Nike and Weiden + Kennedy have egg (not balls) on their face after having to retract these supposedly homophobic print ads. I agree with one of the commenters, it seems more sophomoric than homophobic. Luckily for me, I'm not sophophobic. That's why I made jokes about balls, too.
I love having all the television choices available these days, but damn. Remember when you'd use a NUMBER to talk about a channel?
"Hey, what's on channel five tonight?"
"Happy Days, dude!"
Now, forget about it. When's the last time someone asked, "Did you watch 238 last night?" Seriously, when I decide I want to watch something on AMC, I better start channel surfing 10 minutes before it starts. Who the hell remembers what the number is for that?
This may explain why I never watch SPIKE. Even more so, it explains why I never saw these most excellent commercials for the Star Wars movies.
Everything is for sale. Even seminal movies from our past.
I shouldn't be surprised. After all, it's happened before with far more important influences.
No it's not a new sex maneuver or a forgotten psychedelic band from the 60's. This article serendipitously ties together Crustodio's Feist post, our recent conversation about Lames Taylor and my frightening resemblance to Mike Mills.
Ole!
I was just talking about Battle of the Network Stars, one of my favorite shows from childhood. Maybe at out next college buddies reunion in 2012, we'll do our own version of this. The West Coast vs Jesusland.
I still have vivid memories of a feisty Robert Conrad and his tiff with a laid-back and cool Gabe Kaplan. Well, here's the evidence: The Popcorn Trick has a long and delightful write-up from the 1976 season. That first season with Kaplan, Conrad and Telly Savalas was pure gold - and pure testosterone. By 1980 the captains had degraded to the likes of John Davidson, Jamie Farr and Arte Johnson. Quite a comedown. Though I would like to see the 1983 crew of William Shatner, William Devane and Mr. T!
Back in '76 when I was an impressionable 6th grader, I was a TV junkie and knew every one of these jokers. I was thinking I would like to see a modern version of this, but I really don't watch enough network tv to really be that excited about any of the "stars". Could they do a premium cable version? I want to see James Gandolfini square off against Larry David.
Thanks to PopCandy for the tip.
Crustodiodio (3:53:18 PM): you're going to be sooo envious of me
Crustodiodio (3:53:28 PM): I am seeing a concert tonight - but not at the gorge
If I haven't apologized to Crustodio for this in a while, I'm sorry. Once again, I apologize for playing Rush albums and hanging Rush posters in our freshman year dorm room. They are ugly men. And the music is.... not good. But hey, I was 17 in 1982 and I just didn't know any better. In high school, everyone was into metal and hard rock, which I couldn't stand. 2 bands that I hated then, but have now grown to love, were AC/DC and Van Halen.
After all, I had literally never listened to anything except the Monkees and the Beatles (including their solo stuff) until 1980, when I was dragged off to my first concert: Cheap Trick. I was like, "hey, this is just like a modern version of the Beatles" (sort of), and my first steps into contemporary music were taken.
But I still couldn't handle the hard rock and metal stuff. It was just so stupid. And all that wizard/devil/monster iconography? It was strong stuff for a fan of Wings. And the guys and girls who wore their concert shirts with such pride were always the most anti-social stoners and miscreants. I was just so not into it.
And then one day someone played me some Rush. Wait - here's a band playing hard rock, but they have intelligent lyrics? Oh, my God! I was hooked. Now, of course, I look back at Neil Peart's lyrics and cringe. It's funny that now I actually prefer lyrics like "Rock and roll ain't noise polution/It's just rock and roll" (AC/DC) over Peart's twaddle. I think Blender put it best when they voted him the 2nd worst lyricist in rock:
Drummers are good at many things: exploding, drowning in their own vomit, drumming. But the Rush skinsman proved they should never write lyrics—or read books. Peart opuses like “Cygnus X-1” are richly awful tapestries of fantasy and science fiction, steeped in an eighth-grade understanding of Western philosophy. 2112, Rush’s 1976 concept album based on individualist thinker Ayn Rand’s novella Anthem, remains an awe-inspiring low point in the sordid relationship between rock and ideas. Worst lyric: “I stand atop a spiral stair/An oracle confronts me there/He leads me on light years away/Through astral nights, galactic days” (“Oracle: The Dream”).
Word.
But, for a few years I was hooked. I saw the band live 3 times. This was during their heyday, around the release of Moving Pictures, their best album. And I could wear cool concert t-shirts to school the next day. Anything to get over the taint of having worn a homemade Star Trek t-shirt in 7th grade. Which was only once, since it was ripped in my one and only fist fight that very same day. But, I digress.
So, yeah, I was into Rush. And I took my obsession to college and inflicted poor Crustodio with it. For a guy who mostly listened to yacht rock, it was a pretty tough sell. But as time went on and I became aware of new music (God bless you, R.E.M.!), and Rush started releasing synth-heavy, plodding and awful albums, my interest began to wane. Hello, college rock! Goodbye, Rush albums! And off I went, into the land of indie-rock snobbery.
OK, I have a secret. You may have guessed by now. I still fucking love Rush. God damn, they are awesome. I have their entire catalog (well, through Signals) on my iTunes and when I'm alone, I sometimes bust them out. They are the epitome of the guilty pleasure. So, you can imagine how I was pleased to see them make their first television appearance in 30 years on the Colbert Report last week. Say what you will about Mr. Peart, but he got a couple good lines in here:
Our buddy Joe is in the latest The Breeders video. He's the dude in the suit.
Definitely the best I've seen him act since his heart-rending portrayal in Who's Life is it Anyway in Dayton, Ohio.
Walk It Off
Way to go, Joe!
Yeah, you know you do it.
You put your name into Google to see what comes up.
If you're an unlucky soul with a name like Bob Jones, you're kind of screwed. Crustodio and I are both blessed with unusual last names, so we can actually find things about ourselves. I actually have a lot of results, which fall into one of the following categories:
My biggest fear and Crustodio's greatest joy: bike rage!
"News of Sunday night's confrontation circulated quickly among officers and reached Officer Robert Pickett, the bureau's unofficial liaison between police and Portland's biking community.
'It's almost kind of quintessentially a Portland thing," Pickett said, after reading the police reports. 'It's too bad there's an 'us vs. them' dynamic.'"
(Photo is unrelated to article)
Mr. Best and I are back from our brief sojourn to Southern California.
What an incredible time hanging with old friends, blowing each other truckloads of shit, laughing 'till we cried and consuming many, many beverages.
We may look a bit older than we did 20-some years ago, but I swear these are the EXACT SAME PEOPLE I spent so much time with forever ago. Less hair (for some), more...body (for almost all of us), same brilliant senses of humor, same biting comments...couldn't have been much better.
Above, it is 1985 (86?) and I am contemplating my future loss of hair. And my incredibly bad choice in trousers.
The GT is going on location once again. As I mentioned earlier, Crustodio and I are joining 7 other college buddies for a reunion in sunny Hollywood, California. There will be much shit talk and ball busting. There will be swimming and incredibly complicated games made up on the spot. There will be hangovers and talk of getting old. There will be talk of who slept with who 20+ years ago. There will be a vicious game of quarters. Crustodio will lose. Again. I will hog the stereo. And we will video chat with the losers who bailed at the last minute.
I love this. At Glastonbury, hip hop superstar Jay-Z struck back in excellent fashion at Oasis's Noel Gallagher, after he proclaimed that “Glastonbury has the tradition of guitar music. I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong."
There have been a ton of videos out there like this one, but hey, pretty nice execution here.
Crustodio and I are gearing up for our "college buddies" reunion, which is a week from today. This will be the third time we've gotten together with the same crew since 2000. In 2004 we spent a long weekend on a houseboat on Lake Mead. That was really cool, but actually ended up being more of an adventure than we had planned for. This year, we are all about comfort and ease, so we are staying at our buddy Brad's large house in L.A.
In preparation, I've been working on expanding my already large 80's music collection. I've been searching for digital versions of a few albums in my collection that I only have on vinyl. I think I have pretty good taste in music, and I obsessively keep up with all the new hip stuff. Actually, a co-worker tried to turn me on to the Fleet Foxes last week, but I had to smugly remind him that I had already tried to fob them off on him the week before. But, the stuff that's been trickling in lately is definitely not hip or current and probably not that "good" either - but I love it anyway.
First was The Knife Feels Like Justice, the first solo album from the Stray Cats' Brian Setzer. This 1986 album was a surprising move away from rockabilly to a more roots-rock sound. It was produced by Don Gehman, who was the hot rootsy guitar rock producer of the day, also responsible for John Mellencamp's Scarecrow and R.E.M.'s Lifes Rich Pageant. The first half (or "side 1" as we used to say back in the day) of the record is absolutely solid, but the second half kind of peters out.
Next up was Joe Jackson's Big World album. I was a big Joe fan for the start of his career, but I felt that this was his last really good album. I think I got the next 2, but they were pretty disappointing. Big World was recorded live before an audience that not only didn't know the material, but were asked to refrain from applause! Ah, Joe, always up to something new. Still, it paid off, since it has a really unique feel and some great songs.
Originally it was released as a 3-sided album - there were 2 records, but side 4 was blank. I guess he had too much good stuff for one record and not enough for a true double album. That's one of the curses of the CD age. Everybody thinks they need to fill up 74 minutes of music. Hey rockers, guess what? You DO NOT have that much good material. All the great double albums of the past easily fit on one disc now, and even with those classics there's still filler. I'd rather have a solid 35 minute record, than a hit or miss hour long snoozefest. So, thank you R.E.M. for bringing brevity back.
This reminds me of my one Joe Jackson anecdote, which I will have to tell in a different post or this will never get done. So stay tuned for that one.
Third to arrive was the Tubes' Love Bomb. This was the last album recorded with the original line up, and their second with Todd Rundgren as producer. I can't wholeheartedly recommend this album, as it is pretty dated sounding and has the sort of lame Philly soul/keyboard cheese that Rundgren brought to his own wretched solo albums. Also, lead singer Fee Waybill was apparently feuding with some of the other band members and he doesn't sing lead on all the tracks, much to their detriment. Still, it is a pretty cool record for one reason. Side 2 is a seamless string of music which incorporates 9 different songs, including reprises, much like side 2 of Abbey Road. They are linked together by the drums, which basically play straight through for 25 minutes. Yah for Prairie Prince! Some of the songs are full-length and some are snippets, including a goof where they play "Wooly Bully" in one channel and "Theme from A Summer Place" in the other. Amazingly, it works. So, not a great one, but still enjoyable.
Last night I finally got the last one: Steady Nerves by Graham Parker & the Shot. Like Big World, this one still stands up, though it's slightly marred by bad 80's production. Parker's career has had many ups and downs and lots of record label fights. This was the start of his second classic period, soon to be followed up by the excellent Mona Lisa's Sister. He was still working with Brinsley Schwartz from the Rumour, but for this album he came up with a new backing band name. He never used the Shot again, and I think he's billed himself as a solo act since. In any case, this is by far his most catchy and poppy record, yet his lyrics are as biting as ever. A great combination. It also features his only Top 40 hit, "Wake Up (Next to You)".
The interesting thing has been how my brain responds to this music. Most of this stuff I really haven't heard for 20 years and not at all since my iTunes revolution of 2002. On the first listen it 's like discovering it all over again, but by the third listen it's like my brain finally catches up and I'm sort of sick of it. I think I'm overdosing on this 80's stuff. By the time I get back from the reunion I won't want to listen to any of this shit again for a year.
Spanish parliament to extend rights to apes.
If one of the chimps at the Spain zoo starts talking, quietly kill it. Seriously.
Thanks, Joe
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In response to this post drooling all over my man crush, it's only fair that this point of view should be recognized as well.
