Speaking of Neil Peart, let’s get Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson in on this as well…

May 11th, 2010

Well, seeing as how I “came out” as a Rush fan in this blog post (and you wouldn’t believe how many Google and Bing hits it’s gotten!), I would be remiss to not use this platform to help spread the word:

Look out, Neil Peart –

May 10th, 2010

— you have a competitor, sir. Meet Howard Wong, age four. Thanks to Wyo Cowboy for the find.

Testing using Journey

May 8th, 2010

This is a test post to see if I can get my phone to play nice with my blog. However, most of you know by now that I never put up anything completely worthless, so here’s your added value — I took this pic on the old RedMex route. Somebody with a pretty sharp sense of humor got some stencils and spray paint and tagged more than a few of these in the neighborhood, and this was my favorite:

image

Just in time for The Summer Concert Season

May 8th, 2010

As a public service, this blog would like to provide the following guide to correctly identifying each act you will encounter at your varying summer music festivals which prompts you to ask, “Who the hell is that?”

Presenting Every Summer Music Festival You’ve Ever Been To:

Every-Summer-Music-Festival-Youve-Ever-Been-To

(Thanks to collegehumor.com)

The Late Late (not “latent”) Show

May 4th, 2010

Just watched Morgan Freeman on Craig Ferguson, followed by Kate Mara. My only two man crushes spilleth over, and extremely hot young redhead actress with a small part in Iron Man II to plug immediately follows.

So if I were in their company after the taping, who would hold the camera?

THE CAMERA PERSON, you sick, twisted people — we would still be standing on Craig’s floor at CBS! Never mind that I’m straight, married and my wife was already asleep and therefore couldn’t join in… jeeze, some of your thoughts scare me.

Okay, somewhat seriously, Kate Mara is a very sweet and beautiful young lady who I would have pursued doggedly in 1989. She had a really great movie part to plug, really great because she got to work with Robert Downey Jr., who in my opinion is the best comeback story since “Rocky”. But what do I know; all I can do is show you a picture of us with one of this year’s Oscars telecast writers, summoned by main host Steve Martin for the second time.

Supplied upon request only, I also have a picture I took of my wife with Joan Jett. Sorry, no autographs. Well, okay, but only if you ask very nicely.

50 Lessons We’ve Learned From The Movies

May 3rd, 2010

This made the rounds a while back, and I wish I could claim it, but I think it’s sufficiently good (and not beaten to death) that it’s worth posting:

UPDATE: The illustrious MartiniShark informs me that, quote, “These are all entrants in Roger Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary.” Yay, I can accurately credit this piece! Assuming he’s right, that is… but this is a guy I will take on faith:

1. If being chased through town, you can usually take cover in a passing St Patrick’s Day parade – at any time of the year.

2. All beds have special L-shaped top sheets that reach up to armpit level on a woman but only waist level on the man lying beside her.

3. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one loaf of French bread.

4. Once applied, lipstick will never rub off – even while scuba diving.

5. The ventilation system of any building is a perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building without difficulty.

6. Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.

7. The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.

8. A man will show no pain while taking the most ferocious beating but will wince when a woman tries to clean his wounds.

9. When paying for a taxi, never look at your wallet as you take out a note – just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.

10. If you lose a hand, it will cause the stump of your arm to grow by 15cm.

11. Mothers routinely cook eggs, bacon and waffles for their family every morning, even though the husband and children never have time to eat them.

12. Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst into flames.

13. A single match will be sufficient to light up a room the size of a football stadium.

14. Medieval peasants had perfect teeth.

15. All single women have a cat.

16. Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.

17. One man shooting at 20 men has a better chance of killing them all than 20 men firing at one.

18. Creepy music coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.

19. Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings – especially if any of their family or friends has died in a strange boating accident.

20. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involved martial arts – your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessor.

21. During a very emotional confrontation, instead of facing the person you are speaking to, it is customary to stand behind them and talk to their back.

22. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your room will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.

23. Dogs always know who’s bad and will naturally bark at them.

24. When they are alone, all foreigners prefer to speak English to each other.

25. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch-enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases, lasers and man-eating sharks that will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

26. Having a job of any kind will make all fathers forget their son’s eighth birthday.

27. All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they’re going to go off.

28. It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.

29. A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.

30. If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

31. If you decide to hack into the CIA database, all you need is a laptop and an internt connection. it will usually take about 10 seconds to get into the system and you will usually be undetected.

32. No matter how dirty the water is, it is still possible for you to jump in and open your eyes underwater. You’ll be able to see everything clearly and your eyes wont hurt.

33. In every bar you go into, the bartender will always know how to make any and every long named drink of your choice.

34. When walking in a quiet and dark area, its only fair to ask if someone is there.

35. It’s always possible to outrun an explosion or fireball by running straight towards the camera, sometimes in slow motion.

36. The prologue and/or epilogue, when applicable, is always narrated by a soothing calm monotone voiced individual, preferably Morgan Freeman.

37. Never be afraid to jump off of a building into an open dumpster, as the contents will most likely always be clean, fluffy garbage bags.

38. Most police officers HATE partners. If they do have a partner that they trust and like, s/he will die.

39. The last bad guy in a shootout is too tough to die fast like everyone else. He must pretend to give up or be dead, and suddenly try to shoot one of the good guys. Then and only then can he die quickly.

40. Cars can screech tires and burn rubber even if they’re on gravel or sand.

41. Everybody’s phone number starts with 555.

42. Monsters always make noise before attacking.

43. If you have face stubble, you have a dark mysterious past.

44. Ancient Romans had English accents.

45. Nobody has morning breath in the movies…the first thing a couple does is kiss each other when they wake up.

46. All helicopter crashes occur on the other side of the mountain.

47. Computers in sci-fi films have either male or female voices that speak in a calm, reassuring tone even in the most extreme situations.

48. In high speed chases, no car ever runs out of gas.

49. Funerals usually happen when it rains. The hardest, bravest, coolest person is usually the one without an umbrella or hat and usually stands alone either to the side or behind everyone.

50. If you’re a female who has never been on a date or even been hit on, don’t worry. All it takes is some contacts, new hair styles, and new clothes to make you the baddest bitch in town.

If you watch only one video of a music legend attempting to best himself on Amy Tan’s karaoke machine today…

April 30th, 2010

…by all means, make it THIS one.

For those unfamiliar and/or recent arrivals, you should know that I am semi-acquainted with Pulitzer Prize winning humorist and alleged musician Dave Barry. So far as I know, this has not caused him any undue alarm or legal fees.

In the early 90’s, book publicist (and Dave’s future sister-in-law) Kathi Kamen-Goldmark got the borderline insane brilliant idea to gather up all these writers she found herself driving around San Francisco to media events, many of whom confessed professed to her some degree of musical wannabeship talent, into a rock band made up of authors. Or a bunch of authors made up like rock stars — your pick. We are talking about Dave and Amy, yes, but also Ridley Pearson (Dave’s frequent co-author and photographer of the bandage pic of Dave and me linked to below), Mitch Albom, Greg Iles, at times Stephen King and others, et. al…

They became The Rock Bottom Remainders and, all jokes aside, have now raised in the neighborhood of $2,000,000 for a wide variety of children’s literacy programs by annually playing a week’s worth of gigs in various parts of the US ever since.

Dunno about you, dear reader, but I find this to be somewhat remarkable. My reasonably recent encounter with the band can be read about here, here (that’s the set-up to my punchline, seen here). Recap to (at least some of) the whole thing here.

Okay, enough about me. Let’s get back to the whole “occasionally actual legends of actual music play with these guys” thing. Dave still has the black Stratocaster Bruce Springsteen played “Gloria” on with them. The late, great Warren Zevon was an occasional guest. In more recent years, the absolutely legendary (and without whom Tom Petty and R.E.M. would be out of jobs) Roger McGuinn, founding member of The Byrds, has been a frequent contributor.

So what happens when (what I said above) happens in a hotel room at or near the conclusion of their 2010 Wordstock Tour? This (if at work, beware of PG-13 language from Dave’s brother Sam, who is totally entitled and hereby excused):

(Thanks to, for at least two decades of laughter, Dave Barry.)

Wow. Just, wow.

April 28th, 2010

This will be the best 8.5 minutes you can treat yourself to on the internet today. Maybe even this year. Artist Kseniya Simonova displays a stunning interpretation of the occupation of Ukraine during World War II:

My Public Apology to James Taylor

April 25th, 2010

Yeah. Like anyone will notice or care. But still.

In my second sad little attempt at another live blogging event Oscars post, I said something at least slightly disparaging about James Taylor’s rendition of The Beatles’ song “In My Life” during the telecast.

Tonight, after the Denver Nuggets got one game closer to elimination from the playoffs and because Comcast is too damn cheap to dedicate a high-def channel to Altitude Sports and continues to piggyback over other presumably great programming I chanced upon a relatively recent performance of his, called “One Man Band”, on HDNet.

It was as surprisingly entertaining and funny a performance as I never intended to watch.

If you have ever even liked just one of this guy’s songs (the one I thoroughly love is “Steamroller”), please allow me to wholeheartedly endorse this DVD that is not currently available from Netflix dammit. And please also allow me to admit that, while I was not very fond of James’ rendition of that song at the Oscars, I was a horse’s ass maybe a bit prejudiced.

Introducing a new blog category:

April 21st, 2010

Inspired by a group I joined on FB, I hereby debut the new blog post category, “I’m Going to Hell For Laughing at This”.

I probably should have thought of it when I put up the “Obi-Juan Kenobi” thing, but here’s a reasonably quick save:

radical-islam

Can’t help but wonder, how would this guy do on a wave? Probably not as well — the water-logged robes would almost certainly be an impediment.