Hell If I Know!

More cowbell!

2007-03-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

Do you know what the world has been waiting for?

The world's first modeling cowbell! That's what!

You say you like playing that cowbell, but you want to get different cowbell sounds without switching bells?

HELLO! This is the cowbell for you!

OK, I'm still really sick...

2007-03-19T21:48:00.000-07:00

But I can't resist posting this. My eyes are slowly coming back and I think I should be able to start typing for extended periods of time really soon. I'll explain all in a couple of days.

Anyway! You ever wanted to see the moment when a humiliating public event changes a life forever? When you can literally start the clock on how long it will take before someone begins a lifetime of therapy?

I give you the story of 6 year old Etta and American Girl Place.

Please. Just turn off the cameras.

2007-03-18T20:15:00.001-07:00

A totally fascinating video, narrated and illustrated by one of the most original animators currently living: Chris Ware.

If you haven't seen "This American Life" on Showtime yet, this may finally be the reason to subscribe to the channel. Besides the soft porn, I mean.

Ann Coulter's next move...

2007-03-17T21:41:00.000-07:00

Because, truly, what is St. Patrick's Day without a leprechaun?

2007-03-16T18:42:00.000-07:00

One year ago a leprechaun captured the hearts of a small town and became an internet phenomena. My, how time flies. Today, on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day, take a minute to remember the leprechaun from Mobile, Alabama and how one town completely lost their minds.

If The Departed ran a workers' union...

2007-03-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

it would be fuckin' AFSCME! Don't ask me what it means!

The new democracy and how to subvert it... (kinda like the old democracy)

2007-03-14T08:23:00.000-07:00

All right, I'm not judging (well, maybe a little), but seriously, let's talk about you and your American Idol habit for a moment, shall we?

Having only seen this season a couple of times so far, I can only say that, more than ever, it's not about the singing, it's about the phone calls. Pure and simple. Either that or people keep confusing Sanjaya with Halle Berry, which is actually not so impossible to believe. See?

Yeesh.

Anyway, where was I?

OH YES! The phone calls!

Now I hear what you're saying. "Lindsay, what can I do? I call and I call and just keep getting the damned busy signal. I'm a victim of circumstance! What can I do?"

Look, you got a computer, whaddya think it's made for? That's right, manipulating reality to bend to your will!

Introducing Dial Idol, the new computer software specifically designed for speed-dialing Americal Idol and shows of the same ilk (i.e. Dancing With The Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, Is There Nothing You Won't Watch?, etc.).

This is not a joke, this is a real piece of software. According to the website, it works like this:

- You download DialIdol software onto your computer. The software is 100% free & safe.

- DialIdol uses your phone & phone modem to automatically speed dial votes for your favorite contestants.

- DialIdol records the result of every call, a vote or a busy signal, then submits this data anonymously to DialIdol.com. DialIdol measures the busy signal to determine which Idols are getting the most votes, based on the results it can automatically direct your votes to one of your favorite Idols, but not necessarily your favorite.

- DialIdol.com receives results from people all over the country and uses the busy/vote ratio to produce a prediction.

According to the website, DialIdol was 87% accurate for season 5 of American Idol and has accurately predicted the winner of every show it has covered.

PLus, they post constant updates to their predictions of who they think will stay on and who will be booted off. They can even tell what states voted for what contestants! (Memo to Sanjaya: head south when the inevitable happens...)

The only downside: it only works on Windows computers. Well, that, and the fact that you have no life due to your endless obsession over this show in the first place.

Not that I'm judging...

So did you see The Departed yet?

2007-03-13T02:47:00.001-07:00

Here it is, in less than 2 minutes. Just click on the picture.

However, beware! It does have some...uh...rough language.

Where not to hide your money from a burglar robbing your house.

2007-03-12T03:06:00.000-07:00

Of all places, the blog called Personal Finance Advice has an interview with a former burglar and asks him where he would and would not look for money when robbing a house.

The answers are actually pretty interesting.

Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Do you have a problem with squirrels eating all your bird seed?

2007-03-11T01:56:00.000-08:00

No?

Thank goodness. Then you can just enjoy this video of squirrels getting dizzy and falling down off of the Twirl-A-Squirrel like I did. Holy crap, is it stupid and hilarious.

If you wanna watch squirrels fall down in your yard, click here. Or just watch the video again. Trust me, it works over and over.

Whoo hoo! New LCD Soundsystem!

2007-03-10T02:08:00.000-08:00

All right, all you techno-geek record collectors out there. You know who you are.

The brilliantly-titled blog "Charles Bronson Vs. God" has the first leak of the new album "Sound Of Silver".

It's called "Someone Great" and I would download it from here right now before Capitol Records sends THAT email that we all know so well.

The answer to your question is: YES, it is better than the mix track that he put together for the Nike/Ipod thing. What the fuck was that shit anyway?

What is the price of irony? At the moment, it's about $950.

2007-03-09T23:55:00.000-08:00

What's this, you may ask?

Why, it's a massage table that's available for sale on Ebay.

Why am I showing you a massage table that's for sale?

Well, you may recall a certain minister named Ted Haggard, who while preaching openly against homosexuality, was involved with in a gay relationship with a masseur named Mike Jones.

Wait a minute. A masseur?

That's right. It's THAT TABLE.

Mike Jones, the former prostitute who serviced Ted Haggard, is selling the massage table on which Reverend Ted Haggard enjoyed/tested/didn't-really-do-anything himself.

From Mike Jones' Ebay listing:

The table where it all happened. Table is about 10 years old with a few tears but totaly usable.

Will autograph table if requested and in June an autographed book "I Had To Say Something" by Mike Jones will be sent.

The beauty part of this?

All proceeds benefit 'Project Angel Heart', who provides people living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-threatening illnesses nutritious home-delivered meals.

Nice, huh?

Maybe there is a God after all.

If I gotta watch it, then you gotta watch it.

2007-03-08T12:55:00.000-08:00

I'm starting work on "Troilus And Cressida" at Chicago Shakespeare this week, and I've been told that seeing the new movie "The 300" would be helpful in researching the time period. It should be said, however, that the New York Times sums it up as "Much butchery, some lechery."

BUT! The damn thing is sold out! We tried to see it at the IMAX last night, and every single show was completely sold.

So here's the first 5 minutes of the movie to watch until I can get in to see the whole thing. Enjoy!

I'll take mine without cream cheese, thanks.

2007-03-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

AdFreak found this ad, for the River City Bagel & Bakery in Boise, Idaho, reportedly ran in the Boise Weekly. No wonder the place has a “fun atmosphere.”

It turns out The Vagina Monologues is playing in town.

Hmmmmm. I do not remember that monologue in the show.

Well, if I can't get DUMBASS, maybe this will work...

2007-03-06T11:56:00.000-08:00

Click on the picture.

At least it wasn't a tattoo, right?

The sexiest thing that you'll ever see that involves no nudity.

2007-03-05T00:35:00.000-08:00

All right. This next post is not exactly NSFW, but if you have those kinds of issues, you might just glance around before going further, or you may have some splainin' to do otherwise.

So we all know what the internet is really for, which is porn, of course. But what is porn exactly anyway? Traditionally, it's images of people having sex, but in this high tech world we live in now, well....let's just say things have gotten a little more complicated.

Which is why something like the website Beautiful Agony is kinda refreshingly simple and perfect, if you think about it.

OK, so the premise is pretty simple: it's videos of people masturbating. However! You can only see them from the neck up! That's right, no nudity, just their face. That's it. These are not professional actors, these are just real people in real places. Men and women. Separately, and occasionally together. They are not paid for their performance.

As if that wasn't enough, there's also a section called "Confessions" where the people tell what the circumstances were when they made the video.

What's it all like? Well, it's a wide variety of things, as you can imagine. It's occasionally sexy, it's occasionally bizarre, it's occasionally "Jesus, what the hell is going on down there?". It's an experience, let me tell you.

Since I first experienced this concept through a music video by a band from Columbus, Ohio called The Sun, I'm gonna put that video here first. While I'm on the fence about the music, the editing is kinda great, and it's a pretty compelling thing to watch.

OK, now that you've seen that, here's what it's really like in context. Don't say I didn't warn you! Choose your format below the picture.

play windows media

play quicktime

beautifulagony.com

I bet you a dollar that you cannot do this on the flute.

2007-03-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

And if you can, I'm coming over.

Meet Greg Pattillo, master of the beatbox flute.

He's a regular performer in Washington Square Park in New York City, and lives in Brooklyn, NY. While I'm not sure I'd buy a whole album of this stuff, it does begin to undo some of the damage caused by 40 years of Jethro Tull.

Although he does play with other bands such as The National Debt (which is basically him and another guy who thinks he's M. Doughty), I recommend sticking with his solo work.

Another one? All right, why not. Let's do one that's popular around these parts, shall we?

Mr. Pattillo, when you're ready...

Catfights with the sound people!

2007-03-03T11:45:00.000-08:00

You know, the common perception about people who work in the sound industry is that we're kinda quiet geeks who hang out quietly in the back, and then occasionally blast loud noises to unsuspecting people in front of us. For the most part, we live in the shadows and never try to steal the spotlight. This is true.

HOWEVER!

Man, what a week it has been to prove that theory wrong! Sound people have lost their minds!

First, there was Brice Carrington. Brice is a Hollywood sound effects guy, who's name was supplied to a reporter for consideration for an article about him. Brice had a quite a story to tell, too.

Brice had come up from humble beginnings, selling records at swap meets and then eventually was able to get his foot in the door as a sound effects person.

He had received 3 commemorative Oscars for “King Kong,” “Ghost and the Darkness,” and “Jurassic Park.” He has created sound effects for 41 blockbuster films, including "Jurassic Park 3", "Blade, The Blood Hunt", "Rush Hour 2", "Van Helsing", "Superman Returns", "Spiderman", and the "Mummy Returns" sequels.

It was Brice Carrington who gave King Kong his roar, the T-Rex and other dinosaurs their menacing sound in the movie "Jurassic Park", put the hiss in "Snakes on a Plane", the swoosh in Superman’s flight and the swirling sound in Spiderman’s web-shooting. Carrington is the man behind the pops, bangs, booms and blasts of the firepower in "Miami Vice", "True Lies", "The Fantastic Four" and "The Incredible Hulk", etc.

Wow, right? This guy is clearly a Hollywood sound legend.

Only one problem. It was all completely untrue! This man had never done of those things that he had claimed, he just made it all up!

Slowly, other sound designers began to realize that this guy was claiming credit for their work! When the reporter contacted Brice to confront him with these claims, he responded with this admission:

"I am Brice Carrington. I am writing this note to address comments made about me and to state some facts about my work. All the statements made that say directly that I have NEVER worked on a film or have won an academy award for sound is absolutely true. I have never worked on a motion picture nor have I ever won an academy award.

The fact is, I am a sound designer, and I make recreations of sounds found in films and sell them to the public through a brand called Ultimate FX. I am completely responsible for all the misleading or incorrect statements made about me in the press. My effort was to create press for the brand Ultimate FX, which I am the author. I did this foolishly. This is a library where I have made my OWN versions of movie sounds. I have no association with the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I commemorate the Oscars by creating a version of the main characters in films that win Oscars. Like in Jurassic Park, we make a T-Rex using hogs in water, lion growls, a lawn mower and elephant roars. That is My version. I sell this and other sounds complete with the stems to consumers. This is a lawful enterprise, but misleading the public or allowing mis-characterizations is wrong.

I am issuing an apology for making all of the misleading or mischaracterizations of my work. I apologize to those in the sound industry and the makers of the original works and studios that distribute them for this offense. To correct this, I will ask for retractions were appropriate in the press. I will also refrain from any further public comments and allow the brand and the product to speak for itself through traditional means of sales and marketing. To those in the sound industry and those specifically I have offended, you have a right to be upset, and I offer my sincere apology. I am sorry that you had to spend one minute of your time addressing this. b"

Well, at least he came clean about it, but still! That takes balls, kid.

BUT! That's NOTHING compared to the balls of sound mixer Michael Minkler. Minkler, along with his two colleagues Willie Burton and Bob Beemer, won the Oscar this week for their mixing of "Dreamgirls". Among the people who they beat out for this award was sound mixer Kevin O'Connell, who had been nominated for his mixing of "Apocalypto". O'Connell had recently gotten a lot of press as he's the Susan Lucci of sound mixers: he's been nominated 19 times for an Oscar without ever winning. 19 TIMES! Who can't empathize with that?

Well, clearly, Michael Minkler had heard enough about this by the time he reached the press room backstage with Burton and Beemer after he had won his Oscar. A question was thrown to the trio about what advice they had for the losing Kevin O'Connell. While Burton and Beemer had conciliatory things to say -- "Hang in there, Kevin, you'll get your chance," Burton said -- Minkler's words were the opposite. "I think Kevin should go away with 19 nominations, and find another line of work." he said without cracking a smile. "We work really hard, and if we stumble upon an award, we are so grateful. I just wonder what Kevin's trying to do out there by trying to get an award by using sympathy. And Kevin's an okay mixer, but enough's enough about Kevin."

Reporters have a hard time trying to figure out whether Minkler is serious or not. Turns out he was.

But wait! Is Kevin O'Connell there so we can ask him for a response? No, he's not! Where is he?

Wait for it.

That's right. He's with his dying mother. That's right, his mother who was on her death bed, and died immediately following the Oscars telecast.

BOOM would be the sound that I would put here.

O'Connell responded the following morning through email: "As you may or may not know, my mother Skippy passed away on Sunday night right after the Oscars. I was holding her in my arms when she died. I was not made aware of Mr. Minkler's comments until Monday morning. I have not seen them personally and at this point I have no intention of looking at them or reading about them. I'll get back to you when I get that far down on my list of what is important to me. Take care, Kevin."

Certainly a dignified response. Other sound designers remain completely shocked and aghast at this whole thing. O'Connell's sound mixing partner for "Apocalypto", Greg P. Russell, was pissed to say the least as he spoke to Incontention.com about whether or not Minkler was serious about his comments:

"He was absolutely sincere with that BULLSHIT. That man has lost whatever respect he had from a ton of people. Kevin, mind you, left the ceremonies right after our award and went to the hospital where his mother passed away in his arms at 11:32 pm. As if Kevin didn't have enough to deal with. He wakes up to this bullshit."

"It's been a really weird couple of days. I've been fielding all the calls because Kev has been out. The head of our studio came in to say he blasted Minkler for his assault. I even kicked myself for being congratulatory that night. Minkler said to me when I congratulated him that I was always a classy guy and he appreciated that a lot. Integrity is something that means everything to me and this man has absolutely NONE. He stood backstage representing the entire Sound Community in front of the world, only to disgrace us all."

OH, LET THIS BE A LESSON TO YOU, MY FRIENDS. There is one rule in Hollywood that you must never never break. That rule is BE NICE TO EVERYONE PUBLICLY, even if they're screwing you. Especially if they're screwing you. Because you never know.

You never, never know.

How do you make a record?

2007-03-02T01:23:00.000-08:00

Here, let's ask Duke Ellington!

This promotional short (or "soundie", as they used to call them back then) for Irving Mills' short-lived Master and Variety labels not only gives us a glimpse of Ellington and his band in the actual Master/Variety studios (as opposed to a soundstage set), but is one of the very few film accounts of how records were recorded, plated and pressed in the long-ago age of analog, shellac and 78 rpm. Narration is provided by pioneer radio announcer Alois Havrilla.

These soundies were short musical filmclips that were played in jukeboxes in the thirties and forties. The device that played them used a mirror. The films were made in reverse and then their mirror images were projected to the viewers.

You can find this film as part of the truly fantastic DVD that's included in RCA's "The Centennial Collection" CD, that's now out of print but still can be picked up here. I bought this cd for a production of "Born Yesterday" that I was doing at Milwaukee Repertory, but spent most of my free time watching this DVD, which is fantastic.

AND CHECK THIS OUT! Also featured on the DVD is this soundie of Duke's "Cottontail", titled "Hot Chocolates" features some ASTOUNDING dancing by Whitey's Lindy Hoppers! Watch this and see if their dancing doesn't blow your mind!

Cast:
Duke Ellington Orchestra featuring Ben Webster
Whitey's Lindy Hoppers (In order of appearance):
William Downes and Frances "Mickey" Jones
Norma Miller and Billy Ricker
Al Minns and Willa Mae Ricker
Ann Johnson and Frankie Manning

The group known as "Whitey's Lindy Hoppers that appears in this soundie was also known as the "The Harlem Congaroos". They were the undisputed stars of all the groups of Whitey's dancers. After completing the filming of Hellzapoppin', the group had a contract to do a second film for Universal Studios. However, Whitey received an offer for them to perform in Rio de Janiero, Brazil, and decided he did not want his dancers to wait around for a script that was offbeat enough to incorporate the dancers. Such scripts had proven to be few and far between in the past.

In order to break the contract, Whitey agreed to make this soundie, which was an enormous hit throughout the United States. The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place while the Harlem Congeroos were in Rio, and they were unable to get back home to the United States after their 6-week engagement was over.

They spent 6 months working to make enough money to secure their safe passage back to the USA and finally managed to fly back to Florida, where they arrived with no money in their pockets to make the trip back to New York. In Miami they discovered that the soundie of "Hot Chocolates" was a big hit and was on every jukebox! They found employment with a nightclub owner who capitalized on the popularity of this soundie by advertising that he had the "Hot Chocolates in Person!"

All I know is that the peeople dancing in that video are made of elastic. There's simply no other explanation. They have to be.

Who's the guy in the produce section dressed like Darth Vader?

2007-03-01T01:57:00.000-08:00

It's Darth's younger brother, Chad.

Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager.

In Madison, Wisconsin, no less!

This is Episode 1.

Go here to learn more about Chad or see all his episodes here!

When late night TV was really something to see.

2007-02-28T02:08:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2007-02-27T01:12:00.000-08:00

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….

A new interview with me!

2007-02-26T21:08:00.000-08:00

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!

Oscar night at my house!

2007-02-25T22:04:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2007-02-24T01:06:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2007-02-23T01:53:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-23T01:46:00.000-08:00

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

I have no shame whatsoever. Duh, right?

Dammit, I miss Clinton.

2007-02-22T00:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Wait. Isn't this a movie already?

2007-02-21T12:13:00.000-08:00

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!

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

2007-02-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

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.

How to unlock your car with a tennis ball.

2007-02-19T12:59:00.000-08:00

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

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

Carlos Mencia - busted onstage!

2007-02-18T02:58:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2007-02-17T19:24:00.000-08:00

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.

Ricky Gervais meets Larry David

2007-02-16T04:12:00.000-08:00

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.

Argh! Now what?

2007-02-15T03:37:00.000-08:00

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.

High school was just like this for me too.

2007-02-14T18:33:00.000-08:00

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?

How desperate is Vanilla Ice for money?

2007-02-13T01:43:00.000-08:00

Just ask the I.R.S.

Lord knows what this will do to his street credibility.

So now you know.

2007-02-12T12:27:00.000-08:00

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...

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

2007-02-11T21:03:00.000-08:00

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.

You like that Paypal?

2007-02-10T00:41:00.000-08:00

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

Totally cool!

The mp3's best friend is...

2007-02-09T01:45:00.000-08:00

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.

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

2007-02-08T22:19:00.000-08:00

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?

My only ventriloquist joke!

2007-02-07T02:21:00.000-08:00

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!"

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

2007-02-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

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.

My favorite commercial from last night.

2007-02-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

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!

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

2007-02-04T21:22:00.000-08:00

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.

Windows Vista joke of the week!

2007-02-03T22:44:00.000-08:00

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

Damn, I'm old.

2007-02-02T23:32:00.000-08:00

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."

Nine Inch Nails totally took over my desk.

2007-02-01T20:52:00.000-08:00

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

Hey, so have you seen this Reggie Watts guy?

2007-01-31T21:36:00.000-08:00

He's pretty freakin amazing. Check out this entirely improv'd beatbox jam with nothing more than a phrase sampler and a good memory.

Check out Reggie Watts website here.

My celebrity weekend, part 2

2007-01-30T23:14:00.000-08:00

So I get back to LA late Saturday night, and the next day, my wife Jamie Pachino was receiving an award called the Scientists, Technologists, and Artists Generating Exploration (STAGE) award, sponsored by UC Santa Barbara's Professional Artists Lab and the California NanoSystems Institute. No, I'm not making this up!

It was for her play called Splitting Infinity, and the ceremony included an award presentation by Nobel Laureate David Gross (2004, physics) and a fantastic reading of the play by a star-studded cast. Look, I swear I'm not making this up. Here, go here and read this press release for yourself.

Who are these stars, you say? Well, there was Sharon Lawrence, who you know as Andy's wife on "NYPD Blue", Michael Cassidy, who played Zach Stevens on "The O.C.", and Saul Rubinek, who has literally been in every movie ever.

The cast was uniformly excellent, as well as very nice people, and it was a really lovely afternoon. Nancy Kawalek was the director, and man, she did a great job of putting up a reading in one day. It had like projections and lighting cues, it was definitely the most produced reading of a play that I had ever seen.

Now, because I've composed music for this show twice in the past, Nancy asked me if they could use my music for the reading and, of course I said yes. It worked out great and I was glad to contribute to the night.

So, afterwards, I'm chatting with people and just generally being proud of my wife, when someone comes up to me and says "Lindsay, there's someone who wants to meet you. He loved the music in the play."

Well, hey, great! Sure, I'll meet this person. So I walk over and the person who's introducing me says "Lindsay, this is Howard Hesseman."

Well, you coulda knocked me over with a feather!

And he says, "Hey, man, I loved your music! I liked the play a lot but I really loved your music!"

I was like "WOW! Thanks!", and inside my head, I'm thinking "Wow! Dr. Johnny Fever likes my music!" I mean, you have to understand, I NEVER missed "WKRP In Cincinnati" when I was a kid. I was a huge fan! And now he's telling me he's a fan of me!

He said "Hey, so what is that anyway? It's like this crazy cosmic klezmer music or something."

And, you know, I never thought about it, but he's completely right, that's exactly what it is.

But I'm just totally starstruck, and I just say "Um. Yeah! That's...uh...that's what it is."

"Well, can't wait to hear more of what you've got sometime soon." And with that, he left.

I was so tongue-tied, I didn't really say anything, but I have to tell you it made my night. Hopefully, I will see him again someday, but if I don't, I'll just have to pretend that Dr. Fever is spinning one of my records late at night on WKRP.

My celebrity weekend, part 1

2007-01-29T11:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it started on Friday night around 11pm. I had to fly back from Los Angeles to Chicago for a meeting on Saturday morning, and for these kinds of things, I've developed kind of a routine, which is:

- fly overnight and get 2-3 hours of sleep on the plane
- get into wherever I'm going at 5am (or so)
- go to wherever I'm staying (in this case, my apartment in Chicago) and get another 3 hours sleep
- go to the meeting, recording session, runthrough, etc.
- fly back on the last flight of the night, and then be back in Los Angeles by midnight or so.

Piece of cake, right? I do this about once a week.

Now, as you can imagine, I've gotten very good at working the upgrades so that I can fly in First Class as much as humanly possible. It can make a huge difference in how these trips go, and I'm dedicated about making it happen. Now, most of the time, my airline of choice is United, but because American is running a special at the moment (25,000 bonus miles if I make 3 trips into O'Hare before Feb 28!), I'm on American.

American's rules about upgrading a little weird, compared to most other airlines, so you gotta pay close attention if you're gonna try it. With most airlines, you put in the request in advance and if there's room, they confirm it. If there's not, then they put you on the list, which means that when you're at the gate, if First Class isn't full, then they move you up into an empty seat. On American, however, if you don't get confirmed into First Class, you have to wait til you get to the airport and then ask to put yourself on the list AGAIN for the empty seats. Then the priority of who gets what is based on how early you showed up at the airport. It's a totally wack system, if you ask me, and if I hadn't asked about it at the gate, I would have missed my chance to move into First altogether.

However, I'm not the only one who was confused by this rule! I'm standing at the counter waiting on my upgrade to be called, and there's a tall stocky man standing beside me trying to get the gate agent's attention while she is checking out the upgrade list.

The conversation went like this:

Tall Stocky Guy (TSG): "Excuse me, miss, I wanted to see if..."

Gate Agent (GA): (not looking up) "Just one moment, sir."

TSG: "I just wanted to make sure..."

GA: (still not looking up) "Just a moment, sir. I need to call these upgrades out."

TSG: "Yes, I know that and I wanted to get..."

GA: (absolutely still not looking up while picking up the PA microphone) "I'll be right with you, sir. I just need to announce these upgrades."

TSG: "Wait, please..."

GA: (over the PA system) "MIKE DITKA. PASSENGER MIKE DITKA, WOULD YOU PLEASE STEP UP TO THE COUNTER?"

The entire terminal breaks into applause as TSG, a.k.a Mike Ditka throws his hands up into the air and then bangs them on the counter.

Then GA looks at Mike with a completely straight face and says "Yes, sir, how can I help you?"

Iron Mike's trouble's were not over, however. Mike had been given the illustrious seat 5B in First, which is the back seat on the aisle, and of course, they seat everyone in First Class first, which means that now Mike is in his seat, and the entire population of Economy (a totally full flight) would be filing past him as if he was the king and they were his subjects. Which, let's face it, they were. I mean, this is a flight bound to Chicago, and the Bears are one week away from their first Super Bowl appearance in 20 years, which was with Iron Mike.

There was a moment where I thought maybe I should ask if he wants to trade seats with me, who was living in anonymity in 6F, the back window seat. But before I could ask, he quickly pretended to be asleep, as Economy started to board. Honestly, I can't blame him. No less than 15 people walked by, whispering to their friend "Wake him up! It's Ditka!", but thankfully nobody did.

I have to say the biggest surprise about seeing the man in person is that he's much taller than I thought he was. I'm so used to seeing him on TV, being dwarfed by his players, that I was genuinely surprised to see that Ditka is, in fact, taller than me. Turns out those football players are a LOT taller than me, which is probably the reason that I do not play football. Well, that, and the fact that I don't really follow football.

However, I'm not as clueless as my good friend Alexandra Billings, with whom I was on the phone when all this was happening.

Me: "Alex, I'm on the plane with Mike Ditka!"

Alex: "That's fantastic, sweetie! How exciting! Now, is he the baseball guy?"

This all being said, the flight was very uneventful, and Ditka managed to get off the plane in Chicago without too much hubbub. There was an American representative waiting for Ditka on the jetbridge, and he quickly escorted him to a motorized cart to drive him through the terminal. (Nice service! Even Pierce Brosnan didn't get this, although he stole my seat, which is a whole other story.)

As he was getting into the cart, I said "Good luck next Sunday, coach!", to which he said "Thanks, kid." and then sped away into the pre-dawn darkness of Terminal 3. Bleary-eyed, I was kicking myself for not asking for a ride with him. Not so much because I was hoping for quality time with the guy, but because it was 5am and I was tired!

Well, you win some, you lose some. We'll see next Sunday.

Go here to see part 2.

I miss disco.

2007-01-28T11:19:00.000-08:00

Especially disco in the forest.

You miss it too now, don't you?

Top Chef Super Spoiler Alert!

2007-01-27T13:32:00.000-08:00

OH. MY. GOD.

Eater LA claims it knows who the winning chef is for Top Chef.

MUST. RESIST. URGE. TO. CLICK. HERE!

(psst. scroll down. more new posts below. pass it on.)

Pasta for you, pasta for them.

2007-01-26T12:43:00.000-08:00

All right, this is a nice thing here, with benefits for everybody involved.

Barilla is offering a free download of a very nice 35 page pasta cookbook, with recipes by some professional chefs such as Mario Batali as well as some unlikely sources such as Pierce Brosnan, Harrison Ford and Kristin Davis.

Now the cool part is that for the first 100,000 downloads of the cookbook, Barilla will donate 1 dollar per download to America's Second Harvest, a non-profit charity that supplements food banks for the poor across the country. Nice, huh?

Click here to download the book.

Now, whether these recipes are good or not, I have no idea. I have a hard time imagining some of these stars ever EATING pasta, much less having their favorite recipes.

Oh yeah, Sela Ward is definitely pounding back lasagna on a regular basis, I'm so sure.

It's lonely at the top...

2007-01-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

I freakin LOVE the show "Top Chef" on Bravo. No, seriously. I LOVE IT. I'M TOTALLY HOOKED ON IT. If you are not watching it, drop everything and start watching the ten thousand reruns on Bravo right now.

If you're following the show, then you know that Marcel and Ilan are the finalists, and that Marcel is HATED by everyone else on the show. Now, the guy is obnoxious, I will admit that, but the way that people are demonizing him on the show is completely ridiculous. He's just a guy with some poor social skills, that's all. If you think that's so awful, you should spend a couple of weeks with me. I deal with these kinds of people a lot, and they're not bad people, they just don't express themselves very well.

However, no one was more stunned than me that Sam was voted off the show. Sam rocked that show week in and week out. But the judges made their decision and that's how it goes.

But people are just getting fucking crazy now with this whole thing. There's a new report in the news that Marcel was attacked in a restaurant by a woman with a bottle!

"This girl came up to me at a nightclub and asked me if I was Marcel from Top Chef," the 26-year-old cook told the Las Vegas Weekly in a story published in last Thursday's edition of the alternative newspaper. "The next thing I knew, this bottle struck me, and my friends had to rush me to the hospital. I needed 30 stitches."

The unknown assailant was apparently upset with Vigneron's Top Chef 2 behavior, which many of the show's other contestants have described as "selfish" and "arrogant." Vigneron denies both characterizations.

"I don't think I am [arrogant]. I believe in my food, and my abilities, and seriously, if you don't have that belief, how far are you going to make it in the competition? But I never went out of my way to slam anybody else, which I think would be an arrogant thing to do," Vigneron told Las Vegas Weekly. "[I] offered help to the other chefs whenever I could, so I find that [selfish] accusation puzzling."

Uh, well, it's not that puzzling, dude. You are definitely annoying. But, people, please! Hitting people on the head with a bottle is not gonna solve anything.

Especially if it's off camera.

There are so many...

2007-01-24T09:59:00.000-08:00

Do you ever think to yourself "Gee, there are so many conservative idiots out there. I wish there was a way to narrow it down to just the top 10 of the week so that I would know who was being especially stupid this week."

Tada! Democratic Underground actually makes a list every week! Go here to check it out.

Oh my god, I have so been there part 2

2007-01-23T14:13:00.000-08:00

Click here to see part 1.

How to scare the crap out of people in an airport.

2007-01-22T01:59:00.000-08:00

Click here when you can't find a seat in the terminal.

Guaranteed!

Ted Nugent is gay? By gay, do you mean "wears something that perhaps he shouldn't"?

2007-01-21T00:57:00.000-08:00

Seriously? I'm gay?
How can I be gay when I have guitars for hands?

Dammit, I was all set to blog about this guy, and his list of bands that encourage homosexuality, and then my good friend Alexandra Billings beat me to it. Read this whole thing and let your jaw just drop in amazement.

Oy, and the video. Do not even get me started on this video, for crying out loud.

But I will repeat my comment about the list of "Gay Bands":

TED NUGENT IS ON THE LIST. TED FUCKING NUGENT! And next to his name, it says "loincloth", as in what he's wearing on the "Scream Dream" album!

OK, seriously. This man is not gay, this man is not straight.

If he truly finds Ted Nugent in a loincloth to be so tempting as to place him on this list, this man's sexual orientation truly belongs in its own individual category.

And that category is "Insane".

I love eggs!

2007-01-20T18:34:00.000-08:00

OK.

Do yourself a favor.

Drink a half a bottle of cough syrup.

Then click on this.

Nice, huh?

Slayer on Jimmy Kimmel!

2007-01-19T02:03:00.000-08:00

Well, it's quite a weekend for music in LA, what with the Kronos Quartet playing Clint Mansell's score from "Requiem For A Dream" on Friday, and the Bang On A Can All-Stars at UCLA on Saturday and Sunday. (If only I wasn't freezing my nuts off in Chicago!)

BUT! We all know what I wanna see! That's right! SLAYER! The gods of metal appeared last night on Jimmy Kimmel, live from a free concert in downtown Hollywood, and if anybody out there needs a transfusion of testosterone, you've come to the right place.

All right, I know...

2007-01-18T20:16:00.000-08:00

You'd rather die than watch Bill O'Reilly's show. Me too.

HOWEVER! Stephen Colbert gives better than he gets from Papa Bear.

And you know that's saying something.

Even you saw O'Reilly on the Colbert Report, you definitely gotta watch round 2.

Ah, screw you.

2007-01-17T20:43:00.000-08:00

Hang on, it's nothing personal! Click here to enter this contest and you'll get a free corkscrew.

Don't look at me like that! Like you don't need another corkscrew!

Borat for bunnies?

2007-01-16T00:55:00.000-08:00

So were you surprised when Sasha Baron Cohen won a Golden Globe Award last night for "Borat"?

Imagine how'd you feel if the whole movie was done in 30 seconds by a cast of bunnies.

Warning! This link will ruin the whole movie of "Borat" if you have not yet seen it.

Well, "ruin" may be a strong word. If you don't know what "Borat" is about by now, then chances are good that this link will provide you with everything that you need to know.

What is rock and roll?

2007-01-15T12:45:00.001-08:00

Apparently, THIS is rock and roll.

Busted!

2007-01-14T21:46:00.000-08:00

Turns out that to get a Nickelback, one must employ the tools of counterfeiting.

Hmm, something fishy here....

2007-01-13T00:19:00.000-08:00

Gee, wasn't it swell of Scholastic books to recognize me for my fantastic parenting skills? All right, perhaps they got the gender wrong. Completely wrong. But they must be able to somehow sense from afar what a great parent I am, right?

I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that I bought books from them, right? It's just because of what a wonderful mom I am.

What can I say? It's just my maternal instinct that guides me. But I'm very honored to be recognized and look forward to more awards for my motherhood in the future.

Now, OK, I'm sure some of you out there are saying "Well, it's just an honest mistake. After all, Lindsay is a girl's name."

Oh yeah? Well, then how do you explain this guy getting one?

Keep on rockin' in the really expensive world

2007-01-12T16:56:00.000-08:00

Back when I was engaged to be married, I had heard a CD by the Brian Setzer Orchestra, and I thought to myself "Man, this would be a great band to have at my wedding." This was way before their big hit "Jump, Jive and Wail", their first album had just come out on Hollywood Records, which meant that hardly anyone knew about them (even though Brian Setzer had been in the Stray Cats years earlier), and it was not completely beyond the realm of possibility that I could afford the band for my wedding.

So I found the number for the manager of the band and gave him a call to inquire about the band for a private gig.

"Oh, Brian really doesn't like to do weddings", the manager said, with a tone that was like dismissive, but with a tinge of "How much ya got?" mixed in.

"So there's no way?" I asked.

"Well, you'd have to really make it worth his while financially, for him to consider it." he said.

"OK, so like how much?"

"A lot."

"Yeah, but how much is that?"

"A whole lot."

"OK, but can you like give me a number to work with here? I just need to see if it's possible."

"I don't think Brian would be willing to consider anything under a hundred thousand dollars."

A HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS?!??!?

"Uh, sure, that sounds doable."

I'm totally lying.

"I'll give you a call back."

I hung up. I did not call back.

Well, it turns out that since then, prices have gone up a lot. Now, I know that we talked about this a long time ago, but this new article in the LA Times about the corporate gigs that rock stars are taking these days is really shocking.

On New Year's Eve, for instance, British pop star George Michael was in Russia making about $3 million an hour singing for a few hundred guests of Vladimir Potanin, a mining and lumber magnate. The gig was 75 minutes, and he was home in London by lunchtime.

Last weekend, pop diva Christina Aguilera and Oscar winner Robin Williams were in Pittsburgh as the hired entertainment at the birthday party of Joe Hardy, founder of 84 Lumber. Both stars are veterans of the lucrative circuit. Aguilera took a reported $1.5 million to serenade another Russian businessman, Andrei Melnichenko, at his September 2005 wedding. Williams, who reportedly fetches a cool $1 million for a night's work, joined the Rolling Stones and John Mellencamp in Las Vegas in 2002 at the birthday soiree for David Bonderman, co-founder of Texas Pacific Group, a private equity investment firm. The reported price of the affair: $10 million.

Still, money doesn't necessarily guarantee for a good time, as explained by Sammy Hagar. Hagar definitely had mixed feelings when Mark Cuban, owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, called several years ago to hire him to sing "There's Only One Way to Rock" at the billionaire's birthday party. Then Cuban mentioned the private plane, the plan to stage the show at the arena in Dallas and, of course, a particularly large sum of money.

"The money," Hagar said, "was very good. I won't say how much, but it was good. But I didn't do it for the money…. Well, maybe I did."

Hagar had to earn it, though. He described the show as one of the most awkward stage experiences of his three-decade career.

"There were 70 people in the audience, so we have this huge, empty arena. But we did a full-blown, 45-minute show, lights and everything. The front row was filled with Mavericks players, and half of them, you know, they didn't know us or care about our music. And they were so tall they were looking me right in the eye. The whole thing was just plain weird."

Not as weird as hiring George Michael for 6 million dollars for night! For that amount of money, that guy should do my laundry too!

Where does Oprah's poop go?

2007-01-11T16:11:00.000-08:00

Well, today I'm at Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, and my sound engineer Jeanne and I were chatting about her favorite obsession: poop.

You heard me. Jeanne loves talking about poop. The color, the consistency, the act, how long it takes, how long it takes to flush, you name it. If it's poop, Jeanne is interested in discussing it. Apparently, everyone at Yale Rep knows this, and within seconds of anyone approaching us to see what we're talking about, they all say the same thing: "Is Jeanne talking about poop again?"

SO! I thought "Surely, there must be others with this particular fascination as well", and sure enough, 5 seconds later on the internet, we found The Poop Report, which calls itself "your #1 source for your #2 business". Believe me, they are not kidding, if poop is your thing, The Poop Report is what you're looking for.

Interestingly enough, Oprah Winfrey seems to share this fascination as well, having devoted not one, but TWO shows recently about poop! She has on Dr. Mehmet Oz, who wrote "You, The Owner's Manual" and You On A Diet", to answer all questions about poop, and you can check out all the answers here.

But, as Jimmy Kimmel recently discovered, there is one burning question that has not been answered: "Where does Oprah's poop go?". Now the answer can be told, in the educational filmstrip show below!

I have so many things to talk about!!

2007-01-10T13:32:00.000-08:00

Oh my, what a day yesterday in the news! Let's review:

- OK, by now, you've probably seen the Iphone from Apple that was announced yesterday at Macworld. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it here, it's a truly beautiful piece of design, as could only come from Apple.

The downside? It only works on Cingular! CINGULAR!?!?! How could you do this to me, Apple? Don't you know how much Cingular blows? I had them for years and years, and no matter where I was in the US, it totally sucked. They kept telling me "Oh, you just need to upgrade to a new phone" and then I would, and it would still suck! Don't you just love those commercials where Cingular boasts that they have the fewest dropped calls? Of course they have the fewest dropped calls, it's hard to drop a call that never connected in the first place! FOR GOD'S SAKE, APPLE! Did you learn nothing from the phone you made with Motorola? Sigh...

- OK, if you're afraid of flying or your name is Alexandra Billings, you may wanna skip this next one. So, let's say you're flying on United (which I fly on virtually every other day - 126,614 miles last year, not that I'm counting...) from Chicago to Burlington, Vermont. Sounds reasonably safe, right? Oh, perhaps you were unaware of the possiblity of
a scorpion stinging you in the leg not once, but TWICE while you're sleeping! Somebody call Sam Jackson, there are muthafuckin scorpions on this muthafuckin plane!

The only thing more unbelieveable about this story is that the guy who it happened to thinks that the airline is probably gonna call him back to offer compensation. CALL HIM BACK? You need to get your muthafuckin upgrade vouchers before you get off that muthafuckin plane! Why is it only the casual flyer gets these kind of problems, I would taken United to the cleaners.

- It's David Bowie's birthday!

You know, I think that "Extras" with Ricky Gervais is just about the funniest thing on television. People go on and on about "The Office", but I like this show better, I'm sorry.

So! In honor of Mr. Bowie's birthday, let's show a clip from his appearance on "Extras", which shows off the genius of both of these guys. I just hope that Bowie doesn't ever wanna make up a song about me.

- Finally, my good friend Toy is in Los Angeles this week, on a job that I recommended her for, and she's been having a good time. Surprise, surprise, she likes all the stuff that I like, and is bothered by all the stuff that I barely notice. But she's getting in the swing of things by wearing her sunglasses all the time, and hanging out in trendy bars so she can get the skinny on who's not in town. Go here to read the full report.

Remember, everything is written in stone, until it's written again in a different stone. That's just how it is.

Welcome, Loie Jones!

2007-01-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Congrats to my brother Christopher and his wife Amy on their brand new baby girl! Loie (pronounced low-ee) Elisabeth Jones was born today, January 9th, at 8:08am, weighing 6 lbs 10 oz and looking great!

Everyone is doing well, although as you can see, a nap was in order after the birth. Turns out being born is hard work!

Animated gif of the week!

2007-01-08T16:41:00.000-08:00

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the single most important piece of information that this site will ever offer you.

2007-01-07T17:00:00.000-08:00

Wanna know how to find those mp3's of your favorite artist on the internet for free? With this simple trick, you can get tons of mp3 download links using just Google!

All you have to do is put this in the search window:

"Band or Artist name here" last modified mp3 "index of" -html -htm -php -asp

For example I want to get some Calexico song, therefore I type in:

"Calexico" last modified mp3 "index of" -html -htm -php -asp

What's great is that you'll mostly find links to live or unreleased versions of songs that the artist performed, which is what made the internet so cool in the first place. Try it!

You're welcome!!

It's bound to get chilly soon...

2007-01-06T13:25:00.000-08:00

Here, have some hot cocoa on me.

Some great stuff from Atomfilms

2007-01-05T20:32:00.000-08:00

I don't know you've been there yet, but Atomfilms has got some of the best films on the web.

Here are two of my favorites!

Get on the bus, people! We're going to New Jersey!

2007-01-04T00:37:00.000-08:00

Ya'll take my shit and get the fuck out!

HO-LEE CRAP! Somebody call all my gay friends and get them out of bed. Whitney Houston is auctioning off all her old stuff! I'm not lying!

Take a look at it here!

This has all the makings of one hell of an afternoon. DAMMIT! I WISH I COULD GO!!

What makes this so awesome for me and all my gay pals is that the auction is almost equal parts of audio stuff and fashion stuff! That's right! For the first time ever, you can see Mackie mixers next to Bob Mackie gowns! Never again are you gonna see the brands of Akai and Dolce & Gabanna next to each other! Oh, I'm just sick about missing it.

PLUS! It gets so much better! Look at some of the crazy shit in this thing!

A Versace Catsuit with this whole psychedelic dream on it.

Spare nuns from "The Producers".

A 5000 lb forklift.
(Boy, you don't wanna catch Bobby Brown on a bad night when he's driving this around!)

BUT OK. THIS IS MY FAVORITE.

Take a look at these pictures below.

See, these awards are listed in the catalog as "Music Awards", but look closely! Every single one of these actually belong to Bobby!

Ain't that cold-blooded? Threw the man out the house, and now is selling off every last one of his awards!
Now THAT'S a comeback.

The auction takes place this coming Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 11:00 AM. The address is 84 Coit Street Irvington, NJ 07111.

If you go, Please, I beg you, write me and tell me what happened.

Red Hot Riding Hood!

2007-01-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Many many thanks to my friend Toy for pointing me to this, which is one of my ALL TIME favorite cartoon sequences: the big show number from "Red Hot Riding Hood", directed by Tex Avery and released by MGM.

If I had a dollar for every time I have thought about this wolf's reaction, I would be a very rich man.

The whole cartoon is sensational, go here to watch the whole thing. I HIGHLY recommend it.

I have been sucked into the belly of the beast. Again!

2007-01-02T01:29:00.000-08:00

OK. So. I admit it. I am a full on computer geek.

Not just a computer geek, mind you. An audio computer geek.

But I just can't help it! I've been buying new software this week, and it's just incredible what's out there now.

Take, for example, these films on Melodyne, which is a pitch correction and time correction software. Now, even if you are not an audio person, I challenge you to watch all 4 of these short films and see if you are not mesmerized by them.

I don't even own this software but I was totally captivated by these films! Now I have to buy the damn software! ARGH! IT'S NEVER GONNA END!

Just click on each of these and watch. You'll see what I mean.

What did I do New Year's Day?

2007-01-01T01:40:00.000-08:00

I'm so glad you asked. I watched a 10 year old girl hypnotize lizards and dress them up in doll outfits. I truly cannot think of a better way to kick off the New Year!

365 days of weird - what could be better?

2006-12-31T03:17:00.000-08:00

Well, I know that I've been big on the lists lately and I've also talked about the 365 Days, 365 Plays project, so this is a great way to get all of this in one package:

The good folks at UBU put together this TRULY WONDERFUL project called the 365 Project, and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Basically, it's an mp3 of some strange song or piece of audio for each day of the year, and many of them are just spectacular. You wanna hear Orson Welles argue about peas? Or Louis Farrakhan sing calypso ballads about transgenders? Or simply the kids outsider classic "I Like Cheese"? This is the list for you.

If weird is what you're after, go ahead and hunker down. This is gonna be your year.

Might as well as get up to date (so that you can be hip for the next 24 hours)

2006-12-30T00:03:00.000-08:00

You ever just feel like "Dammit, I can't keep up with what's cool and what's not! I can't take it! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

Hey, relax, settle down.

Pitchfork Magazine and I have got your back. Just head over here to the list of the coolest 100 songs of the year AND there's a link to either an audio or video version of each one of them.

Memorize that list and you can hold your own in any party with people of any age.

And you thought I didn't care about you....

Your typical redneck dilemna.

2006-12-29T21:09:00.000-08:00

OK. Let's say you're a redneck.

You've got the week off for Christmas, you've already drunk yourself silly, gotten in a fight with all of the members of your family as well as most of your neighbors and now you're completely bored. AND it's still two days til Christmas.

What do you do?

That's right.

Pick a fight with the bees.

My 4 year old, the comedian.

2006-12-28T01:37:00.000-08:00

So my son Huck has really been cracking me up lately. I know, all parents think that their children are cute, but honestly, I'm falling down lately at some of the things that have been coming out of him.

The latest gag goes like this:

So we're driving in the middle of this HELLISH traffic jam on the way back from Dulles Airport into Baltimore, and I mean this is a jam that could only happen in DC. My son, whenever he gets bored or idle or basically anytime, now has gotten into a habit of making noises to pass the time.

In the mix of horns, engines and music in the deep background, I begin to hear this building sound from the backseat:

"beatabeatabeatabeataBEATABEATABEATABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

(short pause)

"beatabeatabeatabeataBEATABEATABEATABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH."

I turn to my wife and say "We have a budding Foley artist in the backseat."

"BEATABEATABEATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH..."

"Hey!" I say, in an attempt to settle things down. "When you grow up, are you gonna go into show business?"

Without missing a beat, he says "No, I'm going into Kindergarten."

(short pause)

"BEATABEATABEATAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH..."

In other news, I know you see that link to the right of this for The Funky 16 Corners by Larry Grogan, which, to my mind, is one of the greatest blogs out there, with its incredibly thorough and entertaining audio guide to super-obscure vintage funk and R&B. Honestly, the mixes that this guy puts together are truly spectacular and, as a true record geek, he has my complete respect and admiration.

His most recent mix, dedicated to James Brown, is not to be missed. With all the attention being laid out for the Godfather, Larry chooses to highlight what is quite possibly the most obscure part of his career, namely his instrumental recordings on the Hammond organ. That's right, this is about James Brown the musician, not the showman. And while nobody is gonna proclaim that JB was an organ virtuoso, this is a fascinating look into a side of James Brown that hardly anyone knew about.

Check it out here. You'll be glad you did.

I can't explain this.

2006-12-27T00:48:00.000-08:00

OK, I hate Maury Povich. I do. I have no idea what Connie Chung sees in him. But, unless I'm so clueless that I just cannot accept this at its face value, what I see here is one of the great moments in the history of post-modernist comedy.

This can't be real, can it?

My contribution to the 365 Plays/365 Days Festival

2006-12-26T13:53:00.000-08:00

In November 2002, Pulitzer prize-winner Suzan-Lori Parks sat down and committed to writing a play a day for the next 365 days. The world premiere of this play cycle, 365 Days/365 Plays, will be performed as a yearlong national festival simultaneously in major cities and communities around the country. From November 13, 2006 to November 12, 2007, over 600 theaters in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, Washington D.C., Chicago, Minneapolis, the Carolinas, Mississippi River towns, and university campuses will create the largest theater collaboration in U.S. History.

This is where I come in. As an ensemble member for American Theatre Company in Chicago, I was asked to be a part of the podcast version of the Dec 25-31 week of the festival. The plan is that there will be one night of live performances on Friday, December 29th, at 10PM, following a performance of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE: A LIVE RADIO SHOW at ATC. General admission to the 365 DAYS event is free.

But, in addition to that, there would be these alternate podcast performances that would be on American Theatre Company's website for that week. I chose to do Days 1 and 2, and basically I sorta took these over and became the actor/director/sound designer for the whole thing. I'm really happy with the way these came out. So I hope you like them too.

The first one is called "Photos With Santa", and stars me as Santa, Toy DeIorio as the Elf, and my wife, Jamie Pachino, as the angry mom, (who is, in fact, a wonderful mother, but nevertheless threw herself into the part with glee.)

Click here to listen.

The second one is called "Even In A House Like This" and features me doing the whole thing. I know that sounds like a sketchy proposition, but trust me on this.

Click here to listen.

Go here to subscribe to the ATC podcast for every day this week or go here to find out more about the festival.

My hats off to Heather Myers-Grum and Wendy Whiteside for putting this together for ATC, and more specifically, for putting up with me taking FOREVER to get this done.

Enjoy!

James Brown - 1933-2006

2006-12-25T21:38:00.000-08:00

Oh, I cannot begin to tell you how much I would not like to blogging about the death of James Brown on this day. Christmas day. I mean, I knew it was coming but, dammit, come on. Not today, the one full day off that I get all year.

Well. What can I say?

When I was 5 years old, I got my first record ever. It was a 45rpm of James Brown's "Mashed Potatoes (Part 1)". The first time I put that record on, it literally sounded like I was receiving a message from another planet. It was the strangest thing I had ever heard, the lyrics were indecipherable. There was something about mashed potatoes in there, but I swear to you, you can listen to that song today and you will absolutely not be able to tell me what that song is about. And then when it ended, I turned it over, there was "Mashed Potatoes (Part 2)", which was the same thing!

But the beat that came out of that little crappy record player made me get up and dance, and I didn't even know how to dance. I just got up and followed the beat, which was the greatest thing that I had ever heard.

That was the first time James Brown changed my life.

When I was 16 years old, I was working in a second-hand record store in North Carolina, a customer came in to sell a used cassette copy of James Brown's "Live At The Apollo 1962". Now, at the time, I didn't know it was the first live album ever recorded in pop music. I didn't know what the Apollo Theatre was. I just bought it from the guy on a whim, put it on that night driving home in my car and then didn't get home until 5 hours later, because I couldn't stop listening to it and I basically ran out of gas because I couldn't stop driving. I listened to this one moment on that tape over and over, which is 8 and a half minutes into the medley of his ballads towards the end of Side 1, where he's just riffing over "Lost Someone", and the band is like down to a whisper, and you can literally hear a pin drop in that auditorium, and James is just working the crowd like no one ever before.

He just sings "You know, sometimes I just wanna scream!" and all the young girls scream in return. He sings it again - "I just wanna scream", and the young girls scream again. And then James screams this amazing soul scream that is just unbelievable, and it just seems to last FOREVER as it slowly transforms into this beautiful sweet note that he lands like a feather on everyone. It's this spellbinding moment that literally takes your breath away, and at the moment that your jaw has hit the floor, James just takes the whole room and stomps into "Please Please Please" and the place is JUST FUCKING PANDEMONIUM. You can literally hear the entire place just lose their fucking minds, people are literally hysterical with what they've been given. My eyes are filled with tears as I type this, and it's exactly the way I felt when I was sitting in my car, unable to get out. It's the closest thing to a religious experience that I have ever had, and it was the second time that James Brown changed my life.

When I was 20 years old, I bought a James Brown cd called "In The Jungle Groove", which I will admit that I did not have high hopes for. It was around the time of Sinead O'Connor's "I Am Stretched On Your Grave", which had sampled the beat from "The Funky Drummer", and Polygram, sensing the chance to make a quick buck, assembled a bunch of outtakes from those sessions in an attempt to cash in on people who were attracted to the beat. Deep in that disc, however, is this MONSTER remix of "Give It Up Or Turnit Loose", and I mean, this was clearly recorded at the height of the JB's - you've got Clyde, Bootsy, Catfish, Bobby, Maceo, Fred, Pee Wee, they're all there. And there's this moment about 6 minutes into the track, where James breaks it down, and then builds the groove back up one instrument at a time. It's literally watching the anatomy of a funk locomotive built from the ground up, and it's probably one of the most influential moments that I've ever heard in terms of orchestration of a groove. That song stays with me every single time I begin to write a piece of music. It was the next time that James Brown changed my life.

When I was 22 years old, and starting to think about the direction that my band The Nubile Thangs would take as I was beginning to write songs regularly for them. Then, "Star Time" - the legendary box set came out, spanning The Godfather's career from the 50's through the 80's, and god damn! The variety was astounding! It just blew me away how many ways that he could find to lay down a groove. Every single track was a winner, and they were all different. I listened to those CD's over and over again, and learned about how to write a thousand different kinds of music, but that all have a cohesive identity. That was the next time James Brown changed my life.

Now I'm 37 years old. Last month, my 4 year old son and I were playing basketball in the back yard. He said "Hey, Dad, let's put on some music" and the first thing that I saw in my cluttered office was "Star Time". I grabbed disc 1, advanced it to "Mashed Potatoes (part 1)" and walked back outside, expecting to see my son playing.

He wasn't. He was dancing. He had no idea what he was doing, but he was dancing to James Brown. It was beautiful. It was the most recent time that James Brown changed my life, and the first time that it changed my son's. I'm sure it won't be the last for either of us.

There has not been one day since I was 5 years old where James Brown didn't have some part in my day, directly or indirectly. I literally owe what I've achieved to his influence. His music helped to make me who I am.

Now, he's not a role model for living. And, lord knows, the last two decades have not been good for him. I was THIS CLOSE to driving to see him in prison, during the drug charge in Sumter, South Carolina. Ironically, the day before I was gonna go, the prison actually closed visits from the public as there was a waiting list of 300 people who wanted to see him. To this day, I have no idea what I was gonna do when I got there. But I just felt that I had to go, and tell him what he meant to me, and to hang in there. It's probably for the best that I didn't go, but those feelings remain.

He's not perfect. No one is. But he changed music, he changed society and he changed me forever. Anybody working in modern music owes something to James Brown.

But to me, he'll always be Soul Brother No. 1.

Rest in peace, James. You've earned it.

Go here to listen to WMFU's 6 hour tribute show to JB.

MERRY XMAS, BABY! I'M BACK! FINALLY!

2006-12-24T20:37:00.000-08:00

Look, I know, I know.

We had a thing. A relationship.

After a full 10 months of publishing something every day, I up and left on you for two and a half months. I'm a very bad blogger. Very very very very bad.

What happened? Well. It's like this.

It all started back in October, where I went through the single worst theatrical experience ever. And, for anybody who knows me, that is really saying something, as I have been through some pretty crazy stuff in the line of duty. I'm talking about something where almost EVERY SINGLE MOMENT SUCKED and almost EVERY SINGLE PERSON INVOLVED WAS A TOTAL SHITHEAD. I would tell you the story, but honestly, it's not a funny story. It's a sad story, and it truly brings me no pleasure to tell it.

But I've learned a couple of valuable lessons, and they will definitely be applied in the future. The biggest thing that I learned is, once and for all, that when famous people do theatre anywhere except on Broadway, they feel that they are doing you a huge favor by just being there. They are not unjustified to feel this way, of course, but it does really does drive home the point that you are simply there to validate that viewpoint and that's it. All sort of normal working conditions that one might be used to, such as such as logic, trust, or artistic achievement, are now void in that situation. They are irrelevant, and any initiative to reinstate these things will be viewed as a direct threat. Ignore this rule at your own peril.

The second thing that I have learned that you cannot put a square peg into a round hole. You cannot, even if you have the biggest hammer and you keep hitting it over and over again, even if you throw endless amounts of money at it, even if you have the world's most qualified people swinging the hammer, even if you're willing to swing until your hand is bloody and you've broken the hole that you're trying to get into, YOU CANNOT DO IT.

(long breath)

And that's always good to learn. I've been in this kind of situation before, but there was always at least one ally that I could count on to sort of bootstrap the thing into something worthwhile, but this time? No one. Just me.

So it took a lot out of me. And, you know, I'm blessed that, shitty experience or no, the jobs keep coming. But that also means that these feelings that I got as a result of that experience, that would contribute to burnout (which I have to be very careful about), now sorta have to be repressed until I can get a break to expunge it all. You can't really do that when you're working, because the only way that I'm able to work 24/7 is through a completely positive attitude, and something like this would just weigh all the other jobs down. So, I had to lay low. As they used to say in high school football, "keep your head down and keep pumping your legs." And, no, I didn't actually play high school football.

That, and the fact that there was just this avalanche of work that hit that I had to get done. I mean, crazy amounts of "Hey, we need this right now" coupled with a huge heap of "You can read my mind, right?". Of course, the answer to that question is "No, I can't, but yes, I will."

Through this all, I would get lovely emails from people saying "Hey, where'd you go? I want the blog back." and I would think "Yeah, man! I want the blog back too!" but, you know. I just couldn't. I'm really sorry.

But, OK. Seriously. I'm here now. I know we've had our ups and downs, but, this time, baby, I SWEAR I'm here for real. I promise to not to ever leave you hanging again for that long, and I promise not to mention Iggy and The Stooges again for at least 6 months. (although did you see that their reunion disc is finally coming out? With Mike Watt on bass, no less? Their first album in 33 years! All right, all right, you're right. I'm sorry I brought it up.)

As always, I promise to fill in the empty days between October 7th and now, so PLEASE. You have to scroll down and read all the rest. It will all show up in the next couple of weeks. I have so much to talk about. Seriously.

All right. There you go. I'm back.

Tell your friends.

Kill Yr Idols.

xo
Lindsay

Let's talk about my new computer!

2006-12-23T21:50:00.000-08:00

Oh my god, this day has finally come. I have a new computer.

Let's talk about this for a second.

Below is my old computer.

It's Mac Powerbook Pismo G3. It was manufactured in the year 2000. You heard me. 2000. Now I haven't had this particular one since 2000. Oh no. This is my sixth one. You heard me. Sixth.

Now, why, you may ask, have I stuck with this particular model so long? Well, for one thing, it's built like a tank. It can really take a beating. It's black, which is cool. But the biggest reason is that I can run OS 9 on it. That's right.

I am the last human being on this earth running OS 9.

Oh, I heard all the jokes. "Hey, Carrie Bradshaw, when you gonna upgrade your computer?" Followed by snickering and pointing! I SAW IT! I'M NOT BLIND!

You see, you get a certain way of working that works, and naturally you wanna stick with what works! That's not so crazy, right?

BUT! All things must change eventually, and the time had come for me as well. I needed to finally upgrade to OS X and get a decent machine from this century.

Fortunately, a couple of months ago, I met an EXTREMELY nice guy from Apple who offered to help me get a new computer at a discount. I met him at a 4 year old's birthday party. There were approximately 100 children in some sort of birthday-cake-driven mosh pit of bicycles and wagons, and there was a collection of dads trying not to look involved over on the side. Most were talking about sports, but there was this one guy who was very friendly, and we struck up a conversation. Next thing I know, I'm grilling him on the employee discount and he mentions 25%. 25%! HOLY CRAP! I practically jumped in his lap! He ultimately agrees, god bless him, and I'm on the list for the new MacBook Pros!

SO! Check it out! I got the new MacBook Pro 17" with 100GB hard drive @ 7200rpm.

Oh, did I mention? It's Ferrari Red!!! No, you're not going crazy, that is the actual color. It's a custom paint job from Colorware in Minnesota, and I have to say that they did a fantastic job. It looks sensational, and the compliments have been non-stop.

OK, I have to say that OS X has been really easy to adjust to so far, but I haven't really done anything too intense yet for work, so I will let you know about that soon.

But I have to say it's been so cool to embrace my inner computer nerd after so long! I'm reading Mac World again, I'm looking up new shareware, I'm visiting bulletin boards about inside Mac information! It's been so long that I've been living in isolation that I totally forgot how much fun it is to be a genuine super computer nerd again! Wheeeeeeeeeeeee!

But here's the coolest part! As it turns out, there is a way to run OS 9 on an Intel Mac! There's a new emulator that you can run on the Intel machines called Sheep Shaver (would I make a name like that up?) that allows you to run your old OS9 stuff on it! Here, take a look!

Follow this link for more info.

As my friend who follows this kind of thing said to me "That is the single stupidest thing that I have ever seen."

Well, maybe. But now I can be both on the bleeding edge and hopelessly stuck in the past at the same time! It's a dream come true.

Well, it is for me.

I SEE YOU LAUGHING OVER THERE! I'M NOT BLIND!

The joys of Christmas....

2006-12-22T08:59:00.000-08:00

are always just one take away.

I would rather pay for free.

2006-12-21T00:54:00.000-08:00

OK, so I'll admit that I'm new to all this, but the .Mac thing is totally wack. $99 a year for some server storage and an email address I'll never use? What the hell?

Let's be honest. When it started, a .Mac subscription (or, even earlier, the free iTools service) was a revolutionary, cutting-edge service. Offering HomePage web hosting, iDisk, a mac.com email address, anti-virus software, Backup, iCards and iReview, it represented something new and innovative in the best Apple tradtion.

Since then, the Internet and a growing bundle of Web 2.0 services have eroded both the value and the innovation of a .Mac account.

Thank god for The notMac Challenge!

The notMac Challenge is offering a prize of $10,000 to the first developer to come up with a open-source dotMac replacement service. Kent, the driving force behind the notMac Challenge is offering to match dollar for dollar contributions from the public towards the US$10,000 ($12,732) prize.

To win it, you will need to come up with "a free replacement to dotMac's client-based services that's easy enough for a first-time Mac user to install and so fully and transparently integrated that a long-time dotMac user wouldn't notice the difference."

I think it's genius. And long overdue, even for a person who's been here for 5 seconds.

Go here now and make it happen!

Wait. Those are not our children.

2006-12-20T01:18:00.000-08:00

I don't know if this is true or not - it was forwarded to me - but it's a good story:

Some people build swimming pools in their back yards, but outdoor pools in Alaska just won't work.

Since this particular family lives on the outskirts of Anchorage, they decided to build a sturdy, colorful playground for their 3 and 4 year old sons, with smooth-stone gravel all around it to avoid knee scrapes and other injuries.

They finished building it on Saturday evening, and the following morning, as the mom was about to wake up the boys and have them go out to play in their new play center, this is what she saw from the upstairs window:

Oh my god, I have so been there...

2006-12-19T01:12:00.000-08:00

Strange Noises...

2006-12-18T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well, I just finished working at Arena Stage on Noises Off, which was a really lovely experience. Everyone was as nice as you could possibly imagine, and the whole thing was a real pleasure.

One of the things that theatres have started doing recently is having someone of the theatre maintain a blog about the shows, as a way of having a dialogue with the public. I think that this is a pretty swell idea and while I'm not sure how much interest it actually generates for the theatre, it's a great way to get inside the process of how things are done.

For Noises Off, Jay Russell, an actor in the play and a truly very nice guy, blogs about his experience of putting the play together. Let me tell you, these actors worked their asses off putting this thing up. Anybody who thinks that Noises Off is a piece of cake should try it sometime, it is really an INCREDIBLY physically demanding show and these guys did a fantastic job.

Anyway, I was completely caught off-guard about the very nice things that he said about me, which came from this conversation about how exactly I do my job.

Click here to read about our conversation.

I've totally had this flight attendant

2006-12-17T04:34:00.000-08:00

Surprise, surprise.

2006-12-16T12:07:00.000-08:00

Your results:
You are Lex Luthor!
A brilliant businessman on a quest for world domination and the self-proclaimed greatest criminal mind of our time!

Click here to take the "Which Super Villain am I?" quiz...

What my dreams look like in Japanese

2006-12-15T21:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Jason for bringing this to me.

Hey! Let's go play with a drum machine!

2006-12-14T20:23:00.000-08:00

It's right here!

It's fun!

OK, this kinda freaked me out for a second.

2006-12-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

Yeesh.

Are you the worst burgular in the world?

2006-12-12T14:58:00.000-08:00

Of course not. Because you are not this guy.