Midnight Madness - Saint Sammy Edition

Jimmy Buffett's biggest threat - The Cabo Wabo lovin' Red Rocker Sammy Hagar.

While I can't say I agree with everything Sammy Hagar does or believes in as a person, I am convinced that his music has important life lessons that can lead to a happy life. I covered many of them on a previous post and with a new album on the horizon Sam has yet more wisdom to impart on us. "Cosmic Universal Fashion" from the album of the same name is a sequel to the classic Van Halen video Right Now in which Hagar comments on the state of the world today. Teach us, oh great one!

The Beatles are bigger than Sammy Hagar - Two items have popped up about the Fab Four, the first being Paul McCartney talking about releasing a 14 minute lost Beatles song. The song called "Carnival of Light" sounds like it will be one of those Brian Wilson sort of sound collages. It will be interesting if it sees the light of day. In other Beatles news, the Vatican has forgiven John Lennon for his famous remark of being more popular than Jesus. The comment is now taken as a "boast".

Free Axl! - Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy is released today. After a decade plus of recording the world will finally hear these songs. I haven't heard it yet, but I still say its an album better heard about than actually heard. No way it can live up to the weight of expectations and hype. Because to do that, it would have to be the greatest album made by anyone anytime ever.

Hella Good - No Doubt is regrouping for recording and touring, good news for fun loving ska music lovers everywhere.

It Doesn't Suck? - Twilight is the #1 movie out right now in terms of ticket sales. I still can't stand the commercial.

Pieces of Me - In other star struck irrelevant celebrity news that I read as often as possible, Ashlee Simpson and Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz has had a baby named Bronx Mowgli. I could be wrong, isn't Mowgli the name of those creatures that turn into Gremlins?

So Predictable it's Uncanny - The X-Men franchise is going for the younger actors approach (read - cheaper) that was pointed to with the last X Men movie. They've brought in the guy who made Gossip Girl and one of my favorite shows, Chuck, to put it together. I love watching Chuck yet smell a Batman and Robin coming on here.

Working for the Boss - Bruce Springsteen announced a track listing for his upcoming January CD and his new song "Working On A Dream" is hitting radio. As is his talent, Springsteen manages to capture a moment in song. To hear it, click here.

Extreme Hoax - Tonight's WWE Survivor Series includes a story line that wrestler Jeff Hardy was found unconscious at the bottom of a stairwell in his hotel this morning. I don't know how the story was presented on WWE.Com where the story originated, but it seemed to catch on with the rest of the media as factual. While wrestling continuously blurs the line between fantasy and reality, I hope this trend doesn't continue or it might cause a "cry wolf" effect when real events happen.

WWE Survivor Series - Not just a title this year, the long running PPV has the traditional team vs team format back. Tonight's PPV was a solid effort for me, here's what I recall-

• Team HBK (Shawn Michaels, The Great Khali, Rey Mysterio, Cryme Time) vs Team JBL (JBL, Miz and Morrison, Kane and MVP)- An effective match and decent opener to the PPV with a lot of running and jumping courtesy of Mysterio. Team HBK gets the win.
• Smackdown Divas vs Raw Divas- I missed some of this match, it looked like fairly typical Divas stuff. The only parts that stood out to me were the pop Mickie James got on her entrance and the fun of watching Natalya apply the Sharpshooter on Candice Michelle. The Beth Phoenix team won, I don't know what team that is.
• Undertaker vs Big Show in a Casket Match - Heavily hyped and slowly paced, this match mainly consisted of lumbering moves that seemed to take forever. A normal thing for a "Big Guy" match to go slow but this one just seemed leaden. Even the part where Taker leg drops Show through a table didn't quite have the impact it should have. What's the new catch phrase out there? Meh.
• Team Orton (Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes, William Regal, Mark Henry and Shelton Benjamin) vs Team Batista (Batista, Matt Hardy, Kofi Kingston, CM Punk, R-Truth). The pace picks up again with another solid Survivor Series classic style match. Didn't see all of this one and didn't notice any real highlights, but nothing bad either.
• Triple HHH vs Vladmir Koslov for the WWE Championship - A pretty good match up, the two power houses actually focused on a mat wrestling style for most of it. This seemed to draw some "boring" chants but I liked it. Edge came back and was brought out at the end courtesy of Vicki Guerrero to be the third member of the Triple Threat match. Jeff Hardy's run in inadvertently helps Edge score the championship. To my surprise, Edge looked a little pudgy. I guess whatever Hell the Undertaker banished Edge to had a McDonalds. The extra weight didn't stop Edge from laying a killer spear on The Game.
• John Cena vs Chris Jericho for the World Heavyweight Championship - Cena's return to wrestling following major neck surgery. Like a lot of superstars returning from this type of injury, the match was the story of the neck. Jericho focused his attack on the neck, Cena sold the neck and babied it throughout the match as commentators hyped it to the point I was convinced a neck breaker might cause Cena's head to snap off the rest of his body. Cena did look rusty out there and a touch lost but one of his strengths is his ability to show emotion to the crowd. Bonus points to Jericho for sounding really concerned after kicking Cena in the head. He audibly yelled "Check him!" to the ref as Cena was left lying on the ground. It was predictable, but Cena got the win for the championship. He went into the audience to hug his family, but he looked dazed and I think he might have left a little boy hanging for a high five right in front of him. It was messy, but otherwise Cena is back on the Chaingang.
  

Cosmic Universal Fashion - The new vid is below. More greatness from the man Howard Stern proclaims "has the best teeth in Rock".

Sammy Hagar - Cosmic Universal Fashion