The more things change, the more men stay boys

Merry Monday.
This in from my oldest friend, 'Star Wars Mike', known to many of my friends by name and having never met him. He has a jawdropping collection of old and new sci-fi toy merchandise. That's his hobby, collecting that stuff. Dad was a serious card collector back in the day, Mom collected Barbie's, it's in his DNA. SWMike has original Planet of the Apes sets unwrapped, original Star Trek, 80s Buck Rogers, Raiders of the Lost Ark (yes, remember, they had figures and vehicles for that. Black Hole (Vincent and Old Bob the droids), two unwrapped Boba Fett's still in the UPS package from when you had to send away for him in 1981 with cutout seals from the other figures you bought. The Cheerio's cards, the Burger King Glasses (whole classic trilogy), the dixie cups, you name it. It's a museum. Like the girl with classic toys episode of Seinfeld.

So with that introduction out the way, here's an email I got from him today. His son Connor is 5 now and as ruthless a collector as they come. Just like Dad. And Grandpa.

"Score! The new E3 Preview figures are out. Saturday night we picked up 2 General Grievous, the lava planet ambassador, and the wookie soldier (there were no R2 units which I thought was odd!) There is actually a funny story behind it. I was in the aisle with my son and daughter and I was looking at the Man Thing Marvel figure and Connor goes Hay dad they have a Grievous. I was like get out of here, no they don't. My son was like yeah they do! I lean over and look down the isle and said OH MY GOD THEY DO! I had known that they were out but never expected to find one on a Saturday night. We laughed all weekend about it. We also picked up that red Clone Trooper with the 2 laser guns.

later"

*UPDATE*: SWMike sends in this link of Super Grande Explo-zee-ann of Star Wars merchandise at WalMart.

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Speaking of when we grew up...
The 'Happy Days' cast has another reunion special this week. 30 year anniversary. Thursday night at 8pm. If you happen to catch Cha-Chi, there's ointments for that.

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Weirdo German Socialists Gone Wild!

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You don't even wanna know the piece I wrote on getting rid of my Contour this past weekend, the 'Green Goose'... my car of the last 7 years. Another coat of polish and I'll be delivering the 'Old Yeller' of sheet metal. Stay tuned. Or run now. Or buy Visine for monitor eyes.

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Sting is going on tour again in April. Back to basics with a four piece rooted more in guitar and rock. Like the Soul Cages tour of 1991, but this time purposely playing college towns and smaller arenas, like Van Andel in Grand Rapids, MI. To again get back in the rock nature of a quartet with more stretching and improvising.

Soap + Box ='s:
I've heard the bitching. For years. I understand (yet don't really agree, but anyway...). But if you like superb music, played by world class musicians, go see this tour. For 2 hours you can forget the 'arrogance - smugness - tantric yoga sex- anti-Police reunion - Jaguar commercial - tries to act in movies - vegetarian - too many songs about love - Rainforest saving - Elton John hugging - thinks he's all that at 50' catty perception of Sting the celebrity and go see why all that shit doesn't change the fact that he sells out wherever he goes for a reason: He puts on a great show, his bands can play their ass off, and yes, he IS that good. The shows with the bigger bands by nature have to be more streamlined with that many players, but 4 people can stretch alot. And Sting proved that in the Police and on the 91 and 93 tours with the 4-piece.

Ok fine, make me use the big guns you hipsters:
"they'll probably play more old Police tunes!...In fact Sting even said so."

Fine, make me pull out the Cred Grenade:
The keyboardist is Shayne Fontayne (Lone Justice, Bruce Springsteen), and the drummer is Josh Freese, the new 'session cat that plays with everyone' these days and currently a member of A Perfect Circle. Now if these "legit" guys, who are around 30, and love alot of the same hip music that we persnickety Sting bitchers like, why on Earth would they play with him? The money you might say? Oh but that would be selling out, and that's a big no-no to us Generation X'ers, except for U2, Bruce, REM, and Wilco. They just sell-out arenas, no corporation underwrites their tours, no...

Just go see Sting kids, he's good. And the tix are $40, not $80. It'll be like when your parents took you to Neil Diamond and it took you a week to tell only your closest friend in confidence that it was actually a fantastic show. (This is before mock-retro-feigned-worship of Neil took hold.)