We on Award Tour - 2006 Oscar Awards

I didn’t really plan on watching the Oscars last night. I thought I’d just turn in to see John Stewart’s monologue and turn off, but I ended up keeping the television on even though I didn’t really pay attention to the whole thing. Too bad they didn't do the awards in the isles or have everyone on stage bit like last year, that was the best part. But anyways. Best line of the night, “For those keeping track at home, Martin Scorsese: no Oscars, Three 6 Mafia: one.” Here are some other thoughts from last night.

- I typically hate those lame Brokeback Mountain jokes but having Chris Rock poking out of the tent during the “And now your host…” opener with Billy Crystal had me laughing for a while. Granted after that the skit just went too long, and how could they not have Letterman being too busy babysitting Uma and Oprah or at least cardboard cutouts of them.

- You know it’s going to be a bad night when they scan the crowd at the beginning and in lieu of nominees they bust out shots of Will Smith and Jennifer Lopez instead.

- Even though both are old hat, the Dick Cheney shooting Björk joke was hilarious. Also the look George Clooney gave after Stewart made fun of him was priceless almost as good as when he brought up Batman in his acceptance speech.

- Yeah, the Were-Rabbit bow-ties were creepy.

- It’s odd during the Dolly Parton performance it was only her while the other two got weird interpretative dance including the re-enacting of the molesting scene from Crash. But Dolly wrote a song for a transsexual movie; Willie Nelson just released a song entitled Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly (Fond of Each Other), what’s next? Is Toby Keith going to duet on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart with Elton John?

- For those keeping track at home, the stars they brought in to present that will never even be nominated for an Oscar includes Ben Stiller, Luke and Owen Wilson, Jennifer Aniston, Jennifer Lopez, Will Ferrell, Steve Carrel, and Jessica Alba.

- The bio-flick montage was lame. I really wish they’d put a ban on those types of movies.

- The very clothed Rachel McAdams gets relegated to the technical Oscars. Ouch. Maybe had she gotten naked for Vanity Fair she would have been invited to the big show.

- The slander pieces were great especially how it made Reese Witherspoon look mortified afterwards.

- How can they reunite Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves and not mention Speed. Why even put the two together if you don’t?

- During the big “Issues” montage, why was Thelma & Louise featured. And the liberal Hollywood types still clapped like mindless drowns afterwards.

- I love how Stewart mocked the token old dude (the academy president) and he didn’t even realize it. Then token old dude for some reason rails against DVD’s saying how movies are meant to be seen on the big screen with strangers not realizing that most of us have big screens and hate how those strangers constantly talk during the movie.

- During the “Epics” montage - Grease and Back to the Future. Um, yeah, okay.

- And the most entertaining moment of the night has to go to the Three 6 Mafia performance and win leading to many Stewart jokes including “Why are they the most excited ones here tonight?” I loved how the spanned the crowd after the win and everyone was laughing. It’s like the autistic kid that’s been on ESPN recently who got in to play some garbage time and ended up hitting six three pointers in less than five minutes. But I was a little disappointed that they didn't work "Whoop that trick" into their performance, that was the best part of the movie (well I mean the trailer, I didn't see the movie). And was I hearing things or the chick say "ship" at the end of the chorus instead of another s-word? And anyone who was in third grade knows what happens when you hold your tounge when you say "ship."

- Jennifer Garner's appearance made me think of this song. (opens iTunes)

- So let me get this straight Charlize Theron is a South African-American. For a community that is so liberal I love how the avoid calling her just an African American.

- The best part of the Reese Witherspoon acceptance speech was watching Ryan Phillipee sweat while hoping he doesn’t become the next Chad Lowe while Reese rambled on without naming him.

- Crash wins. Wow that movie sucked (see my review - The Closest You Ever Came to Being Black Was Watching the Cosby Show). Horrible end to a boring awards show.

Sex in Wartime Is Sweeter than Peace

A couple weeks ago, I was watching one of the better hours on television this year, the Veronica Mars episode where Duncan rides off into the sunset. Near the end of the episode when Veronica walked along the ocean reminiscing about the boyfriend she would never see again (or so they would have us believe), they played one of the best songs I’ve heard in a long time. It turned out the song was Adelaide by Old 97’s who also contributed the bar brawling Four Leaf Clover in the same episode. I ended up downloading both songs with the former getting massive play on my iPod.

Now the lead singer of Old 97’s, Rhett Miller (the band’s on hiatus), is back with his second solo album, The Believer (well technically third but Mythologies is pretty obscure unless you want to drop $249 on Amazon). With the south of the border rock sound, I immediately thought of one of my favorite bands from college, the Refreshments, but without the quirky lyric. Miller does get in some good one-liners such as, “Sex in wartime is sweeter then peace, yeah it’s the one sweet thing about war.” (My Valentine) Also with his alt-country pop, Ryan Adams circa Jacksonville City Nights is another easy comparison. And fresh off his work with Kanye West, Jon Brion leave his mark playing multiple instruments throughout the album.

The closest song that comes close to brilliance of Adelaide is the duet with Rachael Yamagata on Fireflies where a couple looking back on a failed relationship hoping they make it work again. The album caps off with two other powerful songs including the Elliot Smith inspired title track and does a goof job capturing the late singer. That is followed by the solemn acoustic Question that makes a decent lullaby to end the album with lines, “Someday somebody’s gonna ask you a question that you should say yes to once in your life, maybe tonight I got a question for you” which would make for a proposal someday.

Song to Download - Fireflies (Don’t forget to pick up Adelaide too)

The Believer gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

No, Not That Rob Thomas

Today I have my first of many in depth stories from the set of Veronica Mars. Since we are a week and a half away from the next episode and over a month from the first new one, I thought I would start off with a story that really doesn’t pertain to the show itself. Just a little back story, the first time I watched the show and saw that the show was created by Rob Thomas I thought to myself, “this is from the same dude who wrote 3AM?” I came to realize that they were two separate guys, so when we sat down to lunch I though I’d break the ice with a softball question by asking Rob, “How much do you hate Matchbox Twenty jokes?” Here's his response (Thanks to Magnolia for help with transcribing):

I don't really get that many jokes, actually. The only annoying thing about it is showing up places and realizing that they're disappointed that it's you; checking into hotels, you know they've been looking at that reservation and hoping, or stewardesses on airplanes. But I actually got a note from the other Rob Thomas because people were going on the Matchbox Twenty website and talking about his books and the show. And this would have been a while back he was friend with somebody at 20^th Century Fox when I had a deal there and he sent me a note on a wedding napkin that said ‘Rob, if people come up to you and say that your band sucks, it's all yours, but if they say you're great, let them know it's me.’ So I liked him more for that note.

Check back later for even more tales from the set of Veronica Mars including a Scooter McGavin exclusive that you won’t see anywhere else. But next up I will regale you with a story about the infamous Shelly Pomroy so look out for that. And don’t forget to check out for an all new Veronica Mars on March 15^th.

Big Fat Dead Guy in a Bathtub

There are two things that without them, it wouldn’t seem like March, first are Shamrock Shakes, the other being this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame, Denis Leary’s No Cure for Cancer. The ultimate Irishman of my generation released the album during my formative years and me and my friends had the whole thing memorized for years to come. And you just have to play Traditional Irish Folk Song every St. Patrick’s Day. In fact the song was the inspiration on my answering machine my freshman year with the lines,

We drink and we sing
And we drink and we sing
Hey!
We drink and we drive
And we puke and we drink
Hey!
We drink and we fight
And we bleed and we cry
Hey!
We puke and we smoke
And we drink and we die
Hey!

Then we finished things off with Leary’s “Thank you for calling. Thank you for calling” from the stand up portion of the album.

I can also thank Leary for keeping me off drugs. After blaming his bell bottoms and other poor judgments on weed I knew I should stay away from the stuff. As Leary once said “never do a drug named after your own (expletive deleted).” Plus I also learned from him at an early age that the bet drugs are the legal ones. I always look forwards to cold season so I can start taking NyQuil and sing “NyQuil, NyQuil, Nyquil, we love you, you giant (expletive deleted) Q.” And I would never have learned about whippits had it not been for Leary. And thanks to his soliloquy on meat, I didn’t eat a salad until about three years ago.

Even though he’s best known for drugs and smoking, I think the best part of the album was when he went on his musical diatribe:

Explain it to me. Heavy Metal bands on trial because kids commit suicide? What's that about? Judas Priest on trial because “my kid bought the record, and listened to the lyrics .....” Well that's great! That sets a legal precedent. Does that mean I can sue Dan Folgerberg for making me into a (expletive deleted) in the mid-70's. Is that possible, huh? Huh?! "Your honor, between him and James Taylor, I didn't get a (expletive deleted) 'till I was 27 years old. I was in Colorado wearing hiking boots eating granola."

But thanks to the uber-depressing grunge music, I typically change it to Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain while in Seattle wearing flannels shirts and drinking cappuccinos to fit my experience. And whenever election time rolls around and I debate on whether I should vote I think of two things Joe (expletive deleted) Walsh.

So with St. Patrick’s Day quickly approaching, stop by McDonalds, pick up a Shamrock Shake and throw on some Leary and sing along to the Traditional Irish Folk Song.

Toss Up Lost vs Veronica Mars week 10 2/3

Let me start this week’s Toss Up at the end of Lost: what was up with Eko’s beard trim? I’ve seen all the Lost faithful rave about last night’s episode yet none of them mentioned the whole scene. Lost has had a bunch of head scratching moments throughout its run, but the Eko scene wins the most odd award. So let me get this straight, Eko takes out his knife that makes us think he’s going to kill the Other (and yes he was an Other, more on that later), but then puts the knife to his own neck making us think he was going to repent by taking his own life, only just to chop of the weird goatee thing you would normally see at a Phish concert. Yeah right.

But beside that whole sequence last night was up there with the Hurley and Eko episodes, but then again that’s not saying much. Now back to Dorothy’s uncle (get it Henry Gale, oh never mind) it became obvious that he was an Other with the comment he made to Locke about Jack being the leader. This is you classic divide and conquer plan. I don’t think some random billionaire would think of this quickly after being torture or would even think that doing it would help him.

Speaking of the Others, it seemed my theory of two opposite tribes that habitated the island pre-crash, a group of Others and a group of Them (see it in depth: Toss Up). Basically it stated that Ethan was separate from Zeke but as we saw in the Claire flashback that the two are working together, and I didn’t even need to see Kate discover the fake beard to know that was Zeke who summoned Ethan because his voice was very distinctive. But this just begs the question why is Zeke, and presumable his homies, dressing up like an extra from Deliverance?

Then we have our very first flashbacks that took place exclusively on the island (and I’m not counting The Other 48 Days because that was a recap, not a flashback to get technical). They did a really good job with the first couple flashbacks making the audience wonder if it were in fact a flashback or just Claire’s mind playing tricks on her. They also made us assume that we also got our first glimpse of Alex, Rousseau’s kid, but I’m not to quick to assume that.

Back in present day, the chicks found, presumable, the third bunker mention in the orientation film. Although I was a little disappointed that we didn’t run into Michael or Desmond (remember them?) inside the bunker. And with the entire bunker stripped bare, why would Zeke leave the Deliverance outfit there. Since it’s only been a couple of days since the confrontation with Locke, Sawyer, and Jack, it means he’s been back there recently, so why take everything, but continue to stash you beard there? Just another question in the long list of questions that the show still needs to answer.

Veronica Mars aired its last repeat of the season yesterday and now we get all new ones starting March 15th (America's Next Top Model gets a two hour premier next week). Then we are moving into what Rob Thomas call the best stretch of episodes (this is paraphrased) in the show’s history capped off with episode 18 (the one we sat in on) which Rob said is up there with A Trip to the Dentist, his all time favorite episode not to mention the inaugural winner of the Best Episode awards at the Scooter Television Awards. I hope Rob wasn’t too disappointed that I didn’t have a trophy for him.

I’m hoping to have my picture problems solved by the weekend, and I’ll also sort through my taped interviews and transcribe a few of them this weekend too. Until then, for those interesting in what’s upcoming on the show, all I’ll say is I (heart) Dick. Stay tuned this weekend for more.

Definitely a Trip to the Dentist

I was going to throw some pictures of the Veronica Mars Blogger Press Day except I seem to be running into some problems. For the trip, I borrowed my mom’s digital camera so I wouldn’t have change film plus I upload the pictures to my computer right away without having to get film developed. As Tony from Pardon the Interruption would ask, “How’s that working out for ya?” The answer is an obvious not very well as you can tell by the lack of pictures.

First it took her until today to find the cord that connects the camera to the computer. Then when I connected the camera to my computer it said the hardware was not compatible with XP. This officially sucks massively. Tomorrow I’m going to try to download the pictures to my mom’s computer and e-mail and hopefully that works. If you are itching to see some on-set pictures there are plenty up from the other people on the trip. The links are at the bottom of the previous post. Hopefully I will have some pictures along with my weekly round up of Lost and Veronica Mars. And without a new Veronica Mars last night and there won’t be another one until the Ides of March, I may regale you with an in-depth story from the set.

And since I spent most of the day unpacking and fooling around with the camera I didn’t have time for this month’s induction into the Scooter Hall of Fame (I knew I should have wrote that before I left for San Diego). So with my usual Toss Up tomorrow, I will save the induction for Friday.

Definitely Not a Trip to the Dentist

Finally woke up, but still a little drowsy so I’m just going to give you all a run down of what happened yesterday on the set of Veronica Mars (some things may be out of order due to lack of sleep, but I think this is everything) and fill in the details in the days and weeks to come.

First off the plane ride to San Diego was fun in a driving over potholes for four hours kind of way. On my connecting flight I sat next to a dude who must have been one pound under the limit under the weight limit where they make to buy two seats. Then after a hour and a half in Atlanta, where I ate lunch at the dirtiest table I’ve ever seen, I was going back to Cali. The plane ride was a little bumpy as the fasten seat belt light was only off for about a half an hour. I saw Walk the Line, and by saw, I mean as I was on a window seat, the overhead compartment blocked about a fourth of the screen. And I don’t think the dude beside me was too happy that I continually kept leaning over.

Upon arrival I hopped into a taxi but my driver wasn’t exactly sure where my hotel is. It’s never a good sign when your driver asks you for directions. And it didn’t really help that I couldn’t understand half the things the dude said or him with me. Luckily he guessed right and I then took a long shower, met up with my contacts from the show, and had dinner. Then I settled in for the night and caught the Closing Ceremonies of the Winter Olympics which including a performance from Avril Lavigne. Um, yeah, okay.

Unfortunately my inner clock woke me up at four AM PST, but luckily I was able to get back to sleep until 6:30. I had a nice buffet for breakfast, and headed back to the room for a shower. Then after bleeding profusely after thirty minutes after using the razor the hotel provided for me, I met up with the other bloggers on the trip. But after everything that went wrong up to that point (does anyone have fun traveling?) what came next totally made up for all of that.

We started out the day with a limo ride to the set, yes a limo. There were about nine of us in total including a reporter doing an article on the even and an official UPN photographer taking pictures of us throughout the day. We were guided around by a couple of nice ladies from the studio and network, one whom which gave me my daily "Has anyone told you you look like the dude from The Notebook" comment. Needless to say I busted out my usually, "Yeah, now if only I can hook up with a chick as hot as the chick from The Notebook." I never get tired of this. Unfortunately though, no one involved was looking for a dude from The Notebook type for an upcoming project. But anyways.

When we arrived on the set, they took us right into the courtyard set where the characters eat lunch which actually doubles as the front of the school. We walked in during rehearsal involving Beaver and Veronica. We got a seat off set about twenty feet away from the action and when they offered one of us headphones to listen in on the action I jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately they made me pass them around, but as soon as they came back around to me I claimed a monopoly on them for the rest of the visit.

We then made it inside the school and wandered around the hallway with the hall leading to the school’s office, a classroom, and the infamous bathroom, where the stall still has “Jackie is a …” written on the door that was inscribed during the last episode.

Back in our seats, I saw Ryan Hansen, or as I like to refer to him as Little Dick, come around the corner, and once he saw us he made a B-line to us and say hi. He even mention another Dickism that he just said earlier that day, and you will have to wait until the show to hear it (barring it not getting it past Standards and Practices) but I’ll just say it’s classic Dick. And who doesn’t love Dick? He even stuck around to make an extra apperence as an extra in the scene that was filming that may or may not make it into the show.

Later show creator Rob Thomas (not the dude from Matchbox Twenty, great story coming later this week on that) stopped over to quickly say hi and producer Dan Etheridge also stopped by to welcome us. They ran through the scene we watched about six times and changed the camera angle. While the moved the camera, Kyle Gallner, a.k.a. Beaver who was extremely tired came over to say hello. Then the girl of the hour herself, Kristen Bell came over to chat. Unfortunately she had to go once the cameras were set and I was unable to ask my number one burning question. Hopefully I’ll get another chance to ask that at a later date. But when it comes down to it, it was nice that the namesake of the show was able to devote anytime for us.

Once the scene was wrapped, it seemed Kyle (his grogginess in no way showed up on what I saw on the monitors) finally woke up and he and Ryan spent a couple minutes goofing around with each other, spent some more time talking to us, and took a lot of pictures with us.

Then came our tour of the sets that included Java the Hut, which looked very different in person, but that may have been due to the little lighting that they had. Then we went around to Mars Investigation then to the apartment including Veronica’s bedroom (I totally forgot to see if the Lost numbers were still around to take a picture), the little seen Keith bedroom, and the Living Room, where Rob met back up with us and then took over the tour. He then took us the police station (guess who Deputy Sacks has a file on), the penthouse suite and then took us to the new PCH hangout that will be utilized in future episodes, but I believe we saw in the scene where Weevil was kicked out of the gang.

Then came lunch with Rob where I luckily got to sit right across from him. The food was really good as I had some pasta and chicken. While eating Percy Daggs (Wallace) stopped by to pick up lunch and even chatted for us along with his mom, who is equally as nice.

After lunch we stopped by the wardrobe truck and had a chat with the Salvador, the costume designer. This is the point where Rob had to go. After hanging out at the courtyard again, we made a pit-stop at the make-up trailer which had a bunch of pictures of actors that have been on the show which was the only time they told us we were not allowed to take pictures of throughout the whole day aside when they were filming. Then I saw Jason Dohring pass by the door and then we got to go outside the trailer and have a chat with him. This got everyone else on the trip all really excited (all day all I heard was I hope we get to meet Jason, oh I was the only person there who liked chicks). After some questions and pictures it was time to leave.

We headed back to the airport, but I had to wait about six hours until the planed boarded and they wouldn’t even let me check in for another hour or so. Luckily there were a couple other people on the trip who shared my flight. So we hung out, had a couple drinks, some dinner and talked about how our wait was similar to Tam Hanks in The Terminal. On the way back to Atlanta they showed Elizabethtown and even though I watched the whole time I really can’t remember much of it. Then I said bye to my fellow travelers upon arrival as they were both from Atlanta and had to wait another hour before making it back to Ohio.

Now a wise man once said “There’s nothing wrong with Ohio except the snow and the rain,” and there was plenty of the latter on the ground when I got home. Oddly enough while watching the news in San Diego they talked about a Winter Storm that was coming but apparently a Winter Storm in California just rain. I was offended that they would call rain a Winter Storm, Winter Storms included either sleet, snow or freezing rain.

I will go into more detail including interviews and pictures in the days and weeks to come including my exclusive content. I would like to thank everyone involve in creating this set visit as well as the cast and crew who were great hosts and I hope this becomes a common occurrence especially I didn’t get to ask Kristen any questions and even though I got most of the questions asked I thought up before the visit for Rob, I’ve since thought of even more. Plus since we missed them yesterday, it would be nice to meet Keith, Weevil, Jackie or even some of the bit players like Mac, Lamb, or Clemmons. For more on the visit check out these sites that were also with me:

The Attractive Nuisance
DuckyXDale
Give Me My Remote
Magnolia
Pass the Remote
Random Acts of Television
siklilgrl
The Vast Wasteland


Oh, and one more thing, I love Dick, um, I mean REE-chard.

Coming Back From Cali

Just back back from the Veronica Mars set, but since I've been up since 6AM PST (and I'm way too tired to figure out what that is on the east coast) on Monday, I'm getting somw sleep. As soon as I get up I'll share some things with everyone, as I have enough material to last a couple weeks. And I may even have some Scooter McGavin exclusives. In fact I may have something so exclusive, that you won't even see it on Veronica Mars itself. But you'll have to wait a little bit for that. But anyways, Dick rules.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

I am currently heading out the door to catch my plane to San Diego for my Veronica Mars set visit. As I type this it is 19 degrees here in Ohio, and according to the weather channel, it will be 61 by the time I step off the plane in Cali (LA? I don't think so). Unfortunately this warning is on the San Diego page:

...A STRONG PACIFIC STORM WILL AFFECT SOUTHWEST CALIFORNIA MONDAY AND TUESDAY...

That could put a damper on things. Hopefully I'll be back in the airport by the time that hits. So I won't be posting anything tomorrow and depending if I get any sleep on the Red Eye (hopefully I get to sit next to Rachel McAdams and not Cillian Murphy) I may post something about my trip when I get home Tuesday. If I need some sleep, I may not put something up until the evening. Until then feel free to go deep into the archives (I hear 07/10/2005 - 07/16/2005 was particularly a good week) or check out the highly recommend blogs in my sidebar.

First Impressions - Conviction

In one of the most innovative promotion used by television network, NBC has put up their new show, Conviction, for free download thru iTunes a couple weeks before the show airs on its own network. It will be interesting how this endeavor works out for the network as I assume they will take a hit in revenue because I doubt advertisers are not lining up to buy time on a show that people can download without commercial for free. Plus I bet NBC is also picking up the bandwidth cost for the download. And will people show up to watch the second episode when they saw the pilot whenever they saw fit or be willing to drop $1.99 to buy the next episodes on iTunes?

Since I’m a sucker for gimmicks and free download that won’t get me sued, I went ahead and watched the show even though I’m not the biggest fan of procedurals that don’t feature Ice-T, not that I’m entirely sure which Law & Order show he’s currently on. Since the show is from the creator of that franchise, Conviction could have been easily been named Law & Order: Grey’s Anatomy but instead of attractive, young doctors, we have attractive, young lawyers with both show focusing as much on character development as much as they focus on their cases. Much like the doctor show, Conviction starts off with one of the lawyers waking up from a one night stand except it didn’t turn out the stranger turned out to be the dude’s boss.

The dude in question showing up on his first day on the job is played by Jordan Bridges, in his first major role. And much like many of the other actor, he has a guest appearance on one of the Law & Orders on his IMDB page. Stephanie March, who was in the cast of one of the shows, resumes her role of Alexandra Cabot for this show. Maybe she will enlist the help of Ice-T in the future. Julianne Nicholson (Little Black Book) plays someone who’s been in the office for a while but just got her first trial that naturally doesn’t go too well. J. August Richards of Angel fame dusts off Gunn circa the Wolfram & Hart days with the super sized brain for his cocky Billy who is more the glad to mention how he’s never lost a case. To fill the token hot chick quota there is Milena Govich, last seen as the escort who scammed Kenny on Rescue Me, who is apparently the office bicycle.

Then there is Eric Balfour, who is the poor man’s Skeet Ulrich, who in turn is the poor man’s Johnny Depp, as the office playboy. It befuddles me how this dude can still get work, especially as a playboy, he can’t act and I’ve never met a chick that finds him remotely attractive. Filling out the cast is Anson Mount who many of you won’t remember as Britney Spears love interest in Crossroads. And after watching Conviction, if you’re lime me, you may not remember from the show either because I’m having trouble remember his character.

Okay now I’m going to get into some spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the episode yet, you may want to skip the rest of this post.

The show did a relatively good job at finding a balance between furthering character development and telling the story of the trials that were going on in the episode. And the major storyline with the drug dealer trial was very well done even though it was pretty obvious when the new guy told the random dude on the phone where they were having dinner that someone was getting shot. The show also did a good job balancing the humor, like with Nicholson’s debacle of a trial, and the more seriousness of the death of the DA. And they did a very good job with the music selection too having David Grey’s Alibi playing over a pivotal scene.

Verdict: As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest fan of lawyer shows and I’d like to think I have better things to do on Friday. But if Ice-T ever makes a cross-over appearance, I’ll be sure to set my VCR. Or maybe they should just add the next best thing to the cast by bringing in Too $hort or Ice Cube, that would be must see TV for me.

I Thought I Needed a Nia Long

There have been a couple of videos that have caught my eye lately so I though I’d give them some love since the death of Musical Television left a void for a forum on the art form. I advise you to watch them first (the links to the video are the bold headers, inside the post will lead you to iTunes where you can buy the song and in some cases the video itself) before you read my reviews if you don’t want me to spoil things.

Kanye West - Touch the Sky

Say what you want about his music or outspokenness, but Kanye West is one of the most entertaining video artists today. His latest venture is a take off of Evil Knievel’s famous jump across the Grand Canyon with a nod to Kanye’s most famous line about leaving your chick for a white girl. The white girl in question in this video is Pamela Anderson; insert your own Hepatitis C joke here. Kanye even got Nia Long to appear in the video even though he rhymed her name with “sheets I skeeted on.” Maybe, Nia, much like my censor, doesn’t know what “skeeted” mean (and for you old people out there, it is very, very dirty). And not one to pass up beating a dead horse, Kanye even alludes to his Bush comments too. You can also check out my album review here - You Gotta Love it Though, Somebody Still Speaks From His Soul.


Death Cab for Cutie - Crooked Teeth

The main reason why this is entertaining is the obvious Sledgehammer comparison. Sadly there are no dancing chickens in Death Cab for Cutie’s update. You can also check out my album review here - A Melody Softly Souring Through My Atmosphere.


Santana - Just Feel Better

Now this one didn’t make too much sense and had to watch it a couple time to see if I missed something. The video almost seems like a reject idea from Aerosmith’s Alicia Silverstone era. So let me get this straight, chick gets groped by, meets dude in the principal’s office, goes with dude to a party, party gets busted, dude dies in car crash, chick flees back home and is welcomed with open arms from mom, then everything is back to normal at the end as chick is back in the class of the teacher that groped her. Did Steven Tyler tell Santana that as long as they put a token hot chick in as little amount of cloths as possible, no one will question the lunacy of the premise? Plus since he’s Steven Tyler, he makes out with a chick in a bar that has nothing to do with the other story. And I could be wrong, but I think the token hot chick is Nikki Reed. You can also check out my album review here - Your Fire Fills My Soul.


Cat Power - Living Proof

I have absolutely no comment on this video by Cat Power. In fact if you figure out what’s going on in this video, please pass that information onto me. I’m sure there’s some artsy undercover here, but it just went over my head. Oh, if you are a religious fanatic, you may want to skip this video. You can also check out my album review here - No Wind or Waterfall Could Stop Me.

Going Back to Cali

This week, both Veronica Mars and Lost trembled in fear of dudes singing karaoke and chicks skating around a track again and again so there is no Toss Up this week. Lost will be back next week as Claire finally decides to try to get her memory after seemingly not caring for the past month on the island. Of course now she has a psychologist at her disposal with the arrival of Libby. And considering they are putting off a Libby-centric show, one can expect it will be a biggy much like the last flashback of the original cast with Hurley and the introduction of the numbers. What’s in store tailie? Many have speculated she is an Other, which I doubt. I still lay hope that she’s the person Jack’s wife left him for, but I think she too will have a major connection to the numbers and Hurley’s nut house buddy, Leonard.

We are still about three weeks until the next new Veronica Mars, the one with the chick from Get This Party Started Laguna Beach (see the press release - Toss Up 10 1/2). Next week (3/1) is another repeat of Ahoy Mateys, the one where Mac inadvertently tries to pick Vice Principal Clemmon’s kid.

But the big new in the world of Neptune, is that I will me making a visit this week. I’ve been racking my brain recently about what I should ask. Should I slyly bring up that I’m an award winning actor? Should I make a Matchbox Twenty joke upon meeting creator Rob Thomas? Should I bring up Pooty Tang if I get to meet Kristen Bell? Or the better question is if I can keep from staring at her after seeing those Maxim pictures? But anyways. I just got my itinerary for the 1st Veronica Mars Blogger Press Day and here is what my day will look like for next Monday:

9:15 am - Meet PR escorts in the lobby.

9:30 am - A Veronica Mars production van will take everyone to the set.

10:00 am - Observe Veronica Mars production scenes.

1:00 pm - Crew lunch with Rob Thomas.

2:30 pm - Depart set.


Now my plane doesn’t take me back to Ohio until 10:50 so maybe they will take pity on me and le me hang around the set a little longer, but I’m not holding my breathe. And just a heads up, because of the trip, there will be no posts on Sunday or Monday and I will return Tuesday with a few stories and pictures and will have a couple updates throughout the week, so keep your eye out for that.

Driving Further From the Heartache

Many people will remember Shawn Mullins for being the only person who name dropped Bob Seger in a Lullaby. Or maybe you just remember the video for that song because it featured an under aged Dominique Swain in a bikini. Either way, the gravely voiced singer seemed to slip back into obscurity just as fast as he escaped from it. But even though he has fallen of most people’s radars, Mullins still continues to release music including the new album, 9th Ward Pickin’ Parlor.

The album as a whole sounds as if it could have been recorded long before the advent of the CD, or cassettes and 8-trackd for that matter. Except for Beautiful Wreck that sound like something that should have been included on Bo Bice’s album, and that’s not a good thing. The opener, Blue as You envisions sitting on a porch in a rocker with your guitar while watching the sunset. Lay Down Your Swords, Boy sound like a missing track from the O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack.

Sometime the old time music doesn’t work out too well as in Cold Black Heart where Mullins utilizes a fiddle but still isn’t able to pull off the country song. Find Love sounds like a poor attempt at a Hawaiian folk song and hearing a folk song about going to Alaska while playing the banjo just seems wrong on Talkin’ Goin’ to Alaska Blues. All Fall Down sounds as if Mullins was re-imagining Jeff Buckley as a bluesman. The album ends with an actual old song, a remake of The Animals House of the Rising Sun an obvious chose when the song is about a place in New Orleans and this album’s title alludes to the area. Only the great thing about the original is the driving organ which is virtually gone from the new version and replaced by some soft acoustic strumming. The song, much like the album is a good idea that just doesn’t hit all the right notes.

Song to Download - Lay Down Your Swords, Boys

9th Ward Pickin’ Parlor gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

My Dinner with Dr. Abbott

Last night I had the privilege of going to a dinner for Breast Cancer survivors, for which my mother is one and brought me along, with guest speaker Tom Amandes whom many of you may know as Dr. Harold Abbott of Everwood. His mother-in-law just happens to run the local chapter that my mother belongs to and wrangled him to speak at their yearly dinner at the fancy restaurant in the area. In fact, for those that didn’t realize, his real life wife, Nancy, was also on the show in the early years as Colin Hart’s mother.

Nancy was up first, as she was the hometown girl, then introduced her husband as “the star of… I’m mean one of the stars of Everwood” to which Tom stepped to the mike and clarified “I am THE star of Everwood” and got a good laugh. Tom is very much like hus characher without the air of arrogance that Dr. Abbott tends to have (well except for his opening line). He started talking about a neighbor he had when he first moved to Utah, where the show is filmed, and that he was diagnosed with cancer after moving from Utah to Cincinnati. His buddy then later asked Tom to participate with him in a Ride for Life that is put on by Lance Armstrong yearly in Austin. Tom has even been back since even bringing Nancy back once and had a funny story about how, at the end of the race there are two routes, one for survivors and the second for other rider and he and his wife accidentally finished where the survivors were supposed to go. Tom also talked about his own mother his mother own fight and how on the day of her surgery he was filming a scene where his on-screen wife was going threw a very similar operation. She is now doing fine and he even sent the yellow flower he got after going down the wrong route for the Ride for Life event.

Nancy then came back up to the podium and read the Manifesto of the Lance Armstrong Foundation:

We believe in life.
Your life.
We believe in living every minute of it with every ounce of your being.
And that you must not let cancer take control of it.
We believe in energy: channeled and fierce.
We believe in focus: getting smart and living strong.
Unity is strength. Knowledge is power. Attitude is everything.
This is the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

We kick in the moment you’re diagnosed.
We help you accept the tears. Acknowledge the rage.
We believe in your right to live without pain.
We believe in information. Not pity.
And in straight, open talk about cancer.
With husbands, wives and partners. With kids, friends and neighbors. And the people you live with, work with, cry and laugh with.
This is no time to pull punches.
You’re in the fight of your life.

We’re about the hard stuff.
Like finding the nerve to ask for a second opinion.
And a third, or a fourth, if that’s what it takes.
We’re about getting smart about clinical trials.
And if it comes to it, being in control of how your life ends.
It’s your life. You will have it your way.

We’re about the practical stuff.
Planning for surviving. Banking your sperm. Preserving your fertility. Organizing your finances. Dealing with hospitals, specialists, insurance companies and employers.
It’s knowing your rights.
It’s your life.
Take no prisoners.

We’re about the fight.
We’re your champion on Capitol Hill. Your advocate with the healthcare system. Your sponsor in the research labs.
And we know the fight never ends.
Cancer may leave your body, but it never leaves your life.
This is the Lance Armstrong Foundation.
Founded and inspired by one of the toughest cancer survivors on the planet.


Then came the question and answer which focused mostly on the show although Tom didn’t really say anything that anyone with an interne connection probably didn’t already know like Everwood will be returning back to Monday on March 27th with a two hour episode. He did talk briefly about the network merger and didn’t sound albeit too hopefully that Everwood would be back next season, but suggested heading over to the WB website and leave a message on one of their message boards expressing your support of write the network for those without the internet (this was an older crowd). Also when asked if Nancy would reprise her role as Mrs. Hart, she said they had written her into an episode about AA and was asked to come back by the casting directors but the producers ended up nixing the idea and most likely we will never see her character again.

I didn’t think to bring a camera to take pictures of the event, but if my mom passes along any that were passed along to her, I’ll go ahead and put them up here. For more information on breast cancer or the Lance Armstrong Foundation click on the following images:

The Closest You Ever Came to Being Black Was Watching the Cosby Show

In about two weeks Crash will do battle for Best Motion Picture of the Year at the Oscars as well as awards for acting, writing and directing for it’s powerful portrayal of race relations in Los Angeles over two days near Christmas. And by powerful, I mean extremely boring. Basically what the movie boils down to is two hours of white liberal guilt, the movie was written and directed by Paul Haggis, writer of Million Dollar Baby, and needless to say the liberal movie academy ate the movie up giving it six nominations.

The movie starts off with a car crash involving Don Cheadle (NFL Playoff Commercials) and Jennifer Esposito (Dracula 2000). Cheadle is really shaken up and goes off to la-la land before we head back to yesterday. I have to say the going back in time has become the most annoying plot devise currently used today in movies and television. There should really be a moratorium on using it. What’s worse in this movie, and this may ruin it a little, but not as much as watching it played off ruined the movie, but they never come back to this crash later in the movie unless I fell asleep and completely feel asleep.

Early on we are also introduced to two black men, Larenz Tate (of the wrongfully shelved Love Money) and Chris Bridges (who you may, or more likely not know as Ludacris) who complain how a white woman clutches her husband as they come closer only to carjack the couple. And knowing Bridges is a rapper in real life only makes his soliloquy against the genre cheesier. The couple in question is Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality 1 & 2) and Brendan Frasier (Encino Man), who is the District Attorney who is mad that being robbed by a couple black dudes may hurt retaining the black vote in the next election.

There’s also yet another good cop, Ryan Phillippe (Mr. Reece Witherspoon), bad cop, Matt Dillon (Herbie: Fully Loaded) tandem who pull over a black couple just for fun and the black dude, Terrence Howard (Mary J. Blige’s Be Without You video) just stands there and lets Dillon molest his wife, Thandie Newton (The Chronicles of Riddick). Just for fun, Haggis even threw in families full of Hispanics, Asians, and Arabs just so no one would feel left out. Well except the Indians are once again forgotten. At least you still have baseball teams that make light of your racial stereotypes.

Each of the characters eventually intertwines with each other showing up in other storylines much like a Lost flashback. But much like this season of Lost, it all becomes ho-hum when you see this happening mostly because you see it coming a mile away. Speaking of Lost, be sure to look out for Jin who makes a blink and you miss it cameo. Also don’t forget to look out for Tony Danza (The Tony Danza Show), in the most interesting scene in the whole film, as a movie producer who complains that an actor isn’t “black” enough, Priceless.

Crash gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.

Be My Little Rock & Roll Queen

The next band to cross the pond in hopes of American dominance is The Subways. And much like the original British Invasion, it seems like the band is going after the teenage girl demographic but instead of making their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show like the Beatles did in the sixties, in the new millennium The Subways instead introduced to themselves stateside to young girls everywhere via the soundtrack to The O.C. Mix 5 with the indie rocker Rock & Roll Queen. The band screamed and turned the guitars up and overpowered the other mope rock that has populating other bands on the soundtrack.

Now the band has finally released the first album on this side of the pond, Youth for Eternity. With the thrashing Rock & Roll Queen, it’s odd to here the album start with a folksy touch with the song I Want to Hear What You Got to Say, but the song quickly starts bouncing around sounding very similar to the Queens of the Stoned Age’s No One Knows. The same bouncy cadence shows up again later on the album with Oh Yeah. The band quickly picks it up with the next song, Holiday with an opening riff that sounds very similar to Green Day’s American Idiot. Um, is anyone noticing a trend?

Even though each song has a very distinctive style ranging from folk, to garage rock, to punk, each song sounds like it’s been done before. Mary and No Goodbyes even sound something Oasis might have done in the early years. In fact the band almost sounds as if the dude from Franz Ferdinand joined The White Stripes (The Subways are a band with two guys and a girl, no word if there was a pizza place involved), not that it would be a bad thing. And they even let the chick take over the vocals on a few verses and occasionally add a few soft harmonies giving the songs an extra boost. Youth for Eternity may not be the album that breaks The Subways, but that breakout success may only be an album or two away.

Song to Download - I Want to Hear What You Got to Say

Young for Eternity gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.