TORONTO MEETUP ALERT

I've been looking forward to this trip to Toronto for a while now. I've got some business there, and the short time I spent outside of Manhattan last weekend catching just a whiff of that pastoral, bucolic Jersey countryside with a couple of friends, and you think I'm kidding and I'm kind of not, made me think that maybe I could use just this much more of Somewhere Else. And much as I'd want to head out to somewhere totally rural (oh sweet runny jaysus, but a shack in the middle of nowhere with a solar panel just big enough to power a Selectric and a beer fridge sounds like porn right now), I do have a couple of birds to kill back in the old country, and I'm still (to stretch the metaphor) short on stones, so that's my weekend.

Speaking of Stones, I didn't realize I so narrowly missed the opportunity to see the SARStock concert, at which the entire population of Canada crammed themselves into a little vale by Pearson International Airport to watch Justin Timberlake get booed off the stage (twice, apparently; I don't know whether to beam with inner civic pride or cluck disapprovingly) before the Guess Who and Rush proved to the teeming masses that it's all been an illusion, and (pace, Tragically Hip and Blue Rodeo) Canadian music has really been merely passable for the last thirty years. (Kathleen Edwards? Sam Roberts? I leave the country for three years and this is the best you people can come up with? What, Jeff Healey couldn't fill in?)

Sorry about that stones segue. It's too late to get more coffee until I get to the airport.

Anyway, missing that show (and funny how not being there was part of the plan from the very beginning) has freed up my weekend, but not totally; I'm planning to meet up with my long-unseen friend Javina, a few of her friends, and any of youse that might be interested in meeting up for a drink, at Savage Garden on Saturday night (early, like from 8 to 10).

Let me know by email in the next couple of days if you're planning on coming, just so I know.

I'll be bringing the laptop on the plane again. After the security-nuking disaster of last month, I've lit a candle for the goons to not blow up my baby again.

Leave the light on for me. See you in a few hundred miles.

JUST GETTING THIS OFF MY CHEST

To the four year old who manages to hide out in the bowels of this office long enough to not get fired:

I'm really sorry I threw away the top to your take out container. I didn't realize you were still using it to teethe on.

I had no idea that despite the fact that you left it lying all by itself on the coffee machine, I was just supposed to leave it there and work around it, even though I didn't want whatever crusty sauce was caked around its edge to get into anything that might eventually get into my mouth.

Does that make me too much of a neat freak? Well, sorry. And when I went down to Odd Job to get you a replacement Tupperware container, which I thought might have been overcompensating, the lather into which you had whipped yourself and your best friend by the time I returned was a lovely little surprise. Don't worry, though; the HR director looked like he could use a little extra drama this morning, and your asking to have me fired I'm sure did the trick.

So again, I apologize for apparently ruining your life by throwing away your disposable lid, for having the temerity to try and keep our communal space clean, and most of all, for my misguided effort to do something nice.

I can promise you it won't happen again.

You're welcome,
Felix Fucking Unger.

I'M SORRY, IS THIS YOUR GAUNTLET?

Alright, as if you need to twist my arm, but -- of course I'll be here. Never do I pass up an opportunity to blow my boomingly rich baritone voice out by torquing it into the awkward key of some Conway Twitty number.

It'll be worth it just to hear Jon do "Maggie May." Let the coercion begin.

KEEP HOPE ALIVE (-- ERM.)

Yeah, yeah, great comedian, stellar guy, tireless performer, hero to the downtrodden, may all our lives be as fulfilling, etc.

I know all that, and agree with most of it. But you gotta admit, his best work was probably behind him.

Although the fact that Bob Hope was 11 years old when Babe Ruth hit his first home run has gotta be worth something. Granted, at that point he was some British kid named Leslie who was learning how to tapdance, but still.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

The one thing I got from the Springsteen show on Saturday night, aside from the usual huge feeling of community with my fellow rock & roll fans who were there for maybejustmaybe the last time to see the E Street Band go through their paces on a hot & actually quite beautiful Jersey night, with not a cloud in the sky and just enough humidity in the air that any movement produced little rivers of sweat that only served to make everyone feel even more connected to their brethren and sistren than the otherwise would be, was that even with the place full-to-overflowing with people with whom I probably don't have much else in common (I don't have the hate I used to have for the everdrunken armoured-tank-minivan boys with their muscular, distended Bud Lite bellies and their neck fat, but Adam & Karen & I had an excellent walk full of enthusiastic ironic detachment for the eighteen miles from the car to the stadium), there was something to this concept of a backwoods utopia, especially if the tie that binds it is as strong as Bruce's music is. Nobody glorifies normal the way he does. I mean, who doesn't want to shake their chains loose and get out of their dead end existence, grabbing their sweetie from her mama's arms for one last ride up the shore to look for the promised land? (What do you mean, you don't? Whaddarya, some kind of intellectual or something?) Those factory losers are now family guys who married their prom dates and are now raising their 2.4 kids in better suburbs, driving SUVs instead of pickup trucks and motorbikes, but they stand by their man, as he does by them.

There are people who rock harder, who can write as well, who (certainly) can sing and play better than Bruce. But no one works harder, even now, maybe especially now, a quarter century after his greatest days (even Clarence Clemons was beginning to show his age, gasping for breath and needing to sit his sixty-three year old ass down after two-plus hours of blowing like crazy in the dense heat just to keep up, and no one knows the drill better than the big man), no one else can connect with this group of people the way he does, and no one (but no one) has more fun up there.

The fan site has been chronicling this seven-show run at Giants Stadium, and they claim that the Saturday night show was the shortest and least impressive of them all. I say fuck these people. He started with Adam Raised A Cain and ended a few hours later with Rosalita, which is one of the most beautiful rock and roll songs ever written, and I didn't see anyone who didn't leave sweaty, tired and happy. But maybe that was just because I was swathed in an afterglow of my very own.

PUBLIC APPEARANCE UPDATE

It's agreed: I'll be hosting the Tuesday Night Trivia contest again at the Baggot Inn again on August 16th.

Unlike the unquestionably questionable fiasco of last time (for those of you who weren't there: there was a lot of blood), there will be fewer questions involving hockey stars from the 1920's and the contents of my socks & underwear drawer, but if I were you, I might want to bone up on your film trivia.


(Oh, and as always, whenever I play, it's listed up on the front page.)

NEXT: BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ? TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE? LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN?

A couple of weeks ago, there was Silence of the Lambs, the musical.

And now, Evil Dead of all things is getting the same treatment. (And in Toronto, no less.)

My only concern is when they play back the zombie tape, all the audience is gonna go all zombie and shit. I don't know if I'd want to see this.*

*Kidding, I'm kidding. I'm sure it's a total romp.

LIKE YOU CARE ABOUT CYCLING. IT'S OKAY. I UNDERSTAND.

Tyler Hamilton, who won today's stage in the Tour de France despite having a broken collarbone, has his own blog.

I'd think that it would hurt to type (there is nothing you can do to ease the ache of a broken collarbone - breathing, moving, not moving, the pain never goes away) but if he can go through the exertions and contortions of a 2000-mile bike race, then banging out a few hundred words every other day is probably a comparative jaunt in the park.

He writes pretty well for, y'know, for a jock, and his insights into how grueling and draining (and joyful) the race actually is are pretty cool.

MY FRIEND GOO JUST SAYS PEE-YEW

The Goo Goo Dolls show at Manhattan Center last night, by the agreement of the three of us who went, was entirely adequate. It was one of those industry-fucker made-for-TV type events that look so faux when you see them all slick and edited, and for the life of me I couldn't understand why, if the Oxygen Network (Oh yeah, them.) was getting into the Live Concert Event business, they felt that these guys were within their station's target demographic. They're not even a boy band, they're a guy band. And someone should tell Johnny Rzeznik that Oh! is not one of those cable channels on which one can cuss freely.

The last time I saw them was at the (smallish, now long gone) Ultrasound Showbar in Toronto. It was part of some festival thing, and the band rocked fine, but Johnny hadn't learned any between-song patter yet, so the occasional break got quite uncomfortable. Last night, ten years on from then, he'd picked up a couple of tricks, but he couldn't stop the audience from feeling a bit toolish. (I wasn't up front or anything, but there was a disproportionate amount of whatthehell coming out of the little groups behind where the cameras probably were.) We were told to act all excited! and keep our hands up!, including a stretch of about ten minutes before the band even came on, which was kind of sad because there were plenty of actual fans there, and goosing them into 'acting' excited took a bit of the gas out of the room.

But they played okay. The band's energy was pretty high, and Johnny was working his greased-&-tattooed 24-inch pythons to maximum effect, and even though the vocals were almost off in the room (I'm guessing they're going to overdub them for teevee later), the crowd did do a certain amount of singing along.

It was cool, though, and well worth what we paid for it (a half hour in line, and I did do an on-camera interview thing which I'm hoping won't make the network, but otherwise the night was gratis), but when I do my made-for-TV Concert Events, I hope they go off with less hitches than this one did. Ah, what am I kvetching about? Hey, we all got a swankerific Isaac Mizrahi headscarf for our trouble! Oh! Isaac, you card!

But honestly? I had more fun watching the hare krishnas who were piling into the auditorium downstairs at the same time. They looked like they were going to enjoy themselves at least as much as we did.

(Much hyphen-love today.)

MY WEEKEND

So yesterday I went to Central Park with my notepad with the intention of drawing people at random (the great lawn was packed with frisbee toters, dog walkers, nomadic deadbeats, picnicking lovers, high-strung rollerbladers with permanent cellphone-ear, and of course sunbathers of every age and shape - it was a portrait-practicer's perfect perching point), and I filled a couple of pages with crap (I am so terrible at drawing things it's tragic, but that's what's so fun about it: I just don't care) and the toxic air blew through the trees and the blossoms put a sweet tinge on the vomity car exhausty air, and life was lovely.

The rock I sat on afforded me a view of this one older guy, with his shirt off and American Flag bandanna keeping his gray ponytail out of his eyes, playing the recorder with his back to me. I drew him over and over again for the better part of an hour; his weird back musculature, trying to get his elbows just right, the untouched Starbucks cup leaning up against his sandal. He finally stopped playing the same four notes and got up, walked by me, saw me drawing away, and gave me the finger-gun-wink.

And I was in a good mood before all this happened.

So.

I went home and finished this kindasorta tribute song, and I now present it here, just because you're due to hear something new. Let me know what you think. It's a bit harmony-heavy, I know, but here you go:

Katharine Hepburn [3.3MB MP3]

A MONKEY MONDAY

A pretty little Italian flash flick in which the stinky ape gets the squirrel.

BROKEN

I have two computers at the moment: one is the Dell, which still has that new-car smell and in most respects, even after the catastrophes of the last few weeks, continues to run with the sleekness of a souped-up Jag with police lights on it. It's my baby, my madonnawhore, my trusted confidante, and I'm not just saying that because I'm typing on it and I'm hoping karma exists and is paying attentioon.

My other piece is a few years older, and at this point is a bit of a jalopy. Virus attacks and software incompatibilities have gutted its system; my ineffectual quick-fixes, system scans and ever-more frequent defrags have left it limping like a mastodon in a tar pit. It looks into the void of my home broadband connection and blanches, aghast at the horror of the outside world.

It's survived four disorganized moves, three operating systems, two countries and one house fire. It has been to the mountain, and the valley, and it may be nearer the end of its existence than the beginning.

As a result, there is a very real possibility I shall not be online at all this weekend. My job jar is crammed full of important things, but right now there are a few friends waiting for me down at Tile bar, and there is a bottle of gin with my name on it. Come on down if you feel like it, and otherwise ... Monday.

MERRY SOMETHING, MISTER RESIN AND MIZ DeC.

I always pictured dong resin as this 20-or-so-year-old pasty goth kid, who skipped his high school classes to read books and got invited to all the cool parties only to mock the living shit out of the hosts while chasing gin with coffee and vice versa, bumping the CD player whenever that jive-ass Roxette song came on, and holding the wall up with his stolen worn-out bowling shoes like some cross between Lou Reed, Daria and Jello Biafra.

Well. Turns out I was totally wrong.

He's not 20ish at all. Happy 30th birthday, you utterly jaded freak. May your love/hate relationship with whoever's staring you in the face at any given moment ever continue.

And Kelly Sue, who has reentered my life recently, claims to be aging as well, though I have seen no evidence of same.

Still, I say a short invocation toward her hulk-hands-happy hot-geek flag daily, and my love goes with her.

BEST SHOW ON TELEVISION, MAYBE EVER

Last year, Six Feet Under (or Six Feet Under, whichever) got three quarters of a million Emmy nominations for everything from Best Use Of Chicken Parts In A Love Scene to Best Cowlick (which Peter Krause should have won going away, but noooo. Bastards), and they came away with pretty much nothing.

Well, they've been nominated out the wazoo again this year, again maybe too much (James Cromwell? For what, wearing a speedo in public at 60? What the hell? And I worship at the altar of Rachel Griffiths, but she was only there for half a season. Shouldn’t they just let Lauren Ambrose have the Supporting Actress (Drama) category to herself (she deserves at least a shot at it; she is that good)?

Ach, whatever. As long as Krause or Frances Conroy wins, then I'll know the guardians of the idiot box are at least paying some attention.

I can honestly say, I have never been so consistently amazed and entertained by a television show as I have with SFU. Not only is it the best written, best directed, best acted, most details-driven, most utterly comical, sad, human show I think I've ever seen, nothing else even comes close. Its success can only raise the quality level of acceptable teevee drama. Which sometimes actually happens. (And if you're not into it, don't worry. Soon the Olsen twins'll get a sitcom about college life, and America's Sweatiest Cowboy Bachelor Millionaire will be all anyone talks about, and everything will be the way it was eighteen months ago, and then I'll start back into the killin' again. It's a cycle. I give it two years, tops.)

ST ANGER THAN FICTION

And in legal news:

Metallica Sues Canadian Band Over E, F chords

Oh, come on. It was only a matter of time.

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

Now Celia Cruz is gone, too. Shit, shit, shit. I was hoping she'd be the latest to get the late-term sellout (cf. John Lee Hooker, Tina Turner, Compay Segundo*) for all the trench work she'd done just about this far below the line of Being A Household Name.

Not that she did badly, not by any stretch, but as Fametracker would put it:

     Current approximate level of fame: Etta James
     Deserved approximate level of fame: Aretha Franklin

I have a few Celia Cruz albums, but my favorite is this record she cut in the mid-50's with Beny More's orchestra in Havana. The recording quality is subpar at best -- it sounds like you're listening to it with your hands over your ears -- but Beny's band is whipcrack tight, with the horns just blurting out the changes, and Cruz interjecting and steering the song in another direction until it winds up in this can-you-top-this tight little hip-swiveling tornado, and then that one ends and they disengage and do it all over again. Her voice is as present as anyone I've ever heard. She's in the moment, bursting to overflowing with the joy of having a mike in her face and a hot band to soak in, and her tight vibrato comes across as the loudest whisper in the world. Her version of Mata Siguraya pulls you over to her by the bottom half of your ass and stares you in the eye, like, okay, papi, your move.

I was hoping I'd get to see her sing live just once before she died. Obviously, she had that voice right up to the end, even if she lost a bit of range, and it would been great. Well, she did put out tons of records. That does count for something. Still.

* Compay Segundo! Well, at least his best work was probably behind him. He was 95, after all. Then again he just screwed around playing house parties and small halls until he was 70 anyways. Which gives me a little hope. All I have to do is last that long. Oh, and be that good. Details, details.

ABOUT BLOODY TIME

Triviologist, vital cog in the media monolith, brains of the operation, fan (apparently) and general gin-soaked gadabout Vidiot is finally on the blogscape.

Welcome to the family, my son. (kisses him on both sides of his face and slaps him with a fish just hard enough to raise a welt)

NUMBER ONE SUPER GUY
Why isn't there a fan site for Scatman Crothers? The man went from being Billie Holiday's boyfriend (!) to playing drums to singing to minstrel shows to Playhouse 90 to softcore porn to blaxploitation to Disney to being Jack Nicholson's onscreen bitch in the '70s while having regular roles in two hit sitcoms at the same time to the pinnacle of children's television to a monogrammed seat at the Friar's Club, and his last ever role was in Transformers: The Movie (with, among many others, Orson Welles, Judd Nelson, Leonard Nimoy and Robert Stack; six degrees of separation players may give thanks and praise.) This man requires a statue in, where's he from, Indiana or wherever.

Not that he was a dramatic thee-a-tah genius or anything -- even in his dotage, he looked and sounded like one of the Little Rascals -- but the guy was a cross-genre renaissance man of the kind they just don't make anymore. (Now I'm thinking about it... David Duchovny? But he can't sing. Maybe if Kathleen Turner had stayed healthy.)

Scatman. Now more than ever. Seriously.

(Barry White and Katharine Hepburn propers still to come. On the other hand, Buddy Ebsen was a hero to most, but he never meant shit to me.)

BACK

Hey. Sorry about the month off, but they fried my computer going through airport security (oh yeah, I went to Minneapolis to best-man my brother and model the latest in kiltwear (though said kilt was custom-made, I didn't get to try it on before the ceremony and so I looked rather like a Catholic schoolgirl (except, of course, for the hairy legs (and otherwise manly demeanor, natch (and may I say never before have my underparts been the topic of such heated discussion; I might even wear the drafty not-nearly-ethnically-representative thing again someday))))), and I just want to say that the service that I got from Dell was speedy, practical and more than a little bit beyond the call. (I wasn't supposed to get this thing back until the end of this week, and they managed to save most of the contents of my hard drive, which I figured was completely screwed from the security-nuking. (Thanks for nothing, La Guardia security. If the warranty didn't cover every penny of fixing this thing, I'd be riding your complaints department like a fricking rodeo cowboy.)

Anyway. While I get everything back up to speed (I have a song I wrote about Katharine Hepburn I wanna put up this week, and maybe other things I don't wanna promise for, about, much, yet), here's a couple of acrobatics things I found and dig:

This phemonenal ping pong video (3.5MB, and worth every ounce) seems to be from some kind of Japanese Gong Show.

And Snarky Malarkey's Chinese Acrobats are just plain purty pitchers.

It's been a refreshing month. More about esoteric sports, bands you hate, semiliterate political harangues and other bandwidth-sucking meanderings to follow.