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.

"Hey Whitey, where's your hat?!"

Geez...just when you start rooting for the old school humanistic Bono again who seems to have returned to low orbit with the whole Live 8 thing, this kind of crap makes one actually wanna side with Henry Rollins and his "I-wanna-bitchslap-Bono-AND-his-ego"...

Bono suing former U2 stylist for cowboy hat, earrings, and other 'icons' of the band from the Joshua Tree era.

Have another cucumber slices and lowfat ranch sandwich Bono, trot a flag along the front of the stage, sing your ass off, and stop this stuff. Have the mansions gotten THAT boring? I'm tellin ya Paul, it's seeing this kind of crap that makes the Nobel committee nudge your application toward the 'round' file.

Interesting how a certain sentence from Gilmour's press release at www.pinkfloyd.com about Live 8 was omitted when it was ran on the cnn's, yahoo's, or other US news sites when news of Floyd reuniting erupted. But its here on the floyd site:

David Gilmour made the following statement:
“Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world. It’s crazy that America gives such a paltry percentage of its GNP to the starving nations. Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context, and if re-forming for this concert will help focus attention then it’s got to be worthwhile.”

And also by the way, Iraq's going just fine. Planet's not getting warmer either. Anyway Mr. Consumer, your life is incomplete unless you have the new Coldplay, ya mutt. And isn't Lindsay Lohan so incredibly interesting??

Meh...

"Bat Recall Armed Alfred..."

Ok, I'm calling it;

I think as another homage to the original Batman movies, I think they got the same gossip columnist socialite to be in 'Batman Begins' that was in the others. I was able to find online a character named 'Gossip Gerty' real name Elizabeth Sanders. But she's not credited in Batman Begins yet. She was in the 92, 95, and 97 Batmans.

(The other homage I speak of is when Bale grabbed Falconi and did the classic 'grab'em-by-the-lapels and give an in-the-face "I'M BATMAN!" Or is that a comic thing and I'm only an average geek?)

Remember how at every Wayne manor party or society function there'd be that annoying woman who grab Bruce Wayn'es arms and exclaim how "he MUST meet so&so", (usually the villain not in villain-dress). Kind of funny if you think of it in a cultural impact sense...it's gossip columnists at society functions who hook the bad guys up with the good guys.

When the woman who introduced Wayne back to Liam Neeson did that, her voice sounded the same and she looks like an older version of the 90's Batman woman now.

I'm calling it. I think it's the same chick.

Here we go

Here comes Big Brother.
(Public surveillance cams to catch bad guys.) But ONLY bad guys. Really. Seriously. Just ask the police.

It's this bit that scares me:
"The crime rates in Chicago are the lowest in 40 years. The price of keeping the community safe far outweighs civil liberty issues," Bond said.

Ah...more security vs. freedom stuff.

If you ever wanna read a great book about society and privacy going by-bye, read this one:
The Light Of Other Days.

These guys invent a device that can open up a wormhole window anywhere, anytime. Plug in the coordinates and you can essentially open up the equivalent of a Quicktime VR panaromama view anywhere. So as this device gets used (and controlled by the government of course), the truth can be found out about anything. So as privacy becomes exinct as anyone can be seen doing anything anywhere, the book's description on how people and society start living their lives is really fascinating. Like how would your life really change if you knew that at any given moment, people are watching you? How that impacts your life and mental state. Discretion goes away as there's no need. Will you actually stop having sex, going to the toilet, getting undressed, picking your nose, talking about anything important or secretive?

And the other cool part is that the device gets tweeked to be able to look back in time. And they keep going farther and farther, seeing what REALLY happened in history, not what the writers said, but seeing what went down. So that impacts the world huge and upsets deeply ingrained cultural belief systems and such. Seeing how Jesus looked and really died. And farther to when man was evolving. And to when Earth was cooling. Begs the question of how much people would want to know. It's safer psychologically to stay in your comfort zone.

The book's a trip.

While driving the other night STILL hauling things back and from from the old house to the new, I suddenly recalled this quote by the author Ayn Rand for some reason:

"Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed."

She used to use this in regards to her writings on Environmentalism and such. But it wasn't till this day that I thought of it as applied to human nature too.

If you think about it, it's the foundation of psychology and self-help as well as landscape and architecture. (And yet again, my keen fascination and constant epiphanies with how (IMO) literal physics is the same as psycho-emotional physics is refreshed.) Sorry folks...some poeple see colors when they hear sounds, some people feel the energies of people and locales, some people smoke dope and go with their afghan and they're just part of the gang... I keep seeing these 'physics relationships' between tangible materials and human nature.

If you're gonna build on something, you must make sure the foundation is solid and you have to work with the laws of the land's nature, or, you're own inner landscape and it's strengths or weaknesses befoe you build on it. Whether a piece of land, or some life goal.

If you wanna change your attitude, or stop smoking for example, to command your own intrinsic nature, you must first obey it - by understanding how and why it does what it does. Only then can you learn to refine, repair, or upgrade it.

Meh... anyway.
I gotta get this house unpacked.

(10 fake referred-to-only-in-text dollars for anyone who can name the movie the afghan quote is from.)

Sorry for lack of updates for those who check this. I moved last weekend and its been a crazy cluttered, chaotic mess of a time.

I'll use my good fallback Carlin desk calendar for some quick comedy:

"If free trade can really turn all these Third World countries into thriving economies full of entrepreneurs and investors, who's gonna clean the toilets around here?"
Ouch.

"One of the more embarassing strains of American thought is the liberal-humanist, touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy, New Age, environmental-friendly pseudo-wisdom that appears on bumper stickers: "Think Globally, Act Locally," and most embarassing, "Practice Random Kindess and Senseless Acts of Beauty." You know, if kindness and beauty require public reminders, maybe it's time we just throw in the jock."

Now that's what I call Old School Grumpy.

Some crazy artwork done in Microsoft's Paint program by Ryan.
Ah to be 10 again.

Hell my name is your name here and I have a special offer for you.

I'm laughing at myself (as well as my coworker) because these words violently broke the office's silence as they came out of my mouth quite angrily and idignantly as I read about new cd releases today:

"What the hell is this 'Essential Hall & Oates??!, I just f%ckin' bought the 'Ultimate Hall & Oates!..."

Essential
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:cyx8b5z4xsq0~T00

Ultimate
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:qyf6zfs3eh3k~T00

Super Ultimate
Yeah, I'm a little mad right now.


****************
****************


My god this is funny.

Coolest Monday in a awhile

"Awright, o-right, o-right!"
-McConaughey from 'Dazed & Confused'.

(This is the kind of stuff I'd do/host if I was a celebrity with time on my hands.)

"Absolute Evel: The Evel Knievel Story" (8 p.m., History Channel). Motorcycle madman. Matthew McConaughey hosts this documentary portrait of famed daredevil Evel Knievel, a colorful, cantankerous maverick who offers comments on his various crazy stunts and motorcycle jumps. And that includes Knievel's infamously botched 1974 attempt to leap the Snake River Canyon in Idaho. Oops

*******************

Pink Floyd reunite for Live 8.
Yes, all four.

*******************

Wow.
Madonna finally figured out that there's more to life than exploring her sexuality in front of the world.

This calls for a great rapid-fire montage of every time she scolded Kurt Loder in MTV interviews over the years with come-hither eyes as she would verbally bitch-slap him for even considering questioning her sexual personae and it's role in her publicity strategies. While dressed in whatever slut motif that tied into the new album design-wise.

But what do I know, I just watched MTV and believed it all like a good 80s boy. As long as Prince and Madonna's tunes were making my girlfriend frisky, I was a happy boy-toy.

AARRGH! She's brainwashing me again!!!.."

******************

I wrote this about the Pink Floyd reunion thing today:

Nick Mason's cool new book about the Floyd has a postscript in it that said it's probably not possible they'd reunite. Key members of the PF team like manager Steve O Rourke has died, and Storm Thorgeson the art director is ailing. So even though the 4 main guys are ok, in their world the PF machine is not what it was.

But...then Geldof comes and saves the day.

I think PF will get it together. Extremely slowly. A few one-off shows, maybe writing together as a lark to see what happens. I think they'll have to convince themselves tangibly that what they already know ("we're too old to be stupid and petty anymore") can be applied to working together. I think their concience and whatnot would only allow them to do something very real and worthy. Especially with Roger. So maybe in 3-4 years I'd expect a tour. A real tour behind a real album. It would have to be legit in Roger's mind. As much as I think he's grown and mellowed and wisened, his integrity has always been there.

And to be honest, I think the other guys would be fine with getting in the studio and letting the old dynamic (sans fighting) take hold - which means following Roger's lead and supporting a bold vision he gets excited about.

In other words, I think Dave, Nick, and Rick could give a shit about "supporting" Roger, or being thought of as his sidemen. I would hope age, death, family, (and being huge millionaries) would comfortably allow them to be cool with the fact that letting Roger's vision (delivered with the abilities and understanding of the other guys) is what makes PF special and unique. And I would hope Roger understands that in a compasionate, un-arrogant way too. It's a synergy and symbiosis that simply works well. His message delivers in no better way than with those 3 guys providing the bricks and mortar to his blueprints. (it seems to me).

And those 3 guys "get it" more than they have the burn to create it themselves. Its obvious by their output. (And being filthy rich). So let the beauty exist. Let go of the ego and competition. The world already knows their geniuses, they've only read it about themselves for 40 years now. What's left to accomplish except putting good music and message to the world?

Maybe O' Rourke's spirit is subversively engineering his mates into resolvving such a feud.? If anyone would really know the scoop of that inner PF dynamic and know the good it would bring, it's that guy. Managing this from the grave.

Maybe they call it "from the grave" because it's so gravely serious, a dead person has to dip back into this plane to make it happen? Obviously us silly humans couldn't get our heads out da butts.

Organic food versus Factory Farms set in a Star Wars animated theme.
Like Hardware Wars.

Very fun.

http://www.storewars.org/flash/index.html

I'm gonna be a DJ in the clubs.

Everyone's doing it seems, and the names are so clever, original, and easy to differentiate. But you know what? I thought of the best one of all.

My handle will be:

"DJ [violently indifferent fart sound]"

I think that will look great in print on the gig listings page.

[Wick Wick Whirrrt, Wick WikWik Whirrrt.]
Can't ya hear me scratchin'?

European newswoman farts on air, can't stop laughing.

I love how the bumper music to transition out of it just drives the hilarity home even more. Her silhouette giggling.

Comin' Alive

WORK HARD, ROCK HARD.

Priming and painting our new house in Ypsi has been a wonderful and fatiguing exercise. And part of that exercise is in learnign first hand what kind of music works well in such situations. Last weekend when Paul the carpenter was putting arches in the living room thruways (arching otherwise standard rectangle doorways), we had the boombox jamming 94.7, classic rock here in Detroit.

If you're gonna spend your Memorial Day Weekend covered in drywall mud, dust, paint primer, shocking your hands into spasm from using power tools to mix that mud for 10 hours straight - Steve Miller, the Eagles, Sabbath, Zeppelin, and Joe Walsh goes down reeeeeal well. It's a great lesson in understanding why classic rock is classic.

Enough rock and metal riffs to mirror the intensity of the hard work you're doing, mixed with the groove of great rhythm sections that were guys who grew up on the rhythm sections who came before them, who were the 40s/50s/60s big bands and early rock-n-roll drummers. So they actually swung. Only hard rock metal band I can think of that swung in the 90s was the Pumpkins. What's that you say? The drummer Jimmy Chamberlin learned drumset playing jazz? Weeeeelll, call me Blondie, I guess I'm right. [ get it? Blondie? Call Me? That song she ha..., oh forget it.]

Anyway, when you're busting your ass on major home renovation and need to get dirty and do stuff that makes you sore by end of day, good classic rock and roll really makes sense as the day's soundtrack. (This is not Major Earth News Epiphany here I know...) The band(s) sound like they're working as hard as you, but also trying to make it feel good. Just like what you're doing with your home.

Painted ceilings ALL DAY today. 'All day' being 2pm to 10pm. Holding the roller on the broomstick for hours because you have to do it right, slow, and with a pattern system to get even coats. Where one side of your neck gets dang tight holding a broom with a pound of weight on the end far out from your center of mass and you have to control the stroke. THAT painting ceilings all day.

And now I'm off to 'visit the Rev. Al Green' and watch a Frampton concert.

Cuz that's what you do after a day of bustin' your ass.

Thank God for Peter Frampton.

I'm about to feel like he do'd when this pic was taken.

More Star Wars

Bill Murray on a radio show where they got him to sing his Star Wars lounge version on the air.

Two great ones from my George Carlin desk calendar:

"Think of how strange we'd look if all the cuts, burns, scrapes, bruises, scratches, bumps, gashes, and scabs we ever had suddenly reappeared on our bodies at the same time."

"A crazy person doesn't really lose his mind. It just becomes something more entertaining."

******************
******************

IF YOU HAVENT SEEN STAR WARS EPISODE 3/REVENGE OF THE SITH YET, DON'T READ THIS NEXT PART TO AVOID SPOILING IT FOR YOURSELF.

+++++++++++

So tonight before bed Joy and I watched Return of the Jedi from when Vader brings Luke to the Emperor on Death Star 2 to the end (with ep3 still fresh in our minds.)
What a treat.

And YET ANOTHER fantastic cyclical technique with Anakin watching the Emperor frying someone (Mace in ep3, Luke in ep4), trying to decide what to do, yet THIS time he chooses to stop the Emperor. I never thought of that similarity to ep6 when I was watching ep3 in the theater. The actual duration of time that the frying is happening and now two times in his life anakin just wacthes Palpatine doing it and being frozen in confusion.

Sounds easy and simple on paper here, but when you watch it, man does it resonate so much deeper now.

And best of all...after seeing ep3, seeing Anakin in young form at the end of Jedi as a ghost makes TOTAL comfortable sense now. Any weirdness I had was quelled. Because the Anakin ghost has the same essence and facial looks as he did so much of the time in ep3.

How frickin awesome.

But Joy did say that just that bit of Jedi she watched was better "because it was real people and characters. Its more fun." The stormtroopers and Ewoks, etc, the Emperor's throne room set, etc. I.e. Everything's not CG.
Sweeeeeeet.

The Champagne

From an email to my pal Ruz, now in Iraq serving in the Air Force as a firemen. regarding the house Joy and I are working on and getting ready to move into in the coming weeks..

**

Speaking of which, when we first got in the house to start stuff last week, I bought an 18pack bottles of High Life for 9 bucks at the Rite Aid up the street from the new pad. It is, indeed, the Champagne of Beers. I get it now. Always believed, now I understand. I could have wrote my Ph.D on why no man can truly appreciate the High Life until over 30. Maybe 27 if he's exceptional. Those commercials the past year were absolutely dead-on. The older you get, the less tolerance for b.s. you have just by evolution it seems. A man just wants a beer he can sip on or take a swig, and he doesn't want that beer arguing with him, taste or price-wise. I wanna beer, I wanna relax, I don't wanna get crazy, just give me some something refreshing and smooth that won't slow me down, I got enough crap on my plate to deal with (picnic plate literally and life plate figuratively).

I'll enjoy my Guiness when it's the only thing to do when out on the town, with friends over. But it's an insult to the Guiness and to you if you can't enjoy it appropriately. How much can you savor your Guiness holding it at your side while watching the steaks grill? High-end beer is like a girlfriend in that you just can't leave them somewhere alone in a strange place for a significant stretch of time, much less forget where you left them, and expect them to be fine when you get back to her. Leave your lady on a ledge in the garage for a half hour and see if she's just as fine as when you left her there (when you found her again) looking for the charcoal fluid.

Working on that house, yanking moldings off the floor walls, hauling paint into the house, kicking up dust, mowing the lawn that looked like a field of green wheat it was so high... I truly and without impedance understand why real men (usually with the title 'Uncle' in front of their name) had a fridge full of beer in their garage. I filled our new friedge with that whole case of beer, taking up all the room in there gloriously. As I admired the rows of liquid gold so well lit by the fridge light, it reminded me of beer fridges of my relatives. ("Ahhh, I get it now. Keep a shitload of beer in another fridge so there's more room for actual food in the food fridge... GENIUS!") Those old school jukebox-shaped fridges from back in the day, with the cooler door handle latch. You knew you were opening up something serious opening up the beer fridge.

And when Uncle Frank told you to get him a Pabst from the garage during the family holiday get together, well, no nephew worth his new Keds bungled that mission. You can make cousin Brian spew milk out his nose at the kiddie table via a strategically placed sweet pickle up your own nostril all you want, or toboggan down Aunt Nancy's sweet steep staircase on a beach towel while the Aunts sit at the dinner table and smoke those chocolate colored Kool cigarettes while they gossip about everyone else's kids. Hell, you can climb up on to the roof of the sunroom addition via the 3-faced piping TV antenna next to the house so you can jump off the roof and play stuntman. But when it's Go Time for the suds, and Uncle Ken and Uncle George, in their red holiday cardigans send you...not tell or ask you... to get some beers for them, well, that was the High Life to me.

It was my first taste of it and I didn't even know it.

One of the best things about Revenge of the Sith, from a technical standpoint was how they made the CG Yoda's lips stiffer when he talked, so it transitions better to Empire when we get to the puppet. His lips in Empire and Jedi just opened and closed.

Ep2 he had quite the rubbery articulation that just wasn't there with the puppet. Glad Coleman and the SW CG boys caught that.

Wanna see some cool Easter Eggs from ROTS?
The Millenium Falcon was in there indeed.

Tues

The 2nd guy to be Fred Flintstone's voice died, Henry Cordon. Henry took over in 1977 when original Fred Alan Reed died. Henry has been doing the Fruity Pebbles commercials all along.

I gotts say, I knew there was a different guy in the past 20+ years. One of my things, one of my super talents (and I think everyone has a super talent or two) is that I know voices and faces. Especially voices. Not bragging, just telling. I can pick out voices on commercials, in voice-overs, you name it. I have a really sensitive audio memory. People's inflections, timbre, cadence. I just know it. I'm good with faces too. I knew for a long time that Fred Flintsone's voice changed, but the guy who was doing the Fruity Pebbles commercials was really good. But his timbre was like a diagonal half-step lower than Alan Reed's. It sounded riht, but was tired ins some way. I just thought Alan Reed might have gotten older and his voice mellowed. But something in me always said "No dude, it's not the same guy." It was in the way some of his vowels were stronger or softer in certain words compared to Alan Reed's. Henry had a bit more melody to his inflections than Alan. Henry's long vowel sounds would rise or fall in pitch over their duration sometimes. Alan's was a solid note from consonant to consonant.
Henry/the Fruity Pebbles commercials would exclaim "Baaahr-nee" with the "nee" a lower pitch than the "baaahr"
Alan's "Baaahr-nee" would stay same note for both syllables.

Anyway, this proved me right.

And double anyway, here's a cool picture of the original Flintstone's couples from back in the day.

Fred, Wilma, Betty, Barney

Good job Alan and Henry. Fred was a great one. Just like Jackie Gleason who he was modeled after.

Good weekend

Saw Star Wars twice so far. What a fun movie.


***********

***********


Joy and I park and start towards Whole Foods when I notice a nice Lincoln Town car next to us with it's trunk open/unshut completely. And no one around. I wonder if I should close it for the person who may not realize it didn't shut. I casually look in and there's groceries and valueables. Do I help my fellow man, or just walk away?

So I shut the trunk.

And the alarm goes off.

"PAMP! PAMP! PAMP! PAMP! PAMP!"

Between the 2nd and 3rd PAMP! I have already promptly (and stone-faced) turned back towards Whole Foods and head off into the store fed up, shaking my head as I angrily marvel at the irony via a tight-lipped fed-up smirk that would make Harrison Ford proud.

As George Costanza would exclaim: "Ya know WE'RE LIVING IN A SOCIETY HERE!!"

Ya try to help a guy out, but he's got himself so protected even the good guys can't get in.

And really folks, have you ever seen anyone anywhere hear that PAMP!PAMP!PAMP!PAMP! and get up concerned saying "Hey everyone! Someone's car's being broken into! We need to catch the bad guy!!"

No. Ya don't. What you see is everyone half turn towards the barrage of PAMP!'s and go back about their business with a whisper of a look on their face that's saying "some a-hole's alarm is now going to ruin everyone's mood within earshot. Please God let it stop within the next 3 seconds."

Good Shot Red Two!

Episode 3 works.
Pop in Episode 4 when you get home.
It's all new again.


**************

The Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.
Here are this year’s winners:

Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

Bozone: the substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

Cashtration: The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.

Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes, and it’s like, a serious bummer.

Decafalon: The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.

Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

Arachnoleptic fit: the frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.

Beelzebug: Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

Ignoranus: A person who’s both stupid and an asshole.

From the annual "Dark and Stormy Night" competition.
Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar
eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now
goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a
dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had
disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude
shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the
way a bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty
bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had
an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another
city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a
sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots
when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers
raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight
trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55
mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket
fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two
hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she
was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel
trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But
unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from
not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,
either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from
stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one
slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids
around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard
bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten
to put in any pH cleanser.

27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing
legs.

28. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally
staple it to the wall.

CHECK ME IF I'M WRONG SANDY...
You know you're getting old when googling the term 'cinderella story' for a pic of Bill Murray in Caddyshack returns back pages of Hillary Duff living every American Daddy's girls dream.


**************
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DA RUZ
My bro The Ruz is a firemen in the Air Force. This weekend his fireman team deploys to Irag for their required 120 days tour of duty. Living out in that 120 degree heat in those deluxe tents, walking around in full camo and battle gear, with an M-16 in his hand. Flying out Sunday in one of those big C-5 Galaxy cargo planes that can fly like 5 tanks inside it. The plan is he's just to do what he's been doing in Texas, but in Iraq - hanging at the Firehouse on the base waiting for fire or plane crashes.

But their flying into Baghdad airport (the one we took over) and then convoying over to their base, sitting in those transports with an M-16 in his hands. Crazy. I really hope it goes ok and he just hangs out there and comes home safe and well. I think I've had more bro-to-bro talks over more beers with him than anyone, besides my best pal from high school Dr. Dan.

Sitting in my little Trenton upper flat drinking Guiness for years, him chillin on the couch, me lounging in my purple Lazyboy, just going_OFF on whatever was worthy of going off on in our lives. Girls, jobs, music, drumming, rock, jobs, politics, getting into/thru/and out of ourselves alot of just maturing and growing up shit that people do. You know - the pal you have who you can sit in a room for 6 hours with and just vent or rant or laugh with over beers, jamming tunes, reflecting on what you think you're starting to think about your life (and life in general) as it evolves in your mind and in front of you.

The friend who you actually admit to what you're fucking up in your life. It's not just escapist entertainment hanging out, it's good talkin'. The friend who, after hours of watching concert vids, or jammin tunes, laughing your ass off at a movie and beers, at 2am you're both near passing out reflecting on your own sh*t and saying with all dead honesty "Dude, f*ck man..., I gotta [insert recent epiphany here] and get my shit together, this is bullshit." THAT kind of bro. The kind who calls you out when you're runnin' some b.s., whether on others or just yourself. I guess that's what a best friend is.

For whatever that's worth.
I got great friends.


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FUNK BOMB
Tonight I recalled the sheer tectonic funk intensity of the George Clinton show I saw about 4 years ago...I couldn't take it after 3 hours. It was too much funk. I'm too white to go the distance. I made an admirable effort, but I remember turning to my buddy Judd and saying there was no way I could carry on. Its was too much funk, I had been carpet-bombed repeatedly with Music Missiles. Da Funk was exploding my brain. It was a wall I hit, which I when I try to think of a comparison, what comes to me is being kept in a small windowless padded room in an asylum and the drumbeat from the Zeppelin song "When The Levee Breaks" is played constantly for days. At first you can groove to it. Then it gets really hypnotic. Then you play silly games like making yourself pretend its the sound of a factory next door, or a big civil War train chugging along slow. Then you get tired of all that and wish it would stop, just for a bit to catch your psychological breathe per se, but it won't. Then after awhile you think that deep pocket of groove is going to make your head explode. It's so heavy, the military gun council gave a rock beat a .calibur designation. It's like that.

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EH, ACTUALLY NORMIE...
I read in a CNN piece today about the celebrity charity premieres of the latest and last Star Wars movie 'Revenge of the Sith.' One of the celebrities attending was John Ratzenberger, "Cliff" the postman from TV's 'Cheers'. Yes he was in Star Wars. Seriously, no Below sarcasm here. Do you know where? Guess.

Give up?

He was in Empire. On Hoth. A rebel chief. When Leia gave the Rebel Hoth troops their evacuation and rendevouz information pep talk, near the wing of the parked X-Wing. Right after she says "Good Luck", a sargent kinda guy immediatley says" Ok, everyone to your ships, LET'S GO!"

That's Cliffy. Listen to how he says it, specially the "Let's GO!" His "GO!" has the rounded O of that Boston accent he had on Cheers. And you can hear its his voice.

He had alot of bit parts in big movies back then. He was one of the radar tech/watchers in the first Superman movie. When Superman was chasing the two missiles Lex aimed at both coasts, there's cliffie with the headset mic with the military chief over Cliff's shoulder watching missiles as graphics on his screen.

I'm not lying, but I'm too tired to google for the exact shots.
Ok, lemme try, we'll see if first tries work.


Even better, proof of him in both movies here.

Remember this next time for 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Oliver Stone to Yoda.
Oliver directed Woody Harrelson in Larry Flynt, Woody was with Cliff on Cheers, Cliff was in Empire Strikes Back.

We're not Generation X, we're Generation C(able).

iWhat? I podded. Podded what? The plants, iDid.

Blogging late after my first ever "Worked Out On An Elyptical Machine While Listening To an iPod."
Visual distraction was an old Seinfeld I couldn't hear anyway.
Music tonight was Queen's 'One Vision' and 'Headlong'. Each about 3 times.

"...Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme FRIED CHI-KUN! (Chii-kuhn, chiiii-kooohn, shooow cooone...

Well, what are You listening to on the treadmill??
Counting Crows??

"HeYEEAAAAAUUgh...!"

Aw shit, I'm supposed to do that at the end.


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Check out this surfing video. I don't know of this is CG trickery or not, but man it's awesome.
As in truly full of awe-ness.
-Thanks Jan

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Umphrey's McGee is playing the Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, Saturday night, June 4.

"You will go see Umphrey's McGee..."

"This IS the band you're looking for."


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This movie sounds really cool. A possessed drummer who has 4 different voices speaking thru him. His going mad and letting this happen on stage makes him become a hugely popular lounge act.
There's something I feel I need to be learning from this.

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I finally got the sitemeter counter back on this page. Now I can see for myself again how only 3 friends of mine visit this blog. They learned to laugh at my ranting years ago during the EMU 'Animal House' years...

[New person to one of our parties]: "Whoa, who's that dude ranting and smiling and waving his arms all over. He seems really angry."

[Zac, Brendan, Andy, Bill, Micael, Ruz, Matt, Rob, or Joel]: "Naw, that's just Dave. He's just really passionate."

[New person]: "Passionate? Passionate about what?"

[Zac, Brendan, Andy, Bill, Micael, Ruz, Matt, Rob, or Joel]: "Anything you think sucks. Anyway, here...balloon?"

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Don't put this album in your notes, put it in your life.

We'll just say it was road-tested.


"HeYEEAAAAAUUgh...!"

Saw Trey Anastasio Saturday night in Cincinnati. First road trip with coworker Steve Bekkala. First time seeing Trey live together as I kind of pushed him to see Phish, and luckily he got to twice before they disbanded. So that was fun.

Being a big Phish fan, it was a strange thrill seeing Trey live without the other Phish guys.

But if what Bekkala and I witnessed from Trey (and his band) was something that was indeed being contained or impeded by the natural dynamic of 'The Chemistry That Is Phish' after 17 years, I'm happy for Trey and glad Phish called it when they did.

Trey went to 11.

And at once it made me love Trey AND Phish even more.


HUMONGOUS PROPS to the opening band the John Butler Trio. Astounding.
You will be hearing about this group, I guarantee you.

Bam

Here comes:

Baby Got BOOK!

A religious version of the Sir MixAlot classic.


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Ah, Double Standards...
Note the mascot's choice of books. Priceless.


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The National Highway Safety Council has done extensive testing on a newly designed seat belt.  Results show that accidents can be reduced by as much as 45% when the belt is properly installed.  Correct installation is illustrated below:


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Wonder is right...



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Hooray for Small Enterprise
readmyboobs.com


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Ok, personal stuff:

Talk about geeked. Out of the blue, this remastered deluxe edition of the first Power Station album came out a week ago.

Re-mastered, plus some remixes (eh, whatev), a bonus track that was a song they had on the soundtrack to 'Commando', that Ahnuld movie from 1986 where he kicks ass rescuing his kidnapped 10 year-old not-naked-all-the-time-yet, but-in-near-future-will-be-bitching-about-naked-pics-of-herself-on-this-new-internet-thing Alyssa Milano daughter. The song 'Someday, Somehow, Someone's Gonna Pay' sounds like a heavy rock song that plays during the end credits after a movie like that.

And it wasn't Robert Palmer singing but Michael Des Barres who sang after Palmer left to be the Robert Palmer we all remember in the Addicted To Love video. Kinda run of the mill, but the pocket is heavy as hell thanks to Tony Thompson on drums. Tony's the guy who played with Zeppelin at Live Aid. He hammered and felt the pocket like Bonham did. And that's almost sacrilegious to say, but it was true.

I wanted to smack Robert for skipping out like that, especially for missing Live Aid with the Station. Not that the Live Aid dvd has the Power Station performance on it. But therein lies the reason I'd say.

Michael Des Barres...sounds familiar don't it? That's because you probably remember his former wife Pamela Des Barres, former groupie to the classic rock icons of the 70s and 80s.
She was like the 70s Tawny Kitaen of rock whores except Pam went on to get a book deal to talk about Jimmy Page's penis (among MANY others), rather than get arrested like Tawney for beating up a baseball player boyfriend after leaving O.J. before "Tantrum '94".

Aw, you know Tawny, the redhead who slithered on the cars in the Whitesnake video.

HEY!, speaking of the 'Snake, no shit, they are playing the Toledo Harley Davidson Store parking lot this summer! Man, that would be a blast! Just the sound of that gig invokes beer, crank, and blistering guitar leads.

Say it again:
Whitesnake at the Toledo Harley Davidson Parking Lot.

You'd think we'd need to call Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels to keep the peace for this one, but Curt's too busy guest-hosting Sean Hannity's radio talk show.

I don't know if it'd be cooler to see them there or at the Royal Oak Music theater 4 days later. Wait. Yes I do. Well, at least in the Toledo Harley lot the people there wouldn't be cynical hipsters trying to act like they're only there because it's some kind of a mock-retro appreciation dickhead thing to do for a laugh. Sipping on the PBR they don't really like, using exaggerated body language to over-prove to people around them that they're only there as a lark because they 'd never really admit that Whitesnake indeed does put on a hellacious rock show.

Look you fuckin' wienies, if you're gonna act and dress like you're rather be listening to Weezer and Elvis Costello, then stay home and do it. I'm not talking about just this Whitesnake show, I'm talking about the rest of your life.
"Can ya hear me now? Good. Cuz I wanna tell you you look just like me."


Yeah...I'm thinking being outside on some blacktop, on a summernight, with rows of Harleys behind me, swirling rainbows of color from the stage light show in the chrome exhaust pipes of the bikes moving to the strains of "In The Still of The Night''s Zeppelin rip-off violin bridge would be pretty fun. Or I could do it standing in the 'cinder-block warehouse with drapes' that is the RO music theater, where the motto is "Good sound? City Ordinance 341 prohibits that."


Aaaaanyway... this new Power Station album also came with a DVD containing this sweet 30 minute promo video that used to exist with all 3 PS videos, plus in-studio stuff of them playing. Always wanted that. AND!... the band playing 'Some Like It Hot' on Saturday night Live in Feb 85. I saw it once, and always wanted a tape of it.

I vividly remember seeing it in 1985, all 14 years of me, thinking "Man, this is confusing EVERYBODY in that audience. It's the 'Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News, I Got a Bad Case of Loving You" guy in a suit, with the two guitarists from Duran Duran dressed like leather samurai's, one of whom is wearing a skirt, and some professor-looking black dude wailing funky rock beats on drums.

FUCKING_ AWESOME.

Gimme eccentric and eclectic lookin' cats who can play anyday.

R.I.P Robert, Tony Thompson (the drummer), and Bernard Edwards (producer and member of Chic who produced the Power Station)

Fortunately I got to meet Robert, Tony, and Andy Taylor at Clutch Cargo's in 97 when they put out a 2nd album (11 years after the first). High school friend of mine was taking photos for Rolling Stone and got me into the Meet & Greet. Got autographs on my Power Station CD sleeve. Pics of the show are at popfolio.com, her site. Loads of great pics of all kinds of bands there. Big bands.

What the hell is going on?

I drove thru a blizzard yesterday to see Sting, but walked around in sunshine and warmth at my new house today.

Then on Nestscape's news page webpage I see this?


I'm not making this up. See?:

Skydiver jumped out of plane, hit the wing of the plane he jumped from, and severed his legs at the knees.

Joy says "The Universe giveth, and the universe taketh away."

Arby's manager cut off part of his finger, it fell into lettuce bin and made its way to some poor dude's sandwich.

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We need some Comedy Ginger to lighten up the mood.
Like this.

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I mentioned seeing Sting Sunday night (Grand Rapids). 4 man band. Sting on bass, 2 electric guitarist, and Josh Freese of A Perfect Cirlce on drums. A 'getting back to roots' kind of tour of college towns, pulling out some full-on electric barrage numbers. And Geez did the band rip it out.

Here was the setlist:

Message In A Bottle (balls out)
Spirits In The Material World (balls out)
Demolition Man (elephant balls out)
I Hung My Head
Synchronicity II
End Of The Game
Driven To Tears
Invisible Sun
Heavy Cloud No Rain
Why Should I Cry For You?
Fields Of Gold
A Day In The Life
The Soul Cages (tease) --into--> King of Pain
--(stopped playing KoP in 92, this is a first since he said he wouldn't play it anymore back then)
Voices Inside My Head--sung over/juxtaposed over-->When The World Is Running Down (then full-on into WTWIRD)
Roxanne (still comes up with twists on the arrangement that keeps your interest I must say)

Encore 1
Next To You (balls out)
Every Breath You Take (of course)
She's Too Good For Me

Encore 2
Lithium Sunset


Yeah there were some 'Adult Contemporary' numbers in the middle for the ladies in the room, but other than that it was awesome to hear some Police-era bravado coming of the stage. The band was world-class superb. As always with Sting.

Sir Bekkala, Master of Ticket Acquisition, had us 13th row on the floor of Van Andel, dead center, halfway between stage and soundboard. First concert ever I was close AND could hear word inunciation in an arena. We could hear Sting talking off-mic to the band cueing changes during jams.

And it was Sir Steve's first Sting show. Sting always puts on a superb show, glad Steve's first show leaned toward the heavy tunes, so if/when he goes again and the band's bigger and less rock-ish he understands both vibes. Though Sting's shows always have good rocker jams too. This tour is more of'em.

Josh did great on drums, but for this tour DAMN I missed Vinnie.

Don't worry hipsters, there were no Jaguars for Mr. Tantric to gloat in to be seen.
He didn't even take his coat off to show his physique to the ladies.

Why is it Sting is the "asshole" when from all the old footage and documentaries it was so obvious that Stewart was the brattiest most instigating and arrogant prick of the band?? Oh I remember, because "he was bringing Sting down from his high horse". Riiiight...

Good thing Sting's hit-writing high horse was a tad taller than Mr. Copeland's, or 'Stu' would be thanking you're college-age cousin for choosing Kinko's.

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Don't you frickin' hate it when you pay your bills for the month and realize you had too much fun leading up to your 'Bill Paying Night' and now you're deadnuts broke already for the next 2 weeks?

"Hello Mr. Pepsi and Mr. Cheeto's. Busy for the next 2 weeks?"

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"Billy George Sin Bo Rain Ox McGee! "

Crazy Ass TV Dreams Fillin' Me With Glee!"

HoRAAAAAAAAY, Lizard Shiiiiiit.. BELOG!!"


It's the first rainy spring morning here in Ann Arbor, a warm morning but with pleasant rain. Like 'sit home and watch John Hughes movies with the windows open to hear the rain' pleasant rain.

I stood at my huge window next to my work cube, looked out at the rain coming down again and said aloud "I think I need to pull up some SuperTramp".

Everyone around here today has that "Good Lord I didn't want to get out of bed today." Companies need to have the rainy day equivalent of a floating holiday/snow day. When it's such a great morning to just chill out and sleep in with a light spring rain coming down so it lulls you to sleep... companies should allow you that day to just chill at home and enjoy a gentle rainy day. It's good for the soul. Maybe call it a "Floating Seattle Day"?

Floating in caffeine maybe. Joy told me all the coffee companies started out in Seattle because the rainy depressed weather is what drove people to use caffeine as the psychological survival tool it can be.

Then she told me that she left the windows down on her car this morning.

(I think the guys in the audience know this rest of this story.)

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How about this:

Monday morning woke up from a dream where I was in a basement waiting room for whatever. I was hunched behind a couch trying to suppress this obsessive urge to get up and do stand-up (for the first time) in front of everyone in the room. But the reason I was having this urge was because it was burning inside of me to share with everyone how Blair, Mrs. Garret and the handy token guy neighbor on 'Facts Of Life' all had this Frankenstein-ian Botox look to them. Like a cross between Max Headroom from the 80s and Mickey Rourke's character from Sin City. That smooth yet swollen jawbone/cheekbone/forehead thing. But the token neighbor guy (who was really a young George Clooney with a mullet on the real show), he wasn't Clooney but this FrankenBotox'd blend of that Red Sox player Johnny Damon who looks like a Grizzly Adams/Billy Ray Cyrus blend. But in my dream he has a dash more Hawaiian DNA to him (underneath the Botox).

Yep. And you think I make this shit up.





(Guess which one is when he told Jo he was Batman AND a Doctor.)

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How can one not share this pic with the world? I mean, someone, at least once, probably one of the Generals, did this for him.

Hi

This quote is cool:

"A comment on the importance of poetry...
There are four dimensions of poetry: intelligence, senses, emotion, imagination. And it appeals to these things in three ways: through rhythm, through sound, and through what might best be called "correspondence," the comparison of apparently unlike things. The poem you create is an object you can carry in your hands, a smooth stone you can keep under your tongue. Poety is a place where you live part of your life, so you owe it to yourself to make it as real, as comfortable, as furnished as you can. Because the right poem at the right time can save your life. "


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This movie seems like it would be cool weird.

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Star Wars Mike told me he read in some new Star Wars character book that Darth Vader can't shoot blue force lightning since his arms are robotic and he has gloves on too.

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Every action has an equal and opposite reaction:
I've believed I've needed brake work for a few months now and in the past 2 days my brake pedal was going all the way to the floor, like I had no brakes. (I barely had brakes.) I postponed belated birthday dinner plans with Mom to take advantage of Mechanic Friend Brendan being home, before he split for Vegas for 5 days. Brendan diagnosed my troubles over the phone from my descriptors and organic sound effects, told me what parts to buy at Murray's and we'd do a brake job in his driveway. The A2 Murray's who had the parts - when I got there, somehow, someway, some other person in Ann Arbor with a 2000 Focus needed those rotors and brake pads and bought the last ones. Within the 3 hours I called on them and then got there. But the Ypsi store, 10 miles in other direction of Brendan's, had them. So I hop in the car, which is losing brake ability, haul ass to Ypsi to retain the sunlight, get the parts, and get back to Brendan's. Very grumpy, very frustrated, just Meh...

Upon actual inspection of my rotors, pads, and brake fluid, Brendan filled my low brake fluid back up, the brakes came back to life, and I'm getting my $125 in parts refunded tomorrow. I know that for a good while there was a grinding sound coming from my front wheels. Maybe when the fluid starting getting low there was an airpocket/hydraulic chamber noise going on when I braked. I dunno know, there was something grinding.

Anyway, I to got get some more car stuff done as I used Brendan's shopvac to vaccuum out the car, Joy and I jumped on Brendan's backyard trampoline a bunch, I did one good land-and-stay-upright-on-my-feet front somersault, had some DiGiorno and beer, and came home. I have not stopped yawning since. And Max the Rottweiller we're dogsitting got to make friends with Brendan's great dog Cosmo. They ran and chased and sniffed each other's butts all night. Kinda like guys when they get together; they run their mouths, chase girls, and smell each other's ass via farts all night. The universe is all relative via verbs, that's all. It's the nouns that separate everything.

Joy was an absolute angel tonight. The best girlfriend in the world. The grumpier I got the funnier and nuttier she got to force me to smile. I'm blessed.

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Speaking of blessed, i got to hang out with Dad Wednesday night, have a nice dinner. I got an iPod as a birthday/get-well present (the hernia op I had in February.) How cool is that? My dad was hearing baout them, asked me about it, I showed him online how cool they were. My Dad's always a sucker for great gadgets.

He always asks me about finding old songs from the 50s he grew up with, so he asked me about 2 songs;
1.The b-side to Santo & Johnny's "Sleep Walk", which we figured out via the internet as 'Tear Drop.'
2. The b-side "Sometimes" from Danny & The Juniors. (They did the 'At The Hop' song)

We found both, and it was cool to sit next to my Dad and watch him smile as he literally had not heard 'Tear Drop' in 50 years. 50 Years people.

( Iswear, I wanna make links to all these songs above but I'm so damn tired right now... sorry)

Its ya Berfday

Today's my Birthday.
Some interesting facts:

- I ate Star Wars-themed cereal for the first time this morning since probably 1983.
(I bought a corn flakes and a marshmallow ceeral, both with Darth Vader on it this weekend. Normally I don't by the theme food stuff, then it hit me that this is the last time in my life I'll have a chance to eat cereal with SW pics of Vader and the crew on it. So why not have some fun.

- I was born on Easter Sunday in 71. Every 11 years my birthday hits on Easter Sunday again.
Birth, 11, 22, and last year my 33rd. I plan to make a t-shirt that says
"Birthday '99 - Go For It!!!" Or, "No really, check the numbers, because yes, I am Jesus."
(That will look good on me at the shuffleboard tournament at the Florida retirement home.)

- This is the first birthday ever with blogging in my life.

- I try to buy the Sunday paper to read the celebrity birthdays for the week to see if someone cool has my birthday. This year I learned it was Joss Stone. Well, at least Letterman's is tomorrow the 12th.
-b. My shared celebrity birthdays:
Rose Kennedy
Joel Grey (actor)
Brad kid from high school.
Amy chick I met at Cross street way back when.
Joss Stone

The coolest shared birthday thing I *used* to have was that it was Eddie Van Halen's and Valerie Bertinelli's wedding anniversary. But that was before the divorce.
Oh well...



One thing I love is how David Lee Roth once commented (during the 1996-97 'Almost Reunited But Didn't' Van Halen Wars)that Eddie was so hammered at his own wedding that Roth was in the bathroom holding Eddie's hair from falling in the toilet while Eddie puked his brains out, while wearing that awesome white tux with tails. Val was pounding on the mens room door for Eddie, screaming that Roth "better not have given him any coke."

Just picturing Roth and Eddie in that scenario probably an hour after that shot above was taken makes me laugh.

Ya see, I didn't even try, and on my birthday I brough in partying, Star Wars, and Van Halen again. It just happened.

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From the The problem with knowing what you want is that you just might get it file:

Rapper Corey Miller has changed his stage name from C-Murder to C Miller "because he thinks he's been misunderstood," USA Today reports. "I am not a murderer," Miller says in a statement. He is, however, behind bars, appealing a conviction--for second-degree murder.

Also,
A judge recently reduced P.Diddy’s child support payments from $35,000/month to $28,000/month when he surmised that the ‘ex’ was not spending this money on the child but may have been using the money to enhance her lifestyle.

I hate these shitheads.



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"You will go see Umphrey's McGee...."

B is for Bullsh*t and this Bullsh*t's NOT for me

First the Pope dies as an eclipse hits and now Cookie Monster's telling us to eat healthy??!!

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So the latest issue of Rolling Stone has this feature on the 'The Immortals" with big name artists writing on 100 legendary artists. such as Elton John writing on Eminem, Dave Matthews writing on Radiohead, Trey Anastasio on Frank Zappa, Beck on Hank Williams, David Bowie on Nine Inch Nails and Mos Def on Miles Davis.

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We're watching Max, a big loveable Rottweiler that looks like this:

I think he misses his daddy/Joy's brother who's on vacation next week. But he's a good dog. I saw a shooting star while walking him tonight. I saw a commercial years ago stating that petting a dog lowers a person's blood pressure. Knowing that and being more in tune with how you feel when you interact with a dog you love, it's neat to see how calming it is when you haven't been around a dog in years.

Well, unless Grandma's seeing this when she comes over...



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Is it me, or does this make sense in some weird way?

Like, if Buddy/Syndrome grew older and mellowed.


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For anyone interested, below is another 'Below Day After" blow-my-mental wad long review of a concert I saw last night.

++++++++++++

Gentlemen, meet YOUR new band: Umphreys McGee


Steve and I went to Lansing last night to see this band Umphrey's McGee, a 'jam' band from Chicago on the circuit for years now. Neither of us saw them, heard good things, jammed some tunes at work and were intrigued at their playing ability on record. At Temple Club, like a St. Andrews with a tiny stage inset in the wall, maybe 3 feet wider than the Blind Pig stage,

I've been trying to crystallize exactly what I truly feel about this, but I think I came to this:
I honestly believe I have never seen a better genre-crossing and live performance by a group of musicians/band ever in my life. An absolute Event.

Darren, you would have been reduced to jelly. I swear to you, this ain't Dave "the comedically exaggerating music fan messenger" here. You would have been sobbing on my shoulder. Take every solo and dual guitar solo ability by Randy, Eddie, Trey, Maiden, Priest, NightRanger, Skynyrd, Holdsworth, Santana, Widespread, Lynch, Alex, Yngwie, Belew, Fripp, Paul Gilbert, Howe, SRV, Hackett...take that ability, take those chops, and put it into a groove/'jam' band premise...with all the meter changes, stop on a dime dynamics, fun, hippy vibe and free-lovin' solid confidence...and that was Umphrey's. Control and mastery on their instruments to die for.

Blistering dual lead finger tapping solos at times. It was like getting brain surgery on yourself without anesthesia, but the Dr. was so good it didn't hurt anyway. You felt your neuron's being played with like Lego's while looking at the assistant nurse and exclaiming "this Doctor's great!" Trading solos and mimicking each other. Having fun with the audience. But it wasn't a wad-blow "look at us doing this!" thing, it just was great players having a ball. Complete mastery. I can't imagine what these guys' actual limits on their instruments might be. They play like they could play anything by ear.

They're Notre Dame music students who put a band together out of Chicago in the late 90s. 2 guitars, bass, keys, drummer, percussionist. They started as a Phish cover band, and evolved into their own thing. They never stopped playing in their first set. I've never witnessed two guitarist play as fast as any "guitar god" for that long in a show, effortlessly, and with taste and musicality. There was nothing for anything's 'sake'. It wasn't always guitar god pyrotechnics either, but it would/could happen at the right times. Every guy in the band was like a prodigy, but it NEVER felt like robots or mannequin Guitar Institute shred students. It was absolutely astounding. Total "who ARE these guys??" I've never seen a band with such solid time. You'd think the drummer was listening to a click, but he wasn't. He was marble solid.

So I have to say...
With all respect and sincerity to the fact that every band is and should always be true to their own natural energies, characters... and that bands and their music should be judged on the personae of themselves, that it's not a competition in the end, yadda yadda yadda...

...With all that disclaimed, Brutha's...Umphrey's wiped the effin' floor with almost any band I've ever seen. And it was done without any attitude that registered as such. I felt like I saw a musical natural wonder, a New Guard, a "this is what can be done in this genre". Steve and I were both commenting on how strange it was to feel so ecstatically proud of 6 absolute stellar musicians for having found each other. To get 6 people with absolute natural prodigy-like supremacy on their instrument, to put it together, and it actually WORKS aesthetically, and they ALL understand and 'get it'...It's soo rare. If it was lab coat sterile prog-jammy, the crowd wouldn't have been there, the word spreading. It was organic. If Trey went to Yngwie Insitute.

Brendan, Andy, Darren, Hupp...it was the '4 Disgraces' from cross street after 10 years of touring/playing together. Imagine them on the road on the Bonnaroo circuit. Like Allman's mixed with some Prog chops.

Steve put it a great way:
All those early 90s shows in small clubs that Phish played before they hit the big theater and arena phase, these shows coming out now on the live CD's where you go back and read that there was 100 people in this 700 seat club in Texas, paid $10 and they pulled a 70 minute Tweezer that went down in history among the live archives; before they started exploring the space and began letting go of the blistering unison runs, learning about less is more thru application; the absolute zenith of the band being nothing but 110% Burning in the absolute peak of hitting their threshold of chops, commitment, and loyalty to being the best player possible and tightest band possible; before marriages, before kids, before re-inventing themselves, before the natural toll of the grind sets in and it's -still- like being on vacation but you know every nook and cranny of the island now and know where to get what you need; the fountain of eternal vitality in the playing still; old enough to know the taste, young enough to still burn the musical candle at both ends.

Made me think it must have been in those early 90s when people walked out of seeing Phish completely aghast at what they just saw a band do (and how it still isn't globally acclaimed just yet). You felt like you're in on a secret. Yet Umphrey's also learned from the 'less is more' phases of their heroes too so THAT's included as well.

When you feel like you've seen every ism done and re-done by every band, and a band who can shred would most probably bore you after an hour because it's an emulation of the same arpeggio runs every shredder does...I could not believe how I was not bored ever. These dudes were playing unison Mach 3 leads with fret board finger dancing that made my hands hurt just watching. DickTight. These guys can play anything they ever could imagine. They went into Zep's "How Many More Times" and did it right, it wasn't computer correct, covered Beastie's 'Groove Holmes' and chugged it along, and closed the encore with a blistering 'Cherub Rock" by the Pumpkins that of all people, if it passed Bekkala's seal of approval, you know it was executed right. (Pumpkins is Bekkala's religion) I found myself shaking my head in smiling pride at these guys, can't count how many times Steve and looked at each other with expressions of "this can't be happening, they just did NOT do that solo/transition/run that good and clean like it was doing brain surgery blindfolded." I don't think I saw them break a sweat.

I'll let you listen to it because after the show at the souvie booth you could buy the show on disc for $20. 10 minutes after they left the stage. And it sounds great.

I felt like I was witnessing what southern Cal people in the 70s saw when they saw Weather Report in a small club, or the fusion funk bands with Tony Williams where the people on stage were truly the crème of the crop. This was the benchmark. This is the gold standard, yet no vibe of cockiness or "we're proving to you that we can outplay any band around" came off them. They simply are amazing.

The vibe of the lot and the audience is as fiercely loyal yet mellow as any Phish or WP show I been to. We frisbee'd with strangers, it was great. (Not so usual really). Steve and I remarked how there was something unique about the whole vibe. It was very 'Midwestern Hippie' to create a term, yet I never thought of any shows having a regional parameter like that. I never perceived it until last night. The girls at the souvie booth, the merchandise manager guy, soundguys, the band when they shook hands after the show from the lip of the little stage... it felt like Michigan, Ohio, Chicago. Like a really cool party in your home state/hometown. I can't really explain it, but it did feel different, more familiar in some weird way. The Umphrey's community is Chicago/Midwest born. The jokes they'd crack between songs, the slightly weird encyclopedic knowledge of so much pop culture stuff. Like Phish, but from this part of the country.

So overall its maybe like a "The Midwest Chapter of The Bonnaroo League"? :). The southern chapter, the New England Chapter, the West Coast chapter... we all know those regions have their own unique isms to their vibe and crowds, not in just music fans. Southern hospitality and the like. To be in one that felt so Midwestern was quite impressive, because, well, I've never been in one (or realized it could exist). And you don't realize you haven't until you're in and notice something feels and flows different at this show than the other shows you go to. To get real dippy about it, the values and personae of the band in question will relay and have influence on the people who are attracted to it. Like Attracts Like.Umphrey's felt like "Ours" if that make any kind of sense at all.

We Michigan kids who love our classic rock, but also the Metallica and Rush and Van Halen and Maiden; we get the groove thing, we also get the chops and metal glory thing. Every artist raves about the Detroit audience, from metal to Bonnie Raitt. We're smart music consumers on average seems to me from the feedback artists give. We 'get' alot of it, all over the map. We party to the party jams in the summer, we stay inside in winter and study and zone in on the shredding and esoteric epic stuff. VH and ACDC in the summer park, Xanadu and Floyd in the winter. Well, the guys in Umphrey's grew up doing the same thing. And by the way, they can play all of that shit. Then decided "hey, we should start a band and play like all that stuff we love."

Next time they hit close by, you guys are going. I swear to you. I will pay.

What eff's me up the most is that the merch guy said the show was "good, but not a great show."
How a show where the whole floor crowd was boogy'ing so hard that the floor of the place was bowing in time with the songs, I don't know. I mean I know that he has more perspective being on tour with them, but if that was an okay show, I'm scared at what a stellar show by his standards would be.

I guess I'll see at Bonnaroo. The moon is gonna crash in to the Earth at Bonnaroo because the Moon will want to get close to the stage to see this stuff. As much as it blew me away, it made me even love the other bands I go see more. Though Umphrey's from a technique and ability standpoint could do anything WP, Phish, String Cheese could because they simply have the hands and brains. They played so pure, honest, and happy in being themselves that it only made me appreciate those other bands more for what they uniquely bring to the stage.
WP- Southern Shade
Phish- Lumberjack Intellectual
String Cheese - the Colorado Air
Umphrey's - the Midwestern appetite
imo.

I wanted to buy every souvenir they had. I'm going thru my day rooting for them in my head, it's so fun. I've never seen a band exude almost every musical appreciation I have in one offering like this. It just kept coming; "ok, this guitarist is a 7 trick pony, NOPE, now he's a 10. Ok, that's probably all I need to expe...wait, nope, he can play that kind of stuff too?, holy carp, ok, so he's a 15 trick pony. Wait, what the hell was THAT?"

Brutha's, I have been renewed. I think you will be too.

You know it's yoooooou Baaaaabe

You know it's a gonna be a great day when it makes sense for Sammy to sing Styx to you.


(THIIIINK ABOUT IT!...)

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Jan lets us know:
"not the kind of car you want to see on your block..."


***************

Dad sent this classic email, and it's a always a good one:

The Death Of An Old Friend
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Mr. Common Sense. Mr. Sense had been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered for having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm and that life isn't always fair.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not kids, are in charge).


His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. - Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Mr. Sense declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer aspirin to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Finally, Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense finally gave up the ghost after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a bit in her lap, and was awarded a huge financial settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust, his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by two stepbrothers; My Rights and Ima Whiner. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

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Good things happening in the world of Below. This is weekend is birthday weekend (Monday actually) and Joyous has been making me suspicious; all thru thru the week she calls me from "somewhere" where she's takin care of "stuff". I myself have been known to meet the Easter Bunny, Santa, and the Birthday Bombadeer in select parking lots across the county to make my exchanges from the trunk of said supplier's cars. But I at least would tell Joy this. (But not the parts about the Bunny taking me to the businessman's lunch at the Vu.)

Saw, discovered, and will forever now root for an amazing band Umphrey's McGee this past week with Steve in Lansing. The Midwest Phish. You'll see. And learned that a dear cherished Level 42 concert video is being released in the USA too. I been waiting for this to come to nice DVD forever and at first it looked ot be only a Euro-release. If you know me and you're a musician or been in a band, or was in my pad for more than 10 minutes and we talked about music since between 1987 and now, you know this video.
It's been my ammo to show people that L42 was mucho more the fantastic live band than the two 80s hits they had (which do not convey the killer chops of this British funk band).

This weekend/next week we get to babysit MAX, Joy's brother-in-law's Rottweiler. 120 pounds of total loveable oaf. Like Cujo playing the part of the Snuggles dryer sheet teddy bear. But man is he gonna scare the begeezus out of our friends coming over when they first see him. Serves them right for not reading the blog.


***************

Boobie Slot Machine

Jan chimes in:
"Ok I'm not a religious guy, but hey, what are the odds of an eclipse AT THE SAME TIME as the Pope's funeral?

It's enough to make you rethink the religion thing just a little…"

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This next thing is partly invisible:

Ya ever____________the universe is backslappin'_______________with their
___________heads up their____________like a___________________________frothy schweppervescent___________________bad_________________when Chrissy and Janet thought Jack meant__________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________Tuba City?

___too.

_______________Seekotch phoned in for tickets___________________old lady at the counter not knowing how to use the thing______________________. Reminds me of _________________and Mickey's tall boys at Ron's___________________________________________Doug Frost made us only by premium _______________________when we gave Wendy's a lawnjob while Joe___________________________________more eggs_________________________________ pissed!

Man those were the days

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Saw Josh Rouse at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor Monday night.
The music and show was bliss, but warmer. What's a word that means 'bliss' but with some warmth to it? Like smoking a doobie with friends sitting on a soft carpeted living room floor with candles goin' and sweet old-school Fleetwood Mac ('Warm Ways' with Christine McVie singing) on the stereo with wood speaker cabinets with black fuzz on the front? Mellow bliss.

If you said 'piss', you'll feel right at home here.

Nice guys in the band. Great players. Got them to sign my Nashville CD after the show. Talked to them in the upstairs green room afterwards. Good guys. It will be fun to see them on the awards show in a year remembering them playing to half capacity crowd in a little A2 club one Monday night.

Spidey-sense tingletells me that he'll be the next Norah Jones next year, when the baby boomers (i.e. cash cow audience) catch up and realize he's playing the good shit. He learned all the right lessons from the great bands who came before him (that the boomers grew up with.) Kind of a 70s Paul Simon/Fleetwood Mac thing. Simple yet lush arrangements, truly tasteful playing by all the band members. Josh and the boys will be at Meadowbrook next summer, you watch.

That is, unless Josh's Anakin-like low-carb descent to the dark side spells his final doom. By morphing pounds-wise from one pop star to the next to become Crispin Glover, well, we all know how Dave Lettermen would love that.

Bare Naked Lady Josh


Eddi Vedder Josh


Lindsay Buckingham Josh


Mellencamp/Jason Priestly Josh


Almost Crispin Glover Josh


A few more pounds to go...


Voila!



Yes, those are all really Josh, except the obvious two. But that's just what Jospin wants you to think

Tell this to George Zipp

This is fun.
Put in your birthdate and it tells you a bunch of stats about your age relative to famous people and what was going on when you were born.
Birthday stats generator

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"The weird kind are always the ones left."

This was said referring to the remaining bagels in a bag someone brought into work for general coworker consumption. It struck me how profound that comment was; the last bagels in the bag, the last kids picked for teams during gym class, truly original artists after the more fashionable ones die away.

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Airplane is on channel 50 right now as I blog. Captain Steubing's daughter is about to have her i.v. knocked out by the guitar playing stewardess.


************

Happy Berfday to good pal and drummer Steve "Puh-Leeze" Bekkala today. He has successfully logged another year of lame-free living and unabashed positivity. My Crew of Bro + Joyous missed him terribly at the Widespread Panic show Friday night, but at least he was playing his ass off drumming with both his bands, Porchsleeper and The Flouride Program.

************

On that note go see Widespread when they come back again. And don't fall for that deadhead, hippydippy jam band bullshit label you might hear someone lump them into. They're a good ol rock band. See, there was a time kinda long ago when most bands not only played great songs, but the band members could take solos and really lay it down, or take the song(s) somewhere extraordinary. (And not thru psychedelic noise trip "ooWOWooo mahn.." playing, but good ol' soulful,from the heart playin'.) Where Phish and other "jam" bands definitely did take some left turns bordering on prog-rock, exploratory improv isms, Widespread is more related to the Allman Brothers, BB King, Stevie Ray, and Southern rock tradition of blues infected rock and roll. IMO. And on top of that, it's a great wonderful positive energy scene.

You know its a different scene when the State Theater security DOESN'T start forcing themselves thru the general admission crowd as it packs every nook and cranny to let more people groove, smoke, and just move where they want. That place was rockin'. And no one pulled any bullshit. A crowd there for the right reasons emits a different energy. Even the Detroit Skinhead ushers could tell the difference.

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From the "Good Art Survives" file.
This all reminds me of another thought I had this past week:

Seeing a poster for the Dark Star Orchestra at Wazoo Records, and then thinking of the Beatles tribute bands, "Super Diamond' the Neil Diamond tribute band, Phix-the Phish tribute band, and other groups who live to keep the repertoires of defunct bands alive. The European orchestra's playing Frank Zappa's music... and many other groups like this. The ones really taking the music out to the people, not just home-town, tri-county area "let's be a such&such tribute band for fun" and it lasts 2.4 years. I mean the groups making good livings keeping this music alive, playing the repertoire's of these prolific artists as their main purpose or agenda. Then it occured to me;

Were the orchestra's playing those classical composer's music, long after the music was "hip". regarded with the same kind of passive regard as we do these tribute bands now? Will the music in 400 years regarded as "classical" be the music *now* that's kept alive by the tribute bands who put in the effort to actually keep playing it live? Or in other words, were the orchestra's back when thought of as lame-ass "tribute-bands" when they were still jammin Mozart and Tchaikovsky stuff 50 years after he died

Rolling Stone and NME can tell us all they want who's worth our worship, but when those writers and us fans are long gone, the tribute bands keeping these repertoire's alive are gonna win out. That whole "history is written by the winners" thing. And also the "talk all you want, but what have you Done?" thing too. We can read all we want about Wilco and Radiohead being the shit in the new millenium, but in 90 years will people still get it? Will they be able to experience the repertoire's performed by humans? (and not 3-D holograms of concert vidoes of the original band [see next blog item].) Talking about being in the same room as other people experiencing the execution, exertion, and passion involved in performing and expressing those notes? Will the Yo Yo Ma of 2214 be giving cello recitals of U2's Joshua Tree album? How many millenia before Mustang Sally is NOT played in a smokey bar on open mic night at T.C.'s Speakeasy?

Humans, over many many decades, taking the time to learn the notes and put in the time to perform the stuff live will win out. Whether it's Haydn's 4th concerto or a full-on KISS production. That's what I'm thinking and wondering. And also if I spelled Haydn right.

So in summary, I guess what I'm meaning is:
"What good art (musically) from this time will survive the most?"; The stuff heralded and written as being what was great in this era? Or what organized musicians, symphonies, or bands are actually still playing because it kept being played by these tribute bands all along?

In music and nature it seems to me that strong composition always last the longest, since it was built right and solid. Even if no one (a) got it at first (b) thought it was cool at first, or (c) did like it at first, but then rallied to the next shiny colorful thing.

Write a letter about how you thought about this stuff in 2005 to your great great great grandchildren with instructions for your great great grandchildren to give it to the ggg gkid's when they're 20. Or forget about this stuf and just write a letter to the ggg gkid's. Wouldn't that have tripped you out if it happened to you?

"You're great great great gandfather wrote a letter to be handed down all the way to you, to be given to you when you were 20. This letter is 140 years old. This is the only way he could meet you."

Geezus Dave, next time just say "hey people, make a time capsule with your CD's in it and a note" and end the blog there.

[too tired to check typos, going to bed]

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WOW.
3-D High Definition Film making coming.
"A company called In-Three located in Agoura Hills, California has perfected image-processing software it calls the Dimensionalization Process. It's apparently capable of transforming 2-D images into 3-D images. So impressive is this technology that at ShoWest last week, a panel of prominent filmmakers appeared to announce embracing the process. The panel was hosted by Business Development Manager for TI DLP Cinema Doug Darrow and composed of filmmakers George Lucas, James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Robert Rodriguez, and Randall Kleiser."

Lucas is going to re-release the SW films in this format and wants Spielburg to film Indian Jones IV in this 3-D format.

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Healthy Levels of Insanity

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and Point
A Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don't Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, Ask If They Want
Fries with that.

4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label It "IN."

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks. Once Everyone Has
Gotten over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch To Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your checks, Write "For Sexual Favors."

7. Finish All Your Sentences With "In Accordance With The Prophecy."

8. dontuseanypunctuation

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. Ask People What Sex They Are. Laugh Hysterically After They
Answer.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is "To Go."

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital And Ask Why The Poems Don't Rhyme

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area And Play Tropical
Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can't Attend Their
Party Because You're Not In The Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, "Rock
Hard."

17. When The Money Comes Out of The ATM, Scream "I Won! I Won!"

18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking Lot,
Yelling "Run For Your Lives, They're Loose!!"

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner "Due To The Economy, We Are Going
To Have To Let One Of You Go."

Happy April, Fool.

This just in, an exclusive interview with the Emperor conducted by kids.