this is great:
After Rapture: Orlando Man will deliver messages to those left behind…
sure, it’s not exactly a winning business model. even the dumbest christians know when they’re being made fun of. however, this guy’s site is still a perfect example of sharp satire within this nation of crazies.
honestly, i’m just pissed i didn’t think of it first. however, i do find it ironic and amusing that his name is Joshua.
so i was listening in on a conference call… …and the presenter audibly farted.
twice. two juicy bursts in a row.
a moment passes, and then, “excuse me,” she interjects, before continuing with her presentation.
i think i lasted a full ten seconds before i started giggling like a schoolboy. if she hadn’t acknowledged it, and if it hadn’t happened twice in a row, i probably would’ve just assumed it was something else. but she said something. i slowly lost control. it was otherwise such a fucking boring conference call (not that they’re normally fun…). thankfully, i was on mute, so no one on the call could hear me snickering. hehe, where was her mute button?
ah, yes. as carlin often said, farts are fun.
here’s some crap i wrote on the PM: Pub forum the other day…
most of the time, i can’t stand watching anything tom cruise is in. he’s so fucking leaden and lifeless most of the time. i attribute his characters’ constant wooden personas to the fact that he needs to reign in the crazy long enough to complete a take, which renders him without any perceptible emotional depth. i can’t even watch him in ‘top gun’, he’s just so fucking lame to me. i’ve never seen that entire movie, i always walk away or change the channel in disgust. and i didn’t know whether to laugh or scream in horror at his performance in ‘eyes wide open’. it seemed to me to be a seventeen-and-a-half hour movie about a lame guy trying harder and harder not to be lame but completely fucking it up along the way.
so, having said that, i’ve highly enjoyed cruise’s performances when he can channel his crazy energy into his character in a meaningful way instead of trying to suppress it. as far as i’m concerned, he could do it in both ‘magnolia’ and ‘tropic thunder’. in each movie, his character was a complete and utter asshole. …and it works. he fucking nails it. seriously, i mean it. he’s awesome in these roles.
it is apparent to me now that he’s phenomenal at playing an asshole, whether it’s a serious role or a comic role. there’s an obvious conclusion that i can draw about him from this pattern.
anyway, i doubt i’ll see the new one. he doesn’t seem like an asshole in this one. hey, anyone trying to kill a guy like hitler is hardly someone i’d consider an asshole. so i can’t say i’m interested.
seriously, the only time i’ve ever seen him emote at all is when he’s not acting–and in each case he’s behaving like a nutball. the oprah couch incident…the leaked scientology videos…he’s extremely animated and exuberant, but in a really weird, crazy way. you never see any of that in most of his movies. i guess he’s trying to play cold and detached every role he gets, but it’s so forced. i can’t believe it’s intentional. taking the two extremes together, one must conclude that he does not actually know how to act like a normal human being. this is why he’s such a crappy actor. and this is why my theory is the only one that makes sense to me. and, hey, sometimes you need to think outside the box to understand the world around you.
it’s kind of like my theory about michael jackson: he was replaced at some point with an android. i don’t know what happened to the human version, but i don’t believe he’s one and the same as that thing wearing the mask occasionally being photographed in dubai.
1) just fucking look at him. stare at his face for a full minute, and then try and tell me he’s not at *least* a cyborg. you won’t be able to do it. you’ll feel the doubt creep across your brain the longer you look at him. that’s too much fucking surgery for one human being. he’s been replaced by a machine, dammit.
2) a programming glitch is the ONLY possible explanation for dangling a baby out of a window. i’m willing to bet, during that moment, a blue screen of death flashed across his eyes.
3) he stopped showing emotion. he’s not suppressing them, like tom cruise, they just disappeared. they used to be there, but now they’re nowhere to be seen. there was a lot of passion in those early solo records, which doesn’t jibe with the creepy metal-faced interviews he gave after his last trial.
michael jackson is a fucking android.
huh. no posts since october. yeah, i know. whatevs.
i often think of this blog at various times, as well as the other one i keep for family business, but usually when i’m nowhere near a computer. “i should write,” i think to myself, but i never quite sit down and do it. i also think “i should read one of the books i haven’t finished yet,” but then i don’t quite do it.
apart from the usual pursuits and responsibilities, i’ve spent a fair share of my time educating myself on various subjects: politics, the economy, religion, and one or two other subjects i have an immediate interest in. i’m usually dozing on the train to and from work. there are just not enough hours in the day to do everything, so i have to pick and choose. this often means certain pursuits may be ignored. i’m a creature of habit, and my routine as of late has kept me from even visiting my own site.
now, i’m shifting again, swapping routines. so here i am. i’m working on a script for a mini-sketch featuring j-man and myself. it’s independent of the Strokes script, although both reference the James Bond series, but that’s just coincidence. anyway, this mini-sketch is nothing special, to be honest. it’s mostly just a vehicle to set up a joke that made me laugh on the train home from work one day a couple of weeks ago. i’ve been fermenting the idea for a couple of weeks now, and i now have enough material to draft it out for the first time. i’m just doing this for fun, i haven’t really tried to write anything at all since we finished the script early this year. ooh, i’ll start this today, then.
*****
went with weaver to see smashing pumpkins last sunday. i was never a fan of the band, but i was happy to hang with mike. he asked me to go, figuring i’d enjoy it more than his gf sheila would. when he asked, all i could think of was that he’d go see one of my bands if i asked him to go, so i said, “of course.”
we made fun of billy corgan’s stupid euro metal black man-skirt he was wearing. we made fun of the thirtysomethings that made up the majority of the crowd. sure, i’m a thirtysomething, but i wasn’t there reliving anything from my youth. that one distinction alone made me, in my estimation, one point cooler than the rest of the crowd.
mike’s a longtime fan. he’d read that their last show was half awesome, and half crazy with new songs and long, long jams. the critics were slamming the band. the fans were not happy with the lopsided set lists. so, when this show was announced almost last minute, he wanted to check it out to see if they’d totally lost the plot since the 90s glory days. i never liked corgan’s voice all that much, so i never paid much attention to them. even the songs i recognized, i barely knew them. certainly not well enough to sing along to them at all.
overall, i was pleasantly surprised. i didn’t really know exactly how awesome the drummer, jimmy chamberlin, is. he has great technique, which is exceedingly rare in the bands that crossed the grunge/post-grunge/post-punk/shoegazer/alternative scenes that dominated the 90s. most of them seemed to go to the dave grohl school of drumming, flailing your entire arms over your head. nah, not chamberlin. he had the same power, but it was all in his wrists. he has great chops. i had no idea.
their current bass player, in my opinion, is kind of weak. but then, this band never really had distinctive bass playing. the focus is, as always, on billy.
they balanced their setlist well this time around, juggling between their better known songs and the more obscure material both new and old with relative ease. the new material is very drum-heavy, with lots of tom-work. i want to hear more. the crowd went apeshit for the hits, of course. and then, they sort of lost some of the crowd with their long-ass cover of pink floyd’s ’set your controls for the heart of the sun’, which was psychedelic and crazy before this version. it went on a bit long, even for a guy like me, who likes that sort of thing.
mike felt they sounded kind of flat as a band when playing the old material, but really gelled and seemed to really enjoy playing the new stuff. i didn’t quite notice that as much, but i did feel they didn’t know at times how to wear the different musical hats they were trying on. their energy, their vibe, i’d have to say it was somewhat inconsistent.
all in all, however, it was a really good show. i’ve been listening to their older albums. i’m still not a big fan of his voice, but i do have to admit that some of the songs sound better to me now than i used to think. i can’t see myself becoming a huge die-hard fan of the band at this point, but i’m glad i had the chance to try something new. the show felt refreshing to me. cathartic, even.
it doesn’t quite make up for missing fish (of marillion) or king crimson when they stopped at Park West earlier this year, which still breaks my heart, but it was an enjoyable experience nonethelsss. and, of course, it was great to pound a few beers with mike. i just wish he wasn’t so fucking tall.
i was reminded that today is Mike Rutherford’s birthday, which means that a year ago tonight, i saw Genesis live for the first time. i don’t really have a reason for mentioning this, it’s not exactly an interesting tidbit of data to anyone other than me.
*****
go sox! sorry, ya fuckin’ cubs fans. i just can’t get behind that team. there’s too much that annoys me about the cubs. for one thing, they have lame team colors. nothing manly about blue and red together. sure, they did really well this year, and have some power players on their team, but they haven’t been able to get it together for 100 years. seriously? 100 years? i’m sorry, but after an entire century, they went beyond ‘lovable losers’, straight on to pathetic. fucking pathetic. every year is just another layer of pathetic. last night’s loss reminds us that this is the best the cubs can do post-season. they’re simply following the familiar pattern. they may win a game or two as this playoff series progresses, but that’s about it, i’m afraid. they’re gonna choke. and don’t blame it on some gay-ass curse. there’s no curse. you might as well blame zombies or unicorns.
the media doesn’t help, either. almost all the local media outlets i’ve seen are biased towards the cubs. i’ve written about this before, but i remember late during the 2005 season, i was watching the news. the cubs, of course, had lost. they spent the entire sports segment of the news program interviewing cubs players and the coach, and they were all talking about why they’d lost and what they planned to do to stop losing (as it turned out, their plans failed miserably…). at the very end of the segment, after exhausting all possible discussion about the cubs, the sports anchor said something akin to, “oh, yeah, by the way, the white sox won 900 to nothing again.” that was it. on to a commercial break. what a bunch of assholes. i would’ve rather watched interviews on how awesome the sox were doing. they only won the fucking world series later that season. it might’ve been nice to see them in action once in a while. fuck the local media and their incessant biased coverage of the pathetic cubs.
the sox are rather unpredictable–just when you think they’re toast, they come out on top. when you think they’re gonna stomp the other team, they let a bunch of runs go and lose the game. i’m not sure how far they’re gonna go this year–i’ll cheer ‘em on either way. but i’m not gonna rely on some false sense of hope. that’s why they’re a true chicago team. they do what they do and they don’t make a fuss about it. real men. win or lose, they play and then they move on.
the cubbies, which is a horrible nickname for a group of grown men, really should just give up and move out to the suburbs where they belong. when the cubs lose, they can cry about it while drinking bud light at an applebee’s. admit it, that idea sounds appropriate. cos it is.
*****
wow. interesting times we live in. congress has socialized our economy, which is extraordinary. i weep for our freedom. meanwhile the prez campaign continues tonight with the VP debate. we’ve all seen the SNL skits which prove that Palin is too easy a target. she’s become a self-caricature in a matter of weeks. she doesn’t even know she’s set herself up for ridicule. christ, the comedians of our country are having a field day with this broad, cos they don’t even have to try to be clever or witty when talking about her. all they have to do is repeat her, and everyone laughs. that’s fucking sad.
meanwhile, a political commentator was asked on the news this morning if biden will have to pull punches with his approach towards the debate tonight, specifically since he’s debating a female. “certainly,” was the reply. this guy suggested that biden will have to make sure he doesn’t come off as patronizing, focusing his attack on mccain’s policies, not on anything palin herself says in the course of the debate.
why? fuck that. if this cunt can’t take the heat from biden, then she can’t handle the fucking job. imagine mccain and palin elected, and mccain croaks. do you think the leaders of russia, iran, or north korea will tiptoe around this bint so that they appear sensitive?
no. no they won’t. and neither should biden. i know plenty of women who can stand up to a jerk like biden and hold their own without giving him the chance to be patronizing. palin isn’t one of them. she doesn’t know what she’s fucking talking about, so he’s gonna pulverize her. i don’t remember caring about VP debates before. one things for sure: all comedian eyes will be on her tonight. they’re gonna get some gold…
*****
your mom.
all right, so my sabbath obsession has waned a bit, and has been replaced by my next brief obsession: the NWOBHM.
the New Wave of British Heavy Metal.
the period from around 1979-82 when all kinds of cool bands came out of england to influence the 80s thrash bands that followed them: samson, saxon, diamond head, def leppard, angel witch, iron maiden (and dozens of others).
there was a thread on a message board i frequent about that movement recently. i was inspired to revisit a few of these bands.
now, i’m a big maiden fan and have always loved the early material they produced. those early records were a different beast from the later albums when bruce dickinson took over and they catapulted to superstardom. those later records are juggernauts in and of themselves, but they don’t have the intensity or the energy of the early maiden recordings. like ‘em or not, an attentive examination of their first two records in particular would show a raw power and punk attitude that they’d abandon as their music matured. those records are raw as hell. same with def leppard. their first two records have some great hard rock moments, even occasionally diving into a style approaching progressive metal (the song ‘overture’ from the first record comes to mind immediately) before that genre really existed. as they matured, and their career took off playing pop metal, they entirely abandoned the energy that defined the NWOBHM.
then you have bands like diamond head and angel witch, who never saw the same success as maiden or leppard. diamond head’s legacy is mostly linked to metallica, since the latter covered several DH songs over the years on various releases. their first record, which was released on their own label, is the best known of their entire catalog. same with angel witch and even saxon. their early material is all that people pay attention to.
and that’s because those early albums rule. the first angel witch is a fun record, i’m just now discovering them, thanks to the power of the internet. i love diamond head’s first record, since it had such a wide variety of styles, from pre-thrash to almost pop rock. i haven’t heard DH in years. i had a compilation of theirs on tape–that’s why it’s been a while.
that’s what i’ve been listening to lately. just so ya know.
THE BEGINNING - 1970 - 1975
THE THIRD GENESIS BOX SET ON SACD/CD HYBRID AND DVD DUAL DISC SETS
RELEASED: 10 NOVEMBER 2008 (11 NOVEMBER 2008 US Release)
Press information:
Virgin/EMI concludes the SACD/CD Hybrid and DVD Dual Disc reissue of the Genesis albums with the release of the final box set: 1970 - 1975.
On 10 November 2008, Genesis release the final instalment of their reissued albums in 5.1, including new stereo mixes, exclusive DVD footage and rare extras. Having already charted the transformation from prog-rock pioneers to stadium-filling power trio Genesis, the third and final studio boxed set goes back to the beginning covering the band’s early years with lead singer Peter Gabriel.
Following on from the massive success of the Genesis DVD ‘When In Rome’, which topped the music DVD chart for 3 consecutive weeks, the box set ‘Genesis: 1970-1975′ contains the five studio albums from ‘Trespass’ to ‘The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ plus an extras disc full of rarities including Genesis Plays Jackson, an aborted soundtrack project for a BBC Art film on the work of painter Michael Jackson.
GENESIS: 1970-1975 presents five of the band’s earliest studio albums as SACD/CD Hybrid and DVD Dual Disc sets featuring 5.1 DTS and Dolby Digital Surround Sound and new stereo mixes of the original albums (5.1 and news stereo mixes created by Tony Banks, Nick Davis and Mike Rutherford), plus bonus videos and new interviews with band members filmed exclusively for these reissues. The set contains hours of previously unreleased video. A booklet accompanies each album featuring sleeve notes by Richard McPhail (Trespass), David Baddiel (Nursery Cryme), Roger Taylor (Foxtrot), Jeremy Clarkson (Selling England By The Pound) and Tony Robinson (The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway).
One of the top-selling recording artists of all time, Genesis has sold more than 150 million albums so far. This Box set collects some of the band’s more adventurous, experimental and ground-breaking albums, covering Peter Gabriel’s tenure with the group.
GENESIS: 1970-1975 spotlights five albums - TRESPASS, NURSERY CRYME, FOXTROT, SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND and THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY, plus EXTRA TRACKS 1970-1975, a newly assembled compilation only available with this collection.
Featuring favourites like “The Knife” and “White Mountain,” Genesis’ second album, TRESPASS (1970), marked the beginning of a five-year journey that saw the band create ever-more daring albums of progressive rock. The album includes guitarist Anthony Phillips and drummer John Mayhew, who were replaced on the following album by Steve Hackett and Phil Collins respectively.
NURSERY CRYME (1971) opens with “The Musical Box,” a beautiful 10-minute sprawl that captures the essence of the band’s sophisticated musicality tweaked with freewheeling theatrics. Genesis’ new lineup starts to define its unique voice on songs like “The Return Of The Giant Hogweed” and “The Fountain of Salmacis.”
The band returned the following year with FOXTROT (1972), a breakthrough album hailed by critics and embraced by fans, which reached number 12 in the UK album charts. Two tracks in particular - “Watcher Of The Skies” and “Supper’s Ready” - became live staples for years to come. Nearly filling the album’s second half, “Supper’s Ready” stands as an avant-garde showcase for each member’s individual talents. DVD extras include: over 30 minutes of live video from 1972 of the band performing on Belgian television and on stage at the Piper Club in Italy.
Genesis’ popularity continued to grow with its fifth studio album, SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND (1973). These eight songs find the band’s inventive storytelling and imaginative arrangements coming into sharper focus with “I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)” - Genesis’ first hit single in the U.K. The album also introduced audiences to “The Cinema Show” and “Firth Of Fifth,” songs that would become popular concert staples and recently resurfaced on the ‘Turn It On Again Tour’ in 2007, their first for 15 years. DVD extras include: video from 1973 recorded during a performance on Italian television and on stage at the Bataclan in France - over one and a half hour of live performance.
The band wasn’t at a loss for inspiration for THE LAMB LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY (1974), a double album about a Puerto Rican hood searching for his brother. It was to be Gabriel’s final release with Genesis. The band toured for the album, performing the entire 90-minute album along with an ambitious stage show complete with costume changes, theatrical lighting and pyrotechnics. The title track, “Carpet Crawlers” and “In The Cage” remain popular parts of the band’s live show. The album will be presented with the Surround Sound mix. Additional bonus features will be included on a DVD, including slides from the live performance, some 16mm footage and live photos.
GENESIS concludes with EXTRA TRACKS 1970-1975, a disc of rarities offered exclusively as part of this box set. The compilation contains 10 tracks, including the 7″ single “Happy The Man,” a demo of “Going To Get You,” and the b-side “Twilight Alehouse.” A trio of songs - “Shepard,” “Pacidy” and “Let Us Now Make Love” - are taken from the BBC program “Nightride.” The disc also includes a VH1 Special about GENESIS 1967-1975 and Midnight Special.
The final four songs on EXTRA TRACKS 1970-1975 - “Provocation,” “Frustration,” “Manipulation” and “Resignation” - are the legendary “Genesis Plays Jackson” tapes. The band recorded these songs in 1970 for a documentary about painter Mick Jackson. The documentary never happened and the songs were lost until now. Fans will notice how sections of this music evolved into other songs. “Frustration” is an early version of “Anyway” from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, while “Manipulation” features themes heard later in “The Musical Box” from Nursery Cryme.
|
TRESPASS |
EXTRAS |
|
|
|
NURSERY CRYME |
EXTRAS |
|
|
|
FOXTROT |
EXTRAS |
|
|
|
SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND |
EXTRAS |
|
|
|
THE LAMBS LIES DOWN ON BROADWAY |
EXTRAS |
|
|
|
EXTRA TRACKS 1970 TO 1975 |
EXTRAS |
|
? “Watcher Of The Skies” ? “Musical Box”
|
i can’t stop listening to black sabbath! and i’m not sure why. all i know is that i’ve listened to the ozzy era quite a bit lately, along with the few tony martin-era discs i own, and even the one album with ian gillan on vocals, born again.
in a way, i’ve been rediscovering a lot of this stuff, since i’d more or less ignored everything but the dio era for at least the last five years or so. part of my boycott of the early stuff involved my distaste for ozzy’s whoring of himself year after year. tv shows, the same old tired setlist from sabbath, ozzfest’s decreasing significance, and now that upcoming variety show…yuck. i’ve been tired of that mumbling old man for a while now. i guess i’m over that by this point, cos i’ve been giving the ozzy era a fresh new chance, and it’s been paying off. new to my ears are the tony martin discs headless cross and cross purposes. both are excellent discs, superior to the one disc from that era i already owned, tyr. of the three, cross purposes beats ‘em all. it’s a really good record. one of the better post-ozzy albums out there, for certain. headless cross, though, is also a great record. much better than i thought it would be.
as for the classic stuff, i’m still not much of a fan of the last two ozzy did, technical ecstasy and never say die! blech. a few songs here and there are okay, but on the whole they’re tired and uninspired records. compare them to the awesome sabbath energy of the heaven & hell record with dio, and you’ll see who was dragging the band down–it wasn’t just the drugs. ozzy’s performances left a lot to be desired. i don’t completely blame him: the writing was mostly boring and unfocused. these two records seem half-baked.
meanwhile, i’ve been absolutely grooving to some choice cuts from the first six sabbath records. songs like: the wizard, snowblind, after forever, children of the grave, into the void, a national acrobat, spiral architect. (funny how many subsequent bands were named after some of these songs) there are also the obvious tunes, like war pigs and sabbath bloody sabbath, but i already liked them. i knew all these songs, but never really connected with ‘em until now. who knows why. it was just the right time, i guess.
i don’t have eternal idol, forbidden, reunion, or past lives. i don’t want forbidden, based on what i’ve read. i’ll eventually pick up eternal idol and past lives. i think H has reunion, so i can get it from him.
as i type this, i’m shuffling my sabbath library. next up: thrill of it all (from the sabotage record). and what a thrill it’s been. sabbath fucking rules.
birthdays are fucking ghey.
let’s see…some goofy modern gospel crap. no. some country dood. no. dean martin. no. ah. that’s what i’m talking about. here’s the tape to play. “Blues Artists” was written on the label in my stepfather’s handwriting. it was the only tape in the car that i deemed worthy to play, after the radio failed me once again and i didn’t want to listen to nothing but the wind of north central illinois. he was in front of me, my step-dad. i was following art back to the town of sandwich from aurora, where he’d picked up the ten-foot u-haul truck that was bouncing along ahead of me down route 47. i was tailing him in my mother’s 20th century bonneville. the one with the shitty cassette deck.
the music seemed so appropriate. all the standard blues topics are covered, like laments of loves long lost, or the woman that does little more than tease. i’d been unsettled throughout the train ride from the city, but listening to these tunes within this context weighed my heart down to feel like a boulder was sinking in my chest. my immediate reaction to this feeling was anger. in fact, lately i’ve been teetering between sadness and anger. however, nothing like a 60 year old blues song to drive the point home. mostly i’m angry that i’m hearing about it all only after everything has been said and done.
when we arrived at the little house in sandwich, we began pretty much straight away. after a couple of corner curios, a bedroom set, a television, and countless boxes of various sizes, we were done packing the truck within a few hours. it wasn’t all that much, really, but then, not much was leaving. certainly not the “half” that comprises the cliche.
they were mostly civil, although a couple of minor comments were uttered by both of them. even a solitary and small grain of salt is easier to fling onto the wound when there’s nothing left to lose.
it was on the way back to the train station in aurora the following morning that many of my assumptions were confirmed and further questions were answered. of course, during that ride so many more questions sprang up, but they won’t be answered yet, if ever at all, no matter how much i want them to be. to add to the frustration, i realize that i’ll never understand everything about what has happened.
my goodbye scenes were a bit bittersweet both times, as i did everything i could to control my anger. mostly i just didn’t know what to say or how to be encouraging. it’s hard…it’s really hard to encourage when you feel discouraged. so i kept it simple, said little, offered my love, and went on my way. the 80 minute train trip seemed to take forever.
they spent sunday packing the rest of the stuff in, and today they’re on their way as i type this.
and that’s how mom and art will end their marriage of sixteen years. he’s driving the truck i helped pack, and she’s driving her old-woman bonneville, straight down to southern ohio, where she will start her new life on her own. he’ll be returning by mid-week alone to their house. hopefully he won’t have to stay there too long.
you had no idea? yeah. no kidding. up until recently, neither did i.
