Technology = weird

As part of my preparation for Lollapalooza, I looked into various ways I might be able to use my phone to communicate with the outside world. It turns out that I have two different ways to update my blog from my weird little mobile device, and three different ways to update via Twitter/Facebook statuses. That seems like at least two too many ways to stay "in touch" during a three-day music festival. Woodstock, this ain't.

It got me thinking about the various ways the digital age has completely changed how things are done. Practically nothing remains the same as it was twenty years ago, when they were still pressing vinyl for any album that came out and photography was a weirdly poetic alchemy of chemicals and paper and darkness and time.

But fear not, gentle Blogreader. This is not a post of weepy nostalgia for a simpler time. Frankly, most everything is way more convenient nowadays. If nothing else, it turns out that digital was the main thing that kept me from taking a lot of pictures earlier in life. I simply did not have the time or money to invest in it back in the pre-digital days. Film was expensive, let alone darkroom fees, paper, chemicals.

Blah, blah, blah. The long and the short of it is that I might fling some words or pictures up here from my phone during the weekend.

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So Lollapalooza starts in a few scant hours. We have not been blessed by the weather gods. Tomorrow should be gorgeous, right up until it rains. Saturday and Sunday are both scheduled to peak above 90°F. I'm hoping that our proximity to the lake will provide at least a small amount of relief. Even so, I expect to sweat out a lot more than the one liter of water that the rules allow me to carry into the festival with me.

Lolla rules also prohibit me from bringing in my good camera, so I spent a little time today dinking around with the consumer model I used to use a lot. I discovered that I no longer know how it works with any certainty, so I'm not sure if I'll get any decent shots or not. But I sure will try.

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Speaking of things I never expected to have the word "electronic" attached to them, I have begun a transition to electronic cigarettes. They provide the part of a normal cigarette to which I am addicted, without any of the stuff that is striving to kill me. So that's nice.

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Tomorrow's lineup includes Gaslight Anthem, Heartless Bastards, Fleet Foxes, a tough call between Andrew Bird and Of Montreal (that I suspect Mr. Bird will lose by virtue of not being the kind of performer one benefits from seeing in a festival), and a headliner matchup between Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode. The current plan is to see a bit of each of the latter two. Am hopeful this will be enough to sustain my friendship with Los Angelista. There are also dozens of other bands, but the list above are the ones I'm most interested in seeing. Fleet Foxes, especially, who had one of the best records of last year.

Sorry, Decemberists.

More soon...

Dear Johnny Marks (repost)

Some holiday fun from last year, while I try to figure out how to write blog posts again...

Dear Mr. Marks,

Let's assume for a moment that I grant your initial premise, and that I admit that I know (or know of, as you seem to mean) Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, as well as Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.

If I can then truthfully answer "no" to the question you pose, is it logical to assert as you have that this Rudolph is "the most famous" reindeer?

The others you present as a given. Of course you know them. Everybody knows them. You aren't denying this. It's the very first thing you say, in clear and unambiguous terms.

But do I recall this other one? The very question suggests the possibility that I might not. In fact, the entirety of your song after posing the question seems predicated on the listener having no recollection of this particular reindeer or the details of his life, else the singer would simply be rehashing a story familiar both to himself and his audience.

Are you simply trying to create buzz about this Rudolph character? Are you, perhaps, his publicist? Is it not possible that he is, at best, the ninth most famous reindeer, assuming that no others of his species have attained fame greater than or equal to either Rudolph or the eight reindeer mentioned previously? You provide no criteria for measuring reindeer fame other than name recognition, and it seems clear that he fails to achieve "most famous" status by this measure.

In an instance where the initial premise is not granted (i.e., the listener is unaware of the initial eight reindeer you name), does it not then fall to the person performing your song to provide some background data, perhaps biographical information or anecdotes which illustrate the characters and qualities of the reindeer? Where is this additional data? You included neither footnotes nor endnotes, and your bibliography is also missing.

I would recommend you delete this opening section entirely, if only because it is terribly unwise to begin a song about a single character with a recitation of eight other, possibly unrelated characters. Are they the bullies mentioned in your second verse? You never specify.

And who is this Santa person who mysteriously appears in what I can only assume (although the structure is never repeated) is the chorus? Is that his first name, his surname, or some sort of nickname? Is he some sort of communal task-master? All you divulge is that he is in possession of a sleigh, and has somewhere to be on the night in question.

From there you skip some crucial plot elements. One assumes that Rudolph indeed accepts the question posed by Santa. And then you leapfrog your story again, concluding that Rudolph will "go down in history" for some reason, even though you haven't told us why this might be true, or even where the sleigh was headed.

This is all without even addressing a central flaw in your tale. You tell us that Rudolph's nose is red, and then provide additional detail indicating that it "glows." Assuming that the night is perilously foggy (which you seem to be indicating) putting Rudolph at the front of the sleigh could only hope to provide enough luminescence for someone very close to the light source to be able to see at all through the fog. The nose, as you say, glows. You have given no indication that it shines or functions in a manner similar to the headlights on an automobile. Is Rudolph himself supposed to be guiding the sleigh through the darkness or is Santa? Santa would be too far from the light source, and Rudolph too close. If you put a light four inches in front of your eyes in the dark, all you can see is the light itself.

Since the Santa character never reappears, and there are no details of the sleigh ride itself, it is possible that Rudolph has purposefully led Santa to his demise in the dark, and the other reindeer reward him because they no longer have to work. But it seems your aim was to write a song for children, and this subject matter is a little dark, especially as you haven't established the Santa character as evil. He appears only once, and from all the information we are given, may never have even received a response to his request for Rudolph to guide the sleigh. The fact that he phrases his need as a question seems to deny the argument that he is the villain of the piece, and yet I have already established that the light from the nose could not possibly have been adequate to guide either Rudolph or Santa on a sleigh ride of any distance.

It is also worth noting that a sleigh is a hopelessly outdated mode of transportation. Modern children will likely not know what this is.

At present I can find no place for your song. The tune itself is acceptable, but only by a very slim margin. It is awfully short to have three distinct melody lines. And your narrative is quite obviously a shambles. Should you retool it to rectify some of the egregious errors discussed, I would be happy to take another look at your work.

Sincerely,

The Moon Topples

One of us is an idiot

I recently sat through the latest Quentin Tarantino film, Death Proof, which was released as part of a double feature called Grindhouse initially, but for some reason has shown up on DVD a full month before its twin.

As I sat there, narrowing my eyes at yet another of his scenes in which characters yammer on and on in ways which do not in any way advance the plot, and only illuminate character in such a way as to tell you that Mr. Tarantino believes they are the embodiment of his definition of cool, I realized something:

One of us, Mr. Tarantino or myself, is an idiot.

I should say straight off the bat that I am perfectly willing to believe that the idiot is me. I, after all, do not have legions of fans and millions of dollars. People do not throw money at me to pursue my dreams.

So it may very well be that I am the idiot, unable to comprehend with my tiny mind the subtleties of Mr. Tarantino's work. Perhaps there are intricate things going on that I just fail to catch.

It is a little hard to find oneself idiotic from your own point of view, however, so rather than simply conceding defeat, I shall explore the possibility that it is not me.

I detect a pattern in his films, a diminishing return. Reservoir Dogs was good, Pulp Fiction slightly less so, and on and on for more than a decade until I find myself watching two hours of Kurt Russell as a man who kills attractive women with his tricked-out stunt car for no apparent reason whatsoever. The attractive women have seemingly endless stretches of time that they fill with meandering dialog. This takes up most of the two sections of the film. Kurt Russell appears in the rest, and sometimes joins in on the yammering.

Maybe I'm just growing soft. Stylized violence for its own sake does nothing for me. And all the "cool" dialog just serves to remind me that I am watching a film about people who I would not like very much, who do not seem real to me. Even people who behave like his characters in real life do not seem real to me.

Still, assuming for a moment that Mr. Tarantino is the idiot among us, he is not entirely without his talents. He makes a nice mix tape, for example. Perhaps he could do this professionally?

Danza suits up for Batman sequel

A Moon Topples Exclusive

Actor Tony Danza will return to the big screen next year in the latest Batman update from director Christopher Nolan.

Danza, primarily known to audiences for his role as boxer-turned-cabbie Tony on the television series "Taxi" and his subsequent role as boxer-turned-housekeeper Tony on "Who's the Boss," will reportedly play a character named Tony, a former boxer who is orphaned in his mid-50s when his elderly parents (Abe Vigoda, Betty White) die of natural causes a few months apart. His story catches the attention of Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), who subsequently takes Tony under his wing.

"I do worry some about [the tone]," Nolan said at a press conference Friday. "The last one turned out a lot darker than I had intended, and I wanted to find a way to introduce some lighter elements while still propelling the story forward. Tony gives me a perfect way to do that. This will be a film my children can watch."

The new character is expected to fit into the main storyline in a sidekick capacity, as well as in a subplot featuring Wayne's valet Alfred (Michael Caine). In the latter, Alfred is resentful of the new living arrangement and begins acting out. His bickering with Tony escalates, and the two draw a line down the middle of stately Wayne Manor to divide the mansion in two, one half for Alfred and one half for Tony. Both sides soon realize that the situation is less than ideal: Alfred has access to the Batcave, but Tony has the kitchen. The two eventually learn to work together, and even become friends. Nolan has admitted that some elements of this plot owe a debt to Neil Simon's The Odd Couple and 1970s American television.

"This is about storytelling," Nolan said. "Batman is an American icon. So is Tony Danza. The pairing of the two really allows me to add elements of American situation comedies to the film, which was my intention from the start."

For his part of the main storyline, Danza will play a costumed sidekick, also named Tony. In spite of his past as a boxer, it is rumored that the character is more reliant on clever quips than his fists. If true, the film would feature the first non-Robin sidekick relationship in a Batman film since 1993's pairing with Dustin Hoffman in Batman/Rainman, in which the duo team up to stop Clayface, who has kidnapped the autistic savant's brother. While critically acclaimed, the film failed to break even and allegedly led to Michael Keaton's departure as Batman.

"Christian brings a certain amount of anger, especially when he's in the suit. He can be a little terrifying. Tony can comment on these things, on behalf of the audience. He can say 'look, relax, this is just one of the henchmen. There's no need to be so angry all the time.' His influence on Bruce Wayne can help to stabilize the character."

While former Batman director Tim Burton was unavailable for comment, another former director of the franchise, Joel Schumacher, applauded the move.

Batman spoilers! And way too many pictures!

Sunday I went to see an old friend from high school. I left early to give myself plenty of time to wander around the area near his hotel, which was downtown close to the river.

When the bus finally arrived, I was the only one on it. The driver only stopped once in the miles between Western Avenue and State Street, and fourteen people got on when she did. I'm pretty sure I've never been the only passenger on a city bus before.


Once I got downtown, I waded through the throngs of tourists, opportunists and general pedestrians to get a look at the part of my city that they put on postcards. I'm not typically one to take pictures of skyscrapers. A close-up of something rusty is a bit more my speed. Still, from the right angle downtown Chicago has a weird beauty to it. Here are a couple of samples:


I crossed the river, headed north by the corncob-looking buildings which adorn the cover of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I was a little surprised to see what appeared to be military vehicles on the bridge ahead of me. Up close, they didn't look ultra-authentic. Something about the camouflage seemed a little strange. Within a few minutes I realized that I had stumbled onto the set of the next Batman film. A group of extras in fatigues milled about, while another cluster wore ties and overcoats in spite of the very muggy heat.


I heard a coordinator telling the well-dressed extras to do something "when the helicopter comes." So you have it on good authority that the next Batman film will feature military vehicles, people in ties, and at least one helicopter. A pair of choppers were soon flitting back and forth, much to the delight of all the people with cameras who were present on every side street.


Yeah, those are the big spoilers I promised in the title. Before you get all sad that my spoilers are lame, ask yourself what Batman spoilers you have to offer based on firsthand evidence.

Yeah. I thought so. Moving on...

I thought it was reasonably cool to have bumped into the filming, at least until I kept being shooed away from public areas. They had goons with headsets trying to keep people from walking all sorts of places, even blocks away from where they were going to be filming. Which is sort of understandable, I suppose, except that there were no cameras out, no shooting going on. My best guess, this being a Batman movie, was that shooting was not likely to begin until after dark, which would also explain all the lights I saw further down the block, still wrapped in sheets of plastic.

I finally met up with my friend at his hotel, and we had a nice meal. We walked around, chatting, until it grew dark and my friend needed to go to sleep to prepare for another exciting day at the conference which had brought him to town. Apparently the conference was run by an association for people who work at associations. This notion both repels and attracts me. Certainly I find it amusing.
It was good to see my friend again, and good also to visit the part of the city where the buildings grow until they touch the sky. In both cases, it had been too long.

The Breakfast Club at the Tivoli

The Tivoli Theater opened in Downers Grove, Illinois in 1928, three days before my grandmother was born. Downers Grove would later give the world the band Styx and Denise Richards, but I always think of the Tivoli as being the real treasure of the city (close on its heels are a certain used bookstore and a record store where I bought quite a few Beatles albums).

We started going to the Tivoli in the early 80s, after moving north to Naperville. There were plenty of closer places to see a movie, but I tend to think that the classic atmosphere and decor were why my mother drove the extra miles to sometimes catch a flick at the Tivoli. It seemed like more of an event than just popping into the nearest darkened room to watch the releases of the day.

Which is not to say that the films were always worthy of the architecture. I can recall seeing Splash there, and Footloose, among others. I also saw The Return of the Jedi there.

Later, we moved to Woodridge, much closer to the Tivoli, and it became our primary film venue. During this time, it was the second Indiana Jones flick, Beverly Hills Cop and The Breakfast Club that I watched here for the first time.

It was The Breakfast Club that got me thinking about the Tivoli this morning. I woke up with David Bowie's "Changes" stuck in my head for some reason, and somehow followed the song into its usage in that movie, where they display the quote about how the children are quite aware of what they're going through.

Watching it in the theater, it struck me as the first time a film seemed to be speaking directly to me, to people my age who were not necessarily cool or popular. And the quotation burned itself into me.

At the time, as a sixth-grader, the lyrics and the song were much the same as the Tivoli to me: something from before I had consciousness. Things of any vintage at all were somehow either timeless (if they had any relevance to me) or merely old (if they did not). The Tivoli and the song were timeless to me. David Bowie, in that moment, may as well have been Shakespeare or Poe.

Now that I am older I can place things in context. The theater, with its art deco stylings and its 1400 fairly comfortable seats, truly was timeless. The song was, at the time the film came out, less than 15 years old. While it would perhaps prove itself timeless in due course, in 1985 it was merely a hit from the previous decade.

I imagine that somewhere in a darkened theater right now, and 11-year-old is watching a film which uses some song from the mid-90s and having the same response. And then I realize that there really aren't any movies out there which are trying to speak to this younger generation in the way that The Breakfast Club tried to speak to mine. Certainly, no one seems to be making any money doing so. All the 11-year-olds are undoubtedly out seeing Transformers, if they're in a cinema at all.

News in brief

Summer begins at 1:06pm today. So enjoy that.

Wes Craven is suing Pauly Shore. I did not read further.

The AFI released their new list of the top 100 films from the last 100 years. The top ten are:
1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.
2. "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "Casablanca," 1942.
4. "Raging Bull," 1980.
5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.
6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
8. "Schindler's List," 1993.
9. "Vertigo," 1958.
10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.
Take that, all other films.

Please stop talking about Rosie O'Donnell. Nobody wins.

Yoko Ono is thinking of writing a memoir. I hope she tells the story about how she sold that cow for $200,000.

Hasbro is making a Stan Lee action figure. Perfect for wooden cameos when you re-enact Marvel comics movies at home.

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That is all. Hope my Google hits don't go nuts.

A television review, plus or minus 32 years

Minx yelled at me for not posting this week. It wasn't entirely intentional. I doubt I've missed five days in a row since I began blogging, but I have spent a lot of my week avoiding my normal routines.

I realize that recently I warned that I might be blogging more, but then I also have to recall that every time I've said I'll be away from the blog for a bit, I've been back almost immediately. It seems I do the opposite of my intentions when it comes to blogging sometimes. If anyone besides Minx noticed, I apologize.

I've also been avoiding my novel for the most part, letting it go to see if I can gain a small amount of perspective. That seems to have worked pretty well for me, and now one of my secondary characters, who I was thinking of eliminating completely, has suddenly revealed that she has a story to tell as well, and I broke into it today, getting down 3,000 words in a nice period that felt like maybe 20 minutes but was actually more than three hours. It's nice when it comes like that.

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Longtime Blogreaders will already be aware that Lorne Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live, is a reader of this blog. He was turned on to it by Conan O'Brien back in September.

Since he was a fan of my early stuff here, I thought I might repay the favor by watching the first season of Saturday Night Live. It's interesting to watch the show develop from a more free-form thing into the more or less standard format it has had for most of its run. While a lot of it is dated, there are plenty of jokes and bits that are still funny today.

The first show was hosted by George Carlin, who never interacted with the regular cast at all. He just did stand-up bits throughout the show. At one point, he asked "Do you ever look at the crowds in old movies and wonder if they're dead yet?" Watching the crowd behind him, and mindful of the more than 30 years that have passed since the first broadcast, I was certainly wondering that from that point on.

And it sure is weird to watch then-President Ford's Press Secretary Ron Nessen (the host for an April broadcast) introduce a young and feral Patti Smith, sounding for all the world like he knew who she was and maybe even loved Horses.

Jim Henson and his Muppets (but not Kermit or any of the ones you'd recognize from The Muppet Show) were a regular feature that first season, as were short films by Albert Brooks. This kind of stuff never made it into the syndication versions I've seen of some of these episodes. Nor did some of the weirder musical performances, dancers, and comedians who were on a lot. Andy Kaufman had several routines in the first season. Some episodes featured two or more musical guests, my favorite from a juxtaposition standpoint was ABBA and Loudon Wainwright III.

The second episode is nearly entirely musical, with host Paul Simon even doing a short reunion
set with Art Garfunkel. Seems like they were hedging their bets on the comedy or the cast being much of a hit.

Don't worry, I won't be posting a review of any other decades-old television for at least the near future. It's just that I watched a lot of those this week, and had nothing compelling to blog about.

Except that the deal for the new Mahtmobile is on hold for now. I'll have to make do with my rustbucket for a while longer.

A dearth of imagination

Perhaps I shouldn't feel bad for my recent lack of inspiration. Here is a partial list of movies that have come out or are coming soon to a theater near you:

Spider-Man 3
Shrek 3
Rush Hour 3
Live Free or Die Hard (Diehard 4)
Fantastic Four 2
Pirates of the Carribean 3
Oceans 13
Evan Almighty (sequel to Bruce Almighty)
The Hills Have Eyes 2
28 Weeks Later
The Bourne Ultimatum
Resident Evil: Apocalypse

This is not even counting adaptations of television series or other non-novel adaptations: Get Smart, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, The Simpsons, Underdog, Hairspray (based on the musical which is based on a different film), Nancy Drew, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Across the Universe, which is a musical based on the Beatles' songs. I seem to recall that premise not working so well when it starred the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. Although I did kind of like Steve Martin's rendition of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

Neil Gaiman's Stardust is being released later this year. When asked for thoughts to aid in the marketing, he suggested the following tagline: "It's not a sequel to anything."

Good enough for me.

You're in control

In spite of a recent (declined) invitation to start publishing some stuff on a television bloggers' site, I don't think that I tend to blog much about the sights and sounds that come from the television box. I saw a commercial tonight, however, that incensed me into making a public complaint.

The advertisement was for a prescription medication called Enablex®, which claims to help with overactive bladder (OAB). I have no doubt this is a serious problem, and their website claims that 1 in 5 adults over 40 suffer from this malady. That seems a bit on the high side, but if their product works, that's probably a good thing for millions of people.

In their commercial, sufferers of OAB are depicted as bouncy balloons filled with liquid. I can only assume that the liquid in question is urine.

My question is this: should I really have to ask that there be fewer urine-filled balloons on television? In the jpeg at right, the thinly-encased waste matter seems to be about to enter a bookstore. They had already showed the thing bursting open once, on the street in front of other balloons. I'm sure this would be mortifying (I'm guessing the implication that losing control of your bladder causes instant death was unintentional) but to have such a thing happen in a bookstore would be criminal. Unlike when a human actually wets him/herself, the balloon's contents went simply everywhere. So many books would be ruined.

So, yes, I am taking a stand. No more urine-filled balloons on my television, please.

Actually, come to think of it, no more urine-filled balloons anywhere.

Shakespeare sketch

Shakespeare sketch with Hugh Laurie and Rowan Atkinson. Part of my ongoing efforts to prove to my American friends that Mr. Laurie had a rather interesting comedic career before House.

The perky Worker

I have been trying to assimilate into the workplace culture that last few days. I have been fitting in. This involves the exchange of vague pleasantries, complaints and inquiries about plans the other Workers might have made in the time they spend away from the workplace.

The purpose of this interaction, as I understand it, is to vent steam or raise morale through the implication of shared experience. I am all for it, but must remain vigilant to participate successfully.

I was standing in the break room today, waiting behind a Worker who was filling a cup with coffee. My mind started to drift a bit. I was staring at the styrofoam cup in my hand, thinking about the origins of styrofoam and liquefied dinosaur remains. I tried to think if I had ever known what the "stryo" part meant. Was it a branding thing? I went from that to wondering what sort of utility device might one day be fashioned from my own liquefied remains, assuming the Earth outlives me.

I was in the middle of deciding that I would probably prefer to be made into playground equipment when I realized that a Worker was talking to me, and I had not been listening. This is considered rude, so I asked the her to repeat herself.

"Did you see American Idol last night?" she asked.

"No," I responded in a voice that sounded a little more horrified than I had intended. "Why would I have done that?"

"It's funny," she told me. "They had all the bad singers on."

Bad singers? I was confused. I thought the whole purpose of the program was to locate, vote upon, and eventually brand (in the marketing sense, although there may be a portion of the show involving heated metal that I have not been made aware of) an individual who was considered a good singer of mediocre pop music. The Worker explained that this is the ultimate goal, but that they fritter away huge chunks of nationally televised airtime to the showcasing of contest hopefuls who cannot perform to the standards required later on. This, apparently, is why House was not on this week.

"Why would I want to watch bad singing?" I asked slowly. I was starting to think this was an elaborate joke, and was trying to locate the eventual punchline. I mean, if I really wanted to hear bad singing, I have a radio.

"It's funny. We make fun of them."

"That's terrible! Why would you set aside time to make fun of people for lacking the ability to sing? You don't find that sort of arbitrary? Why not make fun of people for being bad swimmers? Or unlucky in love?" I was forgetting that there are plenty of shows on which an opportunity is presented to make fun of the unlucky in love.

"They really think they can sing," she replied. "It's funny."

"I'd much rather make fun of you," I said, sort of involuntarily. Realizing that this may have been a mistake, I quickly backpedaled: "Or, you know, people I know something about."

This is true. This is likely why I have few friends.

I was in over my head. Had I been alert when the question was raised, I could have said something like "Yeah, did you see that one guy?" and then made vague agreeing sounds at whatever she said until I had filled my cup and could make an exit. As it was, I had not only admitted to not watching the most popular program in the nation, I then proceeded to let slip that I have never seen an episode of any of the reality programs which have sprung up over the last several years. I answered in the negative regarding Survivor, The Bachelor, Wife Swap, Nanny 911, Cops, Who Wants to Marry My Dad? and many others. I had seen Fear Factor, because I thought it was about stunts, but when they produced the rectum from a horse and explained that the contestants were to eat it, I was done.

This was not good. This was not fitting in. I think I actually made her angry.

She flounced away, this perky Worker. She had damaged me.

I stepped up to the vacuum pump and pressed the lever to force coffee out through the spigot. The pressing of the lever suddenly seemed so much like the pressing of a much smaller lever by a mouse who has been conditioned to do so for his food.

The key to conditioning mice is that you have to be willing to let them die if they won't learn the tricks you want from them.

Phantom Limb

I got the new single from the Shins in the mail today. It's delicious.

There's a scene in the mostly mediocre movie Garden State where Natalie Portman claps her headphones onto Zach Braff's head, informing him that listening to the Shins "will change your life." As someone who has indeed had his life changed by music many, many times, I should inform you that this is probably an exaggeration. I guess it depends on your life. They're an awful lot of fun to listen to, though.

The single is in advance of their forthcoming Wincing the Night Away, coming in January. These guys are pretty easily one of my favorite bands from the last several years, and haven't put anything out in more than 3 years, so I'm pretty excited. It's also nice to see that, judging from the single, they are still putting out some well-designed packages. The last record, Chutes Too Narrow, had an elaborate die-cut which got them nominated for a packaging Grammy.

Anyway, they sound great. Check them out if you wanna. The first two records are $10 each (or less) on Amazon: Oh, Inverted World; Chutes Too Narrow. I've also added a generic Amazon search bar under the music links, if anyone wants to get their Xmas shopping done while they're here.

Music geek post, sure, but pretty short. You're welcome.

p.s. Do you think I have a shot at hosting a TV show called Mostly Mediocre Movies?

The Wilco calendar

Last year, at about this time, I ordered the 2006 Wilco calendar from their website. I essentially got it for free because I was buying the live album Kicking Television at the same time. The calendar arrived, and I placed it on the wall at the place I was working on site.

I didn't really think about it again until the new year began and I started trying to use it as a calendar, which proved more difficult than I would have imagined. A calendar is a relatively simple thing to put together. It isn't tricky.

And yet, I soon found out that they had created something perplexing. From month to month, the columns shifted in which day they represented. So while the first column was Sunday in January, it was Monday in February, and Saturday in other months. This makes it impossible to just glance at it and know what day falls when. You have to stop and squint at it and think for a second. I also discovered that February was missing the 25th, which happens to be the birthday of a close friend. While I appreciated the money I saved on a present, these things are kind of unacceptable in a calendar.

The art was pretty, though. They recreated tour posters, one for each month, and Wilco has long attracted some pretty interesting designers for their stuff. It's possible that this is just one of those form versus function arguments which always plague design when it attempts to innovate. I just happen to be one of those people who have no use whatsoever for a pretty form with no function.

With a list price of $15, people should be able to expect a functioning calendar, not just something pretty.

So here's my tip for all designers: do not, when designing a calendar, attempt to reinvent the entire concept of a calendar. People are generally fine with this item as it currently exists. Also, maybe have someone check to see if you put all of the days into each month.

This post was inspired by my receipt today of a third email from the Wilco store trying to get me to buy their 2007 calendar. I checked out the samples on the site, and while all of the days appeared to be represented on the thumbnails I saw, they were stretched out into 14 columns, taking up three rows per month. They put the day of the week into the little box with the date.

I will not be buying this calendar. Even if I still listened to Wilco all the time (and I don't), I really don't need one anyway, as I don't technically even have a job anymore.

Student Bodies

I spent the weekend mostly not writing. I did watch an old movie called Student Bodies, which I used to watch with friends at parties, senior year in high school. I have no idea why it was a favorite of ours, although the sophomoric humor was highly quotable. I hadn't seen it since sometime before graduation. It's a spoof of slasher movies from 1981, long before Scream and the Scary Movie series.

Like many horror films, it says right at the beginning that it is based on a true story: that 26 horror films had been released the previous year and none of them lost money.

My favorite moment is probably when the killer telephones a room full of teachers. They all look at the phone and a middle-aged woman deadpans: "I'll get it, I'm furthest from the phone." Not sure why, but that still cracks me up.

I looked it up on IMDB, and was not surprised to find that most of the cast never worked again. I was surprised to find that the writer and co-director of the movie was Mickey Rose, the former writing partner of Woody Allen who co-penned Bananas and Take the Money and Run. The other director, uncredited on this film, was Michael Ritchie. Ritchie had already directed The Bad News Bears, among others, and was on his way to directing Fletch and a ton of other projects, mostly comedies. It would be easy to watch the movie and assume that nobody involved with it was a professional of any stripe.

Anyway, it was fun from a nostalgia standpoint. And I suppose, in its sad little way, this 25-year-old low-budget slasher parody was probably the highlight of my weekend.

The Guest Star

I'm still sick, but have a project due soon, so I dragged the files into bed with me. For background noise, I switched the television box to its "ON" setting, then altered the "channel" until I ended up on channel 23, which they call "ME-TV," and which runs old shows ranging from the Burns and Allen to Mad About You. It was on this station that I found The Facts of Life the other day.

I sometimes find this station fun to watch when most of my attention is elsewhere because you can often find actors on their way up the Hollywood ladder before they commanded enough respect not to have to take these gigs. You can also, it seems, catch stars on their way back down the ladder, as I discovered flipping through last week and discovering a Charlie's Angels with Jim Backus and Phil Silvers in the middle of a ridiculously complicated plot involving the kidnapping of ice dancers so that they'll be replaced with agents of a group with an eye on assassinating some Arab leaders during the oil embargo. Or something.

First up today was an episode of 21 Jumpstreet with an appearance by an enormous-haired Brad Pitt. Although he was a series regular, and therefore not quite germaine to the post topic, it was interesting to watch Johnny Depp before he had much skill as well. The episode was a rather heavy-handed look at teenage suicide. Pitt had a small appearance as a kid who gets mad when someone jokes about the recent suicide of his girlfriend's brother. I had never seen the show when it was on in the first place, so I felt a little stupid leaving it on.

A show I did used to watch (albeit when I was nine) came next: The A Team. It began with the time-honored drugging of Mr. T in order to get him on an airplane. The story centered on a group of New York small businesses who were being shaken down for "insurance" money by local toughs. Yaphet Kotto (the real-life son of a king, and who had already appeared in Roots and Alien) played the crime boss who needs to be taught a lesson. For some reason, this guest spot does not appear on his IMDB listing, but Pitt's episode of Jumpstreet is on his.

A side note to those of you thinking of starting a protection racket: Try to avoid some of the mistakes made by Kotto's crew. They were taking so much money from the shopkeepers that the owner of the bakery confessed to Hannibal, "We don't have enough money left to stay open for another month." If you're gonna take money in exchange for not wrecking people's shops, you need to leave them enough money to continue operating their businesses. Aside from the possibility that this will help you avoid a run-in with the A Team, it also protects your source of income for the future. You really need to think long-term. I cannot stress this enough.

I later caught an episode of Alias on another station which featured Office creator and all-around comedy darling Ricky Gervais as a bombmaker seeking revenge.

Capped the day by watching Hugh Laurie host Saturday Night Live. Not nearly as funny as I'd hoped. They really didn't use him very well, which is weird considering A Bit of Fry and Laurie was one of the funniest sketch shows I've ever seen. I'm betting Mr. Laurie isn't at fault. At least House will be back this week.

So it was kind of a surreal day, tv-wise. It is my fervent wish that I will stop being sick soon, and that this will be the last television post for a while.

C'mon, Lorne!

So I was watching tv Saturday night, and I stumbled upon a new episode of Saturday Night Live.

I was smiling contendedly at the lack of Horatio Sanz, when I noticed that the host was none other than John C. Reilly, the subject of my first blog post. Now I knew that Mr. Michaels was reading my blog when he fired Mr. Sanz, but the host seemed a little too coincidental.

And then, halfway through the show, they announced the host for the following week: Hugh Laurie. Another subject of a blog posting here at the Moon Topples. Soon, he'll be raiding my "friends" on MySpace in order to find his musical guests.

So shouldn't I be getting paid or something? Consulting Producer, at least. C'mon, Lorne, step up and admit that I'm basically controlling the show at this point. And then compensate me accordingly.

I shall await your reply.

Crap on the Telly

My last day in London, after changing my flight and eventually my room, I finally turned on the TV for the only time on my trip.

My first time through the channels was somewhat discouraging. It was about 2 pm, and the best thing on seemed to be an old "Diagnosis Murder," which was playing on two different channels.

Later I caught I bunch of game shows: the original "Deal or No Deal," which is hosted by a guy who looks like a cross between Richard Branson and Patrick Duffy, and who tried constantly, but was only funny once, due to the contestant being named Di Please and working in a nursing home, which is kind of a gimme. I also caught a show called "Eggheads," which pits a team of friends against a specially-selected supergroup of trivia experts; "The Weakest Link," with the same irritating and mean host they used to have in America; and "Countdown," which is kind of like the board game Boggle without the strategy: you just try to form the longest word you can from the letters that come up.

And I thought to myself that British daytime tv is just as crappy as American daytime tv.

And then I got home, still sick, and watched some of it. And I owe an apology to the British.

Provided you have no interest in those fake courtroom shows with a loudmouth "judge" arbitrating disputes among loudmouth complaintants, and that you also have really no interest in discovering whether Keith or his brother Andre are the baby-daddy (since Wanda slept with them both), there isn't a whole lot out there. These shows seem to be designed, like so much "reality" television, to show America at its worst.

Sometimes there are the talk-shows, hosted by whoever they can find without a current primetime show. Of these, I reserve special contempt for Megan Mullaly, who used to be the high-pitched irritant on "Will and Grace," but who now (perhaps still in character?) doesn't even pretend to listen to her guests, interrupting them with a half-hearted "That's great..." and jumping in with her next pre-written question.

I've also caught myself watching spanish game shows. And educational programming for small children on PBS. There was a period this afternoon when the best thing on was "The Facts of Life." Seriously, that was the best thing I could find. In any language. And it wasn't even a good episode for the lowered bar of that program. It was one of the later seasons, when Mrs. Garrett was gone and George Clooney was some sort of handyman. When "Jeopardy" finally came on I almost wept with happiness.

Maybe I should get cable.

Or stop getting sick.

I'll admit, I'm probably mostly bitter about still being sick, almost two weeks after initially feeling ill. And having no internet access hasn't helped. But I've run out of books I want to read right now, and tv looked like the answer.

GB, CBGB

The full name was CBGB & OMFUG, which stands for Country, BlueGrass, Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizers. It's more commonly just called CBGB, which opened around the time I was born and within a couple of years had branched out somewhat from its original musical mission statement to become the center for the punk and New Wave movements.

The doors will close forever Sunday night, following a performance by Patti Smith.

The Ramones got their start in the club, as did Ms. Smith, Talking Heads, Blondie, Television, Jonathan Richman and many others. Elvis Costello, the Clash, the Police, and Bruce Springsteen all played the legendary stage. And that's just the late 70s.

The club is being forced to close due to rising rents, the result of a massive gentrification project in the Bowery. It isn't clear if the building will even remain standing.

I saw CBGB once with my own eyes. When I visited New York in late 1995, it turns out I was staying not far from there, and we walked past it in the night on the way to the rehearsal for the reading we were going to give the next day.

I remember just catching it out of the corner of my eye, and stopping right there in the middle of crossing the street. It was like stumbling across a unicorn. Even then I knew that so much history had taken place in the tiny club. I couldn't believe it could just exist in the middle of a block like that, that it could be found by happenstance.

My castmates dragged me off, and I made a vow to return when I had a free afternoon in the city. But after searching and failing to find it on the only such afternoon I had, I went to the Dakota building and the Strawberry Fields Memorial in Central Park instead.

I sat there by the mosaic which reads "Imagine" and thought about the loss of a legendary figure of musical history. My legs were splayed out in front of me, and a hat that reminded me of John Lennon when I bought it at a street fair that weekend was on my head.

A man walked by with his young daughter on his shoulders. As the man walked around my outstretched legs, she pointed at the memorial and asked what it was.

"Paahhh," he snickered. "They all think some fuckin' Beatle's gonna come back." The daughter was maybe two years old.

And I see also that Paul McCartney is registering his name as a trademark for use in branding items. Reuters says: "The full application specifies such disparate items as articles of fancy dress, overalls, waistcoats, hosiery, dressing-gowns, bath robes, sports clothing and swimwear."

Overalls.

He's doing food, too, and although he's been a vegetarian since the late 60s, his trademark is set to cover meats as well.

And Hilly Kristal, who opened CBGB in 1973? He's trying to move the club, dank atmosphere and all, to Las Vegas.

I regret never seeing a show there, even though by the time I could have some of the luster would have faded and I'd only have gone for the ghosts.

Kristal can't bring those ghosts to Las Vegas. But he is, apparently, taking the urinals.

How Warren Zevon cost me $10,000

On a Friday afternoon in the spring of 1988, I came home from school in time to catch a radio contest on what used to be Chicago's classic rock station, WCKG.

It seemed designed especially for people with exactly the sort of freaky memory that I have. The premise was: they played a block of songs (12-15) and if you were the right caller and could name the song and artist for everything they had played, they'd give you $10,000. That was right up my alley. In seventh grade, a classmate had said something about sitting down on the corner of his desk, and I sang a bit of "Willie and the Poor Boys" by CCR. He looked at me disgustedly and said "Jeez, do you know every song?" So I knew I could do this.

I was excited. I grabbed a pen and dutifully began writing down everything they played at the top of the hour. I can't remember them all now, but I'm pretty sure that there was some Boston, Rolling Stones, maybe a Grand Funk Railroad song. The one that was probably supposed to stump you was by Steeler's Wheel. The very last song they played was "Werewolves of London."

I was excited. Even though I had no idea who did "Werewolves of London," I figured I could make an educated guess if I was even the right caller.

I was the right caller. They put me on the radio. I still remember how nervous I was. After the deejay called me "ma'am" (I guess my voice hadn't finished changing yet) and I corrected him, I proceeded to go down the list of songs from the last set.

I got them all. All the songs, anyway. I don't recall my guess for who did "Werewolves," but it sure wasn't Mr. Zevon. Not by a mile.

I was crestfallen that I hadn't won the money, but when the deejay said who had done the song, I was actually a little relieved. Who the hell had ever heard of Warren Zevon? What kind of name was that, anyway? I wasn't dumb for not knowing the artist: it was a trick question. Some dude plucked from obscurity based on a novelty song. It was the equivalent (to me at that time) of popping Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash" in the set.

I consoled myself with what I assumed to be his one-hit status (and the fact that you probably had to be 18 to win) and went about my evening.

That very night, watching David Letterman (he used to follow a man named Johnny Carson on NBC, for my younger readers) he announced his guests for the evening. Included in the lineup was Warren Zevon. I was astonished. Letterman spoke glowingly of his songwriting, and when he came out, he didn't play "Werewolves of London." Surely this was some kind of mistake, a weird global joke.

Since then, I have of course learned who he was. I got over my anger about the money and got to like quite a bit of his music. When he died a few years ago, I was very sad.

But my first thought when his name comes up is still "He cost me $10,000." Like they gave it to him instead.