thought I'd try to find a "real" date with someone outside my ususal circle of friends.

I'm 38, successful, I'm told I'm good looking, blondish hair with blue eyes, 185 pounds and 6 feet tall. The only thing I ask is that you can be discrete when staring at celebrities, and of course don't be embarrassing while we are at the after-parties. Drunk is fine (and fun), embarrassing is not.

I'd think we should meet up before for a drink and see if we hit it off. Please send a couple pictures when you reply, not just asking me to send one first. I posted this weeks ago and ended up with someone who flaked.

Thanks!


I'd now like to say that I don't know this guy, I have no idea if this is actually real or not, I make absolutely no guarantees whatsoever about any of this.

But if you wanna go, you might wanna send an email and then get those gowns outa storage, girls!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Nine Inch Nails is totally messing with my head. AGAIN!


OK, I have not yet seen this reported by the mainstream press, so let's just keep this on the downlow for now, shall we? All right, here's the story on this up til now.

Nine Inch Nails has a new album coming out on April 17 called "Year Zero", right? They've just begun touring in Europe, and fans are getting to hear the new music for the first time. In addition, the band has slowly begun to leak out some new tracks from the album which sound FANTASTIC.

My favorite so far? I'm really into this super-funky-noisy track called "My Violent Heart", which you can hear here.

OK, so far, so good. So the band goes on tour and they're selling merchandise at the shows, and some intrepid fan notices on the back of the t-shirt that he bought that several letters on the back appear to be in bold for some strange reason.



Now, NIN fans are an obsessive lot by nature, so they put together the bolded letters as a sentence and it spells "I AM TRYING TO BELIEVE." So some wise guy, for the hell of it, types in http://www.iamtryingtobelieve.com/ and lo and behold, it's an actual website! It looks like some superfuturistic hallucenogenic site, where they are discussing a drug called "Parepin". This drug appears to be chronicled in a series of articles. In these articles, the government will have you believe that this is an immune system booster that will protect Americans from biological warfare. People who don't drink the water see something more sinister behind the scenes.

There is also talk of a recent phenomenon known as The Presence where many people have seen what seems to be a giant hand reaching down from the sky, Some people believe it’s god, striking down from the heavens. Others believe it’s a Parepin-induced hallucination. Others believe it’s a Parepin widthdrawl hallucination. One thing is for sure, people everywhere are starting to see signs.

There's an email address linked to the webmaster of the site, who claims to have stopped using Parepin, but any email that's sent to him will get this return email:

Auto-reply from water@iamtryingtobelieve.com wrote:
------------------------AUTO_RESPONSE--------------_--

Thank you for your interest. It is now clear to me that Parepin is a completely safe and effective agent developed to protect us from bio-terrorism. The Administration is acting purely in the best interests of its citizens; to suggest otherwise was irresponsible and I deeply regret it.

I'm drinking the water. So should you.

Hm, ok, that's creepy.

So, then people started looking at the tracklisting of the album as it was being revealed on the NIN website, and through the bolded numbers and letters there, it led them to a different website: www.anotherversionofthetruth.com

At first, it looks like a very patriotic site, but you can slowly click on and drag away the imagery to expose a totally ravaged landscape like this:


Under the new imagery reveals a hidden message board, and then within that are a series of audio clips (here, here, and here) of people complaining about government intervention.

From this, we can now figure out that "Year Zero" is a serious concept album, set in the year 2022, which has been rechristened by the government as 0000 (or Year Zero, see?) with a story to explain where we are and how we got here. In Year Zero, there is no longer a distinct separation of Church and State. Perhaps due to an onslaught of bioterrorism attacks, the government has assumed totalitarian control and used the threat of future terrorist attacks to justify their absolute power.

From that, there appear to be a series of characters emerging, each of with their own websites:

Church of Plano

The Church of Plano
is a sola scriptura organization that uses the threat "Whoever Resists the Authority Resists God" to legitimize and support the current Administration. Not much is known about the Church, but it has taken a special interest in the Presence and is sponsoring a "Neighborhood Cleansing Program" so members can "put their faith into action".

105th Airborne Crusaders

Alongside the Church, the 105th Airborne Crusaders, a unit of soldiers whose purpose is to protect and police "God's green Earth" is further propagating the government's political and religious control of the nation. This faith-based squadron was created in -13 BA as a response to the bioterrorist attacks in Los Angeles. The 105th was formed by "those men and women who kept a personal relationship with our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ and allowed the Holy Ghost to guide their rifles true."

Be The Hammer

Be The Hammer appears to be a resistance site, linked to at the www.anotherversionofthetruth.com message board. It contains seven different sections or "entries".

Consolidated Mail Systems

- This is the site for what must be the main mail service of society (perhaps). It features a description of Opal (a new drug, supposedly for recreational use) stolen from a police officer and his reference handbook, as well as numerous crude drawings, including one of The Presence. It is definitely worthy to note that the page reads "ANGRY SNIPER sent you this message on Thursday, Feb 10, 0000." The title Angry Sniper is most likely a reference to the sound clip that features an angry guy shooting people with a sniper rifle. Interestingly, if you try to click any link on this page, it gives you a warning:

The page at http://www.consolidatedmailsystems.com wrote:

WARNING CODE 24.10.4 (All page functionality disabled): You are not the citizen assigned to this account. Close this window immediately and stay where you are. Authorities will be in contact shortly for appropriate reeducation.


Hm, OK, that's really creepy.

Now things get really weird. First, a new USB flash drive was found in the women's bathroom at a NIN concert in Barcelona, Spain. On the drive was a new song: Me, I'm Not and a odd mp3 file, 2432.mp3. This 2432 when run through a spectrograph revealed a new phone number to call: 1-216-333-1810. The phone number was a recorded phone tap provided by the US Wiretap. Now, after listening to the message, the listener is told to go to:

http://www.uswiretap.com/71839j/


Meanwhile, another fan buys a different t-shirt at a concert and realizes that some of the numbers on the shirt are discolored:



The numbers on the shirt spell out the phone number: 1-310-295-1040, which contains another audio message with clues and a clip of Nine Inch Nails' new single "Survivalism", which you can hear in its entirety here.

Finally, in a totally obsessive vein, fans have begun to discover a series of codes hidden in ALL of these sites that all correspond in a series that indicates that more are coming, but there's no way to know how or when.

THIS IS MAKING ME CRAZY. I'm now completely sucked into this mystery and it's really hard to figure out where this is leading, but I'm totally hooked on it now. There's part of this story that I've left out due to space, but if anyone has any new info, please let me know and make sure you check out the NIN Wiki (who supplied a lot of this info) for the latest update.

Meanwhile, I'm really starting to feel a little paranoid about all this. Stay tuned.

Monday, February 19, 2007

How to unlock your car with a tennis ball.

Handy! If you're not a crook, that is.

(Actually, I bet it's even handier if you are a crook.)


Sunday, February 18, 2007

Carlos Mencia - busted onstage!

All right, this'll take a second, so have a seat. I do not know what is going on in the comedy clubs in L.A., but seriously, people are losing their GOTdam minds lately.

First, the whole Michael Richards thing. Then Damon Wayans went nuts. Then Andy Dick. Then Anthony Michael Hall. ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL? Is he even a comedian? Or a celebrity? Whatever. Like I said, one comedian after another is going insane in a crazy bad way in front of a paying audience.

The latest thing happened this week where a comedian basically confronted another comedian onstage at the Comedy Store, because he was accusing him of stealing his (and everyone else's) jokes.

Stealing jokes? Is that a crime? In comedian circles, yes it is, bigtime. You see, comedians can't really copywright jokes and there's no way to really prevent someone from just taking your jokes and claiming them as their own. So, it's a HUGE no-no to steal someone else's material.

Now, of course, stealing jokes is hardly new. Robin Williams is generally regarded as the master of joke stealing, to the point that most comedians will stop performing immediately if he ever walks into a club while they're onstage. Other accusations have been leveled at Denis Leary and Dane Cook, and if you really want to read an excellent article on the history of joke stealing, check out this great round-up from Radar. One highlight is this great graphic representation:



NOW! You may see that the last person referenced in the above graphic is Carlos Mencia. That's right, the guy from Comedy Central. It turns out that many comedians consider him to be as bad as Robin Williams, if not worse. However, there's a catch.

"The twist that Carlos Mencia puts on most of the jokes that he steals is that he somehow makes them all unfunny." said one comedian. "It's almost genius, in a way."

Things have gotten so bad between all the other comics and Mencia that he has been given the nickname "Carlos Menstealia". George Lopez was so mad at Mencia for stealing 13 minutes of his material for Mencia's HBO special that he beat the crap out of him backstage at the Comedy Store.

Which brings us to last Saturday night. Joe Rogan, host of Fear Factor and a comedian well known to be a believer in the no-stealing rule, had just finished his set at the Comedy Store, and was about to introduce the next act who was a comedian who had done some opening gigs for Mencia. Rogan uses "Menstealia" when referring to Mencia in the intro, and uh oh, Mencia is in the audience. Mencia comes onstage to confront Rogan, which may have been his worst mistake yet.



I'll let Joe Rogan take it from here. Go read this and then come back here to get the rest of the story. Below is the video of what comes next.



Now could this have been handled in a better fashion? Sure. Did Rogan have to be such a dick about it? Hey, all comedians are dicks, trust me. But what has been the outcome of this display? Has Mencia suffered as a result of all this?

Nope. In fact, the other way around. First, Rogan was banned from The Comedy Store. Then, in a moment of extreme turnabout, his agent, who is also Mencia's agent, was forced to drop him as a client, because Mencia said he would walk if Rogan did not apologize to him for this. Rogan refused, and now he's agentless.

And that, my friends, is just another exciting day in Hollywood. We'll have to see if Joe's integrity is worth what he's about to go through. As for the Mind of Mencia, he's headlining the Comedy Store this weekend.

There is no such thing as irony in show business.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Apparently, looking into a ViewMaster will give you superhuman powers in a homoerotic music video.

All right, I'd like an explanation here. I know this video is old but honestly, I still can't make sense of it.



I'll give you the plot description as you watch.

A young boy (who seems about 12 years old) passes a beggar on the street, whom he irritatedly refuses, and then, steps later, finds a ViewMaster in the trash. He's suddenly transported to a beach where there are all these beautiful women who are strangely attracted to the three gayest-looking dudes that I have ever seen. The three guys have identical haircuts and suntans, and are singing very suggestive lyrics while executing the most unsexy dance moves ever.

The beautiful women, clearly put off by these moves, first beat the crap of the guys in a game of touch football. Then, realizing that these guys and their haircuts are worthless, the women begin fawning over this young boy (who, again, looks like he's 12 YEARS OLD). The boy, now totally feeling dirty, pulls the ViewMaster away from his eyes.

But, strangely compelled by the Fellini-esque freakshow he has just witnessed, the boy cannot resist looking into the ViewMaster again. This time, he is transported to a basketball court, where the three guys are dancing badly in the rain while wearing life jackets. They then begin playing basketball with some other guys, who also appear to beat the crap out of them. The young boy races onto the court, and somehow dunks a basketball to show, once and for all, who is the master of all he sees.

The three guys, who for the first time finally understand how sports are clearly something that they should avoid, go back to dancing badly in the rain, while increasing the amount of their suntan color. The beautiful women from the beach begin fawning once again over the young boy, who strangely strikes some sort of Gary Coleman stance as he once again asserts his manliness over the three guys.

The young boy, now drunk on his own power and testosterone, dresses up like a pimp straight of "Superfly" (complete with a furry hat, no less!) and steals a yellow Corvette for his own. The three guys go into the worst breakdown in history, complete with a flailing dance move to symbolize their loss of sexuality. The beautiful women, who are now convinced that the young boy/pimp is their only possibility of ever achieving reproductive success, rush towards the boy/pimp and begin throwing themselves at him.

The young boy seizes with one last flash of guilt, and tears the Viewmaster from his eyes. Realizing that the power of the ViewMaster is too great for him, he takes his revenge on the beggar by tricking him into accepting the ViewMaster, and as a result, his own doom. The end.

HELP ME! I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS! ARE THEY SAYING THAT VIEWMASTERS ARE A SHORTCUT TO MANLINESS? ARE THEY SAYING THAT ANYONE WHO REFUSES TO DANCE IN THE RAIN IS A PIMP AND SHOULD BE FLOODED WITH SEXUAL GRATIFICATION? ARE THE THREE GAY GUYS JUST A METAPHOR FOR THE SUNTAN THAT OUR SOULS WILL NEVER ACHIEVE, DUE TO OUR COLLECTIVE METAPHYSICAL LACK OF ATHLETIC ABILITY? WHAT?!?! TELL ME!!!!!!!

An interview with the three guys leads to no answers but many more questions.

No wonder this group is so big in Germany.

PLEASE. For God's sake, explain this to me in the comments section.

Friday, February 16, 2007

Ricky Gervais meets Larry David

OK, forgive me, but today is gonna be a really slow day, and I know that I'm gonna wanna watch this whole thing when things get really slow.

For those of you who are not me, this is a truly fascinating conversation from the BBC between two legends of comedy: Ricky Gervais and Larry David. If you have any interest in the discussion of what is funny and why, this is for you. It's been broken down into various segments for YouTube, but watch them all if you can, they're fantastic.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Argh! Now what?


Well, I shoulda guessed this when I saw Rage Against The Machine was playing Coachella, but Chris Cornell has left Audioslave, thereby ending the last decent hard rock band out there. Dammit.

"Due to irresolvable personality conflicts as well as musical differences, I am permanently leaving the band Audioslave. I wish the other three members nothing but the best in all of their future endeavors," Cornell said in a statement.

In other words, "I already spent a long time in Soundgarden with a bunch of guys that I never liked, and that band was a lot better than these guys anyway."

Sigh. Oh well. Cornell says he's releasing a solo record in May, and who knows? Maybe it will be good. Did you see his opening song in Casino Royale? I really liked it! I thought it was a really great mix of David Arnold's brassy orchestral sound with a real rock number. However, some people hated it.

Here, you see what you think.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

High school was just like this for me too.

You all may recall my strong avocation of all things Strong Bad.

My friend Lynn Baber reminds us all why with Strong Bad's Teen Girl Squad!

A'ight?

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

How desperate is Vanilla Ice for money?

Just ask the I.R.S.

Lord knows what this will do to his street credibility.

Monday, February 12, 2007

So now you know.

One of the things that you learn when you have children is that you need to get good at answering questions. Not just "Hey, where's the bathroom" type questions (although it's VERY good to know the answer to that question), but also like "Why is chocolate dangerous to the the dog?" type questions.

Which is why I'm so excited about my latest blog discovery called I Did Not Know That Yesterday!

This blog answers some fantastic questions such as:

- Are some animals gay?

- How did the tradition of placing candles on a birthday cake originate?

- Why do we have bad breath in the morning?

Heck, it even answers where blogs came from?

If there was ever a reason to take a computer into the bathroom with you, this site would be it. Although one could reasonably claim the same thing (for a different reason) for this particular blog...

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Would you like to know who people are gonna be freaking out about in 6 months?

So, ok, I watched the Grammys. They were ok.

For the Grammys, this is a massive step forward. Usually, they're fucking terrible. But this Grammy was better than most, because, surprise surprise, they honored some great musicians from the past and those people sound better than most of what's out there at the moment.

The Police sounded great, I predict that they're gonna sell out that world tour in about 5 seconds. The Chili Peppers finally got some well deserved recognition, albeit 15 years too late. Smokey Robinson sounded good, but jesus, that guy has had more botox than Joan Rivers. Smokey! Baby! We can't see the tracks of your tears if your face can't move when you cry!

The newer artists, on the other hand, let me down (Gnarls Barkley notwithstanding). Like, I'm sorry, having the Black Eyed Peas honoring Booker T and The MG's merely points out the many reasons why the Black Eyed Peas will never have the musical legacy of the MG's. I mean, I gotta tell you, people, I listen to new music every day and I can't tell ya how much of it isn't that exciting anymore.

What summed it up for me at the Grammys was the performance of John Legend, Corrine Bailey Rae, and John Mayer. Of these three, I like John Mayer the best, although I have to say that he seems on a mission to make his music less interesting with each album. HEY JOHN! Meet me at camera 3.

Look, John. You're talented. You're a good songwriter. You need to do two things for me right now. Number one: get the hell away from Jessica Simpson. Number two: stop trying to be Eric Clapton. Seriously. I know it sounds like a good idea, but the bottom line is that Eric Clapton has not made an interesting album in 30 years. But people love him because he made that album way back then. You have not made that album. Do not start sucking until AFTER you make that album. Please. It's the only fair thing for all of us involved.

But seriously, we were lucky John Mayer was up there, compared to the other two up there with him. Can somebody explain to me what the hell is so exciting about John Legend? People are always like "John Legend is bringing back the sexy soul singer." HEY LOOK. JOHN LEGEND IS AS SEXY AS A GLASS OF MILK. THAT'S IT. IT'S NOT HAPPENING.

And Corrine Bailey Rae? OK. That tears it. I am tired of these singers coming up, they get the spotlight, and THEY GOT NO PERSONALITY.

Just forget about Corrine Bailey Rae, ok? She's not gonna get more interesting. But I do have an alternative for you.



There's this singer named Amy Winehouse. In 6 months from now, I predict she's gonna be huge. That is, if she doesn't kill herself before then.

She literally has everything going against her. She's from England. She's got drug/alcohol problems. She's got an eating disorder. She's already gotten in fights with the UK press. She's good-looking, but also honestly kinda looks like a drag queen. In general, she's really troubled.

Which, of course, means that her music is really phenomenal and that she will become the next big thing, if she doesn't fuck it up somehow.

What's so great about her music? Well, guess what! She sounds like she's making music circa 1965. Yes, it sounds retro-Motown, but it feels really honest. I gotta tell ya, I'm one skeptical guy for this kind of thing, and you know what? I bought it. I'm in.

Here, see if you don't agree. This is the video for her new single "Rehab".



Here are some other tracks for you to listen to:

"You Know I'm No Good"

"Love Is A Losing Game (acoustic version)"

and of course, my favorite track of all (for totally obvious reasons): "Me And Mr Jones"!

Not bad, huh? Come on, Amy! Don't die on us before you hit it big. I watched the Grammys tonight, and lord knows, we need somebody like you bad.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

You like that Paypal?




Click here to get a $15 rebate on any $30 purchase anywhere that takes Paypal, including Ebay!

Totally cool!

Friday, February 09, 2007

The mp3's best friend is...

OK, it's official.

I LOVE being this hip new cutting-edge software user with my new Mac! I mean, every day is just so super cool, finding new software for it and seeing how well it just works.

Today I have found something that is just freaking unbelievably awesome that you have just gotta cancel the rest of the day and check this out.

OK, you know how there are all those mp3 blogs out there filled with new music that you wanna listen to? Don't you wish that there was something to just organize all the tracks on those various blogs in one place on your computer, so you could listen to them and decide whether you want you wanna download em or not?



WELL! Now there is! It's a new piece of software called Peel. It does exactly what I'm talking about, and right now, you can get it for free! Just head on over here and grab it now, so you can start getting down to all the crazy tunes out there.

If you're looking for a list of mp3 blogs to check out, you can look here.

My favorite track on the mp3 blogs tonight is from the awesome blog Music For Robots. It's a track from the second funkiest Bulgarian brass band out there called Balkan Beat Box. (The first funkiest Bulgarian brass band is Slavic Soul Party, but you knew that already, of course.)

The track is called "Bulgarian Chicks" (see below for visual) and you can roll up the rug and start dancing by clicking here.



One more thing, if you are my brother (or you just happen to be somebody who likes those old school hip-hop/soul/rock/everything-and-the-kitchen-sink funk remixes), then you have to download this crazy-ass track from the Hole In The Wall Gang right now. There hasn't been anything like this since Coldcut lost their turntables in customs somewhere along the border.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

I tell ya, people, some days the blog just writes itself.

OK, I'm not making this up, this actually is happening. This is reported by the Metro newspaper of England.

A theatre in Florida has had to change the title of a charity production of "The Vagina Monologues" on its marquee, after a woman complained that it was offensive.

The new name?





That's right. They've decided on 'The Hoohaa Monologues'.

Atlantic Theatres in Atlantic Beach, Florida, received a complaint from a woman who'd seen the advertised title as she drove past with her niece. She said that it had made her niece ask her what a vagina was.

The theatre's Bryce Pfanenstiel commented: 'I'm on the phone and asked “What did you tell her?” She's like, “I'm offended I had to answer the question.”'

So the theatre, anxious to avoid controversy, decided that the childish slang word 'hoohaa' was the most appropriate thing to replace 'vagina'.

Some have welcomed the change to 'The Hoohaa Monologues', while others have expressed some confusion. 'It sounds like a country band,' one passer by commented to local TV station WJXT.

The production was being staged by a group of law students, with all proceeds going to charity. The director of the play has asked that the title be changed back.

The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler's award-winning international hit play, is an attempt to celebrate the vagina as an object of empowerment, rather than of shame. There's some way to go with that one, clearly.

What I wanna know is what were the names that they passed over before they settled on "hoo-haa"?

Leave me some guesses in the comments section, will you?

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

My only ventriloquist joke!

Well, I saw this on David Letterman last night as they were mentioning next week's "Ventriloquist Week 2" on the show. Paul Schaeffer had this joke as a warm-up for the week:

A ventriloquist goes to his agent to complain that he's not happy with his recent gigs and the agent says "Look, I'm sorry to tell you this, but ventriloquism is just a thing of the past. People just don't find it interesting anymore, and the gigs have really dried up. There's nothing I can do."

The ventriloquist, now really afraid for his future, asks what he should do and the agent says "Listen, I've got a great idea. You're terrific at throwing your voice. You should pretend to be a psychic medium. You can hold seances and you can use your voice misdirection skills to pretend that you're the voice of the dead. People will line up to hear you pretend to be their dead relatives!"

So the ventriloquist sets up a studio for himself as a psychic medium, and puts a sign out front advertising his services. A few minutes later, his first customer comes in, and promptly asks what the rates are for his seance.

The ventriloquist says "For you to hear the voice of the dead, the charge is fifty dollars. For you to have a conversation with the dead, the charge is seventy-five dollars. BUT! As a grand opening special, for one hundred dollars, you can have a conversation with the dead while I drink this glass of water!"

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Get out the world's smallest violin and we can all sing along!



Now, you may ask, "Lindsay Jones, you seem like you're pretty busy, why in the world do you have a blog anyway?"

All right, you wanna know why? THIS! THIS IS WHY! When you see stuff like this, you just want to tell as many people as possible about it.

Introducing the Complaints Choir of Helsinki.

That's right. Trust me, when you hear this, you're gonna wanna sing along.

It all got started during a winter day walk of Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. Perhaps it was due to the coldness of the day that they ended up discussing the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something else. Perhaps not directly into heat – but into something powerful anyway.

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression "Valituskuoro". It means "Complaints Choir" and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen thought: "Wouldn´t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir!"

So they went through the streets of Helsinki, asking everyone they met what their main complaint was. They wrote them all down and composed a brilliant song for their choir to sing! Since then, they've had choirs in England, Germany, Poland, Russia and Norway, but to me, Helsinki is my favorite.

Check it out and you'll see what I mean. But, if you don't like it....well, you know what to do.

Monday, February 05, 2007

My favorite commercial from last night.

I didn't even see this when it was on, but heard about it today. Truly funny and sweet at the same time. Yay Late Show!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

Hey, all right! Let's do the update!

You remember how this works, right? Just click on the picture to read the original story, then read on for the update!

- Well, after all my complaining about Apple selecting Cingular for its exclusive contract for the Iphone, I see this article on Apple Insider, which says that Apple approached Verizon first and Verizon turned Apple down!

The reason? Apple wanted to be solely responsible for the customer service of the phone, while Verizon, who actually is a cell phone provider that provides customer service, was like "Uh, hey, no. We got it. Seriously." Apple wouldn't back down, so Verizon said no thanks.

Cingular, on the other hand, was like "Customer service? What's that? OH! THAT! Yeah, whatever, man..." Great work, Apple, on being so Apple-y AGAIN. Did you happen to call Sony yet to see how that whole Beta vs. VHS thing played out? Maybe you should look into that to get over that 7% market share hurdle...


- All right, thankfully Joe. My. God. finally gets to the bottom of this whole Donnie Davies and his anti-gay bands crusade and the answer is YES! THE WHOLE THING IS A GAG! Thank god. Of course, now all these people are coming out and saying "Of course it's a gag! That's satire! I knew it all along."

I have two things to say to you people:

1. You did not know it was a gag.

2. If you seriously actually thought "That extraordinarily well-constructed piece of satire, in which a bigoted idiot is placed in a high position of trust and power, could never really happen in real life", then you did not vote in the last presidential election.


- Well, the Bears lost the Super Bowl. They tried, and it looked good at first, but in the end, no dice. Ditka goes back to just owning a steak house. It's probably for the best.

My son probably put it best when he said "Daddy, they keep falling down. But I want them to win!" I know, kid, I know. That's just how it goes in the world of Chicago sports. Actually, I'm not really one to talk, I only watch one football game a year, and it's usually the Super Bowl. This game just reminded me of why I took on that policy.

Prince played, and as predicted, there was no dancing on his part, although I have to say he pulled some pretty awesome guitar licks out of the rain. Anybody watching that who was thinking "Aw man, I could play guitar like that" has never had to play in that kinda weather. Also, is it me or did Prince not only do a medley of his songs, he also did a medley of every song in the last 40 years?

Anyway, I'm glad Prince didn't have to dance, he woulda totally busted his skinny ass on that soaking wet stage. Fortunately, he took off the Dorothy Lamour headscarf halfway through. Overall, it was a good show! Although I can't lie, I really missed his dancing. I know I've said this before, but if you ever get the chance to see Prince live, you must do it. He is, without a doubt, the single most talented performer/musician that I have ever seen anywhere. I've seen him 6 times in concert and was blown away every single time. He truly is that good.

If you missed the Super Bowl, you can at least check out Prince's part here. But, even better, WAY BETTER, check out Prince's show at the Super Bowl press conference as our second video selection below. DUDE! He got the fucking Linn drum into "Johnny B. Goode"! It's just like wearing an orange suit and high heels while two women gyrate against you while you're playing some crazy guitar solo. ONLY Prince can pull that shit off. God bless him.



Lastly, we're getting close to 20,000 page views now on this blog, which just seems insane to me, but hey, that's the power of the internet. I know I'm not as good a blogger as I should be, but thanks to you for hanging in there and bothering to read this whenever I can get it together to post.

Just know that I want to win, even when I keep falling down.

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Windows Vista joke of the week!

Because you really could have one every day if you wanted...

Friday, February 02, 2007

Damn, I'm old.

When it gets right down to it, how do you know when you're old?

Is it the aches and pains? The poor eyesight? That certain point when you start paying attention to that IRA brochure?

Maybe.

But really when it hits home is when the people whom you personally consider to be vibrant and fresh are the ones looking old. That's when you're like "Christ, they're old! And so am I! AHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Look at these three things that have shown up this week:

- The Buzzcocks are now a soundtrack for an AARP commercial. Literally! "Everybody's Happy Nowadays" is now playing as the underscore for the latest commercial. Oh, people, this is so depressing, I don't even know where to begin. This is the band who had these poppy songs that rattled with chainsaw guitars! "Orgasm Addict" was one of their big hits! But, hey, you think that's depressing? Check out this interview with original Buzzcocks bassist Steve Garvey. I knew there was a good reason why I got out of rock'n'roll. Remind me never to retire.

- Prince is having hip surgery! PRINCE! IS HAVING HIP SURGERY! That is, we think. He's a Jehovah's Witness. (Thanks again, Larry Graham!) And he's still doing the halftime show at the Super Bowl. But still, read this and see if you don't get depressed.

- But the true sign that I'm getting old? The Police are getting back together! For the Grammys! Now, ordinarily this would be a good idea, but after Sly Stone's appearance at the Grammy's last year, lord knows if it's worth all the hype. BUT DAMN! Did you ever think you'd see this?

Hell has frozen over! And the devil is down there thinking "Damn, I'm old."

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Nine Inch Nails totally took over my desk.

And they did it by sounding a hell of a lot like LCD Soundsystem.

 
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