In Memoriam: Vonnegut

 Entertainment, Humor, News, Politics  No Responses »
Apr 122007
 

The Internets are full of acknowledgments of the death of Kurt Vonnegut who died last night from complications of a fall he recently took. He did seem a bit frail and out of it the last time he was on The Daily Show to promote his last publication, a collection of essays called A Man Without A Country. I first read Vonnegut in either 1992 or 1993. Breakfast of Champions, Cat’s Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five and Welcome to the Monkey House were among my favorites. His writing is amazing. I never did get to hear him speak in person. It sounds like I should check out God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Anybody have any other recommendations besides the ones that I’ve mentioned?

I have one interesting story related to Vonnegut. When I was living in Manhattan, there was a bookstore at the corner of Stuyvesant and Third Avenue, if I remember correctly. I can’t recall the name. Anyway, I was in there one afternoon buying something and I heard the clerk talking to a guy at the front of the checkout line about Vonnegut. I looked up and there was Woody Harrelson with a handful of Vonnegut books. It was clear he had decided to check out Vonnegut for the first time and was grabbing several of his books to read. I recommended Breakfast of Champions. I think Harrelson was in town to film Money Train at the time.

Not to imply that Rollins is on Vonnegut’s level, but tomorrow night is the beginning of the second season of The Henry Rollins Show on IFC at 10pm CDT. I really enjoyed the first season. He gets a good mix of guests for the interview portion and the musical performance. He kicks off with Marilyn Manson as his interview guest and Peaches, who interviewed last season, as his musical guest.

[tags]kurtvonnegut, death, woodyharrelson, henryrollins, ifc[/tags]

 Posted by on April 12, 2007 at 9:55 am

Slint and Shellac may have new albums in 2007

 Entertainment  No Responses »
Mar 192007
 

There’s news this past week that both Slint and Shellac may have new albums out this year. Actually, Shellac’s new one, Excellent Italian Greyhound, will be released on June 5th according to Pitchfork.

According to SuicideGirls, Slint is working on new material and looking to release it on Touch N Go. They appropriately point out that they’ll have a hard time topping 1991’s Spiderland. I discovered Slint and Shellac around the same time in 1994 when I was living in NYC. I think I bought At Action Park on CD and Spiderland on LP from the same store on Avenue A in the East Village. Jeez. That was thirteen years ago.

[tags]slint, shellac[/tags]

 Posted by on March 19, 2007 at 4:57 pm

Sad State of Affairs

 Entertainment  2 Responses »
Mar 062007
 

Box office numbers for this past weekend:

#1 “Wild Hogs” ($38 million)
#2 “Zodiac” ($13.1 million)
#3 “Ghost Rider” ($11.5 million)
#4 “Bridge to Terabithia” ($8.5 million)
#5 “The Number 23” ($7 million)

I don’t get out to very many movies these days and, as usual, the options are pretty piss poor to begin with, but the fact that Wild Hogs is the number one film in the country this week, grossing more than twice as much as Zodiac is surely a sign that we deserve the president that we have and that we’re a nation of morons. You may now resume drooling on yourself.

 Posted by on March 6, 2007 at 2:16 pm

Prince of the Super Bowl

 Entertainment  No Responses »
Feb 062007
 

I didn’t have too much invested in this year’s game. I rarely do. I was pushing for the Bears since they were underdogs, had two recent UT alums (Vasher and Benson), and I think Peyton Manning is way overexposed. Apparently, neither team plays well in the rain. I’m no football aficionado, but Rex threw up some serious lame duck passes, even I might’ve been able to intercept a few of them.

The highlight was definitely the halftime show. Prince was great. The silhouetted image of the Purple One with his symbol guitar or as Defamer put it “a twenty foot demon schlong” certainly trumps Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction of a few years ago; the only time I wished that I was Justin Timberlake. The sound during Prince’s performance was terrible. His guitar was alternatingly too loud and too quiet. The Boy was impressed with the sound he got from the Stratocaster. He assumed it was the guitar itself that accounted for the genius sound coming out of it, a mistake of many a rock novice. He’ll learn. Time to break out some Prince and Hendrix to continue his education. I was pleasantly surprised that he chose to weave the Foo Fighter’s “Best of You” into the medley although I’m curious what made him choose it. I still regret missing the chance to see Prince in high school. I think I was supposed to go with Joe C. and he got sick. I can’t remember why I just didn’t go myself.

Update (2007.02.07): Duh. I thought of this right after I posted, but didn’t get a chance to update until now. Foo Fighters covered “Darling Nikki” on the tour before the last one. I think I have an mp3 somewhere and I know 101X has played it before. I’d still like to know if Dave Grohl or another member of the band actually talked to Prince about it though. That’d be cool.

[tags]superbowl, prince, foofighters[/tags]

 Posted by on February 6, 2007 at 10:08 am

Movies of 2006

 Entertainment  3 Responses »
Feb 012007
 

Sean posted his top films of 2006, following on a post from Kevin Smith. This is interesting for me because it highlights how few films I now get a chance to see in a year. I won’t reprint the whole list of films released since both of them did that. Here’s what I saw:

CURIOUS GEORGE
CARS
CLERKS II
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
THE DESCENT
HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS
AMERICAN HARDCORE
JACKASS NUMBER 2
PAN’S LABYRINTH

Only 9 films from last year. Three of them were kid films that I probably wouldn’t have watched if I didn’t have kids. CARS was by far the lamest Pixar film to date. CURIOUS GEORGE was inoffensive and the only reason we watched HOW TO EAT FRIED WORMS was because it was filmed at my son’s school (It was also my first On Demand purchase from Time Warner. I’ll be doing a lot more of that in the future.). LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE was the only other one that I didn’t see in the theater. It’s great. I highly recommend it. CLERKS II was fun, a very respectable sequel, especially if you liked the first one. THE DESCENT was a good horror film, but make sure you see it with the original ending. The one that the used in the US release ruins the whole movie. AMERICAN HARDCORE was a pretty good documentary. I would’ve liked to see at least one of the Big Boys in there, but oh well. JACKASS NUMBER 2 was hilarious, just like the first one. I watched that one at Alamo Drafthouse, the only place to watch Jackass movies. And, lastly, PAN’S LABYRINTH was very good (I posted on the metblog after seeing it). Check out DEVIL’S BACKBONE on video.

I’d like to see:

THE HILLS HAVE EYES
V FOR VENDETTA
BRICK
UNITED 83
DISTRICT B13
NACHO LIBRE
STRANGERS WITH CANDY
A SCANNER DARKLY
LADY IN THE WATER
THE NIGHT LISTENER
TALLADEGA NIGHTS
WORLD TRADE CENTER
BEERFEST
IDIOCRACY
THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND
THE DEPARTED
LITTLE CHILDREN
BORAT
FAST FOOD NATION
CHILDREN OF MEN

[tags]seanbonner, kevinsmith, movies, 2006[/tags]

 Posted by on February 1, 2007 at 10:21 am

So it begins

 Entertainment, Family  No Responses »
Jan 202007
 

The Boy was at a friend’s house this week. The kid, who we’ll call Luigi, is nearly two years older. They both ran up to me when I arrived to pick him up, telling me that I *had* to hear this song. They had the video for it pulled up on Google Video (When are they going to integrate that with YouTube? they’re the same company after all). The song? “Amish Paradise” by Weird Al Yankovic. I suppose it was only a matter of time, since The Boy’s right in Weird Al’s demographic. I told them I’d heard it (more than a few times) and that it’s a parody of Coolio’s “Gangster’s Paradise” (from that laughable movie, Dangerous Minds, with Michele Pfeiffer). After explaining what a parody was, I double-checked and realized that the parody is nearly 11 years old and so is the original. BTW, both songs are reworkings of Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”. I’m old.

[tags]weirdal, theboy, amishparadise, coolio[/tags]

 Posted by on January 20, 2007 at 11:06 am

Charlie Brown Christmas

 Entertainment  No Responses »
Nov 282006
 

This classic airs tonight at 7pm CST on ABC. Morning Edition had a story this morning focusing on Vince Guaraldi, the pianist and composer behind the music in the special. From the “Related NPR Stories” section, it looks like they do some sort of story related to this special every December. It’s certainly a prominent holiday memory for me, even though it had already been around for at least 6 or 7 years before I first saw it. We’ve got a cold front coming later this week, so maybe I’ll start to feel some of that holiday spirit between this and the KUT Holiday Sing-along this Saturday.

[tags]charliebrown, christmas, vinceguaraldi, npr, charlesschulz, morningedition[/tags]

 Posted by on November 28, 2006 at 5:08 pm

TeeVee Time

 Entertainment  No Responses »
Nov 262006
 

I wrote part of this post several weeks ago, meaning to finish it then, but ended up just adding to it.

I’ve mentioned this before, but these days, I almost never watch network television. I could care less that the “new fall season” has begun. Does that even mean anything anymore? With the shows being produced by the cable networks, there’s almost always a new season starting and another one ending throughout the year. Here’s a quick rundown of some of the shows that have been permanent residents on the DVR over the past year or so.

Henry Rollins Show – IFC – The first season of 20 episodes ran over the last several months. It’s a great show with combinations of Rollins spoken word, an interview and a musical performance. Some of the transitions are a little silly, but the content is solid. Was Johnny Knoxville drunk during his interview? I hope it gets picked up for another season.

No Reservations – Travel Channel – Anthony Bourdain’s travel/foodie show. I love Bourdain. He’s no bullshit and this year’s “Bourdain in Beirut” chronicling the week he spent stuck in Lebanon during the Israeli air strikes earlier this summer along with the Ferron Adria episode make this an even more amazing show.

Rescue Me – F/X – The third season just finished. I loved the first two and this one had it’s moments. The season finale appears to end it all, but there’s apparently a fourth season. I’m not sure it really should go on much longer as they seemed to be struggling at the end of this season. We’ll see how it goes. Still one of the better shows out there.

First 48 – A&E – I have a real love/hate relationship with cops. If I had to choose another career, homicide detective or forensic pathologist would probably be high on the list.

Little People, Big World – TLC – I can’t really explain why I like this show, but I do. We watch it religiously.

Battlestar Galactica – Sci-Fi – The updating and adaptation of one of my favorite childhood shows has been pulled off with a fair amount of skill. It’s not perfect, but it’s still one of the better shows on television.
Kidnapped – NBC – They canceled it several weeks ago. I found out a week after they started doing it that they would show the remaining episodes that had already been completed on their website. I didn’t like the show enough to schedule time in front of the computer each week to finish it out…another reason to get off my ass and get a media PC going downstairs and hook it up to the TV.

Ultimate Fighter – Spike TV – I got taken in by this show and UFC in general about 18 months ago. It’s still holding my interest for now.

I find myself watching some of the trainwrecks on E! like Girls Next Door and Dr. 90210, simply because they’re so far outside anyone else’s reality, I’m not sure if they could be called reality t.v., but that’s the case with most of them, right?

Surfing around the last night, we caught a couple of good shows. Before the Dinosaurs aired at 8pm on Discovery Channel. It did a good job of showing evolution and climate change and anchoring it in both a time and place with various animals in the T-Rex: New Science, New Beast After that, A&E re-ran Star Wars: Empire of Dreams last night, which is on the trilogy DVDs released in 2004 (yes, those were the ‘special edition’ versions and I bought them…don’t get me started on that) . I couldn’t help but watch most of it. I also caught The Kennedy Assassination: Beyond Conspiracy on the History Channel, an ABC News special report from 2003. I already knew the basic story and the tripe that Oliver Stone introduced with JFK in 1991, but this documentary revealed some other things that I never knew. It’s well worth a watch and specifically addresses many of the problems in Stone’s film.

The T.V. obsession today isn’t surprising; except for a run to Krispy Kreme this morning and some trips to the trash can and recycle bin (overflowing after the holiday), I haven’t left the house since Wednesday afternoon.

 Older Entries  Newer Entries