Sunday, July 31, 2005

The Sex Issue!

(All items are about sex.)


These two deserve all the misery they get having to endure being together to fulfill the contracts they signed in the first place.

[Imagine I spelled 'twats' in a way that made it pronounced like 'brats'. Thanks]

Sexy Because: Paris Hilton is only "important" because the only thing she can do is look sexy.


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Berlin readies giant brothel for 2006 World Cup
No, really.


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Don't know how much this relates to the Sex Issue this edition is supposed to be, but on my headphones is INXS's 'The Stairs', my favorite tune of theirs. Which makes me think of that horrible Rock Star show the band is doing with "host" Dave Navarro to find Hutchence's replacement. Saw 10 minutes of an episode the other week.

Just when I think today's wanna-be's can't get any more irritatingly striving/posturing/over-hyping their own lameness, some producer comes up with an idea for a show that proves me wrong.

Especially vomit-worthy is watching the 'O' and rock faces the other contestants put on fakely when the camera is on them sidestage as they "root on" their competitors singing on stage. Especially that black mohawk dude, he's ridiculous. I didn't know the Mad Max people actually rejected people trying out for "Mutant-Extra".

These idiots need to kneel on the ground and hold between their out-stretched arms one of those over-sized turbo slingshots you launch water ballons with so I can stretch the middle pouch back 30 feet, put a brick in it, and let go.

Lou Ferrigno needs to pick Dave Navarro up by his nipples and throw him through a very thick restaurant front window. Maybe he'll put a shirt on then. I think of my friends who really were behind the Jane's back in the day and must cringe at this great guitarist now.

Sexy Because: Navarro would probably think it was sexy-violent-cool to be thrown out a window by The Hulk. He'd get up, brush the glass shards out of his fur coat and start slowly frenching Lou while Carmen videotapes it for his next video.


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GPS surveillance of sex offenders.


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I'm tired, so I'll end with saying I watched the movie 'Be Cool', the sequel to 'Get Shorty'. Sonnenfield did not direct it and it's apparent. But if you watch "Get Shorty" sometime, watching "Be Cool" is a neat novelty rental since the whole Chili Palmer thing is in your short term memory. Vince Vaughan is pretty funny, and of all people, The Rock is actually quite a good actor in this one.

Anyway, there's a dancing scene between Travolta and Uma Thurman in 'Be Cool' that is actually quite sexy. Like "this probably ruffled their significant other's feathers a bit cuz damn! they look like they really wanna do it to each other afterwards" sexy.

I thought.

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For you techies out there, check out this article about how potential future DVD copyright encryption for hi-def DVD's could really screw the consumer when hackers mess with it.

This kind of thing is making me understand alot earlier in life why Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't keep upgrading their home entertainment stuff.

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Be My Taco Bell Bitch yo.

Ya know how like every 4-6 years a new Taco Bell item makes it to your stomach's VIP room? Something that just works for you and becomes the default item for the while?

I was a burrito supreme man in the late 80s. Since the Meximelt hit around that time, it's now a default item,the supreme a treat every 5 years. I could live on Meximelts if they didn't kill me. Early to mid 90s the 7-layer burritto became my main gun, with a Meximelt. But a few too many times of the rice in it being overcooked and crunchy turned me off. I drifted for awhile on meximelts and new gimmicks till the Double Decker Supreme came to town in the early 'oughts. Been on that ever since. Its the best of both worlds - you get some crunch with your folded-differently 'burrito', or, your 'taco' doesn't shatter onto the tray and paper after bite 1.

Bekkala got me now hooked on the spicy chicken burritto. It's my new 'TBell bitch'.
Buck 29 and oh so fine.

Listen I'm not joking...this [blog's] my job!
animalhousesutherland

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Remember the Cronin

That REO Speedwagon ballad from 1985, "Can't Fight This Feeling";

That song works.

It works because:
1. The song, as a composition, is there.
2. It's pure REO. Really.

Next time you're sitting in the Allergist's office listening to soft-rock radio waiting out your 15 minutes after your allergy shot (to make sure you don't have a funny reaction before you leave) and it comes on, fold your hands, put down the 3 week old PEOPLE magazine and really listen to it. It's got it.

I always felt this, but this morning I understood why.

If you could speed up the song from ballad tempo to mid tempo, you'll see that it's total REO. Kevin Cronin's vocals, from melody choices, to his little inflection hops he does are all there, just slowed down. If the 1985 synth piano was removed from the intro & outro and it was just acoustic piano, and the drums weren't overly processed, you'd hear this song being as classic as the other REO we all know and love. Huge chorus, Mt. Olympus guitar solo perfectly melded in, song decontructs going out the same way it constructed coming in, Cronin's syncopated vocal melodies where the the last word of the verse dips back down to the same note each line, it's there man.

Forget his smiley cheesy face in the video laying down the vocals, that glossy spittle on his lips making you wanna hit him. Hear the song, and Remember the Cronin who was 80 pounds selling out arenas in the late 70s, hammering that piano with the air raid siren keyboard announcing "Riding The Storm Out", the REO that Dr. Johnny Fever on WKRP in Cincinnatti was always selling tickets to on the air. THAT REO. Cronin with the giant spaceballs Dark Helmet rock hair.

Not today's Cronin imagine (though they still bring it live)
Kevin_sm

THIS Cronin
REOtheessential


I've been jamming "Roll with The Changes" alot lately because it rocks, and because the cover band I'm in might play it. I borrowed a friend's Live Aid DVD and watched REO at the Philly show recently. I've had musical REO DNA in my system lately, believe you me. Now granted, I really liked the ballad back in the day. I was 14, and a big power ballad with real drum fills in it just did it for ya in the 80s, regardless of your gender. (Sorry 90s kids, we had men singing the ballads we slow-danced to in the gym back then, not Mariah squeal-shattering glasses singing about chumps with Booty ADD).

But I'm tellin ya, 'Can't fight This Feeling' is old school REO if you really listen to the components. Its akin to all of their classics, just wound down about 12 beats-per-minute, with some mid 80s production spritz. (Spritz was big in the 80s ya know.) But the notes man, the notes are there.

Go ahead make fun of me. You're just in denial. It's okay. I understand. Really.

Just remember the only air raid siren you'll hear anywhere near Coldplay is the one the network uses as a hype sound effect edited into the pre-game post-season rally-up breakdown halftime report montage (using 'Speed of Sound' as the music) that makes men who put leather balls in holes and other special places seem like important Delta Squad Halo Terminator Globetrotter Ninjas-On-Fire Starship Trooper Dicks saving the planet and humanity thru...a game.

RantOff.

P.s My Bro Brendan saw REO play in Vegas a few months ago on the roof of Ceasar's, in town for a major covention, all the convention companies had parties with music acts. Said REO anniolated the place.

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In other news, my Carlin desk calendar today is great:

I've always wanted to place a personal ad no one would answer: "Elderly, depressed, accident-prone junkie, likes Canadian food and Welsh music, seeking rich, well-built, oversexed, female deaf mute in her late teens, Must be non-smoker."

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Sunday Funnies

From the Washington Post Style Invitation, in which it was
postulated that English should have male and female nouns, and
readers were asked to assign a gender to nouns of their choice
and explain their reason.

The best submissions: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SWISS ARMY KNIFE -- male, because even though it appears useful
for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just
opening bottles.

KIDNEYS -- female, because they always go to the bathroom in
pairs.

TIRE -- male, because it goes bald and often is over-inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOON: male, because to get it to go anywhere you have
to light a fire under it... and, of course, there's the hot air
part.

SPONGES -- female, because they are soft and squeezable and
retain water.

WEB PAGE -- female, because it is always getting hit on.

SHOE -- male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue
hanging out.

COPIER -- female, because once turned off, it takes a while to
warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the
right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the
wrong buttons are pushed.

ZIPLOC BAGS -- male, because they hold everything in, but you can
always see right through them.

SUBWAY -- male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people
up.

HOURGLASS -- female, because over time, the weight shifts to the
bottom

HAMMER -- male, because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5000
years but it's handy to have around.

REMOTE CONTROL -- female...Ha!...you thought I'd say male. But
consider, it gives man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and
while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps
trying.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Genius

So over late night snack at Red Robin, Joy and I see reruns on the TV's of the All-Star game pre-game fun day at Detroit's Comerica Park. Billy Bob Thornton is interviewed on the sideline, he's there to wear a Bad News Bears cap and promote the remake movie he's in by just being there as a celebrity wearing his BNB cap.

I almost lose my mouthful of food onto the floor from a creeper laughter that wells within me as I think on Joy's spontaneous, earnest, pure comment about Billy Bob, a comment I think may well perfectly summarize the world's collective shared feelings about Billy Bob, yet has never been pinned to Earth with accurate words:

Joy: [in tired empathetic sincere voice] "Ya know, I wish that Billy Bob Thornton would just relax into being the dirty old man that he really is, and then we could all relax too and celebrate with him."

billybobthornton_badnewsbears1

Thursday, July 07, 2005

This NASA site has actual footage from when they shot that probe into that asteroid the other day. Almost looks like bad b-movie sci-fi.

Sucks that this isn't bigger more significant news. I mean, we bulls-eyed a moving asteroid and have actual video.

Oh wait, now I remember why...humanity is too busy trying to stop it's own evolution with terrorist bombs and goddamn cross burnings in my hometown

Yes, Goddamn. As in I indeed say God should damn these f#cking idiots.

Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

A beautiful thing for music fans.
Floyd
Don't know if you saw the LIve 8 footage (check AOL's music page for streaming reruns of it), but as someone who has listened to a load of Floyd (not nearly as much as you Zac J I admit), I could not get over the absolute complete power of the whole sound with Waters playing the bass lines. You'd think it would be boring as hell hearing the same old tunes again (and just getting off on the reunion aspect), but those tunes sounded amazing. Waters feel on bass was just wonderful. New life into those tunes.

One of those pure diamond unqiue chemistry things. The natural beautiful combination of those 4 guys and how they feel it together is un-equalled. Waters has a slight tug to his bass lines...not so much playing behind the beat, but a gravitational tug where you hear his note a nano-second after the pulse. Its in time, but you hear that bass line and Gilmour's guitar equally. Sonically...Gilmour's lead line is the front guy in the bobsled and Roger is smashed right up behind him with his sonic arms wrapped around Dave's waist, but he's still behind him physcially. Nick the drummer is behind Roger but in the middle centering the weight, acting as anchor, but its acting, not being. He's moving around here and there playing off the other guy's shifting weight ,and Rick the keyboardist is holding onto Nick nice and snug, head down, but kind of yelling for dear life under his breath. You can hear him, but you can ignore it if you want. But if he got quiet, you'd know something was wrong.

Team Floyd be competing at the next winter Olympics by the way.

Laugh all you want at the silliness, Mr. Rooted-for-the-Jamaican-bobsled-team-as-a-Joke.
Eh? EH!?

Monday, July 04, 2005

Rainy Midnight Drive Home

Perhaps the reason a song becomes popular, or referred to as "great" in mass culture, is because the scope of the song is as big or wide as the default scope of a human being's emotional conciousness. (Doesn't have to be good to be great. 'Great' means it was bigger than usual.)

This is how a song you never liked, preferred, or thought you really enjoyed somehow resonates in you at a later date. Because when you're driving home late thru the rain, sad and depressed about something significant and impactful in your life, the song you always skipped past on the CD (because it was the overkilled "super-single") suddenly is very comforting as it visits you on the radio....somehow at the right time.

Even though, technically, a "right time" should not be possible. You allegedly never liked this song, remember?

Maybe you don't. And maybe that's true.
But the guys in that band sure poured alot of heart and soul into it and it's apparent.

Maybe it's that 'heart and soul' baseline that's become your friend on the ride home.?
Maybe it was always a superb song and you just weren't ready for it when it broke?

These dudes might not be singing 'bout anything remotely close to what I'm going thru, but goddamn I know their feelin' something about their stuff the way I am right now about mine.

Sunday, July 03, 2005

neverland

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Live 8 was a wonderful thing this weekend. I'm proud to say I remember tuning in thru the day of Live Aid back in the day.

What was even cooler about Live 8 was that no one knew it was also a secret public audition/screentest for the villains of the next Batman film...

Chris Martin trying out for 'Riddler'
coldplay joker

Good Charlotte guy testing for "The Bratter"
(Toby Maguire is contractually bound to Spiderman, so they got next best looker.)
charlotte

Bjork auditioning for "HellCat"
bjork

Elton showing he's the only one who can play "The Bugger"
lton

Black Eyed Peas just "wants to be da' main bodyguard elite thug squad of whateva' fuck villain they picks mate..."
peas

The producers don't even have a villain for this guy, but goshdamn he looks like someone smart enough to ruin Batman's plans...
Maybe 'Evil Morgan Freeman"?
evilMorganFreeman

Billy from Green Day walked in saying "I was BORN to play The Spinal Tapper, you hear me??!! This guitar shoots Death Darts, Lava, and I can fly on it too you cocks."
green day

And of course, like anyone really thought he'd let us down, Stipe came in and, well, ...in underground theater circles, they'd say "He 'Stipe'd it." - nailing the part to the point of the casting director discretely off to the side whispering a phone call to Bellevue for a "special pickup."
stipe

Stipe from the audition:
"You see i could have worn a blue doo-rag mask of the same fabric to match my suit, but that wouldn't have expressed the deeper issues of my character's complex persona. He wants to be understood for his evil genius, and by using the exact color facepaint to symbolize, work as, yet not BE a mask, I'm not truly hiding the person underneath with a physical barricade. You see, "BlueQueBallser" is an enigma representing the power of sadness in our modern world and how a sad person can be as powerful in their rage as a mad person. BlueQueBallser will affect change in Gotham oh yes - while the idiot minions of Gotham's "elite" are mesmerized by the MagnaHumongaGiant JumboTron screen playing a looping DVD of R.E.M. videos, I will be underground poisoning the water systems of the entire city by crying my own mutant radiated Death Tears into the water. By the time I'm thru, Gotham will become my own living plaything...the world's biggest city now my own video-making playground of zombie-fied, permanently sad frowned citizen extras, heeding my every direction from atop my flying camera crane. My radiated Death Tears will have triggered the saddest song each person had ever heard in their life to constantly play in their head. Yet regardless of the millions of different songs internally at play, they will all walk in unison pacing among the Gotham streets to my delight!. From my crane I will direct them with my Atomic Bullhorn (with ragged NME sticker on side) to shout blocking moves and directions for which crowds I want to walk off the un-finished highway overpasses to symbolize the doom we ultimately all share. I figure within 3 years of modest (but budget-exploding production costs to bankrupt the city) video making, I will have accomplished my mission. And The Batman will have no one to save except maybe...his own record collecton!!

If he can ..."


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Watch this hilarious commercial campaign with a caveman being the spokeperson for Milk.

Friday, July 01, 2005

Tommy boy

Brooke Shields bitchslaps Cruise back thru the press.

Just you watch...
I bet you an ice cream within a year Katie and Tom split.
Cuz Katie's still working her way to the top of her acting career game, and she's got a team of hired people (her publicist/management/career design team) who are paid big money to help guide her to the top and steer clear of crap that will typecast her or stain her image.

I gurantee you they are freaking out about how bad all this Cruise bad press is damaging their client's career, and pow-wowing over cocktails on Sunset trying to figure out how to break it to a 26 year old American girl that it's actually NOT a good idea to marry Tom Cruise. And at 26, she's gonna bend with it.

The People story she finally admits to in 2.5 years will be admitting that this whole summer of 2005 really crushed their relationship. But until then, in 1 year from now, the reason they split stays hush-hush.

See this movie S.O.B. for great comedy and biting insight into the Hollywood system. It's timeless. A classic. Blake Edwards ("10", Pink Panther movies, "Skin Deep") directed. And also shows Julie "Mary Poppins" Andrews boobs. Seriously.

There it is then...I've become what I hate... a fucking People/Entertainment Weekly industry columnist. Now I just need to get some 2-bit style show to have me be on-camera gossip consultant and review red carpet video of people I never met strolling in gowns and then defer to me on what else I think I think I sort of can't really know yet try to assume and half but double-ey predict barely in a way not to a point beleive I can or can't...know. At times. About some of them. Depending on if I'm on my period that taping and JUST HATE Kirsten Dunst that day for being so goddamn gorgeous in that silk fuscha strapless Carolina Herrera.

OhGod.