Better late than never (blame it on the blogger hacking), another Friday Five:
1. What is your favorite scary movie?
Probably 'Rosemary's Baby,' though I'm not sure how scary I find it.
2. What is your favorite Halloween treat?
Cider.
3. Do you dress up for Halloween? If so, describe your best Halloween costume.
Not anymore. My best costume was probably teevee painter Bob Ross (for the very young children who may be reading, Bob Ross was sort of like a cross between Stuart Smalley and Thomas Kinkade (the Painter of Light), with an Afro.)
4. Do you enjoy going to haunted houses or other spooky events?
No, not really. I don't like crowds. I also don't like, er... the appearance of something rather than that thing itself.
5. Will you dress up for Halloween this year?
I suppose it's possible.
Linkety-link: Dishonest anti-gun professor resigns, SF bans live rap, Gore Vidal takes a moderate position, Slate writer spills the wine, someone devotes a site to zippo tricks, someone devotes a site to banning dihydrogen monoxide.
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Dig this 'stereotypes' photo show, these Zen stories, 1000 blank white cards, some decent starting pages on election methods/voting systems (I was trying to get people interested in the topic the other day--it so didn't work.) and this glossary of poetic terms.
And, in music-biz news, record companies glue cd players shut. Hillary Rosen loses a debate at Oxford, makes the laughable claim that there have been no copy-protected cds released in the U.S.
Rocker and one-time Nashvillian Ryan Adams made quite an impression at his Ryman show Monday night. Tennessean music writer Peter Cooper described an incident in which Ryan went off on a guy who jokingly requested a Bryan Adams song, a story that now has been reported around the world. Peter also wrote a less-than-flattering review.
Ryan left Peter a less-than-flattering voice mail. Here 'tis:
''You're just so smart, aren't you, man? You're so (expletive) smart. 'I'm so smart. I'm so post-collegiate with all my (expletive) little references.' 'Punkish hardcore.' What about 'Quintessential (expletive) band,' moron?
''What the (expletive) is wrong with you? Little redneck newspaper. Ooh, The Tennessean. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. You wouldn't know a (expletive) good show if it bit you in the (expletive).
''You and your senior citizen, little redneck (expletive) (expletive). Whatever, you know? Let's like ? let's create it, let's judge it, you know? Like, 'Let's turn it into what it's supposed to be.' But you don't know (expletive). You and your (expletive) (expletive) paper. (Expletive) you.''--Ryan Adams, big asshole? Who'd've thought?
1. How many TVs do you have in your home?
There's one in the living room, and one, not plugged in, in an upstairs bedroom.
2. On average, how much TV do you watch in a week?
A couple hours a day times seven days equals... maybe 15-20 hours in an average week. Damn, that's a lot of teevee.
3. Do you feel that television is bad for young children?
I feel lack of parental supervision is bad for young children. And focusing on the same distance for long periods might not be good for their eyes. Also, the teevee could fall on the child--I remember scary but somehow tantalizing stickers on the A/V carts when I was in elementary school. As to whether teevee programming is bad for children, well, it seems pretty clear to me that one must decide on a program-by-program basis. Good programs, off the top of my head, include Sesame Street and presidential debates. Bad programs include animated programs that serve largely as cross-promotion opportunities.
4. What TV shows do you absolutely HAVE to watch, and if you miss them, you're heartbroken?
New Simpsons episodes, Frontline, the King of the Hill murder mystery 2-parter. Still, though, 'heartbroken' might be a little strong.
5. If you had the power to create your own television network, what would your line-up look like?
I envision lots of news, documentaries, jazz concerts, shorts, Schoolhouse Rock, reruns of short-lived prime-time animated shows, 20-year-old episodes of The Muppet Show and Sesame Street, Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts and 3 a.m. Law & Order reruns. Oh, and music videos that other networks refused to play ("What it Feels Like for a Girl," "This Note's for You," "Natural Born Killaz" and "By the Time I Get to Arizona" come to mind), and that Robert Smigel media-opoly short.
wow. this woman from costco who refused to remove her eyebrow ring is claiming it's a religious thing. bme promoted those churchofbodmod people like whoa.
the 18-34 year old demo doesn't matter anymore, says the nyt. schmoes at acclaim disagree, and try to follow in rockstar's footsteps with a game called 'bmx xxx.' i'm sure it'll be another classic from the minds that brought us nba jam and turok. nyt fires back: you're too fat. ny press agrees, and offers a modest proposal. a washington post film critic examines the recent sniper attacks. cesspool, cesspool! joni mitchell steals a page from dissatisfied music types like janis ian and mikejack. more cribbed-from-slashdot news, this time via salon: aol's floundering. and just when the other big internet-brand-for-suckers is hyping their yahoo!/sbc dsl service.
use babelfish/systran for something fun: lost in translation. someone considers the self-portrait. colleges are losing money to cell phone companies after ripping off students on long-distance for years. happily for long-distance companies, there's still the prison market. here's socilogist mike males' online book about kids, guns and fear of youth. oh, and iusedtobelieve.com--kids say the dumbedest things.
illegal-art.org's got a lot of neat stuff.
incidentally, here are a few of the songs on that rod stewart standards album: it had to be you, every time we say goodbye, they can't take that away from me. people like the gershwins and cole porter wrote these songs. they've been famously interpreted by billie holiday, frank sinatra, duke ellington and sideshow bob, among hundreds of others (ella 'i never liked dr. pepper' fitzgerald! robbie williams! sun ra!). what does rod think he's bringing to the table? (while finding the links for this post, i learned that robbie williams has covered george michael's 'freedom '90.' and he, like rod, did a standards album. it includes a duet of 'somethin' stupid' with nicole kidman, and it's still worlds better than the rod album.)
"The popularity of Ralph Nader's candidacy during the 2000 campaigns is the legacy of social semi-responsibility.... Naively thinking that Bush's stupidity would result in a shoo-in Gore victory (didn't anyone remember Reagan? or Forrest Gump?), aging Xers' political consciousness was awakened by an 'alternative' candidate in the same way their ambition had been sparked by an 'alternative' career path with the Internet. As if they were choosing Sleater-Kinney over Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera; as if they were choosing an outsider like Daniel Johnston over a couple of president's/senator's sons like Jakob Dylan and Sean Lennon; as if the next logical step from a rock and roll president is a punk rock president; as if they had the luxury of assuaging their fauxhemian guilt over creating the new economy by committing to an anti-corporate left wing candidate with no commercial potential (I'm surprised no one made a CORPORATE CANDIDATES STILL SUCK t-shirt). I'll bet playing his guitar at a Nader rally or two made Eddie Vedder feel less like a corporate rocker. A Nader vote was like a magic wand to make you punk rock again. It was my generation's Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac."
--both from alan licht's 'an emotional memoir of martha quinn,' short and hilarious.
last night, laura and i watched the brady bunch variety hour. astonishingly bad. among other things, fake jan seemed to be obsessed with her own death (sounds better than it is), and it featured an extended, slapstick-y water ballet number that involved many underwater shots of people in clown makeup. greg gave the phone number to his new apartment: 321-1321. no 555, so be sure to call that number and ask for greg. supposedly, tvland cut that sketch when they aired the bbvh. also, there was a segment where tony randall read an edith sitwell poem while people in bear suits capered around behind him. it didn't sit well. another episode, for reasons unbeknownst to me left off the dvd, featured the ohio players and redd foxx.
The premise of "The Brady Bunch Hour" is hard to understand. The Brady
family was chosen to star in a variety show on ABC. They left their
familiar two story home somewhere in southern California for a place on
the beach. (The first installment had a completely different set from
both the rest of the installments and the original series.) The series
includes not only "the variety show on ABC," but also the
behind-the-scenes doings of the Bradys as they go about making their
variety series. There were also some sketches, described below, which
were more or less a continuation of the original "Brady Bunch" episodes
and which had nothing to do with the "ABC variety series." Unfortunately,
the seams between the two modes are not clear, and this results in
continuity errors such as Rip Taylor playing a character named Jack
Merrill on the variety show, but the Bradys also know him as Mr. Merrill
when they're not on TV, and the Bradys announce him as "our own Rip
Taylor" in the opening and closing. It is not always clear what the
Bradys are doing or what audience they are playing to.--from a faq
i really like my ergonomic keyboard. the only fault is that caps lock is right next to 'a,' and it's not too hard to hit it by accident. it took a fair amount of searching to find how to change the key mapping, but it's possible (with win2k, anyway). this pdf tells how.
okay, so that upcoming gta game, vice city, is going to have a set of '80s soundtrack cds. and apparently, they're going to pre-release a box set of 'em.
simpsons feature films? i am cautiously optimistic. well, maybe i'm cynically skeptical.
Jay and The Techniques
Ready or not here I come
Gee that used to be such fun
Apples peaches pumpkin pie
Who's afraid to holler I?
That's a game we used to play.
Hide and seek was its name.
Oh ready or not, hear I come,
Gee that used to be such fun.
I always used to find a hiding place,
Times have changed.
Well I'm one step behind you, but still I can't find you.
Apple peaches pumpkin pie,
You were young and so was I.
Now that we've grown up it seems
You just keep ignoring me.
I'll find you anywhere you go,
I'll follow you high and low.
You can't escape this love of mine anytime.
Well, I'll sneak up behind you,
Be careful where I find you.
Apple peaches pumpkin pie,
Soon your love will be all mine.
Then I'm gonna take you home,
Marry you so you won't roam.
Marry you so you won't roam. Right now
I'll find you anywhere you go,
I'm gonna look high and low.
You can't escape this love of mine anytime.
Well, I'll sneak up behind you,
Be careful where I find you.
Ready or not here I come,
Gee that used to be such fun
(repeat and fade)
memepool has the story: some mechanic went joy-riding in a customer's car. the customer's ticked.
the morning news' latest etiquette installment: weddings.
david hasselhoff told tv guide he hit 'rock bottom' after a trip to a hotel minibar. oh, and just coincidentally, there's (supposedly) a baywatch reunion made-for-teevee movie coming out. it's (supposedly) going to be aired on fox, the same people who (undoubtedly) own tv guide.
here's a heavily-cited page--rageboy, the "babe magnet of blogdom." from the same page, a link to a five-year-old's amazon wishlist.
also, here's something that eric 'fast food nation' schlosser wrote for 'the atlantic' in 1998 about the prison-industrial complex. he's working on a book on the topic, too, i'm told. last but not least, here's an atlantic article he did about marijuana.
