HIGH CONCEPT

HIGH CONCEPT
or, BARFLY: THE ANIMATED SERIES, featuring the voices of JOEY LAWRENCE AND MARTIN SHORT! IT'S GOLD, PURE GOLD, I TELL YOU!

Says here that both Melissa Etheridge and The Barenaked Ladies are getting their own comedy series next year.

Etheridge is going to play a lesbian mom trying to raise a friend's child with her best bud, a straight guy. Unless each episode ends with her singing a song, I can't see this one taking off. (Unless (unless!) she can really act, and maybe not even then.)

The Barenaked Ladies, on the other hand, are going to be hosting some kind of cross-format thing. This one could last, if people will accept what TV Guide will be calling "The Return Of The Golden Age Of The Variety Show." I go back with them a little, but I don't think that changes my opinion here. They're a versatile, accessible, fun bunch of dorks who won't feel the need to upstage whoever they're on with. Everyone in the band has a slightly different personality, and if it's winds up being some cross between The Carol Burnett Show and Hee Haw, then it's got a chance.


Normally, I'd be way bitter about these people succeeding, but frankly, I don't know when I'd shoehorn the time in to shoot one of these damned shows. And besides, I don't think America is quite ready for a breezy yukfest about a Canadian-American writer who spends most of his waking hours drowning his sorrows in shallow martini glasses (until the paycheck dries up, and then it's PBRs the rest of the week -- I can change brands, as product placement in my very public personal life is everything; shit, I'd even drink Michelob if the price is right*), who diverts himself from his moribund existence (there's occasional outspurtings of ecstasy, sure, but let's call this misery in the air here) by sharing bon mots with his just-barely-more-gruntled would-be Pulitzer laureate friends at either punk rock karaoke or trivia nights, or barring that at various watering holes in or around Lower Manhattan and inner Brooklyn or Queens, waiting in vain for his muse, an abusive apparition (who, if we were casting, would be played by, oh, Julia Duffy** or someone equally condescendingly hot), to return for long enough to get some random piece of work finished.

Actually, there's an idea there.

I wish 'em both luck. If you need me, I'm listed.

*Oh, relax. I wouldn't drink that piss at gunpoint.

**That link to vidiot.com is not affiliated with this Vidiot.

MOVIE RAPIST DIALOGUE GENERATOR

HEH HEH. I LIKE A GIRL WITH SPIRIT.

Last week I worked quite a bit of overtime, which was kind of a drag as I'd gotten used to a relatively bucolic schedule of wander-into-work-when-I-bloody-well-feel-like-it and wander out the first time everyone who might miss me (because, see, the real reason I go to work is because everyone misses me!) turns their heads away at the same moment.

But last week was crazy, actually really morning-to-night crazy, which was a little extra unfortunate because last week was also the fourth anniversary of my starting this blog. (I'm sorry, I'm late, baby. I got you a little something nice, but it's back at the homestead.)

Actually, I can do better than that, if I get me some help. Here's some from
The Movie Rapist Dialog Generator. It's actually rather cute and low-key, given the subject matter. Think of Billy Zane in (-- hell, in anything) saying this stuff.

ATTENTION REMIXERS!

ATTENTION REMIXERS!

If you haven't seen Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism yet, and you've stopped on Fox News this year to do anything other than gawk at their gall, you might want to give it a watch. Jim Gilliam has conducted a serious amount of research, and created a fairly airtight (and pretty entertaining) thesis about how and why American cable news got ugly over the last 20 years.

And now, Jim is giving away the full recordings of all the interviews he conducted, for your listening and remixing pleasure.

Listening to these interviews scares me as much as anything. It shows how inadequate our checks and balances are in the media these days, how an awful lot of people seem neither a clue about, nor desire to hew to, the standards of journalism, and where that steep decline began. The first step to changing the tone of what we see and hear, and what's being reported or ignored, is to spread the word. So go forth and multiply the message, brothers and sisters, and send me your best stuff. I'll have the opportunity to play it at some very influential parties over the next few weeks.

(Speaking of which: I'm playing a show tonight. Come on down.)

[via Devoter]

OUT IN THE FIELD THERE'S A DOG PLAYING FRISBEE

HIS TAIL WAGGED SO HARD IT WAS KNOCKING HIM OVER

While listening to this song of mine, go look at these pictures of dogs and frisbees.

This could have been the video shoot for that song. It's exactly what I was trying to get at.

There's no snark in this entry. Sorry. It's about the unrestrained joy, and I'm by turns jealous and uplifted by these pics.

It's Friday, and Summer won't last much longer. Go outside this weekend and do something beautiful.

[Also, I don't thank the Blue nearly enough.]

DEVIL HORNS - THE HISTORY

NOT JUST FOR SATAN ANYMORE

If you're planning on coming to my show next week, it'll be important that you know exactly how to make proper devil-rock horns (index & pinkie only -- the thumb changes everything unless you are, in fact, deaf, in which case it is even more important you come out and watch the most electrifying live performance since Elton John stopped doing a mountain of coke every morning before breakfast).

To that end, here's a fairly well-researched history of the devil-horn signal in rock. The consensus seems to be that Ronnie James Dio was among the first, though George Clinton gets a serious nod as well.

The best part of the article, though, is that Gene Simmons, that master of humility, claims to have invented it himself, and in the course of his research, every other person Steve Appleford interviews for the article (Lemmy, Lars Ulrich, Dave Grohl) just openly scoffs at him.

"He should know better," [George Clinton] says, with a laugh. KISS and Parliament-Funkadelic were both on Casablanca Records in the ’70s. "Our costumes were made at the same place," he adds. "And we had ours made there first!"

GIG ANNOUNCEMENT

IN OTHER NEWS!

I actually have a gig booked in the city. This is a rare occurrence, and even rarer that I'd tell you in advance. But it's going to be me and a bunch of people from the L Magazine jumping up and down like idiots while playing the rock and the roll.

Thursday, September 16 -- 10pm
The Baggot Inn
82 W. 3rd
(between Thompson and Sullivan, in the West Village)
Come if you can. I'll be playing a lot of these songs as well as a few things off of this fine recording (which, incidentally, makes a great Rosh Hashanah gift, so you should buy 6, one for each of your toes, you hot little freak).

Plus, the odds of hooking up with a sexxy Williamsburg hipster without actually having to visit Williamsburg will be as good as at any time since, um, since Dave Eggers stopped returning my calls. (Bitch.)

SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY by GWB

WE EAT AND DRINK WHILE TOMORROW THEY DIE

In light of my cover of American Ruse (the rest of this site is going to seed like Melanie Griffith at the end of a stressful weekend alone with the dogs, but thanks to a few of you spreading the word, that one song is the most downloaded song from this site so far this year. Thanks. Seriously. Now go listen to the original stuff I've put up there too. It's even better, if you can believe it.)

Oh. Here's George W. Bush doing a U2 cover. For real. It's quite well done.

(News: Two new songs of mine are mixed and await my being home to make sure they're okay before I upload them. And more are on the way. Promise.)

[via Devoter]

COMMUNITY CALENDAR.

COMMUNITY CALENDAR

Just a couple of things:

I remixed American Ruse to push the vocal and the rock-trash vibe a little. It's a little sexier now. So if you haven't listened yet, go on. It will change your life completely and irrevocably, for three minutes and twenty-three seconds.

I'm hosting trivia tonight. This evening's rounds include: Delegate-Baiting Through History, Do These Handcuffs Match My Outfit? Protesting As Fashion Statement, and a visual round on poorly-cooked meat.

How can you beat that for a Wednesday night? You can't.


And while we're making lists, here's 1001 Things To Hate About The Convention.

DONG. FUCKIN' -- FUCKIN' DONG.

AND YOUR LITTLE DOG, TOO.

Mister Resin has a question for you. Answer honestly.