Catching Up With...

What do we do now Dr Zaius?

Some random things came up today so here I am to pontificate on them. I said pontificate, not...forget it. No Cleveland Steamer.

McDonald's Billboards Are Dumb As Hell - First I saw some McDonalds billboard that said something like "This cup of coffee is not Joe, he's Joseph" and then today I saw another one that said "These hotcakes are selling like" with a picture of a hotcake. It's like they hired a third grade class to run their freakin ad campaign. What's the next dumbass slogan going to be? "Childhood obesity live the fantasy?" "Are you stuffin' that egg mcmuffin?" "The French don't want you to have these fries, but we do?" Can I be an ad exec now? Am I hired?

Annoying Bullllllhorn - And the overexposed movie commercial of the week is: Inception. Some crap about Lou Diamond Phillips - no wait, it's Leo DiCaprio - living in dreams and stuff blowing up while upside down and who cares. Watch it's going to be the next Matrix and I'll end up eating my words. All I know is when this commercial hits the tv gets busy and a loud bullhorn blows. Blows like this movie.

A Swaggering Angle Lock - So I was watching Friday Night Smackdown for the first time in months. Jack Swagger is wrasslin Big Show and he's got Show on the ground. Next thing I know Swagger picks up Big Show's foot and applies the Angle Lock (a move where you grab the guy's foot, hold the ankle against your chest and twist the foot). Wow, they gave one of Kurt Angle's signature moves to the new guy. I'm sure Kurt Angle didn't invent the move or anything, he's just the guy I associate the move with the most. Consider me blown away.

Theresa Started It - As much as Danielle on the Real Housewives of New Jersey is a psycho, it was bankrupt diva Theresa that provoked an altercation on a recent episode. After months of no face to face contact between the two, Theresa confronts Danielle at a fashion show to say "hi". It was like when a guy throws some punches and as he gets pulled off the other dude he says "What? I just wanted to talk to him!" There's also a supposed sex tape out there of Danielle in all her plastic surgery altered self and all I can say to that thought is...ewwww No. Hell No! Gotta give props for these gutter trash, you gotta fight for those ratings points!

Not Very R.A.D. - Remember when Motley Crue's Vince Neil crashed a car and killed his friend resulting in a slew of hypocritical rock against drugs adverts? Well, Vince doesn't and so he was arrested for drunk driving again. Right after proclaiming his long term sobriety.

Electric Goof - 80s mall queens Tiffany and Debbie Gibson are gonna battle in a tv movie. Gibson will have to watch out for Tiffany's trademark Egyptian darting hand move best seen in the "I Saw Him Standing There" video. Look out Gibson, she'll take your eye out!

I'm Too Old For This Sh*t - Mad Mel Gibson makes a PR mess again this time throwing around racial insults. Hard to believe once he was so cool, now he's a prime douche.

That's all I got, until the next time.

Catching Up With...Throwin' Under The Bus

There's a catchphrase out there, it's been lurking around for some time now. It's mysterious...ambiguous...it's natural...it's chemical...mediate, levitate, love your mate like pretty kate, hallucinate, regenerate....I'm callin' you out it's "Throwin' Under The Bus!" Look, I just threw "Throwin' under the bus" under the bus.

My wife likes this phrase so now we repeat it whenever we hear it, which was often while we were watching Celebrity Apprentice. Cyndi Lauper always sounds the best when saying it. Too bad the show didn't go on longer, we could have made a drinking game out of the ubiquitous phrase. Now on to throwing more people under the bus.

Crazy Kelly from Real Housewives Of New York

Kelly Bensimon or simeon or I don't know her last name, the middle aged ex-model who recently posed for Playboy. Anyway, on that tv show Real Housewives Of New York Kelly and her richie rich pals took an exotic fancy trip. Kelly wasn't on the best terms with her costars to start with but she went on the trip because everyone on the program knows, you don't show up for the group shots you get no screen time. This girl went on the attack against her nemesis Bethanny and kept losing to the point she had a paranoid nervous breakdown over dinner. Her face melted into a lumpy mess as she incessantly popped candy in her mouth while spewing nonsense about her costars being like vampires and murderers. People do seem to be taking a shine to Bethanny Frankel's reaction "Go To Sleep!" which is kinda funny. Compelling pathetic with cameras there to catch it all, reality tv at either it's finest or most invasive.

Crystal Bowersox wuz robbed!

For the second straight year, American Idol voters brought a distinct artistic presence to the final and then voted for the blander opponent. In this case the winner was amiable growling guy Lee De Whys? I don't hate DeWyse, he's a modestly talented guy that seems likeable. Bowersox was just more of the real deal, someone with an artistic vision and the ability to make it come to life. Nowhere was that more apparent that finale night, where Bowersox gave strong performances while DeWhyse seemed to shrink from the spotlight. That "Up The Mountain" song Bowersox did? Nice.

Farewell Gary Coleman...

I liked Diff'rent Strokes as much as anyone else did, though in reality he was more my brother's idol than mine. Which is interesting in itself since Coleman was actually more my age than my bros. Remember that tv movie where Coleman was some cub scout or something? My brother loved that one. Anyway, back in an age when cute kids ruled the airwaves Coleman was king. It's sad that his adult life became a never ending plight of misery, at least now he can rest.

Foreigner "in Pieces"

Been hearing this song at work every day which is kind of nice, it stood out on the recent Can't Slow Down album. I like it every time I hear it. Fits in nicely since I saw Foreigner live a few weeks ago.

Heaven And Hell - The Devil You Know (2009)

In the wake of Dio's death I bought his last album, Heaven & Hell aka Black Sabbath. I haven't played it all yet, what I've heard is very good though. While searching online for stuff on the man, I came across some interesting covers of what will be his signature song "Holy Diver". You can hear it from my favorite You Tube cover singer Trookieness, hear it from a drunk dude in a bar, get it well done from a karaoke master , rock it to a sock puppet or jam to the ukelale. You can hear Holy Diver! Sole Survivor!

The Big Comeback: Bret Michaels

He's cheated death more times than James Bond now, Poison's Bret Michaels perseverance has paid off both in the hospital and the board room. Michaels has survived...I can't remember all the things that have happened to him the last few weeks but a lot...and he won Celebrity Apprentice out of drive and creativity. Then he got an appearance on the last American Idol show. Amazing! I may not be a huge fan of his music, but I have more respect for him now. Dude is a survivor determined to stay here and rock our worlds.

Sudden Update - Dennis Hopper

...and now Dennis Hopper has passed away. Very sad news, I've often enjoyed Hopper's crazy man routine in movies like Speed. Easy Rider is of course the iconic film he'll be famous for. With Hopper another part of the 60s has passed on, his presence was the definition of wild eyed radicalism which he carried into many a role.

Catching Up With...Your Oakland Athletics!

Man on the run: Rajai Davis ignites the A's with stolen bases

Baseball season has begun and with it a new year of Oakland A's baseball. Last year, my wife and I became fans of the local team and started attending games. They weren't a very good team (if you think of "good" as translating into more wins than losses) but they were ours.

First Place A's! - Yes the season is only like two weeks old, but the A's are in first place. No significant players have been injured in those two weeks. Rajai Davis and Daric Barton are producing runs. Hope is alive!

It's pronounced Su Skee? Sah Skay? Shawshank? - Ultimate obstacle race program Ninja Warrior released footage of it's most recent tournament, an exciting one which saw many players go to the second round (there's four rounds/courses to beat). I was bummed to see my favorite who is always introduced as "gas station manager Shingo Yamamoto" go down in the third round because of a recurring dislocated shoulder injury (an injury that started years ago when competing in the final round of a prior Ninja Warrior). Controversy abounds when fan favorite Makoto Nagano got an unprecedented do over on round one because of equipment malfunction (this is a show where in previous tournaments equipment malfunctions were considered an additional obstacle to overcome. This included when you're gripping a rolling log and the log rolls off the tracks!). With the do -over, Nagano made it to the final round and came within a second of reclaiming his grand champion title. Brooks was here.

Undercover Lovers - After 3 years of sexual tension, spies Chuck and Sarah finally, uh, slipped each other the secret password on Chuck. They delayed this as long as they could because as anyone on previous shows driven by sexual tension can tell you, the partys over shortly after the lovin' begins (see Moonlighting). My favorite tv show still may have enough tricks up their sleeve to keep things entertaining, but combining this with having Chuck's sidekick Morgan turn from Buy More manager to goof ball spy reeks of "jumping the shark". Having said that, the story arc leading up to Chuck and Sarah connecting in Paris was awesome bro!

Jammin On The One - Musical luminaries Daryl Hall and Beck have formed separate loose knit groups of musicians to jam with on the internet. Hall (usually assisted by the late T Bone Wolk) has jammed with people like Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy), Todd Rundgren and Diane Birch at his web site Live At Daryls House. Meanwhile, Beck and friends decide to cover an album at a time at Beck's Record Club. Currently, they're covering INXS' classic Kick album. These sites give us music fans the rare chance to be a fly on the wall of these jam sessions we normally read about online or in magazines. Cool stuff.

Send Me Some Pizza Rolls Please! - VH1 News tipped me off to Red Letter Media, a You Tube channel that among other things makes detailed reviews of Star Wars and Star Trek movies. But the reviews aren't just some talking head going on and on, it's done like a video essay acted from the perspective of an elderly homicidal serial killer. The insightful criticism mixed with Saw like impulses and craggy impatience make for demented fun. Included below is part one of the seven part Phantom Menace review.

How Many Roads Must A Man Walk Down, Before You Call Him A Man? - I was watching tv and saw footage of Jakob Dylan at SXSW, totally blown away how much he sounds like his old man as he gets older. This song "Nothing But The Whole Wide World" is nice.

Catching Up With...Sandra Bullock

OK, as Peter Griffin or the Bunny would say "You know what really grinds my gears?" the answer would be:

To Stop Saying Sandra Bullock Was "Blind Sided" - Normally I'm all for snark and not above kickin' someone when they're down if I don't like them, but I actually don't mind Sandra Bullock as an actress and feel bad for her (I'm not even a big fan of hers, when I first saw an advertisement for The Blind Side I thought "Is she portraying Kathie Lee Gifford?"). Not just for her obvious problems in her personal life, but that the media took her Oscar victory for The Blind Side and rubbed it all in her face. News story after news story had to make a play on the movie title for their report on Bullock's breakup with her husband. This sort of thing I could possibly enjoy as a lone snotty comment from a TMZ staffer, but every news service in the country? That's jacked.

Now for things that don't grind my gears...

Alex Chilton homages - Big Star will forever be considered one of the great neglected bands of rock history. And with that Alex Chilton is a talent that myself and maybe others only find out about when you read those "Greatest of all time" lists you find around in magazines and the internet, because except for That 70s Show I can't think of any major exposure of their music. But Big Star was sublimely melodic and his passing led to a nice cover by a fan of one of my favorite songs, "Thirteen".

The Black Crowes "Been A Long Time (Waiting On Love)" - On a recent long car ride this song was a highlight, I loved how it went from a Creedence Clearwater Revival style first half with dreamy guitar licks to a fierce rave up of skidding organ runs. Great stuff.

Hot Tub Time Machine commercials - Hey, is that John Cusack having a mid life crisis? Cusack was a master of the teen ruckus films in the 80s and seemed to mature to rom com king a long time ago. To see Cusack back in his old stomping grounds is, as Heidi Klum would say, "BeZahr". Who knows, maybe the guy who led One Crazy Summer and Better Off Dead can reclaim the magic. Not banking on it though. All I know is I want my two dollars...

Heidi Klum says "Bizarre"- Taken from the tv show Project: Runway, the supermodel says the word "Bizarre"...well, bizarrely. For some reason the image and sound of her enunciating strikes me weird, like she's morphing into that creature from Species or something. How Bizarre.

Zooey Deschanel Cotton Commercial - Long the avatar (Aha! Snuck that word in. Heh heh, Avatar!) for indie cool in a quirky cute package, actress/singer Zooey Deschanel has made a new song for her advertisement selling Cotton. I love it when a song is written for a commercial, I still like to think about What The Night Could Do from time to time. The full song is light airy fun, the ad itself features a trip to a used record store. Dammit, they know my demographic so well!

And now we're caught up. That's...Bizarre!

Catching Up With...Bitch Stewie!

Bitch Stewie rules! (pictured on the right)

Now for the latest round of catch up -

Bitch Stewie - A week ago I saw a Family Guy repeat that I missed on its original airing, an episode where Stewie made a clone of himself with fewer brain cells to perform menial tasks. The resulting clone, named "Bitch Stewie", saw everything through rose colored glasses speaking in an awestruck tone constantly. Easily the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. Though the recent Family Guy episode with Stewie in drag saying to a mailman "Oh, you're emptying your sack on me!" while the mailman tosses fan mail on him from a bag is almost as good.

Death Of The 80s - So many entertainers from my formative years are dying off that I have to lump them in one place. On top of Boner and T Bone Wolk, in the past week football star / Little House On The Prairie guy Merlin Olsen, child star Corey Haim and Mission: Impossible leader/ Airplane! pilot Peter Graves have all died. Graves was the saddest loss of all to me, I liked Mission: Impossible and loved Airplane. Joey, have you ever seen a grown man naked?

Idolatry - As the ninth season of American Idol falls into an inexplicable limbo of mixed message judging and mind boggling vote results, Entertainment Weekly is there to mock it all with a weekly online critique called Idolatry. Watching Michael Slezak (who seems to be a walking encyclopedia of AI info) and crew ridicule AI has become more fun than watching the show itself. To check out some first class snark, just click on the link.

Ray Lamontagne "Trouble" - One positive thing of American Idol this season is the repeated usage of this song. In fact, it just got a contestant booted from the show this week after singing it. "Trouble" is a song I've heard here and there without knowing who made it, after hearing it twice on AI this year (first from some guy who actually knows trouble via jail time and then this week Alex Lambert) I decided to check out the original. Good tune! Thanks American Idol!!

Techno Sequels - Both Iron Man and Tron have sequels in the pipeline and trailers to entice with. The Iron Man 2 trailer reeks of sequelitis with its overkill (More digital special effects! Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johanssen!! An army of Iron Men!!!) but I know I'm gonna wanna see this puppy anyway. As for Tron: Legacy I'll have to wait and see, it's going to take a lot of inspired storytelling to revive this hard drive once you get past the flashy fx.

W.E.T. "One Love" - While researching long forgotten AOR bands I stumbled across this track from last year. It is high quality AOR in the Journey/Foreigner vein. I've bought the whole album to review, but for now this is the song that's stuck in me head. Dorky homemade video and all.

And that's this round of catch up. Seacrest...out!

Catching Up With...

To switch things up and hopefully post more often, I'm gonna go on about the six things I'm interested in at the time. And the top six right now is...

American Idol - Well, after early hype this looks like the least talented bunch of kids of any season for AI. After my fave Crystal Bowersox it gets to slim pickins in searching for decent talent. At least Simon Cowell in his final season has decided to be meaner (and more entertaining) than ever. And surprise surprise, Kara Dioguardi has actually offered some relevant criticism in her judging on occassion. After a shaky first week of live tv, Ellen is settling down to deliver some much needed humor to the precedings. It's still early, there's a chance some of the remaining contestants can catch fire and get interesting. But time is slipping away and with it, possibly the last time people will pay attention to American Idol.

Avatar - Watching the Oscars right now to see if James Cameron will be crowned King Of The World again. I saw Avatar in mini IMAX 3D (the first time I saw it in 2D) and got more of the "Pandora exerience". Which is a lot of falling ash and flying bugs in the background giving a fuller feeling of depth to the picture. The 3D made the technical achievements of Avatar all the greater, one of the first truly immersive experiences shown in a movie theater.

Classic MLB Baseball 1979 - 1983 - One of the ESPN channels has been showing classic baseball from the era I used to follow it. Seeing great players like Craig Nettles, George Brett, Dave Kingman and Frank White play brought back fond memories of watching these games in my youth. It also reminds me of the nicknames we used to make up for baseball players, like "King Kong" Kingman, Gil "Blazing Speed" Flores (because that's what it said on his baseball card, "Has blazing speed") or Tommy "The Bionic Man" Johns. Good times.

David Pack "I Just Can't Let Go" - This was a lost mid 80s Adult Contemporary song that should have been a hit and wasn't. Ambrosia lead singer David Pack went solo and released this song (which I had on 45 back in the day) roping in Michael McDonald and James Ingram to sing the chorus with him. The result was a deep, resonant chorus harmony that was pure awesomeness.

Tosh.0 - This half hour show on Comedy Central digs up the most brutal clips on the web plus riffs on anything that goes viral. Sure there's other shows that do the same, Tosh.0 has a real good eye for finding clips that generate a stronger reaction than the competition. And though the host's frat boy sense of humor is hit or miss with me (the guy spares no sacred cows, it's ruthless down and dirty harsh jokes) the matchup of edgy vid clips and edgier humor has proven irresistible to me.

Wilco Sky Blue Sky - I've been going through the back catalog of Wilco a bit and snapped up this disc from a few years back. It's like a 70s soft rock album for the indie age, soft acoustic arrangements and pillowy vocals abound. The lyrics aren't the usual boy meets girl stuff (Wilco usually isn't like that) and though I haven't heard the disc enough to know what its about, I enjoy chilling to the relaxed soft rock groove.

And that's it, the top six. Will have to see if I can keep going with this new thing. Until next time!